Putting It all Together: The Essay

For my essay for New Communications Technology, I have decided to tackle the rather tricky looking but thoroughly interesting, topic number four. Which poses the questions of; What are the uses/limits of the Internet in terms of politics and or Democracy? Should we rethink the nature of the political? What happens to the nation/state in the age where networks, that have the potential to span the entire globe? What has happened to the idea of 'community', in age of networked digital media?

I actually became interested by this topic, because of Stephen Stockwell's lecture on 'Political Possibilities". But also because I completed 'Introduction to Politics' last semester, and found it very interesting.

Unfortunately I have not had a lot of time so far to analyse what I believe to be suitable sources for this essay. But I have found a few that relate to how the internet affects the political sphere.

One of these was a thesis I found relating to this topic by, Alinta Thornton (2002). It is a report titled, 'Does Internet Create Democracy?'. This seems to be an excellent report because it relates to the impact of the Internet on the social sphere, formation of political will, online voting, interactivity ,to name but a few. I think this will be very useful toward the argument I want to develop for this essay. Thornton (2002) states,

'In my view, the explosion of direct participatory democracy Rheingold hoped for is highly unlikely to eventuate merely as a result of the Internet's existence'.

I believe this may be a useful quote in order to support my argument

I want to develop a paragraph each for the 'pros's and con's, which may relate to democracy and the Internet. I found an online article written by, Daniel Kohanski (2008). Which relates to these aspects I wish to discuss in my essay. The article is titled, 'The Internet's Impact on Democracy'. It is useful as it gives a balanced approach to the issue. An aspect which should not be omitted in an essay. I want to give a balanced approach to my essay,by also keeping in mind my main argument or thesis statement.

The Utopian Fantasy

There was once a time, not so long ago, when the Internet was still yet to be birthed. Many people had a dream. An unrealistic dream, some could say. Some members of our society looked for the pure fantasy which has always been a prevalent wish in the depths of the human Psyche. They believed that maybe, just maybe, all our problems in society could be solved by one thing, the INTERNET. With computers anything could be possible, deliveries would be instant and only a mouse click away. Man and society would be that bit close to what he has always been seeking...Power over his surroundings.

These ideals were exonerated by popular culture via 'space opera'. Stories set in far off futures often are adept at fulfilling the power fantasy that man so wishes for.

But then reality hit. The Internet, and computers are yes, very powerful things. But we do not live in a utopia and the Internet has not entirely lived up to its potential.

Much of lecture 9's focus was on 'Utopia and the Internet'. Originally people believed that things like search engines on the net, would be incredible. To a certain degree they are and we have come along way from the days without computers. What some people didn't count on was how difficult it can be to actually find what you are truly looking for on these search engines. Users spend so much of their time sorting through rubbish which doesn't even relate to what they wanted in the first place, and in general society overestimated what computers were capable of.

The net can be fantastic for the experimenter. A significant amount of money is circulated for the production of various web sites, in order to make a profit. Because of the Internet being a largely unpredictable business sector, many companies find that they are popular one day and not so popular the next. They therefore lose and gain notable amounts of money. The reason for the Internet's unpredictability, has a lot to do with the fact that it is a social area which is always changing, just as trends in society do also. Sites find that to survive they must reach their own niche market of sorts.

A site like 'Uncyclopedia', is an example of a form of utopia. meaning that users can change information to suit their needs and everyone can contribute.

I suppose you could say that because sites survive on the net by having their own 'niche' market, that these social groups allow for a form of utopia. Various sites gather massive amounts of popularity, sites about, lets face it often pretty strange things. Net cartoons like 'Home star Runner' make a significant amount of money from their niche market, who in turn buy their products (like t-shirts) over the net.

Groups such as second life, were able to group together to affect the overall function of the net, when they protested about advertising on their site. Notably, their site is a representation of a 'Utopian society', where everything is possible. And according to the lecturer Josh, (interesting fellow....) people go to these sites not so much for what is offered on them, but largely to communicate with one another.

