15 thoughts on “Week 13 – The New Politics of Knowledge (T2)

  1. Inthaxai Maxly

    The collective intelligence and a civilization towards a method of positive interpretation in Levy’s article, he expressed a very optimistic in term of the collective intelligence and the rule of reality in the society that using the content of cyberspace that he mention that all of us are in the process of thinking within the same networks, which this has always been the case and the cyberspace renders it so evident that it can no longer be ignored. He also did address the responsibility of us that we engage with many facilities. The cyber-democracy that he gave some expression is cyber-democracy equally requires the public resides in the possibility of one planet-wide legal, judicial and governmental system. Not only is one planet-wide cyber-democracy now possible, but it is becoming more and more necessary.

    As the same of the collectivism, Lanier expressed some of the differences of the collective. He gave an example of notion in Wikipedia that commonly Wikipedia provide more detail in some of the importance. And he expressed next on the article about there is a frantic race taking place online to become the most ‘’Meta” site and to be the highest level aggregator, subsuming the identity of all other sites. Thus the information of the site based on the web-based designed assumed that value would flow from people, the ultimately value always came from connecting with real human that the users are directly able to create and remove in the many contents via the web-sites and it was absolute assuming by people and effect to the collective in the directly.

    Seemingly in Carr’s article that he consumed in the deep reading (deep thinking) in sense of himself of reading intension that his expression contributed the criticality and removed our need in the deep reading and also deep thinking. That we know the reading composites is in the taking of adnominal activities. In the particularly of results information via the internet searching like in google that people can easily access the information from many link that all of the information did provide the actually criticality.

  2. Vienna

    I found this weeks readings particularly interesting. Perhaps it is because i am a product of my circumstance, and here in Singapore, much of the citizen’s actions are controlled and regulated but the thought of a free internet scares me. I know it sounds ludicrous but when you do not have freedom and then you have it suddenly thrust upon you, its like a kid in a candy store. In the long run, with educated users of the Internet perhaps full democracy on the net, like Levy suggests is something to aspire towards but I think we are not ready. We have the tool that will eventually get us there which is the Internet but the users need to be educated or even self-policed so that the Internet does not become a mass of crap. Lanier’s suggestion of a ‘blind elitism’ will result in those in power gaining control, but with regulation there is order and structure to the immense amount of information on the Net. For example this blog, it is regulated by the headings put in place by Zat so every week when we want to add our post, we go to our tutorial group and the week for the readings. Had these headings not been in place, the amount of posts would have made it very difficult to sift through.

  3. Sasha Kaur Dhillon

    Week 13 was monumental with its theme of discussing the new politics of knowledge.

    Firstly, Levy provides us with a rather utopian and optimistic view of the potential of the internet. He provides us with a democratic reading of it in that the Internet allows for a certain sense of openness. The example he provides is that of an omnivision which would allow us to view everything that happens on the internet and because we are fully aware of what is happening, we can then engage in greater connectivity and discussion, almost like Habermas’s notion of a public sphere.

    Levy also focuses on the concept of collective intelligence – precisely because there is no one person governing the internet and therefore he introduces the concept of a cyber-democracy. He argues that this is potent in today’s day and age where we are battling pressing issues that span beyond physical geographical boundaries – such as ecological disasters. Therefore collective intelligence that proposes the best solution would be more ideal in such a circumstance.

    However, where Levy thinks collectivity is the savior of mankind ( I mean this with full sarcasm), Lanier opposes his view in an equally extreme fashion. According to Lanier for the most parts, the masses are not competent to come up with strategies – he argues for a sort of elitism in which only a few individuals should be in charge of the “collective masses”, because he believes this to be the most strategic. Lanier is right – I mean it is great to have masses coming up with different perspectives and potential solutions to a virus for instance, but due to the sheer volume of the masses, we do need one governing figure to step out and say “ ok guys, we’re doing this cos I’m in charge and that’s how things are”. Sure, it’s a scary notion to be dominated but c’mon – we won’t get anywhere if the volume of agreements of the masses just surpasses the boundaries for decision-making.

    Carr, Lovink & Keen on the other hand, are all more concerned with the content produced by the Internet and how it is affecting us. Carr talks about the loss in terms of our ability to be critical thinkers – because we now decode information instead of analytically processing it. This to Carr makes us stupid because who cares about Google providing us loads of information when we can’t use it to our benefit?!!?

