[Week9_1] Internet, public sphere?

Habermas' public sphere is the ideal where open access and full communication governed solely by rationality for a common public goal exist. However, it should be noted that the concept is a ideal communicative state rather than an actual place, though he attempts to find historical examples where public sphere has been taken place. The Internet is not and will never be a public sphere, but some communication forms(modalities) in it could have certain elements of it when moderated well. In short, PS for the Internet is a normative goal rather than a description or practical object. And as such, Papacharissi says the Internet can create a new public space, but does not ensure Ps per se. The question would be what then those elements are and how they can be fostered.

On the other hand, Garnham tries to apply the PS concept to broadcasting, and suggests the public service model to be implemented. However, he as well as most other theorists always seem to forget that though a channel is made public, it is still in competition with the commercial, and thus more attractive other channels. The same on the Internet too.

Then Keane argues that there is no single immense PS but a "complex mosaic of differently sized, overlapping, and interconnected public spheres". His different coexisting levels are important in understanding the complexity of the current society. However, he does not dig into how these spheres are or can be interconnected. I think that the media and communication could and should play an important role in that, which is one of the foci of my own research interests.

[Week 8_2] Surveillance.

The Panopiticon of Bentham is a useful rhetoric for Foucault to describe the functions of knowlege/information power in modern social systems. In conditions of unverifiable surveillance for order, people start self-monitoring according to the rules that have been set by the man in the central watchtower (or, said to be there). On the Internet, since surveillance can occur in the code-level, such notions have a more direct connotation. However, it should be noted that the true core of Foucault's Panopticum lies in the voluntary participation of the surveilled. It is not the oppressor versus the oppressed, but the rule-setter and the rule followers. Furthermore, the rule-setters could be the system itself, instead of some evil dictators. The whole society may be voluntary prisoners of the Panopticon, so to speak. It's not how we topple the man in the center, but whether we can critically reconsider the familiar rules of the information and communication pattern that we call our own. Lyon talks about four kinds of surveillance theory: state, bureaucracy, techno-logic, and political economy. In lieu with Foucault, I think the 'voluntary' cultural dimension should be added to them.

For Zuboff, the disappearing human interaction is a key threat for the management of the modern information society that tends to rely heavily on the non-humanized information skills. Not for humanitarian reasons, but because it isolates managers from the still 'humane' realities of the organization. Good thing to mention, but a little outdated in a age when information technology has already taken the direction of IMs and personal networks. I wonder what Zuboff would say to those developments where information has developed to enhance the interpersonal networks rather than the social 'machine'. I don't mean to say she was wrong, but that there is a certain portion of unignorable self-purification in play since we are still living in human bodies.

[Week 8_1] Divisions...

In 'data deprivation', Schiller argues that corporate power has been growing to govern the flow of information that are crucial to today's life. He points out three important aspects in which it has taken place: deregulation of economic activity, privatization of the public functions, and commercialization of social activities. Though information is proliferating in this age, we are deficient of the necessary social information(p271). However, even taking Schiller's solid explanations into account, there are not many possible measures to counter those trends. Re-regulation and restoring private commercial sectors to the public would be an easy answer in theory, but not very realistic. Can the public domain be restored without sacrificing (capitalistic) efficiency? Not very likely. All you can force the corporates to pay taxes and contribute to build other new parts of public domains.

Norris notes three kinds of digital divide, which are the global divide, the social divide and the democratic divide. He mainly sticks to the divide of the hardware, which can in his view be overcome by more and cheaper technology. However, in my view digital divide is not about simply hardware. It is about how some people know how to gather and utilize information, while others cannot but merely follow the models and rules set by the former. The episteme setter get all the big money and power, while the follwers are spending time and money desperately and vainly to keep pace with them. These things cannot be easily fixed even with $100 laptops w/ Wikipedia Offline installed on them.

Finally, Lasch talks about how the modern technologies have been invented and implemented to reduce dependency on skilled labor, to achieve total control. However, it is not one-sided. Some technologies are chosen by the managers, while others are chosen by workers, playful teenagers and others for their own purposes and style of life. Total control is only possible when the most prominent field of decisions - the market - is governed by a single force. Sure, the corporates have much more power than anybody else. But let's not give up hope already...

