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). 

"The Birth of the Prison" and other uplifting works (Barthes and Foucault)

After learning about structuralism and post-structuralism, I found Barthes and Foucault's emphasis on language and the media very important in today's society where different media outlets are always competing for the attention of its consumers. Cell phone companies upgrade to 4G networks so we can access the internet anywhere, but without that people can bring their laptop in a wi-fi hotspot and access the internet there. How we even receive our news and learn about different opinions on the same issues has evolved throughout the years. our language has even accommodated to new technologies with words like "Googled/Googling" and phrases like "Let's Wikipedia it." 

      Foucault's emphasis on the written word and especially the characterization of an author are fascinating. In today's age, many celebrities write books but they are known as actors, reality tv stars, athletes and other labels. After receiving fame in their areas of expertise, they become authors. Nearly everyday the Colbert Report features a new writer or a new book. Did all these individuals envision themselves as authors/writers from a young age? Also, Foucault's point about how much to include as a part of a particular individual's "Papers" or "Thoughts" reminds me of the number of historical figures' diaries were published. Napoleon, Elizabeth I, Princess Diana, Tsar Nicholas II all kept diaries and the majority of their thoughts were published in some form or another. It seems Foucault would not deem these men and women as authors because their intention for writing their thoughts was not for publication or for the sake of being a writer. 

              For me, I think that there are signs and messages that have influenced my values. I learned the importance of responsibility, education, and compassion not only from interactions with my fellow preschoolers and playmates but also from shows like Barney and Friends and Sesame Street. As I got older and learned to read, many children's books emphasized imagination, positivity and romantic notions of life (herein I think of the plethora of fairy tales and Disney movies). It may have been my love of stories and storytelling from around the world that made me interested in history. I saw the stories of people and places and their origins very fascinating. Social interactions were taught from personal experience but shows like "Saved by the Bell," magazines like "seventeen" and "teen vogue" both first introduced me to the angst that I would look forward to as I became a teenager and entered high school. Today, people complain about how fast children are growing. I can see where these complaints come from due to easy access to mature content. The media does play a role in what society values and though fundamental values like freedom, compassion, kindness and justice remain. 

"The medium is the message," quoth McLuhan

I found many of McLuhan's anecdotes about various studies throughout history very interesting. His notion about hot and cold media was a new concept for me but I must question the section about  cartoons and photographs. To me political cartoons can say more than a photograph especially about a particular time period and I think it was Arendt who also made the distinction about photographs and their inability to portray information. One final comment before the prompt, when McLuhan discusses television and its effects on now background media like radio, I think that today the internet and cell phones more so have almost made television background media. Yes, many Americans and really globally television is being watched but the use of the television set to receive programming in not as much, more people will go on their computer or use their phones to catch up on television shows. In fact, there are many web-series that play exclusively on the internet.

One thing that can be found to be problematic for Marxists is the fact that for a Marxist as I understand it, the ideology should be the message. Furthermore, McLuhan addresses critics such as Weiner who claim that a technological instrument is inherently good or bad. McLuhan is also skeptical about claims  that the gun is not evil, it depends on who wields it (11). It is understandable that a military man would make the latter claim. Extrapolating from that and focusing on media, Adorno and Horkheimer would be very angry with McLuhan. for the the media contains inherently negative qualities worsened by its wielders, the bourgeoisie. I found McLuhan's point relevant today where there is much debate as to whether violent video games are one of the root causes of school shooting and teen violence. McLuhan compares media to staple in any society such as cotton and wheat and in doing so reacts to Adorno and Horkheimer's distaste for new media, Marxists must understand that the media is not going away and will only become more expansive especially because of the manipulation of electronics (21). Also, while Marxists would not like to admit it, McLuhan notes how the intelligentsia have always been the mediators between old and new powers (37). From an historical perspective one must note the influences of the intelligentsia in European history. Pamphlets about freedom and republicanism spread across to the educated and land holding elites of colonial America with few exception such as George Washington (who did not receive a college education) as founders of a new country. Prior to the revolution these type of people were the liaison between the Crown and the middle strata of colonial society. It is further a frightening thought for Marxists to think that technology has become an extension of ourselves, in order for us to destroy technology we would have to destroy ourselves. that is an extreme which the majority of Marxists and communications critics would probably disagree with--McLuhan especially shows how media saturated our society has become due to the series of breaking boundaries from print to moveable type to radio, television and the apex of media for us (the internet and computers). So far, he is one of my favorites just because of all the engaging anecdotes.