THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK

NYU recently hosted an NYU Media Talk of the topic The Future of the Book. The panel included speakers from the publishing industry, as well as the director of strategic partnerships at Google, Tom Turvey, who manages Google’s content licensing arrangements with all print media companies globally (including books, magazines, news and journals).  Google is, of course, the gorilla in any book publishing/library room, with ambitious plans through Google Books: “Our ultimate goal is to work with publishers and libraries to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages that helps users discover new books and publishers discover new readers.”[1]  In addition, Google is working with 20 library “partners,” including (in New York) Columbia University and the New York Public Library in their Library Project.

 

In addition to Google’s Tom Turvey, the panel included a publisher who discussed the growing importance of self-published authors to the bottom line of Simon & Schuster’s Atria Publishing (Judith Curr, President and Publisher, Atria Publishing), an author/producer of television/editor and President of Random House Studio (Peter Gethers), and the VP and Director of John Wiley and Sons Business Development, Global Digital Books division (Peter Balis). All spoke of the need to connect books/authors with readers. As publishing is changing, the traditional progression of a “work” from the author’s brain to the reader through layers of agents, editors, publishers and librarians is changing.  The way that readers learn about books they may want to read is also evolving quickly.  All the panelists discussed the crucial role for authors of self-promotion, and of the power of bloggers to reach readers.

 

One theme that emerged was the importance of access to readers.  The discussion pointed out that booksellers are contracting, advertising in traditional print media reaches fewer readers. As stated above, Google’s project, ambitious in scope, proposes to put ALL books in a keyword-searchable form, with access to Tables of Contents and preview pages available.  Turvey said that Google has expanded into 30 countries with this effort.  He talked about the difficulties that arise when the different members of the project lack international cataloging standards.[2]

 

The primary concern cited by the panelists revolved around finding new ways to connect readers to their audience. A growing number of authors begin by expanding their online recognition, working the social media by blogging, tweeting and Facebook.  These authors frequently self-publish.  Once they demonstrate that they have an extensive following that buys their books, they can get a publisher interested in their work.  A publisher can leverage that public exposure and interested, loyal fan base by becoming the author’s publisher and by searching for other outlets such as television and film for the author’s work.  Atria’s publisher spoke of working to create a “community” of self-published authors and their readers as a way to publicize and sell more books.  Random House Studio’s Gethers spoke of the importance of flexibility in selling and marketing authors.  His company has increased the types of projects to which authors can be attached.  Random House is aggressively seeking television, documentary and fiction film projects for their authors. One cookery blogger became a self-published cookbook author and then a Random House author with a cable-based cooking show.

 

Some of these trends in publishing appear to democratize publishing by allowing pathways for more authors to directly reach readers, without the (arguably elitist) intervention of the gatekeepers of the corporate media world and the libraries.  In a world without gatekeepers, though, the amount of published material increases and guidance for readers by their traditional “curators” like booksellers and librarians becomes harder to find.  The difficulty becomes the evaporation of a crucial part of reader engagement: trust. Few publishers have built that trust directly with readers; Gethers mentioned Penguin UK and Harlequin as examples of publishers who have done so.

 

It is easy to imagine readers becoming increasingly reliant on Google-style searches to find books and access them, either by buying them or by borrowing them, either as e-books or as printed books.  Libraries are under pressure to provide comparable search capacity in their catalogs, and private vendors already are available to contract those services for libraries.[3]  It seems highly likely that book-related searches will be treated as highly valuable information commodities by Google, by publishers or other corporate interests and even, possibly, by libraries.  While libraries have, in the past, resisted the pressure to reveal to the government the nature of library user’s book searches and borrowing histories, pressure may mount.  In Liquid Surveillance[4], the authors discussed the increase in a sort of self-surveillance by participation in the online and remote consumer and credit networks.  Consumers’ ability to search for books and to link to book resources remotely may provide just the opening that government surveillance seeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“And now, now it goes like this; you’re in college, you make a video with your friend, you do a set at UCB and then you’re in a Will Ferrell movie, literally that’s it. And you’re super attractive, and it’s awesome for you, then you get on an NBC series and then I see if I can get work on your show.”