[Week7_2] Concentration...

Though Zook does not dig deep into the lives of the ordinary workers (programmers, webmasters, ordinary users etc) and mainly sticks to the big money movers such as the enterpreneurs and enture capitalists, the dot-com boom/burst was more than a simple high-profile money business. It was a vision for a way of life that bloomed and faded, ultimately giving way for again something different. The dot-com boom era told us ordinary people to move on to the wonderful new world of information and networked connections, or else you will become kind of 'obsolete'. It was stated as something like a new starting line, where anybody could 9and should) jump in. But as Zook demonstrated, the spatial aspects of concentrated personal networks and financial capital has not been pushed away an inch.

Then another question arises. Will it be any different in the era of the Web2.0 boom? With contents producer/consumers taking the lead, we are again flooded with the myths of decentralization by media coverages on the Chinese Lipsync brothers or the guitar wonder from South Korea. But still, it gained popularity when it went through Youtube and gained its English-speaking audience in the US. I wonder if there is some work on a map of the Internet user 'thunderlizards'. I can pretty much predict that they will as well be concentrated on some already culturally(that is financially) established metropolitan areas. All aspects of developments are never fully arbitary from each other, and we know that most of them are geographically bound.

[Week7] Geographical centrality

The findings of Zook that geographic locality plays a significant role in the current shape of Internet industry is sound but not surprising (After all, the name Silicon Valley has not faded at all). First of all, unlike the Internet itself, industries are located in physical buildings and are run by people with physical bodies who interact in a real space. Steve Jobs' keynote speeches may be available on Youtube, but you should go to San Francisco to actually experience the infamous 'reality distortion field'. It may be about the Internet, but it is still industry. In that sense, Zook's mention of 'tacit knowledge' is more than valid. Moreover, on a global scale it isn't even tacit knowledge but simply the problem of money. Heavily wired cities in more 'developed' countries are the central regions. Because it takes a significant level of infrastructure to use the Internet inexpensively and on a daily basis in the first place.

Then, the question arises: how will it change overtime? Will the centers become more central, or will they be distributed (or simply shifting from one center to another)? Or a more fundamental one: is this kind of centrality adding up to a form of geographical digital divide, or simply the result of it?

[Week6] Transforming societies

This week's readings deal with the changing elements of the society. Urry argues that sociology should be redefined in a era where a multitude of interactions of both physical and social systems occur. In his view the flow of networks and mobility is the prime concern. However, more often than not he tends to ignore or underestimate the role of existing social bonds and boundaries such as nationstate, ethnicity and cultural clusters. Even today as we are talking about the new mobile sociology, some hermit dictatorship has launched a nuclear explosion test due to nationalistic reasons. I think that the concept of mobility is only valuable when the still existing fixed structures are taken into account as part of the interacting element.

Reich's three jobs - routine production services, in-person-services, and symbolic-analytic services - are helpful for young people looking for employment in today's service job market, but don't contribute much to the job structure of the society in whole. I wish there was more talk on how those new forms of services combine and interact with the traditional forms of jobs including manufacturing and farming, instead of simply showing us what new future jobs emerge.

Stehr notes that the changes in economic structure of 'knowledge societies' will be the shift into the symbolic interactions. I'm glad that somebody finally mentions that the manufacturing sectors are not declining in importance. However, contrary to his argument that the system of industrial production is changing via the knowledge paradigm, in fact it is only being pushed away to somewhere else (such as China) - out of the sights of the 'service workers of the information society'. Instead of only looking at macro numbers, he should probably look into what kind of industrial labor is required to provide the daily commodities of the service worker. It has grown in global scale - that is, the 'developed' nation as the big spenders who make big money with some patents and copyrights while the rest of the world is cleaning up after them. (Look at this map: http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=99 )

Finally, Balsamo emphasizes the role of the body in the technologically advanced society. Her argument that gender identities are reconstructed in the technology contexts is a continuation of the body discourse that has been in circulation in media cultural studies. Though using the term body, it refers more to the individual 'being' in physical terms: if societies can be redefined in the information paradigm, so can the basic units that constitute the society. Though Balsamo mainly sticks to gender identities, in this light all physical identities can be viewed as important constructs that are actively defined in technology and information contexts. And until the day we become some kind of pure information life forms, the body politics will prevail.

