Brief lectures in

Media History

Chapter 12Global Culture

(15 of 15)

This lecture is about Social construction of technology Communities and social capital Free software vs tethered apps Mp3s, music sharing, video sharing Digital community commerce –

Amazon, eBay, Craigslist Wikipedia and knowledge sharing Social media from Friendster to

Twitter The future of the Internet and Web

This lecture is also about Tim Berners Lee / world wide web Richard Stallman / free software Shawn Fanning / Napster Lawrence Lessig / copyright law Johnathan Zittran / acts of kindness Jimmy Wales / Wikipedia Clay Shirky / cognitive surplus Craig Newmark & Pierre Omidyar

◦Craigs List and eBay etc. Julian Assange & Edward Snowden

Videos to watch Googlezon – Fun, whacky history of web. 2006 Lawrence Lessig on Laws the Choke Creativity, 2007. Tim Berners-Lee on the 20th anniversary of the WWW.    2009. Clay Shirkey How Social Media are making history.  2009. Jimmy Wales on the Birth of Wikipedia 2009 Johnathan Zittrain on Random Acts of Internet Kindness. 2009. Clay Shirkey on 

How Cognitive Surplus through Social Media is changing the world. 2010. 

Markham Nolan, Storyful. How to separate fact from fiction online. 2012.

Sergey Brin on Google Glass - Feb. 2013  TED video.  In the beginning, the idea was to avoid having to look down all the  time.  Then it grew.

Edward Snowden - Here's how we take back the Internet. 2014.

Examples of social construction Satellite radio and Internet applications like

podcasting were developed to circumvent the economic barriers around radio licenses.

• The World Wide Web, along with millions of e-commerce and social media sites, was developed to provide new services that once-profitable mainstream media were ignoring.

P2P protocols were developed to circumvent copyright and politically repressive regimes in other nations.

New applications like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia, came directly from social experience, not from the “inevitable” path of one technology following another.

Circumventing media Printing c> Church Newspapers c> newsletters Photography c> dioramas, painting Telephone c> telegraph Magazines c> newspapers Film & radio c> theater TV networks c> radio Satellites c> TV networks Podcasting c> radio Web c> newspapers

New communication = community

Journalist Howard Rheingold fell into the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (the WELL) in 1985 …

He described it in in his book The Virtual Community: “An entire cast of characters welcomed me to the troupe…”

Free software movement Some of the most

importantnetwork and system

software has emerged from the Free Software

movement.

Richard Stallman is a leader of the hacker

culture and a programmer who worked

on artificial intelligence at MIT. Stallman saw Steve Jobs and Apple

(along with the rest of corporate culture) as a

“malign influence on free computing.”

Richard Stallman

Open Source Software (major examples) GNU/Unix operating system Apache web server Java and Php programming languages MySQL database system

◦PhP and MySQL are used in content management systems like Wordpress and Drupal

Firefox web browser GIMP image editor (similar to Photoshop) Open Office software (similar to MS Office)

New standards opened questions

International standards c. 1990s allowed transmission of photos and audio files via satellite & low-speed internet.

Five to 10 percent of file size, only some loss of quality

JPG photo and video compression created web

MP3 audio compression allowed podcasting, audio file exchanges

All this opened new legal questions

Napster, Grokster, etc Shawn Fanning achieved fame

with his Napster audio file sharing program.

A federal court found that Napster was infringing

copyright and ordered it shut down in 2001.

Other programs designed to get around Napster’s legal

issues were also found to be infringing by courts enforcing international copyright law.

These included Grokster, Gnutela, Limewire and Pirate

Bay.

The copyright question is whether a technology that has both infringing and non-infringing uses can itself be made illegal. Originally, in the 1984 VCR case (Sony v Universal), the courts said no. But in the Grokster2005 case, they said yes.

Copyright US copyright laws have led to

extremely harsh penalties for minor infringements.

For example, Boston University student Joel Tenanbaum was ordered to pay $675,000 for downloading 31 pirated songs. The verdict was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2012.

Most people opt to “settle” with the RIAA

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was despised for damaging lawsuits and clumsy public relations against music piracy.

This parody poster was intended to lampoon the industry’s heavy-handed approach.

Johnathan Zittrain and Lawrence Lessig

Two Harvard Law School professors who believe draconian laws to enforce copyright are counterproductive. Zittrain writes about generous cultures of the web; Lessig writes about Laws the Choke Creativity,

Tethered versus generative

Apps that run on Tablets or SmartPhones will let you consume media, but will they let you create it?

That’s the difference between “tethered” and “generative” computing.

Johnathan Zittrain makes this distinction in The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. (2008)

Fork in the road … Open source and civic technologies models have worked well, and consumers will probably continue to demand net neutrality.

On the other hand, re-bundling content in dedicated mobile “apps” with information appliances like the iPad may limit freedom but could create a business model that encourages more professional content. This would allow a returning to a more closed-off, top-down professional information model that will help traditional media regain some profitability.

Cognitive Surplus Collaborative crowd-sourced web sites • Software – Free software movement • Information:

Wikipedia, wikitravel, wikimaps, Sourcewatch,

CoalSwarm • Home sharing

CouchSurfing and Airbnb • Ride sharing

Uber and Lyft

“Organizing without organizations” -- decrease transaction costs allows new kinds of collaborations -- Spectrum of Personal, Communal, Public, Civic

Results from: -- a plausible promise (to user / creators) -- effective tool (software) -- acceptable bargain with users

Clay Shirkey – Author -- Here Comes Everybody-- Cognitive Surplus

Craig’s List vs eBay Craig Newmark -- Founded Craigs List 1995, now has

30 employees and is worth perhaps $150 million

Pierre Omidyar -- Founded eBay in 1995, has over1,500

employees now worth $41 billion (2013)

Both do essentially the same thing, replacing

classified advertising in newspapers. One is

disorganized but highly popular; the other is organized and highly

popular.

What’s a wiki? Programmer Ward Cunningham Portland, Oregon First “wiki” in 1995 as way for lots of

people to contribute to a software repository.

Picked the word “wiki” as the Hawaiian language word for “fast,” and the idea was that a wiki could be a quick and simple way to make changes on web pages.

• Wikipedia – Jimmy Wales – Started as “newpedia” in 2000

• Wikitravel, Wikimedia • Wikileaks – Julian Assange -- Launched in 2006, open

door for “whistle-blowers”

• Source Watch - collaborative Wiki edited by professionals in environment and media

• Project Gutenberg -- http://www.gutenberg.org/ • Michael Hart (March 8, 1947 – September 6, 2011) • Began typing public domain books into computers in

1971. By 1987 the project took off as the first e-book collaboration.

• Librivox.org – Hugh McGuire -- http://www.librivox.org • Free podcasting collaboration public domain books

Wikis as civic collaborations

Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales • Started in 2000 with Nupedia

– Online curated encyclopedia ;

• Too many layers of review • Also started a “wiki” on the

side to help contributors • The side project took off and

became one of the world’s most important web projects

• 30 million articles in 287 languages, (4.5 million in English)

• 18 billion page views per month

Jimmy Wales, like Denis Diderot, Wanted to make knowledge accessible and change the waypeople thought about the world.

Civic virtues? Hegemony of amateurs? Wikipedia put printed encyclopedias out

of business (free always beats quality) Wikipedia often criticized as inaccurate,

subject to vandalism. Some studies say it’s as accurate as printed encyclopedias, but that has been disputed

“Amorality of the web” (Nicholas Carr) “Frightening” hegemony of the amateur

Prosumer (producer + consumer) Pro-Am (professional standards for

volunteers & amateurs)

Citizen Journalism in New Zealand ◦Vincent Murwiwa M.A. study 2008◦Http://www.theopennewsroom.com◦Not enough citizen-generated content to

study CNN’s iReport - http://ireport.cnn.com/ MSNBC -- Citizen journalism Indymedia - http://www.indymedia.com/Storyify - http://storify.com/ Storyful - http://storyful.com/ Patch -

http://oldtownalexandria.patch.com/

Examples of civic news collaborations

New business models

Partisan media / corporate sponsorship Pay walls / Charges for apps / not working

◦ Serious problems w/ apps at NY Times, Post Hyper-local advertising

◦ Possibilities for discounting, coupons (Groupons) Non-profit (Foundations, sponsorships) Public funding (Campaigns)

◦ Public broadcasting model competes with other charities

Cooperative (Member capitalization)◦ Depends on benefits to members ◦ Extend services into business areas

Twitter Developed in 2006 in San Francisco “Short Message Service” /

microblogging Free / used with phone or computer Originally used to help programmers

arrange meet-ups for work Useful for real-time small network

organization Often used to promote new ideas,

news articles

YouTube Developed in 2005 after difficulty finding

video on Indonesian Tsunami and other events Google buys in 2006 Sharing of video and audio files Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim.

Archaic music promotions

Members of the band OK Go have been critical of the way EMI Records tried to restrict YouTube embedding

Julian Assange & Wikileaks • Australian journalist • 2005 started Wikileaks • Lots of exposes 2006-09 • Most important was Chelsea

Manning materials 2010 • -- esp Collateral Murder

video • -- and Diplomatic Cables

release that led to the Arab Spring revolt

• 2012 fled prosecution on apparently trumped up charges

• Currently lives in Ecuadorian embassy in London

Edward Snowden US NSA employee Leaked documents to Guardian reporter Glen Greenwald in 2013 Reports rocked the world of

diplomacy Criminal charges filed Currently in exile in Russia

What Snowden leaked: Global surveillance program called Five Eyes: -- US and United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to collaborate on global spying

Secret court orders requiring US phone companies to hand over all phone records every day

Back doors in servers and corporate computing systems

More Snowden leaks EGOTISTICAL GIRAFFE: The NSA has targeted the Tor browser, an anonymity tool

enabling Internet users to browse the net anonymously. MUSCULAR: Launched in 2009, MUSCULAR infiltrates links between global data centers of

technology companies such as Google and Yahoo not on US soil. These two companies have responded to MUSCULAR by encrypting these exchanges.

XKEYSCORE: The software interface through which NSA analysts search vast databases collected under various other operations. XKEYSCORE analyzes emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals anywhere in the world. The XKEYSCORE data has been shared with other secret services including Australia's Defence Signals Directorate and New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau.

BULLRUN: Not in and of itself a surveillance program, BULLRUN is an operation by which the NSA undermines the security tools relied upon by users, targets, and non-targets. BULLRUN represents an apparently unprecedented effort to attack security tools in general use.

DISHFIRE: The Dishfire operation is the worldwide mass collection of text messages and other phone records, including location data, contact retrievals, credit card details, missed call alerts, roaming alerts (which indicate border crossings), electronic business cards, credit card payment notifications, travel itinerary alerts, meeting information, etc. Communications from US phones have been allegedly minimized, although not necessarily purged, from this database. The messages and associated data from non-US-persons were retained and analyzed.

CO-TRAVELER: Under this operation, the US collects location information from global cell towers, Wi-Fi, and GPS hubs. This information is collected and analyzed over time, in part in order to determine a target’s traveling companions.

OLYMPIA: Canada’s program to spy on the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy. BLARNEY: A program to leverage unique key corporate partnerships to gain access to

high-capacity international fiber optic cables, switches and routers throughout the world. Countries targeted by Blarney include: Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and Venezuela as well as the European Union and the United Nations.

Snowden has wide support

Jakob Huber/Campact/cc/via flickr

Censorship RSF annual report “Enemies of

the Internet” focuses on surveillance for 2012 -- http://surveillance.rsf.org/en/

Internet Freedom.org reports China has 40,000 web police

Tiananmen Square, Dali Lama, Falun Gong – all results heavily censored in Chinese search engines

Some US companies have cooperated

Global Culture “The problem of the 20th

century,” said W.E.B. DuBois in 1903, “is the problem of the color line.”

At the dawn of the 21st century, the problem (and opportunity) is the blurring of lines and distances that used to separate cultures.

Final questions Internet and the World Wide Web

emerged with unprecedented freedom

But law and social debate had not kept pace with the technology.

Can the Internet and Web become more free, or retain what freedom they have?

Will they live up to their potential as liberating technologies?

Conclusions With the future at our feet, where will we

go? With a vast new power of worldwide networking, how will we envision the future?

Will we use the media to lift and protect and diversify the human spirit.? What will global culture become in a century or two?

It’s a question of social construction, not simply one of technological momentum.

The ability to shape the way technology is used, to serve the public interest, will be the 21st century’s truest badge of freedom.

Thank you

You are invited to send suggestions for the second edition of Revolutions in Communication, scheduled for publication in 2016, to the author:

Bill.kovarik at gmail