Re: Utopian Wiring
Laura Ann Young (lay4a@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU)
Sun, 18 Feb 1996 21:18:19 -0500 (EST)
According to Laura Ann Young:
>
> I did get the inkling to read the Spinelli piece, and all
> Marxist-anti-captialist-mass-consumer preconceptions aside, I
> think the article asks the very real question - what
> excatly does universal access mean? In that sense, I think the
> analogy to the radio was an informative one. Universal access
> to the radio, according to Spinelli, resulted in another
> avenue for mass produced culture to be fed to the American
> populace. Instead of providing "a buffet of choice" for all
> Americans, becuase of the increased information they can
> receive over the radio, it led to a collapsed world of programs
> targeted at a market-analyzed listener who is in turn created
> by the medium.
>
> The radio and the television were developed as information
> technologies, and it is fair to say that there is a good deal
> of universal access. I think it is also fair to say that the
> radio and the television have done little as far as becoming the
> great equalizers they may have been lauded as, despite
> access.Granted, Spinelli seems to be spewing some combo of
> Marxist/post-modern theory in his hope that the internet will
> function to reverse the roles of consumer-producer by allowing
> poaching of other people's works. Spinelli's point is an important
one in that, something more than universal
> "access" needs to be proposed in order for all Americans to
> realize the possibilites of the medium.
>
> Spinelli also raises the point that the virtual experience
> versus the real,physical experience is a distinction that we
> may not want to lose. This relates back to the ongoing discussion
> from which we never seem to escape, about the value of the book.
> Spinelli however isn't into the idea of the book for teh smell
> of the binding, but for the fact that you probably have to talk
> to someone to buy, check out, whatever, your book. Is
> interpersonal communication on a face to face level with other
> members of the community in which we live something we want to
> lose? The notion of the virtual vote, for the virtual
> representative is an interesting one to consider. Does it
> definitely lead to virtual democracy? The discussion here gets
> into the whole notion of our basis of reality perception, and I
> hope to avoid that as Spinelli does. However, the need for face
> to face communication is continually decreasing in our society.w
> Where will our notion of reality, especially the reality of
> our community, come from in an era where it's basically
> unnecessary to ever speak to another human being all day? Where
> could it come from except for, as Spinelli proposes, those
> nasty profiteering capitalists who control all the server space?
>
> Laura
>