networks
Issue 26: Entanglements – Activism and Technology
During the 2009 post-election protests in Iran, YouTube proved useful for raising awareness and mobilising people; but later, the Iranian government used these videos to crowd-source the identification of protesters. Activists used Skype to communicate during the Egyptian uprising thinking it was safer than the terrestrial telephone system; however, when they examined files from the intelligence agency in the chaos after Mubarak’s fall they learnt their Skype calls were being closely monitored by Egypt’s security service . One of the most circulated images appealing for public sympathy and money following the 2015 catastrophic Nepal earthquake turned out to be a ruse—an old image from North Vietnam—its circulation initiated by unknown people with unknown motivations. These examples serve to remind us that while digital technologies are now deeply entangled with activist practices that are focused on contributing to social change, the philosophies and capacities embedded within these technologies often contradict, counteract,…
FCJ-193 Harbouring Dissent: Greek Independent and Social Media and the Antifascist Movement
Sky Croeser Curtin University Tim Highfield Queensland University of Technology [Abstract] Introduction Activists’ uses of digital technologies are complex, and technologies are not only shaping the available possibilities for social change but are also being changed themselves through activists’ work. In this article we look at Greek activists’ use of a range of communication technologies, including social media like Twitter and Facebook, blogs, citizen journalism sites, Web radio, anonymous networks, and email. We use Anna Tsing’s (2005) model of friction to understand how frictions might productively influence or slow the use of particular digital technologies, examining the intersections between human and non-human actors, ideologies and experiences, in influencing the choices made by activists. Our analysis focuses on the Greek antifascist movement, primarily in Athens, noting that ‘the antifascist movement’ is largely a constructed object. We see Greek anarchist and anti-authoritarian organising as a key element of this movement, and note…
FCJ-192 Sand in the Information Society Machine: How Digital Technologies Change and Challenge the Paradigms of Civil Disobedience
Theresa Züger Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society Stefania Milan University of Amsterdam Leonie Maria Tanczer Queen’s University Belfast [Abstract] Introduction Oscar Wilde (1909) once wrote that ‘[d]isobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made.’ In that sense, civil disobedience, which is a dissident form of political protest (Hahn, 2008: 1365), is embedded in a historical context and enables societal advancement while also leading to public friction. As society faces inequality, global mass surveillance and unequal power dynamics, civil disobedience has certainly not lost its importance in the twenty-first century. However, due to the development of the Internet and its broad use and deployment, the tactics and tools of civil disobedience have changed. We are witnessing acts of disobedience in both an offline and online context, which highlight the diversity of…
FCJ-191 Mirroring the Videos of Anonymous: Cloud Activism, Living Networks, and Political Mimesis
Adam Fish Lancaster University [Abstract] Introduction In August 2012, Wikileaks was hit with a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack from a mysterious group appropriately titled Antileaks. DDoS assaults occur when multiple computers simultaneously ‘refresh’ a website causing it to overload and shutdown. A shaken-up Wikileaks tweeted: ‘The range of IPs used is huge. Whoever is running it controls thousands of machines or is able to simulate them’ (Kerr, 2012). This is a constant problem for Wikileaks. Their website reads: ‘WikiLeaks is currently under heavy attack. In order to fully protect the CableGate archives, we ask you to mirror it again’ (Wikileaks.org). Eventually repelling the Antileaks attack, Wikileaks again took to Twitter to boast: ‘DDoS proof, financially & geographically diverse. We’re ready to rumble’ (Kerr, 2012). For Wikileaks, mirroring means copying and pasting the CableGate archives in resilient servers so that the content remains visible. Infamous for Guy Fawkes…
FCJ-190 Building a Better Twitter: A Study of the Twitter Alternatives GNU social, Quitter, rstat.us, and Twister
Robert W. Gehl The University of Utah [Abstract] Introduction: Universalised Twitter Meets Its Alternatives Anna Tsing’s Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (2005) explores the moments when a universalised practice (for example, global capitalism) gets a grip on a local context (for example, in an Indonesian rain forest). When the slippery universal, which in some circles might be lauded as ‘frictionless’ (as in ‘frictionless capitalism’), meets local contexts, frictions occur. Friction traces the move from the desire for frictionless ideals to its awkward and messy contact with situated realities. Friction is resistance, but it is also productive and necessary for any energetic system. Taking up this idea, this paper traces the friction between Twitter and Twitter alternatives. In this sense, Twitter is situated as ‘universalised’ (Koopman, 2013: 19), which is to say that it is now an idealised form of online communication. Twitter has established a format of online communication—microblogging—that…
FCJ-187 The Droning of Experience
