Characteristics of Digital Culture - A Challenge For Education
By Dr. Fabio Pasqualetti, SDB
This paper will try to explore the characteristics of the digital culture. For this we will make a brief examination of the alterations that have taken place at the technological and cultural levels specially those that concern the communicative dimension. Terminology can seem to be a little bit inconsistent and this is due to the fact that often in the same literature there lacks a precise agreement as to its connotation. Nevertheless terminologies such as new media, multimedia, electronic media, and information technology point out to the period from the advent of the personal computer leading up to the phenomenon of networking.
This paper in the first part, beginning
with a brief analysis from the alphabet to the virtual reality, tries to
understand how technology has in some way contributed to building up new
visions from life and of human being and therefore has produced different
cultural sensibilities. In the second part, we shall attempt to define how
the digital culture is characterized and make use of these characteristics
to provoke and make us reflect their implications for education.
Part One
From the Alphabet To Virtual Reality
Roger Fidler in his book Mediamorphosis identifies this word with the process by which transformation of communication media takes place through a play of complex perceived needs, competition, political pressure and social and technological innovations(1). In other words, by looking at communication as a complex system, one can see how the birth of a new technology or a new medium never happens spontaneously or independently, but always emerges from other technologies or media within the cultural context and these in their turn either accelerate or slow down its evolution.
This concept helps to free ourselves from the temptation to perceive the technological innovation as a sequential and independent, and to put our attention back instead to a co-existence and sharing of varied factors that favour the technological and cultural transformation.
What happens when a new technology makes itself visible in one’s day to day life? David Bolter (2) in his book Turing’s man, says that technology offers an attractive window through which the thinkers of every epoch can interpret whether it be physical or metaphysical world. De Kerckhove, speaking about technologies of communication defines them as brainframes: “the idea underlying this notion is that our brains, in a structured manner, frame the technologies of elaboration of information and that each of these structures are challenged to furnish a different model that are equally effective for interpretation.”(3) In this sense the diverse mediums, from language to virtual reality, are revelations of the understanding that humans have towards themselves and the world.
The Script
McLuhan already affirmed that the western civilization has been built on literacy (to know how to read and to write) understood as a uniform process of a culture worked out from an extended visual sense of space and time. Instead, the tribal and oral cultures, where experience is organised around the aspect of listening, are characterised by a highly aesthetic sense, of delicacy and of inclusiveness. In these cultures the actions and reactions happen at the same time manifesting emotions and sentiments. Such does not happen in cultures where brainframe alphabet dominates, where one attempts to suppress or hold under control the sentiments and emotions.(4) The amplification of visual domain on the part of the western cultures has always placed other forms of knowledge at the secondary level and has created the division between science, art and faith which are still seen in culture. (5)
Thus the script has given origin to the domain of documents that have acquired specific characteristics, be it in the communicative flow and its control or be it, in its format, reception and their limits. According to Roger Fidler (6) the dominant traits of document are therefore the following:
DOCUMENT
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Mobility, convenience, simplicity and reliability emerge as the most important characteristics of document domain. The document is easily transportable. Cost wise is not excessive. For example, let us imagine the relationship between the quantity of information and the price of a daily newspaper. It does not call for instruction manuals but rather the ability to read and write. Finally the written text has been given such a sense of reliability that any type of contract comes recorded in a document format undersigned by the two parties. To these characteristics one can add another where the reader, not withstanding his/her incapacity to modify the document, is actively involved, be it in a linear mode or be it in a non-linear mode. Further, the reader is involved in interpretation, in the analytical activity and in the process of abstraction that the written text favours in many aspects. The rectangular portrait type suggests that the relationship is intimate and personal, almost as in a conversation face to face. The power that script confers to the written text is pre-eminence of precision in the transmission of literary, poetic, philosophical, theological and political contents which cannot be easily substituted for example in a purely visual language. The script in its technological expression of a book, has given origin and momentum to individuality by privileging the logical and linear approach with emphasis on rationality. Not withstanding the possibility to move forward and backward within the written text, the expository organisation is of logical sequence and presupposes a connection between what comes first and what comes afterwards.
If we consider the alphabets as the powerful brainframe of the western society that has accompanied it for many centuries, what happens to it when others arrive by its side?
The television
Experience teaches that to watch the television one does not need to be literate. A child can be very well in front of the television and know what happens. According to Krugman, the television teaches the child to learn with “fast glances”. This is important since in it one moves from a linear logical approach to one of non-linear rearrangement. That doesn’t mean that the sense is understood but only that one is able to grasp the images. (7)
The television becomes another "cognitive frame" that projects
the individual beyond oneself. The eye of the television camera becomes the
prolongation of our eye.(8) The media such
as the television, the radio, the telephone enable oral cultures to be connected
to the phonetic culture based on the know how of reading and writing. Such
connection is not easy since the communicative models that regulate the two
cultures are different and distinct. Further, it has a particular type of oral
character that doesn’t enter into the realm of interpersonal communication,
but rather one that moves within the ritual and performance areas practised
by some towards others. Communication through the radio and the television
involves the sphere of the feelings and the emotions.
Needless to say that in the western society, the television, after radio, remains
the most diffused medium today that has formed and moulded whole generations
with its programmes and with its celebrity figures. It is the showcase and
the pulse of the cultural level of the masses. It becomes a compulsory aspect
of comparison for all those who are interested in education and social problems.
