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From Virtual Communities to Smart Mobs – Lane Jennings

This article gives several reasons for the formation of smart mobs and really some reasons why portable internet access has become so prevalent. One reason given is that in some countries people do not have as much privacy at home as they would like, especially younger people, so they like using things like texting, which makes it possible for them to “congregate, exchange news, and share personal experiences in real time without physically meeting.” In addition, as we know, people are more comfortable sharing information when texting rather than speaking about some sensitive subjects. People also are more apt to joint causes, which is one of the phenomena that I will be looking at in my final paper.

Day of the Smart Mob – Chris Taylor

The point that stuck out most to me in this article is comparing smart mobs to a school of fish which “can be drawn together at a moment’s notice…to perform some collective action.” I know that we have had dialogue previously about my calling many types of websites a form of smart mobs and I said that maybe I needed some other word to call what I was thinking of. I think the school of fish comparison is very close to what I am thinking that smart mobs and other types of websites try to do: get people to move to perform some action, whether it be buying or otherwise. “Rheingold considers the screen savers that millions of computer owners use to donate their spare computer power to search for intelligent life in the universe or, more recently, to find a cure for smallpox, as further examples of smart mobs in action. He calls them supercomputer swarms.” Maybe supercomputer swarms is the wording I am looking for. I will have to think about this more with regard to my final paper. Rheingold also argues, the article states, that some of the most powerful smart mobs are sites like Napster and Gnutella, which are both file sharing programs.

Insurgency Online: Web Activism and Global Conflict – Michael Y. Darnell

This book seemed to fill in some holes that I believe had been previously missing about my thinking about smart mobs. In response Dr. Guertin’s comments on the Tweets from Tahrir post, I do believe there is a difference between shopping and political activism. However, I do not believe there is much difference in the intent of the people who start the websites or movements. Their intent is to bring people to their cause, be it to buy their product or to buy their movement. Either way, they want to be the popular and chosen host for what the consumer is looking for.
Insurgency Online made the point that “Web use allows non-state actors to move beyond passive (i.e. one-way) radio-television transmission and adopt two-way communication. The Web does not access a traditional mass public, but rather a network of potential participants, listeners, viewers, critics, and opponents” (24). In the context of my argument, again, almost any kind of website publishes their material for the purpose and with the intent of attracting people to it. One major difference from previous forms of advertisement, as stated above, is that two-way communication is now available where it was not in the past.
Maybe a different word needs to be chosen for my thesis other than “mob.” That word has a negative context and has been used historically to mean angry mobs that are rampaging through the streets doing bad or having demands. Maybe my thesis would be better served using something like “smart groups.” I will continue to think on this but there must be some wording that captures the idea that there are distinguishing qualities about the web that are different than former kinds of advertising and yet are in some ways the same as “smart mob” tactics online. I will continue to think on this.
This particular book also made many other important points that I had not seen or thought about previously. One point is that web activism brings the forefront about how societies are organized, who has the power, and how that is changing with the web. In addition, and I found this point striking though I must have figured as much in the back of my head somewhere, the impact of the web is relative since not all countries have access to the web in the same amount. Some countries have more access while other countries have almost no access. The book claims to assess “web activism as a practice that seeks to shape perceptions by using technology to place ideas, values, and beliefs before the global civil society” (8). That seems to me to be totally the point of any form of adversiting. The difference with web activism is that it seeks to transform some aspect of human political society (94).

