Erin Janulis's Seminar Blog

Today's question: Now that we are at the end of the semester, use your experience from all of the readings in this course to put Benkler's ideas in The Wealth of Networks in play with one of the other authors we have read. For instance, compare and contrast a central argument from Benkler to Price, Innis, Howard, or any of the readings in the class. You might consider: Is the real difference between the two arguments you chose found in the choice of a research method or a set of assumptions? Or, can "the Internet" be substituted for another technology described by an earlier author in this course? (and if so, are the author's arguments still true?)

My Response: Not to go for the easy, and perhaps obvious choice because of my paper topic, but I thought it would be interesting to compare the perspectives on internet technologies of Howard and Benkler. On a superficial level Howard and Benkler seem to have opposite perspectives of the potential of the internet. But on some level it is just a matter of which type of evidence each is looking at. Both authors value the interactivity and collaboration possibilities of the internet. Benkler sees many examples of what he refers to as “non-market” interactions dominating the scene. While Howard does not examine traditional market activity he does examine a much more structured organization. Howard is not looking for examples of the ways that peer production has been able to overcome adversity, but instead almost looking for the ways in which political organizations fall short of their own proposed ideology. In some ways the story Howard tells is one of how those with power are able to harness networked technology to their advantage, while Benkler sees the rise of the more powerless to gain more autonomy. What seems most likely is that these two phenomenons are not directly in conflict with each other but are occurring simultaneously. After all it is through additional activity on the internet on issue related sites and through your credit card purchases that Howard’s consultants are able to construct more sophisticated profiles of their members and constituents. I suppose that is price of transparency (which Benkler prizes), that to truly have a transparent network then you are not only transparent to those who share your values, but also to those who do not, or even those who oppose your values, and what they do with your information can sometimes be out of your hands.

Posted by ejanulis at 01:11 AM | Permalink

Communication Technology: Themes of Utopia and Dystopia

The class will be broken up into an even number of groups of about 5-6 students. Each group will be given a prompt aimed at provoking utopian or dystopian sentiments about various communication technologies.

Please create a list of reasons why Facebook could be considered a helpful communication technology. Remember to keep in mind ways the ways in which it effects individuals, communities (both local and non-local), and society as a whole.

Please create a list of reasons why Facebook could be considered a damaging communication technology. Remember to keep in mind the ways in which it effects individuals, communities (both local and non-local), and society as a whole.

Technologies should be those which are familiar to undergraduates other ideas include cell phones, blogs, pod casts, etc., for as many separate questions as needed for the size of the class.
Students will have approximately 10-15 minutes to brainstorm and develop a list. Then each group will be asked to present their list. This list will be compiled on the board, with the utopian orientations on one side, and dystopian on the other.

The students will then be asked as a whole to examine each list and observe the themes within each orientation across technologies.

*****UPDATE*****
I did want to add to this by saying that this activity would be most appropriately used to completment readings about technologies. Selections from either Susan Douglass' Inventing American Broadcasting or Claude Fischer's America Calling. The goal would be to draw connections between these more historical works with contemporary communication technologies, to draw attention to the reoccuring themes about how we and others think about technology in our lives.

Posted by ejanulis at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today's question: Communication technologies have always had a role in political life. Is there something fundamentally or causally different about the newest information technologies in the political sphere? For example, you might consider: What aspects of communication and culture are structurally different about the political sphere as opposed to other kinds of activities? What aspects of new communication technologies (like blogs, online donations, citizenship, and political campaign software [e.g., VoteMover etc.]) are different from the older communication technologies that have been used for politics? Please refer to the Howard reading in supporting your answer.

My Response: After reading this weeks question I though a lot about our conversation during last weeks class session. Many voiced dismay and concern over the activities described by Howard, isn’t that I don’t share some of their concerns, but political campaigns have never had the best reputation for ethical behavior. What is it then that makes these newest developments so different? Part of the answer to this question may have more to do with how unfamiliar many are with the full capabilities of the technology. While they may be familiar with the user side of these technologies how they actually work and what is being done behind the scenes is quite a mystery to most people. As Howard describes early in the book, the leaders of hypermedia consulting firms have established an elaborate justification for the work that they do. The work is justified as an aid to democracy to allow voters to have greater access to political leaders. The problem develops when the activities seem to work against the ideals, which is clearly the case in this situation. Further more as Professor Howard pointed out in our discussion last week there is no system for accountability in hypermedia campaigns. They aren’t subject to the same regulations and laws as other campaign activities. That is not to say people would be more careful of what they are hearing if there were a more solid system in place, but it seems logical the more unfamiliar one is with a technology the more you want someone else looking out on your behalf. Perhaps it is just part of the fall out for allowing individuals at least the appearance of access to higher authorities. It may seem like a more direct line than the political activist who lived down the street, but then you also knew where that person lived, perhaps about their background, and whether they could be trusted. By loosing this more distant but familiar connection to the political process the result may be the need for more checks on the methods used in campaigning.

Posted by ejanulis at 11:01 PM | Permalink

Today's Question: Assess one of the following concepts in light of either Howard's own examples or other material from this semester: (1) epistemic heterarchy, (2) political redlining, (3) political culture. You might consider one or more of the questions: How does Howard define the concept? How is it used? Is it analytically useful? Does it depend on important assumptions that are not stated? Given what you know about communication technology, does the definition imply a causal relationship that you find credible?

