A few days ago in the IHT Evgeny Morozov, a Fellow at the Open Society Institute in New York, has published an interesting op-ed entitled: “Digital renegades, or captives?” where he analyzes the role of the Internet in promoting civic engagement in authoritarian regimes. Evgeny asks: “What if the original premise was wrong and the Internet is not a great force for democratic change but rather the clay that keeps authoritarian regimes together?” Evgeny alerts us to the dangers of seeing the Internet as a magic wand, which will necessarily promote democratic change and warns us about the importance of context (America vs. non-Western European countries) when analyzing the role of the Internet in aiding political change and political participation.
Evgeny goes on to argue (and I quote his words, again): “We have to be aware of the fact that the Internet has given the youth living in controlled societies infinite venues for digital entertainment – without any religious or social censorship – that may not necessarily be enhancing their digital sense of citizenship and civic engagement. Risking the comfort of their bedrooms – with their hard-drives full of digital goodies – for the gloom of a prison cell does not appeal to many of them. The governments are all too happy to promote this new cult of ‘cyber-hedonism’.”
In other words, the Internet is just a tool – we must avoid technologically deterministic arguments which stress the effects of technology by taking it out of context, and by devoiding it of social agency. Evgeny suggests two ideal types (a la Weber): ‘digital renegades’ vs. ‘captives’ which I think are much more than just another trendy name, but they are two categories which may well turn out to be a really useful analytical tool in studying young people’s civic engagement.
[Cross-posted on Internet and Democracy blog and Digital Natives blog]
the youth living in controlled societies….
I LOVE IT!!
I have been reading Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine and I am all about disaster capitalism, Chicago School economic policies, planned failure, shock and awe, and control. IT fits!!! everything does, doesn’it Corinna?
Seems like there are two questions there:
will it work like in the US and
will it backfire/”capture”
Totally interesting couple of questions. He seems to be sort of rehashing the “media pacifies the youth” argument of the days before the discovery of the many facets of power and culture though.
Did you see Mimi on ABC’s Ahead of the Curve? http://au.video.yahoo.com/watch/4094387/11047904
Great video by Mimi, Adrienne! I like the bit where she talks about how different kids use the technology differently, some focusing on gossip and fun and some other focusing on more specialized interests. I guess that could support this idea that it could go both ways: either furthering engagement (loosely defined as ‘civic’) or cyber ‘hedonism’ like Evgeny says, although I don’t like the word hedonism very much.
I wasn’t familiar with this “media pacifies the youth” argument.
yes Miti, it fits! although it needs to be tested empirically – it makes for a wonderful research project!
In Korea, the Internet is a force that catapults extreme leftist views, while silencing moderates or conservatives (who are afraid to be attacked by aggressive leftist net users) so that youth representation on the Internet is completely distorted. I believe that Internet amplifies the thoughts of people who aggressively utilize it and while that has been democracy in some communities, it is not the case in others, which is why I think it is useless to argue whether or not the Internet promotes democracy in a general context because clearly it does in some places and doesn’t in others. That is why we need more global studies of the Internet; because unlike studying the impact of TV, where research in the US could apply to other societies, the Internet’s impact is two-way and therefore you can’t consider impact without studying the people.