Şanghay: Çin komunistlerinin azgın ve kudurmuş küresel kapitalistlerle dansı

Şanghay Shanghai (Çin) kenti yanında New York, Londra ve Paris birer köhne kasaba kalırlar. Batı kapitalistlerini kıskandırmak için yapılmış sanki...

Şanghay uluslararası şirketlerle dolu. Giyecekten yiyeceğe kadar bu şirketlerin ürünlerinin "İNDİRİM VAR" fiyatı bile tam bir soygun fiyatı!

BLT Çiftlik market'te, fiyatlar dudak uçuklatıcı: Fiyatlar ya yarım kilo, ya 200-330 gramlık paketler halinde. Resme basıp büytürseniz miktar ve fiyatı görebilirsiniz.
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                 Üzüm paket: 128 Yuan (100 yuan 80 TL)

                     
              Havuç: yarım kiloso 17-19 Yuan (semt pazarında 2-3 yuan)

               Domates pakette  23 yuan. (Semt pazarından 5-6 yuan)

                   Biber ve patlıcan 200 gram paket: 15 - 17 yuan

                        Patlıcan 200 gramı 16 yuan (kilosu 80)

                     Dolma Biber 200 gram paket: 16.80 Yuan

             
                Yumurta 10 adet 32.80 Yuan. Dediğim gibi İNDİRİMli fiyatlar

                      Yumurta 38.80 den indirimli soygun ile 32.80 yuan
                      yapmışlar. Ne kadar da zarif ve düşünceliler değil mi?

                      Bu herhalde şeftali. 6 tanesi  49 yuan.
                      Sempt pazarinda 4.99 yarım kilosu.

             Bunun ne olduğunu unuttum. Ama 6 tanesi 69.80 yuan

                        Kivi 8 tanesi 99.80 yuan (100Yunadan az! Ucuz!)

                                     Sütün fiyatı 28-32 yuan

                       Yogurt bedava!: 200 gramı sadece 96 yuan!
                        (kim yiyebiliyor acama bu fiyata. Demek ki birileri
                        satın alıyor. Zaten markettekiler de zaten semt
                        pazarındakilere hiç benzemiyorlar.

                        Bir de zeytin yağlarına bakayım dedim:
                        Bizdekinin en az dört misli fiyattalar.


 Walmart marketi gördüm: Ne iyi Miami'deki fiyatlarla karşılaştırırım dedim. Amerika'daki fiyatları getirip Şanghay'a uygulamışlar: Yani, ne almak istediysem, vazgeçtim, çünkü Türkiye'de çok ucuz. En ucuz ekmek semt pazarındaki tandır ekmeğiydi. Onun dışında bizdekinin üç misli.

Carrefour gördüm. Ah, ne güzel, bizimle karşılaştırırım dedim: Aynı soygun!

İngiliz ve Amerikan eğitimli  akademisyenlere (Birisi London School of Economics mezunu) asgari ücreti sordum, bilmiyorlar.

Çinde Amerikanın ve Avrupanın üniversiteleri cirit atıyor. Çinli ortaklarıyla ortaklaşa beyin igfali ve kültür çökerrtme ve kapitalist pazar kültüürünü aşılama işini yapıyorlar. Amerikan ve İngiliz Ünversiteleri Şanghay'a ve diğer kentlere yayılmışlar. Ne dersiniz? dedim. Şaşkın bakışlarla karşılaştım: "Normal bir şey soruşturulur mu?" der gibi baktılar bana: Demek ki post-modernizm ve liberal çoğulcu görüşün aydınlatıcı ışığında  kültür emperyalizmi akla bile gelmiyor.

Gençlerin bazıları ağızlarını kapatan maske kullanıyorlar. "Hava kirliliğindendir" dedim kendime, ama hava da kirli falan değil ki. Sordum: modaymış, çünkü yüzü küçük gösteriyormuş. Metroda yanımda oturan  Çinli genç biri ingilizce konuşuyordu. Ona "niye maske takıyorsun" dedim. "Hoşuma gidiyor, seviyorum" dedi. Üzücü ve ürpertici bir durum! Moda, "cola", "fast-food", kozmetik ve diğer endüstriler için ENDÜSTRİLERİN MAYMUNU zavallı (ve aynı zamanda duyarlılıklarıyla kendine ve başkalarına gerektiğinde tehlikeli) insanı yaratma işindeki başarıyı görüyoruz bu durumda.

Şanghay televizyonları kalitesizlik ve saçmalık (yani kozmetik, moda, soda, giyim, eğlence vesaire endüstrilerinin geri zekalılaştırma işini yapma) bağlamında bizdeki televizyonları yaya bırakır (tek istisna, cinler ve şetanlar ile vaaz verenler ve reklam yapanları görmedim; ama o da olacak zamanı geldiğinde).

Gençler metroda cep telefonuyla arkadaşlık ediyorlar ve yaşlılara falan yer verme akıllarından bile geçmiyor. Bana, 20 kez kadar metro seyahatimde 6-7 kez orta yaş ve üzerindekiler yer verdiler.

Ben otele yakın bir yerde  semt pazarı buldum: orada fiyatlar yarım kilo fiyatları olduğu için, bizdekinden iki misli kadar pahalı. Yeşillikler ucuz.

İki Şangya var: Yok eden ve yok edilen. Yok edilen Şanghay'ın eski püskü ve yoksul iş yerleri ve çevrelerinden geriye kalanlar da kısa bir zamanda
ortadan kaldırılacak. Tarihi evler ve binalar, tam Türkiye'de Turizm adına (kentsel dönüşüm, renevasyon gibi kılıflarla) yapıldığı gibi, kullanılıyor: Turist çekme tuzağı olarak kullanılıyor. Birileri para kazanıyor, ama o kazananlar o bölgede yayşayan yerel halk değil, tüm dünyada olduğu gibi. 

Merak ettiğim şuydu: O yoksul evlerde yaşayanlara, birkaç metre karelik dükkanda kendi emeğiyle yaşamını sürdürmeye çalışan insanlara, yaşam ortamları dev binalarla istila edildiğinde ne oluyor acaba? New York'da 1970'lerde semt parklarından yatan ecsiz ailelere ender rastlanırdı, 1980lerde ve sonrasında, o parklarda evsiz ve işsiz aileler sayısı hızla artmaya başladı. Şanghhay'da sadece mal varlığı vücuduna doladığı yorganı olan bir kadın gördüm. Aynı zamanda, akşam bir kadının çöp kusundan yiyecek aradığını da gördüm. Kadının her iki ayağında farklı  paçavra ayakkabiler vardı. Kapitalistlerin ve yöneticilerinin zalimliği ver açgüzlülüğü sonucunda, Şanghay insanı sefaletin ve açlığın ne olduğunu çok daha fazla yaşayacaklar. Uluslararası sermaye, içteki işbirlikçileriyle birlikte Çin komünizmini de çökerttiklerinde, işte ondan sonra, Çin halkının büyük çoğunluğu hem maddi hem de düşünsel yoksunlukla sefil bir hayat sürmeye başlayacak. 

Asgari ücrettten habersiz ve ilgisiz olan imtiyazlı akademisyenler ve entellektüeller ve Şanghay gençleri ve onlara özenenlerin yardımıyla Batının kudurmuş kapitalistleri, büyük olasılıkla Çin sistemini çökerttiklerinde; dünyada döndürmedik taş bırakmama işini tamamlayacaklardır. Sonrası? bakalım ipeği ve sözü yumuşak Çinli yöneticilerin, en küçük çıkarı için kuduran kapitalist yöneticilerle dans etmeyi ne kadar sürdürebilecekler?


    

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OKU ve İNDİR

Forged Factoids: Social Media, Social Software etc

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Forged Factoids: Social Media, Social Software etc

Irfan erdogan, june 2019

Lets ask ourselves about the rights we have now that other people died for before; and rights some others are denied.

But nobody died for social media: It is the most functional mind and behavior management by-product of the capitalist war industrial complex.

What I kindly want from you students is this: Let’s question together by reflecting our thoughts on our own ideas and the daily organized life;… and participate by expressing your opinions.

Couple weeks ago, a journalist working for an alternative media called me for an interview. His concern was that lately the number of foreign blogs, web journals and journalists in Turkey are increased. He wants to get rid of them.

One of the main problem of media professionals (academics, intellectuals, politicians in Turkey and in Trump’s world) is this: they want freedom of speech for their own selves, but they cannot stand those who criticize them.

I will start with brief conceptual explanations of social, social software and social movement under the title of struggle over meaning. Then, I will talk about some important issues related with social software and social movements. While doing so, I will also provide brief explanations related with Turkey.

1.     Appropriation and struggle over meaning  

a.   Social: when the term “social” is used, it automatically excludes political, economic and cultural. Actually, social includes everything related with life in society. So, we cannot keep politics, economics and cultural out of social. In my speech, whenever I use social, please include everything in daily life.

     (show slide 3) His word about Obama indicates dirty politics in the USA.

b.   Software: It simply refers to the programs in computer mediated communication technology. It includes a set of instructions to operate technological gadgets and execute specific tasks. Software is a finished product and lets us interact with a device to perform tasks, access other devices, play games, and connect and communicate with others.     

 

(SHOW SLİDE 4) Nothing can be used without a software in social media.

(SHOW SLİDE 5) Now social software.

We put “Social” and “software” side by side, We get “social software”. At first glance, it looks meaningless and absurd to say “social software.” You can say “computer software or cell phone software or machine software.”

Concept of “social software” is a magical construct to create fantastic fancy image in a person’s mind.

Stupefying bedazzlement by impressive words that makes a person as if he/she is thinking and saying something magnificent. I call it, ignorance that fancies itself as knowing something that is most profound.  

  

Definitions of “social software” are related with the running and/or using internet hardware. Examples of social software include, for instance, instant messaging, email, internet forums, web blogs, chat rooms and the likes. Are they “softwares”? for instance, is “internet forum” a software?

“internet forum” is an organized platform. It has its organizer, its hardware, its software,  its participants, and goals of everyone involved in it..

None of the above means “software”. İnstant messaging, email and chatroom activities in cyberspace are not “social softwares”; they are communicative actions that are realized through internet. Furthermore, communicative action per se (such as sending and receiving messages, encoding and decoding, construction and deconstruction) is not communication. “Chat rooms” refers to organized space, not software.

To me, concept of “social software”, just like virtual reality and cyberspace, is cleverly forged to disguise the mechanisms of control that are applied through tools of promotion and marketing of material and immaterial products.

Mystical, magical, enchanted and fascinating concepts are used in mind, interest and behavior management, in order to create kind of ignorance that replaces the facts, reality, logic and knowledge.

Software, just like other commodities, is a social product that is appropriated by the private owners.

c.   Social media:

“Social media” is another cunningly forged and widely accepted concept. This concept breaks the rules of scientific categorization (just like the other ones); Social media is a subcategory of a conceptual unit. What is the name of the unit? What are the names of the other sub-categories beside social media? I donot know. ASK THEM!!

 Is it non-social media?

Are there sub-categories of a conceptual unit such as social media, cultural media, economic media and political media? Scientific category requires mutually exclusiveness that is based on a theoretical definition of a unit.

Let’s look at the next slide:

SLİDE 6:  talk about it! ASK….

Definitions of social media are mostly invalid, because excluded and included indicators mostly are based on invalid reasoning and invalid indicators. 

In fact, social media includes all kinds of media in human life, because you can exclude nothing from social if it is part of the human relations.

(SHOW SLİDE 7: Talk about it.  

Let’s look at the slide:

1.     Which one is not social media?

2.     It says “the evolution of communication” Is it the evolution of communication?

NEXT SLİDE 8: (Talk about it):

The department I worked was named as “Public Relations and Promotions Department”. What is wrong with it?

Then, problem is with conceptual level of scientific grouping.

NEXT SLİDE 9: Talk about it.

(SHOW NEXT SLİDE: 10: Talk about

(Talk about it): What makes a communication two or one way is not the mechanical flow of communication; it is the nature of the relationship of communication:

A boss says something and worker answers; worker ask something and boss answers. Perfect instant two-way flow that spells democracy, horizontal communication, dialog.

Right?

Wrong, because there is an organized power relations. Talking or conversing does not mean dialog.

    

(SHOW NEXT SLİDE: 11 and talk about slides….

Up till slide 20 (e. social movements)

Other forged factoids about social media:

·       Bottom-up and side-to-side communication, not just top-down information transmission.

·       Dialogue and conversation rather than monologue

·       Content is produced and used by produsers

·       No or few gatekeepers restricting access and flow

(SHOW NEXT SLİDES UP to slide 20   

d.        Social movements: (SHOW slide 20)

Social movements sound like an umbrella term that covers all kinds of movements. This is a misconception, because we live in a world of strategically forged and widely circulated products that play mind, interest and behavior management roles. That’s why, I learned that if a book like “Four theories of Press” or writers/scholars like MCQuail, Giddens, and Habermas are put in wide circulation all over the world, we should ask ourselves: “Why are they widely circulated? Let’s give an example in order to find the answer to this question: I am using Giddens as typical example.

Please pay attention to the way the social movements is framed:

(SHOW NEXT SLİDE 21) (defining social movements slide)

“Social movements are collective attempts to further a common interest through actions outside of established institutions.”

Let’s see the implications and outcomes of this kind of social movements:

They mostly cultivate wrong ideas and images.

a.     Concept of “collective attempts” in fact is not collective attempts of all or for all people, but collective attempts of a group.

b.     Concept of “Common interest” is not the common interest of general public, but common interest of a certain group.

c.     Concept of “furthering common interests outside of established institutions” means non-institutionalized activity in which some people voluntarily engage. It sounds like pluralistic and/or post-modern society or new social movement society.

This kind of conceptualisation has very functional implications and outcomes: because if a group wants to further its common interests thru action outside of established institutions, it means that their action is directed to other people or other groups. Namely, It means that this kind of social movements serve the ongoing dominant policy of “divide and set them against each other.” It is an effective supplementary policy to the policy of “hiring half of the working class in order to coerce and kill the other half, if necessary”.

Let’s continue: according to Giddens-like mind management propaganda, social movements operate primarily following areas in contemporary societies:

(SHOW NEXT SLİDE 22)

1.     Democratic movements:  democratic movements that work for political rights. (a) This kind of approach reduces social movements to democratic movements”; namely to the movements that are functional to the dominant system, or are legitimized or accepted as legitimate by the existing legal order. Then, if it is against Trump, it is Against America. Contrary to this kind of representation, social movements include any and every kind of movement.  (b) democratic movements are defined as movements that work for political rights”. This kind of definition, too, limits the political movements to “work for political rights”. Namely, others are either not worthy to mention, illegal, dangerous, disruptive, subversive or anti-democratic.)

2.     Labor movements: Labor movements that work for control of the workplace.  (This description of “labor movements” limits the struggle to the control of the workplace. It represents the labor movements that are functional to capitalist system and work for personal interest of the small ruling groups that run the labor unions. It is not a proper description of labor movements; rather, it is normalization and propaganda of labor unions such as the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Let give two examples how the idea of the control of the workplace works: I was kicked out of the job because we slowed down the assembly line when the management speeded up the assembly line from 40 units to 50 units a day, in a factory in West Lafayette, Indiana. Our union, CİO, did not do anything about it; but, few months later, sent us mail, threatening us that we should pay union dues. Other example: My AFL member union in NY helped my employer to fire me, because I organized the work place and unionized it, as a result, the vice president and few others in the union lost the kickbacks they used to get (it was one hundred dollars cash gift a year to the vise president). Here is another feature of this kind of Labor movements: According to the AFL union book, you cannot be a union member if you are a communist.

3.     Ecological movements: It is defined as “ecological movements that are concerned with the environment”. (Here the ecological movements are narrowed down to sole concern about environment.   

4.     Peace movements: that work toward peace. (here, the international problems are reduced to war;..and betterment of life on earth is reduced to peace movements. The rest is ignored or de-legitimized).   

5.     New social movements:  They are mostly based on extremely functional identity politics. Surely, not functional for me.

   

We like it or not, there were, are and will be micro, meso and macro level organized or unorganized reactions and movements. The problem is not the very existence of such movements. Problem starts with propagating the idea that defines and imprisons social movements within the confines of reactions that are functional to the culprit system. These kinds of concerns focus on problems at a symptoms level and recommend “aspirins” as solution. Aspirin deals with symptom, not with the causes of symptom; so, it not only perpetuates the system that creates problems and symptoms, but also, it helps the system to expand: Think of a spiral that extremely functional for legitimizing and expanding industrial practices. The same industries pollute the rivers and provide the technological means for water treatment plants.     

“Social” in social movements, misleads us and excludes especially political, confines the opposition within, for instance personal civil obedience and activities of non-governmental organizations. I do not consider some NGOs as the part of struggle for better human life on earth: They are mostly the functional structures for the prevailing order of domination and, if they are presented as some kind of alternative organizations, they generally represent the nicely forged alternatives that justify and promote the existing structure of relations.

(SHOW NEXT SLİDE 23)

2.     Social software and social movements

The title sets the frame: We will talk about social software and social movements within the framework of social software. It means that we will talk about  domination and struggle over internet and/or cyberspace in Turkey with specific reference to social software.

I am not going to reiterate a history of internet software and social movements in Turkey. We can find various versions of it in internet However it is necessary to provide a very brief evaluation:

We cannot talk about the development of internet software in Turkey, just like in most countries, because web/internet software are produced and controlled by certain countries. Who produces software for facebook, twitter, email, chat and the rest? Some large corporations. The dominant practices in production and control over software do not permit others beyond use of the software.       

Regarding social movements: Historical development of social movements in every country has a long and bloody past and it still continues. Turkey is not an exception.

if we start with Ottoman Empire, social movements have a long and violent history full of human sufferings. İf we start with Turkish republic, the establishment of the republic was the first important victory gained against Euroepan imperialist Powers right after the Soviet revolution. In mid 1960s, socialist/communist movement in Turkey, especially among students, picked up speed. In a few years, revolutionary labor union movement also gained strength. 1970s were the times of widespread struggle, including limited armed struggle in the large cities and some rural areas. In 1960s and 1970s, our concern as revolutionary youth and concern of some labor unions were to get rid of the capitalist-like system of production and production relations, and establish a system of production and distribution that is based on socialist economy, politics, culture and life. We could not use mass media. Mass media were not for us and not with us. Ours were less words and more action.

In order to save Turkey from the mounting social movements, the army, supported by the Western interests, took over in 1980. As they did it in Latin America and elsewhere, Jails were full of with youngsters. There were widespread of torture, unaccounted murders and missing persons.

 The history of oppression and coercion tells us how the ruling forces with the support of security forces, academicians, researchers, intellectuals and media, used and advanced the ways and means to deal with the ever growing opposition. Historically prevailing method is the justified coercion and killing by weapons, hanging and covert operations. Physical individual and mass elimination never accomplished much, mainly because the roots of opposition and struggle are imbedded in the social system itself: The existence of opposition and struggle are undesired and unwanted byproducts of  the daily production relations of the existing structure of a society. It means that you have to change the system in such a way that it will not produce dysfunctional outcomes. Realizing this fact of organized life, the ruling forces learned, advanced and applied some of the classical methods besides coercion and torture: That is “divide an set them against each other”. At least few methods are used by the ruling forces against the opposing movements (I will call them alternatives): (when I say ruling forces please include not only organized forces of coercion, but also formal educational structures, especially universities and old and new media of communication):

(a)  creating their own controlled alternatives: These alternatives are put forward in order to place  fake oppositions in place of genuine ones. This kind of control is geared towards the control of the ideas, interests, attentions and behaviors. Social media are full of such alternatives, especially in the form of blogs. Once, I was a member of an environmentalist group in internet until I realized that it was a fake environmentalist group. Another ones are News groups that are supported by some rich people or by intelligence agencies.

(b)  Infiltrating within the genuine alternatives for at least few purposes: (1) distrupting, (2) spying, (3) occupying the top positions or getting close to the top positions in order to control the daily, short term, mid term and long term agendas, policies and activities of the opposing groups. (4) provocation for (a) illegal decisions, illegal activities, engaging in activities that divert the organizational policies and daily agendas from their original purposes.

(c)   Funding, supporting, promoting and widespread distribution of some alternative (reformist) ideas, products and organizations that are actually functional to the interest of ruling systems and ruling relations.                     

In 1980s, neo-liberal politics and practices all over the world, including Turkey, were initiated: These politics came up with very aggressive policies of liberalization, coercion and control mechanisms. These policies also included mind and behavior management through newly defined and circulated  ideas such as democratization, civil society, public space, liberalization, pluralizm, end of ideology, ldentity politics, feminism, post-modernism, post-structuralism, death of grand theories, death of author, consumer independence,  and many more fancy factoids. Social movements presented as practices of non-governmental organisations and collection of people.  When the internet and web arrived to Turkey, prevailing policies and practices of domination and struggle extended to the new media. Every new media tricks that were applied all over the world were copied and used by the political and cultural power holders and their paid personnel in Turkey in order to thwart, marginalize and demonize social movements in the cyberspace.

  

Prevelant organized structures that use the web in Turkey are formal and informal theological schools and teological cults. They stand for (a) reactionary forces against the infidels and heretics, (b) against communist demons and (c) placing god’s rule and god’s state by overthrowing an heretic or secular system. In 1992, the capitalist West killed the demon, that is Soviet Russia. Throughout the history, the ruling forces always needed demons as means of keeping the masses scared and ready for demon bashing and killing. They cannot feel safe without having demons. So, they created their own functional demon, that is Islamic terrorists. The new demons are tightly controlled and used wherever needed.

In Turkey other NGOs that are active in cyberspace are trust foundations. They include all private schools and private universities, and charitable foundations that are organized mostly for tax evasion, money laundering, larceny, theft, and meeting political and economic ends.

Sure, in Turkey, we have political parties, labor unions, voluntary associations, nonprofit organizations and professional associations, including media associations. They are also in internet. Whenever they feel that it is good for their interest, they organize and participate in social movements.

In Turkey, probably the best organized ones are theologic groups/sects and present ruling political party. They can mobilize large number of people in a short time by using the web.

The web, especially instegram and twitter are vastly used by youngsters. But their uses do not constitute social movement.

However, the potential of sudden transformation to political protests and other social movements definitely exists. This potential is extremely high among the right wing youngsters as compared to others, because they are tightly organized.

In 1980s, moving away from social class based movements that focus on emancipation from the dictatorship of capitalist class domination has planned, orchestrated, started, promoted and funded. Disassociated, dispersed, micro-level, gender and ethnic based social movements emerged and cleverly named, for instance, “new social movements”. Most of these social movements can be considered as “functional alternatives to the interest of ruling forces.”

Neo-liberalism created its own neo-fascists and neo-conservatives, Post-structuralism, post-positivizm, post-modernism, post-industrialism, glocalism, and gender and minority based theories are widely supported and promoted to sustain and advance the image of pluralism and democracy under the widespread neo-cold war attacks of global capitalism.

Under the ever expanding false-images and factoids world, ideas of class struggle are declared outmoded and obsolete and newly forged discussions on democratic public space, identity politics, civil society with elected popular civil dictators are made contemporary social, political and cultural fashion of contemporary world. This fashion found its most effective communication and distribution channel: İnternet. Internet is stripped off being a war machine and economic marketing tool; and presented as means of realizing participative democracy, creator of knowledge society, enabler of new and uncontrolled free public space of pluralist debates, and many more exaggerated and mostly fabricated attributes. I will repeat this: The valid and important thing is not the attributes, possibilities and potentials of an instrument. The important thing is existing dominant nature of production, nature of use, nature of actual outcomes, and nature of distribution of material wealth created in internet. Here is my most general conclusion: The mediated communication by new technologies has extended ongoing dominations and struggles to the cyberspace. The rest generally is the similar euphoria and promotion that has been used for every new medium.

3.     Positioning ourselves within “computer/internet mediated communication” and within social movements:

Recenty in turkey, a peasant woman among the ultra-right crowd who forced the main opposition party leader, Kılıçtaroglu, to take refuge in a villager’s house, was screaming “burn that house! Why didn’t you still burn the house! Burn it!” She is an uneducated villager and position herself within a movement and political party. She represents the historical organized reality of general public: They are deprived of material goods, but are granted many immaterial values. They only have gods, nation and abstract values to protect against each other.

