… Is s/he British? Is this person happy? Intelligent? These are some of the strong questions participants were asked to cast their vote about when faced with the anonymous picture of a stranger in latest Christian Nold‘s provocative installation. Over 14,000 people in one month cast their vote in the ‘Community Metrics’ in  Nottingham (UK) and decide ‘live’ who of the volunteers should be deported: a sort of ‘friendly fascism’, a dystopian version of Facebook, a tease out of many reality TV shows.

The installation prompted me to read again (that’s what is good about radical art!) Emmanuel Levinas’ ideas on ethics: for the French philosopher, whose family was wiped out by the Holocaust, ethics begins with the direct encounter with the face of the Other. This action is ethical because, rather than knowing, and hence objectifying the other, by way of static representation, in the face-to-face encounter, ‘The face of the Other at each moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves in me…the Other signals but does not present themselves’.

This opens a big problem for representation, especially visual, to the extent that the object of representation ‘always falls under the power of thought’. There is a sense in which, by making an image of this overflowing, by reducing the Other to a set of conventions, a-priori categories, and image-repertoire, we might be perpetrating a form of violence, which hence deny the alterity expressed by the face of the Other.

Watch Nottingham ‘Community Metrics’

Read Calhoun’s critique of Online Communities

Less Credit/Less Consumption
Consumption is down. While this might be a momentary hiccup, it could very well be the case that Western societies will have to “reset” and pull back on consumption levels for a long time to come. Much of the consumption literature has pointed to Western conspicuous and hyper-consumption as an integral ethic of modern society. We have been consuming well beyond our means by relying on debt to fuel our consumer economy, an unsustainable habit as credit markets have dried up. So what does it mean to pull back on consumerism, something, arguably, so central to our society? Does this leave a void? If so, what fills this void?

A Civic-Centered Spectacle?
One void that seems appropriate to discuss is that of the spectacle. The (increasingly distant) era of hyper-consumption was a time of the consumer spectacle (e.g., mega-malls, Las Vegas, etc), and when consumption is down we might expect to see different sorts of spectacles. Spectacles built around more modest, live-within-your-means activities. The green movement is, arguably, a spectacle in this way. Perhaps a more vivid example is the Obama campaign, inauguration, and early-presidency. Truly a spectacle. Has civic engagement, to some degree, replaced consumption in the realm of a shared ethos (as Benjamin Barber hopes)? Additionally, has civic engagement, to some degree, replaced corporate consumption as the site of the spectacle?

The Commodification of Everything
Of course, the picture may be less rosey than this. Corporate commodification and it’s hold on the Western spirit of consumption (as well as it’s near-monopoly of the spectacle) will not fall easily. In addition to generating their own spectacles, we might also see in this economic and consumptive downturn corporations commodify the very non- or anti-commercial spectacles mentioned previously (i.e., the green movement and Obama-style civic engagement). We are seeing corporations use the green movement to sell products -to the extent that some are questioning the greenness of the movement in the first place. On the Obama front, and this was very apparent on Inauguration Day in DC, Pepsi, Ikea and others have commodified the idea of Obama’s campaign. In the hyperlinks to the Pepsi and Ikea campaigns, as well as with the pictures above, we see that they are not just using his image or name to sell their products, but the very ethos of the campaign, such as “hope” or “change” (in the image above, note Pepsi’s word choice, font and even logo redesign). In this way, while Obama might represent a turn away from consumption towards civic engagement (he called for this, at least) and a turn away from consumer products as the site of the spectacle, this spectacle is still brought into the realm of the corporate. In an economy where branding is still important, ‘hope’ is ultimately used to sell soda. ~nathan

Read More: Consumers are Saving More and Spending Less

Outlines of a Critical Sociology of Consumption: Beyond Moralism and Celebration

“Are we creating world peace or fundamentally changing the world? No,” he (Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu and Canonical) said. “But we could shift what people expect and the amount of innovation per dollar they expect.”
– New York Times

Most people’s impression on Linux is something mythical which only computer geeks are involved with, if they have even heard of the operating system before. In recent years, volunteers and tech professionals had devoted major effort in developing Linux distributions that are more user-friendly with lower entry barrier for people who are not familiar with programming and the “technology black-box.” Ubuntu is one of these distributions that received the most attention and success in the past four years.
The most important aspect of Linux is not only that it would create a competing environment to challenge the Microsoft monopolization in PC operating systems, but the very idea of “Free Open-Source Softwares.” Open-source literally means that the source codes of any software under the agreement are released to the public and open to change and alteration by anyone who are willing to do so. “Free” stands for “freedom,” that all users are free to use and personalized these softwares, most importantly, at no monetary cost.

