Analysing Digital Culture
Notes
week 1 – visions of the web
à popular debate: debating the revolutionary potential of social media
different visions of the web (utopian (perfect) ideas): TECHNOLOGY <-> CULTURE à socio-technical analysis
1. Information universe
= all knowledge/information on the internet is interconnected à LINK
Vannevar Bush: “As we may think” (1945) à “memex”
• there is too much scientific knowledge to navigate through
• problem: our brain doesn’t work with sub-classes but with association
à he tries to solve the problem of compression and selection à goal: not
only sorting information but connecting/linking it (by association) and
thereby creating new information
• “memex”: all information is mechanized à a “future device for individual use … a sort of
mechanized private file and library” in the shape of a desk
§ can get relevant information about a specific item from all sorts of sources into one new long text
with just this information and also add comments on his own
§ our brains use association and not index à memex uses associative indexing (might seem
artificial but actually tries to replicate the human brain)
• during that time, main source of information were libraries (hierarchical form) so he tried to give a
projection of the future as to how computers in the future could work as an information getting
machine that works in an associative way -> consider the year in which this was written!
• Ted Nelson: “Hypertext” (1963) à project Xanadu (1960) often called predecessor of the web
à actual hypertext in 1967
à HYPERMEDIA – not read like a sequence (book) but everything is connected
• Douglas Engelbart: “The Mother of all Demos” (1968) à NLS = structuring all material
hierarchy, every person can reorganize according to their needs
• physical development of internet in late 1960s à ARPAnet linking all computers
together (started with universities & military services)
à DISTRIBUTED NETWORK
§ Paul Baran: packet switching technology (1960s)
§ Tim Berners-Lee: world wide web (proposal 1989) = an application that runs on the web to
share information resources à having everything at your fingertips
2. Virtual community (misleading: virtual means not real)
Howard Rheingold: “The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier” (1993)
• could possibly replace any form of real life-communities (except for the physical part), very optimistic
(American way) viewpoint of him
§ e.g. meeting and getting to know people online
• he sees them as very good option for the future (text mainly positive)
§ BUT “panopticon” (prison where prisoners are under surveillance all the time)
• biological metaphor (people have a hunger for community)
• it’s all about doing it yourself
• public sphere idea (Habermas 1967) à "the public sphere as a virtual or imaginary community which
does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space" (Wikipedia)
à a new culture emerged
, Analysing Digital Culture
Notes
• Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) has the potential to change our lives on three different
levels (inter-influential)
§ individual: our thoughts, perceptions, personalities affected by the way we use the medium
and the way it uses us, e.g. a vocabulary emerged from CMC that reflects the way human
personalities are changing in the age of media saturation à sensorial/psychological effect
§ social & community: the level of person-to-person interactions that happen and end up
creating relationships, friendships and communities à CMC allows for many-to-many
communication, which can make it difficult for communities to form à web reassembles
need of community
§ political: relation between government and governed: effectiveness of a government is
influenced by how much governed know about the issues that affect them - with increasing
access to knowledge (mostly by commercial media companies, which could exploit the
demand for this knowledge) à government’s job of governing can become more difficult
à development of public sphere! + the press + cafés
• Stewart Brand: “Whole Earth Catalog” (1968)
§ vision of people together without hierarchy
§ proposed “The Well” (communication system with e.g. forums, one of earliest virtual communities)
§ started a chain of influence, e.g. Steve Jobs
§ from counterculture to cyber culture
à visions not competing, rather complementary – converge in the web 2.0 (information & people)
3. Web 2.0 = notion of the web/internet as a platform, includes user-generated content
• Tim O’Reilly: 1.0 was about publishing à 2.0 is about participating,
connecting, sharing (=virtual community)
§ e.g. Facebook
• Clay Shirky: “The political power of social media. Foreign affairs” (2011)
§ social media can be used to improve society all around the
world + important for world politics
§ reflecting Rheingold’s vision, e.g. protests organized through
social media
§ quite optimistic view of possible future outcomes of the effect
but also very reflective; main (counter)argument:
communication landscape gets denser; network population
gains more access; more chances to engage in public speech
which can result in taking action (p. 29)
- does believe in the revolutionary potential of social media!!
§ instrumental view/vision:
1. short-term goals
2. social media has restricted power – not very effective, using social media goal/tool-
oriented
3. context-oriented
§ environmental view/vision:
1. long-term goals -> revolution
2. generality of social media
3. universal, not only directed to specific scenarios but addresses broader subjects
à social media allow for a public sphere to happen!
à public sphere supports democracy
, Analysing Digital Culture
Notes
§ conservative dilemma: governments are facing a choice à social media increases shared
awareness à leads to communication and cooperation (influencing this development:
propaganda & censorship) or government would have to shut internet down to stop
movements (would make people angry)
à visions not just ideas! – visions are productive, they are being developed by technology based on their ideas
critics:
• Malcolm Gladwell: “Small Change”
social network analysis
§ platforms built around weak ties, “social media activism” is no ‘real’ activism, it’s inefficient
(you don’t need to put in any effort) à cannot provide social change
§ strong ties: incentives are trust, friendship à people are more motivated to join something
if people from their real-life network are joining (especially for high-risk activism) –
connections between different dense networks
à technology is never good nor bad!
à technology is never neutral!
à always a matter of societal influence
week 2 – free & sharing economy
àmaking the business models of the free and sharing economy visible by reading the “small print”
- small print = terms of service
- political economy of the contemporary web
Nicholas A. John: concept of sharing in three distinct but interrelated concepts/spheres:
1. web 2.0 -> consecutive activity is sharing (e.g. links, photos, status updates, …)
2. “sharing economies” of production and consumption
3. intimate interpersonal relationships -> therapeutic ethos includes cultural requirement of sharing our
emotions
à range of different distributive and communicative practices are converging under the metaphor of sharing
e.g. sharing in web 2.0 discursively associated with sharing of emotions
e.g. economies of sharing anchored in type of sharing we do in web 2.0
à values such as notions of equality, mutuality, honesty, openness, empathy, ethic of care
à challenge prevalent perceptions of the boundary between the public and private
definition:
16th century
• dictionary: to share = to cut into parts/divide à act of distribution (contains competition)
o governed by cultural norms
§ e.g. Katriel’s (1987/88) description of sharing among children or hunter-gatherer
societies: constitutive of social relations - “ritualized gesture that functions to
express and regulate social relationships with the peer group” (Katriel, 1987)
• having something in common with someone (concretely or abstractly, doesn’t involve competition)
newer definition:
• act of communication à sharing our feelings and emotions (imparting one’s inner state to others) à
central to formation & maintenance of intimacy, sharing of emotions creates & regulates social ties
o association between sharing and femininity as in contains feminine attributes (e.g. in contrast
to the cut-and-thrust ‘masculine’ capitalist market place) + mother “Literally shares her body
with the fetus and her mother’s milk with the infant” (Belk, 2007)
à today: more horizontal, non-profit-driven, builds communities?
à sharing has become a floating signifier (different meanings)!!!
