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Normunds Kozlovs
Sociologist. Currently he is working on the research on emerging media
culture in Latvia.
Emerging New Media culture in Latvia:
prospects for democratisation of society.
Main Hypothesis is new media plays crucial role in the hands of
contra-culture movements making the final shift
towards democratization of
post-totalitarian society within one generation span of undisturbed
welfare growth development. Current situation in Latvia in comparison to
western Europe years 1945-1968 is similar. The state
structures then and there as well as now and here
are dominated by the same generation collaborative to the totalitarian
regimes in the past and
converted to free market material wealth ideals now. At the same
time there is going on rapid modernization of
society although often leaving huge
social segments excluded. That is process of
segregation into information
rich and information poor. Still there are prospects
provided for open society from the side of young
media culture in Latvia.
Concerning the social implications of modernization of society and
technological
development we should take into account 2 aspects:
the static and dynamic,
i.e. the function(s)
(the open and latent ones) of technological innovation
within the social system versus the capacity of
technological innovation to bring about social change namely the new form
of social interaction mediation.
However in order to highlight the potential of social change
within new media we need to look upon both aspects.
Apart of open- function (i.e.comfort increasing) of
technological innovation there is the latent
function to maintain the social status quo. That is the
simulation of change. Basically the potential of
social change lies out of
conventional and prescribed uses of technological innovation.
Un-governability of innovation far
reaching consequences led in the case of Soviet
planned economy towards traditionalism
of mass consumption patterns strengthened by forced
collectivization and annihilation of individual
differences. In the case of
Latvian society there is special pre-caution regarding any
innovations. It contributed to the cultural
resistance against the Moscow
planned modernization policies in the region.
Besides there was main cultural
threat as annihilation of Latvian language from the Russian
language environment then and from English
lingvironment of technological
modernization of society nowadays. The specific question
is different reactions of different age groups or
other way stratified groups
on the technologically undermined social change.
There is domestication of (military by origin)
technology- bringing it to the global mass production
and consumption circle within the societies of
economic growth. This stage of technological development and its social
implications is worth to
analyze in the Latvia context of traditionalism and modernization as
well as Russian and Latvian population ability to
cope with innovation. At
the end of this circle new technological sub-cultures are emerging
and de-constructing the consuming (for comfort) and
corporate (for profit)
ways of use of new technology. These sub-cultures are providing
new and active alternatives for technology use. As
these technologies are
converted from military to public use they are already kind of old
or junky. In a sense de-construction of them could
be named savagesation as
subversion of domestication. This process is on the core of our
interest.
The respective sub-cultures are
post-civil societies that are rooted in urbanized
lifestyles of cities from one hand and from other hand as communal or
tribal social entities dependant
on specific communication forms and solidarity. We define them
through the marginal position on the outskirts of
highways of resources: power
(administration), knowledge (education), money (market),
structural involvement in these sub-systems
(organizational resources occupied
by the bureaucracy of non-governmental organizations).
Examples of sub-cultures: graffiti
"writers", radio pirates, hackers,
zines publishers, underground film producers, vinyl
record DJ groups and garage
music scenes (more and more computerized and digitized), video
and TV installation artists, web-masters,
net-activists, etc.
From the commonwealth positions it is essential concerning
the margined persons: to provide the lacking
resources in order to prevent
exclusion and facilitate the growth of creative youth
sub-cultures as
well as prevent the spread of destructive
sub-cultures (namely criminal
and drug cultures). The last ones are threatening
and disturbing integration
of society and welfare growth. Besides these trends lead
directly to strengthening of coercive and
authoritarian administration style
widely supported and legitimized by civil society that feels
insecure. In this case contra-cultures would be
outlawed as threatening and
excluded out of civil society public sphere as well. The potential
of new media for public participation increase and
democratization could
be lost.
After reaching certain
level of welfare new social movement confronts the very basis
of stagnated, non-flexible and non-open
institutional set-ups. That was
idealist generation proposing post-material quality
of life values instead
of material wealth in west. There were strong demand to look
upon structural continuity of this post-totalitarian
transition and authoritarian
style of governance and administration methods in all
institutional spheres. Civil resistance and public
participation in decision making movement is always new media mediated,
decentralized (gaining
nowadays broader influence via Internet), active user/participant instead
of consumer
orientated, much more inter-active in comparison to mass media
linked mainstream popular culture and entertainment
industries.
Therefore new media and
its use for civil initiatives is crucial for the democratization of
post-totalitarian society and prospects of new media
culture impact on policies
concerning public access of information and
communication freedom.
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