Mobworld

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MOB WORLD

Introduction

Outline for final project

Discuss crowds and fear of mob and democracy in writings we read. Discuss how thinking about that led to thinking about the possibility of participatory democracy today. (The fear of the mob still – the mob of people protesting in the 60’s that forced the establishment to change their approaches. It’s my contention that they decided to make people internalize individualism more, so younger generations are less likely to protest.) That’s found easier in smaller, culturally or economically oriented projects. For examples, cooperative-run businesses or organizations. And now, the internet, the medium of communication which by its very nature requires an interactive, participatory, decentralized, network – the internet.

You find the internet not only sets up these systems but also encourages them as well in parts of life. The big ones: Wikis (more later) Blogs Tagging? Other things… Flash mobs Free culture movement/creative commons/Lawrence lessig Google/information freely distributed everywhere (google earth article today in new york times) Digital library project/liberation book project Open source (mozilla, etc.)/free shareware/peer to peer sharing networks

This overall is changing our lives, at least in a cultural way. Most people have access to so much information from around the world, from across time (following certain mediums of records, like writing, images, etc.) I work for JSTOR, for example, which digitizes the complete back issues (beginning from volume 1 through the most recent 3-5 years) of academic journals – so anyone, anywhere, can search and access research that, several months after publication, would normally be buried in a dusty library shelf. Whether this has an effect on the political and economic climate remains to be seen, in some way. But the battles are real, and more than psychic:

This can be evidenced with the recent battle over wikipedia. Wikis are a form of technology that enables people to edit and add text to webpages from anywhere. It provides a decentralized forum that can potentially be democratic. Wikis are used for a variety of resources and lends itself to a variety of things: (list them). The most popular use of wikis involved wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Running on the premise that anyone can write or add entries, sharing in a world-wide access of expertise, people can add and access knowledge freely. It’s a non-profit, run on grants and fundraising, started by a few people but designed – like a cooperative – to enable everyone free access.

Interestingly, and timely enough, there has been a lot of recent news about wikipedia. Recently – reported that it was the world’s most popular, most used dictionary. Around this time, a flurry of news came out claiming that entries in the wikipedia were inaccurate, and even, in many cases, totally and deliberately false. (describe the incidents: John suleinberger and jfk; adam curry and podcasting;). A whole flurry of debates – partly legal, since under this system it was hard to know who would be sued for defamity; how wikipedia should be used, its dangerousness (the familiar argument of those wishes to control the masses), angry editorials by john about wikipedia (use quote); the guilty guy who deliberately faked the entry coming forward to apologize. Coupled with that was a lot of other press: nature article proving that it was nearly as accurate as encyclopedia Britannica; a flurry of librarians and information providers/students coming forward to argue that wikipedia was good; a great starting point for basic information about a subject; and that, like the oed which was set up and solicited by people sending in entries on different topics (see simon Winchester) it followed that format.

Interesting to see how this debate plays out the fear of the old lebon debate: the masses should be feared. Even when it comes to sharing and organizing information. (and of course, bigger issues of the ease of information on the internet – google earth showing maps of sensitive political targets – white house, etc. No privacy, surveillance world; and in particular for wikipedia: the nature of research moving away from recent academic focus. One person, writing up very specialized research, looking to make an original point on some topic. Yet the wikipedia encourages collective, shared, unpersonalized knowledge – a group doublechecks the writing; people get no personal credit or money; it runs totally on a faith-based system – the belief, that as the internet increasingly becomes the main conduit for culture and information – that it should all be out there, all free (like open access)…moving us away from the individualized, ego auteur approach. (maybe that’s what motivated the guy or adam curry to lie – their desire for personal recognition.) it may be dangerous – but limiting it, not exploring these great uses of the internet – is what allows for control (like menocchio in underground groups in the cheese and worms) – and fear --- today, the value far outweighs the risk of democracy online.

Outline: Lebon and fear of democracy (quote)/lippmann too (gangs/crowds—paris commune his fear, coming out to protests in the 60’s) In a bit of synchronicity, see that played out today…with wikipedia

Background: Internet participation (open source/ peer to peer/list servs etc.) Wikis became a popular things

Text to be added to wiki:

DEMOWIKI: THE ONLINE MOB Introduction/Summary: Gustave Le Bon wrote in the "Study of Crowds": ...In crowds it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated. It is not all the world, as is so often repeated, that has more wit than Voltaire, but assuredly Voltaire that has more wit than the world, if by "all the world" then crowds are to be understood. (p. 6) (find better quote)

The early part of the twentieth century was marked by writers pontificating on the raw, primal nature of the crowd or mob, the fear that when together people can really act up, the

In a bit of synchronicity, I was reading Gustave Le Bon’s book “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”while reading a series of vicious articles in a variety of magazines excoriating wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia. The parallels were in some ways striking: Le Bon argues that the crowd (read mob or masses) cannot handle the responsibility of democracy, that providing them with freedoms to choose present great risks to the society as a whole (witness the bloody paris commune of 1873, which he is clearly responding to), and that a carefully selected elite should control and be the ones to make decisions for everyone.