Now, let’s see, where we actually stand in cyberspace and social movements:  

(SHOW NEXT SLİDE 24

   

1.     Organizing phase

We, as individuals can produce a software, only if we know the computer language. Next step is to put this software in use. At this stage, we should establish our own software production and distribution organizations, if we have the means to do so.

In organizing social movements through internet, we have at least two choices: 1. to participate in an existing movement or 2. start a new one.

2.     Production and distribution phases

“Social software” sounds like software produced by social; produced for social;  not economic, not political, not private, not for private interests, belongs to everybody. Let’s give an example: Let’s think about the google, facebook or instegram: We are talking about structures that are organized for organizing and producing hardware and software for certain private purposes.

Organizations are formed to produce services or material goods. Or both. Let’s position ourselves within the production phase of software first, and then within social movements.

I do not and cannot decide on the nature of software; where, how, when and under what conditions to produce them, to distribute them, and to share the benefits/wealth created, because I do not own or control the means of software production. I do not work as VİP at a software production company. So, I am outside of the software production phase.

Here another question rises: Do I or not defend the software freedom, rights and  benefits of the producing powers as against those who struggle for having access in decision making and software production.

Because I cannot decide on the nature of the software, I cannot manipulate the software beyond the structured and defined framework of use.

Now, let’s talk about, production phase of social movement: The only and foremost producers of the social movements are ruling structures; they produce the cause for the social movements; there would be no opposition and movement if they did not create the poverty, exploitation, coercion, environmental destruction and so on. They are the primary culprits. The producers of poverty, unemployment, injustice, racism and justified murder perfectly know that oppositions are inevitable.

So, what is our position in social movements:

(a) We, part of general public, can be hired to protect the system from some of US and from THEM and coerce the participants of a demonstration. (THEM, indeed, most of the time are some of US defined as enemy).

(b) We can be active participant of a demonstration or also participant of organizing the social movement.

           (c) We can participate by viewing television news and participating by placing ourselves on the side of the ruling forces or on the side of demonstrators.

(d)  We donot give a damn about anything beyond our own personal life.

Namely, we reproduce the ongoing practices of domination and struggle by positioning ourselves, even if we say “we do not care about anything”.

Can those who engage in social movements produce software? It requires knowledge of the computer language, You can learn it. If you learn it, can you create software? Yes you can. Producing a software has no meaning, if you cannot put it in use in cyberspace. Can you do it. You can to a certain extent. However main question is: can you use it for widespread use in internet? I donot think so, because well established organized entities either buys you out, or kicks you out or makes you remain at the very marginal level.

However, you can use your software in clandestine operations or to communicate with your own social environment. if you are the part of organized struggle like Redhack in Turkey, you can produce your own software and or manipulate the exisiting softwares for the sake of struggle. (Readhack is a Turkish Marxist-Leninist computer hacker group founded in 1997).

No technological tool on circulation can escape from being object of domination and struggle. Namely, regardless of the nature of ownership of a technological medium, there are always relations of control concerning the production, distribution, use, actual and potential outcomes to varying degrees.

The dominant structure makes it better, practical and a lot more pragmatic to use their existing services and programs. In short at the organizing and production phases of software for the sake of struggle and social movement, You, as an anti-establishment person, have little chance to establish software production organization, unless you have necessary finance or financial support  to start and sustain production.

3.     Software use phase

Social software is in fact refers to software of computer, cell phone and web based technologically mediated communication tools. Software is the coded language used to run the means of communication. For us, as users of internet and web, software is the finished-product of technological domination. We learn “how to use” these finished products in order to complete the process, reach our own personal goals of buying, diversion, free time activity, playing, listening, watching, connecting and, as a final outcome, to reproduce the conditions of domination and struggle.

I finish here and open the discussion with my question.

Internet was developed in order to solve the problem of the linear communication structure in a war. The solution was the web that broke the dependency to the linear connection. Here is my question: Does an American internet user have a web that is not dependent on linear communication?

I am breaking the customary rule of interaction and asking the question.

Thank you for listening.

       

References

Ataman, B.,& B. Çoban (2018). Counter-surveillance and alternative new media in Turkey (alternative media and networked social movements). Information, Communication & Society, 21(7): 1014-1029.

Berberoglu, B. (2019) The Palgrave Handbook of Social Movements, Revolution, and Social Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan Publishers.

Erdogan, İ. (2018) Diktatörlüğün Medyası: Maddi Yoksulluğun Düşünsel ve duygusal Yosullukla Desteklenmesi (Media of Dictatorship: Supporting Material Poverty with mental and emotional poverty). Ankara: Pozitif.

Erdogan. İ. (2001) Teknolojini getirdiği özgürlük üzerine: Cep telefonuya dolan ve boşalan cepler ve bilinçler (on freedom technology brings about). Bilim ve Ütopya,  83: 10-13.

Farro, A. L., & Demirhisar, D. G. (2014). The Gezi Park movement: a Turkish experience of the twenty-first-century collective movements. International Review of Sociology, 176-189.

Gaby, S. and N. Caren (2016). The Rise of Inequality: How Social Movements Shape Discursive Fields   Mobilization: An International Quarterly 21(4): 413-429. https://mobilizationjournal.org/doi/abs/10.17813/1086-671X-21-4-413

Giddens, A. & P. W. Sutton (2013) (7^th edition). Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

            https://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.7197

Open Texbook Project (2012). Introduction to Sociology – 1st Canadian Edition. Chapter 21. Social Movements and Social Change.  https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter21-social-movements-and-social-change/

Serpil, Ç. (2009) “Political-Social Movements: Revolutionary: Turkey”, in: Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, General Editor Suad Joseph. Consulted online on 12 May 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1872-5309_ewic_EWICCOM_0135k

Şimşek, S. (2004). New Social Movements in Turkey Since. 1980. Turkish Studies, 5(2): 2004, 111–139 https://www.iemed.org/documents/novesrealitats/Henkel/a1.pdf

Varol, O. et. Al. (2014) Evolution of Online User Behavior During a Social Upheaval. WebSci’14, June 23–26, Bloomington, IN, USA. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2615569.2615699

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Mind Management via technology mediated communication: Control of Knowledge Production, Distribution and Use

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Mind Management via technology mediated communication:

Control of Knowledge Production, Distribution and Use

Irfan erdogan, 2019

Summary:
The ownership of material means of production is fortified and sustained through the control of knowledge production, distribution and use.

Science is used to produce and advance knowledge on technical goods in order to serve the dictatorship of a private class that plunders the world.

Social science is used to reproduce widespread functional ignorance and mind and behavior management to serve the same class.

The ownership of means of production and production processes are justified, normalized, universalized, eternalized and  advanced through the control of social sciences (and communication channels ).

Material plunder and the prevailing conditions of life on earth are defended and sustained by the immaterial plunder of minds and conscience.

Technology Mediated Communication in Terms of Content and Public Policy is the integrated part of organizing, running, managing and advancing the prevailing conditions of life under the dictatorship of capitalist class.

I.      COMMUNICATION

All definitions of communication that takes a moment of human interaction and defines communication accordingly are invalid, because what they define is not communication but an instance of communicative action.

II.          MEDIATION (in communication)

Mediation in communication includes every factors that shape needs, thinking and decision processes, communicative and non-communicative activities and communication.

Mediation assumes (1) a tilted state and (2) an unmediated, true and normal state of relationship. This assumption is very functional to the side of the power structures, because the normal state almost always is a state that serves the dominant side. Even if we complain that police applied disproportionate use of force, our mediating statement  functions as legitimization of the use of force, as well as a stupefying statement that replaces  meaningful ones.

Intervention of police means applying a mediating factor to a social demonstration in order to disseminate them and make sure that their message is not heart. Police mediates against mediation that disturbs the status que.

A media professional who thinks that “we know what they want, we won’t fell in their trap” makes a news saying that “demonstrators caused disorder in the daily life.” He/she is both an influential mediator negatively intervening to the demonstration via news making and positively intervening to the reproduction of a system through mind management of audience.

Mediators can also be causal factors, rather than negatively or positively intervening ones. Furthermore, an outcome can be a causal or intervening factor of other outcomes.

a.    Mediation: Natural

Natural mediators are biological features of a body and external physical environment.

It sounds wrong to say “natural mediation or natural mediator” at first glance. Let’s take “voice” as a necessary means of speech communication. If there were no physiological mediation, e.g., everybody would have “indistinguishable voice.”

Natural mediators that are necessary conditions of communication that range from physiological structure and brain to external factors such as air.

The very characters of communication makes it impossible to have a single necessary condition that is also sufficient  conditions of communication.

In fact, we are talking about the nature (of mode and relations) of life, when we talk about natural mediation at macro level.

b.    Mediation: immaterial

Immaterial mediation refers to ideology, ideas, emotions, motivations, interests anything related with non-material conditions and relations in human life

c.    Mediation: Material and Technological

A tree branch is part of the nature. Using a dry tree branch as a stick or as a broom means that we are doing something by using a natural object. That object is a natural mediator we use.

A human voice is natural. Activity of pushing someone by hand, is mediated by natural human organ.

Once we shape the dry tree branch and make a hunting spear, from that moment on, that tree branch is not the natural object anymore; it is a technological tool for hunting, and “hunting communication” is technologically mediated communication.

So, every cultural artifact is an outcome of reshaping or recreating of nature and natural things by human made processes.

d.    No mediation and other factoids

In order to talk about “mediation,” there must be an activity of some kind. Then, there is no “mediation” if a person does nothing? 

No! We have thinking, feeling, beliefs, and self-communication, etc: They all are mediated not only by physical nature of existence but also everything that we gain/lose in life.

Namely, there is nothing that can be considered unmediated, once a person starts thinking and talking, acting and involving in interaction with others.

Let’s take a non-communicative action itself: Walking. Is there anything “mediating” in walking?  We cannot achieve walking if there is no biological communication and socialized self-communication. 

Contrary to the idea on wide circulation, technological or communication breakdown mean transition or change from one mode of “conditions and relations” of communication to another one.    

WE do not interact with objects in communication; we use objects.

Objects, ideas, discourses manifested in text or language do not “use” us, we “use” others or are used by others through objects, discourses and language.

Organized time and organized space exist and they are the integrated part of the relations of domination and struggle.

III.      TECHNOLOGICALLY MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

Technologically mediated communication refers to communication that is realized, controlled, shaped and run through use of hardware and software.

The above definition of communication mediated by technology be valid only if we apply this abstraction to some sub-structures of a society, such as mass media, internet and cell phone industries and organizations. Because, at macro level, technology refers to the nature of society at a certain time and place, at a certain dominant and struggling mode and relations of human life; and technologically mediated communication refers to the nature of communication at a certain development stage of a society.

We knowingly or unknowingly use the term of “technology” as tools to produce, disseminate and use. The worst is that these tools are used as stripped off the ownership and control properties.

a.    Technology

In this speech, because of the character of the topic, technology is considered as the organized and controlled structures that are integrated part of other organized structures in the business of producing and disseminating material and immaterial communication products. In this sense, technology refers to few things:

1.     Organized structures and structural relations that employ technological tools and knowledge to produce tools of communication

2.     These produced tools of communication are used by corresponding organized structures in order to produce:

a.     Software and user information to run the hardware,

b.     Produce immaterial content to disseminate

c.     Dissemination of immaterial content requires tools to carry or relate the content. It means production of tools of  recording, keeping, carrying and relaying the content of communication. These tools varies from clay tablets and papyrus used in old empires, to harddisk, DVD, USB and cloud in our times.

b.    New technology, old ones and transformation of society

Each tool is related with the previous ones. This relation can be grouped under 4 categories: (1) a dependence of existence. (2) co-existence (3) marginalizaton and (4) replacing and disappearance.  

We still have film industry producing for traditional movie theaters, televisions and internet. Newspaper and tv organizations extended their production and dissemination activities the internet. However, USB replaced all the previous related-tools. Cloud most probably will replace all the storage tools.  

Let’s ask the question that has a fascinating answer in wide circulation: Did television or internet caused revolutions and changed the prevailing mode of production and production relations in any country?  Answer is definitely, no.

Did television and internet changed the main nature of the distribution of wealth?

Did television create information society and internet created knowledge society? In order to answer yes, we have to have people who are rational and pragmatic beings, who seek, find, process and use information in a most logical and productive way to enhance their life and relations.

How can we talk about a knowledge society wherein Donald Trump or Theresa May or neo-nazi rulers disguise as democrats and patriots? How can we talk about knowledge society if “enemy of people” blame others as enemy of people?

Only in Orwellian society, controlled through creation and maintenance of widespread functional ignorance, unemployment, hopelessness and minimum wage policies, we can have people waste their life in front of television watching soap operas and other functional junk, and young kids (and adults) waste their life in cyberspace constantly playing games, chatting, twitting, watching and doing similar activities,

Did internet changed the film industries, magazine, newspaper and televisions organizations and political structures in such a way that nature of content of communications they produce and disseminate transformed into something different than what they were before internet?

Did the prevailing policies of cultural, economic and political organizations change their prevailing policies of cultivating and maintaining certain ideas, beliefs, feelings, sensitivities, interests, preferences and behaviors, because of television or  internet?

My answer to these questions and similar ones is this: Television, internet or any media have capacities and potentials, and present some possibilities. That’s all. Nothing more. Internet or any technological tool cannot do nothing. Because it has no private interests, it has no bloody sick mind, no greed, no obsession, no goals and ambitions to appropriate everything for itself and deprive of others from the most basic necessities of life.

Technological tools are produced and run by tightly organized groups of professional humanoids who consider themselves most advanced humans. Or we can say like this: The technological tools are not active agents with social, cultural, economic and political personal interests. The active agents are human beings who create and use technological tools. It means that technological tools are means that are used by humans for certain goal attainment.

c.    Who needed communication technology for what?               

According to the widespread propaganda, public demand rules; namely, people needs and demands communications technologies and services, and industrial structures meet these demands by supplying technology and providing services. This phony explanation is totally wrong.  

Let’s first look at radio as an example, then the internet..

Any action or any communicative action has always one or more reasons that we may or may not aware of it. Reasons are tied to known and unknown needs.

Who needed radio and for what? The common story goes like this: Someone, generally a dropout from the university or high school, wants to invent something for the good of everybody in his (not her) basement and invents the radio. Or it happens suddenly just like it happened to Jimmy. Jimmy was snoozing under an apple tree during the lunch break; a huge apple fell on his head and he heard birds singing inside his head; He screamed: “Eureka!, a singing radio is possible!”. Then, he ran to his humble basement, ignored his wife’s complaints, and invented the radio. Other accounts provide slightly different story: A young men, called McLuhan, was playing “world of warships game” in 1901. Warships in ocean were communicating among themselves by using mirrors with morse alphabet during the sunny days and pigeons during the nights and cloudy days. McLuhan thought about finding a way to get ahead of the enemy by improving communication capacity of his warships. He called Jimmy and hired him to invent the radio. After Jimmy invented the radio, McLuhan fired Jimmy and got the patent for the radio for himself. He talked to the CİA and pentagon about the invention and first, navy started using radio in peace mangling, blackmail and war making business. Other sections of military followed the navy. It is the private enterprise world: All the revenue potentials were explored beyond military; and radios were sold to schools, later to businesses and lastly to individuals.

Let’s check the internet example: 

İnternet is the best example of university, pentagon and private industry cooperation for enhancing the US military domination to serve the corporate interests all over the world.    

 The organizing, funding and ruling part in the creation of internet was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, (DARPA). The agency was an advanced-technology branch of the U.S. Department of Defense. The DARPA established the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) in 1960s. The creation of ARPANET eventually evolved to the Internet we know today. 

The first name in the triad cooperation is J. C. R. Licklider who worked at the MIT university. His first important military connection started in early 1950s and led to the creation of the Lincoln Laboratory that produced the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment system design. It was called SAGE program. The program was "established in 1954 by the US Air Force to develop a continental air defense system to protect against a nuclear bomber attack from the Soviet Union. In 1962 Licklider became the director of the Information Processing Techniques Office at DARPA.

The second name in the cooperation was Paul Baran from RAND corporation. The RAND corporation was (and still is) a global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. Paul Baran’s work led to the foundation for the World Wide Web.

I am not going to bore you with details of cooperation among pentagon, university and private corporations.   

 The basic aim of the ARPANET was to develop a defense network that could function in the time of a nuclear war. The main mode of communication in war was centralized and linear. It means, for instance, that if a break happens in the linear connection, it was impossible to get in touch with other troops in the battle field. The basic question was this: How could any sort of “command and control network” survive during and after the war? To answer this problem, they created network of communication links that remind an advanced spider net.

Now, we have internet at home.

Do we really have internet at home like spider net?

Let’s spend few minutes on this question.   

IV.       ORGANIZING FOR CONTENT PRODUCTION

Organizing for content production in traditional mass media requires (a) establishment of a media organization and (a) hiring personnel and division of labor.

In internet, we have organizations that (a) provide service for hardware connection,  (b) provide service for software for users to produce content and (c) provide content.

 Internet content providers (ICPs) are website or organization that handles the distribution of online content such as blogs, videos, music or files. This content is generally made accessible to users and often in multiple formats, such as in both texts and videos. There are several different types of ICPs. Many of these providers are news sites, which provide up-to-the-minute information on breaking news, or in-depth commentary on current issues. Other providers focus on entertainment, such as Netflix, which allows users to watch movies and some TV shows online over the Internet. Some other content providers offer informative content about varieties of topics by hiring freelance editors and writers to write, edit and provide quality content.

Most ICPs make money through advertising on their sites. They may elect to use an advertising network, or sell ads privately. Some providers also have premium memberships which require a set fee per month in order to access exclusive content. This is known as a paywall. Non-paying members are kept out or only given limited access.

Many content providers are also developing content unique to them and only available to members. Traditional media providers such as TV and newspapers are also either working with these providers or competing against them by providing their own online content.

(SKİP BLUES in presentation)

Internet content providers include:

·     Traditional media companies that offer resources on the Internet (e.g., New York Times, Wall Street Journal,book publishers, music companies)

·     New media companies (e.g., Apple, Netflix, Rhapsody) that provide content produced by other companies or individuals

·     Web syndicators (in which syndicates partner with content producers to help them distribute their work)

·     Aggregators (companies that collect content from various online and offline sources)

·     Curators (companies or individuals that continually search the Web to find the best information about a particular topic)

·     Content farms (companies that employ many freelancers to create large amounts of content quickly)

·     Individuals who create their own content (blogs, books, apps, music, online games and Web comics) for publication on the Web.

·     Theological and metaphysical interest organizations and sex merchants  that have their own services or create their own content.

V.           NATURE OF CONTENT

a.    Basics

Production of the content includes:

1. what to produce: includes types and character of content
2. how to produce: refers to organization of production processes and

producing according to prevailing Professional practices and professional ideology.

………..

The First Products are carriers of the content.
They are outputs such as news reports, ovies, television programs, magazine articles, newspaper columns, music videos, youtube videos, and all kinds of internet outputs.

……….

The Second Product is the content that media product carry
            The content is constructed in order to 
                                    cultivate  (create)

                          maintain (sustain)

                           expand and advance

                           revise, if necessary

                           discart and replace, if necessary

…………

Contents embedded in the carrying products are to create or reproduce:
           .  Certain ideas, thoughts, beliefs

. Certain preferences, interests, expectations

. Certain behaviors at work and leisure time

. Certain behaviors in every moments of daily life

. Certain demands for production of products and services

……….

 . Certain types of customers, viewers, readers, users
            .  Certain types of voters, followers, fans
            .  enemies, friends, (us and them)
           .  and many more…

……………..

What are the prevailing outcome of such cultivation

Outcome is a typical individual who:   

a.     perceives himself/herself as a free flowing entity for himself/herself, and additionally for his/her country.

……………….

b.     seeks to gain self-worth, self-actualization, interpersonal importance, coolness, statue and the like through buying, using and consuming products and services of cosmetic, fashion, food and beverage and warfare industries.

……………..

c.     eagerly supports and is ready to participate in political activities that coerce and even murder those who are declared as enemy, “dangerous other”, infidel, heretic, anti-Christ or the like.

d.     talks about freedom of thought and expression for himself/herself as a media professional, but cannot stand anybody who criticize him/her.

e.     defends women/men/child/gay rights in such a way that he becomes a part, peon or trigger puller of “divide, set them against each other and rule” policies.

f.       thinks that he/she is defending democracy, freedom and his/her country by displaying hostile attitude towards people who demonstrate against any kind of injustice, inequality, discrimination, poverty, minimum wage.

g.     thinks he/she is against fascism, but supports anti-humanism under the pretext of nationalism, patriotism, being true believer, etc. (example: invited to speak in a meeting organized by a state agency to open the protected area for tourism. Question: the  environmentalist? No, human? You? No answer. Insisted: Elhadulillah Muslim. But aren’t you human being first? No answer).

h.     spends most of his/her leisure time in the Shopping Malls and buys things because he/she likes it at the moment, not because he/she needs it.

i.       spends good amount of  his/her daily interactions with friends, relatives and familiar people by talking about the things that soap opera characters wear, eat, drink and do.

j.       buys “quality things” in order to show his/her love and affection, rather than “doing something for or sharing something with” the loved ones: Buys love and affection through buying industrial products.

k.     eats, drinks and wears not only to meet his/her physical need, but get high gratifications from eating, drinking and wearing “status.”   

l.       is not only a good customer and consumer, at the same time he/she is a loyal repeating audience, listener, facebook user and habitual Amazon, Walmart and Ebay customer.

m.   is democrat and modern in outlook, but also an devoted conservative,  truly religious and a patriot.

n.     has no idea at all why he has a beard like ISIS or EL-Kaide terorists.  

İn short, he/she is a special person of interest who has been molded to be very functional for the ruling forces not only now, but throughout the human history.          

…………………..

Media professionals and owners pursue certain feedbacks from their listeners, audience and users.

Let’s look at the purpose of media content in terms of “feedbacks sought”

……………………..

feedbacks that are expected from people:

1. to view, use, read, download  again

2. to acquire certain ideas, attitudes etc.

3. to reproduce the agendas set by media via daily social relations

4. to employ relational pressures to others

5. To act and force others to act according to media induced ways in buying and consuming.

--------------

VI.       CONTENT CONTROL AND PUBLIC POLICY

Content control of media and internet products can be grouped under following way:

(1)  Organizational control thru professional practice and professional ideologies

(2)  Control embedded in inter organizational (business) relations 

(3)  Control by state agencies (via laws and regulations; secret and clandestine activities)

(4)  Control by interest groups and pressure groups (i.e., trade associations, profession groups, audience groups, NGOs)

(5)  Audience/user control via induced-preferences.

(6)  Control of user (through organizational and legal control)     

Application of control points:

a.     before production processes: It is exclusion at the mental/conceptual level. It is the screening and excluding through ideological and personal vested interests. It is also legal screening to escape from punishment.     

b.     during production processes: If any problem emerged that requires exclusion and revision during the production, control intervention is applied. Content control for serving the special and other dominant interests at this stage is the most crucial one that pronounces the success and failure in mind and behavior management business. Prevailing content production method at this stage is to catch the fish by construction of content in such a way that fish doesn’t feel like he/she is caught, but he/she prefers it by employing freedom of choice. That’s why the most effective censorship is the conquest of mind,  conscience, interest and preference that are cultivated through communications media.   

c.      After production: (1) You write/produce your piece and editor asks for revisions or takes it and throws it into garbage or takes it, says nothing, and next day you see that your piece is not published. (2) State agencies asks you to submit it to them before publication. (3) State agencies tells you not to publish it; (4) you get a call from your boss or from someone who makes you an offer that you cannot refuse.  

d.     After publishing and distribution: It is easy in internet: Service manager or state authorities blocks any access to it. In mass media tv and radio broadcasting of it stops; screen blacks out; suddenly, a new program starts. Some screens on movies are removed or it is totally taken out of circulation. Books are collected, dumped or burned.

e.     During and after user access: The later access is terminated, blocked, refused. Or if he/she accesses same content more than few times, he/she is punished, even put in jail for terrorist activities. If it is a book or magazine, he is punished for having it.       

All kinds of content control are related with promoting

dominant ideas, beliefs,

prevailing moral and ethical values,

emotions, preferences, interests,

good and bad, foe and friend and,

behaviors.

How is this promotion done?

At least two familiar ways of control processes are used:  

(a) Exlusion: (excluding the unwanted) and (b) inclusion (including the preferred ones).

a.     Exclusion: In exclusion, i.e,, media professionals pretend as if it does not exist; pretend as if it is too marginal; pretend as if it has no worth/value for mentioning; do not include if it is against their ideas and interests; do not include if it is against the interest of those who first deprive the media professional from meeting his/her most basic means of survival, then hire him/her to produce wealth for them and create material and mental poverty for himself/herself and others.

b.     Inclusion: Two kinds of inclusion are used: The first one is inclusion of dominant ideas and behaviors. What is the second one? Great majority of students, including graduate students in Turkey see this kind of inclusion every single day, but great majority of them are not aware of them, because of the same reason my students at Queens College in New York did not know meaning of at least 20 words that I used in the class (I wrote them on blackboard in order to ask). One of them was “indoctrination.”  May I see the hands of those students who knows the second kind of inclusion? (As I told you before, İ am not testing you and your knowledge; I am testing something else: Positivist justification that the audience research provide ample evidence that the communications media meet the interests, demands and wants of people).

Let’s think about the movie titled as “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” in terms of inclusion that is not binary.   (if you did not see the movie, just reflect your thinking on the title).               

 Content control is not applied only by exclusion but also by inclusion of the unwanted. This kind of inclusion always exist in almost all media content. It is called distorted presentation, misrepresentation, partial or outright lying, demonizing, degrading, mud-throwing and the like.  

 There is an exemption to the exclusion through de-promoting: It sounds and looks like de-promoting, but in fact it is a sneaky promotion by, i.e., drawing attention of the audience: The best example is censoring the cigarette, alcohol and nudity on tv and movies by blurring, icing or putting a flower picture over it. The second example is related with promotion of cigarette smoking by writing “cigarette kills” or “cigarette causes impotence.” It is well known that using high level/dose of fear creates two reactions: Denial and no change in believers and users, and intensified opposition in ideas and behaviors among disapprovers, non-believers and non-users. So, if you have no or little choice, you use the highest level of fear in order to sustain and promote a product like cigarette and alcohol or promote a behavior that is rooted in biological desires, but regarded as sin or original sin. High level of punishment increases the risk, thus decreases the number of participants; however the risk becomes dysfunctional, if reward is seen as worth to take the risk. (i.e. if he/she is highly dedicated, has a high level of conviction, he/she is true believer who wants to go heaven by taking the risk, he/she is addicted, the bodily cravings take over the decision making of mental processes.  

1.   Organizational Control: Self-regulation

It is application of professional ideology in their daily practices of production of content.

It is the most hideous control, because it is presented as if media professionals are the source and actors of  freedom; as if what they do is objective and responsible professionalism.

Only owners, managers and professional producers can exert control in constructing the content. The rest cannot construct or change it.  

Social media managers may regulate speech by content and users that are hostile to some groups. Facebook, Twitter and the like do not allow attacks based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and gender.

Internet, like all other mass media, are economic and political institutions; to make money.

economic: They are designed to make money.

Political: They re designed to cultivate life style for capitalist industrial system.

İnternet comprised of four groups:

a.     users who generate content: They can only self-regulate their product.

b.     users who consume content: Their self-regulation emerge from the selective exposure and selective avoidance.

c.      users who generate commercial speech (advertising): These users are professionals who put ads in internet. These users are professionals in multi-billion dollar commerce and advertising industries. Their intervention and intrusion to the general users’ information and uses are control free. They are untouchables!  

d.     Internet service providers: provide Internet access to companies, families, and  mobile users: China Mobile, China Telekom, AT&T

e.     Internet platform managers: mngrs of facebook, instegram, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, AliBaba. They have the freedom not to publish or block or dump any account and content.

There is normalized control exercised over content by the media editors in mass media.  journal, magazine and book publishers have a right to editorial discretion over what to publish. This editorial control is extended to the internet, Like editors and publishers, internet platform managers/owners decide on what will appear on their platform.

They not only block or remove the content, but also provide ideological and other kinds of control by, for instance, ranking the content in such a way that your piece is not seen and not read. Facebook does make certain categories of false speech more difficult to find.

They dump some accounts, such as neo-nazi, leftists and unwanted accounts.

Control of mass media by editors is exercised before publishing. The exercise of content control by the internet service provider or platform manager generally after it is posted and it is found to have content that violated a platform’s policy.

Exempting social media providers from defamation, obscenity, and other responsibilities is basically based on the reason that they can not be  treated as the publisher because they are only the providers of service. This is the classic protection of owners and runners from the responsibility. This protection is presented as if it is to encourage an unregulated development of free speech on the Internet.

Social media are privately owned forums for speech. It means that any intervention is against the freedom of speech.  

The media professional learn self-regulation:

It is applicaton of professional ideology in their daily production of content. They perform their job like this, because:

(1) İt is how they are, thus they do not have to force themselves to produce junk, mindless consumerism, hostility towards certain groups, indifference and the like.

(2) it is how they became: They have to apply professional practices according to the interest of the media organizations and interest of the nation state; otherwise, they suddenly find themselves unemployed or jailed. 

İn internet, control of the service providers includes (1) control by focusing on only one specific topic. (2) They can refuse to give you service, stop your service permanently or for a certain time until you meet their requirements.

Technology companies dump some content, such as neo-nazi, leftists and unwanted accounts. It is not mainly because they support freedom of people; it is because they calculate and are forced to acknowledge that it is beneficial for them, for instance, not to lose customers.

There is little legitimate governance of speech on the internet, but there are justified ones.

Internet filtering solution can stop email phishing, block access to dangerous websites. This kind of intervention is justifiable for organizations concerned about their cybersecurity, about preventing web users from visiting webpages harboring malware and computer viruses, and unintentionally transferring them to an organization´s computer system.

2.     Control embedded in inter organizational (business) relations 

This kind of control emerges when media owners and producers have economic, cultural or political relations with other powerful entities. The control of content become necessary in case of conflict of interest emerge because of the content. For instance, media owners and professionals do not put their beneficial relations with advertising clients in jeopardy by disseminating a content that bothers the client or “business or politician friend”.   

3.   Content Control by State Organs

Control of state agencies are employed through laws and regulations, and covert an overt activities that jam a broadcasting, block the access to the certain providers, blogs, contents, user etc.

İnternet cannot escape from the state control even if there is no single law and regulation directly include the internet. The severe restrictions come from not communications law and regulations, but come from other ones. Because there are laws, like sedition act, espionage act, national security concerns and moral codes that can be used to put a person in jail for long time for his/her thoughts or activity in internet and mass media.

In the USA, protecting national security also means preventing foreign powers from influencing American elections. For instance, İn the USA, in February 2018, 13 Russians were indicted for intervening in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump was under attach for the same reason.

Double standards exist in the western politics: They do not want anybody intervene with their own elections, but they intervene elections of every country in the world.

In any case, there is a need country specific and commonly accepted and applied internet regulation among the countries. However, governments cannot stifle the development of the Internet, because the development of the internet is organized and run by international capital and their guardians.

What do goverments/states/organizations do in terms of censoring?

1.     Withholding information:

      hide and donot give the information; punish those journalists and whistle

      blowers who act contrarily;

Example: censored information that comes out of war via embedded journalists The less people see the war, the more likely they believe it is a good thing.

Example: make the books inaccessible in libraries by saying that “it is taken by a reader” (somebody takes them so that no one reads them)

2. destroying information:

    it is done in order to make it impossible to access the information/knowledge.

Well known examples: burning books or libraries, destroying historical monuments. (library burning: Serbian army in 1990s)

changing the street names in order to erase a known person’s name from public memory.

Removing the names of some historical persons from the history books.

3. Altering information:

    a. presenting it out of context:

        example: “Marx is the enemy of religion 

        because he said “religion is opium of people.”

   b. Erasing a person from a picture

   c. Replacing a persons/politicians head with somebody else’s head and put it in wide circulation in media. (especially during election times, Turkish internet is full of them)

  d. Adding or subtracting frames from the visual record of an incident (A journalist’s reaction  when Trump’s aid who tried to take the mike from him)

  e. Providing false information in history books

    example: Japanese textbooks on the brutal invasion of China during second world war.

  f. Jamming: altering the broadcasting signal to make it unintelligible. 

 

4. Nurturing self-censorship

   a. Coercive organizational culture. example: fear of getting fired

   b. Dominant professional ideology and dominant professional practices:

      “Monkey sees, monkey does”

   c.     Personal character and calculations of self-interest that fit in the practices of self-censorship

5. Banning and punishing

Expressing, disseminating and/or using:

. Verbal expression of ideas

. Written and printed expression

. Expression through drawing, cartoons, comics

. Visual expressions from still picture to movies

. Non-verbal expression  

Reasons for state control, banning and punishment:

(a)    National security and protecting the national interests.

Examples: Advocacy of overthrow of government; Betrayal of national  secrets; terrorist activities; immediate danger; instructions on bomb-making, illegal drug production.

Incitement and speech presenting some grave and imminent threat the government and state are severely punished only if it is expressed by certain unwanted political groups or individuals with undesirable ideas.

But politicians (the most recent example is Trump) use incitement, divisive language, false and potentially harmful and dangerous language, and nobody puts them in jail.  

The term national security generally refers to safeguarding people, territory, and way of life. It is a very elusive term that can be used easily.

(b)     Protecting moral values, public good,   public interest, public safety    

Moral codes: Moral codes: what are right and wrong in human conduct?

example: obscene and indecent materials such as child pornography

       Everyting can be used to punish you by using public good, public interest and public safety.

(c)    Harmful speech Examples:

·        Incitement to immediate violence

·       Degradation of women

·       Racist, sexist, homophobic “hate speech.”

·          Advocacy of violence

·          To teach about communism in California schools, except denigrate it

·             Fake news and misinformation: Many nations tend to regulate fake news. 

Freedom of speech and commerce/trade: Social media companies are enterprises engaging in commercial transactions, thus they are regulated by trade laws. This is the important reason that the online activities of social media companies have considerable protection from government regulations especially in the western countries.

Censorship has always been a political tool in order to punish, coerce and silence the groups, professionals and individuals who are anti-establishment or anti-government.

State censorship is set to protect the system or subsystem by punishing those who think and act as against the dominant interests.

If censorship or banning something functions really for the benefit of  general public, rather than for powerful private interests, then it is justifiable because it is a preventive measure for the benefit everybody. For instance, law that will eliminate tobacco related production and distribution is a preventive measure that eliminates an outcome by eliminating the cause. Another example: Production and distribution of processed food and beverages that are dangerous for the public health should not be produced: Nobody has right or freedom to put others’ life in danger for his/personal wealth and justify it through the freedom of business or freedom trade.

Under the dominant conditions of normalized abnormality, it is normal not to expect regulations and practices for the benefit of public from the states that represent and protect the interest of capitalist private enterprises.

Controls of content are mostly cunningly managed ones and mostly functions to the mind and behavior management.          

4.   Control by interest/pressure groups

These groups can employ pressure only to the produced content and uses of them. 

Some of these groups are:

Trade and similar associations, environmentalist groups, political parties, labor unions, and NGOs.

All are part of the private and general interest groups that exert control over media practices and on the nature of content. 

These groups can employ pressure only to the produced content and uses of them.         

5.   Audience/user control via induced-preferences.      

A censor's goal is achieved if it is difficult for most users most of the time to access most of the materials.

·       Self-regulation of users: This refers to user preferences. This self induced control acts inclusion and exclusion of certain type of media, channels, programs, service providers, search engines, blogs, topics and content within a topic. 

·       Censorship at work place: Online playing, chatting, twitting and, shopping during working hours. It is justified by explaining that the workers time is hired for working, not for private activities.

·       Diminishing “access” to “products”: It means decreasing freedom to consume every possible junk produced and put in circulation in television and internet) It is.  inescapable if large, medium and countless small companies dominate the production and the distribution of internet software and content.

·       Punishing the user by access type and content production: For instance, it is crime to view terrorist-related material online more than 2 times in England, with a penalty of, for instance, up to 15 years in jail.  (How about organizing, funding and running terrorist organizations, fake news groups or fake NGO by the CİA, MI5 or MI6 operatives? Who is going to punish them?

So, we have access to media. Let’s see kinds of main accesses we have:

(a)     All kinds of advertising, consumer information on products and services (e.g. Amazon, wall Mart, AliBaba) 

(b)     Leisure time activities ranging from using online/internet games to animated films.

(c)      Sex related written and visual materials.

(d)     Religious and metaphysical materials.

(e)     Blogs and the like for personal interests and various gratifications

(f)       All kinds of political, economic and cultural materials put by politicians, their paid servants, voluntary servants, propagandists, imposters, deceivers, disinformers, fake experts and internet trolls.  

(g)     Professional information and professional materials, including research articles (some are not free) for disseminating and sustaining professional ideologies and professional practices.  

(h)     In short, anything functional that you can think of.

Public Policy

Public policy sounds like policy that public puts forward or policy that is set according to the general interests. Both accounts are false. First one is obvious: Public do not decide and set policies. The second one is a functional democracy game that transforms the policies of certain interest that are most of the time against the public interest into general interests. State organs think and plan and create the policy. This policy presented as policy for protecting public. In fact, it is rarely for protecting the public; but mostly for protecting the state and its real owners from the public demanding various rights and asking for better wages, better working conditions, job security and the like.

Main starting points of regulation of technology, remain same since oldest empires: To control and thus sustain the general system and subsystems. Public policies are revised and new ones are added according to the potential and claimed  dangers of individual and organized uses of media products.     

Private vs state/government control dichotomy

The dominant idea is that media professionals/editors and private content moderators should have the power to regulate speech on media, not the government bodies. This argument is based on the idea of good private and bad government. This duality is based on a fake and baseless idea. At least because the private and state or government work together to advance the private interests especially since the triumph of privatization policy. 

Mass media and internet comprise various kind of speech. Mostly the specific political speech and speech related with dominant structures and relations are subject to restrictions and punishment by private and government forces.

İn internet, such as neo-nazi, leftist and terrorist groups and contents are excluded by the largest platforms. Outside them, internet is full of political hate speech, Fraud, threat, defamation, obscenity, pornography and the like. State policies are mostly ineffective.

Similar ineffective policy exist in “hate speech” (offensive words, about or directed toward a person, a political person or political, cultural and economic entity). In politics, in many countries, hate speech by public authorities and their voluntary and paid servants/trolls in internet became routine part of our daily life.

Political ones are functional for the divide and rule policy. Others are functional for personal escape and diversion that are extremely helpful in political and economic management of people.

Acknowledgement of freedom of speech and right to hear others speech in the constitutions and public policy statements of nation states does not mean anything. Because any kind of  freedom always  requires necessary conditions of using such freedoms.  The west and its satellites have abstract freedoms for the most of population and concrete freedom for the small minority.

·       “Commercial transaction vs freedom of speech”

·              There is a serious disagreement on the issue concerning “Commercial transaction vs freedom of speech”. Because accepting or rejecting a trade interaction as freedom of speech has diametrically different  outcomes. if place the regulation of commercial transaction within the freedom of speech, state cannot regulate it. If you keep it outside the freedom of speech, then it is subject to regulations. In fact, the two are separate: A journalist’s or news maker’s work falls in the scope of freedom of speech. But media owner and administrator perform commercial transaction, thus, they cannot enjoy the protection of freedom of speech. Claiming that prohibiting or restricting means prohibiting and restricting users’ right to free speech looks like drug dealer’s argument.  It reminds me “press freedom” as freedom of owners. “Copy right” of the book writer in Turkey as the right of the publisher, that eliminates the right of the writer.

References

 

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N. Y. Times, (Aril 7, 23019) Britain proposed sweeping new government Powers to regulate the internet to combat the spread of violent and extremist content. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/business/britain-internet-regulations.html

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