Google Earth and the Nation

Google Earth and the Nation State: Sovereignty in the Age of New Media There are a number of astute observations made in Sangeet Kumar's article "Google Earth and the nation state: Sovereignty in the age of new media." This article principally presages or chronicles what the author believes is the progression of the inevitable downfall of the nation state system of government. His article evinces this trend through a protracted case study in which he studies the relationship and effects of Google Earth on a particular country, India.

The overarching implications of this article are plentiful and present a significantly less heralded view of technology and the media that it enables. Moreover, this article underscores some of the principle components of John Tomlinson's article, "Homogenisation and Globalisation" in History of European Ideas, particularly those alluding to a one world global system encompassing the traditional realms of politics and economics. Comprehensively, then, Kumar's effort details the eroding status of nation states and the unveiling of a unilateral global system of government.

The central point that Kumar's article revolves around is the fact that new media, specifically the internet and its myriad applications, actually functions as a sort of power. What is interesting about this power is the effect it has on nation states, which gradually subverts their authority. There are several aspects of new media that enacts such effects upon conventional nations. One is the fact that new media is ubiquitous; its global aspect allows for it to penetrate each and every country.

With an application such as Google Earth, which enables users to literally view most locations in the world, spying is effectively legalized and nations are relatively powerless to stop it. Another way in which new media weakens national sovereignty is in the power it grants to end users, who can convey matters of local or even national significance on a global scale, eliciting sympathy and responses from others regarding the actions of a particular nation. The following quotation alludes to this fact.

"…recent social upheavals from Ukraine to Iran and from Myanmar to Nepal, is evidence of how global support can be garnered for causes that in a pre-globalized age would have largely remained local events" (Kumar, 2010, p. 157). Moreover, the principle evil presented by new media (such as Google Earth) is the fact that it "functions by presenting its private interests as global ones" (Kumar, 2010, p.155). This notion of the interest of a few private multi-national corporations, that can wantonly usurp the authority of nation states, is alluded to within Tomlinson's essay.

There is a degree of autonomy that new media enjoys, yet it is definitely inequitable and, as such, enervating to the authority of individual countries because it can transcend all of their boundaries primarily to the benefit of Western powers. Tomlinson discusses a cultural homogenization at length, and makes no mistakes about the fact that "in some degree homogenization is in some degree a Western ethnocentric one" (Tomlinson, 1995, p. 892).

This Western ethnocentric view is equivalent to the private interests that control media conglomerates such as Google and its Google Earth, which underscores the degree of inequity that ultimately is found when these new media conglomerates garner power within and over individual nation states.

The conceit that Kumar utilizes repeatedly throughout his essay to emphasize the thesis that new media enables private interests to slowly dissolve the traditional governmental authority of nation states is that such media is akin to a military, with its advancements in countries akin to conventional military takeovers.

In much the same way that Google Earth leverages its authority and technology (in the form of aid and increased trade within a needy foreign country), "military interventions conducted around the world in the name of universal values of 'democracy' and 'freedom'" (Kumar, 2010, p.157) do the same thing. The sense of power that new media presents to users that can help to undermine the authority of nation states also involves evidence that was not available at the time that Kumar wrote his essay.

There has been significant social and political turmoil in many countries in Africa in the past two years. Some of the more notable countries in which there have been revolutions include Egypt and Libya. The involvement of technology in these revolts certainly played a pivotal role in subverting the authority that nation states had, for the simple fact that the easy access to protests and demonstrations in these areas actually helped to fuel neighboring ones.