Democratise the Cyberspace! Storytelling in the Digital Era

Abstract

'Democratise the Cyberspace!' is a personal reflection on the larger technological developments that fundamentally shape how we tell stories. It draws on discourses from media theory, art, activism, and media. I describe three phenomena that I identify as failures and errors, reflecting on how they influence storytelling. The first is the invisibilities of subjects and their lives that accompany these technological developments, which are reinforced along imperial and postcolonial axes. The second error is the public's widespread digital illiteracy due to a lack of a broader discourse and the manifestation of micro-temporal processing in digital devices. The final error is the potential for distortion of realities through artificial intelligence and the overreliance on the accuracy of numbers. The essay ends with a suggestion of how cultural workers can face these shortcomings.