    Keen is more of mourning the loss of culture on the internet since now anyone can be a producer. He says that the web 2.0 in a sense encourages, promotes and exalts the “Amateurs”. He also annoyingly juxtaposes this with a “Socratic nightmare”. This is highly annoying because he is so elitist. But then again, so were Adorno & Horkheimer and the entire mass that is the culture industry. Just because the masses attain the means to production does not mean that they will be given the equal status of producers that we do in the traditional sense.

    Lastly, Lovink talks about how the Internet is colonizing time – it demands our free space, encroaches on it and encompasses us totally. We are constantly having to submit to it in that whatever we do, we feel a need to project it on the Internet ( twitter and microblogging). What is troubling for Lovink is that this documentation of our activities is akin to doing work – which essentially means that our work and leisure spaces are becoming blurred!!! ( this is really horrific because it just means we’re working 24/7). Lovink also suggests that we’re not being paid to update our profiles or document our lives on the Internet but yet our information is being used by the marketers and culture industry to gain an insight into our consumption needs and pull us back into the exploitative realm of consumer capitalism.

  4. Ernie Effendi

    I find Tim O’Reilly’s “Web 2.0” an interesting read.

    We read earlier on Howard Rheingold. He had a very romanticized idea of the internet, coming form a period where access to the Net was limited to the elites and professional. In today’s society, technology have definitely advanced and become almost ‘normal’. From last week’s readings we learn that technology (new media) is redefining social relations.

    Similarly, technology is redefining culture. With a participatory audience, Web 2.0 blurs the line between authors and audience. From the idea that consumers are passive to active consumers and now consumers are participating in production too. Everyone is a producer now, and that is what Web 2.0 facilitates. I agree that it “personalizes” culture, where “the Web 2.0 revolution is more of ourselves” and there will no longer be an audience. But this would be too sweeping a statement because I feel that though we personalize culture, this culture we get from other people’s culture. People still listen, they need to, in order to produce their own culture. We don’t produce films out of nothing, it is through the films we watch and the videos other users produce. Technology has made us personalize culture through improvisation and remixes.

    Even if everyone is a producer, there is still the elites to control us, to determine what is quality and what isn’t. It’s a dialectic between the masses and elites. We get to participate and decide the cultural trends, and the elites validate and legitimize this quality. Web 2.0 isn’t entirely just audience and masses producing and the loss of the role of elites. It’s is not a revolution where one thing replaces another (i.e. masses replaces the elites in cultural reproduction) but it’s a change, a ‘development’. It’s changing towards a culture where audience have a bigger role in deciding what’s of value but the elites still hold power to legitimize.

    An interesting documentary on democratizing culture and its effect would be “Presspauseplay”. It captures well how media revolution is changing and redefining culture. It questions if availability of a variety of producers (mediocre or not) would produce better art or drown out the value of true talent. It concludes that media and technology is ever-changing and there’s no definite pre-destined outcome of culture. Culture and technology is constantly changing and reproduced in many ways, we just need to keep up and improvise accordingly.

    Link: http://www.presspauseplay.com/

  5. Diyana

    Lovink changes the conversation altogether. The debate between the individual as being sacrosanct or evil, or if internet is happy with collective good or that it calls for an emergence of a bourgeois, doesn’t matter for Lovink. Because, according to him, web 2.0 is not even emancipatory.

    The self is made too available for the web. And this itself is be alienating. We devote our personal time, or our downtime, to the web – liking photos and reblogging etc – and not realizing that this adds value to advertisers who use our web consumption behaviours as data for market research in order to sell more stuff to us. In that sense, internet functions to colonize and extract real-time data from us.

    And the fact that we don’t realize it, perhaps our criticality has been dulled.

  6. Dionne See

    Carr’s article painted a very bad picture of Google which hinders us from conducting deep reading and hence deep thinking. I would claim that Google provides us with accessibility to large pool of information but it does not hinder deep thinking. In the first place, I don’t remember myself being able to read a lot of words and without distractions. And from what Carr is presenting, it seems like in order to be able to make our own interpretations and analogies, we must refrain from using Google because by skimming through texts, we get more information and at the same time these information shapes how our brain would think – which according to him, is bad. Time is money, and hence we need efficiency. Even without the presence of the Internet, if one heads to the library to find books for research, the first thing one would do is to look at the title, then the abstract and then the content page and decide if the book is worthy to read. Isn’t that similar to how Google helps us sort our information. The only added thing is probably advertisements (distractions) and also maybe the function of Control F to allow us to find data easily. Other than that, without Google doesn’t mean we would definitely engage in deep reading. In fact I would argue that because of Google and the interaction with other online citizens, we can engage in more deep thinking with the contribution of other people’s thoughts.

