My First Recession

* Book: My First Recession. By Geert Lovink.

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Contents

- Chapter 1:

Overview of post-introductory internet research (no longer just asking: what is it!), focused on the internet-in-society, i.e.. Huber L. Dreyfus, Manuel Castells, Lessig (2001)

- Chapter 2:

Overview of the dotcom mania literature, before and after the crash, focusing on a number of dotcom biographies. It explores the relationship between passionate self-creativity, and its failed exploitation in the corporate environment of the 1998-2001 era.

- Chapter 3:

The rise and fall of the Syndicate mailing list, a post-1989 dialogue project between Eastern and Western European new media art practitioners. It was killed by the Kosovo debates, and failed to find a consensus on moderation.

- Chapter 4

Xchange, a network of non-profit streaming media initiatives established in 1997 and which remained small in the context of the slow growth of cheap broadband.

- Chapter 5

Critical issues in new media arts education. How does new media theory teaching relate to the expected level of code skills of the students vs the market pressure and demands ? (Loving himself has taught for 10 years)

- Chapter 6

Looks at free software and open source from a cultural perspective, through the case study of the Oekonux mailing lists, starting in the mid-1999s

- Conclusion

Focuses on moderation and internal democracy, by using the contrasts between the emerging weblogs and email lists.

Summary

- Reading notes from Michel Bauwens, 2006:

The introduction starts with a description of the dark period that followed the dotcom crash and 9/11 - a period in which many saw 'the internet dying'. But taking such one-sided comment seriously requires a particular blindness. GL says his book will focus on social practices, "bringing together the common experiences of such groups". Social networks do not consume a priori technology, but actively shape it.

In 2003, ten years after the birth of the web, as society is networked, it is time to stop seeing the internet as the liberator of mankind, and to see the fullness of its all too human characteristics.

His methodology of critical internet research is akin to a 'media archeology', a hermeneutic reading of the new against the grain of the past (not a history from past to present!). Because the internet evolves so fast, this infant discipline can be said to be in a third stage (according to David Silver's typology):

- 1) popular cyberculture,: journalistic enthusiasm for the cool factor

- 2) cyberculture studies, focuses on virtual communities and online identities

- 3) critical cyberculture studies focus on the embeddedness of Real Life and Virtual Realities, and the interfaces and discourses about it

This third stage study sees virtual communities as actual social networks which reflect and anticipate new forms of social interaction. Critical internet studies sees the social structure behind the appearances, but is not affiliated with critical theory per se. Lovink calls himself a radical pragmatist, who is concerned with attempts to close down the system, but believes the potential for alternative ways is still there. Though not anti-capitalist per se, he does not accept the market is an adequate metaphor. His is not a outside critique either, but is itself engaged in internet practice.

Net critics are no longer mediating middle men, as the creative class can now express itself directly. The role of the critic has eroded: public intellectuals are not the gatekeepers of cyberspace. The outsider's position, which assumes society and technology can be separated, is no more. Net criticism needs to be 'inside the network'. To be reflexive it has to be at the center of the operation.

The pre-2001 IT consensus culture is dead, replaced by attempts at control and conflict, which the net-critics have to unravel.

Lovink supports the agonistic pluralism approach put forward by Chantal Mouffe: conflict is inevitable and has to be acknowledged, but enemies must be seen and transformed into 'adversaries'. Passion must be mobilized in democratic design. On the internet, the political is embedded in the software, which regulates the social relations. This is one of the things the net-critic should unveil. This space, the underpinning of os many communities of action, is what this book aims to analyze.

Following Zizek's warnings, net criticism is a constant struggle against mythologizing. The idea of the internet as pure communication is itself such a myth, and mailing list software will be used as a case study.

Lists are both the infrastructural and the cultural underpinnings of movements using the internet, including critical internet culture asa movement. Lovink will be looking for patterns in their communication and debates. Lists are long running parts of the internet, but relatively understudied, and too often equated with 'virtual communities', a concept rejected by GL because it implies consensus and is 'idealizing'.

Section: What is Critical Internet Culture?

- "An emerging milieu of non-profit initiatives, cultural organizations and individuals primarily based in the West, cosmopolitan in nature, and interdisciplinary in interest".

Manifesting itself both online and through events such as festivals. I'ts about the user as producer and how to intervene in the very architecture of technology.

Lovink then reviews the chapter structure and has an interesting concluding quote on p. 34:

- "The global network society is no longer a promise but a fluid and dirty reality. Instead of programming the next future, it might be more interesting to presume it already exists, and start to explore its workings.

Chapter 1

The three authors were chosen because they take position and because of the post-crash time frame. Dreyfus is seen by Lovink as belonging to that reactionary class that seeks to stop technology, and its information glut 'that cannot be processed'.

It adheres to the posthuman interpretation that the internet is an agency of disembodiment, some thing Lovink refuses in favour of the idea of the cyborg-ism, our increasing enmeshment with technology.