The realm of television broadcasting has some very interesting characteristic traits:
BROADCASTING
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The dominant characteristic of broadcasting is the strict control on the part of the one who manages it. The selection of the programs, the rigidity of the programme schedule, the influence of advertising indicate an environment where the user has the least and minimum of active participation. During these years, this factor has pushed the television to a progressive spectacular display phenomenon that has a parallel to that of economics of the big supermarkets. The repetitive aspect of the images easily lead to a glut in the market. Therefore, even programmes of success must always invest in new metaphoric scenarios to capture the audience. This domination necessitates the communicative axis to be shifted from the personal to the masses. The synchronization of consumption generates communities that share the emotions. The young meet and discuss their preferred programs. They experiment and repeat wisecracks. The adults share and exchange opinions in correlation to the affiliation to one program or another. The strength of the television consists in the enchantment of images, of appearances and of movements. However much people may be accustomed to it, the magic box enchants the big and the tiny.
The assemblage is the television syntax, taking the cue from the cinema, and it is the achievement mark of many programs. It can be said that the television from its first years, when it could almost be considered like a radio with some images, to today has developed its own specific and particular style to such an extent as to influence, as in the case of MTV, also the style of cinema.
Today it also enjoys the benefit of the satellite and internet and thus recognizing
a new favourable season, thanks also to the digital system.
The computer and the net
If the television has " re-tribalised" the audience, what happens when on the social scenery the computer and the net come into action? Already the studies on the relationship between television and its viewers have shown the active role of the user. Nevertheless, a series of technologies really applied to the television, have developed a process of greater and independent inter-action, always introducing some operational formalities that could be reassumed with the word control.
The video recording, for example, has given to the user the possibility to change the time and the place of utilisation of the program. Further it has favoured the diffusion of the video material in different socio-political contexts.
The remote control has developed the style of the zapping, that is, not simply to wander from a channel to the other, but that which can also become direct assemblage of clips of programs and a way out for the intrusiveness of advertising.
The video-cameras VHS and Video-8 have transformed the users into
small producers of scenes of daily life.
The computer has gathered within its interface the varied languages
of the classical media: script, image, sound, animation, video, graphics, etc.,
giving origin to concepts such as: multimedia, interactive, interface,
non-linearity, navigation, hypertext, access, etc.
Internet, also defined as the net of the nets, is what changes in a radical way the communication. Through it, hundreds of million of users exchange every day every kind of message. They access documents. They participate in tele-groups. They hold electronic-conferences. They hold discussion on every possible theme.(9) All this happens overcoming every national, racial, political, social, spatial and time borders. Lévy speaks of a new type of nomads and says that:
"The development of the new tools of communication is emblazoned within a change of sufficient weight that accelerates, but that which does not go beyond. To say it in a word: we have become again nomadic. (…) The daily nomadism depends mainly on the continuous and rapid transformation of the landscapes, scientific, technical, economic, professional, mental… Even if we didn't move, the world would change around us." (10)
With Internet the virtualization of human activities is visualised. But, above all, it sets in motion a process of decentralization of the centres of power and communicative control that history has never before experienced. On the positive side, one can look up to the internet as the big occasion for intellectual growth of the human race. If full economic reasons don’t prevail , the net is like a flow of knowledge from which, with well measured political and economic choices, all could draw benefits.
We shall attempt to examine what could be some the communicative characteristics
of the net, as always within the scheme proposed by Fidler.
THE NET
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The primary aspect that emerges is apparently the simultaneous presence of opposing categories as linear vs. non-linear; structured vs. non structured; unidirectional vs. bi-directional; etc. This is to point out the particular nature of the net.(11) Thought originally as a defence tool in case of nuclear attack, with the specification of the creating a system that would continue to be operated even if struck and in a certain sense with a capacity to auto-generate in other points. Really there is no definite centre, but an endless possibility of centres. In this sense, it is understood that there is no real centre not withstanding the fact there are many centres.
Another aspect within it, that perhaps contains the most fascinating metaphor of Internet is navigation. In the sea of the network, one feels a little like Ulisse. One feels also like a hunter who is in search of treasures that are concealed beyond the myriads of routes. The subject is involved directly and actively. The experience of the "chatting”, not withstanding fact that it has become a habit among the younger generations, maintains the charm of meeting the unknown, instigating the desires of experimentation on one’s own identity, the game of substitutions, but also promotes the sincere exchange of opinions, ideas and thoughts. At the academic level, the net is a beneficent flow of sharing of knowledge that feeds the university community.
A further characteristic is that of being beyond the territory (de-territorialisation) that is experienced through navigation. This prolongation to the ultimate boundaries of the earth where a computer and a modem is turned on, becomes an occasion for meeting or for a discovery.
According to de Kerckhove "The computers develop a mediation between the nervous systems and internal cognitions of each user and the external systems of elaboration: they act as interfaces between psychology and technology, just as the videogames furnish interfaces between the neurological answers and those electronics (…) They develop a kind of social mediation in a singular continuous extension of our individual powers of imagination, concentration and action and they work, to a large extent as a second mind." (12)
Western culture is trying with difficulty to harmonize the logical-rational assets developed during the course of many centuries, with those of the new electronic media. What one experiences is travail that every cultural metamorphosis brings with itself necessitating a rethinking not only at the individual level, but also at a collective level. It is not a coincidence that one lives in a paradox of globalization and at the same time experiences the rise of exasperated nationalisms. All changes bring with them conflicts, the search for dialogue can attenuate them and open them to a mutual discovery. For this, it is important to adopt a pluralistic viewpoint that welcomes diversity of views and ways of expression. The media can help to develop a culture of appropriate pluralism since they are themselves languages of pluralism.
