pantless bunnymuffin's beminar slog

In The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach, Daniel Miller and Don Slater argue that the Internet changes the dynamics of positioning for those who use it, because it puts people "within networks that transcend their immediate location, placing them in wider flows of cultural, political and economic resources" (18-9). Indeed, throughout their book, Miller and Slater point out various ways in which the Internet allows Trini people to reach other Trini populations in their country and around the world, thus reframing their realities to include not just the immediate places they live, but also the virtual spaces where they connect with others.

Miller and Slater undertake ethnographic research to study the ways Trinidadians reposition themselves in the local and global context, interviewing and observing Trinis in internet cafes, schools, and other public locations where the Internet is used. They also examine Internet content, such as websites, for example, to find out how Trinis decide to identify and, essentially, label themselves in the virtual world.

Trinidadians, according to Miller and Slater, are expanding their horizons without leaving behind their local cultures, and use the Internet to communicate with diasporic Trinis in much the same way that they communicate with people locally. Similarly, the authors argue that web content created and visited by Trinidadians at home and around the world allows them to self-identify and self-objectify, thereby defining their placement in the world in both the physical and the social, ethnic sense. Ethnographic research of this sort is interesting and useful in the current state of academic research, where most studies on the usage of communication technology are conducted using statistical data instead of opinions and input provided by actual human beings living nuanced, complicated, multi-faceted lifestyles.

The analysis of positioning and repositioning in this way, then, is a valuable undertaking in communications and communications technology research, because it demonstrates the Internet's immediate effect of expansion into cosmopolitanism on a certain heterogeneous, but nationally-united group of people. However, the authors do not make sufficiently clear how much of their findings are based on the direct statements and input of the locals, and how much they deduce themselves. This is important, because ethnographic research presumably aims to give as much agency as possible to the populations being studied, labeled, and defined.

One way that Miller and Slater analyze the dynamics of positioning is showing that Trinidadians can keep up relationships with diasporic Trinis through using chat, ICQ, and email on a daily basis. They seem to contend that forms of communications online offer the same type of space as reality or, perhaps more fairly, other forms of communication technology to uphold personal ties over long distances.

This got me thinking about the inherent nature of the 'virtual' Internet as opposed to, say, the telephone, in keeping relationships with my friends far away. Being a diasporic Hungarian, I feel that the Internet, though admittedly useful to keep in touch with acquaintances, by no means facilitates the intimate, discursive environment necessary to truly connect with friends in my native country. In fact, it seems to me that the Internet attempts to forge the creation of such personal spaces, but, without the true awareness of my friends and I, fails rather miserably and has a pretty negative effect on my connections with these individuals. In instances when I would like to connect more personally and 'directly' with people far away, in the lack of physical contact I reach for my telephone.

As Miller and Slater themselves point out, the Internet is a place where people can (and often do) forge their identities - even pretend they live in Trinidad when in fact they are diasporic Trinis living in other countries. In this sense, it is not fully genuine, and, more importantly, it lacks much of the truly human forms of communication. Even on the telephone, which lacks the ability for users to transmit visual data, voice inflections add an immense amount of human touch.

You may think I've gone off on a tangent, but all of this connects back to positioning: as Miller and Slater argue, the Internet allows (perhaps forces) individuals to redefine themselves as more cosmopolitan beings, yet, as my argument above shows, this repositioning is somewhat false and misleading. Communication in the 'virtual' does not do justice to friendships and relationships in the way it proclaims, and Miller and Slater must dig a bit deeper through ethnographic research to emphasize this slight but significant difference.

Posted by kkovacs2 at 10:01 PM | Permalink

In my paper for the course, I plan to examine the ways in which the Internet is or is not a sufficient organizing tool for social movements. I will outline ways that the Internet has been used for organizing and public education, focusing specifically on the media reform movement and the work of organizations like Free Press. I will attempt to argue that, although these organizations have made substantial efforts to educate the public on various media topics, organizing over the Internet causes their messages to target only an elite, niche population without reaching a truly diverse, nationwide audience. Free Press has worked hard over the last decade to formulate research, develop connections with policymakers, and organize public interest lobbying efforts in Congress, but their outreach efforts have been largely limited to the Internet without sufficient regard to the substantial impact of the digital divide that keeps certain portions of the population from learning about media issues.

