the website of paul aitken, guitarist – improviser – scholar
For students of the ICS MA Research Methods seminar “Critical Approaches to Internet Research,” April 22 & 24, 2009
The Seminar Notes include links to the Google and Wikipedia documentaries.
2009 Seminar Notes 1
2009 Seminar Notes 2
PowerPoint Slides
Murali, et al. on the impact of FUTON bias
My thanks to all who attended, I hope it was as beneficial for you as it was for me!
A couple of months ago I posted about Žižek: The Lecture!, which took place at the University of Leeds. Video of both the lecture and an interview conducted by Diane Myers prior to the event are up at SubalternStudies.
This past few months I have been lucky enough to be among the organisers for Slavoj Žižek’s visit to the University of Leeds on Tuesday 18 March. We got over 550 people out to see one of the most interesting and provocative intellectuals alive today. It was a great event that showed what a spirit of volunteerism and collective investment in a project can bring!
Pictures are up at subalternstudies.
Will Merrin posted a fascinating essay at Media Studies 2.o back in September, which I have only just now got around to reading. He addresses the social networking user through Roger Caillois’s 1935 essay “Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia“. Merrin critiques the social networking profile and points out a beef I’ve had for a while with the proliferation of Facebook and its boring, blue and white layout used for every person on the site:
Once the construction of a personal webpage required some degree of programming expertise. Today the social networking user merely interacts with, manipulates and fills-in pre-programmed templates and applications.
In an interesting twist, especially with the references to Baudrillard, who often points to the importance of symbolic exchange in pre-industrial society in his work, it seems that the personally designed webpage now takes on the aura of artisanship. In effect, opportunities for difference and “individuality” are better able to be expressed through the freedom of basic html design than the restricted and similar nature of the Facebook profile page, which looks the same for everyone and the content of which is dictated by that which is made available to Facebook users.
What one hopes will add to one’s distinction only adds to ones depersonalisation: how many images of friends posing with drinks are there already on Facebook? And there is no hope here of resistance. Even the refusal to post a photo, the use of alternative images or attempts at an artistic subversion of the form merely take their place within a pre-coded representational system as part of the normal range of allowed responses.
Indeed, while many view social networking as liberatory, this essay points out some fairly important reasons why it can also been seen as further disconnecting and “depersonalising” the self from the world.
For a while I was thinking that I wouldn’t bother posting my MA online. Really, after the defense, and what with the evolution of my thought since I started the PhD, I figured it old news. But, I’ve decided to let it out of the dusty confines of my hard drive and give it some air. After all, what’s this whole academic thing about if it isn’t about sharing ideas, even if doing so risks criticism? It’s in the criticism that we can alter and adjust our thinking. So, while I stand by what I’ve written in this document, I’m not promoting it as my final position on these matters and I’m eagerly anticipating changes in my thought, even to the point of disagreeing with myself (which happens more often that not anyway, so what the hell)! Enjoy!
Abstract
With its almost exclusive focus on the economics of the music industry, the early-21st century debate over digital music piracy has obscured other vital areas of study in the relationship between popular music and the Internet. This thesis addresses some of these neglected areas, specifically issues of agency, representation, discipline, and authority; it examines each of these in relationship to the formation and maintenance different online music communities. I argue that contemporary online trends related to music promotion, consumption, and criticism are, in fact, part of a much larger socio-cultural re-envisioning of the relationships between artists and audiences, artists and the music industry, and among audience members themselves. The relationship between music and the Internet is not only subversive on the level of economics.I examine these issues in three key areas. Independent women’s music communities challenge patriarchal authority in the music industry as they use online discussion forums and websites to advance their own careers. The tension that exists between the traditional for-profit music industry and the developing ethic of sharing in the filesharing community creates the conditions whereby we can imagine alternative ways that music can circulate in culture. “Citizen media,” such as blogs and “open source” encyclopædias, allows for those who otherwise had no avenue for presenting their thoughts and ideas to engage in public discourse. Traditional understandings of authority and expertise are subject to revision as new ways of assessing authority develop for online sources. This is also evident in the struggles of “old-media” groups in reconciling their established publishing and editorial practices with emergent online practices.
This thesis foregrounds the work of individuals by drawing extensively from interviews, personal blogs, and online discussion forums. In this way, the monolithic “grand narratives” of the Internet, such as the filesharing “battle” or the democratic potential of online discourse, are shown to be the product of many individual subjectivities, each of whom contribute to authoring the online environment.
EDIT: Holy Crap! For those of you wondering what “Captialism” is, I have no answer. I only just noticed the misspelling on the cover today as I posted the picture! My parents sent me these pictures the day the bound copy arrived in the mail back in Novvember! I guess I never really looked close enough at them!
@paaitken