New Media & Community - g45

I have to admit that before sitting down to read this week’s readings, I had been at the gym wearing my customized Nike shoes. I had never thought about the Nike sweatshops in regards to my customized shoes, which I shamefully admit to having. In the first reading from Jonah Peretti, we learned about cultural jamming, memes, and media ecology. I found this article interesting because it demonstrates the power of the internet because of the internet’s ability to include multiple formats for the dissemination of information, which in turns sparks social transformations. Peretti was intelligent to study the effects that one email had, over time, on the rest of the world.

Peretti used cultural jamming to combat Nike’s campaign for their customized shoes. Peretti ordered a pair of customized running shoes with the word “sweatshop,” written on the shoe as her customized aspect. However, Nike refused to process her order, and Peretti emailed this event to her close friends. In a very short time period thousands if not millions of people had heard of this incident. Without the internet this meme would never have reached the power that it did. Peretti found herself at the center of a world-wide movement. The internet has powerful implications, especially as users learn to navigate the internet. The internet turned a personal email sent to a few friends, to a topic of discussion in the mass media. In this instance, the internet “provided a technical distribution network that overlays social networks.” I also found it interesting because this article serves as an example for the discussion of journalists and how they use the internet and blogs specifically to report the news. In this instance the internet gave an eager reporter a unique topic that mattered to the people, which was then picked up by other reporters, adding fuel to the fire.

This example provides solid evidence to the positive influence of the internet, a topic we have discussed relentlessly in this class. The internet proved to serve the public, providing a format to disseminate issues that were important to the public. This example goes further into the issue of agenda setting. Many topics that people receive information on, are chosen by a string of reporters and editors who must approve news before it is disseminated. The internet now disarms news outlets’ ability to set the agenda in the public sphere. The internet allows any type of movement or topic to gain support, outside of the controlled news rooms.

In the second article, Vegh argues that the government has framed the debate of the threat of hacking in order to persuade people to allow their rights to be violated. The government uses the public’s fear of hacking to try to control the internet and reinforce the power structure. With the internet controlled by the government, it is easier for the government to quiet anti-government activists by calling them cyber-terrorists. For more threatening movements then Peretti’s Nike sweatshop movement, the government is trying to silence these types of movements. It is not surprising that this power struggle has arisen; the internet is the easiest place for activists to find support, and it is the hardest medium for the government to regulate and control. It is difficult to always distinguish between cyber-terrorism, hacking, and harmless activists, especially with an inclusive form of media that is exponentially grown faster then we can adjust.

Questions: Is it alright for the government to censor or control the internet? Is it an issue of freedom of speech? Have many high profile memes influenced our government? Will memes have a roll in creating

It was rather overwhelming to look at the number of cameras that our class posted in such a confined area. In many of the areas, the cameras are not always easy to see. It is rather hard to tell if they are watching people or property. In regards to university cameras, I believe that they are only there to watch people because many are located on university telephones, which are a measure of public safety. On the other hand, it is hard to say that business surveillance are there to watch people or property because neither are mutually exclusive. If a business is monitoring their property, then they will be interested in each person who enters their property, making it difficult to distinguish between the two. However, cameras that are located to monitor the entrance to a business or public space seem to clearly monitor the people entering, not necessarily the space.

Regardless of what cameras are actually looking for, I do not believe that many people are aware that there are so many cameras watching them. Although the general population has either adapted to the fact that there are cameras everywhere or they do not actually know it, workers do tend to know where the cameras are located. While avoiding the rain, I stood under an overhang on 36th and Market. A lady was eating her lunch on the bench under the overhang; I asked her if she worked in the building that we were in front of and she said she did. I asked her whether or not she knew if there were any public surveillance cameras in her building or around the outside. She told me that recently she found out that the entrance had a camera because one of the people, who monitor the cameras all day, recognized her in the elevator and introduced himself. She told me that this was her seventh year working here, and she had only recently discovered that there was constant surveillance.

Multiple times I was asked by worker, mostly Penn’s facilities workers, what I was doing. Most of the Penn facilities workers helped me locate a camera. One of the workers after I asked him if there were any cameras where I was looking, but before I had told him what I was doing, he told me that there weren’t any. However, after I told him that I was conducting research for a project in a class, he announced that I had indeed found a camera. From that discussion I have taken the belief that workers feel protected by these cameras, if they know where they are, supporting Lyon’s idea of cameras make people feel safer instead of threatened. My first encounter, with the previous woman discussed, had worked in the same building for a number of years before realizing that there were cameras everywhere. She seemed to dislike the fact that she was constantly being watched.

One of the buildings that I marked on my sheet had three cameras, but the workers at each entrance told me that I could not take pictures of the cameras, which I noted on my sheet. This experience leads me to think about Mann’s idea of being watched while I took pictures, “sousveillance.” It made me uncomfortable with the idea that someone was wondering what I was doing; they even could have thought I was planning to break into the building for all I know. It also leads me to think about the study as a whole. I do feel that this study has made me more aware of my actions in public areas, but if a criminal was going to break in or commit a crime, aren’t we aiding him or her in that quest? We are basically making a graph of where each camera is located, so a criminal could use this information to know what cameras he or she must avoid or even destroy before committing the crime. In a way, if these cameras are there to protect buildings and people from crime, then aren’t we making it easier for the criminals? I do feel that knowing where cameras are may make crimes harder to trace for the police, since the police and the criminals know where the surveillance is.

After looking at the map on phillycrime.org, I do not feel that cameras stop people from committing crimes, especially if the cameras are difficult to find. Known cameras may decrease the number of crimes, but the current situation with the screwdriver rapist, lead me to believe otherwise. In the areas that the rapist committed his crimes, Penn security workers were supposed to be covering and watching the areas. Actual people that work as security guards should, in theory, diminish the number of crimes committed. In reality, this doesn’t seem to be the case because the presence of a security guard should be more effective then a camera, where crimes still happen to slip by.

As a regular viewer of the show Law and Order, I have come to the belief that cameras are everywhere and they help police find criminals. However, this notion of safety seems to be played up in television shows. If criminals are aware that there are cameras, then it is relatively easy to shield their face from the cameras. The cameras can not automatically create a picture of the criminal that would cater to the police; cameras merely serve to make criminals think about their crimes.

Finally, I work at the Penn Emergency Call Center, where I monitor ten of the cameras on campus. The cameras that I specifically watch only cover the garage entrances for Penn’s yellow-jacket security team. I do know that there is a room that contains all of the cameras on campus, which is always monitored by workers. In reality there are hundreds of cameras on campus, both inside buildings and outside. Even the security guards that work for Penn do not know where all of the cameras are hidden. This summer, the main garage where the bikes and equipment are kept for Penn’s security guards are kept, drug dealing was taking place. It took very little time for all of the dealers and buyers to be caught because of the security cameras inside. It was rather horrifying to discover that the people that protect the campus are actually drug dealers.