Information Revolution

"Each comes to depend on the continuous, normalized, and increasingly centralized surveillance and monitoring of subject populations..." Is this quote for the Time of the Technoculture really true? It is scary to think that we as a collective population are growing more and more ok with the idea that being watched is normal. The internet as we have discussed in class, is monitoring pretty much every key stroke we type into the search bar, and we can hardly walk into a store with out thinking 'big brother' isn't somewhere watching. From the increase in traffic cameras in the sky to being installed on lights- even getting a ticket is now easier than ever.
Every time a crime happens, it seems that we rely on store, or building, or even outside surveillance to show us the situation that occurred. We are giving the authoritative resources of storage and control of information to a higher stranger. However, like the book states, these are the possibilities that we are given in exchange for new developed technologies.
Giddens identified one field that is using surveillance as control which is economic analysis. This idea reminded me of the book: Who Elected the Bankers by Louis W. Pauly (which of course google now has me recorded for searching for the pdf of this book online). The book begins to take issue with the idea of a global economy, and dealing with the fear that would be created by this.
Seeing these ideas in print make me worried to think about what the economy might soon become because of people becoming normalized to the idea of surveillance.

Times of the Technoculture

In the first paragraph of Chapter 5 in the book called Times of the Technoculture, Kevin Robins and Frank Webster state, “The new information and communications technologies are changing not just entertainment and leisure pursuits but, potentially, all spheres of society.” I like everything about this quote except the word POTENTIALLY. In my opinion, new information and communications technologies ARE changing all spheres of society. Robins and Webster list work and education as two spheres in society that are changing because of the advancements we have seen in technology. I will now talk about these two topics and how much they have changed over a short period of time.

First, the business world, specifically communication in the workplace has changed dramatically because of recent advancements in technology. Back in the day nobody had cell phones, let alone a cell phone given to them by the company they worked for. I remember when I was in grade school my father had a phone in his car that had a wire and it was sitting in a holder that was built into the floor underneath the radio. It did not have text messaging, internet connection, email, a GPS system, applications, or anything else current phones have. Today, many businesspeople are given a Blackberry, I Phone, or Droid so they can be reached at any time of the day and at any location by their employer or fellow employees. These cell phones are equipped with everything imaginable so businesspeople can conduct day-to-day activities quicker and more efficiently. Instantaneous communication is key because the business world is very fast paced and competitive, and if you can not be reached or you have difficult contacting someone else, you could cause severe harm to the company you are working for and potentially be looked down upon by your superiors.

Second, education has changed significantly, and Robins and Webster specifically mention distance learning as a benefit from the new information and communications technologies. Personally, I have taken two online classes (Management and Marketing) for my Business Studies degree and I have absolutely loved both classes because it was so easy to use. All I had to do was login to the class website, read the schedule for the week, and complete all of my assignments, quizzes, tests, or group projects online. You may be wondering how students would be able to work on a group project together without ever meeting each other in person. Well, my online class enabled us to use a web cam, as well as email and discussion boards so we would be able to talk about the project and make group decisions quickly and efficiently. We all had different work and school schedules during the summer and had a lot going on, but we managed to balance our work and school lives to successfully complete our project. Communicating with the teacher was also very easy. She posted a video every Sunday night to inform us what to do each week, and she always told us to email or text/call her if we had any questions or concerns. The technology I experienced with my online classes was terrific, and I am very thankful for the opportunities that were presented to me the past two summers.

Where the counterculture Met the new Economy

While reading the article “Where the counterculture Met the new Economy,” I couldn’t help but connect the Catalog to sites like E-bay, Amazon.com, and Craigslist. Though the Catalog did not physically offer you the product, it did have suggestions and product reviews of people who have used the item in the past. This is similar to our sites like E-bay because they too provide information about products and where to find them. The Catalog was a stepping stone for present day sites to become as successful as they are. In the Catalog and sites like Amazon, we feel like we are connected to other parts of the world and country. People giving advice on products seems like everyone is helping each other. “By the early 1970s, then, the Whole Earth Catalog had developed into a
publication that celebrated and exemplified the notion that geographically dispersed communities could be linked by the exchange of information in a context that was both communal and commercial.” The Catalog connected people in a way that no one had ever seen. It was like a modern day social network, it brought people together with a common interest. They were able to communicate long distances with people they have never met, but it was successful. The Catalog changed the lives of people who used it in the past and our modern day sites have forever changed the way people shop. The Catalog provided people with information about products they have never heard of or even thought they would ever need to use. It opened peoples eyes to a different way of life.

Social Network

In Fred Turner's, Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy article, its very interesting to see how technology advancement developed with the internet of intercommunication across the nation. The interactions on the internet of what we do today with facebook, twitter, ebay, amazon, ect, are everyday activities and normal to us. But the Well, along with the catalog had to be a drastic change in life for people in that time period. It’s interesting how people viewed it as “boundary objects” and “trading zones”. Is makes it seem like how you would describe interacting and trading in the ancient days. It would be interesting to hear more reaction of individuals of that time as this virtual community and forums were taking place. I wonder what some of the consequences were at the time of these interactive developments. We discuss the negative aspects of today’s technology in class. There were likely situations with the catalog similar to what we see with ebay scams today, along with interaction conflicts and disputes which facebook often stirs up. Either way it’s intriguing to see the beginning of the social network world. I believe the social theorists were correct when they thought the interconnection would become the new social order, as it influences us today and future.

