CMN317 - Module 2

Hi there.

Welcome back to part two.

Eso. Where were we?

We were looking at informational capitalism.

Um, on dhe.

Really? If you kind of work through a lot of

the of the writing on informational capitalism, a lot of

the the thinkers have been working on this concept.

U m you can kind of boil down.

Ah, lot of what they argue are the most important

characteristics off informational capitalism.

It's these two, these two big ideas of commodification on

dhe control.

Commodification means turning informational goods into an economic asset.

U m So it's not enough to kind of to

make a film, you have to turn it into a

une economic commodity, something that could be traded, something that

could generate profit on dhe to do so.

You You know, movie studios used the mechanisms off copyright

to be able to control how that commodity circulate and

to control how they kind of monetize that, Um, if

we also think about platform web platforms, we think about

social networks.

Our personal behavior is commodified by them.

Our online behavior is turned into data, which is then,

you know, sliced and diced and then sold to advertisers

in order to be able to micro target us with

personalized advertisement.

So our personal information is turned into a commodity on

dhe that's traded amongst in the very opaque way that

we did you know isn't visible.

Tow us on dhe the social networks in orderto to

enable this process toe happen.

They control the the way that we interact with content

on the way What information content were exposed?

Thio eso You have these kind of twin on mutually

constitutive processes off commodification and control.

Um so you know, these two big ideas information society

in one hand, informational capitalism on the other, they provide

kind of ah useful sort of set of bookends to

think about information.

Kind of ah, utopian sort of ideal.

As I said, it has its origins in accounts from

sort of the 19 seventies.

A ZX we discussed on Tuesday in our first session

is kind of falling out of favor.

It's not fashionable term anymore, but the legacy off it,

the intellectual legacy off it is very much identifiable now.

And you can kind of you can see that in,

uh in many sort of narratives that propagated about social

networks like Facebook's idea of the global community.

And again, this is something we're going to be encountering

a lot over the next few weeks.

And then, on the other hand, you've got, you know,

informational capitalism.

Is this sort of this theory this kind of analytical

framework for understanding where we are right now in the

significance of information on DDE, You know, that encourages us

to really kind of look a TTE Um, look at

and think about power on dhe, inequality on exploitation and

resistance. Um, in the way that you know, in the

way that we encounter and use information.

Mm. So that's that's kind of a little sort of

introduction into how we can think about information.

Our other sort of twin pillar in this course, of

course, is technology.

So let Z let's head over to that side of

the present, shall we?

Eso technology, Um, you know it like information it.

It's sort of enjoys a privileged place in society.

You know, it's it's a It's a big and weighty

concept on dhe.

This isn't something new, you know.

Although technology seems to be kind of, you know, it

Z importance in our society seems to be growing Anak

celebrated way Now, technology has always held a really important

place in human affairs.

And that kind of that dates back as far as

the Enlightenment on DTH e idea that communication was synonymous

with spreading the word of God on communication used to

be the same as transportation.

You know, if you could move goods, you could kind

of move people.

And you could you could you m share the word

of God u m on dhe.

You know, we moved beyond just transportation to communication technologies

like the telegraph, which were able to kind of spread

spread, you know, the potentially the word of God over

huge distances.

Ah, nde.

The Enlightenment was based on this idea of linear social

progress and the real faith in technological innovation.

Eso that helps to explain why technology has U M

has historically been imbued with significance that it has on.

Finally, it suits capitalism.

Capitalist interests very well, toe have this kind of compelling

tale of technology as a meaningful improvement to our lives

rather than just some kind of frivolous luxury.

I mean, returning to the idea of the or the

concept of the electric telegraph.

Um, it became a means to transmit the word of

God, as I said, and also to, you know, to

homogenize religious belief across, you know, time and space.

Um, on this is something that a guy called James

Carey has a sort of heavyweight in communication theory.

Hey, described communication technologies that is containing the profound possibility

of moral improvement on his ideas have been built upon

by by lots of other thinkers have argued that, you

know, as religion, as the importance of religion has diminished

in our social affairs, technology has kind of taken its

mantle that you know, what we used Thio, Our idea

of the sublime used to be represented by God and

the divine on now, technology has has sort of taken

taken the place of the divine Ah, nde.

You know, particularly in America, technological achievements sort of came

to be seen as part of the, you know, the

sort of, um, national sense or sort of national destiny,

you know, sort of public pride in America was based

on its technological achievements.

On Dhe, there's a a great Canadian theorist.

His name is Vincent Moscow.

He's done a lot to kind of try and figure

out in a particularly in a contemporary setting, why we

invest so much sort of faith in new technology On

in this great book called The Digital Sublime.

You know, he describes how pretty much every every new

communication technology going from the Electric Telegraph, which I mentioned

just a few minutes ago through electrification through broadcasting.

