I thought this story from Friday on NPR was fascinating in the way it talks about posters on lampposts in Berlin.  Even though modern communication technology abounds in the city, people still use modes of communication from an era when the ability to reach out was much more limited.  People advertise sales, lost items, political rants, and sometime just personal statements. It makes me think that new media is just another way of doing the things we have always done.

The topic of privacy is facing a new challenge in the digital era according to Belad et al (2011). While the conventional definition of privacy can be simply defined as being left along, the concept of privacy is much more complex in the online environment. While the meaning of absolute control of your privacy in the online is nearly impossible, online users’ awareness of such inherent risk can cause negative effects against companies and users. Companies and third parties must continue to collect user information to learn about their constituencies and provide more relevant services of products for them. However, once users become too afraid of offering information, companies will likely lose the ability to craft better offerings while customers will lose the chance of finding more relevant products and services. Hence, companies must demonstrate the ability to protect users’ personal information from external intrusions and its motivation and intention to product and respect information. Overall, users will doddle between information privacy protection behavior and information-seeking behavior. People will always want to protect their privacy. Nevertheless, companies can ease such concern of users by offering worthy offerings and embedded trust.

In the same sense, Bodle (2011) also elaborate the concern of online privacy using Google’s privacy practices as an example. Given the popularities of Google’s lines of cloud base software, the user base is growing in a massive scale. However, the author argued that Google relies on loosely defined self-regulations placing the responsibility of managing privacy protection on the user with vaguely written privacy policies. Some examples suggested the overly excessive personal data collections by Google without clear indications of the intended purposes.  While the author’s criticism against Google and muddy definition of privacy in the era of mobile technology is completely understandable, I must say that Google is not solely existing public enemy, and it happens to be that the firm is doing superb job than other privacy-destroyer wannabes. It surely imposes critical challenges against online privacy in the mobile technology era, but I still believe that self-regulation and user responsibilities are the way to improve unfinished mobile technologies and gain more social acceptance of such technologies.

According to Ford (2011), once clearly separated, the boundary between public and private is becoming blurry and intermingled private and public domains than ever before in the age of internet and mobile technologies. Especially, the advent of social media and blog brought even fierce tensions between public and private domains because individual users’ narratives of personal lives are aired to public and such stream of personal data can be collected and used without consent of the users. On the other hand, it is interesting that the author pointed out such online mediums are where we start to see the less obscure boundary between private and public because users have the option to classify the audience of the messages. The author suggested that the divide between private and public was never really a clear-cut line. Rather, the special and personal the public/private distinction is best described as a continuum anchored with the private on end and the public on the other.

Nevertheless, Ford’s continuum model is not without criticism. According to Jurgenson and Rey (2012), her concept is still limited to dichotomous nature of private and public divide, so that it would be better off to understand the concept as dialectic, meaning that each concept implies the other. Besides, as the example of danah boyd’s example of social steganography, a public message in social media setting is not necessarily a public message. With consideration of audience group, it can be consider either public or private for certain groups with shared values. Their proposed dialectic framework was reputed by Ford, stating that the steganography was an example of meaning-management, rather than the demonstration of dialectic nature of the private and public divide.

The private and public divide is a complex issue. As the boundary becomes blurry and such process is accelerated by internet and mobile technologies, we will likely experience emergences of new norm and value systems in the context of new technology infused environment. Apparently, many people is still learning the consequences of broadcasting supposedly private message in public channels, such as social media, and they are shaping relevant manners and etiquettes. Users of this new domain are self-regulating and self-purifying the new system. Although some may not like it and believe that new bundles of legal regulations must be injected, I still believe that wisdom of crowd will dominate our new channel, and the conventional definition of privacy, being left alone, will be applicable with little bit of twist in social media styles.

Jurgenson and Rey’s response to Ford’s model of the public/private continuum encourages a conceptualization of publicity and privacy in terms of a dialectic. They refer to Baudrillard’s concept of obscenity and seduction to illustrate the dimension of knowledge/non-knowledge in the dialectic. ‘Obscenity’ is the drive to reveal all and expose things in full, whereas ‘seduction’ is the process of strategically withholding in order to create magical and enchanted interest (what he calls the ‘scene’ opposed to the ‘obscene’). That is, non-knowledge is the seductive and magical aspect of knowledge. Using Baudrillard’s metaphor, we might say that burlesque is ‘seductive’ because each layer removed reveals something new that is still concealed, whereas pornography is said to be obscene because it immediately reveals everything, often in close-up.”

As I read the above quote, I think about the concept of identity within the public/private theory. Regarding non-knowledge, Jurgenson and Rey inquire: “When posting a picture publicly, one is also, potentially, concealing information such as: Who took the picture? Who else was there? Where was this? How does this photo relate to the others in the album? Which photos were deleted/never posted? What wasn’t photographed in the first place?” It is very much a structuralist point of view, where the presentation is obscuring something hidden, which is what the “real” is. One can never uncover the façade and perceive the real, for once one rejects that which faces him or her, they enter into another construction of what is real, and reality alludes them

My own question to this concept is, how does identity factor into the idea of privacy and publicity? All three scholars, Jurgenson, Rey, and Ford, assume that the subjects they use as examples are the real deal. Ford refers to Carmen as an example of social steganography, an example to validate Ford’s point about meaning-management. Carmen posted song lyrics on Facebook to conceal her feelings from her mother. Carmen may have actually broken up, and may want to express her true feelings to her friends while hiding them from her mother (hence Ford’s point about private/public continuum). However, I want to know why Carmen chose to express herself at all in a public setting, how she wanted to construct her identity, not just to communicate her “true” feelings. Did she want to come off as the pathetic lonely-heart type? She may as well quoted the script from the movie Vanilla Sky: “Red dress, strappy shoes…she’s really staring at you. And she seems to be crying. I think she’s the saddest girl to ever hold a martini.”

Jurgenson and Rey acknowledge the concept of identity in their discussion of private/public, but they don’t explain it enough: “We might say that self-presentation on social media takes the form of a fan-dance, a space where we both reveal and conceal, never showing too much, else we have given it all away, but always enticing by strategically concealing the right ‘bits’ at the right time.” I’m interested in not just the “reveal and conceal” of the person’s behavior but the image they endeavored to construct. Instead of focusing on “fan dancing,” I’m also interested in the “fan dancer”—the motives and choices in which a person fan dances to create an image of themselves, which is NEVER the real.

The reading for this week raised a number of issues that I have mulled over at one time or another.  Rather than summarize each article, I will address the points that stuck out for me or which raised questions.  I appreciated how well Beldad et al. provided typologies and various ways in which privacy has been discussed.  The belief that people own their information (p223) and that privacy is control over that information (p221) strikes me as problematic.  I agree that these are accepted notions of privacy, but they are untenable beliefs.  Unlike intellectual property discussed in last week’s readings, we are not the producers of our personal information.  A person’s social security number, voting history, address, or even their birthday are not thing produced by the person.  At most they are co-productions of one’s existence and actions in the context of some other institution.  I can think of no other example where I can claim ownership of something I neither produced, purchased, nor use outside their respective institutions.  And while I agree that personal information is a commodity, the idea that it has “become” a commodity denies that it has always been a commodity and may blind researchers to the ways in which that information is used in the expression of power by looking too hard at the means by which the information was collected and disseminated.  The belief of ownership of information runs contrary to core democratic principles of open government.  We demand individual privacy while at the same time we demand the openness of government and access to what it produces (which is why we have the Freedom on Information Act).  This ignores that the productions of a democratic society are the collective productions of individuals.  All so called personal information is created to facilitate our involvement and participation in that society.

