Informercialisation

This is information

2011-01-20T11:56:00.007+11:00

....according to Alan Moore - http://www.momentofmoore.com/day/2011/01/17

Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now | Video on TED.com

2011-01-14T12:26:00.003+11:00

Anthropologist Amber Case talks here about humans and the use of tools. She notes that through history tools have been used as extensions of our physical capabilities however technology use now extends our mental capabilities, as well as allowing us to transcend some of the limitations of time and geographical space.

Visualisation and the network

2011-01-12T15:53:00.001+11:00

Network analysis offers an important approach to internet research, enabling us to make sense of the complexity of online interactions. Visualisations such as the one above act as representations of the large and complex datasets that the internet offers us as researchers. For more on this impressive representation of the relationships connected together within facebook read the creator's comments here if you have a facebook account.

Google and the Digital Divide

2011-01-11T12:03:00.000+11:00

Google and the Digital Divide

P.150 - "An army intelligence source argued that many attacks on British bases in Bara were based on aerial images in Google, claiming that documents seized during raids on the homes of insurgents yeilded print-outs from Google Earth"

P.161 - "While some other states with ecomonic ties and market potential, such as India, can still negotiate for their control, other states, such as North Korea, Iran and some African countries, have, at least for the time being, less control over the representation of their spaces........This suggests that the 'open information society' is becoming a relative term, which is constantly shaped by a global network of political abd economic powers."

Google and the Digital Divide

2011-01-10T13:07:00.001+11:00

Currently reviewing.......Google and the Digital Divide

Interesting array of digital research methods. P.127 - "network analysis has become an increasingly ueful method for studying the complexity of the global communication flow, and particularly the flow of news"

Techno-democracy

2008-02-19T15:14:00.003+11:00

Perhaps presenting the potential for online democracy in fact denies its possibility, in that democracy is immediately enframed by technology, rather than the other way around. David Trend notes the compulsion to decontextualise technology and its potential, leading to unbounded utopian aspirations (for example in relation to community or democracy):

"Given the youth of digital culture, much of its discourse exhibits a certain unselfconsciousness. This becomes apparent in tendencies toward ahistoricity, a lack of context, or simply an entrenched determinism to say something "new"."

If we look at the legacy of technology, we find a range of philosophical and material tendencies. Trend goes on to suggest that:

"Cyberspace is not so much a "new" idea as it is a repository for a variety of conventional ideologies disguised as novelty."

Trend, D. Reading Digital Culture 2001 pp295-296

Defining the informational society

2008-02-06T17:36:00.000+11:00

Castells is clear in his identification of a post-industrial paradigm for social development, and of it being a clear break from industrialism:

"In the industrial mode of development, the main source of productivity lies in the introduction of new energy sources, and in the ability to decentralize the use of energy throughout the production and circulation processes. in the new, informational mode of development the source of productivity lies in the technology of knowledge generation, information processing, and symbol communication.....

Although technology and technical relationships of production are organized in paradigms originating in the dominant sphers of society (for example, the production process, the military-industrial complex) they diffuse throughout the whole set of social relationships and social structures, so penetrating and modifying power and experience. Because informationalism is based on the technology of knowledge and information, there is an especially close linkage between culture and productive forces, between spirit and matter, in the informational mode of development. It follows that we should expect the emergence of historically new forms of social interaction, social control, and social change."

Castells, The rise of the network society, 2000, pp16-18

This society has different flavours (p20) but the commonalities are strong;

"the core processes of knowledge generation, economic productivity, political/military power, and media communication are already deeply transformed by the informational paradigm, and are connected to global networks of wealth, power, and symbols working under such a logic. Thus, all societies are affected by capitalism and informationalism, and many societies (certainly all major societies) are already informational, although of different kinds, in different settings, and with specific cultural/institutional expressions."

War and Peace

2008-02-06T15:40:00.001+11:00

War and Peace,
originally uploaded by Jayel Aheram.

"In a world of global flows of wealth, power, and images, the search for identity, collective or individual, ascribed or constructed, becomes the fundamental source of social meaning......

.....In this condition of structural schizophenia between function and meaning, patterns of social communication become increasingly under stress."

Manuel Castells, The rise of the network society

Are networked information and expression assertions of identity or genuine attempts at communication and understanding...? Neither is mutually exclusive.

The striking irony of the complex schism between network and identity in the postmodern world is apparent to Castells. This breakdown in effective communication creates a sense of alienation, and ultimately threat;

"The informational society, in its global manifestation, is also the world of Aum Shinrikyo, of the American militia, of Islamic/Christian theocratic ambitions, and of Hutu/Tutsi reciprocal genocide."

"And he worked"

2008-02-06T15:00:00.000+11:00

"Gradually the sunlight entered, shifted across the papers on the table, across his hands on the papers, and filled the room with radiance. And he worked. The false starts and futilities of the past years proved themselves to be groundwork, foundations, laid in the dark but well laid. On these, methodically and carefully but with a deftness and certainty that seemed nothing of his own but a knowledge working through him, using him as its vehicle, he built up the beautiful steadfast structure of the Principles of Simultaneity."

Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed

What's your chosen topic

2008-01-17T16:47:00.000+11:00

What do I need to cover for a proposal?

electronic democracy and freedom of speech - Habermas, Rheingold, Barlow
online community, collaboration and the social (web2.0?)
Ellul Technique, McLuhan's global village, Lyotard's emancipatory potential
internet research - Jones
preservation - ?

Rethink

2008-01-09T12:01:00.001+11:00

Ok, time to focus this into a project that can be driven forward and completed in 6 years!

I'm thinking about blogging and the growth of online community in the Australian context. Can we map the Australian infosphere and identify how community forms around particular issues/activities? Does this represent the growth of the digital environment as a component of a Habermasian public sphere?

This focuses in on the a more defined project within the overarching context of postmodernism and post-industrial society.

How about....

2007-08-05T18:56:00.000+10:00

....Foucaultian influenced critical discourse analysis...? Could there be such a thing? have I just invented it? Is this my Frankenstein's monster?

Chouliaraki and Fairclough (2004) provide an agenda for such a project, open to the postmodern offerings of Lyotard, Baudrillard and Foucault.

Online dating and colonisation of the life-world

2007-08-05T17:26:00.000+10:00

As I read about Habermas' ideas on the colonisation of the life-world by systems I think about the proliferation of online dating sites. At their best perhaps for those marginalised from the traditional dating scene (by age, lack of social capital, illness, disability etc) such spaces for interaction represent agency in the use of the "ambivalent potential" of technologies for mass communication. At the other end of this scale (of "ambivalent potential") are they a prime example of the infiltration of systems into the life-world, an appropriation of the essence of human relationships, sexuality even, "in the service of the machine"?

Habermas and Foucault - tag team

2007-08-05T16:55:00.000+10:00

I'm wrestling a tag team of heavy weights; Habermas and Foucault. They are fundamental, at least I've made that realisation, that "A-ha!" moment. In terms of methodology, ie the real pragmatics of methodology, I'm still uncertain. Foucaultian discourse analysis? Historical discourse analysis? Ethnographic interviews? All of the above?

From Habermas I'm drawing on three key ideas; communicative vs instrumental rationality, the decline of the public sphere, the "ambivalent potential" of mass communication. Foucault offers some far out methodologies; his archaeology and genealogy. I haven't even got back to Nietzsche yet.....but I think that he too is fundamental through his conceptualisations of the will to power and the origins of morality.

Where critical social science means cultural studies and literary criticism

2007-07-13T11:41:00.000+10:00

....that's where I'll be. So I'm looking at Critical Discourse Analysis (discourse, power, emancipatory potential), Historical Discourse Analysis (assumptions and presumptions) perhaps supplemented by interviews - with authors of the key texts (UNESCO, Will Dutton).

This methodological approach brings together critical theory, postmodernism and semiotics. Thinking and reading about these paradigms, particularly critical theory, in the context of research frameworks has actually helped me greatly in understanding them.

Emerging understanding of method

2007-07-02T11:37:00.001+10:00

Wiradjuri dawn,
originally uploaded by waggajake.

I've grappled greatly with the issue of methodology. Case study, ethnography, critical theory. Which is the best fit? I've tried to think hard about what it is that I'm trying to do and what method will facilitate my aims.

I'm there I think - critical discourse analysis. CDA will allow me to analyse the discourse and narrative of the information society literature as it flows through UNESCO's articulation of knowledge Societies.

Knowledge calms

2007-05-08T22:06:00.000+10:00

"Will burns us. Power destroys us. Only knowledge calms."
Barthes

Here we go again - paragraph redraft...

2007-04-22T14:10:00.001+10:00

This study provides an analysis of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) conceptualization of the Knowledge Society as a model of sustainable development. How does UNESCO characterize the Knowledge Society? Why has there been a shift in the language of its policy model; from Information to Knowledge Society? How can the model promote cultural diversity within a framework of technological mediation? How does UNESCO policy on the Knowledge Society articulate the dynamic relationships between knowledge, power and culture?

A case study of UNESCO will be undertaken in order to answer these questions, with a focus on policy statements significant in the formulation of the organisation’s policy on the Knowledge Society. The study will inform the praxis of information and knowledge work in a global, networked society by furthering our understanding of knowledge, culture, the roles information and communications technologies, and digital media, within the context of sustainable development.

2007-04-06T13:51:00.000+10:00

Ellul's vision, similar to that of Marcuse, is so self-contained as to be depressing! Where's the room to manoeuvre in this power dynamic? Where's the pause for us to say "yes' and "no" to technology? In short, where is the space for human agency?

Thinkers like Lyotard, perhaps Lovink might offer some answers (or probably just more questions). Whilst recognising the power dynamics implicit in technology, can we acknowledge its potential? Can we reassert what it is to be human in the technosphere (creativity, technoanarchism)? Zizek too can offer comment here......

