Sunday, October 24, 2010

Go to Jail, do not pass begin, do not collect $200 go straight to jail

The internet is according to Winokur “A site of cultural political and ideological contestation”. The internet is a foreshadowing of the post structural society it is intangible but real and constitutes individuals ability to determine their interactions. Panopticism belongs to the theory of post structuralism because of the apparent control it exerts through not having to actually control. The panopticon was originally a prison structural design which was centrifugal in that all power was centralized and then transferred to the prisoners to use on themselves. The central tower was positioned in such a way that it over looked the entire prison complex and every cell was visible to the ostensible guard. Each prison cell was exactly the same to semantically put across that all the inhabitants were the same. The guard was not always in the tower but the prison mates never really knew if he was there or not or when. The result was that whether or not he was there the prisoners regulated themselves at all times because of the possibility of being seen in the wrong.

The internet is explained and set up in such a way that it should be have an anarchical political structure but instead it is referred to by theorists an electric panopticon. Questions arise such as who the authorities in the panopticon are, why they are regulating, what are the consequences of their regulation and what the punitive measure are for those found to be wanting? The most important question is perhaps where is the line drawn between spying and regulation? To answer the question of authority Manovich asserts that “the internet and then the culture into which it is embedded belong to whoever writes the code and codec.” This is contestable because that would mean that the internet has multiple owners all of whom have conflicting interests. Additionally, the fact that the internet has now become a site for the operations of capitalism by companies partially answers the question. However due to the decentralized nature of the internet I think it is impossible to conclude that anyone owns the internet. It is a space in which at any point the usage of it can change depending on need. In the case of facebook we find that the user and consumer becomes the producer of content changing the flow of any kind of organizational structure. The internet has numerous spaces and depending on the space the roles of individuals and companies change. According to Winokur “Both panopticism and the Internet construct space with a special attention to the subject's internalizing a particular model of space, and a particular notion of how people are distributed throughout space in relation to one another.”

The use of the current power structure is controlled by unknown powers “Slovaj Zizek refers to the fiction of authority as the “radical uncertainty” (Winokur: 2003) within the internet prescribes uniformity to the netizen for the exploitation of capitalists. Just like in an actual prison cell the advent of internet supporting technologies such as smart technology compartmentalize individuals and hence “Each person inhabits his or her own prison cell. The uniformity that the ‘authorities’ have promulgated was geared towards consumerism and has lead to dependency of the technology because of the importance attached to its reach.

In terms of cultural production in the form of music the issue of control on the internet becomes very important. Constant file sharing between users of musical files leads to loss of revenue to the music labels and the musicians. The Recording Industry of America Association is currently suing the very people who listen to music made in the U.S. by recording labels for piracy and stealing. Copywriting has become the method of control of content generated from music labels. This presents situation where the private property of the musician and the record label being distributed on the public sphere of the net. I feel that the quote by Thomas Mare in his book Utopia best describes the situation “What else is to be concluded except that you first create thieves and then punish them for it”. The music industry creates the market and demand for their cultural good and then makes it inaccessible through pricing and then when people exercise their autonomy to be a participative individual in cyberia and engage in music file sharing, the labels sue the same people they want to be their customers. The object of the law suit is to ban peer to peer networking. The RIAA has a software program called Digital Rights Media, DRM, which encrypts the end product and restricts the ability to dupiplicate their product forcing people to purchase the product. In my opinion I think that it makes no sense to then release a ‘private’ product in a space that has the main objective of sharing and then force people to purchase it. If musicians and music labels do not want their music shared freely then they should not release it into a medium that is predominantly defined by liberation of most international, political and economic barriers.
RIAA vs. Limewire

Historically music was an art form but technological innovations such as the synthesizer has changed the landscape of music completely to the point it is made in order to be supported by technological equipment such as iPods which in turn feed into the capitalist machine through the purchasing of said songs from the is tore. In concurrence with Kembrew McLeod, before the internet piracy existed in the form of taping from home and both the music and video industry survived these eras through the invention of new technology that enhanced the music listening or film watching experience such as 3D and Blue Ray. The entertainment industry can survive internet file sharing as well without their current attempts at punitive measures. The question I have is, are they run out of innovative ideas to make the consumer want to spend money on the product or have they gotten to comfortable to be concerned with evolving with the times?

