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.

This week’s readings deliver a solid kick to the old-school ego, expanding from the idea of “networks,” and integrating the notion of creativity and productiveness within such a system. Vaidhyanathan offers a nice introduction to “open source” culture, but things don’t start to simmer until chapter 5 of The Social Media Reader  in,  “What is Collaboration Anyway.” It is an essay with (fittingly) many authors, in which the new ground of digital collaboration is depicted as ignoring unique snowflakes while enthusiastically crystallizing and expanding upon pre-existing patterns and thoughts, creating an ultra-snowflake, made up of many contributors. Wikipedia is referenced as a system that builds upon itself by way of an originating idea/record, an operating strategy that is reminiscent of a virus. The operational pattern is dependent on the encouragement of community through shared ideas and strategies of production. Kutiman’s bricolage of other users’ Youtube videos stands in contrast to Vimeo, a video sharing site known for its community assistance through well-defined individual expressions within the audio/visual medium. Joseph Gordon Levitt has trumped both of these websites in the collaborative sphere with his hitRecord (http://www.hitrecord.org/), a site dedicated to contributing your personal material (video, music, scripts) to share (in the true sense of the word) for purposes of combination works with other users in a fashion similar to Kutiman’s technique, except done with full awareness and permission.

In his essay “Giving Things Away is Hard Work,” Michael Mandiberg discusses examples from his own creative endeavors and how they fared in the eagerly co-opting business world.  From his lampshade idea to a reflective bicycle wrap, Mandiberg encounters obstacles as he tries to encourage translation from intangible idea to physical manifestation. Clearly there is still a divide between the two as they relate to the notion of what a “free” idea really means. I was rather fascinated with Mandiberg’s entrepreneurial abilities and found myself wondering how he would actually respond if his reflective bicycle wrap were taken over by a corporation and generated a large profit. And what ever happened with the lighting in the Eyebeam offices?

Finally, there is Ashely Dawson and her essay “DIY Academy? Cognitive Capitalism, Humanist Scholarship, and the Digital Transformation,” as well the articles Dr. Markman linked us to regarding MOOCs, all of which I found rather depressing when considering a career in academia. In a rapidly changing environment of free literature and learning, what is the point of getting official accreditation when anyone can produce work of value, or contribute to work of value? What even classifies as valuable academic research and work if anyone can do it?

When I reached the end of this week’s readings, I felt a little dizzy contemplating the scope of “networks” as conceived by Manuel Castells and explained by Felix Stalder. I knew things were going to get funky when Stalder went off on a biological tangent, considering Fritjof Capra’s conception of “network society” as a sort of molecular structure that creates and renews itself. Capra’s “networks” both consume and void matter, which is an interesting way of attaching organic qualities to a seemingly inorganic entity. This idea of “networks” as living things that feed off of information provided by the good little “nodes” that connect the network is rather awesome, quite postmodern, and terrifying when considering the structures we currently have in place all over the physical world. Stalder makes it clear that hierarchies have had their day and are in a state of staggered crumbling. It would appear that the rigid, vertical, often bureaucratic structures of hierarchies simply cannot match the horizontally-styled web of Castell’s “network.”  In the minds of these guys, the financial system is already walking around on its own. What’s next?

In chapter 3 of Marshall’s book, he considers the impact of Internet communication upon the physical environments in which we live. That is, how we work, play, revolt and sometimes all three at once. From the Seattle protest of 1999 to work spaces that include games and beds, the focus of the chapter is on increased access to technology and how the new conditions created by such access impact where we are headed economically and how we are becoming producers of media as much as we are consuming it. Marshall is sure to name check all the known wizards of media theory: McLuhan and Baudrillard (both of whom he considers outdated – boo!), Donna Harraway (whose cyborg theories are highly relevant) and the dynamic duo of Deleuze and Guattari with their “rhizomatic” theory, seemingly a close relative of Castell’s “network.”

As for the readings in A Networked Self, the considerations in the two pieces are more specific and slightly more up to date with what’s currently happening. Barabasi’s keynote speech is interesting in that he attempts to draw a distinction between the “Internet” and the “Web” by taking into account the physicality of the apparatuses that keep everything up and running as opposed to the more ephemeral phenomenon of communication within the “web.” The point I really took away from Barabasi relates to his contemplation of “strong links” and “weak links” within the network and how communities correspond to strong links while the important, cool, hip, up-to-date information between these communities is spread by way of the weak links.

Danah Boyd’s consideration of “publics” is a dissection of sorts, using divisions within divisions. Her focus is specifically leveled at Facebook. The way she breaks down the public presentation of “profiles” and “comments” within the Facebook format reveals a calculated, even though it may seem unintentional, thought process on the part of the website’s users as they consider who will be seeing their presentation of “self” and their relationships to others.

My name is David Goodman. I am a second year MA student in the Department of Communication where I am focusing my attention on documentary film production.