paradoxes of privatization

modern life

activity patterns, social networks, experiential ranges are scattered through space & time

communication and transportation technologies permit scattering and tie things together

media assemble & reassemble people's frameworks of knowledge & action in space & time

experience becomes decentered and disjointed

activity spaces (physical & virtual)

Illustration of one person’s daily activity space by Mei-Po Kwan, Ohio State University

http://geog-www.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/mkwan/WebCV/KwanWebCV.html

blurring of public & private

private spaces link up with increasing number of public spaces

public spaces become quasi-public, that is, privately owned and controlled

elements of American culture (acc. to Zelinsky)

1. intense, almost anarchistic individualism2. high valuation on mobility & change3. mechanistic view of world 4. messianic perfectionism

All 4 link to the interest in mediated communication, but most subtle & interesting links are to individualism.

mediated life

elements of individualism aggravated by media:– Insecurity– ambition– aggression

Everything in the house & accessible via remote control

– no public life, no sidewalks– purified community (Sennett)– protection of private property, avoidance of difference– conspicuous consumption– escape from real community

public vs. private

"Public" life – living up to the images one sees every day on the

media in private space & time

"Private" life– paranoia produced by the inflated sense of threat

and danger based in class and race myths

inversion of the real and the unreal

echoes of real life

The Matrix = technology run rampant, no privacy, constant mediation of experience

Blade Runner = manufactured identity, “you are what you consume”

ER & Friends = search for community, belonging (making friends with other friends of Friends, online in 150 sites)

Reality TV = characters give up their privacy so viewers can lazily indulge their own desire for social disengagement

instant friends

do we envy their loss of privacy?

foundations of privacy

simulation technology + marketing = complete loss of the possibility of privacy (since privacy is founded on autonomy and on real public life)

– atomized TV audience– one-way radial topology, greatest free-time use of time– well-rounded image of others is inaccessible in a

segmented society, so we accept a fabricated sense of knowing about those others

– lack of community is permitted and perpetuated by virtual friends

an excess of privacy?

As parents and communities "respect" kids' privacy they:

– build armaments– develop a taste for blood

and guts– lack real role models– lack public spaces to

build ties to adults– eventually carry out

savage attacks on classmates & teachers

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris

the “trenchcoat mafia” of Columbine High School

Is IT a possible fix?

situational segmentation (cocooning) spatial segmentation (rootlessness) fluid identity online: withdrawal leads to new forms of

engagement (coupled with vulnerability to surveillance)

people become "digital individuals" (Curry) bought and sold by private companies

the post-private individual, transparent but segmented = a new Turing's man?