Readings: Kahn & Kellner

Brief Summary
The internet continues to serve as an active and essential space where humans can share and spread the ideas of things such as identity, culture, and social practices. With plenty of benefits, the internet seems to be the optimum tool for communication; however, it is said that the info-tech has been shown to retard face-to-face relationships, threaten traditional conceptions, and extend structures of Western imperialism and advanced capitalism. We can say that there are a number of conflicts that can be created with over-dependency on the virtual world of communication. These include a number of political issues of access to information, capitalist globalization, imperialist war, and other forms of oppression. The article gives several examples in order to explain these issues: the terrorist attacks of September 11, Bush administration and its doctrine of preemptive war, blog and wikis (and so called “google bombing”) and so on.

Reaction
I had never heard of “google bombing” and I was shocked to read that such a method could be used by bloggers. This is the thing with the internet: we need to remember that it is merely a machine and a piece of technology.