Chapter 5, "The Digital Revolution in Muslim Cultures"
Bowers hands over the wheel to Joseph Progler and Azra Kianinejad in this chapter. The co-authors first provide a theoretical framework for addressing their central concern and then provide several concrete examples from Iran and other Muslim nations to illustrate their thesis.
I don't have much to say about their theorizing which recapitulates much of what Bowers has said in Chapters 1-4. I question their assertion that: "Communication technologies and social media, while promoting the illusion of connecting people with each other and with information, undermine face-to-face and intergenerational relationships with the past, with one another, with knowledge of the environment" (p. 46). To be fair, I might have different working definitions of each of these terms, but I think communication technologies/social media can sustain healthy relationships between friends and family. Indeed, I personally rely on them. I also find the following assertion puzzling: "Colonization proceeds in moving away from local cultures and traditions and toward global ones that are promoted as universal" (p. 49). I don't know what they mean by "global", but surely this statement should read "and toward Western ideology." The shift isn't from local to global; it's from colonized/oppressed to colonizer/oppressor, which might very well purport to be "universal". That might be a minor point, but it treats the power dynamics more seriously.
I like the coauthors' discussion of the hierarchy of knowledge in the digital revolution: "...digital technologies have a profound impact on culture by sifting, sorting, and prioritizing one form of knowledge, that which is print based and easily digitized, over other forms of knowledge that are vernacular, experiential, and non-digitizable" (p. 52). Yet, I would add that the printed word is not paramount but rather the image, moving image, and accompanying sound are (i.e. pictures, clips, and movies). Online cultures are dominantly concrete and visual/imagery-based, at least in my experience with youth culture in the U.S. I also know that the digital revolution enables many local subcultures (as small as friend groups on Instagram and Snapchat and as geographically large as affinity groups on Facebook) to flourish.
Toward the end, I kept thinking, What do they mean? And, not necessarily. "Digitization creates an ephemeral abstract world of free-floating information detached from people and places that makes all books look the same and reduces the reading experience to the uniform scanning of electronic texts" (p. 57). Really? How so?
Their examples of local traditions replaced because of the digital revolution were puzzling and sometimes anachronistic (e.g. their longing for illuminated manuscripts (?) - that ship sailed 700 years ago). There are many reasons why people no longer organize locally to track the movements of the sun and moon for religious ceremony and why there is no longer a professional singer for the call to prayer. Their view strikes me as nostalgic, though I do see how the more direct relationship with nature to organize religious events on a local scale would lead to greater reverence for the Earth. So maybe they're onto something.
I don't have much to say about their theorizing which recapitulates much of what Bowers has said in Chapters 1-4. I question their assertion that: "Communication technologies and social media, while promoting the illusion of connecting people with each other and with information, undermine face-to-face and intergenerational relationships with the past, with one another, with knowledge of the environment" (p. 46). To be fair, I might have different working definitions of each of these terms, but I think communication technologies/social media can sustain healthy relationships between friends and family. Indeed, I personally rely on them. I also find the following assertion puzzling: "Colonization proceeds in moving away from local cultures and traditions and toward global ones that are promoted as universal" (p. 49). I don't know what they mean by "global", but surely this statement should read "and toward Western ideology." The shift isn't from local to global; it's from colonized/oppressed to colonizer/oppressor, which might very well purport to be "universal". That might be a minor point, but it treats the power dynamics more seriously.
I like the coauthors' discussion of the hierarchy of knowledge in the digital revolution: "...digital technologies have a profound impact on culture by sifting, sorting, and prioritizing one form of knowledge, that which is print based and easily digitized, over other forms of knowledge that are vernacular, experiential, and non-digitizable" (p. 52). Yet, I would add that the printed word is not paramount but rather the image, moving image, and accompanying sound are (i.e. pictures, clips, and movies). Online cultures are dominantly concrete and visual/imagery-based, at least in my experience with youth culture in the U.S. I also know that the digital revolution enables many local subcultures (as small as friend groups on Instagram and Snapchat and as geographically large as affinity groups on Facebook) to flourish.
Toward the end, I kept thinking, What do they mean? And, not necessarily. "Digitization creates an ephemeral abstract world of free-floating information detached from people and places that makes all books look the same and reduces the reading experience to the uniform scanning of electronic texts" (p. 57). Really? How so?
Their examples of local traditions replaced because of the digital revolution were puzzling and sometimes anachronistic (e.g. their longing for illuminated manuscripts (?) - that ship sailed 700 years ago). There are many reasons why people no longer organize locally to track the movements of the sun and moon for religious ceremony and why there is no longer a professional singer for the call to prayer. Their view strikes me as nostalgic, though I do see how the more direct relationship with nature to organize religious events on a local scale would lead to greater reverence for the Earth. So maybe they're onto something.
posted by AJV at 11:20 AM
2 Comments:
I think they are showing only one side of the issue, just like Bowers is. I have more sympathy for the issues than you do, I think. Online communication distances us from the context and the physical reality of the others we are communicating with. It is like writing, but it is instantaneous so it can lead us to more easily forget that it is not face-to-face. But it is take out of context and so we lose tacit aspects of it. We also get into the habit of having to react immediately, which can mean that we are not reacting in a thoughtful way but only as a reflex. We take the words thrown at us only at face value and respond in a rote habitual way that avoids reflection. We look at the 'face' of the words and lose completely the face of the person.
You make a good point that much of what is done online these days is done in images, even moving images. So we lose the face of the other in chats, and we replace it with a emoji. Emotions and tones that don't translate easily to text like sarcasm and humor get these little yellow faces to replace the complex skills of making and reading facial expressions and tones of voice. It strips communication of so much and replaces it with juvenile icons. It has always been something that I have disliked and resisted.
Images in general can be seen as false representations. This goes back to before Photoshop even. I think it was Baudrillard who talked about the affect that the photographer has on the meaning of the subject of the photograph just by their decision of where and how to point the lens of the camera. The photo and video frame the real world in a very definite way that shapes the meaning and significance of what is being shot. It is also being killed at that moment in time (even in video) and presented as something clear, complete and self-contained. No matter how realistic the photo or video, it is still shaped into saying something by the lens. It is something we forget when we look at images, even if they are not Photoshoped. In that sense, images hide the fact that they have an angle and perspective better than texts do, if we read texts right.
I agree that we can make good uses of digital communication to keep in touch with people. With my international life, I would have lost many people that I have been able to keep in touch with because of them. But we have to be aware of the way that digital communication tends to the shallow and superficial. I remember having a hard time actually talking with people in the US when I was back visiting at one point because I was so used to only communicating with them in writing. I lacked the time to reflect before I responded. That was back in the days where I really only had email. It is an odd thing. But I am thankful for the technology on the whole.
My biggest take away from the chapter was the idea of unskilling. I have thought about this in my own life in terms of spelling and writing in the age of spell check and grammar check. I lament it in the area of music where it is now possible to release a song that has never actually been played in reality. Computers (and mostly algorithms these days) can do so much for us that we forget how to do them ourselves. That is for those of us that have learned to do them. Younger generations will never learn them and will have the computer to do it for them from the beginning. What comes with that is the fact that the programmers then are the ones that are deciding how things should be done and they do so on a 'universal' scale. Once Google decides how something will be done by creating the app and algorithms, that is the way it is done for a large part of the population. Local ways and concerns are lost as the programmers colonize different cultures and localities without necessarily even knowing that they exist. So we have a deskilling and a universalizing going on at the same time. What then happens when we don't have the apps anymore? It is a bit of a scary thing to contemplate. What happened to the technology of the Romans when the Empire fell? Isn't that part of why the Dark Ages were so Dark?
I agree with your point about universal being used instead of Western, but I think in reality it is seen as being universal for so may people. It is an influence of scientism and the belief in progress I think.
One last thought on books and ebooks before I finish. There is often quite a bit of work put into preparing a print edition of a book: font, font size, page layout, chapter layout, etc. This stuff all gets subjected to the whim of the reader now with most ebooks. Kindles can change font and font size, and as a result other layout issues are adjusted automatically, by the software. That makes them all look the same in many ways (or the reader can make them all look the same), and it takes skills out of the preparation process. I have seen several books of poetry (and almost all bi-lingual editions I have seen) rendered almost unreadable by this. I am sure it would infuriate the poets if they were still alive.
Not only that but everything you have on your ereader can become a selection in a huge compilation if you are not careful. Compilations are put together with an idea in mind, a unifying concept. That can always distort the original meaning of the text, or at least limits the way it is likely to be understood. Your collection likely has no theme, or even if it does, you should not subject all of the books you read to that theme other wise you are never venturing out of it and into new ideas. All the digitized books are on the same physical device and can easily be confused with one another. I know that first hand right now. I am reading both this Bowers book and his other one on STEM at the same time. I am often confusing the two.
I am happy I have my Kindle because it allows me to get books much faster than I would otherwise-- since I live abroad-- and allows me to travel lighter. But there are negatives. I often wonder if I would have one if I still lived in the US. That for me is an example of my debate over technology in my everyday life.
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