Fabricio Breeze Olsson

DANM 203 - dialoguesquestions

4/11/2007


Commenting on:

Yochai Benkler

The Wealth of Networks, How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

Chapter 10 Social Ties: Networking Together


Each discrete connection or cluster of connections that forms a social network, or a network of social relations, plays some role, but not a definitive one, in each participant's life. (Social Ties, pp365)


Intro:

Broadly accepted is the notion that internet social relations are better than those set by T.V. and telephone

Two views on Social Relations:

Pessimism from as early as 1800's about social breakdown from modern industrial society

Early computer mediated communication (CMC) met with optimism (Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community, 1993).


MAIN CLAIM: Available data does not support fragmentation of social structure because of internet. 


From Virtual communities to fear of disintegration

Rheingold (1993):

Hunger for community: not satisfied by physical spaces

Internet permits relationship to form in addition to real world physical interaction.

Counter argument: 

Alienation, online relationships potentially replacing "real world" (face to face)

1998: Negative measurable amount by increase in computer time leading to weaker bonds replacing strong relationships (Robert Kraut, Internet Paradox)

2000 Press release decrease time with friends , less stark report than publicized. Majority of people spending more time in front of computers spend less time shopping.

Questions not asked in 2000: How people were using the time they freed by watching less television and shopping less in physical stores..  Wether they used any of this newfound time to increases and strengthen their social and kin ties.


Time heals wounds of the past (and incomplete/inconclusive studies published)

Two main concerns from skeptics: (what does the 203 class think about these?)

  1. Intimate human relationship critical to well-functioning human beings.
  2. Social Capital
    1. leads to more materially successful people
    2. better off in political participation and provisioning of local public goods


extreme example against: Ebay, YouTube, Bill Gates - Choose any school he wants and control local provisioning at will.

Empirical Response: web displace human contact no way of knowing demise of psychologically needed relationships.

Netville, Toronto (wired before most broadband was available in U.S.): Weak ties strengthened. Strong ties only increase with time (same as non-wired neighborhoods). <http://mysocialnetwork.net/downloads/wired-abs8b.pdf>

front porch (instead of backyard)

Continue to communicate mainly with people geographically close to us.

Increase long distance rlationships w/o hurting local ones

Increase family connections and interest groups

Pew project: Holidays Online (Internet and American Life): Connections thickened, more personalized gifts for holidays, rather than taking advantage of price comparison and time-saving.

According to Pew (2004), 2 highest uses of internet: <http://pewinternet.org/PPF/r/131/report_display.asp>: Connecting to friends & Looking up information 


Theoretical Response: We're changing social relationships and adapting to fluid nature of network relationships.  Kinds of connections change over time.

  1. Japanese text message constructs important social networks (closing emotional connections) w/o breaking social molds ('proper place' and respect).
  2. Gay marine lives w/in two social structures.
  3. Meetup.com <http://www.meetup.com/cities/us/ca/santa_cruz/> Share online interests locally
  4. Friendster.com <http://www.friendster.com> Friends of friends have better likelihood of connecting than a 'random' profile.
  5. Myspace.com <http://www.myspace.com/destaniwolf> many to many networking to distribute art.


Social Beings making the best of the technology

Internet does not make us more social beings, but offers freedom to design our own communication space(pp371). As connected social beings we take advantagee of new ways to communitcate (email, web, IM, blogs, VoIP). This is only an observation, not "millenarian utopianism".

Internet bridges gaps as well as overcomes difficulties of any previous form of media used for human communication.

Social software: forms for 12-100's. The user is the group, not the individual <http://www.wikipedia.com>

Instability of new social dynamics formed by new social settings (flaming)

Those who survive have relationship thickened over time (wikipedia- technical means to constrain destructive behavior).


Who says what and how it's said varies in each different communication media. Differences are not necessarily technical, but also cultural (TV CAN be used to transfer text, but print media does it 'better')

"How a given medium is used within a given society, in a given historical context"

The internet allows for spacial and temporal asynchronicity (email, webpages) and temporal synchronicity (IM, VoIP)


Wilson pages and relevant links:

(pp463) thomas zimmermanhttp://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/user/pan/pan.html

476 Society of the Spectacle: hyperrealism 

479 Artists are parasites of telecommunication 

484 Art can help as critique of technical optimism 

508 Art has social responsibility and media creates new social relations 

517 Richard Kriesche: art-science used to fight against segmentation, egocentrism and individualism 

562 Aesthetics depend on human machine 

572 Most Wanted Paintings on the Web 

589 Guillermo Gomez-Pena: Web can't be separated from socio-political context in which it sits; CyberVato (reverse-antropology) 

600 Artists lead the way to understanding implications of reach and are the ones most willing to question the technological euphoria.