Full Circle Associates

Via danah, this brilliant piece. MORE MORE MORE!! Food for thought as we sit and pontificate on online interaction software, etc.

Anne Galloway | Purse Lip Square Jaw: "In my dissertation, I discuss the prevailing tendency of 'social software' to define 'social' in terms of connected individuals. This privileging of individualism, I argue, not only demonstrates cultural and class biases, but also points at some of the limitations of network models of interaction. To focus on connecting individuals along the lines of shared interests and practices is indeed a type of social interaction, but it shouldn't be confused with public value. Even when artists and designers choose to focus on the 'public' dimensions of 'social' software, they often resurrect the sense of public implied in the 'collective,' a form of anti-structure if you will, and sometimes a remarkably insular and homogenous one at that. In many cases, 'social' software involves technology 'for' the people or technology 'by' the people, but only rarely do the two come together. Network models are uniquely amenable to connecting and maintaining such discrete pieces in part because they manage or control the types of connections that can be made, and so public wifi networks and other open or hackable architectures are never public in the sense of being 'for' and/or 'by' everyone."

socialsoftware, values