A few more observations:
I went looking for classrooms in Second Life, and after a few dead-ends, found an interesting ESL one, run by a guy who lists such qualifications as a Master's in Education (TESOL Concentration); over 3 years EFL teaching experience; published in several different venues including academic journals, education sections of national newspapers, and travel magazines; member of several professional teaching organizations. He's selling various grammar and writing worksheets and offering real-time conversation, grammar, and writing classes.
Anne said a few universities are offering classes in SL; I found some by searching, but I didn't see anyone in them or any other info. I imagine the active ones are probably protected somehow against non-students wandering in, although I don't know what SL's capabilities are in that area.
I'm fascinated by this twist on online education, and I would love to see how well these work in real-time. How do the avatars enhance/alter/hinder the experience? What potentials are there for a writing classroom in this space? For "class discussion"? Would this be a more "safe space" for composition and/or ESL students than a traditional classroom?
On a different note, in the short time I've spent in SL, I've run into (sometimes literally) a lot of "public art" of various kinds: billboards, outdoor art museums, sculptures (not to be confused with naked, frozen, new-arrival avatars), gardens, etc. It's interesting to me that people have filled this world with so much visual art. In what ways does this (and other aspects of SL) indicate what people value or would like to see in the real world? This leads to larger questions of what is simply replicated/reified in SL and what is created as a movement toward residents' personal versions of either utopia or distopia.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Shaneequa Scharfberg
That's me!
Here are some initial observations from my first experience in Second Life:
Tone
In light of Thursday's conversation about the tone of Weinberger ("Everything is Great") vs. Chun (fear and paranoia), I was intrigued by the tone of the What Is Second Life? blurbs on the website. For example:
Technology
For me, however, the technology was definitely not transparent. The program crashed twice for me and three times for my husband (whom I cajoled into trying out SL with me from his laptop - maybe we overwhelmed our wireless connection). Also, movement in-world was sluggish and often delayed, which got pretty annoying. I'm sure part of the problem was my lack of skill (I liked the "thud" sounds whenever I or someone near me ran into something; I also liked the fact that it let me walk underwater when I accidently missed the bridge).
Identity
Given our conversations about avatars and identity, I purposely chose a name with a different racial marker than my real world identity — Shaneequa (it didn't let me choose Sh'neequa) — and a goth image, although I still chose a female avatar. I don't know what to make of this, in Nakamura's terms. It sure didn't seem like a big deal, although I admit it was a little weird to be greeted by SL with "Welcome, Shaneequa Scharberg!" Perhaps this will matter more when I interact with more with others; so far my conversations have consisted of "do you know how to do [blank]?"
Writing in Second Life
Here are some initial observations from my first experience in Second Life:
Tone
In light of Thursday's conversation about the tone of Weinberger ("Everything is Great") vs. Chun (fear and paranoia), I was intrigued by the tone of the What Is Second Life? blurbs on the website. For example:
- Amazing things are created everyday in the Second Life world, but the depth and power and capabilities of SL mean that we have just scratched the surface - join and become one of the explorers! (citation)
- The Second Life world is a place dedicated to your creativity. After all, an avatar is your persona in the virtual world. The picture below shows how easy it is to create your avatar. Despite offering almost infinite possibilities, the tool to personalize your avatar is very simple to use and allows you to change anything you like, from the tip of your nose to the tint of your skin. Don't worry if it's not perfect at first, you can change your look at any time. (citation)
- Second Life residents are eager to welcome you and show you around. Within this vibrant society of people, it's easy to find people with similar interests to you. (citation)
- And from the Community Standards: We hope you will have a richly rewarding experience, filled with creativity, self expression and fun. The goals of the Community Standards are simple: treat each other with respect and without harassment, adhere to local standards as indicated by simulator ratings, and refrain from any hate activity which slurs a real-world individual or real-world community.
Technology
For me, however, the technology was definitely not transparent. The program crashed twice for me and three times for my husband (whom I cajoled into trying out SL with me from his laptop - maybe we overwhelmed our wireless connection). Also, movement in-world was sluggish and often delayed, which got pretty annoying. I'm sure part of the problem was my lack of skill (I liked the "thud" sounds whenever I or someone near me ran into something; I also liked the fact that it let me walk underwater when I accidently missed the bridge).
