I have been a member of an organization for several months now, which operates on a national basis and performs the task of assessing the accuracy of journalistic content delivered over sources of mass media, such as newspapers, television, and radio, called Media Matters, which can be found at the following URI:

http://mediamatters.org/

I suppose this organization does a valuable service by rendering those who distort information accountable for their dissimulations. However, more fundamentally, I wonder: Does traditionally mass media matter, in the sense that it is something that should be the target of activist resources implemented for the purpose of making these corporate institutions who monopolize, currently, sources of mass communications and the discourse they distribute more accurate and non-partisan?

As empirical research repeatedly demonstrates, the content distributed through mass media that pertains to sectors of American society is - more often than not - supportive of conservative views. This, of course, is at odds with the political ideologies possessed with the majority of journalists who - according to the survey research that is conducted - possess leftist political leanings. Nevertheless, the actual products of their work, that make it through the corporate establishments responsible for rendering the news, are often endorsements of conservative policies; especially with respect to the economy and the proffered descriptions concerning the health of the economy; reports of which often only integrate into the analyses indexes that reflect the state of the economy for investors while neglecting to include aspects of the economy relevant to laborers, such as wage growth; or, contrarily, wage stagnation, which happened to be an aspect of the economy stretching back to the 1990’s that was, more times than not, omitted from reports and analyses introduced by sources of journalism.

Conservative elements in society have for quite some time complained that journalism in this country was liberally biased. In their self proclaimed effort to counteract this ideological slant, they have created institutions serving as media outlets, which are decidedly conservative, despite their professed devotion to the dissemination of journalism that is, ‘fair and balanced.’ In fact, for many of us, who suffered through the prelude to the war with Iraq, the conservative slant to journalism prevalent in mass media has become a matter that is increasingly noticeable and, even, vexing to the point of agitation.

Consequently, advocates for more responsible journalism - which fails to bow down to those in power; or ceases to understand itself, and operate accordingly, in a modality that reflects a particular sociopolitical ideology’s interests by reverberating talking points and other forms of communications that qualify as propaganda; certainly not journalism. Subsequently, major national affiliations, such as Media Matters, have been created by the Left in opposition to the present state of journalism, which seems to be increasingly the conduits for press releases by conservative institutions in society.

However, returning to the question originally posed in this brief essay - does media matter? - I have to question whether these types of strategies oriented toward affecting the corporate institutions responsible for the dissimulation of conservatively slanted journalism - in some instances, blatant propaganda - is the best use of resources. We, here, at the Populist Party of America have taken a different route toward publicizing our cause - differing from other groups that attempt to reform and penetrate through corporate mass media - that effectively bypasses the traditional institutions that serve as clearing houses for descriptions of sociopolitical reality permitted to be distributed through devices of mass communications. In fact, we have been doing it to some degree of success, as our Internet based forms of content distribution are growing rapidly and now bordering upon the quantity of audience members and contributors - a role that we attempt to encourage among all of our audience members in a strategy that has embraced Web 2.0 and social media - that rivals more mainstream sources of information and editorial.

Therefore, reflecting upon the success that has been garnered by Populist America’s refusal to submit to the authority of the traditional brokers of media space - spaces which would never have offered any coverage for our political sentiments with which to begin - we have cultivated an audience, whom we hope to make contributors, through opportunities to publish and distribute their thoughts concerning social and political events and issues; (after all, in a democracy we should all see our selves as participants, not merely consumers).

So, I suppose, in response to the question; does media matter? the following answer is best suited: It only assumes significance if you make it matter by continuing to treat it as though it has legitimacy and supremacy over all other forms of communications. However, if you attempt to make your own media matter, then - in this age of limitless potential for publicity, ushered in by the expansion of the Internet - you can acquire an audience despite your refusal to submit to the old guard of communicative forms that are quickly becoming obsolescent, anyway.

Russell Cole [send him email]

Tags: communications, Internet, journalism, mainstream media, media, media matters, Net Neutrality, politics, populist party, power, Russell Coles Blog, Social Change, society, web 2.0
Categories: Commentary, Society, Populist Party, Russell Cole's Blog, Web 2.0, Power, Politics, Net Neutrality, Social Change, Media, journalism
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There has been much to do about the controversy over Google’s plans to create a digital database of library books belonging to various affiliated libraries willing to denote their contents to Google’s project. I suppose the issue comes down to the following significant - to varying degrees - concerns that run in contradiction to one another. On the one hand, some of the books that are published by Google in its service, Google Books, are the property of publishers. On the other hand, there is a public interest in making information as accessible as possible, reaching out to portions of the American public who might lack the resources or the affiliation with academic libraries required to acquire access to such published works.

I suppose it is not much of a guessing game to accurately predict my position on this issue. I value the benefits of an informed citizenry where wealth is not a prerequisite for the procurement of the necessary intellectual resources for one to elevate his or her understanding of matters of concern for the individual or for other segments of the population for whom the individual might empathize or sympathize.

Of course, we should not entirely ignore the plight of the publishers who have voiced opposition to Google’s rendering of the intellectual products of authors - who no longer own their own thoughts after entering into the agreements mandated by the Publishing Industry - in the form of digital media. There are entrenched conventions in our society concerning the parameters dictating the Fair Use of intellectual property when including it in other publications belonging to other agents not associated with the ownership of the published contents from which they draw resources. Also the stipulations of Fair Use are somewhat esoteric, they are certainly applicable to the case concerning Google Books, since only a page is displayed after an enduser clicks on a result generated from the text string entered in as the query. This is the primary argument deployed by Google in defense against the impending litigation levied by the Publishing Industry.

Although I do not want to diminish the significance of the legal nuance of the issue under discussion, I would like to introduce some additional considerations that might not be apropos in a strictly legalistic sense, but certainly salient in a larger context that includes broader social considerations that pertain to American society and the democracy that it is suppose to embody.

I would like to first mention that academic texts, of which I am primarily interested, are the products of academics who - for the most part - are employed by institutions that receive public resources; not to mention the tax exempt status they enjoy, which is a privilege that should not be conceived without any concomitant social responsibilities that ensue from this immunity from taxation. Therefore, since we as citizens partially - and probably to a large degree - fund the research that contributes to the production of many of the texts in question, it seems only reasonable that we should at least have access to the finished products of our funding. Parenthetically, at an University library, I raised such a point to a librarian with whom I was having a conversation, and she immediately turned argumentative insisting that the publishers were private entities and the works they published were extensions of their property. When I mentioned that the preponderance of research that goes into writing these works are publicly funded, she failed to construct a rebuttal, so, in order to alleviate the tension, I ended the sort lived debate by saying, “Well, it all depends upon your point of view.”

I suppose I narrated the preceding anecdote for the following purpose: It certainly does depend upon your point of view. If you think that private interests compelled by motivations solely related to profiteering take precedence over all other concerns, then, by all means, you should take issue with Google Books. However, if you are like me, and value the preservation and extension of democracy in American society - which is enhanced by the free flow of information and analysis - you might consider joining my ranks by supporting Google in its efforts, and, perhaps, on occasion, shed a crocodile tear for the Publishing Industry, when it laments the loss of its privatized, publicly funded, intellectual assets.

Russell Cole

Tags: books, democracy, education, fair use, google, google books, information, intellectual assets, publishers, publishing, Russell Coles Blog, web 2.0
Categories: Commentary, Russell Cole's Blog, Web 2.0, Education
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Episteme 2.0

A study in the sociology of mass media and the sociology of social movements; both directed upon the emerging venue of mass communications, referenced as the World Wide Web, explor­ing the transformation of sociopolitical possibilities engendered by the proliferation of a represen­tational space that is largely free from institutional gate-keeping devices and a means of publicity that is easily accessible and obtainable by a vastly greater proportion of the population

Forward to Episteme 2.0

Abstract

The forward of the document will outline the scope of the study - including the relationships of the research to preexisting literature, also devoted to the subjects referenced in the content matter herein. In short, the executive summary will serve as a type of abstract. However, since the doc­ument object, abstract, is typically not included in the contents of manuscripts that purport to be more than articles, the deployment of the artifice, forward, is more appropriate in this context; a document object that entails many of the same significations; however, it allows for greater flexi­bility when it comes to the duration and specificity of the content.

Scope and Objectives

This document expresses an assessment of the prospects for the Human Condition in the emerging epoch termed by Castells as the Network Society. The study is not a foray into futurism; nor, does the document constitute a relapse into the absolutism¹ of historicism, and the ideological dogma that it inspires. The document and its flow of contents explores a field of diverse possibilities that are hypothesized to exist and reside in the current social configuration - which, of course, is a material and ideological formation that has connections to the past; a pro­cess that currently instantiates a field of potential trajectories that, presumably, can be actualize through the way we orient and posture ourselves in the present in order to react and contend with the contingencies arising from our historical situated-ness; thus shaping the unfolding of the future in the most informed and equipped manner, according to the aesthetics² most desirable.

Operational Context

For the purposes of this meta-brief - emanating from and referring back onto - the document at hand, I shall attempt to reduce the complexities, which can be derived from a thorough analysis of the current transformations that are refitting society, into two contrasting - although inter-related - patterns embodying thematic qualities; one, which I interpret positively; and, one which I interpret negatively.

Most salient to any considerations concerning the material conditions that are instantiated by the emergence of the Network Society and - to be more precise, referring to the circumstances found in American social formations - are the alterations in the economic institutions forming the rela­tionships between those who dictate the terms of employment and those who are obliged to acquiesce to those terms when procuring employment. The changes undergoing the form assumed by the relationships between firms and employees are significant to the point where is compelled to reconsider the analytics typically attached to the conception of elements - as the concept has been generally understood in the context of industrial capitalism. It is not a stretch to suggest that employment is a term that should be discontinued as a reference to the non-stan­dard terms of employment suffered by skilled laborers in the Informational economy. The socio-grammatical conventions forming the family resemblance of economic institutions that have been spawned by the material conditions in which agents and the aggregates - that they collectively form -who find themselves situated in the information economy - embody characteristics, render­ing them qualitatively unique exemplars of sociality. Therefore, the referring expression, virtual employment, will be used as a designator, when signifying instances of this social phenomenon, hence forth.

In order to provide definition to virtual employment, some extended remarks are necessary: The current economic condition - informational capitalism - in its most rudimentary dimensions, instantiates an input to output dynamic that has diverged from the traditional, industrial capitalist relational function, which assumed the form of raw materials transformed into commodities. The information economy - in opposition - can be understood - in the most generic of terms - as a mode of production that involves the input of information and the output of reorganized informa­tion; a construct, which can be referred to - for the sake of clarity - as knowledge. It is important, here, to mark a distinction between organization and reorganization, because the former applies to previous designs that exist prior to the latter’s inculcation.

In order to begin to understand this - what is the most basic of representations corresponding to the processes involved in informational capitalism - the precise nature of the function embedded within this relation needs further specification: Reorganization is a transformation that differs from the concrete functions found in industrial capitalism, constituting the mechanisms included in the operations performed upon the input - raw materials - in the sequences involved in the modes of production. The reorganization of information into a form of knowledge involves a transformation that cannot be routinized into the machinery of production - unless one is to reduce the available vocabulary to strictly materialist terminology - because the invention of the mode production qualifies as the production, itself. Therefore, keeping with the distinction declared between infor­mation and knowledge, as soon as knowledge has been produced, through the function implied in the input - output relationship of informational capitalism, the reorganized information - which has been transformed into knowledge - is reintegrated into the process as the input variable, and - once again - assumes the form of information. Consequentially, by definition, the mode of pro­duction cannot be mechanized because it would lack the properties qualifying as the connotative definition of production, as it is defined in the processes of informational capitalism; namely, the innovation of reorganized information; a definition that excludes standardized procedures, because such mechanics would entail the absence of innovation.

Stepping back from what has been analytically deposited thus far, some relationships between firms and the labor that firms employ become transparent: The modes of production can be understood as the persistent reorganization of the processes embedded in the modes of produc­tion, which constitutes the mode of production, per se; consequently, exacerbating the pace of de-skilling - a term that extends, most generally, to developments that render employees obso­lete - which creates volatility in the employer market. It should also be mentioned that the reorga­nization of data additionally includes the implementation of new grammatical schema deployed for purposes of structuring the classifications of document elements; the attributes of the docu­ment elements; and the possible values that the attributes can instantiate under varying - (although defined) - circumstances; because the procedure of implementing a new form of infor­mation technology necessitates the reorganization of the work flow processes utilized by an organization; thus, such a retrofitting constitutes the reorganization of information; specifically, the information - as it is defined and comes to be defined - within the work flow of the restructured social organization.

Returning to considerations conducted upon the nature of the relationships among firms and the labor they hirer, the conditions necessitating the augmentation of new labor become transient, reflecting the events in an organization’s state of affairs, where it must transition its ordering of information in order to reflect the evolving conditions of information technology. Therefore, the skills that are acquired when augmenting the labor capacities of the firm, as it transitions to a new state of information management.

In order to explain this theme through comparison, one can reference the present trends in Infor­mation Technology management, which now relies heavily on the implementation of virtual com­puting environments, in order to test software compatibility and to leverage available resources performed within spaces of productivity - that demand no institutional restructuring and fail to entail any necessary legacies, which might be incurred if the firm had originally adopted the workers as actual members of the institution; a relationship with the significance of manifesting all of the traditional definitions of expectations and obligations associated with employment.

The more sanguine of the two contrasting themes is the intellectual product of postmodern social theory - as well as, Castells, who might not necessarily fit within this rubric - who have argued for the acknowledgment of an emerging social condition resulting from the proliferation of digitally encoded communicative technologies - the virtual spaces of representation they entail - and the existential freedom to stylize one’s persona provided for within the digital matrix from which virtu­alism manifest - subsidiaries to Informationalism can be summarized under the slogan, re-enchantment.

The allusion to Weber, in this context, is appropriate, since there there is an empirically contingent subject to processes of confirmation juncture between two states that can be marked as qualitatively distinct from one another, through reference to the following contrasting characteristics: First off, the emphasis placed upon innovation - or creativity - calls for organizational environments structured according to flexibility, allowing for production to occur when inspiration precipitates insight, leading to innovation; a state that offer definition to production in the context of informational capitalism. Industrialism, on the other hand, prioritizes scheduling and efficiency, providing for the synchronization of events - performed by machines and their human appendages. Industrial Capitalism required the orderly sequencing of events in order to successfully enact it processes constituting the modes of pro­duction. Such an organization calls for the regimentation of social activity reflecting a synchronous layout of stages included in the operations through which output was generated.

It is too soon to fully address this topic in the context of the document object - executive summary - belonging to the document structure. Nevertheless, since the reference - to which the following brief remarks point - is transparently ostensible, it can be mentioned, without too much disrup­tion, that the flow of time in the Informational Economy instantiates different schematic qualities. In fact, the flow of time can be bannered under: an asynchronous dimension to the relations among digital objects and the relationships they intermediate during interactions among social counterparts. This state of affairs, in the of electronic interchange, through which transactions occur, exchanging information, need not be sequential, and, therefore, the forms of reciprocity that transpire can include objects that are not defined by any linear processed ordering of events. In other words, communications can address data objects in a recursive fashion; an aspect of the distant immediacy that characterizes the flow of events that occur in the virtual spaces engendered by the expansion of Internet infrastructures; or, what can be referred to, using Castells’ terminology, as Informationalism; the technological paradigm related to a pattern of productivity that is defined by exemplars constituting digitized communications.

Returning to the persona that is cultivated and constructed agents assuming a presence within the milieu of the digital matrix - a social object that can be Self stylized in the context of virtual interactions with greater plasticity, options, and allowance of revisions - the existential liberties attributable to the digital matrix are related to the condition in which interactions take place: The digital matrix instantiates a field of agents that interact with one another in a disembodied state. As a result, the physical attributes that entail ascription to a particular social identity are - often in the digital matrix - stripped from the communicative affair, allowing agents to bend their identities and play in the engagements while assuming the identity and role of statuses that they might be barred from in real - according to the traditional sense - interactions. One might liken this hyper-reality to the condition that is typically referred to - in the context of social theory - as carnival.

Associated with the breakdown of social barriers in the spaces, constituting virtual reality, is the more recent development typically designated as Web 2.0. Now is not the place to elaborate in dept upon this complicated empirical phenomenon and the properties that should be extrapo­lated for instances of Web 2.0 when constructing a corresponding analytic. However, with respect to its relevancy to the state of carnival attributed to many virtual spaces of interaction, it should be remarked that Web 2.0 similarly negates many of the semiotic devices - extant in real spaces - whose conventional interpretation by social agents leads to the labeling of ascribed - although sometimes assumed - social identities. In the context of the interactions occurring within instances of Web 2.0, the negation of many real cultural attributes results in a leveling of the stratifications that mark real social processes of knowledge production. Web 2.0 - the most rec­ognizable exemplar of which is probably the popular Wikipedia - democratize the production of knowledge, rendering the representational spaces in which externalizations of proposed versions of knowledge find publicity.

