Post on 25-Dec-2015
The Digital Sublime
Myth, Power, and Cyberspace
Vincent Mosco
• The Digital Sublime is a book written by Vincent Mosco
• The book was published in 2004Cambridge, Massachusetts: The
MIT Press.
The Author
• Mosco is a professor at Queen's University.
• A Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society.
• graduated from Georgetown University and received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University in 1975.
The Book
• In this book, Mosco starts in chapter one with a cultural analysis of myth and mythmaking and ends with a political economic analysis.
The Book
• Myth, power, and cyberspace are a trilogy depicting the digital era where
Mosco takes his reader on a journey to redefine myth in relationship to cyberspace.
The Book
• Mosco defines myths as “stories that animate individuals and
societies by providing the paths to transcendence that lift people out of the banality of everyday life” (p 3).
The Book
• He argues that “myths are not true or false, but living or dead” (p 3), which makes them a form of reality.
The Book
• However, Mosco says, when a technology becomes banal, it loses its myth and becomes a powerful force in society.
Chapters
The Book has six chapters:
1. The Secret of Life2. Myth and Cyberspace3. Cyberspace and the End of History4. Loose Ends: The Death of Distance, the End of Politics5. When Old Myths Were New: The Ever-Ending Story6. From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
The Secret of Life
Chapter One• First Mosco defines myth:
Myth
The Secret of Life
Norse god meets Sven
Secret of Life / Pluck Out an Eye
The Secret of Life
• In grounding his dual analysis, Mosco starts with the adage from Thor
that the secret of life is to simply "see vigilantly with both eyes,"
The Secret of Life
• Referring to both cultural and economic processes as well as interconnected realities of myth and social institutions.
The Secret of Life
• He compares the myth of cyberspace to past myths based on past inventions such as the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television.
The Secret of Life
• Then, in Chapter 6, he ends with ground zero as the end of the myths; specifically the Twin Towers before September the 11th and as icons of communication, information, and trade, personified the myth of cyberspace in the post-industrialist era.
The Secret of Life
• For Mosco cyberspace is “Connected to a mythic world conjured in code and to a world rooted in and increasingly dependent upon large, complex, formally rational systems” (p 11).
The Secret of Life
• This connection has caused cyberspace to have three central myths the end of time and history, the end of geography, and the end of politics.
Myth and Cyberspace
• In Chapter 2, Mosco presents a cultural analysis that explores the relationship between myths and global computer communication systems.
Myth and Cyberspace
• “Particularly those identified with the Internet, the World Wide Web,
and cyberspace” to demonstrate the mutually constitutive
relationship between myth and power (p 19).
Myth and Cyberspace
• Myths are like a breath of fresh air that rescues us from a present that is oppressive and confining by looking toward a future that brings with it a world that is liberating; a brave new world that is filled with optimism and great expectations for all.
Myth and Cyberspace
• In this chapter, Mosco cites what he refers to as “les bricolleurs”, who
are the storytellers and mythmakers of cyberspace such as Nicholas Negroponte and Bill Gates.
Myth and Cyberspace
• He also cites the tricksters who are today's Robin Hoods in a society whose wealth was built by robber barons.
Cyberspace and the End of History
• Chapter 3 introduces the concept of time and the myth of the end of history.
End of History
• Mosco presents his reader with theorists such as Francis Fukuyama and Teilhard de Chardin and cyber- prophets such as Nicholas Negroponte and Ray Kurzweil.
End of History
• For instance, Nicholas Negroponte foresees cyberspace becoming a "banal space" in a world where people have learned to "be digital" and by doing so gained control of time as a malleable resource (p 74).
End of History
• Kurzweil, however, goes even further by predicting a post-biological era
proclaiming the end of death in the twenty-first century.
End of History
• People would achieve eternal life “by scanning and transferring their
minds to computers, literally digitizing themselves” (p 76).
Death of Distance, End of Politics
• Chapter 4 illustrates the concept of space and the myth of the end
of geography as well as the concept of power and the myth of the end of politics.
Death of Distance, End of Politics
• The assertion of these two myths is that the globalization of computers and communication networks renders borders and traditional means of censorship obsolete.
