Week 4: Response

The questions I asked at the beginning of the week were pretty elementary in terms of the topics Wealth of Nations covers, yet fundamental to understanding the new world Benkler describes.

In Wealth of Networks, Benkler writes “wanting to communicate with others was not a sufficient condition to being able to do so”(p.3); in other words, in an industrial information economy, only a few have control over communication, as opposed to many or all.

Characteristics of the industrial information economy include big production equipment- mechanical presses, satellites, the telegraph system, radio transmitters- that only a select few (i.e. big businesses/conglomerations) have access to. I can purchase a receiver and listen to the radio, but I cannot transmit my own radio waves over a major wavelength unless I am backed by a broadcasting company.

“decentralized individual action- specifically, new and important cooperative and coordinate action carried out through radically distributed, nonmarket mechanisms that do not depend on proprietary strategies- plays a much greater role than it did, or could have, in the industrial information economy”(p.3)

The networked information economy, which is what society is experiencing now, is the result of computers, storage, and easily accessible technology. Because personal computers are affordable for many, many people, and because the internet is an endless and openly editable source of information, anyone can be a receiver and distributor of communication at any time.

Because of the networked information economy, individual voice is much more powerful than it was within an industrial information economy. Before, if one wanted to be heard, they were at the mercy of a big media company who got to decide whether or not to be their platform (like a newspaper choosing to publish a letter to the editor). Now, with the internet and many ways to access the internet (computers, mobile phones, ipods), individual voice is much more easier to be broadcast and heard.

A great example of this is the story Shirkey uses at the beginning of Here Comes Everybody. A woman in NYC leaves her cell phone in a cab, and the phone is stolen. She finds out who has the phone, but the thief won’t give it back and NYPD won’t press charges. The woman’s friend uses everything in his power- a website, email, his own phone- and the story spreads rapidly until complete strangers are clamoring for the NYPD to press charges and get the woman’s phone back.

Had this been an industrial information economy, the woman would have had a lot less opportunity to have her story broadcast. She would have to lobby the local newspaper to pick up the story, and if they decided not to, she would be out of luck. However, in an networked information economy, there were many platforms for the story to be sent out and an infinite number of people to receive it. Still, not every individual voice is heard, but the internet gives everyone a much better chance.



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