Global, Mobile Internets lecture - USYD MECO3065
96
Global Internets, mobile internets Gerard Goggin @ggoggin lecture for MECO 3605 Media Globalisation 19.08.2015
-
Upload
university-of-sydney -
Category
Technology
-
view
95 -
download
0
Transcript of Global, Mobile Internets lecture - USYD MECO3065
Global Internets, mobile internets
Gerard Goggin @ggogginlecture for
MECO 3605 Media Globalisation19.08.2015
Internet is global technology, but created locally
same is true of other media forms
Internet is an eminently global technologyBut is created in specific places, contexts, infrastructures, forms, languages, societies around the world
Internet is imagined differently in different places - ‘Internet imaginaries’
we don’t know much about these different histories (hence my & Mark McLelland’s Routledge Companion to Internet Histories, 2016, & our Internationalizing Internet Studies, 2009)
way we see the Internet is shaped by a narrow range of these histories & imaginaries
dual character of the Internet tells us much about global media (& media globalization)
to understand the Internet’s role in globalization – & any media’s role in globalization – we need to understand its ‘locations’ (cf. Pertierra & Turner, Locating Television, 2014)
ITU, Facts & Figures 2015
ITU, Facts & Figures 2015
more people in world use mobiles than the Internet (or do they?)
global Internet is often mobile
ITU, Facts & Figures 2015
mobile tech in transition
Mobile phone is part of broader infrastructures & ecologies of media, communication, ICTs +
other infrastructures (transportation; housing; educational; everyday)
Mobile Internet esp. interesting emergent formation
Cars + Mobiles 3.0: Internet of mobilities & locative media
parallel histories – Internet vs. media globalizations
Media globalization (1990s thing):– Internationalization of trade; World Trade rules– Deregulation, privatization, liberalization– Trade in services– Growth of trans-national corporations– ‘cultural’ globalization– Satellites enable new kinds of television broadcasting– New technologies– Changing media consumption habits– Trade in media content & formats
parallel histories – Internet vs. media globalizations
Internet:– Data networking in 1960s & 1970s – esp. through
telecommunications– Financial services, travel services pioneer early
international networks– Capital becomes ‘informational’– Internet officially launches in 1969; but doesn’t
become mass medium until the 1990s
4 broad stages of Internet• pre-Internet & early-Internet (c. 1975-1989)
– long genealogies of communications and media; specific ways Internet is imagined, arrives, is invented in each country of study; early uses, adopters, reception, public discussion
• mass Internet (c. 1990-2000)– transition from publicly-run, research institution-based
Internet to commercial, mass, mixed, popular Internet; co-evolution of Internet policies, markets, uses
• always on, social media (c. 2000-2010s)– broadband Internet; highly interactive, personalized,
configurable, pervasive applications (e.g. blogging, social networking, mobiles)
• Internet of things & mobilities– Internet everywhere (almost) – cars, fridges, sheep, health
apps, bodies, sensors, wearable computers (Google Glass); Internet governance threatened;
parallel histories
• Internet- 1970s & 1980s: email; MUDs & MOOs; early online games; news
groups; emergence of early online news- 1990s: the World Wide Web (now 25 years old); webcams; the
press moves heavily into online news; media really involves global as well as local dynamics
- 2000s: broadband becomes standard expectation; mobile Internet grows (esp. with smartphones & apps from 2007 onwards); video communication becomes cheap & ubiquitous; blogs, wikis, micro-blogging; social networking and social media
- 2010s: location-based media; sensor media – see UQ Sensor Society conference; drones as media (see essay + talk by Mark Andrejevic)
what’s distinctive about Internet & globalization? - TV
1970s/1980s – Australian Television 1989 (ed. Tulloch and Turner); programs like Hey Hey It’s Saturday & Perfect Match (overseas formats with an ‘Australian accent’)1980s – Dallas – US but adapted/intervenes into television in different countries – see Ien Ang’s Watching Dallas (1985)1990s – Mexican & Brazilian telenovelas (soapies) cf. John Sinclair’s book on Latin American Television (1999) & notion of ‘geolinguistic region’ (= language & culture matters to media)2000s – birth of YouTube (2005); television downloading; catch-up television; Internet television; mobile television; fan websites & “paratexts” and TV – see reality TV (e.g. Lost, Big Brother) and their crucial links with Internet & TV2010s – television on tablet devices; ecologies of television (through Internet & mobiles); television over the NBN; Pertierra & Turner’s Locating Television; downloading; TV remediates Internet (channel 7 program on Internet cats)
Surveillance
Internet, mobile, social, locative, sensor, Internet of things
Sousveillance‘watchful vigilance from underneath’ (Steve Mann, 1988)small, portable wearable media for ‘inverse surveillance’
Steve Mann, sousveillance pioneer - EyeTap 2004
‘Historically, the oppressed have often risen against their masters. But today the oppressed have mostly been expelled and survive at a great distance from their oppressors. Further, the “oppressor” is increasingly a complex system that combines persons, networks, and machines with no obvious centre. And yet there are sites where it all comes together, where power becomes concrete and can be engaged, and where the oppressed are part of the social infrastructure for power. Global cities are one such site’Saskia Sassen, Explusions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (2014), loc 185