Death of Distance, End of Politics
• The understanding is that global convergence made possible by cyberspace will abolish political borders and the sense of nationality
in favor of a global nation with the power closer to people.
When Old Myths Were New
• Chapter 5 is a historical view of old inventions that led to the birth of similar myths, such as the telegraph,
telephone, radio, and television.
When Old Myths Were New
• The author reminds us that myths are so powerful that they cause us to have “almost willful, historical amnesia about technology, particularly when the talk turns to communication and information” (p 117).
When Old Myths Were New
• When old inventions were new, they all promoted a myth of a better world based on understanding, equality, and equity.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Chapter 6 ends the book with ground zero.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Here Mosco, using a cultural analysis and then moving to a political economic analysis, uses ground zero to develop an understanding of the nature of myth and the significance of cyberspace.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
Before the crash of the telecommunications industry
• Mosco states that there was a “buoyant optimism and triurnphalism that pervaded much of the United States at the turn of the millennium” (p 141).
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• This optimism was fuelled by the boom of the dotcom era that caused ordinary people and professionals alike to rush to invest in a future that offered no limitations, but only possibilities.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The Twin Towers in lower Manhattan, as the symbol of the post-industrialist era and financial capital
of the world, were in factat the core of the cyber-boom.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• In this chapter, Mosco focuses on three factors:
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• 1) Digitization and commodification of communication
• 2) Corporate integration and concentration in the communication
industry• 3) Deregulation of that industry
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• He starts with the conception of the Twin Towers as the first attempt in the United States to create an “informational City.”
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Soon after that, New York acquired the label of an international command center for information and trade, which led to the birth of another myth.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Post-industrialism, as a myth, symbolizes the transition of New York, as well as the United States, from an industrial economy to a service economy.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Mosco claims that although the Twin Towers were beloved by ordinary people for the myth they
represented, professionals hated them for their bad design and shoddy structure.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The Twin Towers, he continues represented a significant loss in terms of jobs resulting from the shift to the information industry.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• This shift led to the destruction of the diversified economy of the area,
which resulted in the migration of the service sector, manufacturing, and electronic industries to other parts of the country.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The final blow came when it was time to fill over 10 million square feet of
empty office space.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Mosco states that the government and port authorities had to move in to fill some of the empty space and that the “Trade Center” never did have enough tenants.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• As the World trade Center was unable to revitalize the local economy, financial institutions also left the area, which resulted in further loss of employment, eventually leading to the bankruptcy of New York City.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The 1990's brought a high-tech industry that turned lower Manhattan into Silicon Alley.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The Internet companies brought jobs back to New York and soon the
twin towers were filled with communication firms that gave new hope to many with the promise for a future with limitless possibilities.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The boom of the communications industry redefined the Twin Towers as
the symbol of the post-industrial age that led to the belief, from a cultural analysis perspective, that the United States was entering a new digital era that represented the end of history, geography, and politics.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The digital age opened cyberspace as the new frontier with a common code that governs all codes where communication, information, production, distribution are defined by increased speed.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Industries, financial institutions, and the media digitized their operations to control products, services and news worldwide.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• From a political economic perspective, Mosco says, “cyberspace results from the mutual constitution of digitization and commodification” (p 156).
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The digital age offered opportunities and the deregulation of the industry
through the Telecommunication Act of 1996 was supposed to help pave the way for high speed connectivity, broadband, and equal access of information for all.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• However, as Mosco indicates the communications industries started overspending in an infrastructure that exceeded market capacity.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Fast growth led to an exponential negative cash flow.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The governmental deregulation opened an era driven by the gold rush syndrome.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Businesses and investors alike wanted to cash in.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• The crash of the telecommunications industry in 2000 came as a
shock to everyone.
From Ground Zero to Cyberspace and Back Again
• Most of the dotcom companies lost their assets in the process, once again turning the Twin Towers into empty spaces.
Conclusion
• To sum up, Mosco ended his book by stating that the economy went
into recession but there was still hope that the digital age would rebound.
Conclusion
• However, the events of 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq changed all that.
Conclusion
• The three “myths of the ends” vanished and history, geography, and politics have now returned with a vengeance.