My First Recession

* Book: My First Recession. By Geert Lovink.

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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 as a movement. Lovink will be looking for patterns in their communication and debates. Lists are long running parts of the internet, but relatively understudied.