Group 2's Responses for October 31st

TISR – Ch. 23

In his piece, "The Public Sphere," Jürgen Habermas addresses both the history of the public sphere and the way it has transformed from a bourgeois-centered realm consisting mainly of highly educated individuals to one with more participation from the general public.

According to Habermas, the media plays a significant role in the public sphere. The public can't always gather in a physical location and give everyone a chance to express their opinions, but media outlets like newsletters, newspapers, and television allow more people to participate in the public sphere. If Habermas had been writing 30 years later, after the Internet became popular, he would have definitely included new advances in public communication into his analysis. He might even say that the Internet allows for a return to some elements of the older public sphere with a more interactive structure

What is more useful: a relatively organized, small public sphere of highly educated individuals, or a relatively disorganized, larger public sphere that includes nearly everyone?

TISR - Ch. 24

In “Media and the Public Sphere,” Nicholas Garnham touches on the information divide that is occurring in society today. He blames this on the exclusivity of the public sphere, keeping those with little ‘knowledge’ out, and leaping others into prosperity. He goes on to examine the relationship between the public sphere and the media, particularly the broadcast medium. Garnham says that “public communication is transformed into the politics of consumerism” (363). Even public service announcements are influenced by competing commercial broadcasting. This is also true with political advertising, as politicians appeal to voters not as rational citizens concerned with public interest, but consumers who will respond to advertisements out of their own self-interest. It then becomes a question of public persuasion and how this influences the public sphere as a whole. The individual is persuaded on an individual level, rather than that of the general public. I think that niche marketing and narrow-casting in media today is a great example of reaching the individual rather than the public as a whole. Marketers have found a way to narrow their audience down to a specific person with certain needs and desires, and this is how they can sell their products or ideas. Some politicians even tailor their messages when campaigning in different markets around the nation. This reality raises an important question, which I think Garnham was trying to get at in his article, about media’s heavy hand in the development of the public sphere.

TISR – Ch. 25

John Keane’s article “Structural Transformations of the Public Sphere” discusses his vision of the public sphere. He believes that it is outdated to believe the ideal of a unified public sphere and rather it is the development of “complex mosaic of differently sized, overlapping, and interconnected public spheres that force us to radically to revise our understanding of public life” (366). He explains that the three public spheres are idealtypisch and rarely appear alone. Keane goes into detail the three different public spheres, the first the micro-public (local state), the second the meso-public (national state), and the third the macro-public (global state). Keane gives specific examples when defining the three aspects of the public sphere, the most interesting being the development of micro-public spheres among children with video games.

TISR – Ch. 26

Zizi Papacharissi’s article, “The Virtual Sphere”, investigates how political uses of the internet affect the public sphere. Many proponents feel that the internet has given people who wouldn’t normally have a voice, a place to speak their mind. However, many people feel that that there are some negatives to the internet in the public sphere. These people point to a digital divide as reasons why it is not as utopian as we once thought.

The internet is a useful avenue for people who would like to find out information about their representatives such as their voting records and their views on various issues. Another phenomenon that has emerged has been the fact that many political representatives have been using the internet to connect with citizens by posting blogs.

One of the many other reasons that people think the use of internet in the public sphere is such a good thing is because it allows people to connect with eac hother who would not be able to. In chatrooms and forums people can share and discuss their opinions, however this is a very utopian view and is in no way perfect.

Discussion Questions:

-Will public broadcasting survive and be important in the future?
-What public sphere do college students exist in or does everyone span
into many?
-Are there significant problems that cause divisions in the public
sphere(s) of today?
-Will the internet reinvent the public sphere or will it just transform it?

Group 1's response (Thur. 26, Oct)

1. Michel Foucault, “Panopticism”
In his article, Michel Foucault discusses the panopticon – a prison designed by Jeremy Bentham. The prison is circular with a guard station posted at the radius. The outside walls are windowed so light shines in on the prisoner providing a back light. Another window at the front of the cell shows a guard station, which is not lit/has darkened windows preventing the prisoner from seeing anyone who may be watching him. The theory is that the prisoner will never know when he is being watched, thus he will assume he is always under surveillance. This will keep himfrom breaking the rules as there is a possibility they are being watched. While initially planned for prisoners, Foucault's ideals are currently being implemented in public places worldwide.

