paradoxes of privatization

modern life activity patterns, social networks, experiential ranges are scattered through space & time communication and transportation technologies permit scattering and tie things together media assemble & reassemble people's frameworks of knowledge & action in space & time experience becomes decentered and disjointed

activity spaces (physical & virtual) Illustration of one person’s daily activity space by Mei-Po Kwan, Ohio State University state.edu/faculty/mkwan/Web CV/KwanWebCV.html

blurring of public & private private spaces link up with increasing number of public spaces public spaces become quasi-public, that is, privately owned and controlled

elements of American culture (acc. to Zelinsky) 1. intense, almost anarchistic individualism 2. high valuation on mobility & change 3. mechanistic view of world 4. messianic perfectionism All 4 link to the interest in mediated communication, but most subtle & interesting links are to individualism.

mediated life elements of individualism aggravated by media: – Insecurity – ambition – aggression Everything in the house & accessible via remote control – no public life, no sidewalks – purified community (Sennett) – protection of private property, avoidance of difference – conspicuous consumption – escape from real community

public vs. private "Public" life – living up to the images one sees every day on the media in private space & time "Private" life – paranoia produced by the inflated sense of threat and danger based in class and race myths inversion of the real and the unreal

echoes of real life The Matrix = technology run rampant, no privacy, constant mediation of experience Blade Runner = manufactured identity, “you are what you consume” ER & Friends = search for community, belonging (making friends with other friends of Friends, online in 150 sites) Reality TV = characters give up their privacy so viewers can lazily indulge their own desire for social disengagement

instant friends

do we envy their loss of privacy?

foundations of privacy simulation technology + marketing = complete loss of the possibility of privacy (since privacy is founded on autonomy and on real public life) – atomized TV audience – one-way radial topology, greatest free-time use of time – well-rounded image of others is inaccessible in a segmented society, so we accept a fabricated sense of knowing about those others – lack of community is permitted and perpetuated by virtual friends

an excess of privacy? As parents and communities "respect" kids' privacy they: – build armaments – develop a taste for blood and guts – lack real role models – lack public spaces to build ties to adults – eventually carry out savage attacks on classmates & teachers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris the “trenchcoat mafia” of Columbine High School

Is IT a possible fix? situational segmentation (cocooning) spatial segmentation (rootlessness) fluid identity online: withdrawal leads to new forms of engagement (coupled with vulnerability to surveillance) people become "digital individuals" (Curry) bought and sold by private companies the post-private individual, transparent but segmented = a new Turing's man?