    This can be compared with Keen’s article about the Web 2.0. With Web 2.0, there is a new media capitalism whereby citizens are empowered to produce their own stuff and hence these amateur citizens are welcomed. However, Keen is worried that this Web 2.0 would create such sort of narcissism because the content produced will revolve around oneself. This personalization is exactly what Carr was equally worried about.

    However, I do not agree much that the traditional “elitist” media is being destroyed by digital technologies. Traditional media does not equate that the produced would be more “superior” compared to those that are self-produced by amateurs. That’s why there are talent scouters around. The standard is not only set by the traditional elitist media, the standard can also be set by the online citizens who have access to the media. Even though they are supposedly not experts in the field, for example Music, it does not mean that they cannot differentiate between what’s good to hear and what’s not good to hear. For example American Idol whereby votes are garnered from the public and the judges are not the ones determining who’s in and who’s out.

  7. Sakino Tan

    The internet or web 2.0 bombards us with a lot of information according to Carr and Lanier, which causes many of us to eventually become less critical of what we read. Lanier mentions that we quantify things. This is true but this is the result of capitalism, where time is money.
    According to Levy, we are living in a world of information capitalism. We cannot run away from having a lot of information. However, information that we get from the web maybe sometimes be irrelevant in our lives which may be hard to filter out at times. This results in him saying there is a need for global democracy. Although the internet may get out of hand, the lack of democracy is the reason why society loves to log on. This may also just be an ideal as it is so difficult to democratize something that has no boundary.

    I like how keen said that web 2.0 is a seduction which I agree to some extent because, although web 2.0 is useful in some ways. It is also something that makes us waste time. We can spend hours just browsing on the web looking at silly things that are not beneficial in our lives but maybe just for entertainment. He also mentioned the overabundance of authors. This isn’t a bad thing, from the masses point of view. As someone from the mass, sometimes we want our voices to be heard as well. Thus the web is a platform where everyone can be heard or seen. This creates a sense of identity for the person. Previously, only the elites or someone worthy was acclaimed as a writer or author. Thus the masses are like invisible. Therefore, the web may not be a place for the elites but more of an outlet for ‘commoners’ to gain identity too.

  8. Audrey

    Much debate over the Web 2.0 centre around the politics of how users should express content, and their ideas and thoughts.

    Carr and Lanier criticise the web space for its over-abundance of content and information online, making us powerless to think critically about what we consume on the Internet. To Carr, who argues from psychological research, the Internet has made us all lose focus. He reminisces the time where we could engage in long, meaningful reading, and laments at how we now power-browse. Following Heidegger’s thought of enframing, Carr says that even the way we think – and not just our reading habits, are shaped by the Internet’s interface like multiple tabs, advertisements, and short abstracts of information.

    According to Carr, the web has framed our thinking so much that it has become the “changing metaphor we use to explain ourselves to ourselves”, like the clock. After the invention of the clock, we saw our brains working like “clockwork”. Now, we think our brains “as operating “like computers””.

    This is problematic to Carr because the web is now controlling us, or “reprogramming us”. Our minds are so in tuned to the web’s structure that we want to consume all mediums like web content, hence the recreation of the web’s architecture on traditional media.

    He also sees this as Taylorism, or the Industrialisation of the mind, where only “maximum speed, efficiency, (and) output” is valued. Carr is suggesting that the web has shaped us into results-driven societies, spiraling down as products of advanced capitalism.

    Lanier seems to be on the same page as Carr as he describes how the web shapes our thinking. He argues that that this information brings about a herd mentality, or what he calls, the “hive mind”.

    Similar to the lens of the Frankfurt School, Lanier is disturbed by how content is becoming massified, thus losing its value. He is against the notion of online collectivism, and particularly how users unquestioningly read wikipedia content as the gospel truth. He emphasizes that the voice of the writer is essential to the piece of content, and since wikipedia is anonymous, there is a lack of contextual meaning and responsibility in the content.

    This almost seems like a spin-off from Plato’s argument of the irresponsibility of the written word.

    He problematises “meta” sites – sites that subsume other sites, or Internet search engines. The excessive layering on the web has resulted in the individual’s voice to be drowned out. Yet, Lanier exhorts MySpace for its celebration of individuality and person-to-person connection. Thus, his view of the web shadows Ardono and Hockheimer’s view of mass culture, where the individual is thought to be creative and intelligent, but loses his value when he becomes part of a collective (without dissent).