The emergence of the episteme, Web 2.0, signifies an area of considerable concern for the anal­ysis expressed in this document, due to the possibilities it incurs for sociopolitical movements that have been traditionally marginalized, preventing insurgents challenging the duopoly of the legitimate American sociopolitical infrastructure from achieving only the most modest forms of success. The existing literature pertaining to this topic is sparse. However, two references to sociological subject matters - incidentally related to the problem described in the earlier proposi­tions forming this paragraph - are worthy of mention and will be treated somewhat extensively in the chapters and sections that follow: The agricultural reform movement of the latter part of the 19th Century - referred to as the People’s Party, or Populist Party - achieved substantial reforms; mostly consisting of democratizing more directly some of the electoral processes on a Constitu­tional level. Most significantly, the movement brought about the popular election of Senators.

More germane to the interests of this paper, however, are the unconventional tactics employed - to certain extents - by the movement in order to actualize some of the conditions defined by its teleology. The formation of collectivities in response to the inaccessibility of capital - a circum­stance attributed to the Gold Standard³ of currency evaluation, which had consequences for farmers, preventing them access to necessary sources insurance against the risks involved in the production of agricultural commodities. Specifically, the inclusion of this historical narrative contributes to a theme that appears to be emerging in the sociology of social movements, which has taken a detour from the stock of knowledge - comprising its long established conventional wisdom, which presumed the success of social movements to be the consequent of antecedents including the networking resources though which the movement could affect the decision-making of elites responsible for the formation and administration of public policy - in order to come to terms with developments in Latin America. Although the abandonment of the macro-oriented pol­icy strategies characterizing the neoliberal ideology of global consortium, such as the World Monetary Fund, in pursuit of local, organic initiatives certainly is a recognizable factor operative in the dynamics culminating into the mass electoral mobilization, which lead to the usurpations of legitimate sociolopolitical power by populist socialist movements in Latin America, the ability of the successful social movements to opportunize off of the Social Capital produced by activism conducted at the local level - identically - cannot be ignored⁴. The social movements - and this might be considered an attribute belonging to the connotative definition expressed in the sociological analytics of social movements - of course, were not social formations with the degrees of institutionalization needed to qualify them as organizations - in the sociological sense of the word - although they certainly did and continue to possess a form of organization - rather, the associations⁵ among agents contributing to these movements constitute - if anything - instances of networking, which, in these instances, transcended nation-states and their geo­graphical parameters.

In terms of this document, what is of primary significance, is the scope of the extension of the refitted understanding of the conditions that can lead to the success of social movements that lack the networking resources with elites who assume positions of authority in the sociopolitical structures of the legitimate apparatuses of a state. Specifically, in the context of the American state, do the virtual spaces - allowing for the formation of virtual communities - similarly generate the Social Capital necessary to spawn the degree of social mobilization necessary for populist insurrections to achieve success; a state defined by the actualization of the conditions defined in the social movement’s teleology.

The problem, as defined in this document, is relevant to the current activities typically referred to as Net-roots Activism⁶; a form of networking conducted through the communicative possibilities precipitated by the growth of Informationalism.

Strategy Employed

The problem - can third party sociopolitical movements in the United State exploit the current transformations taking place and reorganizing the representational spaces available for obtaining the publicity associated with mass media - is addressed through empirical studies, con­sisting of ethnographic field research conducted upon two instances of third party sociopolitical movements: a state Green Party in the Midwest and the Populist Party of America, (located, as a headquarters, in Las Angeles California). Both cases involved what has come to be referred to as virtual ethnography.

Tactics

Although the methodological specification of ethnographic research was originally conceived as grounded theory, the immersion in the virtual spaces of the Internet and their state of disembod­ied communications, led to the adoption of exploratory testing, which has been taken up by oth­ers involved in the investigation of this relatively new area of sociological research.

Deliverables

Review and comparison of these two empirical subject domains has led to insights concerning the fertility of virtual communities for the cultivation of Social Capital. Additionally - through my participation in the Populist Party of America, which evolved into a commitment where I was responsible for consultation on organizational matters pertaining to communicative strategies intended for the advancement of the Populist Party’s agenda - I have been afforded the opportu­nity to test hypotheses concerning the successful application of the communicative devices pro­vided by Internet infrastructures.

Tags: direct democracy, economics, Farmers, government, history, labor, media, Midwest, politics, populist party, Russell Coles Blog, Social Change, society, sociology, sociology web 2.0, sociopolitical institutions, third parties, web 2.0
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Defining Web 2.0

The emergence of Web 2.0 has attracted negative commentary by people who do not entirely understand what Web 2.0 is and, consequently, what it entails. Admittedly, there is some truth to the relationship inferred to exist between Web 2.0 and the quantum increases in bandwidth that are primarily being created through the investments of ISP’s. However, the bandwidth improvements are only a requisite for Web 2.0, and they do not constitute one of its defining characteristics. Furthermore, as long as Net Neutrality is maintained, we need not consume ourselves with issues related to the loss of the marginal degree of egalitarianism that current embodies the distribution of bandwidth - which currently provides some measures to ensure that high-speed connections are obtainable to large amounts of the population.

This is not to say that more does not need to be done to improve accessibility of high-speed Internet connections for all segments of the population. Certainly, there exists a gap between the strata in American society who can afford broadband and those who lack private access to this resource. Additionally, and perhaps more pressingly, due to inequalities in education and so forth, there exists vast discrepancies in the distribution of the cultural capital necessary for a social agent to advantageously deploy the communicative technologies engendered by the Information Age and the institutionalization of the Internet. These matters deserve the utmost attention and concern. However, the inequalities stated above do not qualify as potential polemics against Web 2.0, because Web 2.0, itself, certainly does not constitute an antecedent to a present or potential system of stratification, defining the resources available to differing segments of the population.

