week 11 lecture on cyberpolitics

Hello!
Cyberpolitics was the topic of week 11's lecture. The digital divide was mentioned; so the fact that not everyone has equal access to computers, especially the internet, and as the lecture notes read, how can everyone be represented in on-line debate? It then said access is easier to gain now through friends, libraries, cheaper costs etc, but what about people living in, say, slums in Africa? I don't think they have access to libraries with internet connection, or friends with net connections etc, which is also refered to in the notes. But then it reminded me of something I read in the text book for this subject. On page 189 it talks about 'digital optimist' Nicholas Negroponte, and his goal of providing every child in Third World Countries access to a laptop computer. It's definitely good that he's doing something to benefit others, but as I read it I just thought, what would those kids do with a laptop? What would they look up on the net if they had access to it?

Anyway, on to Habermas' theory of 'the public sphere.' By this he meant the area of social life and existence where 'public opinion' forms. Also, McLuhan's argument that the electronic media could provide opportunities to people of involvement in the 'public sphere.' I agree with this, because I definitely believe in the power of the media to provide people with facts, knowledge etc that can help people to form opinions. I think it is an incredibly important that the media and communication technologies like the internet, allow people easy access to information. For example, when I'm doing an assignment, I can go onto the Australian Government or Parliament website and get some legitimate info. I also agree with what the lecture notes say about John Fiske's argument-that people come up with their own interpretations of what they read of the media, and, I believe, everything in general. And, what John Hartley said about television communicating to all different people, things happening all over the world. Just turn on the news and that's what you'll see.

The free speech and censorship section was relevant and interesting to me, because it was an issue focused on in my essay. I'm all for democracy and the practising of democracy by the citizens in that I appreciate all the privileges it brings, but I don't think people should be able to put anything they want on the net; somethings should definitely be censored. But of course that's just my opinion and there are a lot who disgaree with it.

Reading about the hackers reminded me of Jason Nelson's lecture, and what was put on his site when hackers got to it. I had always, until now, thought hackers were in fact involved in computer crime-just messing with people's sites abnd putting inappropriate things there etc. But the lecture shows another side of that, and this leads me to ask, are the type of people Jason Nelson was talking about actually not hackers, but crackers? I guess so, because according to The Hacker Ethic, no content can be damaged, they simply want to share the info. But that's not what Jason Nelson's hackers/crackers did...so I guess they were crackers. And the hacker contribution to democracy is significant; especially 'providing access to debates for a multitude of voices that could never be heard through existing mainstream, broadcast media.' Debate is a crucial aspect of democracy, therefore something providing people with a voice is important to the practising of democracy.

I won't lie and say I fully understood Primer because I definitely didn't! I wasn't sure of the actual moment their invention became a time machine. So I was pretty lost. I read some spoilers as we were urged to do because the second half would be ultra confusing without them, but the sites google came up with that I looked at were blog conversations between people who were genuises and knew all this stuff about the issues covered in Primer, so that pretty much just confused me more! But, all the time travel 'possibilites' in the lecture notes were interesting, especially the part that pointed out that computers just expand time, and that experiences could be relived as new and present. It just goes to show how different a computer is to the human brain! Anyway, that's it for this week. 'Til next time!