Digital technologies and Web2.0 have allowed us to interrogate structure like never before. It allows us to explore and question grammar, paths, patterns, order and sequences surrounding the way that we think and what we have in the past perceived as fixed or concrete (Roth 2008). The feedback loop provides an alternative communication channel which, rather than engaging in mainstream top down/bottom up communication, acknowledges how communication and knowledge can 'percolate' through the culture and practices of everyday life (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute 2011). For example, in our war reporting project Web2.0 has enabled communication from many Middle Eastern and North African counties to reach audiences in the West. Often the footage is unplanned, unfiltered, unmediated and often almost instantaneous. The footage informs Western publics in ways that would never be possible via a Western perspective or Western media, so much so that even an analogy between the two seems ill-founded (YouTube 2011).
This reassessment of what we have perceived as unchangeable allows us to expand our world and expand our notion of what is possible by thinking in new ways. Is an affinity with Things and Objects symbolic of a part of us retreating from our fissured selves to find a more rewarding and equitable life? Julian Bleecker suggests that Things can evolve just as human beings have evolved and learned to walk upright. We seem to want to evolve everything including our pets (Bleecker 2006, pp9-15). How do we imagine this world?
References:
Bleecker, J 2006, Why Things Matter, accessed 20/10/2011, http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/files/WhyThingsMatter.pdf
Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, 2011, Researching Everyday Life Through Visual and Digital Media, accessed 22/10/2011, http://in3.uoc.edu/opencms_portalin3/opencms/en/activitats/seminaris/agenda/2011/agenda_020
Roth, D 2008, Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web, accessed 13/10/2011, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-07/ff_android?currentPage=all
YouTube, 2011, thehawkofsyria, accessed 14/10/2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPvCSzXfBPM&feature=relate
Friday, 21 October 2011
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Week 12 - Apple vs. Google - The Two Futures of Mobile Devices
The business models for Apple and Google are very different. Apple seemingly works by the philosophy of a closed system where it holds onto the power and control of its coding and knowledge whereas Google releases coding to the public to build on and to further develop platforms (Wired Magazine 2008). However, both maintain 'control', but in different ways, and at differing levels of transparency (Robbins et al. 2006, pp651-729). Ultimately, both impose conditions and precedents for action but at varying levels of awareness to the public and through various positioning of borders (Lessig 2006). Google is giving away code for free only with the expectation of longer term return by way of monopoly on content or through the brand alliance of its customers by targeting resistant cultures. In securing deals with mobile phone companies now, Google seems to be attempting to ensure the future separation of the mobile telephone industry from content in order to exclusively produce and distribute content itself. People are interested primarily in connectivity and information, not in the actual devices as such, and seemingly not in longer term shifts in power toward large global companies and the power that they will possess in terms of knowledge and information (Wired Magazine 2008).
Freedom to make mistakes and freedom to make choices. What are the longer term implications for liberty in a world dominated by such large corporations though? Will the people be able to 'speak' through the economy in terms of demand and supply? Will these large corporations continue to provide them with the freedom and information that they need in order to make fair and informed choices? What kind of people will come to inhabit this global world over time? Will people become more active, creative, determined and motivated? Will they be compassionate and supportive toward one another?
Or are we like the cyber-utopianists suffering from determinism in our closed off world desperately needing liberation from cyber-realism (The Guardian 2011)? Is the rhetoric of concern for the needy within a deterministic world merely discourse to prevent us from realising greater freedom free from structures of power from our current 'bubble' within this paradigm?
References
The Guardian, 2011, Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go, accessed 19/9/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopian
Lessig, L 2006, 'Four puzzles from cyber space' in Code version 2.0, Basic Books, New York
Robbins, S Bergman, R Stagg, M Coulter, M 2006, Management, 4th Edition, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest
Wired Magazine, 2008, Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web, accessed 11/10/2011, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-07/ff_android
Freedom to make mistakes and freedom to make choices. What are the longer term implications for liberty in a world dominated by such large corporations though? Will the people be able to 'speak' through the economy in terms of demand and supply? Will these large corporations continue to provide them with the freedom and information that they need in order to make fair and informed choices? What kind of people will come to inhabit this global world over time? Will people become more active, creative, determined and motivated? Will they be compassionate and supportive toward one another?
Or are we like the cyber-utopianists suffering from determinism in our closed off world desperately needing liberation from cyber-realism (The Guardian 2011)? Is the rhetoric of concern for the needy within a deterministic world merely discourse to prevent us from realising greater freedom free from structures of power from our current 'bubble' within this paradigm?
References
The Guardian, 2011, Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go, accessed 19/9/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopian
Lessig, L 2006, 'Four puzzles from cyber space' in Code version 2.0, Basic Books, New York
Robbins, S Bergman, R Stagg, M Coulter, M 2006, Management, 4th Edition, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest
Wired Magazine, 2008, Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web, accessed 11/10/2011, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-07/ff_android
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Week 11a - Dichotomies to Dialectics, Then a Shift from Survival to Nature
Perhaps this also relates to this week's reading on Apple and Google, I'm not sure I haven't read it yet. What I have read is Bruno Latour in 'Piaget, formalism and the fifth dimension'. He's talking I think about Constructivism and Metaphysics, in fact, as he would say, he is talking about Constructivism and Metaphysics. I think he's discussing Constructivism in terms of humanity's pursuit for survival. Generally speaking, we see survival in terms of a dichotomy. At one end we are like animals that fight amongst each other for food etc. to survive, and at the other end we are civilised, far removed from this animal we are polite, courteous, giving, sharing, there is no boorishness here, only etiquette. But from a dialectical perspective, civility is only another means or function of survival. We have worked out that we are better off cooperating and working together (Latour 1997, pp4-14). Democracy abides by this law, that is, when we work together we create something more than we could ever achieve working separately (Baylis et al. 2008, pp92-105). Socrates, Plato, Western Philosophy and Political Science, Sociology is premised on the notion that we are animals that need to be locked-in to be protected from ourselves. Socrates was of the belief that we have achieved civility but we have a self-defeating urge to relinquish this civility and to return to our supposed animal states because it is our nature, it is only our 'system' and structure that keeps us from undermining ourselves (de Bono 1995, pp1-23). In this scenario, objectivity and civility therefore must be placed as priority or else structuralists see this as the 'system' reversed, or in regression if you like, we must keep moving forward and become more civilised, there is no other way than backward or forward (Debord 1967, pp91-109).
