Control and Place
I have been tossing the idea around for a project that involves the desire for control now residing in digital forms. This evolution of control has moved from physical groups to a much larger and accessible world. By controlling digital places, you have more influence over a majority of people. Accessibility and quantity are the two main driving factors in an attempt of control. The more people someone can reach or obtain information on, the more people they have that control over. In such a digital age, with everyone putting all their information online, through social networking, banking, blogging, etc., that information is easily gathered and compiled for the use of anyone. Advertising agencies use this type of information to analyze which ads will run more successfully and produce a higher income.
My friend was recently working on a database for his information systems class. He was telling me that personal records are stored in these databases. Medical records, phone records, bill payments, etc. could be compiled into these databases. Anyone who had control or access to that information would in a sense control the person who's information it entailed. This accessibility to information is making the idea of controlling in a digital manner more appealing than in a physical manner based on the amount of people that would fall under that control.