Welcome to Information Technology and Society

Week 4

Here's the wiki with course material: http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/FrontPage.

In this class we'll focus on how the information technology revolution developed, especially vis-a-vis long time Berkeley Professor Manuel Castells' research on the Network Society, as well as http://webnographers.org - a wiki bibliography on virtual ethnography.

I invite your questions, and I'll post a version of the text from each class to http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/FrontPage over the weeks.

There's already a lot of information on this wiki, which will develop with this class.

And please join the Google Group for World University and School - like Wikipedia with MIT Open Course Ware -

http://groups.google.com/group/World-University-and-School.

Today's class focused was primarily in voice.

This is a transcript from the Fall 2010 course - http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/InfoTechSoc4_2010FA

The Network Society

1. Information Revolution

2. Perestroika (in the U.S. in the 1970s)

3. Values - Cultural Change - the 1960s.

Network Society Paradigm Shift, as system, has 5 aspects.

1. It's about information generation

2. It's pervasive - it invades ad influences every domain of socioeconomic activity

3. It's characterized by networking - mentalities,  companies, people - network - and create synergies, based around knowledge generatiion

4. Flexibility is key - the system is such that it reorganizes, and reprograms its components without disintegration.

5. The technological convergence that has occurred is an integrating system

Saturday, 2 Oct 2010


[11:00]  Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...
[11:00]  Connected
[11:02]  Ju Roussel: Hello!
[11:04]  Ju Roussel: Hi !
[11:04]  Ju Roussel: I'm very well TY!
[11:04]  Ju Roussel: Yes
[11:04]  Ju Roussel: Still
[11:05]  Ju Roussel: 8PM
[11:05]  Aphilo Aarde: "Consent of the Networked" is an forthcoming book by
[11:05]  Aphilo Aarde: Rebecca MacKinnon
[11:06]  Aphilo Aarde: The internet is distributed and decentralized ...
[11:06]  Aphilo Aarde: which is what it was built around
[11:07]  Roman Takacs: Her suggestion is counter to the dominant capitalist model ... googlization, facebookification, AOLism :)
[11:07]  Deanya Zenfold: you're coming in and out
[11:07]  Ju Roussel: your voice is breaking
[11:07]  Roman Takacs: your're breaking up ...
[11:08]  Aphilo Aarde: http://www.webnographers.org/index.php?title=Videos#Future_of_the_Internet
[11:08]  Aphilo Aarde: I'll try to type a little more this time
[11:08]  Ju Roussel: that's probably when you use other resources on your computer (other than SL)
[11:08]  Aphilo Aarde: My previous signal stopped working
[11:08]  Aphilo Aarde: :)
[11:08]  Aphilo Aarde: Look at Graham's article and videos
[11:08]  Aphilo Aarde: from the Internet Society of New York
[11:09]  Aphilo Aarde: to see the significance of some future models, Roman
[11:09]  Deanya Zenfold: a bit
[11:09]  Deanya Zenfold: not bad at the moment
[11:09]  Ju Roussel: not so badly
[11:10]  Deanya Zenfold: webnographers video page: http://www.webnographers.org/index.php?title=Videos
[11:11]  Roman Takacs: (ATT versus Verizon ... ish)
[11:18]  Roman Takacs: the goals might have been "social" ... a pool of engineers, scientists, etc ...
[11:19]  Roman Takacs: a la eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" ...
[11:23]  Ju Roussel: Saxenian, A. (1994). Regional advantage : culture and competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
[11:24]  Aphilo Aarde: networks
[11:30]  You decline Music Island, Sea Turtle Island (52, 11, 21) from A group member named Kate Miranda.
[11:34]  Deanya Zenfold: breaking up a bit
[11:35]  Deanya Zenfold: so a question:
[11:35]  Aphilo Aarde: Networks ... 1 companies / universities and 2 individualism
[11:36]  Deanya Zenfold: right!
