Review of Carr and Dean from LBO

Left Business Observer
Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to our
Brains , W.W. Norton, 276 pp. $26.95.
Jodi Dean, Blog Theory: Feedback and Culture in the Age of the
Drive, Polity Press, 140 pp., $19.95.


Hearts fluttered over the contribution of Facebook and Twitter to the Middle Eastern uprisings. No doubt they contributed, but so did things like pre-existing union agitation in Egypt. And it wouldn’t have happened had people not gotten out of their pajamas and into the streets. But, over the longer term, what is our
wired world doing to our minds and cultures?

These two books come at the same problem from different directions. Jodi Dean’s is explicitly from the left and rather theoretical, and Nicholas Carr’s isn’t explicitly political and is mostly empirical. But they both make you worry about the Internet’s effect on us. Neither author is a Luddite, and both blog. And they’re aware of the oddness of writing a book about the topic. The new media world is fast, faster even than TV, which rewards “fast thinkers,” as Pierre Bourdieu put it (see LBO #83). The speed of TV is driven by advertisers, who fear that anything seriously disruptive, like pausing to think, might interfere with sales effort. Though those preferences have become embedded in the assumptions of producers—they love bombast, phony conflict, quick cuts—one could still imagine serious conversation on TV, or disruptive art—in fact, we’ve all seen that now and then.

Instructions for self-assessment--due May 9

Your self-assessment is due at 4:30 on Monday, May 9, in my office.

It needs to have a cover page, be typed, double-spaced, with page numbers, and a staple in the upper left hand corner.

The paper should be 12-15 pages long.

Illustrations, graphs, graphics, images, charts, and comics are permitted. Take risks. 

The best papers will engage specific readings. 

You should assess your performance in the class. Here are the sorts of questions you might consider:

What did you put into the class? How did you contribute to others' learning and experience? In what ways did you take responsibility for your own learning? 

What did you get out of the course? Is there a difference between what you thought at the beginning of the term and what you think now?  Is there anything you would do differently?

With all these questions, be as specific as possible. You might choose to construct your answer in terms of the readings. You might choose to construct your answer in terms of themes. You might choose to construct your answer in terms of the areas of assessment (projects, participation, blogs, exams, papers). You might choose to construct your answer in terms of the types of activities engaged in (books, online readings, Facebook, blogs, lectures, debates, presentations, discussions, collaborative exams).      

Final Exam--due May 7 at 4:30

Deadline:  Saturday, May 7, at 4:30. Exams must be handed in to my office by 4:30 on May 7. Exams must be typed, double-spaced, with citations and page numbers; they must be stapled in the top left corner. I will not accept late exams.

You may use your books and consult with others in the class. As a preface or introduction to your exam, explain how you went about answering the questions. Did you work with others? With whom did you work? How did you organize yourselves? What was the process? Be as specific as possible. Failure to provide this account will result in a ten point penalty (that is, ten points deducted from your total exam points).

Note: Your self-assessment will be due on Monday, May 9, at 5:00 in my office. I will accept early papers. I will not accept late papers.

There are 10 ten point questions and 1 twenty point question.

Ten point questions. Be sure to cite and engage the readings that inform your answer.

1.  Eric Raymond contrasts the cathedral and the bazaar. What point is he trying to make with this contrast? Is his argument consistent with his title? Why or why not? 

2.  Siva Vaidhyanathan argues that Google has capitalized on public failure. What does he mean when says this? How is this argument connected to the question of regulation?

3.  What drives social media? The best answers will think in terms of both the users and the features of social media. They will also refer to the "The Viral Me."

4.  In what ways does an eighties "hacker culture" shape Wikileaks? How does this differentiate Wikileaks from more traditional journalism? What are the benefits of these differences? What are the drawbacks?

5.  What does Mark Andrejevic mean by "digital enclosure"?

6.  Does interactivity entail democratization? Use Mark Andrejevic to answer this question. What are the repercussions of your answer for analyzing movements.org?

7.  What is the connection between technology and refusal of work according to Franco Berardi?

8.  According to Franco Berardi, why do problems like panic disorder, ADHD, and depression increase under semio-capitalism?

9.  According to Nicholas Carr, what does the internet do to our brains? How does he use the idea of brain plasticity in his argument? Is it persuasive? Why or why not?

10.  Why is it in Google's interest to get us to click on more and more links? What are the repercussions of this for Google? What are the repercussions for people? Does it make sense to use the notion of efficiency to think about thinking? Why or why not?

Twenty point question. Be sure to engage and cite material from the course in your answer. You may use texts assigned during the first half of the course (chapter two of Terranova may be important here).

Students had the option of changing the way their work in the course would be assessed. You could change the requirements as well as the way these requirements would be weighted. Why didn't you do this? In answering the question, consider what you personally did or did not do as well as what your fellow students did or did not do (I'm asking you here whether you think your own reasons/motivations were the same or different from those that you attribute to others). The best answers will thematize the effect of the media terrain. For example, digital networks are supposed to facilitate communication; they are supposed to enable people to connect with one another easily; is this the same as enabling/inciting people to come together to evaluate problems, formulate options, and make decisions? Might the same technologies that reduce friction also displace action?

End of term

Since there hasn't been a consensus (much less a full debate) on the course requirements, the one's I introduced at the beginning of the term will stand.

The format for the final exam will be the same as it was for the mid-term. It will be due on May 7 at 5:00. I will post the questions this Friday.

The self assessment paper (15 pages) will be due on May 9 at 5:00. I will post guidelines for the paper by Friday.

Write or Die by Dr Wicked � About

Write or Die by Dr Wicked � About:

"Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences."

The Terminators: drone strikes prompt MoD to ponder ethics of killer robots | World news | The Guardian

The Terminators: drone strikes prompt MoD to ponder ethics of killer robots | World news | The Guardian:

"The growing use of unmanned aircraft in combat situations raises huge moral and legal issues, and threatens to make war more likely as armed robots take over from human beings, according to an internal study by the Ministry of Defence.

The report warns of the dangers of an 'incremental and involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality', referring to James Cameron's 1984 movie, in which humans are hunted by robotic killing machines. It says the pace of technological development is accelerating at such a rate that Britain must quickly establish a policy on what will constitute 'acceptable machine behaviour'."

Google against extremism (AYM related)

Remember AYM (Movements.org) and one of its founders, Jared Cohen? He has a new project, fighting violence extremism. That is, Google, a corporation, is participating in a political struggle against what it (or the US State Department) considers violent extremism:

Neo-Nazi groups and al Qaeda might not seem to have much in common, but they do in one key respect: their recruits tend to be very young. The head of Google’s new think tank, Jared Cohen, believes there might be some common reasons why young people are drawn to violent extremist groups, no matter their ideological or philosophical bent. So this summer, Cohen is spearheading a conference, in Dublin, Ireland, to explore what it is that draws young people to these groups and what can be done to redirect them.

Technology, of course, is playing a role both in recruiting members to extremist groups, as well as fueling pro-democracy and other movements--and that’s where Google’s interest lies. "Technology is a part of every challenge in the world, and a part of every solution,” Cohen tells Fast Company. "To the extent that we can bring that technology expertise, and mesh it with the Council on Foreign Relations’ academic expertise--and mesh all of that with the expertise of those who have had these experiences--that's a valuable network to explore these questions."

Cohen is the former State Department staffer who is best known for his efforts to bring technology into the country’s diplomatic efforts. But he was originally hired by Condaleezza Rice back in 2006 for a different--though related--purpose: to help Foggy Bottom better understand Middle Eastern youths (many of whom were big technology adopters) and how they could best "deradicalized." Last fall, Cohen joined Google as head of its nascent Google Ideas, which the company is labeling a "think/do tank."

This summer’s conference, "Summit Against Violent Extremism," takes place June 26-29 and will bring together about 50 former members of extremist groups--including former neo-Nazis, Muslim fundamentalists, and U.S. gang members--along with another 200 representatives from civil society organizations, academia, private corporations, and victims groups. The hope is to identify some common factors that cause young people to join violent organizations, and to form a network of people working on the issue who can collaborate going forward.

"With more than 50% of the world’s population under the age of thirty and the vast majority of those characterized as 'at risk,' socially, economically, or both, an oversupply exists of young people susceptible to recruitment by the extremist religious or ideological group closest to them in identity or proximity," Cohen wrote on the blog of the Council on Foreign Relations, the event’s co-host.

One of the technologies where extremism is playing out these days is in Google’s own backyard. While citizen empowerment movements have made use of YouTube to broadcast their messages, so have Terrorist and other groups. Just this week, anti-Hamas extremists kidnapped an Italian peace activist and posted their hostage video to YouTube first before eventually murdering him. YouTube has been criticized in the past for not removing violent videos quick enough. But Cohen says the conference is looking at the root causes that prompt a young person to join one of the groups in the first place. "There are a lot of different dimensions to this challenge," he says. "It’s important not to conflate everything."

Web Creator Tim Berners-Lee: Internet Access Is A Human Right

Web Creator Tim Berners-Lee: Internet Access Is A Human Right: "We're living in a world where Internet access should be as readily available as water, according to the man who helped create the web, Tim Berners-Lee.

Berners-Lee, who made his comments at an MIT symposium on 'Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything,' noted that people have become so reliant on the web that it should be a right to have access to it, as reported by Network World.

'Access to the Web is now a human right,' he said. 'It's possible to live without the Web. It's not possible to live without water. But if you've got water, then the difference between somebody who is connected to the Web and is part of the information society, and someone who (is not) is growing bigger and bigger.'"

Second paper topics. Papers due on April 22.

Be sure to read the instructions carefully.

Deadline: Papers are due on April 22 at 5:00. I do not accept late papers--no exceptions. You must submit a paper and electronic version. Paper versions are due in my office at 5:00 on April 22. Electronic versions must be sent to my email address: jdean@hws.edu. Again, you must submit both versions (submitting just one does not count and you will get a "0").

Format: Papers must be typed, double-spaced, with a title page, citations (recognized academic form), and page numbers. The paper version must be stapled in the upper left corner. Papers should be 6-8 pages long (5 is too short; 9 is too long).

Style: Papers must have a thesis, that is, a primary claim for which you argue on the basis of your reading of the texts assigned for the class. The thesis must appear in your first paragraph. The assignment is to write an essay on one of the topics listed below. The essay should answer the question the topic poses. In answering the question, the essay should draw from (and cite) the relevant course materials (as well as materials from your presentation if you choose that question). You are welcome to email me your thesis in advance to make sure you are on the right track. I can only answer queries made before noon on April 20.

Assessment: The criteria for assessment (not in rank order) are 1) the format requirements; 2) the cogency of the thesis; 3) the quality of the argument; 4) the quality of the writing; 5) the depth of engagement with the course readings; 6) the understanding of the readings demonstrated in the paper. I am looking for papers that take a position and present strong, well-supported arguments for it. I am also looking for papers that show improvement and development since the beginning of the course.

Questions (choose 1):

1. Terminator 2 depicts a future of sentient machines. Mark Andrejevic envisions a present wherein interactivity disempowers citizens politically while at the same time telling them that they are active and involved. Given the empirical examples we've discussed in class (Movements.org, open source software/development, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia), which vision seems most likely? Are the ways of dealing with (preventing? overcoming?) these two futures the same? Why or why not?

2. Franco Berardi argues that in semio-capitalism, "human minds and flesh are integrated with digital circuits thanks to interfaces of acceleration and simplification. . . " Explain Berardi's thesis. How is it like or not like a vision of Terminators? How is it like or not like the vision of hive mind or singularity Lanier criticizes? Is Berardi right? Why or why not?

3. Franco Berardi contrasts connection with conjunction. Explain these two concepts. What do they entail for the connective generation? Use these concepts to analyze Facebook and/or Twitter.

4. Write an essay in which you compare and contrast Dean and Berardi. Be sure to consider whatever being and the connective generation as well as their discussions of the change in the symbolic/decline of symbolic efficiency.

5. Write an essay that uses one of the theoretical pieces we've read this term (Terranova, Dean, Andrejevic, Berardi) to explore more analytically the empirical material you covered in your class presentation. (These papers will be graded in terms of the depth/detail of your analysis).

6. Franco Berardi describes our world of digital networks in terms of a series of psychopathologies. Yet he also suggests that information technologies are liberating. Which side of his story is more convincing? Why? Are both sides present in our contemporary setting? How or in what sense?

7. Franco Berardi suggests that the connective generation (the generation that learned more words from machines than from their mothers) lacks empathy and desire. He even suggests that art and poetry are captured in semio-capitalism, unable to oppose semio-capitalism. Why does he think this? What are the implications of this claim? Is he right?

Celebrity and the refusal of work (I prefer to sleep)

I've been thinking about Ryan's remarks on celebrity [check out Ryan's clarification of his point]. Elements of celebrity that are appealing include money, doing what one wants, and, "being almost like a kid again" (I think that is pretty close to a direct quote). In a way, then, the desire for celebrity is a desire for freedom (autonomy). It is also a desire for recognition (to be known to others).

Is it possible that the desire for recognition ends up trumping the desire for freedom? Or that the desire for recognition functions in such a way that it can be manipulated and so substitute for or displace the desire for freedom (we might think here about the entrepreneurs quoted in the Friedman article; as they explain, successful social media uses people's desire for affirmation, people's need to prove they exist).

What if we focus on the desire for freedom? Bifo describes the desire for freedom as a refusal for work: "I don't want to go to work because I prefer to sleep."

Might then the celebrity form be a form of our alienation, our unfreedom? If we were free to sleep when we wanted, free not to work, would we be likely to fantasize about the freedom of a select few?

HACKING MONOPOLISM TRILOGY - Face to Facebook

HACKING MONOPOLISM TRILOGY - Face to Facebook:
"There are other common themes in the projects. In all of them we stole data that is very sensitive for the respective corporations. With Google it was the 'clicks' on their AdSense Program; with Amazon we started to steal the content of entire books, and with Facebook we stole a huge amount of public data profiles. In all the three projects, the theft is not used to generate money at all, or for personal economic advantage, but only to twist the stolen data or knowledge against the respective corporations. In GWEI it was the shares obtained through the money created by the Adsense program; in Amazon Noir it was the pdf books distributed for free; and in Face To Facebook it is the collection of profiles moved with no prior notice to a dating website.

All the projects, indeed, independently claim that some of the corporation’s 'crown jewels', including their brand image and marketing approaches, can be hacked, focusing only on their established strategies and thinking in a 'what if?' fashion"

Radical Philosophy - Commentaries - March/April 2011

Excerpt from an interesting discussion of Wikileaks. I encourage you to read the whole piece, available at the link:

Radical Philosophy - Commentaries - March/April 2011

"Years ago, Julian Assange considered solutions for an unusual problem, the kind of thing cryptographers discuss: how can you make sure a message only becomes readable at a certain time, not before, such that no human frailty or mechanical error interferes with the schedule? He came up with three answers, which display his knack for odd lateral thinking, an unremarked gift that turns up throughout his work. One solution: encrypt the message, and then broadcast the key to the code out into space, to ‘distant astral bodies’, as he puts it, and wait for it to be bounced back. You can publicize the body, the distance, the coordinates; the satellite dishes of Earth will be oriented at that hour of that day to pick up the bounce and your message will be read. Another solution is quite baroque, with space probes passing a key stream between them, ‘using space as the storage medium’, before sending decrypts back to Earth. The last is by far the most elegant solution, the most difficult to realize, and in some ways the cruellest."

Telestreet: The Italian Media Jacking Movement

For Thursday: Precarious Rhapsody 1-3

Teaching Insurrection - Franco Berardi Bifo | Through Europe from Through Europe on Vimeo.

