[ICTs-and-Society] Plenary session 3 “Social Media, Democracy and, Politics in the Information Society” (Christian Christensen, Peter Dahlgren)

[Ekaterina Petrovna]

Hello:)

I find the discussion very interesting and thought-provoking. However, i
tend to agree with the comment made by Andrew. Facebook is often criticised
for its entertaining aspect  (apart from the fact that it belongs to
capitalistic organisation, promotes commodification and that people can be
seen as working for free their), and that political news and some attempt
at civic engagement are lost in the stream of such applications as
Farmville. As one user, whom i interviewed observed:

“Well, there was a group that started up and got a very large number of
members saying, 'We don't want the Lib-Dems to make a deal with the
Conservatives'. This was its title. Obviously, that wasn't successful in
its aim but, you know, you get these kind of things and I think there is a
potential there, but it needs more than potential to actually happen.
They’re a lot of groups like that, but they co-exist with all other things
like Farmville!”

I often asked questions on my wall about how my 'friends' perceive
Facebook. I remember I once posted an important question about what did
people do on Facebook and whether they thought it could bring about some
social change. I was having a very interesting discussion related to this
question, with some of friends sharing quite deep and important thoughts
and then suddenly a friend of mine joined the discussion by asking the
following: “I am more interested to know WHY you are my age but you have
absolutely no wrinkles?!” This question followed a comment from another
user who shared some very serious observations about Facebook.

And this is what Facebook is basically about. Important political news are
presented together with the latest advert from L'Oreal. One friend posts an
important update about the Occupy Movement while another writes what she is
eating for lunch. But whether it is bad or good is open for discussion.

if we look at it from the angle of popular culture, this comment of my
friend about my wrinkles can actually appear as 'interesting' and thought
provoking. It was at least for me, because as it happens, I am obsessed
with all kinds of beauty products and can discuss this topic for ages. And
that is why I actually replied to my friend and we had an interesting
discussion about anti-aging creams, etc. The discussion did go back
eventually to the topic of Facebook, but the comment of my friend, if
anything, allowed to inject some 'fun' into a serious topic.

This fun aspect of Facebook is actually what allows people to read some
news with the means of Facebook. Maybe indeed people are more aware about
certain topics because they are presented in an interesting and
entertaining way? And maybe there is nothing wrong indeed with simply
clicking 'the like' button if for some people it is the first step to some
sort of political engagement?

As the same user who remarked about Farmville continues:

“...But you get this in everyday life, each of us is embedded in lots of
networks and has potential contacts and ties to all kinds of things, and we
spend an awful lot of time just in chat and discussing things and chatting
about things and yes, gossip. And we spend then, some other pieces of time
where, quite actively, we're trying to do something, sometimes trying to
make a difference; sometimes only a difference related to ourselves or our
house or planning a vacation or something and sometimes dealing with local
issues on a much deeper level.”

Ekaterina Netchitailova, PhD student at Sheffield Hallam



On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Dean, Jodi <JDEAN at hws.edu> wrote:

