2. Communication, Technology and Cultural/Moral Values
The Issue/Event: Pornography on one’s mobile and matrimonial web portals
A man sits in his shop in the middle of a busy bazaar, in a provincial town in western India. The business is thriving, customers come and go, they sit for a while and drink tea with the man’s pious older brothers. A day like any other, and in the middle of the activity, he is looking intently at the small screen on his mobile phone. He is receiving and sending a stream of hardcore pornographic videos, portraying white actors. Other clips feature Bollywood actors in soft focus, posing modestly clad. With SMS costing as little as 0.5 rupees (£0.006), it isn’t an expensive pastime. Edward Simpson (1).
According to IDC India, with a mobile subscriber base of over 47 million at the end of 2004 and an annual growth of over 100%, the Indian market is one of the fastest growing markets in the Asia Pacific region (2). Juniper Research found that the ‘adult’ industry is booming in Europe and Asia, where 3G technologies have long supported the kinds of colourful graphics and streaming video that are only now beginning to arrive in the United States. Worldwide adult revenues are poised to top $1bn this year and double to $2bn by 2009.
A similar example may be that of shaadi.com – US based matrimonial introductions website. This website, like those of khoh.com, sify.com, bharatmatrimony.com, etc, are specially designed for people of South Asian origin living in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Shadi.com prides itself in ‘making it possible for members to communicate safely with matching profiles using the latest technology’. Members can search these portals’ databases according to their parameters of choice, which not only include country, profession and salary but also religion, caste, subcaste, manglik and horoscope (3).
Positions:
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Technology corrupts moral standards.
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Technology enables the preservation of traditional values.- Technology reinforces age-old discriminations and hierarchies between people and is being used to insidiously promote religious/race/caste divisions amongst the younger generation.
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Technology doesn’t make a difference. It is the use to which we put it which counts.
Questions:
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Can technology shift moral and religious boundaries?
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Has technology changed the way we think about the world?
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Who has access to technology? See debate over the ‘Digital divide’: is mobile phone technology the most efficient way to combat the digital divide between the rich and the poor by Murali Shanmugavalen, Panos (4).
References:
(1) Edward Simpson, pers. comm. with Isabella Lepri, May 2005.
(4) http://panos.org.uk/2008/02/13/market-forces-alone-wont-end-the-digital-divide/
