[iDC] Who's afraid of Web 2.0?

[David Golumbia]

On Tue, 30 May 2006, Jon Ippolito wrote:

> If you think electronic networks hold no new paradigms for mobilizing people to change the world, why are you wasting your time posting to an email list?

I could answer this in so many different ways. Here are a few that come 
to mind quickly:

- because a lot of good people who would genuinely like to change things 
are available via email & listservs (very important "Web 2.0"-style 
technologies that have, of course, been with us for 40 or more years in 
various guises);

- because you don't need to think that media/technologies are 
revolutionary or "very new" in order to try to take advantage of anything 
you can to get people to think critically;

- for the same reason I use books, articles, tv, radio, telephone, 
telegraph, semaphore, or anything else I can lay my hands on, without 
believing *any* of them inherently make things better (indeed, in many 
ways, they can all make things worse, some more than others);

- because a lot of people of good will are, in my opinion, heading down an 
unproductive path because computers are cool, and it's good to keep 
reminding them that the coolness of computers does not directly lead to
positive social change.



David