I will relate Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks to my argument by pointing out that although, as Benkler argues, the Internet has great potential for greater diversity in access to media production and information exchange, those not involved extensively in the new, virtual culture of the Internet and the blogosphere have a limited ability to benefit from the possibilities of democracy that the Internet has to offer. I argue that Benkler overestimates the uniting power of the Internet; in fact, it may be dangerous to take such a hopeful and optimistic view of the Internet without remembering that some portions of the public do not have the ability to partake in Internet usage. Such assumptions leave behind those without access to the Internet, effectively deepening the digital divide and hindering the possibility for a large-scale grassroots media reform movement that is representative of all populations. Grassroots campaigns using Internet-based outreach alone distance certain parts of the public instead of requesting their input about media issues they believe require attention, and limits their agency to create and operate media outlets of their own and to organize locally.

As such, the outline of my paper, as it stands now, will be as follows:

• A thesis that explains the shortcomings of the Internet as a sole organizing tool in engaging portions of ce public without access to the Internet into debates on media issues.

• A study of the media reform movement as a social movement, with a review of major Internet outreach efforts such as the push to reinstate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2005 and the recent campaign for network neutrality, and methods through which the Internet has been used in outreach during these campaigns.

• A look at records of public involvement, such as public comments filed to Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, as well as at studies on what portions of the population use the Internet in general, to learn as much as possible about the demographics of people motivated to get involved.

• An examination of websites and blogs that discuss media policy and media justice issues on a frequent basis to establish spheres in which discussions about these topics take place.

• An introduction to Benkler’s argument, stating its main points and strengths and incorporating them to acknowledge the accomplishments of Free Press’ Internet outreach work.

• An attempt to point out the digital divide that is limiting the strengths of Benkler’s argument since it neglects to mention that portions of the population cannot engage in Internet use.

• A conclusion emphasizing the importance of local, community-based outreach that gives agency to all portions of the population for participation in the media reform movement.

Rather than disparaging the work of media reform and media justice organizations, who promote issues of immense importance to our nation’s democracy, my paper will attempt to suggest ways that outreach efforts could be improved to educate and empower all communities. Although Internet-based campaigns have been a successful start, locally organized outreach is essential for a nationwide media reform movement.

Posted by kkovacs2 at 01:58 PM | Permalink

In America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940, Claude S. Fischer studies the invention and propagation of the telephone in the United States by looking mostly at sociological factors to defeat the argument for technological determinism. Throughout the first half of his book, he discusses ways in which the usage of the telephone became prevalent throughout the country through the development and fine-tuning of telephony technology, and the use of marketing by large firms such as AT&T to convince consumers of the need for the telephone for both the attainment of higher status in society and help in emergency situations.

To show the significance of the public’s usage of the telephone in its ‘diffusion’ throughout society, Fischer describes the rise and the subsequent fall of telephone use in rural America from the 1900s to the 1930s. He attempts to show that this decline was created by the changes in the lifestyle of farmers around 1920, as a result of improved roads, greater use of automobiles, and the development of the radio, combined with decreasing competition in the telephone industry. Fischer’s method of analysis is unique, and he is correct in undertaking it to show the importance of social factors in the development of technology. At the same time, he fails to sufficiently combine his findings with other, possibly important economic and political issues relating to the build-out of telephone service to rural areas, and leaves some questions to linger in the reader’s mind.

Fischer argues that because the telephone industry focused on the development of telephone in urban areas and neglected to address build-out to rural regions of the country by the late 1800s, “[r]ural Americans largely discovered, demanded, and developed telephone service for themselves” (107) through the creation of small, locally-based telephone companies. After 1900, seeing the demand by the farming community, Bell and, even more significantly, large independent telephone companies “realized that farm customers were ‘essential’ to selling in the larger exchanges” (95), and the challenge of competition propelled them to increase their business in rural America. Even so, Bell and the independents did not pursue the development of telephony in rural areas to a significant degree because of the lack of profit resulting from build-out over large distances for much fewer subscribers than in urban regions. Fischer here seems to explain larger companies’ diminished interest in farming communities around 1920 by showing their lack of success in making a profit from their investments in rural regions, signified by their claim that “farmers did not really want or even need telephone service” (97).

