Re: [-empyre-] Self-programmable media activism; just cheap talk?
Hi:
High winds knocked out my telephone and DSL yesterday. Consequently, I sat
down this evening to comb through 98 emails. This conversation, however, is
more important to me than the other 90+.
I appreciate your thoughtful observations. I want to comment on a few
things, beginning with "In my estimation the effects of self-programmed
technology on the political spectrum (with a goal towards producing
effective manifestations of radical presences) has been ameliorative at
best)."
I will, again, ask you to observe, today and in coming months, what the
people of Pennsylvania are doing with the Internet to rid state government
of what they perceive as corruption. Many voices (acting either on their own
or as part of numerous groups that have formed) are using the computer to
organize, to speak and to act and it is working. What's more, they are not
resting on the laurels of initiating two historical events (the
non-retention of a justice and the force of a repeal vote on the salary).
Rather, they are using blogs, podcasts, websites and, to a lesser degree,
traditional media, to continue the quest to oust all legislative incumbents.
In other words, interest is not waning. If anything, it continues to grow.
Here is the latest of tools that has legislators in complete panic.
http://harrisburgbuzz.blogspot.com/
I have no idea who is behind this, but I know it is an insider. Whoever the
author/activist is knows a great deal about the personalities and politics
of the place. What began on Monday has spread through the legislature like a
wildfire.
Back when the legislators took the salary increase vote and the print media
began to report to the highly negative reaction, which spawned a new media
citizen blitz, I suggested that the lawmakers and the governor had not
anticipated a different media climate and an evolving media culture. I
suggest that new media is doing and will be responsible for a lot more than
amelioration until it is all said and done in the Commonwealth. In the end,
whether I am correct or off the mark, it is, as I said before, "fascinating"
to watch people who felt that they were not heard before speaking loudly and
getting results.
As to the print media, it has continued to update readers through stories
and editorials about the efforts and it is cited via links in blogs and on
web pages; however, it is not the major conduit it was once in politics.
Well, among legislators it is. Among the general population, it is not.
You also commented: "I sincerely believe that many in the college try there
best for the students, but there is only so much that is possible with the
universities convenient one month long semesters and online courses. Lacking
the time and space or the ability to develop affinity and solidarity, there
is absolutely no student voice in the college-
how it is run and what they get for their money."
I would like to talk more about this as I am involved (formerly as a grad
student and now as a member of an alumni council and one of the college
president's working groups) in a low-residency model, progressive college.
If others are interested in chatting it out, I shall post to this board. If
not, we can talk email?
Sincerely,
Christine
----- Original Message -----
From: <rherbst@journalofaestheticsandprotest.org>
To: <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 3:22 PM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Self-programmable media activism; just cheap talk?
Christine and empyre,
Thanks for the great response. However I see in your answer the
confirmation of my cynicism.
Of course the Internet and digital technologies have accomplished stuff on
the individual and personal level, my
point is that we need to recognize and qualify what it has been capable of
doing in the social/political spectrum on
the group and social level. In my first post I suggested a comparison
between equal dates (64-68/01-05) as a point
of comparison. In my estimation the effects of self-programmed technology
on the political spectrum (with a goal
towards producing effective manifestations of radical presences) has been
ameliorative at best.
I don't doubt that for many computers are a life altering technology, one
uniquely suited to helping individuals cope
with the difficulties of living in a ruptured environment filled with
abandoned industrial landmarks and individuals
downsized to the service economy. The internet seems uniquely suited to
help consumers cope with the poverty
caused by deindustrialization and globalization; the small towns falling
apart- folks at home checking out e-books-
the downtown library gains dust. It's kind of sad in my mind, the capital
intensive tools which served as the medium
of so much dislocation heroically returning to the site of their triumph,
this time in the guise of an empowering
tools, now providing comfort to the towns they left as redundant.
One of the many ways I earn a paycheck is from an online and almost
commercial university. My students all enjoy
and benefit from their ability to earn a degree on their own time, and
often from there own homes. I do my best by
them, which of course is top o' the line teaching (by my estimate). However
the university I work for is competing
successfully in a race towards the bottom in higher Ed. The president of
the college is paid like a CEO, while the
adjunct to faculty ratio is terrible. The quality of the education is
uneven, and the standards are set very low.
However students, many of them on their second and third careers, are
presented with something that appears to
them as a great choice. I sincerely believe that many in the college try
there best for the students, but there is only
so much that is possible with the universities convenient one month long
semesters and online courses. Lacking the
time and space or the ability to develop affinity and solidarity, there is
absolutely no student voice in the college-
how it is run and what they get for their money. The students pay a lot,
ultimately getting very little from the
institution they are supporting. To the students this school seems like a
great deal, mostly because they have very
few other choices. But it is a raw deal for the teachers. More importantly
if this is the future of education, society as
a whole will suffer. While the school gives them coping skills, it offers
them no room to look at the world, recognize
their space within it, and than ask how they can make it better.
