Lirneasia Colloquium Jan 08

8/9/2019 Lirneasia Colloquium Jan 08

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India

Cornwall

Communication and Technology: Whats New?

Professor Robin Mansell

Department of Media and CommunicationsLondon School of Economics and Political Science

19 January 2008


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Social Scientists Views of

Mediated Communication and Technology

An Exogenous View and an Endogenous View

on

1. Technology & Organisation personalcommunication via computer-mediated

communication, online media, and personal

publishing.

2. Technology & Governance hactivism and

mediated terrorism.


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Source: BrewTech Labs, Inc. Automated Brewing Solutions

http://www.brewtechlabs.com/prod01_falcon.htm


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Source: Peety Passion Bloghttp://peety-passion.com/peetypassion/2007/09/26/weekly-

odd-beep-my-mobile/


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As users we will come to rely on our handsetas a single device to manage not just

communications but much of our lives. It will

truly become a remote control for life, with

massively enhanced capabilities, advancedmethods of user interaction and in-built tools

The substantial change that end users are

going to witness has become possible morebecause the underlying infrastructure has

become stable than because it is rapidly

evolving

(Webb 2007).

Visions - Remote Control for Life


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Finnish Child (Ukko Ilmari Kasvi)http://www.knowledge.hut.fi/people/ikasvi/


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Source: The Children's Therapy Center, Fair Lawn, New Jersey, US

http://www.thechildrenstherapycenter.org/Services.asp


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Source: Ballston Childrens Center, Arlington, VA, US

http://www.vachild.com/Programs.htm


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One part is bureaucracy (in both theprivate and public sector)...The second

part is science which is being taken over

increasingly by the third part, capital. Thefourth part is tools and machines created

by engineers. The fifth part is ideology

which provides the raw materials with

which the sixth part, propaganda, seeks tomould public opinion to accept the myth

(Smythe 1984)

Critical Views of Technology


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Jodi Lundgren,Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC,

Canada

http://cdhi.mala.bc.ca/cmc290s06/index.htm


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Source: Pink Tentacle Bloghttp://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/11/model-train-controlled-via-brain-machine-interface/


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By the 2030s, learning will be superseded by

transparent interfaces to a smart computer;

by the 2020s, network based telepathy will

be in use; and by 2017, the first bacterialcomputer will be available.

(Neild and Pearson 2005 - BT)

The Futurologists View


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Source: Jeremy Welch Bloghttp://jeremyrwelch.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/2001/


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Source: Signal Processing and Multimedia Communication (SPMC) research group, University of Plymouth, UKhttp://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/spmc/links/biomedical/bci/bci_links.html


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Source: http://www.funny-potato.com/computer-humor-3.html


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Source:Andrew Orlowski Bloghttp://www.badpress.net/stories/utopians.htmlBased on 600 e-mails received from readers of The Register in response to a sceptical article on Web 2.0


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Power is located in the interwoven

alignment of state (administrative andmilitary), private capital and civil society

interests.

The focus is on the way technologymediates human relationships.

Research examines the constraints that

distort benefits that might otherwise accrue

to those who are not at the centre ofeconomic and political power.

(based on Silverstone 2007)

An Endogenous View


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Source:Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University/KTHhttp://cmc.dsv.su.se/cmc/


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Communication, Technology

and Organization

Email, chat or Internet telephony; MUDs, discussion or chat forums; web-

sites or web-logs.

Synchronicity and different forms of digital content.

Interactivity: eBay, flickr.com, youtube.com.

Detect user needs and interests without user input or awareness. Content modularization and personalisation

Online Media

Whats New?

Most successful online media founded by established media or publishing

houses with infrastructure and know-how to re-usecontent; producing or

purchasing it at lower prices. Main trend - cross-media utilization.

User-generatedcontent: selected, revised and assembled by professional

providers for discussion forums, weblogs, user diaries, personal essays.


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Source: What Is? Bloghttp://whatis.blogs.techtarget.com/category/security/

A New Set ofAffordances


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Marshall Soules, Malaspina University-College,

Nanaimo, BC, Canadahttp://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/cmc290/290wk4.htmOriginally, Steiner, P. (1993). The NewYorker. July

5, 69(20): 61

Multiple Identities


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Online Personal Communication & Personal Publishing


and Organization

Whats new?

Hyperpersonal communication leading to intimate, satisfying communication

and interpersonal evaluations; frank exchanges; less superficial self-disclosure and more personal questioning.

Those with skill deficits in face-to-face communication find gratification or

further deterioration. Depression, loneliness, shyness, and other syndromes

lead some to withdraw from face-to-face social interaction.

Evidence is mixed but suggests that radical behaviour occurs less

frequentlythan popular media accounts often indicate.

Weblogs as alternative or citizen journalism; tools for virtual communities but

the most important uses are as means of creative expression.

Boundaries between public and private are subject to radical change.


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Source: http://www.galleus.com/cardset.13.html

Emoticons &

New Languages


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The Spy who Came in from the Cold by John le

CarrYoure welcome to le Carr he hasnt got any future.

Animal Farm by George OrwellIt is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA

On Sylvia Plath'There certainly isn't enough genuine talent for us totake notice.'

Excerpts from Publisher Rejection Noticeshttp://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htmOriginals may have come fromAndre Bernard, RottenRejections: The Letters that Publishers Wish Theyd NeverSent,

Robson Books, 2002

Open Publishing

but what is the business model?


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Source: http://networker.jinbo.net/guide/1-3.html


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and Governance

Governance issues arise when users access computerized systems

Should there be sanctions for bad behaviour?

Whats New?

Mass action hacktivism emulates traditional forms of protest and applies themin mediated electronic spaces, e.g. Electronic Civil Disobedience.

Digitally correct hacktivism uses technical features of online media to amplify a

message without disrupting communication networks.

Hacktivists face problems in maintaining critical/radical stance - political impact

is translated into the media.

We should be done once and for all with the search for an outside, a standpoint

that imagines a purity for our politics (Hardt and Negri 2000).

Arguments for new governance measures to control the use of technologies in

order to avert threats, but which infringe on civil liberties, may be misguided.

Hactivism


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Hacktivism Homeless Shelter

with Radio Communication;

ShellhouseSource: We Make Money Not Activism

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/cat_activism.php?page=2


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and Governance

Mediated TerrorismWhats new?

Potential for propaganda - the Web, chat-rooms, ICQs, blogs, email; mobile

technology, and technologies that combine text, audio and video elements.

Internet used by fundamentalist groups as a portable homeland.

Netwar or cyber-terrorism as convergence between non-state actors and

communication technologies involving hackers or hactivists.

Evidence is that terrorists make full use of online communication but that they

have not yet engaged in cyberterrorism.

Hackers, Hacktivists being repackaged as terrorist in the media; ordinary

cybercrime is being relabeled as cyberterrorism.

Many are being constituted by the media as contemporary folk devils.


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Source: Steven Verriest (artist)http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/08.31.00/hackers-0035.html

IT'S A NEW BREED of

activism--wired and

confrontational. Some

question whether it's

really a desirable form of

protest, but the

Electrohippies are hoping

to defuse criticism by

popularizing not just their

tools, but a code of

ethics. D. Cassel


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Much hype and speculation.

Too little systematic empirical research on

the appropriation of technology.

The turn to governance and control of new

communicative spaces by the state is often

based on media stories that, when

challenged, are found lacking in empiricalsubstance.

Policy is over-reactive, responding to the

folk devils of our time.

Communication and Technology -

Whats New?

Documents

Lirneasia Colloquium Jan 08