            “Exactly, yeah, or you have a Twitter feed and then suddenly you’re staffed.”

                               -Comedians Greg Behrendt and Patton Oswalt on comedy

 

            Let’s face it, the Internet is not exactly the Mecca of good vibes we thought it would be. As Robert McChesney puts it in Digital Disconnect, back in the 1990s the Internet’s celebrants’ arguments were “that the Internet will be a force for democracy and good worldwide, ending monopolies of information and centralized control over communication.”

            That idea’s not completely wrong, just a little wrong. Yes, in many ways the advent of the Internet—if not ending them—has shaken the monopolies of information, and centralized control has been weakened no doubt. If I read a story on CNN’s website, I am only ever a couple clicks away from finding another view on Gawker, Wonkette or BBC News. But the Internet, while vast, is still tethered to the same conundrum that burdens 99 percent of us: money.

            Writing in 2004, for example, Lawrence Lessig saw blogs as some sort of revolutionary, impenetrable form of journalism; something that couldn’t be bought, not ever, but in reality today’s blogs are mainly used for DIY projects, recipes, and launching literary careers about DIY projects and recipes.

            Commerce–in one way of another–is now entirely enmeshed with the Internet. The idea of bringing people together has quickly morphed into “and how do we make money off of it?” At the surface it’s a depressing thought. Is nothing sacred? But maybe it’s not such a bad thing, maybe it’s a wonderful kick in the teeth of capitalism instead? Is this not the uplift the celebrants foresaw; a way to circumvent the powers that be through pure ingenuity?

            A primary example of this phenomenon of bucking the establishment and becoming better for it is, oddly enough, standup comedy. 

            It used to be that you did your act in clubs, sometimes at the bottom of a very long roster. If you got good, though, if people liked you, then one day you might be invited onto Late Night or The Tonight Show, and if Letterman or Leno, or whatever powers that be liked you, then maybe other equally important people would like you, until eventually you shot a special, which eventually led to a sitcom, which eventually led to you never having to worry about money again.

            But as the quote at the top demonstrates, the Internet has changed all that. Behrendt, along with his longtime friend and fellow comedian Dave Anthony, are a perfect example of the Internet’s influence on comedy.

            “Walking the room” is a term traditionally used by comedians to describe alienating one’s audience. To walk the room is to clear it out, sending your audience running out into the street. It’s also (and perhaps more well-known as) the name of a podcast hosted by Behrendt and Anthony. The show is quite literally recorded in a clothes closet in Behrendt’s house. For the most part the discussion’s light. They talk about their families, make self-deprecating remarks about their fledging careers and riff on weird news stories. Sometimes they invite a fellow comedian over, such as Patton Oswalt, to reminisce. Behrendt tends to make funny voices, Anthony tends to threaten him, and together they devolve, coming up with some of the most debased and raunchy scenarios imaginable. It’s oddly like listening to a pair of teenage boys who are also an old married couple. It goes without saying that I listen to it religiously every week.

            Walking the Room, however, like many of its ilk, has inspired a devoted, somewhat cult-like fan base. Fans of the show are called “cuddlahs.” They have a tendency to show up at Behrendt and Anthony’s live events wearing clown outfits, showering the hosts with gifts of handmade candies and posters. The podcast’s website has an entire glossary of terms exclusive to the show and there’s a rampant following in—of all places—Australia. When Anthony came out with his first comedy album Shame Chamber this year it charted No.1 in that country on iTunes. Behrendt was able to finance his band The Reigning Monarchs’ album through a Kickstarter campaign.  

            Behrendt and Anthony aren’t the only ones to inspire devotion in this new medium. Rob Delaney, another standup, has nearly one million followers on Twitter. Mostly his tweets are 140-character jokes unmentionable in polite company. Why exactly Delaney has such a vibrant following might be hard to account for, but whatever the reasoning it’s become the cornerstone of his livelihood. Followers buy tickets to his shows, and the Twitter feed has eventually led to a book deal.

            There are a dozen other stories exactly like these; of comedians—sometimes on the edge of career extinction—careened back into relevancy and importance. Marc Maron, considered a sort of forefather of comedy podcasts, started his WTF podcast after being fired from Air America several times. Now he has a book, a comedy album and a show on IFC. 

            As Paul Brownfield puts it in a 2012 The New York Times article, “On one hand, the appeal of podcasting to a comic is self-evident. There’s no time limit, no getting bumped, no pilot seasons, no standards and practices, no ratings-obsessed late-night wars. It’s just you and some recording equipment and maybe a few sidekicks for ballast. The audience? They’re imagined, in some separate, contiguous reality. Instead of urging them to tip the wait staff, you nudge them to leave a positive comment on your show page.”

            But here’s the thing, this resurgence, it’s done something else. It’s made comedy relevant again, like, Richard Pryor on race, Lenny Bruce on obscenity, Bill Hicks on marketing and George Carlin on anything relevant. It’s as if the Internet has given us a second wave of comedy’s Golden Age. In part this is due to the platforms themselves. Podcasts naturally lend themselves to stare-at-your-shoelaces introspection, just as Twitter lends itself to pithy political and social commentary.

            “In terms of comedy it does seem like comics are getting more interested in effecting the cultural conversation, or perhaps more interested again in effecting the cultural conversation, if you think about the 60s and 70s where comedy had a real role as social commentary with say Lenny Bruce and others,” CBC’s Q Radio host Jian Ghomeshi said during a November 6 interview with Delaney. “Whether it’s Patton Oswalt decrying rape jokes, or Russell Brandt sounding off about failings in government and his revolutionary manifesto now, or just Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert serving as mass media watchdogs.”

            “Well, comedy is very powerful,” Delaney answered. “It’s so powerful because it’s a form of alchemy. It takes pain and it turns it into laughter, and done well it can do it in an instant, so it has unbelievable power, and we have real, intractable, frightening problems in the world, so why wouldn’t you use every weapon that you have against them?”

            This past April things over at Walking the Room got real. Two months before the show had gone on a sudden hiatus. Listeners (me included) didn’t really know why. When it finally returned, Behrendt revealed that he’d fallen off the wagon nearly a year before, secretly taking painkillers that had originally been prescribed for a family pet. The head came when Behrendt, feeling suicidal, took one too many and subsequently whisked himself off to a rehab. 

            “The problem is I have to go to meetings with dogs now, that’s the weird part,” Behrendt said during the return podcast to which Anthony, the child of an alcoholic, said he sort of wanted to punch Greg in the neck.

            The podcast was aptly titled “A Very Special Episode,” and it was. It meant something to me, as well as all the other cuddlahs out there, in part because it spoke to our own demons, but also, perhaps, because it struck the perfect chord of humor and pathos; so completely tapping into the core of what makes comedy both wonderful and necessary: unwavering, unyielding honesty.

           

             

 

Although it’s easy to joke about, behind Louis C.K.’s humor are important issues about technology.

With each new advent of technology, there are both advantages and risks. However, as time goes on, it feels as though our society focuses solely on the benefits technology offers.

Cloud storage refers to saving data to an off-site storage system maintained by a third party. That data is saved to a remote database which can be accessed by your computer via the Internet.

As Louis C.K. points out, “The way that they’re going to talk you into this is that you’re going to have a smaller device.”

Although he exaggerates what the size of an iPhone will be, in a sense, he’s right. The convenience of cloud storage is that one doesn’t need to carry around a physical storage device. No more external hard drives and USB cords. Also, people can access their data from any location that has Internet access, and don’t have to use the same computer to save and retrieve information.

As with much of technology, the benefits are concrete and can be laid out clearly. The risks, however, are becoming increasingly vague. Things like data tracking and government surveillance are discussed, but do little to hinder people’s use of technology.

Apple’s iCloud storage system, which was launched in 2011, now has over 320 million users. Much like other cloud storage services, Apple preaches the benefits. One example is “Find My Iphone”, which is a service that can locate your Iphone if you lose it. However, it can also be viewed as a tracking device that can be used to detect your location.

On their website, Apple leaves the consumer with the idea that, “iCloud takes care of everything for you. Just like that.” Or, as Louis C.K. puts it, “You don’t need your stuff. Just give it us and we’ll put it on the cloud.”

Apple is also sure to explain how “it keeps your personal information and data secure.” Again, like other cloud storage services, iCloud secures one’s data in an encrypted format to ensure it is “protected from unauthorized access.”

However, when one reads through the iCloud Terms and Conditions, it becomes evident that Apple can potentially decrypt and access all data stored on iCloud servers. Apple, not the user, defines and controls the encryption keys. Apple can “access, use, preserve and/or disclose your Account information and Content to law enforcement authorities whenever required or permitted by law.”

So, in a way, users are willfully handing over personal data, including photos and documents, to a service that has no guarantee of security.

The question is why?

Is it as simple as people being naive, as Louis C.K. suggests?

Do the benefits outweigh the risks for users?

Is privacy even a concern?

It would seem that the protection of privacy is not a priority for users. However, privacy is a difficult term to define. Its definition differs from person to person and depends on past experiences, interests, and a person’s behavior, among other factors. Some researchers suggest that “over time, regular use of social media without any major negative experiences may lessen their concerns about sharing information.” [1. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Privacy-management-on-social-media.aspx]

In other words, as technology becomes a part of everyday life, it changes our society’s perception of privacy. Certain forms of self-disclosure become the norm, people become removed from the negative aspects, and as a result, people’s concern about privacy has only a small influence on actual online behavior.

It is important, though, for people to take this idea a step further and think about who controls technology and how that influences our view of it.

In “Search for the Great Community”, John Dewey suggests that technology has the potential to be an asset, but if society isn’t mature enough, some members are able to manipulate it. Technology that is not transparent, or “masked technology”, is what enables it to be controlled by a small percentage of the population.

Although Dewey is referring specifically to the Industrial Revolution, this idea of manipulation still holds true today. Technology, in my generation, is something that has been spoken about as a saviour; an all-inclusive way for people to connect and something that could be used as a check on those in power. In reality, technology is far from all-inclusive. It is controlled by corporations and those in power, who are able to track, control, and manipulate the way we use it.

As a result, many people tend to use it without fully understanding how it works or why it is necessary. Each new product comes with great benefits attached, but as a society, we’ve become less and less qualified to evaluate them. Our dependence on technology, coupled with our lack of understanding of it, increases with every generation.

For example, teenagers today have grown up knowing only of life with technology. Almost every aspect of their lives involves a screen. According to Pew Research Center, 78 percent of teens (12-17) now have a cell phone, and almost half of them (47 percent) own smartphones.[3. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Teens-and-Tech.aspx] Twenty-three percent of teens have a tablet computer. There are few moments in their day that don’t involve technology.

How is this affecting society?

The point that Louis C.K. brings up is a take on Dewey’s idea of habits. Habits, which are formed under the influence of the customs of the group, “bind us to orderly and established ways of action because they generate ease, skill and interest in things which we have grown used to.”[2. Dewey, John. “Search for The Great Community”, p.506] These habits affect every action someone takes, and there becomes a fear of anything different.

Perhaps our society has developed the habit of blindly using technology, of just doing things because we can.

And habits are hard to break.

 

 

 

 

 

_{On November 7}^th _{at the Queens Public Library Central Branch in Jamaica about forty people gathered in the basement auditorium to acknowledge the 150}^th _{anniversary of the Civil war. Patrons and guests were welcomed in from the cold with a display of light refreshments and featured Civil War text. While the audience waiting for the featured speaker to arrive, staff from the King Manor Museum briefly introduced the program agenda. The speaker arrived and slight technical difficulties needed to be addressed; as they often do in these gatherings. James L. Coll an adjunct professor at Nassau Community College for American and Constitutional History, a detective for the New York City Police department Tactical and Rescue unit, founder of ChangeNYS and speaker for the event began with an brief background to the Civil War.}

