1. Social Media and Society Sustainable Development, CEMUS Patrick Prax 1

2. Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, google services, …) and… 1.their definition 2.their business model 1.Who owns media 2.Who funds media 3.their influence on society and power structures 1.Political change, revolution, a free tool bringing democracy 2.The reality: Digital Divide, Huge corporations, capitalization of the medium 3.The medium is the message 4.their future 5.the way it can help in making change happen 2

3. Who are you? Name Educational background Project 3

4. Who am I? Patrick Prax, PhD Candidate in Media and Communication since 10/09 The political economy of co-creative game design 4

5. Definitions: Media – the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data Social Media – Allow the creation and exchange of user-created content – Social interaction – Social network – No clear definition Digital Media 5

6. Digitalization “The increasing use of digital storage and transmission in cultural production and circulation and the increasing use of such digital systems, as opposed to analogue ones.” Hesmondhalgh 2007: 311 6

7. Convergence con·ver·gence (kn-vûrjns)n. 1. The act, condition, quality, or fact of converging. 2. Mathematics The property or manner of approaching a limit, such as a point, line, function, or value. 3. The point of converging; a meeting place: a town at the convergence of two rivers. 4. Physiology The coordinated turning of the eyes inward to focus on an object at close range. 5. Biology The adaptive evolution of superficially similar structures, such as the wings of birds and insects, in unrelated species subjected to similar environments. Also called convergent evolution. 7

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9. Scarcities and Intermediaries (1) Analogue – Scarcity of frequencies – One-to-many flow of information – Distinctive industry sector – Linear programming – Mediated consumption environment – National boundaries

10. Scarcities and Intermediaries (2) Digital – Abundance of channels – Many-to-many flow of information – Convergence of sectors – Non-linear programming (on demand) – Disintermediation (later more) – Global

11. The Value Chain in Media Content Creation Content Acquisition Content aggregation Customer Management & transactions MarketingDistribution Consumption/ Usage 11 After Charles Brown, The politics and economics of media convergence joined summer school Beijing 2010

12. The Value Chain in Media – Total Disintermediation Content Creation Content Acquisition Content aggregation Customer Management & transactions MarketingDistribution Consumption/ Usage 12 After Charles Brown, The politics and economics of media convergence joined summer school Beijing 2010

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14. The factory in the living room – Sut Jhally 1.What is it producing? 2.To whom is it selling the product? 3.Who does the work? 4.How do the workers get paid? 5.When is this work happening? 6.Are the workers aware of this mechanism? 7.http://vimeo.com/27099108http://vimeo.com/27099108 8.17:00, 23:30 14

15. Code Lessig page 81-82 and page 120-125 (of the book, not the.pdf) Lessig: What kids of code are there? Why are they interesting for media? 15

16. Code This regulator is what I call “code”—the instructions embedded in the software or hardware that makes cyberspace what it is. This code is the “built environment” of social life in cyberspace. It is its “architecture.”And if in the middle of the nineteenth century the threat to liberty was norms, and at the start of the twentieth it was state power, and during much of the middle twentieth it was the market, then my argument is that we must come to understand how in the twenty-first century it is a different regulator— code—that should be our current concern. 16

17. Code In this context, the rule applied to an individual does not find its force from the threat of consequences enforced by the law— fines, jail, or even shame. Instead, the rule is applied to an individual through a kind of physics. A locked door is not a command “do not enter” backed up with the threat of punishment by the state. A locked door is a physical constraint on the liberty of someone to enter some space. 17

18. Propaganda Model, Hermann and Chomsky 18

19. Scarcities and Intermediaries (3) What about google? Is that an intermediate? If you are not on google you do not exist! The power of the algorithm, of the architecture, of code…

20. The Digital Divide The developing world Women Black people in the US Instead of equalizing it can deepen the inequality 20

21. The Promises of the New The Digital Sublime, 2004, Vincent Mosco “The nerve of international life, transmitting knowledge of events, removing causes of misunderstanding, and promoting peace and harmony throughout the world” “Our whole human existence is being transformed” “Every home has the potential of becoming an extension of […] Harvard University.” 21

22. What happened to the radio (or TV for that matter)? It had this potential It got capitalized The state paid for the networks and infrastructure and the capitalist business world uses it for advertisement. 22

23. The End of History “The information age and what came before it are totally different worlds, with the new era defined by information itself.” “The denial of history is central to understanding myth as depoliticized speech because to deny history is to remove from discussion active human agency, the constraints of social structure, and real world politics.” 23

