The Impact of
Technology on Culture: Rant or Rave?
Jim
Stewart
Published in Global Missiology “Technology &
Culture” July 2008
www.globalmissiology.net
Introduction
For many years,
the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” frequently would end its Sunday-evening broadcasts with an Andy Rooney rant. “Don’t
you just hate it when...” he would ask, completing the sentence with a commentary
on the size of cereal boxes or the
effectiveness of his hair dryer.
When I first
considered a topic for this issue of the journal, I felt I may be channeling that icon of the inane. I felt
compelled to write on the subject of “cultural
homogenization.”
By that I simply mean the progressive, unrelenting and, in my opinion, tragic world-wide loss of rich
cultural, language and national distinctives – often at the hand of
technological advances .” I could almost hear my own “Don’t you just hate it when...”
bubbling up from deep within my personal storehouse of long-repressed frustrations.
A few days
reflection, however, convinced me that a cathartic rant would be personally
satisfying but would not be a fair handling of the topic. Certainly technology has been a
homogenizing agent, but one could also make the case that technology is helping to differentiate, preserve
and strengthen cultural identity.
Communications
and Educational Resources
Not long ago, for example, I was
interviewing vendors for a new web-conferencing system for the seminary in
which I work. At the advice of a distance education colleague, I contacted
Avacast Inc., a smaller service provider located in Northern California. We
went through
the formalities of program specifications and system requirements before I asked
our representative a critical question, “Who else is using your system?”
I expected that he would provide an
impressive list of business and educational institutions. Instead, he began by citing the fact that
“Several Native American nations are using our web-conferencing tools
for language training.”
He explained
that tribal leaders had approached Avacast concerned that as more community members
left to pursue distant opportunities, tribal languages and traditions would be lost. Without immediate and substantive
intervention, geographically-disconnected
tribal members could easily be assimilated into their local cultures and would lose their long and proud cultural
distinctives. They chose Avacast webconferencing tools as one critical
element of a much larger response to their dilemma. Today several
Native American nations are successfully using technology-mediated instructional systems to teach distant tribal
members the language and culture of their ancestors while helping to bring an increased
sense of community regardless of location.
Since my discussions with Avacast,
new open source resources have emerged to provide many
of the same functions at little or no expense. At Western Seminary we have
been using DimDim (dimdim.com),
a free web-conferencing option with powerful tools for
voice-over-IP, white boarding, slide presentations, and video streaming with great success. Another free open-source program,
ooVoo (oovoo.com),
allows up to six users with web
cameras to meet online simultaneously. Creativity is truly the only limit to the
effective use of these and other Internet-based resources.
Informational
Resources
I was reminded,
too, of the connection I have with my Canadian roots. By accident of birth I was
born to Canadian military parents in Washington, D.C. Within a year I returned
to Canada, spending the next 25 years there before attending college as a
foreign
student in Virginia. With only a brief exception, I have remained in the United States
(yes, legally) ever since.
Nevertheless, I am
thoroughly Canadian at heart and deeply concerned about the future
of my “home and native land.” My family is in Canada; my oldest and best
friends are in Canada. If you were to check any of my seven computers, you
would find CBC.ca
and CTV.ca, two of Canada’s premier news
networks, at the top of my browser’s favorites group. Every
day, without exception, I visit both sites, read almost every article, and participate when exorcised (which is often) in
the online news blogs. I consider myself a native Canadian in temporary exile. The ability to remain
connected, to be a part of a larger
dialog with my countrymen, is an incredible gift. 21st century
technologies help
many millions like me who are in diaspora to maintain our cultural connections
and identity. In a
previous generation, I would have become increasingly estranged from my cultural roots. Today, thanks to technology, I feel
as much a part of the Canadian experience as if I were still living north of the 49th
parallel.
Social
Networking
The
role that information and communication resources play at the macro level,
social networking resources perform at the micro level.
Web sites such as myspace.com, linkedin.com, and facebook.com encourage individuals
who share a language, culture, interests, passions, aspirations – the number of potential associative
nodes is limitless – to create intensely
personal, virtual communities. While some question the validity and value of these virtual connections, they are
increasingly changing the historical concept of community from being location-based to being
relationship-based. (As an aside, this reconsideration
of community is confounding many in traditional educational leadership roles. If true and substantive community can be
created without sharing a common location, what then is the future of the college or seminary campus? Is
it necessary for educational institutions
to develop and sustain hugely-expensive brick-and-mortar
facilities, and for
students to carry the expense of relocating to a distant college or seminary, if both educational and relational
outcomes can be achieved virtually? (No, there
is no resolution yet, but stay tuned.)
Closing Remarks
That
technology has been instrumental in the breaking down of cultural distinctives, what I have referred to as the homogenizing
effect of technology, is beyond dispute. It is also true, however, that technology is helping to
support and sustain cultural identity. Why
not drop me a note at jstewart@westernseminary.edu
and share your insights and perspectives?
My purpose here is simply to prime the conversational pump; without you, what
we hope will be a dialog becomes a monolog. What fun is that?