In terms of the deomcratization of the listening speace, Langdon Winner of the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute says that that since the internet grew so rapidly, the infrastructure was not able to be planned, and in wake of this instability, people have placed pressure upon the internet as a tool for “radical individualism” a sort of unabashed egoism:
“…[the] writings of cyberlibertarians revel in prospects for ecstatic self-fulfillment in cyberspace and emphasize the need for individuals to disburden themselves of encumbrances that might hinder the pursuit of rational self-interest. The experiential realm of digital devices and networked computing offers endless opportunities for achieving wealth, power and sensual pleasure. Because inherited structures of social, political, and economic organization pose barriers to the exercise of personal power and self-realization, they simply must be removed.” (Winner)
Winner cites the Magna carta which explains, "that cyberspace will play an important role knitting together the diverse communities of tomorrow, facilitating the creation of 'electronic neighborhoods' bound together not by geography but by shared interests." (Magna Carta)
Yet as the later chapters of this book will showBurkhart makes it clear that despite thisdecentralization which the internet enables (and which cyberlibertarians zealotly hail as their ticket to freedom) there exists a continual threat of re-colonization through the usurping of new media, technologies and techniques by capitalist interests. He discredits the safety in diversity strategy, since he denies the long-term applicability Hardt and Negri’s “multitude” model, (where a huge variety of social categories based around interests or demographic devisions “eclipse” the idea of corruptible “masses”)
Winner: http://www.rpi.edu/~winner/cyberlib2.html
October 25 Readings-Burkhart / Discussion
This is the discussion related to the wiki page October 25 Readings-Burkhart.