24. “I’m someone who believes that because progress will come no matter what, we need to make the best of it.” – Bill Gates “Liberal Democracy may constitute the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the final form of human government and, as such, may constitute the end of history”- Fukujama(1992) 24

25. The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism - Bell (1973) The economizing mode in which “accepts individuals as its unit of analysis and treat whole societies as the sum total of individual wants expressed in the marketplace.” The market has become the arbiter of all economic and social relations, even of a moral nature. In fact, we are led in this work to the inescapable conclusion that one ideology, capitalism, admittedly riddled with contradictions, has indeed won out at the expense of […] anything that gets in the way, including a moral sensibility or any sense of limits. 25

26. Cyberspace “For Gingrich and his PFF( The Progress and Freedom Foundation) colleagues, the Internet is not just a corrective to democracy; it is democracy.” 26

27. The internet is democracy, or is it? Put this in conversation with – Jhally (who is the customer?), – Chomsky (advertisement and ownership as filter) and – Lessig (code) 27

28. The Business Model: Social Medium Provide a free platform for communication Have their users provide all the content Become unavoidable Then sell targeted advertising and trade with information about your users 28

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30. Copyright David BradfortDavid Bradfort

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34. Their Business Model Provide a free platform for communication Have their users provide all the content Become unavoidable Then sell targeted advertising and trade with information about your users 34

35. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIw8kGul mB8 35

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37. Political Change The “Twitter Revolutions” of the “Arab Spring”? Media as a tool for free speech, democracy, freedom… Or what? The role is often overestimated. The media itself is neutral at best and can be used by both sides. 37

38. Unavoidable? Try to live without facebook for a while. Or without any kind of google service! So if you need to use it, shouldn’t it be regulated? Or even public? Corporate interests governing code governing social interaction 38

39. The power of the algorithm? Or just what happens with hypertext? 39

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41. The History of Media Development … …and how it disappointed every single step of the way The internet/digital media as well? We will see… as soon as it retreats into the wood works – Electricity – Radio waves – Digital media 41

42. The conclusion Moscow draws “Concepts lead to questions. As a mythic brand, globalization leads only to only response: Amen.” “The redeeming power of the market has proven to be a dangerous illusion. In times of crisis, neoliberalism has no solution to offer. Fundamental truth that were pushed to the side return to the fore. Without taxation, there can be no state. Without a public sphere, democracy and civil society, there can be no legitimacy. And without legitimacy, no security.” 42

43. The future… Either this… Hopefully open source 43

44. Or this… Fully commercialized social interaction and private life Paying with facebook currency online All information about us collected centrally We are totally transparent, ready to be abused by companies and states alike, and we gave away all this information for free (moreless) 44

45. Liquid Life, Deuze An attempt for a link between political economy and individual identity The notion of Precarity Knowledge work with digital media How does this article relate to your own private/professional life and this project? 45

46. The way it can make change happen? Well, that is up to you. But here might be some practical advice. 46

47. Some basic ideas for starting out Publicity for a project with social media 1.Get the services you want to use (facebook, twitter, wordpress, flickr, tumblr, youtube) working together 2.Getting the first users is the hardest 3.Maintain the sites, provide new content, be active in the forums 47

48. The services you want to use working together 48

49. Getting the first users is the hardest “Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through media over time among members of a social system” -Everett Rogers

53. Maintain growth Maintain the sites, provide new content, be active in the forums… THIS IS NOT TRIVIAL Most restaurants go out of business because they do not last long enough to finally make money but… Most sites get made and abandoned 53

54. Questions? Patrick.prax@im.uu.se 54

55. Business model of corporate broadcasters Filters over news production, probaganda Precarious work Code 55

56. The additional voluntary reading will be: “Manufacturing Consent” by Hermann and Chomsky, First Chapter Conclusion of “The Digital Sublime” by Vincent Moscow Gill, full article What will this give to you? 56

57. Sherry Turkle, 2004, How Computers change the way we think Privacy 57

58. Sherry Turkle, 2004, How Computers change the way we think Powerpoint instead of powerful ideas 58

59. Sherry Turkle, 2004, How Computers change the way we think Simulations and their discontent 59

60. Media Globalization Effects Media Globalization promotes: – Opportunities for shared information – Borderless communication – Global commerce – And thus…

61. Media Globalization Effects …promotes Liberal democratic ideas and empowered citizens world wide People can explore different points of view through different channels – Less susceptible to propaganda – Spread freedom – Peace and prosperity

62. Global Media Corporations (1) “We’re gonna take the news and put it on the satellite and then we’re gonna beam it down into Russia, and we’re gonna bring world peace, and we’re gonna get rich in the process! Thank you very much! Good luck!” - Ted Turner, Founder of CNN

