Control and Freedom

A work that bridges media archaeology and visual culture studies argues that the Internet has emerged as a mass medium by linking control with freedom and democracy.How has the Internet, a medium that thrives on control, been accepted as a medium of freedom? Why is freedom increasingly indistinguish...

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Autor Principal: Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong
Formato: Online
Idioma:inglés
Publicado: The MIT Press 2024
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Acceso en liña:ONIX_20241025_9780262288583_9
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author Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong
author_browse Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong
author_facet Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong
author_sort Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description A work that bridges media archaeology and visual culture studies argues that the Internet has emerged as a mass medium by linking control with freedom and democracy.How has the Internet, a medium that thrives on control, been accepted as a medium of freedom? Why is freedom increasingly indistinguishable from paranoid control? In Control and Freedom, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun explores the current political and technological coupling of freedom with control by tracing the emergence of the Internet as a mass medium. The parallel (and paranoid) myths of the Internet as total freedom/total control, she says, stem from our reduction of political problems into technological ones.Drawing on the theories of Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault and analyzing such phenomena as Webcams and face-recognition technology, Chun argues that the relationship between control and freedom in networked contact is experienced and negotiated through sexuality and race. She traces the desire for cyberspace to cyberpunk fiction and maps the transformation of public/private into open/closed. Analyzing "pornocracy," she contends that it was through cyberporn and the government's attempts to regulate it that the Internet became a marketplace of ideas and commodities. Chun describes the way Internet promoters conflated technological empowerment with racial empowerment and, through close examinations of William Gibson's Neuromancer and Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell, she analyzes the management of interactivity in narratives of cyberspace.The Internet's potential for democracy stems not from illusory promises of individual empowerment, Chun argues, but rather from the ways in which it exposes us to others (and to other machines) in ways we cannot control. Using fiber optic networks—light coursing through glass tubes—as metaphor and reality, Control and Freedom engages the rich philosophical tradition of light as a figure for knowledge, clarification, surveillance, and discipline, in order to argue that fiber-optic networks physically instantiate, and thus shatter, enlightenment.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1466312024-10-25T13:13:39Z Control and Freedom Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong Digital Humanities & New Media/New Media Theory Social Sciences/Media Studies Social Sciences/Political Science/General Information Science/Internet Studies Science, Technology & Society/History of Technology thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TJ Electronics and communications engineering::TJK Communications engineering / telecommunications::TJKW WAP (wireless) technology thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TB Technology: general issues::TBX History of engineering and technology A work that bridges media archaeology and visual culture studies argues that the Internet has emerged as a mass medium by linking control with freedom and democracy.How has the Internet, a medium that thrives on control, been accepted as a medium of freedom? Why is freedom increasingly indistinguishable from paranoid control? In Control and Freedom, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun explores the current political and technological coupling of freedom with control by tracing the emergence of the Internet as a mass medium. The parallel (and paranoid) myths of the Internet as total freedom/total control, she says, stem from our reduction of political problems into technological ones.Drawing on the theories of Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault and analyzing such phenomena as Webcams and face-recognition technology, Chun argues that the relationship between control and freedom in networked contact is experienced and negotiated through sexuality and race. She traces the desire for cyberspace to cyberpunk fiction and maps the transformation of public/private into open/closed. Analyzing "pornocracy," she contends that it was through cyberporn and the government's attempts to regulate it that the Internet became a marketplace of ideas and commodities. Chun describes the way Internet promoters conflated technological empowerment with racial empowerment and, through close examinations of William Gibson's Neuromancer and Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell, she analyzes the management of interactivity in narratives of cyberspace.The Internet's potential for democracy stems not from illusory promises of individual empowerment, Chun argues, but rather from the ways in which it exposes us to others (and to other machines) in ways we cannot control. Using fiber optic networks—light coursing through glass tubes—as metaphor and reality, Control and Freedom engages the rich philosophical tradition of light as a figure for knowledge, clarification, surveillance, and discipline, in order to argue that fiber-optic networks physically instantiate, and thus shatter, enlightenment. 2024-10-25T13:13:37Z 2024-10-25T13:13:37Z 2008 book ONIX_20241025_9780262288583_9 9780262288583 9780262033329 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/146631 eng The MIT Press image/jpeg n/a https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/2150.001.0001 The MIT Press The MIT Press 10.7551/mitpress/2150.001.0001 10.7551/mitpress/2150.001.0001 ae0cf962-f685-4933-93d1-916defa5123d 9780262288583 9780262033329 The MIT Press 364 Cambridge open access
spellingShingle Digital Humanities & New Media/New Media Theory
Social Sciences/Media Studies
Social Sciences/Political Science/General
Information Science/Internet Studies
Science, Technology & Society/History of Technology
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TJ Electronics and communications engineering::TJK Communications engineering / telecommunications::TJKW WAP (wireless) technology
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TB Technology: general issues::TBX History of engineering and technology
Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong
Control and Freedom
title Control and Freedom
title_full Control and Freedom
title_fullStr Control and Freedom
title_full_unstemmed Control and Freedom
title_short Control and Freedom
title_sort control and freedom
topic Digital Humanities & New Media/New Media Theory
Social Sciences/Media Studies
Social Sciences/Political Science/General
Information Science/Internet Studies
Science, Technology & Society/History of Technology
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TJ Electronics and communications engineering::TJK Communications engineering / telecommunications::TJKW WAP (wireless) technology
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TB Technology: general issues::TBX History of engineering and technology
topic_facet Digital Humanities & New Media/New Media Theory
Social Sciences/Media Studies
Social Sciences/Political Science/General
Information Science/Internet Studies
Science, Technology & Society/History of Technology
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TJ Electronics and communications engineering::TJK Communications engineering / telecommunications::TJKW WAP (wireless) technology
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TB Technology: general issues::TBX History of engineering and technology
url ONIX_20241025_9780262288583_9
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