I myself have kept this going, but I’ve felt a bit limited by the overall theme of the blog. So, I’ve decided to set up a new blog on my own domain to explore ideas. I will likely do more social media criticism and commentary there (as I have here), but I can also expand and discuss other topics, like being a professor, being involved in cultural studies, software studies, science and technology studies, and political economy, and sundry idiosyncrasies.

For now, since this blog is paid for, I will probably maintain it here. Later, I may archive it.

In any case, thank you for reading!

I guess many of my posts aren’t posts so much as they are collections of ideas. For example, you can see my Advice to Students post or my Reasons for Leaving Facebook. Not much of the advice or reasons are my own, but it is my blog and I can collect what I want.

Here, in this post, I want to start collecting calls for humanities education to increase the training our students get in computers, software, programming, and networking. I agree with these calls: I believe that undergraduates in the humanities need to understand how these technical systems work, because these systems (for better or worse) are part of the fabric of the developed world. Ethical, critical, and philosophical inquiry into technology has to happen in education because we are increasingly governing, regulating, and monitoring ourselves with these systems. So, here goes:

Bogost, I. & Montfort, N., 2009. Platform Studies: Frequently Questioned Answers. In Digital Arts and Culture 2009. After Media: Embodiment and Context. UC Irvine, p. 7.

…We think that the time has come for digital media scholars, and particularly the ones still undertaking their formal education, to learn more about the ways computer hardware and software are designed and programmed. Such a knowledge need not be of the same order as that of a computer scientist or electrical engineer; the new media scholar is aiming to understand technologies well enough to connect them to culture, but not to invent new algorithms, computer architectures, or hardware and software techniques. To greatly emphasize such training could even be detrimental to the particular interests of the digital media scholar, who also needs a deep engagement with the humanities.

Watch this space for more. Because more is on the way….

This spring, I’ve started teaching a “Special Topics” course in the department of communication at Utah. I call the course “The Culture of Computing.” The goal is to explore the history and culture of computing (largely in the US context) through three streams: historical scholarship (predominantly the excellent history from Paul Ceruzzi), the writings of computer scientists, and science fiction. The basic questions we’re exploring include: what exactly is a computer? How are computers used? How have they affected our culture, and how do they reflect our culture? What is intelligence? Can intelligence be created in a machine? What is the computer’s heritage as a military machine? What role does the Internet play in our lives? What role do women play in the culture of computing? Where do we go from here?

To give an example, if we want to explore the idea of computers and labor, we can do the following:

• Consider the original meaning of the word “computer”: a person who computes. As David Grier’s excellent book shows, from the late 19th century on, the work of tabulating astronomical or ballistics tables was done in rationalized, factory-like settings where one person might do addition, one subtraction, and one division. This work was predominantly done by women.
• Examine how computerization of work affected labor processes (here I’m thinking of David Noble’s work).
• Look at fictional depictions of computerization of labor and the larger move to rationalization of bureaucratization of daily life. A great example is Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, as is Philip K. Dick’s story “Autofac” or Asimov’s “Profession.” Of course, we can go back to Lang’s Metropolis for early depictions, too.  And we can draw on The Matrix for a very hellish depiction of how living labor can become enslaved by dead labor.
• Read the work of computer scientists and engineers who link brains to robots. Look no further than Tim Lenoir’s recent talk at Frontiers of New Media for an overview of this.

So, as you can see, given the three streams and the big questions being asked, this course is probably not a well-oiled machine, but rather a rusty spaceship held together with crumbling epoxy and prayers. It’s pretty exciting, but always in danger of falling apart. But really, I don’t have any lofty goals with the course, other than to always ask how we culturally perceive of computers and for the students to have a strong grasp of the history of computing.

Ultimately, I think this course isn’t really about computers at all, but about what it means to be human in the age of the smart machine. As Sherry Turkle has argued, we use computers as “things to think with” about ourselves. We all know (and probably take for granted) the computational metaphors we use to describe ourselves – we think of our brains as binary computers, we talk about “processing” events, we talk about having enough “bandwidth” to handle workloads, and so on. Given that my students (and I) have only known a world of PCs and networks, we really must critique this computational mindset – we can’t take it for granted – because its ubiquity informs our very perception of how the world (should) work.

I will have a new article out next year in Social Text. I am very happy about this, because ST was a very important journal to me as I went through my doctoral program in cultural studies at George Mason. And of course, I eagerly watch my RSS reader for more articles. Moreover, I got to e-collaborate a bit with the editor, Jonathan Beller, who was really good at pushing me to improve the article through the revision process.

The article is titled “Real (software) abstractions: on the rise of Facebook and the fall of MySpace.” (You can see an early version of the article here). Here’s the abstract:

This paper argues that the failure of MySpace and the rise of Facebook in the social networking site market is due in part to the degrees in which either site associates users, technology, and marketers into a successful “real software abstraction.” Real software abstraction is a synthesis of the software engineering concept of abstraction and the Marxian concept of the real abstraction. This concept is used to examine MySpace and Facebook at the levels of aesthetics, code, culture, and appeal to marketers. I argue that instead of creating an architecture of abstraction in which users’ affect and content were easily reduced to marketer-friendly data sets, MySpace allowed users to create a cacophony of “pimped” profiles that undermined efforts to monetize user-generated content. In contrast, Facebook has proven to be extremely efficient at reducing users to commodifiable data sets within a muted, bland interface that does not detract from marketing efforts.

But most exciting to me is the fact that both Social Text and the librarians at The University of Utah have allowed me to publish this article open-access. No one will need a subscription to see it. Ever.

This was made possible first by the folks at Duke U Press, who agreed to publish the article open-access for a small fee. They had not done this before with Social Text (and possibly with no other journal). I am very grateful they did this.

Second, the Marriott Library at the U of U has an Open Access Publishing fund program, headed by the incomparable Allyson Mower. They awarded me a grant to pay the OA fee at Duke.

Of course, the pace of academic publishing is slow – the article will be out next year some time. But, when it’s out, it will be free as in free beer. And I love that.

I hope this is something that Social Text offers on a permanent basis. I think it’s in keeping with that journal’s cultural studies mission. Cultural studies at its best is a world of activism and progressive social change. And making knowledge open access is a key part of improving humanity – science, scholarship, and education are better with greater access to information.

The tech staff at the Frontiers of New Media did a great job recording the various presentations. You can see the list of videos here. In particular, see Richard White’s talk on railroads – a phenomenal presentation. My friend Fan Yang’s talk is also quite good.

My presentation, “Mass Producing Social Media: Technical Standards, The Interactive Advertising Bureau, and the Rise of Template-Driven Social Media” is also available.

Unlike Us #1 Real (software) abstractions:on the rise of Facebook and the fall of Myspace – Robert Gehl from network cultures on Vimeo.

On November 23, I will present some of my research at the 1st Unlike Us conference at the Cyprus University of Technology. I’m very excited about this, particularly because many of the proposed presentations look fascinating. For example, I look forward to Vasilis Kostakis’s discussion of proprietary versus commons-based production and Marc Stumpel’s discussion of FB Resistance project. More projects are being posted to the site – something tells me they will be compelling, as well.

My talk will be “Real (software) abstractions: on the rise of Facebook and the fall of MySpace.”[PDF] This paper will appear some time next year in Social Text. Here’s the abstract:

How did Facebook become the social media monopoly it is? Although there are many factors determining Facebook’s dominance of social networking, one answer to this question lies in the ways in which Facebook overcame its former rival MySpace. This paper argues that the failure of MySpace and the rise of Facebook in the social networking site market is due in part to the degrees in which either site associates users, technology, and marketers into a successful “real software abstraction.” Real software abstraction is a synthesis of the software engineering concept of abstraction and the Marxian political economic concept of the real abstraction. This concept is used to examine MySpace and Facebook at the levels of aesthetics, code, culture, and appeal to marketers. I argue that instead of creating an architecture of abstraction in which users’ affect and content were easily reduced to marketer-friendly data sets, MySpace allowed users to create a cacophony of “pimped” profiles that undermined efforts to monetize user-generated content. In contrast, Facebook has proven to be extremely efficient at reducing users to commodifiable data sets within a muted, bland interface that does not detract from marketing efforts. In sum, Facebook’s architecture and culture is one that (from the perspective of new media capitalism) properly disciplines the user-laborers who contribute content, even while it allows users just enough autonomy to keep coming back.

As you might have noticed, I’ve been critical of Notehall, the online ‘marketplace’ for university class notes. I basically think that it is part of the larger crass commercialization of higher education. Some people call that ‘disruption’ and ‘edupreneurial activity’; I just think it’s part of the larger erosion of the meaning of higher education. I guess I hold the same position as Marc Bousquet, although he’s far more eloquent about it.

In response, someone from a notehall.com email address posed as a student user of the site and defended it. That was fun. I’ve seen similar comments on other blogs, so I imagine Notehall has some people Google-alerting the name and defending that company’s dubious cyber-honor. That’s ok, if a bit disingenuous. We all have an agenda.

More recently, I’ve been editing the Notehall Wikipedia page. My username there is Octavabasso, in case you want to review my edits. I noticed that the Notehall WP entry didn’t have a section on the criticisms it’s received from academics, particularly in the University of California system. So, I added what I believe is a well-sourced, even-handed section outlining those critiques.

My edits have been reverted. Moreover, looking through the history of the Notehall WP entry, I see that a previous, similar section had been removed before.

So it looks like some Notehall folks are patrolling Wikipedia, too. They aren’t adding anything unless it’s positive. Well, except for the 50% cut they take – that’s remained in the article. But otherwise, truthiness is alive and well in that little corner of the Web. Let’s see how long my edits last.

I am only now starting to recover from a seemingly non-stop weekend of some of the best research on media, communication, and history going on right now. The University of Utah just hosted the third Frontiers of New Media symposium. I was part of the group that planned it. I will admit that I will extremely nervous about everything: whether or not it would go smoothly, how well we organized the presentation panels, and of course because I presented my own research. (For anyone who wants to read my talk, here’s a PDF).

In the end, I couldn’t be happier. Our two keynotes, Timothy Lenoir and Richard White, presented on very different topics. Lenoir’s talk was about the history of academic research into neuro-imaging, and its potential applications both in medicine, human augmentation, and so-called neuromarketing. White’s talk centered on new ways we could examine space, particularly the spaces of 19th and early 20th railroad networks. It turns out that, whether we look at maps of neurons or maps of railroad networks, space and time are dynamic entities that shift and morph right before our eyes, denying our ability to objectively know them. I felt immediately that their work would be useful in my own struggle with the culture and political economy of network neutrality.

As for the presentations, I was particularly struck by Matt Cohen‘s work on the varying meanings of archives. He compared Western conceptions of archives to those of indigenous American (and to a lesser extent) Australasian peoples. Again, time and space – and memory – shift in unexpected ways as Cohen examined them through various lenses. I also valued his questions about the creation of new media archives of historical events and cultures. We have the idea now that everyone can “be the media” (to use Nick Couldry’s phrase), to participate in the production of new media sites such as digital archives, but Cohen rightly pointed out that ‘granting’ access to digital archives to various ethnic groups is a tricky question, since different cultures view archives in radically different ways. Archives are, of course, not neutral.

Mara Mills‘s paper built on this idea in important ways. She drew on the museum/archival practice of accessioning to explore how technologies such as early OCR and text-to-sound mediate access to books for disabled people. Much like Paul Smith’s work in Discerning the Subject wherein he found contradictory meanings in “discern,” Mills finds multiple meanings in “accession”: in the archival sense, it means to register, classify, and accept objects into a collection. In another, less used way, “accession” means “A coming on or invasion of disease; an attack, fit, or paroxysm; also a visitation, or fit of folly” (according to the OED). She used this tension between taxonomy and rupture, a clean process of transfer versus paroxysm, to illustrate the ways in which one media needs another media to animate it (and also challenge it, invade it, alter it, mutate it, and so on). Her work was brand new and I look forward to its development.

I’m biased, but of course I loved my friend Fan Yang‘s work on shanzhai culture in China. The basic tension she documents is between the production of knock-off, counterfeit phones and electronics and the Chinese state’s desire to brand itself as an engine of creativity (at least, creativity that adheres to the dictates of global intellectual property law). She uses remediation theory to explain this contradiction.

Finally, I see a lot of parallels between Bill Kirkpatrick‘s work on de facto local media policy (borne out of the possibilities of wireless mesh-networks) and my own on network architectures. His analysis draws on the often clumsy attempts by the FCC to foster local media, as well as the inadequacies of theories of local media. He sees mesh-nets as (possibly) bringing about local media in a way that can’t be done with centralized regulation.

I’m skipping over other talks, simply because it’s getting late and I’m still exhausted from this weekend. But suffice it to say that Frontiers of New Media 2011 made me very happy, and I am very grateful to all of the participants who came to Utah this weekend.

I have a new article out in the open-access journal on the Internet, First Monday. It’s got a somewhat strange title: “Ladders, samurai, and blue collars: Personal branding in Web 2.0.” Anyone who reads it should treat those terms as easter eggs scattered throughout the article. Here’s the abstract:

Drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze, Eva Illouz, and Mark Andrejevic, this paper critiques the personal branding literature, particularly as it applies to Web 2.0 social media. I first describe the three–part logic of personal branding: dividuation, emotional capitalism, and autosurveillance. Next, in a sort of mirror image to the self–help literature of personal branding, I offer a critical “how to” guide to branding oneself in Web 2.0. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of why personal branding can be seen as a rational choice, given the circumstances of globalized capitalism and precarious employment. Individuals who brand themselves willfully adopt the logic of capitalism in order to build their human capital. However, I ultimately argue that the obsession with personal branding is no antidote for life in precarious times.

What’s particularly interesting (and downright funny) is the amount of spam I’ve seen based on my article. First, I’m getting new Twitter followers who claim to be “personal branding gurus.” I guess they want my insights. Second, I’m already seeing automated junk-filled blog posts appearing with my abstract included. They’re probably built on ‘bots that scour the web for phrases such as “personal branding,” scrape sites that contain such phrases, and then post them in an effort to game Google and get illbegotten ad revenues. In the article, I try to address the idea of bots and automated searches as part of the personal branding process, so it’s gratifying (and disturbing) to see them in action.