Another crack at that paragraph

2007-03-30T17:10:00.001+10:00

Green on red,
originally uploaded by waggajake.

In a number of key policy documents UNESCO specifically promotes the knowledge society as a model for sustainable social and economic development across underdeveloped regions. The knowledge society can be critically viewed from a number of perspectives; philosophical (Heidegger, Ellul, Winner), psychoanalytic (Zizek, Nietzsche), political (Marcuse, Schiller), sociological (Webster, Castells), from media studies (McLuhan, Innis) and cultural theory (Lyotard, Baudrillard, Foucault). My research will draw from across these perspectives to produce a cross-disciplinary analysis of UNESCO’s conceptualisation of the knowledge society, with a view to

better understanding of how the knowledge society differs from prior conceptualisations of the post-industrial or information society,
what knowledge means in different cultural contexts,
and the impact that the knowledge society has on culture.

Blog culture

2007-03-20T22:31:00.001+11:00

Chinese footprint,
originally uploaded by waggajake.

I've just read Geert Lovink's essay in Eurozine - Blogging, the nihilst impulse. Good stuff, great analysis and not couched in confusing cultural studies-speak or new media jargon.

Geert draws together an analysis of the meaning (or lack of) of the blog culture that has grown out of affordable internet access and usable publishing interfaces. This deafening chorus of self-expression and comment points to a declinging belief in "the message". For me it's interesting to comapre this with McLuhan's ideas on the global village and the shaping the medium has on communication. What Geert's piece highlights for me personally is a need to draw on the cultural theories of Baudrillard. Nietzsche also comes into the picture again and I'm aware that his influence will need to be explored in my research.

Some highlights memes and quotes from Geert's paper......

On the democratization of the Net -

As much as "democratization" means "engaged citizens", it also implies normalization (as in setting of norms) and banalization. We can't separate these elements and only enjoy the interesting bits. According to Jean Baudrillard, we're living in the "Universe of Integral Reality". "If there was in the past an upward transcendence, there is today a downward one. This is, in a sense, the second Fall of Man Heidegger speaks of: the fall into banality, but this time without any possible redemption." If you can't cope with high degrees of irrelevance, blogs won't be your cup of tea.

The blog itself, on blogging as social practice, as custom even (is this the overlap with McLuhan's medium as message?) -

It is a digital extension of oral traditions more than a new form of writing......blogs fit into the wider trend in which all our movements and activities are being monitored and stored. In the case of blogs, this is carried out not by some invisible and abstract authority but the subjects themselves, who record their everyday lives.

On the Knowledge Society -

how much truth can a medium bear? Knowledge is sorrow, and the "knowledge society" propagators have not yet taken this into account.

On self-expression and culture of confession -

Exhibitionism equals empowerment. Saying aloud what you think or feel, in the legacy of De Sade, is not only an option – in the liberal sense of "choice" – but an obligation, an immediate impulse to respond in order to be out there, with everybody else.

Their emotional scope is much wider than other media due to the informal atmosphere of blogs. Mixing public and private is essential here.

On media, truth power and nihilism -

blogs are witnessing and documenting the diminishing power of mainstream media, but they have consciously not replaced its ideology with an alternative.

....there is a sense that the Network is the alternative...Blogging is a nihilistic venture precisely because the ownership structure of mass media is questioned and then attacked.

According to the utopian blog philosophy, mass media are doomed. Their role will be taken over by "participatory media".

Blogs bring on decay. Each new blog is supposed to add to the fall of the media system that once dominated the twentieth century......declining is the Belief in the Message......The printed and broadcasted message has lost its aura. News is consumed as a commodity with entertainment value. Instead of lamenting the ideological color of the news, as previous generations have done, we blog as a sign of the regained power of the spirit. As a micro-heroic, Nietzschean act of the pyjama people, blogging grows out of a nihilism of strength, not out of the weakness of pessimism. Instead of time and again presenting blog entries as self-promotion, we should interpret them as decadent artifacts that remotely dismantle the mighty and seductive power of the broadcast media.

Bloggers are nihilists because they are "good for nothing". They post into Nirvana and have turned their futility into a productive force. They are the nothingists who celebrate the death of the centralized meaning structures and ignore the accusation that they would only produce noise.

nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of the plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms, with blogging being one of them.....Questioning the message is no longer a subversive act of engaged citizens but the a priori attitude, even before the TV or PC has been switched on.

In the media context this would be the moment in which mass media lost their claim on the Truth and could no longer operate as authority.....It is the move from the festive McLuhan to the nihilist Baudrillard that every media user is going through, found in the ungroundedness of networked discourse that users fool around with.

On the individual -

blogs are "technologies of the self"

Blogging is the answer to "individualization of social inequality"...This is the network paradox: there is simultaneous construction and destruction of the social at hand.

