Electronic colonialism

Electronic colonialism or digital colonialism, sometimes abbreviated to eColonialism, was conceived by Herbert Shiller as documented in his 1976 text Communication and Cultural Domination.^[1] In this work, Shiller postulated the advent of a kind of technological colonialism, a system that subjugates Third World and impoverished nations to the will of world powers such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, given the necessary "importation of communication equipment and foreign-produced software".^[2] The theory delineates the economical, political, and psychological impact of the mass-media messaging influx, which is unconsciously absorbed through seemingly harmless forms of entertainment.^[3][4] Viewers watching The Office, e.g., vicariously assimilate elements of Western culture and, often unknowingly, accept the imposition of American ideology: alternative lifestyles, cultures, languages, Vernaculars, trends, Fads, political stances, ethnicalities. In this way entire Paradigms impress themselves upon the mind of the viewer.^[2]

Background[]

Similar to the expansion and establishment of territorial colonies and Protectorates by, e.g., European colonial powers during the New Imperialism era (as exemplified by the Scramble for Africa), the Information revolution ushered in a new era of socialization and, like the notion of traditional colonialism, urged multimedia conglomerates (empires) to regard audience demographics (territories) as obtainable colonies.^[5] Spurred into existence by the "demise of communism", market globalization, and rapid innovation within the communication technology sector, Electronic Colonialist theory posits a contemporary form of neo-imperial reign; one based not on expansive military acquisition and procurement but rather on capturing the mind share and consumer habits of the target demographic: a psychological empire.^[5] According to the theory, as the world becomes ever-more dependent upon 21st-century communication streams, and lives become inextricably entangled with cyberspace and the Internet of things (IoT), the multimedia hegemonic control will scale in stride and continue to proliferate in the decades to come.^{[citation needed]}

History[]

With the conclusion of World War II in 1945, incited by the rise of the global advertisement industry, the multimedia and communications sector began its trans-border expansion as the advent of television became a cornerstone of advertising and consumerist trends.^[6] Prior to 1945, "there was no international communication theory".^[2] And it was only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s, that Electronic Colonialism began to manifest in its contemporary form. During this era, catalyzed by the demise of communism, the free flow of information and the unrestrained trade of goods became the dominant philosophies of international relations, and the United States was "positioned [as] the...chief protagonist of both."^{[citation needed]} Moreover, United States President Ronald Reagan implemented his political agenda of "privatization, liberalization, and deregulation", during what was coined the Privatization Revolution—a recasting of the American view on market forces (i.e. aggregate supply and demand), free enterprise and Laissez-faire capitalism, and economic entrepreneurship—and it was through this that the virulence of the multimedia inroads was magnified tenfold.^[7][8] The increased cross-border media flow during and after the Regan era spurred a flurry of merger and acquisition activity: a movement toward corporate consolidation that would later define the media industry’s predominant growth tactic well into the 21st century (e.g. WarnerMedia).^[9]

As the concept of Electronic Colonialism promulgated into the 1990s and early 2000s, its growing audience and their consequent concern provided a "major conceptual [thrust] behind the movement for a New World Information and Communication Order", as well as multinational organizations, such as The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).^{[citation needed]}

Digital Colonialism and The Global South[]

The origination of the concept draws on early colonialists' arrival on African shores to make profit and fulfil imperial objectives through enslavement, their exploitation of local labour to obtain the maximum amount of natural resources and Raw materials present, through the building of crucial infrastructure in the process to attain these goals and facilitate imports and exports.^[10] Today's version of colonialism, on the other hand, takes place through the using digital devices, mediums and systems. According to this, communication systems such as social media platforms and infrastructures enabling network connectivity installed in the Global South is uniquely for the harvest of data,^[11] the generation profit, and storage as well as further usage of data for the purposes of analysis.^[12] Furthermore, digital colonialism can be defined as the retrieval and control of data from individuals without obtaining clear consent from them, "through communication networks developed and owned by Western tech companies."^[13]

Therefore, the idea is that; through digital colonialism, Western forces such as the United States purposefully construct critical and extensive digital infrastructure in the Global South, to extract this data and gain monopoly over it.^[12] This is done with the help of big corporations designing software, apps and other types of digital technology to fortify their hold on the data, as well as their stake in the tech ecosystem.^[10] In this context, the resource extracted from the continent becomes data itself. To further illustrate, this retrieval and control that takes place by exploiting the limited data protection laws and infrastructure, yields unmatched power especially on top of "social, political, and economic power imbalances and decades of resource pillaging".^[10]

The accumulation of this information into Big data results in the generation of a digital profile for millions of users, which carry sensitive and valuable insight into the individuals. The financial weight of this information is in the ability to sell it to data brokers, which then transforms into targeted advertising aimed at the users, through the third party corporations that acquire it.^[14] However, the practice of interpreting this mass data generated by the infrastructure, and extracting coherent and specialised insight from it, is incredibly difficult to do. This is why only a handful of corporations dominate the sphere, and the subsequent lack of competition.^[15][16] When the force of this position is exerted on regions with limited infrastructure and data protection laws, the researchers in the area submit that the "business model transitions into a form of digital colonialism".^[10][12] Various projects by companies like Facebook and Alphabet specifically geared towards Africa, such as FreeBasics,^[17] ProjectAires,^[18] Project Csquared,^[19] and Project Loon^[20] demonstrate a further expansion of profit. The idea of digital colonialism is the replication of early colonialists' infrastructure projects today in the form of digital/network connectivity infrastructure,^[21] a form of technological evangelism, according to some^[22] by companies such as Facebook and Alphabet, to generate profit from their software and Online Services in the region, rather than actually engaging in the development in long term and local infrastructure to provide steady economic growth in the Global South.^[10][11]

See also[]

• Internet.org
• Surveillance capitalism
• Zero-rating

Notes and references[]

• McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
• McPhail, T. (1981) Electronic Colonialism: The Future of International Broadcasting and Communication. Newbury Park: Sage.
• McPhail, T. & McPhail, B. (1990) Communication: The Canadian Experience. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman.
• McPhail, T. (2002) Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
• McPhail, T. (2014) Global Communication: Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends. (4th ed.) London: Blackwell.
• Raley, R. (2004) eEmpires. Cultural Critique, 57, 111–150.