_{His lecture titled; Forever Free: Lincoln, Civil War and the American March to Emancipation was to provide a political analysis leading up to the Emancipation proclamation and the expansion of Federal and Congressional power. Coll in an organized manner carefully selected events during the Civil war that would help support his theory which was unclear but seemed he was a Lincoln fan. He often referred to Lincoln as brilliant, remarkable and the best American President. Though Coll praised Lincoln for all his achievements he also admitted that Lincoln was not the Great Emancipator we were all led to believe, in fact, he was not anti-slavery at all. Lincoln, according to Colls’ lecture was purely against the expansion of slavery into new territory but by no means regarded African Americans as equal people or even citizens. Those who were already slaves were to stay slaves but slavery should not expand further.}

_{Despite his efforts to make the argument that Lincoln was not a supporter of African American rights the audience was distracted by the praise Coll gave Lincoln. The audience seemed to disagree with most of what Coll had to say. This misunderstanding caused a bit of a rumble in the small basement auditorium. The audience predominately made up of African American patrons and a handful of other races did not take well to the Lincoln fandom. At this point, Colls’ theory became a defense. Coll handled sensitive questions and comment s about race carefully and professionally but it did not seem easy. There was definitely an odd tension in the room. What started out as aa simple lecture series turned into a debate.}

_{Defending his position all the way through the end of the lecture, which did end later than the time indicated on the flier, Coll did finally reach his main point. He concluded that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation solely for military purposes because before the issued document the Union states were losing the war. By freeing the slaves, which were considered Confederate property Lincoln as Commander in Chief had the right to seize enemy property that might be used against him during war. By freeing the slaves, Lincoln gained soldiers for the Union and weakened Confederate armies which were dependent on slave participation. The rest is history. On April 9}^th _{1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to the Union. Coll concluded his lecture by stating that the Reconstruction period for African Americans who were newly freed men was a crucial point in understanding the Civil Rights movement and that equal rights is an issue that we still face today.}

_{Despite it being a bit of a racially sensitive discussion it was nice to see a lively audience at a public library event. There was public debate on past and current issues among the forty plus people who attended the event. Most of the text read throughout this semester urge librarians to create an environment in public libraries that allow for public discourse. The event I experienced achieved that goal. The librarians who organized the discussion allowed the discussion to freely develop however which way it needed to. There was a great sense of support and encouragement by the speaker, library staff and King Manor staff for the audience to participate and weigh in on the topic. Besides one disgruntled audience member, the audience respected one anothers opinions and respectfully responded to those they disagreed with. Though a little scary at times, I enjoyed the lecture and since it was my first Queens Public Library event I can confidently say it left me looking forward to more.}

_{A week later I had the opportunity to meet with the Adult Services Director at the Queens Public Library. Since she politely asked me to refrain from using her name, so for the purpose of this post let’s call her Jane. Before meeting, I emailed her a list of questions that I hoped she could address. When we finally sat down to discuss my questions she informed me that she was unable to answer majority of them since they were not specific to her department. What I found out is that though the Program and Services Department is one department there are subdivisions. These subdivisions though they often overlap function as separate entities. So my questions about computer literacy, teenagers, patron boards and outreach were all pushed aside because Jane was not authorized to speak about any of their functions since she knew little about them and was not approved by the department to. This meeting was frustrating. To lighten the mood I mentioned that I attended the event on Lincoln and the Civil war. I praised the libraries abilities to engage such a large audience and spark such passionate discussion. It turns out the Queens Public Library Program and Services department had little to do with the event. Again, Jane could not go into much detail but she shared that the event was put together mainly by the King Manor staff and hosted it at the QPL auditorium. Finding this out led to me asking how she put together events for her department. I asked if she was open to suggestions from the community and if she had an adult patron board to help with the program. To my surprise, Jane was not at all supportive of patron boards and community suggestions. In fact, she was quite bitter about it. Jane kindly reassured me that each branch gets to pick what events they would like to host from a pre-approved list put together by her and her coworker. Sometimes branches will be assigned events if Jane and her department are certain that branch will guarantee the most success. This was disturbing news. I grew more curious as to why she shied away from community participation so I asked her to explain. Jane explained that involving the community was risky. Involving them and including their suggestions into the program would not always ensure a successful program. Also, their suggestions may not be up to the library’s standard and may not be approved by the department. By producing their own program, the library basically has less work. There is no point going any further into more detail about my meeting with Jane. She was not very helpful and was eager to finish our meeting.}

