Google and New Imperialism
Sometimes it seems that Google is simply a cutesy version of the government with their endless supply of information and their simultaneously endless and ubiquitous supply of funds, which appear to be used for a new acquisition every other week -roughly eighteen this year alone. I mean, seriously, where do they get all of this money? Is this the new, shiny, modern version of imperialism for the 21st century? Instead of racing to take over as many countries as possible, it’s, “Let’s see how many companies we can acquire and add to our media empire!” Google can be the government, Apple can be The Church with Steve Jobs as the Pope and Silcon Valley the new version of Rome, and Facebook is some off-kilter version of the phonebook on steroids.
It begs to note, however, that Google has become the primary information medium. Yes, it’s thorough, but can the lens of Google be entirely trusted? Should it be trusted? Traditional imperialism was about conquering the world through the procurement of land, which led to the concept of certain nations as “world powers”. If Google serves as the example of new imperialism, what does that mean for the classic definitions of government, community, and communication? Information equals power, so what kind of power does that yield for the chief supplier of such knowledge?
