Are we immaterial labourers?

In Eran Fisher’s article “Class struggles in the digital frontier: audience labour theory and social media users” he talks about how we as social media users are immaterial labourers. The difference between material labourer and immaterial labour is that with immaterial labour there are no physical substance involved. The labour that we do is with our minds and intellect.  We are considered immaterial labourers because by using social media we give information to the host whether it be facebook, twitter etc. By every like, every comment, and every interaction we do on social media they are able to keep track of this information and sell it to other companies that will use this to target their advertisements at us.

Fisher talks about a lawsuit case that happened in 2013 where facebook started releasing Sponsored Stories advertisements. These advertisements were made to look like a specific person on your contact list was advertising it. People thought it was unfair that they were self-marketing to their friends but not getting any payment from facebook. Facebook agreed upon a $20 million settlement. 

Here is a link if you want to read more about the lawsuit:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhendricks/2014/01/16/facebook-to-drop-sponsored-stories-what-does-this-mean-for-advertisers/#20471e156897

Facebook stopped using Sponsored Stories but they still track your likes and everything that you do. I believe that it is wrong for facebook to manipulate you to look like you were advertising a product. However, I think it is fair for them to take your data as a whole because they provide us with a service.

My question to you is do you think it is fair that facebook keeps a track of all your data and sells it to advertisers? And my second question is “Have you ever seen advertisements that were a weird coincidence? For example, if you were looking to buy a purse so you were just shopping around and the next day you seen a bunch of purse advertisements on the side of your facebook?

App Central

Jodi Dean’s article “Apps and Drive” explores the life of apps on our phones and the benefits it gives consumers as well as producers. In a society where a smartphone is more important than anything else. I’ve seen people get injured by diving to the ground to catch their phone just so that their phone wouldn’t fall on the ground. With our addiction to our phones, it’s no surprise that there are millions of apps in the app store. Apps benefit phone companies because this encourages us to use more data and encourages to buy a nice big phone to view our app better. This benefits us consumers because it gives us joy to play on these apps. There are apps for practically everything even totally strange things like an app called Places I’ve Pooped which has a map of the world and you are able to log all the different place you’ve pooped. A pin will be dropped on the map of where you currently are and you are able to also share this information to social media sites.

Here is a youtube review of this app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_c8D4yfo38

My question to you is “what is an app that you’ve always wanted to create and why?”

Assemblage and Articulation of technology

     Slack and Wise’s article titled Articulation and Assemblage tries to teach us that there is a different, deeper way of looking at technology. The authors challenge us, the readers to be more critical and look deeper than the physical or easily visible components of technology focusing on the other components put together in order to have this technology work the way it does. The authors refer to Articulation as a way of connecting different facets of a situation, and an Assemblage is the way those articulations come to live or present themselves in reality. The authors challenge us to take a more critical approach when looking or examining technology, looking at the infrastructure and basically trying to determine what makes that technology work. An interesting idea arose as you read deeper into the article, it is the idea that when looking at an environment with new, unfamiliar eyes it is a lot easier to think of and spot the the articulation and assemblage of a certain technology. Using an example from class lecture, the Tokyo street watch and the surveillance industry. The live feed of the streets of Tokyo allowed us to see the immediate composition and use technology, but going deeper and taking a more critical interpretation we were able to identify the many different articulations that are put together to form the assemblage of the city. From the wiring used to power these technologies to the LED light bulbs used on electronic billboards the articulation and assemblage of these technologies are equally as important to the presentation of the technology and the functions they perform or the services they provide.

Social Imaginary and Technology

      The main argument of Mansell’s article states that the way in which people see themselves and the functionality of their social environment is all determinant to Taylor’s theory of the social imaginary. Charles Taylor’s theory looks deeper than just the intellectual schemes or connections individually practiced when thinking about social reality in a basic and non-critical way. It focuses on the ways people imagine their social existence, how they determine whether they fit with others, the nature of these interactions and relationships with others and the normative expectations that are met. Encompassing this, the theory of the social imaginary looks at how people see themselves, and others in the society and or social environment.

