The tool is not the Tool, but is the sum of the Tools.

Look, I know analysing Television Pop Culture has taken a back seat to analysing Cyber culture, but I've never been one for following trends per say.

And it seems to me that although the technology changes, the arguments don't change as much as we'd like to imagine. It's true that the Internet has opened up that whole 'democratisation of media' debate, and this holds massive implications for the societal structure through new technology, but now it seems to be narrowing again to focus on the dominant elite who always seem to end up monopolizing any new technologcal advance and manipulating it to conform to their own desires.

The Internet is the new battleground, so here I am in true form, acknowledging its uniqueness in allowing almost anybody in a wealthy country to have a voice by exercising my own. But is it really as democratic as we like to believe? Or are the boundaries of the fight between feudal lord and peasant only moving into a global arena as global politics and economics shape the world into one massive village? After all, 649 million people in the 15+ age bracket use the Internet worldwide. That's only 14 percent of people in that age group. (If my interpretation of ComScore Networks stats are right. If you know better I'd be pleased too know about it.) Those people who don't have Internet access are invalid members of global society because they do not constitute consummer power. And those are of course, the poor.

We've seen it all before in many forms. The Victorian ruling class, who found that the loss of religion in mass due to the rise of science and social change, were losing that particular form of control and so employed the use of Literature as a new medium for creating a new social cement.
More recently television has been the chosen form of dominant control over the masses.The big debate today is whether or not the nature of the Internet will ever really allow full dominant control by the priveleged again.

I think we often underestimate the ability of human beings to critique their own culture, particularly when what is in their best collective and personal interest is being challenged and undermined by the establishment. But we also underestimate the determination and lack of social conscience that lives in the minds of the kind of people who feel compelled to rule over others for one reason or another.

So to me, the problem is not within the medium, but within the hearts and minds of our fellow humans. The revolution should not be a technological one, but a social, philosophical and cultural one designed to alter the way humans regard one another. Technology is only a tool and is impartial. It's the people who utilise it that are the problem.

My partner and I are always having an endless debate over this, and no matter how much I despise either the innane rubbish they broadcast on television, or the blatant attempts at force feeding dominant ideologies down my throat, I still can't get enough of television and find myself defending it over and over again.

The idea of creating stories and relaying messages through moving pictures and sound is fantastical and brilliant! Despite the fact it was invented well over 80 years ago, I'm still not over it. It probably has something to do with the fact that my childhood home didn't get a television set until I was nine years old, and then it was only a black and white one, and even then, all television shows that weren't on the ABC, most especially Dallas and Prisoner, were not allowed.

So I want to say, Television I still love you! I just disrespect the 'Tools' that are your Master.

(Definition of a Tool: http://toolshed.down.net/bio/tooldef.html )

I know people who still don't even have a computer, let alone the Internet. I know people who have it, but are frightened to use it and tap away on it with trepidation. I know Luddites and full blown nternet Junkies. But every single one of them still has a television, and every single one of them watches it...

Let the fun begin!