[11:36]  Ju Roussel: 1) collaboration enabled for individuals to bypass limits of their backward organisations, and 2) since then, the role of user innovators seems to have emerged and now exploding.
[11:36]  Deanya Zenfold: wow, thanks!
[11:38]  Aphilo Aarde: The New Argonauts
[11:39]  Ju Roussel: Saxenian, A. (2006). The new argonauts : regional advantage in a global economy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
[11:41]  You decline Music Island, Sea Turtle Island (52, 11, 21) from A group member named Kate Miranda.
[11:42]  Ju Roussel: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_502ASRB.pdf
[11:49]  Ju Roussel: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10955
[11:59]  Deanya Zenfold: i have a question for when we get back
[11:59]  Deanya Zenfold: Q: is there anything else that "bounds" the system?
[11:59]  Deanya Zenfold: besides technological development?
[12:00]  Roman Takacs: Ran into an interesting ad today … IBM's The Smarter Planet "approach" … http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ … not sure how "open" it is :)
[12:00]  Deanya Zenfold: so in many ways, not
[12:00]  Deanya Zenfold: right! wow
[12:01]  Roman Takacs: IBM has "it's" plans :)
[12:01]  Deanya Zenfold: steve is not here but he works for blade
[12:01]  Ju Roussel: that's corporate social responsibility. Part PR, part genuine
[12:01]  Deanya Zenfold: (i am outing him lol)
[12:01]  Aphilo Aarde: :)
[12:02]  Roman Takacs: (I think he mentioned it last time, or at least suggested it ... )
[12:02]  Deanya Zenfold: he's been kind of dodgy about his previous work with IBM lol
[12:02]  Roman Takacs: (Probably a good example of "networking" (hiring "consultants" rather than employees")
[12:02]  Deanya Zenfold: i asked him if he was going to mention it haha
[12:03]  Deanya Zenfold: so i don't think i'm outing him in any real ways.
[12:03]  Deanya Zenfold: :)
[12:03]  Roman Takacs: (Some of my best friends work at IBM :) )
[12:03]  Deanya Zenfold: and besides, that's what he gets for not being here
[12:03]  Deanya Zenfold: Roman, that sounds like true confessions.
[12:03]  Deanya Zenfold: kk afk too
[12:05]  Roman Takacs: IBM has an interesting tendency to ... "disintermediate" itself ? ... as it moves from HW to MW ...
[12:10]  Aphilo Aarde: Hello again!
[12:11]  Deanya Zenfold: :)
[12:11]  Roman Takacs: That was a short beer :)
[12:11]  Ju Roussel: Back!
[12:11]  Deanya Zenfold: mid day is a good time for a beer
[12:11]  Roman Takacs: Mind Ware
[12:12]  Roman Takacs: Not SW ... MW ...
[12:12]  Roman Takacs: "consulting", "design", "planning" ...
[12:13]  Ju Roussel: IBM is amazing. The dream place to work at.
[12:13]  Roman Takacs: ("Deep" Thoughtful)
[12:14]  Ju Roussel: Dogearnation is a podcast ran by IBMers (spare time). I recommend it!
[12:14]  Ju Roussel: That was Roman?
[12:14]  Roman Takacs: ???
[12:15]  Ju Roussel: ah, that was to accompany developments in India discussion
[12:15]  Deanya Zenfold: no, this is good stuff
[12:15]  Ju Roussel: I spent the week making "boxes" for intro management textbook, sorta became a habit.
[12:15]  Deanya Zenfold: i want to think more about that but i think you're right
[12:18]  Deanya Zenfold: wait say again
[12:18]  Deanya Zenfold: you're breaking up
[12:18]  Deanya Zenfold: mostly
[12:20]  Ju Roussel: USSR-occupied territory yes :D
[12:21]  Deanya Zenfold: i like to study the term "desire"
[12:22]  Roman Takacs: . o O ( I don't think T falls from the sky .. though :)
[12:23]  Roman Takacs: . o O (all of the three are social processes)
[12:27]  Ju Roussel: We had Archie Brown's keynote here in Stockholm re. Perestroika & Gorbachev. Great talk. He later submitted the speech-based essay: http://balticworlds.com/a-twenty-fifth-anniversary-perspective/?s=perestroika
[12:36]  Deanya Zenfold: varies
[12:36]  Ju Roussel: ok!
[12:36]  Roman Takacs: right now fine ...
[12:36]  Deanya Zenfold: you're good
[12:36]  Deanya Zenfold: lol
[12:36]  Ju Roussel: let us know how we can make it easier
[12:39]  Deanya Zenfold: interesting!
[12:41]  Deanya Zenfold: wow
