What does the Internet do to Culture and Identity?

Recently the introduction of the internet has arguably caused significant change in a period of less then two decades. With the introduction of cybersex, eExtremist groups and online gaming, the use of the internet has rapidly spread to over 100 million users; as its attractions include information, email, multimedia content, tele-commuting, news, online communities, ecommerce, entertainment, and more.


When considering the effect of the internet on culture and cultural identity what is the first thing that comes to mind, the fact that this is something that can manipulate and define a person? A country? Or just simply a society? Culture and cultural identity could be seen as a concept or idea that comes from a number of sub-categories put together. Through linking religious beliefs, nationality and cultural practices (such as particular dancing, music, dress code and even just morals), ones cultural identity is developed. Therefore when considering these factors it is easy to see how through the use of the internet today, cultural identity can quiet simply be influenced.


The Internet is an important vehicle for the transmission of ideas concerning a national identity, particularly for people who have lost or left their homeland (Bakker 1999). With the current increase in migration and people travelling to foreign countries, the need to stay connected and informed with ones home country is essential. It was found that Since the second half of the nineties the amount of Internet users has grown beyond imagination (Bakker 1999). When we look more closely at the way people use the Internet, we see that a fair amount of usage is not exactly 'new', people book holidays, collect pictures of their favourite movie star or take a quick look at today's headlines (Bakker 1999).


Take for example the following site, ‘The Hindu Universe’ this is a Hindu based site, including all things Hindu. This is basically a one stop site that includes everything from information on Hindu resources, youth, woman and kids, the community, religion and basically anything that would tie back to the Hindu culture in India. Therefore through having sites like this ‘Hindu’ one available it is expected that cultural identity will be influenced by the internet because it is now becoming a rapidly spread phenomenon.


Therefore how do these every day uses of the internet effect the development of a culture and its identity? Put it this way through the push of one button and the click of the mouse, I could very easily visit Europe, America, Asia and the middle east in the time frame of an hour, getting a taste of music styles, dress styles and codes, morals, and even in some cases talk to people from these countries, How people might ask (even though it is a minority group that will have no idea on what im talking about) its called GOOGLE people, yes with Google earth I could very easily visit a country and even virtually walk in the streets with the new technological Google street, I could then find out information on history, politics food and even music through a basic Google search of that country and then finally I could go into a chat forum or chat room and make friends with people from that country, remembering all this in the time frame of an hour…amazing I hear you say OF COURSE its amazing this is technology of the 21st century for you. Therefore as im situated here in Australia I am witnessing almost first hand the experience of another culture and how its identity is promoted world wide.

Finally to conclude the effects of the internet on cultural identity are inevitable. With modern day technology improving rapidly so to does the means of sharing culture and nationality. With the wide availability of sites on the world wide web who knows what or how the future culture of Australia along with other countries will pan out.

Cyber sex and its real effect on society

Sex is the number one searched topic on the Internet. (Weiss 2000) Nine out of 10 children aged between eight and 16 have viewed pornography on the Internet. In most cases, the sex sites were accessed unintentionally when a child, often in the process of doing homework, used a seemingly innocent sounding word to search for information or pictures (London School of Economics 2002). It is believed that 26 popular children's characters, such as Pokemon, My Little Pony and Action Man, revealed thousands of links to porn sites. 30% were hard-core. (Envisional 2000). At least 200,000 Internet users are hooked on porn sites, X-rated chat rooms or other sexual materials online (MSNBC 2000).

After doing a bit of research into this issue / topic I found the above statistics and let me tell you I was shocked. 9 out of 10 children between the age of 8 to 16 have viewed pornography over the internet. WOW! That is ridiculous especially that in most cases it was accidently while doing homework, I mean why isn’t anything done about that? Why don’t these sites have warning entry pages or why aren’t they censored until full consent of the site viewer is given. All these questions immediately come to mind when the severity of the problem is obviously known but nothing is done to stop it.

The fact that these sites have easy accessibility and uncontrolled censorship disgusts me as it is inevitable for anyone to come across a sexual site, image or even just a form of sexually written text. Take for example when you go onto any site the adult commercial sites displaying free teaser porn images on the homepage ‘are you single and looking for love’ pop ups of course people who are sexually aroused will click onto these sites and partake in sexual activity but this is also widely open for children and teens who are just on a site for study purposes. These sites need to be controlled or else this is eventually going to be a matter which will completely get out of hand.

Another major issues which is linked with this phenomenon is that there is no way of knowing who you are talking too that just immediately screams out danger to me. These sites are the perfect opportunity for stalkers, rapists and paedophiles to find victims. And people are largely deceived. It is believed that one in five children who use computer chat rooms has been approached over the Internet by paedophiles. (Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Akerman, Telegraph.co.uk January 2002 ). Child abusers have also been known to seek out unsuspecting victims by posting seemingly innocuous messages in computer chat rooms." -- BBC News, June 16, 1999

I have been in the position of accidently going on an explicit site and I wasn’t happy about it: it would have been a few years ago now when the Simpsons movie was coming out anyway and my little brother who was about 5 or 6 at the time has this major obsession for the Simpsons and he wanted to go see the movie so naturally we went on google did a plain search on the “Simpsons” but I must have misspelt it or something and the next thing I know im on a completely graphic porn site, and my poor brother was standing right next to me, luckily he had no idea what it was except he managed to say “ewww that’s gross”, that in itself is just a small example of how unexpectedly any person is vulnerable to this material, and let me tell you that was not a good experience in one word AWKWARD.

