Symbsys 209

10 responses so far ↓

• 1    jarobb3 // Oct 15, 2007 at 9:14 pm

  Overall, I am a huge fan of Benkler’s fifth chapter, but there are at least a couple of consequences of shifting information production to nonmarket players that he does not address.
  Discussing the fates of Hollywood, the music industry, and television shows, Benkler argues that consumers would be just as satisfied with products from the networked information economy as the industrial economy. However, there is another dimension to the American entertainment industry that I believe Benkler does not consider: the global public relations work it does for America. One of America’s must important and underrated exports is entertainment, especially during the current war for the “hearts and minds” of non-Americans.
  Studying abroad in a country that resents the strong American military presence within its borders (Italy), I realized just how important Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Nicole Kidman are to the American interests. Although dinner conversations would relentlessly criticize the American government about virtually all of its policies, the discourse would soften when discussing Justin Timberlake or 300. For me, it is scary to think of what America’s image abroad would be without our supply of celebrities to distract the foreigner from our unpopular politics.
  One should wonder if the networked economy could successfully fill this role should the American celebrity machine succumb to the growing power of non-market productions. Especially since computers are not as widespread abroad, even in a EU nation such as Italy. Are we ready to invest American’s image in the “Jedi Saga?”

  I really enjoyed Benkler’s use of storytelling societies to model the American system of information distribution. In my opinion, it was very effective in making me (the reader) want to join the nearest “Green” society. However, I am 21 years old, a Stanford student, and majoring in Symbolic Systems. Honestly, if I’m not gung ho about the networked information economy, then nobody would be. Perhaps within our pro-technology bubble in Silicon Valley it is easy to forget that the entire country does not check their Gmail account while browsing their RSS feed so that they have something to contribute to Slashdot. Geez, some people don’t even use Firefox!!!!!!!
  Benkler imagines an improved way of life in which people take active roles in their entertainment, leaving behind the era of the couch potato. But what if there are Americans who are not technologically literate enough to participate in their own entertainment? All of a sudden, knowing how to entertain one’s self on YouTube and navigating music artists on MySpace becomes necessary for diversion.
  Maybe it would not be a problem at all. Maybe all Americans would survive the transition from a “Blue” society to a “Green” society. I do think, however, that Benkler should discuss how the networked information economy would not create an “Internet underclass” in our transition from the industrial economy.

• 2    gnewman // Oct 16, 2007 at 3:50 pm

  Before commenting on the reading, I wish to share an anecdote of a lecture that I went to which is quite relevant to the topics in both of the current chapters. It was a lecture about commercial driven mass media and how in many ways our current system is driven from only one source, money, and how this constrains important voices of the “public sphere” because it conflicts with financial interests. He then tried to demonstrate that perhaps our own media needs to have a stronger nonmarket entity than just PBS and NPR, but rather that we should adopt a model that is more like the BBC. He argued that we need a better hybrid system because than at least we would have a nonmarket driven form of media that could compete for viewer’s attention like that of CNN and Fox News. The professor talked about how we typical view government run programs to be inefficient compared to market driven ones, but also how we know that the government is better at creating infrastructure. He gave proof through the building of our roads and highway systems, he declared we would not trust these types of necessities to be run by market driven forces. He argued that perhaps we should look at our media consumption from more of an infrastructure perspective where a bare minimum of non commercial media is a fundamental right. He did not argue from the stand point that market mass media gives us a lowest common denominator of information like Benkler argues, but rather argued from the point that perhaps we do not want our media driven by any one source, even if its is the large and immeasurable field of our commercial markets. I think that the professor was well aware that the BBC runs off about 600 million dollars annually from taxes, but was confident that such a system was worth the cost since it provided a different driving force. He cautioned that he knew that if the media was only state driven it would certainly have its own dubious content, and therefore made the plea that a hybrid system was the best for the consumers and citizenship of the country.

