Demonstrating Globe: Virtual Action in the Network Society
In Demonstrating Globe: Virtual Action in the Network Society, Tiziana Terranova gives a detailed and elaborate discussion on the origin of ethical hacking as a new and emerging concept in the cyber space. He says that this was not a prompt idea that just arose all over sudden, but erupted as a result of numerous struggles in the virtual space that were promoted by several protests that had been staged by different people at different times against certain acts that did not please the global (virtual) community. As the writer exclaims, virtual politics began on June 18 during the first “international day of action aimed at the heart of the global economy.” Later, it intensified especially after the invention of the doc com technology.
The electronic protest gained momentum after a support from the global virtual community that embraced social movements and political protests. The internet was a suitable place for launching such massive global protests because it was the only arena that was free from the stringent corporate regulations. As the events unfolded, the idea of hacktivism became so prominent after hackers managed to break into the websites belonging to the Mexican President Ernesto Zdilollo; Bhabba Atomic Research, India; Indonesial government; and the New York Times. This actually marked the origin of hacktivism that has remained a torn in the flesh of virtual space up to date.
Know It All
In Know It All, Jodi Dean discusses about Dean brings out the discussion between Jullian Assange and SlavojŽižek, Amy Goodman during her popular radio program, “Democracy Now!” here, Amy engages Assange in an intensified debate about the motives behind his action of releasing secrete documents about the actions of the federal government of US during the Iraq War. In this show, the two provide the 1,800 audience with their ideology of information. Just lke Assange, Amy believes that information is a matter of life and death because it is a very powerful tool in the society. Thus, Assange says that he had to release the 4,000 docments detailing the horrific actions of the US soldiers in Iraq. He says that such information would not compromise the US government; but would serve the right purpose of informing the whole world about the deliberate killing of 104,000 people and collateral murder of Iraqi children. To Assange, these are some of the secrets that people needed to know about the Bush Administration.
In this article, Assange explains that the aim of the WikiLeaks revelations was not just to embarrass those in power, but to lead us to mobilize ourselves to bring about a different functioning of power that might reach beyond the limits of representative democracy. Assange believes that it is not a criminal offense to leak such information because even if it is considered as a conspiracy; it does not bother him. He holds the philosophy that conspiracy is a form of government. For this reason, they con the use of phrases such as message force multipliers to fully describe the seemingly shrouded actions of WkiLeaks. However, to Assange, the power of information does not arise from knowing it all, but comes from the destruction of the possibility of all. This justifies why he believes in the dissemination of information for the common good, a bold action that he does not regress at all.
Network Culture: Policies for the Information Age
In this book, Tiziana Terranova explores about the concept of information and entropy, cybernetics and thermodynamics, mailing lists and talk shows, the electronic Ummah and chaos theory, web rings and web logs, mobile robots, cellular automata and the New Economy, open-source programming and reality TV, masses and multitudes, communication management and information warfare, networked political movements, open architecture, image flows and the interplay of affects and meanings in the constitution of the common. To adequately discuss about these ideas, Tiziana divides the book int five main chapters: here Propositions of Information Culture in which she gives a candid discussion on the definition and detaled meanings of information, how it works and how its workability can be influenced by factors like noise.
In chapter two of this book: Network Dynamics, the author discusses how technology can be used to enhance communication and its contribution in unifying the global community by making the world to be one global village. However, she says that for this goal to be realized, the modern technologies in communication should be properly configured and managed by professionals. In chapter three: Free Labor, she discusses about the use of technology and information in promoting the efficiency of the work force. As she examines, the use of digital communication should always be made available to everyone without unnecessary restrictions. The same sentiments are repeated in the last two chapters of the book in which the author goes ahead to talk about other emerging issues in communication including social media, global computation and hacking.
The Concept of Information
In this chapter, Tizina Terranov narrows her discussion to information. She begins her analysis by tracing the origin of the term information. According to her research, even if the origin of the term originated in the 1th century, it came into prominence in the 15th century after the increase in centrality of the natural sciences. Later, it gained more significance when it was identified to be a fundamental part of the theory of message. Later, it was popularized by scholars and great philosophers like Jean-Francois Lyotard, Roland Barthes, Gilbert Simondon and others who applied it in different disciplines such as sociology. Information is amultifaceted concept that can be applied in different disciplines to mean different things. This is why the term has been used by scholars from a wide range of professions.
Although each of these scholars presented a different view of the term information, they were acknowledged to have imminently contributing to its popularity. For instance, on his part, Gilbert Simondon held that the concept of information can be critiqued as a an agent of alienation and disembodiment. In his opinion, the concept should be rescued from the two reductive perspectives and also needs to be redeemed from the Ancient Greece philosophy that held that information exists as dualisms of form and matter. At the same time, he suggested that the concept should as well be saved from the technological theory of information that merely reduced it into just a message transmitted from the sender to the recipient.
Digital Prometheus: WikiLeaks, the State–Network Dichotomy, and the Antinomies of Academic Reason
In this journal, Athina Karatzogianni and Andrew Robinson report on the on the impacts of the WikiLeaks phenomenon on academic debates in international relations and media and communication studies. It does this by focusing on the infleuences that WikiLeaks had on these disciplines between the years 2010 and 2012. According to these researchers, the rise of WikiLeaks greatly impacted on the global perception towards the world super power, USA. It demonstrated that such a small organization could manage to destabilize a very strong nation like USA by challenging its hierarchical structures.
The leaking of secret documents by WikiLeaks was a clear example of how individuals or small groups could organize to disseminate information to break the media and government monopolies. The article concludes that the releasing of collateral murder videos along side other secret information about US was interpreted by different scholars differently depending on their fields of study. It actually raised several questions regarding privacy and ethical concerns in international governance and cyber security.
Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks
In this essay, Slavoj Žižek brings out a detailed discussion about the controversies surrounding the release of official state documents from the government of US by the Assange-founded WikiLeaks. By using a video that features Batman and Robin as the main characters, Assange is simply satirical of the turbulent relationships between President Putin and his counterpart Medvedev. As this author examines, the release of this film elicited a lot of queries about WikiLeaks. It sought for answers about whether it was a war wedged against US or the publications or destabilizing the international relations between different countries. However, to some people, the leaks were necessary because they were exclusively aimed at informing the general public and safeguarding their right to information and knowledge about matters hat affect them.
Contrarily, WikiLeaks was accused of being a bad thing because it did not benefit people as expected. Despite his motives, Assange never succeeded in disseminating trustworthy information since not everyone accepted it. So, as much as information is taken to be liberating people, these leaks did not achieve that. People tend not to believe official information or rumors. However, it did better in contributing to the threatening of the US government, questioning its legitimacy and embarrassing those in power. Moreover, it challenged the public for accepting to be ruled by such a government whose deals are shrouded in secrecy.
WikiLeaks Affects: Ideology, Conflict and the Revolutionary Virtual
In this chapter, Athina Karatzogianni discusses about the impacts of WikiLeaks on ideology, conflict and the digital culture of the society. As explained in the chapter the founding of WikiLeaks elicited different reactions from the society. As a new and eccentric organization, people had to react to it as an organization or turn their attention to Julian Assange who had formed it together with his close accomplices. Such reactions were felt in the digital media and political scenes. It is such reactions that later influenced the entire societal perception of this organization that would become a pot of controversies in the virtual world.
To explain such reactions, the philosophical theory of affect can be used. The rapid manner in which WikiLeaks was instituted directly contributed to this. Its unique approach in handling national matters enabled it to bring lots of controversies to the society. Its contents and legitimacy as an organization was responsible for the spread of the political and apolitical ideologies it stood for as an organization. Because of this, WikiLeaks had to be regarded as an incident that brought revolution into the virtual media and politics of the international community. In his conclusion, Athina says that WikiLeaks really impacted on the society in a number of ways as discussed in this summary.
Introduction toward a Critique of Post Human Futures
In this article, Bart Simon uses the contributions of different scholars to shed more light on the concept of post humanism. Christopher Dewdney defines post humanism as the stage of human development of the last flesh or life in the post human era. At this stage, human does not have control over their life. Instead, life assumes a full control of itself and determines its own destiny. According to the contribution from scholars like Francis Fukuyama, Christopher Dewdney, Jill Didur and Katherine Hayles, Bart explains that the current conditions of human life will definitely propel human beings to the post human stage of life.
As per the analysis carried out by Bart, the current biotechnology, cultures of laissez faire, unregulated techno-science, liberalism and individualism are not good for human beings because they would drive them into post humanism. Although it is recommended, contemporary technologies will pose a very big threat to the human beings. All these changes will be attributed to the increase in the use of genetically modified food products, cloning, and manipulation of human biology, gene therapy and the culture of individualism. Such genetic technologies will alter the natural human conditions and make them to be totally different people who can not live without relying on modern technology.
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