Web 2.0: digital utopia or dystopia?
…The Web is linking people…Web 2.0 is linking people...people sharing, trading and collaborating...We’ll need to rethink a few things...copyright; authorship; identity; ethics; aesthetics; rhetorics; governance; privacy; commerce; love; family ourselves.
Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
A rhizomic Web
American media mogul, Tim O’Reilly, is popularly credited with defining the term Web 2.0. It is now used as an umbrella term referring to the Internet as a communal platform for information exchange. In the United States, the pioneers of Web 2.0, dubbed Digital Utopians by some commentators, inspired by the idealism of 1960s Counterculture, envisaged the Web as a tool to counter globalisation and promote digital democracy (Turner, 2008; Žižek, 2003).
Every day millions of users log on to access social networking sites like MySpace, online encyclopedias like Wikipedia and video-sharing sites like YouTube. As information consumers, we are all centre-points in a knowledge “rhizome”—a communication node characterised by collective and individual information consumption to paraphrase Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1980/1987), and Jean Baudrillard (1981/1994),
Borrowing the term "rhizome" as a metaphor for unmediated knowledge, from Deleuze and Guattari (1981/1987), David Cromier’s perception of the Web is potentially utopian. He sees the rhizomatic education model, exemplified by educational wikis, as a potentially democratic exchange site allowing for the construction and transfer of utilitarian knowledge. By contrast, Baudrillard (1981/1994) sees the rhizomic activity as essentially dystopian. He sees it as a metaphor for shallow information consumption.
Aesthetics of disappearance
We are already experiencing a “disappearance” of technology, to paraphrase Paul Virilio and Slavoj Žižek (2003), as multi-platform tools become smaller, faster, and disappear from physical sight, only to become more integrated in our daily lives. William Gibson’s seminal science fiction novel, Neuromancer, that made the term “cyberspace” popular as a metaphor for the Web, has already darkly anticipated this trend. Commercial development is moving towards multi-platform and open source applications. Multi-touch interfaces will replace both keyboard and mouse. A typical mobile phone can now function as a camera, an archive, MP3 player, GPS finder, and web browser and this trend is set to continue. If Web centralisation is pursued, then this has potential to reconstitute the nature of the Web. On the one hand, it will potentially allow for greater speed and connectivity, but on the other, potential implications for civil liberties and data security may arise as a result of the central storage of information.
Changing literacy behaviours
Established literacy behaviours are changing. Online reading experiences do not map exactly onto established literacy behaviours. In the West, reading patterns, established since the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, emphasise the importance of close reading consisting of textual comprehension, and critical reflection often involving re-reading the text. Reading is often a slow, single-attention, solitary act. Reading on the Internet places emphasis on searching, scanning, jumping, and filtering information. Internet reading is often a fast, multi-attention, communal act as seen by web blogs, twitters, and online wikis. Search engines read Web pages by filtering hits according to popularity or relevance to an online community. Information Communication Technology (ICT) has merged into Information Society Technology (IST). New patterns of online reading complement the emerging technologies that increasingly allow computers to read and write autonomously to each other across platforms and applications such as in XML (Extensible Markup Language) based technologies that underlie the new online text databases, archives, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication, also known as “web syndication”) feeds. The “information bomb”, represented by relentless information acceleration, as envisaged by Paul Virilio (1998/2000) has exploded and we are living through information fallout. How is this affecting knowledge construction and ways of knowing? Donna E. Alvermann (2001) identified that adolescents' interest in the Internet, and social communication technologies (e.g., chat rooms where people can take on various identities unbeknown to others) suggested a need to teach youth to read with a critical eye so as to identify how ideas are represented. At the same time, she suggests teaching adolescents that all texts, including their textbooks, routinely promote or silence particular views.
In the digital space, do we need new ethical systems?
Howard Gardner and Michael Wesch are currently exploring this question through their work. Howard Gardner is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner’s “GoodPlay”, arising from the “GoodWork” project studies 15-25 year olds who participate in online games, social networking sites, and other online communities. It seeks to understand how young people perceive of their participation in virtual worlds and ethical considerations guiding their conduct. The aim of the project is to develop a curriculum to encourage young people to reflect on the ethical implications of their online activities. Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist exploring the impacts of new media on human interaction, is working with the Educause Center for Applied Research on a project called "The Tower and the Cloud" examining how higher education institutions (The Tower) may interoperate with evolving network-based business and social paradigms (The Cloud). Information literacy is wider than the acquisition of traditional information skills (e.g. how to use a catalogue, how to locate a book, how to access an e-journal). The information literate person applies critical thinking in order to analyse and evaluate information for use in assignments/projects and in the general context of problemsolving. In today's global economy, knowledge capital is central. The digital hasn't changed the importance of Intellectual Property or its need to be protected. Educators and technologists need to consider the needs and interests of content users with reference to the rights of content providers.
References
Alvermann, D. E. (2001). Effective literacy instruction for adolescents. Executive summary and paper commissioned by the National Reading Conference. Chicago, IL: National Reading Conference. Retrieved 31 October 2008 from http://www.nrconline.org/publications/alverwhite2.doc.
Bauderlein, B. (2008). Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming The Chronicle ofHigher Education 54 (31) Retrieved on October 20, 2008 from http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i04/04b01001.htm.
Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S.F. Glaser, Trans.). University of Michigan Press (Original work published 1981).
Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate, 4 (5). Retrieved on October 21, 2008 from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=550
Deleuze, G & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Vol.2. (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (Original work published 1980).
Gibson, W. (1995). Neuromancer. Haper Voyager: London (Original work published 1984).
Turner, F. (2008). From counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the rise of Digital Utopianism University of Chicago Press Virilio, P. (2000). The information bomb. (C. Turner, Trans.). Verso: New York (Original work published 1998).