  I found this lecture compelling insofar as I realize that no form of monopoly need to provide the best service, even if it is a “monopoly” only in the form of driven by one force. For me than the conundrum appears to be what if the media was driven without any financial backing. I know this is not what Benkler argued necessarily for, but notice that even in the hybrid BBC model of Britain the BBC runs of taxes and therefore still has a great deal of money to work with. In a hypothetical world where every program and article could be copied and released without the original producers consent, it would appear that we would be living in a world where there can be very little production value to any of the media being made. Take for example Drudge Report which is a basically a news filter website that allows users a more niche take on the world of news. It is basically a collection of links, but in our hypothetical world Drudge can simply copy the articles so admirers of his site need not go to the initial producer of the site of the material, but rather it links to another page that include advertisements that pay Drudge. Benkler tries to nullify the Babel effect of the internet by demonstrating that with proper accreditation techniques we can find the proper niche market for anyone, but is it not possible that we would get a model where all the best filtration and accreditation sites are commercially funded themselves. Drudge is than again not as concerned with giving a well rounded view of the world, but rather is concerned with keeping constant viewers by displaying the most bombastic news in order to garner attention. It is very different than the lowest common denominator because it seeks to offend, but it is still can be considered commercially funded.

  I know that we are supposed to be giving the author more credit, which I have basically internalized as all be a little less critical of the guy, but I cannot help but think that Benkler would be more convincing to me if he did not try to paint the picture of a networked information media with very little commercial constraints as such rosy ideal form of media. For example, after arguing for a while about the value that internet could provide Benkler declares “What emerges in the networked information environment, therefore, will not be a system for low-quality amateur mimicry of existing commercial products. What will emerge is a space for much more expression, from diverse sources of diverse qualities.” However, the page before Benkler states “Independently, the pressure on advertising-supported television from multichannel video – cable and satellite – on the other hand, is pushing for more low-cost productions like reality TV.” Oh, I see, we already get the push to make low-cost productions and nothing can prove that the quality of television will sustain like REALITY TV! Reality TV has got to be the worse thing that has happened to quality of television, since, well ever! So, if I am supposed to be comforted that internal commercial constraints are already affecting the quality, I can only imagine a world when there is little or no production value for any of the media out there. Once again, I am not trying to be too hard on Benkler because I think our media industry is going to have to adapt one way or the other, and we certainly could use a little more selection of media for the niche markets. However, he does not help himself or his argument when he tries to convince me in such a one-sided approach. I suppose I shall have to wait to chapter seven where he discusses how nonmarket productions are producing desirable public information, but I have yet to be impressed with his argument so far.

• 3    johnmagdaleno // Oct 16, 2007 at 5:04 pm

  In these two chapters, Benkler compares the qualities of the Internet with those of the mass media. He discusses contrasting aspects of both by discussing their relative impacts on the autonomy of individuals, degree of individual participation in the creation of content, and the access and control of information. Similar to previous posts, I found much of Benkler’s observations and arguments cogent, but I could not fully suspend myself from my own reality to accept all of them in a purely general sense.

  At many points in Chapter 5, Benkler notes that as individuals who consume mass media produced information, we are only “eyeballs.” That is we are passive consumers who do not influence the content that we consume: “The couch potato, the eyeball bought and sold by Madison Avenue, has no part in making the information environment that he or she occupies.” Does this claim characterize an overly general view of industry’s, or in this case, Madison Avenue’s, actions? Consumers do consume and producers do produce, but the intersection between these two sets of individuals is not the empty set. Industries, corporations, advertising agencies are not purely abstract, amorphous entities with no heart and soul, with no other goal than the conversion of human beings into eyeballs. However, they comprise individuals who consume and who also work for commercial organizations that produce. Assuredly, Benkler accepts that individuals make up commercial organizations? And that these are the same individuals who create and distribute content over the proprietary and non-proprietary networks. Finally, can there be proprietary networks that aspire to the enrichment of individual’s choices, to their pursuit of happiness, and to the quality of life that their eyeballs have (e.g., PBS)?

  In his comments on quality of content, Benkler derides “reality television” as low quality programming: “…on the other hand [advertised supported television] is pushing for more low-cost productions like reality TV… toward low-cost, low-quality productions.” Reality TV is by definition a television of reality, i.e. a glimpse into the lives, the decisions, the beliefs, and the actions, of private individuals made public and available to anyone who chooses to watch. Furthermore, individuals are encouraged, sometimes through monetary compensation, sometimes purely for prestige, to participate. Certainly TV cannot scale, in this form, like the Internet, but there doesn’t seem to be a de facto qualitative difference in the Internet produced information and Reality TV in terms of quality of consumer-driven productions. Benkler chooses to cite Wikipedia when he compares quality of mass media versus the quality of products from peer-production networks. Is Wikipedia the norm for Internet information products? My personal observation is that the Jedi Saga products far outnumber those like Wikipedia.