By focusing on false problems, Dreyfus avoids taking the necessary complex investigations. Dreyfus thinks the Extropians embody the truth of the internet and offers a belated ideology critique: too little too late.

Rather than outdated books, we need 'theories-on-the-run" says Lovink, which can adapt to changing realities.

Dreyfus (2001. On the Internet First Edition. London and New York: Routledge) represents an elite reaction against the democratic levelling of peer to peer networks: "its a fear of the black hole of the commons". Dreyfus also sees anonymity as the default option, while GL points out it is a chosen option amongst many, and unable to withstand security technologies. Likewise for surfing, which is no longer the essence of internet usage. Essentialism ignores phases of development! But the key underlying topic is the selection of meaning out of noise, an issue on which Dreyfus takes an authoritarian option, refreshing the shift of control towards the user. Rather than a "prison of endless relection", the internet is a battleground of adversary groups, concludes Geert Lovink.

Castells brings an overview of US-backed academic literature, but is too aloof to even address techno-libertarianism. He is a pragmatist supporter of network society, but wary of conflict. No war reporting on the dotcom crash is to be found here.

Internet culture is analyzed as a combination of ...

   - 1) the techno-meritocratic
   - 2) the hacker
   - 3) the virtual communitarians and
   - 4) the entrepreneurial culture.

- "The culture of the internet is made up of a technocratic belief in the progress of humans through technology, enacted by communities of hackers, thriving on open and free technological creativity, embedded in virtual networks aimed at re-inventing society and materialized by money-driven entrepreneurs into the workings of the new economy." (p.49)

Lawrence Lessig is known for issuing dire warnings about the trends towards the state (Code) and corporate (The Future of Ideas) control of the internet, which is a threat to openness, and to the social innovation inherent in it. In his comments, Geert Lovink remains very sceptical about the digital commons and the public domain: an an identifiable sphere it has precious little bits in it, so we should see it as a proposal for a legal framework: the Creative Commons is a result of this concern. However, GL is wary of this legal viewpoint, as he is of other idealistic visions of the Commons, preferring to see the antagonisms that it operates under. It is a fluid environment rather than a fixed reality. GL opposes the urge to license everything under US law and says a "license free world is possible".

Anatomy of the Dot Com Mania

The greedy era of market populism developed separately from the non-profit based critical internet culture and can be reconstructed through a number of retrospective biographies which appeared in 2001. The critique culture targeted the "California Ideology" of posthuman escape rather than the dotcoms. The critical sector felt objectively allied with the latter, united in their opposition to the blockage represented by incumbent telcos, whose deregulation had failed and who were now inhibiting a broadband rollout.

What played a great role in fueling the mania was the long boom in the stock market. And when that went down, so went the hyper-evaluation of value. The atmosphere changed from 'greed is good', to calling share-based evaluation the 'root of all corporate evil'. Going over this hangover reaction, Loving faults Kevin Kelly for ignoring his responsibility, while John Perry Barlow admitted it, but both remain convinced that the dot-com mania was caused by an alien force. George Gilder paid the harshest price, losing his house for investing in the failed fiber optic company Global Crossing.

So, what went wrong ?

Lovink looks at the assessment of Manuel Castells and stresses that the latter did not see the downturn coming and that he thought the dotcom boom was part of the growth of IT and networks, instead of being speculative. He stressed the emergence of networks around projects, whereby the 'network <is> the enterprise'. This itself being part of a network society which was inescapable, and should be managed by a 'sustainable', 'natural capitalism'. For GL, MC represents the third generation of pragmatic social scientists, coming after the computer scientists and cyber-visionaries.

Lovink faults him for 'playing it safe', for hailing technology but adding 'caveats'. For GL, there is no 'pure internet', operating outside the market; no Silicon Valley that is victim of financial capital.

Next in line for review is Michael Wolff's "Burn Rate", written during 1994-97, and published in 1998. He was the leader of Wolff New Media, operating under Rosetto's Law (content is king), and burning $500k in VC capital each month. Both he and Rosetto failed: content did not pay. The dromo--Darwinist 'survival of the fittest' dominated their thinking. The metaphor was the 'western land grab', conquering cyberspace through overwhelming presence.

David Kuo's "Dot Bomb" is perhaps the most accessible in the genre. It relates the story of 'Value America', a retail portal that would fail. Kuo concludes his account saying that it was a gold rush without a gold mine. The story of Boo.com is also recalled, burning $130m on 'caviar, champagne, and the Concorde".

Who then are the culprits, asks Geert Lovink: George Gilder, Kevin Kelly, Tom Peters!

The story told by Malmsen is one of disaster on every front: wanting to do all at once, while nothing worked. GL notes that both Kuo and Malmsen were outsiders who did not ever like the internet, seeing technology naively as a tool that should follow human dictates. They were unwilling to tolerate complexity.

No Collar by Andrew Ross tells the similar story of 360hiphop.com .