Berendt quoting Rajneesh, speaks of "democracy of the senses" (13) as a condition to overcome the western super-triumphalism that is highly focussed on the visual and the rational. The art and the media are perhaps the two environments in which this urgency to harmonize and to integrate the complementarities of the senses is perceived and therefore of the languages.
A technology that works on the use and the stimulation of all the senses
is the VR. The peak of such a tendency has been the years between 1990 and
1994 when it was hoped to arrive at this new experience of nirvana in a rapid
manner. In “reality” the VR, painted by some as the panacea of
all the communicative problems and by others as a new drug, is in the first
place, a challenge to discover how we, as humans interact with the world and
the reality.
The Virtual Reality (VR)
Steve Aukstakalnis and David Blatner (14) affirm that if one wants to understand the VR, it is important to understand how we perceive the daily reality that is around us. The VR is therefore a way to visualize, to manipulate and to interact with the computers and with extremely complex information. The methods that concern the interaction between machines and humans are commonly called as computer-interfaces: the VR is nothing else other than the newest method in a long chain of interfaces. The VR in a certain sense would wish to render the computer invisible, transforming the complexity of the data in three-dimensional representations with which humans can interact so as to give great space to freedom and creativeness of the user. This doesn't mean that the liberty and the creativeness of the user are guaranteed or increased by the VR. It can be said that the VR is an indirect manner to recognize the complexity with which humans interact and act in an environment so as to know, to communicate and to represent one self and the world. Perhaps the greatest service that the VR can give to today's culture is the recovery of the reality.
The debate on the VR has gone beyond its mere applications (15) involving all the fields. Lévy defines the virtual as transformation from one mode of being to another. It has nothing to do with that of counterfeit, deception or imaginary, but rather is one of the possible modes of being, that concedes margins to the processes of creation, opening future perspectives and excavating the sources of sense contained in the immediate physical presence. (16)
THE VR
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The VR takes to the extreme human-machine relationship, placing it first in a situation of experiment “as if”. This happens already with a lot of applications at the data processing level today, and thus we talk of: "opening a file", "to cancel a paragraph", "to paste an image", "to make a transfer of money", "to send a message" etc. All these expressions are to point out that we are performing actions. In reality that which happens beyond the analogical output, is a transfer of 01001000 10010001 etc. incomprehensible for us, but corresponds to variations of electric signals such as on and off.
The VR highlights still more clearly
this miracle of the digital language. After all, this same piece that I am
writing through a mechanical articulation of my fingers that hit a keyboard
through the composition of an alphabetical code, is managed and lived inside
the heart of the computer as energetic alterations of off and on or of language
plots 1 and 0. It is visualized then on a screen within an electronic metaphor
which is also produced by the same language that is called work sheet format ".doc" where
the characters reappear to us in the known typeset belonging to the alphabet.
All this, at the speed of the light because of which as I type there already
appears what I am doing. The thing becomes even more shocking when, through
partial or total immersion, I enter in a world produced by a computer and
all my senses interact with this world giving me the feeling of “as
if” real.
This strong component of sensory involvement arranged at the level of the analysed
characteristics from the scheme is seen to be simultaneously present in all
those that belong to the mediatic dominion (domain of media) along with those
that belong to interpersonal communication.
The VR incorporates all the communicative characteristics of the net: navigation, inter-action, communicative activity, beyond territory, collaboration, etc... presuming to include in all these the whole multi-sensory body in its totality. That is, a complete immersion in the cyberspace. It is a promise not yet fulfilled in its totality, even though at the level of Arcades and videogames it has reached an impressive level of simulation especially with the new Play station 2, and at the scientific level, there are the laboratories of medicine, surgery, physics, architecture etc. where wide use of VR is employed with amazing results.
Metaphorically, the VR is a triumph of the spirit over matter, the virtualization of the reality that overcomes the space-time resistances. It is difficult to foresee what it will be exactly, but certainly already from the partial experience of the net something can be imagined, be it for the good or for the evil.
We have recalled all this, with the hope that in doing so those aspects and traits that can help us to understand better what one intends by digital culture and its implications at the level of possible challenges may emerge for catechesis.
We now pass on to the second part where we will try to delineate what digital culture is, what are its characteristics and what are its implications at the cultural, media and religious levels.
SECOND PART
A Premise
A word that is perhaps most used during these days is crisis. Probably, at the root of this crisis there is a profound change in the life of humans in relationship to oneself and to the world. What one experiences is the travail that every cultural metamorphosis brings with itself necessitating a rethinking not only at the individual level, but also at a collective level. Perhaps it is not by chance that the bi-polar tensions present as characteristics in the communication system of the net and is in a certain sense, also lived in real life. The individual as a community lives such tensions between forces that push towards a global vision of life and forces that prompt particularisation and localization. On one side the concept of individual is exasperating but today as never before, we find ourselves interdependent at all levels.
The cultural problem cannot be the result of the technological media change only but is rather a result of a continuous distorted interaction between technological transformations, economic, political, social and religious choices that effect both at the personal level and at the collective level. The feeling of the speed is due more to the multiplicity of the proposals that appear almost simultaneously with genuine and continuous newness.
At this point, not withstanding our insistence mostly on the specific characteristics of the technological media dimension, we will try also to see the implications of this new cultural order.