Identity
Given our conversations about avatars and identity, I purposely chose a name with a different racial marker than my real world identity — Shaneequa (it didn't let me choose Sh'neequa) — and a goth image, although I still chose a female avatar. I don't know what to make of this, in Nakamura's terms. It sure didn't seem like a big deal, although I admit it was a little weird to be greeted by SL with "Welcome, Shaneequa Scharberg!" Perhaps this will matter more when I interact with more with others; so far my conversations have consisted of "do you know how to do [blank]?"
Writing in Second Life
I haven't looked into this more but on Help Island, I saw a sign advertising: "Check out the Second Opinion: A newsletter for the friends and residents of Second Life." Hmmm...could there be a career in this?
I'll write more when I get the chance.... I've had real-world corn on the cob cooking the whole time I've been writing.
I'll write more when I get the chance.... I've had real-world corn on the cob cooking the whole time I've been writing.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Chun questions to return to...
My notes from class of topics and questions that Chun hasn't yet addressed fully or that I would like to address next time we discuss Control and Freedom:
- Space?? (addressed by Chun and on a few of our blogs, but not in class)
- How can we use technology to increase/propagate freedom?
- More on the relationship ("twinning") of control and freedom
- More on the freedom-technology-transparency relationships
- Is sexuality more implicated in technology than we generally realize/admit? (This might have been Anne's question.) What have we to gain from considering these relationships and implications? What might be the repercussions not only for our use and understanding of technology but for our understanding of our sexuality? (We may not want to go there...)
- What is Chun saying about the relationship of the internet to "print" and writing and reading? (see, for example, 122) Also, "literacy" and "looking" and "publicity"? And the "privatization of language" (127)?
- Space?? (addressed by Chun and on a few of our blogs, but not in class)
- How can we use technology to increase/propagate freedom?
- More on the relationship ("twinning") of control and freedom
- More on the freedom-technology-transparency relationships
- Is sexuality more implicated in technology than we generally realize/admit? (This might have been Anne's question.) What have we to gain from considering these relationships and implications? What might be the repercussions not only for our use and understanding of technology but for our understanding of our sexuality? (We may not want to go there...)
- What is Chun saying about the relationship of the internet to "print" and writing and reading? (see, for example, 122) Also, "literacy" and "looking" and "publicity"? And the "privatization of language" (127)?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Spaceless? Not if you have a little imagination...
While I am enjoying Chun's book and finding it thought-provoking, I was a bit surprised by her discussion of "space" in chapter 1, in particular her apparent lack of imagination or willingness to move beyond the physicality of space. To give her the benefit of the doubt, she is clearly very knowledgeable about and concerned with the hardware of fiber-optics and the movement of packets, etc. These are things I know nothing about and it was good to be reminded that my computer is constantly communicating with other computers and that the internet is much more complicated and much less transparent than I tend to think it is. And in chapter 1, she does move beyond physicality to talk about cyberspace as "a metaphor and a mirage," but then she concludes that sentence by saying, "for cyberspace is not spatial" and later, "cyberspace is spaceless" (39).
It certainly isn't "spatial" in the way that we are accustomed to thinking about space and spatiality, but it seems to me we lose a lot by claiming that the internet is not spatial at all. I have been studying the concept-metaphor of thirdspace, which radical postmodern critical geographer Edward Soja defines as a "real-and-imagined" space of possibility that arises from but is other than firstspace — real, material — and secondspace — imagined, conceptual (Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places). While I don't think cyberspace is a perfect representation of Soja's thirdspace, I do think that we can conceive of the internet as a space that builds upon and is equal to the spaces with which we are more familiar but is itself a whole new kind of space. Must we define the spatiality of the internet in terms of "the sender's and recipient's computer" (39), fiber-optics, etc.? Cyberspace might be placeless, given her definition of place as "a finite location," but it certainly isn't spaceless if we take space to mean "an interval" (45).
Chun writes that cyberspace is "fundamentally unmappable and unlocatable" (43) and that as we surf we "teleport rather than travel from one virtual location to another, and the backward and forward icons do not move backwards and forwards between contiguous locations" (47). This made me think that it is mappable: It's just that we all build our own maps — just as we build (or Amazon builds) our own stores, as Weinberger showed us in Everything is Miscellaneous.
