Does Technology Affect Our Society?

I was watching the news, when the footage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster came on. The news reporters were showing a black man walking in flooded waters near a market with a bag full of food and labeled him a “thief”. Social media in the United States has portrayed people of different racial backgrounds differently and unequally in recent years. In the essays “Theories and Constructs of Race” and “Loot or Find: Fact or Frame?” the authors discuss in both essays about issues with racial equality in our world today. Authors Linda Holtzman and Leon Sharpe discuss in the first essay racial schemes are created through prejudices and the telling and retelling of stories. While, authors Cheryl I. Harris and Devon W. Carbado discuss in their essay about the issue of “colorblindness” in social media. Holtzman is a professor of communications and journalism at Webster University, while Sharpe is a professor at Webster as well. Similarly, Harris and Carbado are professors at UCLA’s School of Law and have addressed widely on race, gender, civil rights and constitutional issues. Both essays do a good job at explaining their ideas and supporting them with evidence of racial discrimination in our world today. The authors from both essays organize their ideas and summarize them, which helps understand the main idea of racism, discrimination and racial inequalities in today’s society.

As People Rely More And More On Technology To Solve Problems, The Ability Of Humans To Think For Themselves Will Surely Deteriorate

Another problem society has is how the media portrays certain groups and the negative effects it has on discrimination in America. For example, in many instances the only time many Americans receive information on racial groups like Muslims or Indian people is when one or a small group has commented an act of terrorism. This tends to influence

In many ways technology makes access to academic work, research and employment easier and faster. However, I am concerned that technology is too often chosen over humanity. Historically,representations of African Americans in technological media tend to value "white" bodies at the expense of Black bodies (Stam and Spence, 1983). Further, recent studies show (Zickmund 2000), in fact, the ways in which some World Wide Web sites make it easier for hate groups to spread their misinformation, contributing to the devaluation of black bodies in technological media. Together, these media representations can be understood in terms of a digital devide between technological "haves" and

One could blame our ever-evolving social media and entertainment outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat for this process which all subjugate users to some implemented form of ranking/popularity system. But to understand the situation in order to change it, we first need tools that help us interpret how racism and discrimination are planted

University of Michigan professor, Lisa Nakamura’s work entitled Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet examines how different races are represented online. The Internet, according to Nakamura, is a place where ‘race happens’ (p.xi), and the stereotypes that are found on/offline define Cybertypes. These Cybertypes lay out the unique ways in which the Internet ‘propagates, disseminates, and commodifies images of race and racism’ (p.3)

With the popularization and expansion of the internet in recent years, America and other Western countries have found themselves developing into media-dominated cultures. Social media platforms, forums, and other types of online interaction are becoming primary forms of communication between people with similar or differing views, bringing political topics into daily discussion. However, the implications of such a broad and unrestrained network lead to negative outcomes. Whether it be in the form of a direct slur used on Twitter or a slight jab in a discussion board, the ongoing presence of racism on the internet cannot be denied. Although some forms may appear more indirectly, the effects are not diminished; implicit forms of racism are just as impactful as direct attacks. This paper argues that the internet serves as a carrier of racism by allowing racism to thrive through forms of racial microaggressions and cloaked websites. Toward the end of the essay, possible solutions for this issue will be discussed as well.

Media can play a huge part placing stereotypes on the cultural. According to the bicultural theory in our text (Mandell B, 2012) people are socialized into their minority culture through family and ethnic community, they are also influenced by the dominant culture through social institutional and the mass media. The social media places stereotypes by writing articles and posting hearsay about groups or individuals, which leads institutional racism, and discrimination. Institutional racism is according to (Randle, 2011) any policies, practices, and procedures of institutions that have a disproportionately negative effect on racial minorities’ access to and quality of goods, services, and opportunities. Interinstitutional racism can either be deliberately or indirectly, against certain groups of people to limit their rights. Discrimination is basically favoring a person or thing solely based on the group, class, or category to which they

Nowadays with all the new media and technologies, it seems like that we are living in the future. A future without racial and gender struggles. A common belief about the new media is that we will become truly equal with the help of new media, but some people still do racist and sexist things in new media. As Lisa Nakamura states in her essay that “Racism and sexism have continue to flourish on the internet, and indeed to some extents have even come to define it , despite our supposedly ‘post racial’ historical moment” (81), I believe that new media is not the solution of the issues of race ,gender and sexuality, but reinforcement of the ideologies behind those problems.