Josh's site: http://www.secrettechnology.com/, makes fun of a lot of issues posed in society. He has done this by finding a way to effectively link literature with interactive games...worth a look.

Can Democracy Prevail?

As part of week eight's tutorial tasks, we were required to do a set of activities. Completing as many as possible, while staying true to our own personal political beliefs. Firstly I was shocked that the government are still pondering over the possibility of implementing a censorship to Internet content in Australia. A filtering system of sorts, in an attempt to make the Internet more 'pure' or christian.

The thing that bothers me personally is, who gets to decide what should be dubbed as pure or impure content? Don't we as citizens have a democratic right to make our own choices? While I understand that the government wants to reduce improper porn on the Internet and protect our children. I truly believe that allowing too much content control on the Internet would be a negative thing for several reasons. Notably, the sites that may be censored could affect our democratic notion of free speech in general. Secondly, I found a site regarding this issue ,after googling the words 'censor and content Australia': http://nocleanfee.com/learn.html

This site contains a significant amount of evidence as to why this implemntation would be detriemental to Australia. There are several reasons why this change should not take place, apart from democratic reasons. The site is dedicated to eradicating the mere possibility of this change. Therefore this group are exercising their Democratic rights. The site stated that if this move were to take place, it would slow down the Internet in Australia, as the Internet is not a system which can be filtered easily without problems. It would also cost the Australian government quite a lot of money to implement. It argues that this money should logically be used on other more important things such as education and ways sustainable ways to protect children.

Adam, asked us to fill out an e-perdition while adhering to our political views. I found a perdition on the site against censoring Internet content. I readily signed it as I don't believe the move would help our society, but rather it may restrict the voices of many groups. It could be a way for our government to censor any voice that do not want to hear, and therefore could lead to a form of 'Fascism'. So far 29949 people have signed, if you would like to do so make an informed choice, click on the following link:
http://pedition.irgweb.org/oznetcensorship

Another activity I decided to complete which was recommended by Adam, was to find out what Barack Obama had been up to lately. To find this out I decided, to google the words 'Obama and Twitter'. I figured that he would be on twitter, as I heard he is quite committed to using these new forms of communicative technology to reach his publics. On the 23rd of September , 2009, Barack, was in New York meeting various world leaders at the United Nations. He also made a speech during this event. It's pretty incredible that the Internet allows so many people to know exactly where he is. If you would like to become a fan of Barack OBAMA on twitter,(as I know I would have voted for him if I was American)go to: http://twitter.com/barackobama

A little harmless fun: Fake News Story

The task for week seven was to create another video. I decided to make a fake news story, just as Adam suggested at the lecture for week six. I cannot begin to explain how tedious it has been to put my video on this blog. It has also been a particularly nasty week for me (not that I'm asking for sympathy).Making the video wasn't hard, but it seemed there were unseen forces at work preventing me from uploading the video. Let me explain, firstly I ran out of broadband and my computer refused to upload the video. Secondly I had to go to the campus library to try and upload it, it ran out of time so I had to move to another computer, oh and I accidentally erased the first version. This video is not incredible, rather it is quite silly. But, I hope that it can be at least mildly entertaining for you, my fellow bloggers. See, even the weakest videos effect society...maybe in some small way.

The Political and the Internet

To be specific, lecture eight did not technically take place. Due to our University's staff exercising (what I believe to be), their democratic rights. By coincidence,(hum mm...or not?...) democracy had a lot to do with Stephen Stockwell's lecture. Specifically, the lecture was concerned about how the Internet poses new political possibilities for our society.The Internet, being a social or communicative sphere logically meant that notions of democracy, would of course arise. The only way people implement democracy is through the communication of ideas, moralities, and societal values with one another. Stephen, wrote about the growing virtues of 'cyber-politics' and 'E-democracy', both courtesy of the Internet.