In an era of burgeoning information technology, computer programs and the internet have became an essential part of networking and knowledge accumulation. While information is free and easily accessible through our home PCs, it is also materially and economically limited. Areas and regions with people who are unable to purchase high cost hardwares and softwares are excluded from this so called “technology revolution.” Recalling Jugen Habermas’ idea on the “public sphere,” an ideal environment for political and social engagement should be a space where all participants/citizens are able to the express their opinions freely and openly. Despite criticism against this ideal type, free open-source software could crack open the material boundaries of entering this “virtual public sphere” by requiring 0 cost on programs and technology. More people can be included internationally in political, social and technological engagement when the distribution and alteration of programs are unlimited. The freedom to personalized and customize programs to indigenous needs also creates more local agency.

However, since most programming languages are designed based on the understanding of the English language, would this further reinforce the English monopolization? And while the source codes are open and free, are the knowledge and information also as free and open? More importantly, the accessibility of the hardware that’s required?
(More information on hardware, please visit the OLPC project.)

Ubuntu in New York Times

Cultural Citizenship

by socanonymous

Ongoing fighting in Sri Lanka has brought together about 45,000 Tamils from across Toronto, to protest what they call the genocide of Tamil people. They came together to form a human chain in Toronto’s downtown city core. The powerful emotions shown in the video give a glimpse of the struggles that many transnational migrants have gone through and escaped from.

Globalization has facilitated diasporas to maintain political and social ties transnationally, in spite of geographical proximity. These nonstate actors, some of whom seek asylum or are displaced because of violence, relocate to safer nations and are better able to provide support back home. Support often comes in the form of remittances to loved ones, essential resources and sometimes, as in this case, support for political and humanitarian goals. Communication is now faster and more efficient, which is essential in the mobilization of collective political action across state boundaries. Transnational migrants are better able to empower themselves and give a voice for their people back home, thereby applying political pressure from a safe distance.

Read more…

Patricia Landolt on “The Transnational Geographies of Immigrant Politics”

As the first week of Obama’s presidency passes, a top priority, set forth prior to his election, is to transform “the internet based machinery”, that helped him get elected, into an agenda setting tool.  The millennial generation tools within a new frontier of political interaction, i.e. social networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and YouTube are still in their embryonic form, particularly with regard to their impact on the political process.  It is clear, however, that if one wants to be a powerful political actor he or she must embrace these new forms of media.  There are a number of past politicians, once with substantial clout, who are now lying in the graveyard that this new media dug.  Trent Lott and George Allen, for example, were sidelined by the powerful quotidian torrent of Internet politics.  Obama’s campaign was an exposé of the galvanizing proclivities of this new medium.  Now, it is the telos of the Obama administration to turn its revolutionary campaign into revolutionary governance. 

Building off his campaign’s successful use of the new frontier, Obama’s first step was to revamp the white house website, modeling it after his campaign site.  The improved White house website can be continually updated with presidential orders and blogs.  Next, rather than utilizing the old medium of radio, Obama streamed his position on the economic crisis via video.  Presidential Obama’s utilization of new media provides for an unparalleled dissemination of information.  It successfully bypasses the conduits of the old watchdog media leaving the bypassed representatives of the older forms of media concerned.  It can be proffered, however, that citizens are now becoming the watchdogs, as they are provided with new forums for discussion and reaction.  Obama, differently than during his astonishing and meteoric rise to the presidency, will now have many more restrictions on his usage of the millennial generations tool kit.  Mr. Obama was unfettered in his usage of Facebook, instant messaging and twitter, President Obama will be more regulated.  Democracy theorist Benjamin Barber (1998 ) adroitly elucidates the potential of new technology’s proclivities for civics.  He states, “The bittersweet fruits of science will…serve as facilitator rather than a corruptor of our precious democracy”. The Internet is interactive and the viewer has much more control, thus, fostering democracy.  New technology has transformed the dynamics and structure of civics, political campaigning, and democracy.  Therefore, citizens, and politicians alike must embrace this new medium and shunt aside any desire to stultify the inexorable current of this new media.  We have entered the new political frontier and there is no turning back.         

