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The Global Politics of Science and Technology - Vol. 2 pp 271–286Cite as

The Power of Large-Scale Interactions Through Information Technologies and Changes in Cultural Identity Politics

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Part of the book series: Global Power Shift ((GLOBAL))

Abstract

Large-scale and dense communicative interactions among multiple actors are creating new and shared understandings in global politics that require re-conceptualizing power. The existing ‘instrumental’ conceptions of power explain the constraining or expanding influence of technologies on global actors, but underestimate the role of communication in these politics. However, information and communication technologies are both products of human agency to communicate and, in turn, intensify these communications. The current debates on cultural identity are taken as an exemplar of the new meanings that arise in global politics as a result of the intense and large-scale communicative interactions. National identity is not replaced but supplemented with other forms of cultural identity in a networked world. The concept of meta-power captures the emergence of these new meanings that information and communication technologies facilitate.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    One Facebook data analysis in November 2011 examined 721 million users with 69 billion friendships among them to find that there were only three to four degrees of separation—or “hops” among users—for most people (Backstrom, November 21, 2011).

  2. 2.

    The rise of cultural identity politics in the last few decades can be understood both as a new issue in global politics with new global actors who now make cultural identity claims.

  3. 3.

    In his seminal monograph, Anderson (1983) shows how information technologies of a prior era, namely the printing press, enabled the formation of the European nation-state around linguistic lines as printing proliferated in the vernacular, rather than Latin.

  4. 4.

    Sociological understandings of power can be traced back to Weber and Durkheim and elaborated in current contexts through Foucault and Bourdieu.

  5. 5.

    See, creative commons at http://creativecommons.org/ and Wikipedia at http://www.wikipedia.org/. Accessed October 2, 2013.

  6. 6.

    International relations scholarship concerned with the links between arts and entertainment and cultural identity includes Der Derian (1990), Goff (2007), and Sylvester (2009).

  7. 7.

    INCD was initially created and funded by the Canadian government. Its “Who We Are” website outlines the role for government in statements such as the following: “Governments have a right and responsibility to create policies which nurture domestic artists and develop the creative capacity and cultural industries of their societies, and not have them eroded by trade and investment agreements.” http://www.incd.net/about.html accessed September 20, 2013.

  8. 8.

    Please see Singh (2013b) on ways to think about cultural hybridity and identities in mediated forms.

  9. 9.

    Benhabib shows how rights of immigrants have developed at the European Union level through successive deliberations even as their membership in the political community of nation-state remains incomplete.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    J. P. Singh

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  1. J. P. Singh
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Correspondence to J. P. Singh .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bonn Center for Global Studies, Bonn, Germany

    Maximilian Mayer

  2. GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany

    Mariana Carpes

  3. Institute of Political Science and Sociology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany, Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE), Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany, Bochum, Bonn, Germany

    Ruth Knoblich

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Singh, J.P. (2014). The Power of Large-Scale Interactions Through Information Technologies and Changes in Cultural Identity Politics. In: Mayer, M., Carpes, M., Knoblich, R. (eds) The Global Politics of Science and Technology - Vol. 2. Global Power Shift. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55010-2_16

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