So what is cyber politics? To me it is people expressing their political ideas via the Internet for the Internet. This can often take place on 'blogs' or other social spheres available on the net. E-democracy, is users contributing to political events or ideas, that take place mostly, outside the Internet world. It is a new way for the populace to communicate their ideas, about political parties and their rule in general. At present we live in a 'representational democracy', or what i like to call an 'illusionary democracy'. Arguably, we have never lived in a 'direct' or 'true' democracy. Even though, many political analysts state that ancient Greece showed a close representation of democracy (due to the fact that citizens were able to have their say on state affairs and vote). They forget to mention, that women and slaves were not given the same 'Democratic' virtue. To me 'true democracy', would mean that all decisions are made by the people for the people. An equal rule so to speak...but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. The closest we have ever as a society in general, come to true democracy, is the ability to vote (which does not occur all that often). Of course political analysts say, that if the populace voted on every decision made by government, this would be so time consuming that nothing would ever get done.

As the lecture stated, there has been a serious reduction in people actually willing to vote. Why is this? Is it because they feel that they are only given 'representational' power? That their voices are not truly listened to? Maybe the Internet offers a new way for people to develop and implement democracy... There has been transformations in the public sphere due to new communication technologies, such as the Internet. We are now in what is called the 'second media age'. Where we have the ability to produce new politics of sorts, because now a multitude of people can communicate to a huge portion of other people. So, can the Internet bring us that bit closer to a true or direct democracy? Well arguably the second media wave, allows more people to have a say and possibly become more politically informed. People are affecting each other. But are they affecting the government's decisions? Well, if we use the case of Barack Obama election, than yes. The number of people voicing their oppions and complaining about the Republic party via cyber politics, was enormous. The amount of blogs written in support of the now elected president, was huge. Even to this day there is an 'I support Barack Obama' group on Facebook.

Because of the communicative nature of the Internet, it allows not only for users to take part in self expression, but also helps them to seek out the truth and be more critical of the world around them. Net users have a voice if not a face. Citizens are in effect able to recognise their political voices, which I believe almost every net user has done to some degree. Also, The more informed people are of the world the more likely they will question their environment and exercise personal democracy.

The net raises questions often concerning free speech and censorship. the groundwork of democracy. Democracy it can be said, cannot be exercised without the notion of free speech. There have be battles between what should be censored on the net and what should be considered to be free speech. Even if someone is censored eventually, the information has already been circulated, and therefore it has served its purpose. Conflict can often arise between free speech and copyright. Because who is to say that someone who downloads music off the Internet is not just exercising their free speech?

Hackers in society generally, have a bad name. We think of them as being people who may steal our credit card details on the net. But are they possibly just anarchists who reject society telling them what to do? They believe in the free and open exchange of ideas and data. In my brother's word's: They reject society's reality and implement their own (kudos!!!).Why not? The idea of democracy, often springs up ideas of the 'cyberpunk'. A cyber punk (often a hacker), is seen as a reaction in the literature world and in popular movie culture, to the safe story lines of 'space opera'. The cyberpunk fights against the conformations of society and searches for democracy in far off realites..He/she is connected to the science fiction genre mainly, and often rebels against governing bodies.

The cyberpunk might be you or I. Publishing a reaction to a political decision on the Internet via a blog. Starting an online perdition or downloading soft-wear when the government said we couldn't. He or she is a reaction possibly, to the restrictions imposed on us by the government.

Creative Transparency

Lecture seven's focus was on the notion of free culture and free content sharing, which takes place within the Internet meta-scape and how it relates to copyright in general. The fact that the Internet is significantly based upon the aspects of sharing information created by others, means that concerns can arise regarding copyright laws. So a mid-way of sorts was established in 2002, named 'Creative Commons'. Creative Commons, is a non-profit organisation whose duties allow net creators the ability to dictate how their creations are used by others. The whole point of it is protect the creator from another using their work, for purposes they did not intend. It can increase the freedom that users have to share information or decrease it. Six main license types can be selected from the site, starting with the limited attribution coverage to the more intense, attribution non-commercial no derivatives license.

