COMS 230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Cybernetics Society, Cybernetics, Presupposition

• School: McGill University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: COMS 230
• Professor: Cayley Sorochan

Document Summary

Quality of newness that"s attached to the internet. Before we look at the relationship between the internet and democracy, we must fist look at the hype that the internet has around it. We project a lot of fantasies on the internet. Even to talk about the internet as a unified thing might be misleading. He was reacting to a situation in the 90s described as cyber utopian. There was an abundant period of broad claims that the possibilities that the internet would open up. The internet would finally make democracy possible by connecting everyone. Our identities could be overcome by the avatar and the anonymity. We could exist as a stable identity even after our bodies were gone (fantasies) Since the 90s, claims like this are not taken as seriously. We"re entering a new world defined by digital technologies. Neither the technologies nor the discourses surrounding technologies are new. Underlying basic technologies haven"t changed whereas the applications have changed.