Notes on

Politics and Culture of New Media and Social Network (Malayalanatu lecture at the Indian Association Sharjah - 10.6.2010)

                                                                                                                                John Samuel

a) Phase of Profound transition- Technology, Communication, Language and Power.

The mode of technology influences the modes of communications. The modes of communication influence the modes of perception, thinking and knowledge. The modes of communication, thinking and knowledge influences the modes of institutionalisation. The modes of institutionalisation influence the modes of economy and power. The modes of economy and power influence the modes of political configuration. And the dominant power formation seeks to influence the world through the control over technology, language, communication and knowledge process. The history of the world is not merely the history of class struggle. It is also a struggle to control the world through the ‘words’- through language, communication, and knowledge. All governments are run with ‘rule’ of ‘law’ and rule of ‘money’. The ‘rational’ – ideological, social or political- are always a ‘rational’ of the ordering of the words. The ‘grammar’ of power is often maintained through the ‘grammar’ of words, sword and trade-in that order. Language matters. Communication is the life line of power. And when the technology and communication change, the power configurations also change. That is what the history of the world in the last three thousand years indicates.

We are living in the midst of a profound transition in the history of technology, communications, and knowledge process. It is the invention and innovations of printing press, bible translation, and later on development of lexicography and languages that determine the knowledge, political and institutional process of the last four hundred years. Without printing and the dissemination of knowledge through the printed words and books, the history of communications and knowledge would not have been the same. The development of grammar in many ways is the ordering of power. In that sense the ‘grammar’ itself is a sort of ‘standardisation’ technology of language- where language can be interpreted, translated and reproduced in a predictable way. And anyone beyond the ‘standardised’ language becomes an ‘anomaly’ – and with relatively less power. It is through language that all the power structures and empires established the hegemony over the thinking and knowledge. The ‘purity’ and the ‘divinity’ of the language is through which most of the religions established the power over communications, thinking and interpretations. Hence, Sanskrit, old Hebrew, or Arabic became the language of ‘divinity’. The moment there is control over the language, there is better control over communication, perceptions, interpretations, thinking and actions. The biggest contribution of Buddha was in challenging and changing the ‘purity’ and ‘divinity’ of Sanskrit (symbol of hegemonic or brhaminical culture) in to ‘prakrut’. This challenging of the ‘devaa vaani’ of Sanskrit (culturally superior language with an order grammar- and power) in to ‘prakrut’ in to the ‘natural’ language that human beings speak was not only a linguistic revolution, but also a cultural revolution, religious revolution and political revolution. Because, the Buddha sought to influence the mode of communication, thinking and actions of human beings as well as the society.

In so many ways, the process of Bible translations unlocked a process of knowledge by making the Bible available in so many languages – and consequently opening the flood gates of interpretations and challenging and changing the institutional monopoly of the Catholic Church in interpreting the Bible. This relative de-monopolization of knowledge and possibilities of multiple interpretations that gave rise to the spread of language, communication and knowledge process from the 16nth century onwards. The printed world provided the incentive for literacy and consequently the spread of education. And the spread of education provided the base for spread of knowledge as well as institutional process. It is such a revolution of and in languages and the consequent possibilities of interpretations that led to a paradigm shift in human thinking, knowledge process and actions in the history of the world in the last four hundred years. This had profound consequence in the history of knowledge, institutions and politics. In many ways, the migration of a very significant number of puritan Christians from England to America had its linguistic as well as knowledge connotations. All empires ruled through the control over the technology, language, law, interpretations and institutions. The control over technology and language provides a space to rule by coercion as well as through building consent through a mix of language, knowledge and institutionalisation of both. The dominance of English is ‘standardised’ through grammar and modes of communications. And the dominance of English was established through the institutional network of colonial linguistic, knowledge and political process.

b) The age of Internet

We are going through a phase of history where there is a paradigm shift in the modes of technology, modes of communication, modes of thinking and actions. The internet as a mode of communication with its origins in the US defence establishment unleashed a paradigm shift in the way we communicate, think and act. The internet – like the printing press- profoundly influenced the modes of communication, modes of language and modes of thinking and knowledge process. With the last fifteen years, more than 1/3 of the humanity has access to internet. With the explosion of mobile technology, this would almost double in years. There are more than 5.2 billion mobile subscribers in the world. Last year alone people send more than 3 trillion mobile messages and within a couple of years 500 million people joined face book to communicate and out of this 74% log in to their face book account once in a day. This massive paradigm shift influenced not only our communication patterns, but also our behaviour patterns, sociology and politics of human relationships and eventually culture, institutions and society itself.

 Just twenty years ago, human beings knew how to write long letters to their dear ones. Inland and post card in many ways opened up modes of intimate communications between the loved ones.  And today, Inland and post card became almost ‘archaeological’ artefacts. So is the Remington typewriter.

c) Social and Cultural consequences of the new communications.

Today people fall in love over few words in SMS or couple of phone calls. People simply break relationship over SMS. The new technology provides ‘detached’ as well as ‘intimate’ options.