Žižek, S. (2003). Organs without bodies: Deleuze and consequences London and New York: Routledge.
Comment
Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
A rhizomic Web
American media mogul, Tim O’Reilly, is popularly credited with defining the term Web 2.0. It is now used as an umbrella term referring to the Internet as a communal platform for information exchange. In the United States, the pioneers of Web 2.0, dubbed Digital Utopians by some commentators, inspired by the idealism of 1960s Counterculture, envisaged the Web as a tool to counter globalisation and promote digital democracy (Turner, 2008; Žižek, 2003).
Every day millions of users log on to access social networking sites like MySpace, online encyclopedias like Wikipedia and video-sharing sites like YouTube. As information consumers, we are all centre-points in a knowledge “rhizome”—a communication node characterised by collective and individual information consumption to paraphrase Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1980/1987), and Jean Baudrillard (1981/1994),
Borrowing the term "rhizome" as a metaphor for unmediated knowledge, from Deleuze and Guattari (1981/1987), David Cromier’s perception of the Web is potentially utopian. He sees the rhizomatic education model, exemplified by educational wikis, as a potentially democratic exchange site allowing for the construction and transfer of utilitarian knowledge. By contrast, Baudrillard (1981/1994) sees the rhizomic activity as essentially dystopian. He sees it as a metaphor for shallow information consumption.
Aesthetics of disappearance
We are already experiencing a “disappearance” of technology, to paraphrase Paul Virilio and Slavoj Žižek (2003), as multi-platform tools become smaller, faster, and disappear from physical sight, only to become more integrated in our daily lives. William Gibson’s seminal science fiction novel, Neuromancer, that made the term “cyberspace” popular as a metaphor for the Web, has already darkly anticipated this trend. Commercial development is moving towards multi-platform and open source applications. Multi-touch interfaces will replace both keyboard and mouse. A typical mobile phone can now function as a camera, an archive, MP3 player, GPS finder, and web browser and this trend is set to continue. If Web centralisation is pursued, then this has potential to reconstitute the nature of the Web. On the one hand, it will potentially allow for greater speed and connectivity, but on the other, potential implications for civil liberties and data security may arise as a result of the central storage of information.
Changing literacy behaviours
Established literacy behaviours are changing. Online reading experiences do not map exactly onto established literacy behaviours. In the West, reading patterns, established since the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, emphasise the importance of close reading consisting of textual comprehension, and critical reflection often involving re-reading the text. Reading is often a slow, single-attention, solitary act. Reading on the Internet places emphasis on searching, scanning, jumping, and filtering information. Internet reading is often a fast, multi-attention, communal act as seen by web blogs, twitters, and online wikis. Search engines read Web pages by filtering hits according to popularity or relevance to an online community. Information Communication Technology (ICT) has merged into Information Society Technology (IST). New patterns of online reading complement the emerging technologies that increasingly allow computers to read and write autonomously to each other across platforms and applications such as in XML (Extensible Markup Language) based technologies that underlie the new online text databases, archives, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication, also known as “web syndication”) feeds. The “information bomb”, represented by relentless information acceleration, as envisaged by Paul Virilio (1998/2000) has exploded and we are living through information fallout. How is this affecting knowledge construction and ways of knowing? Donna E. Alvermann (2001) identified that adolescents' interest in the Internet, and social communication technologies (e.g., chat rooms where people can take on various identities unbeknown to others) suggested a need to teach youth to read with a critical eye so as to identify how ideas are represented. At the same time, she suggests teaching adolescents that all texts, including their textbooks, routinely promote or silence particular views.
In the digital space, do we need new ethical systems?
Howard Gardner and Michael Wesch are currently exploring this question through their work. Howard Gardner is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner’s “GoodPlay”, arising from the “GoodWork” project studies 15-25 year olds who participate in online games, social networking sites, and other online communities. It seeks to understand how young people perceive of their participation in virtual worlds and ethical considerations guiding their conduct. The aim of the project is to develop a curriculum to encourage young people to reflect on the ethical implications of their online activities. Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist exploring the impacts of new media on human interaction, is working with the Educause Center for Applied Research on a project called "The Tower and the Cloud" examining how higher education institutions (The Tower) may interoperate with evolving network-based business and social paradigms (The Cloud). Information literacy is wider than the acquisition of traditional information skills (e.g. how to use a catalogue, how to locate a book, how to access an e-journal). The information literate person applies critical thinking in order to analyse and evaluate information for use in assignments/projects and in the general context of problemsolving. In today's global economy, knowledge capital is central. The digital hasn't changed the importance of Intellectual Property or its need to be protected. Educators and technologists need to consider the needs and interests of content users with reference to the rights of content providers.
References
Alvermann, D. E. (2001). Effective literacy instruction for adolescents. Executive summary and paper commissioned by the National Reading Conference. Chicago, IL: National Reading Conference. Retrieved 31 October 2008 from http://www.nrconline.org/publications/alverwhite2.doc.
Bauderlein, B. (2008). Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming The Chronicle ofHigher Education 54 (31) Retrieved on October 20, 2008 from http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i04/04b01001.htm.
Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S.F. Glaser, Trans.). University of Michigan Press (Original work published 1981).
Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate, 4 (5). Retrieved on October 21, 2008 from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=550
Deleuze, G & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Vol.2. (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (Original work published 1980).
Gibson, W. (1995). Neuromancer. Haper Voyager: London (Original work published 1984).
Turner, F. (2008). From counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the rise of Digital Utopianism University of Chicago Press Virilio, P. (2000). The information bomb. (C. Turner, Trans.). Verso: New York (Original work published 1998).
Žižek, S. (2003). Organs without bodies: Deleuze and consequences London and New York: Routledge.
Comment
Comments
Post a Comment