Eurozine - The society of the query and the Googlization of our lives - Geert Lovink A tribute to Joseph Weizenbaum

Eurozine - The society of the query and the Googlization of our lives - Geert Lovink A tribute to Joseph Weizenbaum:

"Google suffers from data obesity and is indifferent to calls for careful preservation. It would be naive to demand cultural awareness. The prime objective of this cynical enterprise is to monitor user behaviour in order to sell traffic data and profiles to interested third parties. Google is not after the ownership of Emile Zola; its intention is to lure the Proust lover away from the archive. Whereas for the French, Balzac's collected works are the epiphany of French language and culture, for Google they are abstract data junk, a raw resource whose sole purpose it is to make profit. It remains an open question"

Harsh reality behind Apple scandal | China Watch

Harsh reality behind Apple scandal | China Watch:

"Employees of United Win Technology suffered muscular atrophy and damage to their nervous system after using a chemical, n-hexane, to clean touch panels from August 2008 to July 2009. The company is owned by Taiwan-based Wintek Corp, which produces iPhone components for Apple.

Apple Inc acknowledged the scandal for the first time on Feb 15, in its Apple Supplier Responsibility 2011 Progress Report. The company said 137 workers at the Suzhou facility had suffered adverse health effects following exposure to n-hexane. The factory has 16,000 employees.

As of Monday, 100 of the 137 had left the factory with compensation of 80,000 to 140,000 yuan ($12,166 to $21,291), according to Liu Jie, press officer for the industrial park where the plant is situated. All signed agreements with United Win Technology that exempt it from responsibility if their health worsens, Liu said."

Excerpt from "The Packet Gang" by Jamie King

A segment from a critique of the extension of the open source model of development to other areas, particularly political organizing and Indy Media:

Here, the idea of openness presents itself as absolutely inimical to the ‘dominant multinational global news system’, where ‘news is not free, news is not open’. With open publishing

the process of creating news is transparent to the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available. Those stories are filtered as little as possible to help the readers find the stories they want. Readers can see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved and help make editorial decisions. If they can think of a better way for the software to help shape editorial decisions, they can copy the software because it is free and change it and start their own site. If they want to redistribute the news, they can, preferably on an open publishing site. 

The working parts of journalism are exposed. Open publishing assumes the reader is smart and creative and might want to be a writer and an editor and a distributor and even a software programmer [...] Open publishing is free software. It’s freedom of information, freedom for creativity.[16]

Accounts such as this and De Angelis’ bear out my argument that an extreme amount of expectation is being focused on openness as an agent for change. Not only is openness central to the organisation of the social movement, but in many cases it is taken as read that the organisational quality of openness is inherently radical and will be productive of positive change in whichever part of the social-political field it is deployed.

Stallman: "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software"

Excerpted from the Stallman: 

In 1998, a part of the free software community splintered off and began campaigning in the name of “open source.” The term was originally proposed to avoid a possible misunderstanding of the term “free software,” but it soon became associated with philosophical views quite different from those of the free software movement.

Some of the supporters of open source considered the term a “marketing campaign for free software,” which would appeal to business executives by highlighting the software's practical benefits, while not raising issues of right and wrong that they might not like to hear. Other supporters flatly rejected the free software movement's ethical and social values. Whichever their views, when campaigning for open source, they neither cited nor advocated those values. The term “open source” quickly became associated with ideas and arguments based only on practical values, such as making or having powerful, reliable software. Most of the supporters of open source have come to it since then, and they make the same association.

Nearly all open source software is free software. The two terms describe almost the same category of software, but they stand for views based on fundamentally different values. Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement. For the free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative, because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast, the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make software “better”—in a practical sense only. It says that nonfree software is an inferior solution to the practical problem at hand. For the free software movement, however, nonfree software is a social problem, and the solution is to stop using it and move to free software.

The GNU Manifesto - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)

The GNU Manifesto - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF): Richard Stallman

 "Why I Must Write GNU

I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me against my will.

So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI Lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away.(2)"

From each according to ability = a really good system

From an interview with Linus Torvalds (chief architect for Linux operating system). The interviewer has asked him about the motivation: what was his motivation for doing all the work for free? why did he open up the project to other developers rather than view it as his own property?

LT: Well, I've put in a lot of work, and that's really what the thing has been all about: everybody puts in effort into making Linux better, and everybody gets everybody elses effort back. And that's what makes Linux so good: you put in something, and that effort multiplies. Essentially, in game theory terms it's not a "zero-sum game" at all: it's a positive feedback cycle.

Imagine ten people putting in 1 hour each every day on the project. They put in one hour of work, but because they share the end results they get nine hours of "other peoples work" for free. It sounds unfair: get nine hours of work for doing one hour. But it obviously is not.

Note that this isn't true of just the Linux developers who write the kernel code, it's also true of the actual users. Especially in the early days of Linux the users were also acting as guinea-pigs for new features and so on, and they (sometimes unwittingly) put in a lot of effort in determining whether something worked or whether it really should have worked another way. And for that work they put in they got the reward of seeing better and better systems.

What I'm really saying that there is no need for anybody to even try to put back as much as you get from the Linux project - because it doesn't really make sense. The whole project is built on the idea that everybody puts back whatever they can - and that the sum of a lot of small effort is a really good system..

Ads for activists or "activismTM"

Yesterday I posted a link to a short "helpful" article from movements.org encouraging activists to use the Android. The basic reasons:
1. More open source possibilities (than the iPhone)
2. Better security
3. Non-profit friendly
4. Growth in emerging markets.

Brian points out in the comments:

-Sponsor: Google -No mention of jailbreak/root/hacking of devices that would enable ANY phone this functionality even though they are talking about circumventing other structured systems -No mention of the fact that Google's version of "open-source" involves them currently witholding the source code to their latest tablet OS Android 3.0, which not only undermines the title but the reason we shouldn't be skeptical since it's 100% not available -No mention of the fact that all Android devices have a remote killswitch for content.. fun fact: it's a security feature to allow Google the ability to remote erase viruses that are posted to their "free" Market (This killswitch also exists on Apple iDevices, and can be turned off by hacking either one) -Speaking of their free market, they actively censor their store at the behest of their carrier partners so that, for example, the AT&T HTC Captivate cannot access software that would circumvent AT&T's draconian tethering plans -Also: they allow their partners to block whatever the hell they want, like the removal of content that the consumer does not want (like Bing search, included because of multi-million dollar contracts on some phones-yes, this really means you can't switch the phone's search to Google on a Google phone..) -This is clearly a fucking advertisement

 

Al Franken: ‘They're coming after the Internet’ - Mike Zapler - POLITICO.com

Al Franken: ‘They're coming after the Internet’ - Mike Zapler - POLITICO.com:

"AUSTIN, Texas — Sen. Al Franken claimed Monday that big corporations are 'hoping to destroy' the Internet and issued a call to arms to several hundred tech-savvy South by Southwest attendees to preserve net neutrality.

'I came here to warn you, the party may be over,' Franken said. 'They're coming after the Internet hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important [medium] for independent artists and entrepreneurs: its openness and freedom.”"

Bazaar

Eric Raymond:

...release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity - came as a surprise. No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here - rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches...

Should Pirate Parties Include The Coming Swarm Economy As Policy? - Falkvinge on Infopolicy

Should Pirate Parties Include The Coming Swarm Economy As Policy? - Falkvinge on Infopolicy:

"One model for the swarm economy could be a basic unconditional income for every citizen. This would solve many problems, such as the Iron Law of Wages, and promote the industry-fundamental nonpaid work. It would not fundamentally change society’s economy model, as everybody is already guaranteed basic food, board and necessities through welfare systems, but making it unconditional would remove a whole lot of costly red tape."

Twitter Still Dominated By Noisy Minority, Study Finds

Twitter Still Dominated By Noisy Minority, Study Finds:

"Though Twitter has around 200 million users, the report found that 50% of tweets (there are around 140 million sent each day) are generated by 20,000 'elite' users, or less than .05% of all users. A 2009 Harvard study drew a similar conclusion, reporting that just 10% of Twitter's users produced 90% of the service's tweets."

