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
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