    Yet, Levy paints an ideal picture of the web when collectives are formed, suggesting that the web is able to produce an almost Harbemasian public sphere. His rhetoric eerily describes how the web can become somewhat like God, which is omnipresent, and able to connect all networks, and processes into one system.

    Unlike Lanier, who talks about collective stupidity, Levy dreams of a collective intelligence, and envisions world order in what he calls “cyber-democracy”. He introduces the paradoxical notion that information capitalism is like communism.

    Keen, who sees the web as “seducing” us, feels that it shapes us into becoming narcissists, as everything becomes personalized. We become more inward looking, instead of being more aware of what’s around us. The web will be overflowing with content creators – average joes who exhibit their mediocre writing/filming/music abilities, laments Keen.

    Lovink, aware of these different debates, goes one step further to expose the powers shaping the different architectures of the web.

    Whether we are becoming stupider because of Google, or too uncritical of the chunks of information that we read, or too individualistic because we can all be celebrities on the Internet, what is the Internet really doing to all of us?

    Because the Internet invades into, or “colonises” our real-time, “the web has turned into an ephemeral environment that we carry with us, on our skin,” says Lovink. Technology is merging into a singularity (Levy). Technology demands real-time from its users: tweet, post, comment, share.

    “What are you doing?”
    “What’s on your mind?”

    Lovink says technology beckons us to become narcissists (Keen). This is how technology enframes us to live and think.

    “Our profiles remain cold and unfinished if we do not expose at least some aspects of our private lives.”
    To Lovink, McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” is no longer radical enough to describe the web.

    “The medium is the mind.”

  9. Clarinda Ong

    Andrew Keen is concerned about how people are being seduced into thinking that we are contributing to the expert opinions within the online sphere as we are all means of production of information and ideas. His article revolves around a question of ‘elitism’, whether a certain groups of people are more favored by their perceived ‘superior’ position with regards to their intelligence, social class status or financial capitals. There is an underlying assumption that in the past, people who can access the Internet are the elite talents with the symbolic capital to provide substantial amount of professional knowledge and skills on the Internet platform (linking this to Rheingold’s article where it makes us think of the people with the ‘right’ connections to get these professional knowledge and resources to post up on the internet platforms).

    Keen also pointed out that Web 2.0 and democratized media is undermining our culture! Democratization of media actually bombards us with more information, more views and opinions, and all of these are in raw forms. This made it harder to differentiate informed expertise and amateurish writings online and this is bad for us. He has similar views with Jaron Lanier and Nicholas Carr.

    In Carr’s article, he analyzes how people have changed due to the increasing reliance on the internet for information. His focus is that human mind is now working in a way that is impetuous and indefinite. It is interesting to me that he is able to compare the difference between the overall attention span on reading in the past and in the present. There is an analogy of a “mechanical clock” that influences the decision/ actions made by individuals. For instance, people would choose to speed-read or scanning through the abstracts as they need to ‘obey’ the clock. As the famous saying goes, “Time is money”. Using this logic, people tend to think of more efficient way of getting the task done, rather than the focusing on the importance of the process/ journey and the knowledge to be acquired.

    Jaron Lanier, like Levy, agrees there is a formation of collective intelligence on the Internet platform. Lanier suggested that for a collective to work, they have to be managed, if not the collective will be ‘dumb’ and disorganized. However, a managed collective will bring about meritocracy and elitism. It is very applicable using Dr. Darwin’s the concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ – where only the best is allowed to have autonomy and control of the internet sphere, of what can or cannot be posted and determining what has value and meaning to the other recipients. Although it is a suggestion of making the Internet sphere a better informed platform, Lanier did not further explain the implications that might be incurred due to institutionalized structure of a managed collective. It is also hard to appoint who has the rights to be in control.

    On a side note, I think Lanier has a blur vision of how Wikipedia works when he talks about “Digital Maoism” – but I reckon that it is because Wikipedia was started in 2001 and he wrote the article in 2006, the social environment of this platform is rather different from what it is today. Hence, it is important to note not to criticize the irrelevance of the term he used as it may be presumed at that point in time by the author.

  10. Stanley Wong

    This week’s readings revolve around the debate of individualism vs. collectivism within the context of the Internet.

    Levy presents a utopian view of collective intelligence, where he describes the opportunities and possibilities that it brings. For it to happen though, three conditions need to be present; democracy, informational capitalism, and responsibility. Democracy refers to the sense of openness, a sense of the formation of a collective good. At the same time, he visualises the internet as a public space for discussion, which is similar to Habermas’ conception of the public sphere. He also envisions a form of governance (similar to the United Nations) to facilitate such openness and discussion. Informational capital refers to technological production of goods, like intellectual property. Only this time, there is no such thing as “property”; everything is a free good.

