[iDC] Re: A critique of sociable web media

[John Hopkins]

This is a bit late, but in the case that some of the thoughts have 
not been completely substituted by the latest Manifesto produced by 
Mr. Keen, I'll risk the possible consequence of very loud silence and 
post t anyway...

>On the before mentioned panel, both, danah boyd and Ethan Zuckerman 
>brought up the tremendous costs for NewsCorp that are associated with
>technically supporting all that sociality on MySpace. Ethan also 
>pointed out that it may take big business to facilitate large scale 
>networked social life.

I have mentioned this before -- but, look, why should people be 
surprised that any social system of a scale greater than three 
individuals might function this way -- where the social system 
generates a protocol/form to govern the possible expressive pathways 
of connection and encounter between the self and the other.  The 
process of defining this pathway arises as part of the evolution (or 
indeed IS the evolution) of the social system itself.  The two actors 
-- the social system, in defining this pathway, and the individual, 
choosing to participate in their human encounters via this defined 
pathway -- end up in a relationship of energy transfer.  In the 
prototypical case, the social infrastructure defining the pathway of 
connection drains off some of the energy that the two humans would 
seek to concentrate each other.

I'd point to the essay I posted here a month ago to zero response -- 
in the midst of the Baudrillard-fest -- an essay that I wrote for the 
Pixelache "Architectures of Participation" conference in Helsinki 
http://neoscenes.net/hyper-text/text/pixel.html  -- which suggests 
some principles through which one can approach socio-technical 
systems and understand their affects on human relation.  Principles 
that do well to deal with any technical level of system. Up to 
including the ones that pervade that of our contemporary world.

>In the end, what really matters is not only that people become aware 
>of the fact that they are being used on these giant sites. It is 
>important to be clear
>about the ownership of content and it is also crucial to know the 
>privacy rules of the platforms that we are using.

Let's promote some fundamental understanding on how these systems 
(read: ANY social infrastructure that is a result of collective 
concentration of resources) drain the energy of participants in order 
to concentrate power, and how we can prevent that drain from our 
human-to-human connections (prevention lies in the determination of 
pathways BY THE individuals involved).  Now it might be that some 
socio-technical infrastructure might offer the individuals a pathway 
which they are happy to use, but in the vast majority of cases, the 
socio-technical infrastructure is imposed virtually without choice on 
anyone who happens to be nominally participating in the social 
system.  Participation and the consequent adaption to the normative 
is required to be a part of the social system to begin with.  Lack of 
adaption is either passively or actively punished.  Adaption/Adoption 
is rewarded -- why would anyone want 2500 friends -- except to have 
the pride of social power and position.  In a social system that 
values pride, power, influence, and visual appearance, what young 
person would risk punishment to forge an existence outside of that?

so it goes.

Cheers,
jh