ideometric

The Associated Press has decided that fair use no longer applies to them, and is attempting to charge $12.50 (and up) to quote as little as 5 words from an article.

This is an example of the tension embedded in new media, between cultural autonomy, democratization, and the enhancement of capability on the one hand, versus the creation of potentially more invasive methods of control, censorship, cooptation, and extraction of profit on the other. It’s a political issue (at the very least). We need smart policies regulating technology and communications, and smart laws protecting our rights.

This post from Making Light sketches the alternative…

“Welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish.

Welcome to a world in which you won’t own any of your technology or your music or your books, because ensuring that someone makes their profit margins will justify depriving you of the even the most basic, commonsensical rights in your personal, hand-level household goods.”

In the same vein, Bruce Schneier echoes this concern in light of wider designs for embedded limitations, such as kill-switches in OnStar that can remotely shut-off your car, or overrides in your cell-phones and other gear that might forcibly set them to silent in a movie theater, or turn them off in an airplane, (etc.).

“This is really about media companies wanting to exert their control further over your electronics. They not only want to prevent you from surreptitiously recording movies and concerts, they want your new television to enforce good “manners” on your computer, and not allow it to record any programs. They want your iPod to politely refuse to copy music to a computer other than your own. They want to enforce their legislated definition of manners: to control what you do and when you do it, and to charge you repeatedly for the privilege whenever possible.”

In a world of simulacra, copies without originals, when is a work “finished”? Is it a perpetual work-in-progress?

I think I like that idea.

Hamelink, C. (1986). Is there life after the information revolution? In M. Traber (Ed.), The Myth of the Information Revolution: Social and Ethical Implications of Communication Technology, pp. 7-20. London: Sage.

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I thought this was an interesting text, so here’s a short review for my own benefit in synthesizing its ideas and engaging my own for my thesis.

Hamelink critiques the narratives of human progress that arise from advances in technology (the industrial revolution, the information revolution). He refers to them as myths that ultimately serve to obscure the fact that little changes in the overall power structure of society. His point is that the utopian visions of an information society are uncritical, couched in terms that assume that technological advancement in and of itself is an unquestionable good for humanity.

To question this myth, he uses some obvious examples that many system or macro level analysts cite. 1.) Information tech is the perfect tool to “perpetuate a capitalist mode of production,” as evidenced in numerous ways by the growth of large TNCs. 2.) Information tech makes it easier for states, institutions, and bureaucracies to micromanage and extend regulation, invade privacy, etc. 3.) Information tech supports cultural homogenization, an “oligopolized leisure market,” and a whithering of autonomous culture.

Thus, Hamelink argues, the myth of the information society “is meant to cater to the interests of those who initiate and manage the ‘information revolution:’ the most powerful sectors of society, its central administrative elites, the military establishment and global industrial corporations,” holding little promise for the marginal, only that they will be “computer-controlled losers.”

While these are valid points, it seems to me that this macro perspective ignores whats happening “on the ground” - that networks made viable by dense, more affordable, and more pervasive communications technologies, are creating new sources of power that can challenge the powerful groups laid out in Hamelink’s critique above. More on this as I develop my thesis… back to Hamelink for now.

In opposition to the established information revolution myth, Hamelink proposes a counter-myth, and things get interesting. He talks about hierarchies and competition as integral (negative) aspects of the social system. Globalization and other factors have expanded competition, and in some sense hierarchies have been globalized as well. He speaks about this in terms of the domination of efficiency, rationality, and analytical thought; secularization, the devaluing of the search for meaning, and ultimately futility. Basically, I guess, touching in some respects on the problems with late-capitalism and/or postmodernity.

The counter-myth is one that stresses cooperation and “the joy and excitement of non-competitive” collaborative effort, and is aimed at restructuring the hierarchies that dominate society. The institutions and industries that are empowered by new ICTs have weaknesses that can be exploited — there is a disconnect between what they promise and what they deliver, they are locked in competition with each other for power and profit, and they are vulnerable by virtue of their size and reliance on networks of various types.

That immediately makes me think of present-day open-source oranization in all its various iterations. What’s more, Hamelink goes on to say that this counter-myth, or “heretical ethics” engages with these “dinosaurs” of the old social order through a “‘judo strategy’: exploiting, in a calculatd manner, the strength and weight of the opponent” such that the old hierarchies will fall under their own overextended weight. Asymmetric warfare, networks, open source… these ideas seem to be supported in the writing I’ve seen on netwar, 4GW (Arquilla & Ronfeldt) and John Robb’s global guerilla theory.

Hamelink’s articulation of an information society counter-myth seems like something of a reach. It’s kind of vague and all over the place, philosophical, speculative, fuzzy, etc. It lacks concrete details to ground it in reality. I think this is partly due to the date the paper was written. Nevertheless, I think the ideas touched on in this counter-myth are interesting and generally supported by events that have happened since the paper was written.

