Participation Literacy

Sophia Jackson. Culture and Media Studies. Learning about my online presence and sharing my knowledge here.

[participationlit]

Potential or Enclosure 3.0 by David Lametti - 11.5.2013

The juxtaposition between a literal cloud and the virtual cloud is very telling of the thoughts and ideas behind the concept. David Lametti discusses the Cloud as well as enclosure in general in his piece Boundless Digital Potential or Enclosure 3.0? A cloud can either be something that floats through the sky, traveling around the world freely, or it can bring storms and disorder. Lamentti suggests that the latter is more likely with the hints of another enclosure movement due to our social networking systems. 

Giving a brief history of the enclosure movement in England, it was essentially a physical divide between the elite and the lower classes by giving the wealthy control over the farming and the poor manual labor that would benefit the rising market economy. This divide is similar to a more modern enclosure movement, which is with intellectual property and  the containment of it with copyright and trademark laws.

Unfortunately, because the Cloud is so vast, it is difficult for any single thing to be enclosed in this endless space. The Cloud utilizes the near infinite data storages and gives miners access to it to further their user base and advertisements.

Although user involvement is beneficial to something like Google, Lametti claims that user interaction will start to slow down because with the Cloud, anyone can stream anything on whatever device they are using at the moment. This is just pulling out information and items in the Cloud rather than actually creating something new. 

Another really important aspect of the Cloud that Lametti brings up is the shape of the space itself. The internet had originally been something that was horizontal, so all users could evenly and equally interact with each other, to a vertical space with the cloud above the user. The users are no longer linked with each other, but to the cloud and that is how they communicate and share.

It is very easy to see both sides of the argument (good cloud or bad cloud). While the Cloud is beneficial for the fact that it can store everything without a second thought or concern, you are also submitting your data and interactions for the whole world to see. These interactions should be private, but also help companies to better understand their audience.

[participationlit]

Netsmart: How To Thrive Online by Howard Rheingold - 10.24.2013

"I believe that learning to live mindfully in cyberculture is as important to us as a civilization as it is vital to you and me as individuals. The multifold extension of human minds by chips and nets in the first decade of the twenty-first century has granted power to billions, but in these still-early years of multimedia production studios in your pocket and global information networks in the air, it is clear to even technology enthusiasts like me that our enhanced abilities to create and consume digital media will certainly mislead those who haven’t learned how to exert mental control over our use of always-on communication channels" (1%).

Howard Rheingold reminds us that being able to be aware in our new "cyber culture" is key to surviving in the digital age. He also brings into the light the fact that when the internet was created, it wasn't intended to be a social network, so to speak, such as the printing press or the telephone. These were all intended to progress our society forward technologically, not socially. 

"Where is my body while my mind scurries through cyberspaces? It’s easy to ask oneself, What do I think I should be doing right now? Answering it usually takes work. The process of trying to address the question in your own context is the work of learning digital mindfulness" (3%).

Browsing through cyberspace has a lot of similarities to last week's theory of Digital Labor. Unfortunately, the physical body is ignored in both of these spaces because it only utilizes the creative mind and attention span. Attention is the most important aspect of online culture. By being able to retain and take advantage of our attention span, online forums can gather a following very quickly by being a distraction to the humdrum of our daily lives. 

User data input is also addressed in this reading. By aggregating all the of feedback that users give on products or sites, the "brain" of the web can produce more products that are wanted/needed by the community.

With people posting their thoughts and feelings online, they are forming networks in which they can find commonalities that also create network individualism which further form digital commons. People come together to discuss their likes and dislikes, to rise up against issues, or to just share information with each other (i.e. Facebook, Anonymous, Pintrest). 

Information is available at the snap of one's fingers, so being able to detect the "crap" from the actual information is a skill that is quickly developed. Because anyone can publish whatever they want to, it is easy for people to make up stories and information just to gain a following and/or recognition. Being mindful online is useful in this sense because being able to steer clear of this can help you go towards beneficial information and sources. 

Generally speaking, Rheingold is very right about the necessity of mindful online browsing and activity to generate a smarter online generation. The users will become slaves to the corporations, if we aren't already, without the ability to navigate through the networks and flows.

[participationlit]

Digital Labor by Andrew Ross & Trebor Scholz - 10.15.13

In the text for this week, Digital Labor, Ross and Scholz discussed the concept of online and immaterial labor. Things like e-lancing, crowdsourcing, user input, and interships take advantage of people who are willing to work for little to nothing online. Unfortunately, this has been such a popular and accepted form of labor that it is so integrated into our digital society. Websites like Amazon.com have a program called "Mechanical Turk", which users can go onto and volunteer to do simple tasks for about $2 an hour, which is unbelievably below minimum wage and unlivable. 

e-lancing is something that also takes advantage of people's willingness to complete small tasks for little pay. The website 99designs.com has a bunch of designers submit a logo, and the person who is asking for it would pay about $150-300 to the one design they choose, but they get hundreds of logos for free. 

