1. Vision of Information Society cont. Jakob Svensson 24/ 9 2013 1

2. Living in Digital Media Is mediating our life – living in digital media – empowering or reinforcing the existing power relations? Mansell is leaning to answer yes to both these questions Prevailing vision – a technological revolution gives rise to digital networks an applications that diffuse rapidly with many disruptive consequences. Hence the need for legal arrangements and policies There is a conflict about what should be done to maximize the benefits and avoiding these disruptive consequences at the same time. 2

3. A New Imaginary for Information Society There is s false opposition between those who wants to avoid disruptive consequences and those promoting digital commons according to Mansell How did a vision of the information society that emphasizes private ownership of information and commercial markets become dominant? Mansell is concerned with is how to reconcile the goal of economic growth with goals of social justice, she argues they are not incommensurable/ contradictory. She argues a new social imaginary is needed that is neither utopian nor dystopian but enables consideration of whether there is a better direction for a society in which human lives are mediated by machines. 3

4. Discussion Mansell is attempting an imaginary in which economic growth and social justice are not in contradiction How can growth and justice can be reconcilable? 4

5. Discussion What is good society? 5

6. Adminstrative vs Critical Mansell contrast in ch. 3 administrative/ instrumentalist visions of Information Society with critical vision. 6

7. Adminstrative Vision Administrative – in service of an administrative agency (see Lazarsfeldt). Administrative researchers tend to ask the question what is possible - Preoccupied with what internet users do, how this is influenced by their environment and how practices become integrated / converge - About how and impacts (very instrumental concerns) 7

8. Critical Vision Critical - argue that the way we ask questions are embedded in power relations – hence science is embedded in power relations et cetera. Critical researchers tend to ask the question what is possible, why are things the way they are and what are the consequences (see table p. 37). Critical researchers focus on meanings users attributes to their practices and power relations invoked (cf. ethnography) Mansell seem to argue for ethnographic approaches as better able to elicit critical reflection (and as a coincidence this is what you are going to do in group work 3) 8

9. Mediation Mansell put forward the concept of mediation as a bridging between these two This would entail a focus on the ways people engage in meaning construction (cf. digital anthropology) and how meaning is understood differently depending on cultural, social, economic and political context as well as the specific technologies involved (see affordances – the dialectical approach). We should not ignore the symbolic meaning production of the internet. Mansell show though that cultural and social values shape how we relate to each other and if we value small or large communities (which will impact the uptake and use of internet services). 9

10. Multilevel Systems like communication systems are multileveled organized as hierarchies and heterarchies of relationships – things can happen / change at one level of the system and and opposite change in another – change in one level and stability in another. However neither of the imaginaries according to Mansell take into account the multilevel character of communication systems which involves both hierarchical and heterarchal relationships (ex. copyright are in-between systems) 10

11. Back to the Paradoxes Her main point are to acknowledge the paradoxes (p. 179 ) We have been locked into these imaginaries and cannot see how they are both true at the same time Communication systems as doubly articulated both in economy and culture and we need both perspectives on digital technologies. 11

12. In front or behind the screen? Mansell distinguishes between of imaginaries of interactions in front of and behind the screens. 12

13. In front or behind the screen? For most people developments in the fields of software development (behind the screen) are very far removed from our everyday experience of using software We process our identities and social lives online, but we know little about the mechanisms enabling this behind the screen. Castells argues here that we have to understand these codes and protocols if we want to change our reality. Here we have a power knowledge dimension (Foucault). 13

14. In front or behind the screen? Creative collaborative culture for example Manovich argues here also – that the creativity is based on ready formulated templates T hese are conventions designed behind the screen that could constrain the creative imaginations of participants logic of the interface 14