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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Related to Trebor's posting - </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Last summer at an Aula event in Helsinki, Danah
Boyd gave</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>an interesting presentation </FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2>about the challenges </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>that
young</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>people have with managing </FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2>their online identities... You can</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>find the 8-min videoclip </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>here:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://aula.org/archives/2006/08/aula_2006_video.html#more">http://aula.org/archives/2006/08/aula_2006_video.html#more</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Also more at http://<A
href="http://www.danah.org">www.danah.org</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>'My research focuses on how people negotiate a
presentation of self to unknown audiences in mediated contexts. In particular,
my dissertation is looking at how youth engage with digital publics like
MySpace, LiveJournal, Xanga and YouTube. I am interested in how the
architectural differences between physical and digital publics affect sociality,
identity and culture.'</FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Her Master's thesis '</FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Faceted Id/entity: Managing representation </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>in a digital world'</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/danah/thesis/">http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/danah/thesis/</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Juha.</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></DIV></FONT>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=michelsub2004@gmail.com href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">Michel
Bauwens</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=idc@bbs.thing.net
href="mailto:idc@bbs.thing.net">IDC list</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, January 03, 2007 6:13
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [iDC] The wrong kind of
youth and distributed capitalism</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR></DIV>Trebor,<BR><BR>This is a great posting, and
I wonder if I could republish it in my own blog, as an appeal for
participation literacy? Do let me know.<BR><BR>I mostly agree with what you
said, though perhaps I would to stress the following points, which I think are
actually implied as a subtext (see your dual account of Amazon). <BR><BR>I
think that a too stringent duality between the interests of users, and the
netarchical capitalists (<A
href="http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Netarchical_Capitalism">http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Netarchical_Capitalism
</A>) who both enable and exploit participatory platforms, like Amazon, would
be counterproductive.<BR><BR>People who do participate in such platforms get a
lot of value out of it, they are not just being exploited. If you write a
review for Amazon, you contribute to the collective intelligence of the
system, and you profit from that. Furthermore, it is part of your identity,
and you get reputation value, as expressed by that youngster. <BR><BR>On a
deeper level, socially, we are less and less in a pure situation of
workers/consumers that are exploited by an external force, but rather, we move
in and out of situations, consuming one day, created user content the other;
working in peer production one day, as free lancer the other day, as employee
the third. <BR><BR>Hence, what works best I think is to show the dual nature
of those platforms, that they are both useful, and harmful, that the
owners/organizers are both acting in our interest (because it is what they
live from) and in their own, and that an awareness of the difference is
crucial, and that they are not powerless against such abuses. And of course,
the awareness that they can also create their own platforms, and avoid these
dependencies altogether. (see <A
href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=736">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=736</A>)<BR><BR>Like
with environmental education, where it has been shown that while direct
participation in nature increases critical awareness, purely critical
approaches actually made youth cynical and apathetic. <BR><BR>So we should go
'with them' and their peer ethics, rather than teach from the
outside.<BR><BR>Don't we all use all kinds of 'corporate' tools, after all
they are useful, allow sharing and participation, give all kinds of value, and
furthermore, it is also 'where the people and their attention' is, so that
worldchangers would be ill advised to isolate themselves amongst smaller but
purer in-crowd projects? <BR><BR>Michel<BR><BR>
<DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 1/3/07, <B class=gmail_sendername>Trebor
Scholz</B> <<A href="mailto:trebor@thing.net">trebor@thing.net</A>>
wrote:</SPAN>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">I
agree with Brian that youth should not be looked at as a prime example to be
imitated or as a solace for our own bad habits. However, at the same time it
is absurd to claim<BR>that today's kids are just the "wrong (uncritical)
kind of youth." <BR><BR>[The phrase "the wrong kind of snow" goes back to a
statement by British Rail's Director of Operations Terry Worrall, who stated
on 11 February 1991 that "we are having<BR>particular problems with the type
of snow".] <BR><BR>Youth needs to be educated and what that means changes
frequently. Today, informal "peer education" plays an increasingly important
role. Finding your way around<BR>participatory cultures is crucial for
professional life in the "creative industries," for citizenship, and for
personal growth. This literacy needs to be taught and right now many
<BR>relevant skills are mainly taught outside of institutions of learning.