  I found the Red, Blue, and Green storytellers story to be humorous and deceptively simplified as models. We are asked to consider the ramifications of constraints on storytelling based on three very simple cultures to evaluate the consequences of control of information access. However, consider the Taupe nation. Taupe has developed a system of many storytellers who tell different stories of different content and quality at different times (on demand, scheduled, etc.). As a Taupe citizen, I have the right to buy access to a storytelling, assuming I have enough money. My desire to listen to stories creates an incentive for me to work so that I can have money to listen to the stories that I want by the storytellers that I like. Furthermore, in this system, if a storyteller is too expensive, I can choose to buy a slightly less desirable but more affordable story, OR I may recognize an opportunity to tell my own stories, and compete within the storytelling market, assuming I have the skills to tell stories. Bad storytellers can continue to tell stories to a small audience or to themselves. Volunteer storytellers can give away their stories. In this nation, everyone is free to tell stories, to go into business telling stories, to give away stories, to create and consume stories. Indeed the only difference between Green and Taupe is that a market can be created for good storytellers who thrive on their storytelling abilities and invested time in telling and story development. Advanced economies are less like Red, Blue or Green; they are more like Taupe. Is there an implicit price in not working to tell or listen to a story? I would argue yes and over time, there would be incentive to story tellers to sell stories so that they can buy food from those who produce food and like to listen to stories.

  This might mean that with the reality of the cost of living, Green evolves into Taupe. This is not a surprise: the scarcity of necessary resources to live creates an economy fundamentally based on scarcity. Scarcity (and surplus) is a common factor in the development of specialized societies. Specialized societies create interdependent functions for all aspects of life (not just food production and security) because some of us produce scarce resources (surplus beyond the individual to feed non-producers), and those that don’t (produce scarce resources) must produce something that is desired by the scarce resource-producers. Currency becomes the medium of exchange of not just scarce goods but perhaps as means of regulating our individual contributions to the health of our specialized society. Freeloaders will not be able to take advantage of specialized producers, and they become marginalized; producers are rewarded across all dimensions, including access to information, culture, and knowledge.

  Benkler’s commentary on the mass media seems better defined and supported with figures. His historical perspective on both the development of the technologies, policies, and markets associated with mass media provide us with possible insights into the direction of the Internet given similar circumstances. Benkler makes a strong case for society to avoid the mass media model: its susceptibility to influence by power and money, its lack of access to the broad spectrum of opinions, and its inability to synthesize disparate opinions for consideration. However, in the context of the freedom of information of the Internet, we still need to compare how well the Internet practically performs in terms of breadth of ideas, quality of information, and providing a forum for public discourse around politically important ideas. My own observation is that we still choose our information providers, discredit those ideas which run counter to our beliefs and experiences, and select information for purposes other than political discourse. The Internet does not necessarily broaden our views and help me enter a socially or politically important conversation that is synthesized into the consideration of policy. In fact, many mass media organizations are adopting similar approaches to the blogosphere — creating open channels of communication for readers to interact with each other regarding a specific story. My summary of a blog associated with a CNN news story about the indictment of Michael Vick for cruelty to animals could be summarized in two polar views:
  1) Michael Vick is mean to defenseless animals and he deserves whatever punishment he gets.
  2) You are being too hard on Michael Vick and he should be able to continue with his career despite his crime.

  There were also race-related views which I would not characterize as benefiting any individual’s concept of right, wrong, animal cruelty or forgiveness. It should be sufficient to note that the topic was relevant in the sense that a highly respected sports “hero” had committed a crime against animals. In no part of the thread was there discussion of the plight of animal cruelty in the general sense, or to our society’s focus on professional athletics and importance and high-standing position that we give to the athletes for only physical attributes. Here was a debate on the internet, in a free forum on a potentially socially and politically important issues that degenerated immediately into “you’re wrong” and “I’m right” (or to use Benkler’s classifications, “on the left” and “on the right”). So perhaps mass-media produced content corresponds less to the commercial and informational qualities and more to our psychology as individuals acting as consumers?

