Critical Response: Pornography in Small Places and Other Spaces

In the article “Pornography in Small Places and Other Spaces” Katrien Jacobs argues that Foucault's notions of herterotopia can be applied to sites within the internet and, in particular, to pornography sites.

With the advent of the internet, pornography has flourished, opening up new markets of distribution world wide. While commercial porn has flooded the internet we have also seen a rise in “non-conformist networks” that, by and large, exist outside capitalism and partake in gift economies where they swap content.

Due to the way in which pornography had to be distributed, prior to the internet, it had strong ties to capitalism. While that is still true today there has been a shift that has decentralized the power to distribute porn to virtually anyone who has a computer or owns a web cam. This shift has resulted in kind of partnership taking place between commercial distributors of porn and the government which aims to censor and shut down non-commercial distributors that violate government sanctions of obscenity, regardless of the social or ethical codes of conduct developed by online correspondents.

The results of internet censorship can be seen to be a form of oppression directed against marginalized groups that reinforces the status quo. This is because it creates a tide of intolerance that suppresses the expression of gays, women, heretics, traitors and troublemakers. The example of this that Jacobs gives is the removal of online gay communities by commercial portals such as Yahoo, due to “obscene” content. This can be seen as directly violating freedom of expression.

The decentralization of porn has had many effects on the contents of porn as well as the way people interact with porn. One of the effects that the internet has had on the porn industry is the emergence of niche markets within online communities. These niches cover a wide variety of fetishes and cater to the various sexual interests of large online communities. The range of sexual interests that are covered by the net is immense. Virtually anything that exists has had porn made of it, which is consistent with rule 34 [1].

For those who are unaware, rule 34 is a “rule” of the internet that states that “there is porn of it, no exceptions.” The rule appeared on a list of rules about the internet long ago and although it was intended for humour the rule tends to hold true. While various other rule lists have been made the one consistent and agreed upon rule that appears on the lists is “rule 34” [1].

These online niche communities emerge through the convergence of space on the internet. Where once communities were formed based on common location they now emerge through common interests [2]. From our desktops we are connected to rest of the world and it to us. Through the medium of the internet like minded individuals can come together to form expansive online communities of shared interests or fetishes. These “other spaces” exist (at least to some extent) outside the capitalist society and tend to transcend borders.

Foucault outlined several characteristics of heterotopia, such as:

• A ‘crisis heterotopia’ - a separate space like a boarding school or a motel room where activities like coming of age or a honeymoon take place out of sight.
• ‘Heterotopias of deviation’ - institutions where we place individuals whose behaviour is outside the norm (hospitals, asylums, prisons, rest homes, cemetery).
• Heterotopia can be a single real place that juxtaposes several spaces. A garden is a heterotopia because it is a real space meant to be a microcosm of different environments with plants from around the world.
• 'Heterotopias of time' such as museums enclose in one place objects from all times and styles. They exist in time but also exist outside of time because they are built and preserved to be physically insusceptible to time’s ravages.
• 'Heterotopias of ritual or purification' are spaces that are isolated and penetrable yet not freely accessible like a public place. To get in one must have permission and make certain gestures such as in a sauna or a hammin.
• 'Heterotopias has a function in relation to all of the remaining spaces. The two functions are: heterotopia of illusion creates a space of illusion that exposes every real space, and the heterotopia of compensation is to create a real space--a space that is other [3].

Porn sites as heterotopias can be seen to embody many of these characteristics. They are:

• Places where activities take place out of sight
• They juxtapose several spaces (though their links) from a real place (computer)
• They exist outside of time, in that though the content of the site may change previous content seldom disappears or is altered
• They are not freely penetrable like a public space as many of them require membership to enter forums, download content, upload content, etc as well as an age restriction.

The contents of porn and the medium through which porn now moves can be seen to have effects on both sexuality and morality. Online you can connect to porn sites which are in turn connected to other sites, which encourages user to satisfy diverse urges (sexual or otherwise). The results of this can be seen to increase broad cultural acceptance of erotic materials as the “bizarre comes looking for you” and has the potential to alter mores and behaviours [4].

In the article the argument of internet censorship for the protection of children was presented. It was stated that: “If adults and children are mutually given unfettered access to adult and obscene materials via the Internet, a child’s computer is essentially converted into an adult bookstore,” however, Jacobs refutes this by stating that what we need to do is promote media literacy. My questions to you are:

• What side of the debate do you fall on? And why?
• What content (if any) should we view as obscene (worth censoring)?
• Where should we draw the line? And why?
• What impact do you think that internet access to porn will have on our society and morality?

Works Cited:
 1. "Rule 34." Urban Dictionary. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. <http://www.easybib.com/cite/edit/CLD2_6c96e2db-8447-4aaf-a72c-%200040406c9749>.

2. Press, Larry. "McLuhan Meets the Net." Communications of the ACM 38.6 (1995): 15- 20, 8 March. 2011 <http://som.csudh.edu/cis/lpress/articles/macl.htm>.


3. "Heterotopia (space)." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterotopia_(space)>.


4. Quinn, James F., and Craig J. Forsyth. "Describing Sexual Behavior in the Era of the Internet: A Typology For Empirical Research." Deviant Behavior (2005): 191- 206. Www.hawaii.edu. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. <http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Describing_Sexual_Behavior_in_the_Era_of_t he_Internet__A_Typology_For_Empirical_Research.pdf>.

Critical Response: The Companion Species Manifesto

The concept of co-evolving along side our companion animals is something that I have thought about a great deal. When I think about the dog’s ancestor (the wolf) and look at what the dog has become today and the different breeds that exist it amazes me. Many of the breeds of dogs that exist today were bred to perform specific tasks such as hunting, tracking, running or in some cases fighting. We have also trained dogs to carry out a wide variety of useful task such as helping the disabled, detecting mines, detecting cancer and warning epileptics of upcoming seizures, among other things.

As Haraway stated, our relationship with our companion animals was not always especially nice. Historically, our treatment of animals would not be considered an appropriate way to treat one’s companion. We used animals like tools and discarded them when they were broken, justifying our actions by the animals otherness. Stoic philosophers argued that animals lacked a sense of “belonging” and that rational beings should only extend their sense of belonging to other rational beings. Aristotle maintained that there was a natural hierarchy and the superior should govern the inferior [1]. Christian’s believed (and some still do) that animals lack a soul and thus used this and the supposed dominion that man was given over the creatures of the earth to justify acts of cruelty [2]. Below are a series of prints showing William Hogarth’s work, “The 4 Stages of Cruelty”.

First Stage of Cruelty
While various Scenes of sportive Woe,
The Infant Race employ,
And tortur'd Victims bleeding shew,
The Tyrant in the Boy.

Behold! a Youth of gentler Heart,
To spare the Creature's pain,
O take, he cries—take all my Tart,
But Tears and Tart are vain.

Learn from this fair Example—You
Whom savage Sports delight,
How Cruelty disgusts the view,
While Pity charms the sight.

Second Stage of Cruelty
The generous Steed in hoary Age,
Subdu'd by Labour lies;
And mourns a cruel Master's rage,
While Nature Strength denies.

The tender Lamb o'er drove and faint,
Amidst expiring Throws;
Bleats forth it's innocent complaint
And dies beneath the Blows.

Inhuman Wretch! say whence proceeds
This coward Cruelty?
What Int'rest springs from barb'rous deeds?
What Joy from Misery?

Cruelty In Perfection
To lawless Love when once betray'd.
Soon Crime to Crime succeeds:
At length beguil'd to Theft, the Maid
By her Beguiler bleeds.

Yet learn, seducing Man! nor Night,
With all its sable Cloud,
can screen the guilty Deed from sight;
Foul Murder cries aloud.

The gaping Wounds and bloodstain'd steel,
Now shock his trembling Soul:
But Oh! what Pangs his Breast must feel,
When Death his Knell shall toll.

The Reward of Cruelty

Behold the Villain's dire disgrace!

Not Death itself can end.

He finds no peaceful Burial-Place,

His breathless Corse, no friend.

Torn from the Root, that wicked Tongue,
Which daily swore and curst!
Those Eyeballs from their Sockets wrung,
That glow'd with lawless Lust!

His Heart expos'd to prying Eyes,
To Pity has no claim;
But, dreadful! from his Bones shall rise,
His Monument of Shame.

Hogarth, an early animal activist who lived in a time where cruelty to animals was commonplace, created these images in order to depict the path that animal cruelty leads to. In the first stage of cruelty a boy (Tom Nero) is shown torturing a dog while another boy pleads for him to stop. In the second panel Tom is seen flogging a wounded horse so hard that its eye pops out of the socket. By the third Tom has committed murder and in the final Tom (after having been hanged for his crime) is being dissected while a dog feeds on his remains. Although these depictions are graphic they succeeded in raising public awareness and in 1835 the animal tortures depicted were outlawed in the Cruelty to Animals Act [3].

