Thursday, September 28, 2006

Castells' Network Society

I was trying repeatedly to post this last evening, but was not having any luck, so hopefully this go at it will go a little more smoothly. Is anyone else having problems with Blogger lately or is it just me?

Disclaimer: To be perfectly honest from the get-go with this entry, I had a difficult time understanding some of the theories discussed by Castells in particular, so some of the questions and concerns that I'm bringing up here might be a little cursory/obvious to other people, but I'm still in the process of wrapping my head around some of these concepts, so I'm still trying to hang in there with these readings as best I can.

An Introduction to the Information Age - Manuel Castells

This was a fairly concise explanation of Castells's theory on the information society, and I shared many of the of the concerns that were brought up later by Garnham in his critique of Castells's argument. I do feel that his theory is at times contradictory when it comes to the role that technology plays in driving many of the changes that he sees coming with the culture of real virtuality. For example, his concept of "timeless time" is extremely abstract to me, and it seems unclear rather he feels this is a necessary evil of where our society has gone or, rather, a malicious byproduct of power being put into the wronghands with corporations and other organizations that are using networks to create powerful oligopolies.

To me the very idea of "timeless time" is a little bit ridiculous, although I see where Castells is coming from with it. I think there has certainly been a shift where people now value speed above other things, but at the same time, five minutes is still five minutes and I think that he is greatly overexaggerating the extent to which this is a "new" phenomenon. I don't see it as a creation of new "forms" of time (145), but rather a change in how time is generally used by citizens. I also think that the extent to which our "network society" is structured around function is also overexaggerated. Capitalism, the market, and global economies have all been around for a while, and I think the principles remain the same behind them, even if the means have changed.

The Information City, The New Economy, and the Network Society - Manuel Castells

Going into greater detail than the introduction, this selection focused on some of the fundamentals of Castells's "New Economy." Labor, productivity, and innovation are the three main values that are emphasized, and around all of this, he looks at the role that the modern city plays with our new society.

I think that some of Castells's views on the city were particularly short-sighted, for example when he emphasized that cities present excellent opportunities for both jobs and schooling for children (161). Although the argument for jobs is documented with some statistics, the education argument is completely out of the blue and, I would argue, false. Education within larger cities tends to be fairly underdeveloped, and I would hardly see this as a huge "opportunity" for our future generations.

Additionally, the idea of the global market opening up doors to more competition is a bit curious to me, given that this would be facilitated only by implementing networking structures that only more economically-advanced organizations and companies could afford in the first place. As Garnham later pointed out, this would likely result in the $$$ going into the hands of fewer competitors, rather than more, as seen with Garnham's examples of media conglomerates. This is hardly de-massification, as Castells argues.

Information Society Theory as Ideology - Nicholas Garnham

It seemed as though Garnham's main gripe with Castells's theory was his emphasis on technological determinism, and this was certainly a main issue that I felt Castells struggled with, sometimes using it as an advantage with his dialogue, and other times citing it as a disappointing pitfall of our current society's situation. He also emphasizes that this was a direction that our society was generally heading as it was, rather than a completely new revolution of sorts.

Main of my main points of interest were already discussed in relation to the above pieces by Castells, but I would say that I did think there were times when Garnham himself went a bit too far with a gloomy outlook of corporate invasion. When it comes down to it, this technology can have a very positive influence for individuals looking to start companies from the ground, and there is a huge subculture of smaller, independent businesses that could never be without the tools provided by the so-called network society. Many of these businesses are not located within heavily-concentrated urban areas, as argued by Castells, but are taking place in smaller locales. This does bring in Castells's idea of the flexi-worker, a type of worker that is working increasingly part-time or for themselves, but I think that it is a point worth questioning.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Post-Industrial Society

Post-Industrial Society - Daniel Bell

The most important thing to note about the selection from Bell's work included in the Reader certainly has to be the fact that it was written over two decades before the two accompanying selections on the same topic that followed. I think that it can indeed be a challenge to contextualize, especially in a course with as modern of a topic as this, so while reading, I had to constantly remind myself of the setting in which these theories on a new kind of society were written.

Given this context, Bell was fairly accurate in many of his predictions, most notably the growing importance of the service industry, with a particular emphasis on the areas of health and education (p. 88). Getting beyond these somewhat broad trajectories, however, Bell missed the boat on a few other huge ideas, particularly in how he foresaw the market economy's evolution over time. He conjures up images of Old Man Smithers in the 'Scooby Doo' cartoons when he seems to point to college students and young professionals as simply elitists who were too busy causing trouble to be responsible for any change seen in our society with the emergence of a post-industrial age.