Smart Mobs – Howard Rheingold

This book has some great predictions by Rheingold, most of which have come true in some form or another since it was published in 2003. Some of the key observations that interested me were: He notes that once he coined the name smart mobs, that he began to see them everywhere he looked, including barcodes and electronic bridge tolls. In addition, “The ‘killer apps’ of tomorrow’s mobile infocom industry won’t be hardware devices or software programs but social practices. The most far-reaching changes will come, as they often do, from the kinds of relationships, enterprises, communities, and markets that the infrastructure makes possible” (xii). The people that use these new devices that allow them to be connected anywhere, Rheingold argues, will allow people to have new forms of social power, and we see that this prediction has also come true. This will change, he proposed way back then, that changes will take place in the way people do things like meet, mate, work, fight, buy, sell, govern, and create. Again, this came true. He also noted that some of this would be positive and some of it would be negative and we can see exactly what he means happening today. Furthermore, in addition to gaining new powers, people have lost old freedoms, which he also predicted. He stated that even the things that are good that come from these phenomena will have side effects. This reminded me of systems theory that I read about in the Cyberia book. Though Rheingold thought we may be able to predict some of the side effects of this new way of doing things, systems theory would probably not be compatible with that because of the continuous rolling off of new side effects. Rheingold seems to agree with me that smart mobs are everywhere. Not only are they creating social changes but are existent even in things we would not think of, like bridge tolls. I think this book will be of great help for my final paper and my dissertation.

Cyberprotest: New Media, citizens and social movements – Eds. Wim van de Donk, Brian D. Loader, Paul G. Nixon and Dieter Rucht

This book was very informative and gave me ways to think about my endeavor in different ways that I had previously thought about. Some things that stood out to me were: The idea that social movements lack things like “membership forms, statutes, chairpersons, and the like,” along with other irregularities that make them difficult to observe (3). Social movements, in this book, are said to be formed to create social change, as a means of protest, or be an identity-based network. The younger generation is attracted to and concerned about the work of the social movements of today. One key point that stood out for me was the claim that “more and more, the internet seems to be being developed as a new ‘strategic platform’ that helps a variety of movements to mobilize and to organize protest” (6). This goes along well with my thought about things on the internet becoming more and more like protests, smart mobs, or the like. It is also noted that social movements can be seen as an aggregate of individuals participating in joint action, which also goes along well with my thoughts at this point. It seemed in this book that people want to classify things so much so that each movement must have certain aspects in order to be put into different categories. I am leaning towards an idea that there is one category with many aspects. Again, I am following up on this thought with each book that I read and will hopefully come to some sort of conclusion about that as I read more.

Tweets From Tahrir

This book is absolutely intriguing and is a must read for anyone who is interested in what happened in Egypt during the recent revolution. However, it is important for my studies due to the fact that it outlines and demonstrates how the people were able to come together and create a smart mob. I am currently toying with the idea that everything that happens online is a sort of smart mob. Any website has in mind to attract as many people as possible to their site, and then to keep people coming back to their site. For this reason, I would call this a sort of smart mob. Whether it be a site selling clothes, a blogging site, or any other kind of web page, I would think that they have in mind the same kind of idea that the people had when they started using the internet to bring people to their sites for the Egyptian revolution. The leaders of the Egyptian uprising made pages on Facebook and starting creating Twitter accounts. These were then followed by people and soon came to have a very large group of followers. They were able to do this because they were able to attract people and get them moving for a single cause. Again, I would argue that in some sense this is the same phenomenon anyone hoping to get a large group of followers to their own website would hope to have happen with their own site. Some different kind of wording may need to be used instead of mob; however, it is the same concept. This book has been very helpful to me and I am planning to write a book review and attempt to have it published.

Rita Raley starts her book by stating that “There is much in the world to protest” (1). This is a good observation, one that has been made before, but one that many people would not be bold enough to come straight out and start a book with. There may have always been a lot in the world to protest about but the internet allows people to immediately see what is going on in different parts of the world and therefore decide to take action or make their voice heard. Raley believes that shifts in power have become of a nomadic type and then asks “how does one express dissent and conceive of revolutionary transformation while distancing oneself from one’s forebears, whose lingering nostalgia for their ovaries were not possibility of visible and permanent social change, seems quaint, if even a trifle embarrassing” (1)? She then goes on to explain how tactical media is one way in which one can go about protesting in today’s world. She also used one word I had not seen before, which is clicktivism. While she did not explain clicktivism, I believe this word seems to go along well with the conclusion I think I am coming to at this point in my research, which I talked a little about in my previous post. Clicktivism seems to entail that a user would take part in the smart mobbing that is going on online by simply a click of a mouse. The user chooses one link over another and is therefore participating in the uprising of the spot the user is taken to when the link is clicked. This is the part of this book that I believe will be most helpful for me in the future being that the rest of the book is mainly concerned with media, which is part of what I am interested in, but at this point am mainly concerned with finding out different theories of what is going on out there.

Zero Comments is a jam-pack book full of theories about blogging, networks, and other issues related to blogging.  It starts by noting that Web 2.0 began after the dot-com crash.  ”Blogs, wikis and ’social networks’ such as Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, and Flikr were presented as the next wave of voluntary alliances that users seek online” (ix).  One key feature of web 2.0 is that everyday citizens became part of the production of news.  This could happen in real time and was a definite big change from how everyone got their news before web 2.0.  Another point that Lovink makes, which I believe is very significant, is that “English content on the Web has dropped well below the 30 percent mark.  Growth has also led to further nationalization of cyberspace, mainly using national languages, in contrast to the presumed borderless Internet that perhaps never existed.  The majority of Internet traffic these days is in Spanish, Mandarin, and Japanese, but little of this seems to flow into the dominant Anglo-western understanding of Internet culture” (xi).  There are several points here that are of interest.  First, I personally never knew that less than thirty percent of the internet was in English and there must be some significance to this, which makes me think (2nd point)  Lovink must have a point about the nationalism that was presumed absent from the net.  Third, there must be something more to be said about the dominant Anglo-western view that many, including myself, hold about the internet being about bringing the rest of the world to take up English as a language for everyone.

Nihilism, which is usually a dirty word in most circles, is the subject of the first chapter.  Lovink claims to be after a “creative nihilism that openly questions the hegemony of mass media.  Blogs zero out centralized meaning structures and focus on personal experiences, not, primarily, news media” (1).  I am understand how he is using the word here but, still, I cannot seem to get my mind wrapped around a positive view of the word nihilism.  This nihilist view goes along with his statement that there is a search for truth in blogging but that it will be a truth with a question mark rather than an absolute truth (13).

New media is then described as a “transitional, hybrid art form, and a multi-disciplinary cloud of micro-practices” (41).  This blurring of the lines between art forms seems to fit in well with his nihilist and blog theory.  While Lovink is in most cases blurring lines between things as a main feature of web 2.0, one point made earlier does not seem to fit with this view, namely the nationalism point about language.  In the case of language on the internet, it seems that rather than blurring any lines, there are very clear lines being delineated.  It was just a little surprising to see that with his nihilist views, that he would bring up such a clear opponent to his view.  This may be a minor thing but it was simply an observation I made.  Back to the point about the arts, “The pope is no longer a patron of the arts.  There is no longer a need for cathedral-sized immersive environments.  Society has caught up with techno-Utopia – now it is time for reorientation for the artists.  What new media art has yet to deal with is the miniaturization, up to the point of invisibility, of real existing devices” (79).

Furthermore, one key issue that is delineated as critical for Internet culture is the art of collaboration, where there is “life beyond the exhibitionist Weblog.  Often people interact and work together on tasks and exchange opinions and materials.  They also assist each other in technical matters.  What defines the Internet and its protocols is not just its publicity potential, but also the deep underlying social architecture of this emerging medium” (207).  This is one of the most fascinating parts of the book in my opinion.  I have been thinking for a few weeks now on the thesis that all that goes on on the internet can be called  smart mobs in one way or another.  Collaboration for one purpose or another is still consistent with the smart mob definition in my opinion, at least at this point in my thought process.  The last chapter deals with organized networks, which again goes right along with the collaboration and smart mob idea.  Lovink argues that networks, despite their chaotic nature, should be organized.  This, again, seems to be consistent with my idea about all that goes on with networking, collaboration, and things that sound like it can be said to be “smart mobbing” in some fashion.  I will think more on this subject and talk more about it in the second half of my set of readings in order to see if what I am thinking now will still be true when I read the material on smart mobs.

