Week 14Cyberculture 2

Jude Yewjyew@umich.edu

My University.com, My Government.comIs the Internet Really a Blessing for Democracy?

Cass R. Sunstein, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

18th Annual University of Michigan Senate�s Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom

Thursday, December 4, 2008, 4:00 p.m.Honigman Auditorium, 100 Hutchins Hall, UM Law School.  

SI 182 (Winter 09)(Pre-req for Informatics concentration)

"Building Applications for Information Environments"Prof. Paul Resnick

Final review session

Session 1Friday, 6 - 8.30pm260, Dennison

Session IIMonday, 6 - 8.30pm260, Dennison

• What is ‘Cyberculture’?

• Some definitions

• Why ‘Cyberculture’?

• Impact of ‘Cyberculture’?

Recap Definitions of ‘Cyberculture’

Techno-social tethering

Impact of cyberculture

• Changes in technologies

• Identity (link to last week’s lecture on privacy)

• New forms of sociability

• The Daily Me

• P2P democracy

Chronology of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Tech

Phase 1: Making the virtualUseNet - Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) - Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs)

Phase 1I: Moving the real into the virtualIM - email - videoconferencing - groupware

Phase III: Integrating the virtual and the realSMS - Ubiquitous mobile computing - location awareness - mobile broadband

Phase 1: Making the virtualUseNet

Phase 1: Making the virtualBulletin Board Systems

Phase 1: Making the virtualMUDs

Chronology of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Tech

Phase 1: Making the virtualUseNet - Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) - Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs)

Phase 1I: Moving the real into the virtualIM - email - videoconferencing - groupware

Phase III: Integrating the virtual and the realSMS - Ubiquitous mobile computing - location awareness - mobile broadband

Convergence in Phase III?

• Changing technologies tend to move in particular trajectories over time

• Recurrent themes surfaced by these technologies - virtuality, cybernetics

• These changing technologies greatly impact the ways in which we relate, communicate, and socialize with each other - shapes culture?

So what are the wider implications of these changing technologies?

Identity

The online persona

“The Internet lets people have relationships they could not have any other way”

“The illusion of opportunity”?

“What you lose with text is the dynamic of behavior ... Nonverbal communication is what

counts.”

“The world would be a better place without you.” - “Josh Evans”

Lifecasting

• The use of technology can mask our identities as well as heighten them.

• There are profound implications and possibilities with the ability to manipulate and present one’s identity online.

“online communities are like the crowd outside the building with the guy on the ledge ... They can

enable suicide or help prevent it.”

Does the use of technology result in new forms of sociality or does it just replicate our

existing social relations?

The strength of weak ties- Granovetter, 1973

Six degrees of seperation- Milgram, 1967

• Gives rise to the small world phenomena - Friend of a friend (FOAF)

Networked Individualism- Barry Wellman et al, 2001

The “intimate stranger” phenomenon

“Most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they navigate in the familiar

contexts of school, religious organizations, sports, and other local activities. ”

• The structure of online social relations is determined by the properties and dynamics of networks

• Networked sociality can both result in new forms of online relationships or extend existing ones - dependent on technologies used and the context of that use.

The Daily Me- Nicholas Negroponte, 1995

Emerging technologies and the growing power of consumers to filter what they see

Personalized information filtering

Collaborative Filtering

“... the sheer volume of options, and the power to customize, are sharply diminishing the social role of the

general interest intermediary.”- Sunstein, 2000

P2P Democracy - Cyberbalkanization?

“The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. Election: Divided They Blog”

- Adamic & Glance, 2005

Narrowcasting

• The power to filter information allows us to cope with the information overload that the Internet brings.

• However, this power has drawbacks as well - creates an information space that is maybe too homogenous.

Summing up Cyberculture

• Study of cyberculture still an emergent field

• Complex relationship between technology and our use of it.

• Changing cultural landscape as a result of this complex relationship

Are we able to exist seamlessly between the real and virtual worlds?

Filippo Minelli's "Contradictions"

("Flickr", Paint on wall, Phnom Penh-Cambodia. 2007)

("Myspace", Paint on wall, Phnom Penh-Cambodia. 2007)