  The Internet’s distribution qualities, in my mind at least for now, does not intrinsically possess the positive qualities that make it “better” than mass media. It does provide a possibility, but not necessarily the necessity of socially and/or politically important, synthesized views from the full range of valid ideas of the demos. I do look forward to Chapter 7 to gain more insight into these issues.

• 4    dreadpirateroberts // Oct 16, 2007 at 5:47 pm

  Chapters 5 and 6 proved an enjoyable experience as they gave me what I wanted; context. The hypothetical can be fun, but delving into what had happened and how that can be applied to the future given what is happening in the present is very interesting. Here I am thinking of the discussion of the great “mythos of the electrical sublime” that surrounded the hopeful utopias coming from radio, electricity, or even television. Benkler nicely summed up *why* he was being so hopeful with his point that while these “utopias were overly optimistic” that didn’t stop them from changing the world “material[ly], social[ly], and intellectual[ly]“, to say that while the hoped for best may not come to pass, something has changed and our life will continue to change.

  The allegory of the Reds, Blues and Greens in chapter 5 was very interesting. I was wondering how Benkler decided on these names. The most logical would be the primary colors of the visible spectrum, tying back into the consumer of stories being a set of eyeballs for rent, but calling a group of people “Reds” or “Greens” is very charged. If the colors are used deliberately for their relation to the eye theme, then I think that is very clever.

  The allegory itself is also a good summary of these types of media production. It certainly shows the motivations of how a viewer would see the world. Though I do wonder what is the implied economic state of the Greens. Are they richer than the Reds and Blues? Value stories more? Just nicer when someone starts telling a story? Is the order sequential for a a society? Can Greens become Reds? Slightly silly things to wonder about given the context, but that’s what crossed my mind.

  I also agree with Benkler’s point that allowing more people to produce their stories doesn’t take away from the glory of those who can reach a broader audience. The mystery of “Lost” is not less because of the Youtube saga “lonelygirl15.” People like Cejas who are able to tell their stories just as people like Kerry Conran could develop a prototype for a major motion picture like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Captain). Though big budget movies seem to be the hardest for an individual to create in this economy, though shorter high quality features are possible now, so perhaps this is not far off.

  All the little illustrations sprinkled throughout the chapters were insightful and helpful. From Cejas to what would be on the different cable channels to Hoover and the radio to Dilbert to John and Jane’s designated uses of their car and gun respectively. Small illustrations go a long way for me in understanding the bigger picture.

  I look forward to how this history and context help explain the use of the networks to expand human potential.

• 5    Todd // Oct 16, 2007 at 5:56 pm

  Posted for Laura (new student):

  After reading these chapters, I’ve come to a realization of how ‘un-individualistic’ the media/ information
  network/entertainment industry used to be. It’s rather ironic for me to see how these institutions that were
  supposed to prove how important the freedom of speech and expression was did not actually provide those rights to
  the masses. Instead, the masses were the consumers of information and the consumers of the ideologies of free
  expression. Now, with the advent of youtube, blogs, and websites that can be easily created, edited and
  maintained, I feel like our information culture is finally being the defender of free expression and mass
  expression that it once claimed to be.

  I also want to mention that I appreciate Benkler taking the time to discuss the economy of information and how it
  conflicts with various types of political organization and philosophies. The question of information saturation,
  accreditation, and filtering was very helpful for me to understand how the information process works within the
  different political boundaries. But what about Google in China? How does their censorship work? What is the
  censorship like for any company/information source that tries to transmit its products to a society whose
  information dissemination is controlled by the government?

  Since information usage is an important piece of information, especially for advertising-funded broadcast and
  information, why isn’t there an impartial government/international organization in charge of watching those
  numbers. I feel that trusting Nielsen or some other profit driven corporation to report those numbers puts the
  consumer at the mercy of the media reporting corporation. For information to be properly accredited and properly
  judged, there must be an impartial judge to be in charge of that process nationally or within each market. Others
  can then argue that a multiplicity of these media reporting corporations would then cancel out any biases of any
  one company, yet I’m not totally convinced that is true. Any thoughts?

