Last week, I was intrigued
by Thrift’s argument that networks and calculated worlds might create new forms
of “human” rather than simply ever-increasing alienation. To me, this was a
needed rebuttal the interpretation of the information
revolution as simply a destructive force or homogenizing phenomenon (Terranova, 2). With that in
mind, Terranova's opening shot in the introduction caught my eye: “I do not
believe that such informational dynamics simply expresses the coming hegemony
of the “immaterial” over the material. On the contrary, I believe that if there
is an acceleration of history and an annihilation of distances within an
informational milieu, it is a creative destruction, that is a productive movement that releases
(rather than simply inhibits) social potentials for information” (2).
I found this passage
well illustrated by her discussion of globalization and the mapping of the Internet
in Chapter 2: “If a structural domination of the space of flows (the global)
over that of places (the local) exists… it is one that does not deny the
fluidity of places as such, their constitution of local reservoirs endowed with
a productive capacity for difference” (49). This statement about the dual forces of homogeneity and
heterogeneity was complimented by her description of the mapping of the
Internet. Yes, Terranova says, there are the large continents that revolve
around major corporate websites, but there are also smaller archipelagoes that
operate more on their own terms.
I’m interested in further
exploring this concept of the Internet as simultaneously local and global,
subversive and homogenizing. How is it all of these things at once? Is it some more than others, and if so, why? I’m also trying to
understand the political qualities of the Internet in relation to the idea of the Internet
as a grid, which Terranova describes as simultaneously “both dystopian and
utopian” (46). What are the similarities between the spatial and political
aspects of the Internet?
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