    On the other hand, Lanier seems to be critiquing Levy’s conception of the collective. It seems that he is against the idea of an aggregrate. For instance, Google search results are automated, based on clicks, visits, and links, which are not determined by humans, but by algorithms. Similarly, his disdain for Wikipedia stems from the fact that it can be edited by anyone, reducing any value it has. His position is similar to the Frankfurt school, where its academics look down upon the mass culture, and think that “high culture” are expressions of creativity. At the same time, he argues that the individual will be subsumed within the mass, where any expressions of creativity or intellect is drowned and replaced by the popular.

    Lovink focuses on time and Web 2.0. He talks about the taylorisation of the mind. If Taylorism refers to quantification of work processes, where output is maximised within a fixed time period; within the context of the mind and the Internet, we will be attuned to sifting and maximising the number of things read within a fixed time. The term can also apply to corporations. In the process of maximising the things read, we are also maximising the clicks made, hence leaving a cookie trail. This is beneficial for the corporations, who uses trail to generate consumer behavior and create targeted ads. As such, in the process, we are inadvertently “working” for the coroprations to help them in their advertising strategies.

    Keen approches collectivism from another perspective. In the age of Web 2.0, everyone is a content producer, where they possess the means of production. Indeed, it’s not difficult to be a musician or digital artist, where your works are able to reach the masses quickly. However, this subsumes “true” works: those that are created by persons of authority and of expertise, where their works would be lost in a sea of amateurish production. This is similar to Lanier’s argument, where the power of the collective overpowers the individual. At the same time, there is this cult of narcisscism. Linking to boyd’s argument, if producing content online involves some form of self expression; then content would be orientated around “us”, what we do, what to do to get noticed, etc.

    In the age of media and Web 2.0, the collective certainly presents lots of opportunity for everyday people to express themselves. However, what of the “expert”? Are their works drowned? Does their judgement on the works of the “everyday people” render theirs inauthentic? I am inclined to argue against this. However, I do agree that there is a cult of narcissicism going on. Be it vlogs, blogs, or anything, people are trying to stand out and be noticed among the sea of amateurism. Indeed, we should think about how the Internet changes how we “do” everyday life and how we are being surveilled.

  11. Cheryl Chern

    Levy talks about the greater connectivity that exists with the Internet, where everyone is in the process of thinking in the same network. Levy claims that we are approaching the dawn of a new civilization that aims to perfect collective human intelligence and the collective could be liberating for society. Firstly, with cyber-democracy, there will be transparency and the semblance of a global system of governance that would support creativity. Secondly, information capitalism would ensure that information and ideas are not held to be the exclusive property of anybody in particular. It would also ensure that the source of wealth is the intelligence and collective creativity of groups of humans where it would be profitable to invest in knowledge and honor. Also, there will be common ownership of network and information; as such goods under information capitalism cannot be appropriated.

    Lanier however does not agree with the notion of collectivity. He illustrates his point with Wikipedia. He believes that there is a problem with the way Wikipedia has been used widely, and he believes that this is all part of the appeal of online collectivism. Lanier believes that even though Wikipedia can be accurate, it does not have an expression of personality that he thinks is important but lacking. Online collective has negative consequences, one of which is the hindering of the development of the users personality and identity.

    These readings, together with the rest of the readings for the week, seek to question the ways in which the contemporary forms of media has political, social and cultural effects on society.

  12. Kerri Heng Yi Ping

    KEEN: Web 2.0

    My favourite reading this week, Web 2.0, talks about how increased participation in the Internet actually points to “personalisation” and “narcissism”. The sociological buzzwords “empowering social media”, “democratising”, “smash elitism” and “authentic community” promise an online world with lots of freedom of expression and lots of creative indie-produced work. I really like how Keen compares traditional media to the “exploitative bourgeoise” and new online media heroes to the “proletariat”. It’s almost as if Web 2.0 is seen as the great revolution of mankind, where the controlling forces of mass media will be eradicated.

    However, is this truly the case? As Keen mentioned, the “fantasy in self-realisation” is the idealistic but improbable belief that we’ll be able to “write in the morning, direct movies in the afternoon and make music in the evening”. Sure, there are talents who can succeed on their own, but how do they ultimately survive? Not that culture industries subsume all the independent artists, but that sometimes, we do need the cultural, commercial and economic capital to produce great media work. Even Taylor Swift,who supposedly started a Youtube channel of her own music, is now backed by a large, prominent record company in the USA.