On the other hand, we could view humanity's imperative not as survival, but as enjoying life and feeling freedom from being locked-in and by being as we were prior to paternalising ourselves from ourselves. A return to nature as we actually are/were without construct, without self-imposed superfluous structures (Latour 1997, pp1-14). Even Durkheim admitted that there were two sides to humans; our animal, and our ability to moralise. Morality is what separates us from animals (Van Krieken 2006, pp634-638). And if we really were animals, we would just be animals, but we are not animals. If we were animals then we wouldn't be human beings. I don't believe that we have evolved from apes. Why are there still apes then? I think that we have always been something different and I don't think that we need to be protected from ourselves as a species, I don't think that we undermine ourselves, clearly and obviously we don't because we are presently here/civilised/human being and not there/animal/ape. This entire concept is 'relative' anyway because who is to define progression? What may seem backward to one person may seem as progression to another. I think that we would be more human if we were less 'measured' as Latour would say (Latour 1997, pp1-4). It would be so unnatural anyway to dress a monkey in a suit. I think Tarzan was more human than Jane (YouTube 2011). As Latour says, there is no yardstick 'out there' stating where progression is and where we/it must go (Latour 1997, pp1-4). If we are happy and content where we are going, if we are even 'going' anywhere really at all, then what does it matter? Many people see consumerism and capitalism as sophistication and progression while many others see it as the slow destruction of our planet, while others think that both are just inventions. Forward and backward, up and down are also inventions, and symbols and objects 'indicate' direction, sequence and orientation, meaning (Latour 1997, pp1-14).
Which way of being allows us to be most human?
References
Latour, B 1997,'Trains of thought - Piaget, formalism and the fifth dimension', Common Knowledge, Summer 1997, No. 71, pp1-29
On the other hand, we could view humanity's imperative not as survival, but as enjoying life and feeling freedom from being locked-in and by being as we were prior to paternalising ourselves from ourselves. A return to nature as we actually are/were without construct, without self-imposed superfluous structures (Latour 1997, pp1-14). Even Durkheim admitted that there were two sides to humans; our animal, and our ability to moralise. Morality is what separates us from animals (Van Krieken 2006, pp634-638). And if we really were animals, we would just be animals, but we are not animals. If we were animals then we wouldn't be human beings. I don't believe that we have evolved from apes. Why are there still apes then? I think that we have always been something different and I don't think that we need to be protected from ourselves as a species, I don't think that we undermine ourselves, clearly and obviously we don't because we are presently here/civilised/human being and not there/animal/ape. This entire concept is 'relative' anyway because who is to define progression? What may seem backward to one person may seem as progression to another. I think that we would be more human if we were less 'measured' as Latour would say (Latour 1997, pp1-4). It would be so unnatural anyway to dress a monkey in a suit. I think Tarzan was more human than Jane (YouTube 2011). As Latour says, there is no yardstick 'out there' stating where progression is and where we/it must go (Latour 1997, pp1-4). If we are happy and content where we are going, if we are even 'going' anywhere really at all, then what does it matter? Many people see consumerism and capitalism as sophistication and progression while many others see it as the slow destruction of our planet, while others think that both are just inventions. Forward and backward, up and down are also inventions, and symbols and objects 'indicate' direction, sequence and orientation, meaning (Latour 1997, pp1-14).
Which way of being allows us to be most human?
References
Baylis J, Smith, S, Owens P, 2008, The Globalisation of World Politics – An introduction to international relations 4e, Oxford University Press Inc., New York
de Bono, E 1995, parallel thinking, Penguin Books, London
Debord, G 1967, The Society of the Spectacle, Zone Books, New York, New York
Van Krieken, R Habibis, D Smith, P Hutchins, B Haralambos, M Hoborn, M 2006, Sociology Themes and Perspectives, 3rd Edition, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest
YouTube, 2011, U Jane Me Tarzan, accessed 14/10/2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxSzcWLIhiQ
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Week 11 - Case #mena #arabspring: The Social Network Revolutions
The Evgeny Morozov reading addresses the issue of cyber-utopianism and its surrounding simplicity and determinism. Morozov cites cyber-utopianists as associating Web2.0 technology with direct claims of democracy without consideration and attribution of agency to the intended mobilisation and strategic use of these technologies. Cyber-utopians dismiss more modest and less deterministic possibilities of the internet's democratising effects as disinterested and accuse advocates of such of being Luddites. On the contrary, by conflating moderation with extreme and by overlaying nuanced concepts with broad and sweeping claims, utopians are in fact undermining the very possibilities that Web2.0 technology has for enablement. A clear explanation of this is given on Little Red Lost in the Woods which includes a YouTube clip with Morozov explaining this position generally through illustrations and commentary. In the reading Morozov discusses these more modest and realistic possibilities as cyber-realism and outlines the possibilities provided by Web2.0 technologies in relation to the recent Arab and Egyptian revolutions and the use of Facebook and Twitter. He emphasises, however, the role of offline preparation prior to these revolutions and the intended and organised mobilisation of Web2.0 technologies as part of the process in establishing long term change and shows how existing technologies were reappropriated for new uses. As such, these revolutions need to be examined in more historical terms in order to appreciate the offline history of these movements and the organised and deliberate use of online technologies in order to mobilise resistance (The Guardian 2011). This can be seen in the recent Tunisian revolution, Syrian revolution, Egyptian revolution and Yemen revolution.
An additional point in the reading surrounds the relationship between the United States and the Middle East. If the Iraqi's are attributed with the agency to enact a revolution by their own accord and to not be indiscriminately motivated to action by the technology itself, then the United States can't take credit for producing 'democracy' in the Middle East. To say that the revolutions spontaneously erupted as a result of the enabling effects of the technology is rather to 'credit' the United States with being responsible for the spread of democracy. In terms of democracy itself though, it would certainly seem more democratic, hypothetically, if the use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were chosen actively and deliberately rather than spontaneously by the Iraqi people, as advocated by the cyber-realists. Agency and realism in this instance seem to be situated outside of structure and determinism, outside of the State system and outside of the West???