According to our lecturer Adam Muir, much of the Creative Commons philosophy emerged from users who wanted more freedom with various computer softwear. Before there was a market in computer softwear, intellectuals shared embed codes among each other. When the industry began to take off more restrictions were put out by companies such as Microsoft. People like Richard Stallman began the idea of creating so called 'free' softwear, which could be altered and used by others as they saw fit. He believed that users should be entitled to the 'four freedoms'. Meaning, they should be able to; run the program as they wished, adapt it to their own needs, make copies and distribute their alterations and in general have the option to improve that softwear. Nowadays, the notion of 'free' softwear, has been replaced by 'open', because there are always costs involved.

Today there are many 'open' versions of soft wear available on the Internet, which are similar and or almost identical to 'propriety' programs. The plus is you don't have to pay for them and you can often change features, which you could not do with a windows version. Take FireFox for example (I happen to know a little trick where you can speed up certain features, like downloads). FireFox is also fairly secure, and in some respects almost better than Internet Explorer. 'Open' softwear is also necessary for students like me who can't afford to purchase Microsoft office for example. But, who desperately need a word processor!!

Well, the whole point of 'Creative Commons', seems to be to make it easier for users to share information and grow from each other. What I am concerned about though, is the protection of the artist. Problems can arise between general proof of authorship sometimes. We should be asking ourselves the question: does creative commons really protect the artist or creator? With the help of Creative Commons, another artist can build or inspire off another. Is this just? Is this not plagiarism? Apparently not if the author allows it. But, it all seems rather messy to me, especially if not handled correctly.

Though, one thing to consider, is that every creator has at some point been influenced by another. Many singers, dancers, authors, and painters have taken information or art, grown from it as artists and then made their own 'original' contribution.

It reminds me of a quote by the surrealist painter Salvador Dali,

"Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like."

If we can grow from each other as artists,surely, that is a great thing. I just hate to think that the original creators may be lost in midst of vast creative transparency.

My Video: Maybe You Should Reconsider Internet Chatting...

For week 6 we were required to post a short video about anything. This is a silly little video I made, about how chatting to people on the Internet is not all it's cut out to be...I realise that this is not exactly a work of art. But, I tried my best in the limited amount of time I had. I had to juggle a number of other assessments. To me it was important to make a video that actually had a social meaning behind it, relating to the Internet. Hope you like it. I now truly understand the meaning behind what many directors say, 'never work with children or animals!!!One out of two, and I'm feeling pretty exhausted....

A Consumer Revolution

Week six's lecture focused mainly, on how the lines dividing consumer and producer of media, such as videos, have become inextricably blurred nowadays. This is thanks to the new media sharing options out there. The major being the Internet. It is really needless to say that the incredible popularity of the Internet as a media and information source has a lot do with 'you' and 'I', the consumer. According to our lecturer, Josh Nicholas, in the past consumers have been "passive receivers" of content. Meaning, that they were only able to watch media but not affect its process. But thanks to what we can achieve with our humble computer, phone or other portable devices, this is changing significantly.

The Internet, has become increasingly popular as a form of media. Especially among the youth of society. In my opinion for two notable reasons. Firstly it allows the consumer to access a significant amount of differing types of content at one convenient source. Secondly, it allows for a high level of content control. This is most likely the reason why there has been a decline in revenue of other media,such as television and newspapers.

Like our lecturer mentioned, problems do of course arise when we use small portable devices such as our mobiles or personal media players to access content, due to the fact that often the file sizes are too big and the screens too small. Though, these types of devices are useful when assessing the news or the smaller 'episodic' videos on YouTube. Mobile phones are also frequently used today for people to write on their own or others 'blogs'. At the pleasure of their own convenience and privacy.

