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critical approaches to social media vincent maher  | strategist | mail & guardian online
my background
Critical what does this mean?
Max Horkheimer  1937 Traditional and Critical Theory
Critique & Transformation Social theory that seeks to change society as a whole, rather than merely explain it
Radical Marxism In direct opposition to the science of logical positivism and authoritarianism
Emancipatory Seeks to improve the quality and structure of life for the oppressed
Ideology An instrument of social production, through which capitalism and its power relations reproduce themselves
False Consciousness The proletariat have been misled…
Hegemony  Gramsci used this to explain why people have a false conception of their own values and interests
Fetishism  Most primitive phase of religion in which people ascribe magical or divine significance to material objects.  For Freud this relation was sexual.
Commodity Fetishism  Life is organised through the medium of commodities and the value of commodities is abstracted - use-value and exchange-value is disconnected
As marketers  you will know this well
Creating need How do you  create  a need for something unless you take it away from someone who already has it?
The Talisman In Hermeticism, a talisman is a consecrated material object used to protect and exert some type of power
The Gadget In marketing, a device imbued with a magical power that enhances virility and efficiency
Step back…
Naïve Arrogance It seems like history started in 1993, with the birth of the web
Web 2. 0 It seems like history started at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference in 2004
History is valuable Understanding preceding events and shifts can help us understand the future.
Pre 1. 0   Technology suddenly became central to the process of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution
Technology  is fundamentally linked to the path of development in Western society, and is wrapped up in its ideology and an instrument of its power relations
Cultural production  What we call “making content”, has a long history
Time and Space  was compressed first by the horse, then the railway, then the telephone, then the Internet
Fires in camps  Humans based their knowledge and understanding of the world on the personal interactions with people from their own villages, or travellers
Linguistic Diversity  This is why each village could have a different accent
Local knowledge, regional myth  This is also why magic could always thrive at the edge of the forest
Identity  This life, with its relative simplicity, was the anvil against which story-telling forged identity
Regulation? The village elders would regulate what could and couldn’t be said, but the regulation took place after the fact and about the content of the infrigement
Fast Forward Today our identities are formed via a series of interpersonal interactions but increasingly these interactions are mediated
Mediation TV, radio, the Web, email, IM, SMS, MMS, telephone, recording and playback
Regulation Mediated conversations are subject to regulation, on the level of the medium itself and the market regulation of potential media available and their uses
Commercial Messaging As a result of this mediation the very fabric of identity formation is subject to commercial imperatives
Technology is not transparent Most often, technology is presented as a neutral enabler. However, on inspection, this is not the case
The types of technology we have access to are limit[ed][ing]
Google A classic example of an opaque system, couched in the language of technological transparency
Google = Knowledge The front page of Google is the starting point of most research these days
Language  Google talk about democracy, accuracy, speed, efficiency, the best results for your query
What are we doing? We enter keywords and get back a list of resources
But what is actually happening? An algorithm calculates the hierachy of resources.  It’s just an algorithm, a machine right?
An ideological machine That constructs the structure of relevance based on a system of values
How does PageRank actually work? Google don’t disclose this vital piece of information, on the grounds of protecting commercial secrets
What kind of world do we live in, where the underlying structure of knowledge has legally become a commercial secret??
PageRank Awards age, popularity and various other criteria that reinforce existing power relations
Expert Systems Like driving a car, we accept its output unquestioningly without understanding its inner workings
Expert Systems Google is one of many expert systems that we have come to trust, as a consequence of technological progress
 Danger Gevaar Ingosi
Social Media Something the Mail & Guardian is firmly committed to pursuing, but er… what is it?
Democracy, again With the emergence of sites like Digg, YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace and OhMyNews and things like blogging there is a buzz about how the web democratises content and the media
Destabiliser Actually, what the Web does is it destabilises everything in its wake, not always for the better
Ideology @ wrk But, actually, what they do is they reinforce a lack of diversity of opinion outside the ideological bounds of the conversation
Ideology @ work Digg-like sites are supposed to bring democracy to the editorial process by crowdsourcing it
Ideology @ work Ideas that challenge conventional wisdom [naturalised beliefs of the dominant system] are excluded, whereas those that reinforce it gain popularity
Geeks in a circle According to Habermas, democracy and rational debate require people to  to have exposure to alternative points of view
Geeks in a circle What happens is that ideology gets reinforced rather than exposed for what it is, in ever-tightening spirals of audience fragmentation
GWOT and xenophobia This phenomenon cannot be seen in isolation from the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the polarisation of society into Judeo-Christian vs Islamic, patriots vs terrorists, us vs immigrants
Nevertheless… The current market is a very exciting one for media, marketers and the newly revived PR industry
Nothing to lose Thinking about the choice we make and the technologies we employ and the uses we encourage in a critical manner can help us to  a] do good or  b] exploit the system by understanding it better?  The correct answer is A and B
What can we say about the future? Whatever we can think about the future is going to be less than impressive in the long term and dissapointing in the short term
What can we say about the future? What will actually happen in the future will seem like sorcery to us today if someone travelled back in time and showed us pictures
What can we say about the future? Nothing is stable, as the life-cycle of technology accelerates and tightens around itself
The problem with a tightly coiled spring is that it can jump out of your hand and go in any direction
Thank you And now for the Amatomu story

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A Criticial Approach to Social Media

  • 1. critical approaches to social media vincent maher | strategist | mail & guardian online
  • 3. Critical what does this mean?
