01: Popular Debate
Debating the revolutionary potential of social media.
Visions of the Web
● Vannevar Bush (1945)
● People find it difficult to get through the knowledge. (The scientists)
● Memex: The form of a desk would instantly bring files and material on any subject on to
the operator’s fingertips. Bush to replicate it for people make those connections
● Associative indexing: The basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be
caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. The essential feature of
the memex.
● Hypertext: (Ted Nelson) is a body of written on pictorial material interconnected in such
a complex way that it could not be presented on paper.
● Doug Engelbart - NLS → Developed the first hypertext system → Mother of all demos
→ Because he showed the system (1968)
● ARPAnet - Internet → The internet started
● Tim Berners-Lee → The invention of the world wide web (1989) → His vision is
supposing each of these documents has the same property of being linked to other
original documents all over the world.
● Ken Kesey & The Merry Pranksters
● Virtual Community
● Stuart Brand: Counterculture → He connected the idea of the counterculture
movements with the development of the computers
● Cozy little world (Rheingold 1993) Grounded in the physical world.
● Revitalize democracy
● Web 2.0 → Tim O’Reilly (The internet as a platform)
● The vision of the information universe
● Clay Shirky
Critics
● Malcolm Gladwell: Small Change
● Evgeny Morozov vs. Cyber-Utopianism
➔ Stevenson, M. (2018)
➔ Gladwell (2010)
➔ Shirky (2011)
From Hypertext to Hype and Back Again. Exploring
the roots of Social Media in Early Web culture.
Stevenson, M. (2018)
,Social media emerged in 2000 with launches of sites Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia.
Social media: A particular constellation of previously existing ideas, values, media forms, and
technologies.
1. Early visions of digital culture
★ Information universe: Berners Lee → Very organized/His vision is supposing each of
these documents has the same property of being linked to other original documents all
over the world.
○ Easy to navigate: URL (uniformed resource location)
○ HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol)
○ How one computer (client) requests and downloads a document from another
computer (Server)
○ How a document looks like: HTML (hypertext language)
★ Virtual Community: Rheingold → Virtual communities all encourage interaction,
sometimes focusing around a particular interest or just to communicate.
○ The virtual community and the WELL (The whole earth ‘Lectronic Link)
○ Consist of forums called “conferences”
○ Individualization and atomization of society
○ Trend: bowling alone → Decline of activities
○ Virtual cities → To enhance local community and intercultural awareness → It
foreshadowed social media
★ (Utopias before the World Wide Web)
2. The politics of Dot.COM Euphoria: Web exceptionalism and
cyberlibertarianism
“Exceptional” medium → Stevenson, M. (2018)
“Cyberlibertarianism” Freedom was part of a political outlook which contains libertarianism →
Political philosophy that prioritizes individual freedom over collective duties.
The Californian ideology excluded public initiatives
Evgeny Morozov’s polemics against technologies “solutionism” or the false belief among
Silicon Valley types → That technical fixes earn and should be developed for social and political
problems.
3. Defining “Web-Native” Culture
How else the web might look (be approached, designed and used)
The hotwired debate: Louis Rossetto built the web’s first commercial site and first web-only
professional publication. It would not be a magazine with “buttons” and instead it will break new
ground in terms of “context, community and interactivity” (Markoff)
★ Rheingold and Stewer:
○ Put readers voices and digital artwork
○ The worldwide jam session of “virtual community and participation”
○ Rheingold: The web was an extension of communities (social)
, ★ Rossetto:
○ It should not overshadow the professional content
○ The web was an equalizer giving independent publications a chance to compete
with large media corporations
○ Social/Professionalism
Designing a professional web in the dot.com bubble.
Flash sites:
● Large-scale
● Immersive
● Visual experiences
● Demanded heavy budgets
● Rare skillset
● A clear boundary between users and creators
The rise of blogging: Personal publishing, content management, and Web filtering
First blogger? Justin Hall, Dave Wilmer, and Jorn Barger
★ Justin Hall
○ Self-expression
○ Links.net → Shared links to content on the web (adult content mostly)
○ Shared intimate details about his life
○ A micro-celebrity
○ Examples of “oversharing”
★ Dave Wilmer
○ What news should look online
○ Metaphors such as “front door” “lobby” in reference to the homepage
○ Easy to use weblog publishing applications
★ Jorn Borger
○ Built “robot wisdom”
○ “Weblog”
○ Made a movement dedicated to filtering the web.
Blogging: A source of personal expression with collections of posts and links providing an
unfiltered view of the self.
Blogs: Would be written with profession grade publishing infrastructures and presented in a
reverse-chronological format that better suited the medium.
Web Motive:
Pure web form the comments a set of cultural values such as individual expression and
collaboration with perceived characteristics of the medium.
4. Open-source software and the data turn
“Free/open-source software” → Licensed software → Developers could earn money
★ Impacts: Material Sense, Easy to master
Debating the revolutionary potential of social media.