Compare this in some way to wikipedia: Wikipedia is an online experiment that allows any one to contribute or edit articles in the encyclopedia. A team reviews it for editorial errors and changes, but the result is a completely free and (relatively) decentralized free space. In its small way, as a provider of basic encyclopedic information online, it has become a democracy where wrangled consensus rules.

Recently (literally, in the past several weeks) there has been a great deal of press on wikipedia. Articles like – focus on what a popular, useful, and collaborative tool it is. (quote). A recent article announced it was the most popularly used encyclopedia ever. In the recent

DEMOWIKI Demowiki is a term coined by Ariana Souzis in 2006 to describe the idea that wiki’s, an online form of technology that allows any user to freely edit or add text to a website from any computer – provide a form of cultural democracy that may otherwise be lacking in many countries around the world, including the United States.

Contents: (think of others as the project gets more developed) Introduction Historical Background Theory Practice Related technologies Current Memes (wisdom of crowds, smart mobs, flash mobs) Recent Press Bibliography External Links Footnotes?

Introduction Gustave Le Bon excoriated the crowds in his seminal book of sociology on: the crowds. (link, quote, etc.) That ideology has persisted and even dominated throughout the 20th century. Other authors (Walter Lippmann, Gabriel Tarde) posited similar, if slightly modified ideas arguing the same thing: that crowds are irrational, become a dominant seething irrational one-mind, and that they need to be controlled by a rational, skilled expert elite. That the crowd becomes an unruly mob.

Historical context: Many of these writers were writing this from a specific point of view and historical background. For example, Le Bon clearly referenced and was concerned by the French Revolution and Paris Commune of 1871, in which many of the ruling elite were killed. Fear of losing control dominated. For Lippman, liberal? And editor of the New Republic, writing after World War 2, he believed that the elite would control for the betterment of everyone (a softened version).

Ideas of this nature persist throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, partly due to the fact that with the boom in population, masses, the rise of technology and a multiple states people have been afraid that the masses would take over. Some examples are rights movements where groups of people organized to fight for a specific agenda. In America, these includeWomen’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, anti-war protests (which, in the 70’s, led to the U.S. withdrawing from Vietname). In other countries this includes apartheid movement, and ? others. These movements utilized a variety of tactics including rallies, bed-ins, boycotts, sit-downs, strikes, etc. (link to all of that.)

In the U.S., since Vietnam, these protests have waned somewhat. It is also noted that the governments in power have developed more sophisticated techniques to ignore the protests and ‘power to the people.’ The recent wars on Iraq have led to two Bush administrations ignoring world-wide protests. (For example, in February 2003, shortly before declaring war on Iraq, George W. Bush dismissed the 10 million anti-war protesters around the world as “a focus group.”) Part of this involved a small monopoly of media companies that control most media outlets, including news, in order to propagate the same agenda based on their own ideological stance. (see Rupert Murdoch, of Fox News.)

Role of the Internet While increasing monopolies of media control what voices get to express themselves out there (an important tactic, which began by taking two receiver radios and making them one way – look up; show other examples); an interesting tool was being developed. The internet, or world wide web, was – show facts—initially as a military operation and later by Al Gore (sic). Beginning in the early 90’s, the web began to grow in the number of users, input, and complexity. List servs and multi-user communities (for information or for game-playing, etc.) began to develop. At the same time, people began to adopt email to replace written or verbal communication. In the late 90’s, a boom developed in prime areas like San Francisco’s Silicon Valley where companies like Microsoft, Sun Systems, and others developed software for the internet. Commercial internet companies flourished; the new medium was believed to have revitalized industries of advertising, marketing, and selling. Shortly after 2000, the so-called “dot com boom” collapsed 00much of these companies went out of business or lost money due to the massive investing and speculating.

At this time, other softwares were being developed to a slightly more mature web. Blogs; wikis, etc. (describe and link). (should have in separate sections?)

Wikis are tools where anyone can freely edit and add text to a website.

Some examples of wikis include:…. Wiki are used for a variety of uses, including…

Concept By the very nature, wikis are designed to provide a more democratic, decentralized control of information online. This was the premise for the birth of wikipedia…

Wikipedia Summary

Uses today Serves as a research tool for the internet. It is joined by a growing number of similarly minded resources…

This tool can be an antidote, in a way of culture and dissemination, to the fear of democracy. At least in a controlled, virtual space, a limited democracy of information rules. People share and work together for the greater good, based on the trust and desire for a good resource.

Recent Press Wikipedia has received both good and bad press. Recently it was studied to be the most popular encyclopedia ever. This represents its great power. Nature journal studied it to be nearly as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica.

It is here where it has come under attack recently: list examples. Some of the language seem to be not only its accuracy, (considering ‘credentialed’ resources that cost $ - like Britannica –are also not fully accurate). But these deep-rooted ideas. (quotes, discuss)

Future Where does this live this? Its an interesting time. The internet –among other trends – seem to encourage society to live more collaboratively, more communitively. Recent books reflect this trend: wisdom of crowds, smart mobs. Working together to fght repressive govts, fight global warming, a reality, etc. AT the same time, elists (often internalized) work on all levels to criticize and undermine these attempts, threatened economically (they’re not making money) or by mass popularity. Wikipedia is one fo the few experiments that at least now has proved successful, has risen outside of capitalism and crowd mentality to show that an online mob can charge the ivory tower of information, and bring it to its nameless collectivity.

Demobcracy Main page

Demobcracy is the portmanteau for a series of thoughts on crowds, the collaborative nature of the internet and the potential for democracy posited by Ariana Souzis in December 2005. These ideas grew out of several discussions and readings from the Fall 2005 Hunter College IMA class taught by Stuart Ewen. The (newly created) term refers to the growing number of internet software technology and tools that encourage the possibility of completely decentralized and collaborative systems online that rely on the collaboration of a online crowd.

Using a wiki as a way of exploring these systems (including wikis themselves), Ariana seeks to explore how these new systems today may expand or dismiss much of arguments for or against direct democracy or participatory democracy rule.

Ariana’s goal in placing her thoughts on a wiki (particularly one that shares the same features and interface as the most popular wiki, Wikipedia) was to discuss these tools while using them, not only to explore them in greater detail but to see how they change the nature of this writing. Using the wiki as both a tool to discuss and compare with some of the ideas from the reading but also as a experiment in itself to provide an open forum for this writing, Ariana Souzis sought to understand or experiment with how collaborative online software today and how it is used negates or disproves or provides an alternative to much of this original argument.

Introduction Historical Context Role of the Internet A few systems Folksonomies Flash mobs Wikis Wikipedias Further thoughts See also? External links

Introduction According to Le Bon’s reactionary treaty, the ideas that the psychology of a crowd is such that they are irrational, susceptible to violence or poor decisions – an unruly mob. The ultimate outcome of their writing was to argue that democracy could never work because large group of peoples could not make the best decisions --- only a small, select group of specialized experts were able to do that. These books and ideas were hugely popular Both Lippmann and Le Bon advocated that democracy could not exist because one could

particularly Gustave Le Bon (The Study of Crowds, --) and Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (1922). 

Gustave Le Bon excoriated the crowds in his seminal book of sociology on: the crowds. (link, quote, etc.) That ideology has persisted and even dominated throughout the 20th century. Other authors (Walter Lippmann, Gabriel Tarde) posited similar, if slightly modified ideas arguing the same thing: that crowds are irrational, become a dominant seething irrational one-mind, and that they need to be controlled by a rational, skilled expert elite. That the crowd becomes an unruly mob.

Historical context: Many of these writers were writing this from a specific point of view and historical background. For example, Le Bon clearly referenced and was concerned by the French Revolution and Paris Commune of 1871, in which many of the ruling elite were killed. Fear of losing control dominated. For Lippman, liberal? And editor of the New Republic, writing after World War 2, he believed that the elite would control for the betterment of everyone (a softened version).

Ideas of this nature persist throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, partly due to the fact that with the boom in population, masses, the rise of technology and a multiple states people have been afraid that the masses would take over. Some examples are rights movements where groups of people organized to fight for a specific agenda. In America, these include Women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, anti-war protests (which, in the 70’s, led to the U.S. withdrawing from Vietname). In other countries this includes post colonial movements like apartheid movement, and ? others. These movements utilized a variety of tactics including rallies, bed-ins, boycotts, sit-downs, strikes, etc. (link to all of that.)

In the U.S., since Vietnam, these protests have waned somewhat. It is also noted that the governments in power have developed more sophisticated techniques to ignore the protests and ‘power to the people.’ The recent wars on Iraq have led to two Bush administrations ignoring world-wide protests. (For example, in February 2003, shortly before declaring war on Iraq, George W. Bush dismissed the 10 million anti-war protesters around the world as “a focus group.”) Part of this involved a small monopoly of media companies that control most media outlets, including news, in order to propagate the same agenda based on their own ideological stance. (see Rupert Murdoch, of Fox News.)

Role of the Internet While increasing monopolies of media control what voices get to express themselves out there (an important tactic, which began by taking two receiver radios and making them one way – look up; show other examples); an interesting tool was being developed. The internet, or world wide web, was – show facts—initially as a military operation and later by Al Gore (sic). Beginning in the early 90’s, the web began to grow in the number of users, input, and complexity. List servs and multi-user communities (for information or for game-playing, etc.) began to develop. At the same time, people began to adopt email to replace written or verbal communication. In the late 90’s, a boom developed in prime areas like San Francisco’s Silicon Valley where companies like Microsoft, Sun Systems, and others developed software for the internet. Commercial internet companies flourished; the new medium was believed to have revitalized industries of advertising, marketing, and selling. Shortly after 2000, the so-called “dot com boom” collapsed 00much of these companies went out of business or lost money due to the massive investing and speculating.

At this time, other softwares were being developed to a slightly more mature web. Wikis, flash mobs, and folksonomies are just a few of the software which has emerged from the developing internet that provided fascinating new approaches of organizing and accessing information and communities online. Both software and their uses have grown throughout the noughties, particularly wikis, blogs, tagging, games, and other systems. Social networking software has also created crowds as well. In all cases, examples of collaborative (if physically dislocated) groups of (often) anonymous people form groups of trust to create and improve the internet. In all ways, the crowd psychology has been disproved, more a proof that, at least in certain settings like the internet, the crowd together can make and break everything. Long live the mobocracy. (mention Chomsky has disproven it.)

Folksonomies

Folksonomies are tagging that people can control, a kind of decentralized organization that people can create and share. It can be a bit abstract to understand unless one visits a website for an example. (flickr or de.lic.ous).

Folksonomies allow a collaborative sharing or network passing on organized info.

External Links

More on this topic

Flash mobs

Flash mobs are situationist-inspired groups usually organized by email addresses or list servs. The purpose of the group is to meet up and do a (somewhat) spontaneous public event. The groups do not

Ariana Souzis attended a flash mob in 2003. In a bit of confluence, a Wired article described the event. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59297,00.html

Flash mobs directly bring a surrealist, performative form to the persona of the mob.

Wikis

Wikis are the granddaddy of online mobs. They are websites/software that allow anyone to add or edit text on websites, thus providing the most democratic decentralized space on the internet. Wikis began in 1995 and really gained popularity with Wikipedia, developed by Jimmy Whales in 2000.

Wikipedia: Background

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia where all entries are collaboratively written by internet users, often anonymously. The wikipedia has currently – entries and is available in a number of languages. Over – have collaborated on it. It is freely accessible and freely available for anyone to write in it. Recently, it was judged by – to be the most popular encyclopedia ever used, and in Nature Journal it was deemed to be nearly as accurate as the (fee-based) Encyclopedia Britannica online.

Criticisms Interestingly, Wikipedia has fallen to a number of criticisms. Critics believe it is not accurate (mostly because so many people write in it with varying or low levels of expertise on a subject) and, open to pranks or lies (untrustworthy). Recent stories of pranks (see below)

John Seigenthaler John Seigenthaler is a writer who was recently mentioned in a wikipedia entry on jfk as being one of the suspected assasins. Upset about the character assassination, he wrote an angry editorial in USA today blasting the inaccuracy of Wikipedia. Later, the entry was revealed to be a prank written by ---. This high-profile incident, coming on the heels of an announcement about wikipedia’s popularity, shook the reputation of Wikipedia.

Adam Curry At the same time, Adam Curry, a former MTV vj and collaborator on podcasting, admitted that he had changed his entry to make it seem like he had completed created podcasting on his own.

It is speculated that this criticisms, in some ways, can be seen to evoke the belief of the crowd psychology, to wit that as Le Bon says:

(quote)

It can also be a seen as a threat to expert based academia, where only credentialed experts can dictate and share knowledge.

Miscellaneous

Recent books highlighting aspects of this phenemonen Wisdom of crowds Smart mob

Other technologies that use internet to mobilize people around the world: Bookcrossing.com Geocaching 1000 journals

Social networking Friendster.com Myspace.com