"digital self-fashioning"

Against this commonly held view that diversity is a good thing, we can hold the loss that comes with the disappearance of familiarity and common references......."Networking begins and ends with pure self-referentiality," Friedrich Kittler writes, and this autopoeisis is nowhere as clear as in the blogosphere. Social protocols of opinion, deception, and belief cannot be separated from the technical reality of the networks

the internet as "ego chamber"

It is communality of bias, or let's say conviction, that drives the growth of blogging power and its visibility in other media.

Pen to paper

2007-03-18T16:02:00.000+11:00

UNESCO promotes the Knowledge Society as a model for sustainable development across global regions. UNESCO's model, at a surface level, acknowledges the debate over what constitutes knowledge itself, thus attempting to provide a universally applicable model.

Yet the Knowledge Society can be criticised to varying degrees from a number of viewpoints; sociological (Webster), political (Schiller), philosophical (Ellul, Marcuse, Heidegger, Winner), psychoanalytic (Zizek), from media theory (McLuhan), and cultural studies (Lyotard).

This study will draw from a range of perspectives to produce a cross-disciplinary analysis of the concept of the Knowledge Society, as defined and presented by UNESCO.

Research questions:

What is the Knowledge Society? - implied values? social practices? questions of power and cultural integrity? role of technology?
How does it differ from the Information Society?
Can such as model be applied across different cultural environments?
What is the impact on culture of the Knowledge Society?

Where to next?

2007-01-29T19:52:00.000+11:00

From critical theory to media theory... Marshall McLuhan's work on the medium as message looks fruitful in terms of the social impact of technologically mediated communication. I'm travelling via Jacques Ellul's critique of the technological society - technique as dominant ideology.

Today I'm intrigued with the idea of the meme as cultural current, ideology as evolution. This is new to me so I'll take a look at the work of Balkin ( http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/cs.htm ) on culutral evolution (technology and the knowledge society as biological determinism?). Jaron Lanier's discussion of Digital Maoism and the notion of the Hive Mind offer an alternative perspective.

Every now and then I'm struck by the idea that I'm not quite sure how all this links together, but it better had!

Through the prism of critical theory

2007-01-02T15:29:00.000+11:00

Critical theory is proving an interesting and enlightening perspective through which to look at the Knowledge Society. Marcuse's One Dimensional Man is particularly revealing and provides a sound theoretical framework for informational development such as that suggested by UNESCO.

Information society as an "ecology of games"

2006-12-21T11:20:00.000+11:00

Will Dutton's work on Social tranformation in the information society situates UNESCO policy on the knowledge society within a complex and interlinked mesh of public policy, social change, economics - an "ecology of games" with a range of actors and agencies of various levels of influence.

UNESCO is but one player in the game, with its own agenda - as set out in "Towards knowledge societies". The potential direction of information society development will be shaped by the strength of the hand that each player holds. I'm currently exploring critical theory as a prism through which to analyse the game....

From the Information to the Knowledge Society

2006-11-17T14:08:00.000+11:00

I'm trying to flesh out the ways in which we have moved from a discourse of "information" to one of "knowledge". I've created some diagrams to represent the transition.....

The Information Society

Problematic areas of debate and contestation

The Knowledge Society

Culture in the knowledge society

2006-11-12T13:07:00.000+11:00

Cultural diversity is in danger [due to] the tendency towards homogenization of cultures, previously believed to be the result of development or "progress" and now commonly attributed to "globalization". (Op cit, p147)

UNESCO argues that knowledge sharing can be defined as "the quest for consensual truth" and that this can be reconciled with the pluralism of values and the proliferation of forms of self-expression.

Firstly some important definitions...

Culture -

"Culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of a society or a social group, and ...encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions andbeliefs" (from UNESCO's Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, 2001)

Local and/or indigenous knowledge -

"Local and indigenous knowledge refers to the cumulative and complex bodies of knowledge, know-how, practices and representations that are maintained and devloped by peoples with extended histories of interactions with the natural environment" (from UNESCO's Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems programme)

Intangible heritage -

"the practices, representations, expressions, as well as the knowledge and skills, that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. It is sometimes called living cultural heritage, and is manifested interalia in the following domains: oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; performing arts; social practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; traditional craftsmanship. The intangible heritage is transmitted from generation to generation, and is constantly recreated by communities and groups, in response to their environment, their interaction with nature, and their historical conditions of existence. It provides people with a sense of identity and continuity, and its safeguarding promotes, sustains, and develops cultural diversity and creativity" (see UNESCO initiatives on intangible heritage)

Will it be possible to develop knowledge societies with hybridised knowledge, combining local/indigenous and scientific/technological forms and approaches? The incorporation of local knowledge into development projects has a range of advantages (p148/149). The loss of culture, of language, of expression is a loss of a particular way of seeing the world.

Photo credit: Justin McIntosh, 2004.

