Averting the Catastrophe of Cyberspace

Abstract

Purpose

To address the impact of information technology on culture and society, in particular the potential for control and manipulation afforded to state, government and unregulated corporations, by the medium of sophisticated communication networks. The paper sets out to expose the corporate world's manipulation of IT and the multi‐media as it exercises a powerful coercive force, constituting a legitimating principle for economic and cultural domination. It is suggested that the relentless progression of science as profit and the individual as profit‐generating automaton constitutes the subversion of a world rightly ordered by human principles. The paper calls for the ethical regulation of cyberspace, necessitating a philosophical approach and one which prizes human endeavour.

Design/methodology/approach

Examples from the technosocial world taken from across a range of uses, providers and users are explored according to their impact on everyday life. The ontological and phenomenological nature of the technological medium is also explicated with reference to various academic sources including Castells and Bauman. A sociological / philosophical / ethical approach is adopted by reference to the writings of inter alia Baudrillard and Kant.

Findings

The traditional territories of communication in which social exchange takes place have been dislocated and we have formed new attachments to the pervasive replacement technoculture and technologies. Many examples evidence the extent to which human values and achievements are increasingly organised around various enslaving technological mediums. Cyberspace is in need of a regulatory framework, one which has an ethical basis.

Originality/value

Presents an alternative perspective on a significant topic.

Citation

Shaw, J.J.A. (2007), "Averting the Catastrophe of Cyberspace", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 52-58. https://doi.org/10.1108/17471110710829722