It was not until relatively recently that humanity developed the more mutualistic relationship that it now has with its animals. Many of us see our dogs as belonging to our family and there is even a push to give animals the same rights as humans. A good example to illustrate just how far we have come is the story of Cher Ami, a pigeon who during WWI delivered an important message that saved the lives of 200 soldiers, despite having been shot repeatedly. The pigeon received medical treatment and was later awarded the Croix de guerre and when he recovered well enough to travel he was personally seen off by General John J. Pershing. Below is a poem written about the brave bird [4].

Cher Ami
by Harry Webb Farrington

 Cher Ami, how do you do!
Listen, let me talk to you;
I'll not hurt you, don't you see?
Come a little close to me.

Little scrawny blue and white
Messenger for men who fight,
Tell me of the deep, red scar,
There, just where no feathers are.

What about your poor left leg?
Tell me, Cher Ami, I beg.
Boys and girls are at a loss,
How you won that Silver Cross.

"The finest fun that came to me
Was when I went with Whittlesey;
We marched so fast, so far ahead!
'We all are lost,' the keeper said;

'Mon Cher Ami--that's my dear friend--
You are the one we'll have to send;
The whole battalion now is lost,
And you must win at any cost.'

So with the message tied on tight;
I flew up straight with all my might,
Before I got up high enough,
Those watchfull guns began to puff.

Machine-gun bullets came like rain,
You'd think I was an aeroplane;
And when I started to the rear,
My! the shot was coming near!

But on I flew, straight as a bee;
The wind could not catch up with me,
Until I dropped out of the air,
Into our own men's camp, so there!"

But, Cher Ami, upon my word,
You modest, modest little bird;
Now don't you know that you forgot?
Tell how your breast and leg were shot.

"Oh, yes, the day we crossed the Meuse,
I flew to Rampont with the news;
Again the bullets came like hail,
I thought for sure that I should fail.

The bullets buzzed by like a bee,
So close, it almost frightened me;
One struck the feathers of this sail,
Another went right through my tail.

But when I got back to the rear,
I found they hit me, here and here;
But that is nothing, never mind;
Old Poilu, there is nearly blind.

I only care for what they said,
For when they saw the way I bled,
And found in front a swollen lump,
The message hanging from this stump;

The French and Mine said, 'Tres bien,'
Or 'Very good'--American.
'Mon Cher Ami, you brought good news;
Our Army's gone across the Meuse!

You surely had a lucky call!
And so I'm glad.  I guess that's all.
I'll sit, so pardon me, I beg;
It's hard a-standing on one leg!" [4]

I give these examples to illustrate, in perhaps a roundabout way, how much of an impact animals have had on us and how much we‘ve changed over the years. We, as a society, have moved from viewing our companion animals as mere tools or automatons to honouring them as war heroes and commemorating them in works of poetry. They have changed us morally and as a society. Where would we be without dogs? Where would dogs be without us? Man was not gifted with the claws, teeth, strength, speed or keenness of sense possessed by most beasts. Independently, man is weak, but it is our tools and partnerships that make us strong.  We rely on both humans and non-humans alike to adapt to and shape our world.

Coevolution is defined as “the joint development and adaptation to external changes of two or more interdependent species,” [5] and is something that can be seen occurring between not only humans and companion animals but also between humans and their technology. The idea that coevolution takes place between humans and technology is not a new one. The effect that technological advancement has on society have long been recognized and this is perhaps best captured by the words of Marshall McLuhan, who said, “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us” [6]. Which is something that is reaffirmed in Haraway’s manifesto.

My question to you is in what ways has society been shaped by its relationship with technology and specifically, the internet.

Works cited:
1. Angus, Taylor. "Animals and Ethics." Google Books. Web. 05 Apr. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=DIshxmoGu04C>.

2. Pacholczyk, Tadeusz. "'Animal Rights' vs. Human Rights." Catholic Education Resource Center. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. <http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/medical_ethics/me0099.htm>.

3. "The Four Stages of Cruelty." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 6 Apr. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Stages_of_Cruelty>.

