Remaining Questions from Wendy Chun's Control and Freedom:

*Chun implicitly pairs pornography with the internet in her second chapter. I am wondering if this pairing is significant to the rest of her argument, and what else she will do with it. Am I correct in understanding that using the internet itself is akin to, or a form of, pornography? Does it stem from the same impulse?

*How does the "twinning" of control and freedom continue to gain significance, and why is it a productive way to think of freedom? What kind of freedom(s) require control in order to be "true" freedom, especially given her assertion in the Preface that "freedom is a fact we all share"?

*What needs to change, for Chun? Is she posing the twinning of freedom and control as a problem in need of correction (I think she does), or is she explaining this because she wants the internet to open up a different kind of freedom? Further, will she offer solutions to the problem? What does she want us to do or change as a result of understanding freedom as necessarily tied to control?

*Does the internet offer any possibility, then, especially given the contexts in which she describes it: control, pornography, desire, and paranoia?

*Finally, what is her understanding of paranoia, and how does this relate to our internet usage/consumption/understanding of it? How does technology itself play a role in paranoia? And then what?

Correction

The actual phrase Chun uses is "making our digital traces resilient" (5). I am sorry for the misquoting.

I interpret this as "making the invisible visible" for several reasons, most of which I will not get into here, but mainly because she discusses how the "traces" of our presence online -- and even at our computers -- need to become visible, and "resilient" so that we can get closer to freedom.

It may be a stretch, but, as I say, I can elaborate further if need be. Please excuse my error.

The Ghost in the Machine, or (In)Visibility in Chun's _Control and Freedom_

In the introduction of Control and Freedom, Chun briefly introduces a phrase that I think warrants deeper consideration. The phrase is “making the invisible visible” (5) which seems to be the unifying force of the rest of the book. If this is the case, then I am wondering how the book itself makes things visible, and to what ends. I admit I am also confused about Chun's "twinning" of control and freedom, but I think that those are wrinkles we will iron out in class.

In terms of making things visible, Chun discusses how our computers constantly send out unseen messages, both while we are at it and when we are away from it. As Marla says, it’s a useful reminder for this to be in the background as I think and write about the ideas of (in)visibility. We have no way of knowing what these “messages” are, unless we purchase and run a “packet sniffer,” which decodes them. Yet, even the “decoded” message does not translate to anyone that does not know what the codes mean. It seems that Chun’s discussion makes visible a practice rather than content, and I think this is worth further consideration as well.

When we think of pornography, for instance, we tend to think of it in terms of deviant behavior (requiring regulation or surveillance) or in terms of sexuality, gender, and power. While both these narratives hold water, and are important to consider, I think that what Chun does here is to pose all computer activity as pornographic. Thus, she is making visible a practice rather than the sites themselves – an approach I like better than Nakamura, who attempts to analyze the sites for content, or explain how the interfaces hide things. Again, important to consider, but I like Chun’s approach much better because it addresses the user more than the used.

By making practices visible, she is pinpointing the role(s) that users play in creating, disseminating, and resisting the existing narratives of the internet as free. I like that she emphasizes practices and ideologies, instead of the interfaces themselves. I do wish she had spent some more time examining the ways in which more users could resist that which is invisible, or provide more openings for how we can use what she suggests. Each chapter seems to end with a similar charge: that by critically examining the internet and the discourses surrounding it, we can actually use it for freedom. But what about other definitions of freedom? Is it just her idea of freedom, stemming from an academic’s point of view? Or is it more complicated than that? What kinds of freedom(s) are thus invisible, that the internet -- and her discussion of it -- makes visible?

Ideas for my Project

Here are my ideas for my project. I am hoping for some feedback. Thanks!

Basically, I want to look at Facebook as a (potential) tool in the composition classroom. I do not mean just a tool for analysis or discussion, but as a way to make certain practices, behaviors, and ideas "visible."

One argument in the conversation suggests that these social sites should be kept separate from the classroom, since they do not ask students to really "engage" educationally. I am wondering how the writing classroom could provide spaces and opportunities to engage these social networking sites (in terms of the assumptions, interfaces, and practices they engender) critically.

I want to make a website that provides information about it, samples of student writing, and theoretical discussions. However, I'm not sure what form this website should take. Any suggestions?

