Narrative #2: “Land of Equal Opportunity” And “Land of Difference”

Pgs (301-305)

Summary: As a culture we believe that technology creates change. This change is established using “the electronic landscape.” The electronic landscape recreates the American dream, focused on equal opportunity. Advertisements use this “electronic landscape” to emphasize traditional American values. These traditional values date back to the 1950s. These values are used as a collective cultural memory to indicate a bright future, a future of change. The land of equal opportunity is a landscape based off the Americans traditional values, this landscape is told through many different versions. Technological process is dependent on what Americans accomplish in the land of Opportunity. Advertisements suggest American citizens can achieve the same security and traditional values that existed in the 1950s by purchasing software. In reality, our cultural experience tells us the land of opportunity is limiting. The opportunity is only available to certain groups in this country. This narrative fails to show the underprivileged groups that don’t have the opportunity. This limits our country to the group of people who already have the opportunity, thus change is not occurring.

Quote: Cynthia L. Selfe speaks of our technology advances, as a culture, are connected to social progress. “Because our culture subscribes to several powerful narratives that link technological process closely with social progress, it is easy for us-for Americans, in particular-to believe that technological change leads to productive social change. By believing in these continuously told narratives that place achievement on technological process, we are subject to ignorance. As a culture, we begin to rely on technological change to better our social environment.