4. Sterner, Doug C. "Cher Ami - The Carrier Pigeon Who Saved 200 Men." Home Of Heroes. Web. 04 Apr. 2011. <http://www.homeofheroes.com/wings/part1/3b_cherami.html>.

5. "Encarta World English Dictionary." Language Course. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. <http://www.languagecourse.net/online-dictionary/out.php3?site=1062254417>.

6. Huster, Kevin. "Technological Determinism." Ohio University. 03 June 2000. Web. 07 Apr. 2011. <http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~kh380597/TD.htm>.

Critical Response: World Wide Web of Surveillance

This article discussed the prevalence/role of online surveillance in contemporary society. In particular, the article looks at how data gathering agencies use their information in risk management strategies and examines how this plays a role in power relations.  He notes that there are three main categories of cyberspace surveillance that relate to: 1) employment, 2) to security and policing, and 3) to marketing. He also notes that the line between these categories is blurred as they are connected and often share information.

As previously stated, all forms of surveillance share the common goal of risk management. By collecting data, analyzing trends and generating predictions based upon those trend the surveillant can attempt to influence events in order to create a more desirable future for themselves. In the employment aspect of surveillance, employers monitor the online activities of their employees as a way of maximizing the efficiency of their workers. SurfWatch determined that the three categories accounting for the largest portions of non-work surfing were general news, sexually explicit material, and investment information. It is estimated that this non-work surfing costs companies approximately $450 million annually. If a company’s data reveals that a particular worker is using company time to visit porn sites then they can eliminate him and thusly reduce the risk of employees using company time unproductively.  This provides a good example of the panopticon in that since employees know that they are being watched then they are less likely to engage in unproductive activities for fear of punishment.

The security and policing aspect of surveillance is also panoptic for the same reasons. Whether the surveillance is real or imagined the potential threat of punishment deters those who would use the internet for some misdoing. However, this aspect of internet surveillance can also be viewed as being representative of biopower as it also concerns itself with managing populations through the protection of life.

The marketing aspect of surveillance is the most prevalent form of surveillance on the internet today and it is likely that not one of us have escaped its gaze. Unlike the other two forms of surveillance this aspect of surveillance is much less insidious. Marketing groups typically keep track of aggregate data rather than personal data in order to extract meaningful patterns and trends. This essentially allows them to microtarget their customer base and provide “mass customization” to their consumers. Unlike the previous aspects of surveillance this more indicative of biopower than disciplinary power.

The author also discusses the two major concerns regarding the outcomes of surveillance. The first these concerns is that surveillance produces social inequality and thus access and exclusion. One of the ways in which this social inequality is evident is in that the observers in the employment aspect of surveillance often goes unobserved though it is also evident in the fact that it marginalizes the socially disadvantaged by maintaining a barrier between consumer and non-consumer. The second concern regards the invasion of privacy on identity and human dignity. This is as a result of the person being unable to control communication of information about his or her own self. He claims that these two aspects should not be viewed as separate from each other but instead as being two sides of the same coin. To make their relationship clear he states “Identification and identity, for example, may be the means of inclusion and exclusion. Personhood is realized in participation.”

The author also notes that beyond the questions of participation and personhood lie some
further concerns about the nature of contemporary cyberspace surveillance. The kinds of issues just discussed assume that modern discourses of human rights and social justice still hold true in the world of the internet. However, he states that the internet has been implicated in certain cultural shifts that call this into question. The author states that surveillance practices are not so much a threat to the "privacy" of an individual subject, but are actually involved in the very constitution of subjects and that this puts a new slant on surveillance.

This new slant, he argues, has risk management at its core. He claims that this could be seen as “post-disciplinary” situation where the quest for efficiency has become the primary concern. The “mythical goal” of this surveillance, he argues, is to draw predictions from correlations and social data.
Although the author argues that surveillance is a negative aspect of the internet I would argue that he overlooked its capacity for good. If a government were to use this technology to map public opinions and respond to them in an appropriate manner than this technology could be a very useful tool for democracy.
Unfortunately, this is not the case and most often the data that is collected is simply used to measure how well the spread of propaganda is working.

Which aspect of internet surveillance concerns you the most? Why?