Rather, I would argue, that the 20-somethings have greatly changed the way that business is conducted, particularly in areas such as marketing and promotions, which have, in many ways, become the very same "personality market" (p. 101) that Bell seemed to thing was ridiculous. I will agree with aspects of the other two authors' thoughts by saying that it doesn't so much matter what knowledge you possess these days as how you are able to communicate it, which basically amounts to 'selling' yourself.

From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society - Krishan Kumar

As I began reading through Kumar's addition to this section of the Reader, I found myself not finding too much to criticize, but about halfway in, I wondered who peed in his Frosted Flakes. Kumar is certainly accurate in his assessment of much of what the information society comprises, particularly in his argument against Bell's "disjunction of realms" (p. 107), which coincidentally, greatly resembled Lessig's pivotal outline that permeated Code. Kumar was on target with his assessment of the information society as often a product of a narrow view of history and the "crisis of control" that the ever-growing processing brings with it.

Then Kumar lost me with sexist arguments about the 'feminization' of computer work. I think it was absolutely ridiculous to point to a gendered argument that looked at the good old days of computer work as "a man's job" with nostalgia while lamenting the femmey, unskilled workers of today. Isn't the entire idea of computer programming to make it easier to get work done? It seems as though programmers (who probably were not all male) have succeeded in accomplishing that, so why is this sort of drivel necessary?

I would go into more detail about the rest of this article, but I got myself all upset about the blatent sexism, so I will leave it at this: Kumar's view of the post-industrial society as a whole seems overly pessimistic socially, although his concern for the level of governmental and economic control is certainly warranted and channeled Lessig.

Is Britain the First Post-Industrial Society? - John Urry

Immediately from reading the first sentence, it was evident that Urry is virtually the anti-Kumar. In supporting his argument that Britain is the place where post-industrial dreams come true, Urry pointed to six main points as evidence, and in explaining those points through the excerpt, I'm not entirely sure that he convincingly answered his own question.

I did like seeing that Urry acknowledged the point brought up by Bell that service industries were not as productive in saying that this, while true, is an indicator of a great shift in the essence of our economy, rather than simply a sign that we're not growing at as quick of a rate. He also acknowledged that service workers sometimes are of the less-skilled variety, while the consumers are usually those with more income, perhaps the only major damper evident from his theory of a PI society. I think that this divide is a somewhat inevitable byproduct of our current society, and is not a sign that we are hitting a roadblock in our society's evolution, or however Kumar would have phrased it.

The bottom line is that we go about our lives very differently today than we did even a decade ago due to the changing landscape of information in our society. Whether this is the sign of a truly revolutionary society is a completely different argument, in my opinion, but this change (socially and culturally, in addition to economically and politically) is certainly significant and should be acknowledged.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Code: Act 2

The final curtain has now gone down on my reading of Lessig's Code, and I really found myself grabbing for straws toward the end. Although I realize he was probably just trying to connect his ideas throughout the book to make it more comprehensible, I found it extremely repetitive at times and over-descriptively technical at other times. Somewhat contradictory statements also were very apparent, although Lessig called his own bluff on this point. I do feel that he was simply trying to make the reader think a bit more about these concepts rather than peddling his theories, however, so that is to be expected when both sides are being presented.

One general sentiment that I struggled with throughout the work was Lessig's argument that, if nothing is done, cyberspace will continue to evolve along a certain path toward a anarchical dystrophy of over-regulation and a severe lack of privacy. He also, however, says that humans' creation of code is the force behind any and all change in technology and the Internet, which seems to be contadictory to me. In a way, it seems as though he buying into the same teleological fallacy that he is arguing against. The world is filled with thousands upon millions of programmers who are constantly working at new and innovative ways for us to take in the world around us, and this, to me, exists in a completely separate realm from the apocalyptical trajectory that Lessig fears.

