Historical analysis, in so far as it is regarded as dealing with the understanding of contingent events, different cycles and temporalities, and diverse and irreducible diachronic processes, stands at the margins of this science of historical movement. (p8)

According to Dean, Philip Abrams wrote in 1980 that sociology and history where involved in much the same activity and they are ‘methodologically indistinguishable’.

Historical sociology now becomes the study of both the structure-forming practices of human actors, and the enabling/constraining effects of those structures upon their actions. (p10)

Foucault was not a fan of hermeneutic or semiotics, distancing himself from these studies, saying that the endless interpretation of signs “dooms us to an endless task nothing can limit”. (p16)  His method treats social facts as ‘things’ which can be examined in a process he calls ‘archaeology’.

In rejecting the naive positivism that imagines history concerns itself with showing what it really was, Foucault replaces it with a sophisticated and rarefied form that insists on the irreducibility of the discursive order and the contents that appear within it. […] Instead of seeking to use documents to reconstruct the historical reality that lies behind and beyond them, Foucault asserts that the problem is to bring the positive reality of discourse into focus and attempt the description of its systems of formation. (p17)

In the theater, at a ball, at a ballgame, in church, every individual enjoys all those others present.The pleasure of being among the masses is the sense of the joy in the multiplication of numbers, which has long been suspect among the literate members of Western society. (p116)

Most of the analysis that does exist is parochial.  It almost always treats the internet as an isolated social phenomenon without taking into account how interactions on the Net fit together with other aspects of people’s lives. […] There have been very few detailed ethnographic studies of online communities, no surveys of who is connected to whom and about what,  and no time-budget accounts of how many people spend what amount of hours virtually communing. (p170)

When Wellman and Gulia then go on to describe the narrow focus of many internet communities and groups it raises the question for me whether this narrow focus of research has been dictated to some degree by the nature of the communities being studied.  Wellman and Gulia say that the Internet continues the trend of the real modern world of fostering specialized relationships. Many discussion groups are topic-oriented  (political, technical, social or recreational)  and this can lead to the creation of narrow relationships that focus more on the information shared than the relationships.

However, they also note that many of these specialized groups still perform a role of social support and companionship.  Performing these roles for  others online is often a way of expressing identity, particularly for people to whom expertise or supportive behavior is an important part of their self-identity.  These supportive behaviors help them to develop their reputation and recognition within the group.

Even when online groups are not designed to be supportive, they tend to be.  As social beings, those who use the net seek not only information but also companionship, social support, and a sense of belonging. For example, while the majority of elderly users of “SeniorNet” reported joining the net to gain access to information, nearly half (47%) had also joined to find companionship. Indeed, the most popular activity was chatting with others.  (p173)

On other occasions groups are mobilized online with the specific intent of providing both information and support – often for an event or activity that is happening/coordinated in the real world.  After the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 local university students had created information sites and electronic bulletin boards all within hours of the blast.  These sites informed locals of critical information like the names of the wounded, the hospitals in use, and where they could go to donate blood.  Another example that Wellman and Gulia give is that of striking professors in Israeli universities who coordinated their action in public and private groups online.

The lack of status or situational cues can also encourage contact between weak ties.  Often, the only thing known about others are email addresses which may provide minimal or misleading information. The relatively egalitarian nature of the net can encourage responses to requests. (p176)

Kiesler and Sproull 1992, and  Hilts and Turoff 1993 argue that “without physical and social cues or immediate feedback, email scan foster extreme language, difficulties in coordination and feedback, and group polarization.” Without situational cues or pre-established status within a group ties can often be weaker, however the same lack of predefined structure gives an egalitarian nature to these groups and can encourage responses from those who may not otherwise have responded.

In he end, despite their effort to do otherwise, Wellman and Gulia concluded that they have resorted to the anecdotal tactics of their predecessors. They finish with a call to action for more evidence-based research in the area.

