E-topia as Cosmopolis or Citadel: On the Democratizing and De-democratizing Logics of the Internet, or, Toward a Critique of the New Technological Fetishism  

Oleh:

Hand, Martin ; Sandywell, Barry

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Theory, Culture & Society vol. 19 no. 1-2 (Feb. 2002), page 197–225.
Topik: citadellian; cosmopolitan; de-democratizing; democratizing; fetishism; technopoiesis
Fulltext: 197TCAS191-2.pdf (114.3KB)

Isi artikel

We present a critical appraisal of the impact of the Internet (and related information technologies) upon processes of democratization and de-democratization in contemporary society. We review accounts of 'the information revolution' as these have become polarized into mutually exclusive rhetorics of future cosmopolitan or citadellian e-topias. We question the Manichean assumptions common to both rhetorics: particularly the fetishism of information technology as an intrinsically democratizing or de-democratizing force on societies. In opposition to this new technological fetishism we focus upon (1) Internet historicity; (2) the human/machine nexus; (3) Internet policing and appropriation – presenting a different story of the Net, emphasizing contingent, indeterminate and negotiable characteristics of sociotechnical systems, preparing for a more radical critique of existing theories of 'global technological citizenship'. Refiguring 'culture' as technopoiesis, we argue that an alternative approach to global civil society minimally presupposes a cultural sociology of the Internet: approaching information technologies as the product of specific sociocultural practices and as historical sites of ethico-political transformation and reflexive self-figuration.

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