Before proceeding, it seems to me necessary to tackle a fundamental problem raised by Meyrowitz, who sustains that:
“ In a society, the ability and the formation required for codifying and to decode messages of a determined medium, determines to a large extent the individual who can use the medium to send messages and the person who can access the information that the medium spreads”. (17)
Therefore, the electronic media influence not so much at the level of contents as at the level of structures and powers, within what Meyrowitz calls "the situational geography" of the social life. The discourse is important because it puts in discussion the concept of authority in a mediatic society.
In a social model based on the printed paper, two are the prerequisites to access the public field and therefore to have responsibility of authority: to know how to read and to know how to write. He who is not able to do these can not even have access to the public debate. "An elevated status is shown and is maintained through the control of knowledge, ability and significant experiences. (…) A category that doesn't depend on a particular control on knowledge is often considered arbitrary and can be opposed. Probably being warned of such a threat, in the years one thousand four hundred, the Catholic Church wanted to suppress the translations of the Bible in vernacular language." (18)
We shall try to understand what happens to the level of authority, when one moves from a society based on printed paper to an electronic society. Meyrowitz, continuing his analysis on why roles change when media change, affirms that:
“ The hierarchical role, more than in any other, depends on guarding of the evidences, of the practices and of the slackening at the backstage […] The hierarchical roles, require often a metaphysical dimension, that is the apparent possession of innate quality that transcend humanity and mortality. An abyss is created between the superior and the subordinates, to make it appear that between these two categories there is a much more important difference with regard to some notion or in some experience. […] In this sense, the hierarchical roles implicate so much the mystery as much as " mystification " that brings with them greater dangers that can be used for favouring bad governments and to maintain in power unworthy persons” . (19)
Today the electronic media can favour the access to the information world also to persons of lower social status and therefore they destabilize the relationship of hierarchical information control. At all levels, social, political, religious, it is seen today that if one wants to be a leader, it is necessary to embrace the aspect of "transparency" , but it is also true that transparency reduces the pretension of the authority to make themselves as absolutes.
The digital culture can then be defined as a passage from a mass culture with centralised controls to a de-centralized culture, de-structured, personalized which is in continuous change. For De Kerckhove "At the moment in which radio and television bring news and information to us in abundance from all the parts of the world, the technologies of control, such as the telephone and the network of the computers, allow us to go immediately to any point and to interact"(20). It is an inversion of the communicative flows and the control settings that places the foundation for a greater control and participation on individuals and groups. Not all the voices are so enthusiastic in front of the emergent digital culture.
Jean Baudrillard, the rhetorical heir of Jacques Ellul - who also saw in the technology an apocalyptic and autonomous threat - individualizes the hyper reality in its strength of seduction from the simulations. Baudrillard defines the hyper reality as the moment in which the " consumer " (reader, user) exchange willingly or not, the map with the territory, the model with the modelled object, the simulation for the original one. In the vision of Baudrillard, this alternative trans-valuation creates the post-modern condition for the whole our culture. The cultural emigration of mass toward hyper reality is a historical inevitability, something that is profoundly new and dangerous, but on the other side it is irresistibly fascinating. From good neo-Marxist, this rhetoric of the historical inevitabilities is a great deal strong in him. As he writes in Simulations: [We are moved] from a capitalistic-productive society toward a neo-capitalistic and cybernetic order that aims at total control. This is the change for which the biological theorizing of the code prepares the ground. There is nothing casual in this mutation. It is the end of the history in which, one after the other, God, the man, the Progress and the History die for the future of the code” (21)
One thing is certain. Digital culture
questions us and provokes our way of being humans and the way one perceives
life, but also sheds light on where and in whom the new centres of the power
reside.
To assess it more serenely, we shall attempt to see what are the emergent characteristics
and what perspectives it opens for the future of human beings and within such
perspectives attempt to situate those provocations that catechesis may bring
along. At this point, we will try to gather mostly the potentialities and the
positive aspects, but that doesn't mean that we will ignore the problems that
will arise but those will not be death with in depth.
What the Digital Culture is (DC)
Digital culture is a culture of the antithetical simultaneous presences, with constant tension between order and chaos or if one wish in more Christian terms, a culture of the already and not yet. We try to understand the why of it.
On one side, the DC favours pluralism proper, thanks to its pliability, and on the other side, it is easy to transfer in real time images and imaginary, sounds and words, information and interpretations, favouring thus obviously, the export of the cultures that are economically stronger and so provoking an effect of globalization but also of homologation. Nevertheless, because of its real nature, the DC is de-structured and de-centred favouring so the resistances to the ruling cultural dominion and opening some spaces of resistance, as for example, the varied movements ecologists, anti-G8, cultural minorities, racist, alternatives, etc. However, it is a culture that requires expertise, an exposure to the technological world particularly that of the computer and of the net, a flexible and adaptable mentality to the varied changes and a mentality of communication online. Paradoxically these tools that open ample spaces of liberty are regulated internally by languages highly structured.
The DC through the concept the
de-territorialization has overcome the concept of regional, nation, continental
boundaries. The DC has access, contact, connection, prolongation to every
part of the world as long as there is a terminal connected to the net. Potentially
it is a possibility for the poorest to access the same cultural patrimony,
but it is also a threat of technological dominion and a strong separation
between who has and who doesn't have it.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DC
What has been said here till now is only an indication to the complexity and wealth of the new cultural order. If one looks at it well, it can be perceived that the DC is at the same time problem and solution for human life.
We shall now bring out some of
the characteristics at the cultural, mediatic and religious levels in order
to perceive what modification are taking place within these three dimensions.
