Mikael Pawlo on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:29:44 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> The banality of blogging |
On 8/14/07, Benjamin Geer <benjamin.geer@gmail.com > wrote: > So did the printing press when it was invented. But as far as I know, > nobody has suggested that texts published using printing presses are > inherently... anything. (---) Even though this argument seems very appealing at first, I think it might be over-simplifing to some extent. If you look at technological transitions in the past they seem to happen in a more complex fashion than suggested, and affect the content more than just being a new forum for publication. It may also effect how ideas are not only expressed but also developed and formed. Many great thinkers have expressed this in different ways, and I am really a simpleton when it comes to these matters, but still I would like to take this opportunity to highly recommend James O'Donnell's excellent book Avatars of the world. This was a great eye-opener to me, even though I can not judge the academic value of the work. Perhaps Mr Stalder might fill in here? The book is a bit dated today and does not provide the reader with many insights when it comes to Web 2.0, social networking, blogging, Facebook and so forth, but as a method for comparative studies of technology change (did anyone say paradigm!?) this is a great start and tool. It should be required reading for all policy czars, but is obviously not, when you look at technology regulation... James O'Donnell is a Georgetown scholar: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/ Aggregated reviews of the book: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/ODOAVA.html?show=reviews Best regards, Mikael Pawlo _________________________________________________________________________ mailto:mikael@pawlo.com # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@kein.org and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org