We have concluded this chapter more like pundits and tellers of tales than like researchers.  As others before us, we have argued often by assertion and anecdote. This is because the paucity of systematic research into virtual communities has raised more questions than even preliminary answers. […] It is time to replace anecdote with evidence. The subject is important: practically, scholarly, and politically.  The answers have not yet been found.  Indeed, the questions are just starting to be formulated. (p188)

Berger and Luckmann believe that the sociology of knowledge should be concerned with a society’s criteria of knowledge and how this is developed.  Their postpositivist stance is clearly laid out when they write of how members of society arrange their world view around their ‘here and now’, both originating and maintaining their ideas of reality and knowledge from their own thoughts and actions (and other significants in their life) rather than anything truly objective.

The world of everyday life is not only taken for granted as reality by the ordinary members of society in the subjectively meaningful conduct of their lives.  It is a world that originates in their thoughts and actions, and is maintained as real by these. (p 33)

Berger and Luckmann believe that semiotics or signification is the primary means by which human beings categorise their subjective view of the world.  They define a sign as anything that has an “explicit intention to serve as an index of subjective meaning.” (p50)   These include gestures, body language, material artefacts, and the most important is language, which they say may be defined as “a series of vocal signs”.

Language provides me with a ready-made possibility for the ongoing objectification of my unfolding experience. (p53)

Berger and Luckmann believe that society and social order are solely products of human activity, and that social norms and rules are a man-made, rather than natural, process.

Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality.  Man is a social product. (p79)

Because of this social construction, members of a society or ‘institution’ who were involved in the construction of the social norms are much more likely to conform to their constraints. Social disorder generally comes from new members of society that were not part of the construction. In order to properly ‘socialise’ new members of the society, sanctions must be put in place to prevent them from breaking the rules.

Deviance from the institutionally ‘programmed’ courses of action becomes likely once the institutions have become realities divorced from their original relevance in the concrete social process from which they arose.  To put this more simply, it is more likely that one will deviate from programmes set up for one by others than from programmes that one has helped establish oneself.  The new generation posits a problem of compliance, and its socialisation into the institutional order requires the establishment of sanctions. (p80)

Institutional segregation causes the formation of “socially segregated sub-universes of meaning”.  These sub-universes can be structured based on criteria such as sex, age, occupation or religion. Each sub-universe has it’s own structured values, norms, rules and barriers to entry.  Berger and Luckmann give the example of the medical profession as a sub-universe and the various mechanics in place to keep non-medical professions following the instructions of doctors and to keep doctors from resorting to unapproved conduct like religious or homeopathic healing.

The increasing number and complexity of sub-universes make them increasingly inaccessible to outsiders.  They become esoteric enclaves, ‘hermetically sealed’ (in the sense classically associated with the Hermetic corpus of secret lore) to all but those who have been properly initiated into their mysteries. […] The outsiders have to be kept out, sometimes even kept ignorant of the existence of the sub-universe. If, however, they are not so ignorant, and if the sub-universe requires various special privileges and recognitions from the larger society, there is the problem of keeping out the outsiders and at the same time having them acknowledge the legitimacy of this procedure. This is done through various techniques of intimidation, rational and irrational propaganda (appealing to the outsiders’ interests and to their emotions), mystification, and, generally, the manipulation of prestige symbols.  The insiders, on the other hand, have to be kept in. This requires the development of practical and theoretical procedures by which the temptation to escape from the sub-universe can be checked. (p104-105)

On the topic of revolution and revolutionary leaders Berger and Luckmann say that often a group will take on an ideological doctrine because it has gain for them and people of their status in society.  Involvement in such a group provides them with solidarity and legitimation for their cause.   The revolutionary leader likewise must have others who agree with him and help to maintain the subjective plausibility of his ideology in his own mind.  Practical success of the ideology fortifies the reality it possesses for the leader and the group as a whole.

 Frequently an ideology is taken on by a group because of specific theoretical elements that are conducive to its interests. For example, when an impoverished peasant group struggles against an urban merchant group that has financially enslaved it, it may rally around a religious doctrine that upholds the virtues of agrarian life, condemns the money economy and its credit system as immoral, and generally decries the luxuries of modern living. The ideological ‘gain’ of such a doctrine for the peasants is obvious. […] Every group engaged in social conflict requires solidarity.  Ideologies generate solidarity.  The choice of a particular ideology is not necessarily based on its intrinsic theoretical elements, but may stem from a chance encounter. (p141-142)

 In the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity.  The norm is: one body, one identity. (p29)

This chapter examines how identity is established and how identity deception is controlled online.  It takes an ethnographic approach, interpreting closely examined social discourse (Geertz 1973) and examining a virtual community as a communications system and its inhabitants as signallers and receivers.

