Micro politics and Assumed Values

This week’s theme was the shifting micro-political structures enabled by the Internet and the way these are changing our social assemblages. I found Rhinegold’s TED talk (2008) particularly useful in laying the historical foundations of for our current predicament – just as the printing press enabled mass literacy and thus new collective arrangements, the Internet and mobile devices are created a mass computer literacy that greatly expands our network for communication and action. From here, most of the readings seemed to agreed that these collective arrangements form a basis for our social understanding and the values that are intrinsic to our daily life.

However, I found the assumed commonality between cultures to be somewhat problematic in its discussion. Bauwens (2014) in particular advocated societies need to move away from our capitalist collective arrangement and toward ‘communal values’ that emphasis intellectual peer-to-peer freedom. While the sentiment is clear (that is to say he is arguing against the increasing authority institutions are exerting over our micro-political interactions i.e Facebook) I think the notion of the communal is still largely an anglo-centric ideology that seeks to impart our agreed values on a global scale. This is something that the Internet has been an incredible tool in facilitating and to some extent his comments are symptomatic of that.

In having a global network of literacy and constant accessibility, the agreed values of the Western world tend to become the dominant frameworks for collective action. While we are now able to connect with groups that have similar ideologies and form new ‘alliances’ that have shared values, resoundingly it is still the capitalist democracies voice who is the loudest and who has the greatest influence over our communal interactions. This is becoming increasingly apparent in Facebook’s privacy policies and integration to multiple media platform. What was originally anticipated as a peer-to-peer network for the exchange of information and intellectual ideas has now become a mass marketing network that has a greater agency over its users image then they do. As technology continues to become more powerful and more mobile, this trend may be exacerbated to the point of intellectual repression or completely eradicated by different micro-political frameworks – the volatile nature of the Internet makes it difficult to predict. We can however, comment on the current trend toward a capitalist Internet culture that has shifted from its peer-to-peer roots to become a radically different technology all together.

Bauwens, Michel (2014) ’Openness, a necessary revolution into a smarter world’, P2P Foundation, February 4, <http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/what-is-p2p-an-introduction/2014/02/04> DATE ACCESSED: 5/5/14

Government

This week was concerned with the development of government alongside our information technologies. Particularly, how our reliance on software and its integration into everyday life has the potential to be manipulated by those in power.

Morozov (2013) envisaged Google glass as being a key component in this development. He suggests that as it becomes more popular and the software surrounding it becomes more advanced, governing bodies will be able to monitor our physical behaviour and impose penalties on infringements from afar. Certainly there has been much discussion about the concept of the ‘nanny state’ in Australia. Proposals to monitor and block access to certain Internet sites has sparked debate over the extent to which our government has the right to do so. Traditional litigation and government legislation has not yet caught up with the modern definitions of privacy and the extent to which information submitted online still constitutes our personal sphere.

Solove (2013) offers a further insight into how this invasion is going to be executed. While officially only the NSA in America has admitted to monitoring metadata from its citizens, it’s probably reasonable to assume many governments follow this model and so Solove’s commentary remains relevant. Singular parcels of metadata in themselves offer a limited insight into our personal interactions. However, when these are stitched together across our media use and across media platforms a more holistic image is given of how we use media and who we interact with. This is where Solove identified an invasion of privacy. We are not protected against this kind of abstractional invasion of our computer use nor is the current government framework legislated against it.

The question then emerges: will we evolve a new framework of governance, which not only acknowledges but also actually relies upon the digital? Many a sci-fi movie has predicted it with catastrophic invasions of privacy and oppression but as the reality emerges the shift may be more gradual. Already many traditionally ‘western’ countries associated with democracy are capitalising on this new territory before legislation can impede them. The monitoring of computer use in particular offers a platform for control and Intel into the public that has not before been seen. It is an immediate and responsive gauge for social unrest and the proliferation of ‘anti-government’ ideologies that can be accessed on a broad scale by governing bodies.

Looking slightly away from this, perhaps the new form of governing will actually emerge from the companies that control information technologies. We can already see that Facebook and Google have a tremendous store of ‘marketing’ information that forms a comprehensive expression of social media use. Their exploitation of this to capitalise on personal information may become the currency of the future and an expression of power in the new digital framework.

Morozov, E. (2013) ‘The Real Privacy Problem’ Available online:http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520426/the-real-privacy-problem/ 

Solove, D. (2013) ‘Why Metadata Matters: The NSA and the Future of Privacy’ Available online: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131125092647-2259773-why-metadata-matters-the-nsa-and-the-future-of-privacy 

Vectors and Framing

This week examined framing and vectors, both in how they are presented to us and how we alter them. Mackenzie’s reading offered a particularly interesting perspective on this, I thought. Here, he examined vectors as the mediums through which information is disseminated geographically or temporally, and the way in which these can enhance power.

What I had not before considered was how these vectors operate in terms of our changing social paradigm. The idea that information mediums are creating a radically commoditized reality where the participants are objectified but also perpetuate the commodification is becoming increasingly apparent - if not evident enough in the tremendous technological surge then simply in the wealth of the vectorial class (think Steve jobs and Rupert Murdoch). 

As we surpass the physical geography of our social scape, we become engrossed instead in a virtual reality, where the flow of information is so continuous and instantaneous that it has surpassed our ability to consume and control it. The 'app' as a vector has been particularly effective in commodifying our ‘second nature’ - we have apps that connect us with friends, with employers, with religion and with our desires. The interface channels the information and in its data and coding, computes and objectifies our totality; both physically and mentally. 

The marketability of this process is where framing comes into play. Our reality is now framed through these information vectors to such an extent that we are now the reinforcing factor behind our total objectification. Our technology frames the way we engage with each other, which in turn supplies data and marketing information to companies which is then framed back to us. It is a cyclical process, framed again as a linear progression. Ultimately, the interplay between these two concepts are becoming increasingly powerful in the technological era. As we move toward greater technological capacity, their role will become more prominent but also more embedded – until, I imagine, it will be hard to discern our marketability from our reality.