Russian Cyberculture essays

Russian Cyberculture essays Russian cyberculture. Does it exist? How does cyberculture develop in a country, which was isolated from the west for the entire cold war era? Mother Russia has been on the ropes lately. Still having the Soviet habit to insulate its people from the "evil West", the Russian government was very careful in letting Internet technology in to the territory of its Empire. There are still many people in Russia who have no skills in Internet usage. Those people include the young as well as the older generations. Most Russians still have the wrong idea about computers. This was imposed by a Soviet education system which forced people to study first versions of boring programming languages. These people assume that computers are as complicated as Math. Specialized magazines promote that opinion using difficult terminology in their articles to describe simple things. The author of an article says: "Internet is a magic and interesting device, simple as a telephone, but surrounded with myths and stereotypes. Internet is like a monster sitting on the golden treasure. Non-users are like a crowd of people standing near the monster's cave and afraid of going in without a guide. There are also guardians who are sitting in front of the cave and saying terrible fairy tale stories about the monster". The Internet was more political than technological in Russia. It threatened to impose its ideas in people's heads. As a rule, it was a political activity, which tended to put ideology into the nationional mind. As a rule, it failed in comparison to technology. It was not within the power of the government to stop progress. Consequently, a phenomenon known as cyberculture appeared. Internet suggests it is a user service, not an ideology. Governments assume that through all kinds of service people can be influenced with new/different ideology. They see a political problem here. This problem is not "how to protect Internet users and to regulate their ...