63. Global Media Corporations (2) Ranging across different media – books, newspapers, magazines, broadcast TV, cable and satellite, film, music and internet Promoting and influencing politics Working with local governments (e.g. Chinese) to suppress press freedom “War on journalism” though monopole-like powers

64. Cultural Imperialism (1) “the sum of processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured and forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominant centre of the system” - Schiller, 1976

65. Cultural Imperialism (2) Global media corporations influence national policy towards deregulation and privatization, reduced funding of public service and non- commercial media

66. Cultural Imperialism (3) …leading to – Spread of individualistic values – Displacement of public sphere – Erosion of local culture

67. Nation States Imagined Communities Global migration and TV satellites have resulted in big, new, globally scattered diasporic (from “dispersion” ) cultures linked in transnational public spheres 67

68. Media and Globalization (2) Traditionally media seen as enhancing the national state (creation of imagined community, public space) Global broadcasting media uncoupling the state and the culture Centralization of cultural production Broadcasting media globalizing in form as well as in content.

69. Cultural Imperialism (4) Soft Power – “achieve desired outcomes through attraction” – “ability to set the agenda in ways that shape the preferences of others” -Nye, Assistant Secretary of Defense under Clinton

71. Critique on Cultural Imperialism Inadequate treatment of local conditions There are new patterns of media flow, Spanish, Indian, Chinese and Arabic productions – Al-Jazeera, Satellites Promotes a regressive national media and culture politic

72. Cultural Imperialism (5) McLuhan asks: What abut the medium?!? Effect of the American model of television as a medium –E–Entertainment content to –A–Attract audiences to –S–Sell them to advertisers –D–Did you ever think of this before? Where was the watchdog?

73. Copyright Way to control information and entertainment Totally violated in this presentation Important factor in international trade agreements Digital rights management SOPA, PIPA, ect.

75. The Media’s Influence Media Content Media Effects Social Results

79. The Media’s Influence Media Content Media Effects Social Results

80. Characteristics of the Medium Effects Social Results

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82. Copyright Digital Rights Management What should Copyright do? Why would we frame it as “copyright” in the first place? Alternative “Urheberrecht”, like the right of the creator 82

83. The Digital Sublime, 2004, Vincent Mosco 1.Myth and Cyberspace 1.Myth 2.Cyberspace 2.Cyberspace and the end of history 3.The death of distance 4.The end of politics 5.When old Myth were new 83

84. Multiple Factors “economic, political and social forces are as important in determining where we are headed as is an understanding of the technology” 84

85. Myth It does not matter if it is right or wrong. What matters is if it is dead or if it is alive. Why does it exist? What does it tell us about people? “Myth transforms the messy complexities of history and gives them the pristine gloss of nature.” Barthes (1972) “not an explanation, but a statement of fact.” 85

86. Assumption: We have… 1.The perfect state 2.Global acceptance of the free market 3.Triumph of empirical science 86

87. The Promises of the New “The nerve of international life, transmitting knowledge of events, removing causes of misunderstanding, and promoting peace and harmony throughout the world” “Our whole human existence is being transformed” “Wars are to cease; the kingdom of peace will be set up.” 87

88. … “Every home has the potential of becoming an extension of […] Harvard University.” “--- will usher in an a new era of friendly intercourse between nations of the earth.” “Freedom to escape the reality which is a lie to achieve the reality which is truth.” 88

89. Radio Grass-root culture pushed aside Commercial use – Ads Political propaganda Military No commons left! 89

90. TV The factory in the living room Large government subsidies harvested to finance infrastructure for commercial activity “short term commercial considerations will dictate the form of the network” Smith (1972) Seems familiar? 90

91. “Television is no instrument of imperialism. It belongs to the people as does radio. It comes at a time in history when the world needs to have an eye kept on it for the welfare of civilization.” – Dunlap (1942) 91

92. What happened to the radio (or TV for that matter)? It had this potential It got capitalized The state paid for the networks and infrastructure and the capitalist business world uses it for advertisement. People listen to music and watch MTV cribs Consumerist culture 92

93. “In the political and economic sphere, history appears to be progressive and directional, and, by the end of the twentieth century, has culminated in liberal democracy as the only viable alternative for technologically advanced societies.” – Fukujama (1999:282) 93

94. The promises of the Internet 1.“A new sense of community” 2.“Widespread popular empowerment” 3.“Without the filters and censors set up by watchful governments and profit-conscious businesses” 4.“Educational Innovation” 94