 Read More

 Janet M. Ruaneand Karen A. Cerulo on Presidential Politics 

by NickieWild

A new television show on the U.S. broadcast network ABC called “Homeland Security USA” has been stirring up controversy within the immigrants’ rights community. Ostensibly a Homeland Security Department version of the long-running show “Cops,” this version includes border and port security activity. Critics ask, is this just another reality show, or an elaborate piece of propaganda? Some civil rights groups believe the latter, and one has organized a protest and boycott directed against the show. They charge that the program glosses over some very questionable practices of immigration enforcement like “detainees being held in inhumane and overcrowded conditions, often without charges, and for months and even years.” A Facebook page has been started to organize protest activity. Proponents of the show say that it allows the public to see the work being done to protect citizens. Conflict theory states that social order is maintained by the ability of the dominant group to control those without power, a perspective that the protesters want to make evident.

Read More

A Nation of Immigrants and a Gatekeeping Nation: American Immigration Law and Policy by Erika Lee

Transsexual people are willing to become invisible, international acclaimed photographer and researcher Sara Davidmann maintains, in order to be accepted in the social norm, which wants a strict binary distinction between genders.  The issue of safety in public space here, I guess, is crucial – hence, the urge to comply to the visual stereotype of the male or of the female. As it is the issue of ‘medicalization’, that is, the tendency of western culture to push ‘deviance’ to the safe border of psy-disciplines as well as towards surgery: the idea being of fixing the ‘wrong’ bodies.

On the other hand, the insistence on the inadequacy of our language categories (most notably written texts) to describe and hence make acceptable situations at the border, or in-between binary constructions, seems to me quite inadequate. I borrow an expression from Thrift (2008), according to whom: ‘Practices are property of the practises themselves, not of the actors’.

Let’s look at the problem of the public toilets, for instance: two signs on the door of the cinema or the pub, no other chance. This action, which most of us takes for granted, might become a big issue for some people. Pace Judith Butler, the social construction of gender seems a lived practical experience, which involves all sort of conflicts, misunderstanding, resistance, defences, and so on. Davidmann’s critical photography seems to me to do more and better.

Border Trouble: photography, strategies, and transsexual identities by Sara Davidmann [CONTAINS NUDITY]

Binge drinking has long been identified as a social problem. Vast amounts of column inches, as well as government and independent agency policy documents have been produced, in an effort to tackle the problem. Until recently the spotlight has been firmly focused on civilian life, but recent research findings may change that view. Research carried out by King’s Centre for Military Health Research has concluded that binge drinking is “significantly more prevalent” in the Royal Navy, than within the general population.

Although, the Royal Navy may have had a historic relationship with alcohol, (particularly rum – the last ration of which was issued to sailors in 1970), this research suggests such a connection may be under threat. Whilst, the Navy may have some reservations, relating to the gender make and size of sample, the results are likely to cause unease, particularly as the group identified most at risk are ‘young single males often from relatively deprived backgrounds.’

Once again, we are faced with a link between young people and alcohol abuse. It remains to be seen how the media are able to incorporate these potential heroes into their vision of ‘drunken’ Britain.

Read More

Paul Roman on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse

Lately, we have been doing lots of work, for others. For free.

Millions of users of sites like Facebook and MySpace are clicking away at their profiles, adding detailed information about themselves and others. “We” are uploading content to sites like Flickr, YouTube, the microblogging service Twitter and many others, and our labor creates vast databases about ourselves -what I previously described as a sort of mass exhibitionism.

Facebook’s profit model is built upon an ownership of its user’s labor, specifically, the intimate detail of our lives and self-presentations. This is an example a larger trend of “prosumption,” that is, the simultaneous role of being a producer of what one consumes. In the material world we are doing this more often by scanning and bagging our own groceries, checking ourselves onto planes and into hotels, etc.

The websites mentioned above are part of the user-generated and social turn the Internet has taken in the last few years –what has come to be known as Web 2.0. And prosumption generally, and especially on Web 2.0, is the mechanism by which we become unpaid workers (“crowd sourcing”), producing valuable information for the benefit of businesses. This is the almost endlessly efficient business model of Web 2.0 capitalism.

Karl Marx argued for taking control of the means of production, and on Web 2.0, to some degree, we have. But what remains in the hands of the few, the businesses, is the profit-potential. Facebook’s reach is ever-growing and the company is valued at $15 billion dollars as of 2007, precisely due to the data that users donate to the site.

Perhaps many do not mind giving away their labor because they enjoy the services provided, such as the richly social Facebook platform. However, we should also ask why the personal data of ourselves, that we are producing, does not belong to us? Given the successes of non-profit/open source software and applications (e.g., Linux, Firefox, etc), shouldn’t we be calling for a non-profit/open source social networking platform (i.e., an open source Facebook-like platform) where businesses do not own the highly personal data about ourselves and our socializing? What other ways can we think of that removes the link between our data (and labor) and corporate profit? ~nathan

Read More: Facebook Aims to Extend Its Reach Across the Web

Social Movements and New Media

With Barack Obama’s much anticipated moving date less than a week away, George W. Bush declared a state of emergency for the upcoming inauguration.  This is the first time a state of emergency has been declared for a ‘non-disaster’ and will provide additional state funding.  Additionally, executives from various companies have been donating profuse amounts of money to help fund what will most likely be the most expensive inauguration ever.  Public Citizen, a watchdog organization that keeps track of campaign financing, has a very difficult task.  This is in part because of the sweeping number of donors and is compounded by their increasing use of the Internet.  Furthermore, the donations as suggested by a Public Citizen representative, are from “big money well-connected people…that get a chance to influence policy or get government contracts or earmarks.”  This past election demonstrated a reverse trend in American democracy, a meteoric boom in civic participation.  Historical comparative sociologist Theda Skocpol argues that participation in civic life, even incipiently, might not have declined, rather it has transformed. This shift is, the shift from voluntary associations to professionally run advocacy groups.  Advocacy groups, with the availability of new technology to administer massive mailings and phone calls, have created new associations hinging on a large membership of check senders.  These types of associations have an ability to lobby, effect policy and are often elite-run.  As a result, the power is taken out of the hands of everyday citizens.  Without a broad-based active citizenry, government responds to the deepest pockets and can find itself isolated from the realities of its citizens.  Americans must not sit idly by and expect ‘change’ to occur.  The impetus of this historic moment that has galvanized the public and fostered participation cannot be allowed to be subjugated by corporations and lobbyists.  The current élan must become the reverse alchemy that turns executives’ gold into genuine democracy.     

Read More

Clark A. Miller on Civic Epistemologies

by bmckernan

 A while back, the NY Times published an extended article on the reception of American cultural products in the Gaza. In some significant ways, the article mirrors many of the arguments recently put forward by social scientists who have become increasingly unsatisfied with the cultural imperialism thesis. Among this academic group includes recent work by the sociologist Ronald Jacobs as well as the anthropologist Daniel Miller. Both assert that while there is insight to gain from the cultural imperialism’s focus on how “local” cultures are eliminated or suppressed by America’s hegemonic cultural outputs, a more well-rounded scholarly approach would consider other possibilities. For instance, from this perspective, one could examine how “local” cultures actually receive American media outputs, examining how meaning is instilled in these foreign products and thus how they may possible help “local” communities make sense of the world.

Similar in sentiment, the NY Times article illustrates an interesting contrast, describing both the official and unofficial cultural policies of Hamas and Fatah as well as what is actually occurring “on the ground”. Here the article provides such engaging accounts as a local rapper inspired by such American performers as Tupac and 50cent, women discussing the latest episodes of “Prison Break” and “24″, and restaurants crowded with patrons watching the US sitcom “Friends”. In one interesting passage, a Gazan man criticizes a Turkish soap opera for not portraying “real men” and notes that instead he prefers the US soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful”.  While stringent academic works would have to push further than this, examining how these cultural experiences create meaning; these curious examples would most likely be ignored by a strict cultural imperialism perspective.

 Read More

Globalization of Culture and the Arts

by kiddingthecity

To what extent, I have been thinking recently, can we feel, understand, and represent the suffering of other people? Is it reasonable to argue that the continuous exposure to images of the atrocity of the war – most notably children – has rendered those atrocities a media spectacle and “Us” a privileged passive audience? Would this prevalent opinion make any difference to the crude ‘reality’ of the conflicts? Or, on the other hand, if we maintain that “We” cannot ever understand those who experience(d) the drama of the war (as the latest Susan Sontag suggested), then, what kind of pacifism is possible?

To try to address some of these issues, I started being interested less in the grand ‘political questions’ and more in the everyday practice of the war, focusing on the daily bodily reactions or adaptations to it.

