Tom Peters (week 4's reading response)
From Collectivate Course Wikis
- This page is for week 4's reading response to Tom Peters' research. For his main page, see Tom Peters. For his research page, see Tom Peters (research page).
Quote:
"They are hyped to an extent that troubles us. 2004 was declared the year of blogs. The online millions are trying to find out for themselves which they want to ask the web. Is a blog just a world pain teenage diary? Or is it a new public platform for the intellectual that would have Jürgen Habermas and also Alexander Kluge rethink the public sphere? New platforms have different sets of publics watching and contributing. In 2005 collaborative filtering, social bookmarking and the people's taxonomy (folksonomy) came along. But in turn all this socializing software made some people rather autistic. They are just inundated by all that information. All that blogging, reading of RSS feeds and email leaves them no TIME to think (for themselves). We filter and therefore we are" (Lovink and Scholz)!
My Response:
I was listening to Ron & Fez the other day and a listener called up and began complaining about how conservative our media really has become. Five conservative cooperations run 90% of the news media we read and watch. Ron's response rather suprized me because they are a comedy talk show. He mentioned the boom of the blogs and how many people now are obtaining their news from reading blogs. I'm not buying into it hower. I personally don't see it as a new public sphere. To me, blogs I always felt were exactly like a "teenage diary." I already hate walking the halls at UB and having to hear about the random ramblings of your "self-important" college student. Why would I now want to go online and read these, especially when they are coming from people without any background in the field while they act like they are the authority on the matter?
Another part of this section I agreed with was how this socializing software has created autistic people. Part of the reason I agree with it, is because I'm guilty of it. I'll watch a documentary like "Loose Change" and then try to talk people into believe these facts that I'm spitting out without really any prior knowledge. We as a society forgot how to independently think for ourselves. We hear something and repeat it as fact. The blogs are always guilty of this as well as our news. Instead of researching the truth behind a subject, these news and blog sources just keep refering to each other allowing lies to spread like fire.
Lovink, Geert, and Trebor Scholz. "Collaboration: For the Love Of It." Data, Death, and Desire. 9 Feb. 2006 <http://wiki.critical-netcultures.net/wiki/index.php/Collaboration:_For_the_Love_Of_It>.