[Air-l] classic dys/utopian statements

James Howison jhowison at syr.edu
Thu Mar 10 13:52:43 PST 2005


For good quotes don't forget to look at Ira Magaziner's speeches circa 
1998.  There are some doozies in there :)

And the 'pro-noid' (cf paranoid) 'Long Boom' article, 
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.07/longboom_pr.html is another 
classic.

Beyond collecting such predictions, I found these articles to be useful 
in understanding what role claims of radical novelty play in 
technological discourse.

Quirk, J. J. (1989) ‘The history of the future’ in Carey (ed) 
Communication as Culture, Unwin Hyman, Boston. 1989.

Thrift, N.  (1996) ‘New Urban Eras and Old Technological Fears: 
Reconfiguring the Goodwill of Electronic Things’  in Urban Studies, 
Vol. 33, No. 8.  pp 1463 - 1493.

Mulgan, G. J. (1991) Communication and Control.  Polity Press, 
Cambridge. (particularly the introduction, around page 14)

Cheers,
James

On Mar 10, 2005, at 1:58 PM, Janna Anderson wrote:

> You can look at the Predictions Database to get a wealth of such
> information. I suggest you first look at the categories of topics and
> subtopics into which the quotations have been sorted:
>
> http://www.elon.edu/predictions/predictioncategories.aspx
>
> Then go to the advanced search page and select the subtopic and topic 
> areas
> in which you would expect to find the quotes you desire:
>
> http://www.elon.edu/predictions/advanced.aspx
>
> Another method would be to search the database by using the names of
> individuals with either the dystopian (Clifford Stoll, Sven Birkerts) 
> or
> utopian (Negroponte, Gates) viewpoints.
>
> The book I'll have coming out this summer from Rowman & Littlefield -
> "Imagining the Internet" - will have an entire chapter on "Knocking the
> 'Net" as well as many of the gushy quotes of the early '90s in its 
> support.
>
> Janna
>
>
> On 3/10/05 12:47 PM, "Nancy Baym" <nbaym at ku.edu> wrote:
>
>> A dual question:
>>
>> Has anyone got particular favorite utopain or dystopian
>> statements/landmarks about the internet? (preferably with citation)
>> I'm thinking of things like famous ads promising us liberation from
>> race age etc, Negroponte's "Being Digital," as well as quotations.
>>
>> -or-
>>
>> Does anyone know of any papers or lists tracing the uptopian or
>> dystopian highlights of rhetoric about the internet?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Nancy
>
> -- 
> Janna Quitney Anderson
> Assistant Professor of Communications
> Director of Internet Projects
> School of Communications
> Elon University
> andersj at elon.edu
> (336) 278-5733 (o)
> (336) 446-0486 (h)
>
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-l-aoir.org at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: 
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://aoir.org/airjoin.html
>
>
--
James Howison
PhD Student
School of Information Studies, Syracuse University
+1 315 395 4056
http://james.howison.name
VCard: http://freelancepropaganda.com/jameshowison.vcf




More information about the Air-L mailing list