But in my case for example this didn’t affect me as I was easily able to ignore it and move on with what I was doing. However, in contrast it may have completely had a major impact on someone else’s life, someone who was intrigued by the images and wanted to partake in this form of sexual satisfaction possibly leading to obsession.

Ryan Singel suggests that “Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, and erectile dysfunction” and further Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy also suggests that “Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever”.

However although I disagree with the new cyber sex phenomenon I must admit there is a positive side to it. The fact that people are protected from the possibility of being infected with STI’s and women obviously do not have the possibility of falling pregnant this is seen as a physically safe way of partaking I sexual activity. It is also good in the sense that it is seen as a form of psychological treatment for people who are unable to have physical sex due to medical conditions.

To conclude, although cyber sex has its many negatives and small amount of positives it is a newly developing phenomenon which has greatly expanded over the past few years opening up new gateways to the availability of porn and in particular cyber sexual activity. If proper precautions are not taken into consideration cybersex might be the future form of prostitution.

London School of Economics January 2002
Dr. Robert Weiss, Sexual Recovery Institute, Washington Times 1/26/2000
MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne Study, Associated Press Online, 2/29/2000
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/11/65772 http://www.horizonz.com/statistics.htm

The real effect of eExtremists

Is the web really the prime tool for extremist hate groups to expand?

As the Internet has fully fledged, the rise of extremist sites has kept intensifying in number and in professional composure," (the Age, May 14 2009). Extremist groups have made the Web their "prime tool" to transmit hate, and the number of online dogmatist on Facebook is growing faster than efforts to remove them (the Age, May 14 2009). Every aspect of the Internet is being used by extremists of every classification to replicate old hatred, degrade the Enemy, and to raise funds in support of their ‘force’ as the Australia first party refers to themselves. The Internet’s unique global reach and scope combined with the difficulty in monitoring and tracing communications make it the prime tool for extremists and terrorists (the Age, May 14 2009).

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, which have millions of users, are being used by extremist groups to engage members. As these sites are well known and common within society it does not come as a surprise that extremists actually utilise these sites to recruit more members. Further, by cleverly making these extremist sites readily available it is expected that these groups will develop and gain followers.

Through well developed sites and easy accessibility it is inevitable that any average Joe could just go on a random site, become intrigued with the debatable topics presented and eventually get brainwashed with the information readily displayed. So does that mean the web really is the prime tool for eExtremist? Yes I believe so. Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, which have millions of users, are being used by extremist groups to engage members. As these sites are well known and common within society it does not come as a surprise that extremists actually utilise these sites to recruit more members. Further, by cleverly making these extremist sites readily available it is expected that these groups will develop and gain followers.

For example consider ‘Australia first party’ Founded by Graeme Campbell Member for Kalgoorlie Federal Parliament between 1980 to 1998, this is a mild Australian extremist group compared to major American groups however still holds substantial weight. The Australia First Party (AFP) is an incorporated body, and as such, may also become a federally registered political party under the sponsorship of the Australian Electoral Act. Australia First Party is a political party which as incorporated under the provisions of the Associations Incorporation Act 1984 (NSW) shall be formally known as "Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated" but which for ease of expression in this Constitution shall be referred to as "Australia First" or "the Party".

When considering such a group for example, I know that personally if I came across this site with a naive mentality I would be fooled. The fact that it is a ‘website designed to serve Australian nationalist’ is immediately assumed that these people might actually be a positive influence rathe then a negative impact. With the patriotic images of Australia land marks, historical images and the clear display of the Australian flag of course people will be deceived, it looks so genuine. But don’t be fooled, if you take a minute to actually read some of their articles you will be shocked at some of the racists comments they make for example “Overseas Students Go Home!”

However, something thing that really got me thinking was the fact that they actually call themselves a ‘Force’ I mean does that not immediately bring shivers down your spine it’s like your joining a gang rather then a political group which in hindsight is true. Then as I had a look at there membership page I was even more shocked when I read this “The AFP offers membership to all who agree with the programme and who are willing to abide by the constitution of the party. Prospective members complete a membership form. Abide by the constitution of the party, what is that? That’s ridiculous I can’t believe they actually have a constitution that a member needs to ‘abide by’. Personally I think this is more like a cult then a political group.

To conclude, it should come as no surprise that the internet does play a pivotal part in the development of eExtremist groups, with the widespread publicity and the lack of censorship and control it is an inevitable fact that people are actually influenced through the World Wide Web.

links:

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-technology/web-prime-tool-for-hate-groups-wiesenthal-center-20090514-b3n2.html The Age (15 may 2009)

http://ausfirst.alphalink.com.au/