It is interesting that Morozov mentions three possibilites for our ' fascination with technology-driven accounts of political change' in the recent revolutions; glamor and dominance, the social being generally associated with informality, and bias of those reporting being directly involved (The Guardian 2011). I think that there would be many other reasons if this fascination we have with technology was to be assessed more generally. Technology allows us to transfer work and burden, it almost acts as a secular substitute for our own paternalisation of ourselves in some instances, similarly it could also be said to play the role of 'other being' so that we can pretend that we are not alone in this universe, that we are not an anomalie, a freak of nature spontaneously erupting like a flash mob on a San Franciscan street. Do we need to believe that we were planned, designed and intended? Do we find in technology 'reason', and feel a part of something that is larger than ourselves? Or do we make technology our determined 'other' where we can challenge ourselves (Human Cloning 2011)?
In a global context, Morozov suggests that our utopionism of technology may serve as vindication for the guilt that we feel over our extended use of online networking technologies (The Guardian 2011). But why do we feel guilt over the enjoyment and pleasure we experience while on Facebook and Twitter? Do we feel guilt in this instance on an individual or a collective level, or both? Do we anticipate or even demand a particular level of displeasure in order for life to seem grounded, earned and balanced (Carveth & Hantman Carveth 2007)? How does this relate to our conceptions of freedom (Hayek 2011)? Or do we keep ourselves displeasured in order to seek pleasure (Carveth & Hantman Carveth 2007)? Is this what cyber-utopianism, determinism and structure is? A mechanism that prevents us from realising other forms of pleasure and freedom (Centre for the Study of Complex Systems 2001)?
References
Carveth, D & Hantman Carveth, J 2007, Fugitives From Guilt: Postmodern De-Moralization and the New Hysterias, accessed 9/10/2011, http://www.yorku.ca/dcarveth/fugitives.pdf
Centre for the Study of Complex Systems, 2001, QWERTY, Lock-in and Path Dependence, accessed 9/10/2011, http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notabene/qwerty.html
The Guardian, 2011, Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go, accessed 19/9/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopian
Hayek, F 2011, Thinking about Freedom: Two Definitions in F A Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, accessed 9/10/2011, http://www.carolsnotes.net/2011/05/thinking-about-freedom-two-definitions-in-f-a-hayeks-the-road-to-serfdom/
Human Cloning, 2011, Stem-Cells and Human Cloning: The Postmodern Prometheus, accessed 10/10/2011, http://biology.kenyon.edu/courses/biol114/Chap14/clone.html
An additional point in the reading surrounds the relationship between the United States and the Middle East. If the Iraqi's are attributed with the agency to enact a revolution by their own accord and to not be indiscriminately motivated to action by the technology itself, then the United States can't take credit for producing 'democracy' in the Middle East. To say that the revolutions spontaneously erupted as a result of the enabling effects of the technology is rather to 'credit' the United States with being responsible for the spread of democracy. In terms of democracy itself though, it would certainly seem more democratic, hypothetically, if the use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were chosen actively and deliberately rather than spontaneously by the Iraqi people, as advocated by the cyber-realists. Agency and realism in this instance seem to be situated outside of structure and determinism, outside of the State system and outside of the West???
It is interesting that Morozov mentions three possibilites for our ' fascination with technology-driven accounts of political change' in the recent revolutions; glamor and dominance, the social being generally associated with informality, and bias of those reporting being directly involved (The Guardian 2011). I think that there would be many other reasons if this fascination we have with technology was to be assessed more generally. Technology allows us to transfer work and burden, it almost acts as a secular substitute for our own paternalisation of ourselves in some instances, similarly it could also be said to play the role of 'other being' so that we can pretend that we are not alone in this universe, that we are not an anomalie, a freak of nature spontaneously erupting like a flash mob on a San Franciscan street. Do we need to believe that we were planned, designed and intended? Do we find in technology 'reason', and feel a part of something that is larger than ourselves? Or do we make technology our determined 'other' where we can challenge ourselves (Human Cloning 2011)?
In a global context, Morozov suggests that our utopionism of technology may serve as vindication for the guilt that we feel over our extended use of online networking technologies (The Guardian 2011). But why do we feel guilt over the enjoyment and pleasure we experience while on Facebook and Twitter? Do we feel guilt in this instance on an individual or a collective level, or both? Do we anticipate or even demand a particular level of displeasure in order for life to seem grounded, earned and balanced (Carveth & Hantman Carveth 2007)? How does this relate to our conceptions of freedom (Hayek 2011)? Or do we keep ourselves displeasured in order to seek pleasure (Carveth & Hantman Carveth 2007)? Is this what cyber-utopianism, determinism and structure is? A mechanism that prevents us from realising other forms of pleasure and freedom (Centre for the Study of Complex Systems 2001)?
References
Carveth, D & Hantman Carveth, J 2007, Fugitives From Guilt: Postmodern De-Moralization and the New Hysterias, accessed 9/10/2011, http://www.yorku.ca/dcarveth/fugitives.pdf
Centre for the Study of Complex Systems, 2001, QWERTY, Lock-in and Path Dependence, accessed 9/10/2011, http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notabene/qwerty.html
The Guardian, 2011, Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go, accessed 19/9/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopian
Hayek, F 2011, Thinking about Freedom: Two Definitions in F A Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, accessed 9/10/2011, http://www.carolsnotes.net/2011/05/thinking-about-freedom-two-definitions-in-f-a-hayeks-the-road-to-serfdom/
Human Cloning, 2011, Stem-Cells and Human Cloning: The Postmodern Prometheus, accessed 10/10/2011, http://biology.kenyon.edu/courses/biol114/Chap14/clone.html
Monday, 19 September 2011
Week 9 - Counter-Networks: Online Activism, Whistleblowers, and the Dark Side of the Net
This is interesting this topic - how much activism is allowed? It's kind of an oxymoron - being allowed to express dissent only about certain things in a certain way and to a certain extent. It seems like dissent by 'design', a token gesture without any substance or ability to affect any real change, 'change that is bound' or 'conditional dissent' - like 'I will be your friend only if you agree with everything I say'. Pushing the boundaries of the law seems to be the 'turning point' in enacting successful change. Cultural boundaries are one thing because people can 'come around' so to speak, but the law seems so concrete, acts are either within or beyond the law. How then are we supposed to have a public of diverse voices? Both the ideal and the collapse of diversity though would be in its perception as infinite, and at what point would you agree that some actions require people to be behind bars and other actions aren't criminal but rather 'expressing diversity' (The New Yorker 2010)? We discussed this in tut where Ted asked 'Who is to decide the boundaries?' For the moment the State and probably some powerful corporates decide. Some of us vote, but do our votes really contribute to the decision making process in any valid way?
