Negative Impacts Of Digital Communication On Conflict And Change

Question 1

Giddens (growth of religious fundamentalism conflict/culture/change/negative/significant)

Answer 1

• argues religious fundamentalist groups in ate or postmodern society can be seen to have several key features including:
  1. authoritative, sacred doctrine
  2. Us versus them
  3. Aggressive and reactive
  4. Patriarchal
  5. Belief in prophecy
  6. Belief in conspiracies
  7. Use of modern technologies

Question 2

Lesaca (growth of religious fundamentalism conflict/culture/change/negative/significant)

Answer 2

• Lesacas work, particularly in relation to ISIS, demonstra tree s that these groups utilise digital communication and social media websites like twitter and YouTube to spread their ideologies, which often oppose western dead, and to gain followers and plan terrorist attacks

Question 3

Howard (growth of religious fundamentalism conflict/culture/change/negative/significant)

Answer 3

• ‘Digital Jesus’ study - Christian Fundamentalists use social media to pass on ideologies (homophobic, sexist, Islamophobic etc)

Question 4

Beck (global risk consciousness culture/politics/change/negative/significant)

Answer 4

• Today we face new kind of dangers in our society – manufactured dangers like climate change, war, immigration etc.
  – dangers that are man-made In the past our dangers were famine, drought etc. – natural dangers
• We are becoming risk conscious and try to avoid and minimise as many risks as possible - Examples in relation to digital communication = Cyber attacks that could create huge societal issues
• These risks are posed to EVERYONE regardless of class background etc

Question 5

Taylor (exploitation of developing economies conflict/culture/politics/change/negative/significant)

Answer 5

• suggests that globalisation, by giving free rein to capitalism, has led to greater inequality which could even be considered criminal
• eg. The transnational companies who switch production to low wage countries for cheap labour

Question 6

Rothe and friedrichs (exploitation of developing economies conflict/culture/politics/change/negative/significant)

Answer 6

• looked at international financial organisations such as IMF and World Bank who provide huge loans to developing countries
• World Bank has 188 member countries but its policy voting rights are dominated by five countries – USA, Japan, Germany, Britain and France (rich developed
  countries)
• These organisations have therefore highly pro neo-liberal views which imposes regulations which benefit the richer countries at the expense of poorer, for example privatisation of public services across the world
• This creates major problems in certain counties eg. mass unemployment in Rwanda in the 1980