The Digital Battlefield: Controlling the Technology of Revolution

Abstract

Recent conflicts and revolutions have foregrounded a new battlefield where information and communication technology (ICT) will play a crucial role. The producers of ICT frequently use it as a tool for defining and implementing strategies aimed at achieving stability and democracy. While the traditional battlefields remain in upheaval, manoeuvres on the digital terrain do not progress in parallel. This paper will examine the foreign policy implications of the pervasive cultural bias of the ICTs connected to revolution and stabilization efforts describing how this bias shifts power away from the populations using the technology and toward the actors controlling the programs and codes. The ICTs deployed for conflict management and democratization are plagued by cultural bias which disenfranchises users, thereby diminishing the technology’s potential for use in participatory actions by removing authorship and contributing to information gatekeeping by the creators of the technology which tend to be European or American.