techno-apostle?

This week I’ve been accusingly called an “apostle” for the Internet, “gadget-girl”, and a “techno-utopianst.”  It’s true… I do get enthusiastic about technology… and it’s also true that I have embraced it and integrated it into most parts of my life, but that doesn’t mean that I think that in a single fell swoop “the Internet” can save our society. 

When it first started out, the Internet was a practical network that allow for a couple k of data to be exchanged between computers through the telephone lines.  This was it’s original, institutional function.  To facilitate communication.  26 years passed between the time that the first four node network was connected in 1968 (the first ARPANET) and Pizza Hut began taking online food orders in 1994 (History of the Internet).

The Media and other corporate organizations started to see ways in which they could capitalize on this wonderful new tool; so they started investing in it.  But they got too excited… and blew the bubble too big until it popped in 2001 (according to Wiki).  The dot-com bubble burst made corporations wary… and they kept their distance for the next 4 years.

But during those four years, millions of disenfranchised western youth started adopting this new technology for their own personal pleasures and a user-created media environment started to emerge.  Online communities have existed longer than amazon.com, eBay, and even Google (USENET message boards and listservs have been around since the early 80’s).

The modern blog emerged from out of the dot-com bubble; with the earliest account being pegged in 1994.  The blog and other user-created communities were thriving on the net.  Where the for-profit groups were over-investing economic capital into lofty online business ventures, many people were over-investing human capital into their own little social networks.  Let’s not forget that even MySpace started from humble beginnings in 2003.

Around 2004, corporatization of the Internet really started to pick-up.  With lessons learned from over-zealous investing during the late 90’s before the online customer base and technology was understood, a new business model emerged which adapted to and co-opted how the Internet was actually being used rather than how the media and corporations wanted it to be used.

And now, here we are in 2007… and we all know what the Internet looks like now.  Big Media has probably had the largest impact on the Internet from 2004 to now.  Terrified that this “Internet” was a threat to, not only their profits, but also to their voice as being the dominant in the mainstreaming of culture and information; major telecoms and their “outlet” franchises have been scrambling to retain that dominant voice in information dissemination and culture homogenization (there is all kinds of evidence that points towards the current media-panic towards the Internet which I will not bore you with but will pull out if you don’t believe it).

Anyway… so this brief and boring history of the Internet does have a point.

From my point of view, it is not the “Internet” in itself that has the potential to bring about change in the larger society in which it exists… it is the Internet’s users which have that potential.  “Smart” users will manipulate the technology rather than let the technology manipulate them.  And all it really comes down to (in my opinion) is education. 

The model from which the current incarnation of the Internet exists is not the model from which the Internet has its grassroots.  It is dualistic in this way.  But the grassroots model of the Internet has not died, it has evolved into social networking sites, the blogosphere, and online social movement networks.  Fortunately those who are most idealistic about the Internet have been using it far longer than FoxNews Corp and CNN.  I say fortunately because a certain level of techno-savvy is needed in order for these grassroots networks to exist and work within the current perverted and commercial manifestation of the Internet. 

So when people attack me for believing in this vehicle for corporate manipulation and culture domination; I feel that I need to clarify my position.  I am not interested in that level of the Internet… I do feel that it is a scourge on society.  And I am not proposing that the corporate world be thrown out of cyberspace… I am proposing that all users become “smart” users and then (I hope) that corporatization won’t matter.  They can embed all the pop-ups they want… I won’t click!

Further, I don’t mind so much that they are collecting market research data on me through my surfing.  In fact, I would be tickled if my surfing (taken concurrently with all of the other smart users surfing) actually could bring about change in the market.  If a million people are googling hybrid cars and alternative energy… checking out features and prices… then perhaps that data would be an added reason to make the products available and affordable to the general public.  If a million people start googling boycott Mal-Wart websites… perhaps Mal-Wart will take a reflexive step back and analyze why a million people are thinking about boycotting them.

It is all about profits… but in order for companies like Mal-Wart to make profits, they must have customers… and if customers are looking elsewhere, or demanding non-sweatshop produced clothing… if Mal-Wart wants to continue making profits… they will have to adapt to the markets.  Now I’m not an economist… but it seems to me that this is the way the market is supposed to work.  It’s supposed to be supply based on demand… not first stating what the demand should be and then flooding the market with it (as was attempted throughout the dot-com bubble).

One of the saddest things about the current manifestation of the Internet is the lack of critical surfing and thinking about the information that is being presented.  Someone I know (the same person who called me an apostle for the Internet) believes that information inundation is actually a tactic that has been employed by some directed source.  While I don’t necessarily believe that the information overload has come from anywhere in particular… I do agree that a plethora of words and ideas and images have been unleashed upon us like a tsunami.  The damaging aspect of this being that it has been done before our brains were ready to process it all at once.  No one installed the filters so there are a whole lot of impurities floating around.  One of the consequences of this, even amongst the smartest of users, is that critical thinking becomes cynical thinking as every form of non-experiential knowledge is questioned as be authoritative.  Everyone’s to busy worrying about what’s going on behind the scenes rather than bothering worrying about what’s going on on the surface.  But I digress…

The Internet is a tool… but it has also become a cultural context in itself.  And it is important to ensure that the virtual never supercedes the real in its importance.  But that does not mean that we can’t use it as a powerful networking tool which can have real-world consequence.  It is because of the rich cultural context emerging from the keystrokes and mouse-flicks that makes it a viable community oriented network. 

Not simply all the people’s voices… but all the people’s voices… connected.