The Glocal Netizen

The term ‘glocal’ refers to the implementation of global strategies on a local scale. The internet and media technologies have enabled various ideologies and organizations to be transported fluidly and permeate through all societies while acknowledging situational differences and then adapting to them. The lived experiences of people have changed as a result “Linked with machines in a global network the citizen has become something else” (Poster: 72). The ones to benefit most from the interconnectivity the net provides are those who own the means of production in the capitalist system. “The separation between consumption and political activity has dissolved and a new political culture emerges in which the two are combined” (Poster: 73). The networked citizen is increasingly defined by their commodity consumption habits conducted online. The argument Poster makes is that people are no longer able to vote for leaders in the political realm that will actually bring about the kind of social change they envision. Instead social change occurs through consumerist practices. I agree with this notion because as experiences and sociality is determined by transnational and multinational corporations. Often initiatives that are perceived as being instigated and promulgated for a specific community are often a smoke screen for the penetration of larger corporations in the market of that community consequently taking over the market and the political practices through flexing their financial muscles and holding governments ransom if they do not conform to their profit driven methods of conduct. “They say that four walls do not a prison make” (Johnny Clegg) however, the internet has become a ubiquitous prison from which there is no escape for citizens as they carry out lived experienced through technology. Purchasing of goods is replaced by online shopping; looking for dates is replaced by online dates and so on. No longer are people limited by the physical boundaries of the actual body because are like the magic red slippers of Dorothy, communication technologies can transport the user anywhere in the world in a click.

In a Utopian situation the internet would emancipate people from the discrimination of physical national borders as well as societal border such as gender race and ethnicity and yet what we see happening is the opposite. The fact the internet is now driven by money, the situation has changed from a liberalizing environment to a manipulative one. Ideas of the distinct nation have been replaced by what has been termed metaculture. Metaculture is essentially an amalgamation of all cultures that a specific discipline comes into contact with. This raises questions of authenticity and what is indigenous? In the music field a genre that speaks to metaculture has emerged called ‘eclectic’. The fact that technology has minimized the perceptions of distance has also lead to an increased interest in things on a global scale such as the lonely traveler series, Big Brother Africa, Global wedding etc. This trend has emerged in the face of cultures being threatened by the domination and imposition of Western cultural goods through media technologies. A good example of this global local practice is seen in religion through Hillsong Mega church. Hillsong has a branch in Brazil, France, England, South Africa and in their country of origin Australia. They focus on being universal and contemporary hence being available to the international community in various regions of the world reminiscent of the missionary style of spreading religion.

The internet has given users and corporations to be omnipresent enabling users to perceive of themselves as more than just a member of a particular society, or nation but as a citizen of the world by exposing them to broader global issues and enabling them to see how what is happening miles away affects them like the butterfly effect. The internet makes people look at themselves, practices and cultures from an outsiders perspective than allow the subjects to be objective about themselves “We understand the social ‘meaning’ of our behaviors as a social and words we imagine how others are imagining us” (Meyrowitz: 2005). I am reminded of the Indian allegory of a little frog that lived in a well and thought it was the biggest place on earth. One day it rained so heavily that the well filled up and the water overflowed. The frog ended up being washed in a pond. He was amazed at how big the pond was compared to the well. One day he floated on a lily pad down the tributary of the pond until it reached the lake. He was amazed at how much more vast the lake was. Eventually he reached the ocean and realized that his well that he thought was all he needed and the largest living space in the world was only a drop in an infinite aquatic ecosystems. Local or personal issues get framed as wider social pathologies as was the case with the smoking volcano in Iceland earlier this year.

Paradoxically instead of being a unifying tool it has individualized people and cultures as a result of the melting pot effect if created initially. Movements such as ‘from here’ are focused on resisting the engulfing global internet process which is appropriated by capitalists to drive sales.

Global Wedding

The commodification of communication is a problem that hampers the potential for technology actually being an actor for full development and empowerment of users. The problem however is the fact that the proposed users who would most benefit from the internet as a neutralizing and equalizing tool do not have access to the internet in an issue that sociologists have framed as the digital divide. Those that do have access to the internet are feeding back into capitalism or consumption of cultural goods. Ideally the decentralized interconnectedness of the internet would create a melded global society in which constraints such as nationality would be rendered irrelevant but instead new discriminations have been created firstly between those who have access and those who do not.

Having said all that and agreeing with the fact that the reach and pervasive nature of the internet make it a formidable tool for facilitating social action it is not the be all and end all vehicle and we find that there is still room for non mediated person to person interaction that can make a difference.

the New Yorker