Discussion question
1. The theoretical framework of Foucault depends on dichotomy between power/passive citizens exposed to it. Do you think citizens are passive and impotent in resisting to power? Can cyberspace be a tool for citizens to realize the autonomous resistance to “panoptic” power? Or has Panopticism already deeply infiltrated into cyberspace which is considered to be a relatively free space?

(Wanna see how the Panopticon looks like? http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/newhistoricism/modules/foucaultcarceralmainframe.html)

2. Shoshana Zuboff, "Managing the Informated Organization"
This article has many different aspects to it. First is her discussion of technologyand how it changes the world. Zuboff writes, "Technology makes the world a new place" and then goes on to explain Braudel's quote about how people turn to technology when nothing is changing. Technology is obviously going to change the way things are done in the world. Without technology, we would still be building everything by hand and everything would move much slower than it does today. Technology allows us to do things that we were not able to ever do before.The second topic is Zuboff's writing on managers. She writes, "When managers increase their engagement with the electronic text, they also risk a new kind of hyperrationalism and impersonalization, as they operate at a greater distance from employees and customers". This is a terrible thing that is going to happen to society if it does continue on like this. Managers and co-workers should have to speak with each other and not rely only computer and machines, or else why not just let robots run all the businesses?

Discussion questions
1. If we continue to let electronics take over, will businesses continueto run smoothly or do we need people making decisions and interactingwith one another?
2. Is there a downside to technology changing the world at such a fast pace?

3. David Lyon, “New Directions in Theory”
Lyon touches on an interesting dichotomy between the desire to be included in the information flows and the surveillance that accompanies it. In his attempt to explain this relationship Lyon discusses four strands of surveillance theory. The first strand deals with surveillance in relation to political and military factors. The second strand focuses on the bureaucracy of surveillance, asking important questions such as who is controlling this information and how will it be used? The third strand centers on the themes of technologic and the fourth strand spotlights the political economy. These strands show how technology has become central to everyday life, while also showing how technology can produce anxiety due to its power and ability to control. Lyon also discusses the superpanopticon and hypersurveillance, which can be broadly understood as modern surveillance trying to interpret the scattered identities of different individuals. While Lyon does not reject the established theories from people like Max Weber and Marx, he does however, believes that in order to understand surveillance we must look forward for new signs about the future of the information society. In constructing a surveillance theory Lyon believes that three things should be included. The first is the thought of keeping real people central to surveillance. The second is omniperception must continue to be explored and the third is that politics and theories on surveillance should be thought of cohesively.

Discussion Question
1.Do you believe that we are voluntarily participating in our own surveillance by making online transactions, participating in online social networks,using cell phones, banking online, etc.?

Week 8: Divisions (by Group 6)

Short Summaries

Schiller: Data Deprivation
In 'data deprivation', Schiller argues that corporate power has been growing to govern the flow of information that are crucial to today's life. He points out three important aspects in which it has taken place: deregulation of economic activity, privatization of the public functions, and commercialization of social activities. Though information is proliferating in this age, we are deficient of the necessary social information(p271).

Norris : The Digital Divide
In this article, Norris analyzes the concept many of us are familiar with, the “digital divide”. He differentiates between three distinct realms of the digital divide, namely the global divide, the social divide and the democratic divide. These illustrate the divides between industrialized and developing countries, between the rich and poor on a national level, and between those who use modern technologies to participate in public life and those who don’t. Norris first acknowledges how the information age has changed our economy and also its impact on our social spheres. He then brings up a possible negative consequence of the information age that only a few of our previous articles have mentioned. He states how, “there are many plausible reasons why the emerging Internet age may reinforce disparities between postindustrial economies at the core of the network and developing societies at the periphery”. He elaborates that these disparities may not only be reinforced, but with increasing investment help the leading technologic countries to pull even further ahead.
However, Norris illustrates both sides of the issue as he indicates ways that the information age may have more positive consequences for the laggard countries. Without being overly optimistic about whether developing countries can achieve more technological diffusion, he points out that if this were achieved, the increased flow of information could foster socioeconomic and democratic development. Norris also mentions how existing barriers to Internet access are becoming more surmountable as inexpensive and mobile alternatives to the PC are being developed.
The two last points Norris makes concern social stratification within countries and the democratic divide. The general feeling from the country and from Norris' point of view is that a social divide will not have a lasting effect on a country. Two main selling points for this idea are that high-tech companies are always going to want to make more money and to do that they need to reach more people, so they will compete to include everyone including the less privileged to gain access to technologies. The second point is that many old technologies such as the telephone and the television started out as socially divided as the Internet and computers. The old technologies, however, have made it into nearly every home today. The second point Norris makes is about a democratic divide. Norris says that democratically, the Internet can only get better. As of now many presidential campaigns or other elections only use the Internet as a brochure or fundraising tools. Norris also mentions that it takes little information to run a successful democratic site on the Internet.

