Part 2: Second Life, First Life – How do we get a Life?
Web 2.0 is said to be characterized by the way the web has transformed from a static medium to a dynamic one in which contributors are in constant dialogue rather than just posting data on a digital wall (see this neat YouTube video on the 
history and nature of Web 2.0 for example). Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University, takes the dynamic nature of the Web 2.0 one stage further in his ethnography work. Implicit in his notion that the web ‘is us/ing us’ is an idea that cultural meaning becomes a collaborative construction perhaps a bit like the notion of “The Invisible Hand” in economics.
“The Invisible Hand” is a metaphor used to describe the mechanism by means of which a balance is established between supply and demand in a market economy; on the web, suggests Wesch, the constant tagging and recording of activity serves to highlight particular areas of interest and activity. When, for example, the Google search engine notes that many people searching for a particular topic choose to go to a particular website and so Google prioritises that website in future search results, a form of cultural equilibrium for meaning is established (see the Google widget on the sidebar of this blog for data on current searches and the graph from
"Google Zeitgeist" showing top searches for 2007) A democratic process of social prioritisation brings some parts of the web to the fore and allows others to drop into obscurity. Much like The Invisible Hand of the first-life-world market place, this second-web-world Invisible Hand serves to establish patterns of meaning because the web “is us/ing us” to make judgements about who we, as a web culture, will define ourselves as being. (see Wesch’s 5 minute video “The Machine is Us/ing Us) 
Again, this is nicely illustrated by the "Digg" widget on the sidebar which invites viewers of news items to click on a raised or lowered fist to determine which are the most interesting news items of the time.
In this context there is an eerie prescience in watching this video about Jurgen Habermas on Youtube. Habermas is a central figure in the sociology of culture who argues that meaning is culturally constructed as a product of interaction between subjectivities (Pusey, 1987). When Habermas ends his interview by highlighting the value of democracy, I am left pondering the potential that Web 2.0 may have for instilling a kind of cultural rationalization increasingly free from the corporations and political structures that have had so much sway over the means of meaning production previously.
I’m sure I’m naïve, but I wonder what potential the web may have to accelerate Habermas’ ‘possibility for collective learning as the (gradual) institutionalisation of reason in Society’ (Pusey, 1987, p. 32) If the web is achieving a level of creative independence beyond the grasp of commercial and institutionalised political interests, then there is a real responsibility that I have as an English teacher to encourage my students to be a part of this process and to be confident and competent in their capacity to walk within its walls.
I’m exploring here the idea that the very nature of the web is to create and evolve meaning in a way which is dynamic and relatively free from many of the traditional ideological constraints on our culture. In this world, students may be able to “get a life” that they have an increasing power to direct. There are so many questions left begging, however, about the nature and quality of that “life” and culture and about those who it excludes (the large part of the world without computers for a start). Engaging students in an exploration of these moral questions is another of the opportunities and responsibilities I see myself as having. For the purposes of this blog these questions need to wait until I have completed my assignment, however.
In my next post I plan to explore what it might mean to be “playful” and how playfulness is an important part of adolescent identity – on and off the web.
history and nature of Web 2.0 for example). Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University, takes the dynamic nature of the Web 2.0 one stage further in his ethnography work. Implicit in his notion that the web ‘is us/ing us’ is an idea that cultural meaning becomes a collaborative construction perhaps a bit like the notion of “The Invisible Hand” in economics.“The Invisible Hand” is a metaphor used to describe the mechanism by means of which a balance is established between supply and demand in a market economy; on the web, suggests Wesch, the constant tagging and recording of activity serves to highlight particular areas of interest and activity. When, for example, the Google search engine notes that many people searching for a particular topic choose to go to a particular website and so Google prioritises that website in future search results, a form of cultural equilibrium for meaning is established (see the Google widget on the sidebar of this blog for data on current searches and the graph from
"Google Zeitgeist" showing top searches for 2007) A democratic process of social prioritisation brings some parts of the web to the fore and allows others to drop into obscurity. Much like The Invisible Hand of the first-life-world market place, this second-web-world Invisible Hand serves to establish patterns of meaning because the web “is us/ing us” to make judgements about who we, as a web culture, will define ourselves as being. (see Wesch’s 5 minute video “The Machine is Us/ing Us) 
Again, this is nicely illustrated by the "Digg" widget on the sidebar which invites viewers of news items to click on a raised or lowered fist to determine which are the most interesting news items of the time.In this context there is an eerie prescience in watching this video about Jurgen Habermas on Youtube. Habermas is a central figure in the sociology of culture who argues that meaning is culturally constructed as a product of interaction between subjectivities (Pusey, 1987). When Habermas ends his interview by highlighting the value of democracy, I am left pondering the potential that Web 2.0 may have for instilling a kind of cultural rationalization increasingly free from the corporations and political structures that have had so much sway over the means of meaning production previously.
I’m sure I’m naïve, but I wonder what potential the web may have to accelerate Habermas’ ‘possibility for collective learning as the (gradual) institutionalisation of reason in Society’ (Pusey, 1987, p. 32) If the web is achieving a level of creative independence beyond the grasp of commercial and institutionalised political interests, then there is a real responsibility that I have as an English teacher to encourage my students to be a part of this process and to be confident and competent in their capacity to walk within its walls.
I’m exploring here the idea that the very nature of the web is to create and evolve meaning in a way which is dynamic and relatively free from many of the traditional ideological constraints on our culture. In this world, students may be able to “get a life” that they have an increasing power to direct. There are so many questions left begging, however, about the nature and quality of that “life” and culture and about those who it excludes (the large part of the world without computers for a start). Engaging students in an exploration of these moral questions is another of the opportunities and responsibilities I see myself as having. For the purposes of this blog these questions need to wait until I have completed my assignment, however.
In my next post I plan to explore what it might mean to be “playful” and how playfulness is an important part of adolescent identity – on and off the web.
Pusey, M. 1987. Jurgen Habermas. Chichester, Ellis Horwood.
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