Douglas Rushkoff offers an eclectic argument as to how Cyberia, a hypertextual dimension, came about and where he sees it going.  He starts the introduction by stating that bohemians have turned into programmers and that they have created a new paradigm.  In turn, they (the bohemians turned programmers and their employers) want this new paradigm to be your new paradigm as well.  Cyberia is the next dimension of human consciousness according to the author.  Because we, the consumer and user, are dependent on Cyberia and this makes us easy targets for the programmers.  In Cyberia, reality is said to be up for grabs and can be dreamed up however one wants it to be.  The very reality on which the ideas of control and manipulation are based is questioned; and as computer-networking technology gets into the hands of more cyberians, historical power centers are challenged and can be changed.  This is evidenced by the fact that bohemians are the ones who have become the programmers.

Also important to Rushkoff’s argument is systems theory.  Quantum theorists, systems mathematicians, and computer people all believe in interdependencies where tiny changes in a system can cause system-wide changes.  Mathematicians call these systems fractals and within fractals, every plan has nooks and crannies.  Fractals are circular equations that include feedback and iteration (system changes).  Despite the fact that this could be called chaos, even chaos has an order.  However, every chaotic system appears to be adhering to an underlying order, which means that everything is interdependent.  Some have even claimed a fractical model behind the evolution of civilation.

Moving the argument back to Cyberia, the success of it is dependent on regular people learning to work with the technologies developed by counter-cultures.  When the people learn to use the technologies and all conversation turns to be typed and not spoken in Cyberia, “one forsakes both body and place and becomes a thing of words alone” (35).  Furthering this phenomenon is the fractical approach, which has the repercussion that when someone types something online, leaving their body and place behind, it iterates through the net.  “The network is a fractal approach to human consciousness” (37).

While the first chapters of this book offered a different view of Cyberia than we normally see, and I did appreciate the first few chapters, the remainder of the book went more into counter-cultures.  I do not believe that the second half of the book will be important to my studies.

In Blog Theory, Jodi Dean offers her account of the reasons blogs became very popular and have said to be dead (though she does not believe blogs are dead).  She starts with identifying blogs as a sort of “communicative capitalism,” where blogs are said to capture users in intensive and extensive networks of “engagement, production, and surveillance” and calls this an exploitation of communication (4).  This type of communication is said to further be linked to the decline of symbolic efficiency where there is uncertainty with the impossibility of totalization and one cannot fully pin down meaning because there is always another meaning that can be attached to whatever is said.  While Dean believes this makes images more powerful, she also thinks that there is no longer a master signifier and aggress with Zizek that this will lead to “suffocating closure” instead of what most think is complete freedom (6).  This goes along with what is called risk society theory, which highlights the harmfulness that comes out of increases in complexity (especially in sciences).  In other words, when humans inquire into the world, things happen which cannot be predicted but the relationship is actually reflexive.

As stated above, Dean offers that blogging is said to have been replaced by Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and people just becoming bored with blogging; The newer sites don’t take as much time.  In addition, social network sites let us “see ourselves being seen” (39).  Blogs by themselves, however, off exposure and anonymity at the same time.  However, Dean believes that rather than replacing blogging, the new social network sites include blogging in them.  “Blogging is parasitic, narcissistic, and pointless – and this is why internet users all over the world blog in ever-increasing numbers” (37).  Utilizing Lacan’s use of the word drive, Dean argues that “Drive circulates, round and round, producing satisfaction even as it misses its aim, even as it emerges in the plastic network of the decline of symbolic efficiency” (60).  In the end, it is pointed out that blogging causes anxiety and, again using Lacan, anxiety is said to be associated with the jouissance that we are all after.