Ubiquitous Computing & White Supremacy
I've been reading a lot of Phil Agre's stuff this summer, most recently this article (Agre, Philip E. 2002. “Cyberspace As American Culture.” Science As Culture 11: 171-189), which has given me a lot of food for thought. In it, he makes a compelling case for 'cyberspace' being an ideological construction and not a thing, or place, separate from 'the real world.' Here's a brief bit:
“My question, then, is this: is networked information technology separate from the world, or is it part of the world? Is the Internet replacing the vast sprawl of institutional arrangements in society, or is it increasingly embedded in those arrangements?
“It is easy to think of a traditional mainframe or personal computer as a parallel reality; the clumsy keyboard and screen interfaces to those computers can easily seem like a small window onto a different world. The main trend in computer interface design, however, is toward adapting computers to embodied activities: designing them to be portable, embedding them in cars and clothing, making them aware of their physical location, building them into special –purpose ‘information appliances’, enabling them to be ‘nomadically’ on the Internet wherever they go, and allowing them to establish spontaneous wireless network connections with any (p.182) other devices in their immediate vicinity. This kind of ‘ubiquitous’ computing (Weiser, 1993) is no longer remote from the world of routine activities and relationships. Interaction with computers is now indissociable from interaction with people and things, and it no longer makes sense to speak of a boundary between the cyberspace world and the real world.” (p.181)
Nothing really earth-shattering or revelatory here (this is part of Howard Rheingold's point in Smart Mobs), but a solidly argued point, nonetheless.
What gives me pause in all this is contemplating how (not if) white supremacists are deploying 'ubiquitous' computing for their nefarious ends. And, what does a 'smart mob' look like when the ones doing the smart-mobbing are neo-Nazis? One could speculate that it looks a lot like a lynch mob. To flip that, how can 'ubiquitous' computing be used to take action *against* white supremacists?
All questions today, no answers.
“My question, then, is this: is networked information technology separate from the world, or is it part of the world? Is the Internet replacing the vast sprawl of institutional arrangements in society, or is it increasingly embedded in those arrangements?
“It is easy to think of a traditional mainframe or personal computer as a parallel reality; the clumsy keyboard and screen interfaces to those computers can easily seem like a small window onto a different world. The main trend in computer interface design, however, is toward adapting computers to embodied activities: designing them to be portable, embedding them in cars and clothing, making them aware of their physical location, building them into special –purpose ‘information appliances’, enabling them to be ‘nomadically’ on the Internet wherever they go, and allowing them to establish spontaneous wireless network connections with any (p.182) other devices in their immediate vicinity. This kind of ‘ubiquitous’ computing (Weiser, 1993) is no longer remote from the world of routine activities and relationships. Interaction with computers is now indissociable from interaction with people and things, and it no longer makes sense to speak of a boundary between the cyberspace world and the real world.” (p.181)
Nothing really earth-shattering or revelatory here (this is part of Howard Rheingold's point in Smart Mobs), but a solidly argued point, nonetheless.
What gives me pause in all this is contemplating how (not if) white supremacists are deploying 'ubiquitous' computing for their nefarious ends. And, what does a 'smart mob' look like when the ones doing the smart-mobbing are neo-Nazis? One could speculate that it looks a lot like a lynch mob. To flip that, how can 'ubiquitous' computing be used to take action *against* white supremacists?
All questions today, no answers.
posted by Jessie Daniels at
3:55 PM