I do really like Chun's assertion that the "Internet is as much about time as it is space." Perhaps that is a feature of the spatiality of the internet: Though digital stores and encyclopedias and maps are less constrained by physical space in digital environments, perhaps they are more constrained by time. As we get more and more impatient and want everything at our fingertips in an instant, users are less likely to wait for a long download or upload, to pay attention to an outdated website, to participate in asynchronous chat, or to read large chunks of text (I better wrap this post up soon!). If space is "an interval," then perhaps in the "thirdspace" of the internet, space is represented as time and/or time is represented as space (see Chun's example of a "page that emerges bit by bit on the screen" [22]).
One other quick comment about space: If memory serves, Chun never talks about space in terms of interface. It's interesting to think about the use of space in web pages and the fact that a programmer can't fully control how space and spacing is represented on a user's screen.
I won't take the space and time to discuss this, but I was really interested by what Chun contributed to the conversation we've had intermittently this semester about how operating systems and software "interpellate" and "produce" users (20, 21). Also, thinking back to Nakamura: "[S]oftware corporations...tell you that you are behind, and not in front of, the window" and "It is impossible to resist subjectivity by doing nothing...if we jack in or are jacked in" (Chun 21-22).
It certainly isn't "spatial" in the way that we are accustomed to thinking about space and spatiality, but it seems to me we lose a lot by claiming that the internet is not spatial at all. I have been studying the concept-metaphor of thirdspace, which radical postmodern critical geographer Edward Soja defines as a "real-and-imagined" space of possibility that arises from but is other than firstspace — real, material — and secondspace — imagined, conceptual (Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places). While I don't think cyberspace is a perfect representation of Soja's thirdspace, I do think that we can conceive of the internet as a space that builds upon and is equal to the spaces with which we are more familiar but is itself a whole new kind of space. Must we define the spatiality of the internet in terms of "the sender's and recipient's computer" (39), fiber-optics, etc.? Cyberspace might be placeless, given her definition of place as "a finite location," but it certainly isn't spaceless if we take space to mean "an interval" (45).
Chun writes that cyberspace is "fundamentally unmappable and unlocatable" (43) and that as we surf we "teleport rather than travel from one virtual location to another, and the backward and forward icons do not move backwards and forwards between contiguous locations" (47). This made me think that it is mappable: It's just that we all build our own maps — just as we build (or Amazon builds) our own stores, as Weinberger showed us in Everything is Miscellaneous.
I do really like Chun's assertion that the "Internet is as much about time as it is space." Perhaps that is a feature of the spatiality of the internet: Though digital stores and encyclopedias and maps are less constrained by physical space in digital environments, perhaps they are more constrained by time. As we get more and more impatient and want everything at our fingertips in an instant, users are less likely to wait for a long download or upload, to pay attention to an outdated website, to participate in asynchronous chat, or to read large chunks of text (I better wrap this post up soon!). If space is "an interval," then perhaps in the "thirdspace" of the internet, space is represented as time and/or time is represented as space (see Chun's example of a "page that emerges bit by bit on the screen" [22]).
One other quick comment about space: If memory serves, Chun never talks about space in terms of interface. It's interesting to think about the use of space in web pages and the fact that a programmer can't fully control how space and spacing is represented on a user's screen.
I won't take the space and time to discuss this, but I was really interested by what Chun contributed to the conversation we've had intermittently this semester about how operating systems and software "interpellate" and "produce" users (20, 21). Also, thinking back to Nakamura: "[S]oftware corporations...tell you that you are behind, and not in front of, the window" and "It is impossible to resist subjectivity by doing nothing...if we jack in or are jacked in" (Chun 21-22).
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Making use of this medium...
So, instead of working this out in my head or on a piece of paper in my private notebook like I normally would, I think I'll take advantage of this medium to process through some of the challenges I'm encountering while trying to decide on a term project for this class. (And yes, I'm probably way behind lots of you who have already met with Anne and started your projects. C'est la vie.)
I often find it difficult to decide on a primary focus during the early, or even middle, part of a term because I'm so wrapped up in learning new things and because I know each new book and discussion will shape my thinking and expand the possibilities. But I think I'm finding some particular challenges endemic in this class (sorry for the "disease" connotation of endemic; that's neither intentional nor Freudian :-) ):
Every time I begin to think about a particular question to investigate or topic to explore, I move quickly to, "But how will I represent this digitally? What kind of multi-media project could I do with this topic?" This tends to shut down my line of inquiry prematurely.
On the other hand, if I begin by choosing a particular medium in which I want to work (e.g. making a movie, creating a wiki, etc.), then I feel like the project will be too concrete, too practical, and not theoretical enough. As we talked about a few weeks ago, how does one represent theory through images? I don't think it's impossible, nor do I think that's exactly what I have to do, but I'm not sure I know how to begin with the "images" (in whatever form they may take). And yet, I don't necessarily want to begin by writing a paper and then try to translate it in some way into a multi-media project. I hope the two develop together, informing one another.
Ideally, I would like my project to tie into my teaching: I always feel more invested in a project that promises to benefit my (future) students by helping me work through some aspect of composition pedagogy and reflect on my own teaching practices. While we have been enacting some of the relationships between digitality and pedagogy - by blogging, for example - we haven't read much about this. That's fine: It provides some gaps for me to synthesize theories and bring in my own experience but makes it a little more challenging for me to bridge the seeming (but false?) dichotomy between theory and practice.
A few of the broad subjects I've been scribbling some notes about:
- digitizing race in the composition classroom (e.g. How do the technologies of writing used in first-year composition reinscribe
race?)
- "thirdspace" and digitality (e.g. In what ways does the internet constitute a thirdspace and what are the possibilities inherent in
this?)
- While I still don't have an answer, I have continued to be intrigued by the "What kind of world would you like to live in and how will/can/should digitality create this world?" question, along with its various offshoots.
I often find it difficult to decide on a primary focus during the early, or even middle, part of a term because I'm so wrapped up in learning new things and because I know each new book and discussion will shape my thinking and expand the possibilities. But I think I'm finding some particular challenges endemic in this class (sorry for the "disease" connotation of endemic; that's neither intentional nor Freudian :-) ):
Every time I begin to think about a particular question to investigate or topic to explore, I move quickly to, "But how will I represent this digitally? What kind of multi-media project could I do with this topic?" This tends to shut down my line of inquiry prematurely.
On the other hand, if I begin by choosing a particular medium in which I want to work (e.g. making a movie, creating a wiki, etc.), then I feel like the project will be too concrete, too practical, and not theoretical enough. As we talked about a few weeks ago, how does one represent theory through images? I don't think it's impossible, nor do I think that's exactly what I have to do, but I'm not sure I know how to begin with the "images" (in whatever form they may take). And yet, I don't necessarily want to begin by writing a paper and then try to translate it in some way into a multi-media project. I hope the two develop together, informing one another.
Ideally, I would like my project to tie into my teaching: I always feel more invested in a project that promises to benefit my (future) students by helping me work through some aspect of composition pedagogy and reflect on my own teaching practices. While we have been enacting some of the relationships between digitality and pedagogy - by blogging, for example - we haven't read much about this. That's fine: It provides some gaps for me to synthesize theories and bring in my own experience but makes it a little more challenging for me to bridge the seeming (but false?) dichotomy between theory and practice.
A few of the broad subjects I've been scribbling some notes about:
- digitizing race in the composition classroom (e.g. How do the technologies of writing used in first-year composition reinscribe
race?)
- "thirdspace" and digitality (e.g. In what ways does the internet constitute a thirdspace and what are the possibilities inherent in
this?)
- While I still don't have an answer, I have continued to be intrigued by the "What kind of world would you like to live in and how will/can/should digitality create this world?" question, along with its various offshoots.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
"Beyond Kittens, Beyond Angels"
A huge thanks to Anne for turning me onto the NY Times migraine blog. I'm posting a link here to Monday's (3/10) entry, Beyond Kittens, Beyond Angels, because it relates to Nakamura's discussion of women's roles as producers on the internet. Specifically, it talks about how women have been using chronic pain blogs ("sick lit") to build community with one another, free themselves from constraining stereotypes and the demand that they wrap up their pain in a tidy narrative, and present something more authentic (to them) than women's websites that never get beyond "angels and kittens."
I have to go now. I have a headache.
I have to go now. I have a headache.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Amazon Was Right Again (aka Why I Need a Kindle)
First of all, I agree with several who have already posted: I am concerned about Benkler's seeming uncritical disregard for issues of access in relationship to hardware (e.g. those who can't afford a computer), software (e.g. those who can't learn to fully participate in the internet), and information (e.g. those in countries that monitor and restrict free expression). Because this discussion is going on elsewhere, I will try to focus my comments on other aspects of Benkler's book.
