Introduction
It has been said that technology
becomes the primary factor of shaping the world and people’s consciousness.
Since, our society now is on the period of post-modernity, everything seems so
rapid and borderlines were already unimaginable. What I mean is that, because of
the rapidity on the development of technology, everything are reachable and
accessible in any point of the world, even to the remotest place man will be.
Technological advancement brought by the wonders of man’s rationality, though,
small the mind is, its capacity to create grandiose invention and innovation
cannot be denied. The unending struggle of anyone to provide a better place and
better world is the byproduct of man’s ingenuity.
Moreover, researches rooted from
rigorous and rigid standardization embraced by many disciplines supported the
advancement of any entities, one of which the dominancy of new technology
brought about by scientific discoveries and researches. The prevalence and
influential entity such as this leaves fatal marks in one’s way of life and
furthermore the collectivity and particularity of behavior in any social and
cultural fields. By and large, technology indeed occupies the best position of
influencing and shaping the structure and system of the present civilization,
bringing it to the place wherein no one is private and inaccessible. Everything
revolves around the world of technology, it even dictates what we should think
of, and what behavior are we to act. Nonetheless, we owe significantly to the
advantages of technology which makes one’s life easier.
Internet
One of the great invention man had ever done was the internet use. To
recall our history, internet was first used in the confines of military units.
The service it provides was on the surveillance operations of military forces.
Towards its development, the U.S military department decided to bring the
innovation for public consumption. With this public exposition, internet became
people’s craze.
In the recent years, we see how
internet becomes vital to the needs of the people. Everyone seems to like it and
everything seems to be found within the network. Studies showed that internet is
a network which embedded multi networks which serves to facilitate, entertain,
provide, and give information and data to the users. Scholars, on the other
hand, with their contrast viewpoints, ideological stances, and research-based
predictions and results, believed that internet, or digital technology provides
us not only facilitation, entertainment provider, and information servers, but
also conditioned and influences us to behave in a manner in which it dictates.
We no longer succumbed ourselves in
using paper envelopes and stationary papers in order to write our letters to
someone else and send them through post mail or snail mail, but rather, we are
now into the digital means in bringing our message faster than snails by having
our own emails.
The internet therefore, greatly
contributes to our lives. Inevitably, yes, it has its own negative functions and
effects. Durkheimian theorists believe that internet or any digital technology
today reinforce organic solidarity, while other forms of communication like
broadcast media yield powerful collective representation. Marxists, on the other
hand, that the use of such these materials and tools of communication advance
elite control of both politics and production through hegemony. While, Weberians
believed media, like internet, advance rationalization by compressing and
reducing limits of time and space and broadcast communication media provide the
elements of distinctive status culture.
Indeed, these three schools of
thought, from sociological, psychological, and philosophical endeavors
sufficiently provide powerful ideas on the benefits and anti-benefits of any
communication tools, such as broadcast media, internet, and others. The use of
such tools proliferate not only explicit ideologies, information and
entertainment, but also embedded in itself, implicit ideologies and control of
some entities. This maybe blurred and clandestine to the eyes of common
consumers, but, unconsciously, are being affected and influenced by such
manipulation and control.
However, let us make our insight
balance and not too loose on the negative effects of it. Admittedly, the
significance of this advancement brought both virtual and real satisfaction.
Let us draw our attention to the competitive advantages of internet as a
communication tool vital not only to the level of personal consumption but more
on its role to the development and formation of the society.
Gaining Competitive Advantages
Economic, social, cultural, and
political landscapes are central in the development of technology, in
particular, internet. In economic field, the world travels in rapid pace and
business firms were going globally. The need of virtual access, constant
teleconference, and update communication with various business networks are
important. An elemental in the globalization process is the internet, wherein it
serves to provide a continuous access to any networks or servers for easy
communication. A manager may not go to Trinidad in order to update himself with
the status of the business, rather, he can use internet access to email
transactions or having a teleconference meeting with other managers around the
globe. Likewise, internet provides social interaction to various cultures and
social systems. Now, we have social domains for socialization and interaction,
like friendster, multiply, facebook, and youtube, these internet domains provide
consumers an access to interact and connect with friends and acquaintances
around the world. Cultural landscape on the other hand, contoured and shape by
internet phenomenon. Our access to information serves by various domains in
internet network enhances our horizons to understand other cultures and
eventually appreciate them.
Internet, also shape our political
competitiveness and awareness. It provides an active domain, an arena wherein we
are able to express our selves towards political problems. As Habermas would
like to put it, internet, became a public sphere in which everyone are invited
to share their political thoughts and debate for political issues which in turn,
can help shape our political systems.
0 comments:
Post a Comment