AT CULTURAL LEVEL
Up to the advent of mass media, the product that was in wide circulation was the newspaper and the book, that is the realm of the scripts that required certain abilities, such as to read and to write, in order to have access to the content of this medium. In particular, the script and the book have built up the subject and coordinated the knowledge. It has built up the subject for its particular communicative relationship with the individual, but it has also equated knowledge with it since it was the only constructed text for knowledge and thus created a strong shared cultural base for many. It is enough to think about the scholastic model to see how generations were formed all reading the same books. Today youth, besides the text book, have thousands of links to consult on the same argument and thus opening each other not only to a computer pluralism, but also to a more flexible approach and not a linear as the text book.
With the advent of the electronic media, the power of control and access to even to the remotest information have been progressively increasing. Besides it has introduced some interactive communicative formalities that have recovered a dimension of the inter personal communication that the mass media have tried to recover through the use of telephone, fax and e-mail.
The same reality has become fluid, more dynamic, in contrast to a classical vision of a rigid and static reality. In front of new technologies, all these have also contributed to the development of some attitudes at the practical and physical level that Franco Prattico highlights speaking of the new generations:
What we define as "reality", that hard, rock like, inadequate reality with which our ancestors and we have been accustomed to measure ourselves, is transformed in a virtual limbo, in a magic moor where the desire and the imagination are realized in partial context only from the ability to dream. The virtual extends the space of the imagination and to be accepted socially, probably requires a new form of anthropology: the anthropology of the virtual, indeed. The " reality " is no more a given to be conquered and to be understood laboriously, but a free space, modelled and constructed more and more from the vast new technologies. Therefore our fatiguing experience doesn't serve any more the new heroes of our time: certainly in that tangled archipelago, that is, the modern world - at least that of the industrialized and "globalizzed" societies, the teen-agers move better than many of us today and if they ask questions regarding the world, their questions are born strongly from a different context, from that in which we have grown up.(22)
Are we in front of a new anthropology? Certainly technology is not only turning each other to the outside world of humans but also to their inner self. Joseph O. Longo affirms that:
[…] in the world of high technology that we are building around ourselves, the homo sapiens is not at his/her ease anymore and is waiting to be replaced by another creature, a kind of symbiotic of man and machine more suited for the new environment. The homo technologicus is not only the human being sitting in front of his/her own computer, of which one cannot do without it anymore by now, but is a real hybrid or cybrid in which the micro and the nanotechnology are operating unedited molecular transformations that are often alarming: for therapeutic purpose, but also ludicrous, artistic, cognitive, and sometimes driven by pure experimental curiosity. (23)
The DC produces new competences, dexterity and behaviours. The fingers of the new generations flow fast and uninhibited on the keyboards, on the tele commands, on the joysticks. It is amazing to see how our humanity adjusts itself to its artefacts with such extreme naturalness.
If we want to use words to describe
the DC, we could say that it is a culture that is characterized by:
Speed
Communication today travels at
an amazing speed. It is enough to think about the electronic mail. Internet,
also when paradoxically we say that it is slow, is the place where it travels
at the speed of light. The magic of a technology such as Internet consists
in experiencing through simple actions the extension of our body around the
world. Click an address and one finds oneself at the White House. Click another
address and again one is down loading some updates of a program, or the documents
for a course. All this in an instant. But speed is a characteristic that
is attributed also with a lot of other realities such as the automobiles,
airplanes, sport, medicine, economy, etc.
Interface
The interface is place of action and interaction between man and machine. The development of the interface has put the accent on the necessity on the part of a person to act. This attitude is also brought in at the social circle.
Today, people want to be active subjects of their own life and of the social life. The interface becomes therefore metaphor for environments, designs, education, social life, etc.
Polyphonic dimension
The DC is a polyphonic culture.
Absolute truths that can be vindicated don't exist, or better if they exist
they are found immersed in the sea of all absolute vindicated truths. The
institution that today wants to sustain its uniqueness, finds itself in opposition
with thousand others. Along with the Vatican site, million of other sites
of churches and religions are placed side by side from the most traditional
to the most improvised. It is culture of the presence-with, of the possibilities
of dialogue.
Nomadic Attitude
On the net, one surfs. This passage from one point to the other on the net, is also reflected sometimes in the style of life as passage from one experience to another, but in its more positive and mature form it is culture of separation, of non affiliation to something specific. It favours the spirit of search. It is culture that offers and is generous even if it becomes a place of abuse and embezzlement.
Ecological sense
It is not only a fashion or a tendency
but a distressing consciousness that the industrial culture is and has been
destroying the only support for the human existence, the world. This global
ecological sense also comes however from the fact the DC makes it possible
for contact, knowledge and denunciation of facts around the globe and as
a consequence the ability to share with those people who are more sensitive.
It is enough to think about the many environmental associations and the organizations
that gather through the net and the mobiles.
Distinct Attitude Towards Technology
The DC is strongly linked to the
technological environment specially to the computer and the net. The less
visible but more interesting aspect is that the computer is becoming more
and more an environmental component. The work places are more and more computerized.
Even the home, starting from the microwave of the kitchen and to the vocal
control of the lights, is becoming more and more situated within a computerized
environment.
Spiritual
The new generations are very much
disenchanted with the proposals of the traditional religions, but they are
not indifferent to the spiritual dimension. The net, once more, is a witness
to the unbelievable variety of proposals at the religious and spiritual levels.
The preceding characteristics of the DC however are adapted badly to a monolithic,
static proposal, not to a polyphonic and at times brazenly out of touch with
the cultural environment.
Discriminating
The DC risks being discriminative not so much in its nature, but for the fact that it is strongly dependent on the economic factor and on the political choices. All it takes is a look at some statistics.