The Marketplace of Desire and Cybertype

The continually theorized notion that the internet allows the user to be disembodied and hence relieved from the immutable characteristics of gender, race and age are contested in the study by Felicity Schaeffer-Grabiel. The stood looks at the practice of Mexican and Colombian women’s use of the internet and the relationship with technology they have.
Women from the aforementioned areas turn to the internet as a tool to lift them out of poverty because of the fact that it enables them to transcend physical state boundaries “The inequalities of mobility, invisible in the corporate marketing narratives, are quite apparent in the transnational marriage industry” (Grabiel” 2006). They get themselves out of poverty by looking for U.S men to marry. The reason they choose the U.S specifically is as a result of the imagined perceptions they have of life in the U.S which they infer from the mass media messages about the U.S. The life style they aspire to emulate through the marriage forms part of an imagined community which they perceive to be ubiquitous. Not only do these women use the internet as part of their technological resource to attain their goals but they combine it with the use of cosmetic surgery. The cosmetic surgery comes into play as a tool for enhancing their ‘authentic’ features. The category of transnational marriage is hence structured by the marketplace of desire.

This raises the question of why American men would desire to marry women who are not American and vice versa? The answer lies in the very stereotypes that the internet is meant to liberate people from. The stereotypes of Latina women as being hard working, family oriented and exotic are the reasons and indeed the unique selling points of transnational companies. Women then “invest” in themselves by undergoing cosmetic surgery in order for the internal qualities to meet the physical expectations of the U.S male market. The currency of the market gains through stereotyping. This again is an illustration of how external social practices of capitalism enter the cyber world how current gender roles of patriarchal inequality are appropriated in the internet and then through the mediation get reinforced in the real world. “Participants turned to technology and the foreign other to mobilize dreams across borders” (Grabiel: 2006). A lot emphasis is on the male gaze which in turn causes these women to momentarily consider themselves as the male gazing at themselves. The body is no longer a natural part of life but any other tool constantly needs maintenance and can be remodeled and transformed for a perceived better version. The interactions in the cyber world are such that the alter ego can come alive and essentially have a life of its own separate from the creator of the other ego. Latina women consider men from the U.S to be hard working and financial capable of enabling them to be a part of the imagined all inclusive American society as exuded by the media. The other fundamental thing the business of transnational marriage does is allow Latina women to make the shift from being the producers of consumable goods into being consumers. The paradox is that the women themselves also become consumable and consumed by the industry they have created under the guise of providing them with more life choices. As products the advertising presents the only use value of these women as being their appearance and their ability to be engulfed by U.S expectations and wants. For the consumers the women are the product and the emotional benefit of these women is that they can molded into the desire of U.S men in a relationship that brings to mind the interactions of master and slave during the colonial era.

The concept of love has been converted into a neo-liberalist economic practice through the rise of this industry. The union of the two people in the transnational marriage meets at a potential site of conflict between tradition and modernity. This is in fact a networked subculture as defined by Castells because of the distinctive feature which is that the identities of the people involved are extremely malleable.

The industry also brings up the idea of cultural alterity and otherness. Seemingly men from the U.S are dissatisfied and feel emasculated with western modern women on account of their desire to be freed from the historical oppressive gender norms and roles. The Latina women feel that through the internet and transnational service they are able to expand their knowledge about other ways of life and societies, which in my opinion is highly contestable on account of authenticity. Over the internet both the men and the women are exhibiting their ‘best’ behavior in order to be attractive to the other and hence anything about life styles should be taken with a bag of salt. I feel like the service is openly marketing insecure desperate men and openly gold digging women who reinforce western notions of the developing world as being a barren wasteland that they should rescue the inhabitants from in what is guised as a safe and mutually beneficial romance. This is a stark contradiction considering that love is the last criterion that either party considers when they make the choice to use the service. Poverty is framed not as a social pathology but as a minor issue that can be fixed by fixing external appearance and a preferred division of labor. The dictum is that technology and the internet “offer people the flexibility to not only be themselves, but to produce themselves” (Grabiel: 2006).