Sustainable development

2006-11-12T12:37:00.000+11:00

"sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"

The objectives of:

economic growth
social development
protection of the environment

rely on knowledge resources, sientific research and technical expertise (UNESCO, Towards Knowledge Societies, 2005, p141-142).

Autonomous knowledge production and technological innovation, within a framework of sustainable development, are seen as keys to agency rather than determinism.

Fleshing out the knowledge society

2006-11-12T12:06:00.000+11:00

A number of themes run through UNESCO's vision of knowledge and the knowledge society, as expressed in Towards Knowledge Societies.

the knowledge society characterised as embodying fundamental human rights as enshrined in the principles of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, such as the right to education, to freedom of expression. In this sense knowledge, ie knowledge of human rights is fundamentally empowering.
the externalisation of knowledge
a continuing process of knowledge creation and innovation
the importance of plurality and diversity - the acknowledgement of knowledge in different forms
knowledge as liberating man from nature (eg natural disasters)

Some important definitions of the terms that UNESCO is using to follow.....

UNESCO and the knowledge society

2006-11-10T12:35:00.000+11:00

I am currently researching UNESCO policy on the knowledge society. UNESCO promotes the development of knowledge societies as the key to sustainable development in a globalised world.

I'm keen to explore how UNESCO conceptualises the knowledge society, what we can learn about our understanding of what knowledge is and how it can be applied within different cultural contexts. I'm interested in the role of indigenous knowledge and culture within UNESCO's vision. Will the knowledge society reflect diverse cultures and social practices? How can knowledge and culture be nurtured within this framework rather than appropriated and commodified?

I'm working my way through one of the key documents - Towards Knowledge Societies - which fleshes out UNESCO's vision with more human, ethical depth than some of the techno-euphoria of prominant information society utopians.

Lyotard, the commodification of information, the debasement of knowledge

2006-06-02T10:03:00.000+10:00

I'm thinking about the Information Society as an ideology which has a long legacy within Western culture. This involves looking at some of the philospohical underpinnings of modernism, as well as engaging with postmodern perspectives. I'm enthusiastic at the prospect, as it will require that I read a range of sources, from diverse cultural perspectives. I'll be drawing on the French philosophical tradition (Lyotard, Ellul, Foucault, Baudrillard) as well as the work of British sociologists (Webster, Giddens) and American and Australian commentators. I'm enjoying the cultural backgrounds that each brings with them in addressing similar issues and concerns. The French perspectives are wonderfully abstract and deeply philosophical, the British are more mundane (more everyday), the Americans are full of ideas about empowering individuals or concern over loss of liberty (or are these simply my own rough and ready cultural stereotypes!?).

A notion that has been floating in the back of my mind for some time is the idea of access to information vs knowledge. I've posted on ideas of collective intelligence as illustrated by online collaborative knowledge (eg the Wikipedia phenomenon). I struggle with this concept. I understand the idea, as expressed by, for example, Howard Rheingold, of the power of social networks. But what of the individual? The question I ask is - what do we actually know, in this context. Aren't we talking about access rather than knowledge? Where is the knowledge? Is it in the machine (in the service of the machine)? If it is then is it knowledge? Should I be more open to a less possessive idea of what knowledge is, perhaps? Allow it to be distributed?

I'm finding connections in this in some of the ideas of Lyotard on the commodification of information. I'm exploring these ideas as I read Technoculture and Critical Theory by Simon Cooper. There is a rich seam to mine here.....

These ideas are relevant in relation to my PhD research looking at UNESCO policy on the development of knowledge societies. Is there a blend of sustainable development within this UNESCO paradigm that respects diversity of cultural heritage and the intangible knowledge that is embodied in cultural forms? The concern is for the loss of valuable and irreplaceable cultural knowledge which is appropriate to specific human environments and contexts, due to dominant Western traditions of progress and development. Under Lyotard's paradigm there is the threat of appropriation of culture "in the service of the machine". The UNESCO context, with a mission of respect for, and preservation of, cultural diversity provides a valuable prism within which to undertake this research as it draws into sharp focus assumptions (presuppositions) of what we mean by knowledge.

One spark (pardon the pun which will shortly become clear) for my interest in this area is due to my recent move from Scotland to Australia. The European immigrants brought with them to Australia their own farming practices. They knew little of the land and perhaps less of the Aboriginal peoples' relationship to it. The Aboriginal practice of "burning off", in order to allow the land to regenerate, is now common practice. This symbiotic relationship to the landscape is embedded in deep cultural practice, which was not explicit in a technological form. The clash of cultural values is fascinating; the relationship to nature, contrasted with the domination of nature. This is the kind of cultural practice that I thinking of when I talk about specific contexts and environments.

Some of these ideas have been encouraged by the thought-provoking blog of Ulises Mejias, ideant, in particular this post on reconceptualising the digital divide. I'm pulling a few diverse threads together here, which is what I will be doing for a while I'm sure. I'll be reading Jaron Lanier's paper on the idea of the collective, The Hive, as it may stimulate my thinking further.

