"The Web sets the stage for interactions between readers and writers in a way that traditional print does not," says James J. Brown in his piece Evil Bert Laden: ViRaL Texts, Community, and Collision. Brown argues that the web invites countless writers into a conversation that seems to never end. This conversation continues with every blog post, with every tweet, with every Facebook status update, and with every comment. The nature of this, however, is that multiple viewpoints and cultures and religions and traditions are placed into a single space.
Brown argues that this interaction of different backgrounds in the same space creates, as Brown cites, a 'depropriative address” that is traumatic and contaminating. It is traumatic in that it goes over our ability to comprehend and analyze information and it is contaminating because it creates a "readiness to respond that precedes desire and will."
This may not be such a bad thing. Maybe a "readiness to respond that precededs desire and will" is actually good for global and local dialogue online. Brown argues that when Westerners viewed the Ben Laden picture, they were confronted with a "trauma that called into question any clean separation between a community of 'us' against 'them.'" Reducing the clean separation between 'us' and 'them' is a good thing. Even under the context of a puppet in a video with a terrorist, we are forced to analyze the images that divide the West within itself and with other countries and cultures.
Even though the online sphere creates in us a readiness to respond without will or desire, perhaps responding may be the most important step we can take.
Does the internet truly foster an environment that is prime for new understanding through response and conversation?
What I really dislike about the immediacy of online conversations is the inability for people to stop, take a step back, and think before they write. Passiveaggressivenotes.com has countless examples of emails escalating from a seemingly civil conversation in a matter of minutes. I think that there's a big learning curve in the accessibility of online participation that has not yet been taught to users.
ReplyDeleteI think that, while the internet gives us the ability to track conversations and watch discourse develop in real time, the majority of internet users experience online discourse as a fragmented series of isolated encounters. Personally, when I post content online, I never really think about the reproducibility of what I write or who may ultimately end up reading it. Participating fully in online discourse -- i.e., in a way that leads one to greater understanding -- would seem to require a greater awareness of the various ways in which the internet brings one into contact with others.
ReplyDeleteBrown argues that the Internet is set up in a way that creates unconscious, unchosen communities through interactions that result in events like the Bert Laden photo scandal. I think that although many users can abuse or pollute the legitimacy of an educated Internet environment, the Internet does foster greater understanding through response and conversation because it basically forces people to interact and be confronted with views that are different from their own. It also can force people to reassess their own perspectives and their reasons for those views, especially if their responses have consequences or produce negative reactions from other people in their unconscious community.
ReplyDelete