[Week5] Digital News Ventures...

In Digitizing the News, Boczkowski attempts to look into the ventures of the News production systems that have been coping to integrate new media technologies into their tradational processes. In the age of the Web, he gives us three examples of what kind of combinations of conditions has led to the different forms of ventures: online news section, multimedia news and user-created news. In short his research focuses on the changes in the production side of the news, that those changes are fundamentally cultural rather than simply technological.

Interesting for sure, and valuable piece of history. However, it would have been better if the focus would have been more on providing actual evidences of changing interaction between news producers and users, and what kinds of impact it has on the quality, quantity and orientation of the news contents. For example, does user news production necessarily contribute for better journalism? user-friendly for sure, but other factors such as fact verification suffer. Archiving and browsing changes the time concepts of news reading pattern to a more flexible level, however the 24-hour-update system forces news readers and producers to hang on the new pieces of information all day. It is not the news production culture, but the culture of news in everyday life and society that changes.

[Week4_2] Networked societies.

When Castells talks about the 'Information Age', he refers mainly to the networked nature of social forms. One of the most important unique claims he makes is that "the communication between networks and social actors depends increasingly on shared cultural codes". And to think of it, shared cultural codes are derived from communication between networks and social actors. Thus the role of communication becomes more and more important in a information society. Information is not only a form of new 'goods', but the essential bond that holds this kind of society together.

He continues his argument of the networked society in his second piece, that the role of networks emphasize the new economy, and the city becomes even more important as the social unit. Networks are on the rise, but personal isolation and loss of shared meaning occurs as well. The remedy he suggests is a more networked society (as illustrated in his example of Europe), where values are shared among people. Well, if that kind of 'sharing' proves to be economically profitable, it will be solved sooner than expected. However, Castells seems to separate the economy functions and the social process a little too distinctly.

Garnham considers Castells' explanations as a form of dominant ideology of today. Being an ideology does not necessarily mean that it is false, but it implies that it is a kind of interpretation with its specific intentions rather than the naked truth. And in this ideology that puts information-communication technologies as its main engine, it is taken lightly that the networked society is an extension of the previous capitalist society. That's a valid argument, but I can't help but think that Garnham underestimates the role of communication structures - networks - in our daily life and social behavior. ICTs are in some aspects merely reproducing and enlarging existing communication patterns, but in other aspects they build new forms of social communication as well. It is not a either-or quetion, but what elements are introduced and what their specific roles are.

[RN_Week4_1] On Labor

This week's reading deals with the role of 'labor' in the post-industrial age. Bell argues that in the economy the labor issue will remain, but the sociology and culture will behave otherwise (p.102). True, in a 'information' society where one easily forgets the actual labor issues that go on the way it has always been. However, I think that the interest in community as Bell has hopefully put it is not a genuine one but a mere distraction from the existing class conflicts. The 'post' industrial age still has its feet deep in the industrial age.

Krishan Kumar talks about the continued Taylorism. New technology builds on new division of labor, striving for efficiency. In his sense, information is also a part of the produced goods in the capitalistic system. I agree to the point that the Information society is not a stand-alone ideology, but an extension of (industrial) capitalism with all its social practices. Not only extension, but intensification.

Urry argues that what is viewed as the shift from the industrial to the post industrial is in fact the same old manufacturing society but dislocated by globalization and fragmentation. Labor still has its place, but is somehow put into nostalgia. Those arguments lead me to one important question: Why are people made to believe in the novel post-industrial age, while quickly forgetting the same kind of labor pattern that constitutes one's own life and society? Who are the ideologues and what kind of people are benefitting from this? Moreover, why do the ones that do not benefit from it also easily agree with them? Classic hegemony theories could be of some help, but I'll have to think things over.

[Week3_2] On 'Code' (2/2).

The second half of CODE deals with the real-world cyber issues that we encounter, such as copyright, privacy, free speech and sovereignty. Regulations are being implemented in all those issues via code, and the resistance against it should be also made through opening of the code, in Lessig's view. And being a practical person, he has concrete solutions on hand: (creative) commons, P3P and open access.

However, it is not clear on how he adresses the boundaries of the individual nations and the Internet as an international entity. Law and policies are enforced by each nation, but the net code is regulated in an international standarization process (or, is it really international, with ICANN being a private organization in California?). Also, the root domain name servers are located mostly in the US. And ECHELON, the urban legend that proved to be real, deals with intercepting communication from all over the world. I don't mean to say that the US sets to conquer the world , but that code-counteractions to resist the regulations need to divided into more dimensions. For example smaller online communities, bigger services, nationstate, and international. Only then will the solutions actually work on all levels of the cyberspace life.

[Week3_1] On 'Code' (1/2).

Lessig is coherent with previous week's reading on Webster, in that he asserts that the cyberspace (which is easily regarded as the literal symbol of the information age) is not a completely new and optimistic thing. Here he focuses on the fact that the cyberspace can be regulated just as much as, and even far more than the previous real world. technology(architecture), markets, laws and norms in combination limit and guide people's behaviour and the system itself. At the same time, markets, laws and norms decide the architecture, in the form of 'codes'. And it requires a lot of active actions to deepen the liberal aspects of the Net, and he proposes it can be done by opening the "Code".

I couldn't agree more with Lessig's point that the cyberspace is the result of regulation, weighted among the players and institutions of the various sectors (I wonder what views Lessig holds on the mess that is ICANN ). And I also admire his continuous efforts on Creative Commons, to achieve what he has manifested. However, his concepts of a liberal cyberspace only works when there is already an established liberal social system or norm. For example, one can't expect to have freedom of expression on the Internet, in a society where freedom of expression is not granted in the offline world... I mean, look at the Internet in mainland China. Ideally, the liberal nature of the cyberspace will drip down to make the real world liberal as well, but normally it is the other way around. Even the concepts of Creative Commons or Copyleft only work in societies where Copyright laws are firmly established. I wished that Lessig would talk more about how to modify the larger structures of the 'East Coast Code' of the offline world, so as to make permanent progress feasible.

Free Culture (Presentation by Lessig)

If you've liked what you read in Lessig's book (Code)... Here's what he tries to build on the grounds that he set out (Free Culture).

http://lessig.org/freeculture/free.html (presented in the classic 'Lessig style presentation')

[Week2_2] Doing what they've always been doing

The main premise of Webster and Robin is that the information society is nothing new, and rather a extension of the industrial capitalism society. I completely agree with this view. Most of the early optimistic, even utopian views on the democratic and subversive potentials of the Internet were raised before everybody was online, when the cyberspace was more or less a ghetto of liberal intellectual geeks, so to say. They simply did what they had been doing in the age of analog libraries, only to a greater extent: developing a collaborative and open network of information (the reference list and footnotes of academic journal articles were the primitive forms of 'hypertext'). First, the non-geek users came in and thought in high hopes that this atmosphere was due to the technological /media features of the net. But then the merchants came in and did what they had been doing: painting ads all over the place, screaming to gain more money and so on. Governments came in and tried to eavesdrop everything and bring regulation (in worse cases, censorship) as they always did elsewhere. Hate speech, non-sensical trolls in the forums, winner-takes-all competitions and every other communicative patterns that were present in the real world appeared in the cyberspace. Amplified, because the cyberspace is a world of pure interaction, thus making 'communication' more salient. The so-called problems of the information society are nothing more than the problems of modern (I hate the misleading term 'post-modern') brakeless capitalism.