Crowdsourcing might be the most popular form of digital labor, considering it can go the most undetected. Crowdsourcing coincides with outsourcing and user data input. One person or corporation takes advantage of groups of people to do tiny parts of a larger tasks. Mechanical Turk also utilizes this. With outsourcing, businesses tend to take their factories or work facilities and move them overseas and pay significantly less to people who are willing to work for that little.

Mechanical Turk pays as much as outsourcing does, so do we only recognize that it is unlivable when it affects Americans?

User data input is as simple as leaving reviews on Amazon that the company can use to modify themselves and their product. Browsers like Google Chrome also use this to their advantage. For instance, if you like to online shop, like myself, you can find that once you even visit a store online, the ads for it appear on every other site you click on for weeks.

Unfortunately, this is the reality of our new digital age. Everything is networks and flows rather than actual, physical workspaces. 

[participationlit]

Consent of The Networked by Rebecca MacKinnon - 10.8.2013

The novel 1984 by George Orwell depicts a bleak and disastrous future that is overrun by Big Brother; a manipulative form of government that controls all beings through technology. Rebecca MacKinnon describes a similar time in her piece Consent of The Networked. She immediately points out the distinction between the novel and our current time, which is just a new digital dimension that is added to our society. 

The internet is something that is heavily relied on by its users. MacKinnon makes an interesting point when she says, "The problem is that our ability to organize and speak out is shaped— often quite subtly—by the Internet service providers, e-mail services, mobile devices, and social networking services. If our communications and access to information are manipulated in ways we are not aware of, and if these companies’ relationships with government are opaque, our ability to understand how power is being exercised over us, and our ability to hold that power to account, will be eroded in a more subtle and insidious manner than Orwell ever imagined" (73%). With Snowden's whistle blowing about the NSA is proof that there is some sort of Big Brother figure, just as Orwell predicted. Although our government is meant to serve us (by the people, for the people), our technology is developing faster than our politics.

Certain governments, like in China, have such strong censorship laws that they might have considered blocking websites like Google, all which are American and are controlled by Americans. It's apparent that the companies that control what is advertised on the internet and what information is accessible have gained far too much power, but because we rely on the internet so heavily most people try to look past it. Because it goes unchecked, so to speak, it's perpetually gaining power that is too vast for users to dismantle.

The "digital commons" is something that MacKinnon describes as "Tocqueville's civil society" in the digital realm; everyone can express everything freely, "mobilize interests and protects their rights" (80%). "But when governments or corporations abuse their power, the commons can act as a counterweight and support network through which citizens can carve out the necessary spaces to speak and organize, and thus defend their rights and interests" (81%). Chapter 2 basically sums up how all internet sites are connected through HTML codes and can be accessible from any place. This is great because it protects the public sphere aspect of the internet, rather than everything being in the private sphere.

Both readings summarize and discuss the pros and cons of our interenet/digital society. I think that we would benefit if all information was open for public use, although it could potentially become hectic.

[participationlit]

The Second Enclosure Movement by James Boyle - 10.1.2013

In The Second Enclosure Movement by James Boyle, he talks about how public domain is becoming privatized in regards to the Internet. By drawing similarities between the 16th century enclosure movements and the 19th century, Boyle brings it to the reader's attention that it was, at one point, thought necessary to regulate and conserve public sources. Now that public sources were owned/controlled by one person or a small group of people, they could decide how easily accessible it would be to the public and they could allow access at monetary value. But, regardless of the attempt at justification, the privatization would still be authority withholding information or space from the public.

Now, this public space and information is protected by copyright laws. Although they can be necessary to protect an individual's body of work, they are also harmful to the rest of the community that needs to use this kind of information. One example that I find detrimental is that of originality. People across the world come up with original thoughts and ideas constantly, and once that idea is found useful, someone can copyright/trademark it, and make it accessible when someone pays to access it. The main issue here is when someone believes they had the idea or thought before whoever patented/trademarked it. People will fight and argue over who had the idea first, and then the information has the potential to be even more restricted.

The internet serves as a realm for people to openly communicate all over the world and share information, so putting restrictions on that information is really bad because so many people rely on it. Protecting the rights of the authors is understandable, but I think that requiring monetary value in exchange for it is kind of pointless. Boyle brings up the fact that the regulating information can be destructive to cultural growth of our society. People need all types of information, especially students and scholars, to further their research and propel our society forward, especially culturally. We have become so reliant on technology, especially the internet, so censoring it with copyrights/trademarks could force people to break more laws by hacking protected sites and certificates.

