Unseen Borders

In the article "Historical Pragmatism and the Internet," by James Carey, Carey often mentions that while many problems within communication are solved and many borders are taken down due to the creation of new technologies and mediums, there are also always borders being created that are unseen. In his article I agreed with the flaws that he saw within 1990's literature produced about the Internet. Much of that literature seemed to be doused in technological determinism, or the belief that new technologies and technology in general has inherent qualities that change the outlook and function of many aspects of society, and also fix many problems within society. Carey seemed to disagree with technological determinist's, and history also seems to be on his side.

I thought that Carey was right about the unseen boundaries, borders, and dangers that the great technology that is the Internet is creating. Borders of time and space are destroyed, and we can now monitor government action more closely and internalize information that is mass-disseminated throughout the world wide web. While we can do all these things now, other borders are being built that we can't see. Since economics and business are involved with any communication technology, freedom of access to everything the Internet has to offer could slowly be monitored, filtered, and you could only access material that you pay for or that your provider allows for you. It also permanently records all information that you may possible have on the Internet through websites, information collecting, cookies, etc. The talk of unseen borders reminded me of some of the work of John Keane and his ideas of a monitory democracy, which is one that we live in today. We are more able to monitor and keep track of the government and issues with politics, while at the same time we have less freedom to privacy and allow the government to further and constantly monitor us. Through our use of technologies like the Internet, smart phones, and everything new that is emerging, we are further allowing ourselves to be tracked by "big brother," and are in a new age of democracy, one where we can be constantly monitored.

John Keane:

http://www.thelifeanddeathofdemocracy.org/glossary/glossary_monitory_democracy.html

technological determinism:

http://www.allsands.com/Misc2/technologicalde_ubp_gn.htm

A link to solfege, talked about in the music section of the article:

http://www.ars-nova.com/PracticaManual/solfege.htm