• 6    fwy08 // Oct 16, 2007 at 5:57 pm

  I find it odd that Benkler did not choose to analyze the popularity of such mass media he mentions in Chapter 6 using the economics theory of supply and demand.
  I think his point—that the content currently offered is “titillating” and “soothing” rather than “genuinely politically important, challenging, and engaging”—is well demonstrated especially by his delineations of these mass communications companies’ business models. It is the business model of mass media companies that determines the content of their publications and broadcasts (p16). These companies must maximize their reader / audience base to make the biggest profits off their advertisers, and do so by providing what Benkler essentially would call inconsequential, soothing, entertaining information that appeals to the lowest common denominator and doesn’t provoke many to turn away. But what this directly implies is that, in general, the public prefers this content. Benkler has made this claim countless times in indirect ways. It is for this exact reason that mass media has thrived.
  History (including the actions of the government) yes have led to the current circumstances but the reasons why the worthless content of mass media persists is because people eat it. If people preferred meaningful political conversations, then those corporations offering them (which exist) would grow and the less valued, diluted sources would shrink…supply and demand.
  What Benkler seems like he actually desires is for people to make better (as he would say more informed, thus autonomous) choices by demanding better (more meaningful) content. This is probably a problem more with our less than ideal education system and the public’s general sense of political inefficacy.

• 7    benkr // Oct 16, 2007 at 5:59 pm

  In chapter 5, when Benkler outlines the information economy allegory of the Red, Blue, and Green storytelling societies, he posits that Greens have the greatest autonomy in choosing their information source, and whether to provide information. However, autonomy is not a universal good, which Benkler argues we have all accepted in our modern democratic societies. I found the Blue scenario quite analogous to a presidential election, where a group of people recognize who is best at filling a specific role, and leaving the task to him despite his inferiorities in particular areas. While another person may outperform the winning candidate in certain areas, no one would support dividing the task. Now, obviously the role of story-teller (information source) is not as serious a role as head of government, but I can think of a few advantages the Blues, with their single storyteller, may have over the Greens:

  -The Blues share a common culture through having heard the same stories together. If the Blues invaded the Greens, I’d put my money on the Blues and their unity of cultural heritage.
  -Greens may only lend an ear to the storytellers they know they will like, and therefore will miss out on views that may expand their minds.
  -Suppose one of the Green storytellers is in the business of passing his stories off as facts, when they are in fact lies. He may misinform a sizeable minority of the public. Meanwhile, if there were discourse on who was allowed to tell the story, as in the Blue society, his damaging stories would not be given an audience.
  -Having no promise of an audience was enough to dissuade the Red and Blue storytellers from telling stories outside the tent or during the daytime. Greens, who have many small audiences, might fail to motivate some prospective artists from entering the scene, but those same artists may try their hand at it in the Blue society in hopes of one day achieving the entire nation’s attention, something Greens cannot promise.
  -Depending on how many people there are in the society, there may be insufficient people with storytelling prowess to fill the needs of the public. Appointing a storyteller would fill that need.

• 8    clizzin // Oct 16, 2007 at 6:00 pm

  I appreciated Benkler’s analysis of autonomy from a substantive perspective rather than a mere formal or institutional angle, but found his analysis of the autonomy concept as it operates within networked information economies to be a little less rigorous and honest as I would have liked.

  Specifically, I disagree with the idea that the Babel objection can be overcome through the presence of filters and accreditation systems, as discussed at the end of Chapter 5, without also limiting autonomy (as Benkler conceives of it) in the same way that proprietary and/or mass media outlets do. Benkler mentions projects like Wikipedia, Slashdot, the Open Directory Project, and Google’s Pagerank system as examples of non-proprietary filters that provide a way for individuals to sort through the huge mass of information that arises from peer production information economies, but largely skims over the fact that the existence and prioritization of these sources as the ‘Big Fish’ in such economies renders useless the economies’ benefits for individual autonomy.

  Benkler may respond that such filters are better than traditional mass-media-supported content filters precisely because of their peer-generated origins, but the effect on the individual consumer is the same: certain outlets are always preferable, thanks to the structure of the information economy, which makes those outlets easily accessible and socially credible, whether they really are or not (both Wikipedia and the Encylopaedia Brittanica are racially biased, but few people care enough to hunt down alternative sources). Benkler may then respond by highlighting the idea that in a networked information economy, choosing the ‘restricted pipe’ itself constitutes a choice on the individual’s part, but the original premise of the Babel objection — that the information on the Internet is too multifarious and varied for individuals to undertake a serious study — shows that the ‘choice’ to use such filters is not really a choice at all. Why would individuals bother to sort through millions of pages dealing with the subject of Jazz Pianists when they could just look up some links deemed worthy of visitation by Wikipedia or Google’s PageRank algorithm? The attitude of the individual is the same, whether he/she is operating in the traditional information economy or the newfangled networked and peer-produced and -filtered information economy: “There is only so much stuff my brain can take, so I’m just going to look at this one Big Source and have done with it.”

  This is not to say that Benkler’s conception of a networked information economy is worse or unpreferable in any way to traditiona mass media models, but it is necessary to recognize the limitations that plain human psychology places on how freely individuals can operate within any information economy.

  I also contest the more broad statement that individuals are creators rather than passive consumers thanks to the stronger networked information economy. One example through which to analyze this issue is video creation and sharing through YouTube. It’s true that YouTube’s primary advantage is easy distribution to a global population, but this does not on face relate to the individual ability or resources to create movies in the first place. Cheaper and more ubiquitous video recording and editing technology, both hardware and software, are stronger and more direct causes of increased creative work among the general population, and most work motivated by increased distributive range is of low quality (many videos on YouTube are of the ‘camwhore’ variety, in which the video content has no purpose or relevance to anyone beyond gaining the video creator/subject some attention). I agree that there is a greater *sense* that individuals can become significant contributors to mainstream culture thanks to the greater range of distribution, but there is a difference between possibility for greater cultural influence and actual motivation for become active creators and participants in culture, as Benkler claims. More often, what I see occurring is that individuals remain passive consumers of Internet content, while perhaps eliciting some individual sense of societal involvement stemming from the amateur nature of the content they view; however, they do not create any creative work of value themselves. Again, YouTube is the most prominent example of such patterns, but the observation applies even more accurately to other arenas of the information economy. Getting attention may be a motivator for actively generating work on YouTube, but in political discussions, it is difficult to see why increased distribution range would be likely to enhance individuals’ inner political passions. Whether individuals use their autonomy to become politically involved or expressive is primarily a function of their personal beliefs and motivations rather than the potential size of their audience.

  These are important criticisms because the ideas of autonomy and information economies’ effects on individual autonomy are at the root of all of Benkler’s other discussions on how the networked information economy affects politics and culture. I do agree with the general idea that the Internet and ubiquitous computing changes the way in which political and cultural discussions develop, but I see this as more the result of particular social and cultural attitudes towards such media (non-serious, anti-establishment, and somewhat absurdist) than the purely economic formulation of causes that Benkler puts together here.

• 9    dulcinea // Oct 16, 2007 at 6:01 pm

  There are so many fascinating topics in this chapter, it’s hard to know which to pick first. I really appreciate Benkler’s philosophical approach in chapter 5, so I will focus on that. Chapter 6 was largely a history of the newspaper and radio industries, most of which I was familiar with.

  The most salient impression of Benkler’s work in Chapter 5 is his view of technological developments through the lens of what is best or worst for individual autonomy. This mirrors my own concern when looking at how technologies and technology policies are implemented, so I very much enjoyed his view. This sentence “What matters is the extent to which a particular configuration of material, social, and institutional conditions allows an individual to be the author of his or her life, and to what extent these conditions allow others to act upon the individual as an object of manipulation,” encapsulates what I think is most important when evaluating particular technologies.
  Here are a few points I wanted to highlight:

  1) “The material conditions of cultural production have changed, so that it has now become part of his feasible set of options. He needs no help from government to do so. He needs no media access
  rules that give him access to fancy film studios. He needs no cable access rules to allow him to distribute his fantasy to anyone who wants to watch it.”

  This is extremely important—the mere act of having to ask permission increases transaction costs dramatically and lessens the possibility that media will be created. Cejas’ ability to create video and distribute it to millions without asking anyone’s permission is the very definition of an “autonomizing technology”. I think that people often say the words “democratizing technology” when they really mean “autonomizing technology”, and the distinction should be clearly drawn. To use Benkler’s terminology, a democratizing technology allows us to become Blues; an autonomizing one allows us to become Greens.