Lasch: Degradation of The Practical Arts
Lasch's article criticized the view that technology is ethically neutral and argues that "much of modern industrial technology has been deliberately designed by managers for the express purpose of reducing their dependence on skilled labor"(p288)

Discussion Question(s)

-Even taking Schiller's solid explanations into account, what kind of measures are possible to counter those trends? Regulation and restoring private commercial sectors to the public would be an easy answer in theory, but not very realistic. Can the public domain be restored without sacrificing (capitalistic) efficiency?

-One question that comes to mind here is, if finding adequate food and healthy living conditions, for example, are the biggest problems in some these developing countries, will the population of these countries really be that worried about keeping up in a technologically evolving world? Also, how are people in office going to use high-tech savvy people to make the transition from a web 1.0 to a web 2.0 and get people more involved in politics using the Internet?

-What does he mean by "technology"? Does it mean general technological knowledge or the chosen or adopted technology? If it means the former, then many of his arguments and examples may sound unconvincing or even conflicting with his point. For instance, the "job enrichment" and "self-management" experiments he cited lead to realization by both management and workers that automation technology can make manager's function obsolete. So technology is not always on the management's side. Lasch treats the case as an exception. Do you agree? Can technology empower both manager and workers? What technology often gets chosen in reality? Why?

Student weblog checks starting Sunday

As I mentioned in class today, expect that come Sunday I will be checking people's critical-response weblogs to ensure that students are keeping up with the class readings. Consider this like a midterm of sorts.

Also, folks should meet with their groups in the next week to begin apportioning project work and assembling lists of resources (bibliographies).

"Second Life": The body in cyberspace

This article in Popular Science discusses a contemporary version of the "virtual reality," that Wiliiam Gibson wrote about twenty years ago: the web-based "Second Life"

I'm standing in an airy train station surrounded by rolling, wooded hills. Distant sounds of birds and trickling water reach my ears over a low buzz of chitchat from the people around me. They have come from all over North America to meet here, and now they're lounging on couches and standing in sociable little clots. Ballerinas are talking to men in body armor, while guys in suits show off their dance moves to aliens and ladies with wings. I try not to stare.

Or rather, a digital version of me called an avatar tries not to stare. I'm sitting at my computer, and my point of view hovers about three feet behind as I use the arrow buttons on my keyboard to amble toward the street outside. Next to me, a blue elf and a towering woman in a black cape tap on invisible keyboards that hover in the air. I can hear the click of the keys, and cartoon speech bubbles near their heads reveal that they're discussing computer programming.

Read the rest of the article here or visit Second Life yourself. Maybe we should all join and hold class there ...

Is It Possible: Internet Broken Up?

Internet Governance Forum (IGF), set up by UN, warns that the Internet could be broken up one day, BBC reports.

And in 2006... Google...Buys...YouTube

Yesterday, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion.

The BBC coverage of the sale is fairly straightforward, while the NY Times article focuses on the paralells of unproven purchases during the dot-com boom that proved not to live up to their billing, like Yahoo's purchase of Geocities for in $3.6 billion in 1999.

YouTube will keep their corporate identity and staff, but integrate Google's search technology into the popular video site. Google Video will remain intact, probably just to limit an uproar from those who have already posted content there.

Along with the world's largest internet video site, Google may be acquiring a wave of legal headaches, as a significant portion of YouTube's content violates or at least skirts copyright law. YouTube recently made deals with several major media organizations to host copyrighted content, but users of new technology always seem to find every possible means of exploitation.

Good News, Bad News for Papers

Just read this article on the Wired web site concerning online newspapers, very relevant to what we're reading this week.

"Although print circulation continues falling, major American newspapers are experiencing a healthy rise in traffic to their websites. Most encouraging: The web editions are attracting a younger audience."