Theorizing the Web 2011

Bearing in mind the obvious disparities created by the digital divide, how does Web 2.0 offer spaces for resistance for minority populations and historically silenced groups? Although the primary beneficiaries of new internet technologies has historically been white males, recent developments in handheld technologies have admitted several minority populations to the world wide web for the first time (the homeless, working class groups, low income African Americans, non-Western users, etc.). In addition, Web 2.0 offers opportunities for minority perspectives to be heard in ways that traditional top-down media outlets do not. For instance, the blogosphere is awash with feminist blogs and progressive voices normally silenced by mainstream media. Similarly, the internet has provided avenues for people separated by geographical distance to coalesce and converse online. I have in mind here diasporic communities that now span the globe and can access one another via the world wide web. Finally, new group formations around shared interests (such as MMO gaming) yield opportunities for counter-ideologies to gain momentum and successfully challenge prevailing ideologies on particular websites and internet landscapes. more...

This is the second panel spotlight for the upcoming  Theorizing the Web conference on April 9^th.  I am presiding over an open paper session whose full title is  “Poets and Scribes – Constructing Fact and Fiction on Social Media.”  The title alludes to Susan Sontag’s On Photography in which she describes the evolution of thought surrounding our relationship to that earlier medium:

The photographer was thought to be an acute but non-interfering observer—as scribe, not a poet. But as people quickly discovered that nobody takes the same picture of the same thing, the supposition that cameras furnish an impersonal objective image yielded to the fact that photographs are evidence not only of what’s there but of what an individual sees, not just a record but and evaluation of the world.  It became clear that there was not just a simple, unitary activity called seeing (recorded by, aided by cameras) but “photographic seeing,” which was both a new way for people to see and a new activity for them to perform.

The parallel between photography and social media is that both produce documents that are mediated through the situated perspective of the actor.  Media production is never passive and it is never asocial (though, of course, such actors fall on a continuum between the ideal-typical poet and scribe).  However, when we accept that media products are embedded within a system of social relations (particularly, relations of power), we implicitly accept the idea that these products inextricably contain poetic or fictitious elements—angles or interpretations that reflect the historical moment in which they were articulated. All media, including social media, are expressions of what Donna Haraway calls “situated knowledge.”

The salient difference between the poet and the scribe is that the poet is self-aware the her work is always a half-fiction.  She embraces the fact that expression is always a process of fictioning and uses it to her advantage.  On the contrary, the scribe is faced with the paradoxical task of trying to legitimate her existence by saying her work is necessary but adds nothing.  Her unwillingness to acknowledge what she brings to the product leaves her vulnerable to both marginalization and exploitation because she is blind to the unique interests of her social position and to the value that is created in offering a concrete expression of these interests. No doubt, the average Facebook user is more like a scribe than a poet, faithfully documenting the “truths” of their existence without realizing any claim to the value of the information generated.

The four papers on this panel are joined by a theme of inquiry into the active, poetic practice of mediating our online interaction and documentation.  Abstracts are presented below: more...

The Cyborgology editors are throwing a conference on April 9^th called Theorizing the Web. Leading up to the event, we will occasionally highlight some of the events taking place. I will be presiding over a paper session simply titled “Cyborgology” and present the four abstracts below. As readers of this blog already know, we view cyborgology as the intersection of technology and society. We define technology more broadly than just electronics, but also to things like architecture, language, even social norms. And the four papers on the Cyborgology panel offer a broad scope of what cyborgology is and how it can be used.

First, we have David Banks’ paper titled, “Practical Cyborg Theory: Discovering a Metric for the Emancipatory Potential of Technology.” David discusses what theoretical cyborgology is and what it can do. Bonnie Stewart offers a discussion of the social-media-using-cyborg as a sort-of “branded” self in her paper, “The Branded Self: Cyborg Subjectivity in Social Media.” Bonnie pays special attention to, in true cyborgology fashion, the way in which digital and physical selves interact and blur together. Next, Michael Schandorf argues that Twitter norms are akin to the non-speech gestures we make while talking (e.g., like moving our hands). What makes his paper, titled, “Mediated Gesture of The Distributed Body,” so appropriate for the Cyborgology panel is Michael’s focus on the physically and socially embodied nature of digital communication. Even digital communication does not exist alone in cyberspace but in an “augmented reality” at the intersection of atoms and bits. Last, Stephanie Laudone’s paper, “Digital Constructions of Sexuality,” empirically describes how sexuality is both affirmed and regulated on Facebook. This, again, highlights the embodied nature of Facebook while looking at how digital space operates differently than physical space.

Find the four abstracts below. Together, they will make for an exciting panel. We invite everyone to join us at the conference in College Park, MD (just outside of Washington, D.C.) on April 9^th. And let’s start the discussion before the conference in the comments section below. Thanks! more...

As many of you already know, the Cyborgology editors decided to throw a conference called Theorizing the Web. The conference will be in College Park, MD (just outside of Washington, D.C.) on April 9th. Today we are excited to announce the program for the conference and attach a flier that we hope you all can distribute to those who you think might be interested.

As you will see, the response was terrific. We built 14 panels out of the 56 papers we accepted (from the over 100 submissions). There will be three invited panels (on feminist activism, race, and methods). There will be two symposia (one on the role of social media in the Arab uprisings and another on social media and street art). There will be two plenaries (one by Saskia Sassen and another by George Ritzer). And we are excited to have danah boyd deliver our keynote.

If that was not enough, we have plenty of art-related surprises in store for those who attend. We have invited artists of all types to display and perform art specifically tailored to the themes of the conference. This will be one busy carnivalesque day for those who love technology and/or theory!

The program is found here: http://www.cyborgology.org/theorizingtheweb/program.html

Last, a flier for the conference [.pdf here]. Please distribute widely!

TtW2011 Flyer

The abstract submission deadline for the Cyborgology “Theorizing the Web 2011” conference had been extended to February 20th.  Submit here.  Registration also now open.