Month: April 2019

Digital natives, what an interesting term. When I think of natives, I think of someone indigenous to the area. In this context, we are all, and none of us, are digital native. Yes, I understand the explanation that it describes those who have always had this technology in their lives, but I beg to differ as this being an accurate description. Maybe it’s a case of digitalitis that I am suffering from, or could it be technologicaleosis. Either way, I may have to get a ITectomy.

Before having mental circumcision let’s talk about Anna Everett’s chapter in Race After the Internet, “Have We Become Post Racial Race Yet?”. This article speaks of digital natives supporting a political platform that embraced the internet. Technology and politics go together. In order to reach the masses, and accumulate power, government and/or commerce need to use the means that reaches the widest audience. 24/7/365 news reporting is the way to go. Gone is “breaking news” because it’s all breaking news, at break-neck speed. Pair that with the UGC explosion, and there’s a flood of information (and misinformation) at the ready. As mentioned in the article, Dean Howard’s campaign embraced technology with a meteoric rise in popularity until he went a little crazy and this same outlet that supported his journey also supported his fall, as this outlet can help and hurt the object of attention (149).

This idea is supported by the obamaisms. Some of these were beneficial, and some were not, and some were downright offensive. Obama was fully engaged in digital media’s technological highway for his campaign, fully embracing the extent of it’s potential at the time, but Donald Trump has trumped his adoption and taken it to a higher level. Donald Trump’s incessant use of social media is bashed by some, and lauded by others. Another example of mixed use and acceptability is Obama’s prefix. As displayed in my first paragraph, this type of play on words (names) isn’t new. My first recollection of this politically was Reaganomics, and after reading many comments on Mark Liberman’s post on Language Log’s Lexical Obamanations, a blog put out by University of Pennsylvania, it’s clear that this is not a new phenomenon.

As for race relations in media technology, Obama’s platform as first black president saw some political and racial backlash from those who felt he wasn’t doing enough to further the African American race relations, and might have been tempered by perceptions of racial nepotism. How could this be prevented when the spotlight remained on his being “the first black president in the entire history of our democracy” (165). The public always does this: first woman, first Asian, first Hispanic, etc. We celebrate or mourn such milestones, depending on which side of the competitively charged event one is on. There’s always a winner and a loser, and this precludes everyone from celebrating a success. Whoever wins is a success, despite how it’s perceived. The internet and IT are successful in their endeavors of instantaneous ability to create and extend the rhetoric of each’s multi-faced debate. We all win in our ability to participate in this technological diversity. Furthermore, one’s ability to easily create and distribute memes and opinion-addled exposes with racial rhetoric that, for example, surrounded Obama’s historic achievement as first black president, can elevate the issue to heightened debate. In the world of a fast moving technological dumping ground, it’s a dance that you sometimes lead, and others are pulled through the ringer. Perhaps we are in need of regulatory action, as laws prevent anarchy, but stifle some individual freedoms. What’s the alternative?

Everett, Anna. “Have We Become Post Racial Race Yet? Race and Media Technology in the Age of President Obama.” Race After the Internet.” Routledge, 2012, 146-167.

Liberman, Mark. “Lexical Obamanations”. Language Log. University of Pennsylvania, 1 Dec, 2010.  http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2814

 

As stated by Eleanor Roosevelt way back when, “with freedom, comes responsibility”. Applying this to an enigmatic entity such as the internet was definitely not what she had in mind when she uttered this phrase but as I read Lissig’s tome I couldn’t stop thinking about how aptly it is applied to the nether regions of cyberspace. The next question addressed is “Who’s responsibility is it?” In an arena that is “free”, and digital expression is achieved essentially at the flick of a wrist, how is this societal freedom controlled without controlling individual freedoms. Lessig quoted John Parry Barlow, of the The Grateful Dead, that cyberspace is “the new home of the mind” (3). The struggle for physical utopia extends to embrace a new search for digital utopia, on that maintains ideals of equality and freedom of expression in a mogul-free enterprise. Can we though? Can we have perfect freedom and perfect control? Are they mutually exclusive or interdependent?

Lessig tackles this question, and although he leans toward the assumption that it is possible to have both. I’m not sure myself, but as Lessig is an expert, and he puts forth the argument that since cyberspace isn’t nature, that it’s constructed; that since it’s not organic, it can be built to how we want it to be (5). As I considered this premise, I thought about how it has not been constructed with a plan-o-gram. I thought about how it has been organically grown, and without any regulation it has been like a garden, where people come into the space and plant trees, flowers, vegetables, etc. and they are left to their own devices. Eventually weeds start popping up, filling the spaces where conditions and availability apply, and as they are left unchecked, so is a sense of order and control.

Lessig claims “we should expect – and demand – that it can be made to reflect any set of values that we think important. The burden should be on the technologists to show us why that demand can’t be met” (32). This a great expectation, but as users, who don’t understand back-end technology, our expectations are limited by the capacity to understand technologies limitations. As we know, tractability exists, so it should be used. The problem is what are the limits to this power, and not only the known investment of manpower and technological capabilities, but also the unknown costs associated with this mammoth feat. Is this a private sector initiative? Is the scope too large for the private sector? “Government is the natural answer, but Lessig states “that we have lost faith in their ability, the people and the government alike” (322). With that in mind, it would seem that things, as they often do, will continue as status quo.

Lessig, Lawrence. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace: Version 2.0. Basic Books, 2006.

 

I’m an immigrant in a world of digital natives. I didn’t grow up with a digital second life (not the platform, the actual second life people live on the internet’s variety of platforms). I did, however, grow up when it first began to gain steam.

When I was a kid, we watched Tron and dreamed it could become reality. In the movie, Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) gets zapped (they call it digitized) into a video game. The special effects were great at the time but would make any of today’s teens laugh. Yet I can’t think of a better visual representation of what happens when they pick up their phones. Maybe blue laser lights don’t fly out of the phone and make the kid disappear into a virtual world, but if you had to draw what happens to the energy that animates them when picking up a smart phone, you’d be hard pressed to create a better visualization than Tron’s zap sequence. What was once a living, breathing human being, is now living in a digital world. They’re not with us in the physical realm. The lights are on, but nobody’s home.

Tron wasn’t the first or last film to picture humans crossing over to the digital world and it makes me wonder if this was all part of the human dream to begin with. Were we humans actually dreaming of a version of this when we conjured imagery of boats crossing rivers, three-headed guard dogs, and gods weighing our souls against feathers before entering the afterlife? If you look at people who’ve crossed over into the internet through the River Styx of their phones, you might say that their physical form is rather lifeless (though not covered in goo, the way the Matrix writers imagined it).

Switching gears, slightly …

Everett’s observations about politics and race are on point. Activists in the digital world put Obama in the White House. It’s the first time both a black president was elected and a digital constituency made it happen. And therein lies the double-edged sword. As Everett points out, the opposite side of the hope, and togetherness, and “Yes we can” digital blade is a harsh, and violent, and racist edge. 

One of my favorite evolutions of the cliché “sports builds character” is the clever verbal judo of the phrase “sports does not build character, it reveals it.” In this instance, substitute sports with the internet.

We praised the hacker’s ethic only to have it revealed that the concept was less ethical and more hack-like than previously expressed.

We marveled at the possibility that some quiet kid in Ann Arbor, Michigan could secretly gain a following of readers who loved to imagine torturing women.

These are all stories of people who live in two worlds. How they behave, perhaps even who they are, is different than the physical universe. 

It is Everett’s early distinction between digital natives and immigrants that compel us to think about how we’ve reached a point of total digital absorption. We’re crossing back and forth between two worlds to the degree that we’re creating ways to govern the new world (does that ring a historical bell?). Lessig describes the internet as a lawless wild west in need of some sense of order. Well, we’re going there. And by there, I mean that we’ve begun thanking the pioneers for their efforts as we begin taming the west by making laws about a world that only existed, heretofore, in science fiction. We are codifying its existence much like we codified the existence of the lawless west.

It’s because of this native/immigrant concept that, anecdotally, I’ve determined that, in our dual physical-digital existence that we now accept as reality, science fiction now outranks palm readers, meteorologists, and stock brokers as a more accurate predictor of the future. 

In this world, I’m an immigrant. And who lives there? Natives. 

Judging by the way we’ve treated natives in the past, I’m not placing any bets that they’ll come out on top. 

 

 

I will admit that I read articles like Everett’s “Have We Become Postracial Yet?” to dissect how the writer crafts her argument. I am often entertained reading narratives that are crafted with fictitious or hyperbolic diction, leading readers to believe that President Obama somehow rode some glittery white magic carpet into the White house on a wave of social media frenzy.

That he somehow wooed the public with his Harvard educated tongue and blinded the voting citizens of this country with his pearl white teeth so much that they could not neither see his brown skin nor the coffee complexion of his wife and daughters.

The reality is President Obama was not a magical black man. He is like many beautiful black educated men with  beautiful black families. The difference is Barry Obama ran for President of the United States and these aligning elements aided in his victory: (1) the precipice of the social media craze (2) the tragedy that is President George Bush Jr (3) and LARGELY the masses’ perception that President Obama  was nonthreatening and non-black because the media did not project him as the stereotypical “pro-back” or angry black man. President Obama gained global appeal because he was a stark contrast to what media news outlets normally portray. President Obama was likable and electable.

Yes, social media has impacted and continues to impact the presidential campaigns. While there is notable mention of KRS’s appreciation for 2001 use of we “conscious” events, Everett fail to pay homage and give credit to Sean Combs for his 2004 “Vote or Die” campaign that swept the nation, resulting in George Bush Jr.  barely winning his second term against John Kerry.  It was marketing brilliance, igniting a passion among minority voters.

Everette becomes yet another columnist who devalues urban artists’ contributions to the Presidential race while providing several examples of covert racism to remind us why we are not yet living in post racial bliss.

Also, the negative backlash President Obama received following  his public response to the 2009 wrongful arrest of Harvard African American Literature Professor Charles Gates mirrors America’s distrust for black leaders who publicly speak out against the unfair treatment of other black intellects.

Conversely, I do not think there is “fear” of a black President.

I think there is just an ignorance and refusal to accept  there is an actual love and appreciation for BLACK anything …that includes black intellect, black affluence, black  leadership, black unity, black family,  black love, black happiness, black pride,  black beauty….

 

 

 

Tech-savvy youth and not so tech-savvy non-youth have played an integral role in the lack of progress that we’ve made towards becoming post-racial.  The internet and various forms of social media are largely responsible for the spread of information as well as misinformation during the Obama-era.  The fact that the Obama campaign had YouTube and other social media platforms at their disposal was a contributing factor to his being elected during his two historical terms.  They were also contributing factors in his declining favorable poll numbers as well.  One such source was mentioned by Everett on page 159, she references the Andrew Breitbart blog that intentionally spread false information.  The blatant misinformation that was spread by many organizations under the guise of being legitimate unbiased sources is also evidence of our racial shortcomings.  I think that people don’t do their due diligence when reading, and researching topics.  If the motives of the producers of websites, were researched then it would possibly stimulate people to question a lot of the racist propaganda that is often being spread on websites and social media platforms under blatantly deceptive GUIs.  The investigation of reliable sources is a skill taught in seventh grade.  Students are taught to question the motives of the creators and to follow the money trail.  Even when research is conducted the thing that frightens me the most is when people read the information that is obviously false or presented out of context and they still choose to believe the false information and spread it.

Work Cited

Nakamura, Lisa, et al. Race after the Internet. Routledge, 2012. “Have We Become Postracial Yet?”

After reading Lessig’s chapters it has become abundantly clear nothing on the internet or cyberspace is private.  There is an absolute absence of the promised freedoms that cyberspace was supposed to provide. According to Lessig, “Cyberspace was, by nature, unavoidably free.  Governments could threaten, but behavior could not be controlled.” (3 Lessig).  I completely disagree with the statement as the government does control our behavior.  Jakes’s story from chapter two is a testament to this.  The government attempted to regulate his behavior when he was arrested for his posts, while Jake was eventually cleared his story most likely served as a cautionary tale for most others. Jake was able to win his case on the principle of first amendment freedom of speech; however, most people are not willing to go through the expense and stress of dealing with the judicial system which in essence is how the government regulates their cyber behavior/presence.

I immediately cleared my cached and cookies after reading about their true intent.  I like most other people (I hope) didn’t really give the acceptance of cookies from websites I visit a second thought.  Now that  I am keenly aware that they are able to track my browsing patterns it is now a habit of mine to clear my cookies on a regular basis.  I have noticed that after visiting the NSU bookstore webpage,  ads that are directed to me are from the NSU bookstore.

I was reminded of the new REAL ID that will soon be required to travel foreign and domestically when I read the section on Identity and Authentication.  While I think the idea of having an ID that I can control the limits on is a great idea, I am still a little skeptical of who will really have full access to all of my information.  I do have a REAL ID, and I applied for it without really questioning it.  I simply did not want to be denied travel access.  I wonder how many other people did not really question the true intent and who exactly would have access to all of the data stored on the REAL ID and for what purpose would they use this information. I feel as though I made the decision to get one because as Lessig states in Chapter 16, I was disabled from having a choice.

Work Cited

Lessig, Lawrence. Code 2.0. Basic Books, 2010. chapters 1-5, 16 http://www.codev2.cc/