IT in Education: Sociological Perspective
The Development of IT & Its Cultural Consequences:
The Rise of the
Postmodern & Internet Cultures
Wing-kwong Tsang
Ho Tim Bldg. Room 416; Ext. 6922;
wktsang@cuhk.edu.hk; www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~wktsang
The Development of IT and the
Constitution of Post-traditional Society
Conceptions of culture
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Clifford Geertz’s conception: “The concept of
culture I espouse …is essentially a semiotic one.
Believing …that man is an animal suspended in
webs of significance he himself has spun. I take
culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be
therefore not an experimental science in search of
law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.”
(Geertz, 1994, p. 214)
Constitution of Post-traditional Society
Conceptions of culture
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Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s conception
of culture as the symbolic universe of a society:
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By symbolic universes, Berger and Luckmann mean
"bodies of theoretical tradition that integrate different
provinces of meaning and encompass the
institutional order in a symbolic totality." (1967, p. 113)
"The symbolic universe is conceived of as the matrix
of all socially objectivated and subjectively real
meanings; the entire historic society and the entire
biography of the individual are seen as events taking
place within this universe." (p.114)
Constitution of Post-traditional Society
Explaining culture:
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To sum up, the concept of culture refers to a system of
meanings, a semiotic web, or a symbolic universe, which
informs, legitimatizes and integrates the “whole way of life”
of a given people.
By legitimation, it refers to the motives and reasons for
members of the group to voluntarily obey and
spontaneously observe the prevailing way of life is that they
genuinely believe in the meaningfulness and values of their
conformity. This legitimation basis can further be
differentiated into:
Constitution of Post-traditional Society
Explaining culture:
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Cognitive validity: It refers to knowledge systems
accumulated in a culture, which provide valid explanations
to why we have to comply with the prevailing way of life. One
of the most prominent cognitive validity in modern culture is
the scientific-technological knowledge and most recently the
IT knowledge.
Normative dignity: It refers to the norms and values
accumulated in a culture, which offer normative justification
why we have to conform to a particular way of life. One of
the significant normative bases in human culture is religious
believes.
Constitution of Post-traditional Society
Issues of symbolic-universe maintenance under
globalization
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Globalization entails compression of two essential
constituents of culture, i.e. time and place, or history and
geography of a society/nation
“A major occasion for the development of universemaintaining conceptualization arises when a society is
confronted with another society having greatly different history.
The problem posed by such a confrontation is typically
sharper than that posed by intra-societal heresies because
here there is an alternative symbolic universe with an ‘official’
tradition whose taken-for-granted objectivity is equal to one’s
own.” (Berger and Luckmann, 1976, 125)
Therefore, the legitimation basis of a culture undergoes
multilateral threats as it comes to contact with other cultures in
the global-informational age
Constitution of Post-traditional Society
Detradionalization and the rise of posttraditional society
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“A post-tradition social order…is not one in which
tradition disappears - far from it. It is one in which
tradition changes its status. Traditions have to
explain themselves, to become open to
interrogation or discourse. … In a globalizing,
culturally cosmopolitan society, traditions become
forced into open view: reasons or justifications
have to be offered for them.” (Giddens, 1994, p.23)
Constitution of Post-traditional Society
Detradionalization and the rise of post-traditional
society
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The proliferation of fundamentalism in global-informational
age:
"The rise of fundamentalism has to be seen against the
backdrop of the emergence of the post-traditional society. …
What is fundamentalism? It is, so I shall argue, nothing other
than tradition defended in the tradition way - but where that
mode of defence has become widely called into question. …
In a globally cosmopolitan order … such a defence become
dangerous, because essentially it is a refusal of dialogue."
