Predicting the Next 5000 Days- FINAL POST

Predicting the Next 5000 Days

Kevin Kelly

>>>> 

The internet might be the most significant force to emerge in the last 5,000 days of world history.  The sheer magnitude of power it gives each person with a network hook-up and a connective device is astounding. Kevin Kelly mentions a few of these in his TED talk, including global satellite images. But all of these things taken together amount to a gigantic portion of the human created information available in an instant.  To begin to understand how vast this is it helps to try to list some of them, beginning with 
the ones he mentions

Instant

• Global Satellite Images and Global Maps (Google Earth, Google Maps)
• Patents on commercial innovation (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)
• Personal Contact Information (Google Search)
• Global Commerce (E-Commerce enabled websites, Ebay, Amazon)
• Bureaucratic forms (Federal, State, and Local websites)
• Meteorologic Info (NOAA)
• Social Connections (Facebook)
• Quotes and Scores (Google Finance, ESPN)
• Bulletin Boards (Craigslist)
• Culture and Entertainment News

• (my list)
• Socially compiled encyclopedia (Wikipedia)
• News and Opinion (New York Times, Blogs)
• Financial Account Management (Bank Websites, Mint)
• Free- copywrited and non-copywrited -media (Torrents, Youtube etc.)
• Networks

The benefit of our global capitalist driven idea economy is that we are very good at producing new innovative things. The drawback is that we never really get to fully utilize the capabilities of these things. This has been one of my most important takeaways from the course readings. A metaphor of 
this might be how we sign up for 6 month waiting lists and pitch tents outside computer retail stores in order to obtain the latest device, and then when the next device comes out we shelve that last thing to again repeat the process - as a society we never fully explore and engage what we have available. Take for example the creation of hypertext and how its possibilities have been curtailed significantly.  
At least this hasbeen the model of the past 5,000 days.  

Kevin Kelly says this about the next 5000 days: The network is becoming one super-organism that contains all of our collective input. He argues that the web is moving toward a semantic model ("web 3.0"), one that will be able to "read its self" and smartly determine what the content residing on it actually is. He sees the implication of this being a tightening of the network with increased adaptiveness. This would entail a further opening up of privacy standards. You are no longer you. You are a node in the network of the human race, with no choice to opt out. (I'm not going say anything about the implications of this, I'm just going to note the type of emotion this man is projecting and level of awareness he is displaying while talking)

For the next 5,000 days and beyond I think and feel that the same pattern of innovation in IT will slow down significantly. The integrated circuit is hitting a technological wall, with bio and quantum computers still a long ways off, and the development of the semantic web still a pipe dream. Next, screens are overhyped. People are not ready for a glowing technological dystopia. One could counter that people have tolerated until today the same industrial dystopia born several hundred years ago, but that too is in the process of breaking down in the world's largest industrialized nation. The downturn cycles of the two are coinciding now because the two's elemental bases are much different (the staying power of the molecule was much stronger than that of the bit). Finally, the people (namely venture capital firms) who seeded the growth of IT in the last 5,000 days are shifting their focus to ET (energy technology). The capital markets will follow this innovation, and track the latest iterations the same way they did before. Meanwhile the wealth of technology that they spent creating and monetizing it will be sitting on the shelf. This is where the real fun begins. During this time people will be able to soak up and experiment with the internet and work to fully implement it without the disruptive incursion of the market.

Bring on the Green Energy Revolution! I want no part of it! 

(or the semantic web for that matter)

Video Games and Computer Holding Power

Video Games and Computer Holding Power

Sherry Turkle

Sherry Turkle provides a sweeping examination of the process and culture of video games in her essay.  She explains that unlike reality and other mediums anything can be manifested on the screen.  At that time that was true.  Movies had special effects, but computers only boosted the capabilities of those effects.  Today with CGI technology anything imaginable can be created on a movie screen in a one way interactive experience, or it can be created on a video game screen in a two way interactive experience.  This capability has not necessarily led to better experiences on either screen however.  The more immersive games have become, and the more they try to create new reality with unreality, the less appealing they become.  

   

Why Networks Matter

Why Networks Matter

Manuel Castells

Networks matter because they are the underlying structure of society.  Without networks there would be no power, no control, and no capital flows.  There is such a thing of top down vertical control but it is consistently outmoded by networks.  Think of any position of power or influence today and behind it you see a strong network.  Take the presidency, there are many, many networks and interest groups that must be won over for fundraising and support before a candidate is even considered for the position.  There are no hand picked successors to the presidency, if a candidate is endorsed by and incumbent that incumbent is really working to transfer his or her networks to the successor.  If the networks don't translate for whatever reason, the bid will not be successful.  The same process happens on the corporate level, the academic level, and all other professional and non-professional levels.  Decisions are always socially controlled wether the decider consciously knows it or not.  

This is why the internet and its new networking tools have received so much attention and have been surrounded by so much hype and confusion.  Networking has suddenly become hyper-charged in the digital realm.  As many people seek forward advancement using power structures, questions arise at how to optimize networking power.  Also still being worked out is if these virtual networks hold any influence at all or if their recent emergence has only alerted us to the existence and importance of networks, and non-digital networks are still the most effective.  One thing is certain, these answers will not be publicly available until an academic organization releases a study, because they are too valuable for any interest group to openly share.  

Surveillance and Capture

Surveillance and Capture

Philip E. Agre

Privacy has become a huge issue in the 21st century. Without necessarily "trying to hide something" many people are opposed to having another individual or organization looking over their shoulder at all times. This introduction to the reading in the NMR put it well when it described how the panopticon is an exercise in control. Some people need the comfort of being controlled, and many people chaff at it. Regardless of what people's preferences are the panopticon is in full effect today, and people can not avoid it without making a conscious concerted effort to do so. Starting with all forms of electronic communication, they all can be listened to and are being listened to. The NSA, the largest spy agency in the world is responsible for intercepting global communications and processing data for enforcement action. In the past several years programs have been uncovered from domestic email monitoring, to the agency installing devices with AT&T wireless's consent to monitor all cell phone calls by that provider. It is convenient that both the carrier and a huge NSA satellite office are located in San Antonio, TX.  

Google Corp. (the host of this blog), may be the second largest harvester of personal data in the world. Unlike the government their aim is not direct human control, what they hope to control is the profitable information that comes from this data. Although they do not sell any of their data to outside providers, they make use of it in their efforts to improve their services and ad targeting in order to increase their bottom line. If you use Blogger, Gmail, Google Wave, Google Docs, Google Search with Accounts turned on, YouTube, or any other Google service, then it knows everything you said, done, or written with those services, and stores that data in their massive data centers throughout the world. 

Maybe if legal and cultural standards were more liberalized and clearly defined people wouldn't worry about these things. But when it is believed that anything you've said, written, or done in the past ten years can come back to to haunt you, it is not a very good feeling.

The End of Books

The End of Books

Robert Coover

Novels on floppy disk?  Hypertext fiction?  Reading?  These all seem like humble concepts now that we've had the technology around for almost 20 years now. It may be possible that hypertext cannibalized its self.  Technologically it created an almost unlimited potential for new forms and experiences. Realistically, it was simply too much for people to handle.  We read one online news article or blog post today and by the time we're finished we have a queue of 4 tabs open to new sites with supplementary information on the topic.  Pick any subject on Wikipedia and you can spend hours or days following the wiki trail to gain a working knowledge of it, not counting the outside references.  Most of us at one time or another have jumped into that pool and remained there to see just how deep it goes. What we find is overwhelming.  Subsequently we turn in at 3:30 am get up for work 5 hours later, and shuffle into the office disheveled and disoriented.  Risk getting called into the boss's office because you wanted to learn everything about jellyfish?  We've tested this technology and it's extremely volatile.

Years of study can be devoted to the development and use of hypertext and reading on the computer... and they should.  If the proponents of hypertext are correct there were 3 great literary innovations in the history of human kind: written word, moveable type, and hypertext.  Hypertext is not the only aspect of literature and computers that needs to be studied.  The physiology of reading from electronic screens and the new tendency to skim everything instead of buckling down in a chair and hanging on every work are important subjects.  Whatever we learn we should not be so quick to throw the paperback out the window.  New resistance to it on the grounds of deforestation is ludicrous.  First, trees are renewable, and properly managed we will never have a shortage of trees or paper, secondly the existing paper stock  can be recycled into new paper.  It's all just a lame excuse to sell more apps.    

Mythinformation

MythInformation

Landon Winner

Winner is right when he says that that computers have made the rich, richer, the powerful, even more powerful, (quant trading, military) but I think he failed to see back in '86 how ubiquitous the technology revolution would become and how open the standards would be.  Sure, there are plenty of commercial firms like Apple and Microsoft that push proprietary formats (iTunes music, .doc file format), but there are an equal amount of open source software providers where you get all of the creative and productivity tools you want for free and stealing professional software has become so easy and so universal that it is like Best Buy puts unlimited T.V.s and gadgets in your living room and tells you not to touch any of them.  Sure it undermines the economy,  but large corporations because of their ridged legal requirements are bound to purchase this software legally.  That is their tax for behaving like a large corporation.  The rest of us can steal whatever we want as long as we don't get caught, because we are at significant disadvantage when dealing with them, so we take what we can.  

Laptops are available today for as cheap as $100.  An internet connection is free at many public wifi hotspots like in public parks, libraries, and even some for-profit businesses like Borders and Panera Bread.  On the internet is wealth of information, most of it crap, but some of it is credible.  Communication is virtually free when using the internet.  

Knowledge is power, but there's strength in numbers.   Until people decide use technology to organize for something greater than the next Tupperwear party, the big guys will always have the upper hand.  

The Network Community

The Network Community 

Barry Wellman

The Network Community explores different kinds of communities in different places and examines the differences between strong ties and weak ties.  Strong ties are seen to be ties one has with his or her family, close friends, and relatives.  Weak ties are the ties people have with neighbors, acquaintances, and colleagues.  What kinds of relationships fall under which categories changes depending upon the society, community, or group being examined.  The point though is that because of economic reasons (globalization, corporatization, securitization) ties are becoming weaker across the board.  The question is whether or not the weak ties which the internet encourages are helpful for us.  

My conclusion is that they are good only when used as a supplementary means of connection.  When they become the primary means out of laziness or expediency, or just because it is a trendy thing to do then it becomes problematic, especially in the context of an ever tightening economic environment.  To bring the technologies and their use back into perspective they need to become their own bubble.  Once they get overhyped or overused, people will revert to normal human to human relationships.  I believe this rebalancing has already begun to occur.      

The Machine is Using Us

The Machine is Using Us

There is little doubt that the term "Web 2.0", introduced by Tim O'Reilly of the tech publishing empire, was created as an obvious ploy to recapture the hype of the original web.  But behind this tongue- in-cheek reference is a real shift in the way media on the web is produced and consumed.  Without this conscious shift we would not have the ubiquitous web technologies of today like YouTube, Facebook, and Blogging.  These are distinguished from Web 1.0 because of their two way interaction between producers and consumers.  There are actually multiple layers to this interaction.  Take Wordpress for example.  It revolutionized publishing because it allows people to instantly publish their thoughts and content to the Web, and tap into its viral nature.  Readers could now leave comments hypercharging the old "letters to the editor" function.  People feel free to speak their mind when they are simply a handle like superdude581.  Unfortunately the novelty of being able to speak has not worn off yet and the mind is still waiting for its turn.  The two way interaction does not stop at the publisher and the audience. With Wordpress the publisher also has a relationship with the designer / developer community, who put out "themes" where publishers can instantly alter the style of their blogs without changing the content they created or ever having to learn the design process themselves.  This is not just limited to themes but also extends to "plug-ins" making it possible to add features like e-commerce, Google maps, or any other web application, without knowing any code.  Finally there is a relationship between the developers and the creators of Wordpress who continuously release new source code and ask for community input in developing new features and technologies.  Contrast all this with Microsoft releasing a new Windows update back in the day.  Clearly they didn't consult anyone when developing their products.  Or on the web how the power to create websites rested in the hands of only the people who could code in the arcane and messy table-oriented HTML.  If you wanted to comment on a site you could email the webmaster...or sign the guestbook...yeah...ok...

Web technology has changed for the better, but it would be better if the innovating stopped at 2.0 for a while and the let the people catch up so we can start to learn how to think first, then talk next.

Computers That Work Like the Brain

Computers That Work Like the Brain 

Kwabena Boahen

Kwabena Boahen in his TED talk explains the problem scientists are now running into with developing new computers.  The chips of today are experiencing data bottlenecks in their CPUs which is preventing the flow of data to and from the RAM.  To mitigate this problem Boahen and other scientists are striving to make computers behave more like the human brain.  In the brain, redundant connections between neurons are made in a diffuse network pattern, allowing data traffic to flow freely.  He explains that the fastest computer in the world processes data at 10^16 bits per second, but consumes 1.5 mega watts of power (about enough to power 1,200 homes).  By contrast the human brain contains the same processing power as the world's fastest computer, but only consumers about the same amount of electrical power as a standard laptop.

Boahen makes two interesting sociological points in his talk about improving the efficiency of computers.  First he says (quoting Brian Eno) that the computer should work more like Africa.  What does that mean?  I can only guess that society in Africa functions in a networked sort of way.  There are some corporations and governments working on the continent that try for a linear organizational model of control.  But I imagine the balance of organization in Africa is modeled on free network connections with nodes sprinkled in.  My symbolic vision of this are people talking on cell phones with connections criss-crossing the landscape, doing business and socializing.  The operators are mobile, flexible, can turn on and off (there are very few service contracts in Africa, mostly pre-paid minutes), and most of all efficient.  Western companies are in fact recognizing this form of efficiency over fixed vertical and horizontal cubical farms, and turing people loose as independent contractors (can turn them on and off), working from home (mobile).  The problem there is that imposing this model on Western firms is like imposing the linear model on Africa, its simply too much change all at once, at the whim of some arbitrary organization.

The second interesting sociological point that Kwabena makes is that as a boy growing up in Tanzania he immediately recognized the inefficiency of computers' inner workings.  He saw a disconnect between how data is processed and how his society operates.  Not only does this say that the society he grew up in either was efficient enough to work, despite the difference of opinion of outside NGOs like the World Bank who try to build up institutions in places like Africa as they see fit, but that those society's contain the resources needed to attack problems from different angles which could be beneficial.  It was refreshing to have the opportunity to hear Africa school the "developed" world for a change.        

Personal Dynamic Media

Personal Dynamic Media

Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg

The Dynabook began as a concept for device that would bring a medium for creative thought to children. It was a revolutionary concept because up until that point most computing was done on mainframe terminals, using a time-share system. This would simply not do for kids who needed something that was not only portable but also had the computing power to run interactive programs which put them in control.It's ironic that the personal desktops and especially laptops that are ubiquitous today for grown-ups, wererooted in a concept mostly geared for children. The Dynabook was the original concept used by a Xerox working group in Palo Alto to create what would be the first "desk top" computer to use a graphical user interface. Apple Computer used this GUI concept to build its first model and Microsoft copied that to create its dominant Windows operating system. Multi billion dollar computer businesses of today were built upon the concept that "Their (children's) attention span is measured in hours rather than minutes."

One nobel multi year project being undertaken now, that mirrors somewhat the initial spirit of the Dynabook is the "One Laptop Per-Child Program." The stated mission of the group is 

"To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning."

This is the fabled $100 laptop. Everything that is positive about connectivity and new media is to be contained in this machine. It is meant to help bridge the digital divide in the developing world and help bring these children into the fold of the connected world. The possibilities for such a device seem endless. You only have to look at the last blog post centered around Ted Nelson's concept for new media learning, which is basically user driven and internet focused. Without a central mediator for learning I see these children perceiving the world for what it is (online) and formulating their own view independently. Maybe that's good, or maybe they need outside help. But it's also true that they will bring their own perspective to the project independent of the laptop or the world outside their communities. We'll see in the next post how Kwabena Boahen took a different perspective of computing technology because of his developing world background. He immediately saw that the linear nature of the computer's hardware function was not in anyway natural and therefore not optimal. He would later describe the idea function in a TED conference where the processing power is more network-like similar to the human brain. Wherever the program goes and however the reality aligns with the original intentions I'm sure the users will put their own spin on it and make it their own.

The program is being headed by Nicholas Negroponte, head of the Architecture Machine Group at MIT, author of "Soft Architecture Machines", and founder of Wired Magazine.

From Soft Architecture Machines

 

From Soft Architecture Machines

Nicholas Negroponte

In Soft Architecture Machines, Nicolas Negroponte proposes a computing system which puts control over the design of one's habitiat in their hands.  He argues that the current system of architects handing down designs is much too paternalistic, and does not serve the client effectively.  He further argues that fragmentation of design decisions in modern society can be bridged by such a networked system.  He states that the archecic process of zoning verification, and permits can averted by building local standards into the design system its self.  Allowing for flexibility is a system where neighbor users can trade off design specs that violate the code, by creating mutally agreeable desicions.  He argues that this is only possible in such a automated networked design system.  His solution for puting the actual design of peoples' homes in consumers' hands, is a system of pen to pad design recognition.  Instead of having the previous model where users drew their mock-up in adherence to the pre-programmed standards, Negropontes model would impose this conformity after the model has been created, in order to allow the user to create their intial design unrestricted.  

Computer Lib / Dream Machines

Computer Lib / Dream Machines

Ted Nelson

Education in America

Nelson talks about new media and the education system in America.  The latter topic is one which deserves much more attention than it actually gets.  I think it gets put off because it involves so many facets that nobody wants to touch: economic systems, individual expression, socialization, other peoples' kids (no pun intended).  Suddenly K-12 home schooling doesn't seem like such a wheatgrass fed idea.  But it may not even be the best idea.  Despite having no intimate knowledge of "learning theory" or any knowledge of education beyond my own parochial background, I can almost definitively say that experience is the best teacher.  But the experience has to be memorable in either direction in order for it educate.  That's why the classroom experience often fails.  Because the powers that be work so hard to keep it mediocre, the students put up with it, and are left with vacuums for a brains by the time they leave, meanwhile everyone else connected to the Dept. pulls a healthy pay-check and fat benefits package.  I propose a new education system where students are required to do work / study from 8th grade on.  This wouldn't be like an internship.  It would be like hard labor, but not as bad as the gulags.  Kids would be put out in the fields picking produce, helping experienced craftsmen build stuff like furniture and machines, and assisting in research, basically doing anything manual that is available to them on a cottage industry scale.   First give them a basic orientation of how the world works, and then work up to analyzing McCluen... if they want to.  They may choose to stay on a fishing boat, or they may choose to unlock the mysteries of the universe.  Leave it up to them and I'm quite certain many more of them will shoot for the stars.  But I digress...

Computer Assisted Instruction is the subject of Nelson's piece, "No More Teachers' Dirty Looks", in "Computer Lib / Dream Machines".  He does a nice job of questioning the merits of such a system as designed and warns against educational roadblocks like boredom.  Pop Quiz:  Is there a correlation between educators' laziness, Microsoft PowerPoint ™, and Bill Gate's wealth? If Nelson only knew how bad it would get when he wrote this in 1974.  He probably did.

A Modest Proposal

What Nelson is proposing in 1974 is learning system where students follow their passion through a network of hyperlinked documents and facilities, essentially computer applications which are used as tools.  This is a fantastic proposal for learning, and for many of us today this is our primary means of learning outside the rare opportunity of informal one to one education.  The internet provides the opportunity to know about anything in an instant.  What is falafel?  -"Falafel is a fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas and/or fava beans." But wouldn't it be better to have this explained to you by an Egyptian, one who speaks emotionally about the comfort food of his or her homeland?  Of course it would.  This is why I think the hypertext learning that Nelson describes is an excellent replacement to classroom learning, with the exception of the few very skilled lecturers, who have the ability to put your wrist in a sling for the amount of note taking they inspire. Do this and get the kids out in the world.  Unless you don't want them to know about the world, for some reason...

The Technology and The Society

The Technology and The Society

Raymond Williams

T(V)-Rex?  

I know this subject has been beat to death, but after reading The Technology and Society it really does feel like studying a relic of the past.  Not even like record player to MP3 player past, but like hoop and stick to Playstation past.  As good a job as Williams does dissecting the effects of television on society, there doesn't seem to be any point to applying these questions as written.  

New Questions

I'm thinking of a different set of questions: "How has the internet changed our world?"  "Is it determinist or symptomatic?" "Is it primarily based on content or or based on form?"  While Williams' analysis is valuable as a template for current research on the internet, it's primary subject is no longer relevant. Mostly because of forces beyond the scope of commercialism.  People are naturally attracted to a more participatory medium.

Remember USENET?

Why has the experience seemed to lack a degree of depth recently?  Why did the old internet experience (roughly from its commercial debut in the 1990's until 2000) seem better despite it being more simplistic?  Back then, the majority of websites were more personally expressive.  You could "surf" for hours, picking up on a trail of links, and be completely immersed.  Today, you "Google" a keyword term, get what Google thinks you're looking for, often a wiki entry, and the experience stops there.  Most efficient, but efficient doesn't always equal interesting or engaging.  It's all about going from point A to point B as quickly as possible, hence the rise of the "app", where you point and click in fell one swoop, and are brought to what you're looking for even faster.     

Catching Up

At that time the internet was more about content because the form was one-way, just like television, and radio before it, and therefore more intuitive because people had seen it before.  The control of content was only in the hands of the people who controlled the form.  User demand overwhelmed creative supply, forcing the few suppliers to maximize their efforts at creating rich content. 

Today, control is available to anyone in form and content.  Besides there being so many suppliers that competition seems almost pointless,  people don't even know how to compete because the form is still in  major flux.    Flux in terms of technology, and flux in terms of dealing with this new model of inclusion.  Like desktop technology, internet technology will mature, possibly soon. Apple's latest operating system instead of adding features, actually reduced features, because they hit an innovation wall and it was actually a better product with less.  Likewise internet technologies seem to be running out of steam,  For example, since social media's debut people have been looking to it as the next source of great wealth. Tools like Blippy have clearly gone too far.  It allows everyone in your network to see what credit card purchases you have made in real time. 


 Once the innovation has run it's course and people start working with what has stuck around, I think they're be more immersive experiences on the web.  As usual, the market will ask consumers for more and more technology growth. This is happening right now with mobile (3G, 4G. 5G...), but that seems to be hitting a wall as well, with two companies buying masses blocks of TV ad time to promote who's coverage map is better in Appalachia.  It's too bad nobody's watching...        

    

Computer Power and Human Reason - Joseph Weizenbaum

Computer Power and Human Reason

Joseph Weizenbaum 

Joseph Weinzenbaum developed a computer program in the mid 1960's that used common language to interface with humans using a statement and response model called ELIZA.  Weinzenbaum says that the primary reason he chose let the computer emulate a Rogerian psychotherapist was because its reflective responses makes it easy to replicate.  What surprised him most about the program were peoples' responses to it. Both professionals in the field of psychology and random people thought of it as a credible substitute for a therapist.   After trying the program the psychologists wanted to know when version 2.0 was to be released so they could set one up in their office, and the random people wanted to make sure that their conversations with the program were absolutely private because they were sharing  their most intimate personal details with it.  

Both responses surprised Weinzenbaum, so much that they elicited a "Polanyi style mental shock".  "What is it about the computer that has brought the view of man as a machine to a new level of plausibility?"  

