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