Photoded

Photo: Ed Ou/The New York Times/Redux A common thread in media coverage of the Arab Spring this year has been that rebellion is facilitated and fueled by technology such as social networks, cameras and cell phones. The above photo ran in the New York Times in February next to an almost identically framed photo, where instead of cell phones there was a campfire, thus visually solidifying technology’s elemental and transformative status. But this photo has prompted David Correia, an American Studies professor at the University of New Mexico, to question how this obsession of the media as a news angle has prevented us from being able to take a more critical look at the purpose and development of technology. One way to think more three-dimensionally about technology, says Correia, is to look at its political economy. He points out that social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter weren’t developed around the idea of spurring revolutions across the Middle East. Instead, he argues, most social media tools “are commercial firms with services developed and deployed as commodities that circulate solely as a means to capture surplus value and thus provide a return on investment for shareholders.” In a recent article published by the online political magazine CounterPunch , Correia cautions against the media’s tendency to fetishize technology in social movements. He believes that our understanding of and reliance on technology has created a kind of “technological determinism” that has made modern advances in technology “invisible to critical scrutiny.” “What I’m trying to show in this article is that technology has come to stand in for progress,” Correia says. “If you equate technology with progress you can’t criticize it and all political debate is cut off because it’s ‘progressive.’” While Facebook and Twitter might now claim they are tools for building and maintaining democratic institutions, they are first and foremost corporations interested in their own selfish financial interests — a fact that seems to be forgotten, or at least overlooked, by most of the recent debate about their merits as technology. “Generally, I think most people have no critical perceptive on technology,” Correia says. “Technology is always understood as neutral. Even if there are people who don’t buy into the idea that technology is progress, the best they can do is call it neutral.” Case in point is Correia’s critique of the way the Mubarak regime used technology to try and squash the protests. He asks why Narus, a California-based company owned by Boeing that creates real-time surveillance equipment, hasn’t been exposed for the way its technology allowed the Mubarak regime to target activists and interrupt their communications strategies. Or, he wonders, why the media didn’t show the same kind of interest when UK-based Vodafone decided to comply with Mubarak’s demand that it shut down texting services in Egypt. “Not only is technology not neutral, but it clearly served the interests of Mubarak’s regime,” he said. “In our critiques of Mubarak we have to include a recognition and critique of the way technology served to buttress his regime.” Ultimately, Correia argues, instead of perseverating on our cell phones and Twitter accounts we need to circle back and think more dialectically about the role and development of technology. “Any kind of real analysis has to dig behind the fetish and not buy into some kind of bourgeoisie dream,” he says. “We need to think about who owns technology, how technology is organized and then think about how these forces affect the ways in which technology unfolds politically, economically, etc.” Only when “technology starts to serve the interests of people over profit will it then be democratic,” he says. See Also: Social Media Sparked, Accelerated Egypt’s Revolutionary Fire ‘Arab Spring’ on the Hudson: Social Media’s the Same the World Over American Tech Know-How Drives Both Sides of Arab Revolution On Facebook, NATO Chief Announces End to Libya War . . . → Read More: Facebook and Twitter Aren’t Pro-Revolution, Professor Says