Two posts initiated this thread. The first was an article on the USE of new media, particularly Facebook and Blogs, in the Egyptian Revolution. The second:
***** Thanks much. That was excellent.
We can see in hindsight the effect of the printing press on western consciousness; social media is having a similar impact though few have the patience or insight to articulate it.*****
Several points. First, the printing press did _not_ change (or have an effect on) "western consciusness." As I suggested before, one could say this of the codex, which seriously revolutionized the way in which humans arranged information: for example, it made browsing possible: all information was in a sense simultaneously available. That changed in a fundamental way the human sense of what information was; what knowledge was. And that of course was not understood and could not be understood until it could be seen in hindsight. Attempts to understand it at the time would have been pure foolishness. And possibly the typewriter had a similar impact on human consciousness, for it too arranged information in a different way, and it also created new realities: for example, the space. (That could only be seen in hindsight as well, with the coming of computerized text. (In the early days of personal computing some typists made life difficult for users of their product because they continued to type l rather than 1. Try sorting a list by zip code if it has been entered by a typist who makes this error.) A German scholar,Kettle (I can't remember his first name) wote a crucial book on the history of the typewriter. I was just beginning to try to get a grasp of this whole cluster of disciplines when my eyesight failed me. Several articles by ____Liu (can't remember her first name) in Critical Inquiry dealt with these materials She pointed out that the work of Pound and James, who exploited features of the printed page no much noted before) were important sources for Derrida. There is a whole new academic field in the study of the book. And that study only became possible in the late 20th-century!
Now these "social media" (I agree with Michael that the phrase is redundant) constitute a _tool_ which a number of people have seized on for many different purposes. Only if this turns out to be a radically new way of conceiving of information will it be remotely as important as the codex and the typewriter: in fact it seems only a continuation of the changes brought about by those technologies). And only in hindsight will it be possible to recognize and discuss ("understand") that importance. The ir importance _now_ is only as tools for purposes that exist independently of the 'new' media but have not been formed or even influeneced by those media.
So I say again. What's to understand?
Carroil
shag carpet bomb:
It's like this carrol. On social media, facebook specifically, we all know you did an african beadwork class recently and have been in a number of antiwar demos of late. ;p
Not because you told us, but because your friends told their friends, and since you're a mutual friend, we all learned something about you. You friend produced this "news" which, of course, could have been "news" in a small town newspaper, only then it would have been covered by a reporter and photographer - if it was at all. ;p
shag
At 08:13 PM 2/10/2011, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Well, I did research. I asked what it meant.
>
>Carrol
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
>On Behalf Of Jordan Hayes
>Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2011 7:00 PM
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The role of social media in the Egyptian uprising
>
>Carrol asks:
>
> > So what's to understand?
>
>You could start by trying to understand that 'social media' in this
>context doesn't mean any of the things you've determined it means --
>remember a few hours ago when you claimed you had no idea what it was?
>That should have been a clue for you to do some research before just
>making up a [IMHO, worthless to this thread; perhaps worse than
>worthless since it has now taken the thread down endless corridors of
>stupidity] definition on your own. It has a particular meaning in
>popular culture, and it was that meaning that was used earlier in the
>thread as a touchstone.
>
>You might even start looking in a place many consider to be a canonical
>example of said social media: Wikipedia.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
>
>After reading that page, if you'd like to correct all of us in our use
>of the term, please do so on that page itself so that all may learn from
>your insights, as opposed to on this mailing list, where many people now
>simply delete messages from this thread without bothering to read them.
>
>You started the day without knowing what social media is; now you are
>one.
>
>/jordan
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk