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January 27, 2004
Ideant on edemocracy
Posted by Clay Shirky
Long, thoughtful musing over at ideant on
the limits of edemocracy, especially as concerns the relationship between the public, as defined in politics, and the mass, as in 'that which is reached by mass media'
-We need to be aware of which aspects of the internet are characteristic of a mass medium, and which can support the creation of a community of publics. We need to figure out how best to use both.
-We need to acknowlege that tools that allow people to organize themselves are not as important as the agendas that people are supposed to pursue once they organize themselves. We need not just programmers, designers and enterpreneurs, but citizens who are politically conscious and active.
- We need to acknowlege that getting information about the world is not as important as acting upon the world. We have to move away from the idea of defining individuals as intersections of information circuits and back to the idea of individuals as ensembles of social relations, to paraphrase Lorenzo Simpson. We have to ask ourselves honestly to what extent 'social software' is not in fact an oxymoron.
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1. ernst on March 1, 2004 1:50 PM writes...
ha ha ha ha ha
oh brother
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