Less than 1% of the Africans and of the Asians (exclude Japan) have access to telematic. New York alone has more accesses than the whole of Africa. 15% of the world population, that of the developed countries, use over half the fixed telephone lines and 70% of those mobile. 60% of the world population, that of the countries in development, uses only 5% of the world Internet connections.(24)
All these make us reflect again on the importance of contextualizing the problem of the DC in its relationship with the economy, politics and justice both at the local level as well as at the international level. Besides “the south” (where "south" refers to a situation of discrimination and marginalization) of the world there are many more varied souths of nations, of regions, of cities and of districts.
Since we don’t have sufficient time to analyse and expand this important factor of the "digital divides" in this paper, we proceed with our analysis of the DC.
Let us see now some characteristics
that have accompanied the same technological mediatic area.
AT MEDIATIC LEVEL
It can be affirmed that in this area also, one finds a general move from a mass mediatic culture, and therefore from a more homogeneous to a culture more personalized and therefore more pluralistic.
The television and the radio had introduced the cultural model of the consumerism of masses, DC takes such consumerism to a niche and to a level of personal taste.
I wish to characterize the passage
of a mediatic mass culture to a DC by utilizing the following descriptions
of transitions:
From Centralization Towards Decentralization
Europe and United States have known two different modes of developments with regard to the mass media, particularly radio and television. Europe has a history of state monopolies while United States has undergone a monopoly of commerce and advertising. Nevertheless, a phenomenon that has marked Europe from the seventies is the birth of independent radio and television broadcasting stations. Within few years an un-proportional proliferation of channels and stations have taken place. It was a progressive passage from a mediatic culture controlled and managed by a few to a culture controlled and managed by many. It was a progressive stride towards communicative forms that are more pluralistic and participative.
In the DC, decentralization is
a living mode of communicative form. At the level of radio broadcasting,
today it is possible to listen to hundreds of radios on line from all parts
of the world.
From a Local to International Communication
The progressive substitution of the ancient antenna with the dish antenna is an index of an amplification of the sources of proposals at the level of television that go beyond the national and cultural boundaries. The DC through the net doesn't do anything else other than to amplify this tendency to go beyond boundaries.
From Mass Media to Personal Media
The progressive technological miniaturization
and the progressive lowering of the prices have widened the use of the resources
of personal media. Personal computer, mobiles, palm tops, credit cards, identity
cards, all travel at the rhythm of bits and they assure continuous and personal
control on our choices and actions. The reverse of the coin is that the digitalization
also offers the possibility of control on the part of hidden powers such
as the secret services or the big commercial centres to whom the profiles
of the clients could be revealed. Accordingly, the DC is a culture that must
promote a vigilant consciousness with regard to the law of privacy of the
citizens and the defence of democracy.
From Mass Media Planning to a Personal Planning
The multiplication of the offers and in particular the media channels in internet is forming new styles of consumption and cultural habits. The most evident case has been that of Napster, that after having put in crisis the music market, has shown clearly that among the young there exists a new way to use, to listen and to live the music. Also pizza shops and restaurants that are a bit à la mode offer personalized menu. Such examples can be multiplied.
These are only some of the transitory traits that have brought about the new cultural order. The separation between mass media and new media is all the more diminishing in such a way that televisions are becoming terminals for connection to Internet. The digitalization, like a DNA technology has given origin to a new generation of artefacts opening horizons and possibilities that have never been experienced before.
AT THE RELIGIOUS LEVEL
In the sixties particularly in West, DC has contributed to a decline of the religious institutions. Simultaneously the media began to be one of the important players from the cultural point by becoming the point of reference for people. The decline of the religious institutions has also been attributed to the increasing emphasis on subjectivism and autonomy that have invaded the cultural level; a fragmentation of markets in search of personal niches has also magnified the search for personal taste even at the religious level. The religious institutional crisis, in fact, has not extinguished the desire for the sacred in the people. The market for religious proposals has grown in such a way that it has surprised all those who have almost taken for granted the sunset of God and of religions.
In fact, mediatic culture, through the popular culture, has facilitated the re-emergence of the sacred in spectacular manner. Internet, particularly, has become the Areopagus of all the religious proposals and pseudo religious,(25) that one has never seen till now. The novelty consists in the flexibility and in the inter active and de-centrality of the Internet. It provides entrance to all persons of whatever belief and facilitates contact with others of different beliefs in order to compare and to converse, and to see what other religions or cults could offer.
Thus they establish a virtual community, places and spaces of prayer(26) , for deepening and for personal formation that move beyond the confines of any local Church, diocese or nation. This very interesting phenomenon that is bound to expand is neither easy to observe nor to study, but certainly it poses some questions with regard to the concept of Church, community and life of faith.
The transitions that have marked this period point out a parallelism with the cultural and mediatic course.
From an Institutional Religion To a Personal Spirituality
In his book Virtual Faith, Tom Beaudoin, as exponent of the Generation X, denounces a progressive exodus from religions and institutional churches in the seventies and Eighties. The reasons were the enormous distance that their generation found between the preaching of these churches and the practice of life. "The churches were in fact ridiculously out of touch, with their strange pietistic music, their pre-deluge technology, a retrograde social teaching, and a hostile or indifferent attitude to everything that was of popular culture. […] For many of my generation, the path from a religion-as-accessory to a religion-not-necessary was very easy." (27)
The disappointment of the institutional religions and their incapacity to provide answers to the new generations have prompted them to turn their attention to where they could find answers. This phenomenon has started a spiritual nomadism, often manifesting in styles of religious life that reflected the cultural change that was more pluralistic, possible, permissive and more tolerant, but above all, towards a more personal religion. The importance of the personal dimension is not denied, what is vindicated is the personalization of one’s own choice.
From an Affiliation by Tradition to an Affiliation by Meaning
As a result, it has moved from an affiliation by tradition to an affiliation by meaning. It was indeed the media that furnished the new reference points. According to Martin Barbero, the media has, in some way, eliminated the distance between sacred and profane; particularly the television has introduced the sacred in the realm of the profane and has reduced to a profane state what was once sacred. It is sufficient to see, for example, how publicity has made what were the simplest daily job such as washing and cleaning to activities that are transformed and enchanted in poetic accounts and in a certain way raised them to a transcendent dimension. Thus, a bottle of Coke-cola becomes a magic source of energy, beauty and wisdom – source of life and youthfulness. (28)
These are the myths and the rites of the mediatic society that substitute religions. The rock concert can be seen as an experiential moment of a profane theophany that traces the patterns of the experience of the sacred. The characters of the popular culture become idols, that perhaps, don't have the divine power to promise eternity, but enable them to live a night of dreams and follies.
Nevertheless, the new generations
that take seriously the religious and spiritual dimension of life, are also
not satisfied with a pre-packed religion. The pluralism of the movements
within the church is a symptom of a pluralistic necessity to live one’s
own faith.
From an Objective to a Subjective Truth
The concept of objective truth
carries with it the idea of something unchangeable and constant that endures
in time. But the century that has hardly passed, has seen everything and
the contrary of everything. The outstanding symbol, at the end of what seemed
eternal, can be illustrated with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. The
images amplified, repeated and transmitted simultaneously to the whole world
have entered the collective imagination as the fall of the absolute. This
doesn't mean that there are no more reference points. The complexity and
the plurality of the proposals today call for a dialogue as a tool of comparison
and growth and to a superior level of maturity of the persons.
From a Technothelogical Language To a Cultural Language
Also the churches find themselves in a delicate phase given a culture of possibilities, of decentralization, of personalization and of change. The crisis indicators warn us of the whole linguistic apparatus: from the theological to that of ritual and sacramental languages leading down to the architecture of the churches, often alert us about the inability to communicate and to converse with the culture. In a cultural context with the logo of pluralism, it is easy that people choose some interlocutors open to the dialogue, to the comparison and abandon instead those who with indefeasible situation refuse dialogue and compare.
The loss of believers can bring the churches to the same temptation as that of the commercial centres when they lose customers, that is, the temptation to turn churches into a show, rather than to place under discussion the institution. It is a dangerous game because as it happens in the media, it always risks to re-launch keeping high one’s place and low that of the culture. The consequence is the risk of falling inside a consumerist religion as Cimino and Lattin denounce in their book Shopping for faith, where they show the typical American phenomenon, but not too much, the mega churches and the small groups as the future places of the consumers of spirituality. (29)
The discourse would need further
expansion but for now, we limit ourselves to these observations, from which
a possible debate could evolve. All these solicit queries, questions and
provocations for catechesis.
CHALLENGES FOR EDUCATION
I don’t wish to enter into the specifics since it is not my task. Instead I would like to indicate some outlines as provocations for reflection for the group.
We have seen that digital culture
is not something that appeared from nothing, but it is the fruit of social,
cultural, technological changes that are supported and sustained by political
and economic categories. Digital culture has a very important fundamental
characteristic, its ability to enable convergence by the use of different
languages, but also to create a culture always in evolution and tension between order and chaos or
if one prefers more between the already and the not yet.
Such an environment could give rise to some attitudes and modality to labour
with interest.
From Nouns to Verbs
The digital culture (DC) is a culture
of action, of participation and of inter-action. Therefore it is closer to
describe with a verb than with a noun. For example from people's participation
in the life of the community, to participate in the life of the people of
the community. The noun also indicates a communicative model of top down,
while the active verb evidences a pluralistic and democratic organization.
From Structures to Processes
The DC is culture of processes
that certainly have also at the base complex structures, but at the same
time, they ought to enable individuals or the community to act, to communicate
and to build up. It is very important that the persons be involved in the
planning of a pastoral plan that these very same persons will attempt to
realize.
From Places of Meeting to Meeting of Persons
The DC is culture of meeting. The
concept of beyond the territory points out to superfluous ness of the physical
place. That which is important is the activity that is established between
the participants to the meeting. If the church as place of meeting it doesn't
work anymore, all it takes is to change the place.
From a Hierarchy of Command to a Fraternity of Service
The DC in its utopian and romantic
version is a community culture, where the best are recognized for their competence
and generosity. The utopia of total sharing and the annulment of the intellectual
ownership can be seen as the evangelical sharing of the material goods. Today
the primary good is the culture that ought to be shared robustly.
From Instruction and Information to Dialogue and Communication
The DC is not to be subjected to the accusation of being a culture of the information and production in such abundance that it loses its values. It has also been accused of as a culture of divisions. Nevertheless, as we have seen, it is also a culture of meeting, of dialogue and of communication beyond of the territorial, cultural, religious, political and economic confines.
I recognize that what we have done so far is only an indication and a quick perusal of the problems of the digital culture. Personal study and group discussions will bring more enlightenment to what has been briefly indicated in this paper.
Fabio PASQUALETTI
Rome 19.04.2003
Translation in english by Jerome
Vallabaraj
1- Cf. FIDLER R., Mediamorphosis. Understanding new media, Thousand Oaks (CA), Pine Forge Press, 1997, p. 23. Back
2 - BOLTER, J. D. (1984). Turing's man. Western culture in the computer age. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Back
3 - Brainframe can be understood as cognitive frames, that is, the way with which we organise and know the reality. De Kerckhove, D. (1993). Brainframes. Mente, tecnologia, mercato. Bologna: Baskerville. p. 10 Back
4 - Cf. McLuhan, M. (1997). Understanding media. The extension of man. London: Routledge. p. 86 Back
5 - A book that attempts to reconsider the relationship between art, science and the world in a clear and pleasant manner is that of Barrow, D. J. (1997). L'universo come opera d'arte. La fonte cosmica della creatività umana. Milano: Rizzoli. Back
6 - We shall present the adapted table offered by FIDLER R., Mediamorphosis. p. 45 Back
7 - Cf. De Kerckhove. Brainframes…, pp. 62-63. Back
8 - It could be said that the television is more similar to music than photographs in that it modulates one’s emotions and one’s imagination in way comparable to the power of music. That is the reason why Rock video are natural sons of television”. Ibid., p. 63-64 Back
9 - Cf. Jones, G. S. (ed.). (1997). Virtual Culture. Identity & communication in cybersociety . London: Sage. Back
10 - Lévy, P. (1996). L'intelligenza Collettiva. Per un'antropologia del cyberspazio. Milano: Feltrinelli. p. 16. Back
11 - At the level of journalistic popularization, one uses the expressions of internet, net and World Wide Web (WWW) as synonyms but is not correct. The internet and the net indicate that complex asymmetrical and non homogenic structure made up of thousands of wide Area Network (WAN) and of Local Area Network (LAN) while World Wide Web (WWW) or as the Americans say the 3W (three cube) is a particular application of net that consists in a protocol, namely ensemble of rules to manage the information on the Internet that go to integrate the basic protocol which is the TCP/IP, thus permitting to access an integrated document on the net through the language that describes the hypertexts (HTML). Back
12 - De Kerckhove. Brainframes…, p. 178 Back
13 - Berendt, J.-E. (1992). The third ear. On listening to the world. New York: Henry Holt & Company. p. 28. Back
14 - Aukstakalnis, S., & Blatner, D. (1992). Silicon mirage. The art and science of virtual reality. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press Back
15 - For further studies see the following books: Rheingold, H. (1992). Virtual reality. New York: Touchstone; Gelernter, D. (1992). Mirror worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Woolley, B. (1992). Virtual worlds. Oxford, UK: Blackwell; Jones, G. S. (ed.). (1997). Virtual Culture. Identity & communication in cybersociety. London: Sage; Lévy, P. (1997). Il virtuale. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore; Strate, L., Jacobson, R., & Gibson, B. S. (ed.). (1997). Communication and cyberspace. Solcial interaction in the Electronic environment . Cresskill: Hampton Press. Back
16 - Cf. Lévy, P. (1997). Il virtuale. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore. p. 2-3 Back
17 - Meyrowitz. Oltre il senso del luogo… p. 119. Back
18 - The digital culture necessarily implies access to a technological environment which is still not accessible to all. At this point comes the thorny question that access to technology is fundamentally a question of justice and distribution of economic power ought to be resolved between developing countries and countries that are hold power over technology. Back
20 - Dewdney C., Derrick De Kerckhove. La pelle della cultura. Un’indagine sulla nuove realtà elettronica, Genova, Costa & Nolan, 1996 Back
21 - Porush D., The rise of cyborg culture or the bomb was a cyborg, nella traduzione di Marti A., L’ascesa della cultura cyborg, ovvero la Bomba era un cyborg, in http://www.intercom.publinet.it/p.htm, p. 3, 24.06.01 Back
22 - Prattico F., I giovani dell’età della tecnica cercano da soli le regole del futuro, in <<Telèma>> Chi spiega ai giovani un mondo a noi ignoto?, n. 24, primavera 2001, http://www.fub.it/telema/TELEMA24/Postma24.html, p. 1, 25.06.01 Back
23 - Longo O. G., nasce l’homo technologicus, facciamo che sia anche umano, in <<Telèma>> Chi spiega ai giovani un mondo a noi ignoto?, n. 24, primavera 2001, http://www.fub.it/telema/TELEMA24/Postma24.html, p. 1, 27.06.01 Back
24 - G8, guerra al ‘digital divide’ in http://quotidiano.monrif.net/chan/internet_tecnologia:2011205:/2001/05/24: scaricato il 27.06.01 Back
25 - Cfr. Beaudoin T., Virtual faith. The irreverent spiritual quest of generation x, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1998; Merlini M., Pescatori di anime, Nuovi culti e internet, Roma, Avverbi, 1998; Forbers B.D., Mahan J. H., (eds.), Religion and popular culture in America. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000. Back
26 - As an example we suggest to visit the site http://www.jesuit.ie/prayer/. It is a site mananged by irish Jesuits who offer daily moments of prayer created by a simple technique but an elagant offer of psalms and word of God. Further it also offers a moment of prayer with the Holy Father. It is one of the many sites that meet on line. The site was inaugurated during the lent season of 1999 and it had more eight hundred thousand visits. Back
27 - Beaudoin T., Virtual Faith, p. 13 Back
28 - Cfr. MARTIN BARBERO, J., Mass media as a site of resacralization, p. 111 Back
29 - Cfr. R. CIMINO - D. LATTIN, Shopping for Faith. American Religion in the New Millennium. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998. Back