Donath examines how identity is established in online communities – free from the anchor of their human body, participants online are free to create as many personae as they have time and energy to.  This chapter questions how these personae link back to the body-bound identity that created them and how much they are reliant on and responsible for each other.   Donath says that identity is an essential part of how we assess the trustworthiness or reliability of another and our reputations should be treated with care as they are essential to our placement within a community.  In online newsgroups trust is important because they often centre on information seeking and provision.   It is important to those seeking information that they know where the person providing the information is coming from in relation to their motivation and measure of expertise.  To the individual it is important that they are displaying a recognisable identity, as one of their main aims is to develop a reputation within the group.

There are many examples of deception in nature and the animal kingdom, as when certain animals mimic the colours or sounds of other more dangerous animals to scare away predators.  Donath asks the question why this is not a more common tactic, and though this question is not fully answered she notes that if deception is too prevalent a signal will become unreliable and will no longer convey its message.

[In] stable systems of deception […] the percentage of deceivers does not overwhelm the population, and the signal remains information-bearing, however imperfectly. And there are signals that are inherently reliable: signals that are difficult, or impossible, to cheat. (p32)

She discusses Amotz Zahavi’s 1993 work on signal reliability, which proposes the “handicap principle”. This principle suggests that signals such as carrying a heavy load signify strength or carelessly wasting lots of money signify wealth and these ‘assessment signals’ are not easily faked and thus generally very reliable.  Signals that don’t follow the handicap principle are called conventional signals.  These signals can be made without possessing the trait –such as wearing a t-shirt associated with a gym – but they mean something to both the signifier and the receiver due to custom or convention.  A conventional signal can become unstable if there is too much deception associated with it though, and it will eventually loose its significance.  Conventional signals are generally easier and less costly for both the signaller and the receiver so they are still widely used, despite the possibility of deception.   To make the signals more reliable there is often a punishment associated with deception within a community or society.

Identity in cyberspace is even more subjective and often harder to define. Signals usually take the forms of usernames, email addresses (and domain they are associated with), information included in the signature, and the voice and tone, all of which present the user in the way that they wish to be identified.

Goffman’s “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” makes the distinction of “expressions given” (signaller’s intent) and “expressions given off” (receiver’s interpretation) – which deals with the subtle nuances of language and action that can betray aspects of person’s true identity online. Donath asks if these are assessment or conventional signals.  The username, signature or email address of a net user can also often be used to trace their net history and get an impression of their interests and views and a complete internet history is something that requires more effort than most people are willing to fake.  The use of topic or forum specific language markers and acronyms can also identify a user as a member of a specific online group.

Most of this identifying information can be faked to some degree of success, and Internet trolls use this to their advantage, but others use this deception to protect their real life identity or to explore various personae. Pseudonyms are common and often expected, but they raise questions about balancing privacy and accountability.

New ways of establishing and of hiding identity are evolving in the virtual world. There is no formula that works best in all forums: balancing privacy and accountability, reliability and self-expression, security and accessibility requires a series of compromises and trade-offs whose value is very dependent on the goals of the group and of the individuals that comprise it. (p56)

We come to see ourselves differently as we catch? sight of our images in the mirror of the machine. (p643)

In this essay Turkle concentrates on the creation of online personae.   She conducted an ethnography and clinical study of how people represent their virtual and ‘real’ selves via the Internet.

The Internet challenges all aspects of our identities as we are navigating virtual worlds, often in the company of others.  Turkle says that life on the screen is shifting the notion of identity to one that is multifaceted and flexible.   Because self-presentation online is written in text, users have the ability to choose how they wish to present themselves (everything from their physical characteristics, sex and sexuality and personality) to others online. The anonymity of the web gives users the chance to explore various aspects of their personality. Online MUDs, or Multi-user Domains, are specified online spaces where users create a persona or avatar and role-play with others.  Turkle says that though this is one of the most explicit examples of role-play and identity exploration online, it is by no means the only one.   Bulletin boards, newsgroups and chatrooms all allow for the creation of one or more personae, and modern computer environments allow for shifting from one online space to another in very little time.

As a user, you are attentive to just one of the windows on your screen at any given moment, but in a certain sense, you are a presence in all of them at all times[…]  The windows metaphor suggests a distributed self that exists in many worlds and plays many roles at the same time. P644

Turkle compares online life to Erik Erikson’s “psychosocial moratorium”, a relatively consequence-free adolescent time for intense experimentation and interaction with other people and new ideas. Erikson was writing in the 50s and 60s, and Turkle argues that in today’s society adolescence is no longer consequence-free- virtual communities generally are however, and this is part of what makes them so attractive. Turkle says that while many modern psychologists, social theorists, psychoanalysts and philosophers argue that the unitary self is an illusion, the requirements of everyday life mean that people need to accept responsibility for all of their actions.  Turkle calls cyberspace “an element of cultural bricolage” that we can use to think about identity, particularly this notion of decentred identity.

The instrumental computer, the computer that does things for us, has revealed another side: a subjective computer that does things to us as people, to our view of ourselves and our relationships, to our way of looking at out minds.  In simulation, identity can be fluid and multiple, a signifier no longer clearly points to the thing that is signified, and understanding is less likely to proceed through analysis than by navigation through virtual space. (p646)

Turkle says that the online personae we write can be used by us for self-reflection, as a sort of Rorchach test for us to examine who we are, and what we want and need from life.  In essence she is saying that we can use the personae we create online as a mirror for different aspects of ourselves that might otherwise remain hidden from our view.

It’s not easy to sum up succinctly what the managers of the ruling order felt so threatened by in the 1960s/70s, so let’s use the words they employed themselves. It was ‘an excess of democracy’ that lay behind ‘the reduction of authority’, concluded the Trilateral Commission when it investigated the causes of the political and economic crises of the early 1970s on behalf of governments of the dominant western powers. The elite alarm at that time was thus more than just the regular ruling class fear of the mob. The notion of ‘an excess of democracy’ implied a fear of intelligent and organised opposition, which was hence less easy to counter.

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/an-excess-of-democracy/

Working Groups: the self-organising revolution

Anyone interested in emergent self organising processes that occur when diverse individuals assemble for a common cause, cannot fail to be impressed by how the Occupy movement has demonstrated a capacity for well structured engagement through the working group protocol.

http://thefutureofoccupy.org/2012/02/02/working-groups-the-self-organising-revolution/

How r’evolution carries itself forward by the Working Groups of Occupy

Collective consciousness is the intimate knowing of our collective self, who we are as a movement, as a social force capable to change the future. Connective intelligence is much more than a wordplay on collective intelligence. It is the act of connection that gives rise to new life forms, thought forms, and forms of organizing.

http://thefutureofoccupy.org/2012/02/04/how-revolution-carries-itself-forward-by-the-working-groups-of-occupy/

Social Media and #OccupyWallStreet: Is This Revolution 2.0?

From the Arab Spring to New York’s ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests, social media and online organising are clearly transforming the way that small, isolated campaigns develop into mass movements in the streets. But how do we separate the genuinely useful aspects of social media from the “data smog” of media hype?

http://www.peopleofcolororganize.com/activism/general/social-media-occupywallstreet-revolution-20/

The Occupy Movement & Social Media

It wasn’t just a bunch of university students. In fact, as we analysed the age groups, we found the average age to actually be 36. We also found that across the 5,000 profiles and commentaries we looked at, over 50% had a university education. We also found they weren’t poor either. Perhaps the “working poor” – yes. We estimate an average income of about $45,000CAD from  USA, Canada and UK. We suspect this median would hold up in many other countries as well. Certainly there were those who are on the margin of society and the students or youth movement. But they do not represent the majority. Involved were doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs.

Nor was there racial or religious divide. All forms of faith and races were represented as were men and women.

http://www.mediabadger.com/2012/01/the-occupy-movement-social-media/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115602-Twitter-Subpoenaed-in-Occupy-Wall-Street-Case

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/the-occupy-movement-may-be-in-retreat-but-its-ideas-are-advancing/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/31/where-revolution-goes-from-here

Tapscott admits that he is talking about a small group of early adopters, even by US standards on the pretext that they will inform us on the widespread future adoption by the rest of their generation. Taking that at face value, from this research we can probably deduce more about people who fall into a demographic 5-10 years younger than what is described in the book. With that said, the book offers some interesting insights into a generation that has had a completely different experience of the knowledge continuum compared to previous generations.

In researching the book Tapscott collaborated with over 300 young people.  This research was carried out online over one year on especially dedicated forums. Tapscott also interviews with parents, business leaders, cyber gurus and policy makers and draws on demographic work and market research conducted by the Alliance for Converging Technologies think tank.

According to Tapscott, the main thing that separates the Net Generation from previous generations is that they are more comfortable with technology and more digitally literate than their parents’ generation (the Baby Boomers).  They are at the crux of social transformation because of the way that they communicate, play, shop, learn, work and create communities online.   The kids are out in front, leading the pack and the adults are struggling to catch up and implement educational and social strategies that take digital media into consideration. They are in the midst of a paradigm shift in which the knowledge hierarchy is being flipped on its head. For the first time children are the authorities on something and have valuable skills to teach their parents.

 Stories about six-year-olds programming new VCRs after their parents’ unsuccessful efforts are now cliché. A newer version is the 14-year-old girl whose parents recently asked her to install Net Nanny software on the family computer to keep Internet pornography out of the house.  Of course, her parents are oblivious to the fact that if she sets up the system, she then controls it. ( p36)

Traits that apply to the NGen personality include curiosity, assertiveness, self-reliance and acceptance of diversity.  Tapscott portrays them as active-minded individuals who want to engage in dialogue through their digital media.  They want to be users, rather than viewers.  To them the television is out-dated, in that it does not allow for interaction.

 While N-Geners understand the basic operation of spatial distances, as did previous generations, they appear to lack appreciation of global distances.  They may be the first generation with a truly global perspective.  The world to them is (to use a term of Nicholas Negroponte) “the size of the head of a pin”. (p101)

This generation is more aware of a global context, they think in hypertext – to them everything is linked somehow and the computer augments their thinking, freeing their mind from linear thought. Although he does not go as far as to say it is value-free, Tapscott believes that the Internet has greater neutrality than traditional media.  Kids can control their own world on the Net leading to a greater capacity for questioning, challenging and diversity of opinion. Unlike the TV, the Net provides children with the capacity to develop and learn while also having fun.  Tapscott believes that when kids control their media they develop faster, so the Net Generation has accelerated development.

 Conventional wisdom took a beating in the spring of 1996 when Harvard students effectively challenged their administration’s million-dollar contract wit PepsiCo which would have given the soft drink manufacturer exclusive beverage rights on campus.  The challenge came about as a direct result of a 1993 notice placed on the Internet by university students in Canada. The notice examined PepsiCo’s holdings in Burma [Myanmar….] calls for a boycott of Pepsi products were renewed on university and college campuses all over the continent.  In January 1997, PepsiCo announced its full disengagement from Burma. (p283)

Ideologically, the NGen value independence, individualism, privacy, tolerance, equality, social justice, and freedom of expression and the oppose censorship, and discrimination.  They trust their future only to themselves, trusting their own judgement and abilities but worrying about the wider world and economy and how it will affect their future.  They mistrust government and elites and value a good education although their primary focus is not making money. They value being connected to others and have a strong sense of collective social and civic responsibility and strong opinions on social issues.   The Internet has become the vehicle for questioning and protest of this generation, much as the Baby Boomer generation protested on the streets in the 60s.

 We can already see this in nascent social movements around the world, from the media guerrillas organizing to expose unethical corporations that are pushing smoking or anorexia or exploiting child labor, to the surging students in Serbia working to topple a bankrupt and authoritarian regime.  The Net is their vehicle for revolution – their tract, megaphone, teach-in, bookstore, fundraising event, demonstration, makeshift stage, and war room all in one. (p300)

 Identity also implies a relationship with a broader collective or social group of some kind.  When we talk about national identity, cultural identity, or gender identity, for example, we imply that our identity is partly a matter of what we share with other people. Here, identity is about identification with others whom we assume are similar to us (if not exactly the same), at least in some significant ways. (p1)

The chapters in this book deal largely with teenagers and their uses of technology in social, cultural and learning context.  Because of their specific emphasis on this demographic the chapters do not particularly reflect my area of research, however, the introductory chapter by David Buckingham provides a useful layout of a number of approaches to thinking about identity.   Buckingham allows that in many circumstances identity is used as a unique marker of a person – the elements that make us unique and remain consistent over time – however identity is also about how we relate to those around us.  Terms like cultural identity and  national identity, and the process of  ‘identification’ do not point towards an individual and unique characteristic, but rather a shared relationship and a sense of belonging. Buckingham lays out five key approaches, as he sees it, to thinking about identity.

According to the social theorist Zygmunt Bauman, the new prominence that is accorded to identity is a reflection of the fact that it is becoming ever more problematic. Globalization, the decline of the welfare state, increasing social mobility, greater flexibility in income, insecurity in personal relationships – all these developments are contributing to a sense of fragmentation and uncertainty, in which the traditional resources for identity formation are no longer so straightforward or so easily available. (p1)

The first approached laid out is that of psychology or development. Buckingham cites Erik Erikson’s book Identity: Youth and Crisis (1968) which draws from Piaget’s ‘ages and stages’ work, identifying adolescence as a period in which young people develop their independent social skills by joining new social groups or ‘cliques’, interacting with their peers, and break away from their family as their primary identity marker.  Erikson views adolescence as a “psychosocial moratorium” – a time when young people experiment with their identities and engage in risk. James Marcia’s work supports and builds on this idea of adolescence as identity crisis.

 A critical period of identity formation, in which individuals overcome uncertainty, become more self-aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and become more confident in their own unique qualities. In order to move on, adolecents must undergo a “crisis” in which they address key questions about their values and ideals, their future occupation and career, and their sexual identity. (p2)

The second approach is that of Sociology, dealing with socialisation of adolescents. This approach is largely concerned with social issues such as that of of youthful deviance and delinquency. Young people are frequently seen as problematic or ‘at risk’ and their anti-social behaviour is largely put down to social risk factors such as poverty or inequality.  Social historians argue that the idea of youth has changed over time and it varies between social groups and cultures – certainly the concept of a teenager is a relatively new one, and the term was only coined in the 1950s and initially used largely as a marketing tool. There is a substantial amount of work in the sociology field on youth subcultures, appropriation and resistance (subordinate and subversive) which initially focused almost entirely on young male subcultures, though more recently it has expanded into the areas of female and ethnic subcultures.

The third approach detailed by Buckingham is that of Social Identity.  This deals with how people define themselves and others as part of different groups. A sense of identity is defined both how they see themselves and whether others accept them as such.  Stereotyping or ‘cognitive simplification’ helps them to define their group in positive ways (and others in negative ways). Buckingham refers to Richard Jenkins who believes that social identity is a process of linking the self to the social.  Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (late 1950s) discusses the performative nature of social interaction, however Buckingham notes that his work is problematised because he draws a distinct separation of individual and social identity, which Goffman terms back-stage and front-stage behaviour.

The fourth approach is that of Identity Politics, which refers to activist social movements that seek equal status or recognition for minority social identities, such as ethnicity, gender or sexuality. Issues of representation are crucial in identity politics with who has the right to speak for said group being a contentious issue.  Identity Politics can lead to ‘essentialising’ one social identity trait in individuals and defining them by this alone.  This can be detrimental as it runs the risk of reinforcing binary oppositions.

