Abstract:
This thesis redefines a dialectical model that is appropriate for today’s contemporary
technological context, specifically based on the introduction of user-generated
technologies. In the chapter titled “Dialectic Through History” I describe the history of
dialectic up to and including its most recent use in the 1999 essay collection The Digital
Dialectic: New Essays on New Media. The following chapter describes the shift from the
Industrial Age to the Information Age, as illustrated through the transition from Web 1.0
technologies to Web 2.0, and then illustrates a dialectical model that is based on its
historical foundational principles described in Chapter 2 combined with today’s emerging
technological, social, and economic contexts. The next chapter lists current day
examples of today’s dialectical oppositions between the social and economic principles
founded in the Industrial Age versus those emerging during the Information Age. I then
conclude by discussing the possibilities for the future of dialectic as related to Web 3.0.
