Contentious Cloud Chatter: A Comparative Analysis of Aggressive Speech
Clea Patrick, Leah P. Hollis · ScholarsArchive (Brigham Young University) · 2018
This essay argues that while harassment and aggression are continually present in the postmodern cyberspace age, such behaviors have been present within humanity throughout both modern and postmodern periods.During modernity, a privileged few controlled expression and aggression.However, the postmodern period's fractured state, which often sidesteps empathy and human frailty, has unleashed largely unfettered aggression en masse on the Internet.In short, many, not a privileged few, express aggression.This essay will consider some historical examples of controlled aggression in the modern period.Then the essay will compare how postmodern aggression is more prolific, as the public must witness and participate in aggressive, constant self-expression.Communication controls civilization, its rules and structures.Gurevitch and Blumler (1990) remarked that communication was structured by a few media outlets and manipulated by a web of powerful political and economic influences.Consequently, communication, regardless of its modality, has a significant influence on the governance of society, contemporary activities, and the socialization of its citizens.Historically, those in power shape the style, tone, and mode of communication.The evidence of the power and privilege in controlling communication is best shown in the grand scale of communication through national broadcasts, newspaper editors, and other traditional gatekeepers of news and entertainment.