INTRODUCTION:
The 21st century is commonly perceived as the age of information, heralded by the unprecedented rise and growth of digital media in every nook and corner of the world. Pier Cesare Rivoltella wrote in his celebrated book, “Digital Literacy: Tools and Methodologies for Information Society”, “such as Plato in Phaedrus, we are nowadays witnessing the cultural transition. This transition is from a literary society to a digital one” (Rivoltella, 2008, VI). The round-the-clock barrage of data, figures, and statistics of any sort at the ready disposal of the common mass owing to the revolutionisation of the digital age necessitates the exigency to question the unmitigated veracity of ‘knowledge’ and ‘wisdom’ that we consume at our will on a regular interval. An apposite quotation in this vein would be of Plato. Plato emphasising the practice of writing, mentioned that “because of writing, many would have ended up believing many things, while they do not know them” (Rivoltella, 2008, VI). Likewise, because of the facile availability of information on digital media and their mindless replications, people in this age and time keep believing a plethora of things without any semblance of knowledge about them. Amidst this visible fusillade and saturation of information, the digital media through which we avail (or rather buy) information has become a commodity to meet oodles of public expectations. This very commodification of the digital age raises one crucial question: Did humans become less competent in cultivating original thoughts and ideas under the constant bombardment of ‘knowledge’? Let me discuss.
DIGITAL LITERACY AND FOOTPRINT:
Although originality is not directly connected to digital literacy, it is the pièce de résistance of one’s digital identity. Digital literacy is an individual’s aptitude to search, examine, interpret, transmit and convey information in a dialogical manner using myriads of digital platforms. Western Sydney University mentions, “Digital literacy means having the skills you need to live, learn, and work in a society where communication and access to information are increasingly through digital technologies like internet platforms, social media, and mobile devices” (What is Digital Literacy? n.d.).
Digital footprint, on the other hand, is the by-product of one’s digital identity. This digital identity is made up of digital literacy. In the general sense of the term, digital footprint refers to the online activities that are left behind. These activities can be related to personal information available to others on the internet (Grayson, 2011).
My reasoning for bringing up digital literacy and digital footprint is that digitally illiterate people are exposed to higher risks of sharing their personal information with third parties without their knowledge and consent. Such data obtained from the surface web are distorted and sold on the dark web. Even the continuous crackdowns from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on the dark web can not prevent these activities from happening. Hence in the digital age, the ‘originality’ of a person can be compromised through their footprint in ways that are inconceivable to the common population. Although there are tawdry places and forums like the dark web known for such activities, it is even hard to trust some of the most reputed organisations when it comes to originality in the digital world. The allegations against Facebook for selling its users’ original and personal information to Cambridge Analytica provide testimony to such an apprehension (Confessore, 2018).
THE IMITATION GAME
Duplication is one of the primal testaments of human nature. This art of imitation is not a shoddy and deplorable practice despite its modern connotation. Since immemorial, we have been learning and producing things by copying our counterparts. Multiple ground-breaking arts such as paintings, dramas, operas, and motion pictures are the pastiches of earlier artworks. Therefore, there is nothing ominous with being influenced by the works and enterprises of others for the greater societal good. This is how our overall epistemological and ontological foundation gets strengthened, and we as humans learn, adapt, overcome, and eventually thrive with civilisational progress. However, influence and inspiration from other people do not just teach us to copy things or ideas blindly; rather, they inculcate a sense of creativity and value to turn up with something fresh and novel to add to the existing human knowledge system in the process. Thus, drawing a line between imitation and inspiration is one of the most paramount tasks for humans to follow to keep the ball of improvement rolling. This line often gets blurred in the digital age, given that our access to information has expanded in leaps and bounds in the 21st century. The earlier modus operandi of collecting valuable information was chiefly through newspapers. It was later complemented by television and radio. Moreover, the distribution of ‘knowledge’ through newspapers was a global phenomenon, albeit the fact that it was very slow, expensive, time-consuming, and a tad troublesome. With the invention of the internet in the last decade of the 20th century and the subsequent inception of a digital era in the first half of the 21st century, our ways and ideas regarding accumulating information underwent momentous transitions. Nonetheless, it is not to claim that newspapers, television, and radio have become obsolete in our age. Instead, despite their separate existence, these platforms are steadily getting merged into one overarching medium of digital entities. As humankind witnessed radical improvement in technological ventures, it is often touted that the world is just a touch away. While it may sound exaggerated, it underscores our mind-boggling progress in simplifying the information paradox within a very short time. However, provided that unbounded and limitless information is at our disposal nowadays, our chief priority has turned out to be the stockpiling of data, news, statistics, and stories in the form of news. This is a repetitive cycle of reproducing or providing the prior information with a new makeover, primarily through the art of imitation. This art of imitation has many forms, ranging from plagiarism and copyright violation to digital reproduction.
