Start with pessimists and end with pessimists: the Very Last Post!

We began this class with the lovely yet angry Adorno and Horkheimer. Now we end it with the equally angry Mark Andrejevic and Darin Barney. Although the former are Marxists, the latter are concerned with the democratic ideology of the optimists such as Negroponte, Barlow, Trippi ad Kelley. Trippi and Negroponte in particular talk extensively about the potential that internet and access to cyberspace has for democracy and capitalism. of course making people into consumers is not the best thing especially for those like A&H and even for Negroponte and Trippi. For Barney and Andrejevic, the threat of making people into consumers also serves to undermine the democratic tendencies many scholars like those mentioned above have been promoting.
          Barney reflects similar criticisms to Marxists who believe that "industrial machines served to complete the alienation already experienced by people working under the capitalist mode of production," (132). Network technologies today are replacing jobs and alienating people because people are being plugged into machines rather than interacting with  one another. This notion of interactivity plays a major role in both Barney's and Andrejevic's works. For Barney, interaction between man and machine is not flexible though certainly de-institutionalized (144-5). A top-down model still exists however although teleworkers like to think they like are working from home and thus more free (not tethered to a 9-5 work day in an office). Yet workers are becomingly increasingly unskilled or rather are acquiring skills such as email, word processing and others that are a "sign of accelerated working class disempowerment," (155). Also he notes how the vast majority of workers that companies hire to work from home are women. I remember watching an episode of Wife Swap a long time ago where the wife takes care of like three children and then once she puts them to bed around 9, her "shift" starts. She would stay up till 1 a.m. sometimes just typing up reports and then logging in the hours (she earns an hourly wage). But even that brings up the issue of social disparity between clerks and executives. The clerks are paid but they likely do not have healthcare benefits, overtime wages, paid vacation or really any of the same rights and benefits that office employees should theoretically have. in the end network technology has augmented the impediments capitalism presents to democracy," (190).
Barney's notes on surveillance provide a segway into the more detailed surveillance analysis of Andrejevic's piece. His work was equally interesting and slightly less pessimistic than Barney.
                  Andrejevic's notion of surveillance was very eye opening and would fuel any conspiracy theorist's suspicion's on the government and corporations in general (although I like to know about conspiracy theories, I rarely if ever believe them). I actually got a Pandora account and as I was filling in the information which included birth year, zipcode, email....I could not help thinking in the back of my mind where the information was being stored. They had a little link labeled "why" for each information box but I assumed there was marketing and advertising reasons really because the minute  I saved the account, ads for local businesses popped up along the borders of the page. Although we would like to think that we have control of the means of production as Marx dreamed of...the fact remains that the concentration of power remains with a select few elites and not the masses (16).  The subversiveness of interactivity as Andrejevic puts it should lead to the destruction of adverting monopolies (17-18). Although this seems a bit idealistic at best since as discussed in class, merely saying what type of product I would like does not empower me to be anymore than merely a consumer of that product. Reading these pieces in the context of "For the Win" I see that Doctorow may not wholly agree with these writers. The fact that his characters manage to successfully stage a strike and get their demands considered by the corporation heads (i.e. virtual governments of the internet games), illustrates a revolution of the masses....a Marxist dream. They call for human rights though I do not think they ask to have a say as to how the "virtual kingdoms" should run. They still remain consumers and the although the attack which disabled the virtual economy of one of the gaming sites came from millions of unsatisfied users uniting against the corporation, there was still an authority figure who gave out the instructions and even heads of each of the underground unions where the rebels lived. This certainly counters Trippi's notion that decentralization and thus democracy is possible via the internet.
                               Andrejevic's next chapter that details surveillance techniques such as peer-to-peer monitoring are also present in Doctorow's novel. Mechanical Turks are hired to self-regulate, change system settings, character dialogues and shut down rogue accounts if need be all to ensure the prosperity of the seven gaming economies. having non machines monitor other people's work and systems is better when looking for possible sex offenders, drug traffickers and con artists. But as Andrejevic notes, this type of monitoring is just making the individual a tool of the state. I do not know how he would feel about facebook "stalking" which someone may not mean to do but checking up on a girlfriend or boyfriend's account (or potential one's at that) almost daily can certainly put someone in the stalking category. Also googling other people's names and our own names at that can show just how much of our personal information is known in the public (226). I remember getting a chain email about a website that allows you to see who has blocked you from their contact list on any messenger service....which can create physical, non virtual problems for everyone involved.
       There is some good that can come from those online databases though. Recently, my parents received a letter stating that the bank may actually owe them money and to call a toll free number. The letter even had the letterhead from the bank. My mom googled the number and found an online forum where at least 10 people warned that it was a scam. I like to look up numbers not on my contact list if they are 1800 or 1877 or even look up the area code if i am unfamiliar with the area code to see if it was a telemarketer, wrong number or maybe relative. 9 times out of 10, it is a telemarketer. I had not heard of the show Room Raiders but it sounds mortifying. I would not feel comfortable watching as someone goes through the most personal belongings of complete strangers, but maybe that is the appeal--I do not know them so it is not really bad. although there is some good to peer monitoring, Andrejevic seems to fear its perpetuation  and pervasiveness in society. It is okay if it was the case the government and government agents cannot use that information but the fact is that reality shows, personal web sites, etc... all amplify the role of the government (240). Sister Wives is a current example of that, where it was not until the show aired that news comes out law enforcement are investigating the family for polygamy charges.
                          