    “Not writing as rebellion” sounds familiar, as I recall a few ‘deviant’ friends who refused to set up Facebook and Twitter accounts, in a bid to resist what they see as the consumption of mass culture. At the end of the day, their friends have created social media accounts for them, so as to communicate and connect better. It is rare to find someone in our digital native generation who does not blog, Tweet or Facebook.

    Keen talks about “unintended consequences”, reminding us that the dot.com bubble burst and people lost a lot of money in the new millennium. For Web 2.0, he foresaw that “everyone is an author, while there is no longer any audience”. Everyone can write a weblog, everyone can engage in citizen journalism and everyone can express themselves and create content in “the great seduction of citizen media”. However, I observe that we may not have made these large steps towards democratisation today. Take Singapore’s STOMP, for instance, which serves as our platform for trigger-happy citizen journalists. It has now fallen into a muck of embarrassing, discriminatory posts, and it could just a platform for online naming, shaming and hating. People are currently spreading an online petition to shut STOMP down. STOMP doesn’t seem to uphold the democratising ideal of empowering civil action online.

    A Web 2.0 where “everyone is an author” may reek of “narcissism” where everyone just writes, Tweets, blogs about himself and his photos online. Maybe it’s a lot of “personalisation” and Presentation of Self at work, but little social action that seeks civil change. (Although it’s nice to note that the petition to close STOMP could be seen as a social effort among Singaporeans to ignite change. However, if STOMP closes down, will another [better] citizen journalism site emerge? Will this new site, if it appears, be co-opted under a government-linked corporation? Or will it be a standalone site for responsible and verified bottom-up news reports?)

    LEVY: Collective Intelligence

    Levy talks about collective intelligence, omni-vision online, democracy and the intellectual climate of the near future, where democracy can take place online in a faster, more efficient way.

    The structure of collective intelligence consists of power at the base, mobile wealth in the middle and the free-play of symbols in the experience of life.

    The power-base, cyber democracy, may include online voting (it’s currently carried out in government housing policy-making in Singapore today, where citizens can go online to vote for housing project changes) –– which can be more “transparent” and “accessible night and day”. Levy talks about the public expressing itself “more directly and frequently online”. For the aim of universal peace, he suggests there be ONE planet-wide cyber democracy, where democratic laws are passed by collective intelligence. However I find this aim to be unrealistic, as with our current territorial divides between different countries and government systems, how can it be that all countries will agree on a single planet-wide cyber democracy? Cyber laws are bound to differ in various countries, according to their respective legal statutes. Also, can “human aggression” or violence really be “sublimated into economic competition”? Can “murder” ever be outlawed in a peaceful, world-wide government? Even if murder were outlawed, people may still commit murder. Peace and zero murders under one worldwide government seems really impossible to me.

    The middle layer, the mobile wealth, is embedded in the “Theory of Information Capitalism”. Information capitalism may resemble communism in these three aspects: Info is not the exclusive property of anyone, collective intelligence and the common ownership of the means of production. As such, in a world where information capitalism hold sway, physical wars won’t be fought, instead, cyber wars will be fought. Collective intelligence promises free info and knowledge for all, including freeware, software, etc. But I wonder about how anyone’s going to generate the economic capital for information capitalism, seeing as collective intelligence promises a free online world. Common ownership of the means of online production harks back to Keen’s Web 2.0,where everyone can be a media content creator. Although the type and quality of content that will be created remains to be seen or judged.

    The free-play of symbols in life reminds me of how we can now create and market our own e-books and Apple Store apps! 🙂 The freedom to produce and share meaning is now available to us, thanks to cyberspace. In this way, cyber space points to democracy as it encourages freedom of expression. Cyberspace is indeed the new evolution of language and power, where the masses now have a voice. Our minds will also be interconnected, as we are able to do more things in a “hyper-body”. Advances can be made in science, food, healthcare, media, etc, in a globalised world connected by Cyberspace (think ecological and climate change movements, for instance).

    Language generates and produces meaning, and Cyberspace is the re-writing of a revolutionary form of language, as discussed above. We’ve gone from writing to printing to traditional media to new media (cyberspace). However, it is crucial to note that Cyberspace, or Web 2.0, may not truly open the door to ultimate utopia and freedom, as noted in Keen’s “unintended consequences”.

    CARR: Is Google Making us Stupid?