[Week2_2] information fetish

Roszak's mention of 'Data glut' reminds me of Umberto Eco's famous anecdote quite some years ago: "...Years ago, when I needed to write a paper on Israel, I went to the library and pulled out about a dozen of references from the selves. I read them carefully, developing thoughts and wishing to have more material. now that everything is digitalized, my wishes came true. I typed in the keyword in the search engine. it gave me 11000 search results. I gave up writing that paper." Indeed, information fetish can be misleading from the true goals of why they were created in the first place. Reflecting on this, it should be noted that the information technologies are not evolving at the speed of the evolution of the circuit integrating density (such as the ever-exploited phrase 'Moore's Law'), but at the speed of what the humans and their society can adjust themselves to. The development of the 'information society' itself is controlled by the patterns of the present society.

[Week2_2] Information has always been...

Reading notes on Langdon Winner's piece. Though I agree with Winner's conclusion that a democratic populace should explore new identities and the horizon of a good society in the cyberspace, I can't quite grasp why this paper was classified on the 'con' side. Sure, he says that what's important is not technology itself, but the utilization of it as social means. But then again, the boost of thechnologies that were centered on information and communication technologies have been about building social networks, from the beginning on. information never was generated by itself or by machines. People produce them, endow specific values on some of them, and communicate it to certain people in the way they intend (or do not intend but turn out to be done anyway). He may be a con to the 'post-' but still 'industrial' society, but IMHO he seem to be laying most of his hopes in the information society in its own meaning. The one who is sticking to much to technology perse is maybe Winner himself.

{Week2_1] Viva capitalism?

A couple of hundreds years ago, the native Americans did not live with the concept that "land can be owned". But the settlers did, and then they came to own all the land through their own set of rules. Similar things are happening with 'information'. Some people come up with new ideas on how to possess (that is, buy and sell) them. Others who are not capable of catching up with those rules fall hopelessly behind.

In the three pro-information age readings, the premises are remarkably simple. "We have found a new way to carry on, even expand with our way of brake-less capitalism! Hurray!"(exaggeration inside). On first look it seems that they are advocating a new era that is completely different from the previous industrial age, but a careful reading reveals that they are in fact celebrating the new powerful capitalism and the social system that is built upon it. It is no wonder that Masuda's categorization uses terms such as market, product and intellectual 'industries' frequently.

Leadbeatter argues that information society will provide a solution to the problems of the market and the community at the same time, and Dyson et al. are discussing about how the institutional systems should be modified to adapt the change. Their goal is to overcome the limits of the present 'industrial' capitalistic society by changing their main products, which happen to potentially enable collective, decentralized aspects. I don't means to say that industrial capitalism is neccessarily wrong, but that the fundamental capitalistic social problems such as unquality, political brainlessness and consumerism don't simply disappear by changing the main product from this to that.

[Week1_2] "Fine. Now, where's the other half?"

Judging from the introduction, The Information Society reader is a vast ambitous project to cover the various social aspects of the so-called information society. Indeed, the editors are doing a good job in laying out the pros and cons, changes with existing social structures, and also manage to bring up issues that are specific to the information-oriented society such as surveillance. If the individual chapters are as good as introduced, this book will be an invaluable read.
However, it should be noted that it looks already a little outdated. The problem sets leave out some of the prominent aspects such as flexible social networks (enter Myspace), collective knowledge (enter Wikipedia), social discourse production (enter citizen journalism and blogs) and over-reliance to information (or information addiction, as some call it), among many others. In short, the book focuses on the macro level where the society is read as a whole, but leaves out insights to the meso and micro level where the lives of actual people are. I hope that this area can be discussed via the other readings and possibly the group presentations...

[misc] Media environment, year 2014.

Somehow hiliarious, somehow scary. A (kind of plausible) prophecy on the media environment of year 2014.

http://www.probe.jp/EPIC2014/

Hmmm...starting off this blog.

This blog is primarily for posting field notes of class J970, 2005.

Honestly, I don't like the humble interface of blogger.com which doesn't even have a category function... but simple for anybody to play with, I admit. I'm working on my own site but that'll have to wait a good while, so this one will function as my Anglophone blog for the time being. Have a nice day!