I personally believe peoples' reactions had more to do with the person than they had to do with the computer.  There are a number of reasons why people would behave this way when interacting with the computer, all of them seemingly predictable.  First, people are naturally curious.  They like to try out new things. And if those things make a favorable impression (they fit in the parameters of acceptability or satisfy a need) they stick with it, almost single mindedly without questioning it, until they have a reason to stop.  Individual human behavior is one of few areas where rationality is usually in short supply.  In groups people's behavior is regulated by the group.  When the individual is interacting with the computer however they are more inclined to drop rationality because they know the computer is more rational than they are and they are apt to give the alternative a try.  The reaction people had to the program does not surprise me as much as it surprised Weinzenbaum, probably because he saw the program as an extension of him and to see people reacting strangely to him indirectly through the medium of the program he created, it really bugged him out.   

What really bugged me out was his discussion on rationality.  He states that it is false to equate rationality with logic.  I don't immediately see the contradiction between the two based on my common understanding of the terms and the definitions provided by Princeton's Wordnet (online dictionary).  In lecture the term rationalism was introduced.  It was presented in a way that made it seem that it was only one of many "-isms".  That made me think: is there a real (acceptable) alternative to rational behavior?  Or have we just become more and more rational over time?  Is this good or bad?  I'm going to make a rational decision right now to stop asking these questions.

Requiem of for the Media - Jean Baudrillard

Whenever I feel like I've got a handle on a class reading that's usually when I run into trouble.  So let's roll the dice.  

I think Baudrillard's piece is trying to say that there is now a convergence between new media technologies and society needs which could be addressed by them.  But I think he's asking where it goes from there in terms of interactivity.  He states that Marxist theory may not be able to be applied to media in general, although I'm guessing it can still be applied to the mainstream media business.  

Picking up where I left off with my last post:

 "The mass media are anti-mediatory and intransitive.  They  fabricate non-communication - this is what characterizes them, if one agrees to define communication as an exchange, as a reciprocal space of a speech and a response, and thus of a responsibility (not a phychological or moral responsibility, but a personal, mutual correlation in exchange). We must understand communication as something other than the simple transmission-reception of a message, whether or not the latter is considered reversible through feedback.  Now, the totality of the existing architecture of the media founds itself on this latter definition: they are what always prevents response, making all processes of exchange impossible (except in the various forms of response simulation, themselves integrated in the transmission process, thus leaving the unilateral nature of the communication intact).  This is the real abstraction of the media. And the system of social control and power is rooted in it. "

Right on Jean. That was probably true at publication in '72 up until present day, But now Google, 

The poster child of the web, is pushing hard for the alternative, two way communication using print (this blogging platform), interactive video (Youtube)... unfortunately the issue of control has been replaced by ownership. With Google services you are in control of your message (yes even in McLuhan's 

framework, because you can customize the various media platforms with plug-ins and devise your own

delivery methods, i.e. I could project a youtube video on to the side of an elephant if I got tired of my 

17" LCD Fujitsu monitor), but they own the content, which they use to generate contextual PPC 

advertising which they get paid for, handsomely (Google earned $6.67 zillion billion on ads in the 4Q 

'09)

A Theory of the Media - Enzenberger

A Theory of the Media

Enzenberger

Does new media open the door to the possibility of social change?  Can the fragmentation it causes be re-assembled into a collective that overcomes the controlling messages of traditional media?  

I'm thinking about something in political science they call "soft power", that is the ability manipulate a subject not through force but by ideas, most commonly cultural ideas.  Much like factory food production works,  the strategy is usually employed by taking top down created messages, usually starting with an organic seed of an idea, and reformulating and reprocessing it to scale. It is then introduced at the lowest income/education levels of society, in the hope that it mimics the overlying message and creates a mirror image of it.  That is the traditional method of wielding soft power, both domestically and aboard.  

But what if the process of creation, distribution, and promotion of ideas through media was more organic all the way through, organic meaning coming from individuals or groups of individuals who are unmotivated or less motivated by profit or political gain?  This way the stranglehold on the ability to mobilize and influence is loosened and that ability is more democratically available.  This is where I think the concept of new media fits nicely.   

At the time of Enzenberger's writing, new media was either just being birthed or in its infancy stage.  Recording equipment was just becoming available to the consumer after the technology had mostly been exclusively in the hands of large for-profit entities for most of the media age.  At that time media creation was democratized but its distribution potential was extremely limited, exemplified by the popularity of the "home movie".  These home movies were mostly distributed among immediate personal networks.  It took 20-30 years for that new media to further evolve with digital capture, reproduction, and distribution aided by parallel development of augment broadband network capacity.  During this time of market driven development, new media lost significant popular momentum since its original debut, those who historically held the power of media were given time to figure out how to co-opt it as their own and  either hedge against it by dampening its effects or by adopt it into their strategy.  Despite this, when (near) fully democratic access to creation, distribution, and promotion hit the scene, with major money and brand backing from companies such  as"South-East Asia Inc.'s" video recorders ($115),  Google Inc's Youtube ($0), and Facebook Inc's social networking platform ($0), adding the to media conversation became as purely financially expensive as pair of high-tech sneakers.

This wide availability of technology has caught on hugely with a certain segment of the global youth population.  While people who grew up with the old media model have made the transition into this new interactive media environment, this generation has completely embodied it.  The challenge that those of us who still work off a hybrid model mentality see with the new media is preserving quality. Sure there are billions of people creating and uploading videos every day to the internet but most of them lack the insight, experience, and production values to be of lasting cultural value, rather than mere personal/informational/political value. That's the difference between viral video and Kurosawa flicks.  But that is small barrier to overcome and there is anecdotal evidence of progress on that front.   We continue to hold out hope for new media because we know that "the message is the medium" and the new medium is democratically held where the old medium is not.  

The Medium is the Message - Marshall McLuhan

The Medium is the Message

Marshall McLuhan

At first it sounds strange that the medium is the message. This is what it means to me: "Whether you 

broadcast something on TV or screen in a projection theater is more important than what is playing on 

that screen." Sure, new delivery methods change the way we interact (iphone you can play YouTube 

clips to people in a parking lot, while TV or Theater is less passive) but who cares about the technology or dimensions of the screen? It's what's in that magic box that's making me laugh.  

But... judging from how I was forced to throw in the towel on the last post, I'm not sure that McLuhan's 

argument is so simplistic. What I think McLuhan is really getting at is a deeper human order/interaction as a result of the medium. It's easier to understand when you broaden the use of the word medium 

beyond its commonly understood limits. Here, McLuhan uses the examples of the railway and the airplane as a media. He states:

" The railway did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure.  This happened whether the railway functioned in a tropical or northern environment, and is quite independent of the freight or content of the railway medium.  The airplane on the other hand tends to dissolve the railway form of city, politics, and association, quite independently of what the airplane is used for.     

But what about other objects besides the TV and transport vehicles which have no "content"?  Like for instance the electric light.  Now first I'll say that this example of an electric light as media seems completely alien.  It can be used as a means for communicating (signal communication, LED matrices) but they also, "...eliminate time and space factors in human association exactly as do radio, telegraph, telephone, and TV, creating involvement in depth."

So before I start to question what functionality has to do with its message and medium, I'll just try this out: A medium can be anything that affects human interaction, and serves as the pivotal point which buttresses activity back and forth.   

The Galaxy Reconfigured - Marshall McLuhan

The Galaxy Reconfigured

Marshall McLuhan

1. It would take me a one whole semester to understand the The Gutenberg Galaxy
2. It would take me two whole semesters to understand all of the additional references (mis-quoted Shakespeare, Joyce's Ulysses, Rimbaud, Ruskin, et. all)
3. It would take me one additional semester to effectively comprehend McLuhan's reconfigured Galaxy. 

Ball-park figure = 2 years

NEXT

P.S.  This helps my feelings of ineptitude Lol