  2) It occurs to me that twentieth century media studies (all of that stuff about the media gaze, men’s violation of women’s existence by looking at them, media images warping our understanding of reality, etc.) are all artifacts of particular culture. As Benkler says: “That increasing passivity of television culture came to be a hallmark of life for most people in the late stages of the industrial information economy. The couch potato, the eyeball bought and sold by Madison Avenue, has no part in making the information environment he or she occupies.” In a new media environment, what kind of media studies will we have? Will they be about the incessant pressure to create, to not merely consume? Instead of being about how we feel so much pressure to look like a set of Blue-chosen supermodels, will they be about how we have no images of the ideal to live up to?

  3) I just have to say that I love his attack on traditional economic models: “No cultural image better captures the way that mass industrial production reduced workers to cogs and consumers to receptacles than the one-dimensional curves typical of welfare economics – those that render human beings as mere production and demand functions. Their cultural, if not intellectual, roots are in Fredrick Taylor’s Theory of Scientific Management: the idea of abstracting and defining all motions and actions of employees in the production process so that all the knowledge was in the system, while the employees were barely more than its replaceable parts. Taylorism, ironically, was a vast improvement over the depredations of the first industrial age, with its sweatshops and child labor.” This might seem like a trivial example, but it reminds me of how environmental economics is taught in the Economics department, based on two-dimensional utility curves, versus how it is taught in the MS&E department, based on proprietary model with dozens of customizable inputs. Which is a better model of reality?

  4) Another interesting application that I would love to explore are the changes to psychology wrought by these technological changes. As Benkler says, “Writing a free operating system or publishing a free encyclopedia may have seemed quixotic a mere few years ago, but these are now far from delusional. Human beings who live in a material and social context that lets them aspire to such things as possible for them to do, in their own lives, by themselves and in loose affiliation with others, are human beings who have a greater realm for their agency.” How did democratic government change psychology, and how will democratizing (or autonomizing) technologies change it?

  5) I am curious how far this autonomy can extend. Even in the absence of influences such as technological implements of government control, and in an environment of constantly growing wealth, how much autonomy can a person express? What is the limit? Following Benkler: “we
  can say that the conditions that enabled Cejas to make Jedi Saga are conditions that made him more autonomous than he would have been without the tools that made that movie possible. It is in this
  sense that the increased range of actions we can imagine for ourselves in loose affiliation with others – like creating a Project Gutenberg – increases our ability to imagine and pursue life plans that would have been impossible in the recent past.” How much can we express? What is inside us?

  6) I especially liked his analysis of how legal frameworks are altered by the networked information economy, classified by autonomy. He analyzes the previous property structure in this regard, but I wasn’t entirely clear on what replacement the new technological structure would create. For my own benefit, I outlined this section of the chapter:

  I) Property-like regulatory structures of patents, copyrights, and similar exclusion
  mechanisms, provide:
  a) certainty of resources
  b) personal control over resources
  II) Commons
  a) probabilistic certainty of resources (nonrivalrousness makes more certain)
  b) which allow less/more freedom than owned, excludable resources (depending on rules)

  7) I’ve been thinking recently that perhaps all existing brands are more valuable than new ones, because they came from an age of monopoly or oligopoly branding. So, everything from Lolita to the game of Jacks will be more valuable than new ones because of its automatic share of attention.

  I wonder about the future importance of social networks such as Facebook because of the importance of relevance filtration. As Benkler says, “For purposes of enhancing the autonomy of the user, the filtering and accreditation function suffers from an agency problem.” If the filters are actually your friends, and not a sponsored feed, then Facebook is much more important from a media standpoint than might otherwise be understood. Since, as Benkler notes, “the filtration and accreditation systems that the industrial information economy has in fact produced, tied to
  proprietary control over content production and exchange, are the best means to protect autonomous individuals from the threat of paralysis due to information overload,” the decoupling of these attributes will lead to new kinds of media empires.

• 10    dreadpirateroberts // Oct 16, 2007 at 6:47 pm

  Random, but of interest to the topic:

  The Tin Woodman of Oz is currently being made into an animated feature. “Unlike most studio films, this is being done by a group of over 100 professional and amateur animators around the world as an internet project, using a low-cost but powerful animation program called “Animation:Master”" says its wiki entry. I’ve looked at some of the pictures of the cast and backdrops and it looks impressive.

  wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Woodman_of_Oz
  project link:http://wiki.hash.com/index.php?title=Main_Page_Two

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