Culture comprises beliefs, ideas and practices common to a community or group. Based on this definition there is a Web Culture and it is a culture much more dependent on technology than other cultures.
Advancements in technology enable Cultural Change. They always have: Until they controlled fire people were unable to live in northern climates; Arizona did not become a major population center until the general availability of air conditioning. If photography could be said to have a culture the evolution of that culture is very closely tied to technology; from the invention of photography in the 1820s, to the development of the collodion process and the popularity of portraiture in the 1850s, to the advent of the hand held 35mm camera and photojournalism in the 1920s, and to the immediacy of the digital cameras and imaging today. Many advances in culture would not have been possible without advances in technology.
Web Culture, digital technology and the Internet constantly amaze and excite me. I find it incredible that from my home in a woods in rural Illinois, using a local connection to my town's high school (my service provider's POP), I can, almost instantaneously, view images and exchange information from or to anywhere in the world. Doctors are using the internet to monitor patients and prescribe medication. During the spring flooding of the Red River in Fargo, ND water levels were posted hourly.
But, there is a dark side to this culture so dependent on technology and a lot of this dark side is in the nature of the technology and its application.
The accessibility of vast quantities of information can be used against me as quickly as I can use it. For example, recently I was contacted for an assignment by a prospective client who found me through my web site. The assignment never happened because we could not come to terms. I know that client, using the web, can find another photographer as quickly and as easily as she found me. This vulnerability has always been there but it is exaggerated by the technology of the web.
The rate of change on the web is phenomenal. Web Years as short as three months are currently a popular concept. This means the rate of change you were use to in a year now takes place in three months; mostly because of rapidly developing technology. You really can't count on what is next because it will be old before it arrives. You have to wonder about what is beyond next. This is exciting but at the same time it creates an urgency about keeping up as part of the Culture, an anxiety over not falling behind.
Last month's big Web story was about college students discovering security flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. They found that by clicking on a web page the web page could maliciously effect your computer, possibly erasing your hard drive. Nobody reported a hard drive being erased just that students found it possible. There is a kind of paranoia that is a part of the Web Culture. It is not just the fear of viruses effecting your computer it is also a fear of the next guy stealing your information or finding out what you are working on before you can apply it. I believe this fear is a result of the pace of change, ease of use, and easy duplication of content on the Web, all some of its most appealing aspects.
Web Culture can be intrusive. I get reports about my web site that tell me the ip address of people who visit, the time of the visit, and type browser they use. Many web sites put information called cookies into a file in your browser's directory. This information can tell the web site who your are and what you are interested in the next time you visit. There is a part of the Web Culture that is constantly probing the user for information.
A culture is defined as a group of people having shared beliefs and practices. I believe there is a definite Web Culture, and that technology has a greater role in this culture than most, and that this technology at the same time it is wonderful has a dark side that the culture has to learn to deal with.
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Photography on the Web © 1997 Wm. Franklin McMahon |
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