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Understanding the culture of cyberspace

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI NOV. 26. Moving beyond the "real", a small gathering of enthusiastic students and academicians here got together to explore the possibility of "another world". Part of the Open Space seminar series organised by History Society of Ramjas College to discuss and debate the beliefs of the World Social Forum, it was an attempt to understand the culture and politics of cyberspace.

A run-up to the World Social Forum to be held in Mumbai in January early next year, the lecture titled "The World Social Forum and New Internationalisms: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace" sought to analyse the relationship between the Forum, which seeks to set up a world governed by social values rather than economic, and the Empire which binds them. With more than one panellists "virtual' in this discussion, the impact of cyberspace on alternative movements and communication probably did not need to be spelt out. As Joy Sengupta of Delhi University reading physicist C.K Raju's e-mail put it: "Cyberspace has been conceived of as providing the terrain and the nervous system of internationalist movement. The first question is how the culture of a new international movement reflects the underlying digital organisation in a new cyborgic fusion of form and function.''

While theorists might argue that the space is an imagined space, which connects people with common purpose regardless of geographic boundaries, Mr. Raju chose to differ. "I feel at the moment that there is no common objective. It is certainly possible that the mere existence of a new means of communication may create such a commonality of purpose, but it is equally possible for things to move in the other direction in the manner of television that has alienated people from their immediate surroundings and linked them into more centralised modes of interacting with their VDUs.''

Extending the boundaries of cyberspace beyond just computers, Suddhabrata Sengupta of Sarai, Centre for the Study Developing Societies, said: "It is an old model of communicable practice, a legacy of social organisation which has been forgotten. The early imaginaries of other worlds were print unions who were responsible for the spread of thoughts of thinkers like Marx. The early literature of revolution spread their ideas through networks of print workers and long-shore men." Cyberspace is a result of a long class struggle according to Mr. Sengupta. "It was first opposed by every major trade union because they claimed it would lead to downsizing of workers. But later the villain is now considered the solution to every problem from AIDS to mundane activities. It is about learning new technology and adapting to it,'' he stated.

Mr. Sengupta added: "The Internet is caught between a State which seeks to control its powers and multi-national corporations which want to monopolise it to maximise profits. The new media is not only about spreading information though. It is also about access to technology."

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