    Carr’s reading makes me think about how I’ve been unable to concentrate on reading long passages and novels, since the start of secondary school. From being used to immersing in long pieces of text, my mind now wanders and hops from line to line, page to page. Like what Carr says, I merely skim and scan, I no longer read closely.

    Is Google and automated algorithms online really making us stupid? Are our cognitive skills chipped day by day, as we used the Internet? Carr warns us about McLuhan’s words: “media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” The way we think and behave has changed considerably since the boom of Web 2.0 and social media. I find myself fidgety and distracted whenever I sit down and try to immerse myself in a long print reading. I’ve to literally ‘force’ myself to read, I can’t just immerse into the text and forget the world. More often than not, the world calls out to me via email, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram notifications on my mobile phone.

    Could we have really lost the ability to make mental connections in deep reading? Perhaps we have. However, I would argue that there are cognitive benefits to the insane page-hopping and app-switching that we do online. Perhaps we can ‘multi-task’ better today, even though our minds may flit from page to page. We’re now trained to see ‘everything in a window’ at once, we can juggle various open apps and tabs, we know how to juggle social media, work, emails, study in one go. With Google’s automated (algorithm-based) search, we learn newer and faster ways of doing research. What’s the point of spending hours in a physical library looking for a single piece of work, when we can conjure up lists of PDFs in the NTU online database? Instead, we learn new skills for search, like the use of search tools and the terms (AND/OR/NOT) online.

    The Internet today is truly an “immeasurably powerful computing system” today, and it subsumes almost all the technologies we use. Our smartphones can be our map, clock, timer, printer, research tool, leisure games, web search, calculator, calorie-counter, phone, text messaged, radio, TV and so much more.

    But does this mean an over reliance on the web, such that if the web malfunctions or breaks down, we lose all over ‘intelligence’? “As we rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence”.

    LOVINK: The colonisation of real-time and other trends in Web 2.0

    Lovink talks about how real-time is now colonised and exploited online today, with instant communication and to-the-second updates and high speed, large volume online economic transactions. We now exploit milli-seconds, something that couldn’t have been done before. (For instance, we used to complete projects on several windows, a window for MSWORD, a window for MSN and a window to email each other our files for collaboration. However, we now have Google Drive, where edits, transfers, messaging and communication can be done on one platform –– a simple Google document with an in-built instant messenger does the trick. Milliseconds are indeed constantly exploited, we used to send files within minutes online, but now we just edit our files together instantaneously on one Google Doc, shared between many people.)

    We “speed up and slow down simultaneously” online today, and balance work and leisure. For instance, we may be busy typing emails and also leisurely scrolling through Facebook at work, at the same time.

    The well-behaved Netizen who is friendly and “moderates” heated debates no longer exists today. This type of well-behaved and civil Netizen was prevalent in the 1980s, when online communities first started among the while, upper-middle classes, according to Howard Rheingold. Today, “identity theft”, “cyberbullying”, “massification”, cyber crime and discrimination are free-flowing online. There is also the rash comment culture online today, where we can voice our thoughts permanently online for all to see, immediately.

    Lovink reminds us that the Internet is an “indifferent bystander” –– it is simply a medium for civil action, it doesn’t drive or create or produce civil/social action on its own. For instance, university students involved in the Syrian crisis reportedly used social media to organise their resistance, in this case, social media was a medium to connect and resist, but social media itself is always just a channel for action.

    LANIER: Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism

    Lanier presents a critique of the Wikipedia and online collectivism, which can be misguided, unchecked, unreliable, yet used as an important source for many in the world.

    He complains about the “hive mind” and how it just programmed by algorithms. The hive mind, or the online collective, is sometimes just aggregate ideas in a collective. For instance, Lanier cites Google News as an outpouring of news aggravated together in one page, on Google. Google did not write that news, instead, it clumpiest together a variety of news from different news sites. There could be a true loss of value and creative work/expression when the Internet is constantly collectivised.

    However, I believe that individual creative work and the work of media artists can still hold their own in the wave of online collectivism. No matter how many times content gets aggregated onto various sites online, we still need people to write and create the material. For instance, we can have an aggregate or collection of blogs about other blogs, but at the end of the day, we still need talent to write these blogs individually. Or like a photograph being shared many times on aggregate sites doesn’t diminish the value of the photograph itself ––instead. the skill and talent of the photographer gets multiplied and shared across many online platforms.

    I agree with how “it’s safer to be the aggregator of the collective” where we can use material without being responsible for it. Many sites use it for marketing, advertising and profile-gathering purposes. Like how there are social media aggregators online that track Facebook profiles (for indiv/corporate snooping and research) and online web trackers that compile statistics about websites, these aggregators of the collective play a huge role in shaping the online marketing/advertising industry today.

