John Hopkins on Sun, 2 Nov 2014 15:10:52 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> social media & political activism redux


On 01/Nov/14 06:34, Geert Lovink wrote:
Thanks a lot, Allan, this is interesting. The question imho is not how social
media relate to the inadequate responses of political parties but if they
will generate sustainable 'new institutional forms' over time. What if the
current social media only produce one-off events? Protests without a cause?

And it's hard to imagine that there is no overall negative effect on the structures of relation among the people participating -- given the corporate control (& gov't collusion), data monitoring, harvesting, and mining, and so on -- that those 'in control' of social media are actually doing an end run on the political parties in the sense that they are stealing the power base from those same parties. 'The people' are merely pawns (and the originary source of power in a techno-social system) in the wider struggle for power...

Allan -- what do you speculate as the power relationship between 'owners' of a (social media) protocol, and those using that protocol? Neutral, of no consequence, prfound, complex? And the relationship between those deploying the (social media) protocols, and those *already* in power?

John

--
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Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
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