Library space, community space, virtual space

2006-03-29T14:30:00.000+11:00

On reading the paper Millenial net values: disconnects between libraries and the information age mindset I had some ideas about the creative use of technology in libraries. I'm also influenced here by some ideas I had whilst listening to Charles Leadbeater at the State Library of Victoria (transcript and mp3).

At present technology is used structurally, operationally, functionally and nervously. It is still, to an extent, perceived as "separate" in some sense. If libraries are to retain (reclaim?) some relevance in a networked society the attitude needs to change. Technology is as much part of the fabric of libraries as shelving, digital information is as much a part of the collection as books. For the future more creative applications of technology will need to be applied, in order to connect with busy people who will use what is available to them, what gives them services and tools that they need, and who will bypass and ignore that which does not. Time to stop resisting and start embracing change. Time to think creatively about the use of technology and of media formats.

Some ideas -

libraries as places for legal file sharing and distribution. Librarians to deal with access, rights issues.
internet classes - on web publishing, searching, and importantly on the use of virtual space (sharing, communicating, storing content)
virtual space for sharing of collaborative work
online trust-based transactions - a community exchange?
multimedia content
seamless interactions between media formats
reader reviews Amazon style within the catalogue - encourages interaction with the library, "I can read the book submit a review and get my next loan on the recommendation of someone just like me"

I'm a bit off-topic on this post, I'm still formulating my own ideas to some extent on how best to use virtual space. This seemed the best place to try to record these thoughts.

Knowledge workers of the world unite!

2006-03-24T12:55:00.000+11:00

On reading Daniel Bell on the coming of post-industrial society, I'm struck by his prediction of the rise of professional groups and the growing importance of accreditation. From my own experience of professional life this rang true. Melin (in The Information Society Reader) expresses it thus; "The coming of Post-Industrialism signals the decline of the proletariat and its replacement as a key agent of politics by professional groups." (p83)

Bell himself predicts (p88), "the clash between the professional and the populace, in the organisation and in the community, is the hallmark of conflict in the post-industrial society". This clash is mediated by the market, by an ideology of consumerism, by access to globally networked information and by an emphasis on communication between service providers (individuals and organisations) and customers/clients.

Eduction itself is having to adapt to the demand for vocational accreditation predicted by Bell, whilst adapting to this environment of access, accountability and customer satisfaction.

I'm struck by the extent to which Bell's ideas have pre-empted the clash that I see today between collective and authoritative knowledge (in Bell's terms between the populace and the professional) - Wikepedia vs peer-reviewed journal article, health web site vs doctor's advice, Amazon's reader reviews and personal recommendations. In relation to information, Bell's ideas intersect with the analysis, on which I've posted before, by Philip Morville on Authority.

Information literacy is the postmodern context for LIS

2006-02-13T17:55:00.000+11:00

I've just read Dave Muddiman's article "Towards a postmodern context for information and library education" (Education for Information 17 1999, pp1-19), on the suggestion of my colleague Anne (thanks Anne!).

A thought provoking article, Muddiman ties together a few threads that have been floating around in my head. Noting the decline of the theoretical context for LIS as a service built on notions of the public good, of librarians as collectors of society's knowledge in order to make it available to the public, of libraries as "social memory", Muddiman notes the rise of a technologically focused LIS theory through classification systems to the current emphasis on information /knowledge management as the focus of the discipline. He situates this progression through the historical trends of modernism and postmodernism.

I think Muddiman is right to note the vaguely disembodied state of LIS in postmodern society. Traditional power strucutures are breaking down and with them the consensus on social memory, cultural values and authoritative sources of information. Information and knowledge are up for grabs. Corporate interests value the knowledge management paradigm, it offers solutions to the problem of intellectual capital essentially residing within the heads of human beings.

In my opinion, information literacy is clearly the central theoretical paradigm for LIS in this postmodern context. With no consensus on a body of knowledge, information as commodity, corporate claims to intellectual capital and property as private assets, fragmented culture; information literacy is the natural evolution of the LIS profession. With no consensus on the public good, the individual must be empowered to negotiate and navigate effectively and efficiently through the postmodern information environment in ways that respect his autonomy and allow him to contribute to social capital.

At their best social networks and collaborative collective knowledge projects such as wikipedia might be viewed as attempts by groups of individuals to empower themselves in a global and fragmented information environment. Librarians need to shift their focus towards individual empowerment within an information environment over which they no longer have significant control.

Information studies and media theory

2006-02-01T15:42:00.000+11:00

I recently watched the Manufacturing Consent documentary, which presents Noam Chomsky's theory of non-conspiratorial manipulation of the mass media by powerful social forces (essentially corporate interests but the analysis go deeper if combined with the ideas of Foucault for example). I have had an interest in Chomsky's ideas for some time now and wanted to think about how dominant forces influence discourse. This ties in with some ideas I'm having about the nature of information society discourse; utopian, technologically deterministic, value-laden (gendered perhaps, certainly culturally coloured), presented as synonymous with individual empowerment and social progress, and hence beneign, almost unquestionable (Godlike?).

