Transcript Rhetoric, Ideology, and Failure: An Introduction to Virtualpolitik Elizabeth Losh University of California, Irvine.

Rhetoric, Ideology, and Failure:
An Introduction to Virtualpolitik
Elizabeth Losh
University of California, Irvine
Two stories about misunderstanding the Internet
that involve elected representatives and
government experts
Story One:
Videogame video and fan forums
Story Two:
Web generators and blogs
I’m interested in more complex explanations
than “bureaucratic incompetence” or the
“generation gap”
What does this “media illiteracy” tell us?
Rhetoric, that’s bad, right?
“political games and 'who's up', 'who's
down' rhetoric”
“the rhetoric emanating from Tehran”
“underscored the need for actions that
match the rhetoric”
Rhetoric is about deception or
about a lack of substance
This wasn’t always the case
Besides, we all use rhetoric
Appropriate timing and an
awareness of persuasive appeals matters
September 11, 2001
Election Day, 2006
Election Day, 2008
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Government websites (including .gov sites for children)
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
National digital libraries
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Blogs by policy makers and elected representatives
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Online video and podcasts from government agencies
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
E-mail and PowerPoint presentations used for state
business
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Virtual tours of national landmarks
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Government presentations and offices in virtual 3D
worlds
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Videogames for military personnel and emergency firstresponders
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Online tutorials about workplace issues and for job
training
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Official use of social networking, social bookmarking,
and file-sharing sites
The Digital Rhetoric of the "Virtual State"
Maps and other visual representations of "big data“
Issues about surveillance and
authentication
So it is ideology that’s really bad
The opposite of “science” or “common
sense”
But can we ever get beyond ideology?
Can we ever get outside ideology?
What do we fail to learn about values,
knowledge systems, institutions, and
power when we think that what we are
expressing is purely rational, logical,
or commonsensical?
Well, then, you must at least
disapprove of failure
What does failure tell us?
The conflict between regulation and
content-creation for institutions
What happens when digital files reach
unintended audiences and are used for
unanticipated purposes?
The perils of distributed networks and
computational media
May 4th, 2006
United States House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence
One of the latest video games modified by
militants is the popular "Battlefield 2"
from leading video game publisher,
Electronic Arts Inc of Redwood City,
California.
Jeff Brown, a spokesman for Electronic
Arts, said enthusiasts often write software
modifications, known as "mods," to video
games.
"Millions of people create mods on games
around the world," he said. "We have
absolutely no control over them. It's like
drawing a mustache on a picture."
David Morgan, Reuters
It wasn't intended for the purpose what it
was portrayed to be by the media. So no I
don't regret making a funny video . . . why
should I?
The only thing I regret is thinking that news
from Reuters was objective and always
right. The least they could do is some online
research before publishing this.
If they label me al-Qaeda just for making
this silly video, that makes you think, what
is this al-Qaeda? And is everything alQaeda?
"Samir”
Projection and Mirroring
The oral tradition now also has an aspect of
rumor. A(n) event takes place. There is an
explosion in a city.
Rumor is that the United States Air Force
dropped a bomb and is doing indiscriminate
killing.
This ends up being discussed on the street. It
ends up showing up in a Friday sermon in a
mosque or in another religious institution. It
then gets recycled into written materials.
Media picks up the story and broadcasts it, at
which point it's now a fact.
In this particular case that we were telling you
about, it showed up on a network television.
Witness Eric Michael
And there you see how all these products are
linked together.
And you can see where the games are set to
psychologically condition you to go kill
coalition forces.
You can see how they use humor.
You can see how the entire campaign is
carefully crafted to first evoke an emotion
and then to evoke a response and to direct
that response in the direction that they want.
Witness Eric Michael
October 28, 2006
Bloomington, Indiana
And thus, I now present:
Chris's Northwest Airlines Boarding Pass
Generator
Using this, you can:
1. Meet your elderly grandparents at the gate
2. 'Upgrade' yourself once on the airplane –
by printing another boarding pass for a ticket
you're already purchased, only this time, in
Business Class.
3. Demonstrate that the TSA Boarding
Pass/ID check is useless.
Have Fun!
Christopher Soghoian
Ed: The only way for these kind of problems
to get fixed, are through through public full
disclosure. TSA/DHS cannot be expected to
fix anything unless they are publicly
shamed into doing so.
This situation is made even worse when you
consider the fact that you can print your
own boarding pass online at home.
This is often a bunch of text/html, with one
or two images (a barcode, and perhaps an
airline logo). It is trivially easy – as in, 20
seconds with a text-editor, and not even
requiring you to open photoshop – to open
it up, and change the name.
Christopher Soghoian
The Church Sign Generator
Generators as Satire: Tell Zell
Web 2.0 Generators
These pages serve two purposes. The first
is to distribute a boarding pass generator
for NWA. The second is to demonstrate the
framework that the NWA generator was
written in, with the hope that you will write
your own document generators like this
one.
The motivation for writing this boarding
pass generator and framework is twofold.
First, it is clear that even though the
weaknesses in our airport security system
were known about for some time, no action
was taken until Christopher Soghoian
produced his script. His generator got
people's attention, and was taken off the
internet.
j0hn4d4m5
What features do these stories share?
Why is criminality associated with Internet
satires that involve remixing or coding digital
content?
How are these stories embedded in discursive
practices?
Why don't government officials understand?
Why are fan cultures and hacker cultures
particularly suspicious?
Fans are seen as parasitic and lacking in
content-creation abilities.
Hackers are seen as devious and likely to
subvert the deliberative practices that others
engage in openly and honestly.
Both are portrayed as bad citizens who abuse
existing power relationships.
How could these other models of citizenship be
explained?
Authenticating Citizens
Authenticating the President
In the name of “participatory culture,” how
does the government compel its citizens to
participate in particular copyright regimes
that constrain speech, submit to corporate
user agreements that rewrite the social
contract, and divulge private information to
commercial vendors without their
knowledge or consent?
McCain’s disasters
Obama’s successes with existing platforms
numerical advantage and power laws
low tech interactivity
third-party participation:
mastery of memes requiring no media buys
Epilogue: A Critic of the
Googlization of Government
How is Technology Used to
Preserve the Status Quo?