This text does a good job, for me, of encapsulating the two visions of information society’s potentials. Next on my agenda is to assemble some solid case studies to show and examine the real-world seeds of this counter-myth…

I’ve put up an initial reading list for my thesis. It needs to be whittled down to a more focused short list. I’m sure it’s missing a lot of really important stuff too. Also put a list of everything I can remember reading that’s atleast tangentially related. Who knows, might come in handy.

Here’s the rough draft proposal for my senior thesis. It’s vague and all, and needs some better vocabulary (global culture? what’s that?) but atleast it’s a place to start getting ideas for what I should be reading.

The flow of culture through international trade, migration, and new communications technologies is an important part of globalization. To a large extent, these flows are characterized by unequal power relations, privileging the cultural expansion of the dominant core countries, and the US in particular. This is reflected in critiques of ‘Americanization,’ ‘Western modernity,’ and global cultural homogenization. The globalization ofculture often results in a forced hybridization or negotiation of the global and the local, where global flows threaten to displace less powerful local cultures, challenging or expanding traditional identities, ways of life, and forms of expression.

However, new media and the information and communication technologies that underlie the emerging information society, such as the internet, computers, and cell phones, are often described as empowering and democratic. These technologies decentralize capability and control in the sense that individuals have greater capability to manipulate and create culture, as well as greater control over how and what they consume. At the same time, computer networks are opening alternative distribution channels that make marginal/niche cultures more viable.

Do these new technologies reshape transnational cultural relationships in ways that challenge existing inequalities by creating a more democratic, fragmented global culture? Or do they support the expansion of a homogenizing, hegemonic global culture? I will begin by surveying these two opposing views, followed by analysis illuminated by localized ethnographic detail, situated within a macro examination of transnational power structures.

An interesting story in Wired about life behind China’s “Golden Shield” aka the Great Firewall. Here’s a clipping.

For all its ambition, the gears of the giant surveillance machine keep getting fouled with sand. On one side of the Great Firewall, a small industry is sprouting up, dedicated to evading blocks and monitors. Libertarian software engineers, enterprising students, banned religious groups, and regular for-profit companies compete with one another to launch new downloadable tools that outfox the censors. They exploit proxy servers, deploy encryption technology, and ferret out holes in the wall. I have spent many afternoons in the Internet cafés of Beijing’s Haidian University district, learning from the students who live in this world. For a dollar an hour, they will help anyone hack the system: set up secure SSH and VPN connections, use a circumvention tool called UltraSurf developed by the banned Falun Gong group, access unregulated Chinese peer-to-peer networks. Their techniques confirm John Gilmore’s adage: “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

Makes me wonder how high a priority enforcing the firewall is, if kids can hang out in a cafe offering these services. Maybe authorities are just resigned to the futility of enforcement except in cases that they perceive as threatening?  What type of people subvert the firewall, and for what purposes? To access, or to publish? Is this a trivial thing for the average person meeting their information needs, or does it constitute a radical act? What are these “unregulated Chinese peer-to-peer networks”? I need to read up on UltraSurf too.

Sources: Wired Article /BoingBoing

An interesting article from a CIA publication about the use of the internet in North Korea. I wonder how the internet  is used by the (presumably few and priveliged) who have access. The article brings up points about how computers are easier, in some ways, to control than other technologies that have been repurposed with revolutionary intent inside totalitarian regimes. North Korea is an extreme case, and China’s leaky firewall is probably a more easily generalized case study on censorship, activism, and the net (my guess, anyway).

 ” While allowing researchers to use the Internet to keep current with global trends in science and technology, P’yongyang has been able to retain control over unwelcome political information. The government can promote scientific exploration while keeping researchers in country and under surveillance. Computers conducting Internet searches are more readily monitored than the photocopying machines that served to spread forbidden political tracts in the former Soviet Union. With Internet searches easily tracked and the penalties for political dissent grave, it is difficult to imagine scientists straying from technology sites. The same applies to the domestic Intranet, where technicians exchanging e-mail messages on political issues would run a serious risk of late-night knocks on the door by members of the security forces.”

Source: Mercado, Stephen. Hermit Surfers of Pyongyang. CIA Studies in Intelligence, VOL. 48, NO. 1, 2004 Unclassified Edition. Online version.

I created a Wikipedia entry for Arquilla & Ronfeldt’s theory of netwar as a project for one of my classes. It’s been up for a good amount of time now, and looking at the history of edits on a document you created is interesting. Not much has changed since I put it up, unfortunately. Several people have tried to add examples to the article, only to have them deleted by others for being “POV essay material.” Haha.

It’s not perfect, but I will say it’s better than what was there before (that is, nothing).

DataCenter sounds like a great idea, and apparently they’ve been around for quite a while. Here’re parts of their mission statement:

We help to level the information playing field by making proprietary databases and sophisticated analysis tools accessible for community investigations.

We address the disconnect between community knowledge and “authoritative research” by helping communities learn and apply social science tools so they share “expert status” with policymakers and academic institutions.

I found out about them from a recent report they did with the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance.