How To Internet and a Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
In the readings from Jenny Odell and John Perry Barlow that I did,
there were a couple different ideas I found really interesting that
may or may not be that related to one another. Odell's piece talks of
the conception and propogation of the internet, the "world wide web"
that we now all find ourselves inhabiting, that the vast majority of
people only thought of as a new fangled tool to compliment pre-existing
ways of life. Odell provides a comprehensive breakdown of how she views
the ever changing usage of the internet, from user-to-user interaction
to the progression of corporatized "how to"s.
Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace comes from a much
different perspective, in a time of uncertainty around the direction of the
internet's rapid growth, when the United States passed the Telecommunications
Act of 1996 into law. Barlow advocated for the internet to remain a space for
complete freedom of thought and expression, ungoverned by any one authority,
with the power in the hands of the members of the internet.
I also read over Joanne McNeil's Search and Destroy, and find that the idea of
how Google imposes a restrictive power on the archival properties of the internet,
purely for the sake of increased efficiency and scaling for the corporate engine.
I feel like this relates well to Barlow's call to keep the internet as an unregulated
space of freedom. Similarly, Odell's article writes of the growing disconnect of mediated
media, with the internet becoming "appropriated by business".
Do you believe the internet should be any more or less mediated than it already is?