Originally created for a Beyond E-Moderating course but having some kind of 'second life' as a repository for reflections on all aspects of e-learning and digital culture.
Not really sure why - possibly hot weather making me a bit lethargic and unfocussed - but I've started to mess around with some old May '68 posters.
I guess I'm remixing them for a digital era of cameraphones, Flips and social media. Iran and Twitter is still in the news (just) but I guess I'm still thinking about the G20 demonstrations in London. The violence of the policing was remarkable as was the initial mainstream media reporting that uncritically adopted the line fed them by the Metropolitan Police.
It took media outlets like The Guardian who picked up on user-generated content - especially the assault on Ian Tomlinson - to call into question official accounts.
This is the headline of an opinion piece in today's Le Monde by Corine Lesnes (La révolution sera twitterisée... et oubliée). It's more of a (sceptical) introduction to a technology that's making the headlines all over the world but which has so far had little impact in France. Not sure why - I've always seen the French as early adopters of this sort of thing (think Minitel in the 1980s).
Anyway, the reworking of Gil Scott-Heron's 'The Revolution will not be televised' ("... the Revolution, brother, will be live") raises an interesting question about the role of a new technology in representing political action and social change.
There are a couple of ways to write about Twitter and the Iranian crisis of legitimacy: 1) a study of the use of Iranian twitterers and, 2) western media reaction to the use of this emerging technology.
BTW, Gil Scott-Heron should really have copyrighted the title 'The Revolution will not be (add technology)ized'.
Memers are having a bit of fun with the pop culture around them as well as spoofing crummy business pitch PowerPoint presentations and their cheesy graphic representations of data.
Here's Meatloaf's 'I would do anything for love (but I won't do that)' (really cheesy song) as a very simple example:
I wonder of the memers are working at home or at work? I ask as this sort of meme makes me think of de Certeau's concept of 'la perruque' (the wig). 'La perruque' is the worker's own production performed at the workplace under the disguise of legitimate work for the boss. Nothing is stolen other than time. Here's de Certeau:
It differs from absenteeism in that the worker is officially on the job. 'La perruque' may be as simple a matter as a secretary's writing a love letter on 'company time' or as complex as a cabinetmaker's 'borrowing' a lathe to make a piece of furniture for his living room." (1984: 25)
In this tactic, employees divert time away from producing profit for his/her employer and instead uses it for his/her own enjoyment, for activities that are "free, creative, and precisely not directed toward profit" (de Certeau 1984: 25).
I wonder if it would be worth contacting memers - Flickr-based or not - to find out if this hunch can be substantiated?
References
De Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yeah, what's behind the popularity of the lolcat meme?
With memes, there's an element of play (see my Variations on a meme blog post from December). So what's being played with in lolcats?
In part, I think it's the cheesy, naff, sentimental stream in popular culture (think Hallmark cards, kittens playing with balls of wool on Xmas calenders etc.). Memers are having a bit of a laugh at the expense of these sorts of texts (and their audiences). The language used - and there are web sites on how to write lolspeak (e.g. The Definitive Lolcats Glossary) - is the deliberately grammatically incorrect 'baby-speak' used when talking to, well, babies and pets.
However, I also think it's possible to read the lolcats pictures and texts unironically: look at the fluffy kittens in adorable funny poses! They're cute, adorable and they make us laugh! The baby-talk we use to speak to them is fun and an integral part of the pleasure we experience.
I don't know how to 'read' lolcats: first- (irony-free) or second- (ironic) degree?
They make me think of Roland Barthes' comments on flaubertian irony:
... in wielding an irony fraught with uncertainty, [Flaubert] brings about a salutary uneasiness in the writing: he refuses to halt the play of codes (or does so badly), with the result that (and this is no doubt the true test of writing as writing) one never knows whether he is responsible for what he writes (whether there is an individual subject behind his language); for the essence of writing (the goal and meaning of the activity which makes up writing) is to prevent any reply to the question, who is speaking? (Quoted in Culler 2006: 204)
Who is speaking in lolcats? The ironist or the cat-lover?
References
Culler, J.(2006 2nd ed.). Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty. Aurora CO: The Davies Group.