     The technology industry, especially within the last 30 years, has advanced so quickly that the uses of these these new technologies have made their way into peoples everyday lives. Technology, now, is such substantial component or factor of most cultures living in these modern times. In many ways people see this human reliance on technology as having the potential to be damaging or detrimental to human society. People argue that this technological determinism, or the forward movement of culture reliant/dependent on the development and progression of technology, could lead to the formation of dystopian environment in which humans solely rely on technology in every aspect of their life. If we rely too much on technology, we risk the possibility of losing our ties or connection to the natural human elements of the functions of society. Other than technology’s interference with memory and retention of information read as well as the possible stress it induces in people, technology in society has proven itself to be a beneficial aid in performing necessary everyday tasks, especially in the information society. I believe that the possible problems technology can create, like stress, stem from people’s familiarity, or lack of, to the new technologies created, which purpose is to aid a persons social activities, progression and functionality in the information age.

     Technologies affiliation with our social self has helped us to become more expressive and communicative in the ways that we interact over the internet. The social imaginary, in my opinion & understanding, is an individual and common understanding, that has the ability to form common practices as well as a sense of legitimacy that is widely by the individuals. The imaginary shows how people see or imagine their social surroundings, as well as the functions of their society, whether they are supportive of it or feel as if there should be changes

     I found this link to be fairly interesting, giving an in depth explanation of the Charles Taylor's concept/theory of the social imaginary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLsceLMyElI

Deterritorialization and Materialized Technology

The idea of deterritorialization is a concept mentioned by Slack and Wise in which means an artifact is disarticulated from its contingent relations among practices that are associated to the artifact. When new practices are assembled and put into place for the artifact, this is known as reterritorialization. In a global sense, looking at a popular medium such as Facebook, it seems like new practices could keep being added onto the site, but it seems impossible for the massive social media site to become deterroialized. By living in the network society and being perpetually connected as Castells would call it, do you think that this major conglomerate could fall or do you believe that it has become so dominant and materialized that society cannot take this artifact technology itself and make it become dematerialized or obsolete? With the spatial turn in communication studies, it seems that society has overcome barriers to become connected in such a way that wireless infrastructures have gained from society’s actions. The boundaries crossed have made a pivotal movement in society as Networks have recently moved into the digital age. With this happening, it has become the most dominant organizational form of every communicative aspect of human activity and now has become a hegemonic norm. Do you think that this virtually constructed society can be deterritorialized with how much it has grown?

https://gigaom.com/2014/10/27/so-facebook-controls-the-way-millions-of-people-get-their-news-what-should-we-do-about-it/

             Above is a link that talks about how society has become a ‘clickbait’ society as when people go online, they keep clicking and clicking and clicking endlessly in a way that consumes them so much that it takes away from their own lives. It seems that reterritorialization keeps taking place with social media because new additions are continually added that bring in millions of new users every year. Is this what Castells would call the network society?

Materiality, Technology, and Political Power

In Packer and Wiley’s reading on the materialist turn in social theory, they list and discuss a few distinct strategies for how to think materiality functions within the field of communications. However, I found one of these strategies particularly interesting. The distinct strategy is technology and how it acts as a method of communicating power relations throughout society from conglomerates and superstructures. It acts as a way that governs people’s behaviours and allows for new ways of mobility and convergence. When I started to think about it, it can be related to Manuel Castells theory on how these technologies are emerging rapidly in relation to materialism, and at the same time giving political power to the businesses who control the people who own them. When thinking about this, it reminds me of the boomerang effect due to biopolitcs and bipower. With materialism functioning with the production of commodities, large corporations such as Apple have manipulated society and governed their actions. Due to society having control over artifacts as they are durable, it allows for material capitalism to function. People continually invest in Apple products because they want to use certain features that are IPhone specific and because most people they know have the same phone. For example, people do not do webcam calls as often now because they have the ability to Facetime which acts as a space based medium. Due to materialism, technology is able to govern people’s actions and how they communicate in day to day life. Do you think that materialism is negative because governs peoples relations through political power or do you think it is enhancing society by enforcing hegemony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYVYNjh20mY