    At the end of the day, what makes the market work is the “marriage of collective and individual intelligence”. We cannot do away with either of them. The collective aggregates, sorts, collects and makes rational sense of data, while individual intelligence spurs creativity and the production of new ideas.

  13. Sherilyn Tan

    Levy had a somewhat overly optimistic view of collective imagination. He argued that the collective imagination, that forms via cyberspace and the virtual network could potentially lead to democracy and freedom of all. He anticipated the many liberating possibilities that the collective could bring about. Firstly, power-sharing arising from cyber-democracy has the potential to enable a one world-wide government to form, with implementation of laws by the collective imagination, could establish world peace. However, he doesn’t address who gets to hold power and reign. Is equal distribution of resources really possible, what about the less developed countries, who may lack basic access to resources, much less the Internet and the notion of the collective. Secondly, Levy argued that Information Capitalism would lead to prosperity and productivity. No single individual would hold the sole exclusivity to information and ideas. There would be common ownership of means and production. There would also be freedom of expression and further development of the arts, which is transmitted digitally. Cyberspace would represent a new evolution of language. It enables collectivism and new possibilities and imaginations. 

    On the other hand, Lanier seemed to have a different take on the notion of the collective. He discussed how meta-aggregator websites like Wikipedia is given too much importance. It eliminates authorship, may be taken out of the original context and is contributed to by anonymous users. Thus the information may be fragmented and the ability of users to add to or remove any information, means that no one is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the accuracy of the information. Yet people still assume that the collective is infallible where the common opinions are considered the noteworthy ones and nuances are not taken into account. Search engines like Google en up making more profits than the actual contributors/authors of the knowledge and information that Google extracts and presents. 

    Carr posited that search engines like Google actually dulls our criticality. It removes our need for deep reading and hence, deep thinking, contemplation and reflection as well. Information is easily accessible and searchability enables people to get many links and hyperlinks immediately. This convenience results in many, I’m sure, who have multiple tabs open on their browser and it is common to quickly scan through headlines and abstracts, without the need to read the entire article. Concentration ability decreases and we remain constantly distracted. This, Carr argued, reduces one’s cognitive ability, resulting in users becoming “mere decoders of information”, instead of actively processing it and forming own opinions and reflections. Carr pony red out that even old media has to adapt to new media rules; e.g. newspapers, tv etc summarise and present information in brief. 

  14. Evon Thung

    This week’s readings seem to concentrate on the consequences internet has on us. In Carr’s reading, he remarked that as we relied on computers to mediate our understanding of world, our own intelligence actually flattens into artificial intelligence. However, it is not that we are becoming stupid because of Google, it is the constant reliance on result search and the short and sweet abstracts available on the web that is making us hard to do deep reading or thinking. Rather than digging hard for that piece of information or knowledge, that information or knowledge can be accessed effortlessly with a click.
    Carr’s reading in my opinion really brought up a real consequence of the internet on us. We now are so used to multi-tasking that it is hard for us to concentrate or process a piece of lengthy article without any pauses or breaks to check on our mobile devices. Therefore, we are used to the mechanical thinking and processing of information that reprogram us to want things in a fast and efficient way, best with a click and we can do all our activities. Such is a real phenomenon where we can now shop, read, and watch online with just a click and the access to internet.
    In Keen and Lovink’s reading, they question the development of technology and also the consequences of internet. Web 2.0 has three distinguishing features that brought about three consequences. The three distinguishing features are “it is easy to use, it facilitates social elements and users can upload their own content in whatever form” which brought about personalization where individuals can customise their own contents based on their needs and preferences. Internet also brought about problems previously not around such as the dissemination of extreme opinions that brought about cyber-bullying and excessive behaviours such as cyber-stalking. Because of those features, there are many contents on the web and without one mainstream media, Keen is worried that we will lose memory of things learnt, read and experienced since there are so many versions of a single subject.
    As for Lanier, he also has the same concern as Keen as he is afraid of the loss of individuality, devaluation of unique, responsible engaged individual as core element of a system of information and knowledge. He criticises Wikipedia and argued that collective intelligence may not always be better. Even though Wikipedia is a resourceful avenue for students to do research, Wikipedia is not accepted as a reputable academic source because of its anonymity and it lacks authenticity since its contents are compiled from various authors.
    Therefore, it could be said that this week’s authors have a common aim in mind which is to question our use of the internet and reconsider the implications internet has on us.

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