Mr. Shirky divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, web services, and wireless networks that provide alternatives to the wired client/server infrastructure that characterizes the Web. Current clients include Nokia, GBN, the Library of Congress, the Highlands Forum, the Markle Foundation, and the BBC.
This is the title of an upcoming lecture at Goldsmith’s University in London by Geert Lovink, author of a recent book by the same name. Lovink is critiquing notions of blogging as citizen journalism, and I thought that you might be interested in his analysis. The following quote outlines Lovink’s position, and may provide some food for thought.
Between the increasingly strident demands by drug and media corporations for the protection of their trademarks, copyrights or patents, and the pervasive popular cultures of file sharing and pirating, lies more than an incidental clash of interests. In this bold new book, McKenzie Wark argues that the struggle around so-called ‘intellectual property’ is not just a legal or technical matter. It signals a whole new era of class conflict.
Although the study of civil society has largely confined itself to the study of organizations, there is growing interest in understanding the broader contexts and enabling conditions for a healthy and effective civil society. At the same time, the spread of low cost communication systems in the last two decades has helped spur interest in applying the science of networks to social groups and social phenomena.
We are pleased to announce the inaugural issue of the Journal of Networks and Civil Society. This is the second thematic issue in our journal series and is intended to complement the previous issue which focused on information technology.
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom is a book by law professor Yochai Benkler published by Yale University Press on April 3, 2006.
A complete PDF of the book is freely downloadable on the wiki of the book and is available under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Sharealike license.[1] Benkley has said that his editable online book is "an experiment of how books might be in the future," demonstrating how authors and readers might connect instantly or even collaborate.[2]
McKenzie Wark is an Australian-born writer and scholar. He works mainly on media theory, critical theory and new media. His best known works are A Hacker Manifesto and Gamer Theory.
simpy
