Page 26 - Culture Technology Communication

Introduction: What’s Culture Got to Do with It? 11

supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems. She does so from a so-
cial constructivist view, one that further suggests that technologies
can be “read” as texts, and drawing specifically on Bijker and Law’s
notion of technological frame to explain how Japanese designers
invoke elements of Japanese culture in justifying technical deci-
sions. Heaton highlights the importance of nonverbal cues and the
direction of gaze in Japanese culture as an example of Hall’s “high
context/low content” category of cultural communication style, in
contrast with Western preferences for direct eye contact and “low
context/high content” forms of communication. She also notes in her
conclusion the Japanese interest in pen-based computing, speech
synthesis, virtual reality interfaces, etc., as resulting not only from
the physical difficulties of using a Roman keyboard to input Jap-
anese, but also the larger cultural preference for high context in
communication.
Sunny Yoon, in “Internet Discourse and the Habitus of Korea’s
New Generation,” counters the familiar portrayal of the Internet as
a medium that will engender greater democracy, especially in the
form of an electronic “public sphere” (a requirement for democracy,
according to Habermas). She notes the ways in which the Net, espe-
cially as it becomes ever more commercialized, may work rather as a
controlling mechanism for capital and power. Here, she takes up
Foucault once again (see Yoon 1996), along with Bourdieu’s notion of
habitus, as frameworks for analyzing power as manifested in the
workings and impacts of the Net.
In contrast with other postmodernist concepts, the notion of
habitus emphasizes individual will power and choice; these manifest
themselves in individuals’ everyday practices which in turn, in an
“orchestra effect,” build up the larger society and history in which
individuals participate. Such habitus clearly influences individual
choice, but not in fully deterministic ways. 10 Moreover, Bourdieu
sees “cultural capital” (including symbolic and institutional power—
most prominently, language and education) as creating the mecon-
naissance (“misconsciousness”) of the majority, a kind of false
consciousness which legitimates existing authorities.
Yoon first presents her careful quantitative study of Korean
newspaper reports on the Internet and on-line activities. Her analy-
sis makes clear that Korean journalism fails to encourage the use of
the Internet as a medium of participatory communication. Rather,
Korean reporting contributes to the commercialization of the Inter-
net and thereby, some argue, unequal access to and distribution of
information resources. Yoon then turns to a series of ethnographic