The problematic nature of these beliefs is further illustrated in the Bodle article.  Not as an express point, but in its glaring absence in the discussion.  As a student of rhetoric, particularly how it can be used covertly, I found Bodle’s article interesting and compelling; and I cannot disagree with any of observations or conclusions.  However, what I believe was left unstated or understated was how the information at the heart of the discussion was produced.  While the thrust of Web 2.0 is user-generated content, the means of production still resides wholly with the company.  If I let a person into my shop to use my tool and my materials and bore the cost of production, what rights do I have relative to what is produced? I would argue that I have quite a lot of say in what happens to the final product.  While the language of Google’s Privacy Policies is vague and misleading, to assume information you provide while using their services (usually for free) should remain under your strict control without clear and explicit statements to the contrary is naive.

What really seems to have changed is the ease at which information can be accessed and the ease at which it can be cross referenced with other information.  To illustrate this further, consider the Supreme Court Case earlier this year about the use of GPS trackers.  While the tracker gathers the exact same information that a “tail” would, the ease at which this is possible caused the court to find that the use of GPS trackers require warrants while the traditional “tail” has not and does not. (A discussion of this can be found here: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/scotus-gps-ruling/)

Finally, regarding Ford’s use of a continuum to distinguish between public and private, I believe her model misrepresents the nature of two concepts.  However, Jurgenson and Rey also fail to address this fundamental misrepresentation.  Whether they are distinct and separate concepts or part of a continuum, this view implies that information can be placed on this continuum by the user with the assumption that it will remain where placed.  Furthermore, such a scale also implies that public or private can be measured or marked in some objective way.  Concepts of public and private are very subjective.  In truth, public and private are imaginary concepts to which we arbitrarily assign meaning for our own comfort.  Nothing is private that cannot be made public.  To act with an expectation of privacy is to justify actions which you already know would cause embarrassment or harm your relationship to another.  It is an excuse for duplicitous behavior.  Mitt Romney could argue that the fundraiser where he made the recently posted comments was a private event.  I don’t think he should get a pass on what was said just because he intended it to have a certain degree of privacy.  More than the contemptuous nature of the statements, the fact that someone who has been running for president for the past seven years would carelessly assume that anything he said could not potentially be broadcast worldwide displays a cognitive flaw that argues against his qualifications to be president.

I do want to make one additional clarification.  To me, there is a very real difference between privacy and security, even though the actions we take to acquire both are similar.  The Hope Diamond is on public display at the Natural History Museum, yet it is very secure.  At the same time, many things I might wish to be private are not very secure.

The first reading by Beldad et al. (2011) proposed a theoretical framework for personal information-related behaviors on the Internet. There was a lot of good information in this article, however, to shorten my discussion, I would like to just discuss the idea of social exchange. This article discusses how individuals may trade their personal information for other benefits. That is, an individual may give up some of his or her privacy to gain a monetary reward, or some other type of reward such as group membership on a social media site such as Facebook. I found it interesting to consider our private information as a type of currency that can be used to purchase tangibles and intangibles. The second reading also discussed this idea when describing how Google is attempting to shift the responsibility of privacy over to the users. Although, I agree that that our information is just that, it is ours. I fear that we often hand it over without even realizing what is at stake. As discussed in some of the readings, even if the privacy statements are read in full, how many of us completely understand them? Also, can we really trust these companies with our information? It seems that this loss of privacy may be a cost of participating in the network.

Finally, the last three readings discussed the distinction between the public and the private. Ford (2011) started off the discussion by describing the times that we live in, and how we are currently seeing a break down of the barrier between the public and the private. Although the public/private divide has often been treated as a dichotomy, Ford argues that this view must change to better reflect this barrier break down previously mentioned. She goes on to give examples of how technology has helped to blur the divide between the public/private. For example, she discussed how some individuals have actually turned much of their own life into a public show by using webcams to broadcast themselves online. After discussing many other examples, Ford attempts to reconceptualize the public and the private by proposing a continuum that “is anchored on one end by the ‘private’ and on the other by the ‘public’.” Ford goes on to declare that “between the purely private and the purely public there exist an infinite and infinitely variable number of configurations that fall somewhere between” the public and private distinctions.