I have already noted, in previous posts, my interest in the ideas of Neil Postman who writes in this vein. It seems to me that the convergence of technology, telecommunications, media, personal and social information flows, online communication and entertainment brings with it the need for cross-disciniplary perspectives. Potential sources:

Living in the information age: a new media reader edited by Erik Bucy
Communication theory - media, technology and society by David Holmes (not the Belfast DJ) - see http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/books/communication-theory.html
Making sense of media: key texts in media and cultural studies edited by Arthur Berger
Amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show business by Neil Postman
Technopoly: the surrender of culture to technology by Neil Postman
Habermas on the public sphere

A trip to the library beckons....

Authority, the individual, the collective and the future mediascape

2005-12-23T17:22:00.000+11:00

This is an interesting paper on the authority of online information sources by Peter Morville.

It contrasts the traditional view of authority of information (accurate, objective, current, from a source of authority in terms of its publisher and author), with an apporach built around social networking, collective intelligence and the folksonomy crowd.

Wikipedia is an example of what Morville is talking about. Its authority is derived from

"the information architecture, visual design, governance, and brand of the Wikipedia, and from widespread faith in intellectual honesty and the power of collective intelligence."

Morville describes Wikipedia, along with de.licio.us and Flickr, as successes in bottom-up publishing and collaborative categorization.

As a librarian and a product of an teacher-centred education system I find myslef struggling a little to join the collective. As my pal George Macgregor has pointed out there have been numerous high profile inaccuracies in, and abuses of, Wikipedia (for instance
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4520678.stm ). Are these new approaches scaleable? How scaleable is a folksonomy? Who gets ruled in and out of the collective tagging community? Perhaps I'm just struggling to keep up. I don't think it's any good fighting the trend, as Morville points out,

"we must also recognize the power that devolves to the individual in an open media landscape that enables us to select our sources and choose our news. In today's Google economy, we are increasingly becoming our own authority."

As a librarian, a researcher and a lecturer, I agree with his closing comments,

"The real upheaval lies just ahead, as a generation of school kids (and their teachers and librarians) struggle to reconcile traditional notions of education and objectivity and authority with the constructivist web of social facts and collective intelligence where folksonomies flourish and the truth is a virus of many colors."

For a projection of the future media landscape, visit the Museum of Media History in 2014. All sounds very plausible and not too far off....

Informing ourselves to death

2005-12-20T16:44:00.000+11:00

I've just introduced myself to the ideas of Neil Postman by reading a speech of his from 1990, entitled Informing ourselves to death (available http://www.frostbytes.com/~jimf/informing.html). I definitely want to explore his work further.

He comments on the uncritical approach to the use of technology in society, with a refreshing perspective on how technology empowers some, but not others.

"technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure."

Importantly he comments on the pervasive flood of information that washes around us:

"The tie between information and action has been severed. Information is now a commodity that can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance one's status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don't know what to do with it."

These comments mirror those of Theodore Roszak on the Cult of Information. Postman also notes the importance of symbols. Postman...Post-modern man more like (a little postmodern humour there)!

Social capital, social networks

2005-12-14T17:18:00.000+11:00

I'm interested in Charles Leadbetter's ideas on "the New Economy", particularly in relation to social capital. For some information society proponents the idea of the network has morphed from connections between computers to the social value to be released from human relationships.

"Networks of social relationships create social capital, which is absolutely critical in this new economy. An ethic of trust and collaboration is as important in the new economy as individualism and self-interest."

These themes can be seen in cyberspace in various guises. In commercial ventures like ebay, which functions on the basis of trust, of reputation (similar to branding, yet ebay allows individuals to gain the kind of trust associated with a brand through the building of a credible reputation). In information retrieval and use where, as users are empowered to retrieve information unmediated, authority is being replaced by trust (of a particular tool such as Google with its user-friendly interface and great results, or of a collaboration such as Wikipedia). Access rather than authority, empowerment rather than mediation? On a tangent, is this because information use is now "just-in-time", rather than "just-in-case"? Information only has to be good enough at the immediate time required, rather than a perfect, absolute ideal (effects on decision making?). It has a shorter shelf-life for individuals, in terms of their information use.

Leadbetter emphasises creativity as the driving force, the raw material of the knowledge economy. He acknowledges the danger that the new economy will exaggerate social divisions -

"The knowledge economy threatens to amplify existing sources of inequality while also creating distinctive divisions."

The Information Society as Frontier, as Utopia?

2005-12-14T15:46:00.000+11:00

I'm currently reading The Information Society Reader edited by Frank Webster (Routledge, 2004). It is ideal for me at this stage as I try to explore different perspectives on the concept of the Information Society. It pulls together key readings on information society issues such as-

post-industrialism and globalisation
surveillance
the network society
democracy
digital divisions

The thinkers whose work I have been interested in exploring all feature: Toffler, Roszak, Webster himself, Bell, Castells, Schiller, Foucault, Zuboff, Habermas, Poster.

