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Master Thesis Automated Ontology Structure in Folksonomy

My master thesis is finished! I’ve made it available for download here.

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Automated Ontology Structure in Folksonomy (.pdf,  3100 kb)

Abstract
The purpose of this research is to evaluate automated folksonomy refinement through algorithms, which constitutes a hybrid folksonomy/ontology Web organization. While in most contemporary literature folksonomy and classic taxonomic organization are opposed, this study attempts to combine these approaches to theorize a richer Web organization than either of the two could realize alone. Hybrid functionality arises through intricate cooperation between humans and algorithm automation. A hybrid combines multiple previously unconnected systems to form an interoperating whole. These principles are also applied to reflect on the possibility of realizing the Semantic Web through user annotation. Results include hybrid functionality being advantageous for enriching single platforms (for instance, photography website Flickr). However, application of tag semantics across platforms to realize the Semantic Web is problematic due to possible incompatibility. Instead, this research reflects on a bottom-up approach for the Semantic Web, but dismisses this approach because of the enormous amounts of users necessary for meaningfully annotating every website.

Keywords
Folksonomy, Tagging, Taxonomy, Ontology, Hybrid, Semantic Web

Professional networking sites and social-economic status comparison

“Dan was apparent fifty plus, a little paunchy and stubbled. He had raccoon-mask bags under his eyes and he slumped listlessly. As I approached, I pinged his Whuffie and was startled to see that it had dropped to nearly zero. “Jesus,” I said, as I sat down next to him. “You look like hell, Dan.” […] Lil was waiting on the sofa, a folded blanket and an extra pillow on the side table, a pot of coffee and some Disneyland Beijing mugs beside them. She stood and extended her hand. “I’m Lil,” she said. “Dan,” he said. “It’s a pleasure.” I knew she was pinging his Whuffie and I caught her look of surprised disapproval. Us oldsters who predate Whuffie know that it’s important; but to the kids, it’s the world. Someone without any is automatically suspect. I watched her recover quickly, smile, and surreptitiously wipe her hand on her jeans. “Coffee?” she said.” (Doctorow, 2003, p. 23)

Introduction

Cory Doctorow’s novel ‘Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom’ describes a future world based on post-scarcity economy, in which everything is free. ‘Whuffie’ is the name for an abstract personal currency, based on reputation, motivating people to pursue a useful and creative lifestyle. The ‘Whuffie’ number is equivalent to a person’s social status in society, for instance, you lose points when being rude or committing a crime, you gain points when helping someone cross the street or composing a brilliant symphony. The most striking is every person having a brain implant, which enables them to interface with ‘the Net’, giving them the possibility to check everyone’s ‘Whuffie’ instantly and wirelessly.

In our contemporary society, we don’t possess the means to explicitly define or compare social status as the people in ‘Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom’ do. Nonetheless, looking up to or down on people, comparing people or finding motivation to act by other people’s social status in the most broad sense is very real; social status is a timeless phenomenon. ‘The Net’ obviously bears a resemblance to the Internet, which in Doctorow’s novel is a platform for status comparison; it enables social status to be embedded and used as a currency in real life. Social networks on the web also serve as a platform for defining one’s identity or individualism (Donath, boyd 2004; Ito et al. 2010) and to identify one’s position within a group or community of (likeminded) people; virtual communities (Smith, Kollock 1999). These processes are intimately related to (attainment of) social status.

The social network profile could be compared to the brain implant in Doctorow’s novel, being a link between the identity of the user it represents to the larger whole of available profiles; ‘the Net’, being the social network site as a possible accelerator for status comparison. The ‘Whuffie’ could then be compared to the social status captured in or radiating from a profile.

Sociological literature discussing general (offline) social status often focuses on the social-economic status of individuals (Hollingshead 1975; Lin 1999), having education, occupation and income as its foundations. Processes of interaction then constitute a scale of status comparison, for instance casual conversation. However, in contemporary society, community is not conceptualized anymore in terms of physical proximity but in terms of social networks (Smith, Kollock 1999, p. 17), which extend through communication technologies. With online social networks it is possible to establish and nourish relationships out of one’s physical reaching space, establishing evolving standards of status. Many scholars describing online social networks especially focus on youth subcultures in social networks as MySpace, Facebook and Friendster (Ito et al. 2010; boyd 2008). Social network analysis is highly focused on teens because of their early adoption of networked technology, highlighting the desire to engage in publics (boyd, 2008). Herein, online status is directly linked to popularity, constituted in number of friends, ‘top friends’ ranking lists, number of comments and physical attractiveness in photos. Doctorow also mentions a similar idea in his work of fiction: “Us oldsters who predate Whuffie know that it’s important; but to the kids, it’s the world.” (Doctorow 2003, p. 23) Nonetheless, online social network status is also very relevant for people somewhat older, for instance young urban professionals engaging in career related interaction via social network site LinkedIn. More developed social-economic status, comes at a certain age; “education changes during […] youth, but it generally stabilizes in the adult years. […] Occupation may change in the early years of adult life, but it also tends to become stable as a person grows into the late twenties and on into the thirties.” (Hollingshead, 1975)

In this paper I compare offline to online social-economic status, especially directed at professional social network site LinkedIn. I compare sociological accounts of social-economic status in communities to online accounts of status in virtual communities. Questions posed include the following: How is social-economic status constituted online? How do users of LinkedIn compare social-economic status? How do they influence each other by it? An important starting point is viewing online communities as ‘real’ communities and the Web as a reflection of offline culture, as an argument for connecting sociological literature to the Web. Among authors supporting this are those of the Digital Methods Initiative (Rogers, Stevenson, Weltevree, 2009) and Smith and Kollock (1999). The main limitation of this study is the body of literature handling online social network status being mainly applied to online teen and youth culture behavior on social network sites as MySpace, Facebook and Friendster (Donath, boyd 2004; boyd 2008; Ito et al. 2010). I will refer to these authors, because some realizations also apply to this paper, but it is important to note that there are multiple gaps between subculture analysis by aforementioned authors and this paper, for instance, in subject age, occupation, education, income and motivation to network. This constructs the difference between online social status and online social-economic status (although there is some overlap). To illustrate this difference I compare the main header on professional social network site LinkedIn; “Over 55 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities: Stay informed about your contacts and industry, find the people & knowledge you need to achieve your goals and control your professional identity online.”[1] with the headline of social network site Friendster; “Friendster helps you stay connected with everything that matters to you: Friends, family and fun! It’s free to join, so go on, see what all the fuss is about!”[2] Both sociological literature on status and social-economic status as expressed by the ‘Whuffie’ are more relevant when compared to status expressions on professional social networking sites as LinkedIn than to social networking sites mainly directed at ‘fun’ social interaction as Friendster.

My main question for this paper is:

To what extent do professional social networking sites as LinkedIn enable explicit social-economic status comparison?

With this main question I have the following sub questions, which I will answer in the chapters following:

How to define (social-economic) status?
How to attain and build status on social networking sites?
How are virtual communities and peers affected by status?

Defining Status and Status Attainment

In ‘The Four Factors Index of Social Status’ Hollingshead defines status as ‘the positions individuals or nuclear families occupy in the status structure of a given society’ (Hollingshead, 1975). The four factors used in Hollingshead index are; education, occupation, sex and marital status. Education and occupation are herein mainly linked to income and an explicit position in societies hierarchy by job-position. A more specific social-economic status definition by Clauss-Ehlers reads; “a position on an economic hierarchy based upon income, education, and occupation” (Clauss-Ehlers, 2006). This professional factor is especially important when speaking of not only social status but also of economic status. It is important to note that when linking this definition to online social-economic status as expressed by LinkedIn, we speak of an individual’s position in society only, not of a family’s.

In ‘Social Networks and Status Comparison’ Lin defines status attainment as ‘a process by which individuals mobilize and invest resources for returns in socioeconomic standings’ (Lin 1999, p. 467). In this definition resources are referred to as goods in society valued by normative judgments of how these goods correspond with being wealthy or powerful (meaning goods in the most broad sense, for instance, skills, money or a acquaintance’s authority position acting as a social resource for finding a job.) These resources can be deployed for increasing one’s social-economic status.

Attaining and Building Online Status

Social network sites are relatively new channels of communication, one would say we have been given a choice to participate or not. However, numerous authors describe the opposite, we find ourselves in a situation in which new social conventions are formed around the use of communication, resulting in a situation where one is almost expected to be a member of online social network sites. For instance, Donath and boyd describe that we live in a world in which communication is instant, ubiquitous and mobile and access to information and communication is a key element of status and power (Donath, boyd 2004). Not taking part in these new technological possibilities might devaluate one’s potential in increasing status; one may risk exclusion. Social network sites both function as spaces where new bonds are forged and as showcases of connections. The function of the social network profile as an integral piece of presenting the user can especially be linked to status-attainment. Connections can be lined among the resources identified in the definition of status attainment as mentioned above.

Furthermore, a profile can be viewed in the context of connections, hereby providing information about the user. “Social status, political beliefs, musical taste, etc., may be inferred from the company one keeps” (Donath, boyd, 2004). Secondly, establishing relations with people already in the network of some of your own connections can make one surer of establishing a trustworthy relationship. Having an extensive social network can be both a sign of status as a means to increase in chances for safe connection. Important to realize is that people who share much in common are more likely to get connected. This idea of ‘homophily’ or ‘birds of a feather stick together’ (boyd 2005) and its consequences will be discussed later on in this paper.

As I wrote earlier, there is an increasing adoption of social networking sites among youth, which can explain online status considerations in general. “These sites function as social hangout spaces for teens, social network sites are home to the struggles that teens face as they seek status among peers” (boyd, 2008, p. 226). Teens use these sites to nourish existing friendships and to develop new ones, but also to seek attention and create drama among peers. Social network sites both change and intensify the ways teens experience drama and negotiate status. An important factor in status development is both the public display of connections, comments, profile information and photo’s as the profile’s owner awareness of this public display (Donath, boyd 2004). This openness of information (often a profile is completely open to existing connections and a user can opt for exposing information to strangers) creates an opportunity for active identity and status building; it creates a tension between self-presentation and (assumed) audience opinion. “Impression management is certainly crucial for identity management and for the construction of oneself online, it requires a level of awareness of others’ reactions” (boyd, 2002).

The open display of connections has parallels to the casual dropping of (high status) names in conversation, used for raising one’s own status and positioning oneself in hierarchy or discovering if a common bond (for instance, an overlap in acquaintances) exists between two people. However, in casual conversation, one could feel free to exaggerate, or to show off with impressive, but unverifiable, facts. This also happens on social network sites. “Teens want to be validated by their broader peer group and thus try to make themselves look cool […]. Even when status is not necessarily accessible for them in everyday life, there is sometimes hope that they can resolve this through online presentations” (boyd, 2008). An online status does not necessarily indicate the existence of the same offline status, at least in youth subculture. It is possible to fake parts of your profile information or creating fake connections, increasing reputation. “Online, identity is mutable and unanchored by the body that is its locus in the real world” (Donath, boyd 2004). This could direct at online status being more fluid and less concretely linked to offline status. On LinkedIn one could easily create false education and occupation info or create a fake profile for Bill Gates and connecting with him, heavily increasing the apparent social-economic status of the profile owner. However, the gains of deceiving someone can be quite low and the costs quite high. For instance, making a business deal or taking on a job on false grounds can ruin one’s status. It is much more important for people to be able to rely on their belief in other’s identity.

The use of connections as a showcase for one’s identity can act as a check of identity claims, thus affirming status. Connections that one knows read profile info. By being directly linked to a profile and being displayed as a connection, profile info gets implicitly validated. Furthermore, LinkedIn includes testimonials, called ‘recommendations’. With this function one can receive compliments about past work, suggesting the profile owner to be adequate in his particular activity. The profile owner can also recommend connections himself. This function has its own section on the website, directly linked to connections, further increasing connection and profile reliability, subsequently increasing status. The recommendation function is a way to build sympathy among connections and thus ensuring co-operation. “The power of reputation to enforce co-operative behavior lies not in confrontation with the subject, but in conversation surrounding him” (Donath, boyd 2004). Open display of connections and the recommendation function could be directly linked to the definition of status attainment as mentioned above. Investing resources (complementing connections on, for instance, skills or experience) can lead to increased socioeconomic standing by having a better relationship to connections, increasing the chance for a business deal or job and increasing income, or by the profile owner simply getting a recommendation from a connection himself.

Online Status and Connections in Virtual Communities

People seek status out of very basic evolutionary reasons, according to Wilkinson; “higher rank individuals would have greater access to material resources and the highest quality mates, increasing the proportion of their genes in future populations” (Wilkinson 2006, p. 5). Strong motivations of increasing status are due to natural selection and evolution. Therefore, struggle with status always exists within communities, being closely related to hierarchy deference and dominance, expressing identity/personality and in the end, as Wilkinson argues, to survival of the fittest. Status has an organic biological and evolutionary basis. However, status has developed in our contemporary society, it is for instance derived of excellence in a particular domain of activity without being strongly based on superior physical force: “For example, paraplegic physicist Stephen Hawking […] certainly enjoys high status throughout the world” (Wilkinson, p. 6). This differentiation in status expressions constitutes the variability in which status can appear in modern society, which is also an argument for supporting increase of status through connecting with a variety of individuals with different talents or expertise. Status attainment therefore demands processes of peer interaction and active deployment of one’s ties in community.

Social resources can be accessed through direct and indirect ties (Lin 1999, p. 468). The example of using a connection’s authority position for defining status attainment illustrates that resources can be borrowed via connections in community, emphasizing the importance of valuable connections. The acquaintance in the definition’s example is an indirect tie for increasing status. LinkedIn especially provides connection with indirect ties, not always physically within reach of the profile owner, but accessible when needed. LinkedIn provides a concrete keeping in touch with connections and maintaining relationships, which could be valuable in the future, from both sides. LinkedIn functions as an interpersonal channel, of which Granovetter concluded in ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’; “those who used interpersonal channels seemed to land more satisfactory and better jobs” (Granovetter, 1974).  Furthermore, Granovetter distinguishes weak and strong ties. Strong ties being ties with people one has many commonalities with, weak ties being connections with people one has only one or a few commonalities with, in social circles less accessed or less like one’s own. It is hypothesized that as a whole weak ties tend to form bridges that strengthen one’s network. Via weak ties one can access information in social circles not likely to be available in one’s direct surroundings (Granovetter, 1973) thus enriching one’s social network and increasing its potential. Valuable information therefore especially is available through professional social network sites as LinkedIn, by the direct and stable connection with weak ties. One might even consider if the term weak tie still applies. LinkedIn could transform weak ties into strong ties, since any connection (and potential resource for status attainment) is always only a few clicks away.

On the other hand, the supposed main purpose of social networking sites is connecting to new people with which one shares a common ground (similar characteristics as lifestyle, hobbies, taste in music, job, etcetera) (Donath, boyd 2004) and therefore empowering homophily; “it is through this commonality that one can find security in one’s views, feel validated and supported, and have the kind of environment that fosters motivation and joy. […] people do not have to defend their minority status” (boyd 2005). Out of an evolutionary perspective, this safety is indeed important; people are used to residing in communities of likeminded individuals, because this gives them the highest chance of survival. However, contemporary technology gives us the possibility to reach beyond our physical reaching space, offering chances of connection with a wide diversity of audiences. We have been given the possibility to transcend the homophilous environments in which we feel secure. This means we can learn and be influenced in multiple directions, enriching experience and status as never before.

LinkedIn, however, is one of the least open social network sites. Connecting with a stranger is not very common. When adding a new contact a profile owner must select one out of six options; how do you know [contact’s name]? Colleague, Classmate, We’ve done business together, Friend, Other, I don’t know [contact’s name]. Underneath is a message saying; “Important: Only invite people you know well and who know you.”[3] Furthermore, if you do invite people you don’t know recipients can indicate they don’t know you. This has repercussions, since LinkedIn will from then on always ask for a to-be-added contact’s email address. LinkedIn’s main reason for this is to keep the online professional networks it empowers relevant; no infinite numbers of friends, only valuable contacts. Thus, one could argue for LinkedIn being a relatively homophilous environment. However, LinkedIn does provide a profile owner to connect to a connection’s connections; view profiles, send messages, suggest valuable contacts, search for references, etcetera. Linkedin is closed down enough to ensure reliable connections, by only allowing connecting to individuals a profile owner knows and interaction with a connection’s connections, but open enough for growing one’s network in a valuable way, being a environment fostering increase of status. Profiles on social networking sites mainly indicating as being only for ‘fun’ as Friendster or MySpace tend do devalue contacts by having so many of them it seems to become both insincere and useless (boyd, 2008).

Online Status Comparison and LinkedIn Functionalities

Aspiring a higher position in status hierarchy is a natural instinct, as discussed earlier in this paper. Wilkinson describes life is a competitive climb on the ladder of status (Wilkinson, 2006), out of different capitalistic, materialistic or ideological reasons. People compare status because this supplies them with hierarchical information; what is my position in society? And subsequently; what could I do to make it to a higher step?

Let’s look at the different functions of Linkedin, which are indications of identity and status. Linked to Clauss-Ehlers definition of social economic status, I will especially pay attention to education and occupation (income is, of course, private info). Linked to Donath and boyd’s and boyd’s analyses of social networks I will especially pay attention to number of connections and other identity specific parts as profile photo, along with personal information, recommendations, ‘what are you working on?’ and functions alike.

Sample Linkedin User Profile Page

Self-presentation is faceted on LinkedIn.  An identity is subdivided into different secluded sections. The main profile section includes name, current position and location and a profile photo (which cannot be enlarged, seemingly to minimize possible effects of physical appearance). Directly under this is an overview of the profile; current occupation, past occupation, education, number of recommendations, number of connections and (company or portfolio) websites. These different profile parts are set out more detailed further down in the profile.

A LinkedIn profile covers all aspects named in Clauss-Ehlers definition of social-economic status, it highlights them by putting them at the top of the page. Except income, which is presumably too private for mentioning.

