In her article, “Where Do You Want to Go Today?” Lisa Nakamura asks: “What is the use of being asked where you want to go today if every place is just like here?” (20). Advertisers have caught on to the realization that our craving for difference and choice is not so much about diversification, but making people feel that they can access what they want, when they want it.
I believe that new technologies such as tablets and Smart Phones do enable us to transcend the boundaries of space and time. In addition to connecting people worldwide, these technologies allow for intimate relationships to be maintained via virtual spaces. However, as Nakamura suggests, in our attempts to create a space where no difference exists, we have created a virtual world without difference.
By creating new technologies that enable everyone to access everything in the same way, similar to Nakamura, I would like to ask: What is the point in participating in these new technologies if they make us look and act like everyone else? In a given day, we all check Facebook, work on our computers, send and receive text messages. The content may be different, but the actions and platforms are similar. Sure we might have a Mac or a PC or a Blackberry or Android, but in the end they all enable us to perform the same daily functions we feel we do by choice. I think it is fair to say that how we spend our day and the way in which we communicate is very much a form of identity creation. As we perform our daily actions, we are creating who we want to be and who we want others to believe we are.
Nakamura also speaks of new technologies giving off the impression of “a world without boundaries” (21). However a world without boundaries is not simply a by-product of just the Internet. The ability for us to travel by air has definitely had an impact on our ability to transcend space and time. The radio and television too have been argued as bringing visuals of the outside world into our very homes. As such, I think it is important that we define what we mean by boundaries. Are boundaries those barriers that we cannot cross without aid, such as a language boundary? Or do boundaries represent physical structures preventing us from entering certain places?
I want to leave this week’s discussion with a video and a question. The video is a commercial made by Motorola in response to Mac’s 1984 commercial.
The question is:
Is diversity possi
ble when we are all conforming to the same mediated habits and relationships as others do? More so, if the digital world purports the message of no race, sex or gender, is diversity possible when we are all conforming to the same mediated habits and relationships as others do?
I really enjoyed your post Sophie, I hadn't come across the response to the 1984 video so that's cool to see! I believe that diversity is in fact possible as the technologies allow for users to do a number of different things with them, but users simply choose not to. Every day we all check e mail, Facebook, maybe our favorite websites but we so often fail to step outside of our all inclusive resort. But just because we stay on the compound doesn't mean that the possibility to explore is gone. When a new technology is introduced it's hard to know what direction it will take. The Internet was promoted as the global public sphere, yet as we discussed it is used for an array of different purposes, some practical,some progressive and some detrimental. The way we incorporate technologies into our lives does not define what they are capable of, so yes, diversity is a possibility I'd say, if we are willing to use technologies in a new way.
ReplyDeleteSophie, I also enjoyed your post a lot. I think according to Nakamura, the difference (especially racial difference, because it is a visual marker) is simultaneously exposed and concealed in the advertisements, and the result is a reiteration of difference. In reality, I think, difference always exists, diversity is always possible. The thing is, if we are going to be duped by the illusion of homogeneity created by the interest groups.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of us being duped, that Stella suggests. Maybe we do need to be more active in trying to differentiate ourselves, through our actions and words. Believing that we are all the same simply because advertising promotes the idea that we all want the same things is a hard discourse to circumvent. I think the best to ensure diversity is to not give into the new technology, or to adopt it, but use it for means other than what it was intended for.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, sophie. We can't simply interchange ownership with usage, as is discussed in today's class. Differentiating ourselves using the same repertoire of cybertechnologies is somewhat like dancing with chains, which is difficult but possible.
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