[Sigiii-l] Plaza

[Nadia Caidi]

(another student contribution)

It is impossible not to marvel at the efficiency of emerging 
communications technology and the global economy which it has spawned. 
It nevertheless raises serious questions about the future of the nation 
state and democracy. The rhetoric surrounding globalization can be truly 
overwhelming and the potential difficulties involved in managing an 
ever-expanding mass of information can quickly lead to panic. How can 
one hope to manage this mass? More importantly- Will information only be 
transmitted in a homogenized form disseminated by the world’s super-powers?


While dazzling new technologies promise profound cultural 
transformation, it is interesting to note how little things have 
actually changed. New cultural products (and their accompanying 
ideological presumptions) have only supplanted the old ones and new 
types of cultures have emerged to replace and complement existing ones. 
On a larger scale, we have seen the dominant cultural forces continue to 
gather their power. The disparities of our “local” societies now exist 
on a global scale as the rich and powerful exercise their power on the 
rest. Similarly, the presence of state-of-the-art communications 
technology has not made the process of communication any easier. Recent 
terrorist actions and grudge wars have shown that the brute force 
(coupled with age-old propaganda methods) remains the most efficient 
means of getting one’s message across.


It is too late to worry about the threat of domination posed by the 
world’s information super-powers. Globalization is only the next step in 
the human evolutionary process. The role of information professionals 
will thus remain the same: to add value to information by navigating and 
judging information sources to the best of their abilities. Certainly 
new skills will have to be acquired, but this would be the case both 
within a ‘free’ democracy and under tyrannical rule. Let us hope that we 
are neither swayed by blind optimism nor halted by jaded defeatism.