Week 3 Commentary
Simply put, the internet has become essential to life in a modern, urban society. Although it is not as fundamental a need as food, water and shelter our reliance on being able to interact with the world through our fingertips cannot be understated. This can perhaps best be seen in Australia’s situation. We are a highly modernized society with an exceptionally high rate of urban living and yet out modern communication infrastructure does not reflect this. In terms of media ecology we consider the NBN. A nationwide project that was meant to upgrade our entire media infrastructure, which in turn would have resulted in a “transformation of the Australian’s media ecologies at all levels” and launch us into the 21st century, theoretically enabling a system that works in unison with the modern cultural environment (Wilken, 2013). This has sadly not been the case for all. Faulty rollout in Brunswick, one of Melbourne’s busiest suburbs has been subpar not to mention the destitute state that regional Australia will have to suffer through for years to come. There was an enormous growth in mobile infrastructure in the early 2010s that Australia should have been a part of and was simply not (Choudrie, Middleton, 2013). This has, and will continue to create a situation where the technological divide within a nation will continue to grow and will become a critical issue unless it is resolved.
As more and more resources become ‘online only’ there will come a time when a community that is technologically challenged by the standards of the time will be left in a dark in world that has outpaced them but has not given them the chance to catch up and in doing so denies them what will become a resource that is essential to life in a the modern world. Keven Ashton said that “information is nothing but things are what we really need” (Ashton, 2010). A quote that is seemingly becoming less true as time passes. Without access to this information, we cannot hope to have things.
REFERENCES
Arnold, M., Nansen, B., Gibbs, M., Kennedy, J., & Wilken R. 2013. ‘National, Local and Household Media Ecologies: The Case of Australia’s National Broadband Network’. Communication, Politics & Culture. Vol. 46, pp. 136–154
Ashton, K., 2010. ‘The ‘Internet of things’ thing’. RFID Journal. Online: https://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?4986
Choudrie, Jyoti. Middleton, Catherine. 2013. ‘Management of Broadband Technology and Innovation’. ISBN: 9781135014766