Today’s Plan

• Housekeeping• Shirky and open source• Fuchs• BREAK• Group activities and presentations• Wrap up and what is coming next

“quote by Garnham ‘The focus on media, communication and technology needs to be embedded into the broader societal context;

communication is embedded within the wider structures and processes of a given social

formation’. I think it summed up the bulk of what this entire article was saying in a few lines

ultimately.”(from a classmate’s Reading Assignment)

Fuchs

• cooperative and participatory society– information and knowledge is free

and accessible to all– produced for the benefit of all– true network society: association

of free and equal producers

Ontology – dynamic materialism

• what is reality?• looking at the material world• resource distribution, questions of ownership• identify antagonisms: contradictory

tendencies– information as public versus private [easily copied,

undermines private property; torrents?]– cooperation versus competition [student

experience?]

Epistemology – dialectical realism

• what is knowledge?• consider dialectics:– actuality/potentiality– pessimism and optimism

• no linear causes and effects more complex– “neither only opportunities nor only risks inherent

in social phenomena but contradictory tendencies” (71)

Axiology – negating the negative

• what is valuable?• oppressed or exploited classes• radical transformation through social struggle• negation of capitalism and domination• how do we bridge potentiality and actuality?

FUCHS• who dominates informational capitalism?– corporate interests tremendous power– control definitions of reality, create one-

dimensional views of reality that neglect critique of dominant views

• what undermines informational capitalism?– gift economy supports and undermines– principle of gift points towards a postcapitalist

society BUT subsumbed under capitalism and used for generating profit

more time spent producing/consuming/

exchanging content

higher value of commodity produced

higher ad prices

higher profits

ALL AN ILLUSION• yay, everyone can participate! but …– how visible is the info? how much attention does it get?

how much difference does it make? how much control of actual decision processes is enabled?

– degree to which structures of ownership, power and discourse are shaped in participatory and cooperative ways

• if democracy = production of info by all BUT no significant political effects, no disruption of dominant power structures– than this is an ideological way of legitimating existing

modes of domination– illusion that individuals count in capitalism• really just busy generating personal information?

“I don't feel though that I should be paid to create a profile that is mostly, to be

honest, quite vain and unimportant”

(from a classmate’s Reading Assignment)

“My Facebook keeps telling me to like Walmart! I boycotted Walmart 7 years ago. However,

because I 'like' a page called 'We Hate Walmart' Facebook just sees the 'Walmart' and assumes I

like it and should join their page! I have no choice but to look at this stupid 'Like Walmart!'

suggestion every day I go on Facebook. But because it is not democratic, I cannot simply

contact Facebook and ask them to please stop telling me to 'like' Walmart.”

(from a classmate’s Reading Assignment)

Search on Facebook

Facebook Response17 August 2011

“We want Facebook to be a place where people can openly discuss issues and express their views whilst respecting the rights and feeling of others. We have now more than 750m people around the world of varying opinions and ideals using Facebook as a place to discuss and share things that are important to them. We sometimes find people discussing and posting about controversial topics. It is very important to point out that what one person finds offensive another can find entertaining – just as telling a rude joke won’t get you thrown out of your local pub, it won’t get you thrown off Facebook.”

RINJ Campaign

WHAT INTERESTS YOU?• How do bloggers make their money?

– start with dooce.com

• How does Twitter make money?• How does Facebook make money?• Does Facebook own your pictures?

– check Terms of Service

• What is Diaspora? How does it differ from Facebook?– think privacy

• Thought experiment: what if everyone on Facebook was a lurker? what if Facebook paid people to be prosumers?

• Are social media the only businesses that would collapse if everyone left? What about McDonalds?

• Find an example of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 – can you be a prosumer on both?

Week Six: Digital Divide

• Ginsburg, Faye. 2008. “Rethinking the Digital Age.” Pp. 287-305 in Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, Poetics and Politics, edited by Wilson, P. and M. Stewart. Durham: Duke University Press. (M)

• Warschauer, Mark. 2002. “Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide.” First Monday 7(7). (M)