Internet & mobile activismin Asia-Pacific
EDSA 2: downfall of President Estrada, Manila, 2001 - ‘coup d’text’ Source: http://latitudenews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/EDSA.jpg
Deutsche Welle, ‘PeopleBurmese monks cautiously optimistic on future’, 01.03.12Source: http://www.dw.de/image/0,,15735891_303,00.jpg
Source: Associated Press; at http://qz.com/275090/here-are-the-contenders-to-become-the-logo-of-hong-kongs-umbrella-revolution/
Allegra Ringo, ‘Understanding Deafness’. The Atlantic, 9 Aug, 2013
Ayiu John Wuol, ‘Deaf Revolution’, YouTube, 28 Nov 2013
Zaitokukai ("Citizens' Group against privileges for foreigners in Japan”) rally at Shinjuku on 24 January 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zaitokukai_rally_at_Shinjuku_on_24_January_2010.JPG
‘People stage a protest against Foxconn, which manufactures Apple products in mainland China, in May 2011 in Hong Kong’, http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/31/tech/gaming-gadgets/apple-boycott-commentary/
Source: Matt Klassen, ‘Apple iSlave Uprising’, http://www.thetelecomblog.com/2012/06/15/apple%E2%80%99s-islave-uprising/
25.04.2014
Brazil passes new Marco Civil da Internet, or Internet Bill of Rights
Delhi Declaration for a Just & Equitable InternetInternet as a global commons1. The Internet is a key social medium and, in crucial respects, a global commons … Therefore, all the world’s people, including those not at present connected to the Internet, must be able to collaboratively shape the evolution of the Internet through appropriate governance processes that are democratic and participatory.
Delhi Declaration for a Just & Equitable InternetDemocratizing the architecture of the Internet1. Recognising the global commons nature of the
Internet, all layers of Internet's architecture must be designed with a view to safeguard against concentrations of power and of centralized control.
Internet and Rights1. All people have the right to basic digital enablement …
emergence of Internet freedom as concept
So who will protect Internet freedom? Apparently, a band of philosopher-technologists stands ready to sound the alarm and take up the cause, if only theycould agree on the precise nature of the threat or its resolution
Geert Lovink, Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture (2002)
Utopian visions of Internet as zone of/for freedom
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather … I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
John Perry Barlow (1996) Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace
Internet freedom as US foreign policy
‘We will continue to defend Internet freedom, including by addressing internet repression directly with the foreign governments involved ...’
2006 declaration by Under-Secretary for State Paula J. Dobriansky
Source: (P. Figliola et al., U.S. Initiatives to Promote Global Internet Freedom: Issues, Policy, and Technology
, Congressional Research Service, 2011, p.11)
Internet freedom as US foreign policy
2010 - Secretary of State Condolezza Rice establishes the Global Internet Freedom Taskforce (GIFT), to provide US response to violations by repressive regimes
Source: (P. Figliola et al., U.S. Initiatives to Promote Global Internet Freedom: Issues, Policy, and Technology
, Congressional Research Service, 2011, pp. 13ff.)
Secretary Clinton on "Internet Rights And Wrongs: Choices & Challenges In A Networked World”, George Washington University, 15 Feb 2011
On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress. But the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it.Secretary of State Hilary Clinton ‘Internet Freedom’ speech, 21 January 2010, Newseum, Washington, DC
‘a free, widely accessible Internet stands at the heart of both global communication and global commerce. Internet freedom enables dialogue and direct diplomacy between people and civilizations, facilitating the exchange of ideas and culture while bolstering trade and economic growth. Conversely, censorship and other blockages stifle both expression and innovation.’
Shanthi Kalathil, ‘Internet Freedom: A Background Paper’, Aspen Institute, Oct 2010
critiques of Internet freedom
Internet circumvention is hard. It’s expensive … it doesn’t address domestic censorship, which likely affects the majority of people’s internet behavior. The US government should treat internet filtering – and more aggressive hacking and DDoS attacks – as a barrier to trade. The US should strongly pressure governments in open societies like Australia and France to resist the temptation to restrict internet access, as their behavior helps China and Iran make the case that their censorship is in line with international norms … As we embrace the goal of Internet Freedom, now is the time to ask what we’re hoping to accomplish and to shape our strategy accordingly.
Ethan Zuckerman, ‘Internet Freedom: Beyond Circumvention’, 20 Feb 2010
Acknowledging and discussing the power component of Internet freedom is important for a number of reasons. First, a particular set of norms is being built into the institutions, processes and principles that, to a significant extent, determine the way the Internet functions, is governed and develops. In this context, the promotion of Internet freedom has become not only a dimension of US foreign policy, but also an expression of US structural and institutional power.
Madeline Carr (2013) Internet freedom, human rights and power,
Australian Journal of International Affairs, 67:5, 622
To salvage the Internet’s promise to aid the fight against authoritarianism, those of us in the West who still care about the future of democracy will need to ditch both cyber-utopianism and internet-centrism [… what I call the Net Delusion].
Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (2010) , p. xvi
Anyone working on a ‘radio freedom’ policy in the 1920s would have been greatly surprised by the developments -- many of them negative - of the 1930s. The problem with today’s Internet is that it makes a rather poor companion to a policy planner … [The Internet’s] essential unpredictability should make one extremely suspicious of ambitious and yet utterly ambiguous policy initiatives that demand a degree of stability and maturity that the Internet simply doesn’t have …
Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (2010), p.283
From a global twenty-first century perspective, Internet freedom is not yet achieved. The same exact technologies that increase possibilities for economic and communicative freedom are also used by governments and private industry to restrict these freedoms … Even in democratic countries, degrees of Internet freedom related to privacy, expression, and individual autonomy are constantly negotiated against conflicting values of national security and law enforcement.As goes Internet governance, so goes Internet freedom.
Laura De Nardis, The Global War for Internet Governance (2014), p. 244
Imaginaries, practices, circuits & circulations, memes of Internet freedom activism
Wikipedia, ‘Imagine a World without Free Knowledge’, 18 January, 2012
How has Internet freedom been conceived & framed in Australia?
– How did activism for the internet develop in Australia? – How was it related to existing activist movements as well
as key social and cultural identities and problems? – Was its emergence and characteristics related to particular
infrastructures, internet cultures and histories, and specific cultural dialectics and social functions?
– How did/are strands of internet activism relate to regional, international, and global internet activists movements?
Australian Internet activism
• arises from history of struggles against censorship, stretching back through second half of 20th century
• history of BBS & internet censorship moves in the early 1990s, when Australian internet was becoming a public medium, and its adoption and use began to raise questions about its rich capacity for cultural expression and exchange – especially of previously difficult to obtain and distribute ideas, materials, and practices
‘The issue is very simple: Labor either supports measures to protect children from paedophiles and drug pushers on the internet or Labor does not support the need to protect children.
Which is it?’ Richard Alston, Minister for Communication,1999
• from 1995-2007 there is a bipartisan concern with internet and mobile content regulation that is broadly consistent across different governments
• Introduction of self-/co- regulation for Internet in 1995 appears to be first time Internet freedom is mentioned in Australian press (in report on US 1995 Internet Freedom bill)
• Generates a movement against censorship/Internet content regulation - e.g. Electronic Frontiers Australia is formed in 1994 (‘Your voice for digital freedom, access and privacy since 1994’)
‘clean feed’• 2007: new Labor Rudd govt introduces National
Broadband Network & • policy of a mandatory Internet filter (‘clean feed’)• list of banned/blocked websites• policy was confused; and issues of technical
feasibility were never satisfactory addressed• catalyzed widespread activism & was opposed by
Internet industry (esp. Google)• quietly dropped in April 2010• momentarily re-adopted by Coalition govt in 2013
election, before now Minister Turnbull managed to have it dropped
Australian responses to SOPA/PIPA legislation
• the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) & Protect Intellectual Piracy Act (PIPA) in 2011-2012 brought widespread reaction & rallies in Australia
• Australia was bound by the Free Trade Agreement with the US
• so local Internet providers & industry were concerned about unwieldy requirements
• activists and many everyday users protested new controls on their use of digital content & networks
Picture from season 4 finale, episode 10, Games of Thrones, ‘The Children, http://cdn.winteriscoming.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/thechildren2.jpg
‘The American copyright bill attacks the very basis of the internet.AUSTRALIANS face a threat to their online freedom and security as pernicious as it is out of their hands.US legislators are set to pass contentious copyright legislation with which even US President Barack Obama says he has problems.This proposed legislation affects internet governance around the world.’Nate Cochrane, The Age (Melbourne), 19 Jan 2012, p.13
‘Internet freedom’ - as an imported US term - has gained increasing resonance in Australia, reaching its height in the SOPA/PIPA worldwide protests of 2011-2011;struggles for the Internet as zone of freedom have steadily deepened over past 2 decades - latest being in protests against 2015 metadata legislationBut Internet freedom as organizing global term is jarring & doesn’t quite fit Australian context
Internet freedom is a solecism in Australia - cultural traditions, histories of activism, & media/political traditions are distinct in Australia
widespread, reflex images of the ‘great Australian Internet firewall’ (2007 - clean filter) or Australia as the ‘village idiot of the Internet’ (1996 - content
regulation) are just as misleading as with China’s ‘great firewall’ moniker
‘net neutrality’ as the big US (‘global’) policy issue doesn’t apply so neatly to Australia - as discrimination among types of Internet traffic is not such a
key issue (esp. with NBN)
Australia case provides further impetus for need to rethink information political/movement struggles about Internet from specific imaginaries &
histories in particular places
