[Air-L] article for list submission

Norman Pena norman.pena at paulus.net
Wed Apr 13 00:17:57 PDT 2011


Thank you for the interesting points Carmela.  I believe they line up with 
what most marketing analysist see as the value and power of facebook. 
Psychology ans Sociology though would view it differently as what cognitive 
psychologists Cheryl Coyle (Rutgers University) and Heather Vaughn (Columbia 
University) attests in their work - Social Networking: Communication 
Revolution or Evolution?  For them FB along with other SNS will always be a 
part of an evolution.   danah boyd along with a number of excellent 
researchers I believe hold this view too.

Your article reminded me too of an earlier discussion we had on another 
forum I initiated "on as world without facebook". Mention was made of the 
coagulation of facebook and cultural imperialism, which in your work seems 
to be associated with "superpower".  I believe there is: 1) a loose 
definition of superpower made.   2) loose association  too of facebook and 
the Afghan uprising.   Facebook has a dual role: space for message-core 
content and a service and/or medium.  Both serve SNS as an evolution.

Although inherently incomplete, the definition of cultural imperialism or 
"superpower" in global communication as "the hegemonic practice of one 
culture exporting its values in an inequitable exchange over another" is 
generally accepted with its connotation of dominance and control (Parkins, 
Digital utopianism and cultural imperialism in second life.  Parkins is a 
Culture Program Assistant at Creative Commons).  I actually originated from 
the Philippines and part of super power and cultural imperialism we were 
taught were the colonization years of Spain (333 years), America (45 years) 
and Japan (almost 3 years during WW2).  Interesting too how in 1986 the 
people power revolution in the Philippines succeeded with the social network 
of people, combining their national identity and faith, even without FB.

As with most SNS, contents of Facebook are user created where they express 
an identity. If superpower and cultural imperialism be applied to Facebook 
outright (exccept of course if we mean it in the field of marketing), it 
might mean too that the contents of facebook are the protagonists in the the 
concept of superpower or cultural imperialism. It is true likewise that one 
has and makes the choice to subscribe or not to Facebook and to make the 
choice to write and respond.

On a practical note similarities were drawn in that earlier forum we had on 
Facebook as a super power or cultural imperalist with and MacDonald, KFC, 
TGI.   Sole focus on these similarities I believe neglects one important 
difference that must be hightlighted - CONTENTS.  McDonalds, KFC and TGI 
contents are not user created.  The advertisment and privacy policy of 
Facebook might be culturally imperialistic (I believe from 1999 onwards 
there has been this tendency), but its CONTENTS could not be.  On this, 
perhaps it is best not to totally generalise facebook as a superpower or 
cultural imperialism as doing so might, as Sturken and Cartwright maintains, 
make the concept likewise imperialistic.

Ok, so Facebook is not "totally a super power or cultural imperialistic", 
how can we likewise consider it then?   Facebook "as a global media 
understood well by employing superpower and cultural imperialism 
perspective" may perhaps be a bit limiting its true nature. My research 
findings is that SNS (Facebook being one) is an agent of symbiotic 
participatory exchange and rightly so, part of the development of the 
symbiotic web in web 2.5.  What I see as emerging is its application to the 
fourfold symbiotic relationship natural to our biological world yet 
communicatively applicable to the future of SNS (facebook), minus the 
structural and ad framework of course:

1) Mutualism is any relationship between individuals of different species 
where both individuals derive a benefit.

2) Commensalism describes a relationship between two living organisms where 
one benefits and the other is not significantly harmed or helped.

3)A parasitic relationship is one in which one member of the association 
benefits while the other is harmed.

4) Amensalism is the type of symbiotic relationship that exists where one 
species is inhibited or completely obliterated and one is unaffected.

Which stage do you think describes best Facebook currently?