THE PLAGUE OF PLAGIARISM AND THE LOSS OF ORIGINALITY:
Plagiarism and copyright infringement have become analogous with the digital age, given the accessibility of information and their frequent contortion and alteration in the name of reproduction and research output. In academic spaces, ‘plagiarism’ is one of the most commonly used terms. But, what does it mean? According to Angelil-Carter, “plagiarism is a modern western construct that arose with the introduction of copyright laws” (Angelil-Carter, 1995, as quoted in Sentleng & King, 2012, 57). Jameson posits, “there is no universal definition of plagiarism, and that it depends on context, circumstances, audience, expectation, and genre of the written work” (Jameson, 1993, 18 as quoted in Sentleg & King, 2012, 57). On the whole, the most basic definition of plagiarism involves the intentional or unintentional reproduction of someone else’s work without adequate acknowledgement of the source of the work. The issue is severe to the extent that even preventive (widespread adoption of electronic detection systems – Culwin & Lancaster, 2000; Maurer et al., 2006; as quoted in Badge & Scott, 2019, 1) and punitive (expulsion from the educational institutes, repudiation within the scholarly spectrum) measures are not adequate to put a blanket ban on intellectual theft. Nonetheless, the breach of intellectual property rights and stealing ideas are not the products of the digital age as they are synchronous to human predisposition throughout history. However, these phenomena have witnessed exponential growth in the digital age, thereby signalling the degeneration of our intellectual faculty.
Plagiarism is not a country-specific issue. Instead, it is palpable across every part of the globe. An anonymous survey conducted by the “Psychological Record” reveals that 36% of the Undergraduates have admitted to plagiarising written material from the internet (Scott, 2016). Another national survey published in the “Education Weekly” revealed that 54% of the students across the US universities confessed to plagiarising from the internet (“Survey Shows Cheating and Academic Dishonesty Prevalent in Colleges and Universities”; Feb 06, 2017). Plagiarism is rampant in Indian academia as well. The “publish or perish” policy has contributed to the massive forgery of research works and, in turn, decimated academic integrity. The staggering presence of numerous substandard and predatory journals facilitates such activities day in and day out. In fact, India and China are two of the largest producers of bogus publications (Björk & Shen, 2015) due to the indiscriminate parroting of authentic and original research output. Even the recent UGC clampdowns (teachers to lose jobs, students to face deregistration: Economic Times, 2018) in India have failed to mitigate the damage because the growing digitisation of archives, libraries, journals, books, and historical records has led to the trouble-free entry into the world of information. There is now the practice of machine-based plagiarism with ‘tools’, ‘translation software’, and ‘article spinner’ to bypass trusted plagiarism checkers such as Turnitin. Jeffrey Beall, a former librarian at the University of Colorado, Denver, has made a list (https://beallslist.net/) of counterfeit journals, especially in India’s digital environment where the idea of originality is a distant dream.1. The catalogue carries end numbers of fake publication agencies that charge money to produce copied caricatures without a second thought. This parallel world of falsified academic narrative is not only detrimental to the rectitude and ethics of research and other academic practices, but it also single-handedly blows away the space of contemplation where original thoughts, ideas, and views are nurtured.
MECHANICAL/DIGITAL REPRODUCTION AND THE THREAT TO ORIGINALITY:
Mechanical reproduction is reproduction through technological apparatus. Mechanical reproduction does not depend on the volition of one particular individual. Rather, it is centred around machines to reproduce counterfeits of an original object of art, whether it is painting, photography, music, or cinema. Hence, mechanical reproduction is devoid of authenticity and uniqueness in almost every case. In his magnum opus, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin postulates how ‘aura’ or the ‘cult factor’ of art is subject to unabated compromise on account of mechanical reproduction (Benjamin, 1935). Although Benjamin’s work is rooted in the technological impression and the politics of the 1930s and the 40s, the vestiges of such a trend are thoroughly discernible in the digital age of the 21st century as well! Benjamin’s idea of mechanical reproduction has remained intact to this day and is further exacerbated as the direct consequence of the proliferation of digital media. When a particular art piece is reproduced repeatedly through manipulation and distortion, it is not hard to comprehend that originality might get lost somewhere in between. Similarly, through digital reproduction, ideas are being doctored, words are being manipulated, and events are being falsified. On numerous social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, we often come across entirely different versions of an event without a speck of reality. Motivational quotes are thrown around and attributed to the wrong people without any speck of cross-checking and research. Different narratives are either violently pushed down people’s throats or straight-jacketed into a singular ideological block through meme culture, and we, through our feeble attempt to become ‘experts’, jump on the bandwagon and instantly make them viral. Such slapdash tendencies to conveniently ignore authenticity have given birth to the idea of post-truth through ‘big lies’, ‘deep lies’ (Snyder, 2022), and fake news where the objectivity of facts and data take the backstage against personal beliefs and emotional inclination in shaping popular imagination (McIntyre, 2018). We are currently at the critical juncture where both information and technology are so intensely commingled together that it is an arduous task to demarcate one from another. The degree of accessibility that humans have now is unparalleled in our entire history. As mentioned earlier, due to the overwhelming presence of social media and the easy availability of internet services, we are constantly enticed to feast on the information provided to us in quotidian monotony. This essentially forces humans to think less and consume more. At times, ordinary people do not even have a basic understanding of what they consume. We keep repeating such behaviour because we have slowly become acquainted with this vicious cycle. We are least concerned about aura, authenticity, and originality. Hence, we are not bothered if the cult factor is missing from an object. We will consume it regardless. This way, humans are gradually being alienated from the space of deep thoughts, space of ideas, space of concepts, and space of contemplation. We have too many things to look at, yet a meagre portion of them is original. So much, yet so less: so much in information, so less in originality!
CONCLUSION:
One hard and fast rule to originality is the volume of authenticity involved in a particular thought, idea, and creation. When this ‘originality’ is lost, the proverbial line between ‘truth’ and ‘false’ gets erased. The true purpose of the digital age is to facilitate the flourishing of the uniqueness of art and information. However, instead of moving forward, we are running in a backward motion. The digital age has made many of us raise eyebrows regarding the accuracy of the information we consume. Regardless of such infringements on the idea of originality in the digital era, we sometimes knowingly remain complacent and choose to have a deaf ear. This inertia to tackle the embattled concept of ‘originality’ will aggravate the crisis going forward. Thus, besides government intervention, public awareness and participation are also vital to recognise the rhetorical nuances of ‘originality’ and implement a correctional (and often retributory) course of action to extirpate the vices against ‘originality’ altogether.
END NOTE
1 I had an email conversation with Dr Beall regarding the proliferation of such journals back in 2019. He mentioned that this custom had become so firmly embedded in the psyche of Indian academia that no amount of pressure and disciplinary measures can make it right unless the very foundation of this parallel ‘educational’ world is uprooted.
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