Cyberculture: Society, Culture, and the Internet - The Internet: Does It Unite Or Divide?

THE INTERNET: DOES IT UNITE OR DIVIDE?

Cyberculture is heralded for breaking down borders and barriers, not just between nations but also between groups and individuals separated by physical space or by political and social conditions. As a result, some would hold that the Internet fosters a more complex tapestry of relations than ever existed in the physical world.

However, skeptics warned that the Internet wasn't eliminating borders as much as shifting their definition and location. Instead of physical borders separating one people from another, these critics contend, the Internet establishes a border between those use it and those who do not or cannot go online. This "digital divide" was of increasing concern to social activists and policy planners, and to businesses as well, who see the divide as a stopgap to their future marketing strategies. This rift grows as cyberculture drifts away from being a specialized domain for technology experts and toward a force driving social change, economic relations, political policy, and cultural life. If cyberculture increasingly sets the agenda in the dominant culture, those on the "wrong" side of the digital divide will inevitably find themselves more and more isolated and alienated from the societies in which they live.

For regions outside the United States, the cultural implications of the Internet carry another important question: how will the U.S.-dominated Internet affect the sovereignty and integrity of local and regional cultures? The Internet was developed in the United States, as were the bulk of the technologies that support it, U.S. firms constituted by far the largest share of online businesses in the early 2000s, and English was the Internet's dominant language. Thus, to a great extent the models of Internet activities sprang from U.S. paradigms, which many non-U.S. interests eyed with some skepticism. Such fears were often tied to broader concerns about globalization, an economic and cultural force many saw as the sweep of American culture and businesses over the rest of the world. On the other hand, those who see the Internet as a leveling force point out that such technologies, far from steamrolling cultures and local sovereignty, actually provide a level playing field and thus a greater degree of autonomy and competitive leverage to non-U.S. cultures than they would enjoy in the global economy absent Internet technology.