OK kiddies — so I was instructed to get more straight forward on this summary, so here’s the bare bones. The required viewing this week was of a panel discussion from a conference organized by the Instititue of Ideas on the topic of the “Digital Commons”. The five panelists and moderator discussed the viablity of the Internet as a tool for advancing democracy, and creating a new form of public sphere. Each of the panelists set forth their ideas on this topic, but it was undoubtedly guided by their own personal objectives in plugging their own personal projects.
I discussed Paul Evans’, the first panelist, councillor info project in my original post, so you should already be familiar. Mike Carr, discussed the digital commons from the corporate perspective , explaining how he saw the power structure shifting into the hands of the consumers. He believes that as companies provide more ability to personalize products and services through the application of corporate infrastructures that can be played with according to preferences and desires, that corporations are giving agency to their markets.He gives as examples the ability for consumers to create custom Nike sneakers online, or order a bag of all blue M&M’s with custom messages imprinted on them.
Chris Meade spoke to the application of technology to publishing and the access to print information. One of the most interesting points he brought up that new technology has made it possible for us to insert our own comments into online books as we read them in real time. One new innovation that I think would be relevant to this particular topic would be the personalized paper.
Alexander Cockburn begins by explaining that he does not belive that the Internet is completely democratic because he notes that his online political newsletter could be kicked offline in a second for any number of reason s driven by private, corporate decisions.He likens the “public sphere” of the Internet to the public sphere of the malls in America. The second someone becomes uncomfortable with what you are saying, if they are in power they will simply pick you up and place you somwhere where you can be controlled and contained. He also notes that many blogs out there are simply feeding the gos of the aouthors to have the knowledge that something they wrote is published out there on the web for others to see. However, most sites have no comments and are never seen, so what does this really accomplish? I went into greater detail on this question in my first post.
Brendan O’Neill began by alluding to Rosa Parks in his comments, wondering whether the kind of protesting and gathering we have on the Internet has the potnetial to effect change or if what we must truly do is get out there and make a statement in the “real” public as Parks did in her day. Again, I spent time examining this in my first post, and will do so more in class, as I find this point quite interesting. He also goes on to question if any real relevant new material is proposed on blogs, or if it’s mostly cases of fisking from mainstream media.
Now to go on to Notaro — I think I explained most of her key points in my first post — particularly in studying Habermas’s idea of the public sphere. However, I would like to delve in deeper to the “three scenarios for the future of technology” referenced in this piece. Notaro cites Benjamin Barber here, in discussing his three assumptions of what could come of technology as society progressed. He believe that there could be a Pangloss scenario (where technology will only serve corporate agendas), a Pandora scenario (where technology would be used by government to aid in control and suppression), and a Jeffersonian scenario (which would facilitate the kind of advance in democractic relations as set forth and questioned in the tech panel on the Digital Commons). After having viewed The Trap, and watched the panel, and experienced these technologies in our everyday lives, I think we can all agree that there is a bit of all three going on currently, but none exclusively.
Possibly Relevant Posts:
- The Internet’s Impact on Freedom (4) | Jessica
- How are the artifacts of the digital revolution changing our aesthetic and art? (6) | nayoung
- Cyberformances. (2) | Patricia
2 Comments
The part of your post which I found really interesting is the part the panelist Brendan O’Neill brought up. How would history have been different if the technology we have today -existed then? And what does that mean for our future? How will we or are we using technology to make people aware about certain issues? I had a Professor last semester and we spent a whole week talking about “Falun Gong”. I never heard of it- even though there is a website dedicated to the atrocities occurring in China. I think the problem with new media-especially on the internet and blogs I think things become “crowded” and “littered” where you don’t know whats important because there is so much other clutter. Anyone can write anything online and that sometimes takes away from something “serious”.
Chris Meade’s mention of what is happening to “print” is my biggest fear. I know he mentions the future of technology where we can comment on online books- But I have a really big problem with online books. I am really upset how publishers feel threatened by the dreaded ‘screen’. I have heard rumors where people feel that the book will eventually be ‘extinct’. I can not imagine that will really happen but not everyone is as old fashion as I am I guess…
Finally on your comments on Alexander Cockburn’s notion on ‘internet democracy’ I think that the internet is democratic depending on where you go. On a blog you can write whatever you want, and no one has the “power [to] simply pick you up and place you somewhere where you can be controlled and contained”. But I guess that depends on what country you are in as we discussed in class.
As far as where are we going? I agree that it appears all three are on going- but I can not imagine that one will occur exclusively. I don’t think we could let that happen after experiencing all three.
re: no onw has the “power [to] simply pick you ups and place somewhere…”
This is wrong, every service based company from Google, Facebook and Flickr to your own private web-hosting company bind you by long legal agreements that are usually flexible to their benefit. There are many cases where the authoritative use of these legalities are questionable with very little opportunity to challenge these laws. We have to understand that *everything* we do online is bound by agreements we have agreed to in some form or another, and these agreements were not made by us (in 99.99% of the times).