CULT OF THE DEAD COW: cyberpunk is dead

CULT OF THE DEAD COW: cyberpunk is dead:

"Being a progressive participant of cyberspace today is not about being elite and surfing the most underground hubs. It’s about surfing on the top of it all, on the big normal junkyard of human creation and picking up the inspirations together. It’s also about reading a book again, following an author’s thought through 400 pages instead of 140 letters. And also in the same sense: doing a website again, a static thing that waits for hundreds to come by, just like a book in the library, instead of giving daily updates to attract some other thousands that need their daily fix of info. Some books still are more actual than the daily news reports (when these were still existing, now the news must be updated all the time). And maybe the lost dreams in these books need an actualisation through a website, instead of just a quotation in the fast streams of actualities. It’s about refusing the entertainment, it’s about finding enlightment in thought processes themselves and not in what forms they have been given for representation. It’s about picking up something dead and giving it life instead of living the perpetual death of the bubble of statements."

5 Reasons Why Android is Becoming the Go-To Mobile Device for Activists | Movements.org

5 Reasons Why Android is Becoming the Go-To Mobile Device for Activists | Movements.org:

"Android, the open-source mobile operating system developed by Google, is quickly becoming the smartphone of choice for activists. It’s growing in popularity around the world, recently becoming the number two smartphone in the world behind Nokia’s Symbian operating system and outranks the iPhone in the U.S. Here are 5 reasons why Android should be on any activist's radar.

1. More Possibilities with Open Source

Android is an open-source platform, meaning that the source code is accessible to anyone, allowing for developers to create apps that extend the functionality of devices. With closed platforms like Apple’s iPhone, on the other hand, the manufacturer and/or network have much more control over what users can do with their devices."

False Fear: Cyborgs Instead of CEOs | OurFuture.org

False Fear: Cyborgs Instead of CEOs | OurFuture.org:

"The nightmare for far too many is Cyborgs. The public fears HAL, the 2001 Space Odyssey computer that killed astronauts rather than forfeit its objective.

So terrified of the sentient machine, citizens overlook the allegory. The soft-spoken, reasonable-sounding HAL behaves exactly like a greed-driven, multi-national corporation. The corporate mission is profit. With 29 workers massacred in a Massey mine explosion and 11 slain in the BP oil rig explosion in just one month last year, greedy corporations have shown they’re willing to kill rather than forfeit their profit objective."

Content farms: What do they say about what we care about? - By Annie Lowrey and Angela Tchou - Slate Magazine

Content farms: What do they say about what we care about? - By Annie Lowrey and Angela Tchou - Slate Magazine:

"Content farms are to online media what tabloids are to print. Neither journalism nor advertising, they are a trashy and addictive product, sussing out what we really want in order to give us something we don't really need—and, in so doing, telling us something important about ourselves."
...

"So what more do we know about the content farm from running through the database? It exists in the spaces that other sites neglect—answering the mundane questions we ask the Internet about our families, our friends, our bodies. It caters to our baser search instincts. What is the overall picture of us, painted by the content farm? We are, it seems, avid TV watchers who adore sports, pets, and our families, worry about our jobs, and suffer from hypochondria. But maybe none of us needed a content farm to tell us that. "

Thinking about movements.org

Some questions you might ask as you analyze movements.org:

1. who founded it?
2. why?
3. what are the goals of the site?
4. what does the group support?
5. what does the group oppose?
6. who supports the group?
7. does it seem like there is a lot of interactivity/participation on the site?
8. what are some of the noteworthy design features?

Ptoww! 2009 Summit

Joe Bageant: Algorithms and Red Wine

(Excerpt from a terrific post by a writer who wrote from the perspective of the poor, unemployed, and over-worked people, the folks the Democratic party and liberal left left behind in the 90s. The whole piece is good, an engagement with some of the problems Lanier engages, written in a very accessible style. Joe died yesterday.)

Joe Bageant: Algorithms and Red Wine:

"On the other hand, this whole business of the new hive cybernetic connectivity, could be just a swarm of data bits with no particular significance, in and of themselves, other than the magical thinking belief that they do. Which ain’t no small thing, given that what we agree upon as reality is achieved by social consensus. Hell, to some people Beelzebub still stalks the earth. To others, America is a free republic, not a company town. We all have our hallucinations.

One thing for sure. Most people in the (over)developed world think the connectivity and speed of the algorithms behind the cyberhive are worth it. Even teachers teach to a standardized test so students will conform to an algorithm, and if that ain’t hive mind, I don’t know what is."

Diverting the Radicalization Track | Hoover Institution

Diverting the Radicalization Track | Hoover Institution:

"The challenge of alternatives is not about promoting democracy; it is about diverting at-risk populations from the grip of extremist actors so that such populations have space to experience the freedom to choose. In many cases, the violent extremists exert their grip through religious arguments, which disguise their own extremist goals by hiding them behind religion and the supposed religious battle. Exploiting religion in this way helps extremists. And while religion is of course not irrelevant in the fight against extremism, and while we must understand Islam so as to reflect sensitivities in the religion and its cultural milieus, it remains true that extremists would love nothing more than to engage us in a religious debate we cannot win. We should not play into their aspiration; instead, we should engage at-risk groups based on the needs of the people — young people — who comprise them."

...

"As a result of what new technology offers, the current generation of youth is the most individually empowered generation yet. They can act one way at home and in their communities and have a completely different identity over the internet or through their mobile phones. Because the digital and technological world offers young people opportunities to generate their own media and entertainment, they are learning critical thinking through self-exploration, and they are practicing digital democracy on a daily basis, even if they claim to despise the very concept of democracy. Without their keyboards, remotes, and telephones, they assume a real-life political, religious, ethnic, or nationalist identity. Behind the technology, many of these “digital natives” are beginning to identify with a transnational youth identity. Call it a “youth party” or simply a trend. But many of these youths seem to embrace platforms that facilitate interaction, expression, self-generated media, and expansion of social networks as defining features."

...

"The entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector (especially technology companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook) and its desire to expand into new markets offers a tremendous opportunity in that the U.S. government need not start efforts from scratch, create new forums, or even seek to influence the direction of these independent business enterprises. Its ambition should be to partner with companies that capture the imagination and attention of impressionable young people by virtue of what they do for profit — profit which drives their creativity and success. Whether this is Facebook and the civil liberties, platforms, and global connectivity it provides; or Yahoo and its communication services; or Google and its expansive search engines, the private sector is offering alternatives that have global appeal and universal penetration. The U.S. government must work with these companies to expand the reach and scope of what they do.

For example, Howcast.com is an American focused company that serves as a one-stop shop for “how-to” videos. The U.S. government could use this website’s platforms to make inroads into at-risk environments by creating “how-to” videos on, say, using social networks for protest and mobile phones for freedom of expression, and for providing instructions on how to get around Internet censorship. The U.S. government has, in fact, already started working with Facebook to build worldwide, grassroots movements against violence."

Facebooking for Change

Facebooking for Change:

"We are in the midst of uncertain times, but I am hopeful about the future because young people are using Facebook for change in every corner of the globe. They are building civil society in places never before imaginable, standing up to violent extremism wherever it exists and for the first time, are really aware of their value as a demographic. As a government employee who focuses on youth empowerment and countering violent extremism, all I can say is a big fat thank you to Silicon Valley for creating the most important opening of our time.

Inspired by this phenomenon, Facebook, Access 360 Media, Columbia Law School, Google, Howcast, MTV, YouTube, and the U.S. Department of State are bringing leaders of 17 pioneering organizations from 15 countries together with technology experts next month for the first-ever conclave to empower youth against violence and oppression through the use of the latest online tools."

How I became a soldier in the Georgia-Russia cyberwar. - By Evgeny Morozov - Slate Magazine

How I became a soldier in the Georgia-Russia cyberwar. - By Evgeny Morozov - Slate Magazine:

"Not knowing exactly how to sign up for a cyberwar, I started with an extensive survey of the Russian blogosphere. My first anonymous mentor, as I learned from this blog post, became frustrated with the complexity of other cyberwarfare techniques used in this campaign and developed a simpler and lighter 'for dummies' alternative. All I needed to do was to save a copy of a certain Web page to my hard drive and then open it in my browser. I was warned that the page wouldn't work with Internet Explorer but did well with Firefox and Opera. (Get with the program, Microsoft!) Once accessed, the page would load thumbnailed versions of a dozen key Georgian Web sites in a single window. All I had to do was set the page to automatically update every three to five seconds. Voil�: My browser was now sending thousands of queries to the most important Georgian sites, helping to overload them, and it had taken me only two to three minutes to set up."

ThinkProgress � Koch Industries Employs PR Firm To Airbrush Wikipedia, Gets Banned For Unethical ‘Sock Puppets’

ThinkProgress � Koch Industries Employs PR Firm To Airbrush Wikipedia, Gets Banned For Unethical ‘Sock Puppets’:

"Last year, Koch Industries began employing New Media Strategies (NMS), an Internet PR firm that specializes in “word-of-mouth marketing” for major corporations including Coca-Cola, Burger King, AT&T, Dodge and Ford. It appears that, ever since the NMS contract was inked with Koch, an NMS employee began editing the Wikipedia page for “Charles Koch,” “David Koch,” “Political activities of the Koch family,” and “The Science of Success” (a book written by Charles). Under the moniker of “MBMAdmirer,” NMS employees edited Wikipedia articles to distance the Koch family from the Tea Party movement, to provide baseless comparisons between Koch and conspiracy theories surrounding George Soros, and to generally delete citations to liberal news outlets. After administrators flagged the MBMAdmirer account as a “sock puppet” — one of many fake accounts used to manipulate new media sites — a subsequent sock puppet investigation found that MBMAdmirer is connected to a number of dummy accounts and ones owned by NMS employees like Jeff Taylor."

March 24 Class

You are on your own today.

Blog the class. In real time. Starting now.

There are different ways to do this--everyone; a couple of scribes, a couple of scribe-watchers; reporters, editors, critics; proclaimers and responders; pros and cons--what dynamic makes sense? Maybe folks with cameras want to post video blogs. Maybe different layers or versions--initial responses and immediate conversation, then compilation, design, synthesis, rethink.

What to post? Tell me who's there, who's missing, what you're feeling or thinking. Describe your process (how are you figuring out what to do since I'm not in the room)? There's a lot to do, can you get organized quickly? How? What are you doing to make this work? 

Is blogging while trying to discuss this stuff helpful or harmful? Why? If it's harmful, what should you do to meet the requirement that you blog the class and at the same time actually discuss something and put together something informative and creative?

It can't be all form, though. You need content. 

Use the class time to discuss what Andrejevic has to say about iWar and iPolitics. Your blogs (live from today's class, in real time) need to report what you are getting from the reading. What is he saying that matters? Do you agree? Why or why not? What do others think? Is there consensus? Division? Confusion? How are you dealing with this?

I think it makes sense to identify key insights and then raise questions. I also think it makes sense to highlight details, concepts, claims, and arguments.*

But you might have something else in mind--what? Is it worth going with? Then do that. 

Can you present the material, the ideas, the questions, the stuff that matters in a compelling way (are lists actually pretty good ways to summarize and transmit information)? Images? Video? Dialogues? Cartoons? What can you do/make that you'll be proud of in the limited time you have?

LocationS11: Heads up!! Change in syllabus!!

LocationS11: Heads up!! Change in syllabus!!:

"Heads up!! Change in syllabus!!

I've made a couple of changes in the syllabus for after spring break. Here are the changes. Please make sure that you note them on your syllabus and are prepared for the changes.

3/22 Marc Andrejevic, iSpy, chapters 1-2

3/24 Marc Andrejevic, iSpy, chapter 6-7

3/29 'Google's Revolution Factory' --Alliance of Youth Movements
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23283

look through and analyze this website: http://www.movements.org/.

'Diverting the Radicalization Track'

Be sure to read the summit reports (links available at both sites).

What is this group? What does it do? How do you know? Are these good guys?
Why or why not?"

Mapping Election Fraud with an SMS Reporting System - Haiti Rewired

(a number of the people mentioned in this article are affiliated with AYM)

Mapping Election Fraud with an SMS Reporting System - Haiti Rewired:

"Inside a dark, mildly air-conditioned room at the Jeune Ayiti Centre de Projets in downtown PetionVille, 12 people sporting “Obsevate” t-shirts sat around the table with their laptops and smartphones. It was March 20, Election Day in Haiti. A small TV off to the side played an England soccer game, but attention was mainly focused front and center to a projection screen displaying a Google Map of Haiti. The map was covered in green house icons with a few red flags scattered around the countryside, testaments to incidents of voting fraud or irregularities that polling station supervisors had reported via an SMS text message.

They were updating the Mwen Konte voting map, a Google map generated from a database of SMS text message reports of irregularities and fraud in the voting process. Cell phones are the communications backbone in Haiti, and they figured prominently in the little-noticed effort to provide transparency in the electoral process, which is typically riddled with fraud and corruption. Sunday's election was the second round of voting after the initial Nov election unraveled amid allegations of fraud. The two candidates that remain are Mirlande Manigat, a seasoned politician and former First Lady, and Michel Martelly, a charismatic show-boater who rose to fame from a career as a pop star."

Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular: a cognitive teardown of the user experience

Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular: a cognitive teardown of the user experience:

"Mystery is that second layer of attributes that are present but undefined explicitly, yet somehow created with just enough context to consume mental resources in subtle and compelling ways. At its most basic level, experiencing mystery in what we interact with makes you ask the question, “Why did they do that?”. What we mean here is, “Why did they do that? – A good thing, not “What were they thinking? – A bad thing. If you think carefully about the experiences you have in the ebb and flow of life, you realize that the most compelling are those that force you to think long and hard about why a given thing is the way it is. For example, why did Frank Gehry create the Guggenheim Museum Bilboa using the shapes he did? The famous architect could have created any shape concept, but why did he choose those shapes? It’s a mystery – we do not know and probably neither does he. What we do know is that his creation is cited as one of the most important works of contemporary architecture. In the same way that a building can captivate millions of sightseers, the element of mystery (conceptual depth) can help sell a few million copies of a simple interactive game."

Internet for Robots: It's Not Skynet, It's RoboEarth

Internet for Robots: It's Not Skynet, It's RoboEarth:

"'If you're going to have networked robots at home, it can do physical damage to your person, analogous to the way in which malware might damage your data,' says Teller, though he also considers RoboEarth a positive step. 'Your PC has a webcam, but it can't hit you on the head. Once these things gain the ability to move on their own, even without the virus or the bad guy dialing in from the Internet, if there is a bug in it, it can hurt you.'"

Ask About An Autonomous University: 5 Exam Questions For Life � OCCUPY EVERYTHING

Ask About An Autonomous University: 5 Exam Questions For Life � OCCUPY EVERYTHING:

"4) Would autonomous universities evaluate learning?

An autonomous university might not have grades. Perhaps the faculty would be able to acknowledge that they learn as much as the students do. Perhaps the students would be able to be open and honest about what they get out of their experiences at the school. Like accreditation, grades serve to differentiate the labor force while rendering future workers servile. To add insult to injury, of all the onerous tasks current universities demand, those who do it complain about grading the most. We can think of more productive forms of feedback."

Impotent With Rage, Psychotic File-Sharers Bite The Hand That Feeds Them | TorrentFreak

Impotent With Rage, Psychotic File-Sharers Bite The Hand That Feeds Them | TorrentFreak:

“Overwhelmed by the glut of content on P2P networks, file-sharers have lost control of their lives. Impotent with rage, they bite the hand that feeds them. They have made themselves the slaves of media-consumption – and who better to blame than the parasites, the scum, the spivs, the fat cats who ‘lord it over’ their screens?”

