Thursday, March 24, 2011

Class 3/24

discussion points:

the war efforts are turned into a "profit"

privacy is given up to prepare for war

technology aspect comes into play because of surveillance.

technology is used by politicians to gain voters.

Creators of Facebook watch us, but we are not able to watch the creators of Facebook....just like how politicians use surveillance to watch us but we cant see what they are doing behind the scenes to know who truly is the correct choice.

Iraq war was the first interactive war. Government tricks us into giving up privacy by easing minds and getting info.

Us trying to prevent terrorism has actually formed a bigger terrorist union. Networking.


What happened:

It was hard to blog and discuss at the same time because our discussion kept taking drastic turns which at times made me forget points that were made. We did this process by bsically just havong a class discussion and just running off peoples ideas, one to the other.

Class 3/24 12:03

deciding how we will do this

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Trouble With Chapter 6

After reading this chapter i am having trouble connecting the two topics of "Mobilizing Risk" and "The Reflexive Threat" with the idea of technology. I feel that these two parts are more so about the war on terror in general and only relates back to how it ties in with technology at the end so it seems to flow.

The section "Mobilizing Risk" tries to say that the war on terror is not only an "interactive" internet war but also could be described as the political mobilization of a climate of general risk. This is to say that, like with the case of 9/11, the war on terror has the ability to show the public how easily everyday objects could be transformed into devastating weaponry. He continues to state how terrorists have also shown how easily raw materials of daily like could be tainted to become part of a terrorist attack. He concludes this section basically by asking if we see everyday raw materials, should we expect the worst or should we continue to live our lives thinking those materials are doing what they are suppost to do?

The section "The Reflexive Threat" talks about how we, humanity, with our civilizing decisions, actually cause global consequences that trigger problems and dangers that radically contradict that institutionalized language and promises of the authorities in catastrophic cases like the attacks on Washington D.C. and New York City. "The Reflexive model is ultimately one of self-implication: our own actions participate in the genration of risks in ways that remain largely opaque" (171). He concludes this section by saying that with the rise of technology and anti-terrorism programs, terrorism as a whole will too rise. "Terrorism is intimately connected with technologization" (172).

These two topics separately make sense but back to back i am having trouble understanding how they relate to the main concepts of the book.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Digital Enclosure

"Digital enclosure - the creation of an interactive realm wherein every action and transaction generates information about itself" (2).

This idea that Mark Andrejevic (Mr. A) introduces is used to describe the path that every digital "move" takes. Mr. A tries to explain that even though one may see this definition and try to imply physical space, the concept also applies to virtual space, like the internet. An example of how this works is when we purchase things online we leave detailed records of our information which then transfers over to search databases. Another example is the "clickstreams" that are responsible for us getting to the location we have ended up at on the internet.

Although the virtual space is a big part to the concept of Digital enclosure, it is not the whole meaning. Mr. A uses the term enclosure not only to invoke the notion of space, but also to highlight the process of enclosure, whereby places and activities become encompassed by the monitoring embrace of an interactive (virtual) space (2). The enclosure may occur when we buy items online, our information may be sold to third parties or used by marketers for targeted advertising campaigns.

I think this term is interesting because i have always found it odd whenever i buy items online they ask some strange, unnecessary questions which could be a part of movement because it adds information to the internets total database in the end. The idea of clickstreams is also interesting because there are many time where i will be just browsing the internet and next thing i know im looking at something im very interested in purchasing. How i got to this point, i do not know, but it must have something to do with planned out advertisements by certain web sites.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Digital Hoarding

I think the concept of digital hoarding is very interesting and i would consider myself somewhat involved in this idea.  I believe that term to meen one who keeps documents on their computer, that were once important, and refuse to delete them because of the idea that this person 'may need them'.  This site i found describes this concept perfectly and this helps to tie into our class discussion last week.

http://www.geeksugar.com/Digital-Hoarding-9793605