The new modes of communications provide new spaces for ‘individuation’. On the one hand individual – end up as a lonely person in the physical sense- and on the other hand he or she finds people to communicate beyond the usual time zone or space constraints. In the same house, people get less time to speak to each other or even argue or fight with each other. Everyone is busy communicating with an imagined or project person on the net far away- through multiple modes of communication. A large number of young people today access news, views and information through the internet. It is a Google and Wikipedia generation. The extent of communication has increased though the quality of intimate human to human communication has decreased. The quantity of information load and consumption of information has increased and the quality of knowledge process in many ways decreased.  This ‘individuation’ of communications will have very significant influence over the sociology of family, relationship as well as the political process in the city.

d) Politics of new media and social networks

In spite of the ‘individuation’ – eroding the ‘speech community’ or ‘organic forms of intimate human communication- new forms of ‘imagined communities ‘get formed over virtual spaces.  Human beings invented new spaces of ‘individiated’ as well as ‘anonymous’ communications mode giving rise to new forms of human relations beyond space. For example, today a very significant number of marriages happen through these virtual spaces- formal as well as informal. This has also created ‘communities’ of interests, identity and ‘ideology’, language over the net. While it opens up new channels of communications, it also begins to constraints virtual spaces around identities of language, interests, and ideology (religious as well as politics). While it helped to opened up new ways of expressing protests and democratisation, it also gave rise to new forms of conservatism. Anders Beverick (who bombed the government headquarters and killed around 80 people) in Norway is a telling example of this. The various conservative as well as fundamentalist networks also make use of these spaces in subversive ways. While such spaces open up the possibilities of a new politics, they also paradoxically capable of depoliticising a generation.

In 2011, there were more than 80 protests by young people across the world. There was one thing in common with the kind of protests happened. It is often the young people, often with middle class background and access to internet and who are not a part of any formal political parties who got mobilised through the new modes of communications. This modes of mobilisation- using social network and others modes- is indicative of the shape of politics in the coming years. So in a way the shift in communication changed the way the protest happens- through networked society. Here, there was not ‘structured’ leadership or structured or cadre organisations. The movement spontaneously erupted- in a ‘decentred’ yet networked way. There was no single ‘charismatic leader’ to mobilise. In many ways, it challenged and changed the modes of modernist organisations (as theorised by Marx, Max Weber or others). In many ways, the Obama moment in the politics of USA also indicate this paradigm shift. Because, Obama does not come from the ‘structured’ institutional space of the Democratic Party. In a way, he is a product of a networked society and his campaign was built on the internet spaces and his ‘democratised’ fund raising through internet raising millions of dollars for the campaign. During the last earthquake in Haiti, American Red Cross raised more than 8 million dollars within days over the twitter. In India, we had a politician who climbed the ladder of popularity fast through his ‘twitter’ following and also in the ‘ladder and snake’ game of politics, he lost the minister ship through the very same ‘twitter’ trap.

Today, the blogs, independent websites, face-book and twitter has changed the media scene. Information monopoly of the media monopolies are over. In the next fifty years, the printed news paper may disappear. The monumental documentation of knowledge, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, stopped printing hard copies. Today increasing number of people use ‘kindle’ where one can have access to hundreds of books within seconds or minutes- beyond time and space constraints. This revolution in New Media and Social Network will have immense implications to political and social process.

This shift also began to shift the mode of governance. Today the mantra is e-governance. This also means the ‘privacy’ of an individual is gone. With biometric unique identifications at the airports, at the government office, at the bank, every movement and behaviour human beings are tracked. The use of credit and debit card opens up whole new dimensions where the sociology, politics and behaviour of human beings – as individual or collective- can be tracked and interpreted. This on the one hand provides new ‘security’ and ‘freedom’ to people and paradoxically it makes everyone in to an ‘impersonal id’- alienating the ‘real’ sense of human freedom. This also will provide new means to control people and society, giving new forms of ‘techno- imperialism’ at multiple levels.

However, the new modes of technology also provide a space for citizens to monitor and challenge the government. The ‘wiki-leaks’ would have been impossible twenty years ago. Today in Kenya, citizens monitor the schools and hospital through mobile phones. Mobile phones have become a powerful weapon in the hands of ordinary people to expose corruption and also to monitory governance. Hence we have moved from representative democracy to a monitory democracy where citizens begin to challenge the government.

In the next fifty years, the present institutionalisation forms would dramatically change. The cadre modes of ‘structured’ political parties will begin to dissolve and eventually wither away in a new modes of networked and ‘inviduated’ society. When the modes of communication and mode of thinking change, the ‘structure’ of thinking as well as the ‘structure’ of organisation also changes over a period of years. In a way, part of the problems in all the ‘structured’ cadre parties of India is indicative of this paradigm shift that has already begun at multiple levels.

While the dominance of the world by few powers had always a technological corollary, the politics of technology may give rise to shift in the power configuration of the world. The Mongols captured the world, by innovating ‘horse breeding’ technology and gaining new modes warfare. The empires of Portugal and Spain sought to control over the world through innovating the shipping technology – by harnessing wind energy. The British sought to control the world through the control over the technology of ‘steam’ and ‘steel’. In many ways they were in the business of ‘stealing’ the steel and ‘steam’ (coal) from India and many countries. When ‘steam’ (or coal based technology) was overtaken by the ‘petro-technology’, it dramatically changed the modes of transport, modes of trade, modes of economy and modes of power. And the power shifted to those who controlled the ‘petro-technology’ ‘petro-dollar’ – and the trade network. The emergence of USA as  a super-power to a large extent based on this new control over technology in the post-second world war and in the post-modern times. However, it is quite possible to have a post-petro- technology, most probably based on solar energy or even a mix of  a tamed electro power, and this shift in the source-technology of ‘power’ also will shift the power of technology as well as technology of power.

So there could be a significant shift in the way we do communicate, organise and live within the next fifty years. In the year, 2060 0r 2080, most of the present political parties may not survive the way we know them. This would also give rise to entirely different forms of education, doing business and organising government.

The politics and culture of new media and social network are still in the transition phase of evolution. This would indeed profoundly shift the political and cultural space – including the modes of literature, in the next thirty years.