worried about the effect of ISF
and right away I sent this second email (read the previous post before this one).
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from the introduction of the same post:
“In this post, I use elements from Lyotard’s theories to explore how the information and communication technologies that facilitate the social construction and aggregation of knowledge contribute to its commodification. I argue for a reframing of the concept of the digital divide as an important paralogical tool to resist this logic. This reframing is necessary because, currently, the digital divide is used in just the opposite way: to rationalize a model of progress and development where those aspects of our lives that are not technologized must become technologized, to the point where ubiquitous computing is normalized as the goal of innovation (and since technologizing and commodification are closely tied in capitalism, ubiquitous computing means ubiquitous commodification). In short, I attempt to reframe the digital divide as an instrument of resistance against the increasing commodification of knowledge, not as an ailment of the underprivileged.”
ideant’s full post
This is issue is key to me as a leader of ISF because I need to know if, by increasing the technologization of third spaces, I’m doing more harm than good. But if the values sedimented into the infrastructure we’re creating has a narrative of resistance, than maybe that outweighs the negative effects of bringing in technology to these last places that are not already as technologized as the workplace and the home. And what metrics do I use to make this decision?
Trying to find the answer to that is is one of the main reasons i’m interested in working with academics. And also why I stay a part of Concordia’s program “University of the Streets” - because they are building social capital in Montreal through third places without using technology.
I’ve been worried about this almost since the very beginning. And it’s one of the reaons I’ve always wanted to work with an urban studies academic as well as a communications academic. I’ve tried hard to interest the urb’s people (example), but so far nothing. . .
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Thanks, Ulises - for writing this. Now I can just url-slap someone when i’m trying to communicate that vague concern I had about my work and it’s effect. ;-)
And let me take this moment to encourage people to read Ulises’s blog. Sometimes I forget to because reading it takes work - but it’s full of great, insightful posts that he obviously spends a lot of time coming up with.
April 5th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Great stuff Michael.
I totally disagree with the linked poster’s jump from “closely linked” to equivalency, however. And for you, I think it’s the gaps in which ISF and others must explore. That’s where the forks will be found. Not coincidentally, that’s where the art is also to be found.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:20 am
You mean the possibility that exists in the gab between technologizing and commodification?
Cool. I hope you’re right ;-)
April 5th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Right. Because it’s important to realize that Digital Divide is not merely about access, it’s about lack of meaningful content for a large percentage of potential technology users.(and I really wish that people would stop citing online job boards as if that ended the debate). I was reading up on CTCs a little while ago and thinking about the potential there to educate on not just how to use tech, but also why, but while this helps some people (possibly helps them a lot), it does nothing to overturn the historical technological inequalities.
I guess part of it is that while ISF (and WT) are putting tech in specific places that are not normally wired/unwired, the types of places (cafes being the biggest example), are all headed that way anyway. So if that’s going to happen, it may as well be a grassroots, community-based, thoughful layer of technology placed atop the built form.
And dude–all my thinking and reading about this stuff comes from and Urban Geography perspective. So there.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:49 am
cool, dory. I hope you continue to reflect on this stuff and to share it somehow with the rest of us at ISF and WT.
and i agree with you -that it’s going to happen anyways, and I would rather it by *my/our* infrastructure than their infrastructure - because of control but also because of the values *in* the infra.
April 5th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
OK i need to get out my dictionary & read thru the ideant post. i also suggest that everyone read this:
http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html
and i need to consider the problem and the question you are posing. but mike remember your soccer field in the middle of a city? think like that. space is commodified like crazy but what we do as a society is carve out space for non-commercial activity. ditto digital info or whatever you want.
but i need to figure out what you are asking.
April 5th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
I’m not worried about the commercial / non-commercial side of it. I’m worried about the values behind technologizing / digitizing *everything*. And I think systematizers do it for different reasons than why community access advocates do it. But that distinction isn’t being made explicit because temporarily their short term goals are the same (get more things and more people online).
And secondarily I’m worried about the glorification of progress. But that’s an issue that many people are aware of compared to the first.
April 5th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
One other thing related to this that’s relevant is some quickie research I did for a contract I worked on in January. It was for a sort of research paper that crossed over some of this territory, and the material I received mentioned this idea of a “digital divide” prominently and suggested that there was an age-related problem in addition to the more US-centric view that is traditional.
Even a relatively quick look at the StatsCan data (which is very good) on this suggests that although it may have seemed that there is a generational divide, when you look more closely this too is likely related to access issues, which is fundamentally related not to age-and-comfort problems but rather to economic issues.
And that’s why ISF is significant in that it isn’t only unwiring up the Laika’s of the world (enjoying an allongé right now in fact) but also the Centre St-Pierres.
That’s not to say there aren’t dangers in the “Scorsese (or Clooney, now) approach” (i.e., make commercial dreck in order to fund more worthwhile projects) - there are. But that’s what strong leadership is there for - to negotiate such issues effectively.
April 5th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Damn - forgot to also acknowledge that Dory’s point about it not just being about practical access but also about being relevant in terms of content rings very true to me.