(Giddens, 1994, p.23)
An explanation of the September 11 incidence: Terrorism in
post-traditional and global societies
Cultural logic of late capitalism and
information society
Production of information and knowledge replacing
production of manufacturing goods, especially heavy
industrial goods, as the core of productivity enhancement
and wealth accumulation in the economy
The rise of mass production, mass distribution, mass
consumption, and mass communication
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Mass communication by means of publication of books and
newspapers in the 19th century
Mass communication by means of radio in early 20th century
Mass communication by means of movie industry since 1930s
century
Mass communication by means of television since 1960s
Mass communication by means of Computer Mediated
Communication (CMC)
Cultural logic of late capitalism
Commodification in capitalism
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Accelerations of the commoditfication cycle:
MCPC’M’, i.e. Money capital  Commodity (i.e.
labor and the means of production)  Production 
Commodity (products)  Money
The separation of use value and exchange value in
production
Commodification can then be defined as a process of
replacement of use value by exchange use as the primary
objective in human production
The consequence of commodification is the elicitation of
the phenonmana of reification and alienation
Cultural logic of late capitalism
The commodification of culture and information
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The use value of cultural products: Communicative
values and meaningfulness
The exchange value of cultural products: Marketability
and saleability of cultural products
Reifying cultural meaningfulness embedded in cultural
products into cultural commodities and regressing
culture production and creation into cultural industries
and cultural mass-production
Culture of signifiers of “referent depth” was replaced by
self-referencing and free-floating signifiers, information,
data, icon….
Cultural logic of late capitalism
The commodification of culture and information
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Empirically and objectively existing reality replaced by
hyper-reality and virtual reality
The proliferation of simulacra and the coming of the
culture of simulacra
Cultural logic of late capitalism
The commodification of culture and information
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Empirically and objectively existing reality replaced by
hyper-reality and virtual reality
The proliferation of simulacra and the coming of the
culture of simulacra
The culture of heritage and tradition was replaced by
culture of pastiche and hybrid
The culture of places was first commodified as propertydevelopment projects and then re-commodified as the
culture of flow of global icons, theme parks, UNIESCO
Cultural Heritage, etc.
The Rise of the Culture of Consummerism
Retreat of culture of production and spirit of capitalism:
Culture of asceticism, endurance, industrious,
enterprising and investment
Constituents of culture of consumerism
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Hedonism: Consumption as desire-satisfaction was replaced by
consumption as desire-creation. “Desire does not desire
satisfaction. To the contrary, desire desires desire." (Bauman,
1998, p. 25)
Ephemeralism: "Consumer goods are meant to be used up and
to disappear; the idea of temporariness and transitoriness is
intrinsic to their very denomination as objects of consumption"
(Bauman, 1998, P.28)
The Rise of the Culture of Consummerism
Constituents of culture of consumerism
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Instantaneousness: "Ideally, the consumer's satisfaction ought
to be instant, and this in a double sense. Consumed goods
should bring satisfaction immediately, requiring no delay, no
protracted learning of skills and no lengthy groundwork; but the
satisfaction should end the moment the time needed for their
consumption is up, and that time ought to be reduced to a bare
minimum." (Bauman, 1998, p. 25)
Fetishism: From consumption of commodity to collection of
commodity; from consumption as act of desire-satisfaction to
consumption (or possession) as identification of status and life
style
The Rise of the Culture of Consummerism
Global consumerism as “common culture” of globally
mobile psyche
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The common consumption conditions of the globally
mobile psyche
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Hoilday-Inn-ization
Starbucks-ization
MacDonold-ization
Nike-ization
Hollywood-ization
Disneyland-ization
….
Identities based on space of places, such as nation, are
replaced by space of flows of mechanizes and
“commercialized life style”
The Culture of the Internet
The techno-meritocratic culture: Legitimacy and
supremacy of technological merits and achievements
within the egalitarian peer-review system
The hacker culture:
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“A shared belief in the power of computer networking, and a
determination to keep this technological power as a common
goods - at least for the community of hackers.” (Castells, 2001,
p. 52)
The hackers believe that they should and could “build their
social autonomy on the Internet, fighting to preserve their
freedom against the intrusion of the powers that is, including
corporate media takeover of their Internet service providers,”
(ibid, p. 51), i.e. fight for people’s “right to encrypt” against the
government and “right to decrypt” against corporations.