Web 2.0 is a paradigmatic shift whose inception is rooted in the original innovations of open source software designers who detected patterns emerging in the social activities comprising the software projects in which they were engaged. Communicative inventions, such as the Wiki, which were originally innovated in order to open source programming communities to work more efficiently, were appropriated toward considerations that extended beyond software programming and onto social knowledge production in general.

Web 2.0 involves a flattening of the traditional vertical structures creating a hierarchy of privileges for producing various forms of Truth. Academic knowledge is quickly becoming something not determined by an oligarchy within its respective disciplines. Additionally, technological truth - which can be understood as knowledge that provides a legitimate and marketable product, serviceable to the needs of end-user - is becoming a province not monopolized by dominant corporations. Indeed, the social classifications that have defined the resources available to individuals, assuming various positions in these systems of stratification, are becoming fuzzy, and, in all likelihood, will dissolve and discontinue to inhibit or facilitate Truth-production by individuals and collectivities.

To use the economic sphere of society as an example, the traditional boundaries between manufacturers, distributors, and consumers have blurred. All parties involved in this new configuration of development and distributive practices possess the ability to assume different capacities in the relationships between and among identities within the market. Although, it pains me considerably, there is a semblance of truth to the conditions predicted in the “Army of Davids.”

However, this does not entail – necessarily - the extension of a form of rationalization, hypothesized by early theorists who had detected the changing state of modern societies as they transitioned into a post-industrial state. Increasingly, the type of intellectual work in Technocracy occurs in a state where labors are detached from material conditions, leading to a result where contributions to products are no longer reducible to tangible materials. Consequently, the value of labor defies estimation, according to traditional parameters, which might calculate the value of work according to the labor hours consumed in the production a particular commodity that has value in the market.

Knowledge consumers have been equipped with the necessary serviceable objects needed to transform the informational content provided on servers for all of the public to peruse into forms that reflect their own aesthetics and experiences. Once again, the traditional roles assumed among the many, who have been existentially constrained until now within the social compound of the consumer identity, are no longer as rigid as they were previously. The end-user can now assume the role of a provider, and vice versa. The primary dynamic determining what inventions will take hold is the receptivity to the idea and its manifestation by an inclusionary public of counterparts. I hesitate to use the term, peers, due to its incorporation into the vocabulary of the academy, used by this exclusionary institution to describe its own practices.

The aspects, which Web 2.0 instantiates, are better illuminated through a concrete exemplar, which is provided below. This representation comes from a Webpage belonging to a site currently under development by the Populist Party of America:

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This is a page from a site that remains in the sandbox. Nevertheless, it continues to be useful as an exemplar of Web 2.0 designs. What is of significance are the direct links for entering the URL into social bookmarking services; a form of social knowledge construction, where the contents of the Internet are discovered and indexed according to the collaborative efforts of a Plebeian, inclusionary public, providing for a search application that generates, according to most, more relevant results than traditional syntactically structured search engines. Although social bookmarking sites continue to rely upon keyword searches, one can expect that these services will become more sophisticated as the Semantic Web begins to take hold. Regardless of their current dependence upon conventional search engine mechanics, the tags entered by contributors are more accurate and detailed, creating a social knowledge forum that continues to grow and continues to increase the relevancy of the results generated from searches. Additionally, there is another dynamic operative within these types of forums, people do not enter into the servers data base any site that they happen to run across. Rather, there is a process of selectivity based upon aesthetics and tested utility. Therefore, results generated from queries conduct in the API’s belonging to Web 2.0 services produce results generated from processes entirely different from the syntactical operations deployed by conventional search engines. The selectivity of links directed toward contents - assumed to possess the highest degrees of relevancy - are a result of organic processes.

The processes - collectively forming what is tantamount to a chaotic system – are not reproducible by the syntactically structured operations embedded in the search engines provided by servers such as Google or MSN. Although the engines, such as Google’s search, can index vastly more contents belonging to domains and their pages - an accomplishment achieved through the deployment of spiders that transverse the links directing the spider to additional contents - it is unlikely that these engines will ever acquire the capacity to retrieve results that are as relevant as those produced by social search engines.

Another salient aspect to the Webpage represented above are the RSS links located on the bottom of the page. RSS in another feature of Web 2.0 that allows for the real time update of content modifications. XML meta-tags are fed through a syndication that is often rendered using an Internet browser or, sometimes, standalone applications. These feeds contain citations of links that allow for an end-user to access a page that he or she infers to have content of interest from the descriptions in the meta-tags. It should be pointed out, once again, the functionality engendered by Really Simple Syndication is considered an instance of Web 2.0; a conclusion based upon its role as a Web component. Additionally, RSS is not comprised of static content, which is an attribute associated with most of Internet 1.0. This consideration brings into the forefront a marked difference between the two paradigms: Web 2.0 is comprised of servers displaying content not authored by the service provider in way that allows for only the original form of the media assuming a static state. Instead, Web 2.0 usually designates electronic media that is in a constant state of flux, typically expansion, most often integration with content initially provided by other servers, and collaboration among the members of the inclusionary public that care to contribute to its refinement, augmentation, and extensibility, which translates into magnified functionality.

The open source project known as WordPress presents an embodiment of all of the aforementioned attributes. Wordpress is a weblog programming project that allows for a community of programmers to add to the extent of its extensibility, rendering it, in a sense, limitless. Some of the ethics preemptive in the Wordpress ethos are parsimony, which allows for the easy comprehension of the programming; thus, facilitating its continued expansion by a diversely trained and aesthetically disposed community of peers; (this pretentious textual contrivance is intended to signified the conventional term, peer, with a modified sense that conveys an entirely voluntary and inclusionary public of counterparts); a distinction that has significance when juxtaposed with the sense peer acquires within the context of discourse emanating from the academy. Also, the Wordpress project is keenly aware of aesthetics. This illuminates another thematic quality that is pervasive within the culture of Web 2.0. Utility and aesthetics are not discontinuous properties. Rather, the two competing spheres of considerations find themselves fused into a unified type of praxis that emphasizes functionality and aesthetics through a single modality of expression. The synthetic conglomeration of intellectual considerations is no longer a dichotomy of competing concerns that requires the partial negation of one to accommodate the other. Instead, the product exists as one in the same, where aesthetics fall under the scope of pragmatics; a conceptualization of design that is congruent with definitions put forth by those responsible for the inception of the philosophy.

Social Knowledge Production

When I first stumbled onto the communicative capacities of the Web when engaged in a bizarre circumstance with a corrupt University, which was attempting to conceal its
negligence, so not to lose a tremendously large grant, I made the precipitous prediction that the Internet and the Blogosphere would dislodge the disciplinarian monopoly of knowledge production. Publicity was no longer the sole propriety of the elevated statuses in society who had acquired the necessary prestige symbols to endow their speech-acts with the property of Truth, or, at the very minimum, the privilege to be subjected to the dialogical mechanisms that adjudicated which externalized speech-acts would be accepted as
objectivity. I saw in this very medium of communication a possibility of circumventing the established institutions of gate-keepers who effectively passed judgment on what discursive contributions would enter into the textual domains that embody the stature of the academy. I went so far as to predict the slow demise of the academy altogether; at least in the sense of the Social Sciences.

The prophecy I was bold enough to render at the time remains in a state of limbo with competing forces vying to shape the communicative possibilities of the Internet in a fashion that either engenders or preserves their vest interests. Undoubtedly, the controversy over the deregulation of Net Neutrality is a part of this conflict. Those who have the material means will be in a position that grants them access to a larger audience, and consumers of the higher strata of services will enjoy content inaccessible to the plebeian class of the
populace. The distribution of the cultural capital will be configured to reflect preexisting inequalities in society, and the hope of democracy once fostered by the Internet will be loss.

We must not lose heart, however, become the verdict is yet to be announced with respect to the future of Information Technology in society. Subversive discourse still finds a home on the Internet, and, indeed, has provided spheres of communication that are robust and argumentative. The Green Party, for instance, and, more particularly, the Green Alliance have formed online chat forums that possess ongoing dialogue covering various concerns, all of which are germane to the Red-Green current of political discourse. What is troubling, however, is the absence of any clear translation from Internet based communication and dialogue and political mobilization. Of course, groups, such as MoveOn.org have built influential advocacy groups with a progressive agenda. Yet, I find this unsatisfactory because it is roughly a top-to-bottom organization, where decisions are rendered by elites in the organization, and, subsequently, the masses who participate in these movements are left with the option of contributing money or signing worthless petitions. A more extreme
example, which is, in fact, laughable, are the Internet mass mailings made by the Democratic Party, conducted under the pretenses of Grass-roots, which only solicit contributions from the members of this robust grass-roots movement.

Other forms of social-knowledge production offer a more penetrating glimpse into the democratic possibilities of the Web. The Wikipedia is the most popular and salient exemplar of this type of deliberative, egalitarian knowledge-building. The are no requisites with
regards to status, which might prohibit one from participating in the generation of contents possessed by the Wikipedia server. In other words, unlike traditional disciplinarian forms of knowledge, there are no status symbols that one must acquire to be considered a legitimate contributor to the particular discourse both forming and emanating from a disciplinary matrix. Knowledge in this sense is democratic and any member of the Demos who possesses the discursive skill need to captivate an audience - regardless of his or her social strata outside of the public sphere of dialogue - can effectively persuade the mob to embrace policies according positions articulated in his sophistries.

For the Athenian form of democracy to persist, civic egalitarianism had to cherished and safe-guarded from potentially corrupting influences. The constant fear of a faction acquiring a disproportionate amount of power was a real concern and precipitated the manifestation of institutions where public servants were selected by lottery as opposed to status symbols that might be conflated with elitism. This is not to say that the Athenians did not have elites, but the term, elite, had a different sense in juxtaposition to the meaning it often acquires during its contemporary usage. An elite, according to the Athenians, was an individual who demonstrated exceptional skills in a variety of contexts. Nonetheless, an elite was not someone who was defined by his or her position of power. In other words, the classification, elite, did not translate into political privilege. Elitism was related to the stylization that defined one’s character, not to a position of power that might be procured by a citizen belonging to the Polis.

Russell Cole

For more work on this subject visit the

Sociology of Web 2.0

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From a Larger Project belonging to Russell Cole

An Extract from the Introduction

The purpose of Sociology of Web 2.0 is to build upon current criticisms of American sociopolitical institutions and networks that are associated with the counter-discourse generated from the cultural field of proponents of direct democracy and its implementation for the democratic reform of America. Its intent is to enhance direct democratic theory with insights derived from the current paradigmatic transformation occurring within technological communities referred to as instances of Web 2.0. Briefly put, Web 2.0 is a new conceptualization of the social conditions that most prolifically engender the cultivation of pragmatically endowed social knowledge. This intellectual transition consists of an abandonment of the social formalism and stasis associated with institutions, such as the Academy, in favor of an acceptance and an encouragement of an open and an inclusive field. It ignores status symbol requisites, which are required of the institution belonging to the Academy, in favor of fostering communities of epistemic agents, who voluntarily contribute to knowledge building communities in whatever capacity best fits their proclivities and in a modality that most reflects their backgrounds and penchants.

This emerging episteme – the democratization of knowledge production – involves an insurrectionary movement that embodies the alterations occurring in the formation and configuration of representational spaces. The alternative avenues, which are exploitable for purposes of obtaining publicity, are provided for by the expansion of Internet Infrastructures. Members of various disciplines are increasingly seizing upon this opportunity, allowing for the publicity of their work through processes exogenous to the mechanisms internal to their disciplines; a modality of expression that bypasses the ritualism enacted by the academy when it is actualizing its exclusionary politics.

The censorship on the part of the academy clearly constitutes an act that expresses symbolically shared in-group statuses associated with a shared social identity; a display of ritualism that functionally serves as a device to proliferate in-group solidarity. Further, the semiotic resources monopolized by the practitioners of the disciplinarian mode of knowledge production – an ethereal cultural commodity that translates into a privileged position in the social knowledge-producing hierarchy –regenerate from the exclusion of the chattering classes from the spaces occupied by the Truth-producers belonging to the disciplinarian tribe. The prevention of possible pollutants effects a condition where non-members not only assume an a priori disqualified stature – preventing the inclusion of their chatter into the field defined by the agonistics of the disciplinarian language-games – it comes to provide a symbolic function involving the personification of the criteria, defining the negation of the positive identity, which, in turn, recasts definition to the in-group.

In order to provide a more concretized account of the succession of events constituting the process describe above, one might make reference to the editorial selections and peer reviews conducted by the oligarchies that form in the various fields of intellectual pursuit, falling under the academy. Those who are charged with determining what contents fail to profane the sacred spaces of the discipline additionally provide the immunities necessary for the cultural enclave to persist; thus, failing to dissolve into the negated identities of the excluded masses.

Although the regulatory mechanism cited above continues to operate and provide for the persistence of the unique statuses exhibited by the members of the exclusionary tribes of Truth-production, this stratified distribution of knowledge-building privileges is becoming increasingly threatened by an emergent alien discourse. The episteme, which this thesis identifies as the antagonist to the self-contained, auto-reproducing elitist establishments, is the manifestation of cultural practices, assuming a positively asserted conception of self, defined by the very attributes that constitute the negation of the tribal identifications comprising the academy. For convenience, these ancillary  conventions are designated as instances of Public Review, which, itself, is defined by the following connotative properties: an inclusive public open to all epistemic forms and diversifications, where publicity is apportioned according to the rhetorical capacities of the agent who vies – not for representational space, because this commodity flows freely – but for the reception of one’s ideas creating the incentive for the presence of an audience.

It is beginning to become evident – as well as acknowledged – that the form of the language-games, associated with public review – in a manner that is marginally similar to the processes leading to the objectification of Truth-assertions within publics belonging to the academy – constitutes a far more expedient and effective means by which to subject propositions to the necessary language-games – embodying agonistics that subject the proposition to an assortment of assaults before it passes into a state akin to objectification. The motivation for qualifying public review as only marginally similar to the processes manifested in the practices of peers belonging to academic communities lies in the fact that the spaces of Public Review are limitless; consequentially, negating the coercive effects of a self-contained assortment of peers, where the necessity of members to remain in good standing motivates acquiescence, leading to conformity, and in many instances, homogenization. The boundless representational spaces generated under the auspices of Public Review proliferates the opportunities to identify contents of an externalized polemic or thesis that are susceptible to dismissal, depending upon the aspersions that might appeal to the others who evaluate externalized articulations, constituting possible instances of knowledge.  Conversely, knowledge can be similarly adopted and shared, depending upon the presence of congruent conventions and mandates belonging to the assortment of epistemic agents.  Nevertheless, since the representational spaces are limitless, there is no coercive dynamic compelling the adoption of knowledge that might be shared by others.  Rather, instantiations of parcels of consensus result from dynamics best referenced as agonistics; a term rich in meaning and intricate connotative properties that only appear contradictory if one fails to possess an adequate appreciation for the sense typically endowing the lexicon with meaning during instances constituting the best use of the word. 

Therefore, peer groups are generated from forces other than institutions legitimized under the auspices of tradition and precedent; aspects of the past that extend their legacy into the present through the projection of a repository of precedents that define what qualifies as knowledge prior to any unrestricted deliberation as to what knowledge needs to be in order to contend within the matters of concern resulting from the contingencies of present.  Although the preceding remark is far too sweeping in its implications, since knowledge - both disciplinary as well as Public - requires language, which, itself, is an embodiment of tradition, the form of entirely voluntaristic agonistics - associated with Public spaces - allows for far greater flexibility, which proliferates the possibilities for innovation.

Ostensibly, the diversity of viewpoints emanating from a pluralistic field of epistemic agents – not all subjected to the same socializing processes resulting from indoctrination into a disciplinarian form of knowledge – offers greater and far more expedient scrutiny to the externalized work; a form of review that is not inhibited nor channeled according to the engrained practices of any single discipline. Additionally, the externalized propositions can assume differing significations depending upon the projects defining the existentiality of agents coming from all walks of life, who might pick up upon the contents differently in a way that reflects their particular concerns.

Pursuant to the predilections amassing around Public Review, the underlying subtext that is typically associated with previous understandings of the conventions and practices associated with knowledge building is becoming inverted by a new discursive order that understands the conditions that cultivate social knowledge most prolifically and more extensible to be disorderly in a respect that is Ab Initio. In other words, methodological rigor is becoming displaced by pragmatic considerations as well as an aesthetic that prioritizes the looser order that underlies the chaotic practices of human interaction – not imposed by disciplinarian limitations – which is characterized by the relations assumed by the agents occupying the spaces belonging to Public Review.

To articulate the previous conclusion in an alternative mode of expression, we can understand the state instantiated by a Public Review social knowledge-building consortium as a chaotic system; rather than a highly structured and organized regime imposed upon agents who work under the auspices of a disciplinarian form of human interactivity endowed with a privileged Truth-manufacturing status. The interactions of social agents under the circumstances exhibited through the manifestation of disciplinarian forms of knowledge production is indexical under the expansion of the concept of rationalization, according to the sense of the term introduced by Dan Bell in his description of the social class that was emerging in the Post-industrial condition; the technocratic class of intellectual laborers. Within the scope of the extension of the Technocracy, the performance of intellectual labors manifests within highly regimented schemata that inhibit as well as compel some forms of cognition versus other cognitive paths. Although such as flow of human comportment might arguably possess benefits, the limitations and drawbacks entailed by disciplinarian-knowledge-production also requires acknowledgement. In order to enunciate the rationale lying behind the recommendation for the abandonment of the disciplinarian episteme in favor of Public Review, which this paper conflates with Web 2.0, in an expression constituting a clearer and more demonstrable communicative form, a brief elaboration upon the social conditions and practices that culminate into the social object, Web 2.0, is beneficial.

Instances of Web 2.0 embody social practices not behaviorally streamlined by the barriers and paths presented by disciplinary institutional configurations, which lead to a social condition that is marked by increased innovation and an accelerated rate of social knowledge extension. At the same time, however, the cooperative practices through which knowledge is generated must be considered an organizing-principle that both structures as wells as rests upon a more fundamental condition. Specifically, the zeitgeist breathing life into Web 2.0 is a reflection of the material conditions in which the contributors to Web 2.0 endeavor. In a concurrent respect, however, the Spirit of Web 2.0 operates in a capacity that compels contributors to Web 2.0 to advocate and concretely support the preservation and expansion of the material conditions upon which Web 2.0 manifests. In other words, Web 2.0 is reflective of the Spirit of the times, which – in an embodiment differing from both idealists interpretations of human events as well as frameworks involving understandings that reference material conditions as precipitations for the forms assumed by instances of humanity - lives for its own sake; not due to the incentives provided to those who have accumulated prestige, rendering them not only powerful in disciplinarian contexts, but subservient to the imperatives emanating from requisites that must be fulfilled to preserve the institutional structures in which they assume elevated statuses.

The preceding compound proposition achieves concretion by referencing the complimentary dynamics involved in the propagation of Web 2.0; where broadband is a necessity of Web 2.0 as well as Web 2.0 driving, in turn, the expansion of the materiality constituting bandwidth.

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For the last year and a half or so, I have been researching the sociological dimensions of Web 2.0, from which I could apply some of the conclusions I have formed from my observations of the Plebeian social democratic knowledge-production communities to the administration of education.  I think that this would be a refreshing change since educational theory – undoubtedly to its detriment – has primarily borrowed from the field of psychology.  This leads to approaches that are so latent with implicit moralistic baggage that we tend to lose sight of the possibility that education should be a vehicle for individuals to actively shape and form their own modality of existentiality, rather than simply being indoctrinated into forms of practice that serve the vested interests of economic elites who need access to a docile, a skilled, and a conforming mass of technocratic minions.  I would propose a curriculum based upon heuristics, which would allow for the self-discovery and innovation of knowledge; rather than indoctrination into established and contricting corridors of thought.  I am primarily concerned with the revitalization of a democratic culture in America, so in opposition to the standards based assessments of educational success – which, of course, simply extend the reach of a particular cultural hegemony that controls the institutions through which objectivity and truth are produced -- a conceptualization of the appropriate teleology for education, giving form to our educational praxis that is rooted in the promotion of an egalitarian, deliberative, social democracy. After reading what I just wrote, I do not expect a reply, but I will send this off anyway,

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After reading your remarks concerning the impending bubble burst of the Web 2.0 Internet sector, I was immediately reminded why people in my profession, sociology, are critical of economists: You have a tenacity to conduct vulgar forms of reductionism that render the phenomenal field your are investigating absent of the preponderance of social dynamics that influence the trajectories and outcomes of these forms of human interaction, so that the considerations for which you do account are compliant within the narrow framework of presuppositions that structure economic research. There are far more motivations for individuals and collectivities to continue to propagate on the Internet instantiations of Web 2.0 than merely the incentive of wealth. Speaking for myself, I contribute to the establishment of platforms that engender collaborative social knowledge building because it reflects an interest of mine – not geared toward maximizing profits – but oriented toward the promotion of public spheres that embody the attributes that I evaluate oftentimes over my personal fortune; namely, social democracy. Consequently, to reduce your analysis to the narrowly extended scope of economic variables that enamor the rigid minds of economists, limits your ability to foresee other possible outcomes that are generated by conditions excluded from your analysis.

To make my point, I wonder what your prediction would have been for the early open-sourcing projects that arose in opposition to the corporatization and privatization of knowledge associated with computer science and computer programming? GNU, in all likelihood, would have suffered from the same negative forecasts from people who possess a similar business-minded closed worldview. However, economic variables did not eliminate open-sourcing, rather open-sourcing dramatically changed the landscape of the programming industry, creating a robust alternative to IBM and Microsoft, which continues to increase in market share. In short, economics were not the determinant of the path followed by open-sourcing; economics were the consequent, as many open-sourcing projects matured to the point that they were in a position to offer alternative services to businesses, through their ability to tailor their code to the particular needs of a consumer while remaining open-sourced, which added a layer of security for investors since they could correct faults in the programming. As far as Business 2.0 goes, we will have to wait and see. However, I suspect that it will soon be bombarded with competition emanating from the open-source community that is forming around Web 2.0.

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