Today's Technology, Knowledge and Society Conference started at UCLA with a Plenary speech by Henry Jenkins. Formerly of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Henry now teaches and researches in the Journalism School at the University of Southern California. He has, let's be honest, a mixed reputation and yet wonderful success as a person with a clear connection to what's going on. (To quote Marvin Gaye).
At one level his work is absolutely stellar in documenting trends and concerns about technology while at another level it has been criticised as being almost devoid on theory, knowledge of theory or critique. In fact, anything that would detract from Henry's style of technoboosterism has been seen as his Achilles Heel.
The surprise this morning was to hear Henry discuss the current situation with his forthcoming book - which will be out of date when it appears later this year. He referred to "rotting information:" That is the book versus the immediacy of the digital space: nice.
One of the points he made was that digital tools make information / knowledge "spreadable." He immediatley went ont to say that the word is not very good, and then to say: "We wanted to change the language and put the language in crisis." (by using the inprecision of the world "spreadable.")
I like this. Not only does it acknowledge something we know more clearly than ever as the Internet shifts and grows around us - that language is not helping to describe what is happening - but that "the best language from cultural studies and critical studies" can help resolve this gap. Furthermore, Jenkins suggetsed that in the Web2.0 era, there is a reapproachment between cultural studies, critical studies and technology-Internet studies.
This is important - especially because in my own self serving way - Henry referred to E. P. Thompson's use of moral economy, in The Making of the English Working Class. Welll, I used this extensively in Uprising to describe the context in which we now live - a new moral economy, where proletarianization occurs. The unregulated space of the internet offers and creates a new moral economy.
It is always nice to see one's work ahead of the pack. We are egos after all... more importantly, it is exciting to see someone of Henry's stature referring to moral economy as a means of generating language that will make sense in our discussion of the Internet.
My plenary speech tomorrow talks about the limits on our language and how that impacts public ability to discuss the use of the Internet to mobilize predator drones to kill people who don't like us.
I'll blog that tomorrow.
Showing posts with label cultural studies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cultural studies. Show all posts
Monday, January 16, 2012
Thursday, August 11, 2011
UK Prime Minister Cameron proposes banning Twitter and Facebook
"This is not about poverty, this is about culture." UK Prime Minister David Cameron speech to Parliament, August 11, 2011.
The connection between uprisings in the UK this week and those across North Africa and the Middle East is social media. As I have noted in earlier blogs, emancipation now seems so close for so many - members of the Tea Party and kids on the street, tribalists in the African desert, and religious fundamentalists everywhere. Social media makes it seem like everything is possible.
David Cameron's suggestion that users of social media who organize riots will be banned, is a major development. His phrase was, "if they are thought to be planning criminal activity" (italics added). What people are thinking when they use social media is another thing altogether.
This will get interesting, especially given that Cameron seemed to detest the idea of "rights" in favor of responsibility. This is the old trope, is it not?
There's nothing quite as perverse as a middle aged white male politician telling people to take responsibility for themselves... in response to riots. Pull yourself together man!
Cameron and UK conservatives, including the Labor Party it seems, have some way to go before they get a full handle on how to manage the relationship between social media and emancipation. Actually, everybody has a long way to go!
Threats to stop Facebook and Twitter use pushes a wedge between digital natives and those making the threats to ban them.
When the question is asked, as I have seen it asked, when will the UK riots happen in the US? The answer is that they are unlikely because of two "solutions:"
1. massive surveillance of networks at every level, amounting to the domestication of Cyber War against the US citizenry;
2. the massive incarceration of young people, the unemployed and the abject. The US has the highest per capita prison population in the world.
As a conservative, Cameron can pursue similar "solutions" in the UK. That is what his suggestions of banning Facebook and Twitter and social media suggests, together with the threatening tone of his speech. A regime of total surveillance will become commonplace in the UK, and following US models, private prisons may well spring up like mushrooms.
By the way, his statement that "This is not about poverty it is about culture," is a statement worthy of Cultural Studies. Can someone please tweet him and tel him that poverty is culture... or is that irresponsible?
The connection between uprisings in the UK this week and those across North Africa and the Middle East is social media. As I have noted in earlier blogs, emancipation now seems so close for so many - members of the Tea Party and kids on the street, tribalists in the African desert, and religious fundamentalists everywhere. Social media makes it seem like everything is possible.
David Cameron's suggestion that users of social media who organize riots will be banned, is a major development. His phrase was, "if they are thought to be planning criminal activity" (italics added). What people are thinking when they use social media is another thing altogether.
This will get interesting, especially given that Cameron seemed to detest the idea of "rights" in favor of responsibility. This is the old trope, is it not?
There's nothing quite as perverse as a middle aged white male politician telling people to take responsibility for themselves... in response to riots. Pull yourself together man!
Cameron and UK conservatives, including the Labor Party it seems, have some way to go before they get a full handle on how to manage the relationship between social media and emancipation. Actually, everybody has a long way to go!
Threats to stop Facebook and Twitter use pushes a wedge between digital natives and those making the threats to ban them.
When the question is asked, as I have seen it asked, when will the UK riots happen in the US? The answer is that they are unlikely because of two "solutions:"
1. massive surveillance of networks at every level, amounting to the domestication of Cyber War against the US citizenry;
2. the massive incarceration of young people, the unemployed and the abject. The US has the highest per capita prison population in the world.
As a conservative, Cameron can pursue similar "solutions" in the UK. That is what his suggestions of banning Facebook and Twitter and social media suggests, together with the threatening tone of his speech. A regime of total surveillance will become commonplace in the UK, and following US models, private prisons may well spring up like mushrooms.
By the way, his statement that "This is not about poverty it is about culture," is a statement worthy of Cultural Studies. Can someone please tweet him and tel him that poverty is culture... or is that irresponsible?
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