The answer to the growing "crisis" of code overpowering our lives seems to fall within a gray area. I agree that we do need some form of governmental regulation to protect many of the values that our society holds dear (privacy, intellectual property, sovereignty), but some of Lessig's prescriptions for this sort of regulation have dangerous repercussions. With the problem of losing the right of free speech, for example, Lessig suggests that a certification program be instilled so that readers of any publisher would be made aware of that author's level of "certification" in the field of interest, in order to ensure additional credibility (p. 172). This sounds like a nice idea, but it is unclear to me who would decide how credibility is determined. If it is left in the hands of a small group of individuals, this would invite biases and certainly wouldn't be too democractic of us, but would there really be any other way to regulate such a practice?

In the end, after reading the entire tiny-print text, I'm left wondering what exactly Lessig wants readers to "do about it" after taking in all of the information. Are we to be depressed at the way that commerce seems to have taken a stranglehold on the development of the net, thus forming norms (through advertising and PR) to match their interests? By doing so, are we supposed to ignore the fact that corporate power is increasingly tied in with the legal and governmental powers that create our real-space code by which we live?

Monday, September 18, 2006

Code: Act 1

Just about halfway in to Lawrence Lessig's Code and I would be lying to say that I wasn't, if not intrigued, certainly amused. Parts of Lessig's argument have been downright frightening to me, and in places, they verge on apocalyptic.

One connection that I'm having a hard time fostering is Lessig's connection between the market and the government. I'm in complete agreement that commercial control of the architectures of cyberspace leads to the domination of privatized interests (as discussed on p. 59 of the text), but how much different would it truly be if our current government's administration were at the helm establishing the code that would regulate the web? I would argue that this would place even more power into the hands of the private corporate interests given the indirect route that these interests have taken historically through various Washington bobbleheads.

I also have serious qualms about some of the talk of identification and verification through digital IDs that Lessig seems to be hinting at as a strong candidate for reform in this Internet age. The categorization that comes with all of the information that would be present on a strictly-regulated PKI system comes with dangerous ramifications, in my opinion, and runs counter to the idea of e-democracy that is so en vogue at this moment in time. Although this sort of authentication would be helpful with examples like illegal gambling , this would open the door to other instances where whomever happens to be controling the power would be able to allow only individuals with certain characteristics to view certain content. It's all a little too '1984' to me.

All of that said, compared with some of the previous texts, I have enjoyed seeing that Lessig is able to remain fairly balanced with the presentation of his theories. He has, thus, managed to avoid some of the Utopian language that was previously present and it's actually a refreshing (albeit, dense) read. I'm looking forward to reflecting farther on where Lessig is going with this upon completing the text. Good night!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

9/14 Readings

It's getting late and I'm sad to say that this is certainly not my best writing... I haven't been sleeping much as of late, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for some coherency.

Who Will Be in Cyberspace? - Langdon Winner

When reading Winner's take on what a society dominated by growing technology and cyberspace, I had to keep in mind that the piece was written in 1996, when much of these ideas were just beginning to see increasing use in the private homes of individuals all around the world. As a whole, I think it is important for us, even today, to realize the easily ignorable fact that much of what we encounter on "cyberspace" and in society as a whole was carefully crafted and selected by a man sitting behind a desk somewhere in the universe. There is no such thing as a simple "movement" without some influence of human forces, as Winner concludes that "deliberate choices about the relationship between people and new technology are made by someone, somehow, every day of the year" (53).

On the other hand, Winner seems unnecessarily nostalgic about a time that, given the advances made through the media and its vast possibilities for public relations and propaganda-esque control, we could really never return to. Advertising and PR have always been about building brand loyalty and persuading the consumer in any way possible, including the "tableaux vivants of modern life" that Winner mentions on page 49. Real money was not spent on these ads to project the Utopian possibilities for the perfect American life as he suggests, but rather, it was simply profit-driven marketing. Pandora's box opened long ago with the advent of the Radio Age in the 1920s, and I believe that this author is underestimating the fact that life with this sort of mass media circus will come with certain features that simply need to be dealt with.

The Cult of Information - Theodore Roszak

Roszak's "zany and extravagant" ideas presented in the reader go back another decade before Winner's research, and seem to reveal some of the overzealous expectations that many people had for the computer during the mid-1980s. I was completely lost by Roszak's attempt to grasph what exactly he viewed as the definition of the term "information", and I feel that this was one of the major growing pains for the transition of much of our lives heading online that he touches on throughout the selection. People still struggle today with how they will depict and transfer their lives on computers.

