Snob.ru : distinction 2.0 ou inégalité en réseau ?
Au hasard de mes explorations en ligne, je découvre Snob.ru, service de réseautage pour « l’élite de la société russe ». Tout comme son homologue international asmallworld.net, ce site créé en 2008 permet à des personnes aisées d’afficher leurs goûts et leurs styles de vie distinctifs dans un cadre valorisant. Sponsorisé par le milliardaire Mikhaïl Prokhorov, le réseau a été souvent présenté dans la presse internationale comme un repaire de nouveaux beaufs, symptôme de la décadence anthropologique de la Russie de Putin.
Mais il est surtout une mine d’or pour tout chercheur travaillant sur les pratiques de consommation actuelles, et surtout une occasion unique pour mettre à jour certaines notions sociologiques, de la consommation ostentatoire de Veblen à la distinction de Bourdieu, de l‘élite du pouvoir de C. Wright-Mills au rôle de la violence symbolique chez Michel Pinçon et Monique Pinçon-Charlot.
Some modest remarks on the role of citizen lobbying in defeating #SOPA
So apparently SOPA is dead, for now. If you’ve been following the recent events surrounding this infamous anti-piracy (and anti-free speech) law, you know that’s good news for a lot of people – me included. The way this thing will go down in history is pretty much that “an iniquitous piece of legislation was to be voted, but a 7 million-strong Google petition, a rally in San Francisco and a massive online campaign (including a spectacular 24-hour blackout) defeated it”. Unfortunately, this means downplaying the role of another important element of this story: lobbying.
If you are not aware of how US lobbying works (or, worse, if you are European), let me break it down for you. Lobbying basically means talking to the right persons and influence them in following a certain political line. Sometimes this line is instantiated by a clear gain in terms of funding for politicians – to be used to be re-elected, to promote new policies, public works programmes, or political activity in general. Government resources are scarse, so this keeps the machine running, although in some cases it borders on buying votes. Telecommunication and electronics companies are among the biggest “buyers”.
Communication and electronics sector displays one of the highest and fastest increasing lobbying spending. Source: Sunlight Foundation
One of the greatest comedians of our time: Slavoj Žižek
I’m serious: the marxiste célèbre and #Occupy Wall Street avuncular philosopher Slavoj Žižek is really a funny man. Case in point, this excellent coffee table book containing a collection of the jokes he spices up his impenetrable prose with (complete with references to the original texts).
Žižek employs jokes like Plato resorted to myths as heuristic devices designed to convey a logical meaning. Thus, they are used iteratively — the Marx Brother one-liners about self-identity or refusal of choice, the Rabinovitch anecdote about realism, the skeptical paradox about the fiancée who’s late for a rendez-vous…
Find a selection of the best scanned pages on the publisher’s website, and discover the maieutic value of laughter. (Also discover that this is a project of the Mickey Mouse Club ft. the norwegian artist Audun Mortensen, and that the book is actually printed in a very limited edition of 1…) Read more
What’s holding back Digital Sociology?
New year, new issue of the online journal Fast Capitalism. This is a special one, with a special section on Academia in the Internet age (one of my topics of choice – as you can see from this recent communication of mine at the Sciences Sociales 2.0 symposium at the ENS Lyon).
Influence, ignorance, and doubt: two scientific articles
As a young boy, I was familiar with the books and movies of the Italian pop-philosopher Luciano De Crescenzo. “The question mark”, was one of his favourite quotes, “is the symbol of good. The exclamation mark, the symbol of evil. When you meet someone who has doubts, you can take it easy. That means he’s a good person, someone broad-minded and tolerant… But if you meet someone who is overconfident, someone of unshakable faith – you should be afraid.” (Here is how it sounds in Italian, in this excerpt from his 1984 film Thus spake Bellavista).
A couple of recently published articles seem to make the same point – but in a more formal way. The first one has been published in Science on December 16th, 2011. Based on observations of animal behaviour (I know, I know… but bear with me please), the authors emit the educated guess that, within a human group, less-informed individuals are able to balance overly polarized political views.