_{Though I did not get the answers I was hoping to get, I did have the opportunity to meet and interact with a burnout librarian. Being completely satisfied with my experience at the Lincoln lecture I hoped that the Queens Public Library was supportive of community involvement. After meeting with Jane I understand that QPL entertains the idea of the library becoming a community center only to salvage its existence in the future. In reality, librarians such as Jane, are disgusted with the amount of work it would involve once the community becomes an active participant. The increase in workload discourages already exhausted librarians. The bureaucratic chain is a hassle already without having to include the public’s needs and wants. The bureaucracy drains the workers leaving them completely unenthused when new projects or opportunities arise. Because of this overall feeling amongst librarians and library staff, the question of whether theory can be put into practice lingers over the future and creates an obstacle that library’s will have to overcome in order to remain relevant in the future.}

 

Librarians are the representatives of libraries. They make a lot of decisions about the libraries as well, like which books to order, which to keep, and what computer programs to have available to their patrons. The patrons are the ones who keep libraries alive and vibrant. It’s all about them, really, and how community libraries can serve them.

So how can librarians, and other people who work at and for libraries, like the Library Board, make the library appealing to the patrons? By advertising and marketing to groups of patrons. For example, young people are attached to their cell phones and social media. The library could have a Facebook page and Twitter account to get information out there. For those not on Facebook and Twitter, a simple weekly e-mail can get a lot of information about programming and events going on at the library.

Some examples of library programs are film showings, author lectures and book signings, international music and dance, computer classes, book clubs, and book sales. Fliers about these events are posted on websites, in elevators, and at Circulation Desks in local libraries.

A Suggestion Box is always welcome, too. Patrons can fill out a slip of paper after checking out their books, and put it in the box, for staff to later go through and pick which suggestions seem doable. This is how libraries become more appealing to long-time patrons, as well as new ones who have taken an interest in the library.

Libraries have been there for the military as well, as far back as World War I and beyond, according to Donna Miles’ article, “Libraries Remain Centers of Morale, Warfare Programs.” The article states:

“The [American Library Association] service committee raised a whopping $5 million in public donations, distributing more than 7 million books and magazines, erecting 36 camp libraries and providing library collections to over 500 sites, including military hospitals…The Navy established the first official military library program in 1919, Nellie Moffitt, the Navy’s general library program manager, told American Forces Press Service. The Army followed with its own program in 1920, and the Air Force quickly stood up its own library program when it was established as a separate service in 1947.”

Another thing libraries do for their patrons is have therapy dogs come to visit. The article “Therapy Dogs’ Presence Steadily Grows in Libraries” by Meredith Schwartz, talks about the Oshkosh Public Library in Wisconsin, which has a program called “Read To a Dog” to improve children’s literacy skills. In the article, Sandy Joseph, the children’s librarian said, “It is unbelievably motivating. I am amazed at how well they read after five or six times. That’s what the research is saying: five to six consecutive visits will raise them two reading levels.”

The Mamaroneck Public Library in Westchester County, New York, has a similar program called “Paws A While To Read.”  According to the article “Mamaroneck Librarian Enlists Her Dogs In ‘Paws A While To Read’ Program,” by Suzanne Samin, the head reference librarian at the Mamaroneck Library, Lori Friedli, brings her Bernese Mountain dogs Charly, Nettie and Olivia. They are certified therapy dogs who attend story time with children at the library.

The library is very useful for all kinds of things, from programs to computer use to good old-fashioned research, or just to read James Patterson’s latest crime novel. John Dewey talks about communities’ use of libraries at length in his work “Search for the Great Community.” Libraries will continue to serve their communities in any way possible, and librarians will lead the way the entire time.

Sources:

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=120721

Therapy Dogs’ Presence Steadily Grows in Libraries

http://mamaroneck.dailyvoice.com/events/librarian-enlists-her-dogs-paws-while-read-program

Dewey, John (1984 [1927]). “Search for the Great Community” in The Public and Its Problems

 

Much of the information people have been creating lately has been “born-digital,” meaning it was born on a computer or some other digital device. While this is convenient and certainly seems like a step in the right direction as far as access is concerned, it feels like we are losing something in the process. For things like news, posting directly to a website is great when one thinks about it. Newspapers are ridiculously wasteful. You buy one everyday and (usually) throw it out on the same day. I cannot think of a better candidate for digital reconstitution. However, the question we have to ask ourselves is will this news be readily available when it has become history, in fifty or a hundred years? Unfortunately, “that’s part of the danger of our digitized world — we don’t know how to store things for safe keeping hundreds of years into the future” (Heimbuch), and without this crucial information of how to preserve computer-generated content, it can be argued that we have no right to unload so much material onto the internet without backing it up with hardcopies.

The problem with digital information is not the fact that it is digital. It is the fact that it is ephemeral. Although it may last for several years in the digital realm, it will not last forever. While the same thing may be said of paper copies, the paper copies are not in a constant state of upheaval the way the digital world is.  It seems convenient that fleeting information and fleeting attention spans have popped up at around the same time. Today, knowledge is quickly gotten and quickly gotten rid of. Perhaps it is because we are able to so easily find information online that we now take it for granted. Before computers allowed us to store everything we could think of, a lot like Bush’s “memex,” we had a bit more respect for tactile information. Now, the more advanced computers become, the more of a throw away lifestyle we find ourselves accepting. We keep our phones for a maximum of two years and our laptops for about three to five years. We have come to almost revel in our excrement and we do it with a smile.

Derrida says it best in his book, Archive Fever: “What is no longer archived in the same way is no longer lived in the same way” (18). Because information has stopped being truly saved for future generations, we no longer see it as an important element of our lives.

In a way, archiving has become more about the process and less about the result. In other words, how we archive has become more important than what we archive. How do we archive? Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. What do we archive? Anything that is on our minds at any given time. This can get rather tedious and frankly boring. Seneca’s idea that, “it does not matter how many books you have, but how good they are,” is partially true (qtd. in Battles 9). We throw most anything into the “universal” Archive by posting things on the internet. But we do this without realizing we are adding to the Archive. Obviously some of the things added to the internet do not necessarily have to be saved for others to read in the future. It is not paramount that everything floating around the World Wide Web always be readily available. That goes for information not created digitally as well. Still, by making all information digital, we have set up a system through which we will haunt people long after we are dead with information that was never meant to be eternal. If you delete your Facebook account, all the information is still there and will always be there. If you save a Word document, you can delete it but they do not make it easy. With so much stuff and no real way to weed all of it, “instant info can make us a whole new breed of hoarder,” Heimbuch says in her article, “7 Major Ways We’re Digitizing Our World, and 3 Reasons We Still Want Hardcopies.” She contends that because of all of the information at hand, people feel compelled to absorb as much as they possibly can.

While the idea of people wanting to learn is commendable, it appears to be trending, hip knowledge that everyone is most jacked into, such as the latest gadget, which will become obsolete in a few years. Richer, more fruitful knowledge is usually passed over in favor of Skynet’s newest toy. But we should never forget: The T-1000 was not user compatible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjsSr3z5nVk

Works Cited

Battles, Matthew. Library: An Unquiet History. New York: W.W. Norton. 2003. Print

 

Secrecy draws and marks, as it were, the boundaries of privacy—privacy being the realm that is meant to be one’s own domain, the territory of one’s undivided sovereignty, inside which one has the comprehensive and indivisible power to decide ‘what and who I am’, and from which one can launch and relaunch the campaign to have and keep one’s decisions recognized and respected. In a startling U-turn from the habits of our ancestors, however, we have lost the guts, the stamina, and above all the will to persist in the defense of such rights, those irreplaceable building blocks of individual autonomy. (28)

 

Recently the founders of social media app, Snapchat, turned down an offer of $3 billion from Facebook and a subsequent $4 billion from Google, meeting with fierce criticism from the tech and business worlds. People questioned this potentially foolish decision made by a couple of 20-somethings with no prior business experience, who don’t currently even control the central patent of their own technology, tied up in litigation with one of the other founders. The app itself, and its founders decision to do the unthinkable and say no to these colossal firms is an interesting case in terms of where the internet and these technologies might be headed.