I'm particularly interested in the scrutinizing the utopian visions of futurists such as Toffler. I find the tone of his piece with Dyson, Gilder and Keyworth, "Cyberspace and the American Dream" (The Information Society 12 1996), frighteningly neo-conservative in tone. In their piece they firmly plant the American flag in the virtual soil of cyberspace. The narrative has shades of the biblical, rousing "the people" to claim their (divine?) mission -

"It is time to embrace these challenges, to grasp the future and pull ourselves forward. If we do so, we will indeed renew the American Dream and enhance the promise of American life."

The tone is absolute, cyberspace is "literally universal". Of course it isn't, yet the writing does not look outwith the bounds of its own metaphors. The spirit of the pioneer is cited as motivation to "tame" this "bioelectronic environment". The frontier imagery is thematic throughout. There is an unashamedly deterministic tone to the narrative; cyberspace as "ecosystem", nature becomes the "nature of the marketplace" and "dynamic competition", which morphes into a discussion of the "nature of freedom". This sequence is presented as natural, an organic process, evolutionary even.

Information Society discourse as ideology?

Google is Information

2005-10-06T14:58:00.000+10:00

According to The Onion, Google plans to destroy all information that it can't index. Fact or fiction? You decide - http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40076

The end of culture?

2005-09-28T16:25:00.000+10:00

"Technology is the end of culture. Technology is the end of religion. Technology is the end of mystery" (Me, today, 2005).

I've been thinking recently about information technology, progress, culture, knowledge and information literacy. Does a constant drive towards progress as solutions, as technologically defined systems remove the real meaning from life, the mystery, the knowledge that it is bigger than all of us, our sense of place in the world? Whilst this may sound trite, it is a strand of thought that I think is worth exploring.

I'm thinking of how paradigms like information literacy and lifelong learning as conventionally defined may in fact disempower (is that a real word) people. Religion, art and culture have traditionally codified the human experience, to pass on the subconscious, timeless truths that cannot conventionally be recorded. In its efforts to codify every element of what it is to be human, with technology taking the place of humans in manual tasks, and increasingly efforts through knowledge management systems to extract the essential value from individual employees for the benefit of the organisation, is modern society removing from us what it is to be essentially human.

Perhaps I'm taking too static an approach here. Culture and human experience are more like a continuum perhaps, constantly evolving. This is just the next phase. Digital culture exists, doesn't it.

Worth thinking about...

Information Society or Information Technology Society

2005-09-15T10:48:00.000+10:00

Martin, B., Information society revisited: from vision to reality, Journal of Information Science, 31 (1) 2005 .

On the "techno-economic flavour" of two main EU Information Society action plans (eEurope 2002 and eEurope 2005) - "if the goal of these European programmes is the attainment of an Information Society rather than an Information Technology Society, then much more attention must be paid to the role of social factors within the agenda."

"Information, please"

2005-09-09T09:35:00.000+10:00

Roszak on the blurred use of the word information -

"The word comes to have vast generality, but at a price; the meaning of things communicated comes to be leveled, and so too the value." (Roszak, 1986, p14).

Information literacy, social information and embodied learning

2005-09-08T16:46:00.000+10:00

I have found reading my colleague Annemaree Lloyd's paper "Information literacy:different contexts, different concepts, different truths" (Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 37 (2) June 2005) stimulating. There is a lot there that help me to put some ideas I have had about the digital information environment and digital literacy (as evoking a more sensory experience and an emotional as well as intellectual response) into some sort of theoretical context. I'm interested in the multiple narratives of the digital environment and of how individual forms of meaning (or ways of knowing I think Anne might say) can be contructed from it.

The upshot is I have more reading to do; on postmodernism, constructivism, digital media, digital culture. Foucault, Chomsky to come but for the time being I'm still on Roszak!

The Cult of Information

2005-09-05T22:51:00.000+10:00

I'm reading Theodaore Roszak's The Cult of Information: the folklore of computers and the true art of thinking. This is a book I have wanted to read for some time. I find any work that articulates a critical analysis of technologically deterministic policy and culture interesting.

There's a number of books I want to get through but not far down the list is Manuel Castells trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. I'm hoping that these works will give some theoretical foundation to the kinds of ideas that I want to explore in my research.

Lund public library lends out people

2005-08-31T23:05:00.000+10:00

I recently read about a scheme being run by Lund public library in Sweden. Through the scheme library users can "borrow" a person for a 45 minute chat. The scheme aimed at challenging people's perceptions - the "items" that could be borrowed included a muslim cleric, a homosexual and a gypsy. A refreshing take on library service development in the information age.

This is a really inventive scheme free of the technological determinism that much information society public policy can often display. By asserting the civil society role of the public library this scheme challenges models of public library service based on economic rationalism.