New Politics

1
New Politics?

• Giovanni Navarria
• 05/03/2007
• Centre for the Study of Democracy MA
  International Relations and Political
  TheoryPolitics, Power and the Media

2
Todays Lecture

• The relationship between citizen and power in an
  age characterized by new media of communication -
  especially by those media we refer to as
  participatory media, such as blogs, wikis like
  wikipedia.org, video sharing platforms such as
  youtube.com, and social networking website such
  as myspace.com

3
By participatory media we mean media that are

• Many-to-many media
• Social media
• Network facilitators

4
(No Transcript)
5
Surveillant Assemblage (Read it on the
Blackboard)

• we can now speak of an emerging surveillant
  assemblage. This assemblage operates by
  abstracting human bodies from their territorial
  settings and separating them into a series of
  discrete flows. These flows are then reassembled
  into distinct data doubles which can be
  scrutinized and targeted for intervention. In the
  process, we are witnessing a rhizomatic that is
  to say horizontal - leveling of the hierarchy of
  surveillance, such that groups which were
  previously exempt from routine surveillance are
  now increasingly being monitored.

6
Power and Politics

• The question is what are the implications of
  this surveillance assemblage, of the rising
  importance of participatory media on the notions
  of power and politics?

7
China and Internet

• Software such as Ultrareach Internet Roaming
  without Borders easily available even on the
  Chinese internet and proxy networks such as
  DynaWeb that allow users to bypass government
  censorship and to have secure and full access to
  the world wide web,

8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
Beppegrillo.it

• This blog is about information You and I, with
  our messages and comments, we make information,
  or at least we try. There is no difference
  between reality and information, reality is what
  one knows. Instead media, Grillo argues, too
  often know a fact and say something else.
• the most important battle is between Information
  and counter-information. Which is to say
  between the chance of choosing freely and that
  of being hypnotised, induced to make a choice.

18
(No Transcript)
19
Best Internet Site

• Less than a year after its birth, on 14 December
  2005, Beppegrillo.it was voted best internet site
  in the category News and Information for the
  well renown WWW 2005 Prize. The yearly prize is
  organized by il Sole 24 Ore, the most read
  Italian financial daily newspaper. The mention of
  the awards reads for the interactivity with the
  public, the ample documentation on the internet
  and the commitment to tackle topics of use to
  citizens

20
Some numbers

• Birth date 26/01/2005
• 170.000 unique visitors per day
• N. 20 in the top 100 of Technorati.com a search
  engine tracking 70 million blog worldwide 6,748
  blogs link to it.
• To make some comparison, according to a recent
  report surveying the American Blogosphere the
  average number of inbound links to a blog is
  about 13

21
During May 2005- April 2006

• 401 posts were published on the blog, that is to
  say a daily average of 1.18 post per day
• Each post scored an average of 1,154.92 comments.
  
• May 2005 monthly average of 405.26 comments per
  post and ended in April 2006 with that same
  number increased to 2,025.35, that is to say a
  raise of 499.76 with respect to our starting
  point.
• The overall number of comments grew in one year
  by 368.87 per cent. It jumped from 17,021
  comments (May 2005), to 62,786 (April, 2006).

22
(No Transcript)
23
Comments per Section

• The most commented section was Politics scoring
  for the whole year 111,171 comments. That is to
  say 24 per cent of the total amount of comments
  posted on the blog (463,124).
• On average politics scored 1,372.48 comments per
  posts. The second in the list is the general
  category named the Wailing Wall, 21.04 per cent,
  but with the highest average of comments per
  post, 1,476.08.

24
(No Transcript)
25
(No Transcript)
26
Election week 1-15 April 2006

• During the week approaching the Italian general
  election and the week following (1-15, April),
  the average number of comments per post was
  3,277.63.
• The message posted by Grillo the day after the
  election, 11 April, C'è chi (There are those)
  scored the highest number of comments for the
  whole year examined in this study 4,198.

27
Campaigns

• Le Primarie dei Cittadini (Citizen Primaries).
  Average comments per section 4,114.50.
• Parlamento Pulito (Clean up Parliament) The page
  cost 48,275 Euro ( sales tax at 19.60).

28
(No Transcript)
29
Clean up parliament

• Were published on the International Herald
  Tribune for the Clean Up Parliament campaign.
  Not one of the international publications that I
  contacted wanted to publish the list of names and
  in some cases they didnt even want to discuss
  the matter.
• The International Herald Tribune has accepted to
  publish the page without the names of the 23
  Italian parliamentarians but with the Internet
  address of the page containing their names with a
  description of their offences.
• Unfortunately, the truth cannot squeeze into the
  conventional media, but it has to go through the
  Internet and this blog of ours is an example.
• Today, thanks to you, this page will be read all
  over the world.
• Keep at it! Beppe Grillo.

30
(No Transcript)
31
Grillo the comedian

• "People continuously write to me on my blog to
  tell me that I am the only person who can say
  certain things," said Beppe Grillo, one of
  Italy's most popular and controversial
  performers. "But really I am only a comedian, I
  shouldn't have this weight."

32
Hence What does it mean?

• As a network of networks, the internet is highly
  resilient to any attempt of control
• within the network no one is ever in a condition
  of entire superiority towards the others.
• This is what I refer to as the condition of
  shared weakness.

33
shared weakness.

• This condition produces what I call an
  essentially flawed power relation among the
  network users.
• Any network user that is to say not only an
  individual but also a State - is only and always
  one-among-many, a part and not the totality of
  the network. And therefore any power relation
  taking place within it is always unstable,
  essentially flawed because no one can ever gain a
  position of absolute power (as in Webers Power)
• Two actors involved in an ideal-typical
  power-relation-situation continuously exchange
  roles, or better, both at the same time are
  power-holders and power-subjects.

34
Weber

• For Weber, power is what in a social relation
  gives an actor A the strength to make an other
  actor B to do something regardless of Bs will or
  Bs resistance. A is in a condition of absolute
  strength (power) in relation to B. B becomes
  powerless (weak) because conscious of the
  strength of A.

35
Weakness as Power

• In a network society power is rooted not into
  strength but into weakness. Power springs out
  from the consciousness of the weakness of the
  position of A
• the understanding that A is not in a position of
  absolute power, that is to say of absolute
  control of the networks, gives B the probability
  to carry out his own will, not despite of As
  will, but because of As weakness.