The internet=democracy, free market and free information (if the law would allow)

The writings of Kelley, Lurie and Trippi all illustrate the wonders of the internet and of the Information Age. Trippi's account in particular notes how this is an Age of Empowerment due to the prestige and importance of internet sites and online campaigning (235). His case study of sorts, the Howard Dean campaign, actually made me want to support this bipartisan doctor. I do not really remember much about him except the like 15 second sound byte showing a very excited Dean yelling about something (i looked up the phrase:"Not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York ... And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan, and then we're going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House! Yeah!!!")...the killer was the scream at the end. Anyway, just being able to look up the phrase and see the countless youtube videos of the footage, the pundit reactions, the media reactions all illustrate the importance of the public voice. I do not think that Trippi, Kelley and Luir are far too idealistic especially in comparison to Barlow. They do not think that information wants to be free but rather that the people want access to free information. Also, in comparison to Gilder, Lurie and Kelley especially though promoting the free market, are cautious of corporations: "Just like we defeated Hitler and Stalin, the argument continues implicitly, we must strike AOL and Microsoft" (Lurie, 6). it is interesting that while Gilder argues that television is totalitarian, Lurie and his colleagues fear how corporations might control more and more of the new digital media (and are doing so in some cases). The internet as we have been discussing in class, is one of the mediums we can assuredly be able to transgress the minimal interactivity of T.V.--though American Idol and others are refuting the non interactive claim. 


              Kelley writes about how the movie and music buffs will be the ones (and have been) digitizing the movies, music and other pieces of entertainment. corporations basically do not need to extend copyrights ("Making my own music" 1 and "we are the web" 6). Many of the things the above writers have talked about from social networking to blogging to the fact that people are getting news from the internet (news agencies like CNN, ABC and MSNBC all quote from twitter, facebook and mention their "i reporters" when discussing stories) are happening today. I do not think that the television will be extinct-it will just be used differently.  "For the Win," the novel I am reading for the final paper, reflects how the internet and the internet gaming industry in this case are a democratizing force. In the book, Webblies who are modeled after the unions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries fight for fairer wages, better working conditions, and basic human rights in the gaming world, sparking strikes in actual industrial factories across the developing world. thus, at least according to Cory Doctorow, the internet for sure can be an empowering force in his fictional portrayal of internet gaming something, Lurie, Kelley and Trippi agree can happen in the real world of politics and entertainment. 

Well, the information age seems pretty awesome....I guess...