The practice of stereotyping is referred by Nakamura as cybertyping. Media technologies operate in two layers: the software creation and the social use. Through the complexity of software languages created by the West they were able to restrict access to the developing world which contributes to the global digital divide. The digital divide can never fully be transcended because of the fact that even the so called equilibrium effect of internet use is nowhere near becoming a reality. Statistics of internet penetration are used by companies to identify the ethnic inhabitants of the area and hence discriminate against them as was the case with Kozmo.com. The solution to the problem of otherness on the net does not lie in the disembodiment of the self and concealing of race, gender and age, but in the acknowledgement of the difference and acceptance of difference as part of a persona and not as being tantamount to it. The very fact that the utopian view wants to erase discrimination on the net through disembodiment creates it through a resistance of individuals to the totalizing effect it has “cyberspace itself as monoculture, the West’s “dark side” and thus a powerful continuation of the imperialist project” (Nakamura: 2006). Otherness and difference has a role in the technology and social industry which is why great lengths are taken to cultivate and nurture it, unfortunately this also questions its authenticity at the end of the day because the cultures of the others become part of a process of creation of culture according to the tastes of the consumerist west. This is seen in films such as Guess Who, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Something New. Stereotypes of inherent qualities are based on racial profiling of the other. Said stereotypes are deconstructed in these films and in the end of all of them the desirable outcome is to align with the conventionally Westerner in order to achieve true contentment. Everything about the digital economy feeds into the West as the gatekeepers who are above any of the social issues that they do not get classed with the rest because they are the ones who through internet and media technology determine where and how sociality is structured.

Something New

Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Glocal Netizen

The term ‘glocal’ refers to the implementation of global strategies on a local scale. The internet and media technologies have enabled various ideologies and organizations to be transported fluidly and permeate through all societies while acknowledging situational differences and then adapting to them. The lived experiences of people have changed as a result “Linked with machines in a global network the citizen has become something else” (Poster: 72). The ones to benefit most from the interconnectivity the net provides are those who own the means of production in the capitalist system. “The separation between consumption and political activity has dissolved and a new political culture emerges in which the two are combined” (Poster: 73). The networked citizen is increasingly defined by their commodity consumption habits conducted online. The argument Poster makes is that people are no longer able to vote for leaders in the political realm that will actually bring about the kind of social change they envision. Instead social change occurs through consumerist practices. I agree with this notion because as experiences and sociality is determined by transnational and multinational corporations. Often initiatives that are perceived as being instigated and promulgated for a specific community are often a smoke screen for the penetration of larger corporations in the market of that community consequently taking over the market and the political practices through flexing their financial muscles and holding governments ransom if they do not conform to their profit driven methods of conduct. “They say that four walls do not a prison make” (Johnny Clegg) however, the internet has become a ubiquitous prison from which there is no escape for citizens as they carry out lived experienced through technology. Purchasing of goods is replaced by online shopping; looking for dates is replaced by online dates and so on. No longer are people limited by the physical boundaries of the actual body because are like the magic red slippers of Dorothy, communication technologies can transport the user anywhere in the world in a click.

In a Utopian situation the internet would emancipate people from the discrimination of physical national borders as well as societal border such as gender race and ethnicity and yet what we see happening is the opposite. The fact the internet is now driven by money, the situation has changed from a liberalizing environment to a manipulative one. Ideas of the distinct nation have been replaced by what has been termed metaculture. Metaculture is essentially an amalgamation of all cultures that a specific discipline comes into contact with. This raises questions of authenticity and what is indigenous? In the music field a genre that speaks to metaculture has emerged called ‘eclectic’. The fact that technology has minimized the perceptions of distance has also lead to an increased interest in things on a global scale such as the lonely traveler series, Big Brother Africa, Global wedding etc. This trend has emerged in the face of cultures being threatened by the domination and imposition of Western cultural goods through media technologies. A good example of this global local practice is seen in religion through Hillsong Mega church. Hillsong has a branch in Brazil, France, England, South Africa and in their country of origin Australia. They focus on being universal and contemporary hence being available to the international community in various regions of the world reminiscent of the missionary style of spreading religion.