Techno-optimist or techno-pessimist? That is the question. Technology throughout time has no doubt changed our way of life. Travelling to destinations quicker, curing new diseases, or figuring out how to cease a wide famine are examples of how technology has made advances over time. The solutions that scientists create spark a tool that others cannot live without. But what if these technologies bring out negative effects rather than their desired purpose? Sometimes, innovators create new inventions that bring unintended consequences. It could range from less communication face to face, side effects from new medicines, or pollute the earth’s atmosphere.

What was more frightening than any cyber adversary was my realization that the greater share of my peers had not yet discovered the transformative power of technology. While frequenting tech events in my city, I became aware that there were very few faces of a familiar dark complexion. If technology was the most powerful tool for effecting change in today’s digital age, how could marginalized communities bring about change on pertinent issues if they had so few members engaged in tech? Just as I was gifted a love for technology, I felt that it was my responsibility to recreate that gift for

Many claim that the majority of the United States’ population depend on the internet for numerous reasons. With the end of Net Neutrality, comes the compromise of that dependency. “The consequences will be particularly devastating for marginalized communities media outlets have misrepresented or failed to serve” stated by Free Press. Minority groups such as the LGBTQ community, People of color and Indigenous groups use the internet as a vital tool in fighting back against systemic discrimination (Press, Free. “Net). Net Neutrality is also crucial for local businesses, startups and entrepreneurs who depend on an open internet to advertise their businesses. Some states are passing specific laws that would ensure individuals would have access to free content, protect businesses from having to pay in order to reach online users while also protecting diversity (Kang, Cecilia. “States). Net Neutrality supporters claim that the attempts to protect the system is to ensure that everyone has free and equal rights to the

Primarily, user-generated content and social media fostered a participatory culture that expanded the boundaries of the distribution of information. The social networks that were created to manage the influx of information being published subsequently fostered virtual environments that allowed for growth in communities that were grouped by shared interests. It is exactly this type of virtual environment in which Black Twitter was created. Due to Black Twitter primarily focusing on issues that affect the African American population, I move on to discuss the perceptions and realities of American techno culture and race relations in the 21st century. On the surface as a byproduct, primary online activity within America has distributed Western ideals onto those that they perceive to be less fortunate. The less fortunate are those that are perceived to deviate from the cultural norms of the United States. However research and evidence has surfaced to substantiate that the virtual world, in particular social media has higher usage and engagement amongst ethnic minorities, in particular Black people. This is partially due to the ease of access that development of mobile technology has provided. Through twitter, Black Users have built a substantial and political network of influence through cultural signifiers, language and creatively exploiting the tools and features

Technological advances have certainly entered this era to facilitate people’s lives. There is no doubt that some new technology has been created to help operate or effectively manage time in a way that would be beneficial to humans. Technology significantly helps a number of people. A group that greatly benefits with the advances of technology is teenagers. Teens constantly use computers for schoolwork, networking, or knowing anything they want to know with a simple use of their fingertips. Furthermore, with the advances it is no longer needed to leave the household to run an errand such as going out to pay a bill or do some shopping. As technology advances and enters the life of mostly all humans many begin to question how healthy these technological advances truly are. A couple of decades ago kids spent their time outside playing with their friends by the same token with items that did not require the use of electricity. Kids and adolescents would dedicate at least a part of their day to reading books and gaining knowledge from there instead of social media. Distinctively today’s adolescents instead of reading books will go on the internet for a summary and inform themselves in less than 5 minutes, spent their time inside playing video games or on their cellphones allowing technology to be the only thing they know and rely on to have fun or be informed. Moreover, this guides us to the points Ray Bradbury makes in his novel Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury touches on several

Technology is a way that all six billion people in the world can communicate with each other. We can follow people from all over the world on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and many more social media sites. Technology gives us ways to communicate with celebrities, your child that you recently sent off to college or the world, and your friends and family who live in different states than you. Technology in video games allows us to play in multiplayer mode with our friends, while being at our own houses. New advantages with technology is that we can text, call, and use the internet all on one device. Also, technology plays a great role in the medical field. I do not think technology isolates us from society, I think that technology connects us with one another in a unique way.