Philosophy and Social Media 2: The Origins of Social Media

PHILOSOPHYAND SOCIAL MEDIA

The origins of social mediaLook at Me (2001) by Jennifer EganOrdinary People - a fictitious dot-com thataspires to record and webcast every detailof Charlotte’s daily life‘It’s not a magazine – it’s a database …[containing] people’s stories, just ordinaryAmericans … Each one of these folks willhave their own home page – we call it aPersonal Space™ - devoted exclusively totheir lives, internal and external’.

The origins of social media

The origins of social mediaProsumers emerged with ‘Web 2’: the internet as collaborative platform• ‘Web 2’ popularised by Tim O’Reilly in 2004. ‘Web 2 is a set of principles andpractices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstratesome or all of these principles’.Meme: an idea, behaviour or stylethat spreads from person toperson within a culture.• Web 2: a cultural evolution• Q: Where did the culture ofonline sharing andcollaboration come from?

The origins of social mediaThe values and practices of hacker culture and the 60s counterculture.

Counterculture nomadsThe Prisoner (1967-68)‘I am not a number - I am a free man!’

Counterculture nomadsGilles Deleuze (1925-1995)• Nomadism: resistance to stasis,capture, definition. Life asexperiment; refusal of categories• Jack Kerouac as patron Saint of60s nomadism. But we can benomads without moving• Nomadism frees up creativeenergies, opens creative spaces• ‘Majoritarian’ culture seeks tocapture these energies and insertthem into productive systems

Counterculture nomadsDrop City Colorado (1965 – 1977) – the first hippie commune• Two key values of the counterculture, crystallized in Drop City:1. Nomadism2. Communalism

Counterculture to cybercultureStewart Brand (1938-)Whole Earth Catalogue (‘68-’72): tools for nomads.‘We are as gods and might as well get used to it. …[A] realm of intimate personal power is developing –power of the individual to conduct his own education,find his own inspiration, shape his own environment,and share his adventure with whoever is interested.Tools that aid this process are sought and promotedby the WHOLE EARTH CATALOGUE’

Counterculture to cybercultureFrom Counterculture to Cyberculture: StewartBrand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise ofDigital Utopianism, by Fred Turner (2006)• Brand organized the first ever Hacker’sConference, in San Francisco, to coincide withSteven Levy’s book, Hackers: Heroes of theComputer Revolution (1984)• In 1985, Brand, along with Larry Brilliant, andCliff Figaro and John Coate (former membersof the Farm commune) started the WELL(World Earth ‘Lectronic Link) – the world’s firstonline social network http://www.well.com/

Origins of the internetJ.C.R. Licklider (1915 -1990), Head of ComputerResearch Program at DARPA (Defence DepartmentAdvanced Research Projects Agency)• 1962: Licklider plans ‘packet switching’ network1968: ARPAnet project gets off the ground

Origins of the internetDouglas Engelbart (1925-)Stanford Research Institute (SRI)• Inspired by Vannevar Bush’s article,‘As We May Think’ (1945)• Engelbart dreamed of apersonalised computing experiencethat would augment the powers ofthe human intellectThe Memex (from Memory Extension): a microfilm-based ‘device in which an individual stores all hisbooks, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted withexceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory’.

Origins of the internet‘The Mother of all Demos’, 1968• Engelbart was an outlier. Hisideas were largely ignored bythe computer scientists at ARPA• Video director: Stewart Brand

Hardware hackersTech Model Railroad Club (MIT)Hack (MIT definition): ‘A prank or practicaljoke, which is both challenging for theperpetrators and amusing to the MITcommunity’.‘Access to computers – and anything thatmight teach you something about the way theworld works – should be unlimited and total’.‘Information wants to be free’.

Hardware hackersCommunity Memory Project (1972-1974) –first computerised bulletin board system• People’s Computer Company (early 1970s)• Inspired a generation of hardware hackerswho developed the first personal computers

Hardware hackersHomebrew Computer Club (1975-1986)• An informal group of electronicenthusiasts and hobbyists who tradedparts, circuits, and information on theDIY construction of computing devices• One of the most influential forces in theformation of the culture of Silicon Valley

Hardware hackers

Hardware hackersSteve Wozniak (‘Woz’) (1955-)Steve Jobs (1955-2011)• Apple I (1976)

Apple Mac: nomadism branded and sold

Bulletin boards and the WELL

Free and open source software (FOSS)• Richard Stallman (1953-): founder of Free Software Movement• Founder of the GNU Project (founded 1983).Mission: to build a free UNIX-compatible operating system.• The GNU Project was intended to bringback the cooperative spirit that prevailedin the early computing community• Digital commons: repository of free code• ‘Free as in speech, not free as in beer’

Free and open source software (FOSS)‘Im doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, wont bebig and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. Thishas been brewing since April, and is starting to get ready. Idlike any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as myOS resembles it somewhat…’ (Torvalds, December 1991)Linus Torvalds (1969-)

Free and open source software (FOSS)• Two key values of the counter hacker culture:1. Nomadism: free experimentation and creation2. Communalism: the digital commons

The marketing of ‘open source’‘Homesteading on the Noosphere’ (1997): Eric S. Raymond argues that the freesoftware movement is based in a gift culture ‘in which participants compete forprestige by giving time, energy, and creativity away’.

The marketing of ‘open source’In 1998, Netscape made the strategic decision to embrace open source culture. Itreleased the source code of Netscape Communicator 4.0 onto the internet andcreated the Mozilla Foundation to steer the future development of the productNetscape CEO Jim Barksdale hired Raymond tohead up the marketing campaign

The evolution of hacker cultureMark Zuckerberg (1984-)‘[W]e want to build a hacker culture. We wantto be the place where the best hackers wantto work, because our culture is set up sothey can build stuff quickly and do crazy stuffand be recognized for standout brilliance’.Facebook is not an open source project• Facebook treats hacker culture as asocial norm: it is an free-access platformfor transparent sharing and co-creation

The evolution of hacker culture• We assume that the present stands at the end of a linear development• A teleological view of history: the present is to the past as a tree is to a seed• History is rhizomatic – forces grow underground and burst up unexpectedly

The evolution of hacker culture

http://mrgareth.org	331
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com	10
http://mrgareth.posthaven.com	9
https://si0.twimg.com	1
https://twitter.com	1

Philosophy and Social Media 2: The Origins of Social Media

by Timothy Rayner on Jul 24, 2012

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

5 Embeds 352

Statistics

Philosophy and Social Media 2: The Origins of Social Media Presentation Transcript