The Culture of the Internet
The hacker culture:
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Virtual communitarians: “While the communitarian source of the
Internet culture is highly diverse in its contents, it does specify
the Internet as a technological medium for horizontal (equal and
undistorted) communication, as a new form of free speech. It also
lays the foundation for self-directed networking as a tool for
organization, collective action, and the construction of meaning.”
(ibid, p.55)
Entrepreneurs: “The realization of the potential of transforming
mind power into money-making became the cornerstone of the
entrepreneurial culture in Silicon Valley and the Internet industry
at large. … Internet entrepreneurs sell the future because they
believe they can make it. They rely on their know-how to create
products and processes that they are convinced will conquer the
market.” (ibid, Pp.56-57) Hence, stock option and venture capital
are two primary constituents in Internet industry.
The Culture of the Internet
The Hacker ethics

Linus’s Law:
“Linus’s law says that all of our motivations fall into three
basic categories. … The categories, in order, are ‘survival,’
‘social life,’ and ‘entertainment’. (Torvalds, 2001, p.xiv)
“A ‘hacker’ is a person who gone past using his computer for
survival (‘I bring home the bread by programming’) to the next
two stage. He (or, in theory but all too seldom in practice) uses
the computer for his social ties – e-mail and Net are great ways
to have a community. But to the hacker a computer is also
entertainment. Not the games, not the pretty pictures on the
Net. The computer itself is entertainment.” (ibid, p.xvii)
The Culture of the Internet
The Hacker ethics
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Hackers’ work ethic
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“For the hacker, ‘the computer itself is entertainment,’ meaning
that the hacker programs because he finds programming
intrinsically interesting, exciting, and joyous.” (Himanen, 2001, p.3)
From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism to Hacker
Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age: Sundayization of
Friday
Nethic (network ethic):
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Freedom of speech: Decrypt against government censorship and
corporation monopoly
Privacy: Encrypt against government and corporation
surveillance and profiling
Self-directed activity
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
The focus of the debate: As IT spread in the 1980s and
facilitated the process of globalization, the cultural
consequences of these processes have triggered heated
debates among social researchers. These debates can
broadly be classified, according to George Ritzer (2007),
into grobalization theory and glocalization theory.
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
The grobalization theory: It refers to theoretical
perspectives and research orientations which “focus on
the imperialistic ambitions of nations, corporation,
organizations, and the like and their desire, indeed need,
to impose themselves on various geographic areas. The
main interest of the entities involved in grobalziation is
in seeing their power, influence, and many cases profits
grow (hence the term grobalization) throughout the
world. Grobalization involves a variety of subprocesses
― Americanization and McDonaldization, as well as
capitalism.” (Ritzer, 2007, Pp. 15-16)
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
The grobalization theory:

Capitalism: As expounded in Lecture Three, capitalism as
a modern institution, primarily aims for profit growth or
even maximization. Therefore, as Ritzer underlines “no
force has contributed more to globalization in general, and
grobalization in particular, both historically and especially
today, than capitalism. As Marx fully understood over a
century ago, capitalist firms must continue to expand or
they will die, and when possibilities for high profits within
a given nation decline, capitalistic businesses are forced
to seek profits in other nations.” (Ritzer, 2007, P. 21)
Therefore, as Sklair (2002) characterizes, multinationality
and mulitinationalism are the definitive nature of
capitalism.
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory

McDonaldization: The term was made popular by
George Ritzer in his widely-quoted book The
McDonaldization of Society in 1993. The book has its 6th
edition published in 2011.

