The internet at the periphery: between potential and concrete use
: The internet at the periphery: between potential and concrete use — This article makes a critique of advertising and academic discourse that see in the internet a tool for the generalized expansion of the human potential. Based on a cleavage between a merely technical approach and the co...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Pontíficia Universidade Católica de São Paulo
2009-06-01
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| Series: | Galáxia |
| Online Access: | https://revistas.pucsp.br/galaxia/article/view/1920 |
| Summary: | : The internet at the periphery: between potential and concrete use — This article makes a
critique of advertising and academic discourse that see in the internet a tool for the generalized
expansion of the human potential. Based on a cleavage between a merely technical approach
and the concrete and socially determined use of the net, an attempt is made to demonstrate
the existence of external conditioning factors that hinder the emancipatory meaningful use of
computer-mediated communication. This demonstration is based on an empirical study of
adolescent frequenters of lan houses in the periphery of São Paulo, where the internet emerges
almost exclusively as a form of light entertainment and as a reinforcement of preexisting social
bonds, in contrast to the utopian ideas of knowledge expansion and of the construction of a
“collective intelligence” that permeate the exalted imagination about the current technology. |
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| ISSN: | 1519-311X 1982-2553 |