Lecture Notes Nov 5: Cyberpower I: technopower and digital divide November 5, 2007
Posted by oiwan in lecture notes.trackback
1. Different approaches to Power
Ref: Cyberpower: The culture and politics of cyberspace and the Internet, Chapter I, by Tim Jordan, Routledge 1999.
Max Weber: Power as a possession
- it imposes effect onto others
- it receives resistance
- it says “no”
Barry Barnes: Power as a social order
- it makes you conform (a set of rule, such as traffic light)
- underlying sanction / punishment
- collective knowledge / consensus / legitimacy
(similar to Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus)
Michel Foucalt: Power as domination
- discursive knowledge: both repressive and productive (constitutive of subjectivities, e.g student)
- governance – institutional, daily tactics, knowledge backup
Example: Censorship as a state power – Max Weber; as a common sense regulation – Barry Burnes; and as subject constitution via knowledge and back up by institution (e.g. Chineseness) – Foucalt
2. Operation of power online and offline
2.1. Individual
- transgression myth: extension of self and identity fluidities
- individual possession: PC, internet access, knowledge, rights, etc.
- individualized management: email – traces: cuhk.edu.hk
- class and education background via interaction, e.g language in cybersex
- Avatar (online identity) – Second Life research by Choi Chu Wai, Lai Ka Chun
2.2. Elite and virtual social order
- Technopower: infrastructure for online social interaction: hierarchical and virtual social (online harassment, bullying)
- Technopower spiral and techno elites
2.3. Social
- virtual communities
- Fan’s club research 2003 virtual community and its political implications (A drafted Paper)
- Nationalism – imagined community, nation across border – Al Qaede or virtual police, e.g 強國論壇 or 香港網上獨立運動研究 by 馮建瑋, 薛健鋒, 何健豪
- Social relation: Cyberfeminism
A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s – Donna Haraway (1991)
- challenges to bio-determined gender construction
- public vs private
- how about gender inequality, internet pornography (youtube), cyber-rape, etc?
- Woman’s resource (新婦女協進會 – 婦女資源網)and (En)gendering digital body via language and practice
- other social minority, e.g. 互聯網與香港同性戀社群研究 by 楊達祺
2.4. Resistance
- states and grassroots confrontation in different forms
- censorship vs freedom of expression
- copyright
- Internet crime
2.4. Production setting / economic infrastructure
- Financial Capital into cyberspace: youtube (google 1.65 billion), facebook (microsoft $240 million for 1.6%), Alibaba (P.E 100)
- global production and consumption
2.5. Myth and desire
(Ref: Myth-ing links: Power and Community in Information Highway, by Vincent Mosco)
- Ohmynews’ success: US10,000 in its micro payment system, Fund raising
- Stock price
- New media mobilization
- Networking effect
- etc.
2.6. Discourse and subjectivities
e.g. citizen reporter as a new social actor based on the myth and knowledge about information technology
3. Case: Digital Divide
- Digital divide is defined as the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographical areas at different social-economic levels in respect of their opportunities to access IT and the use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities. (Not Power Law)
- Beyond ICT (internet communication technology)
- Developing countries VS. developed countries
(Internet world statistic 2007)
(Internet penetration rate within Asia 2007)
- Class, race, gender, age, rural vs urban
- Language, skill, time
- Attempts in bridging digital divide – e.g. One Laptop per Child
- Hong Kong: Digital 21 strategy
- Discussion: Highest broadband penetration, no digital divide in Hong Kong? What are the aspects of our digital divide?
although HongKong has a large number of internet users, and the penetration is up to 68.2%, however, it doesn’t mean 68.2% people of every social rank are internet users, just like the example Qiwan said today, in some areas of HK, many housewives and low-salary workers even don’t have an email account. The penetration of internet is not equally distributed among different social ranks. I think eduation, economic level, and occupation are major reasons for digtal divide in HK
totally agree. And I think education background and personal wealth account for the digital divide everywhere over the world. Since internet has very short history, most users either have high-income or are the children of those people. However, as the technology advances, PC is no longer a luxury to most people, and it becomes more common and I think the digital divide would be less serious in the near future, just like cell phone or digital camera.
yes, I agree with wangye’s opinion. As the history of internet is not too long, so many of the middle-aged people and elderly have lack of chnaces to learn and even to access to the internet. But surely the digital divide will be narrowed in the future.
我亦同意之前同學所說，香港的數碼區隔將會愈來愈窄，但我認為問題之所以減低並不是因為現時不能用到電腦或是上網的人能夠接觸電腦，而只是那批不懂電腦的老年或中年人士離去後，剩下我們這些電腦世代。現在香港政府根本就沒有甚麼資源及配套去協助一些低收入人士、婦女、長者等使用電腦及亙聯網；另一方面，雖然電腦及相關配備的價錢不斷下降，但對很多低收入的家庭來說依然是沒有能力負擔，假若政府仍舊這樣，數碼區隔有所改善只是數字上的騙局罷了。
即使在現在，香港仍然是有人沒有手機，電腦究竟是必需品，還是奢侈品？政府是否要像保證每個家庭有房子可以住一樣，保證每個家庭有電腦呢？
當然，盡量保證不同階層擁有更公平的機會，政府可以考慮向公用圖書館等，社區中心，甚至弱勢群體的組織提供電腦配備。一方面，能較爲節約成本，另一方面，避免歐洲那樣不斷提升的福利制度之後騎虎難下，社會也缺乏進取精神。