Digital colonialism and processes of dispute: the media as ‘educational systems’ of the population

Abstract

With technological advances, the practices of colonialism have been updated and adapted to the demands of the capitalist surveillance system in its neoliberal dimension. The dynamic that characterizes surveillance capitalism and has been organizing the human-machine relationship in the XXI century is digital colonialism, a practice of domination based on the extraction of informational data and the standardization of behaviour through algorithms, invisible mechanisms of ideological control. With the objective of discussing the way in which digital colonialism has been using the media as 'educational systems' for the population in order to legitimize processes of dispute, this research report problematizes the power relations tensioned in the mass media and incites reflections on the limits and potential of the use of technology from an educational perspective. To do this, he systematizes studies on the relationship between changes in the society of hyper-spectacularization and the military tactics adopted by technology companies that tend to deepen consumerism at a global level, commodifying human life. As a result, it was identified that educational channels have been increasingly expanded by digital technologies, but at the same time as they can contribute to the struggle for liberation, they also favour processes of manipulation and political, economic and ideological control, pointing to the need to question their use in society and the importance of moving towards the decolonization of technology