Although many may try and compare this article to facebook and other social networking sites of today (as I myself did at first), the subject matter involving the Whole Earth Catalog and its transformation into WELL was derived from a much deeper understanding of the false sense of community that people were turning into. Not to say that WELL didn't evolve and turn itself into something it didn't know it was capable of in the first place, but the intentions were to provide a space where the individual could 'conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.' The idea for this community didn't begin with the same intentions as Facebook or Twitter. It worked to provide knowledge and erase ignorance, without the pressure and judgments of any person higher or lower on the chain. Facebook allows users a 'freedom' of a certain globally shared domain that everyone we know and don't know is apart of. This 'freedom' allows us to work within the confines of a domain that encourages us to make more friends and stimulate social interaction while they simultaneously sell out our personal domains. Although I am not against facebook, it isn't something that has helped me gain knowledge, share opinions or feel comfortable within the equal confines of a community.
WELL seems to provide users with a stable space that promotes not self-promotion but self-improvement. This article referenced 1960's music festivals featuring iconic bands such as the Dead. While even the article seems to portray the band and their general following as hippies through certain quotes, the sense of community and following connected both the fans and the band members in an equal bond. Music festivals today seem to provide the same sense of community- no matter who you were before, everyone is in an equal space without any type of heirarchy or pressure, liberating its participants from the outside world. The band Phish does a good job in my eyes creating this equal space where a massive community has evolved, not only through festivals but through the internet. People are connected in a non threatening way where they not only converse about Phish but about topics that stimulate personal knowlege and growth. The article compared modern day WELL to a 'village' in which people could partake in both business and pleasure. This isn't the Whole Earth Catalog selling itself out to keep up, its simply providing an alternative way of looking at the way we go about life. Do we want to trod along and follow the dominant ideology- well in a way most of us do, yes. Should we look deeper into subjects that are outside of our realm of comfort? I think so.

Misfit to Mainstream

In Fred Turner's article Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy, he talks about different ideas and inventions that start out as counterculture that are later packaged an evolved to fit mainstream media, and new economic practices. His article reminded me of a lot of different movements and ideas that started as pure that were later packaged and reshaped by the machine of society and turned into popular culture. An example he touches on, but doesn't necessarily address in the same way, is the hippie movement in the 1960's. What started as a small counter cultural movement in the periphery of the spectrum, was later packaged into a style and a particular fashion that ended up in many people's eyes defining the decade. The ideas of the first people in the movement started out pure, but was later mudded up and packaged into mainstream popular culture, through advertising and other social and economical means. I see the transformation from misfit to mainstream in movements and inventions like this as a change because of the fear that society has of counter culture and peripheral movements, that could create conflict in mainstream society. In today's age, it seems that counter cultural ideas and movements can more rapidly be transformed into artifacts of popular culture and of mainstream society, because of the ability to communicate online. Information accurate and inaccurate can be massively dispersed, and disseminated to all quarters of the globe through internet technologies, and now the huge popularity of social media technologies online. It is hard to find any artifact of our current culture that remains pure in it's ideas and remains uninfluenced by advertising and the popular culture machine.

Evolution of Social Networking

A community evolves when a group of people with a common interest come together. Today, communities can form in many different ways. Fred Turner discusses how a community was established by sharing their interests on paper (Whole Earth Catalog), and then moved their group on-line (WELL). This on-line group created our ideas of social networks. “In its pages, the Catalog both depicted the products of an emerging counterculture and linked the scattered members of that culture to another. In that sense, it became a ‘network forum’. That is, it offered a venue in which members of multiple geographically dispersed groups could communicate with one another and in doing so come to see themselves as members of a social network” (489). I believe that this was one of the key points in the reading because it describes the effects of changing a type of communication from paper to on-line. On-line allows people to have access to information at a quicker and easier pace. Consequently, the distribution of people’s ideas travels globally and at a faster rate.

Nowadays, social networking is discussed on a daily basis in classrooms, occupations, clubs, etc. So, what is the big talk about? Social networking has become huge because it now affords people the opportunity to stay connected for job opportunities, such as keeping in contact with people from all over and having easy access to resumes and occupation interests. Clubs can now use social networking to get their ideas/cause out to everyone at a faster/higher rate and also keep in contact with people worldwide comparing ideas and communicating with people with common interests. Classrooms discuss social networking to help inform people how this change from paper to on-line has affected our society. Teachers help students become aware of their possibilities through social networking.

As I was reading the article, a type of social networking that came to mind was Flickr. Flickr is an online photo management and sharing website that helps connect people with similar interests all over the world. Flickr creates an on-line social networking system by having different groups of various topics, and people posting pictures that show their idea of that particular topic. People are also allowed to comment in this group. For example, there is a group that is labeled purses. In this group people can upload their photos that portray what a purse is to them. While some people have fancy purses, others have a shopping bag as their purse. We can see the variety of purses and discuss what it means to them. There is also a beach party category. Here, some people post actual individuals dancing on the sand, while other people take pictures of different objects that resemble a beach party to them. Flickr helps create this community where people are able to share their ideas to a mass amount of people. People who have similar interests can now stay connected and discuss their ideas to a community at a fast rate.

Is the change from paper magazines to on-line social networking a good thing? I believe so. The main impact on society is that people can now create different types of community, meaning that they now have easier access to a bigger and more diverse community which allows for greater availability to an insurmountable amount of knowledge on topics recognized, but also the less understood. Now, it is easy to be involved in various communities. You do not have to limit yourself to belong to just one community. Today’s technology allows people to not only receive their information at a faster rate, but their community now can be globally which creates more ideas and more people informed. The knowledge to be shared is limitless.