Rhetoric, Ideology, and Failure:An Introduction to Virtualpolitik

Elizabeth LoshUniversity of California, Irvine

Rhetoric, that’s bad, right?

“political games and 'who's up', 'who's down' rhetoric”

“the rhetoric emanating from Tehran”“underscored the need for actions that

match the rhetoric”

Rhetoric is about deception or about a lack of substance

This wasn’t always the case

Besides, we all use rhetoric

Appropriate timing and anawareness of persuasive appeals matters

September 11, 2001

Election Day, 2006

Election Day, 2008

McCain’s disasters

Obama’s successes with existing platforms

numerical advantage and power laws

low tech interactivity

third-party participation: mastery of memes requiring no media buys

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Government websites (including .gov sites for children)

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

National digital libraries

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Blogs by policy makers and elected representatives

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Online video and podcasts from government agencies

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

E-mail and PowerPoint presentations used for state business

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Virtual tours of national landmarks

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Government presentations and offices in virtual 3D worlds

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Videogames for military personnel and emergency first-responders

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Online tutorials about workplace issues and for job training

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Official use of social networking, social bookmarking, and file-sharing sites

The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"

Maps and other visual representations of "big data“

Issues about surveillance and authentication

Ideology appears to be the opposite of “science” or “common sense”

But can we ever get beyond ideology?Can we ever get outside ideology?

What do we fail to learn about values, knowledge systems, institutions, and

power when we think that what we are expressing is purely rational, logical, or

commonsensical?

What does failure tell us?

The conflict between regulation and content-creation for institutions

What happens when digital files reach unintended audiences and are used for

unanticipated purposes?

The perils of distributed networks and computational media

Two stories about misunderstanding the Internet that involve elected representatives and

government experts

Story One:Videogame video and fan forums

Story Two:Web generators and blogs

I’m interested in more complex explanations than “bureaucratic incompetence” or the “generation gap”

What does this “media illiteracy” tell us?

May 4th, 2006United States House Permanent Select Committee

on Intelligence

One of the latest video games modified by

militants is the popular "Battlefield 2" from leading video game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc of Redwood City, California.

Jeff Brown, a spokesman for Electronic Arts, said enthusiasts often write software modifications, known as "mods," to video games.

"Millions of people create mods on games around the world," he said. "We have absolutely no control over them. It's like drawing a mustache on a picture."

David Morgan, Reuters

It wasn't intended for the purpose what it

was portrayed to be by the media. So no I don't regret making a funny video . . . why should I?

The only thing I regret is thinking that news from Reuters was objective and always right. The least they could do is some online research before publishing this.

If they label me al-Qaeda just for making this silly video, that makes you think, what is this al-Qaeda? And is everything al-Qaeda?

"Samir”

Projection and Mirroring

The oral tradition now also has an aspect of

rumor. A(n) event takes place. There is an explosion in a city.

Rumor is that the United States Air Force dropped a bomb and is doing indiscriminate killing.

This ends up being discussed on the street. It ends up showing up in a Friday sermon in a mosque or in another religious institution. It then gets recycled into written materials. Media picks up the story and broadcasts it, at which point it's now a fact.

In this particular case that we were telling you about, it showed up on a network television.

Witness Eric Michael

And there you see how all these products are linked together.

And you can see where the games are set to psychologically condition you to go kill coalition

forces.

You can see how they use humor.

You can see how the entire campaign is carefully crafted to first evoke an emotion and then to evoke a response and to direct that response in the direction that they want.

Witness Eric Michael

October 28, 2006 Bloomington, Indiana

And thus, I now present: Chris's Northwest Airlines Boarding Pass

Generator

Using this, you can:

1. Meet your elderly grandparents at the gate2. 'Upgrade' yourself once on the airplane –by printing another boarding pass for a ticket you're already purchased, only this time, in Business Class.3. Demonstrate that the TSA Boarding Pass/ID check is useless.

Have Fun! Christopher Soghoian

Ed: The only way for these kind of problems to get fixed, are through through public full disclosure. TSA/DHS cannot be expected to fix anything unless they are publicly shamed into doing so.

This situation is made even worse when you consider the fact that you can print your own boarding pass online at home.

This is often a bunch of text/html, with one or two images (a barcode, and perhaps an airline logo). It is trivially easy – as in, 20 seconds with a text-editor, and not even requiring you to open photoshop – to open it up, and change the name.

Christopher Soghoian

The Church Sign Generator

Generators as Satire: Tell Zell

Web 2.0 Generators

These pages serve two purposes. The first is to distribute a boarding pass generator for NWA. The second is to demonstrate the framework that the NWA generator was written in, with the hope that you will write your own document generators like this one.

The motivation for writing this boarding pass generator and framework is twofold. First, it is clear that even though the weaknesses in our airport security system were known about for some time, no action was taken until Christopher Soghoian produced his script. His generator got people's attention, and was taken off the internet.

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What features do these stories share? Why is criminality associated with Internet

satires that involve remixing or coding digital content?

How are these stories embedded in discursive practices?

Why don't government officials understand?

Why are fan cultures and hacker cultures particularly suspicious?

Fans are seen as parasitic and lacking in content-creation abilities.

Hackers are seen as devious and likely to subvert the deliberative practices that others engage in openly and honestly.

Both are portrayed as bad citizens who abuse existing power relationships.

How could these other models of citizenship be explained?

Authenticating Citizens

Authenticating the President

In the name of “participatory culture,” how does the government compel its citizens to participate in particular copyright regimes that constrain speech, submit to corporate user agreements that rewrite the social contract, and divulge private information to commercial vendors without their knowledge or consent?

Epilogue: A Critic of the Googlization of Government