Although, Ford makes a good case for a public/private continuum, not everyone has bought into this idea. Shortly after Ford’s article, Jurgenson and Rey (2012) published a comment on this proposed continuum. In fact, Jurgenson and Rey discuss how Ford did not break far enough away from the traditional idea of the public/private distinction. They argue that privacy and publicity may “be better understood as a dialectic.” That is, they view privacy as implying publicity and vice versa. They go on to discuss how posting a picture online makes it public, but that this implies the private by not displaying the whole story. For example, individuals viewing the photo may not know who took it, where it was taken, or what the photographer chose not to photograph. In short, this dialectic view describes how publicity can reinforce privacy and the other way around.

In a response by Ford (2012) to the comments of Jurgenson and Rey, Ford states that her recent research has further strengthened her continuum argument. She goes on to explain in greater detail how her continuum may better explain some of the public/private examples discussed in Jurgenson and Rey’s article. For example, Ford discusses how the act of ‘white walling’ can be better understood within her continuum view. She describes how once information has been made public, but is then deleted, there is no guarantee that the information is completely private. This information may have already been viewed and even copied. She argues that this “deleted content exists in the liminal space between the truly public and the truly private.” To be fair, I can somewhat see both sides. However, I would probably side with Ford’s continuum model.

Beldad, A., de Jong, M., & Steehouder, M. (2011). A comprehensive theoretical framework for personal information-related behaviors on the internet. The Information Society, 27, 220-232.

Bodle, R. (2011). Privacy and participation in the cloud: Ethical implications of Google’s privacy practices and public communications. In B. E. Drushel & K. German (Eds.), The ethics of emerging media: Information, social norms, and new media technology (pp. 155-174). New York: Continuum.

Ford, S. M. (2011). Reconceptualizing the public/private distinction in the age of information technology. Information, Communication & Society, 14, 550-567.

Ford, S. M. (2012). Response to Jurgenson and Rey. Information, Communication & Society, 15, 294- 296.

Jurgenson, N., & Rey, P. J. (2012). Comment on Sarah Ford’s ‘Reconceptualization of privacy and publicity’. Information, Communication & Society, 15, 287-293.

Within the first paragraph of their article, Beldad, Jong, and Steehounder establish an undeniable truth in today’s world, “personal data have become a commodity.” I certainly use my information as currency on an almost daily basis. I trade my email address, age, gender and home address on a weekly basis in exchange for online coupons. I’ve used the authors’ cost-benefit calculations and determined that these 4 pieces of my identity are a fair trade for the savings I get on my living expenses. Bartering with these pieces of my personal information has become so common in my everyday life that I never even consider the risk anymore. The only time I even hesitate in giving out this information is to keep my email address from getting spammed, which my junk filter has mostly eliminated the need for anyway. I draw a hard line when it comes to my social security number, requesting an alternate identifier whenever possible. In this way, I’ve been using the protection motivation described in the article.

Bodle’s piece on Google’s Privacy Practices was a bit eye opening. Apparently I’m paying a hefty price for that spam filter on my Gmail account. Without strong regulation on companies like Google, they have no incentive to discontinue their practice of putting the responsibility of regulating one’s personal information online on the user. I think part of the reason that Google continues this practice is the general public (myself included until now) that make use of Google’s services are blissfully unaware that so much of what they are using Google for is being stored away for someone else’s use. Even when we do become aware, we feel so defeated that we wonder what the point would be of discontinuing use. They already have all of my information anyway, right?

My life is easier because of Google, there is no arguing that. However, with cloud computing making access to my documents easier for me, it is also making the acquisition of my information even easier for companies like Google. At least Google can claim it is not alone in these practices. After all, those with the iPhone should be aware that everything they say to Siri is recorded and stored at Apple. So is it unethical for these companies to write their privacy policies with “rhetorical patterns that render privacy protections ambiguous and misleading” (Bodle 2011)? Whether it is or not, the responsibility of self-censoring in our online activities has fallen to the user to protect our personal information.

