Times of the Technoculture

Towards a conceptual framework

“…Some of the dissenters argue that there is an embedded bias towards exclusion and disadvantage for some people as a result of a growing requirement to be 'connected' (Angell, 2000;Garnham, 1994Garnham, , 1996Garnham, , 2000Mansell and Silverstone, 1996;Robins and Webster, 1999;Webster, 1995). Most of these accounts acknowledge that even if the technological foundation of our societies is changing and there are many benefits, there are also substantial risks (Mansell and Wehn, 1998).…”

Cultural contradictions of the anytime, anywhere economy: reframing communication technology

“…But as the stories of the telegraph, the radio, the television, the personal computer, and most recently the Internet lay bare, ICTs introduce as many new social ills as they presumably cure (Castells, 2001;Nye, 1997;Webster, 1995). To be sure, technologies can promote global participatory business communities, improved communication flows, cultural self-expression, and social justice but optimistic visions of a magical global communications matrix alone will not get us there (Drucker, 1970(Drucker, , 1985Robins & Webster, 1999). Therefore, we suggest some concrete measures particularly for corporate players that might help socially construct mobile communication technologies in ways that go beyond the desire to make a profit and (also) aim at ameliorating the current technological inequality.…”

“…In essence, then, the act of mediation is the attempt of removing competing or even contradictory meanings from the social and discursive construction of technology, even as it is acknowledged that a complete stability cannot be reached. We argue that the current interpretive instability of anywhere-anytime technologies originates mainly from three (Robins & Webster, 1999, p. 101)cultural contradictions (see Table 1): …”

“…Instead, what should guide the discussion about promises of new information and communication technologies is their potential to address differential and often unequal access to, and control over, information resources (Robins & Webster, 1999 …”

Online Women’s Magazines: Differences in Perceptions between Print and Online Magazines among Female Readers

“…Several studies done in the U.S. (Katz & Rice, 2002), Canada (Pronovost, 2002), and the U.K. (Anderson & Tracey, 2001) also reached the conclusion that Internet users do not differ from non-users in the overall amount of time spent on social activities or in the frequency and time spent on phone calls and visits to relatives and friends. Robins and Webster (1999) also argued that the space of virtual culture is a "space in which distance and its otherness is turned into illusory proximity and spurious affiliation" (p. 248), and that cyber communities are at best pseudo-communities in which bonds are tenuous and temporary and evade all of the commitment and complexity of face-to-face communities.…”