Not only can the consumer now choose what they want to watch by accessing the Internet, via their computer or a portable device such as their phone, they are also increasingly able to become the producer. There are many ways in which we the consumers are affecting the process of content. Thanks to various programs such as Windows Movie Maker and sites like YouTube, even the most meagre or inexperienced consumer, can try their hand at movie making. According to Josh many of the first movies produced by consumers for consumers on the Internet, were so called 'fan edits', or spin offs of particular films, series or paraphernalia, which In turn were guaranteed viewage by consumers who were also fans. The trouble the consumer faces nowadays, is sorting through a lot of rubbish available on the Internet and on sites like YouTube. A task which can be rather annoying if you are net surfing on you phone. But I suppose one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Those who in the past were just mere consumers of news available on television, are now able to often contribute in a multitude of ways. For example, the consumer can now produce videos, which can be used on television news reports. This was the case during a catastrophe, such as September eleven, where some of the content displayed on the news was sourced by those who were in the past, just consumers. Problems can arise when using a mobile phone to create a video, though. Notably, the picture and sound quality are rather poor, even on the best of phones. Budding camera men and women, can also upload their news related videos on various news sites. There is unfortunately, no real guarantee that the video depicted actually related to the news issue at all. Rather it could actually be a sadistic student with too much time on their hands, who thought they would mess with a few avid news watchers.

New media, such as portable entertainment devices, mobiles and the Internet in general, has revolutionised not only the way in which content is accessed but who creates the content. This was a step that was extremely necessary in a democratic society. Content by the people, for the people.

The Internet Tragedies

I heard a story on the radio a couple of nights ago, which got me thinking about about the power of the Internet. The story noted that during 2009 alone, there have been 29 reported 'Internet suicides'. These people who eventually took their own lives, did so after careful planning during 'chat sessions', where other suicidal users edged them onto a morose fate. Of course not all the people who took part in these 'chats' eventually took their own lives. Some, were much too concerned with giving dark words of suicidal encouragement to others. This truly disgusted me.

Surely, the people who decided to take part in these sorts of chat sessions, were really just crying out for help? These people felt immense inner pain, no doubt, and they needed someone to listen to them. Someone who could understand their pain.

So, a group of lost souls found themselves in the private, yet public, confines of the Internet meta-scape, ominously linked together in tragedy

I am not suggesting that these people who committed suicide on the Internet, were not unstable to begin with. What I am saying, is that very often people are greatly influenced by those whom they communicate with. Sometimes, all someone needs are the right words (or in this case the wrong words) to get them in just the right psychological frame of mind to commit suicide. The Internet, it could be said, is also an incredibly intimate form of communication. Meaning, that even though the Internet is a very public sphere, social networks, often make the individual feel as if they are in their own little world.

A great example of this was the case of another story, I heard about not long ago. It was the story of a young girl who was bullied so much over the Internet, that she eventually killed herself. This young girl did not plan to take her own life well in advance, but did so after being psychologically abused on a social network by another girl. Hanging sentences, to the affect of "why don't you just kill yourself" and "you're a waste of space", were sent to her repeatedly by the other girl. These things that were said to her, were obviously extremely painful and had such profound effects on her, that she ultimately took her own life.

These awful instances reminded me yet again of the power a communicative medium like the Internet, can have on an individual. the Internet can literally put us in touch with just about anyone on the face of the earth. A complete psychopath or a friendly loner, just reaching out. The Internet does not segregate. Various individuals can communicate with one another, who in the past would never of had the opportunity to do so.

I think that also because the Internet allows a person to be anonymous if they so wish, it has the capacity to produce a sense of 'grandeur' from the 'speaker'. In other words, people are more likely to say the things that they would not dare to day to another individual on a face to face basis. People get careless with their words on the Internet, I have found. Forgetting ultimately, that words are incredibly powerful. They have the capacity to hurt or to heal another individual. The written words stays out there, especially in the web meta-scape.

To read a story that also relates to the shocking issue of Internet suicide, check out the following link: http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23218368-5014108,00.html