We has a great symposium yesterday on the subject of Digital Visitors and Residents – see here. I made a little schematic of my digital world before the meeting.
Jonathan posited that Dave White’s encouragement was for to use the digital environment in at least the following 3 ways:
1. Discourse around objects
2. Reveal evolving practice
3. Critique of the digital – make visible the dominant ideology
These terms need discussing and defining in themselves because most of us interpreted them slightly differently, so Dave might attend a future symposium.
Jason, a fellow student, also posted an interesting interview here where Andrew Keen, the author of The Internet is Not the Answer talks. It was stimulating stuff – eg how the explosion of niche apps hasn’t diversified the market but rather a few very very big companies control most traffic. One of his comments about advertising on the Net and how that’s what many of the really big companies have turned their products into – ie large advertising platforms – made me think about TV and how its not that different from Sky TV.
But the thing I am not clear about is the point about making visible the dominant ideology. Many of the uses of the Net either don’t make money eg some forums, or do so through offering a service – eg Ebay. So what is the ideology beneath these? I am not sure, but one way into this is to always ask the following:
Who benefits?
How do they benefit?
There are often multiple beneficiaries and different parties might obtain different benefits. At least asking this question can make things more transparent.
anomiepete 