The final approach identified by Buckingham is Identity in Social Theory. He deals with Anthony Giddens theory that because traditions such as religion are now much less influential that they were in the past we are now living in a ‘post-traditional’ society.  This means that we have many more life choices to make, guided by popular media and various experts. Modern people must be constantly self-reflexive because they are constantly working on creating their own biographical narrative. Buckingham says that Giddens gives little evidence that this is specific to the late-modern era, nor that it is a widespread phenomenon, though Michel Foucault’s writings also deal with at type of post-traditional society.  Where Giddens see this lack of traditions as liberating, Foucault sees it as a means of exercising disciplinary power.  He sees identity not as individual choice , but rather the influence of government. Power is diffused through social relationships and individuals are encouraged to regulate themselves. To Foucault, Giddens ‘self-reflexive’ process is that of self-monitoring and surveillance – a virtual Panopticon, if you will, that we have all be lured into without our knowledge. Buckingham feels that it’s important to look at work such as Giddens and Foucault because there have been many social changes in modern society  and it is important to note that they are not all generated by technological advances.

The second part of the chapter deals with two key theories when writing about the uptake of technology.  The first is technological determinism – the attribution of enormous power to technology.  Carolyn Marvin (1988) has wrote about the binary views that are often held of technology throughout the last number of centuries.  New technology like the telephone was perceived either as a threat to social relationships and hierarchies or a virtual panacea that would have great power to improve life.

These discussions are mirrored by modern day discussions on technology- eg, the internet – which are often either celebrated or greeted with extreme paranoia. Technological determinism in its most basic form is the notion that technology is an autonomous force that emerges and forces itself upon a social system, its impact on the society in no way determined by the circumstances or application of its use .  In binary opposition is the Social Shaping of Technology – the idea that technology is a value-free entity that can be manipulated by social need and be whatever people choose to make of it. The truth generally lies somewhere in the middle ground; that technology use is determined both by those with a vested interest in its success (producers) and by the perceived need that the consumers have for it.  In the end viewing technology as either the cause or fix of social change is problematic.

Television is a passive medium, while the net is active; television “dumbs down” its users, while the net raises their intelligence; television broadcasts a single view of the world, while the net is democratic and interactive; television isolates, while the net builds communities; and so on. (p13)

Buckingham next touches on Prensky’s popular distinctions of ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’ and Tapscott’s ‘Net Generation’.  These schools of thought deal with young people born into an era when they have grown up using the internet.  They indicate a new way of learning for young people that is not dominated by authoritarian teachers and allows young people to explore information at their own pace.  These arguments again ignore many variables, such as that many digital natives use tv more than internet while many of their parents may spend more time online, the down sides of technologies undemocratic online communities, and the limitations of digital learning, and the issue of the digital divide between tech rich and tech poor.

Welcome to convergence culture, where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways. (p2)

Convergence Culture explores the relationship between media convergence, participatory culture and collective intelligence. Much like Baym, Jenkins argues that convergence is not caused solely by technological innovation and should not be understood as such.  Rather it is the product of a cultural shift that encourages technology users to seek information and resources among multiple platforms and dispersed content.  Jenkins says, “Convergence occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others. Each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives.”  This harks back to Jones’ writings on cyberpunk culture, and the individual construction of meaning from ‘hypertext’ or information abstracted from context.

Jenkins also notes that paradigm shifts within the media industry is nothing new, and that during 1990s the prediction of a digital revolution was met with the assumption that old media would be pushed aside and the Internet would replace traditional broadcasting. He quotes George Gilder as saying “The computer industry is converging with the television industry in the same sense that the automobile converged with the horse, the TV converged with the nickelodeon, the word-processing program converged with the typewriter, the CAD program converged with the drafting board, and digital desktop publishing converged with the linotype machine and the letterpress.” (George Gilder, Of Life after Television: The coming transformation of Media and American Life, 1994 ed. New York: W.W. Norton p189. )  The dot com bust however, made it evident that this was not (at least immediately) going to be the case, and for many years the Internet, Television, and other media have co-existed and served as ancillary platforms for each other. This idea of convergence that Jenkins details as existing in the 1990s seems to be getting a renewal of late with multifunctional devices selling well at the moment, although it remain to be seen whether they will truly displace any other broadcast systems. However this merging of technologies may be more reflective of the type of content convergence that Jenkins quotes the Cheskin Report 2002 on.  This is reflected most easily in the rise in popularity of cloud computing in recent year.