This is a link that talks about how Apple is dominating the market and how their growth has significantly grown (92%).

https://mises.org/library/does-capitalism-make-us-more-materialistic

In the article in the second link, they quotation, "an advancing market economy satisfies more and more of people's desires for exchangeable goods". It seems to be explanatory for material capitalism. Do you agree?

Capitalism and Information society

In the reading of Capitalism and Information society, Christian Fuchs draws upon Frank Webster who identifies five ways of defining an information society: technological innovation, occupational change, economic value, information flows and expansion of symbols and signs. I was fairly intrigued and surprised at the fact that he mentioned "expansion of symbols and signs", what do you think he meant by this? How does this help define information society?

Technology as Articulation and Assemblage

In the reading Articulation and Assemblage, Slack and Wise challenges us to see beyond technology as merely "things", but rather contingent connection of different elements that form a unity. From that he introduces two important concepts articulation and assemblage in the context of technology. I want to challenge his argument, ask you guys why do you think it is important to view technology more than just pieces of objects? We pay and we get our products, is that not enough?

Fuchs & Cosmopolis

After completing the reading by Christian Fuchs, titled “Capitalism or Information Society?”, Fuchs questions if we live within a time of late capitalism or and informational society. There is further discussion about the connection between the capitalist class and information society and how they should not be seen as polar opposites. 

I found this reading applicable to the movie Cosmopolis. In the movie, there is a scene where Robert Pattinson’s character Eric Packer uses a highly advanced technological device to look at information within the means of his limo. Additionally, there is another scene of protest within the movie. With that said, Packer would represent the capitalist class and the protesters would represent the ones producing the information.  These two scenes demonstrate how easily information is accessed by anyone wherever they may be. In addition, the protest represents how there is a struggle for those who are not “capitalist” but living in an information society. I believe that this movie highlights the true capitalist nature of our society of how ultimately we produce information but yet do not benefit as the 1% does. This concept also connects to the concept of free labour. Another point I found interesting about the movie is the protest scene. The movie was to be taken place in 2008. It reminded me of the Occupy movement that took place. Ultimately, there is a struggle between the 1% and the rest of society. This issue still has not been resolved. Though these protests did occur, not much change followed the gap between the classes. I believe that growth of technology makes it harder to reduce the gap as information is continuously being produced yet those producing are not benefiting for doing so. I believe information is the biggest commodity in our world today and will be for a long time.

Patrice Flichy & Social Imaginaries

Within Patrice Flichy’s reading, the Internet is the main focus. In more depth,  Flichy discusses the concept of “Internet imaginaries” and the role they play with new technology within Western societies, more so North America. Overall, it can be debated that in fact our society is leaning towards technological era. I thought that this reading was very interesting because it looks at the development of Internet Imaginaries progressing in our world yet often we don’t acknowledge this change and progression. Another reading that I found connected with Flichy’s was Robin Mansell. Mansell focuses on “social imaginaries” within an Information society. After World War II, wealthy  societies grew into information societies. With the grow of information and the Internet, the world began to change. We have to ask ourselves do we develop different personalties/imaginaries based on the use of the Internet/technology?

Virtual Community

In Fred Turner's article "Where the Counterculture met the New Economy - The WELL and Virtual Community" the influences and evolution of one of the first online network forums is illustrated. When thinking about social media today and the influence that the WELL has on what we have access to today, one can assume that the WELL laid down the ground work to give people a sense of connectedness regardless of space and time. The idea of a non hierarchal organized social platform through information technology is what many companies today use to keep each other informed and constantly connected with the latest movements within a company. BMO for example uses lync so employees can communicate with each other. 

This type of forum gave companies a basis of what to build off of. As seen in the Silicon Valley documentary in class, employees used a bar to meet up and communicate the latest workings in the company  and discuss the ongoing competition and achievements each employee had endured in recent memory. Forums today can be seen as a bar or a physical meeting because it allows you to relay messages in real time. 

WhatsApp for example uses phone numbers regardless of the type of phone you have to form group chats, share links and media. Other then WhatsApp, what current social media platform do you think is most relatable to the ideals set by WELL?

Information and Commodification

Dan Schiller's reading is interesting because it is something we are all currently experiencing in some form. The idea that information can be both a resource and commodity is valuable because there are so many layers to information being commodified. When using the example of a book in lecture, Professor Herman outlined how information is both a resource and a commodity. A book is useful in terms of enhancing our knowledge, once we read and interpret the information the book becomes a resource. A book and information within becomes a commodity when the book changes hands, for instance when the author sells to publishing company.

Media is used today in various outlets to reach target audiences. Social media allows individuals today to express themselves online. Outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and Spotify use one's browsing history to dictate what advertisements you will see when online. This marketing scheme allows for companies to process information, turn it into knowledge to then target their audience. These advertising companies use information as a commodity in order to further their capitalistic goals.

Another way I felt could be related to society today is an experience I had over the summer while working at a consulting firm. A job I was tasked with was research on potential partners for various projects. I would research other firms and consultants and find areas where they would be of value to our company. This process allowed for information to hold a use value but also an exchange value as upon partnership and completion of a project both firms attained value.

Assemblage & Articulation

Reading and later discussing the ideas of articulation and assemblage by Slack and Wise was interesting because it is so relatable now more than ever. The reading talks about the rise of the surveillance industry in the past decade as well as how this is connected to assemblage and articulation. When we are able to survey or observe something as an outsider, we can see how every part or articulation of a process works to form a cohesive unit which in this case is called an assemblage. With the constant development of technology and our need as a society to be innovative, there are many active parts that are necessary to move society forward. For example, highways and roads to help us travel, phones and other devices to help us communicate. In terms of assemblage, articulation, and surveillance, an example that surprisingly relates all of them is "Endless" which is R&B singer, Frank Ocean's visual album. To give a bit of a background on it- many of his fans have been waiting for him to release an album for quite some time. So, Frank Ocean uploaded a live stream on his website where fans were curious to see what he has been up to for four years. Towards the end of this live stream, Frank Ocean played music and built some type of installation as millions of people watched his live stream. This live stream was a form of surveillance in which the audience was able to see him work and build this visual album in this environment. It's interesting to apply this concept to popular culture, can you think of other ways in which assemblage & articulation can be applied?

Here is a very short link to the live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d54xZAxeU7w (the livestream was running for over 100 hours so this is just a very small snippet)

Innovation

Patrice Filichy in his reading The Internet Imaginary engagees in his reading three underlining principles on innovation. The three include The sociotechnique network approach which basically means that innovation can start anywhere and not in the mind of some brilliant person. Next is the Project Concept where the main underlining idea derives from project management, and constant compensation, and finally the idea of The boundary-object concept which basically "allows cooperation to be organized between actors with different points of view and knowledge, without overlooking their individual competencies, by adopting a common approach" (Flichy).

In class we talked about innovation in such aspects such as the early stages and history of Silicon Valley. The hub of the technological world built entirely on innovation. Looking in todays society, this idea of innovation is crucial in the information capitalistic world we live in to fuel not only our economy, but our society as well. It is because of innovative qualities such as Silicon Valley that we are exposed to the major technological breakthroughs that we as society indulge in everyday.

Below I have posted a link that take a different approach to explaining innovation, with this in mind, what are your thoughts on the innovative notions mentioned in Flichys reading and can you think of a recent innovation that has really made an impact in our information capitalistic society?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiyMkOfycOg