• written in post doc.com conjuncture
• everyday informational tools used en masse
• concerned with "terrain of the commons" - an aspect of contemporary culture that "arises our of affective investments and works through an inventive and emotive political intelligence on the terrain of the contemporary politics of communication" (157)
• cultural formation "network culture" def by "unprecedented abundance of information output and by an acceleration of informational dynamics" (1)
• concerned with processes and the nonlinear sequence of events that have assembled into this cultural moment she defines as network culture
• new types of political engagements are possible w/in contemporary NC
• for info theory, the main issue is the establishment of contact bw 2 pts and the effectiveness of the comm channel by clearing out noise
• meaning comes second
• seeking truth - manipulation / alternatives and probabilities
• info is just one dimension of comm, and cannot be separated from the wider informational dynamics o shifting relations
Chapter 1:
• historical analysis of information theory (Bell Labs 40-50s)
• meaning if info; arguing against common assumption of info as content of communication
• info as "informational dynamics" (7)
• 3 themes of info cultures - 1) information and noise, 2) limits of possibility, 3)non-linearity and representation
3 propositions of informational cultures
• the meaning of info
• not definable; culture also in not definable information
• - content of a communication act
• - something less than material about it
• immateriality
• amplified by tech developments; instant transmisal, multiple distribution, various medical journals
• 6 - "anybody is always potentially an information - source of even an information storage device and that science suggests that information constitutes the very basis of our biological existence" code in our cells
• informational commodity - raised questions of rights in the digital age
• relation b/w culture and info; info as more than context of com
• mass-less flows and the creation of "environment" within which contemporary culture unfolds
• the question of media and comm has thus been related mainly to the problem of how a hegemonic consensus emerges out of the articulation of diverse interests and how cultural struggle is waged within representational space, marked by the relationship bw self and other or the identical and the different"
• 9 - "information is no longer simply the first level of signification, but the milieu which supports and encloses the production of meaning"
• no meaning without info
• understanding relationship bw power, culture and coms
• com not simply the site of reproduction of culture
• shift away from focus on meaning and representation as the only practical dimension of culture
• comm as a kind of common informational milieu - open to the transformative potential of the political
Chapter 2:
• contemporary examination of NC material and socio-economic conditions of last 30 yrs
• key moments in structural evolution of Internet
• main characteristics of net architecture 1) openness 2)packet switching
• Net - conceived and designed as such, network of networks
Chapter 3:
• •concept of "knowledge worker" and "FREE LABOUR" in digital economy
• free labour not restricted to the digi economy or the Net, rather an unacknowledged value in capitalist communities
• working model for futurer capitalist production
• Marxist ideal of "real SUBSUMPTION" of society under capitalism, where capital is able to absorb any of the creative powers of labour
• free labour not necessarily exploited labour
• contributes to Net as thriving
• rejects so -called leftist view that these types of labour are essentially instances of authentic culture which captures then incorporates into its structures and practices - not lead to liberation
• free labour emerges out of capitalism (80)
• free labout as a result of complex history where the relation bw labour and capital is mutually constitutive, entangled and crucially forged during the crisis of fordism (94)
• free labour is a feature of old and new media
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Chapter 4:
• theory - evolution
• control is self-org systems
• buttom-up org and power of components of open fluid system
• more important to understand essential conditions that can facilitate the emergence of a certain desired outcome rather than components
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Chapter 5:
• relationship between intensification of common and emergence o the masses (i.e. social entropy)
• new medium for comm freed from 'old baggage'
• "network multitude" as in own means of comm, free from tyranny of broadcasting
• not NT culture vs manipulated mass culture
• •old media - rethinking public sphere, democracy, mass culture, etc
• problem of control and the structure of power operates in a relatively sel-org system of the Net
• eg. globalisation fo anti-war movements "changing constantly and only momentarily forming those solidified moments we call "orgs" - erodes by shifting currents, melted back into FLOW itself (156)
• crisis in political comm
• comm can it be saved at all given the power of private and gov interests?
• comm as spectacle, gossip and manipulation - undermining reason rather than the medium for expanding it
• turns to the notion of MASS
• no longer pure mass cult society as the F school saw it
• contemporary culture is highly differentiated and highly interconnected
• clash bw mass and micro-segmented info milieu
• ends on positive note - NC of Net can open up posibilities for new types of political engagement