Important to realize is that LinkedIn does not represent identities as whole; they get chopped up into manageable pieces, which enables LinkedIn users to compare the pieces apart from the whole. “These foci organize the structure of social networks because they are the circumstances and reasons people meet each other and form ties with each other” (Donath, boyd 2004). Online, identity is subdivided and categorized. This fragmented nature of the LinkedIn profile constitutes a faceted identity, leading to a differentiation of impressions a profile can give. These different parts of one’s identity, seemingly divided into various aspects, lead to a different notion of identity, and thus, status. The different parts of the profile owner’s identity have a greater chance of appealing to people yet to connect with than the identity as an inseparable whole. Furthermore, by comparing different profile parts, rather than the profile as a whole, relative positions become clear. To establish a link with my introduction; the ‘Whuffie’ as a number of total status gets subdivided into smaller units, which enable subdivision specific cross-profile comparison.

LinkedIn chops up status and identity into measurable and comparable units. This enables concrete comparison between different profiles, based on different parts of socio-economic status. Individuals are aware of this; “Awareness empowers individuals, as it gives them the ability to understand their position in a given system and use that knowledge to operate more effectively. In social interactions, people want to be aware of their own presentation, of what is appropriate in the given context, and how others perceive them. […] these two components are essential for interpersonal contextual awareness” (boyd 2002). The contextual awareness boyd discusses is highly relevant to LinkedIn. People actively construct their identity, with heightening of status in mind.

The previously mentioned ‘recommendations’ function extends the subdivision, emphasizing certain sources of one’s status in the profile, creating a preference for certain foundations of status (for instance, a particular position or education). A profile owner can actively focus on certain subdivision by, for instance, recommending weak ties in social circles (concerning that particular position or education) and asking for a recommendation in return. Thus, a profile owner can focus on a desired status subdivision through recommendations. Another function enabling a specific focus is ‘what are you working on?’, in which one can simply fill in one’s current professional activity. This can be a means to keep connections up to date and possibly renew interaction. The activity message can also be implicitly directed at certain connections, further enabling shifting of focus. A relatively new functionality is linking Twitter accounts to LinkedIn, enabling a live feed of tweets, this is comparable to the workings of ‘what are you working on?’.

Previous statements of the strength of weak ties, mutable identity and subdivided status, imply connections being based on small areas of common ground in subdivisions of the profile, which the profile owner actively constructs to radiate social-economic status. These subdivisions in status provide weak tie connections to be made more easily. This enhances use of subdivisions in the profile, going hand in hand with LinkedIn’s closed nature in connecting to new people. Weak tie connections may only know some aspects of the profile owner’s identity, assuming other claims in the profile being true because they do not know about them. This creates a tension between offline social-economic status as a whole, and, online, based upon subdivision in the LinkedIn profile. Donath and boyd also signalize this: “The type of information that flows through a tie, whether about the person or about the world at large, depends on the focus that brought them together and on the shared facets of their identity” (Donath, boyd, 2004).

Online status seems to be more flexible than online status, being able to shift its appearance when coming across different social environments; interaction with contacts from different social circles. Considering LinkedIn being a community especially empowering connection of weak ties, online status seems to be not an exact entity like the ‘Whuffie’, but a transforming whole of different parts, appearing anew to each connection’s eyes. Furthermore, a profile owner can shift the focus of the profile to privilege particular weak ties. This already gets specified on the homepage of LinkedIn; “control you professional identity online”.[4] Through active management of only identity “one writes one’s social-economic status into being.” (boyd, 2008)

Through this online status management one can effectively pursue goals in professional life, with relatively little effort. Connecting to related individuals, in whatever broad sense, is always at hand, as is active status comparison. While communication gets increasingly computer mediated, the computer becomes almost as a limb to humans. “In today’s society, access to information is a key element of status and power and communication is instant, ubiquitous and mobile” (Donath, boyd 2004). When we are mobile and ubiquitously connected, what exactly is the difference between checking someone’s ‘Whuffie’ through a brain implant and checking someone’s social-economic status on a professional network site through a mobile Internet connection? Next to the interface, maybe the only difference is the exact number of the ‘Whuffie’ being self-explanatory and LinkedIn profile info needing interpretation.

Conclusion

To conclude; my main question was:

To what extent do professional social networking sites as LinkedIn enable explicit social-economic status comparison?

Social-economic status as based upon education and occupation is explicitly materialized in profile info on LinkedIn. Through a whole of weak tie connections (meaning connections with which the profile owner only has few commonalities) which form a bridge, connecting to otherwise unavailable social circles become a possibility. LinkedIn’s possibilities of staying in touch with weak ties, along with functions as ‘recommendations’, may be reforming the definition of ‘weak tie’. Therefore, social economic status has the opportunity to grow beyond offline only accounts of social-economic status. Through active construction of online identity, the subdivided nature of self-presentation via profile info provides explicit status comparison between different subdivided profiles and thus, between different profile owners. This gives opportunities for personal growth of the profile owner and a higher relative position in society’s hierarchy.

[2] Friendster homepage headline on 11-01-2010 (www.friendster.com)

[3] Note on LinkedIn’s add connection page 13-01-2010

[4] LinkedIn homepage header on 14-01-2010 (www.linkedin.com)

Literature

• boyd, danah. ‘Faceted Id/entity: Managing representation in a digital world’. Master’s Thesis, MIT Media Lab, 2002.
• boyd, danah. ‘Sociable Technology and Democracy’. In Extreme Democracy, ed. Jon Lebkowsky, Mitch Ratcliffe. Toronto: Lulu, 2005.
• boyd, danah. ‘Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics’. PhD diss., University of California, 2008.
• Clauss-Ehlers, Caroline. ‘Diversity Training for Classroom Teaching: A Manual for Students and Educators’. New York: Springer, 2006.
• Couvering, Elizabeth Van. ‘Is Relevance Relevant? Market, Science, and War: Discourses of Search Engine Quality’. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 12(3), 2007.
• Doctorow, Cory. ‘Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom’. New York: Tor Books, 2003.
• Donath, Judith and danah boyd. ‘Public displays of connection’. BT Technological Journal, 22(4), 2004: 71-82.
• Granovetter, M. ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’. Am. J. Sociol. 78, 1973: 1360-1380.
• Hollingshead, A.B. ‘Fout Factor Index of Social Status’. Unpublished Working Paper, 1975.
• Ito, Muziko et al. ‘Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media’. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010.
• Lin, Nan. ‘Social Networks and Status Attainment’. Annu. Rev. Sociol., 1999 (25): 467-487.
• Rogers, Richard, Michael Stevenson and Esther Weltevrede. ’Social Research with the Web’. Pre-Print, Amsterdam: Govcom.org Foundation, 2009.
• Smith, Marc A and Peter Kollock. ‘Communities in Cyberspace’. London: Routelegde, 1999.
• Wilkinson, Will. ‘Out of Position: Against the Politics of Relative Standing’. Policy, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2006: 3-9.