Apple is Catholic ("The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS")

(From a piece by Italian literary theorist Umberto Eco, written in 1994):

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.

I cite: Search and store

I cite: Search and store: (an excerpt on digital hoarding--taxonomical drive)

"Nina links taxonomical drive with contemporary porn's endeavor to bore us all to death and turn sex into work. That is to say, her point is part of a larger argument about contemporary capitalism and its absorption of its outside. I agree. I also think it could be useful to think further with the notion of taxonomical drive. Who is the taxonomy for? The easy answer is that it is for the individual porn consumer: I download, classify, and tag photos and videos so that I can find them when I need them. The taxonomy is for me, in the future. I never know what I might desire, so I can plan for desire in the future. Clearly I don't desire now--if so, I wouldn't be archiving all this stuff, I would be enjoying it.

Differently put, taxonomical drive is a component of archival culture, a culture where we try to control our reality by selecting specific features of it, labeling, and storing these features. It is as if we so fear the changes in which we situated, the rapid flows and movements online, the appearance and disappearance of sites and features, that we try to construct a knowable space or path. Here, at least, we know what's what."

Immiserating the Poor: We Have An App For That (Social Media vs. the iPhone in Egypt and a Kenyan slum) � Gurstein's Community Informatics

(interesting critique of cell phone based approach to clean water delivery in the Kibera slum--worth reading the whole thing, small snippet below)

Immiserating the Poor: We Have An App For That (Social Media vs. the iPhone in Egypt and a Kenyan slum) � Gurstein's Community Informatics:

"Allowing for a privatized and individualized approach to water provision simply means that those with the resources—to own and use cell phones, to devote time to chasing water suppliers and standing in water queues, and to financially compete for scarce water supplies in the local water marketplace–will be well served and those who don’t have those resources will be left behind and forgotten.

As well, by advantaging those who are the most able – the most technologically sophisticated, the wealthiest, the youngest and the most agile in the community—the possibility of developing community and collaborative strategies for addressing these fundamental issues will be drained away since those most able to respond effectively will have their needs met (and not incidentally as the description boasts, more efficiently and at a better price). If the actions of those immensely brave people demonstrating for democracy in Egypt and Tunisia, teaches us anything it is that major social issues such as the provision of clean and low cost water must be addressed by collective action rather than responding simply to individual actions which by their very nature in this context would be competitive, divisive and collectively disempowering."

Corporate-Funded Online 'Astroturfing' Is More Advanced and More Automated Than You Might Think | | AlterNet

Corporate-Funded Online 'Astroturfing' Is More Advanced and More Automated Than You Might Think | | AlterNet:

"As the Daily Kos has reported, the emails show that:

- companies now use “persona management software”, which multiplies the efforts of the astroturfers working for them, creating the impression that there’s major support for what a corporation or government is trying to do.

- this software creates all the online furniture a real person would possess: a name, email accounts, web pages and social media. In other words, it automatically generates what look like authentic profiles, making it hard to tell the difference between a virtual robot and a real commentator.

- fake accounts can be kept updated by automatically re-posting or linking to content generated elsewhere, reinforcing the impression that the account holders are real and active.

- human astroturfers can then be assigned these “pre-aged” accounts to create a back story, suggesting that they’ve been busy linking and re-tweeting for months. No one would suspect that they came onto the scene for the first time a moment ago, for the sole purpose of attacking an article on climate science or arguing against new controls on salt in junk food."

Heads up!! Change in syllabus!!

I've made a couple of changes in the syllabus for after spring break.  Here are the changes. Please make sure that you note them on your syllabus and are prepared for the changes.

3/22    Marc Andrejevic, iSpy, chapters 1-2

3/24    Marc Andrejevic, iSpy, chapter 6-7

3/29    "Google's Revolution Factory" --Alliance of Youth Movements

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23283

look through and analyze this website: http://www.movements.org/. 
"Diverting the Radicalization Track"

Be sure to read the summit reports (links available at both sites).

What is this group? What does it do? How do you know? Are these good guys?
Why or why not?       

Google's Revolution Factory - Alliance of Youth Movements: Color Revolution 2.0

Google's Revolution Factory - Alliance of Youth Movements: Color Revolution 2.0:

"In 2008, the Alliance of Youth Movements held its inaugural summit in New York City. Attending this summit was a combination of State Department staff, Council on Foreign Relations members, former National Security staff, Department of Homeland Security advisers, and a myriad of representatives from American corporations and mass media organizations including AT&T, Google, Facebook, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and MTV.

http://allyoumov.3cdn.net/f734ac45131b2bbcdb_w6m6idptn.pdf

One might suspect such a meeting of representatives involved in US economic, domestic and foreign policy, along with the shapers of public opinion in the mass media would be convening to talk about America's future and how to facilitate it. Joining these policy makers, was an army of 'grassroots' activists that would 'help' this facilitation.

Among them was a then little known group called 'April 6' from Egypt. These Facebook 'savvy' Egyptians would later meet US International Crisis Group trustee Mohamed ElBaradei at the Cairo airport in Februrary 2010 and spend the next year campaigning and protesting on his behalf in his bid to overthrow the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak."

Celebrities and corporations

New media theorists (like techno-enthusiasts) have accepted the idea that networked communications are characterized by distributed, peer-to-peer, personal, immediate, ubiquitous communication (the repercussion here is that the internet is not like television and not like cinema). The basic idea: people use their networked personal media devices to talk about themselves and to connect with their friends. People want to know what their friends are doing and they want to tell their friends what they are doing.

The basic debate among new media theorists has concerned the political, economic, and cultural impact of these practices. So, theorists have taken sides over whether these practices are democratic (or whether they have liberal or conservative tendencies), whether they enhance the economic prospects of most people (who can make money?), and whether the culture is more heterogeneous or homogeneous, stagnant or vital. 

Hearing comments in our class, though, I'm starting to wonder if our (new media theorists) basic assumption is wrong (or, another way to put this, I'm starting to think that my diagnosis of capture in affective networks is so right that no one even cares anymore or can even imagine that digital networks would function in any other way). Why? Because the default mode of (your? mainstream culture's? students?) thinking is in terms of corporations, celebrities, and consumption (or so it starting to seem to me based on comments in class). People seem basically to identify with the needs and desires of celebrities for celebrity and corporations for profit and consumers for consumer goods. For example, it never would have occurred to me think of Twitter as first and foremost a vehicle for the distribution and contribution of nuggets of celebrity, even as I recognize that the business of mass culture uses Twitter (and other platforms) to good effect (and even though I just saw the really great Justin Bieber where he uses Twitter to generate and connect with fans).

So, on the one hand, it seems that you assume that new media are primarily celebrity, corporate, consumer access devices. But I think there is another hand, that is, I think that you also assume that there is something vaguely democratic and free (liberatory) about networked media. If you think this, then it makes sense to worry about the effects/impact of the first hand (celebrity, corporate, consumer). But if you only think of new media in terms of the first hand, then you have to figure out what opportunities there are for critique, change, freedom, politics, etc. Differently put, if you think about new media only in terms of the first hand, you'll have to grapple with the repercussions for subjectivity. One site/cite for this is the notion of "whatever being" that I develop in chapter 3.

Paper Topics--first paper due on March 11 at 5:00

Be sure to read the instructions carefully.

Deadline:  Papers are due on March 11 at 5:00. I do not accept late papers--no exceptions. You must submit a paper and electronic version. Paper versions are due in my office at 5:00 on March 11. Electronic versions must be sent to my email address: jdean@hws.edu. Again, you must submit both versions (submitting just one does not count and you will get a "0").

Format:  Papers must be typed, double-spaced, with a title page, citations (recognized academic form), and page numbers. The paper version must be stapled in the upper left corner. Papers should be 7-9 pages long (6 is too short; 10 is too long).

Style:  Papers must have a thesis, that is, a primary claim for which you argue on the basis of your reading of the texts assigned for the class.  The thesis must appear in your first paragraph. So the assignment is to write an essay on one of the topics listed below. The essay should answer the question the topic poses. In answering the question, the essay should draw from (and cite) the relevant course materials. You are welcome to email me your thesis in advance to make sure you are on the right track. Note, though, I will be away March 7-11; because I will be in the UK (and hence 5 hours ahead), there could be up to a 24 hour delay in my response time. The repercussion--don't wait till the last minute to ask about your thesis.

Assessment: The criteria for assessment (not in rank order) are 1) the format requirements; 2) the cogency of the thesis; 3) the quality of the argument; 4) the quality of the writing; 5) the depth of engagement with the course readings; 4) the understanding of the readings demonstrated in the paper. I am looking for papers that take a position and present strong, well-supported arguments for it.

Questions (choose 1):

1.  The first assignment for the class was coming up with an internet timeline. Drawing from Lovink, Terranova, and Dean, write an essay in which you identify a central dynamic, antagonism, or theme in the emergence of network culture.  Be sure to specify something like periods, moments, or stages.

2.  Lanier describes lords and peasants of the cloud. Does Terranova share his concern? How do they both compare with Anderson? Do networked communications really point to a new economy in which all products will be free? Why or why not? Write an essay in which you take a specific position on the economic effect/potential of networked computing.

3.  Lanier and Dean both address the effects of networked computing on people/subjects. Are their concerns the same? Completely opposite? Is his concern with the hive, flatness, blankness, conformity, and crowds the same as her diagnosis of secondary orality, whatever being, or affective networks? Why or why not? Write an essay in which you take a specific position on the effect of networked computing on subjectivity/identity.

4.  Compare and contrast Terranova and Dean's account of network politics. What are key points of overlap and divergence in their accounts? What are the repercussions of their discussions of the mass, image, and (for Dean) affective networks? Write an essay in which you take a specific position on the effect of networked computing on politics.

Mid-Term Exam

Mid-Term Exam


Deadline:  Tuesday, March 8, at 5:00. Exams are due in paper and electronic format. Paper versions must be handed in to my office by 5:00 on March 8. Electronic versions must be emailed to me at jdean@hws.edu by 5:00 on March 8.  Exams must be typed, double-spaced, with citations and page numbers. The paper version must be stapled in the top left corner. Both versions must be handed in by the deadline. I will not accept late exams.

You may use your books and consult with others in the class. As a preface or introduction to your exam, explain how you went about answering the questions. Did you work with others? With whom did you work? How did you organize yourselves? What was the process? Be as specific as possible. Failure to provide this account will result in a ten point penalty (that is, ten points deducted from your total exam points).

Note: As stated on the syllabus, there are group projects due on March 31, April 5, April 7 and later. You need to form yourselves into groups and choose one of the topics. You must designate which group you are in (by topic and date) on your mid-term exam. Failure to do will result in 10 point penalty (that is, ten points deducted from your total exam points).


Each question is worth 10 points.


1.  Jaron Lanier argues against cybernetic totalism. What are the key features of cybernetic totalism? What arguments does Lanier offer against it?

2.  What is "lock in" and why does it matter? Make sure that your answer includes technical and cultural/political components.

3. Why does Lanier think that flat information networks threaten creativity?

4.  Why does free choice make stars inevitable? Be as thorough as possible.

5.  Several authors (Lovink, Dean, Terranova) criticize the 'late eighties "Californian" mindset'. What is that mindset and why do they criticize it?

6.  How does Terranova describe the "mass"? What makes the mass a feature of contemporary network culture? How does the concept of the mass inform or figure in Terranova's critique of the idea of a rational, deliberative public sphere?

7.  Terranova emphasizes that a cultural politics of information, "as it lives through and addresses the centrality of information transmission, processing, and communication techniques" extends beyond the distinction between signal and noise. It encompasses a wide array of objects and interfaces, choices and designs, that organize our perceptions and influence the transmission and receipt of information/signals. What aspects of contemporary life come to mind? Come up with a vivid, detailed example to illustrate Terranova's point. Be sure to attend to what she calls the "level of distracted perception . . [that] informs habits and percepts and regulates the speed of a body by plugging it into a field of action." In your answer, begin with a schematic account formulated in terms of Shannon's diagram and then add to and enrich that schematic with more atmosphere and detail. After you have a detailed example in mind, consider the political implications and for whom: police, surveillance, or state apparatuses? for those seeking to resist or change a political formation? for the general field or norm that establishes the base point or expectations for political action (that is, the level of everyday habit and normal life)?

8.  According to Terranova, some specific features of the architecture of the internet induce divergence and differentiation. What are these specific features? How are the challenges met? And, what features or qualities does addressing divergence and incompatibility give to the internet?

9.  What is the decline of symbolic efficiency? Why does it matter?

10.  What are the key features of blogs? What do they have in common with search engines?

11.  What are the differences between the ways that cinema and networked media produce subjects?

12.  How do affective networks capture users?

Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search

change in Google algorithm

Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search:

"Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

We can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does."

Terranova (concluding)

Network culture: abundance of information, acceleration of dynamics. Conceived as global culture in singular informational milieu traversed by multiple channels. To analyze, look for amplification or inhibition of commonalities and antagonisms.

Explore via:
1. Information theory (signal noise)
2. Network dynamics (ex. open architecture allows for autonomy, localization, differentiation that can generate incompatibilities, technically and politically)
3.  Free labor (digital economy; social factory--knowledge labor is inherently collective)

last two chapters:
4.  soft control/biological computing
5.  communication/mass and migrant

Martin Quigley Digital Networking: I Am Against Posting in the Facebook Group.

Martin Quigley Digital Networking: I Am Against Posting in the Facebook Group.: "Let me be the first to say ON RECORD that I have supported our computer overlords since before their rise to power."

Cellular automata (game of life)

The Cost of Free (Labor): Terranova and Anderson

The readings focus on what is "free" in the digital economy. Anderson thinks in terms of free products. Terranova focuses on free labor.

It might make sense to structure class through a debate between Terranova and Anderson, perhaps with groups coming up with points defending and criticizing their positions (from the perspective of each other, yet Lanier is also relevant here in that he talks about lords and peasants of the cloud and Terranova talks about netslaves--which suggests to me a likely paper topic for your papers that will be due on March 11; more on that later).

Reality is Broken: using games to improve the world - Boing Boing

From a review (by Cory Doctorow) of a new book on games:

McGonigal's Reality is Broken: using games to improve the world - Boing Boing: "Jane McGonigal is one of my favorite thinkers, and it's a delight to have her philosophy neatly distilled to a single book, her just-published debut Reality Is Broken. McGonigal is the leading practicioner in the use of games to motivate people to solve real problems with their lives and with the world.

McGonigal starts from the observation that games compel our attention in great sucking draughts, dropping us into flow-like states in which we compete against the machine and each other -- as well as collaborating -- with all the hours we can find. McGonigal takes us through mechanisms that make games so consuming: a series of tasks that increase in difficulty at a rate that keeps us fully engaged; failure modes that are fun and amusing; activities that feel epic in scale."

If anyone (or group) wants to do a presentation that uses this book and ties it directly to a or some games, let me know. We could eliminate one of the other presentation topics I've listed on the syllabus. Or you could do it for extra credit. Or you could do it instead of a paper. You'd need to let me know by the beginning of April so we can schedule a presentation time.

Can “Leaderless Revolutions” Stay Leaderless: Preferential Attachment, Iron Laws and Networks | technosociology

(This is an excerpt from an interesting piece on the Egyptian revolutions. The argument draws from the powerlaw distributions in complex network that we read about in Shirky.)