[participationlit]

The Rise of Intellectual Property/Thomas Jefferson Writes A Letter - 9.24.2013

Before The Enlightenment, the concept of "intellectual property" hadn't been born. Ideas were present, shared, and used by all people without necessarily questioning the integrity of the thinker. The thinker would sometimes be acknowledged and revered, and their ideas and concepts would be based on divinity, with recognition or not. When the Enlightenment began, people began to realize and believe that knowledge wasn't necessarily a god-given revelation, but that humans could create and breed their own thoughts.

All knowledge, at one point in time, had been "taken from the gods" and copied repeatedly. This was this original way of distributing thoughts, and scribes were the people to do it. They would all look at one text, copy it word for word, receive pay, and then people would consume it. 

Once intellectual property became a concept, it evolved into insanity. I agree with the fact the each person should get recognized for their ideas, but copyright laws have taken this to an entirely different level. From books to magazine articles, from blog posts to music, everything seems to have a copyright attached to it. Because each person feels that they deserved to get paid for being original, they take it upon themselves to make it known that they are a so-called genius and, yes, they'll tell you why.

I believe that acknowledgement is a huge part of continuing to prompt people to be innovative thinkers as well as challenge whatever knowledge is surrounding them. I am grateful for the concept of intellectual property, but I think that the flood gates have opened, so to speak, and pretty soon everything will have a copyright and a huge fine attached to it.

[rachelfershleiser]

The majority of workers waste their time on Tumblr, followed by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SnapChat.

Forbes: 64% of employees wasting time at work

Num! Ber! One! Num! Ber! One!

(via staff)

[eminentsocialmedia-deactivated2]

Creative Ways to Use Instagram for Your Business

[participationlit]

What is Instagram? Instagram is a photo and video sharing app exclusive to mobile devices. It allows you to add a profile image, a short bio and a link to your site.

[thefrisky]

[participationlit]

Societies of Control by Gilles Deleuze - 9.3.2013

In Gilles Deleuze's Societies of Control, he discusses the evolution of society over the past three centuries. Beginning with disciplinary societies, around the 18th and 19th centuries, Deleuze brings up enclosed spaces, in which people are constantly finding themselves in. Each town, city, or country is a physically enclosed space, where as a social construct is a culturally enclosed one. 

People grow up learning rules and social norms that they must follow in order to be considered normal and valuable to their society. Even if they leave, the individual never ceases passing from one closed space to another, each with their own laws (1%). Some very basic closed spaces are: the family, school, barracks, the factory, the hospital, then prison.

Deleuze mentions Foucault's study of environments of enclosure, specifically a factory, when he says that they "concentrate, distribute in space, order in time, compose productive force with dimension of space and time" (1%). This implies that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Moving forward, the disciplinary societies are then replaced by societies of control. According to Burroughs, "control" becomes the new monster (1%). Within each regime, the liberating and enslaving forces confront one another through their controlled environments (2%).

Deleuze then poses the question of whether or not worker's unions would be able to weather through the passing and reformation of societies of control. I think that because of the modulation of society, that it would be incredibly difficult for unions to remain with the constant fluctuation around them.

[participationlit]

Privacy and Online Identities - 9.9.13

In Rita Raley's "Dataveillance and Counterveillance", as well as Alex Halavais' "Privacy", the matter of what is truly personal nowadays is discussed. In a similar vein, Geert Lovink's “Capturing Web 2.0” talks about how one's online presence has created and sustained an internet culture. When comparing these three texts, it is easy to see that the past preference of being an entirely different identity online is not simple anymore, nor is it necessary. For example, rewind to a decade ago, when online chatrooms were popular for users to make friends with anyone around the world. Because one did not have to show their face, they could be whoever they wanted to be, regardless of how facetious it was. More recently, it has been revealed that we, as users, essentially have no privacy online. Raley points out that we are our data, and social media sites as well as general browsers track us and recognize us by what we search online, what we prefer, as well as whatever sort of information we choose to post. In order to protect what we post, one can either highly censor any data, or utilize multiple internet identities that are seemingly unrelated to our true selves, according to Halavais. The latter is so close to how the internet was about a decade ago, when people could take advantage of the fact that not everything was as highly monitored as it is now. The flaw of Halavais' "revelation" is one of too much hope. Lovink points out that nothing we could ever post or try to censor is fully unreachable by internet patrols and hacking organizations. With a simple Google search, anyone would be able to look up a name and find at least a dozen links related to what the user has typed into the search bar. As previously stated, it’s almost impossible to keep your true self from the internet once you log on. This is, unfortunately, a reality for our society and culture, but it is unavoidable and we must learn to adapt.