>
> Andrew's use of the term "civic use" of the internet is interesting. It
> points to the fact that there is nothing particularly revolutionary, left,
> liberal, or progressive about using
> networked media for organizing. The convenience is convenience regardless
> of political outlook.
>
> "Use of the internet" doesn't tell us anything--virtually everyone and
> everything
> uses the internet. It's what spam, porn, activists, World of Warcraft, and
> cute kittens have in common.
>
> If one's view is that any kind of politics is laudable, then one might
> celebrate this. I don't think any politics is laudable.
>
> Even if I did, I would still be critical of a one-sided celebration of the
> politics of networked media. Here are just a couple of reasons:
>
> 1.  The turn out rate for mass emailings/FB invitations is lower than with
> direct contact.
> 2.  Reliance on electronic media means less direct involvement with people
> (so, instead of going door to door and building knowledge and connections
> first hand, one relies on a database of phone numbers).
> 3.  Capacities for organizing diminish: people think that all that is
> necessary is an FB page.
> 4.  Political action becomes synonymous with awareness.
> 5.  Political action becomes seamlessly integrated with consumption and
> entertainment; the content may be radical but the form is not.
>
> Jodi Dean
> (not part of the conference but lurking on the list)
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net [
> discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net] on behalf of Andrew
> Feenberg [feenberg at sfu.ca]
> Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 2:17 PM
> To: christian fuchs
> Cc: discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
> Subject: Re: [ICTs-and-Society] Plenary session 3 “Social Media, Democracy
> and, Politics in the Information Society” (Christian Christensen, Peter
> Dahlgren)
>
> I want us to consider a naive observation about social media. A recent New
> Yorker article dismissed the political uses of the Internet by contrasting
> the courage required to participate in a sit-in in the 60s and the
> triviality of signing an online petition. This sort of critique of the
> Internet mistakes completely its significant civic role which is
> communicative. It enables discussion and makes it cheap and fast to
> assemble masses. I had a student write a biting critique of the destructive
> effects of the Internet on civic culture, only to organize a successful and
> quite large "Slut Walk" in Vancouver shortly afterwards in just a week
> using the Internet. I went just to tease her and asked her if she knew what
> mimeo machines and telephone trees were. She had no idea. I told her this
> would have been her communication system when I was organizing
> demonstrations. So, of course the Internet does not "make" revolutions. But
> it plays a role in them just as did Khomeini's cassettes or the leaflets
> passed around in the May Events in 1968. A total government and corporate
> takeover of the Internet might well reduce it in the future to the abject
> state of television, but until that happens let's celebrate its positive
> role where we find it. I await your critical counter-attack!
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Christian Fuchs" <christian.fuchs at im.uu.se>
> To: discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
> Sent: Sunday, 26 February, 2012 11:00:29 AM
> Subject: [ICTs-and-Society] Plenary session 3 “Social Media, Democracy
> and, Politics in the Information Society” (Christian Christensen, Peter
> Dahlgren)
>
> In plenary session 3 of the Uppsala conference "Critique, Democracy and
> Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society", Peter Dahlgren and
> Christian Christensen will discuss fundamental challenges for
> contemporary politics and democracy in the context of digital media.
>
> They ask questions like: What is transparency? How can media advance the
> transparency of power structures? Is transparency a viable political
> goal? What is the relationship of WikiLeaks to power, transparency, and
> the mainstream media? How does the relation between alternative media
> and mainstream media in the age of the Internet look like? What is a
> civic sphere? What is the role of the Internet for the civic sphere?
> What are the political opportunities and limits posed by social media?
> What is democracy today? What are the political and democratic
> potentials and limits of critique today?
>
> Discussions and comments on these contributions are welcome.
>
> Best, CF
>
> CHRISTIAN CHRISTENSEN
> Uppsala University, Sweden
> WikiLeaks: Mainstreaming Transparency?
> ABSTRACT: In the period shortly after the release of the “Collateral
> Murder” video, “Afghanistan War Logs” and “Iraq War Logs”, it appeared
> that WikiLeaks had done something that many had thought unlikely: the
> insertion of a radical critique of US military and geo-political power
> into mainstream popular discourse (particularly in the US). While The
> Guardian, New York Times and Der Spiegel (the three newspapers chosen by
> WikiLeaks for the release of the first leaks) are not the newspapers of
> choice for many in the US, UK and Germany, the very presence of the
> material on their front pages opened up the possibility that the murky
> world of US power might now be forced to concede ground to transparency
> advocates. In this paper, I address the often contentious
> WikiLeaks-mainstream media collaboration, and the potential impact of
> this relationship upon the evolution of transparency as a political
> philosophy.
>
> SPEAKER INFO: Christian Christensen is Professor of Media and
> Communications Studies in the Department of Informatics and Media at
> Uppsala University, Sweden. His primary area of research is in the use
> of social media during times of war and conflict, but he has also
> published on the representation of Islam, post 9/11 documentary film,
> and international journalism.
>
> ***
>
> PETER DAHLGREN
> Lund University, Sweden
> Social Media and the Civic Sphere: Crisis, Critique and the Future of
> Democracy
> ABSTRACT: While the advent of social media has already had a significant
> impact on people’s daily lives, it has also come to alter the character
> of the civic sphere, i.e., the broad social terrain of citizens’
> activities.
> Thus, social media in their various forms quickly became incorporated
> into discourses about democracy and the political. Clearly, social media
> can play a useful role in the advancement of democracy, but it is by now
> quite clear that they offer no simple solution to the ills that beset
> contemporary democracy. On the one hand they can just as readily be used
> for purposes that are anti-democratic, on the other hand – and in a more
> complex perspective – the contingencies of late modern capitalism
> generate a variety of conditions that intercede, in problematic ways,
> between even progressive “produser-citizens” and the advancement of
> democracy via social media. These contingencies have to do with a number
> of factors, including power relations at different societal levels
> (including the growing separation between power and formal politics),
> the imperatives of consumer society, late modern cultural currents of
> individualism, and the architecture and political economy of the net
> itself and its Web 2.0 affordances. As the global crisis deepens, these
> contingencies become more pronounced.
> This presentation will highlight and exemplify these aspects, arguing
> that research needs to become more alert to such obstacles in regard to
> social media’s role and potential in cultivating the civic sphere. Even
> the notion of democracy – too often deployed as incantation – needs
> critical interrogation to elucidate its multiple and at times contested
> ideals.
> In this regard, the latter part of the discussion will probe the notion
> of critique, suggesting that there is a methodological dimension that
> can be retrieved and applied to social conditions, practices, and
> discourses for progressive political purposes. The concept of critique
> of course remains multivalent; I focus on the lineage from Hegel’s idea
> of the critical reflection on unnecessary constraints on human freedom.
> Its concern is with “emancipation”.
> Historically, various intellectual and political movements on the Left
> have used the no-ion of critique. Today, however, the concept seems to
> have lost its punch, due to the decline of the Left, the rise of
> neoliberalism, the growing social uncertainties, the ironic
> sensibilities of liquid modernity, and not least the current global
> crisis, in which no clear political alternative has emerged to galvanise
> the many heterogeneous strands of opposition.
> I intend to explore the notion of critique as it still can be found in
> the writings of a number of contemporary theorists – Laclau and Mouffe,
> Boltanski, Bauman, and Žižek – and extract some common threads. These
> will be applied to social media and the civic sphere, against the
> background of the current crisis, with an eye towards reinvigorating
> critique as an intellectual endeavour. Also, I will briefly address the
> notion of ‘emancipation’ to see what useful meaning can be elucidated in
> regard to our contemporary horizons.
>
> SPEAKER INFO: Peter Dahlgren is Professor Emeritus at Lund University,
> Department of Media and Communications Studies. His research focuses on
> democracy, the evolution of the media, and contemporary socio-cultural
> processes, including identity formation.
>
>
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