By, Masudul K. Biswas
Scholars in the field of new media were initially working on the issues related to the influence of technology on culture. It is true that the use of the Internet as a mass communication medium has created online culture and online community. But people use the Internet in different social and cultural contexts. The Internet or the computer cannot be adopted automatically. As we discussed in last class from Bucy and Newhagen’s book “Media Access,” access to the Internet-based media also requires cognitive skills apart from the physical access. Similarly, culture and individual orientation of users are also important for the faster adoption of computer which makes the function of Internet possible. That is why, the critical thinking in new media has started to identify that culture can also influence technology.
Cultural considerations are important when we think about the adoption of any technology from the principle of universal usability. If the Internet is considered as the foundation of the global information society, the use of the technology should not only be meant for the privilege class of the society. The design elements of computer (e.g. desktop metaphors) and the structure of the Internet network need to be put in the way that people with different educational and socio-cultural backgrounds can easily adopt and use the technology, and can bring diversity in cultural production. That is why Christian Sandvig mentioned about the “techno-socio-legal convergence” in policymaking process for the infrastructural design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and Beth E. Kolko placed emphasis on the cultural context of the Internet adoption. I think these thoughts, more appropriate at policy level, are the beginning of correcting the Internet system for the cause of the freedom of expression, cultural diversity, and easy access which the technology is meant to offer.
As the Internet is the domain of cultural production, it is important to have participation of users with diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. The Internet design is important for ensuring easy access to it. There are two approaches toward the solution for better Internet access – multicasting approach, channeling information through multiple streams, and content caching which involves employing a third party to store and copy information traffic. The multicasting approach, which remains as experimental on Internet Protocol system, can be more user-friendly compared to content caching which is expensive and involves proprietary. Interestingly, the expensive option was systematically popularized so that the capitalized users can increasingly produce popular web contents. On the other hand, the lack of “legal nondiscrimination” requirement allows the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to divert or block the content they do not like. It seems to me another form of political economy active within new media system which we are used to see in mass media industry.
In such context, Sandvig referred to “techno-socio-legal convergence” for the development of “infrastructural cultural policy” which allows the participation of public-interest advocates, represent the voiceless and economically powerless, in the development of communication system network. It is true that only the perception of engineers or technical persons, who design the communication system, got priorities. It is a positive step that the convergence concept will allow the scholars and legal experts to put forward the public-interest and legal concerns about the use of the Internet. But this convergence concept has neglected one important group in the communication system development. Who funds the communication system development process? So the involvement of the government, the service providers and content producers in the convergence concept are also important as it will create interaction between these stakeholders and public-interest advocates so that funds are rightly directed toward the network research projects for making the Internet affordable and culturally diverse. Without the involvement of fund-generating groups, the proposed “techno-socio-legal convergence” runs the risk of only producing recommendations without proper implementations.
Structural design issue of the communication system of the Internet not only needs to consider the affordability issues of the users but also the cultural factors for its successful and faster adoption. I would like to quote an observation of Beth E. Kolko, drawn from the case study on the Internet adoption in Central Asia, “narrow cultural channel that currently informs technology development can be broadened to include diverse cultural perspectives.” Technical people, who develop the communication system for the Internet, think in the light of their own cultural perspectives. From the beginning, the diffusion process of the Internet or computer technology followed the “top-down” approach. When the technology offers the promise of universal usability, its structure should not be an obstacle for different users. “Filing-cabinet” type of desktop interface metaphors may be sensible for consumers in the US market, but may not be meaningful for vast majority of users in other countries, and even within an immigrant community in the US. Our previous class reading on media access gave us an example of fear about the adoption of computer technology among Hispanic youth. Such fear goes very much with the level of complexity of the design of a technology. Neighborhood structure in Uzbek society has an influence in information dissemination process where even mass media outlets like the newspapers, televisions, and radio are not regarded as credible sources of information. In such cultural context, more aligned with the Eastern values, it is really a challenging to introduce the Internet as an information medium with the West like interface metaphors or design elements. But the ICT structure for the Internet is flexible. This flexibility of the Internet structure has led the scholars to rethink about the design as “culturally coded act.” In the context of Uzbekistan, the design elements in ICT network need to be developed in the way that reflects connection with offline world.
At the end, I would like to recognize the role of qualitative research methods, discourse analysis, ethnographic analysis, and interviews with participants that helped these scholars to come up with such critical thoughts about the structural issues of the Internet. Everybody was talking about digital divide. But such type of critical thoughts has led us to think that the digital divide issue is not anything straight-forward. This divide does also have socio-cultural, structural and political dimensions apart from the economic concerns.
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