Raising Yousuf and Noor: Diary of a Palestinian Mother

Tales to Tell: from Gaza 2008

Recently, CNN reported on the case of a woman in Papa New Guinea being burned alive for witchcraft (see below).  Aside from the echoes to our own history of witch hunts, this case also highlights the collective effervescence, specifically religious, of which Durkheim was interested.  According to Durkheim, group energies can culminate in a kind of frenetic moment and can itself construct a collective reality.  This effervescence marks the delineation of the space between a heightened collective experience and mob mentality.  Marking an unknown or possibly threatening force, witches in this case, Muslims after September 11th, homosexuals and many other examples, represent an impetus to the collective energy that can result in anger or exaltation, wonder or fear.  What this kind of collective action demonstrates is that the relationship between the individual and the collectivity is not as important to understanding acts of violence, devotion, hatred, or kindness as is the relationship between individuals within the collectivity.  In the moment of effervescence, at the culmination of a group energy into a particular action, a reality is constructed that may be motivated by  something much stronger than individual will and belief systems.  By burning this woman at the stake, do these individuals retain their subjectivity or simply get caught up in the moment of effervescence?  

  CNN “Woman Suspected of Witchcraft”

  Useem on Collective Action

Jeff Wall is famous for grand tableaux, which he shoots in sections over several months before stitching together the final image using computer montage. He has been known to spend almost two years on a single picture, with actors and crew to shoot scenes of the everyday. He teases out the myth of reality outside perception to the point that he is able to re-create in studio the ‘decisive moment’ of Cartier-Besson, in which the elements of an external world join together at a decontextualized point, outside time. “There’s a fine line between fact and fiction, between a moment and a perfect representation of that moment” – he said. Jeff Wall’s best work comes from never having to choose.
I want to use his work here to criticize the idea of performative aspects of identity as expression of never ending exercise of will, disconnected from the web of social practices, context and history, in which they are embedded. In other words, I maintain, practices are not propriety of actors but of the practices themselves. On the other hand, though, there is a sense in which the studio or the laboratory provides a very poor metaphor to be able to capture the complexity of the world: so to say, the body cannot contain all. There is always an emergent element of free-play, a ‘personal authorship’ (Thrift, TwoThousandEight) that comes out from the ongoing creation of affects, through encounters: ‘A non-representational outlook depends upon understanding and working with the everyday as a set of skills, which are highly performative’ (ibidem). In this sense the metaphor of the mime is a pertinent one: the actors are going out in a specific place, they cannot use any words, just facial expression, their bodies and of course objects. We don’t know what and how they are going to perform. And especially what kind of audience they are going to meet: we can only guess.

Adkins on reflexivity

Watch Jeff Wall on BBC4 documentary

As the current economic crisis necessitates consumer frugality, various companies are attempting to reap additional revenue by innovative means of selling their brand.  Internet cultures and networking sites are expanding at a meteoric rate providing a spate of opportunity for celebrities and companies to capitalize materially from this virtual medium.  The company Virtual Greats, based out of California, is utilizing this opportunity by representing celebrities and brands that are being sold in virtual worlds.  These sop virtual goods are sold at a fraction of the price compared to their ‘real’ material counterpart.  As the co-founder of Virtual Greats astutely recognizes “a customer may not be able to afford the ‘real’ Louis Vuitton bag but [certainly] can afford the virtual one.”  Virtual Greats acts as a buttress between brand companies, celebrities and virtual worlds like Gaia, Whyville and WeeWorld.  These three virtual worlds are youth oriented and have witnessed, perhaps counter intuitive to the current economic climate, unabated sales.  The perennial and fecund concept ‘commodity fetishism’ concretized by Marx 150 years ago is a useful tool in understanding this new level of consumption and identity formation. This fetishism refers to the mystical qualities products retain above and beyond their use value.  Similar to the material world, certain virtual goods are kept sparse in order to increase their value.  It is palpable that goods bartered in virtual worlds have limited, if any, use value, but its ‘fetishized’ value is potentially unlimited.  Marx could not have augured the commodification of virtual worlds, however this new medium may be bringing commodity fetishism to its apogee. Avatars, as in the past, are no longer just icons with dialogic capabilities; they are self-expression identities.  If we are to allow children unencumbered access to virtual worlds, and believe they provide fruitful growth experiences, we must beware the dangers of consumerism subjugating self-expression.  Citizens of virtual worlds must remain wary of their colonization and hucksters selling them ersatz products, even if it creates distinction and temporarily fills a void.   

 Read More

 Silvia Rief on a Critical Sociology of Consumption

After Hillary Clinton’s loss in the race to be the Democratic nominee and Sarah Palin’s loss as vice presidential candidate, the role of women in leadership positions is more salient than ever.  However, one question that does not always get asked is, what (if any) is the role of men in furthering feminist goals? Clearly, one such goal is the attainment of more powerful leadership positions in the United States. One way that men in leadership positions can contribute to this process is by (at least) considering women when it comes time to make appointments to powerful jobs that are not elected offices.

With this in mind, it was refreshing to see Governor David Paterson of New York go a little ballistic at a televised press conference when a commission recommending replacements for the (female) retiring chief judge Judith Kaye failed to come up with any female candidates. The Governor is obligated to pick from the list that is comprised of seven male candidates. He said, “I don’t accept that there wasn’t a woman in this state that wasn’t qualified to serve on the Court of Appeals.” How many times has a male politician made such a statement? Unfortunately, the Governor has little legal power to change the commission’s mind. Yet the role of male allies in the struggle for gender equality gained new visibility.

Read More

Men’s Narrative Work in Relation to Women’s Issues by Mark Cohan

by nathan jurgenson

A major study (.pdf) on the way teens use social networking sites suggests that,

“…their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.” [quote is from this article's coverage]

Parents can no longer view MySpace as just a waste of time. In fact, so important are the skills being learned that we might hypothesize a new sort of habit-based digital divide taking shape.

Typically, the “digital divide” refers to physical access (access to the Internet, cell phones, etc), and this remains a crucial issue. However, as access becomes more diffuse, we can put forward another important non-material digital divide: between those who have and those who have not learned the important skills of social networking and online content production.

Pierre Bourdieu describes in his book Distinction how things like skills, habits and tastes are often learned outside of the education system. That is, those habits that the upper class learn that reproduce their status as the upper class are not simply the product of access to education but are also learned more informally. Similarly, in the case of the Internet, a different sort of digital divide could be based on computer usage behaviors that have little to do with material access. Much like the rest of the social world, adolescents are learning the skills online essential for future success, and they are learning these skills unequally. Who will best be able to utilize new media to build social capital? Who will not?

This reformulated non-material digital divide will be a split between those who just consume Internet content and those who both produce and consume content (the prosumers). It will be between those who experience the Internet in a solitary way and those who effectively network. [On a global scale, this is already playing out]

Do we conclude on the side of Bourdieu that the democratizing potential of the Internet could be usurped by the interest of the upper class in making itself distinct in its usage, thus perpetuating its status? Or should we see the Internet as a tool that will be used creatively to blur class distinction? Will class even be the primary factor for this non-material digital divide? ~nathan

Read More: The New York Times: Teenager’s Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing

The Digital Divide: The Special Case of Gender

]]> http://sociology-compass.com/2008/11/30/capitalisms-meltdown-and-the-body/ Sun, 30 Nov 2008 10:12:28 +0000 kiddingthecity http://sociology-compass.com/2008/11/30/capitalisms-meltdown-and-the-body/ by kiddingthecity

My barber doesn’t bother at all: “Hair -he told me last week – will always grow on people’s head!”. The phantasmagorical numbers of the capitalist crisis do not mean anything at all to him (do they mean anything to most of us, by the way?). He carries on as he can, as he has almost always done, a coffee and a cigarette here and there, a joke quite often.

He made me think that everyday’s life is a challenging terrain for social scientists, more complex and fluid that we – social scientists – are usually inclined to think: it engages simultaneously with the real, the symbolic and the imaginary, and ‘how and what it is experienced as experience is itself variable’ (N. Thrift, Non Representational Theory, 2008).

Thrift on malice and misanthropy

Non-Representational Theory

]]> http://sociology-compass.com/2008/11/21/facebook-youtube-twitter-mass-exhibitionism-online/ Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:00:14 +0000 nathanjurgenson http://sociology-compass.com/2008/11/21/facebook-youtube-twitter-mass-exhibitionism-online/ By nathan jurgenson

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder and CEO) said recently at the 2008 Web 2.0 Summit:

“I would expect that next year, people will share twice as much information as they share this year, and [the] next year, they will be sharing twice as much as they did the year before.”

The Web 2.0 summit discusses the user-generated web, and of sociological interest here is that when people are given tools to share information about themselves online, they do, often in intimate detail. The massive popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook highlight this trend, where millions of users display themselves in what might seem like unnecessary detail. Sites like Flickr and YouTube are updated endlessly with photos and videos illuminating users’ everyday lives. Blogging often takes the form of an online diary or journal, but one that is broadcasted to an almost infinite audience. The increasingly popular micro-blogging tool Twitter allows users to publish constant updates of everything they are doing in granular detail. The iPhone application Loopt does this as well, and also maps where the users are at all times. This is not to even detail a whole additional set of popular self-exhibitionism tools described by The Quantified Self project.

