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July 13, 2005
Benjamin R. Barber is uneasy about pictures and the influential effects of images. He understands our world in terms of the conflict between tribalism and globalism, with both posing threats to democracy.
A quote from Benjamin Barber about the internet and democracy:
"There is considerable ambiguity surrounding the use of pictures and text in the new technologies. In its early incarnation, the web has been a word-based technology (scrolling text) that has actually countered the pictorial leanings of television. I have argued elsewhere that by returning us to 'the word' the web is an apt medium for politics, law, deliberation and contracts. Reason and promising are the products of the word and for all its technological progress, this remains a civilization based on the Word. The word-centered character of the technology is good for democratic politics, good for participation and good for deliberation (only plebiscitory democracy benefits from manipulated images). Yet, this focus on the word is but a matter of technological lag-time. The Net is faster and getting faster. Streaming video is the wave of the future, allowing moving pictures to displace text. Moreover, the generation being trained incomputers today is a television educated, picture-inundated generation that prefers 'moving pictures.'"
Barber has a problem with the visual culture in relation to democracy:
"In as much as democracy is the politics of reason and of promising, and reasoning and promising demand the currency of words, democracy will rely on words rather than pictures and streaming video will not be a welcome development. It maybe that the transition from a civilization of the word to a civilization of moving pictures will inaugurate new political institutions rather than eroding democratic institutions. Yet such a civilization may be less able to sustain promising and the social contract, or the kinds of discourse that make democracy possible."
Yet images play a key role in politics. We need to learn how to read and critique images.
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Barber has overlooked the power of the still image in his discourse. The web is also a domain where text and image are combined, this site being a good example.The moving image will have an increased presence but it will never render the 'older forms' obsolete.