Norman Melchor Pena
MA Communication
Griffith University (Australia)
norman.pena at paulus.net


--------------------------------------------------
From: "Carmela Baranowska" <Carmela.Baranowska at acu.edu.au>
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 8:05 AM
To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Subject: [Air-L] article for list submission

> hi,
>
> Please find a recent article I wrote on 'Facebook is the New Superpower' 
> for The Conversation:
>
> http://theconversation.edu.au/articles/facebook-is-the-new-superpower-894
>
> I would like to submit it to the list. Comments and disagreements welcome 
> and appreciated!
>
> all the best,
> Carmela Baranowska
> Lecturer in Media
> Australian Catholic University
> Carmela.Baranowska at acu.edu.au
> ________________________________________
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On 
> Behalf Of air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org 
> [air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, 13 April 2011 8:00 AM
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Air-L Digest, Vol 81, Issue 11
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Open Day WebSciences Master Degree in Paris, May 5th.
>      (Antoine Mazi?res)
>   2. Representations of the internet in popular culture
>      (Delia Dumitrica)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:49:31 +0200
> From: Antoine Mazi?res <mazieres at gmx.com>
> To: FR Lab Coordination <frlab-coordination at lists.hackerspaces.org>,
>        grenoble-hackerspace at lists.hackerspaces.org, 
> tmplab at lists.tmplab.org,
>        wiser-u <wiser-u at lists.wiser-u.org>, 
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>        air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-L] Open Day WebSciences Master Degree in Paris, May 5th.
> Message-ID: <4DA4829B.1080905 at gmx.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hi all,
>
> For the third year, we are opening applications for the *Master degree
> in Web Sciences in Paris*. The main purpose of this cursus is to allow
> students from the fields of sciences, design, humanities to perform
> interdisciplinary studies/researches on the Web and Internet, from
> academics, public and private contexts.
>
> All of you are welcome at the *open day: May 5th, 5:30pm*, at the Center
> of Interdisciplinary Research
> http://masterwebscience.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/open-day/
>
> This master degree, "Interdisciplinary Approaches of the Web" (in french
> "Approches Interdisciplinaires du Web", AIW) was built in order to
> understand how Internet transfrom more and more aspects of our
> societies, and how to participate to this evolution by building an
> interdisciplinary point of view. We aim at building a teaching around
> topics as the modelisation of Internet, interfaces design, services
> economy, usage sociology, information spreading, e-education.
> AIW Master, like all courses at CRI, are built on the principle of
> "formation by doing research". Students from very different disciplines
> are encouraged to work together and build projects both theoretical and
> with concrete outputs.
> In order to give means to its student to realize projects, AIW is in
> deep relation with Fabelier's prototyping lab ( http://fabelier.org ),
> hosted at the same place.
>
> If you are a M2 student, you can follow tuesday's seminars
> (5:30pm-7:30pm) and get 12 university credits (ECTS).
> If you want to be full-time AIW student, you have to follow the
> tuesday's seminars and do 3 interships form different disciplines
> (humanities/sciences/engineering/art) and contexts
> (research/industry/association/personnal projects).
> If you just want to come by... you can !
>
> Agenda of the May 5th:
> - meeting teachers and former students
> - open seminar (your presentations are welcomed )
> - Q&A session
> - inscriptions
> - presentation of student club
>
>
> See you there,
>
> Antoine Mazi?res
>
>
> Please help us spread this event by forwarding this email. You can also
> join and share the facebook event :
> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=124371250970825
> and the related facebook group :
> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36959650917
> and retweeting this : http://twitter.com/mazieres/status/57838100356927489
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:45:02 -0600 (MDT)
> From: "Delia Dumitrica" <dddumitr at ucalgary.ca>
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-L] Representations of the internet in popular culture
> Message-ID:
>        <4ca053f7a445b933e447f6323f69fd9a.squirrel at webmail.ucalgary.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Hello, I'm putting together a course on representations of the internet in
> popular culture and I was wondering if anyone on this list may have any
> suggestions for journal articles or book chapters focusing on the
> portrayal of the internet (or of computer networking) in science fiction
> movies and novels. Please email me off-list at dddumitr at ucalgary.ca
>
> Thank you.
>
> Delia Dumitrica
> PhD Student & Sessional Instructor
> Department of Communication and Culture
> University of Calgary
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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