The internet has given users and corporations to be omnipresent enabling users to perceive of themselves as more than just a member of a particular society, or nation but as a citizen of the world by exposing them to broader global issues and enabling them to see how what is happening miles away affects them like the butterfly effect. The internet makes people look at themselves, practices and cultures from an outsiders perspective than allow the subjects to be objective about themselves “We understand the social ‘meaning’ of our behaviors as a social and words we imagine how others are imagining us” (Meyrowitz: 2005). I am reminded of the Indian allegory of a little frog that lived in a well and thought it was the biggest place on earth. One day it rained so heavily that the well filled up and the water overflowed. The frog ended up being washed in a pond. He was amazed at how big the pond was compared to the well. One day he floated on a lily pad down the tributary of the pond until it reached the lake. He was amazed at how much more vast the lake was. Eventually he reached the ocean and realized that his well that he thought was all he needed and the largest living space in the world was only a drop in an infinite aquatic ecosystems. Local or personal issues get framed as wider social pathologies as was the case with the smoking volcano in Iceland earlier this year.

Paradoxically instead of being a unifying tool it has individualized people and cultures as a result of the melting pot effect if created initially. Movements such as ‘from here’ are focused on resisting the engulfing global internet process which is appropriated by capitalists to drive sales.

Global Wedding

The commodification of communication is a problem that hampers the potential for technology actually being an actor for full development and empowerment of users. The problem however is the fact that the proposed users who would most benefit from the internet as a neutralizing and equalizing tool do not have access to the internet in an issue that sociologists have framed as the digital divide. Those that do have access to the internet are feeding back into capitalism or consumption of cultural goods. Ideally the decentralized interconnectedness of the internet would create a melded global society in which constraints such as nationality would be rendered irrelevant but instead new discriminations have been created firstly between those who have access and those who do not.

Having said all that and agreeing with the fact that the reach and pervasive nature of the internet make it a formidable tool for facilitating social action it is not the be all and end all vehicle and we find that there is still room for non mediated person to person interaction that can make a difference.

the New Yorker

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Technoculture a Political Allegory

France 24


Many have argued the internet has become the new public sphere or rather that the public sphere has shifted to existing in the virtual realm. This is viewed as a problem by Jodi Dean who asserts that “The internet extends our capacity to communicate with one another way past the degree where that capacity can have orderly and progressive outcomes” (Dean: 2007). I disagree with this notion because the openness of the internet has created an environment that is more inclusive than the real or tangible public sphere through rendering categories such as race, gender and age null and void because of the power of anonymity. The internet as a public sphere can be compared to the transitional period to democracy experienced in governments from a centralized concentration of power to a decentralized more inclusive regional and local government. The reason I have called technoculture and the internet an allegory for politics is because of the notion of it being a zero institution which is defined as an institution that stands for something without necessarily being the physical thing itself. In the case of the internet my interpretation is that much like the political system which orders the world we live in by ascribing to a set of values, it operates the same way ascribing to the values of liberal democratic practices. People who share the same values make up the publics of the various values considering that internet is a site that is pluralistic. Said values according to Dean are equality, transparency, inclusivity and rationality. These values are all public administrative values transferred from the real world of democracy to the internet public sphere. This gives rise to identity formation or association which in turn reverts back to exclusivity. Those who do not concur on practices or values are excluded from the group. Another form of exclusivity is the fact that unequal trade relations have meant the automatic marginalization of many developing nations who either lack the infrastructure necessary to support technology required to create a linked in technoculture or whose populations are unable to purchase computers to make use of the internet.

The absence of the public sphere through suppression results in situations of dictatorship like that seen in physical countries such as Zimbabwe. The internet as a public sphere is essentially a government programming the public and the increasing blur between who the producer and the consumer is has erased the hierarchical order that exists in the real world from cyberia. The knowledge management theory that “knowledge is power” is reinforced by Jurgen Habermass, who theorized that “Open public discussion can further the enlightenment and democratic ideal” (Dean: 2007). There is the fear that ‘authorities’ such as Boal and company have is the loss of authority or social position in the hierarchy. I agree with the fact that all the freedom to participate is scary but not for the same reasons as the author, the problem with such an uncontrolled level of democracy lies in authenticity. If everyone is able to contribute to the knowledge base the question of verity arises? This essentially means that anarchy simply not an option as a means of governance even in a medium as ‘free’ as the internet because rules are needed to safeguard against pathology. The internet democratizing has meant that users can be more active and form coalitions based on collective consensus on a series of issues, however the paradox is that it is also a site for conflict among those with opposing views. Hence as much as the internet is used as a tool for convergence/ investment through international political economy and communication capital, what really happens is that the individuals who use it and have conflicting notions to other individuals engage in divestments. These divestments are fueled by transnational corporations who have pervaded cyberia and commodified communication, Serj Takian expressed this best when he said that “Truth is knowledge although bi-polar if its attainment is equitable.” This presents another problem theorized by Slavoj Zizek as interpassivity. The fact that the more active one is on the internet the more passive they become to power, in this case the power of those commodifiying communication, because they can track monitor, measure, predict and then program behavior towards a type of consumerism that is beneficial to them. By contrast Chirawu states that “democracy is a process encompassed in party elections and parliamentarism, functioning with presumably meaningful substantive effect regardless of the immense inequalities in wealth and power” (1999: 26). I understand that to mean that as much as it is disagreeable that there are bodies such as transnational corporations running the economy increasingly through the medium which was meant to be tool for the revolution against them, they are needed to provide form of social organization in the virtual society. The form from the real world has been appropriated into cyberia in the interest of the persuasion industry through publicity and using the virtual society to feed into the interested parties’ economy of attention because in cyberia the community constitutes a captive audience. In my opinion this eliminates the notion that internet is a zero institution because it doesn’t only stand for an existing social system, it is in fact transference of a social system into cyber world through technological mediation.

This blurs the lines between the cyber life and the real life which is driven by ecommerce. In the case of the creation of the online community of gamers the consensus is one of escapism or release of inhibitions which virtual technology facilitates. In my personal experience I found that I could relate better with my little sister and her friends once I began to join them in playing the video game called Assassin’s Creed. On the internet the game enables players to form groups to help accomplish the task of removing corrupt officials and causing a trickledown effect of the ideals of revolution and liberation. The message is political and intertextual with real life scenarios which are the essence of cyber culture. All the authors that the internet certainly has the propensity to illuminate but what everyone fears is the possibility that instead of it being a means to an end, a situation will occur where the means will be the end.


Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Audiovisual Strikes Back





'I wanna know your name' the song talks about the ability of media to either project or conceal the user's identiy. At the same time the entire video takes place in an isolated communicated created by the use of technology to produce 'music'. The end of the song and removal of the technology signals a chaotic and unethical the dispersal community. Some allusions can be drawn from the video. Is the postmodern era so dependant on technology that a removal of it could result in cultural death?

According to Castells the history of the internet is rooted in the national security and defense of the global powers including U.S defense juggernaut, the Pentagon and CERN, “the Geneva based, European high energy research center that developed the World Wide Web (www)” (Castells p. 15). It began as the ARPANET and was originally intended to be an information gathering or ‘intelligence’ tool, however the computer scientists enlisted to create and manage it had other plans “a scientific dream to change the world through computer communication” (Castells p. 19). Once it was deregulated however it became an initiative supported and improved by users and network to network enthusiasts. A kind of war between private software companies emerged after the deregulation when the internet and operating systems became commodities for sale in the capitalist economy. The internet as we know it today was built around and by individuals at government institutions, universities (particularly the hacker community) and scientific research centers. Apart from the companies, independent users designed their own software systems such as UNIX and Linux and released them freely over the net to the public. All these events have lead to the current technology age of expansion and rapid real time information sharing we experience such as electronic mail and communication with individuals and locations around the world.

The internet expanded as quickly as it did as a result of the autonomous nature of its networks. The realization by its users of its potential as a tool or platform for empowerment and liberation through the provision of information fueled it pervasion. Additionally, the internet is dynamic in nature due to the continual improvements made to it by users enabling it to be relevant to the societal outfit and move fluidly with it. Limited control of the internet remained in the hands of the U.S through the process of being in charge of the assignment of domain names and protocols which are essential for the compatibility with international users through developing a standard.

Now that the internet has permeated through the fabric of society and is created by society Castells asserts that “The internet is, above all else, a cultural creation”. I agree with this statement in that users have incorporated in everyday norms and values. However, the relationship between users, society and technology is more complex than just being a tool created for pragmatic use. Internet users create meaning through the use of internet technology but the internet simultaneously defines the user i.e. it creates a type of user. The type of internet use creates sub cultures that exist inside the realm of the internet but that are also defined by the parameters of the internet. The lines of the producer and the consumer become blurred and merge into the coined term the ‘prosumer’. According to Castells the internet is made up of four subcultures: the techno-meritocratic, the hacker, the virtual communication and the entrepreneurial cultures (Castells: 2001). The four cultures operate in a hierarchical structure where, in my opinion the, hacker culture is the most important sub culture because all the other cultures operate in relation to their activities. The techno- meritocratic culture is concerned with making a contribution to field of technology and its contributors with gaining status among their peers and the in the industry in general. However, the entrepreneurial culture is the one that has enabled technological innovation to spread through society the way it has “The entrepreneurial current that developed by commercializing the process of technological innovation in computing” (Castells p. 38). The hacker community is made up of genuine programmers involved in creative programming autonomously operating in the pursuit of knowledge governed by ethical values and codes. There is another kind of technological explorer one that ventures into the dark side of technology by using their power irresponsibly. These ‘evil’ hackers are referred to as crackers and the fabled characters portrayed in movies leaving a wake of discombobulated layman users as their signature footprint. These evil hackers created a market category for the entrepreneurial culture through the need for antivirus and antimalware software. There is a direct link between the youth popular culture to the hacker culture because of the element of rebellion and self determination which the hacker culture is perceived to be.

This link between a virtual culture and a ‘real’ culture makes segue way into the extension of the internet and communications into the real world. New cultural and identities have formed as a result of the internet and technology era such as the dj subculture and house music movement. There is a rise in the gaming culture and gaming consoles such as Sony Play station 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii are real amenities that people assign ‘use value’ to. Instead of going to the gym an increasing number of people invest in Wii Sports the interactive real sports experience from Nintendo. Technology is a new form of retreat where people escape to a world they can construct and in a sense control because of the possibility of attaining benefits real or intangible which might not necessarily be the case in reality. In the musical sphere often real instruments are replaced in favor of synthesizers which are said to produce a more ‘real’ sound than the actual instrument. Technology is being used to enhance the musical quality as opposed to artists perfecting their skills to enhance the music. We see a shift from just programmers being producers in the cyber world to ordinary people creating social networking programs where they extend themselves and materialize their alter egos virtually. Thus the internet is an immaterial space that people can appropriate according to their needs. It is a space where Einstein’s relativity of time is perpetuated through the ability to stop or reverse time and its effects “The search for human eternity, through the annihilation of time in life, to the realization of cosmological eternity, through the respect of glacial time. Between subdued temporalities and the evolutionary nature of the network society rises on the edge of forever” (Castells, p. 468). My interpretation of this statement is the fact that the extensions of ourselves in the virtual world will outlive us by virtue of not being real in the physical sense they defy time and nature. Physical businesses require less and less space and open up online stores having a far greater reach internationally because the virtual world is not locked by national borders or ethnic divides. Thus the internet has acted as a steroid for the international political economy.