RFID & wireless surveillance in the Internet of Things

“In the next century, planet earth will don an electronic skin. [...] It consists of millions of embedded electronic measuring devices. [...] These will probe and monitor [...] our bodies, even our dreams.” [1]

A RFID chip consists of a small electric circuit and some digital storage space with an attached radio antenna. By means of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) information can be wirelessly read, altered and stored in a database. These chips are small and can be embedded in objects (like clothing) or bodies.

RFID chips can be implanted in articles in stores, as a replacement of the classic barcode. When you leave or enter a store the articles you have on you are wirelessly scanned (whether you just bought them or had them for some time). For instance, when you enter a store, store personnel knows your taste in fashion and can advise you based on your previous purchases.

Over time, purchases can create a customer profile; the unique id’s of the chips can be linked to a pin or credit card. Transactions could provide an endless stream of information.

“On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures, which are so contrived that eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.” [1]

Disciplinary to Control

According to Michel Foucault, disciplinary societies work by organizing hierarchic surveillance, his central metaphor being the panopticon by Jeremy Bentham; the ideal system of control. The round prison with the centrally placed watchtower enables the guard(s) to watch every inmate at any time. In this model, physical human presence works repressive and reflective.[2] Foucault puts forward that this model extends further than the prison, to all disciplinary institutions characterizing the period from industrial revolution to the second half of the last century, like the factory, the school and the hospital. In the disciplinary society, life is tightly organized in different districts of power, mainly constituted by the physical limits of the classic institution; the building. These districts arrange the citizen’s life and control it, while they are moving through them. The disorderly and threatening mob is transformed to a organized whole of different groups and categories.

However, Foucault realized his classic disciplinary society was temporary and unsteady of nature.

“While the number of disciplinary institutions grow, their mechanisms show a certain tendency for “de-institutionalization” – their mechanisms leave the closed sites in which they functioned to circulate in the open space, the compact and massive discipline falls into pliable control methods, which are adjustable and easily transferred.” [2]

Since the end of the Second World War we find ourselves in a period in which the great organizers (e.g. factory, school, hospital) of public life are in decline. The power they hold is as real as ever, but is not limited by the physical space of the building. The different closed systems of control extend further than the architecture; to having a constant effect on a citizen’s daily life, even when he is at home. The classic disciplinary society transforms to a control society in which different districts of power overlap and an open system of constant general surveillance comes into being. [3] Technical possibilities as surveillance camera’s on the streets, the electronic patient file, the biometric passport and RFID are a part of this.

“ [..] What it means to talk of institutions breaking down: the wide-spread progressive introduction of a new system of domination.” [3]

RFID in the Internet of Things

At the beginning of the new millennium Intel did the following prediction:

“Computing, not computers will characterize the next era of the computer age. The critical focus in the very near future will be on ubiquitous access to pervasive and largely invisible computing resources. A continuum of information processing devices ranging from microscopic embedded devices to giant server farms will be woven together with networks of the future.” [1]

Originally, the Internet mainly supported human activity and interaction in a world apart from ours; ‘Cyberspace’. Nowadays, the Internet is mixing with reality, is embedded in our world. Among theories linked to this phenomena is Mark Weiser’s Ubiquitous Computing. The Internet transforms; it doesn’t pull the user through the screen into its world, but pours itself from the screen onto everything in our world. Result: Invisible connectivity, embedded in our homes, machines, even our bodies. RFID tags make that connectivity possible. RFID enables previously passive objects to be a part of an autonomous network of data structures, where objects exchange data without human intervention; the Internet of Things.

“With RFID each object has its own unique identifier and individuals will – apart from being walking repositories of biometric data – become entangled in an “Internet of Things.” RFID foreshadows what nano-electronics has in store for our privacy: invisible surveillance.” [5]

The architecture of new surveillance like RFID logically isn’t the same as that of the panopticon. The buildings of classic institutions symbolize the central control and monitoring of civilians in Foucault’s disciplinary society. In the control society the architecture’s prominence disappears, it’s place taken by a whole of invisible surveillance, continuously watching us. Instead of direct discipline and a consciousness of the physical borders of controlling institutions, the control society creates discipline by conditioning the civilian to accept constant surveillance. The power districts expand, to overlap one another, growing to be a whole covering all reality. We know we are being watched and that it is all for our ‘security’. Obedience is a logical result.

—

1. McCullough, Malcolm. ‘Digital Ground. Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing’. The MIT Press (2005): p. 2-24.
2. Orwell, George. ‘1984’, New York: Penguin, 1949.
3. Foucault, Michel. ‘Discipline and Punish; the Birth of the Prison’, New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
4. Deleuze, Gilles. ‘Postscript on Control Societies’ in Thomas Levin, Ursula Frohne and Peter Weibel (eds.), Ctrl Space: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2002): p. 317-321.
5. Hoven, van den, Jeroen en Vermaas, Pieter E. ‘Nano-Technology and Privacy: On Continuous Surveillance Outside the Panopticon’, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2007, 32:283-297.

Culture, classification & the Flickr.com tag

Web 2.0 tagging systems like Flickr’s categorize the website’s content bottom-up.

The classification is powered by users applying their common sense and intuition; wisdom-of-the-crowd, resulting in a folk taxonomy of everything that is to be found in the Flickr database.

A folksonomy is contextual, ambigious, gradual, adaptive, easily accessible, open and flexible. A folksonomy connects with the reality of its users, uses the idiom of their native language and therefore, has a plane learning curve. As said, a folksonomy is built bottom-up, instead of top-down classic classification (e.g. Aristotle’s classification of living things, the Dewey Decimal system, the periodic table of elements).

What things exist and how are they related? This is the main question classic ontology asks. Through the centuries, man has always longed for a universal classification system, as to have the feeling of ever

ything that exists in the universe being under human control. And, next to that, that system also needs to be flexible; capable of incorporating future anomalies.

