“Outward appearance as distinct from less obvious aspects”

In a world where information moves at a flicker of a screen or a click of a cursor (you might’ve thought that I was going to say a button). A world where relationships relies more on mediating utilities than real time interaction. A world ruptured by the freedom of the dawn of the internet. We are not talking about fixed bodies or entities for all is in a flux.

In this new world that has opened up before us communication devices has presented an anomaly in terms of our relationships as a species. Relationships at their basis defines and calls into order our place in the family and at a global level, they give us an indication of our place in the social structure. However at the hands of these new technologies our relationships’ nature, with regard to those outside of our immediate family structure, has been reassigned temporality. It is not necessary to keep in touch physically at all times the cell-phone and email is available to be carriers of messages. What with the new speedy, inexpensive ultra communication devices that are platformed and powered by the internet with the only fuel needed for them being megabytes, we find our selves in a semi-virtual world.

Now, if in the past it was the pamphleteer who circulated liberal ideas or fundamentalism apropos to what they strongly believed in, today it is the collective of ordinary and the not so ordinary people who contributes, appropriates, articulates and circulates ideas via the net as humanity grapples with what is going on around them socio-politico-globally parallel to the immediate phenomena. And with more and more accessibility of these technological devices more virtual interaction is inevitable.  Some scribes, writing for established newspapers, has shunned these new utilities as they somehow poses a threat to a forte long been the reserve of a few – reportage. The merits and ethics of reportage are under question.

The statement that ‘everyone is entitled to their own opinion’ has become a reality on an unimaginable scale. You only need to cast your eyes at the tremor if not a vortex that social media has created North Africa and the Middle East to appreciate the present meditation.

Notes

1. See the piece enttiled Icon which takes issues further.

15 February

Mmutle Arthur Kgokong © 2011