However, Fischer believes this decline in build-out is not the whole explanation for the fall of rural telephony around 1920. In fact, he seems to place greater importance on the development of rural roads and radio technology around this time, and argues that farmers no longer had such a great need for telephone service when they could drive and use radios to communicate over greater distances.

This argument fails to prove as important as he makes it appear for two reasons:

1) It seems unlikely that any population, once introduced to a new form of communication technology, especially if that population developed the infrastructure and service of that technology for itself, would decide in a matter of one or two decades that it no longer requires the use of that technology. As Fischer himself argues, the telephone brought about groundbreaking changes in the way people could communicate with each other over larger distances, and it seems unlikely that driving (which is much slower) and the use of radio (which is not a two-way form of communication – at least not for farmers, as Fischer does not attempt to argue that farmers were proficient in the use of radio transmitters to any significant degree) would supplant the usefulness of the telephone, especially in rural communities where face-to-face communication even with one’s neighbor is usually not as simple as in urban areas.

2) As Fischer argues in other portions of his book, the federal government passed the Willis-Graham Act of 1921, allowing for a virtual monopoly by Bell, claiming that “telephony was a ‘natural monopoly’” and that “telephone competition ‘was an endless annoyance’” (50-1). The time period of the passage of this bill seems, coincidentally, to correlate closely with the industry’s sudden diminished interest in rural America. It is a likely possibility that rural areas stopped receiving telephone service because of lack of competition due to the federal government’s blessing of Bell’s monopoly. Indeed, as Susan Douglas’ book Inventing American Broadcasting also shows, federal intervention and regulation has had significantly adverse effects throughout history on the development of communication technologies and the advancement of diversity and democratic access. Fischer’s refusal to sufficiently explore this situation in his discussion about the decline of rural telephony, at any rate, is a major flaw in his argument.

Fischer's book provides an important insight into the social aspects of the development of communication technology, and proves that technological determinist arguments and those relying wholly on political-economic circumstances do not provide sufficient explanation for the creation and diffusion of technology. However, Fischer ends up going too far into the sociological, and his doing so leaves many questions unanswered.

Posted by kkovacs2 at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Susan Douglas' book Inventing American Broadcasting: 1899-1922 is a remarkably informational historical account of the development of radio in the United States. The immense amount of detail provides for a highly descriptive work, while at the same time keeping its focus, stating only the necessary facts for the explanation of the changes in technology and regulation of wireless.

Douglas' attempt to argue against the notion of technological determinism is also successful through her references to the way potential innovations by amateur operators were limited by regulation favoring the interests of business and the U.S. Navy. She gives an in-depth explanation of how amateur operators developed early inventions in wireless technology, such as Reginald Fessenden’s alternator and Lee De Forest’s audion, and were the first to popularize the use of wireless and radio around the country through their large masses and their coverage in the press. However, problems with interference due to the amateurs’ widespread use, and sometimes misuse, of the technology, and the dangers amateurs posed to business and state control as “agents of etheral anarchy” (317), prompted Congress to enact the Radio Act of 1912, allowing them to use only “a portion of the spectrum then considered useless: short waves of 200 meters and less” (234) and essentially forcing them onto the sidelines.

Although Douglas does not allude to other ways in which the technology of radio could have developed, she does explain that the regulations beginning with the Radio Act of 1912 and continuing with the Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934, all of which favor big business over the rest of the public, could have been formed differently, with a greater focus on the importance of innovation and diversity. Instead of the implementation of these harmful regulations, a larger and more useful portion of the spectrum could have been allocated for unlicensed use in which amateurs could have continued to develop diverse forms of wireless technology, and could have kept some of the airwaves away from corporate ownership and in the hands of the public.

Posted by kkovacs2 at 09:49 PM | Permalink