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“If the arrangement of society is bad (as ours is), and a small number of people have power over the majority and oppress it, every victory over Nature will inevitably serve only to increase that power and that oppression.”
— Count Leo Tolstoy
Working in teams of two-to-four students, you will explore the impact of the following technological revolutions over the past two centuries, gathering evidence and constructing arguments to affirm or refute Tolstoy’s assertion that technological revolutions are inevitably used by the wealthy and powerful to enhance their leverage over the rest of society:
Telecommunications
Two teams (Team X & Team Y) will research and analyze the social, political, and cultural impact of each of these technological revolutions and post a 3–5-minute presentation by 9am on June 13th, in which each group will present its analysis.
Team X will gather evidence supporting the argument that this technological revolution has actually increased the power of ordinary people, thus refuting Tolstoy’s thesis.
Team Y will gather evidence supporting the argument that it has only increased the power of those at the top, thus affirming Tolstoy’s thesis.
On June 13th, after hearing both presentations on each technological revolution, the class will vote via secret ballot on which presentation made the most compelling argument, supported by the most convincing evidence.
Team Y presentation info:
Background info:
Telecommunications involve a transmitter and receiver, and is the exchange of information over long distances
Mediums: original medium was voice, but now typically internet, telephones, radio, televisions
https://www.mitel.com/articles/what-is-telecommunications#:~:text=Telecommunications%2C%20also%20known%20as%20telecom,%2C%20light%2C%20cable%2C%20etc.
Political aspects/supporting information:
Lobbying: major telecommunication giants spend money lobbying for specific legislation and regulations, which benefits those at the top at the expense of others
Examples: “From 1998 to 2018, telecommunications companies including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Charter and others have dumped more than $1.2 billion into the pockets of Congress in attempts to win favor with lawmakers. Figures compiledby Comparitech found that America’s largest phone and internet providers show that recent years have only seen lobbying costs increase. 2018 was the highest individual year for telecom lobbying, with $80 million being spent by ISPs—and it’s only expected to continue increasing.”
“The Trump administration’s FCC has since overturned the rulesthat protected net neutrality—a concept that prevented ISPs from blocking, censoring or slowing the flow of data online. Telecom giants also scored a victory when lawmakers voted to reverse an FCC rule that prevented ISPs from selling consumer data without explicit permission.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/05/31/heres-how-telecom-giants-spent-more-than-1-billion-lobbying-congress/
Control over the media/info: telecommunications giants control the media, as well as politicians who use social media and have gained millions of followers which influence political discourse and public opinion
Examples: “Social media influencers have a more extreme effect on the rest of society, according to the researchers. As more people turn to social media for their news, influencers and traditional media outlets begin competing for the same audiences. To stand out from the crowd and attract more followers, influencers distort their messaging. In response, the opinions of citizens who are swayed by the influencers become more polarized.”
https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/social-media-influencers-may-affect-more-voter-opinions/
Privacy/surveilance: personal data collected and used by the government and policymakers
Examples: “Government policymakers, program administrators, and staff use data and data analyses for multiple purposes, including description and analysis (e.g., of conditions, impacts, costs, supply and demand trends), diagnoses, predictions, and prescriptions.”
https://www.urban.org/research/publication/government-decisions-and-issues-about-collecting-and-using-data
General Info About Technology: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X96000309#aep-abstract-id3
“Major new technologies, while creating a new universe of opportuntities, have at the same time raised concerns about future directions of a society. This is very muhc the case today with telecommunications… the powerful synergy of telecommunications and information processing”(405)
– Telecommunications technology began with telegraphs, then moved into radio and, later, telephones”(408)
“With telecommunications, national borders and thus, sovereignty, are penetrated in many virtually unstoppable ways: by economic and political information, culturally, diplomatically by stock and other electronic trading exchanges; by international telemedicine… by online servies; by software”(408)
History of Cambridge Analytica Scandal
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/cambridge-analytica-controversy/
Data mining and ethics of data privacy
“distant 3rd parties to monopolize on the data being disseminated and use it to manipulate and influence content on a user’s Facebook feed”
This helped affiliated parties influence people
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17141266/facebook-cambridge-analytica-user-data-donald-trump-campaign-2016-election
Aleksandr Kogan obtained the data which allowed him to determine what advertisements influence people’s behaviors. He then gave this info away to Cambridge Analytica, a company that provides data-driven services to political campaigns
They used this data to better target people who could be easily influences with political messages called microtargeting
This data is provided to the application programming interface tool through the Facebook user’s consent, however, nobody consented to being micro targeted and having their own data be used against them for a political parties gain; its corrupt and shady; afterwards, Zuckerberg even stated how they would
Created the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act in the European Union
Lead to Twitter banning all political ads, Google limiting political ads, Facebook lets ppl opt out of political ads now
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/cambridge-analytica-controversy/
Political Speech:
Telecommunications is the exchange of information over long distances. Mediums for telecommunication are telephones, radios, telegraph, and the internet. With the introduction of telecommunication, politics did improve with the ability to transmit information faster, leading to being able to solve crises sooner which proved helpful in wars. However, it’s no surprise that Tolstoy’s claim still stands to be true in the way that the affluent minority will ultimately use this technology to increase their own standing by oppressing others. For example, German propaganda during WWII was easy to dissipate due to radio broadcasting eleven hours a day, focusing solely on disproving pro-British sentiments. Joseph Goebbels, German propaganda minister, called the radio the “eighth great power”, noting the influence of radio in promoting the Third Reich, thus maintaining the Nazi’s control. Even with the telegraph, there were concerns about the spread of misinformation as one writer on the Philadelphia Morning Pennsylvanian Newspaper stated how “great the potential for corruption of the telegraph is in the hands of the elite”.
Furthermore, with advancements of the internet, this corruption has only gotten more extreme. Expert in internet government Esther Mwema and cognitive scientist Abeba Birhane explain how the undersea internet cable projects are owned, controlled, and managed by private Western Big Tech which follow the same infrastructural path laid during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. They begin to touch on how the same slave trade route that imparted colonialism in the past with the shipment of enslaved people is now being used for data colonialism in the future which will still disproportionately benefit the small but affluent citizens of our society. According to Birhane and Mwema, these cables will be controlled by US companies, making America “the primary custodian of the internet”. It was just in 2023 that the Biden administration was in discussion with SubCom, a company that designs and implements undersea fiber optic cable networks, to build more subsea internet cables controlled by US companies to make the US have more control over the Internet. Google even agreed with SubCom to build the world’s largest-ever private data network, reinforcing data harvesting which has been shown to lead to the corrupt practice of microtargeting, which targets people who could be easily influenced with certain messaging. This was seen during the Cambridge Analytica Scandal where politically affiliated third parties began to monopolize data to manipulate and influence content on a user’s facebook feed. Despite telecommunications being able to connect people across vast distances, and attempting to keep the public informed, it has been and will always be at a cost, a cost only benefitting the wealthiest in our society who overshadow all the good aspects of telecommunications with the negative ones by spreading misinformation and using the data of the people they claim to support for their own greedy aspirations.
Social aspects/supporting information:
Corporate dominance: AT&T and Verizon remain two of the largest telecommunications companies that control the delivery of service for over 100 million US consumers, thus keeping themselves in power and putting smaller companies and shareholders out of business
They first bought out Dobson Cellular in 2007, which primarily provided cellular service to those in rural areas, then in 2008 bought out Centennial and Wayport, both of which were significant providers. Wayport provided the majority of US internet hotspots, and through this transaction AT&T controlled over 20,000 hotspots in the US and became the country’s number one provider. Then, they purchased qualcom spectrum to increase their 4G service. In 2014, it acquired Leap, or cricket, and acquired its 5.3 million subscribers. By continuing to purchase smaller corporations and expand their company, they are proving Tolstoy’s thesis by dominating the telemarketing industry and by overtaking smaller competitors.
Social influence/ public opinion: Social media algorithms, controlled by telecommunications and tech giants, influence what information people see. This control over information flow can shape public opinion, often in ways that benefit those in power
The global greens powder market was worth $335.7 million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach $718.49 million by 2032, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.52 percent. Bloom nutrition acquired $90 million of that through their social media marketing. They became a dominant greens powder brand through promoting their product through paying social media influencers to discuss it on their platforms. This caused them to increase substantially very quickly, as the company began in 2019. The influence social media stars have on consumers is used to corporations benefits to gain more power and consumers, as well as to remain a top corporation.
Above are all the information for you to have a understanding of what is this assignment and the essay I’m gonna write about.(don’t use any of the sources above as a detail evidence because it was in presentation already) I’m in Team Y and below are the details that should be include in my essay. (Important ps. In this essay at least include 3 print sources that you can discovered in Boston University Mugar library: https://www.bu.edu/library/)
On June 25th, each student will submit a personal reflection in which they survey the specific arguments presented by Team X and Team Y followed by your personal assessment of Tolstoy’s claim that technological revolutions tend to increase and entrench social stratification. This paper should be 1000 to 1250 words in length and contain the following elements: 1) An introduction outlining how you thought about your assigned technology before starting our social science course, 2) A brief narrative of your work on the June 13th presentation, critiquing at least three print sources that you discovered in the stacks at Mugar on this technology, and 3) a conclusion in which you explain your own position on Tolstoy’s thesis about technology. In this final section, you should discuss how your position on technological revolutions has been informed not only by your research, but also by your personal experience. All sources should be cited with Chicago Style footnotes and a complete bibliography.
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