Related to class, sort of...

Here is a link I got off my friend's facebook page. She's mixed race, so it's even funnier. But, it calls attention to Nakamura's point about iPods/Apple: Stuff White People Like


Enjoy!

Now when I watch TV ads, I know how they do the effects. It's pretty awesome. I feel empowered. I wonder if that's a key component of the texts we've been reading this semester? It's amazing what happens when you know a bit about how things work, especially those things that are visual. I can't watch them passively, anymore...kind of like what happened when I first learned theory and would watch movies -- the theory ruins the movie. Now, the ads aren't "ruined," but their "magic" is exposed. Perhaps that's the value in learning to do this? ;)

I think I'm going to have to teach my students to do this stuff, too....

Made Possible by the Generous Support of Viewers Like You

First of all, I wanted to confess that I am a traitor: I printed out Benkler (on scrap paper) because I know I can't read online. Period.

Aside from my traitor-hood, I also wanted to mention that I like the overall message Benkler suggests: that ideology, society, and culture is changing because of the internet, and we should take that into account. As Marla so eloquently reminds us, every small decision we make (or do not make) online gets multiplied, and has the potential for greater effect.

But to me, this post needs to address two things that keep nagging at me. The first is a leftover from last week's class when we did a rhetorical analysis of Weinberger's book. While Benkler seems to be writing for a different audience -- not hurried (and harried) businessmen on their way somewhere -- he still seems to be "selling" something. Perhaps "selling" isn't the best word here. In any case, I think Benkler is smart to tout the social and cultural benefits of the internet, because in a lot of academic circles it has a bad rap. Keeping this in mind, I think we need to read his utopian gestures with the proverbial grain of salt; if the audience is convinced that the internet is a passive, mind-draining, "popular" activity (and therefore NOT redolent of active engagement with society or intellectual pursuits), then in order for Benkler to make his argument he must approach it from this somewhat problematic perspective.

Second, I want to discuss Benkler's use of the word "collaboration" in the book. It seems to me that he is almost redefining it, since internet collaboration is not "in-person" or the result of direct conversation. He writes,
"...hundreds of independent producers of information, acting for reasons ranging from hobby and fun to work and sales, produce information, independently and at widely varying costs, related to what you were looking for. They all coexist without knowing of each other, most of them without thinking or planning on serving you in particular, or even a class of user like you" (33). Later on down the page, he follows with
"Wikipedia, a multilingual encyclopedia coauthored by fifty thousand volunteers, is one particularly effective example of many such enterprises" (33).

Is what Benkler discusses here "collaboration"? If it is, it is surely a different kind -- for whenever I collaborate on something, the person is usually right there, or at least aware that we are collaborating, and can offer help from a distance. Is Wikipedia really "coauthored", then? What does it mean to "coauthor" or "collaborate" in the Internet society? If I borrow information from a source and use it for my own connections -- as Weinberger suggests -- am I really collaborating? Do we say this of books and physical texts I might use, too? That is, if I write a paper about Weinberger, I don't think anyone would say I collaborated with him, though Bakhtinians out there would suggest that he made his mark on my mind.
This is already too long, so I'll stop now.

Response to Alyssa's Post on Benkler

As I've taken to doing, here's my comment from Alyssa's blog:

"For me, this inhibits his ideas about collaboration as well. His views about the internet being a truly collaborative endeavor only applies in certain instances and circumstances. We can't effectively, or "truly" collaborate with someone in China who is limited -- governmentally --by his access. At least, we can't collaborate in what seems to be Benkler's view of collaboration. How, then, must we re-think collaboration?"

It just occurred to me, after reading some of Benkler, that the studies we've read of the internet take a particular perspective (Nakamura explored race/ racial identity; Weinberger looked at the business potential and knowledge construction; and Benkler is examining it from an economic, social democratic point of view).

I wonder, then, what a study of the internet would look like on its own merits. That is, what would a theoretical examination -- not one from a particular field of study or perspective -- tell us?

What's the benefit of looking at the internet, which so many people use, for so many different reasons, from a singular perspective or point of view or entrance point? What's the drawback?

Could we even read the internet using critical theory without choosing a subject to explore, like race or economics? I think we could. Thoughts?