Unit 3A Topic 3: Theoretical interpretations of globalisation and digital forms

The Frankfurt school

critical of the ays in which media is controlled by the beourguisie and used too:

1. to distract fork the real problems of capitalism and breal down community bonds

-people less likely to be class conscious and politically active if spending time with social media

-digital media dumbs down thinking so we talk about petty and watch things instead of organising

--digital media is their to distract us from real issues and manipulate masses into accepting poverty

2. to contro our understanding of reality and induce appropriate values amongst the public

-single version of reality is shown and alternative and critical views rarely shown

-e.g facebook is controlled by Mark Zuckerberg and he is afforded great control over what people hear and think

-facebook and X criticized for their allowing 'fake news' and their censorship policies

3. Top harvest data that can be sold

-everytime we use devices we leave digital foot print and digital companies know more about us

-billions of records put together is 'big data'

-mobile phones allow large corporations to tracks

-shopping habits are tacked and searches given to big companies to use info to target ads

- Frankfurt school critical of the way that this is done without permission or consent

4. To control or surveil people by the government and other agents of state power

-In liberal democracies such as the USA and UK the governments have sought to control the digital world and digital media to control people

5. For Profit

-digital companies make huge amounts of moeny and pay very little tax

-tech giants are exploiting their market dominance to make profit at workers expense

-global tech companies become so much ricer and powerful and marxists are critical of how power is now distributed to unelected business owners like Elon Musk

Philip Schofeild

-the scandal of 2023 is an example of how digital online newspapers like the daily mail and the sun write articles on celebrity gossip but very little about important issues like cost of living crisis , poverty, food banks, or public services

-digital media is their to distract us from real issues and manipulate masses into accepting poverty

Human Rights Pulse 2021

-facebook deliberately create addictive algorithms and the company uses a method known as the infinite scroll and encourages users to scroll sensationalist content and use clickbait

-Marxists argue this is intentional to keep the working class from becoming politically conscious and digital media distracts from organising

Hallyer (2019)

-in the Washington Post

-fake news is a "direct threat to our democracy"

-speading of misinformation and outright lies "undermines social cohesion and trust in one another, in institutions and faith in democratic freedoms"

Cambridge Analytica

- illegally harvested data from over 50 million facebooj account to use in election campaigns in several countries around the world including the 2016 US Presidential election

- illegal theft of data used to influence democracy

- sale of data increases profit but individuals make nothing

Edward Snowden

- young US secret service agent that Western governments were breaking the law

-US and UK governments were illegally monitoring and spying on citizens internet, email and mobile phone activities

-government agencies he worked for eavesdropped on millions of citizens, politicians and companies using digital spying techniques collecting data from whoever without warrents.

- was outraged by ehat he saw as a fundamental breach of trust and law breaking and he stole thousands of documents and risked his life to break the story and is taking refuge in Russia

-Snowden files the largest leak in US intellegence history

-prove that digital communication may not have revolutionised society as much as we think as powerful structures still control us and what we see

Googles Tax Avoidance

- 2006 uk probed goggles hundreds of million in unpaid taxes

-only agreed to pay 130 million in tax

-google avoided tax by funneling a third of profits through Ireland

- in 2016 google was to revealed to have made 22 billion in revenue and only paid 43 million

Castells

-Neo-Marxists

- more positive of the digital revolution

-digital network can also be empowering for the masses

- demonstrated by arab uprisings which used digital social networks to spread information e.g posting videos of police brutality on youtube rather than relying on state media

-BLM or Extinction Rebellion is example of how activists are empowered by social media to organise

Strength of Marxist Evaluation of new phenomena

- assumption that society develops organically or inevitably develops for the greater good is challenged

- they look at globalisation and the digital world from the view of class conflict and economic and political inequalities

-they see where their are winners and losers

-concepts of hegenomy and power are important

-neo-marxists have pointed out how world proletariat and disenfranchised could take advantage of digital revolution

- Marxist theory being so easily applicable to digital modern era despite being over 100 years old shows continuing strength of Marxist perspective

Weakness of Marxist Evaluation of new phenomena

-Marxism has been criticised for being too deterministic

- assumes individuals are controlled by society rather than seeing the diversity of experiences despite digital global era with widening consumer choices and global communication networks

-functionalists argue digital communications enhance communications and it promotes functioning society and maintaining simular norms

- Marxism assumes bourgeoisie has controlled the digital revolution

-internet is actually 'freely' available

-pioneers of internet made it free and not controlled by one sole company and this shows capitalists dont control internet

-marxists see digital communications as being controlled by a group instead of a chance for collaboration

- functionalists believe that media presents a consensus view of the world and offers information, entertainment and opportunity

Donna Haraway

-wrote a famous article in 1995

-argued that new technologies should be embraced by feminists as a solution to women's opression

-wrote feminists should see how future technologies could break down gender dualities

-we might see a future of metaphorical "cyborgs"

-women missed out on the advantages of agricultural and industrial revolutions because of sexism and barriers

-women must be the front of innovation and embrace technology to avoid being marginalised

- argues if women are not at the decision table in tech offices then technology will develop masculine according to Male stream thinking

-uses idea of Knowledge=Power to suggests that technology is used to control ad that it can be reclaimed and used for liberation and resistance

Apple health app

-included features like tracking heart rates and sleeping patterns but failed to include vital ways of tracking menstration

Ebert

-critisized Haraway for being too simplistic

-claims technology is not liberating bit is instead controlled by the ruling class

- gender inequality is used to maintain capitalism by setting men up against women

-capitalists use this divide and control the masses and justify pay gaps and maintain status quo

Fourth Wave Feminism

-since 2000 has focused on the importance of using technology as a means to comunicate and share feminist ideas globally

-has allowed women who are traditionally without voice to express

Mumsnet

- powerful social network which empowers women with children

The Everyday Sexism Project

- allows women to report and publicise unnaceptable sexism

- founded by Laura Bates

- mission is to record, share and document everyday sexism suffered by women at work or in the streets or other places

-sucessfuly campaigned for the removal of the mobile game "plastic surgery and plastic doctor for barbie" from the app store as it promoted a negative female body image on the app store

- have advised British Transport Police on the training of their officers on how to respond to comaplaints of unwanted sexual behaviour

- "entires made by harrased and abused women have been used to work on policy with ministers and members of parliament in multiple countries, to start conversations about consent in schools and universities to tackle sexual harrasment in business and workplaces and to help police forces raise the reporting and detection rates on sexual offences"

#Metoo

-rising awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace

-led to conviction and imprisonment of the film producer Harvey Weinstein

-continues to build on the movement against sexual violence against women

#EndFGM

to abolish the barbaric procedures which girls around the world are forced to take

Nakamura

women from ethnic minority backgrounds have made particularly good use of the internet and digital technology in terms of gaining jobs and networking

Natasha Walter

- representation of women online is often sexualised

-e.g GTA women are often presented as prositiutes

-websites like ratemygirlfriend.com

-most frequently googled term of all time is porn

-young people spending so much time online the images may have effects on men which would mean they have an unrealistic and sexualised expectation of women and leading to lower levels of self-esteem and anxiety in young women too

Anita Sarkeesian

- created a blog series called 'tropes vs women in video games

-gaming is a male dominated genre which sexualises, objectifies and trivialises women

-portrays women wearing very little clothing and normalises violence against women

- many popular games depict women as 'damsels in distress'

-argues these depictions are damaging because they promote negative views entrenching sexist stereotypes among young people

-following the publication sarkeesian suffered sexist harassment and threats of sexual violence

Caroline Criado-Perez

-Wrote 'Invisible women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men'

examples include:

-Siri could find viagra and sex workers but not provide information to support rape victims

-health moniteering system of apple had no period tracker

- Smartwatches to big for womens rists

- Map apps that only look at the quickest routes rather than safest routes

-Vr headsets too big for womens heads

- car crashes are number 1 cause of foetal death yet seet belts have not be adapted for pregnant women

Arlaccki

-critical of the failure of governments to regulate and police the internet

-allows men to continue patriarchal oppression online through mass access to porn which has led to great objectification of women

-lack of regulation of the internet has led to oppression of women as digital networs and the globalised world have created a rise in human trafficing and exploitation

Stopthetraffic.org

-2019 71% of trafficking victims around the world were women and girls

-4.8 million people are forced into sexual exploitation

-21% of victims of sexual exploitation are children

Fron et al. (2007)

-lack of gender diversity in the games industry contributes to lack of diversity in games

-found that the 'global gaming elite' is primarily white or Asian as well as male dominated and dominated by transnational companies

Alison Harvey (2016)

-found that the website fatuglyorslutty.com documented the hatred and "vitriol faced by female online gamers"

- in her study women playing online games faced online stigma and aggression when revealing themselves online resulting in having to mask their offline gender to avoid unwanted attention

The Feminists in Games network

-group of academics, activists, artists formed in 2012

- aim to 'reconfigure innovation in games"

-indentifying barriers to participation and creating context for greater inclusion and equity

Strengths of Feminist Theory

- help us to remember marginalised groups

-usually focus on gender but are generally sympathetic towards opreresed groups based on things such as sexuality and age etc

-feminism reminds us to think about phenomena from others point of view

-important in topic as male editors, owners, creators and commentators dominate the digital world

-marginalised groups can be easily forgotten

Statista

-2021-2022

-only %17.4 of software designers worldwide are female

Weakness of Feminist Theory

-many types of feminism (liberal, Marxist and radical)

-makes it difficult to apply the theory to new topics like technology

-makes it difficult to imagine how feminism generally explain an evolving digital contemporary world as the viewpoints and even the technology itself can change rapidly

Katz and Sugiyama

-researched the impact of mobile phones on young peoples identity and found that they were used as status symbols or a fashion statement

-gave a sense of independence

-interviewed US and Japanese mobile phone users

-found they prioritsed style over battery life

-new digital media is used to create identities and try to move up social hierarchies

Marxist Critique of Katz and Sugiyama

-critical of postmodernist assumption of that everyone benefits from this access to choice

-in reality your money is a key factor

-new tech cant be afforded even by all consumers in the western world

Boellstroff (2008)

-people now have oppurtunities to create multiple identities allowing us to explore others lives as 'social actors'

-investigated role playing games such as Second Life

-found that we can no longer distinguish between our real and our online identity and realtionships

-we can choose how to present ourselves in multiple lives

-users can present themselves as whoever they want to be and in this sense the choice of identities is revolutionary

- postmodernists welcome this freedom of choice rejecting a society where your identity was defined by gender etc.

-these elements are no longer important in the online world

Second Life problems

- choice of individuals led to problems

-online 'rape' and 'prostitution' led to police interest in the site

Nathan Jurgenson

- we increasingly live in 'augmented reality"

-digital and physical as mixed as opposed to viewing them as distinct

-uses the term 'cyborg' to suggest that with vast increase in new tech human hybridity has become the norm

-medical advances augment our bodies with technology e.g pacemakers

-communication is increasingly technologically mediated

-smart phones are carried everywhere and this has changed personal relationships massively

-technology is the driving force in every instance of our lives

Covid Lockdowns 2020-2022

-going to work, school or outings was made radically different as face to face became illegal

-relationships became predominantly online

-saw huge use of teams and zoom

Bauman

- digitalization has lead to increasing uncertainty and instability

-individuals can change identity whenever so identity has become fragmented fluid and short lived

-increasing uncertainty nd people respond by focusing on shortlived identities and relationships that are focused on having a good time

-on websites like tinder identities are 'curated' using enhanced pictures to create an idealised version of an identity

-bauman points out "to be in cyberspace is not to be real; all is pretense and alienation, a poor substitute for the real thing"

-

Marxists on Bauman

-wealthy have more oppurtunties to use multiple media sources to flex online identities whereas not all groups benefit

-where in theory many people could be an influencer this possibility is more often restricted to the "famous" or powerful

Baudrilliard

-uses the theory of the signifier and signified to explain how our world is now almost beyond comprehension

-The signified is reality itself which is now projected to us via digital communication so that the image is merely a version of reality

-this version becomes the signifier

-TV is blamed for creating a hyper reality where we are fed multiple versions of the truth

- Suggested that even The Gulf War was an illusion, it did not take place and was manufactured for tv/internet as it is the only way we receive the information

-he says its almost impossible to find truth in the 'information blizzard'

-believes power is disapearing altogether and none of us have to power to explain anything and we are stuck in a life endlessly exchanging meaningless symbols

-one example would be deepfakes or chatgpt

Strengths of Postmodernist explaination of new phenomena

-First theory to concentrate on the world using concepts like fluidity, choice, consumption and hyper reality

Weaknesses of postmodernist explaination of new phenomena

-struggle to explain why changes occur

Philo

-marxists critcise postmodernism for failing to offer a critical structuaral analysis

-reality still exists and people still know the difference between reality and the virtual world

-rejects postmodern notion all versions of reality are equally valid

-we do not habe equal access to new forms of identitty and consumption, leisure and information

-postmodernism has exaggerated the idea of universal choice