The excerpts and essay from Nichoas Negroponte, George Gilder, and J.P Barlow all illustrate the positive and negatives of the new digital media age (10). Gilder claims that television paved the way for the computer age--notably the telecomputer era. But in order for the U.S to remain on top in the technological industry, the government must deregulate (85-86). What is the most interesting about his argument is that he deems television totalitarian and believes that the telecomputer will be the medium that will expand true democracy (18). His political stance on electronics and really digital media provides backdrop for J.P Barlow's more "radical" claims, going so far as to author a Declaration of Rights for the new setting of social discourse--cyberspace. Negroponte is also optimistic about the digital age and strongly believes once most atoms are digitized into bits, the possibilities are endless.
          Are their allegations viable? That is a good question. Just as we discussed in the last class, there are some pros and cons to having such a fluidity of information. One of the major criticisms I can come up with after reading the above writers is that as nice as having the declaration of independence of cyberspace considered a rule of law, provisions such as "whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost" and "I declare that the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyranny you seek to impose on us," may not be enforced (1, 2). As I am presenting on Negroponte and Barlow, I have thought more extensively about the notions of national security and laws that were put in place to protect american citizens against invisible foes. Wiki Leaks and other leakage of information cause a storm in the media and ruffle the government as it tries to maintain order, would Wiki Leaks be a big deal if the media hadn't latched on to it as forbidden information. Conversely, the information was highly confidential and certainly strained U.S. diplomatic relations. Shutting down offensive videos, blocking offensive posts from Facebook, blogs and youtube videos are a self-regulating way the digital media addresses controversial speech. Negroponte's "One Laptop per Child" initiative illustrates Barlow and Gilder's hope that everyone can access the internet and cyberspace. In a way Negroponte is upholding one of Barlow's major tenets, "we are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station or birth," (2).
       Finally (though certainly not the only issue), I saw much of Haraway's inner debate in Barlow and Negrponte's work in particular. Both writers discuss embodiment and how the fact that cyberspace is not a physical being or a physical body that can be tortured, coerced or stopped militarily, makes it an ideal setting for democratic rights and thus free thought. Regulatory measures starting from the inception of the FCC in 1960? and recently the Telecom Reform Act, and even the Patriot Act (which under the guise of national security allows agents to look at personal info from library books, emails, online orders, etc...) make digital media not as completely free as the above writers believe and aspire it will be. 

Women of the World...Unite! Haraway, Turkle and Plant

The feminist writings of Haraway and Plant in particular illustrate highly pessimistic views on society and technology in particular. Although Turkle was not as explicitly as Haraway in her proclamation of being a socialist feminism, she also discusses the ramification of technology (most notably the loss of real human interaction) in this "culture of simulation" (Turkle 254). If the above writers were more prominent in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, their influence on new media would make cybernetics forces cautious to support expansion of media into the private sphere. In the Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway in particular draws on how cybernetics and technologies have not given women a more equal footing in society. None of the previous writers really discussed gender and sex politics in the same way as Haraway and Plant do. Plant's emphasis on the female labor force and how women were alloted the supposedly menial tasks of plaiting and weaving which Freud contends is the only thing women are good at (255). Plant picks on the fact that these tasks involve much attention to detail and that "plaiting, spinning, and weaving...led to rather increasingly complex processes and products," (258). Any products that should have alleviated women's toil did not do so because the social stigma associated with being a woman in a developing country did not change. Socially women were still considered inferior to "male dominant capitalism" and left to continue working in grueling environments such as sweatshops. factories and not to mention taking care of a family with limited resources such as running water and electricity (150).
I do see a little bit of optimism in Haraway's anger and endless discussion of the cyborg when she writes that "cyborgs...are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism...but illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins..." (151). I took that to mean that feminist writers as they gain more prominence in this age of the blogosphere and handheld devices as she calls them, they will be able to use thee cyborg not as a means to further repress women especially "women of color" but to also finally create a world "without gender." I hearkened back to my semester in Feminist Theory and how we as a class wondered why is it that writers, artists, journalists, etc... are categorized by gender. Could we not just say, unless the writer wishes to be referred to as a feminist writer (which the term in and of itself does not limit its meaning to include just women but also men), that Emily Dickinson was a New England poet and find her under the category of  "Poets of Massachusetts" and not "19th century female poets" ? That might be part of Haraway's issue with the cyborg and the literature and technology of the time. I have heard in countless classes about man's propensity to label and categorize nearly everything, and Haraway wants gender out of the equation at least until women are no longer facing oppression and control. Her observation of feminist cyborg stories which want to "recode communication and intelligence to subvert command and control," (175) are similar to Turkle's whole issue with "simulation". Turkle reflects much of the contemporary criticisms of new media-especially social media when she writes about MUDs and its virtual networks. Turkle and Haraway to an extent agree that there is something wrong with the way society interacts with media. Children will meld the real with what they see on television. Thus even Turkle recounts her childhood memory of expecting a flower to grow as fast as it did in a film she watched (237). But more so, Turkle discusses how media should "break down traditional barriers" and strengthen communities but instead computers create an "information elite" (244). Thus if women ruled the television, radio and newspaper channels 20-30 years ago, audiences would have heard and read about a cautionary approach to the supposed panacea called "cyborg" or really "new media." Though Turkle mentions the voices of Foucault and his Panopticon as an embodiment of her criticisms.

Hayles and Turner: Drugs, Cybernetics and Mass Media

For both Hayles and Turner, the scientists involved in both the Macy conferences and those around San Francisco, posthumanism, cybernetics and the role of technology on material things such as books, print media, and artwork were discussed. While Hayles and Turner both refer to the post-war era (i.e. heavily Cold War decades), for Hayles due to the immediate problems facing international countries such as weapons and technology being used for deleterious ends leads to the homoeostasis stage of cybernetics (9,18-19). For Hayles especially, men like Shannon and Weaver, and later McLuhan were responding to the advent of technology such as television and more precarious the digitization of print media (i.e. the first computer-like devices). Although the computer does not reach mass consciousness until the 1980s via room size CPU systems, Hayles presciently discusses the e-book phenomenon of the Kindle and the Nook when he writes, “because they have bodies, books and humans have something to lose if they are regarded solely as informational patterns, namely the resistant materiality that has traditionally marked the durable inscription of books no less than it has marked our experiences of living as embodies creature,” (29). Hayles discussion of the posthuman and cyborg was frustrating in that there really seemed to be no point at face value to argue whether or not human beings are machines. I was relieved to find even one of the participants of the conferences is quoted in saying in 1969 that “cybernetics itself seemed to [him] mostly baloney,” (73). His confession seemed harsh to me because there were some interesting points dragged out from these conferences. To highlight a few: the concept of access versus possession as indication of information’s value in the capitalistic age on page 39, about the role of the “narrator or narrative” on page 43, and I presume the materiality of information versus the conceptualization of  said information (body versus mind, randomness vs. patterns/algorithms) on pages 7-8 all. These major points or maybe not so major for others to me are the most intriguing and I found myself thinking about today’s technology where one could access a book via kindle but then also on his or her android phone anywhere in the world. the android screen is considerably smaller than a kindle or nook’s and the text depending on the phone’s capabilities may be altered. This may not change the story the text is telling but it may change how we view the story.

On a lighter note, Hayles has a fun anecdote about the Catholic Church’s acceptance and adroitness with new technology with the computerized confessional—little did he know that the Church now has an iphone App that with a mere $1.99 fee guarantees its purchaser a confession system where one can choose which sin they committed or even type it into the phone and then the cyborg priest will recommend the just punishment needed for redemption (just kidding on that last part-the sinner will still have to go to a human priest to receive guidance about punishment).

You can check out the article here:  

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/confession-app-roman-catholic-church-sanctions-iphone-app/story?id=12866499

                The Turner piece focuses more on the art scene of the Bay area. In his opening pages, he hearkens back to McLuhan and the notion of technology and any medium becoming the extension of man. Hayles also references this when he discusses the posthuman as one who may become merely a vessel of information and patterns rather than an individual. Turner’s piece is an interesting shift, whereas Hayles focuses extensively on mathematicians Shannon and Weaver and some fictional writers like Gibson and his contemporaries, Turner’s focus on the Beats and Merry Pranksters shows how reality can change through the use of psychedelics like LSD. Furthermore, many of the anti-Vietnam protesters in Berkeley also rallied against the administration and thus illustrated a growing distrust of the status quo and of American values. The New communalists exemplify the changing role of technology as a medium of social change. The Techno music for example, “allowed them to feel as though the boundaries between the social and the biological , between their minds and bodies…were highly permeated,” (68). The image again reminds me of McLuhan because then these individuals who may or may not be high on LSD are experiencing some sort of out of body experience not necessarily only attributed to the drug but also to the venue, the music played and the attitude of their fellow dissidents. In this case, the medium can be the music or the drug itself and not necessarily a pamphlet or brochure about the Fest.