Sadly, this seems to be impossible. Take for instance Aristotle’s classification of living things, in which he placed emphasis on the type(s) of soul an organism possessed, asserting that plants possess a

vegetative soul, responsible for reproduction and growth, animals a vegetative and a sen

sitive soul, responsible for mobility and sensation, and humans a vegetative, a sensitive, and a rational soul, capable of thought and reflection. Or second, the Dewey Decimal system, in which world religion is divided into nine categories: (210) Natural theology, (220) Bible, (230) Christian theology, (240) Christian moral & devotional theology, (250) Christian orders & local church, (260) Christian social theology, (270) Christian church history, (280) Christian sects & denominations, (290) Other religions. [1]

These two examples illustrate that classification systems have always been historically and culturally embedded and imposed upon us by scientists/experts. In the spirit of Karl Popper; (contemporary) science seems to be incapable of conjuring a classification system that will not be falsified at some point.

“It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe not being arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for that is very simple; we do not know what thing the universe is.” [2]

Systems of classification always are culturally embedded, built on a stable assumption of what the world is at a particular time. In medieval science, for instance, that assumption was based on the four directions of the wind, the four seasons, the four bodily fluids of Galenus, the earth as the centre of the universe, the church as the central power in society, and so on. If a culture develops and knowledge increases, there inevitably comes a moment when a classification system has to be heavily adjusted or repudiated.

Bowker and Star write that categorization is a natural phenomenon. People don’t just see the relations that define units within a culture, people learn them by being a part of that culture and within that culture of different “communities of practice” [3]

“In the simplest seeming action, such as picking an article of clothing to wear, is embedded our complex knowledge of situations. (Where will I go today? What should I look like for the variety of activities in which I will participate?) These situations involve multiple memberships and how objects are used differently across communities. (Will this shirt ‘do’ for a meeting with the dean, lunch with a prospective lover, and an appointment with the doctor at the end of the day?) Many of these choices become standardized and built into the environment around us; for example, the range of clothing we select is institutionalized by the retail stores to which we have access, traditions of costuming, and so forth. To think of this formally, the institutionalization of categorical work across multiple communities of practice, over time, produces the structures of our lives.” [3]

One community uses a unit differently than the other. Units get coded en decoded when they transfer the borders of a “community of practice”. They become meaningful because they reside in different contexts. To be meaningful, the different contexts need to be connected by system of comparison and appraisal; categorization.

Bowker and Star point out that classification systems are cultural embedded. In a classic classification, units are captured in a certain vocabulary, which, at a certain time, turns out to misfit the units it describes. Units develop continuously within a culture, different communities are using them differently, which ever influences their meaning.

“We need a richer vocabulary than that of standardization or formalization with which to characterize the heterogeneity and the processual nature of information ecologies.” [3]

Now, folksonomy could be that rich vocabulary. Folksonomy is automatically culturally embedded, simply because all authors are. This means that folksonomy automatically adapts to whatever changes units go through. Because folksonomy is bottom-up instead of top-down, it always stays up-to-date. What about classifying the whole web by wisdom-of-the-crowd and folksonomy?

Of course, there are a lot of problems with classifying by folksonomy. Take for instance polysemy (multiple meanings for the same tag), homonymy (one tag, but multiple unrelated tags), synonymy (multiple tags with the same meaning), different levels of categorization (mammal, pet, cat), spelling errors and different ways of writing (nyc, New York, NY) [4]

Also more deep problems arise. A photo tagged with ‘England’ for example; does this mean the photo shows something in or from England or that the photo is taken in England? Tags can have many different relations with the objects they describe. [4]

However, looking through these practical problems, there seems to be a possibility for a differentiated system of search- and findable units.

“Folk wisdom, however, is not necesserily impaired by ambiguity and inexactness. It is true that tagging systems like Flickr’s do not allow users to specify meanings by expressing structural relations, be they linguistic or taxonomic. [...] But at the collective level of the tag cloud one can observe a process of subtle differentiation and speculation.” [4]

Folksonomy does have the potential to grow and become a more defined system, where units become ever more ‘natural’, because the meaning of units changes with their use within a cultural practice; Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle, embedded in a classification system. A classification system, created by culturally situated subjects, develops along the same line as the meaning and use of phenomena used in a culture.

This maybe is a bit abstract, and of course there are a lot of practical problems yet to be solved, but folksonomy has a connection with daily life and common sense that every classic classification system lacks, which is the main reason why those systems collapse eventually.

To end this piece, a quote which does not argues for folksonomy directly, but if you read between the lines…

“Any working infrastructure serves multiple communities of practice simultaneously, be these within a single organization or distributed across multiple organizations. [...] To do so, it must bring into play stable regimes of [...] objects such that any given community of practice can interface with the information system and pull out the kinds of information objects it needs.” [3]
—

1. Shirky, Clay. ‘Ontology Is Overrated’ Clay Shirky’s Internet Writings, 2005.
2. Borges, Jorge Luis. ‘The Analytical Language of John Wilkins’. Trans. Paul Perry, 1941.
3. Bowker Geoffrey C., Star Susan L. ‘Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences’. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, (1999): p. 285-326.
4. Simons, Jan. ‘Tagalese – or the Language of Tags’, Fibreculture Journal, Issue 12, Metamodels and Contemporary. 2008

Blogging, Twittering, SMS & Chat improving general writing skills

It is often heard that new media is killing our (especially teenager’s) writing skills. Writing on the Internet take bold forms, which are often assumed to influence the general use of language. Examples are acronyms (used in chat, sms, forums, etc.) as CYAL8R (see you later), IMHO (in my humble opinion, ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) or even ROFLAPMP (rolling on floor laughing and peeing my pants). The Internet is full of bad spelling, horrible grammar mistakes and shaky argument structures. New media degrades the use of language.

“Texting is bleak, bald, sad shorthand which masks dyslexia, poor spelling and mental laziness” [1] (as claimed by English professor John Sutherland at London University College).

However, Stanford writing and rhetoric professor Andrea Lunsford claims the following:

“I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization”[2]

New technological possibilities are reviving writing as a daily activity, reforming language and its use. Lunsford conducted extensive research on student writing skills, called The Stanford Study of Writing. From 2001 to 2006, she collected almost 15.000 student writings, varying from essays to journal entries and from emails to chat sessions.

