I do not like this book at this preliminary juncture. Perhaps I am being too stand-offish. I should say first that I commend Clay Shirky for documenting the effect current technology has on the generation gap and the new society birthed from said effect. However, there is so much societal history that is not accounted for in Shirky's book. The class stratification in the Americas and the consequent differences in access to information, these are the important caveats that work against the urgency of Shirky's argument that the changes in society stem from the changes in communication. Not including history in "changes in society" defeats itself as history tends to repeat itself, regardless of technological advances. Hopefully reading on will change my feelings about the book. We will see.
-- Literary Villainy..
1 comment:
The issue of class continues to be overlooked to an important degree in theories of social change via technology...it's still a relative blind spot that needs further examination....so glad you brought it up re: Shirky's book....social media is part of a media continuum that still has severe gender/racial/class imbalances at the production/tech stream levels as well as viewership and reception. I look forward to more of your creative eloquence on the subject...
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