Perception is “programmed” by the language; meaning follows

Perception is “programmed” by the language; meaning follows

Politically-motivated programming of meaning may not be as insidious as politically-mediated meaning, the mediations occurring because the source of information was not primary, and the person writing the English account has internalized the hierarchies and social values that inform the English-speaking society he or she is most consciously or unconsciously affiliated with. An example is the tendency to demonize Islamic groups, and to attach certain English-language descriptors to them, such as “fundamentalist” or “radical” or “insurgency” – all of which carry with them a suite of perjorative denotations and connotations.

The people who are most likely to have access to the Internet are young, affluent, and likely to purchase goods and services. These are the people that eCommerce targets. However, what does it mean that in the world, many of the people who use the Internet do it in order to earn money as programmers or web developers.

Sometimes they have been hired by companies to produce “knowledge text” for a specific commercial, ideological, or political purpose. Ethical issues arise when one realizes that very biased, commercially- or politically-motivated individuals are creating the "reality" we see on the Internet. In the phenomenal world, the phenomena we see are "neutral" and we create our own realities after observing and thinking. In the Internet, the "reality" created by web designers and the "reality" of the phenomenal world are in essence one and the same. This is problematic for obvious reasons -- who decides (and more importantly, why do they decide) to portray reality a certain way?

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