Mark Andrejevic Pomona College [Abstract] Recent debates over the fate of automated weaponry raise the question of pre-empting pre-emption: might it be possible to thwart the seeming ineluctable development of so-called ‘killer robots,’ that can respond to perceived threats more efficiently and rapidly than humans? The processes of disarmament and pre-emption collided in the ‘bold action’ of a top United Nations official who issued a call to ban the ominously-acronymed Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs). ‘You have the opportunity to take pre-emptive action and ensure that the ultimate decision to end life remains firmly under human control,’ UN Director-General Michael Moller told the participants in a 2014 conferenced on killer robots (Agence France Presse, 2014). The difference between LAWs and other lethal weapons lies in the command decision – that is, the final determination regarding whether to fire (bomb, destroy, etc.). If the command decision always incorporates a human at some…
FCJ-185 An Algorithmic Agartha: Post-App Approaches to Synarchic Regulation
Dan Mellamphy and Nandita Biswas Mellamphy Western University, Canada [Abstract] Let us begin with indefinition (the indefinite): specifically the question of information —proceeding from there to the myriad methods and mechanisms used to capture and control (or ‘net’) it. There is no single, unified mechanism governing the definition and distribution of information today, and this may account for some of the major tensions and tendencies in the so-called ‘information era’. The concept of ‘information’ itself has no single, unified definition, even though there are various theories that have been put forward to conceptualise it — as some ‘thing’ akin to a commodity-cum-object that can be possessed (indeed purchased), traded and legislated, or alternatively (for example) as a ‘process’ akin to signal-transmission, feedback- and/or stimulus-response circuits (‘information transfer’ and ‘information flow’). Hence, although information may be a useful and much-used idea, there is as yet no agreement on its basic definition…
FCJ-179 On Governance, Blackboxing, Measure, Body, Affect and Apps: A conversation with Patricia Ticineto Clough and Alexander R. Galloway
Svitlana Matviyenko University of Western Ontario Patricia Ticineto Clough Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY Alexander R. Galloway New York University [Abstract] Introduction The work of these two authors is well known to anyone whose research concerns matters of affect and biopolitics, software, networks and gaming, interface culture and communication, political economy of media and information, the systems of measure and control addressed in the contexts of French theory, feminist and speculative thought, Marxism or psychoanalysis. We were lucky to have them among the keynotes for our Apps and Affect conference, where their talks sparked an interesting exchange that impacted a number of the conference conversations. Afterwards, I suggested to Patricia and Alex that they elaborate on aspects of their discussion; this invitation resulted in the following conversation, which took place via email between April and December 2014. Patricia Ticineto Clough is a Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Queens College and…
Issue 25: Apps and Affect
Introduction [1] In William Gibson’s recent futurist novel The Peripheral, the planet has been devastated by a massive eco-techno-political catastrophe (‘the jackpot’) but remaining inhabitants are still able to enjoy the luxury of activating digital devices simply by tapping their tongues on the roof of their mouths. This touch is sufficient to set into play systems that communicate across space and time – enabling the establishment of connections back in time, for example, to people closer to our own present-day, for whom mobiles are still (somewhat) separate from the body. Thirty years ago, in his first novel Neuromancer, Gibson immortalised cyberspace with the account of what now sounds like an amazingly clunky process whereby the hero ‘jacks-in’ to virtual reality. But in The Peripheral the process of translation and transition into networks is streamlined – occluded, internal, intimate and implanted – right at the tip of the tongue. This issue…
CFP – Issue 24 Fibreculture Journal: Entanglements- activism and technology
[please circulate] Call For Papers- June 2014_Entanglements: Activism and Technology (PDF) https://fibreculturejournal.org/ https://fibreculturejournal.org/cfp_entanglements/ —- Please note that for this issue, initial submissions should be abstracts only Issue Editors: Pip Shea, Tanya Notley and Jean Burgess Abstract deadline: August 20 2014 (no late abstracts will be accepted) Article deadline: November 3 2014 Publication aimed for: February 2015 all contributors and editors must read the guidelines at: https://fibreculturejournal.org/policy-and-style/ before working with the Fibreculture Journal Email correspondence for this issue: p.shea@qub.ac.uk This themed issue explores the entanglements that arise due to frictions between the philosophies embedded within technologies and the philosophies embedded within activism. Straightforward solutions are rarely on offer as the bringing together of different philosophies requires the negotiation of acceptance, compromise, or submission (Tsing 2004). This friction can be disruptive, productive, or both, and it may contribute discord or harmony. In this special issue, we seek submissions that respond to the idea…
Future Issues and Archives
Connections
- ARCDigital
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