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Week 9

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 3 months ago

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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