Can “Leaderless Revolutions” Stay Leaderless: Preferential Attachment, Iron Laws and Networks | technosociology:

"In fact, if anything, it is quite likely that preferential-attachment processes are part of the reason for the rise of oligarchies and charismatic authorities. Ironically, this effect is likely exacerbated in peer-to-peer media where everything is accessible to everybody. Since it is just as easy to look at one person’s twitter feed as another’s, no matter where you are or where the other person is, it is easier to draw more from the total pool and further entrenching an advantage compared to the offline world where there are more barriers to exposure and attachment. Thus, networks which start out as diffuse can and likely will quickly evolve into hierarchies not in spite but because of their open and flat nature."

Clive Thompson on How More Info Leads to Less Knowledge

Clive Thompson on How More Info Leads to Less Knowledge:

"'People always assume that if someone doesn't know something, it's because they haven't paid attention or haven't yet figured it out,' Proctor says. 'But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth—or drowning it out—or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what's true and what's not.'

After years of celebrating the information revolution, we need to focus on the countervailing force: The disinformation revolution. The ur-example of what Proctor calls an agnotological campaign is the funding of bogus studies by cigarette companies trying to link lung cancer to baldness, viruses—anything but their product."

Colbert Launches 'The Colbuffington Re-Post' And Rips Hole In The Blog-Time Continuum

Colbert Launches 'The Colbuffington Re-Post' And Rips Hole In The Blog-Time Continuum:

"Stephen Colbert blasted the Huffington Post on his show two nights ago: 'HuffPo is famous for its extensive, comprehensive coverage of things other people have produced and put on the internet.'

This included HuffPo's posting of multiple Colbert clips -- which infuritated Colbert, who wasn't getting his share of the 'huffbucks' for it.

So until he got paid, Colbert launched his own news aggregation site, the 'Colbuffington Re-post' -- which is just the Huffington Post with a new title on it. 'It's like a Russian nesting doll of intellectual theft,' said Colbert. Visit it online!

To make the whole thing ever more dimensional, yesterday the Huffington Post posted about the Colbuffington Re-Post, which was then reposted by the Colbuffington Re-Post. Trying to explain all the reposting and repackaging, Colbert said he was about to 'rip a hole in the blog-time continuum,' taking us to a 'bizarro-parrallel Huff-verse, where bloggers are paid for their work.'"

Observations from protests in Wisconsin

Here are some observations circulating on the nettime discussion list (long running list that focuses on networked communication and politics; Geert Lovink was one of the initial organizers). It might be interesting to draw from Terranova to analyze/think about the points made.

1)   At this point the battle is being fought both in the square and in the media, and the two theaters go together. Control of the narrative must be kept from the right wing noise machine and that means telling the story from the square, with the authority of being here, of seeing and hearing how things are unfolding, of having the confidence that comes with lived experience to tell the dittoheads, very simply, that they are ignorant, clueless, and don’t know what the hell they are talking about.

2)   The presence in the square has attained the scale of a movement. Very literally, there are too many pockets of action within the space and time of the square happening for any one person to know. Walking around today, within minutes I witnessed the noisy rally inside the rotunda, the incoming UW student march of 1000s along the State Street side, and the union rally in front of television cameras on the East Washington side. People in the thick of each cluster were oblivious to what was happening in other parts of the square. Not to mention, this was at around 12:30 pm. There had already been a large rally organized by the AFL-CIO at 10 am. Jesse Jackson will speak at 5 pm, and there will be evening rallies, as well.

3)   It is the unity of the senate Republicans versus that of the Democrats. Who will divide and conquer first is the question. I’m sure Walker is scheming to buy off one of the Dems, promise that one senator everything in order to get him to sell out the rest, because one vote is all he needs to reach a quorum. On the other hand, there are Republicans spooked by the size and tenor of the demonstrations, and they know that Walker may have overreached to the detriment of their own careers. Targeted pressure will determine the fate of this bill.

4)   The reaction is underway, though with how much strength is unknown. A Tea Party organized counter event is scheduled for Saturday noon. Word is spreading for progressive forces to show in overwhelming numbers. If the counter bodies are many—say 5000—there will be tension. If they are pathetically small—say 500 or less—then we must take full advantage and tell the story as proof of the inarguable majority strength of the progressives and the absolute corporate whoredom of the GOP. Provocateurs cannot be ruled out, and given the dirty tricks of the right ever since the ’08 election, probably ought to be expected. People attending need to know who they are with. A little paranoia in times of crisis is not such a bad thing.

5)   The movement has a longer term concrete goal, that of recalling Scott Walker. Wisconsin’s recall process is not an easy one. The big challenge is the time limit. From the day the recall effort gets officially filed, we’ll have only 60 days to gather signatures in a number set as a proportion of the total votes in the last gubernatorial election. The current battle lays the groundwork for that effort better than anything else could have done. Many signs among demonstrators make reference to the option, and there are people coordinating already, in preparation for Walker’s first year anniversary, at which time the campaign can begin.

6) The creativity and humor has been impressive. Demonstrators are entertaining each other, showing each other their inventiveness, and making the square the place to be. That alone makes this a resistance of a different, more promising kind.

Questions from today (slightly altered)

1. In what sense  is the internet a grid or database? What does Terranova think the weakness is in this approach to the internet? Is she right? Why or why not?

2.  (Andrew posted the second question here.)

3. Terranova emphasizes that the open architecture of the internet comes up against divergence and incompatibility. How are these challenges met? And, what features or qualities does addressing divergence and incompatibility give to the internet?

4.  How does internet culture (turbulence, open architecture) produce problems for collective organization and groups? What specific sort of dynamics are involved in these problems?

Post-wikileaks (remediated from nettime mailing list)

The exploits of Anonymous to hack the systems of firms providing spying services to governments and corporations suggest that the WikiLeaks mini-era has been surpassed.

Much of WikiLeaks promise to protect sources is useless if the sources are not whistleblowers needing a forum for publication. Instead publishers of secret information grab it directly for posting to Torrent for anybody to access without mediation and mark-up by self-esteemed peddlers of protection, interpretationa and authentication, including media cum scholars.

Arstechnica descriptions of the how the Anonymous hack are the best reading of Internet derring-do yet and far exceeds the much simpler version of WikiLeaks carefully bruited as if precious but is not according to Daniel Domscheit-Berg's revelations.

AnonLeaks.ru is a remarkable advance of WikiLeaks. And promises much more by the same means and methods most associated with official spies -- NSA and CIA run the Special Collections Service to do exactly that kind of criminal aggression, along with black bag burglaries, surveillance and bugging. Contractors hiring ex-spies do much of this highly classified work as well and invent and supply the gadgets and front organizations required.

Not least of importance of the Anonymous hack and the many preceding it is the revelation of how commercial firms have been exploiting public ignorance of their spying capacity. That they are themselves vulnerable is a surprise to them, as it must  be to those who hire them and, in the case of governments, provide legal cover for criminal actions.

This is not news, to be sure, for it has been alleged and reported on for decades but mostly in technical journals and conferences where offerers strut their malwares to buyers of perfidium. Imagine that instead of the many iterations of Wikileaks now appearing to receive and publish documents, that more of the Anonymous-type hacks simply steal the family jewels of the spies, officials, lobbyists and corporations believing they own the territory in order to show the extent of their secret predations on the public.

The digitization of vast archives of government, commercial and non-governmental organizations to facilitate their hegemony provides a bounty to be hacked repeatedly despite attempts to prevent it by vainly inept cybersecurity agencies and firms.

The cyber officials yell, hit the Internet Switch. Too late, too late. Anonymous controls the switch.  Sure, Anonymous can be compromised with sufficient hostile and friendly inducements, but so can the predators, perhaps moreso the latter.

I like that venerable Anonymous and the promise it offers as the Nymous authoritatives of secrecy frantically attempt to ban its privilege.

For the WL era dutifully enshrine Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, give them Medals of Freedom as icons of what led  to the rise of Unnamables worldwide.

I commend Ketih for that unbreakable domain name.

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