TEL 555

Social and Cultural Implications

Back to the Schedule

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Kroker and Weinstein “The Theory of the Virtual Class”

“Reverse nihilism”

Commercialization leads to subordination of people though limitations of access, content, and culture

Shift from the human agent of knowledge to programming logic/knowledge

· Leading to technology dependency

Map 1: “Highway” Metaphor

Map 2: “Highway” does not exist

Map 3: Seduce and Virtualize

Map 4:Information Elite

Map 5: Soft Ideology

Map 6: Red Guard Meets Gen X

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The Virtual Social

Social power and Technical power

Technopower

· The tension between physical technology and inherent social values of technology

· Usage determines one’s place in (amount of) technopower (relational or relative to one’s skills – think of hackers)

Spiral of Technopower

1. Acceleration of information

2. Information overload

· “People are rescued from information overload at the seemingly minor cost of greater reliance on technology” (p.121).

Technopower Elite

· Hackers, industry leaders, and shareware (communal software)

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Communication, Technology and Politics

Critical perspectives on the market driven (advertising) model for new media

Critical of market forces

Disparities of information

· Local-within the U.S. and Global-transnational

Loss of Content diversity

Information society

· Poor quality/mere facts

· Consumers

· Education and computers

· Sanitization of war

· Taxation/purchasing potential

· Privacy

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Communication and the Politics of Everyday Life

Evaluation of Communication and Democracy

Issues with liberal democracy

· Bureaucratic cage

· Public cynicism

· False senses of success

Poor model

· Humanist Marketplace of Ideas Advocacy

(person) (experience) (cmu)

Problems

· Humanist: manufactured consent

· Marketplace: Unequal access to mediation

· Advocacy: Self/special interests

New Model and Deliberative Democracy

· Examine the process choice construction

· Use difference

· Collaborative decision making

Is the Internet the answer?

According to Pavlik and Dennis

· Access vs. Manipulation

· Democracy: free speech vs. commercial control

· Politics

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Social and Cultural Consequences

Communication

· New forms: Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)

· Diverse content

Social

· Fragmentation: culture destruction vs. diversity

· Digital isolation

· Homogenization

· Virtual communities

· Mobilization

Institutional

· Public services

· Education

· Libraries

· Occupational

· Military

Cultural

· Hypertext/activity

· Arts and music

· Demographics

Individual

· Empowerment

Theoretical Perspectives

· Uses and Gratifications

· Systems

· Critical

· Information as a Commodity

· Technology gap

· International: national identity vs. technological expansion

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Falling through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide (Full text)

See slides on the Digital Divide (Needs Internet Explorer)

The Digital Divide Network is another information clearing house

Haves and Have-Nots in the Information Age – Problems and Issues

Source

· World media

· Personal

· Organizational

· Professional

· Commercial

Transmission

· Exiles

· Tyranny

· Criminals

Reception

· Education

· Psychology

· Noise

Solutions

· Honesty

· People power

· Access

· Learning shift

· Equalize flow

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Culture Jamming – political statements though information vandalism

· RTMark

· Sean’s Oprah spoof

· See Adbusters for examples

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Cyber-crime

Vulnerability of computer systems to crime

· Density of information and processes

· System accessibility

· Complexity

· Electronic vulnerability

· Vulnerability of electronic data-processing media

· Human factors

Types

· Fraud by computer manipulation

· Computer forgery

· Damage to or modifications of computer data or programs

· Unauthorized access to computer systems and service

· Unauthorized reproduction of legally protected computer programs

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Supremacy of the Image

· Vision as: Sensing – Selecting – Perceiving

Psychoanalysis

· Scopophilia

· Lacan and the mirror stage (gaze)

Consumption as a deceptive freedom

Active audience assumption

· Avoidance of unpleasure

· Over stimulus/numbing:

· Compensatory reality

Audience construction

· Televisual subject

· Time-space distanciation

· Para-social relationship/interaction

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The Image over time

· Art

· Document

· Context

· Theory

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Hypertext – Links

Interface improvements – what is an interface?

Surfing is an extension of television usage (channel surfing)

Links of association

· Ignored by many Internet companies

· 1996: Netscape and IE were both substantially updated. What were the updates?

Hypertext suggest a whole grammar of possibilities

Links are synthetic devices that bring disjointed events and concepts together in some form of an orderly unity

· Vannevar Bush’s “Memex” – a navigational device

Currently – hypertext is an electronic table on contents

· Should be a way for audiences to shape there own experiences

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The Net as a Social Technology

Current Assumptions

Metaphors

· For example: “desktop”

The Individual Information Processor

· Knowledge sources rather than knowledge processors

· Electronic superhighway and surfing, cruising, etc…

· Policy: charging for access and transfers seems reasonable

Misleading – ignores what people think, we are also social beings

The Internet as Social Technology – “gathering” metaphor

· Social actors with diverse intentions and behaviors

· Policy: tools for groups

People on the Net: Alternative Views

	Information Processors	Social Beings
Unit	Individual	Group
Place	Highway Library	Gathering
Behaviors	Cruising Browsing	Chatting Discussion
Consequences	Individual Knowledge	Affiliation
Policies	Info Ownership Access Fee	Group Support Membership Fee