The openDemocracy reading by James Crabtree proposed a society of collective intelligence, collective knowledge and collective action where citizens get together and fulfill many collective needs circumventing government direction (openDemocracy 2003). I'd assumed that the information age was about dispensing largely with the State (Klein 2007, pp49-71), but Crabtree is suggesting a coexistence of the State with public collectivity. There is nothing illegal or unethical about people organising a Sunday morning group dog walk or dog training session at the local park independent of local council run programs. The public doesn't have to allow the State to intervene and mediate our lives and relations with our neighbours, we can organise things between ourselves directly (openDemocracy 2003). I guess over time, with the mechanisms of supply and demand, the role of the government may reduce as required, but State and an active and independent public can coexist. The State would gradually assume a role of serving the public I would assume, rather than directing and mediating the public. This would be a gradual and cultural process over time, and essentially, it would be 'public directed/decided' and not the 'shock application' of instant removal of the entire State apparatus and public imposition as Naomi Klein suggests in 'The Shock Doctrine' (Klein 2007, pp49-71). Is this time 'expanding'? Projecting cultural change into the future over time and historical consideration has vastly different consequences and outcomes to the instant 'shock' where time is locked into the moment. 'Moment' is so expansively different to 'over time' (Snapper 1999, pp129 & 131). These two conceptions of time framed around one example can give two completely different outcomes.
I was thinking about this in tut when Ted was talking about Julian Assange and the Wikileaks reading (The New Yorker 2010). If our governments had been transparent with the public as they should have been then there would not have been these vast amounts of documents to leak. In the same token, if the government knew that they had to be transparent with the public would they have acted differently/more ethically? If this process had been a gradual negotiation and a more even power balance between State and public over time, then this sudden release of information wouldn't have even occurred. The issue really is, that this situation should never have arisen, it shouldn't have been possible. But the reality is that once it was released by Assange in that sudden moment, it was a shock, it was the public catching up on their lost awareness and autonomy all in one 'moment' (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). 'Hierarchy' wants time to be 'present', network time considers all time; history, present, future. When the picture is wide, it looks so different to the narrow pin hole. Modernism is such a small frame within the big picture, and Modernism wants us only to look at it and not to span other paradigms. This is a trait of all paradigms I would imagine, not just specifically the Modern paradigm, but Modernism seems to act as a means also of naturalising the system of hierarchy. Network culture seems like a platform that provides us the means to access all paradigms and question the existence even of the paradigm itself (Knowledge Solutions 2009).
Within the hierarchy model then, there are two groups of people, those who look through the pin hole and see time and space as separated, compressed and tightly framed and those who see a wider picture where time and space are both expanded and converged (Deuze 2007, p246-250). The question is, why is it even assumed that we need the 'two cultures' (Allan 2002, pp1-11)? We only need that separation in a hierarchical system because the system dictates hierarchy. In a system which is posited on equality it is only logical that equality will be what drives that system. The lecture talked about how 'network architecture formats the behaviour of the agents...', the arrangement of the system in effect is what directs culture and if the system is designed to be driven by culture itself then culture will drive it (Mitew 2011). In effect, a system designed to give power to the public will enact power to the public. The hierarchy system has been in effect I would imagine for 5000 years at least. It seems that now the public has moved to 'centre' and the 'elite' have assumed subcultural traits or status, or at the very least need to enact alternative means to protect their knowledge, power and status as the public, it would appear, move en masse into their 'space' (Bruns 2009).
References:
Allan, S 2002, Media, Risk and Science, Open University Press, Buckingham
Axel Bruns, 2009, News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism, accessed 5/9/2011, http://snurb.info/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf
Deuze, M 2007, 'Convergence culture in the creative industries', International Journal of Cultural Studies,Vol. 10, Iss> 2, pp243-263
Klein, N 2007, The Shock Doctrine, Penguin Books Ltd, London
Knowledge Solutions, 2009, Understanding Complexity, accessed 26/9/2011, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Information/Knowledge-Solutions/understanding-complexity.pdf
Mitew, T 2011, Counter-networks, online activism, whistelblowers and the dark side of the net, lecture, digc202, Global Networks, University of Wollongong, delivered 19 September
The New Yorker, 2010, No Secrets, accessed 12/9/2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian
openDemocracy, 2003, Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy, accessed 12/9/2011, http://www.mafhoum.com/press4/136C35.htm
Snapper, J W 1999, 'On the Web, plagiarism matters more than copyright piracy', Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 1, pp127-136
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008, Personal Autonomy, accessed 14/9/2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personal-autonomy/
The openDemocracy reading by James Crabtree proposed a society of collective intelligence, collective knowledge and collective action where citizens get together and fulfill many collective needs circumventing government direction (openDemocracy 2003). I'd assumed that the information age was about dispensing largely with the State (Klein 2007, pp49-71), but Crabtree is suggesting a coexistence of the State with public collectivity. There is nothing illegal or unethical about people organising a Sunday morning group dog walk or dog training session at the local park independent of local council run programs. The public doesn't have to allow the State to intervene and mediate our lives and relations with our neighbours, we can organise things between ourselves directly (openDemocracy 2003). I guess over time, with the mechanisms of supply and demand, the role of the government may reduce as required, but State and an active and independent public can coexist. The State would gradually assume a role of serving the public I would assume, rather than directing and mediating the public. This would be a gradual and cultural process over time, and essentially, it would be 'public directed/decided' and not the 'shock application' of instant removal of the entire State apparatus and public imposition as Naomi Klein suggests in 'The Shock Doctrine' (Klein 2007, pp49-71). Is this time 'expanding'? Projecting cultural change into the future over time and historical consideration has vastly different consequences and outcomes to the instant 'shock' where time is locked into the moment. 'Moment' is so expansively different to 'over time' (Snapper 1999, pp129 & 131). These two conceptions of time framed around one example can give two completely different outcomes.