  The old idea of convergence was that all devices would converge into one central device  that did everything for you (a la the universal remote). What we are now seeing is the hardware diverging while the content converges.  (Cheskin Research, Designing Digital Experiences for Youth, Market Insights Series, Fall 2002, pp8-9)

Jenkins talks about how history tells us that old media never truly dies as it is always evolving, rather it is the delivery technologies that become obsolete and get replaced.  A shift in the content, audience or social status of a medium may well occur but any medium which has been long established is unlikely to simply die out. He says: “When people take media into their own hands, the results can be wonderfully creative; they can also be bad news for all involved.”(p17)

In chapter 6 Jenkins deals with the 2004 Howard Dean Election Campaign (the same one that Jones’ Political Activism in the Digital Age deals with).  He quotes Garret LoPorto, a senior creative consultant for True Majority (a website with the aim to increase to increase voter participation and rally support behind a progressive agenda) which aims to make politics more playful, developing games and video to engage people politically in what they term ‘serious fun’.  “Locating people who share your beliefs is easy, LoPorto says, because we tend to seek out like-minded communities on the Web.” (p218)

Jenkins says that it was in these elections that we began to see people applying the convergence skills they had learned as consumers to political activism.   He notes the difference between the Internet as a ‘pull’ medium and television as a ‘push’ medium. This is important to election campaigns because, while the Internet is the ideal medium for hard core followers, or those with an active interest who seek out information but is unlikely to engage those without any prior interest.  Television has more opportunity to reach and engage with the undecided and uninterested.

When John Kerry announced running mate Jon Edwards, the Republican Party immediately responded by releasing a series of criticisms of Edwards to serve as talking points to their supporters.  Jenkins says,  “In publishing their talking points about Edwards on the Web, the [Republican Party) was not so much trying to spin the story as to give the public a toolkit that they could use to spin it themselves in their conversations with friends and neighbours.” In a way, this provides the supporters with a false sense of receiving the ‘hypertext’ (spin or context-free information) of the cyberpunk ethos discussed in Steve Jones’ Hyperpunk. This is reminecent of on of the main plot points of the film Inception (2011), which is that a person will only believe that something is their own idea if they can trace the genesis of the thought.  What Schudson calls the ‘Monitorial Citizen’ also contributes to this, as he believes that many citizens are vigilant, rather than proactive, but that when an issue is raised to them they will often make an effort to learn more about it. It may be worth exploring whether this is a potential entry point to becoming politically, socially or ideologically active.

 Monitorial citizens tend to be defensive rather than proactive…. The monitorial citizen engages in environmental surveillance more than information gathering. Picture parents watching small children at the community pool.  They are not gathering information; they are keeping an eye on the scene.  They look inactive but they are poised for action if action is required. The monitorial citizen is not an absentee citizen but watchful, even while he or she is doing something else. (Michael Schudson, Click Here for Democracy: A History and Critique of an Information-based Model of Citizenship, MIT Communication Forum)

This book is strongly influenced by the work of Pierre Levy.  Jenkins embraces Levy’s idea that participation gives the everyday users, audience and citizens power.

For Levy, at his most utopian, this emerging power to participate serves as a strong corrective to those traditional sources of power, though they will also seek means to turn it to their own ends. We are just learning how to exercise that power – individually and collectively – and we are still fighting to determine the terms under which we will be allowed to participate.  Many fear this power; others embrace it. There are no guarantees that we will use our new power any more responsibly than nation-states or corporations have exercised theirs. We are trying to hammer out the ethical codes and social contracts that will determine how we will relate to one another just as we are trying to determine how this power will insert itself into the entertainment system or into the political process. (p256)

Jenkin’s deals briefly with the concept of ‘smart mobs’ but it may be worthwhile looking further into smart mobs, as many of the groups that I will be looking at may be the natural descendants of the smart mobs, or even fall into this category themselves.

Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities . … Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power. (Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The net Social Revolution, 2003. New York: Basic Books pxii)