  • 4. Max Horkheimer 1937 Traditional and Critical Theory
  • 5. Critique & Transformation Social theory that seeks to change society as a whole, rather than merely explain it
  • 6. Radical Marxism In direct opposition to the science of logical positivism and authoritarianism
  • 7. Emancipatory Seeks to improve the quality and structure of life for the oppressed
  • 8. Ideology An instrument of social production, through which capitalism and its power relations reproduce themselves
  • 9. False Consciousness The proletariat have been misled…
  • 10. Hegemony Gramsci used this to explain why people have a false conception of their own values and interests
  • 11. Fetishism Most primitive phase of religion in which people ascribe magical or divine significance to material objects. For Freud this relation was sexual.
  • 12. Commodity Fetishism Life is organised through the medium of commodities and the value of commodities is abstracted - use-value and exchange-value is disconnected
  • 13. As marketers you will know this well
  • 14. Creating need How do you create a need for something unless you take it away from someone who already has it?
  • 15. The Talisman In Hermeticism, a talisman is a consecrated material object used to protect and exert some type of power
  • 16. The Gadget In marketing, a device imbued with a magical power that enhances virility and efficiency
  • 18. Naïve Arrogance It seems like history started in 1993, with the birth of the web
  • 19. Web 2. 0 It seems like history started at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference in 2004
  • 20. History is valuable Understanding preceding events and shifts can help us understand the future.
  • 21. Pre 1. 0 Technology suddenly became central to the process of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution
  • 22. Technology is fundamentally linked to the path of development in Western society, and is wrapped up in its ideology and an instrument of its power relations
  • 23. Cultural production What we call “making content”, has a long history
  • 24. Time and Space was compressed first by the horse, then the railway, then the telephone, then the Internet
  • 25. Fires in camps Humans based their knowledge and understanding of the world on the personal interactions with people from their own villages, or travellers
  • 26. Linguistic Diversity This is why each village could have a different accent
  • 27. Local knowledge, regional myth This is also why magic could always thrive at the edge of the forest
  • 28. Identity This life, with its relative simplicity, was the anvil against which story-telling forged identity
  • 29. Regulation? The village elders would regulate what could and couldn’t be said, but the regulation took place after the fact and about the content of the infrigement
  • 30. Fast Forward Today our identities are formed via a series of interpersonal interactions but increasingly these interactions are mediated
  • 31. Mediation TV, radio, the Web, email, IM, SMS, MMS, telephone, recording and playback
  • 32. Regulation Mediated conversations are subject to regulation, on the level of the medium itself and the market regulation of potential media available and their uses
  • 33. Commercial Messaging As a result of this mediation the very fabric of identity formation is subject to commercial imperatives
  • 34. Technology is not transparent Most often, technology is presented as a neutral enabler. However, on inspection, this is not the case
  • 35. The types of technology we have access to are limit[ed][ing]
  • 36. Google A classic example of an opaque system, couched in the language of technological transparency
  • 37. Google = Knowledge The front page of Google is the starting point of most research these days
  • 38. Language Google talk about democracy, accuracy, speed, efficiency, the best results for your query
  • 39. What are we doing? We enter keywords and get back a list of resources
  • 40. But what is actually happening? An algorithm calculates the hierachy of resources. It’s just an algorithm, a machine right?
  • 41. An ideological machine That constructs the structure of relevance based on a system of values
  • 42. How does PageRank actually work? Google don’t disclose this vital piece of information, on the grounds of protecting commercial secrets
  • 43. What kind of world do we live in, where the underlying structure of knowledge has legally become a commercial secret??
  • 44. PageRank Awards age, popularity and various other criteria that reinforce existing power relations
  • 45. Expert Systems Like driving a car, we accept its output unquestioningly without understanding its inner workings
  • 46. Expert Systems Google is one of many expert systems that we have come to trust, as a consequence of technological progress
  • 48. Social Media Something the Mail & Guardian is firmly committed to pursuing, but er… what is it?
  • 49. Democracy, again With the emergence of sites like Digg, YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace and OhMyNews and things like blogging there is a buzz about how the web democratises content and the media
  • 50. Destabiliser Actually, what the Web does is it destabilises everything in its wake, not always for the better
  • 51. Ideology @ wrk But, actually, what they do is they reinforce a lack of diversity of opinion outside the ideological bounds of the conversation
  • 52. Ideology @ work Digg-like sites are supposed to bring democracy to the editorial process by crowdsourcing it
  • 53. Ideology @ work Ideas that challenge conventional wisdom [naturalised beliefs of the dominant system] are excluded, whereas those that reinforce it gain popularity
  • 54. Geeks in a circle According to Habermas, democracy and rational debate require people to to have exposure to alternative points of view
  • 55. Geeks in a circle What happens is that ideology gets reinforced rather than exposed for what it is, in ever-tightening spirals of audience fragmentation
  • 56. GWOT and xenophobia This phenomenon cannot be seen in isolation from the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the polarisation of society into Judeo-Christian vs Islamic, patriots vs terrorists, us vs immigrants
  • 57. Nevertheless… The current market is a very exciting one for media, marketers and the newly revived PR industry
  • 58. Nothing to lose Thinking about the choice we make and the technologies we employ and the uses we encourage in a critical manner can help us to a] do good or b] exploit the system by understanding it better? The correct answer is A and B
  • 59. What can we say about the future? Whatever we can think about the future is going to be less than impressive in the long term and dissapointing in the short term
  • 60. What can we say about the future? What will actually happen in the future will seem like sorcery to us today if someone travelled back in time and showed us pictures
  • 61. What can we say about the future? Nothing is stable, as the life-cycle of technology accelerates and tightens around itself
  • 62. The problem with a tightly coiled spring is that it can jump out of your hand and go in any direction
  • 63. Thank you And now for the Amatomu story