ComDev Seminar 30-31 May 2012

Issue 17/18
editor's column by Oscar Hemer

The challenge of the Present Continuous

When, in the spring of 2010, we started the planning of the present special issue, in collaboration with the academic journal Nordicom Review, we did not realize how timely it was. A year later, when it started to materialize, I was quite convinced – as I believe that most of us were – that we witnessed the beginning of an historical revolution that might or might not turn out to be even more far-reaching than the one unleashed in 1989.

I say convinced in the past tense, because it is quite amazing how fast perceptions change. Much of what was said about “the Arab Spring” a year ago already seems strangely dated. The revolutionary euphoria has somehow been replaced by more sinister and even cynical reflections. The fluctuations in the public opinion, and not least the Western media’s reporting on current world events, hence demonstrate another striking contemporary phenomenon; what anthropologist John Postill has called the dilemma of the present continuous, which could also be phrased as the tyranny of the imminent, with little if any historical perspective. We seem to be constantly imagining a near future that rarely happens.

Yet, there is little doubt that we are actually in the beginning, or midst, of a transition process on a global scale, politically, economically, and culturally. Former imperial powers are in decline, whereas former colonies in the global South are on the rise as emerging dominant players of the New World Order. And communication plays a key role in all the current transformational processes, be it as the mobilizing force of the so-called social media or as less democratic and even destructive aspects of the same communication power.

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