Visions of the Web
● Vannevar Bush (1945)
● People find it difficult to get through the knowledge. (The scientists)
● Memex: The form of a desk would instantly bring files and material on any subject on to
the operator’s fingertips. Bush to replicate it for people make those connections
● Associative indexing: The basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be
caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. The essential feature of
the memex.
● Hypertext: (Ted Nelson) is a body of written on pictorial material interconnected in such
a complex way that it could not be presented on paper.
● Doug Engelbart - NLS → Developed the first hypertext system → Mother of all demos
→ Because he showed the system (1968)
● ARPAnet - Internet → The internet started
● Tim Berners-Lee → The invention of the world wide web (1989) → His vision is
supposing each of these documents has the same property of being linked to other
original documents all over the world.
● Ken Kesey & The Merry Pranksters
● Virtual Community
● Stuart Brand: Counterculture → He connected the idea of the counterculture
movements with the development of the computers
● Cozy little world (Rheingold 1993) Grounded in the physical world.
● Revitalize democracy
● Web 2.0 → Tim O’Reilly (The internet as a platform)
● The vision of the information universe
● Clay Shirky
Critics
● Malcolm Gladwell: Small Change
● Evgeny Morozov vs. Cyber-Utopianism
➔ Stevenson, M. (2018)
➔ Gladwell (2010)
➔ Shirky (2011)
From Hypertext to Hype and Back Again. Exploring
the roots of Social Media in Early Web culture.
Stevenson, M. (2018)
,Social media emerged in 2000 with launches of sites Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia.
Social media: A particular constellation of previously existing ideas, values, media forms, and
technologies.
1. Early visions of digital culture
★ Information universe: Berners Lee → Very organized/His vision is supposing each of
these documents has the same property of being linked to other original documents all
over the world.
○ Easy to navigate: URL (uniformed resource location)
○ HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol)
○ How one computer (client) requests and downloads a document from another
computer (Server)
○ How a document looks like: HTML (hypertext language)
★ Virtual Community: Rheingold → Virtual communities all encourage interaction,
sometimes focusing around a particular interest or just to communicate.
○ The virtual community and the WELL (The whole earth ‘Lectronic Link)
○ Consist of forums called “conferences”
○ Individualization and atomization of society
○ Trend: bowling alone → Decline of activities
○ Virtual cities → To enhance local community and intercultural awareness → It
foreshadowed social media
★ (Utopias before the World Wide Web)
2. The politics of Dot.COM Euphoria: Web exceptionalism and
cyberlibertarianism
“Exceptional” medium → Stevenson, M. (2018)
“Cyberlibertarianism” Freedom was part of a political outlook which contains libertarianism →
Political philosophy that prioritizes individual freedom over collective duties.
The Californian ideology excluded public initiatives
Evgeny Morozov’s polemics against technologies “solutionism” or the false belief among
Silicon Valley types → That technical fixes earn and should be developed for social and political
problems.
3. Defining “Web-Native” Culture
How else the web might look (be approached, designed and used)
The hotwired debate: Louis Rossetto built the web’s first commercial site and first web-only
professional publication. It would not be a magazine with “buttons” and instead it will break new
ground in terms of “context, community and interactivity” (Markoff)
★ Rheingold and Stewer:
○ Put readers voices and digital artwork
○ The worldwide jam session of “virtual community and participation”
○ Rheingold: The web was an extension of communities (social)
, ★ Rossetto:
○ It should not overshadow the professional content
○ The web was an equalizer giving independent publications a chance to compete
with large media corporations
○ Social/Professionalism
Designing a professional web in the dot.com bubble.
Flash sites:
● Large-scale
● Immersive
● Visual experiences
● Demanded heavy budgets
● Rare skillset
● A clear boundary between users and creators
The rise of blogging: Personal publishing, content management, and Web filtering
First blogger? Justin Hall, Dave Wilmer, and Jorn Barger
★ Justin Hall
○ Self-expression
○ Links.net → Shared links to content on the web (adult content mostly)
○ Shared intimate details about his life
○ A micro-celebrity
○ Examples of “oversharing”
★ Dave Wilmer
○ What news should look online
○ Metaphors such as “front door” “lobby” in reference to the homepage
○ Easy to use weblog publishing applications
★ Jorn Borger
○ Built “robot wisdom”
○ “Weblog”
○ Made a movement dedicated to filtering the web.
Blogging: A source of personal expression with collections of posts and links providing an
unfiltered view of the self.
Blogs: Would be written with profession grade publishing infrastructures and presented in a
reverse-chronological format that better suited the medium.
Web Motive:
Pure web form the comments a set of cultural values such as individual expression and
collaboration with perceived characteristics of the medium.
4. Open-source software and the data turn
“Free/open-source software” → Licensed software → Developers could earn money
★ Impacts: Material Sense, Easy to master
