I haven’t written in this blog in a while because I started a new job as a search analyst about a month ago, and as you can imagine, that’s been taking up quite a bit of my time. Recently, however, I had an experience that has inspired me to write this post. I’ll get in to the details of the experience in a moment, but (as is my wont), I want to briefly go over some theory that relates directly to what I’m getting at first.
The following is the first-draft of a list of phrases that I’ve seen used on the internet, tv, and radio that automatically raise a red flag for me. I’m not saying that everyone who uses these phrases isn’t worth listening to, but most of the time that’s the case.
Add your own in the comments.
- “They’re all crooks…”
- “Liberals just want…”
- “Conservatives are…”
- “It’s just common sense!”
- “Hello, my name is Richard Dawkins”
- “South Park is really good satire”
- “That’s what they want you to believe.”
- “Do you know the truth about Scientology?”
- “ACORN!”
- “Government meddling”
- “Atlas Shrugged”
- “The Second Amendment” (without acknowledging “a well-organized militia…”)
- “States’ rights”
- “(political opponent) is a LIAR!”
- Lame, capitalized puns (“BUllSHit”, “TAXachussetts”)
I’ve been unable to dedicate time to this blog lately, but I want to direct people’s attention to this TED talk. Within his topic, the speaker presents a lot of interesting, relevant points about the internet and society. But his argument about the difference between intended and actual consequences of action is fascinating. In my mind, when combined with the fact that humans simply are not rational, it sets a framework for arguing against unlimited free choice and libertarianism. But that’s a complicated issue that I can’t address right now. So I’m hoping that you guys will add your thoughts in the comments.
Link Drop 9/16
Published September 16, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentTags: danah boyd, Politics, social media
Just saw a link to two articles of note on The Root (one of Slate’s sister sites, apparently targeting a middle to upper-middle class African American audience). Both referenced danah boyd’s address to the Personal Democracy Forum. I’m a big fan of boyd’s work, which has done an excellent job of illuminating how existing class and racial disparities are reflected (and in some cases) magnified online, despite the seeming promise of a classless Web.
Something caught my eye in the latter article, this phrase (italics mine): “presented her controversial work … on June 30 at the Personal Democracy Forum”
“Controversial?”, I naively thought, “surely anybody interested enough in social dynamics online to have heard of danah boyd wouldn’t find the work controversial. That’s a poor choice of words.”
And then I looked into the comments. As is unfortunately to be expected on the internet, they ran the full gamut from actively racist to misinformed to ‘why does this matter?’ Although we always have to be aware of the self-selection bias when extrapolating anything from blog comments, the responses demonstrate some unfortunate truths:
- Many people are unable to recognize that their own experience says nothing about larger reality. A lot of the posts are in the form of “I have lots of black friends of Facebook”
- Many respondents failed to understand that the particular sites they use are a function of their social network, stating features of the sites that they ‘prefer’… Despite the fact the boyd points out that such notions are just rationalizations on that very page.
- In general, people fail to understand that racial and class disparities are problematic even when they are disconnected from a prejudiced, ‘racist’ person. Institutional racism and structural disparity are apparently beyond the understanding of the average person.
- Very few people understand the difference between access to technology and the complicated set of factors that determine use and proficiency with those technologies.
None of these observations are new to these articles, but the comment sections are a good (if somewhat despiritng) reminder of how bad of a guide personal experience and ‘common sense’ can be.
Information, Knowledge, Intellectual Property and DRM
Published September 16, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentTags: DRM, information, intellectual property, legal
Discussing Digital Rights Management (DRM) in the comments of a previous post, I started thinking about information, knowledge, and intellectual property. The distinctions between the three are very important in our digital age, and I wanted to define them for myselves. The point of doing so is to begin to develop a framework of thinking about digital media, property, and ownership in the post-iPod age.
While it may be more logical to start from the ground up before explaining my conclusions, I want to come out with full disclosure and say that my purpose in this is to argue in favor of DRM (at least in principle). My views stand in stark opposition to a loosely-defined set of ideas commonly found on various parts of the internet, notably on TechDirt.
Most succinctly, I take the view that information and knowledge are not the same.
Continue reading ‘Information, Knowledge, Intellectual Property and DRM’
If I Use the Word ‘Fetish’ Enough Times in a Post, Will I Receive More Hits?, or: No Pictures of Feet Here
Published September 11, 2009 Uncategorized 31 CommentsSpurred by comments on and off of this blog regarding the post The Future’s So Bright I Have to Wear Shades, I have been thinking quite a bit about fetishization (not in that sense) lately. In the non-sexual, dictionary sense of the term, ‘fetishization’ refers to the process of ascribing mystical, spiritual, or religious significance to an inanimate object. Metaphorically, the term can be used to describe an attachment or obsession with an object, divorced from its actual (use-) value.
Fetish commodities are peculiar on both economic and psychosocial levels. Economically, they are valuable not because they have intrisic useful qualities, but because they are simply perceived or judged to be valuable by a particular group. Yet that value, social psychologists assure us, is at least in part due to (economically) irrational factors–emotional attachment and the knee-jerk reaction to scarcity chief among them.
But simply because a behavior (even an economic behavior) is technically irrational doesn’t mean that it is wrong in any logical or moral sense. After all, there are some very convincing arguments to be made that much desirable behavior, such as altruism, is irrational.
Tony the Tiger Wasn’t Made for Facebook
Published September 8, 2009 Uncategorized 8 CommentsTags: advertising, leo burnett, Marketing, marshall mcluhan, social media
Somehow (read: wasting time on Wikipedia), I recently stumbled across Time’s list of the 100 Most Important People of the (20th) Century. Although such lists are, by definition, pretty ridiculous, it was pretty interesting to read about people with whom we’re all familiar (Hitler) right next to less well-known names (Philo Farnsworth or Amadeo Giannini, anyone?).
But one of the entries in particular stood out to me: Leo Burnett. Burnett, if you aren’t familiar, was the founder of one of the largest ad companies in the world, appropriately named Leo Burnett Worldwide, which is headquartered right here in lovely downtown Chicago.
During his career, he created icons like the Marlboro Man and Tony the Tiger and, in the process, revolutionized the entire field of advertising. Without exaggeration, he was truly a creative genius.
Yet I couldn’t help but wonder how much of his success was really due to creative talent, as being a successful artist and being an influential communicator are two wholly different things. Was his true talent in creating images, or in recognizing that the time had come when creating images was a viable marketing tool? While there can be no doubt that images have always had, and always will have, a special power over the human mind, it is doubtful that they could have really been successfully mass-marketed without the technology of the late industrialized world.
