Monday, April 14, 2014

Globalization and Types of Information

The streams of information in the age of globalization have been 'multiplied,' in the sense that the same subject now receives information from different sources, with different levels of 'accuracy' of these pieces of information. What is first at stake is the question of who these informational statements are speaking to, and to what end. It seems that today they are more and more speaking of the subject in his/her immediate present and immediate surroundings. One can think of 'Google Maps,' which can help the subject map the location of where he/she is standing right this moment. Before the global era, information was not so fast and applicable to the surroundings of people as they moved about. There was a possibility of 'going underground' and being away from information, the subject was not as vital to the flow of information as it is today...

In the global era, the person is at the border between two streams of information. In a sense, rather than creating territories that are more and more adept at housing the person, the global era creates 'asubjective' territories where the person himself/herself is the border. Being at the border between two, the subject is open to both streams of information. The subject hears two statements of information at the same time. Big media today is precisely concerned with making what the subject hears more 'sonorous,' that is, of having both sets of information provide the same type of content and the same level of accuracy. Today, one statement informs the other. And, both statements interchange rapidly, informing one another continuously and constantly. This sonorous seamless character of two streams of information keeps the subject in check, and doesn't allow in the subject to foster doubt. The main goal, always, is to keep constructing the subject as being at the border, to make the information seem trivial to the subject by creating in the subject a massive void, so that the subject desires more information to fill this void.

In the more extreme global, in the global with high levels of intense conflict, the same two streams of information do not inform one another, but are rather dissonant with one another, and create noise. There is inaccuracy in the content of the information and a chance to foster doubt in the subject, but even more so, cause a disturbance in the subject as to the possibility of a 'true' world with straightforward facts. Thus, the accuracy of information between two streams (two big media houses) is what indicates the level of functionality of the global. In this conflict-ridden global, the subject is no longer a functional border, but rather is divided by the two sets of information it receives.


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