                On a more economic and political note, the computer ultimately becomes the newest technology that revolutionizes economies and people’s individual role in the economy. Up until this time, there was a push to put more machines in factories and take over the repetitive tasks which were previously held by human workers (I always think of the guy who puts the cap on the toothpaste tube from a movie that I cannot remember). But now with projects like the Media Lab the extension of more mechanization and more infusion of technology in everyday lives and everyday activities in particular formed (180-1). The GBN and other networks were founded in the wake of a scenario ridden Cold War era in which a nuclear holocaust was staged regularly to exemplify how much of a threat it was for the U.S.  (185-6). In the end, both accounts show how different disciplines approached societies’ changing technologies and changing perceptions about American values and ideals. Cybernetics is an interdisciplinary field though Shannon and Weaver, and Weiner types seemed to get the most out of it conceptually—both writers refer to them extensively.

Hayek and the Rule of Law

This excerpt from Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom, Hayek offers some of the pros and cons of a rule of law type of government and also of its negative effects when the rule of law intervenes into everyday life. His subsequent chapter titled, "Economic Control and Totalitarianism," elucidates many of the points he made and the regimes he alluded to (particularly Hitler's Germany). His concerns about economic planning and the issue of "whether it shall be we who decide what is more, and what is less, important to us, or whether this shall be decided by the planner," allude to the ideas of who runs the state (91). In a democracy or republic the theory is that the people rule. Unlike the Marxist predecessors especially Adorno and Horkheimer and Debord, there is concern of whether a democratic society or totalitarian society will be able to withstand the control of a designated few and their demoralizing and despicable technological devices--most likely of bourgeois origins. I find his quote about money very interesting and melds with his earlier comments about the moral and economic motivations and formal and substantive rules (73-75). To Hayek, "money is one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented by man," (89). it sounds counter-intuitive to his initial comments about the disastrous outcomes of economically based initiatives--economics can easily become totalitarian. That is one of the defining features of a totalitarian regime, when the state starts to take hold and nationalize all economic ventures in the region (i.e. Stalin's Russia, Nazi Germany). then the state has an excuse to come into more personal ventures and allow certain rights such as free speech and right to assemble to be ignored or decreased substantially in the name of economic plans and the safety and prosperity of the state. I have read of similar claims when people discuss the U.S tax code and the amount of information the government asks in order for it to figure out what its citizenry owes the state. I do not think that the tax code is a testament of a possibly totalitarian regime (though the forms are tedious), nor do I Hayek would have the same conclusions. He notes the importance of the bill of rights or any form of "rule of law" that can provide for a just and reasonable society or government. To a large extent, Hayek is also contesting many Marxist assertions about how whomever controls the means of production must be changed to create a more just world. Reverting to a socialist means of economic planning would not alleviate the material inequalities in society nor ensure that civil liberties would be protected under a new socialist government (that learned from the mistakes of its predecessors). Overall, Hayek has been engaging and interesting especially for a political science major like myself...I look forward to reading what Pool has to say! 

Debord and Baudillard..."The Spectacle and The Requiem"

 Baudillard is disturbed by the notion of new media creating a lack of reciprocity and is exasperating social interactions. To Baudillard it is not enough to claim that there are technical issues but in fact, the television and other new media are social control in and of themselves. It does not matter who is the producer or who is the consumer, in the end these new media devices allow for the discontinuation of face-to-face communication with one another. This is certainly the case now with even newer technologies such as the internet (facebook) and text messaging on phones. I would not want to meet this “spectacle” that is the holder of bad dreams and apparently the unnatural outcome due to mass media. One of the first similarities is the fact both Baudillard and Debord discuss the notion of one-way communication. I find nothing to contest on that basic notion because there is the issue of the increasing impersonal human relationships and such. I can see that both writers and in particular Debord who makes the spectacle sound like a very scary thing indeed (its falsehood and its ability to conform to society’s needs) fear the growing power of mass media. Its dominion over everyday life such as in the chapter entitled commodity as a spectacle illustrate the notion of how mass media has become pervasive hence its name.  Furthermore, with new technologies that make it easier to exploit the earth of its resources and transport goods and services faster are a detriment to society economically and socially. Debord’s conclusion that the spectacle may “gild poverty, but it cannot transcend it,” poignantly addresses a major problem in an increasingly global society (31). Now, with droughts and flood in China and other places that supply wheat and corn, food prices are rising and some people are not able to afford the same amount or types of food they normally eat. For a developing country whose GDP remain below the poverty line and so any increase in food staples hurts ordinary citizens more directly, this spectacle is highly intrusive. Despite the definition of detournement that was found, I am not quite sure what Debord means with his conclusion that “theoretical critique that goes alone to its rendezvous with a unified social practice,” (147).