Book Review ;Technology And Democracy: Toward A Critical Theory Of Digital Technologies, Technopolitics, And Technocapitalism

The technology did not just allow people to connect to their dear ones virtually; it was even the primary medium through which business was conducted- during and even after the pandemic. Teaching also relied heavily on technology during the pandemic, as human mobility was highly restricted. In short, the world experienced a digital transformation. From business to education to shopping, everything went online. However, at the same time, the pandemic also made some of the dormant socio-economic fault lines prominent. One such fault line is the digital divide. Unlike in European countries, in India, due to the digital divide, many students had to drop out of school during the pandemic. Thus, technology has become a force to reckon with in the post-pandemic world even as it engenders a broad and profound impact. The pandemic provides us with a case study to analyze the role of digital technology in contemporary times and how it has impacted society. Interestingly, the pandemic also provides two pictures of technology. The book under review examines technology's role and argues how it has transformed society and impacted democracy. However, Douglas Kellner, the author of the book, does not confine himself to interrogating the question of the interplay between society and technology. Instead, his enterprise in the book is to develop a critical theory of digital technology. This enterprise is not without context. Often two contrasting images of technology are shown. One is those, whom Kellner calls technophilic- who believe in the inherent goodness of technology and innovation. While the other is those whom Kellner calls technophobic- who underscores technology's dehumanizing and alienating aspect. However, modern technology and innovations in the form of Facebook and Artificial Intelligence, among others, defy the above categorization because there is a contest over whether it is enhancing human life and democracy or facilitating its degradation. According to a report by Amnesty International, Facebook promoted violence against the minority Rohingya in Myanmar, which claimed thousands of lives. When this incident is compared to the promise of Facebook- that is, giving people the power to build community and bring the world closer together- the mismatch between the promise and reality of the technology is demonstrated. Interestingly, while laying out the negative sides of the technology, Kellner acknowledges its empowering potential. There appears to be confusion, or the picture needs to be clearer on what this modern technology entails and how it can be used to improve the human condition. The failure of the cultural and media studies to capture, by way of theorization, the recent phenomenon wherein how information and technology have impacted society is one of the complex tasks which Kellner takes up in this book. Thus Kellner states, "we need to develop a critical theory of technology in order to sort out positive and negative features, the upside and downside, the benefits and the losses in the development and trajectory of the new technologies" because technology is embedded in society . Doing this- that is, theorizing critical digital technology, Kellner argued, would help in "giv[ing] direction to research work in explaining, organizing, analyzing, and predicting phenomena and showing their relationships to enhance understanding." The book is divided into ten chapters, where each chapter explores what technology has unleashed and how it can be used to further interest of the people and how their democratic and citizenship rights could be further improved. Differently put, Kellner follows a diagnosis–prognosis framework in this book. First, the author identifies an issue triggered by technological change. Secondly, the author explains how to address that issue using technology. While reading the book, one gets a strong sense of it being a manifesto, where the author calls the readers to recalibrate their strategy because, unlike the industrial society, we are living in an information society. This transformation, Kellner underlines, "… poses tremendous challenges to critical social theorists, citizens, and educators to rethink their basic tenets, to deploy the proliferation of digital technology and media in creative and productive ways, and to restructure the workplace, social institutions, schooling, and our democratic institutions to respond constructively and progressively to the technological and social changes that we are now experiencing." Rhetorically, Kellner asks whether our devices are sufficient to address the challenges of the information society. If not, what needs to be done? The recent upsurge in authoritarianism- whose manifestation we saw in Donald Trump becoming President of the US- was facilitated by information technology. It won't be wrong to state that digital technology has restructured global capital, and ...

Book Review ;Technology And Democracy: Toward A Critical Theory Of Digital Technologies, Technopolitics, And Technocapitalism

Md Zeeshan Ahmad

Tags