I’ll start with my opinion on whether or not the effects of the Internet are or will be positive or negative. I think with any other new medium the first response is to say there will be negative effects on people or culture. The mass media society theorists would have us believe that television was/is evil and will send us all screaming to the pits of hell. They make this assumption that all people watching television are the same and so thee the effects will be the same. This, of course, is not true. Every one watching television has different values, attitudes and beliefs. So the theory falls short when in predicting that television will turn us into violent zombies, not every one turns violent after watching violence on television, just the crazy ones. Back to the Internet, it certainly has the potential to have negative aspects, however, that same potential is there to have positive aspects. For the most part the Internet’s potential to have positive aspects on culture and society is greater than any negative potential. Like television, the crazies will always find ways to exploit the positive potential. And as for the overall negative or positive effects for the Internet, it may still be too early to tell. I think the findings in the Microscope and the Moving Target: The Challenge of Applying Content Analysis to the World Wide Web may support this. The article suggests that some of the researchers may have not built enough rigors into their research designs in their haste to get results from a new medium. Is that possibly because the medium of the Internet is still too new?
The Virtual Community by Rheingold was a very good example of how the Internet has/is effecting everyday life. His stories of the sense of community that developed between those involved in the WELL may have changed my outlook towards the online communities a bit. He talks about the secret door that opened into the cast of characters where he became not only audience to others but performer and scriptwriter as well. He puts a little perspective on the WELL as a ecosystem of subcultures, unlike those that sit behind the screen involved in MUDs for eighty hours a week. So for him and those that participate in these ecosystems find an extension of interpersonal relationships with others participating. As stated above, Rheingold says virtual communities has the potential to bring certain leverages to ordinary citizens at a relatively low cost: social leverage, political leverage and commercial leverage. Used the right way these ordinary citizens can gain tremendous amounts of positive leverages from the Internet. And to solidify my point even more, in Chapter 1 Rheingold writes: “And those of us who do find communion in cyberspace might do well to pay attention to the way the medium we love can be abused.” I also liked his analogy of the WELLs ability to do an old-fashioned barn raising within the virtual community.
The Introduction: “Worship at the Altar of Convergence” was intriguing. I had totally forgotten about the “Bert is Evil” fiasco. And it is without a doubt the greatest example of convergence ever told. If you were trying to describe convergence with a story you could not make up a better one. And another example of how the Internet has effected everyday life. Kid sits in his bedroom in his underwear doing a little photoshopping, posts it to his website, bing bang boom he’s a household name. It's best if you use your best Forrest Gump voice for that last part. All made possible by 1s and 0s and the ease of anyone to manipulate these digital images with amature grade computer software. Albeit a funny example that may have been a negative aspect of convergence, But the Rodney King beating may have been a positive example of convergence. As talked about in the article, the collective intelligence can be seen as an alternative of media power and we are learning how to better use that power through our day-to-day interactions with it. The article talks about the change of toms to bytes and how it was poised to change everything, but actually changed nothing. Maybe enhanced would be a better choice of words.
Smart Mobs: The Power of the Mobile Many, excellent article on the Internet’s ability to interact with our everyday lives, interpersonal relationships, community involvement and democracy all-in-one. The ability to mobilize over a million people in four days by text messaging is quite amazing. These smart mobs or “netwars” as well have the potential to present themselves in positive and/or negative forms. For instance, those that beleive networks as being the newest major social organizational form, after tribes, hierarchies and markets, that can be powerful. The section of the Upoc technology was intriguing, but seemed it would become very invasive into my everyday life. Same is true with the mobile ad hoc social networks. Too much potential for a big brother life style seems to me.
With The Culture of the Internet article the one thing that stood out was the fact that origins of the on-line communities were close relationship to the countercultural movements and alternative ways of life that emerged in the aftermath of the ‘60s. In fact, that is where the WELL that Rheingold talks about got it’s start. Would the effects the Internet has on our daily lives with virtual communities and the like have the same effects if they had originated in Chicago or New York? Would the communal atmosphere be any different?
The Look of the Web chapter was a good look at how the web looks the way it looks. Mediated layers, like an onion that has shaped the look of the web using composites of various past media sources, like magazines, newspapers and television. One wonders if the look of the web would be any different if it had been developed as a commercial medium first, as opposed to being developed and used within the academic world first. The chapter talks about the use of the medium around the small environment of these research cultures and early adapter and users in regards to the hypertext and hyperlink developments. And how in 1990 and onwards the rapid convergence of the aesthetics of desktop graphic user interFaces and the Internet. Isn’t that about the same time the Internet was moving into a more mainstream use?
All of the Mac-off readings were hilarious. I own a Mac and until I bought it I thought it was just a brand name for a computer, yes a computer, I had no idea there was a difference between a computer (PC) and a Mac. So I always have to laugh when people say to me, “Oh, you’re a Mac user.” Like I should know the secret handshake and knew how to knock on the door the right way to gain entry. But I do love Mac, for what it’s worth.
Please deduct the appropriate points for my not engaging the CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere article. I don’t think I could engage that article if my hair was on fire. I guess that’s kind of engaging. I did however enjoy the quote by David Byrne at the beginning of the article, “I am an advertisement for a version of myself.” During a show at the Backyard, between songs Byrne spoke about a Talking Heads song that mentioned a brand and was approached by the company to use the song as an endorsement, the Talking Heads declined the offer. So he then writes a song for the soul purpose of getting endorsement money and was then approached by no one.
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