My Response: In Phillip N. Howard’s book New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen he outlines the transition from mass media campaigns to hypermedia campaigns. One of the concepts he uses to illustrate this transition is “political redlining.” Howard defines this as “the process of restricting our future supply of political information with assumptions about our demographics and present or past opinions. Overall he observes a trend away from the organizations themselves doing the majority of the redlining to a more citizen powered redlining where your self identifying hypermedia networks determine what kind of information you received. It becomes in some senses a self selecting and empowering version of political redlining. Hypermedia professionals seem to be of the mindset that whatever they can do to make government more responsive to the people will make government better. This seems to be a good idea on the surface. But not everyone agrees that government officials should be 100% responsive to their constituencies. Many reason that they should be following a trustee model. Where officials do what is better for the people, even if that disagrees with what the people want. Furthermore this self selecting system also has many potential consequences. There are undesired implications for individuals becoming too specialized in political issues. Single issue voters are often viewed as being narrow minded and short sighted. While I won’t go into these issues too much more, I think they are important debates which should be discussed in reference to hypermedia campaigns. After all, making the assumption that our goal should be to get as close to direct democracy as possible, may not be the safest assumption.

Posted by ejanulis at 10:49 AM | Permalink

So here are my responses to the questions....

Playtester Questions: (Blog entries with your results are great.)
1. How experienced with the game are you already?

I had "played" or watched others play a previous version of the game when I was babysitting all summer. Lots of long hours in front of the computer trying to convince the kids it would be a better idea to go outside.

2. How long did each game take?

Never longer that 30 minutes. Most right in that range.

3. Did you win? What was your final culture score and game score?

2 out of 5 games. Any game where I did not get invaded I won culturally. It was actually the first and last games I played. The first time it was fairly quick I just built as many culture pieces as I could and turnned the % to culture up to around 50% it probably took about 25 minutes to win and my score was 2803 (I didn't write down the culture score since it was over so quickly) The second victory had a score oof 2868 and 13415 culture points and took about the same time with similar settings. The only games I did not win were when I got invaded since I didn't have much defense at all.

4. Please note particularly difficult features of the interface that could be explained before students begin playing in order to save them some confusion

I was a bit confused about the people in the city and how those features worked. You were able to select areas and use + and - to do something with different types of people in different areas but I really didn't understand what I was doing with that.

5. Notable features of game experience / your reactions to the game
I thought it was interesting but a bit mundane perhaps because I didn't know exactly what all the options were I found myself just building thing after thing and pretty much just hitting "enter" a lot to move to the next turn.

7. Is there any interface text (almost all text is editable by us) that can be changed to make things clearer.

Nothing that I saw...although there could be a bit more clarification about what exactly a great person is...and the different options with those.

8. Need to modify / write instructions for downloading / installing STEAM and/or InnisMod

The only problems I had with loading InnisMod had to do with the directories. When the game got downloaded from STEAM it made two similar directories. One was in "My Games" and another was in C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv and the files had to be in this one to work they did not load properly from the directory in My Games. I would be happy to detail more of the steps for using STEAM if you need that but I wasn't sure if students are using that route as an option.

ALSO---The changes suggested are all good. I especially like the suggestion for things being more expensive I think having to choose more strategically about which culture items you pick would add a lot.

Posted by ejanulis at 01:58 PM | Permalink

Today's Question: In several of the books we've read so far, we have found the hope or fear that new communication technologies challenge national borders or that they create new conditions for international unity (e.g., they will "bring the whole world together" or make place irrelevant). The Price book is an extended analysis of this one idea. Throughout the book Price compares and contrasts the consequences of specific technologies (satellite radio, AM radio, shortwave radio, the Internet, television, newspapers, books, etc.) for transnational migration, identity formation, international relations, and domestic politics. There are several examples in each chapter from specific places. Speaking generally, where is the agency (meaning: the means of action) in Price's accounts? In other words, is there an account of causation here, and if so, what is it? What leads to the consequences identified here, and what would we need to change to obtain different consequences?

My Response: In his book Media and Sovereignty Monroe E. Price lays out a complex web of interlocking actors and agents that influence the way in which our media systems operate. Behind this whole discussion seems to lay this need for political and/or ideological dominance over a given area. Many of the actions seem to be driven by the idea that media access in a market can be an instrumental step toward transferring ideology, while other actors seem motivated to keep media out as a way of insulating their nation or entity from undesirable ideologies. What is perhaps most interesting is that political units are by no means the only or even in some cases the most powerful actors pushing this agenda. Multinational corporations are also interested and in many cases seem to see the spread of free market ideology as desirable and use the media to reach those ends. And yet at some point the reality of the complexities of the world come into play. In some senses what causes the consequences is when nations attempt to navigate between the ideology and the practicality. All of these interactions are limited in some way by belief of nations and/or political units that they have the right or in some cases the duty to protect or promote their own needs or demands. The V-chip example is an excellent example to examine with regard to this issue (p. 125-132). The initial premise that allows for the V-chip is that in some way restraints on content must be put on the media. Since what exactly those restraints may be differs from culture to culture the easiest and clearest unit on which to delegate this task to are the established political units. While new media forms may be breaking down national borders it seems as though it still falls on the shoulders of those nations to solve the problems that seem to threaten its people.

Posted by ejanulis at 11:36 PM | Permalink