In the Ford vs. Jurgenson and Rey exchange, I was persuaded in some aspects by both sides. Jurgenson and Rey claim that “the problem with the continuum model is that an increase in publicity does not necessarily imply a decrease in privacy or vice versa.”(2012) I would agree that this is true, since no one forces you to reveal things about yourself on Facebook. However, by giving people the opportunity to share online, we also give them the opportunity to expose themselves faster, and to a broader audience. The question then becomes, are they more likely to share private parts of their identity with the advent of social media than before? Does a broader audience encourage sharing of more sensitive material? Ford brings up the “meaning management” concept in her response, citing that users will share their information in a way that masks the meaning to parts of their audience they do not want to discern the true meaning of their postings (2012). That supports the idea that we are at least censoring some parts of our lives from everyone in the online community. I haven’t decided which authors I agree with more on publicity and privacy models, but I do believe we are more exposed in today’s world even if we don’t know it. If any of you are Parks and Recreation fans, check out this topical meme from a prior season episode here.

Beldad, de Jong and Steehouder in my opinion did an excellent job in discussing the ways in which people respond to risks in privacy, specifically as it relates to the sharing of information online. They classified different categories of people based on the level of oncern that they have for the privacy of their information (privacy fundamentalist, pragmatist, and privacy unconcerned), gave 3 categories of the nature of privacy (privacy of the person, privacy of personal behavior,  privacy of personal communications, and privacy of personal data) how people respond to the sharing of online information based on some of these categories. While some people have no qualms whatsoever about entering and sharing personal information, others are more skeptical and use different measures in determining whether or not it is appropriate to do so. Many people seek to measure the amount of control that they have over the spread of information once submitted, whereas some people look at the risk/reward aspect of sharing their information. In other words, are the benefits of sharing this information worth the possible ramifications that may occur if something goes awry? I think that in many cases, I myself use this approach to making these decisions. As a result, I for the 1st time last month made an online purchase. I was extremely leery about submitting the necessary information (credit card numbers, etc.) to set up online accounts and make online purchases. However, after doing research and talking with close acquaintances who regularly make online purchases, I now am more comfortable in doing so.

Bolde analyzed the privacy policies of Google, the primary search engine that we all use for instant clarification of information. Although they do have protective measures in place, you have to read the fine print!!! Google is extremely cautious in the terminology that it uses in its privacy statements. “Lexical choice”, or “the systematic use or avoidance of words” is the primary measure that Google uses in order to C.T.B. (cover their behinds) in case of privacy infringement. They also state that while they have the right to share user information with third parties, it is degigned to “provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services.” However, they do not tell you that this allows them to increase revenue based on the on-site advertising that they are able to create based on the use of this information. Google benefits just as much as the user does, but does not reveal how it simultaneously benefits from it.

Last but certainly not least, this week’s main event – Jurgeson/Rey vs. Ford!!! Both sides made some good points, and even agreed in some small areas in this debate. Jurgeson and Rey ended their piece by stating that Ford’s opinions have opened the door for future dialogue in reference to the classification of private vs. public. Personally, my stance is pretty clear, especially as it relates to social media – once you click on the “submit”/”send” button, your private thoughts have now become public!!!! Even with this blog, once I hit the “publish” button, I may come back 2 minutes later and edit something that I’ve said. However, if 1 person saw what was written prior to my editing, that is enough to “copy/paste” my statements, and share it with whomever they choose. Pictures, same principle – any picture is one “right click/save” away from being shared with the rest of the world, even after you have removed it. And let’s not even mention the newest cell phone technology, “screen shots”!!!!! One snap shot can make any text message, picture, e-mail, web posting or anything else public domain, even if it is intended to be private.