Several of you have also commented on this reading being a pdf. I spent some time before I began reading investigating the various formats available through the wiki. Most interesting to me is the "Bulleted" option, in which someone has gone through the entire book making decisions about subordination: One sentence or part of a sentence is presented, with successive sentences bulleted underneath. Basically, it makes explicit the implicit processes we all do as we read. I couldn't stand to read much in this format, however, so I stuck with the pdf.
Then I spent awhile downloading Acrobat because Preview wouldn't allow me to highlight on-screen. But -- surprise! surprise! -- neither would Acrobat because I didn't have "document rights" to the document. So much for Benkler's grand open-source concept. I don't know who exactly "owns" this document (and I don't know how he is making any real-market money off these free downloads of his massive book through the nonmarket economy), but I apparently do not have the (copy)right (or left) to participate in it or modify it in any way.
Once I settled on my only means of interactivity back in Preview -- drawing red ovals, creating clunky marginal comments, and bookmarking -- I sat down to read. Within the first few pages, I found that I had to fight a tendency to skim: Because of the glut of information I encounter on the web, I think I've become accustomed to skimming when reading large amounts of online or digital text (but I read your blogs closely, honest!). I was also tempted to skim because I was behind: Even though I took my laptop with me to the dentist and read while waiting for my appointment, I wasn't able to read on the bus or in all the other in-between times during which I can usually snatch a few pages. Hmmm...maybe I really do need the Kindle -- "Amazon's Revolutionary Wireless Reading Device"! -- that Amazon keeps trying to sell me.
Why bother blogging about all this? Because material conditions matter. They are an inescapable part of the economy of digitality. And as much as Benkler talks about nonmarket, non-proprietary developments, there are still plenty of market-driven technological advances (like the Kindle) that make all this possible. Of course, it goes the other way, too, and perhaps that's his point: As more people make their books available for free download, for example, demand -- the driving force of capitalism -- for hardware like the Kindle goes up.
Now, a few other brief observations about "The Wealth of Networks"...
Like Weinberger, Benkler talks at length about Wikipedia (esp. pages 70 and following), and once again, I was left with a question that neither author seems to address. Even though both discuss the relationship of Wikipedia and Britannica, and even though both tell stories of rapid changes being made when errors are revealed, neither discuss where contributors are getting their information in the first place. Ideally, entries about new and current events/people/things can and should be written by people who have direct personal experience with them; and ideally, information not obtained through direct experience must be cited; but who's to say that an entry on Alexander Hamilton wasn't written and edited by people using Britannica as their primary source? Eventually, I suppose, subsequent editors will add additional sources and perspectives -- working toward the "neutrality" that Weinberger and Wikipedia tout -- but it strikes me as odd that neither author (to my recollection) addresses even in passing the question of where contributors get their information.
Sara wrote about the Mars Clickworkers seeming like (or leading to) "outsourcing." The Mars Clickworkers project both excited and frightened me: The name itself calls up images of long assembly lines or children in China sewing button-eyes on teddy bears. There are, of course, significant differences: At this time, at least, participation in this project and others like it is completely voluntary, and some projects -- such as SETI@home -- don't actually require any participation by the human, just the machine. Not only does the mass participation have tremendous potential in terms of work being done, but it allows millions more people to gain agency and engagement with something they would normally never experience (without training for half their lives to be a NASA scientist). In our world of ever-increasing specialization, I don't think the "experts" will ever lose their jobs. But perhaps the grad students of the world, or even the underpaid -- but still paid -- factory workers of the information industry, will someday see their jobs vanish into the global void of open-outsourcing.
And yet, I would like to believe with Benkler that the networked information economy "will likely result in significant redistribution of wealth, and no less importantly, power" (468).
This is WAY too long, but one more quick comment: At the very end, Benkler writes, "As we observe these battles; as we participate in them as individuals choosing how to behave and what to believe, as citizens, lobbyists, lawyers, or activists; as we act out these legal battles as legislators, judges, or treaty negotiators, it is important that we understand the normative stakes of what we are doing" (472-73). I wrote in an earlier post that perhaps we should be more self-reflexive about the choices we make online and the consequences of those choices. I think Benkler helps us think through these choices and consequences, showing us how such small, individual decisions as whether or not to download a free song or contribute to Wikipedia or use Linux can have tremendous repercussions (when multiplied by millions) in the marketplace.
