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.
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