[ICTs-and-Society] Subject: RE: Social Media, Democracy and, Politics in the Information Society

[Christian Fuchs]

From: Andrew Feenberg feenberg at sfu.ca

This is a great discussion. I think we need a sophisticated 
understanding of technology to get beyond the opposition between the 
corporate and the revolutionary theme with regard to the Internet. The 
Internet was originally developed by the military to share computer time 
and to test a redundant communication system able to survive EMP. This 
origin required a non-hierarchical system, a network with multiple 
pathways for signals. That is what we have inherited as the Internet 
today. It is not neutral nor is it deterministically fated to support 
one side or the other in political struggle. It is ambivalent, available 
for different possible developments. One of those developments takes 
advantage of the network as the basis of social networks. In certain 
political contexts such as the Occupy movement that has democratic 
implications (in the strongest sense). But the Internet also records 
everything and exposes it to further exploitation. That makes possible 
the advertising uses that underpin corporate activity on the Internet. 
We can imagine the system developing in different directions because it 
has these very different aspects and potentials. But this is also why a 
discussion that seeks the "essence" of the Internet is bound to be 
inconclusive.

Whether on the whole the Internet is good or bad does not seem to me an 
answerable question. What is true is that it is not a broadcast system 
(yet) and so long as it remains a true network it will be open to 
political usages. I'm for that.