Roszak and others saw the computer as something that would "so ingeniouslly mimic human intelligence that it may significantly shake our confidence in the uses of the mind" (61). The fear harbored by many was that human capitol would forever be lost, which has turned out to be simply not true. I wonder how Roszak would respond to some of the social networking websites out there today, like Myspace and Facebook, given how active users input their lives onto the more passive computers, when it seemed as though the author feared the exact opposite happening.

History of the Information Revolution - Kevin Robins and Frank Webster

Robins and Webster touch on many of the same ideas discussed by Winner, but seem increasingly skeptical of the powers-that-be who hold in their hands the power behind the new information and communications technology being used in governmental, business, and commercial sectors. I have to disagree with their underlying argument that these powers also control all social relations for our capitalist society, however, as I would argue that these technologies have failed to completely change the face of a lot of what we, as a society, hold dear to us. The authors seem to argue that our society has placed such a priority on efficiency and speed that we have internalized a lack of control that makes us growingly susceptible to propaganda. The opposite has proven to be true in recent history, as advertisers work long and hard hours trying to find new ways to persuade growingly skeptical consumers. We have begun to understand "the drill," so to speak.

Monday, September 11, 2006

9/12 Readings

Image of the Future Information Society - Yoneji Masuda

In describing his view of what a future Information Society would look like, Masuda argued that the evolution of this society would follow a parallel trajectory to that of the growth of the industrial society. Although I felt that some of his theories were far too laden with an image of an "idea factory," pushing out theories and thoughts on a conveyor belt of sorts, it was a bit eerie to me that others prove to be quite accurate. Masuda hit #14 on the head, for example, describing the shocks currently being experienced by a generation on a major societal cusp, including "acts of individual and group terrorists such as hijackings, invasions of individual privacy, and the crisis of a controlled society" (20). I wonder how Masuda managed to pre-order a copy of the Patriot Act over a decade in advance of its domestic release date?

Another common theme that carried through several of the theories that I feel was very modern were the consistent references to goals achieved through synergy and the idea of self-actualization. Through the use of growing technology, we as a society truly do have more options that ever before to find, create, store and share information in ways that could only be theorized when Masuda wrote this piece.

Living on Thin Air - Charles Leadbeater

Almost continuing where the last selection left off, Leadbeater seems to represent the self-fulfilled professional thinker that Masuda was idealizing with his hypothesis of what citizens within an Information Society would be like. Leadbeater yearns for a "different destination" for our society to seek out, given the Victorian origin of the framework that we are currently working within.

What I found most intriguing with Leadbeater's argument was his rephrasing of the term information society, to more completely describe it as a knowledge society. Knowledge, to me, acts as a more inclusive term than information as it requires a deeper level of communication and understanding than simply the dissemination of information. Nothing can be done with information unless the information's consumer is adequately knowledgable in the subject, language, or code that it is communicated through. This concept is evident through the collaborative networks and increased globalization that are discussed in the piece, although I'm not sure I agree that the principle as a whole is as radical or unattainable of a theory as he makes it out to be.

Cyberspace and the American Dream - Dyson, Gilder, Keyworth and Toffler

Also following a format foreshadowed by Masuda's information society, the four authors who came together for the piece presented as Chapter 3 in the reader also looked to our future society with optimism, although I'm not as confident that they fully grasped some of the concepts as accurately as their preceding counterparts.

One of the main points that I did not fully understand from the piece was the statement that "copyright and patent protection of knowledge ... may no longer be necessary" (34) suggesting that knowledge will become a mostly private good, and this is something that I had a hard time wrapping my head around, especially when compared with the authors' third proposal that the definition and assignment of property rights was an urgent activity that needed to be taken to aid in the creation of a Third Wave government. I don't see how this theory ties in with the ability for all (or most) citizens to realize the "American dream."

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Introductions

Having not previously studied the question of whether we live in an Information Society to much extent, I was grateful to see via the introductions, that this text will provide a strong historical context to the various theories that are going to be presented, and I'm looking forward to diving further into the readings to learn more about the topic.

One theme that was particularly interesting to me from the introduction that will be carried throughout the reader was that of the conflicting views on the balance between the individual ("human capital") and pure information. The argument made by some is that technology is the "driver of change" (p. 10), which I mostly agree with, but still hold some reservations about. To some extent, I feel like I'm coming into this course with a bit of a bias -- that technology can be useless unless accompanied by a human mind that can digest or navigate it, but I want to hear more of the other side through what is presented in the text, because I don't feel particularly well-read on the subject.

Bon voyage.