How do we interpret this mass exhibitionism online? Do we celebrate it as the free performance of creative individuality? What else is at play? We can follow the dollars and acknowledge that ‘we’ are, collectively, unpaid workers in building an endlessly detailed database, a digital gold mine of information (note here that Facebook alone is valued at $15 billion dollars as of 2007, precisely due to the data that users donate to the site). ~nathan

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Social Movements and New Media

Feminist advocates have spent years working to define rape as a social problem.   These advocates have worked as claims-makers in this regard and have engaged in various framing processes along the way.  Sociologists and criminologists have entered the conversation along the way offering a variety of theoretical perspectives and empirical investigations to help understand rape and sexual assault more fully.  Despite these efforts, rape remains one of the most underreported crimes with an even more dismal prosecution and conviction rates.

The assumed incidence and prevalence of rape means that many people are either victims themselves or know someone who has been the victim of rape or sexual assault.   Nonetheless, talking about rape remains difficult for many and victims are often ashamed and fear being unfairly judged or stigmatized if they tell anyone.  Dame Helen Mirren, who has recently come forward to say that she was date-raped but did not report it to police, seems typical of other victims.  On the other hand, she also has suggested that women jurors are more likely to think a rape victim asked for it.  This juxtaposition may capture just what makes it so difficult to prosecute and prevent rape.  Mirren’s comments, while made by a self-defined victim of rape, portray the kind of victim-blaming sentimentality that reinforces cultural attitudes, norms, values, and practices that excuse and normalize rape and other forms of sexual violence.   

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Jennifer L. Dunn on Accounting for Victimization

Two years ago, Google paid a copious, $1.65 billion to acquire the incipiently profitless Web site, YouTube.  This video sharing website’s meteoric rise was in part due to its software’s facileness and accessibility.  In this light, anyone with access to a computer and some gumption could post their own video.  In an effort to transform their costly addition into a revenue-producing agent, Google announced that it would begin selling space to advertisers on YouTube’s search results pages.  As a result, an advertiser can bid on key word searches.  Interestingly, advertisers pay based upon the number of clicks on their ads.  This new profit-making addition coincides with a recently added “click to buy” feature, which directs users to an ancillary site that provides a purchasing opportunity.  Sociologists have a perennial interest in media production and consumption.  Utilizing the lens of the critical theorist Walter Benjamin, it is palpable that there is the potential of what Benjamin refers to as the democratization of the media.  Within this paradigm the production and consumption of media is taken out of the hands of the elite.  One can see the potential promise but augur the insidious nature of the now profit seeking YouTube. With Google’s attempt to create a profit-oriented advertisement model and change YouTube’s image, the possibility of democratization is precarious.  The users’ power to weed out the detritus is weakened, and the power of those with more economic capital is increased.  As a result, the greatest number of “hits” or views is of content provided by major media conglomerates, thus thwarting parvenus.  The question remains, is it possible for a media source to make a profit while its democratic process remains unabated?  If we are to take the quotidian torrent of user interactive Internet media seriously, then we must be careful not to have content adulterated by a profit-seeking motive.   

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 Lincoln Dahlberg on Computer-Mediated Communication and The Public Sphere

By linanne10
While most of the discussions on equality and political change occur around the presidential election in United States last week, events of civil rights movement are not limited to the US continent. A student-led protest for the freedom of speech and assembly is burning through out the island of Formosa. On November 3rd, the representative from China’s Association of Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), Chen Yunlin, came to visit Taiwan and met with the Taiwanese current president, Ma Ying-jeou, on trade agreements and economic cooperation between Taiwan and China. Due to political beliefs, hundreds of protestors gathered around the venue to protest against the meeting. Government officials required that all protesting activities should be shield off within Chen Yunlin’s eye-sight. Taiwanese flags were banned, protesting groups were expelled or arrested, Taiwanese songs were shut off in near by record stores and there were also violence conduct by polices against civilians. This induced a protest led by students against the “law on assembly and parade” in Taiwan. The law on assembly and parade in Taiwan restricts the people’s mobility and freedom to carry out protests, while reinforcing government agencies’ power to monitor and control such events. Liberty and freedom are crucially at stake in this political incident.