Kids are not born with a better ability to cope with information overload
(like a sixth finger to text faster).<BR>Teenagers don't have dual processor
brains. Some of them are more fearless and playful in their encounters with
technology partially because they grew up with networked
<BR>computers.<BR><BR>However, if you don't know how to deal with the
constant influx of music, videos, software, email, friends on IM, and blogs
and wikis and MySpace posts (now also available<BR>for life on the go), then
you will be simply drown in a swamp of data. Your attention will be so
diffuse that you can't follow through with a concentrated, long-term
project. It <BR>will also be hard for you to be present with another person,
to actually "meet" them.<BR><BR>We need an ethics of participation! That's
part of participation literacy. Do I let myself being taken
advantage of by those who pull the strings behind sociable environments?
<BR>"Why would I not help out <A href="http://Amazon.com">Amazon.com</A> by
writing book reviews for them (?), they sold great books to me." I heard
this puzzling logic from a young student. I paid and<BR>therefore, in
return, I give my labor away for free. (It's of course more complex than
that as arguably these reviews serve the public as well.) Another
example: <BR><BR>In mid-December at the LeWeb 3 conference in Paris a
disconcerting project was launched: YAADZ. To the realm of viral video and
guerrilla marketing you can now add this<BR>site that offers "video
advertisement by the people who watch them." YOU AD[Z]. Somebody who loves
Reebok shoes can now create their own video ad and upload it too. <BR>And
it's free. They don't even have to pay for giving their immaterial labor
away for free.<BR><<A
href="http://www.yaadz.com/">http://www.yaadz.com/</A>><BR><BR>Critical
participation literacy will make kids aware that projects like this
exemplify the self-exploiting hell of distributed capitalism. (Many of them
lack totally this criticality.) <BR>They have no hesitation to "outsource"
their photo memories to Yahoo (Flickr) or to leave all their daily life
traces with Rupert Murdoch (MySpace). The ethics of participation<BR>need to
be taught.<BR><BR>In a recent survey that I conducted, a participant (age
18) stated that she wears MySpace and YouTube like clothes. "They are an
extension of my identity," she said. If social <BR>networking sites are an
expression of identity, then we need to teach a critical awareness of the
environments in which kids hang out online. Students may be aware that it
is<BR>uncool to wear Abercrombie & Fitch but they don't hesitate to
trust MySpace with their life. (Abercrombie & Fitch was accused of
discrimination against minority employees-- <BR>2004 lawsuit Gonzalez v.
Abercrombie & Fitch).<BR><BR>My argument is clearly against continuous
partial attention. In my opinion cpa is caused by information overload and
the vertigo of choice that comes with it. To shape their <BR>own vision, to
follow their own life direction (not remote controlled by the carrots of
distributed capitalism) youth needs to learn--<BR><BR>to filter,<BR><BR>to
judge information sources,<BR><BR>to play,<BR><BR>to experiment, <BR><BR>to
collaborate with others,<BR><BR>to be critically aware of the ethics of
participation,<BR><BR>to master cooperative tools and instruments<BR>-this
includes simple email skills<BR><<A
href="http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2005/01/how-to-e-mail-professor.html">
http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2005/01/how-to-e-mail-professor.html</A>><BR><BR>and
to meaningfully distribute their ideas (create platforms).<BR><BR>It's not
the wrong kind of youth, it's merely youth that needs to be educated.
<BR><BR>-Trebor<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>iDC
-- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (<A
href="http://distributedcreativity.org">distributedcreativity.org
</A>)<BR><A href="mailto:iDC@bbs.thing.net">iDC@bbs.thing.net</A><BR><A
href="http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc">http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc</A><BR><BR>List
Archive:<BR><A
href="http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/">http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/</A><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><BR
clear=all><BR>-- <BR>The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes
peer to peer alternatives.<BR><BR>Wiki and Encyclopedia, at <A
href="http://p2pfoundation.net">http://p2pfoundation.net</A>; Blog, at <A
href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</A>;
Newsletter, at <A
href="http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p">http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p
</A><BR><BR>Basic essay at <A
href="http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499">http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499</A>;
interview at <A
href="http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html">http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html</A>;
video interview, at <A
href="http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm">http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm
</A>
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