Additionally, the internet has changed the order in which business is conducted by first creating an idea (progress begins with the mind) that is reified on the internet in a type of buzz marketing and as a byproduct delivers a product or service. The internet and technology has as afore mentioned caused a change in the previous power dynamics between the disseminators of information and the receivers. It has challenged the theory of reception and language by illustrating that the message is construed by the receiver according to the context of the individual and also by the mediator. The introduction of the third screen i.e. portable technology in the form of smart phones, iPads, mp4 players etc. has given the receiver even more control through providing them with the choice to select what messages they receive, the form and time. Technology has facilitated interaction between sender and receiver and produced different types of media consumers based on consumption habits “The key issue is that while mass media are a one way communication system, the actual process of communication is not, but depends on the interaction between the sender and the receiver in the interpretation of the message” and “while the addressees filled it with aberrant meaning according to their particular cultural codes” (Castells, p. 335). This has lead to a division in the mass audience and transnational media companies targeting specific market audiences. On the internet itself the user’s movements are monitored so that adverts can target a captive audience.

Presently we are on the cusp of the post-postmodern era where life is increasingly defined by our technology. Technology becomes the prosthetic self replacing the things our physicality was intended for rendering the creators useless perpetuating dependency.

World Wide Wabbit

In the episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends there is intertextual reference to one of the leading computer brands demarcated as a pear on Bloo's computer and an illustration in the episode of how easily information can be disseminated and how previous methods of sensorship are now null and void due to data storage technologies.

Monday, September 27, 2010

The Brave New World of Indymedia




The word ‘indy’ is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “A form of auto racing in which specially constructed cars are driven around a banked, regular, typically oval circuit, which allows for exceptionally high speeds”. This best describes the current media environment which is ever changing in the advent of new technologies which are being churned out at racing speeds. The dynamism of all media new or old is the correlation between the old and the new that is that the new media are born out of old media. The notion that new medias render their predecessors irrelevant banishes them to the realm of ‘dead media’ is not entirely true because of a variety of factors such as the adoptive curve and economic trends of different cultures. As I am typing this I am using Microsoft word, which essentially resembles a white blank sheet of paper and the act of typing is a transformation of writing. The old media of writing on a sheet of paper has been transferred onto a computer by technology illustrating that even when old technologies are replaced they endure through the new technology because of salience and esteem in the old by the target users. Hence technologies of media rely on the cultural economy in order to successfully permeate society. The cultural economy dictates that value comes from meaning and the use of media technologies lies in what they mean to a given society or the subculture they give rise to. I agree with the argument that the omnipresence of media technologies throughout societies is part of refeudalism, that is the use of culture disseminated through the media to perpetuate and indeed continue an in-just system of economic control. According to Amin "the prodigious intensification of communication by the media, now global in scope, has both quantitatively and qualitatively modified the contradiction generated by the unequal expansion of capitalism" (Poster, p. 11).



Evidently people are using the meaning of media technologies to create meanings for themselves. Media technologies have given its users platforms to express their individuality but it has also enabled the individual to be a part of the world in a true sense of being a global citizen. It is often said that technologies influence entire societies when in actuality there is a symbiotic relationship between what the technology does for the user and how the users reinforces and indeed adds to uses of the technology. I think a lot about YouTube which has made it possible for aspiring musicians to get their work noticed by people in the music industry leading to entire careers and global sensations like Justin Bieber. This young talent’s mother posted all his concerts on YouTube and soon Usher and Justin Timberlake were in debate on which one of them would sign the young man up as an artist in their record labels. YouTube empowered the Biebs by granting him access to the impenetrable entertainment industry turning him into a pop icon. The debut album is appropriately titled My World 2.0 which suggests the shift from top down organization of information production to a more interactive one which could be bottom up or bottom to other bottoms. This illustrates how new media technologies literally enable individuals to have the world in their hands in what is being termed 'cyberculture' explained as being "an expression of an increasingly individualized society in a globalized world" (Deuze, p. 63). As much as the internet has opened doors and enriched the lives of many, it has also created social pathologies or rather people have found ways to use it in ways for which it was not originally intended. The likes of sexual predators, internet financial scammers, creators of viruses and fanatical groups make the cyber world an ominous place. Additionally, for all the things technology can do, it does not on account of inequity in global societies where many merely don’t have access to technology.