Additional Resources
Little Brother is Watching You
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v9n2/brother.html

Data Mining the Kids
http://utoronto.academia.edu/SaraGrimes/Papers/99368/Data_Mining_the_Kids_Surveillance_and_Market_Research_Strategies_in_Childrens_Online_Games

Communication and the Control Revolution
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:m86WVScmCngJ:maghis.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/4/10.full.pdf+the+control+revolution+pdf&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgBiJyOdYJL8hlxI3mKb-EkFxQMxwa5xF16rLy-DrHrGsUVBvGYs8PmD79ScnkY3LHX7l-wENjMQ82Ag_IYbbeIPRAnD5agyJSp9qcMoTyhk86CMuQP60imOX75GLEuqWFJKvFv&sig=AHIEtbRSS39jVJnR8imghmGf4R-VeKmMEA

Online Surveillance Software/Data Mining
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lKpD7MC22I

FACEBOOK: Federal Human Data Mining Program
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwnTWZ1-UWY

The Face Behind Facebook/Is Facebook your Friend?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPX2UrXcFpo&feature=related

Critical Response: Immaterial Labour 2.0

This article discusses the emergence, production and exploitation of what the authors call “immaterial labour 2.0”. The concept of immaterial labour refers to two aspects of labour, according to Lazzarato. These aspects are: “1. as regards the ‘informational content’ of the commodity, it refers directly to the changes taking place in workers’ labour processes in big companies in the industrial and tertiary sectors, where the skills involved in direct labour are increasingly skills involving cybernetics and computer control (and horizontal and vertical communication).’ 2. ‘As regards the activity that produces the ‘cultural content’ of the commodity, immaterial labour involves a series of activities that are not normally recognised as ‘work’-–in other words, the kinds of activities involved in defining and fixing cultural and artistic standards, fashions, tastes, consumer norms, and more strategically, public opinion.”

This article concerned itself with the second manifestation of immaterial labour, the production of “cultural content”. It proposes that we are seeing the emergence of a new type of immaterial labour, immaterial labour 2.0, which the authors claim is “a more accelerated, intensified, and indeed inscrutable variant of the kind of activity initially proposed by Lazzarato”. What the “2.0” addresses is the “free” labour that subjects engage in on a cultural and biopolitical level when they participate on sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Additionally, it refers to the corporate mining and selling of usergenerated content, which includes tastes, preferences and the general cultural content constructed therein. Their primary interest was in regards to how we “work” amidst the myriad of interfaces within information and communication technology and how the digital construction of our subjectivity/identity within such social networks is a constitutive practice of immaterial labour 2.0.

They suggest that we, as a society, have shifted from our roles as static couch potatoes to the more dynamic roles of websurfers and blogger. They further explain that capital has paid attention to this and that there has been a shift in what is being valorized. With the internet and specifically, social networks such as MySpace and Facebook the dynamic of immaterial labour is the links, the networks that people construct and participate in that comprise not a new audience commodity but immaterial labour 2.0. They note that the very notion of immaterial labour seems nonsensical unless you are willing to consider that there has been a conflation between production and consumption, leisure and labour and author and audience.

The authors present MySpace as being exemplary of immaterial labour 2.0 through its composition, management and regulation of the activities of its users and the use of usergenerated content to produce revenue. MySpace users continually produce free immaterial labour in the construction of their online subjectivity. MySpace exploits this freely given immaterial labour by selling the information gleaned from its users to third parties, who use it to micro target their customer base. The aggregate data collected is a highly useful and sought-after commodity for marketers, who compile extensive databases containing information on the users preferences from which they are then able to extract meaningful patterns and relationships.

I found the topics and concepts discussed in this article to be both very interesting and confusing. I never really thought about how sites such as MySpace and Facebook really benefited from me posting a profile or how what I was doing could constitute labour. I’m still not sure whether this new form of immaterial labour is exploitative or not. The relationship between the user and the site seems to be one that is very mutualistic. However, this is something that is usually true of most forms of organized labour. However, this does seemingly drive home the point that there is no longer a distinction between leisure and labour.

In what way would you describe the relationship between Web 2.0 users and the capitalist economy. Is this relationship parasitic, commensalistic or mutualistic?

Additional Resources:

Data Mining the Kids
http://utoronto.academia.edu/SaraGrimes/Papers/99368/Data_Mining_the_Kids_Surveillance_and_Market_Research_Strategies_in_Childrens_Online_Games

FACEBOOK: Federal Human Data Mining Program
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwnTWZ1-UWY

The Face Behind Facebook/Is Facebook your Friend?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPX2UrXcFpo&feature=related

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