Two important aspects of liberty manifested in the protest could find their roots in theories of civil and social rights. Political and social scientist, Deborah Stone, has distinguished between two kinds of liberty: negative liberty and positive liberty. Negative liberty defines rights as the absence of constraint among citizens, while positive liberty defines rights as active provision of opportunities and resources by the government to citizens. The freedom of speech and assembly could be seen as a negative liberty. There should be as less government intervention as possible when members of a society attempt to express their opinions and ideas, no matter what form they take on. A positive notion is also at work in framing the concept of liberty. In order to enable minority groups to express their opinions and ideas more freely, and voice beyond the overwhelming oppression of mainstream ideologies, official agencies should actively provide a secured space and platform for expression. In this on going protest, the students merely request for negative liberty, trying to lift regulations violating basic human rights. Before the law on parade and assembly is abolished, it is hard to ask the government to assure more positive liberty for the freedom of speech.

However, in terms of legal conflicts of the act of the protest itself, a dilemma occurs. The law on parade and assembly demands that protestors have to apply to protest six days before the event. Certain issues are banned and certain locations are not allowed for assemblage. The students insist on not applying for permission in order to manifest and protest against the absurdity of the law. They also insist on gathering in forbidden locations before expelled by force. The question here is: if citizens do not have to conform to the law when they see it as “illegitimate,” what authority would the law still retain in its ruling over members of the society?

The Protest Statement

A collection of the America civil rights movement

(by kiddingthecity)

The other day I came across a great piece of ruin, an other fragment of this incredible city: a London based charity invites people sleeping rough to author a ‘Homeless City Guide’ by drawing listed signs on the wall in order ‘to help others to read the city’.

By scrolling down the list of symbols, I felt a sense of hollowness reading tags like ‘an attack happened here’, or ‘strong police presence’, and ‘unfriendly place’. Risk is a major concern in everyday life in the cities, and the media campaigns fulfil many moral panics alike. By thinking about geographies of danger, though, there is a sense in which risk cannot be a rational calculation made by rational individuals: on the contrary, there is a strong social element in the evaluation of risk, interlocked with personal memories, shared experiences, unconscious feelings of desire and uncanny, and relative positions in-between fields: so to say, we live in descriptions of places, which organise, link and make itineraries out of them.

Ah, the charity also recommends to use chalk in order to keep the system up to date. There is in fact the impression that non permanent marks can tell us more about the ever changing and ephemeral geographies of our living spaces.

Geographies of Risk

An excellent introduction to Cities

It has recently been noted that there appears to be ‘an increasing sense of nostalgia for communism’ among many Germans. Although, this may in part be connected to wider global financial concerns, this on its own does not explain the attraction for many younger people. Indeed, it is suggested that many of these were born after Germany’s reunification, with no experience of the reality of living under communism.

In an effort to tackle these concerns, the East German School Project, based in Leipzig’s former Stasi building, has created classroom re-enactments to enable teenage pupils to gain some insight. Elke Urban, who takes the role of teacher Frau Müller, insists that some pupils ‘think that it [communism] was like living in a social paradise’. By stressing the totalitarian nature of the GDR regime, the project hopes to dispel some of the myths.

As part of this role-play, one student is pre-selected to be the dissident member of the group. Frighteningly, in an echo of the studies carried out by Milgram, Elliott and Zimbardo respectively, Ms. Urban has found that out of all the groups to visit the project, only one has refused to conform, with the others happy to participate in the dissident individual’s discrimination.

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‘Does Antiregime Action under Communist Rule Affect Political Protest After the Fall?’

Russia’s parliament recently moved to ban the American television shows “South Park,” “Family Guy,” and “The Simpsons,” alleging that they sent negative messages to the country’s children. Russian cartoon network 2×2, which airs the programs, had its license up for renewal, and the Kremlin was not intending to grant it. Besides general accusations of moral depravity, the government particularly objected to the “South Park” episode Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics, in which a piece of human waste comes alive and sings holiday songs. Officials said that this promoted religious hate speech, which is illegal under Russian law. The government proposed a new channel, which would instead have shows that promoted patriotism and morality to the country’s youth. However, the public reacted strongly against this move with collective action – protests, rallies, and flash mobs sprung up over several weeks of unrest. Some participants merely supported the particular programs, but many others acted out of concern that the government was returning to its authoritarian past. Petitions were signed by tens of thousands.

The government has since decided to renew 2×2’s license, provided that they do not show the offending episode again. Analyzing this incident with an eye towards Gramsci’s concept of hegemony leads the observer to question if the Kremlin was attempting to fight against the encroaching cultural doctrines of the West, or impose its ideology on the country’s children. Many Russian citizens seem to have firmly believed the latter.

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Hegemony and the Media