The theme uniting the writings of Castells, Benkler, Ronfeldt and Arquilla is media’s role in the power struggle between government, industry and the public sphere in contemporary “network society.” Although the authors describe modern trends through varied approaches, the control gained from the transmission of messages is central to each essay.
Castelles’ view of the relationship between communication, politics and power is best portrayed when he defines media as “the space of power making, not the source of power holding.” With the emergence of mass self-communication, Castelles describes civil society engagement as a possible counter power to market-centric failures of political legitimacy and global oligopolies.
Benkler, on the other hand, focuses on democracy as a networked public sphere that people must take advantage of in order to make the most of social policy and economic power shifts. Unlike Castelles, Benkler stresses the frailty of laws and institutions that make up our economic infrastructure in wake of increased consumer production and multidimensional knowledge flows.
Continuing the theme of increased knowledge capital in “network society,” Ronfeldt and Arquilla propose that the impact of communication tools and the proliferation of NGOs will encourage diplomats to redefine emerging realms of information as the Noosphere and modern soft power or noopolitike as the replacement of traditionally hard military power. They suggest that participatory information structuring could positively amplify democracy in the public sphere or incite dangerous resistance to Western norms and governing systems if state actors do not become more technologically literate.
Although diverse in their approaches, these authors present prudently optimistic views of the expansion of participatory “self communication tools” in the management of contemporary “information society.” The writings of Castells, Benkler, Ronfeldt and Arquilla give the reader confidence in trends toward multidirectional power flows and increased civil society control over modern political, social and economic discourse.
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I suspected you'd pick up on the optimism of this week's readings, Tessa. :) They were all considerably more upbeat than some of the other writers we've been working with this semester.
ReplyDeleteDespite the fact that I found the word "noosphere" really irritating -- I felt like they were trying too hard to make create catchy terminology -- I really liked Ronfeldt and Arquilla's message, particularly their observation about modern power plays being more about whose *story* wins. It reminded me of a piece I heard on NPR earlier this week about how Iraq schools had just replaced their old textbooks extolling the virtues of the Hussein regime with new books that acknowledged his political antagonism and human rights abuses. And that made me think about all the stories that have won out in our own history -- sort of like how we all know the story of Paul Revere, but few people know about Sybil Ludington, who also rode out to warn the minute men of approaching troops -- only twice as far, in the rain, as a teenager.
And *that* made me think about some of the other comments that have been popping up in the blogs this week, about the billions of people without access to the network, which got me wondering about how many stories we're not hearing, and how that influences us (the connected masses) and them (the unconnected). I'd like to read something on the absense of communication.
Tessa,
ReplyDeleteI read your post a day or two ago, but this afternoon I heard the song entitled, "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayor. While the whole song reminded me of your post, the lines of particular interest are: "And when you trust your television/ What you get is what you got
/Cause when they own the information, oh /They can bend it all they want". I agree that when "they" becomes the individual versus big TNCs, there will be greater flows of multidimensional power that will hopefully be more balanced. Instead of waiting for the world to change, the idealist in me dreams of a day where civil society will be more proactive to connect the unconnected. To refresh your memory/ just enjoy the lyrics, I copied the lyrics to John Mayor's song below. Enjoy!!
"Waiting On The World To Change"
Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could
Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it
So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change
It's hard to beat the system
When we're standing at a distance
So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want
That's why we're waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change
It's not that we don't care,
We just know that the fight ain't fair
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change
And we're still waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change