Category: MIT7

operation payback (..is a bitch)

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Pirates session
Burcu Bakioglu, Operation Payback (…is a Bitch): Hacktivism at the dawn of Copyright Controversies
Bodo Balasz, Informal Media Economies – What Can We Learn from the Pirates of Yesteryear?
Martin Fredriksson, The Ideology of Piracy and the Public Spheres of Modernity
Jinying Li, Piracy, Circulation, and Cultural Control in Cyber-Age China
moderator: Marcienne Martin

Unfortunately I was able to attend only the talk by Bakioglu.

  • culture of piracy is what they call copypasta [or copy paste]. It is a subversive culture. Response to it was to extend regulation and limitation of piracy.
  • The ‘culture’ perceived any copyright issues as a threat to creativity, to corruption exposure, privacy, an act of criminalization of society, surveillance.
  • They were a true networked society that was lateral: hoizontal modes of communication presenting alternative strategies of resistance.
  • Sites of struggle: The Pirate Bay. This alternative form of protest took the form of hacktivism. It is non-violent civil disobedience [DDOS attacks, site defacements etc.]
  • It used to be a sub-culture but now it is becoming mainstream.
  • Wikileaks and Assange are a model. Nodes that exchange information and give power. One therefore needs to intercept flow of information and leak it out.
  • Op Payback began when an Indian company was contracted and announced it would take down Pirate Bay [co. called aiplex.com].
  • Case of ACS Law solicitors whose site was taken down and in effort to remedy problem hurriedly put their site back up and inadvertently published secret information that stayed online for two hours and the info proved it was damaging enough to the company because it exposed its illegal dealings.

Forum 2: archives and cultural heritage/memory

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Speakers:Frank Marchese, Pace Digital Gallery, Julia Noordegraaf University of Amsterdam, Jason Rhody, Office of Digital Humanities, NEH. Moderator: Nick Monfort, MIT

Summary and Podcast here

Session was basically about how to present literature, art and whatever is or is not archived already – in such a way that it becomes archivable. There is always a need to archive and preserve. Read More …

new platforms for education – unstable platforms

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New Platforms for Education
Andrea Mangiatordi et al, Facebook Influence on University Students’ Media Habits
Mary Leigh Morbey, Metamedia Immersive Environments: Transitions in Digital Learning
Andi Sciacca, The Digital Kitchen
Young Song, Lisa Donovan, Kristina Sansone, Multiple Layers of Learning through Digital Transition: VoiceThread
moderator: Chris Gerben

Mangiatordi: frivolous content is the norm. It is seen as a sort of strategy to protect privacy. Use of facebook is mainly instrumental: used to orchestrate face-to-face hangouts. Students tend to deprecate it, mostly for contents and private issues [but web 2.0 is all about sharing, above all, are our students being too serious?]. Media platforms have swithced: students appear to be very savvy in finding the entertainment they want. Digital skills are not so common: many of the interviews saw themselves as digital immigrants. So what? Facebook didn’t probably change the habits. It most likely changed interpersonal communications quantitatively. Redefining other media or formats uses. Read More …

businesses and social media.. why should they use them?

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Fiona McQuarrie: Can social media mobilize audiences and consumers for non-commercial purposes?

Social media promoted as a way to create new relationship between producer and consumer. It looks at building relationships and creating consumer motivation to buy/use produce.

Business and social media use:

What difference does it make if they use it or not? There are four existing research:

  • they can use it for product development or pilot projects. A source of free market research information.
  • they can facilitate consumer flocks and swarms
  • social media facilitates community
  • reasons why consumers use social media.

Read More …