Is a social media-fuelled uprising the worst case scenario? Elements for a sociology of UK riots
By Antonio A. Casilli & Paola Tubaro. French version provided by OWNI.fr.
 “It's time we heard a little bit less about the economic and sociological justifications for what is in my view nothing less than wanton criminality”. (Boris Johnson, public speech London, Aug 9, 2011) |
 “We are not social scientists. We have to deal with urgent situations” (Paul McKeever, Police Federation Chairman, SkyNews Aug 11, 2011) |
 “Nowadays sabotaging the social machine involves reappropriating and reinventing the ways of interrupting its networks”. (The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection, Semiotext(e), 2009, p. 112) |
This is the first of a series of joint posts of Bodyspacesociety + Paola Tubaro’s Blog. You are kindly invited to visit both websites, featuring plenty of interesting stuff.
Why social media bring democracy to developing countries and anarchy to rich ones?
O sublime hypocrisy of European mainstream media! The same technologies that a few months ago were glorified for single-handedly bringing down dictators during the Arab Spring, are now at the core of an unprecedented moral panic for their alleged role in fuelling UK August 2011 riots. In a recent post, Christian Fuchs rightly maintains:
And, o! exquisite refinement in the ancient art of double standard: the same conservative press that indignantly deplored dictators’ censorship of online communication, now call for plain suppression of entire telecommunication networks – as unashamedly exemplified by this piece in the Daily Mail.
Fact is, moral panic about social media is the specular reflection of the acritical enthusiasm about these very same technologies. They both spring from the same technological determinism that acclaims new gimmicks and buzzwords to smooth away the economic and social roots of unrest.
Having said that, what can we, as social scientists, say about the role of social media in assisting or even encouraging widespread political conflict? Very little indeed, insofar as we do not have data on actual social media use and traffic during riots. It would take months to gather that data – and who can wait for so long in a media environment that spits out “quick and dirty” analyses by the hour?
Parution de « Cultures du numérique » (Ed. du Seuil)
Le voilà entre mes main : le premier exemplaire de « Cultures du numérique » que j’ai dirigé et dont j’ai le plaisir de vous annoncer la parution aux Editions du Seuil.
Il s’agit du numéro 88 de la revue Communications, un numéro spécial qui marque le cinquante ans de cette glorieuse publication fondée en 1961 par Roland Barthes et Edgar Morin. Nous en sommes tous très fiers, et à juste titre. Ce numéro est appelé à devenir un ouvrage de référence pour les étudiants et les chercheurs qui – en nombre croissant – s’intéressent au Web et à ses conséquences sociétales, culturelles, politiques.
« Cultures du numérique » propose un panorama des études francophones sur les usages des technologies de l’information et de la communication. Vingt-trois chercheurs, venant des domaines les plus disparates, ont participé : psychologues, philosophes, médecins, économistes, sociologues, experts de digital humanities et de sciences de la communication.
Voilà la table des matières complète, Read more
Avatar activism and the « survival of the mediated » hypothesis
By now, you’re all way too familiar with the Egyptian Facebook activism. And everybody and his sister has spent the last year-and-a-half discussing how wrong was Malcolm Gladwell in dismissing Moldovan Twitter activism. And millions of you have smiled at Gaddafi’s crazy rant against Tunisian Wikileaks activism. But I’m sure the notion of Avatar activism appeals to a more restricted audience.
In an attempt to fill this gap in your general knowledge, let me point you to a recent article by Mark Deuze.
Mark Deuze (2010). Survival of the mediated Journal of Cultural Science, 3 (2)
One interesting part of the essay deals with protestors around the world appropriating the aesthetic codes and themes of James Cameron’s film Avatar. In the Palestinian village of Bil’in, for instance, activists disguised as blue-skinned Na’vi fight « Israeli imperialism ». The same goes with other community initiatives around the world, such as the Dongria Kondh tribe in eastern India and the Kayapo Indians in the Amazon rainforest.
Colloque Performance, théâtre, anthropologie (INHA/EHESS, 24-25 mai 2011)
J’interviendrai lors de ces deux journées d’études organisées par Georges Vigarello, Sylvie Roques et Christian Biet. Voilà pour l’instant l’argumentaire et le programme – cela s’annonce tout à fait passionnant.
PERFORMANCE, théâtre, anthropologie
Le mot de performance s’est imposé dans le monde de l’art. Les chorégraphies de Jérôme Bel en danse, le « bio-art » de Yann Marussich jusqu’aux transformations physiques d’Orlan en sont autant d’exemples Il est porté sans doute par un contexte : celui de la productivité, de l’innovation, voire de l’informatisation1. Il s’est imposé aussi au théâtre, d’autant plus facilement d’ailleurs que la place du « faire » y semble première. Il s’y est même banalisé, régulièrement évoqué, jusqu’à apparaître quelquefois comme étant à l’essence même du jeu2. L’intérêt indéniable est ici d’aiguiser l’attention vers la part physique du spectacle, son versant le plus charnel.
- Voir Innovation et performance, approches interdisciplinaires, dir. D. Foray et J. Mannesse, Paris, EHESS, 1999. ↩
- F. Dupont, « Facere ludos. La fonction rituelle et l’écriture du texte dans la comédie romaine: un exemple, le pseudolus de Plaute », Colloque international, Genève, 27-29 novembre 2003. ↩
Bums, bridges, and primates: Some elements for a sociology of online interactions
This text was presented at the conference “Web Culture: New Modes of Knowledge, New Sociabilities”, Villa Gillet, Lyon (France), February 10th, 2011. Check against delivery. Click here for the .pdf version. Click here for the French translation.
In today’s presentation I will focus on the kind of social structures that users of computer-mediated global online communication networks (notably, the Web and social media) contribute to put in place. The point I will try to make is that science understanding of Web-based sociabilities has progressed enormously in the last decade, and that this should inform public policies touching on the Web, its regulation and governance.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE COMPUTER BUMS GONE?
Early glimpses into the social implications of ICT at a micro-level (that is: for the users themselves) date back to the mid-1970s and focus on the negative effect of these technologies. At the very origins of computer culture, we witness the emergence of the stereotype of the socially awkward computer hacker, isolated by the calculating machine which alienates him and keeps him apart from his peers. This characterization dates back to a time before the Web. In his Computer Power and Human Reason : From Judgement to Calculation (1976) Joseph Weizenbaum delivers us the portrayal of this subculture of compulsive computer programmer – or, as he liked to dub them, “computer bums”.
These are “possessed students” who “work until they nearly drop, twenty, thirty hours at a time. Their food, if they arrange it, is brought to them: coffee, Cokes, sandwiches. If possible, they sleep on cots near the computer. […] Their rumpled clothes, their unwashed and unshaven faces, and their uncombed hair all testify that they are oblivious to their bodies and to the world in which they move. They exist, at least when so engaged, only through and for the computers.”
Since this first occurrence, and for a long time, common sense has almost unmistakably associated computer use and social isolation. Cultural analysts, novelists, commentators have been developing on this trope. Iconic cyberpunk author William Gibson, famously described Case, the main character of Neuromancer (1984), as a cyberspace-addict incapable of functioning in an offline social situation.
My article « A History of Virulence » finally published in Body and Society
Sage journal Body and Society vol 16, n. 4 is finally out! Pardon my enthusiasm, but this issue features my 30-page essay A History of Virulence: The Body and Computer Culture in the 1980s: a killer mix of hackerdom, virality and computer nostalgia that also happens to be IMHO one hell of a contribution to the cultural history of the body in cyberculture.
Abstract: The recent turn in ubiquitous computing challenges previous theories of ‘technological disembodiment’. In a mediascape where technology permeates bodies, the current discourse of viral information insinuates elements of fear and risk associated with both physical presence and computer usage. This article adopts a socio-historical approach to investigate the factors underlying the early emergence of such features of our social imaginary by tracking them back to the computer culture of the 1980s. Analysing both mainstream and underground press sources from 1982 to 1991, a discursive core is revealed that revolves around the ‘computer virus’ metaphor. Popularized in this period, this notion came to resonate with mounting moral panic over the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Anxieties about the body in computer culture are then conceptualized (and historically contextualized) along two dimensions: first, the political proximity between HIV/AIDS activists and computer hackers during the FDA clinical trials controversy of 1987—8; and, second, the ideological reinforcement provided by academic progressive elements to these political actions. The implications of these results are discussed.
A few weeks ago, I published a « autor’s cut » version on this very blog (here part1 and part2) and you can download the unread proofs by clicking here (not for citation, please). Of course, if you want to download the published version, help yourself here. You might as well drop me a kind email and ask for a certain attachment ;) And if you want to cite the article, because that’s what academics do, please find enclosed the complete reference.
Casilli, Antonio A. (2010). A History of Virulence: The Body and Computer Culture in the 1980s Body & Society, 16 (4), 1-31 DOI: 10.1177/1357034X10383880
Archéologies du Cyborg – Hybridation, contamination, individuation
La deuxième séance de mon séminaire EHESS Corps et TIC : approches socio-anthropologiques des usages numériques a eu lieu le jeudi 9 déc. 2010. Le sujet traité : la notion de cyborg, son impact sur la culture numérique contemporaine dès la parution du célèbre Cyborg Manifesto de Donna Haraway. Voilà les slides et une bibliographie contenant les textes cités.
La prochaine séance (où il sera question d’avatars bleus) aura lieu le jeudi 13 janvier 2011 de 17h à 19h en salle 5, 105 bd Raspail 75006 Paris. Pour s’inscrire, il suffit de m’envoyer un petit mail gentil.
Are social media deepening nutritional inequalities?
CNN’s food blog Eatocracy has joined forces with the popular location-based social networking service Foursquare to launch a new healthy eating campaign. The concept is very simple: people are encouraged to check in local farmers markets to unlock special ‘Healthy Eater’ badges. The mix of emulation and status anxiety motivating most Foursquare users should expose them to nutritionally correct environments. It should also provide CNN journalists with something to talk about (I was gonna say ‘something to sink their teeth into’) for a week-long series dedicated to tomatoes and jovial shopkeepers.
If you detect a little sarcasm in my prose, it is not because of the unlabored definition of health that such intiative seems to promote. CNN might be perpetuating the stereotype that ‘healthy’ equates to ‘fruit and vegetables’. But, as far as social media are concerned, this is as good as it gets when it comes to health information campaigns.
Globe Genie : Google lance-t-il un nouveau service de téléportation ?
Globe Genie est une application qui « téléporte » ses utilisateurs vers des points au hasard de la planète. Quelques cases à cocher, une petite carte de Google Maps pour s’orienter et un paysage tiré au hasard de Google Street View. Et surtout, un bouton « Shuffle », pour aller ailleurs, n’importe où. Une interface ‘naïve’, pour un résultat décidément captivant. C’est un peu comme Chatroulette, mais en moins sexe ; comme StumbleUpon, mais en plus poétique. On peut y passer des heures, en imaginant de se matérialiser aux quatre coins du monde. Tantôt, au Finlande, d’un matin de printemps…
..tantôt, d’une nuit d’été, au fin fond du Iowa.
Ce qui se passe…
Dear all,
d’abord, ce qui se passe : je suis super-chargé – dernières heures avant la parution de Les liaisons numériques, mon nouveau livre - en librairie demain. Trois cent trente-quatre pages (décidément j’ai le don de la synthèse) pour montrer comment, pourquoi, et jusqu’à quel point le Web reconfigure notre manière de « faire société ». Si vous avez échappé à ceux qui en parlaient sur Twitter (bien sûr, attisés par Votre Dévoué;), ou à la radio, ou dans la presse – vous avez par contre remarqué que désormais ce blog est associé à un site web entièrement consacré au livre : http://www.liaisonsnumeriques.fr a vu le jour grâce à l’aide précieuse de Mick et de Gaspard B (thank you, guys !).
Donc, ce qui va se passer : dorénavant, toute actu liée au livre et tout le côté « public » de mon activité sera traité sur Liaisonsnumeriques.fr, tandis que Bodyspacesociety.eu deviendra surtout un blog d’approfondissement (avec un peu plus de place pour mes coups de coeur – vous allez voir dans quelques jours, avec la prochaine Super Sunday Sociological Song). Comme l’indiquent les extensions des domaines, le site du livre sera exclusivement en français, alors que le blog continuera à être joyeusement multilingue. Voilà, that’s all folks : bonne lecture !
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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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