Private Property is theft: Appropriation in the post-Marxist age.

"Appropriation is first recorded 1393, "the making of a thing private property;" sense of "setting aside for some purpose" (esp. of money, etc.) is from 1789." It says so here so it must be true.

You're right - we need a proper post on Appropriation.

i publish, you publish, he she or it...

This is the interesting thing about sites like Twitter. On the one hand they allow access to publishing for people that may not have access to that ability before. There is no need for a big printing press just a mobile phone! There are definitely examples of this freedom with people supplying information from places like Iraq and Iran and areas where information is more closely controlled.

I feel hesitant to use the word 'publish'. A dictionary definition is 'to prepare and issue (printed material) for public distribution or sale'. Many blogs, whilst having public access, do not have many if any readers apart from the authors. This blog is just such an example at the moment! This is an area where the idea of empowerment seems to me to be closer to the idea of distraction. Power over the means of production no longer means power. Democratisation of the ability to publish creates information overload as much as it does information empowerment.

Of course this depends on the intended use of the blog (and i include Twitter in this). Is it a way of building and binding a small community that already exists in the 'real' world or a way of disseminating information to a larger audience? The answer is both. It comes down to the relevance and interest of the information and it is up to the the people who read them. Some capture the public's imagination and gain a cult following. This suggests democracy, the people decide what information is relevant.

However, it is undeniable that consumer culture is rising to the possiblities of these new media. A prime example is the battle that Facebook had to have the right to use information posted by its users to focus advertising and examine trends. The internet is a two way street, and as such far easier to monitor than that of television etc. And from this to hone the services and advertising that come with it. With this comes the ability to influence what inform does reach us. Which blogs and posts get noticed, or which trend is picked up by the mainstream, be this on a concious or subconscious level.

Lexicon

Twitter and empowerment

What does Iran and Twitter mean?

I guess the easiest interpretation of this (media) event is to examine Twitter as a tool of empowerment, a democratising force that utilises post-structural communication to organise protest like some sort of rhizomic organic democracy plant, growing under the ground of mainstream politics/ traditional political and media structures. Is this right?

But this seems to have been problematised a bit. Suggestions that Twitter's rescheduling of their downtime for maintenance was prompted/ requested/ directed by American/ western governmental intervention raise questions about the political/ ideological independence of Web2.0 sites. Are these sites (liable to be) part of the state apparatus after all?

(In my possible naivety) I'm not convinced by the ccuracy of the argument that the outage was rescheduled in response to govt intervention and feel it's a bit too Illuminatus, if that's not too inaccurate an anaology. However, I would argue that perhaps the western dominated Web2.0 phenomenon is inherently ideologically slanted and works as some sort of digital-age cultural imperialism which uses enlightenment concepts such as democracy and empowerment to legitimise the colonisation of online intellectual activity. Web2.0 thus becomes some sort of cultural hegemony, owned as it is (increasingly) by the powerful. Google's beanbags seem more ominous now.

OR maybe this can be interpreted differently. Maybe Twitter/ Web2.0 utilises and perpetuates the illusion of empowerment/ democratisation as a mode of offering a false-democracy. Rather than the politics of democracy, it is actually a politics of distraction.

Discuss, using pseudo-academic language that slips just out of reach of the meanings you originally intended but can not quite articulate.

Diversification in the music industry

REM are releasing (purchaseable) typefaces that have been used on their last few albums. Presumably this is a reflection of the way in which the music industry is required to change in the online age. Whilst Radiohead have used all sorts of alternative business models to generate revenue (regular touring, with huge gigs; new distribution methods for music), I haven't heard of anyone else selling typefaces.

What does this mean?

A response to Lexicon's thoughts

I thought I'd try and discuss Lexicon's thoughts in some way that might be more discursive between the three of us, rather than in a dialogue. But i don't want to go all wiki (not sure that's what the brain trust is really about?) so thought blog might be best. Maybe you'd like to join?

"when TV began to have more than one channel, that the consumer could change channels to form their own bricollage"
This empowerment isn't offered by multi-channel TV, but is facilitated by the arrival of PVRs/ Sky+ etc. The proliferation of content and the empowerment offered to audiences who can create their own schedules could be construed as a form of bricolage, however it's important to recognise that (currently) this is still part of the apparatus of the powerful. Traditional forms of ownership problematise the notion of this technological development as truly empowering to audiences. (I recognise that Google's ownership of YouTube is not necessarily 'traditional ownership').
Perhaps the projected convergence of internet and TV, as well as the PVRs, offer the opportunity for bricolage and empowerment that could truly be a 'threat' to the dominance of traditional media institutions and ideologies.

Do you read the comments under Youtube videos ever? All these people seem to be more used to giving opinions than forming them. In one way it is great that it is so quick and populistic, empowering to the people, instinctive. In another it makes me nervous because these opinions are formed with less and less rationale, context or careful argument.
Apparently there is little research done into the nature or discourse of the comments on YouTube. I feel that the empowerment is vital but also could be construed as an illusion of empowerment: the apparatus behind these tools for collaboration are of course part of the greater corporate apparatus (google etc). I am also uneasy about these discoursesm uninformed as they are by context or developed argument.

This proliferation of creativity - something that our mate Benjamin was fighting for all those years ago seems more like an end than a beginning. His idea was that it would give people power but it just seems to leave people less empowered whilst actually being more and more coopted in to the system. We are in the Matrix. People subconciously create whilst the suppliers of the means just watch what they are producing and sell it back to them.
Hmmm. Let's take this part by part. There is an undoubted proliferation of creativity. To what extent is this creativity productive? Or is the point of creativity to not be productive (and thus to step outside of the means of production)? So maybe I should instead question: to what extent is this creativity expressive/ important/ actually creative? I agree that this form creativity is not necessarily a form of power: the discourse is that of diversion rather than subversion.

The Matrix was, of course, the construction of a multinational corporation.

Some other thoughts: to what extent is the future of creativity corporately sponsored? To what extent is there an alternative space for subversive, empowered, liberated creativity? As Girls Aloud sang, "It's the sound of the underground." The alternative is incorporated.

If twitter is a monologue, how can we make this a dialogue/ 'multilogue'? Go on; you know you want to.

I couldn't think of another address that hadn't already been used

"As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end." Michel Foucault