 

In the literature surrounding changing information environments there is a reoccurring theme of a shift from the private to public—this idea of a wired society defined by a public sphere its members can not avoid. To participate in our culture means to participate in this public arena. In Liquid Surveillance, Bauman and Lyon point to an erosion of anonymity due to pervasive use of social media, cheap cell phone cameras, free photo and video web hosts, and a general shift in society’s view on what ought to be public and private. “Everything private is now done, potentially in public — and is potentially available for public consumption; and remains available for the duration, till the end of time, as the internet ‘can’t be made to forget’ once recorded on any of its innumerable servers” (22). Pointing to drone surveillance combined with the surrender of personal privacy inherent in social media use, Bauman discusses how the most remarkable feature of contemporary surveillance is the way it has somehow managed to force and cajole oppositions to work in unison. Traditional forms of panoptical surveillance (you never know when you are being watched, so should behave as if you always are) are being recast as the hope of never being alone. With social media and this shift to public living the “fear of disclosure has been stifled by the joy of being noticed” (23). People are ready and willing to consent to the loss of privacy in order to participate in this culture of being seen and validated.

Within this context, Snapchat takes on an interesting significance. This exchange of ephemeral content can be seen to represent a kind of fantasy of escape from this pervasive system of surveillance. Snapchat doesn’t save user data, it knows nothing about its users. Each of the millions of photos that are sent are erased from a third-party server within seconds of being received. Unlike other forms of social media that have become mandatory tools for building an essential legitimizing online identity, Snapchat is subversive and cool.

Bauman and Lyon argue that in a society that has been reshaped in the likeness of the marketplace, its members are simultaneously promoters of commodities and the commodities they promote. “The test they need to pass in order to be admitted to the social prizes they covet demands them to recast themselves as commodities: that is as products capable of drawing attention, and attracting demand and customers” (32). These comments take on a further significance combined with Robert McChesney’s claim that “personal communication, mass media, and market information have been subsumed within the new order so that distinctions are passé” (3). Within this environment in which traditional boundaries between the private and public, personal and commercial are broken down, the internet becomes a space for a kind of constant self-curation, in which you are ever aware of the persona your actions online create. Snapchat represents an escape from this anxiety of accountability, in which its users can enjoy brief moments of supposed freedom. Its founders’ decision to remain independent seems to align with this image. In addition it brings to mind a fantasy about competition being a click away, that giants like “Microsoft and Google…are in mortal fear for their very survival if someone were to develop a better algorithm in her garage” (136).

Of course, as McChesney points out in Digital Disconnnect, these huge firms are much more than an algorithm and a stack of patents. While cloud computing represents a brilliant way to make the internet more efficient and less expensive, it is really in the hands of a few giant firms. Google’s enormous server farms serve as an example of this domination. And where does Snapchat store its infrastructure and unopened snaps? Google’s cloud computing service, App Engine. Even if the company were to remain independent, the answer to the question of how to generate profit might come from further dependence on these internet giants. Snapchat can’t offer advertisers any user-generated content to target, which is the way social media apps turn a profit. An article in Business Insider provides one simple and brilliant possible solution: simply connect users’ accounts to Facebook or Twitter and advertisers can target users in Snapchat based on that data. All Snapchat would need to do is sync its application programming interface with these other sites. It is yet to be seen in what direction Snapchat will go or if they will survive, but the recent news surrounding the app is certainly interesting and relevant in light of this ongoing discussion.

Sources

Bauman, Zygmunt and David Lyon. (2013) Liquid Surveillance: A conversation. Cambridge: Polity Press.

McChesney, Robert W. (2013) Digital Disconnnect: How capitalism is turning the internet against democracy. New York: The New Press.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/meet-the-23-year-old-kid-who-turned-down–3-billion-for-snapchat-010309114.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-data-monetization-through-advertising-2013-11