Lessig

Lessig begins chapter 2 by mentioning Louis Daguerre and the invention of the first “practical technology,” photography. The technology began as a very expensive and complicated process, like most emerging technologies. However, as the demand for this medium exploded, so did the desire to make the technology more accessible and affordable. Then the Kodak camera was invented which used a roll of flexible film to print the negatives onto, avoiding the long tedious processes that the glass plate negatives required.

This revolutionized the camera industry and allowed for lower class participation as well as amateur expressionism through this medium. The product was marketed for its ease and the availability to any common man who “has sufficient intelligence to point a box straight and press a button (2).” This allowed anyone without experience in art to express their creative side. People could now document their visual lives without any interpretational biases, and camera usage exploded along with amateur photography. Now that this technology was put into the hands of the common man, growth in democratic technology was in full force.

The second section on the technology filled “Just Think! buses” was very interesting, because I had never heard of such a thing. Although these buses are holistically expensive, the technology they carry is actually somewhat cheap. This definitely reminded me of the way that when digital cameras first came out, they were pretty expensive and I can only remember my friends’ parents owning them. Now, I see kids as young as elementary students carrying around the inexpensive devices. If these Just Think! buses can be replicated across the country, I have a feeling our students have a much better chance of media literacy. This term refers to the ability to comprehend and interpret the media around us, rather than just the ability to read and write like the term ‘literacy’ used to mean. This means that it is not necessarily the access to the technologies but the difficulty to comprehend them that may prove to be the biggest barrier in the expansion of our media literacy.

The third section from the chapter begins with a somewhat bittersweet note, the way in which September 11^th was broadcast on news stations everywhere, with a certain level of “entertainment,” even when that entertainment is tragic. This reminds me of when I was watching MTV after the planes had crashed, and in the aftermath they were interviewing celebrities on what they thought of the event. The only thing that I thought was, “I could really care less what Ja Rule and P Diddy have to say about this sort of thing.” But that is exactly the point, it’s not about the content of the news anymore, it’s more about the way it’s presented and the way it can appeal to its audiences.

The format of the news when people would get it on-line was much different though as the emotions seemed to be rawer along with the content of the news it was bringing. This online format allowed for instantaneous exchange of not only pictures but opinions and perspectives, all which add to our collective view on the way this news affects us. This open forum of blogging and building upon others views let us expand our democratic processes and public discourse as internet users were free to comment and discuss any matter they chose.

Now that the political discourse is isolated though, it also becomes more extreme. Blogs allow for public discourse without the public ever needing to gather in a single public place, and not only that, but we all can choose to be anonymous in most cases, leaving little repercussion for comments. I liked the example of how blogging affected the 2004 campaign for Howard Dean. After he was leading at the Iowa Caucus, Dean gave a speech where he let out an overzealous cheer to rally on his supporters. This, however, only created problems, and before long, this cheer was all over the Internet with negative comments to match. There is now even auto-tuned song versions of the infamous cheer.

As blogging becomes more and more ubiquitous, we will also see a difference in the dialogue that we each create as well. Since there isn’t a single controller or “gate-keeper” of the Internet, our understanding of public issues will change as more and more citizens express what they think and defend it as well. Personally, the more I read about politics and argue certain points with my peers, I come across new perspectives that sometimes alter the way in which I think and state my opinion. As Lessig puts it, “Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore when he has been proven wrong (6).” I think this is an interesting way to put it, for we all know the compromise in our dignity when we are proven wrong, but I don’t know anyone who proceeds to maintain a self-aware incorrect thought.

The last section in chapter two discusses “Open Source Software,” and the way in which this software is building a better collective knowledge that can lead us to improved computer formats. This open source style allows everyone to build off of each other, not only in thoughts but in actual coding of web formats. Once one person has come up with a section of coding, others can change small things to it to try and improve on the coding. This is just like receiving other people’s inventions and trying to build upon them and make them better. This “open source becomes a major apprenticeship platform. The concrete things you tinker with are abstract. They are code. You are tinkering with a community platform. You are tinkering with other people’s stuff. The more you tinker the more you improve (9).”

This reminds me of the popular NCAA football games on gaming consoles. Every year, they come out with a new edition of the game, but it is not as if they start from scratch every edition. They merely have to build off of the previous year’s technology, which means the entire year can be spent on simply improving the product. This is the same way for the internet and coding, and if we keep building upon others’ ideas, who knows where we could end up. The freedom to do this however may not always be granted, and even now we are seeing ways in which this power is attempting to be controlled. Many Eastern nations like China still have very harsh censorship laws which greatly constricts the amount of creative and intelligent thought created. If only we could unleash every nation into this democratic process and shared though, then we could see how much further the Internet could actually take us. This censoring is really only hurting our potential to educate even the poorest countries. Technology is booming and we have more mediums of technology than ever before, but unfortunately the law is preventing us from realizing that full potential.