TeledemocracyA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWDespite problems of competing formats and
divergent standards, consumption through
economies of scale has turned niche markets into
a global industry fed by an insatiable appetite for
new and better applications (termed apps). Such
all-embracing comsumerization raises questions
concerning the interplay between leisure and
work: should companies permit or forbid their
employees from, for example, surfi ng the Net
during working hours; or should they embrace
the practice as potentially – being essentially a
social medium – of integral value in business
operations? See mobilization; web 2.0. See
also topic guide under media: technologies.
Telecommunication Tele means far off, at a
distance; a telecommunication is communication
by telegraphy or telephone, with or without
wires or cables. In telephony and telegraphy,
signals are transmitted as electric impulses along
wires. In radio and TV the signals are transmit-
ted through space as modulations of carrier
waves of electromagnetic radiation. See tele-
text; wireless telegraphy; world trade
organization (wto) telecommunications
agreement, 1997.
Teledemocracy Term used to describe theories
that telecommunications serve to advance
democracy by the rapid transmission of infor-
mation across boundaries, the openness of
debate, interactive exchange and participation
in the digital age. Optimistic commentators
see the Internet as a powerful agent of change,
likening it to the agora, where citizens are
better informed about what is going on locally,
regionally, nationally and globally, and better
able to take part in democratic action.
It has become increasingly diffi cult for govern-
ments to suppress information or to prevent
citizens from diff using that information across
the population, and thus easier for popular pres-
sure to grow and shift from online platforms to
the streets. Th e 30-year absolutist rule of Hosni
Mubarak in Egypt appeared to be toppled in
February 2011 by mass demonstrations which,
at least in part, were inspired by computer-
facilitated information and calls by any teleco-
municative means to assemble and demand an
end to authoritarian rule and progress towards
democracy.
A sober word of caution is off ered by Timothy
Garton Ash in a UK Guardian article written at
the time of Mubarak’s fall, ‘Not 1989. Not 1789.
But Egyptians can learn from other revolutions’
(10 February 2011). Th e author, referring to the
perceived power of communication technolo-
gies, says that while they ‘matter enormously ...’apparatuses; ideology; internet; mcdon-
aldization; semiotic power; surveillance
society; web 2.0. See also topic guide under
media: technologies.
Technological determinism Th e view that if
something is technically feasible, then it is both
desirable and bound to be realized in practice.
Evidence points to the fact that such determin-
ism is only partly convincing. Much technology
usage is a by-product of technology devised for
other purposes. radio became an ‘inevitability’,
for example, largely because its determinant was
radar, required to fulfil military needs, while
satellites had a long record of military/political
functions before they began to beam sporting
events to the peoples of the world.
Set against notions of technological determin-
ism is a second theory, symptomatic technology,
which argues that technology is a by-product
of a social process which itself has been other-
wise determined. In Television: Technology
and Cultural Form (Fontana, 1974), Raymond
Williams says that basically both theories are
in error because in different ways they have
‘abstracted technology from society’ instead of
examining the crucial interaction between them.
Of course part of that interaction is the belief
in technological determinism, and the risk of it
becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Dwayne Winseck in ‘Pursuing the Holy Grail:
information highways and media reconvergence
in Britain and Canada’ in the European Journal
of Communication, September 1998, argues
that contrary to ‘the belief that technological
factors determine how media are organized’, the
primary drivers of media evolution ‘are machi-
nations between governments and industries,
visions of how markets should evolve, and ideas
about whether communication constitutes
just another commodity or is something more
imbued with cultural consideration and public
service values’. See internet; supervening
social necessity. See also topic guide under
media issues & debates.
Technology: the consumerization of
technology A neat definition is offered by
Wikipedia: ‘In many ways, consumerization is
the process by which the IT industry is being
transformed from its roots as a business tool
into primarily a social medium. Its consequences
are expected to grow sharply in the future.’ Th e
shift from a base of business and industry to one
of individual use has been driven by popular
demand, which has run neck and neck with
technological development: today’s device is
tomorrow’s museum piece.