Networked Publics

by Kazys Varnelis

Overview

How maturing digital media and network technologies are transforming place, culture, politics, and infrastructure in our everyday life.

Digital media and network technologies are now part of everyday life. The Internet has become the backbone of communication, commerce, and media; the ubiquitous mobile phone connects us with others as it removes us from any stable sense of location. Networked Publics examines the ways that the social and cultural shifts created by these technologies have transformed our relationships to (and definitions of) place, culture, politics, and infrastructure.

Four chapters—each by an interdisciplinary team of scholars using collaborative software—provide a synoptic overview along with illustrative case studies. The chapter on place describes how digital networks enable us to be present in physical and networked places simultaneously—often at the expense of nondigital commitments. The chapter on culture explores the growth and impact of amateur-produced and remixed content online. The chapter on politics examines the new networked modes of bottom-up political expression and mobilization. And finally, the chapter on infrastructure notes the tension between openness and control in the flow of information, as seen in the current controversy over net neutrality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262517928
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	08/17/2012
Series:	The MIT Press
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	186
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kazys Varnelis is Director of the Network Architecture Lab, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, and Member of the Founding Faculty at the School of Architecture, University of Limerick.

Mizuko Ito is a cultural anthropologist who studies new media use, particularly among young people, in Japan and the United States, and a Professor in Residence at the University of California Humanities Research Institute.

Kazys Varnelis is Director of the Network Architecture Lab, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, and Member of the Founding Faculty at the School of Architecture, University of Limerick.

Anne Friedberg was Professor of Critical Studies in the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California, and the author of Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern.

Mizuko Ito is a cultural anthropologist who studies new media use, particularly among young people, in Japan and the United States, and a Professor in Residence at the University of California Humanities Research Institute.

Kazys Varnelis is Director of the Network Architecture Lab, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, and Member of the Founding Faculty at the School of Architecture, University of Limerick.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction Mizuko Ito 1

1 Place: The Networking of Public Space Kazys Varnelis Anne Friedberg 15

2 Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Participation Adrienne Russell Mizuko Ito Todd Richmond Marc Tuters 43

3 Politics: Deliberation, Mobilization, and Networked Practices of Agitation Merlyna Lim Mark E. Kann 77

4 Infrastructure: Network Neutrality and Network Futures François Bar Walter Baer Shahram Ghandeharizadeh Fernando Ordonez 109

Conclusion: The Meaning of Network Culture Kazys Varnelis 145

Notes on Contributors 165

Index 167

What People are Saying About This

Howard Rheingold

Networked Publics is a lucid, timely, and broadly interdisciplinary look at the most important technological and social change of our time: the sudden wiring and unwiring of the planet into a broadband network, with communication devices in the pockets of a significant proportion of the world's population. There is very little that is more important, more discussed, and less widely understood than the meaning of the emerging technosocial networks that are adopting digital media for a wide range of social, cultural, political, and economic ends. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of anthropologists, economists, educators, designers, political scientists, computer scientists, legal and policy experts the Networked Publics group was the only way to try to capture the meaning of a phenomenon that is interdisciplinary by its nature. The team project blog was a beacon of clear thinking while the project was in progress, and the book is a sound foundation for debates about what networked publics mean, how they can be encouraged, how they should be regulated, how to protect against their dangerous aspects.

Lev Manovich

Networked Publics is the place to start for anyone seeking to understand the symbiotic changes in new media and society today. Essential reading for both specialists and general readers.

Henry Jenkins

The Networked Publics group brought together smart people across a range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives to engage in a serious and sustained conversation about the current state and future directions of the new media landscape. The questions they ask are ones we need to consider as we learn how to live, work, collaborate, create, and engage as citizens in our new networked society.

Endorsement

The Networked Publics group brought together smart people across a range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives to engage in a serious and sustained conversation about the current state and future directions of the new media landscape. The questions they ask are ones we need to consider as we learn how to live, work, collaborate, create, and engage as citizens in our new networked society.

—Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

From the Publisher

Networked Publics is a lucid, timely, and broadly interdisciplinary look at the most important technological and social change of our time: the sudden wiring and unwiring of the planet into a broadband network, with communication devices in the pockets of a significant proportion of the world's population. There is very little that is more important, more discussed, and less widely understood than the meaning of the emerging technosocial networks that are adopting digital media for a wide range of social, cultural, political, and economic ends. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of anthropologists, economists, educators, designers, political scientists, computer scientists, legal and policy experts the Networked Publics group was the only way to try to capture the meaning of a phenomenon that is interdisciplinary by its nature. The team project blog was a beacon of clear thinking while the project was in progress, and the book is a sound foundation for debates about what networked publics mean, how they can be encouraged, how they should be regulated, how to protect against their dangerous aspects.

—Howard Rheingold, author of Smartbombs: The Next Social Revolution

Networked Publics is the place to start for anyone seeking to understand the symbiotic changes in new media and society today. Essential reading for both specialists and general readers.

—Lev Manovich, author of The Language of New Media and Soft Cinema

The Networked Publics group brought together smart people across a range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives to engage in a serious and sustained conversation about the current state and future directions of the new media landscape. The questions they ask are ones we need to consider as we learn how to live, work, collaborate, create, and engage as citizens in our new networked society.

—Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide