Re: <nettime> radio b92 & more on wired mag.

[Felix Stalder <stalder@fis.utoronto.ca>]

Bernardo Parrella wrote:

> Questions: are these two different groups of people fighting (for) the same
> revolution? Is the Net a unifying factor in that sense? Can the
> postpolitics of the so-called digital nation equate the Serbians' political
> coscience and strenght achieved by a new access to information (B92,
> websites, email)? Does such a global Netizen exist?


I still wonder why someone (like the wired guys) believes that
technology by itself can be a unifyingly liberating force. Technology is
an
environment that allows certain things to be done better by filtering
out others. As somewhat shaky an analogy one could say that people
behave differently when they are under water diving than walking above
the ground. That doesn't mean that they are better, more intelligent or
more liberated one way or the other, but that they are--by the nature of
the environment (or the medium)--enabled to do certain things,
hopefully, better and more effective. However, by no means this can be
read that they do all the same thing. This would be like saying that
every demonstration on the street is the same.

The interesting question evolving from that is to ask how exactly is it
that the network environment shapes the interaction that are conducted
in it, or to use the use Harold Innis' term, what is the 'bias of
(network) communication'?


Felix
---
#  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
#  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@icf.de