Her findings:

Young people write more than any generation before them.

The Internet powers online socializing on a huge scale, and this is all writing. For instance, keeping your followers up-to-date about your day on twitter, blogging etc. Lunsford discovered that almost 40 percent of writing took place outside of the classroom [2].  People write in their own time, for fun, not only when the teacher or the boss wants it.

Young people almost always write for a particular audience

Online writing almost always is directed to a certain audience. For the students in Lunsford’s research writing is about persuading, organizing and debating (for instance writing a 15.000 word game walk though, with clear directions and structure). In class writings the audience only is the professor, which motivates the students far less. It only gets them a grade. Furthermore, different media demand different writing techniques, for instance a twitter message, which needs to be short but powerful, or an email, which has it’s own style and vocabulary and is very different from a classic letter.

New media pushes writing to new levels. Of course it is important to teach in academic writing. Together with new media, student academic writing improves, by the simple fact that practice makes perfect.

The question is, however, if this research is as applicable to the general population as these newspapers claim. Only a small part of the population has an academic degree (statistics missing here) and students maybe are naturally better writers than lower educated people or people without education, academic student’s get lessons in academic writing and so on.

But then again, language is a culturally embedded phenomena and changes with society, technology and the people using it. It is natural for language and writing to change when the world it describes changes.

—

1. Berkmann, Marcus. ‘Txting: The gr8 db8’, New York Post, July 27, 2008, <http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/books/txtng_the_gr_db_4pSUZstfEH2aFkdsqLBEEK>
2. Thompson, Clive. ‘Clive Thompson on the New Literacy’, Wired Magazine, August 24, 2009, <http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson>
3. Houtekamer, Carola. ‘Internet is goed voor schrijven’, NRC-Next, September 28, < http://www.nrcnext.nl/blog/2009/09/28/internet-is-goed-voor-schrijven/>

Online and Offline Social Networks Evolving/Defriending

Continuing on Kimberley’s post on social network defriending, I’d like to stress some other points relating to social network defriending and its possible context.

The Dunbar Number
Research by Sociologist Robert Dunbar[1] shows that, at a random moment in time, the average person has a real life social network containing about 150 contacts, varying from close friends to more vague acquaintances. This relatively constant number means that new contacts replace fading ones more or less equally.

With that in mind the American social network Friendster limited its members to a friend-count of 150 (at the start in 2002), apparently expecting that fading contacts in the real world would also be deleted online.[2] Now, a few years further in time, it appears that online friendships don’t fade and die out the same way as real ones do. Many people have a lot (A LOT) of social network contacts. Online 150 just seems to be not enough.

Friend counts
“Facebook users had an average of 281 friends in their network and aspired to increase that to an average of 317”.[3]

The average Facebook number of friends is almost double the Dunbar number! It seems that one cannot conclude otherwise than online friendship being very different than offline friendship. Of course, this is a bit of a turn on two wheels, and this needs to be founded further by qualitative and quantitative research among different social network sites and -members, but for now I’m keeping it short.

‘Friendship’ and friendship evolving
As Kim writes, we have the Boyd – Beer opposition in online and offline friendship, and resulting from the above there seems to be reason to support Boyd. However, we are, as Beer argues, in a process in which cultural values and phenomena ever change. Friendship is a term influenced by culture in a recursive way, continually shaped by the people who give it meaning.[4]

Now, social networking sites are becoming a larger part of our daily life and are becoming included in our contemporary understanding of friendship; social networking sites are becoming more and more culturally embedded.

Reasoning in the spirit of Beer; what will be the result of that process? A few options: 1. Real life social networks will grow, the 1998 research of Dunbar is outdated with our current technical possibilities to maintain contacts, the Dunbar Number ‘2.0’ maybe will be double the old one? Online then influences offline. 2. Online social networks will become a better reflection of real life social networks. People are getting tired of the social networking hype and large numbers of ‘Friends’ that are not real friends. The Dunbar Number will then support argument for online defriending. Offline then influences online. Or 3. People abandon their profiles and none of this is relevant (and other options like this that are not fun to think about).

—

1. Dunbar, Robert. ‘Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language’, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
2. boyd, danah. ‘Friends, Friendsters, and MySpace Top 8: Writing Community Into Being on Social Network Sites’ First Monday 11:12, December (2006).
3. Swidey, Neil. ‘Friends in a Facebook World’, The Boston Globe, November 30, 2008, http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/11/30/friends_in_a_facebook_world/
4. Beer, David. ‘Social network(ing) sites… revisiting the story so far: A response to danah boyd &  Nicole Ellison’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(2) (2008): p. 516- 529.

The Wiki Beehive

Generally Wikipedia is praised for it’s collective driven overload of information.

“Britannica’s biggest errors are of omission, not commission. It’s shallow in some categories and out of date in many others. And then there are the millions of entries that it simply doesn’t–and can’t, given its editorial process–have. But Wikipedia can scale to include those and many more. Today Wikipedia offers 860,000 articles in English – compared with Britannica’s 80,000 and Encarta’s 4,500. Tomorrow the gap will be far larger.” (1)

The belief in Wikipedia is widespread. Together, people seem to be capable of showing great wisdom.

“Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them” (2)

Different opinions exist around collective intelligence. Opposite to the success of wisdom of the crowd we have the Hive Mind, a theory about collectives where individual voices are suppressed in the interest of the collective as a whole. Jaron Lanier gives a fine example in his 2006 essay Digital Maoism; Lanier’s Wikipedia entry says he is a filmmaker, although he made only one (very bad, after his own saying) film in the early nineties. When he changes his own Wiki page into saying that he is not a filmmaker but a scholar/journalist, the entry is always corrected back to filmmaker by Wikipedia users thinking he is a filmmaker.(3) This of course frustrates Lanier and illustrates the power the collective holds over individual users.

Individual users make entries, that wisdom gradually spreads and eventually becomes the truth for the many users who consult Wikipedia as the oracle of new technology. A mighty collective of believers crushes the voices of individual users holding the wisdom to correct false entries. Empowering the collective does not necessarily mean empowering the individual; the independence of the user gets disrupted. “People neglect what they know and pay attention instead to the signals given by others.” (4)

In psychology group conformity is described as the process by which an individual’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by others, which results in direct or overt social pressure. Conformity even occurs by implied presence of others, when people aren’t actually present, such as online. People conform to feel safe within a group, deflecting the risk of social rejection. (5)

Lanier explores this phenomenon even further when he warns us: ”History has shown us again and again that a hive mind is a cruel idiot when it runs on autopilot. Nasty have mind outbursts have been flavored Maoist, Fascist and religious […] I don’t see why there couldn’t be future social disasters that appear suddenly under the cover of technological utopianism” (3)

We’ll have to find a way of using the collective valuing the individual user. As human beings, we don’t want to lose ourselves in a collective, but at the same we seem to feel so safe being there. A weird opposition…

—-

1. Chris Anderson, The Probabilistic Age, 2005.
2. Surowiecki, James, The Wisdom of Crowds, New York: Double Day, 2004.
3. Lanier, Jaron, Digital Maoism, EDGE Magazine, May 2006.
4. Sunstein, Cass. Republic.com 2.0. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
5. Wikipedia, Conformity. This is ironic, I know, but I also feel safe in the womb of collective intelligence.

Book review of “Against The Machine – Being Human In The Age Of The Electronic Mob” by Lee Siegel

Lee Siegel was born in New York in 1957 and has Bachelor, Master and Master of Philosophy degrees from Columbia University.

While working as a staff writer at The New Republic, an American magazine on politics and the arts, he encountered anonymous comments on articles in the blog section: “Mr. Siegel came onto many peoples sanctuary, pissed in the urns, farted and then put his dick upon the altar”; “Siegel is a retarded mongoloid”; “Siegel wanted to fuck a child.” (p. 8)

After The New Republic’s decision to keep an open discussion and not deleting the comments, Siegel began replying under the name “sprezzatura”, attacking anonymous commentators and praising himself and his work.

This behavior, pretty hypocrite when reading his book, was discovered by The New Republic and Siegel was suspended. This “conveniently” gave him the time to write “Against The Machine”.

Against The Machine, as one would expect after the incident described above, is a angry complaint against modern technology (especially the internet) reshaping society. Siegel compares himself to Ralph Nader, the American novelist who exposed the car industry criminally neglecting safety issues for financial benefit in “Unsafe at Any Speed (1965)”, which cost thousands of lives.

Identity theft, addictions and child abuse (relating to or caused by online activities) are quite often in the news, leading to discussions about the Internet and its possibilities. The media, being reluctant to accept Internet’s downsides, silences this critique, Siegel writes. The Internet seems to be impervious to criticism, it is quickly done away with as hysteria. Like with the car industry, someone has to set off the bomb. Luckily we have Lee Siegel to open our eyes.

“Criticize the car and you were criticizing democracy. […] that’s just the way things were.” (p. 2)

The Internet is a global hit, Siegel presents himself as one of the pioneers of debunking its hype, and he is debunking it heavily.

The book has two main points; 1) The Internet is an anti-social medium and 2) User generated content is overrated and degrading our culture.

Web 2.0 is generally viewed as connecting individual users and giving them possibilities never imagined, while actually it isolates individuals, sitting home alone, staring at their screens. As an example Siegel situates himself sitting in a Starbucks coffee bar in the pre-internet days, watching people, thinking, listening to stranger’s conversation, etc. It was a social environment where lots of things happened. While Starbucks nowadays has turned into a digital no-man’s land, with people only staring at their laptops, immersed in their own wi-fi reality.

Everyone gets the opportunity to be a producer of content on the Internet, you can write about your day at school or film your pet dancing in a tutu, you name it and it’s online. Siegel argues that user generated content degrades culture and standardizes its users. The only measure for the quality of the content on the Internet is popularity, resulting in high-school-like copycat behavior. Internet culture is finding a group and copying its style (possibly with a little twist). Participatory culture has made the “Youniverse”, as Siegel calls it, into an endless pile of rubbish.

Siegel is heavily techno-deterministic and a fan of Marshall McLuhan (chapter 3 is called “The Me Is The Message” after McLuhan’s “The Medium Is The Message”). Siegel presents the Internet as a dark phenomenon, destroying everything that once was good in the lives of its users. The Internet is the cause of a widespread shortage of simple social, psychological and emotional stimuli.

“Against The Machine” is very negative about contemporary technology and culture. Siegel’s arguments do make sense; I myself am not much of a fan of user-generated content and its quality opposed to professional journalism, but in this book there seems to be no space at all for relativity or searching for explanation.

Siegel does not look for deeper cultural or social needs or arguments to explain the rise of technology on this scale. The Internet simply is there and everyone is a victim. Does the Internet really have such horrible effects on both culture as a whole and the individual users? It is simple to say everything is bad, bad, bad. Maybe Siegel and his generation are just to old to lecture about the activities of people who grew up using computers and the Internet, the generation who will be actively shaping society in the future? Siegel didn’t even bother to ask some of the (younger) people actively blogging, or putting home videos on YouTube for their experiences or motivation. A little empirical research wouldn’t have hurt his arguments..

Furthermore, the arguments Siegel makes sometimes seem unilateral, leaving the reader wondering if Siegel’s side of the story is all there is to it. Siegel’s example on Wikipedia (as a means to prove the degradation of information) for instance, discusses a journalist who’s Wiki-page falsely stated “he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby” (p.143). This severe error haunted the journalist for several years afterwards. Of course Wiki can be false, or a vehicle for very bad jokes, but naturally there are counterpoints to be made and countless examples of Wiki being a success.

“Against The Machine” is culturally critical, and that’s fine, the Internet is probably praised too much. Many people will recognize Siegel’s frustrations about petabytes of YouTube video without any cultural value or millions of users blogging away while only a handful of people know how to write well. Everyone is now a potential producer, but the fact is that not everyone has meaningful information to share. We know this. It frustrates many people. The weakest point is that “Against The Machine” does not look for explanation at all, it simply identifies; and that lacks historical, cultural and social perspective.

So, if you like the idea of nearly 200 pages of angry Internet-bashing, you’ll be happy reading “Against The Machine”, but don’t expect something much deeper than only the bashing..

first post

I’m starting a blog wohoo!

This will be mainly about topics considering my masters at the University of Amsterdam; New Media, like articles and/or papers I read/wrote and my upcoming thesis.