In reading Chapter 1, “Spoiling Survivor—The Anatomy of a Knowledge Community,” of Henry Jenkin’s Convergence Culture, I realized that on a profound level we can parallel the knowledge communities that follow Survivor to the knowledge communities that follow our government.
As we live in a culture that infuses technology in our day to day lives, it is easy to discover everything about a person, place, or in my example our government. Recently, WikiLeaks can be seen as the epitome of this example. WikiLeaks—the non-profit organization that publishes secrets and classified information—is parallel to the way in which “Survivor Sucks” worked. WikiLeaks like “Survivor Sucks,” has their own knowledge community, but instead of Survivor fans, WikiLeak’s knowledge community consists of 800 worldwide anonymous news sources and high-powered people. Another similar aspect that WikiLeaks shares with “Survivor Sucks” are the five “braintrusts” who work to verify whether the secretive information given from the knowledge community is valid. (We could even go to the extent of labeling Julian Assange as Chillone from “Survivor Sucks.”)
Now the question that Jenkins addresses, is why would we want to create knowledge communities to expose all aspects of democracy and government? In response to this question, Jenkins explicates (through Pierre Lévy’s perspective), “Such knowledge communities are central to the task of restoring democratic citizenship….The sharing of knowledge around the world is the best way of breaking down the divisions and suspicions that currently shape international relations” (29). In addition to Jenkins, WikiLeaks further explains that its purpose is to expose oppressive regimes and to reveal unethical behavior of governments and corporations (http://mirror.wikileaks.info/). With this in mind, another question comes to mind. Is it beneficial for WikiLeak’s knowledge community to expose our governmental flaws worldwide? That is the question that has caused much debate, and has caused a love-hate relationship with WikiLeaks.
When our government was exposed through WikiLeaks, Obama and other government administrators had a taste of what is to come with the advent of our powerful convergence culture, knowledge communities, and technology. WikiLeaks undermined certain aspects of our government by exposing our flaws and even gave away our future foreign policy plans for North Korea. Thus, we see why the knowledge community can be a great device for revealing corruption. However, it could be a bad thing if the knowledge community is exposing our foreign policy plans worldwide when our government is trying to be secretive with these plans so that the United States can continue to be a “Super power.”
Ultimately, we cannot escape our convergence culture, knowledge communities, or technology. In preparing for the future, Jenkins highlights that, “We are in a period of “apprenticeship” through which we innovate and explore the structures that will support political and economic life in the future” (29). We will find more knowledge communities and more braintrusts that will continue to restore democracy, and may even operate as a form of governance.
I haven't read much about Wikileaks, but as I understand it one of the big concerns is that the leaked information could endanger the troops-- not just ours, but everyone's. In terms of making the government more transparent and leading to greater participation in democracy, it's a great thing to have information out in the public domain. But there is plenty of information-- say, the protection plans for the President-- that must be kept secret.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the best outcome of Wikileaks would be for governments to voluntarily be more open. But someone ultimately has to decide what information is secret and what is not, so unless we are willing to collectively be in charge of national security, we need to collectively acknowledge that not everything needs to be known, and then demand a high level of transparency from our elected officials.
To be honest when I was reading the chapter I did not make the connection between online fan communities and WikiLeaks, but I think it's a great example of convergence culture. Obviously the stakes are much higher when discussing state secrets compared to TV episode plots, but Julian Assange and his crew have certainly become 'spoilers' of sorts for the U.S. government.
ReplyDeleteAnother parallel can be seen when one considers how the actions of ChillOne and Assange affect 'bystanders.' With Survivor, at worst spoilers would ruin the episode, or even the season for a casual fan. With WikiLeaks, exposed secrets can potentially lead to lives being lost, or even backlash against the government or the media.
In both cases, there seems to be a large divide between those who wish to expose and those who want to find out themselves (or prefer not to know.)
I hadn't noticed the connection of knowledge communities to Wikileaks, but I definitely see similarities. Like Anthony and Su commented, there is a sharp divide between the two. The problem is, what is enough? Although spoilers for Survivor, or pretty much any TV show are online for everyone's leisure, people have the choice to decide if they want to read. In difference, I feel Wikileaks don't offer that option. Because Wikileaks discusses global, governmental issues that are important to our society, there is no way around them. Anyone with any sort of communication with others will find out. The media will eventually publish it somewhere.
ReplyDeleteTo an extend, knowledge communities value privacy a bit more than Wikileaks.
I think the people behind wiki leaks may not understand some of the ramifications of their actions. I don't know too much about the situation but as I understand some top secret information about our nation. Until wiki leaks backfires and the information is used against us its going to be a struggle to implement privacy policy when people feel like they have the right to know everything that is going on.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we can restore the democracy in a purely collective intelligence style because someone will always have to know more than other people than that cause brain trusts which almost defeats the purpose of collective intelligence if we have this knowledge divide in the country.
I'm not really sure where the notion that wikileaks gave out immediately endangering information arose from. There has only been a release of 1% of the cables, most of which are just documenting information or exchanges between foreign embassies. Here is a list of the most damning things found out http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/statessecrets.html
ReplyDeleteWhile there may be a need to hold accountable people from misusing information in the age of cyberculture, I think what is more important to be attendant to is the epidemic spirals in the circulation of information. The ways a single event can become 'viral.' There now exist multiple sights that track what is gaining increased traffic, so that one can literally watch the trends emerge in consumption and take part in it, such as buzzfeed. I think you do trace an important dynamic, but shouldn't we a bit more skeptical about the implications of the U.S. remaining a "superpower?"
Nice connection. Makes me wonder: does convergence ultimately limit the viability of secrets as a method of information control? What lengths will governments be forced to go to to protect state secrets in the future? Is there any way to keep information out of the reach of knowledge communities whose reconnaissance activities take them both online and off?
ReplyDeleteThe WikiLeaks fiasco demonstrated that a significant portion of the public is beginning to place a higher priority on knowledge and a lower priority on nationalism. Now that the government and the spoiling community have assumed a somewhat adversarial relationship, it will be interesting to see how they negotiate further incidents.
@JP: You're right about single events being blown all out of proportion by instant accessibility; that drives me nuts. And people go into such a frenzy when it would be better to step back & take a deep breath.
ReplyDeleteMy concern with the likes of Wikileaks is wondering where they would draw the line. Perhaps nothing revealed so far has been damaging, but how long will it stay that way? As a small-scale example, remember when a news source leaked that Prince Harry was in Afghanistan? The British government had to act quickly to pull him off the front line, so that neither he nor his unit would be a specific target. I don't know what the source's motivation was for leaking that, but at the end of the day, it wasn't something that everyone needed to know.
I agree with Su's concerns about where Wikileaks would draw the line at just how much information they're going to put out there. It sounds like it has the potential to be really dangerous, especially when there is a reason the information is kept from the general public (as was the case with Prince Harry in Afghanistan). I feel like there is a definite possibility of these sites getting out of control and just leaking information because someone is trying to keep it secret.
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