As to blogs and the successful Pennsylvania campaigns to repeal the
lawmakers wage increase's, that's great. It's a
sad commentary on the state of public corporate media, that they can no
longer lead on such meat and potatoes
politics as a taxpayers revolt. My question is, has the Internet or other
self-programmed technology assisted in
places that lead not follow the political debate? If the Internet is a
democratizing, accessible space, than why are
their very few real world manifestations of political or social dissonance
or otherness? A peace sign in your window
is great, but barely qualifies. The internet is filled with representations
of dissonance, yet on the streets, in the
towns and cities, in the woods- their are remarkably few manifestations of
the dissonance that the internet would
suggest exist in the real world. As if to document them- or to express them
online is a success enough. Every day I
see an anti-corporate anti-Wal-Mart websites. Yet I see very few protests
or actions at malls and even fewer
attempts to overcome corporate power by setting up massive online public
buyers coops.
In LA where I live there continues to be community vigils against the war.
Online organizing got these folks together
at one point, but it is the social bonds that have formed within these
groups that maintain them. Otherwise right
now in the city the struggle for the South Central Farm continues to be the
most visionary radical and fascinating
sight of dissonance anywhere in the city. While the internet has been a
very recent source to develop external
solidarity, this experiment in social possibility happened because 134 poor
Central American immigrants have spent
the last 13 years developing an understanding together. They are
effectively challenging the power structure of the
cities developers to insist on a human scale development in the heart of a
city that wishes gentrification can be the
solution to the multiple crisis' of homelessness, poverty, undocumented
workers and environmental degradation.
By aiding individual action to solve what appear as personal problems, I
fear that self-programmed technologies
offer an illusion of activity where human relationships are really what is
needed to solve the problems that confront
us.
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Christine Goldbeck cgoldie@verizon.net
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:08:06 -0500
To: rherbst@journalofaestheticsandprotest.org, empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Self-programmable media activism; just cheap talk?
Hi:
I don't find new media communications (art making and receiving, for
example) to be alienating. Perhaps, because in mapping the cultural terrain
of my geographic location, I AM alienated.
There was an old computer about the house. Until yesterday, it was sitting
in the cellar on a shelf, to which it retired after having been used by
various family and friends. It is the machine on which people learned to
operate a computer and the device that opened new worlds for each of its
users. It's been an amazing process to record and to ponder.
One woman formed an online club for mothers and went on to finish her GED
and acquire certification as a medical assistant. Another user, to whom I
also passed along an old digital camera, learned to process and design
images. His work recently won a photo contest and he loves his new hobby of
documenting old industrial landmarks.
Yesterday, the computer went to a woman who will be 50 in March. She was a
seamstress. When her factory closed, she became a baker for a supermarket
chain. Her earnings are palty and her cost of living keeps increasing.
During her recent visit, I introduced her to a computer. She visits to
borrow print books from my library. I showed her ebooks and word
processing.
She got hooked and we set up the computer in her apartment yesterday.
This is hardly alienating. It is expanding experiences and learning for
many
in rural places who by circumstances (economic, social, cultural, etc ...)
find themselves confined.
As to self-programmable media activism, have you been reading about
so-called citizen journalists and their impact on Pennsylvania government?
It is a fascinating case study. Essentially bloggers and podcasters brought
about two historic changes in our political history.
Best to all,
Christine Goldbeck
----- Original Message -----
From: <rherbst@journalofaestheticsandprotest.org>
To: <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 3:26 PM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Self-programmable media activism; just cheap talk?
Christina Mcphee wrote...
" Still, are you saying that, beyond the self reflexive environment of the
list, that the live'ness - perhaps, the lived-ness,
of print media especially independent alternative press media, is still so
much a touchstone to the reality of physical
life: to touch / to read/ to hear/ to think/ to speak?. The physical
presence of media made the hard way. "
Yes, I am saying that...
I am wondering what we have lost by making digital media (as opposed to
more tacticle media made the hard way) a (if
not the) central methodology in the activist/artist/media-practitioners
tool kit. Thinking like this may be antithetical
and counterhistorical, but I think it is an important question to ask. In
my post, and specifically, I touch on blogs vs
newspapers, because I have experience working in both media, but I think
these comparisons are legitimate to make
between all older methodologies of social organizing and the new alienated
forms which have come
to replace them.
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