Pramod Nayar teaches with the English department at the University of Hyderabad in India. He has written several books, many of which pertain to the internet and internet culture. In an excerpt from An Introduction to Cybercultures and New Media, Nayar delves into the cyberworld and analyzes the demographics of cybercultures. He explains that there is more than one cyberculture, and that each cyberculture has its own identity and cultural politics. According to Nayar, cybercultures can be divided in three main ways, global divide, social divide, and democratic divide. A global divide looks at the use of the Internet based on developed or undeveloped nations. Developed nations have a greater access to the internet and cyber realms than people in developing nations. For this reason, the cybercultures that exist focus on conditions that relate to developed worlds such as online voting, online shopping, online networking, and an information society. A social divide is the division of internet access and use within social groups of a society. And democratic divide refers to the use of the internet for different things between all people who use the internet. Here Nayar explains the significance of studying cyberculture and what it entails:
Cyberculture studies explores the impact, consequence, context, and manifestations of computer technology and ICTs on the social, cultural, economic, and material (i.e., fleshly) conditions of real bodies, and examines the shifts in the nature of living for material bodies via ICTs and new media.
I learned the importance of looking at the relationship of social and cultural values on the internet and how society’s values are reflected in technology and vice-a-versa. Nayar explains that culture and technology must be looked at together because they are permanently linked. Technology reflects the societal values, while at the same time the values of society influence the ways technology grows and develops.
We live in an information society that has caused rapid globalization with the invention of the internet. For many people in my generation, the internet has always been around. However, in reality the internet is a relatively new invention and as it continues to develop and change it is important to take some time to analyze the impact it has on our lives. Nayar makes an excellent point in explaining the boundaries and social divides that exist on the internet. This is something that is often overlooked when using the internet, but it may have a greater impact on us than we realize. For more information on the impact the social divide on the internet can have on communities check out this link!