[12:47]  Deanya Zenfold: again, was limited by available tech
[12:53]  Deanya Zenfold: born in 63
[12:53]  Roman Takacs: Moi :)
[12:53]  Ju Roussel: that was way before "me"
[12:53]  Deanya Zenfold: rub it in Ju, lol
[12:54]  Aphilo Aarde: :)
[12:54]  Roman Takacs: (Not much :) )
[12:54]  Deanya Zenfold: the 60s didn't make it to shelby nc until the early 70s
[12:54]  Roman Takacs: I grew up in a small town south of Pittsburgh ...
[12:54]  Ju Roussel: I did not get the pun... I'm so glad about OMD's new album
[12:54]  Roman Takacs: but went to Cal from 61 to 64
[12:54]  Roman Takacs: California, OA
[12:54]  Roman Takacs: PA
[12:55]  Roman Takacs: Pretty calm, but highly charged "intellecturally
[12:55]  Roman Takacs: TONS of foreign films, etc ...
[12:55]  Deanya Zenfold: <3 gary snyder
[12:55]  Ju Roussel: Like Swedish "I am curious yellow"..?
[12:56]  Roman Takacs: Berkeley was pretty "button down" preppy :)
[12:56]  Ju Roussel: the movie
[12:56]  Roman Takacs: More engineers than you can throw a stick at !
[12:56]  Ju Roussel: I got to watch it, it was something that shocked the US public
[12:57]  Roman Takacs: I suspect, that even in the most intense "hippy days", Berkeley was sitlll pretty staid ...
[12:58]  Ju Roussel: lol
[12:58]  Roman Takacs: People don't "drop out" of Cal, they get "pushed out" :)
[12:58]  Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
[12:59]  Deanya Zenfold: haha we could more easily come to class stoned on the net lol
[12:59]  Aphilo Aarde: ABC Primer to MIT OW / Berkeley Webcast to http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
[12:59]  Roman Takacs: Or at least have a martini handy :)
[12:59]  Aphilo Aarde: *MIC OCW
[12:59]  Aphilo Aarde: MIT OCW
[13:00]  Roman Takacs: [Though MIT has quite heavy financing of their effort ... ]
[13:01]  Ju Roussel: no joke! a professor tweeted she was looking for a grad student for a project. I tweeted her back. Turned out the topic was far from my expertise. She however, mentioned a podcast from Berkman Center... We might be writing a grant for replication study.
[13:01]  Ju Roussel: all happened during 3 days. No prior connections.
[13:01]  Deanya Zenfold: i'm sort of doing that here in sl
[13:02]  Roman Takacs: Ju 's observation is on target I think .... folks don't got to a "place" (real or virtural for that) ...
[13:02]  Deanya Zenfold: working with professors across the u.s. because my committee knows nothing about SL.
[13:03]  Roman Takacs: The hard thing is getting an "open contacts" system ...
[13:03]  Deanya Zenfold: working with aj brooks and iggy onamatopoeia
[13:03]  Deanya Zenfold: aj is at montclaire ny
[13:03]  Deanya Zenfold: and iggy is joe essid in virginia
[13:03]  Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/You_at_World_University
[13:03]  Ju Roussel: Swedis academia is VERY bureaucratic with nascent flowering exceptions!
[13:03]  Deanya Zenfold: nj sorry
[13:03]  Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses
[13:04]  Deanya Zenfold: bryan carter who does virtual harlem is working with me too
[13:04]  Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Individual_courses
[13:04]  Deanya Zenfold: most schools prohibit it
[13:04]  Roman Takacs: (Or better, work for pay :) ... like "real" graduate students :) )
[13:05]  Aphilo Aarde: Wikipedia with MIT OCW
[13:05]  Deanya Zenfold: like i'm not allowed to teach a student who is not paying my school
[13:05]  Roman Takacs: (Even MIT OCW isn't meant to support this model ... ::( )
[13:05]  Deanya Zenfold: i can do it on my own, but i can't export my course material
[13:05]  Aphilo Aarde: Remixing ...
[13:06]  Deanya Zenfold: this is why i say that certification in particular areas is the way of the future
[13:09]  Ju Roussel: Thank you Aphilo!
[13:09]  Deanya Zenfold: thank you so much, Scott!!
[13:09]  Deanya Zenfold: great class!
[13:09]  Deanya Zenfold: where's the tip jar lol
[13:09]  Aphilo Aarde: Thank you !
[13:09]  Roman Takacs: Thanks ! Ciao !
[13:09]  Aphilo Aarde: Ciao !