I like the idea raised in “A Comprehensive Theoretical Framework…” by Beldad, Jong and Steehouder, that within the network society, our personal data becomes a commodity and we trade this inroad to our psyche for implied or promised benefits from Internet entities. Robert Bodle in, “Privacy and Participation…”  hits on this commoditization of one’s private self in relation to Google, a company whose presentation of self can appear rather amateur in the way it presents training videos and the accessibility of information but in reality is quite advanced. For one to consider the presentation of Google as a morphing entity, a personality that we as consumers and users of the interface can relate to means that our private selves can be summoned from the recesses of our physical bodies, excised and deposited into the network because Google is our pal!

Things became quite interesting once I began Sarah Michele Ford’s essay,”Reconceptualizing the Public…” in which she attempts to differentiate between public and private. She starts by drawing a line between spatial and personal privacy. Having lived for many years in situations where walls are always shared with roommates or next door neighbors, spatial privacy is something I feel very accustomed to experiencing. It changes the way you behave, speak and exist. The same is true for the ephemeral entities we express on the Internet and how coded language and deflections begin to be a necessity for the preservation of self. Ford’s mention of Jennifer Ringley is an interesting example of a woman who presented her everyday life 24 hours a day on the Internet for visitors to observe. The technology resulted in a series of still images as opposed to real-time video, but Foucault’s notion of panoptic surveillance is still in effect. Little did Ringley know that her first steps into self-exploitation and documentation would begin what is now classifiable as the “camgirl” phenomenon.

Jurgenson and Rey make a good point regarding Ford’s model of privacy and public as a continuum by drawing an analogy to the act of mixing paint. I love the references to Bataille with his consideration of “knowledge” begetting “non-knowledge,” and Baudrillard with his “obscene” versus “seduction,” both of which add up to a more circular, dialectical interaction of the public and private. This approach seems more accurate in describing the experience of social media “white wallers” and the like, but then again, nobody seems to really have a grip on the terminology and classification just yet. Everything is still up for grabs.

Well…so much for my diminutive definition of “collaboration”!!!!! Not that I was wrong about the definition in its basic state, but it involves so many different criteria, especially as it relates to communication and social media. I certainly hope that for the rest of my life when someone asks me if I am interested in a collaboration of any sort, I don’t barrage  them these 20 or so questions that the writer asks of us here in the reading. However, these questions do make a lot of sense as you read them. Certainly “intent” is a pertinent, and probably obvious question as it relates to collaboration, as are the “goals”. There are other questions mentioned here that it may not necessarily be in our first nature to ask, but that certainly are important in the overall picture – “governance”, “property” and accessibility”  are three that seem to be key as well. One idea that I’d never put much thought into is the “coordination mechanism” aspect – mainly because most projects that I work on tend to be human-operated. However, what if a project could be properly contributed to without human attention? What types of projects could be contributed to without  human attention? I’m sure that the creator of any such product will have a very high earning power. I’ll put on my thinking cap and brainstorm for something at a later time.

The beginning of the reading led us to the use of open-source technology, and later the ideology of copyright. Open-source  in a nutshell allows for input and modification from people other than the original developers. Although this concept certainly is not new, it’s advancement is now evident to a mainstream audience. Wikipedia is probably the best  modern-day example of what we use as open-sourcing. Personally, I have strong feelings about the idea of copyright. Talents and ideas are special and unique, and should be treated as such. As a person who has a love for music and was myself a musician (way back when), the idea of copyright is very much necessary to protect the originality of an artist, writer, inventor, etc. Innovation is critical, and innovators deserve to be compensated for great ideas. These ideas should by all means, in my opinion, be protected, and furthermore, generate revenue and profit by the originator when applicable. I certainly expect that when I record that hit record (which at this point is probably no more than a fantasy!!!) that my work will be original, innovative, and PROTECTED from mutilation by a party that comes along later and tries to reproduce my hard-developed idea.