Couzin, I., Ioannou, C., Demirel, G., Gross, T., Torney, C., Hartnett, A., Conradt, L., Levin, S., & Leonard, N. (2011). Uninformed Individuals Promote Democratic Consensus in Animal Groups Science, 334 (6062), 1578-1580 DOI: 10.1126/science.1210280
Dictators, democracies, and technology: Evgeny Morozov’s keynote speech at #28c3 (Berlin, 12.27.11)
This is the pre-release video of Evgeny Morozov’s keynote speech Marriage From Hell: On the Secret Love Affair Between Dictators and Western Technology Companies delivered on dec. 27th, 2011 at the 28c3, 28th Chaos Communication Congress « Behind Enemy Lines ».
Why sanctions on technology companies who do business with totalitarian countries are ineffective? How much know-your-customer rule should we delegate to technologies? Did the Arab Spring end censorship and Web filtering in the Middle-East and North Africa? Are Russia, China and Western democracies becoming more and more unconfortable with too much Internet freedom? Why we need to act NOW against domestic surveillance? These, and other important questions are answered in the speech (which by the way starts at 3:20…)
Compte rendu du séminaire « Idéologie des jeux vidéo » d’Olivier Mauco [Updated: 15 déc. 2011]
Dans le cadre de mon séminaire EHESS Étudier les cultures du numérique : approches théoriques et empiriques, le 14 décembre 2011 j’ai eu le plaisir d’accueillir Olivier Mauco (Paris 1 – UFR11, CeSSP) pour une séance complètement centrée sur les jeux vidéo. Lisez le compte rendu du séminaire sur Storify et retrouvez les slides sur le site Web d’Olivier Mauco.
« Idéologie » des jeux vidéo d’action : Configurations ludo-techniques de Pac-Man et GTA IV
Cultures et sociabilités en ligne (slides séminaire EHESS 2011)
Hier, mercredi 16 novembre 2011, première séance de mon séminaire EHESS pour l’année universitaire 2011/12 : Étudier les cultures du numérique : approches théoriques et empiriques. Le séminaire a lieu le 3e mercredi du mois de 17 h à 19 h en salle 587 (bât. Le France, 190-198 av de France 75013 Paris). Précision : j’espère que l’EHESS va nous trouver une autre salle : hier elle était pleine à craquer. Ce qui est une bonne nouvelle pour moi, mais pas pour les étudiants qui ont dû suivre le cours assis par terre… Enfin, voilà les slides de ma présentation « Cultures et sociabilités d’Internet : par delà le dualisme en ligne / hors-ligne ».
A century of McLuhan: understanding social media
I was among the invited speakers of the McLuhan centenary conference McLuhan100 Then Now Next at the University of Toronto. So I’m back from a full week of scientific research, art, concerts, and conversations with great contemporary media scholars such as Ian Bogost, Barry Wellman, Arthur Kroker, Jay Bolter, Derrick de Kerckhove, Peppino Ortoleva, Mike Wesch, Joshua Meyrowitz, Michaël Oustinoff, Hervé Fischer. But enough with the name dropping. Here’s my own presentation (slides+text), where I mix up McLuhan, Merton, Facebook and Teilhard de Chardin. Enjoy.
Text of the presentation: Read more
[Vidéo] Insurrections augmentées : l’impact des médias sociaux sur les émeutes (updated 12/11/11)
Le samedi 5 novembre 2011, l’association Ars Industrialis a organisé au Centre Pompidou un séminaire sur « La guerre civile numérique ». Le rencontre visait à identifier les bonnes questions relatives à ce thème, qui fait couler beaucoup d’encre depuis quelques temps (v. par ex. le livre de Paul Jorion). [Update 13 novembre 2011: la vidéo de ma présentation + les diapos sont finalement en ligne!]. La présentation est basée sur la recherche effectuée avec Paola Tubaro sur les émeutes britanniques de 2011.
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What’s this blog about?
I'm an associate professor of Digital Humanities at the Paris Institute of Technology (ParisTech) and a researcher in sociology at the Edgar-Morin Center (EHESS, Paris). Bodyspacesociety offers regular updates about my ongoing research, publications, and teaching. If you want updates on media features and conferences, please click here.
The views presented on this blog are solely mine and do not represent the positions of my institutions of affiliation.
New books out now!
The special issue of the journal 'Communications' Cultures du numérique is out. Also, you might want to check my latest book Les liaisons numériques. Vers une nouvelle sociabilité?. Both published by Editions du Seuil, both available in bookshops and online.
» Buy Liaisons numériques
» Visit the companion website
» Buy Cultures du numérique (Communications, n. 88)
All blog content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 France License.
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