Does Digital Media Help or Hinder Canadian and Worldwide Multiculturalism?
Digital Media is the new television, telephone and newspaper. The inter-connectivity of digital mediums such as the internet and video games create a mass, almost instantaneous network of news, reviews and current happenings around the world. Canadians identify with multiculturalism as a part of the nation’s worldwide projection of identity, so will digital media change that? People from different sides of the world can connect instantly and stay in contact for as long as they please. This type of connectivity creates many opportunities for people of different cultures and backgrounds to experience things from other places they might never know about. It also makes it easier for immigrants to stay in touch with those they may have left behind when they moved out of their home country. Would this emergence of connectivity help them with fitting in with, or finding their place in Canadian society? Alternately, the emergence of virtual worlds, video games and the anonymity of the internet seems to de-race the digital community. Many characters are depicted as raceless but powerful. They are shown to be doing right by choosing the lesser of evils in the games. Main characters that are characterized to a certain race are often the typical young white adult male. How often is the hero of a video game ever put outside that normal depiction? Video games may not all contain extreme racist views in the eyes of the everyday user, but with those who look a little deeper, how often is race explored in different ways? It may not be human-to-human contact, but human-to-alien, or human-to-mutated human. Although this may not be thought of as outright racism, it is still a type of racism. How often do video games use belligerent stereotypes when depicting race? When does this become a problem? When should video games start to be looked at as more than just a game? If video games are a dark reflection of society and history, should they be looked at in the terms of art or as an indicator of how the white middle-class society looks at those who may differ in appearance or ideals? Video games are a large part of the younger generations that are slowly growing up to become the next leaders and persons of influence. Should these games that might wrongfully depict race and virtual worlds of non-race be such a large part of their lives? Does it teach them acceptance, or does it teach intolerance? Canadian culture has come a long way since its birth and digital media is the next step in forwarding our identity for worldwide criticism.
Connectivity on the internet has long been the major focus point for many cultures. The internet can be used to connect with old classmates, past co-workers, friends that may have been forgotten in the transition from high school to university to a full-time job and also for employment opportunities, commerce and research. The information that is available on the internet is almost all-encompassing, possibly making it the most powerful and important tool of recent years. Internet connectivity is not just based around news and information, but it is also greatly used for communication over long distances without the fees and time constraints that are associated with traditional means of communication. Long distance bills and international letters take up funds and time that are virtually erased by using the internet. This is especially helpful in a society where many residents have immigrated to a new country. The traditional forms of communication greatly inhibited interaction with friends and family left at the immigrants’ country of origin. This has been alleviated by the use of the internet. “55.9% of recent immigrants used the Internet to communicate with family, compared with 42.6% of persons born in Canada.” (statscan.gc.ca). Using the internet, immigrants are more likely to stay in touch with family members than Canadian born internet users. This can be thought of in a few ways. They are staying in touch with their relatives to keep up with them in a family oriented way, or they are staying in touch with their family, community and culture because they are unwilling to become a part of Canadian society. If it happens to be the latter, digital media may not be playing a positive role in multiculturalism in Canada. If not, it is just another way that Canadians are using digital media for their own means of communication to save time and money.
The prevalent culture of video games and virtual worlds have a different affect on Canadian society than other forms of digital media. Virtual worlds are largely anonymous because of the use of the avatar. The problem with anonymity on the internet is the dishonestly that comes with the ability to be anonymous. It has been discussed where “…online interaction spaces as places where an individual could take on multiple identities in ways never before possible and indeed bring about changes in conventional notions of identity itself.” (Wilson and Peterson, 457). One can maybe take on a role behind a disguise of the internet to slander a group of people or person based on anything they might see as different and unacceptable. This type of internet tough guy attitude is displayed throughout the virtual worlds and also in video games that are available online for many people to play together. Although in many massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), the idea of race is not available for the player to choose. “The players of World of Warcraft cannot manipulate their race as they can their class, so although they can add certain modifications through the chat channel or through naming, they cannot actually modify race substantively.” (Higgin, 5). This creates an un-racial type society for MMORPGs, which could be positive for the users of that virtual community. This also could create the illusion that race is no longer an issue, if video games are in fact a depiction of society. The complete opposite of this situation though, is the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This game was a hot topic of discussion in 2004 to 2005 (DeVane and Squire, 264). Not only it’s use of gratuitous violence and illegal activity created controversy and much media hype for the game but also the depiction of race and racial stereotypes caused criticisms. “Critics charged that this portrayal of African American and Latino communities as hubs for violence and criminality both reifies discriminatory stereotypes and provides young adolescents with negative role models.” (DeVane and Squire, 266). These sorts of stereotypes that the average video gamer is subject to may lead them to false conclusions about race. If these video games are the only contact a young gamer has with race and culture outside his own, he may grow up with a distorted reality of race and culture dynamics. These stereotypes nullify the multicultural progression that Canadians have so revered. Without proper education and discussion about these new medias, the future of multicultural acceptance in Canada is a murky one.
The use of the internet and gaming in Canada is not going to decline, nor is the number of cultures in Canada. These two things can be joined together in a way that can be beneficial to Canada and Canadian immigrants but they can also aid intolerance. The anonymity of the internet will be a problem that is hard to address in legal terms because of the freedom of speech and the internet being a public sphere, but with the right education and learning tools, future users of the internet can be taught and informed about race and culture more thoroughly by using the communication power of the internet. Canadian multicultural diversity is not at risk, and with the growing amount of communication tools digital media provide to each subsequent generation, there is absolutely no way Canadians will not eventually have an understanding, if not appreciation for any and all cultures.
Works Cited
DeVane, Ben and Kurt D. Squire. “The Meaning of Race and Violence in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” Games And Culture, vol. 3, no. 3-4, SAGE Publications, July 2008
Higgin, Tanner. “Blackless Fantasy: The Disappearance of Race in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games” Games And Culture, vol. 4, no. 1, SAGE Publications, January 2009
Wilson, Samuel M. and Leighton C. Peterson. “The Anthropology of Online Communities.” Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol. 31, Annual Review, 2002
