Cyberpower I: technopower and digital divide
1. Different approaches to Power
Ref: Cyberpower: The culture and politics of cyberspace and the Internet, Chapter I, by Tim Jordan, Routledge 1999.
Max Weber: Power as a possession
- it imposes effect onto others
- it receives resistance
- it says "no"
Barry Barnes: Power as a social order
- it makes you conform (a set of rule, such as traffic light)
- underlying sanction / punishment
- collective knowledge / consensus
Michel Foucault: Power as domination
- it exists in form of relation
- discursive knowledge: both repressive and productive (constitutive of subjectivities, e.g student)
- governance - institutional, daily tactics, knowledge backup
Example: Censorship as a state power - Max Weber, as a common sense regulation - Barry Burnes, and as subject constitution via knowledge and back up by institution (e.g. Chineseness) - Foucault
2. Operation of power online and offline
2.1. Individual
- transgression myth: extension of self and identity fluidities
- individual possession: PC, internet access, knowledge, rights, etc.
- individualized management: email - traces: cuhk.edu.hk
- class and education background via interaction, e.g language in cybersex
- Avatar (online identity) - Second Life research by Choi Chu Wai, Lai Ka Chun
2.2. Elite and virtual social order
- Technopower: infrastructure for online social interaction: hierarchical and virtual social (online harassment, bullying)
- Technopower spiral and techno elites
2.3. Virtual social
- virtual communities
- Fan's club research 2003 virtual community and its political implications
- Nationalism - imagined community, nation across border - Al Qaede or virtual police, e.g 強國論壇 or 香港網上獨立運動研究 by 馮建瑋, 薛健鋒, 何健豪
- Social relation: Cyberfeminism
A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s - Donna Haraway (1991)
- challenges to bio-determined gender construction
- public vs private
- how about gender inequality, internet pornography (youtube), cyber-rape, etc?
- Woman's resource (新婦女協進會 - 婦女資源網)and (En)gendering digital body via language and practice
- other social minority, e.g. 互聯網與香港同性戀社群研究 by 楊達祺
2.4. Resistance
- states and grassroots confrontation in different forms
- censorship vs freedom of expression
- copyright
- Internet crime
2.4. Production setting
- Financial Capital into cyberspace
- global production and consumption
2.5. Myth and desire
(Ref: Myth-ing links: Power and Community in Information Highway, by Vincent Mosco)
- Ohmynews' success: US10,000 in its micro payment system, Fund raising
- Facebook: 1.5 billion for 5% stock
- New media mobilization
- Networking effect
- etc.
2.6. Discourse and subjectivities
e.g Individualism and freedom (Matrix hero?)
3. Case: Digital Divide
- Digital divide is defined as the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographical areas at different social-economic levels in respect of their opportunities to access IT and the use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities. (Not Power Law)
- Beyond ICT (internet communication technology)
- Developing countries VS. developed countries
(Internet world statistic 2007)
(Internet penetration rate within Asia 2007)
- Class, race, gender, age, rural vs urban
- Language, skill, time
- Attempts in bridging digital divide - e.g. One Laptop per Child
- Hong Kong: Digital 21 strategy
- Discussion: Highest broadband penetration, no digital divide in Hong Kong? What are the aspects of our digital divide?
Cyberpolitics
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