Several of you have also commented on this reading being a pdf. I spent some time before I began reading investigating the various formats available through the wiki. Most interesting to me is the "Bulleted" option, in which someone has gone through the entire book making decisions about subordination: One sentence or part of a sentence is presented, with successive sentences bulleted underneath. Basically, it makes explicit the implicit processes we all do as we read. I couldn't stand to read much in this format, however, so I stuck with the pdf.
Then I spent awhile downloading Acrobat because Preview wouldn't allow me to highlight on-screen. But -- surprise! surprise! -- neither would Acrobat because I didn't have "document rights" to the document. So much for Benkler's grand open-source concept. I don't know who exactly "owns" this document (and I don't know how he is making any real-market money off these free downloads of his massive book through the nonmarket economy), but I apparently do not have the (copy)right (or left) to participate in it or modify it in any way.
Once I settled on my only means of interactivity back in Preview -- drawing red ovals, creating clunky marginal comments, and bookmarking -- I sat down to read. Within the first few pages, I found that I had to fight a tendency to skim: Because of the glut of information I encounter on the web, I think I've become accustomed to skimming when reading large amounts of online or digital text (but I read your blogs closely, honest!). I was also tempted to skim because I was behind: Even though I took my laptop with me to the dentist and read while waiting for my appointment, I wasn't able to read on the bus or in all the other in-between times during which I can usually snatch a few pages. Hmmm...maybe I really do need the Kindle -- "Amazon's Revolutionary Wireless Reading Device"! -- that Amazon keeps trying to sell me.
Why bother blogging about all this? Because material conditions matter. They are an inescapable part of the economy of digitality. And as much as Benkler talks about nonmarket, non-proprietary developments, there are still plenty of market-driven technological advances (like the Kindle) that make all this possible. Of course, it goes the other way, too, and perhaps that's his point: As more people make their books available for free download, for example, demand -- the driving force of capitalism -- for hardware like the Kindle goes up.
Now, a few other brief observations about "The Wealth of Networks"...
Like Weinberger, Benkler talks at length about Wikipedia (esp. pages 70 and following), and once again, I was left with a question that neither author seems to address. Even though both discuss the relationship of Wikipedia and Britannica, and even though both tell stories of rapid changes being made when errors are revealed, neither discuss where contributors are getting their information in the first place. Ideally, entries about new and current events/people/things can and should be written by people who have direct personal experience with them; and ideally, information not obtained through direct experience must be cited; but who's to say that an entry on Alexander Hamilton wasn't written and edited by people using Britannica as their primary source? Eventually, I suppose, subsequent editors will add additional sources and perspectives -- working toward the "neutrality" that Weinberger and Wikipedia tout -- but it strikes me as odd that neither author (to my recollection) addresses even in passing the question of where contributors get their information.
Sara wrote about the Mars Clickworkers seeming like (or leading to) "outsourcing." The Mars Clickworkers project both excited and frightened me: The name itself calls up images of long assembly lines or children in China sewing button-eyes on teddy bears. There are, of course, significant differences: At this time, at least, participation in this project and others like it is completely voluntary, and some projects -- such as SETI@home -- don't actually require any participation by the human, just the machine. Not only does the mass participation have tremendous potential in terms of work being done, but it allows millions more people to gain agency and engagement with something they would normally never experience (without training for half their lives to be a NASA scientist). In our world of ever-increasing specialization, I don't think the "experts" will ever lose their jobs. But perhaps the grad students of the world, or even the underpaid -- but still paid -- factory workers of the information industry, will someday see their jobs vanish into the global void of open-outsourcing.
And yet, I would like to believe with Benkler that the networked information economy "will likely result in significant redistribution of wealth, and no less importantly, power" (468).
This is WAY too long, but one more quick comment: At the very end, Benkler writes, "As we observe these battles; as we participate in them as individuals choosing how to behave and what to believe, as citizens, lobbyists, lawyers, or activists; as we act out these legal battles as legislators, judges, or treaty negotiators, it is important that we understand the normative stakes of what we are doing" (472-73). I wrote in an earlier post that perhaps we should be more self-reflexive about the choices we make online and the consequences of those choices. I think Benkler helps us think through these choices and consequences, showing us how such small, individual decisions as whether or not to download a free song or contribute to Wikipedia or use Linux can have tremendous repercussions (when multiplied by millions) in the marketplace.
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