1. paradoxes of privatization

2. 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

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

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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

9. 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

11. 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

12. instant friends

13. do we envy their loss of privacy?

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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?