Name: Indran Arunasalam
Student No: 50546313
Cyberspace and Society
Assessment 1: Article Review
In this article Sassen describes ICTs (i.e. digital technology) as powerful tool in regards to the digital public space (the Internet) in the areas of human rights, environments, politics used by political activists, and worker strikes etc. She also highlights the extensive use of this technology within the wider global business world for capital hyper-mobility etc. She also points out while this is so, we cannot see this in isolation from capital fixity, such as building space, infrastructure etc in a social context within the global market. Even though the internet is dominated by a measure of power it still enables women to engage in proactive endeavours in different areas of politics and economics etc. She has explorer these ideas quite extensively through her own research and has quoted from and utilised idea and thoughts from a number of sources and research papers which are quite large and extensive for me to quote in this paper.
Brief Summary:
Within ICTs its technical attributes or features tends to be the focus of discussion within the changes in the development of current or rather modern times. Sociologists perceive technology as a stimulant for most social trends and transformations. In terms of this development ICT is perceived within the sociological perspective as one of application and impacts. The sociological challenge is to capture the complex relationship between technology and society. The challenge is to understand that instead of looking at ICTs simply from a technological perspective we need to tune our minds to it connectedness and its outcomes for the different social orders. Technology cannot be assessed on its own but instead must be interpreted on how it affects and or impacts on society. Often in trying to analyse the impact of digitization on various conditions within the society analysts ten to take a purely technological approach or compare technology from a purely historical perspective – digital vs. non-digital technology – which neutralizes or diminishes any sociological factors such as the material conditions etc. When developing Digital Networks both technical features i.e. software and hardware stands, and societal factors i.e. power dynamics, hierarchy etc. But it is the societal factors that controls the distribution of electronic space and shapes the productions of software. Electronic space is however not purely determined by technological factors but within it there is other segmentations. An instance of this is access both on public access and private access levels, of digital networks. Similarly this can be portrayed in the internet through public access portion of the internet and the corporate fire-walled private sector websites. Electronic space however in terms of infrastructure and access is going to be far more present in highly industrialized countries that in the less developed world and far more present for middle class household in developed countries that for poor households in those same countries. The more sophisticated the business/material world the need for protection and privacy become paramount, “in the last few years has been on firewall”6. This is representative of private appropriation of public space. While e-commerce threatens the ‘democratic potential’ that is the of the internet by commercialization the internet is still dominated by non-commercial use and users i.e. NGOs and civil societies. Digital space and digitization are not exclusive conditions that stand outside the non-digital rather, digital space is within the larger societal and subjective and economic imaginary structures. Sassen finds that literature examining the mediation between digital technology and users tends to portray that there is a lack of interaction between user and technology. Her own research finds that the use of technologies is constructed in terms of specific cultures and practices through which the users express their experience of electronic space. This electronic space is changed by values, culture, power systems etc within which it is contained.