McDonaldization refers to “the process by which the
principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to
dominante more and more sectors of American society
and an increasing number of other societies throughout
the world. It fits under the heading of grobalization
because it involves the growing power of this form and its
increasing influence throughout the world.” (Ritzer, 2007,
P. 24)
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
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McDonaldization:
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Ritzer has identified five principles underlying the
operations and expansion of McDonald. They are
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Efficiency: The whole operation of McDonald is structured
under the principle of efficiency for providing cheap and fast
food, i.e. maximization of profit.
Predictability: The second principle underlining the operation
of the business is predictability. It provides predictably
standardized and mediocre food.
Calculability: The whole business operation is therefore run
on universally calculable formula in disregard of locality,
temporality, and personality. It is calculable for its operators
and customer in terms of universal quantity rather than
particularistic quality of the service.
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
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McDonaldization:

Ritzer has identified five principles underlying the
operations and expansion of McDonald. They are ….
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Nonhuman technology: To achieve these principles, the
whole operation must be engineered into a mechanical
assembly-line. On the part of its workers, all are robots
operated in pre-designed motions, while the customers are
materials moving along the assembly-line to be fed with
standardized food.
Dehumanization: Taken together, this operational design of
instrumental rationality has been alienated totally into an
irrational and dehumanized system, in which both its
employees and customers are reified into “things”.
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
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Americanization: It refers to the phenomenon of “the
propagation of American ideas, customs, social
patterns, industry and capital around the world. It is a
powerful unidirectional process stemming from the
United States that tends to overwhelm competing
processes as well as the strength of local forces that
might resist, modify, or transform American models into
hybrid forms. …It can be subsumed under the heading
of globalization because it involves a commitment to the
growth in American influence in all realms throughout
the world.” (Ritizer, 2007, P. 27)
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
The glocalization theory: Contrast to the grobalization
theory, the glocalization theory focuses on the divergent
rather than the convergent aspects of the cultural
consequences of globalization. It “emphasizes the
mixing of cultures as a result of globalization and the
production, out of integration of the global and the local,
of new and unique hybrid cultures that are not reducible
to either the local and the global culture. Roland
Robertson has coined the concept glocalization to
signify this phenomenon of cultural hybridization. By
glocalization, it refers to “the interpenetration of the
global and the local, resulting in unique outcomes in
different geographic areas.” (Ritzer, 2007, P. 13)
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
The glocalization theory: …
The glocalization theory underlines the following
cultural phenomena as the essential features of
glocalization. (Ritizer, 2007, P. 13)
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“The world is growing more pluralistic. Glocalization theory is
exceptionally sensitive to differences within and between areas
of the world.
Individuals and local groups have great power to adapt,
innovate, and maneuver within a glocalized world. Glocalization
theory sees local individuals and groups as important and
creative agents.
Debate between Grobalization Theory
and Glocalization Theory
The glocalization theory: …
The glocalization theory underlines the following
cultural phenomena as the essential features of
glocalization. ….
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Social processes are relational and contingent. Globalization
provokes a variety of reactions ― ranging from nationalist
entrenchment to cosmopolitan embrace ― that feed back on the
transform globalization; that produces glocalization.
Commodities and the media are not seen as (totally) coercive
but rather as providing materials to be used in individual and
group creation throughout the glocalization areas of the world.”
George Ritzer has juxtaposed the two theoretical
perspectives as follow
Maneul Castells’ Conception of
Culture in the Internet Society
“Society are culture constructs. In understand culture
as the values and beliefs that inform, guide, and
motivate people’s behavior. So, if there is a specific
network society, there should be a culture of the
network society that we can identity as its historical
marker.” (Castells, 2009, p. 36)
Maneul Castells’ Conception of
Culture in the Internet Society
“Accordingly, “The common cultural of the global
network society is a cultural of protocols of
communication between different cultures on the basis
not of shared values but of the sharing of value of
communication. This is to say: the new culture is not
made of content but process, as the constitutional
democratic culture is based on procedure, not on
substantive programs. Global culture is a culture of
communication for the sake of communication.”
(Castells, 2009, P. 38)
The Development of IT &
the Rise of the Postmodern & Internet Cultures
END