[ICTs-and-Society] Fwd: Discussion post from m.andrejevic at uq.edu.au

[FEIGENBAUM ANNA]

Hi all,

I'm really enjoying the stimulating debates over this list. Unfortunately I am not going to make it to the conference. I am doing research on policing, protest and social media. I just got back from this year's counter-terror expo where I met consultants working on the latest software in social media policing. I'd encourage all of you interested in these 'facebook debates' to take a look at ILPs white paper on policing  http://www.ipl.com/markets/civilgovernment/exploiting-the-power-of-unstructured-social-media-content/ 

Here is an excerpt: "Whether it is Tweeting the assembly point and time of an ad hoc rally or inciting violence and disorder against the government on the pages of Facebook, the vast array of social media gives the man on the streets a powerful tactical weapon to deploy against our nation’s law enforcers. To fight back, and potentially disperse disorder, our police and security services need their own social media solutions."

I've got a lengthy analysis of these developments in the security industry out soon in the new journal Poster. If anyone else is working on these issues around software development, social media and policing, please be in touch! 

I hope the concrete realities and implications of these developments for the thousands of people out on the streets protesting for social justice right now will be a prominent strand of discussion at the conference and I look forward to hearing about those debates from colleagues attending.

best,

Anna


Dr. Anna Feigenbaum
Assistant Professor of Communications
Department of  Humanities, Social Sciences & Communications
Richmond
The American International University in London
Queen's Road
Richmond
Surrey TW10 6JP
________________________________________
From: discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net [discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net] On Behalf Of Christian Fuchs [christian.fuchs at uti.at]
Sent: 12 April 2012 08:43
To: discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
Subject: [ICTs-and-Society] Fwd: Discussion post from m.andrejevic at uq.edu.au

 From m.andrejevic at uq.edu.au

I agree with Andrew -- an economic approach will not fully explain the
Internet; I see what's taking place here not as an attempt to saturate
the field of explanation with economics, but rather to try to figure
out, from a critical perspective, just what is taking place economically
in the realm of social media. Not trying to explain everything with
economics, in other words, but rather highlighting that there is an
economic bit that still needs explaining and understanding, precisely
because there are important ways in which it differs from what came
before. To pick up on Andrew's invocation of Marx, one of the bases for
collection action is some understanding of the terms of exploitation
that structure social relations. From this perspective to analyze and
critique exploitation is not to constrain "agency" but rather to start
to trace the outlines for the impetus and ends for collective action. I
use scare quotes, because "structure-agency" talk tends to reproduce a
false opposition (familiar in the so-called debate between political
economy and cultural studies) -- as if pointing out the way in which
power relations structure available options poses a challenge to the
idea that political action is possible (rather than an incitement to
it). To my mind wrestling with these questions and trying to update or
reconsider our formulations is doing precisely what Andrew suggests: not
discounting future forms/bases of collective action, but figuring out
what form they might take, and on what basis.  I'm very much looking
forward to hearing more about these.

As for Andrew's claim that there is a "notable absence of reflection on
the agency of users in the political economy of the Internet" -- I'd
need a bit more context/explanation to know whether I agree. Clearly,
the "agency" of users has been a central theme of the theoretical
reception of the Internet more broadly -- and, from what I've seen, this
has carried over into political economic analyses which try to make
sense of the ways in which interactivity, choice, pleasure, sociability,
etc, co-exist with forms of exploitation, the reproduction and
exacerbation of existing power relations, and so on. Much of the
critical political economic work followed upon the celebratory claims
made for the empowering/democratizing character of the Internet -- not
to write them off so much as to figure out how they might live up to
their promise (which meant pointing out the ways in which they fell
short, and why). But I feel I'm missing the main point here. I'm looking
forward to hearing more about the forms of user "agency" that have not
(yet) been reflected on.