‘by technoscape, I mean the global configuration, also ever fluid, of technology and the fact that technology, both high and low, both mechanical and informational, now moves at high speeds across various kinds of previously impervious boundaries’(Appadurai, 1996: 34).
References
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
'Moral panic' is a phrase I overuse and usually collocate with 'new technolgies' - e.g. "new moral panic over social networking sites; top psychologist claims Facebook and Twitter cause harm to small puppies". Here's an old blog post with a real example.
I did 'A' level sociology too long ago to remember full definition of moral panic - something about new behaviours being perceived as threat to existing ways of doing things.
Just got up and haven't had a cup of tea yet. I'm getting my excuses in early about the confused nature of today's post.
One of the tweeps I'm following looks to be doing some interesting research on skinhead subculture. It made me think back to my teen years (late 70s/early 80s - 2nd generation skinheads) and my fear of them back then. Also of Shane Meadows' This is England (what a great film!) and its take on skinhead subculture (one DM in a benign w/c subculture into black music; another DM in belligerent far right politics).
It also got me thinking about a scene in a Jake Arnott novel (was it The Long Firm?) where a first generation skinhead character, who's just got out of prison after a long sentence, thinks another skinhead on the tube is trying to pick a fight with him. It turns out to be a gay skin checking him out and after a different kind of physical interaction.
The problem for our ex-con is that the signs of male 'hardness' (Levis, Ben Sherman shirts, DMs, bomber jacket etc.) have been reappropriated by another subculture. Signs and symbols are in perpetual motion and 10-15 years behind bars have left Arnott's old skinhead unable to read their meanings with any degree of accuracy.
Anyway, this long digression to say I think that's sort of what happens with technology. A technology like Twitter, first envisaged as a notification service ("What are you doing?"), a lightweight Facebook status update-type tool (thoough with all the clutter removed, gets reappropriated, reinterpreted, remade in diverse ways by different groups: for marketing, broadcasting, professional development, learning, constructing new discursive spaces etc..
Are 'dinner tweets' - you know those tweets describing what the twitterer is about to tuck into (e.g. "I'm preparing pan-fried seabass on a coulis of ...") - really as trivial as Twitter's detractors claim?
I'm tempted to argue that they play a part in the 'taste performances' (Liu 2008) that are integral to most social networking sites. It's one of the ways I project or perform my identity online.
By describing to followers what I'm preparing and/or eating I'm also performing a particular identity. For example, if I tweet that I'm cooking a dish with locally-sourced ingredients that keeps the food miles down, I'm projecting an identity that's discerning and environmentally aware; if, on the other hand, I tell you I'm serving up a dessert of frozen Creme Eggs, the identity I'm performing is offbeat and fun-loving.
Far from being part of the anti-Twitter camp's imagined stream of trivia, the 'dinner tweet' is, in fact, an integral part of the repetoire through which twitterers perform the 'ongoing narrative of the self' (Merchant 2006: 238).
So, next time someone moans about 'twitterhea' and the banality of the 'dinner tweet', tell them it's all about identity performance and refer them to Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens.
References
Liu, H. (2008). Social Network Profiles as Taste Performances. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1): 252-275. Retrieved April 29, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/liu.html
Merchant, G. (2006). Identity, Social Networks and Online Communication. E-Learning, 3(2): 235-244
Researcher (e-Learning, m-Learning and technology enhanced learning), vather, techgeek and i am a mac-user ;-)
Library geek, datamonger and allotmenteer
librarian, mom, social media, information literacy, punk rock, 60s reggae, edupunk, educational technology, author, subcultures, chronic overtweeter
Librarian and repository manager for a X university by day; blogger, video maker, writer, gamer. Lord of all weasels, llamas and gooses by night
Community building and general change management for online distance learning. Running. Cider. Electric bicycles.
Learning Technologist wondering why the one line bio is 160 characters??
Married with 2 boys who have now flown the nest. Work in education, teach ICT and love gadgets
dad, senior learning technologist at University of X, educational technology consultant, moodle guru and uncompromising bike commuter
What identities are performed here? Professional certainly (learning technologist, librarian, teach IT). Personal too - as mothers or fathers (mom, dad, newish father). As fans (indie music, indei film). As politically committed to particular causes (democracy, user-centred activism). Affiliated to a a myriad causes, interests, affinity spaces ...