Um, every one of these inventions has been accompanied by

these by these really bold claims that you know this.

This heralds the end of geography, the end of the

constraints of geography.

It heralds the end of divisive politics.

We're all gonna come together, as you know, is a

brotherhood of man on dhe.

Moscow says that, you know, this is kind of based

on too big, Two big reasons.

One is that we intuitively a like the idea that

technology is it gives us a really simple path forward.

You know, we can say, you know, it's going to

allow us to transcend our current difficulty.

That's a really kind of simple narrative, one that we

like to grasp onto and ah, nde on also that,

you know, it gives us in lieu of in view

of the divine.

It kind of provide some sort of moral meaning to

our lives.

The technology kind of allows us to transcend the banality

of where we are to kind of imagine a bold

new future.

Andi Internet is a is a great case study in

in these kinds of narratives, you know, when When the

Internet was first popularized in the 19 nineties, it was

claimed that it would revel, revolutionize education.

You know, we'd all have access to the world's information

at our fingertips, and we'd all kind of be become

experts on ancient Egypt or, you know, classical music or,

you know, whatever are whatever our interest might be.

You know, we could you know, we could become expert

in that because the barriers to information have been demolished,

we could reinvent participatory democracy.

You know, we weren't now going to be constrained by

having a member of Parliament who we vote for every

four years.

Instead, everyone's voices could be heard.

We could, you know, we could have a meaning meaningful

e participatory democracy on DWI wouldn't be bound by old

sort of prejudices and old on old set, you know,

social identification is based on class and race and gender.

Instead, we kind of with, you know, embrace our common

humanity. There are divisions would be, you know, knocked down.

Um, you know, these were really bold claims a little

that we would, you know, everyone would be working from

home. That way, we could all kind of retreat to

sort of a natural.

It'll and, you know, just work, work using the internet.

I mean, that's kind of, you know, in the last

six months, that has come to pass for a lot

of people, but it took a long time to get

there. You m So those were some of the utopian

narratives that the digital sublime that and that, you know,

accompanied the right of the emergence of the Internet is

a mass medium.

But it is also the subject of dystopian narratives.

You know that these these discourses born of fear of

kind of a moral panic people, people said at the

same time that the Internet would, you know, revolutionized education

and democracy.

At the same time, people were saying that you know,

it would erode our privacy that it would spread misinformation.

All those actually those Those two claims of have really

been born out in the last few years that that

it would, you know, be responsible for guns and drugs

and terrorism and pornography or, you know, well circulating freely

enough society that these the so called Four Horsemen of

the Info Apocalypse is there informally known.

In fact, the first legislation that was really considered focused

on the Internet was born of this fear of porn,

the Communications Decency Act in in the United States in

the mid nineties.

Um, on these simplistic narratives, whether they're kind of on

the utopian side, whether on the dystopian, whether whether they're

imagining kind of, ah, a bold and positive new future,

or whether they're kind of wringing their hands and saying,

You know, this, this new technology is going to be

our downfall.

Really? There premised on this idea again, one I mentioned

in our class on Tuesday of technological determinism on dhe.

Whether they're on which poll there on whether it's kind

of utopian or dystopian, any technologically deterministic argument, what it

does is it reduces really complex phenomena to a really

simple tale, one of how a new technology, whether it's

you know, in information, communication technology or another one.

How it's going to dramatically change our world.

Ah, nde.

It represents the single cause for a really messy social

phenomenon. And it discounts many other you know, really important

reasons that socially and culturally embedded, historically embedded on deduce

is everything to just the form that technology takes.

And it's compelling tale.

You know, it's it's appealing to us and the reason

technologically determinist ideas propagate.

Why they're why they're enduring because they're so simple.

Onda also because they have this sort of moral overtone

that appeals to people.

Either they kind of they promise this.

You know, this idea of transcendence that we can kind

of transcend where we are and imagine something better or

that, you know they appeal.

Toa are kind of really base instincts of fear and

prejudice on DSO.

In that sense, they kind of represent a a sort

of morally compelling idea.

On dhe, they overlook the any any technologically determinist argument.

It overlooks the social fabric in which the technology is

embedded on dhe, the complex kind of weave the complex

give and take that occurs between tools, people, individuals and

events. Um, but then, if we you know if we

swing the pendulum much like way did earlier between information

society and informational capitalism.

If we kind of swing the pendulum to the other

analytical extreme, we get to Social Constructivism.

Um and this is three idea.

Bring up here things is the idea.

Eso got determinism there.

Constructivism kind of the other the opposite pole.

The idea that a technology could be or is neutral

effectively. Andrea Lee.

It's only imbued with meaning purpose on dhe consequence through

use by individual users like you and me on dhe.

How we interpret these technologies in a social context, Our

recording them it's about to hit, so join me again.

CMN317 - Module 2

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