Mass media technology these days is partially defined by the users because they help in its production as is seen in the 2.0 social networks. Things such as the Obamacon are some of the ways in which people appropriate things from the social context and personalize them through technology and use them to tell personal stories about ourselves. People willingly broadcast to the world intricate details of their everyday lives in an effort to exude a certain personality type to their audience. About ten years ago scientist speculated that the global nature of internet use would blur the distinct cultural identities and out of this blur a singularity would emerge. A singularity of culture, politics, religion and thought meaning global communication would have caused a new world order. A bit of an exaggeration I think but more realistically mass media communications are changing the way we interact with people, the way we talk and the way we conduct business. The notion that media technology is causing a hegemonic culture is irrational the statement "culture as struggle and media as means in that struggle" (Pingree, 2003) in my opinion highlights the symbiotic relationship society, technology and media have. Presently though the change is seemingly flowing in one direction that is from west to everywhere else but possibly with the spreading of good governance and the hope of a new world information communication order, a more equal exchange of knowledge sharing will become a reality.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Venus Goddess of Rude 23 May 2010

Yesterday I was standing on avenue Bosquet in Paris with my sizeable pc in hand and headphones on in the middle of a Skype call. The reason I happened to be shamefully poaching wifi on the street in broad daylight was because the building I was in closed unexpectedly and I was banished to the street. As I was glancing around trying to look careless I noticed a really tall woman in sports wear walking a dog with another woman. As they crossed Bosquet on rue St. Dominique I thought to myself “she looks like Venus Williams” but the thought left my mind as soon as it entered. Ten minutes later the trio returned and this time they were facing me and indeed it was Venus Williams with someone else whom I don’t know and I don’t care about the identity of the dog.


I was so excited and followed them down rue St. Dominque with my pc quasi open and cradled in my right arm, sagging back pack on my shoulder and my head set in the other hand. I opened with “Are you Venus Williams?” and she answered “Ya” I continued “Oh my gosh I’m such a big fan” she continued walking never once looking back to acknowledge me while I followed her like a dog. The response to my enthusiasm I got from her was “Whatever”. I was insulted but stupidly persisted and asked her if I could take a photo. At this point the tennis player semi glanced back over her right shoulder at me just enough to smugly say “not right now” and she kept going.


I was too shocked but eventually my shock translated to the realization that the way she acted towards me spelled out two words:PISS OFF. Not right now? Of course no problem because I see you all the time and we can do this tomorrow then. If she didn’t want to be bothered she could have pretended not to hear me. We’re in France and I’m speaking English she could have pretended not to hear me and I would have assumed it was a case of mistaken identity and left the lanky French lady alone. No, she makes sure I know who she is then proceeds to be pompous.


Growing up I looked up to the Williams sisters as role models. For young black girls the Williams sisters epitomized the sky truly being the limit. I remember when I was in high school my biology teacher accused the tennis playing sisters of using steroids because there was no way they could beat their competitors fair and square. I remember getting into a heated debate with this teacher over her bigoted remarks. If I had known then what I know now I probably would have reacted differently and perhaps I would have gotten a better biology mark. I guess my encounter with the lanky tennis player taught me that the person you come to know via various mediations is not the real person and unfortunately sometimes you might find that the real person is not worth anything. As fans we may have less influence but the fact that we have the ability to build up someone’s career and put our hard earned pennies as an offering to your cause, is a position that demands respect.


I wish her luck in life but will end with one of those proverbs that are floating around that says “Be nice to people on your way up because you will meet them on your way down.”