Cyberspace and Social Space
Channel: LIVING SOCIOLOGY
Date: 27/11/2019

First Person, Plural on CFUV-fm, Victoria, BC
Originally aired May 16, 2002

Alissa Altman is an American citizen and a Canadian immigrant. Her husband, Morey Altman is the director of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. After meeting through an online group, Alissa and Morey became part of a growing number of people finding international love through the Internet.   Alissa is also one of the cofounders of a Yahoo group called "Immigration Canada" that offers a place of support for people who are interested in immigrating to Canada.  We interview her  for this week's show as we examined how the Internet is changing interactions among people in both the personal and political arenas.

Is the Internet a new paradigm leading to democratic Utopia or an evil, anti-social technology leading to isolation and the loss of civic-mindedness?  We discuss how cyberspace is contextualized by a consumer culture and oligopolistic tendencies. Peter F. Drucker asserts that we live in a Post Capitalist Society where information is power.  We examine this assertion in light of how the Internet looks 10 years after his book.  Who controls content on the Internet?  Can it be tamed by big business? Will Indy websites win the day?

Finally, we review Neil Postman's book Technopolgy: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.  Like many of the 19th Century philosophers facing the vast changes of industrialization, Postman laments the age of information, asserting that the sovereignty of technology over culture is leading to a number of social problems.  Have the machines won yet?  

copyright: Carl Wilkerson and Pattie Thomas
http://sociologylegacy.pbworks.com/w/page/93410825/Episode%2002%20Cyberspace%20and%20Social%20Space