I was thinking about this in tut when Ted was talking about Julian Assange and the Wikileaks reading (The New Yorker 2010). If our governments had been transparent with the public as they should have been then there would not have been these vast amounts of documents to leak. In the same token, if the government knew that they had to be transparent with the public would they have acted differently/more ethically? If this process had been a gradual negotiation and a more even power balance between State and public over time, then this sudden release of information wouldn't have even occurred. The issue really is, that this situation should never have arisen, it shouldn't have been possible. But the reality is that once it was released by Assange in that sudden moment, it was a shock, it was the public catching up on their lost awareness and autonomy all in one 'moment' (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). 'Hierarchy' wants time to be 'present', network time considers all time; history, present, future. When the picture is wide, it looks so different to the narrow pin hole. Modernism is such a small frame within the big picture, and Modernism wants us only to look at it and not to span other paradigms. This is a trait of all paradigms I would imagine, not just specifically the Modern paradigm, but Modernism seems to act as a means also of naturalising the system of hierarchy. Network culture seems like a platform that provides us the means to access all paradigms and question the existence even of the paradigm itself (Knowledge Solutions 2009).
Within the hierarchy model then, there are two groups of people, those who look through the pin hole and see time and space as separated, compressed and tightly framed and those who see a wider picture where time and space are both expanded and converged (Deuze 2007, p246-250). The question is, why is it even assumed that we need the 'two cultures' (Allan 2002, pp1-11)? We only need that separation in a hierarchical system because the system dictates hierarchy. In a system which is posited on equality it is only logical that equality will be what drives that system. The lecture talked about how 'network architecture formats the behaviour of the agents...', the arrangement of the system in effect is what directs culture and if the system is designed to be driven by culture itself then culture will drive it (Mitew 2011). In effect, a system designed to give power to the public will enact power to the public. The hierarchy system has been in effect I would imagine for 5000 years at least. It seems that now the public has moved to 'centre' and the 'elite' have assumed subcultural traits or status, or at the very least need to enact alternative means to protect their knowledge, power and status as the public, it would appear, move en masse into their 'space' (Bruns 2009).
References:
Allan, S 2002, Media, Risk and Science, Open University Press, Buckingham
Axel Bruns, 2009, News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism, accessed 5/9/2011, http://snurb.info/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf
Deuze, M 2007, 'Convergence culture in the creative industries', International Journal of Cultural Studies,Vol. 10, Iss> 2, pp243-263
Klein, N 2007, The Shock Doctrine, Penguin Books Ltd, London
Knowledge Solutions, 2009, Understanding Complexity, accessed 26/9/2011, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Information/Knowledge-Solutions/understanding-complexity.pdf
Mitew, T 2011, Counter-networks, online activism, whistelblowers and the dark side of the net, lecture, digc202, Global Networks, University of Wollongong, delivered 19 September
The New Yorker, 2010, No Secrets, accessed 12/9/2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian
openDemocracy, 2003, Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy, accessed 12/9/2011, http://www.mafhoum.com/press4/136C35.htm
Snapper, J W 1999, 'On the Web, plagiarism matters more than copyright piracy', Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 1, pp127-136
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008, Personal Autonomy, accessed 14/9/2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personal-autonomy/
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Week 8 - Citizen Journalism and New Media Audiences
Traditional hierarchical models seem to focus on resistance within notions of structure and post-structure, the Axel Bruns reading it would seem refers to this as the two-tier model. Within such a model, resistance by the public is anticipated by corporates, marketers and government in a particular way and as such is built into the model itself. However within a network, resistance seems to behave in a way or at a level that is unanticipated. Network models seem rather to dispute the very arrangement of the hierarchy model and the very notion of structure as a guiding factor altogether. In the age of the internet it would seem that both traditional and network models agree (perhaps each for different reasons) that there is a need to incorporate both structure and agency and that structure as a guiding social and theoretical principle has dominated throughout the industrial age. The dispute of the information age seems to be which model will play an a priori role. Each model accordingly has its own beliefs, concerns, priorities and associated discourses which try to convince the public that it is the best means to 'the good life'. Each model talks about different routes to the good life; short term, long term, equality versus overall benefit, competition or cooperation, responsibility or paternalisation (Bruns 2009).
Bruns seems to also outline various positions resistant to the mainstream firstly in relation to the two-tier model. He discusses resistant positions taken either at edge or alternatively at centre. The former remains true to authenticity yet can only critique and snipe without suggesting any constructive alternatives. The latter on the other hand, resisting from centre or cooption, could be deemed as sellout yet is positioned in a way that can affect cultural change within existing structures. Through the lens of citizen journalism, Bruns discusses a third resistant position to mainstream, that of the information age where nodes are positioned within the flow of the network, effectively structure has moved inside content. This position resists the very notion of structure as guiding social force at an ontological level. The model seems to advocate a flattening out, that everyone and everything is equal, that we are each unique and infinitely diverse, that we are not grouped, not stereo-typed and not categorised. That we are not pitted against each other but will gain more collectively through cooperative effort (Bruns 2009). Technology and the long tail have revealed an alternative to the dead end critique of post modernism, a means to move forward 'above' modernism (Anderson 2004).
The implications for this seem to be the ongoing existence of metanarrative but it would appear to run, from a Modernist perspective, inverted or reversed and secondary to or enclosed within agency. It seems at the fission stage of metanarrative that the information age has split not just particular conflated aspects or assumptions of culture within the two-tier system but has split the entire system somehow and is subsequently feeding this model back into metanarrative at the fission stage, in a sense, using the system as its own weapon against itself. We could see this idea similarly where the internet acts to undermine the scarcity and hence value of 'the copy' for the corporate mainstream model (Shirky 2002). From a Modernist perspective metanarrative is now running in reverse and we are regressing (Klein 2007, pp3-21). From the perspective of the information age I guess both of these notions take a back seat anyway because they refer to time and space, both of which are becoming less relevant with digital and global technologies (Sterling 1993). Was it Einstein who gave us notions of time and space that weren't physical but that which we could only imagine? So, Newton's three laws of motion presumably still run somewhere deep beneath the information age (Langone et al. 2006, p44 & 57)). And beneath that Socratic four types of autonomy based on knowledge and awareness, but how have they changed (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2008)? I can't help but wonder if these four states of autonomy relate to strong and weak force (nuclear power & decay within the two-tier model), electromagnetism and gravity and what the relationship between all these things (Nasa's Imagine the Universe! 1998). Hydrogen still seems to turn into helium but the hydrogen is somehow different???!!! Or is the information age about the same idea of the conversion of elements but about helium turning into carbon (The Astrophysics Spectator 2004)?
Alternatively, perhaps a biological comparison may be more apt. Rather than the idea of humans processing information or relating to the outside world through a centralised brain which can be developed in a hierarchical sense through education and specific academic knowledge, maybe the network model refers to the senses. The network model seems to focus on knowledge through sense, many senses; sight, sound, touch (Klein 2007, pp25-48). Perhaps that's what the nodes are, our points of contact with the external world, and then the flow is the data from our senses being interpreted by our brain as a secondary act. Then is the mind the bridge between sense and brain? I guess in a sensory and network perspective we are all equal. Perhaps someone who is blind many have a more keen sense of hearing, but we all have an equal means to utilise our senses and perhaps it is the type of thing that can't really be extended beyond others like there would be no such thing as 'sensory skill' or 'sensory knowledge', when it comes to senses we are all equal or equipped with what we were born with. The network model, with its uptake and popularity, seems to advocate sense as the primary way that we interpret information, not through the brain. Quite an interesting idea to get your head around; that information primarily comes into our body through our senses then we interpret it in our brain, not the other way around! Modernists think this is a dangerous way to think because it gives in to our 'animal' and leads us to act primarily in impulse, thus leading to our regression back to caveman. Socrates advocated that we as human beings have a tendency to undermine ourselves and he apparently discussed this notion in his dialogues and apparently it is catered for within the democratic model in the form of a 'lock-in' (Hernan Lopez-Garay 2001). But then how is it in this case that we managed at all to progress past our cave-person days? Why is it that Socrates, Plato etc. had the apparent ability to see outside our animal when everyone else couldn't and that they could protect us from something that we ourselves couldn't? And how is it that we worked out how to break/modify/utilise the metanarrative mechanism when this was not apparently ever 'anticipated' or catered for? If structure makes us, then who made structure? Is 'the fear of our animal' a discourse that traces way back before the industrial age, a fear that has been instilled in us to keep us regulated through a web of floundering discourse between structure and agency. Are we finally free of it???? Is this the third kind of freedom, the third culture (Kelly 2008)? Modernists say that humans are just an animal and that it is important to keep the ideal that we are human, it is imperative. Does the network say that we are also animals and that we will be more human if we stop trying to forget that we are animals or does the network say that we are not animals because we have the ability to reason our senses and we have only merely been wrongly led to negate our agency? Why would it matter if we all knew that we were more than a civilised animal? Actor Network Theory advocates that we are equal though with animals and objects (van Oenen 2011)?? Will have to think about this!
References:
Anderson, C 2004, Wired: The Long Tail, accessed 1/9/2011, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
The Astrophysics Spectator, 2004,Stars, accessed 14/9/2011, http://www.astrophysicsspectator.com/topics/stars/FusionHydrogen.html
Bruns, A 2009, News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism, accessed11/9/2011, http://snurb.info/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf
Kelly, K 2008, The Third Culture: Better Than Free, accessed 28/8/2011, http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html
Klein, N 2007, The Shock Doctrine, Penguine Books Ltd, London
Langone, J Stutz, B Gionopoulos, A 2006, Theories for Everything, National Geographic Society, Washington
Lopez-Garay, H 2001, Dialogue Among Civilisations: What For?, accessed 14/9/2011, http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/loversofdemocracy/lopez-garay.pdf
Nasa's Imagine the Universe!, 2008, Ask an Astrophysicist, accessed 14/9/2011, http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980127c.html
Shirky, C 2002, Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing, accessed 4/9/2011, http://www.shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008, Personal Autonomy, accessed 14/9/2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personal-autonomy/
Sterling, B 1993, A Short History of the Internet, accessed 28/7/2011, http://sodacity.net/system/files/Bruce_Sterling_A_Short_History_of_the_Internet.pdf
van Oenen, G 2011, Interpassive Agency: Engaging Actor-Network-Theory's View on the Agency of Objects, accessed 14/9/2011, http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/journals/theory_and_event/v014/14.2.van-oenen.html
Bruns seems to also outline various positions resistant to the mainstream firstly in relation to the two-tier model. He discusses resistant positions taken either at edge or alternatively at centre. The former remains true to authenticity yet can only critique and snipe without suggesting any constructive alternatives. The latter on the other hand, resisting from centre or cooption, could be deemed as sellout yet is positioned in a way that can affect cultural change within existing structures. Through the lens of citizen journalism, Bruns discusses a third resistant position to mainstream, that of the information age where nodes are positioned within the flow of the network, effectively structure has moved inside content. This position resists the very notion of structure as guiding social force at an ontological level. The model seems to advocate a flattening out, that everyone and everything is equal, that we are each unique and infinitely diverse, that we are not grouped, not stereo-typed and not categorised. That we are not pitted against each other but will gain more collectively through cooperative effort (Bruns 2009). Technology and the long tail have revealed an alternative to the dead end critique of post modernism, a means to move forward 'above' modernism (Anderson 2004).
The implications for this seem to be the ongoing existence of metanarrative but it would appear to run, from a Modernist perspective, inverted or reversed and secondary to or enclosed within agency. It seems at the fission stage of metanarrative that the information age has split not just particular conflated aspects or assumptions of culture within the two-tier system but has split the entire system somehow and is subsequently feeding this model back into metanarrative at the fission stage, in a sense, using the system as its own weapon against itself. We could see this idea similarly where the internet acts to undermine the scarcity and hence value of 'the copy' for the corporate mainstream model (Shirky 2002). From a Modernist perspective metanarrative is now running in reverse and we are regressing (Klein 2007, pp3-21). From the perspective of the information age I guess both of these notions take a back seat anyway because they refer to time and space, both of which are becoming less relevant with digital and global technologies (Sterling 1993). Was it Einstein who gave us notions of time and space that weren't physical but that which we could only imagine? So, Newton's three laws of motion presumably still run somewhere deep beneath the information age (Langone et al. 2006, p44 & 57)). And beneath that Socratic four types of autonomy based on knowledge and awareness, but how have they changed (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2008)? I can't help but wonder if these four states of autonomy relate to strong and weak force (nuclear power & decay within the two-tier model), electromagnetism and gravity and what the relationship between all these things (Nasa's Imagine the Universe! 1998). Hydrogen still seems to turn into helium but the hydrogen is somehow different???!!! Or is the information age about the same idea of the conversion of elements but about helium turning into carbon (The Astrophysics Spectator 2004)?
Alternatively, perhaps a biological comparison may be more apt. Rather than the idea of humans processing information or relating to the outside world through a centralised brain which can be developed in a hierarchical sense through education and specific academic knowledge, maybe the network model refers to the senses. The network model seems to focus on knowledge through sense, many senses; sight, sound, touch (Klein 2007, pp25-48). Perhaps that's what the nodes are, our points of contact with the external world, and then the flow is the data from our senses being interpreted by our brain as a secondary act. Then is the mind the bridge between sense and brain? I guess in a sensory and network perspective we are all equal. Perhaps someone who is blind many have a more keen sense of hearing, but we all have an equal means to utilise our senses and perhaps it is the type of thing that can't really be extended beyond others like there would be no such thing as 'sensory skill' or 'sensory knowledge', when it comes to senses we are all equal or equipped with what we were born with. The network model, with its uptake and popularity, seems to advocate sense as the primary way that we interpret information, not through the brain. Quite an interesting idea to get your head around; that information primarily comes into our body through our senses then we interpret it in our brain, not the other way around! Modernists think this is a dangerous way to think because it gives in to our 'animal' and leads us to act primarily in impulse, thus leading to our regression back to caveman. Socrates advocated that we as human beings have a tendency to undermine ourselves and he apparently discussed this notion in his dialogues and apparently it is catered for within the democratic model in the form of a 'lock-in' (Hernan Lopez-Garay 2001). But then how is it in this case that we managed at all to progress past our cave-person days? Why is it that Socrates, Plato etc. had the apparent ability to see outside our animal when everyone else couldn't and that they could protect us from something that we ourselves couldn't? And how is it that we worked out how to break/modify/utilise the metanarrative mechanism when this was not apparently ever 'anticipated' or catered for? If structure makes us, then who made structure? Is 'the fear of our animal' a discourse that traces way back before the industrial age, a fear that has been instilled in us to keep us regulated through a web of floundering discourse between structure and agency. Are we finally free of it???? Is this the third kind of freedom, the third culture (Kelly 2008)? Modernists say that humans are just an animal and that it is important to keep the ideal that we are human, it is imperative. Does the network say that we are also animals and that we will be more human if we stop trying to forget that we are animals or does the network say that we are not animals because we have the ability to reason our senses and we have only merely been wrongly led to negate our agency? Why would it matter if we all knew that we were more than a civilised animal? Actor Network Theory advocates that we are equal though with animals and objects (van Oenen 2011)?? Will have to think about this!
References:
Anderson, C 2004, Wired: The Long Tail, accessed 1/9/2011, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
The Astrophysics Spectator, 2004,Stars, accessed 14/9/2011, http://www.astrophysicsspectator.com/topics/stars/FusionHydrogen.html
Bruns, A 2009, News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism, accessed11/9/2011, http://snurb.info/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf
Kelly, K 2008, The Third Culture: Better Than Free, accessed 28/8/2011, http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html
Klein, N 2007, The Shock Doctrine, Penguine Books Ltd, London
Langone, J Stutz, B Gionopoulos, A 2006, Theories for Everything, National Geographic Society, Washington
Lopez-Garay, H 2001, Dialogue Among Civilisations: What For?, accessed 14/9/2011, http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/loversofdemocracy/lopez-garay.pdf
Nasa's Imagine the Universe!, 2008, Ask an Astrophysicist, accessed 14/9/2011, http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980127c.html
Shirky, C 2002, Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing, accessed 4/9/2011, http://www.shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008, Personal Autonomy, accessed 14/9/2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personal-autonomy/
Sterling, B 1993, A Short History of the Internet, accessed 28/7/2011, http://sodacity.net/system/files/Bruce_Sterling_A_Short_History_of_the_Internet.pdf
van Oenen, G 2011, Interpassive Agency: Engaging Actor-Network-Theory's View on the Agency of Objects, accessed 14/9/2011, http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/journals/theory_and_event/v014/14.2.van-oenen.html
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Week 7 - Into the Cloud: the Long Tail and the Attention Economy
I'm starting to see now the democratising effects of the internet. The potential of the internet is becoming more and more realised over time. It is in effect using economics, capitalism and democracy to turn media power on itself. Democracy allows for revision of 'the rules' and grants much more latitude between individual liberty and the democratic collective than I realised. I wonder what other terrain of democracy I haven't yet discovered, there's probably vast reaches. Democracy can take so many forms, all legal, all legitimate, all 'within' the democratic model so to speak (Kelly 2008). It makes me realise how limited our views of democracy are in this time and place and how immersed you become in your own 'world' that you fail to see that there is so much more going on. I guess Socrates could see infinitely past the present place and envisage many forms of democracy. I just can't believe the flexibility of democracy, I thought it was so much more limited. That is probably also a part of Socratic knowledge and awareness that is built into democracy, an awareness of the capabilities of democracy and the power that we actually have legally as its citizens. I wonder if throughout history other democracies have been more aware of their democratic powers. I wonder also if the mass media has played a role throughout the last century in reducing public awareness of its democratic powers. We certainly have recently seen a trend of distrust in politics by the public which has been largely generated by media; including the sensationalism and celebrity involved in the last Federal election and the evolution of political party brands ie. brand Labor (Louw 2010, pp111-115).
I thought it was interesting to think about mass media industry being reliant on scarcity of copies in their business model and how the internet, through the mechanisms of economic supply and demand, create an abundance of copies making mass media products worthless (Shirky 2002). Very clever. So the more that any of us perform any action on the internet the more we are undermining the mass media business model. So I guess anything associated with assisting in the fercundity and duplication of data on the internet, like RSS feeds, only further reduce mass media product value. The mass media are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to online advertising, they are damned if they do and they are damned if they don't because the same rule applies to them ie. the more they upload to the internet to entice online sales the more they only undermine their offline business model (O'Reilly 2005).
The hackers played a large role in undermining the mass media business model. But it's also interesting to think about how this whole scenario perhaps was an inadvertent consequence of cold war tactics to avert nuclear attack. The internet and the notion of network as opposed to centralisation and hierarchy were a tactic of war to overcome traditional limitations of time and space. In the first instance, the network setup allowed front line and timely decisions to be made without central consultation. Secondly, the decentralised structure of the network allowed for any node to work independently (Sterling 1993)). It seems that the bipolarity of global power for 45 years of cold war between the US and the then USSR inadvertently spawned a new war tactic of diffusion which in itself kind of revealed a new form of decentralised cooperation. But perhaps this is a natural reaction to the intense forms of concentration resultant from the US/USSR stand off. Perhaps this diffusion was not new but part of a larger cycle. Is it possible though that in an age of unprecedented nuclear power that this stand off between the US and USSR continued much longer than previous bi-polar stand offs in the cycle? Thus the awareness of this third type of 'diffused cooperative' democracy nearly became culturally lost within our lifetime (Lessig 2004). Is this the third part of metanarrative, the constructionist part? Is this what mass media has done, locked us into objective/subjective cycles without constructionism ie. they locked us into fissure and tried to extinct fussion (Centre for the Study of Complex Systems 2001)? This is why it is so important that people realise and are made aware that democracy can also legally, morally, ethically and legitimately take the form of diffused cooperation. I guess neo-liberal discourse is the mechanism which co-opts us back into the objective/subjective cycle and stops us from moving beyond the discourse to see otherwise. Neo-liberalism is the discourse of the discourse, so the media would be responsible for producing its own discourse about itself in order to keep us locked within its power (Neoliberalism: origins, theory, definition, 2005). Is this how mass media challenged metanarrative, kind of by using metanarrative against itself also? Is this democratic dialogue??? If so, then democracy is like a 'network' and dialogue is like a war of ideas and concepts, a constant critique of itself, a struggle for power or persuasion, a constant tension, a game.
References:
Centre for the Study of Complex Systems, 2001, QWERTY, Lock-in and Path Dependence, access 7/9/2011, http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notabene/qwerty.html
Kevin Kelly, 2008, The Third Culture, accessed 30/8/2011, http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html
Lessig, L 2004, Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity, accessed 15/8/2011, http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-4.html
Louw, E 2010, The Media and Political Process, 2nd Edition, SAGE Publications Ltd, London
Neoliberalism: origins, theory, definition, 2005, Neoliberalism inadequately defined?, accessed 7/9/2011, http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html
Tim O'Reilly, 2005, What is Web2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, accessed 30/8/2011, http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
Clay Shirky, 2002, Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing, accessed 30/8/2011, http://www.shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html
Sterling, B 1993, A Short History of the Internet, accessed 27/7/2011, http://sodacity.net/system/files/Bruce_Sterling_A_Short_History_of_the_Internet.pdf
I thought it was interesting to think about mass media industry being reliant on scarcity of copies in their business model and how the internet, through the mechanisms of economic supply and demand, create an abundance of copies making mass media products worthless (Shirky 2002). Very clever. So the more that any of us perform any action on the internet the more we are undermining the mass media business model. So I guess anything associated with assisting in the fercundity and duplication of data on the internet, like RSS feeds, only further reduce mass media product value. The mass media are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to online advertising, they are damned if they do and they are damned if they don't because the same rule applies to them ie. the more they upload to the internet to entice online sales the more they only undermine their offline business model (O'Reilly 2005).
The hackers played a large role in undermining the mass media business model. But it's also interesting to think about how this whole scenario perhaps was an inadvertent consequence of cold war tactics to avert nuclear attack. The internet and the notion of network as opposed to centralisation and hierarchy were a tactic of war to overcome traditional limitations of time and space. In the first instance, the network setup allowed front line and timely decisions to be made without central consultation. Secondly, the decentralised structure of the network allowed for any node to work independently (Sterling 1993)). It seems that the bipolarity of global power for 45 years of cold war between the US and the then USSR inadvertently spawned a new war tactic of diffusion which in itself kind of revealed a new form of decentralised cooperation. But perhaps this is a natural reaction to the intense forms of concentration resultant from the US/USSR stand off. Perhaps this diffusion was not new but part of a larger cycle. Is it possible though that in an age of unprecedented nuclear power that this stand off between the US and USSR continued much longer than previous bi-polar stand offs in the cycle? Thus the awareness of this third type of 'diffused cooperative' democracy nearly became culturally lost within our lifetime (Lessig 2004). Is this the third part of metanarrative, the constructionist part? Is this what mass media has done, locked us into objective/subjective cycles without constructionism ie. they locked us into fissure and tried to extinct fussion (Centre for the Study of Complex Systems 2001)? This is why it is so important that people realise and are made aware that democracy can also legally, morally, ethically and legitimately take the form of diffused cooperation. I guess neo-liberal discourse is the mechanism which co-opts us back into the objective/subjective cycle and stops us from moving beyond the discourse to see otherwise. Neo-liberalism is the discourse of the discourse, so the media would be responsible for producing its own discourse about itself in order to keep us locked within its power (Neoliberalism: origins, theory, definition, 2005). Is this how mass media challenged metanarrative, kind of by using metanarrative against itself also? Is this democratic dialogue??? If so, then democracy is like a 'network' and dialogue is like a war of ideas and concepts, a constant critique of itself, a struggle for power or persuasion, a constant tension, a game.
References:
Centre for the Study of Complex Systems, 2001, QWERTY, Lock-in and Path Dependence, access 7/9/2011, http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notabene/qwerty.html
Kevin Kelly, 2008, The Third Culture, accessed 30/8/2011, http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html
Lessig, L 2004, Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity, accessed 15/8/2011, http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-4.html
Louw, E 2010, The Media and Political Process, 2nd Edition, SAGE Publications Ltd, London
Neoliberalism: origins, theory, definition, 2005, Neoliberalism inadequately defined?, accessed 7/9/2011, http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html
Tim O'Reilly, 2005, What is Web2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, accessed 30/8/2011, http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
Clay Shirky, 2002, Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing, accessed 30/8/2011, http://www.shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html
Sterling, B 1993, A Short History of the Internet, accessed 27/7/2011, http://sodacity.net/system/files/Bruce_Sterling_A_Short_History_of_the_Internet.pdf
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