New Media New Citizenship

Lecture 22 November 2004Citizenship: between politics & ideology

Marianne van den Boomen

About the course NMNC

● Level 300: heavy workload, 20 hours a week● Academic level: references and sources;

analyzing, confronting and criticizing theory and practice Tip: scholar.google.com

● Lectures and seminars, active participation, reading in advance the literature

● Weekly assignments, presentation, paper● Missed something? Compensate with

substantial extra work

Grades

23 December: rough grade, based on your participation and weekly assignments so far

24 January: upgrade/downgrade/equal rough grade, based on further participation and postings, quality of your Internet history assignment, and your subgroup presentation

17 February: final grade, based on last rough grade (50%) and quality paper (50%)

Assignments/requirements

Individual Assignments1. Min. 7 format postings (23 Nov.-11 Jan.)2. Internet History review assignment (23 Dec.)3. Comments on assignments (3 Feb.)4. Self assessment (3 Feb.)

Group Assignments 5. Weekly group postings for the seminar (23 Nov.-11 Jan.)6. Presentation citizenship project (20 jan.)7. Paper on citizenship project (3 Feb.)

Formats to choose from:

1. Select one sentence from an article that could serve as a motto on New Media & New Citizenship

2. Compare the conclusions of two articles; what's your own standpoint?

3. Criticize, argue a point where you disagree with the author.

4. Check two footnotes or bibliographical references, and report on your findings.

5. Find biographical information about the author and report on the impact

6. Connect an argumentation in the article/chapter to an actual hot issue, or to your group project

7. Review the lecture held on Monday

What is citizenship about?

● location, nation, state, nation-state● politics, elections

● rules, regulation, law● rights, duties

● culture, ideology ● education, media● public infrastructure, public debate, public

sphere● values, norms, habits● traditions

● belonging, community● participation, shared morality● differentiation, subject positions

● inclusion/exclusion

5 themes in the course

1. Rights: human, civil, political, & social rights

2. Public sphere: public opinion, public debate, public infratstructure

3. Subjection/subjectivation: surveillance and data gathering, discipline, normalization of subjectpositions

4. Inclusion/exclusion: based on subjectpositions defined by class, gender, color, sexuality, age, nationality, ability etc.

5. Democracy: representativeness; equality and expression of difference; local and global structures

Definition

Citizenship is the sense of belonging to and participating in an abstract

social whole, on a level somewhere between politics and ideology.

Not only nation-state

● Greek city states ● Roman empire● 18th century Republic of Letters ● French revolution (freedom, equality, fraternity) ● European citizenship?● World citizenship?● Netizenship? Cyborg citizenship?

New media characteristics

● digital, computerised (stand alone and connected)● access to a wide range of information● communication at relatively low costs● space & time compression: almost instantanious,

worldwide● do it yourself-culture: producing information, tools and

environments, creating public/private spheres● interactivity, connectivity, multimediality, virtuality● distributed intelligence

Top-down & bottum-up

Tension between top-down/bottum-upPolitics = top-down & bottum-up!

Ideology = top-down & bottum-up!Top: not a univocal monolitical unity

Bottum: not a univocal monolitical unity

“It’s the economy, stupid.”

● education and information becoming a market with the emergence of ICT's

● general political-economical tendency to privatization, deregulation, liberalization, and commodification

● the emergence of a labour force of symbolic analysts, a.k.a. digerati or the virtual class

● the widening gap between the poor and the rich

“It’s capitalism, stupid.” (Barbrook)

● the rise of a virtual class: ‘cognitive scientists, engineers, computer scientists, video-game developpers, and all other communications specialists’

● laisser faire ideology, promoting an electronic marketplace instead of an electronic agora

● myths of the free market as a determinating force of wealth and democracy

● private ownership of estate and people (slaves) as the fundament of society

Contradictions…

Barlow’s Declaration

● declaration of independence from outside powers

● intended to keep any state intervention out ● recognizing only one Golden Rule● stating a truely democratic and egalitarian

domain● declaring no material constraints

Critique Trend & Barbrook

● 60s heritage of utopian visions, as a merger of alternative hippie culture and entrepreneurship

● disembodied Western platonic philosophy (free Mind, not material conditions or restrictions)

● critique on notions of inherently innovative, emancipating, democraticizing dynamics of ICT

Utopian perspective

● no bodily or material constraints

● autonomous new social formations (virtual communities, public spheres)

● media monopolies broken, the end of copyright restrictions

● free floating minds, free speech, free downloads

● no state subsidies or regulation needed

● clean non-polluting technologies

● everyone sender/receiver, no one is excluded, everyone is empowerd

● all information within reach, cultures and subcultures can flourish

● ultimate direct democracy (electronic agora)

● overthrow of the industrial powers that be

● new emancipating citizenship, sunny revolution

Dystopian perspective

● erosion of social cohesion by pseudo communities

● cultural decline, trivial entertainment and gaming, information glut, swindlers, terrorists, and perverts flourish

● state surveillance and discipline everywhere

● marketing, consumerism and media conglomerates everywhere, economy and commodification colonize everything

● exhausting natural resources by economic growth, pollution

● citizens reduced to consumers or potential terrorists

● more and more exclusion of minorities, women unfriendly, widening even more the gap between rich and poor

● state protects private ownership and slavery; only a big revolution of ownership relations will help

Left● focus on social groups and equality, non-equality is

not natural but social-economically induced● improving position of the poor, low income class● focus on including the minorities, respect for

different values, 'political correctness'● citizenship is a matter of rights and public

protection of the poor and minorities● state regulation and policies to achieve this ● focus more on collectivity and public goods than on

individual freedom

Right● focus on individual (or elite), non-equality is natural ● improving position of the economy/entrepreneurs (or the

elite of wise men)● focus on law and order, conformation to dominant

values, 'political incorrectness'● citizenship is a matter of duties and taking care of

yourself● minimum of state regulation, execpt for militairy defense

and police force● focus more on individual freedom than on collectivity

and public goods

Scale from left to right

communist -> marxist -> old left -> new left ->

-> communitarian -> libertarian -> liberal ->

new right/neo-liberal -> old right/conservative

Indications

communist: practical perspective of total state planning and control

marxist: analytical perspective, struggle between capital and labor

old left: political organisation of working class, proletarians

new left: division between classes has been eroded, women and minorities to be included, room for alternative bohemian life styles

communitarian: focus on social cohesion in local community and civil society

libertarian: leftish, with strong focus on individual freedom and independence

liberal: focus on individual, belief in the justice of the free market, no law and order state

new right/neo-liberal: focus on individual and established elite, belief in the justice of the free market, but law and order state needed

old right/conservative: focus on established elite, strong law and order state