Cultural Pessimists Flashcards
What do Cultural Pessimists believe?
Neophiliacs have exaggerated the benefits of the new media, ignored the negative aspects.
Which sociologists are likely to be cultural pessimists?
Marxists, Feminists (conflict theories).
Cultural Pessimists: problems with the validity of stories, lack of regulation
Lack of regulation can lead to a number of crimes, like child pornography, extremism, cyberbullying etc. Also linked to terrorist groups such as ISIS who can now advertise globally = decreases democracy.
Cultural Pessimists: cultural and media imperialism
The way western culture is imposed on non-western countries through the media. e.g majority of internet is in english, US/UK programmes such as ‘friends’ broadcasted globally, decreases tolerance and respect as we become used to only english/
Cultural Pessimists: ownership and control
MacKinnon = people who own the media are ‘sovereigns of cyberspace’.
Companies such as google etc have the same power that the Govt have, but we didn’t elect them. e.g Elon Musk. Companies like Google are gatekeepers.
Curran and Seaton = these companies have “power without responsibility”.
Cultural Pessimists: limited consumer choice/decline in quality
Content is being dumbed down to attract large audiences. e.g celebrity culture has replaced serious programmes, like documentaries.
Also, the use of cookies = limited choices on recommendations, reliant on what is being googled. Unable to make informed decisions.
Cultural Pessimists: increased surveillance in everyday life and censorship
Social media being used as a sovereign of cyberspace; encourages vigilante behaviour. e.g pedophile hunters, women being jailed after racist phone footage emerged.
Also used by those in power e.g bill passed where WhatsApp messages become accessible to the Govt. Impacts freedom of speech.
Mackinnon = countries like China/Iran censor the new media using web filtering/blocking and surveillance technology, monitoring email and websites.
Evaluation of Cultural Pessimists:
assumes audiences are passive, dumbing down of content is due to audience choice, doesn’t recognise choice/diversity in media today, political discussion online has increased e.g twitter in US elections.
What was the Ashley Madison Data Breach?
“The Impact Team” announced that they had stolen data from a dating app for ex-marital affairs, threatened to release names and identifying information if the app did not shut down. Ended up leaking more than 2500 people’s names, and continued to operate.
