User:Menno Harder/Annotations

Postscript on the Societies of Control * Gilles Deleuze *
Foucault located the disciplinary societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; they reach their height at the outset of the twentieth. In this society the individual passes from one closed environment to the other. These are (in order of time) the family, the school, the barracks, the factory, sometimes the hospital and maybe a prison. Each of these environments has it's own laws. Foucault realised the change of society: from a society of sovereignty (to tax rather than organising production, to rule on death rather than to administer life) to a society of discipline. Napoleon seemed to have great effect on this change. After WWII there was another shift of society. The environments (prison, hospital, factory, school, family) are constantly being reformed but the institutions themselves are actually known and in a finished state. When new people arrive in these environments changes can be made. These are called the societies of control, and they are replacing the disciplinary societies.
The spaces of enclosure through which an individual passes are analogical (previous concepts/ideas are being compared to the new, providing information and understanding for it). The enclosures change from within but stay the shape as we know them. In a society of control the corporation replaces the factory. **The corporation modulates each salary by having contests, challenges, giving bonuses to certain individuals etc. In disciplinary societies you would start from the beginning while switching enclosures, in a society of control you are never finished. There are two stages in both societies that are fearsome: The apparent acquittal stage in the disciplinary society (being in-between enclosures) and the limitless postponements in the society of control. Control is continuously changing and evolving into new shapes, while discipline was of longer duration, infinite and discontinuing.
For each system examples are giving of the change from disciplinary to control. Prison system: new ways of punishment, wearing electronic collars or doing tasks for the municipality. School system: Abandonment of university research, never-ending training, introduction of the corporation in school. Hospital system: New medicines without the need for a doctor or patient. Corporate system: (see **)

Future Map * Brian Holmes *
The scientist Norbert Wiener ask himself the question: can any creator play a game with his own creature? Example: A computer program for playing checkers. Feedback loops are a model of learning for both animals and machines. This is called cybernetics, where the machine (or animal) can learn by action as to improve himself the more he operates. Von Neumann, a mathematical expert, tried to explore rational strategies for any two-player game by calculating all the next moves the other player can do. Wiener thought this was outdated and preferred statistical analysis, and learning from mistakes instead of absolute certainty.
Negative feedback is done by observing errors that are made in a certain pattern of behaviour, and learning to reduce these actions continuously. Can we as humans play a game with the cybernetic society that has created us, as we too are actually programmed by a society of control. Serving as targets for products, services, political slogans or interventions of the police. Surveillance systems rely on predictive algorithms and are constantly expanded and improved. This is completely reshaping our world, it is no longer based on debate and democracy but on electronic identification, statistical prediction and environmental seduction. The environment is over-coded with an optimising algorithm, with data coming directly from yourself. The panopticon society is outdated but has things in common with today's society: the functionary watching the prisoner is compared to the professional reforming and training the individual in society, and the prisoner being this individual. Today's society is being controlled by the constant flow of data that is statistically treated. It is not a society that transforms, punishes or saves individuals (as in a disciplinary society) but a society of control, where the machine is being optimised.
An imaginary future can be explored by understanding what might happen because of prediction. A paste chain of events might happen again when you realise first steps have been taken. One of the problems about future maps is that it wants to eradicate deviant behaviour, thus shaping the participants in it. Our society wants to control the future, and this has consequences. Anticipated desires are fulfilled by predicting the future, eliminating desire at that moment. The removal of individuals who oppose against this way of control is another problem.

Discipline and Punish * Michel Foucault * pt1
Walhausen names strict discipline as an art of correct training. It's function is to train rather than to select specific individuals to form a whole. It separates, analyses and differentiates it's targets to form well trained single units. With the advancing of technology (telescope, lens and light beam) a new knowledge of man was forming. By building so called 'observatories' that were based on a military model, society can be reshaped because the feeling of being watched is always there. Behaviour is adjusted. The military camp or model as it is used in society can be called the art of surveillance.
One of these systems is the hospital where new techniques brought new ways of treating patients, monitoring them, separating them to stop the spread of contagious diseases. The hospital now is a therapeutic operator, instead of a simple housing of the sick and dying. In a similar way the school is completely reshaped to be a tool of training with a structure that is adapted to a means of perfect surveillance. (The teacher placed higher then it's students, so they can always be watched, more windows in the buildings etc.) The perfect disciplinary apparatus would make it possible for a single gaze to see everything constantly.
With systems becoming bigger the disciplinary gaze has to have it's eyes focus on everything at the same time. A new type of surveillance has to be organised, not by inspectors monitoring every step the worker/student takes, but by time. In this case, if workers have to finish things before certain moments, passing them on to other workers, pressure of completing given tasks is always present, thus making a worker work.It becomes now a structure of directing, superintending and adjusting, it is a cooperative model. In elementary teaching this movement is also found (The development of parish schools, the increase in numbers of pupils and the absence of methods for regulating simultaneously the activity of a whole class).

Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media *Andres M. Kaplan, Michael Haenlein*
Historically companies strategically spread and controlled information that could be found about them. This is not the case anymore, for example: google search results about a certain brand or product often also turn up with the wikipedia post or reviews about it, leaving the firm standing somewhere on the sidelines merely acting as an observer. This we can relate back to what the Internet started out as: a giant BBS (Bulletin Board System) allowing users to exchange information with each other. The current trend in social media can be seen as evolving back into the Internet's roots, not only receiving information but sharing this information immediately to someone else. However it is not to be compared with the BBS used in the 70s, and is way more powerful.
There is no systematic way in which social media can be classified, and also, because of the daily ongoing and upcoming changes to and appearance of new social media an ever-growing classification scheme should be created. This scheme is based on a set of theories in the field of media research (social presence, media richness) and social processes (self-presentation, self-disclosure), these are the two key elements of Social Media. Social presence is defined by the level of intimacy between two users. The higher the social presence, the larger the social influence that the communication partners have on each others behavior. Media richness states that, the goal of any communication is to reduce uncertainty and resolving ambiguity or being as clear as possible. Self -presentation and self-disclosure are elements of social media wherein users create an image of themselves to have control over the impression that people have of them, during which they share personal information consistent with the image that is presented.

Brands: A critical perspective *Adam Arvidsson* pt1
Today the value of brands are determined not only by quality but also by values commitments and forms of community sustained by it's consumers. Brands are able to operate in a different way, involving trust, affection and shared meaning, as if consumers have things in common. As if being a community of users. The public opinion of brands is for many companies the most valuable asset. Public interaction about them has a direct impact on the value of shares traded on the financial market. Our ability to perceive things in a certain way (look, fantasize, sympathize etc.) is used to feed our attention to a particular brand. Douglas Holt claims that what he calls 'postmodern brand management' are brands that can be seen as 'cultural resources' that capitalise on the products that the consumer creates using them. In No Logo, Naomi Klein denounces brands for taking over public space and capturing attention and effect.