Chekhov’s Mistess

The Connection between Wikinomics and Literacy

(cross-posted at the Sonnet Media Media Blog)



I’ve started reading Wikinomics (site) by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams. I picked it up despite my general skepticism about the new wave of books on the ‘social media revolution’ because it seemed so broad based, discussing everything from the Human genome project to guys in their basement making tv shows.

First impressions: There’s a chapter in the back called “The Wikinomics Playbook,” which is empty and directs you the reader to the Net to participate in continuing the book. Okay, interesting. So far, books like The Long-tail have done the reverse: got participation upfront (which, I’m sure helped an awful lot with marketing now that “the long-tail” is already an overused buzzword). The Wiki will be open on Feb 5th, so we’ll see what happens, but I’m might like it better (remember, I have not read the book yet, just started today) if there was a specific purpose to or question to contribute toward.

I don’t want to micro-revew or explain this book, so I’ll just throw out any tidbits of interest as I see them. Here’s a particularly exuberant one from chapter one:

“For individuals and small producers, this may be the birth of a new era, perhaps even a golden one, on par with the Italian renaissance or the rise of Athenian democracy.”

I know many people who feel this way, and I suppose I’m one of them in certain respects, but when I see this sort of enthusiasm I tend to cringe – it’s my natural contrarian attitude – we will only know looking back at this period in time, but I will mention that the one thing that will put this in jeopardy (and something I hope the book addresses) is how the sometimes wrenching economic upheaval (where everything is essentially free) this new era brings is sustainable.

Earlier in chapter one, Tapscott & Williams write:

“These changes, among others, are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power, and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our history – a world where value creation will be fast, fluid, and persistently disruptive. A world where only the connected will survive…“

Wow – taken with the quote above, the scenario Tapscott and Williams paint is at once breathtaking and scary. Scary in this sense: The eminent scholar George Steiner wrote in an essay called ”The New Literacy“ (recently reprinted in the Kenyon Review) that…

”No previous artifact or invention will have exercised the shaping impact on everyday human existence registered by the PC and the laptop, by interactive communication on the Internet. The electronic screen has become the mirror of man. Already it seems likely that those communities and individuals…incapable of mastering the processor and keyboard, the search mechanism and its “surfing,” will be relegated to a new underclass, to be helots of oblivion.“

What’s interesting is that, as may or may not be clear, is that Steiner’s outlook is one of warning, not glee. He’s lamenting the loss of the humanities, a former type of literacy. He continues:

”The ruthless dumbing down of the media in this country, [he was speaking of Britain, but I somehow doubt he would change the words if he were writing for an American audience] once the envy of the civilized world, is masked by appeals to the rights and pleasures of populism.“

I cut it there because there are parts of Steiner’s conservative article that I have difficulty with, but it seems to me his is an equal and opposite feeling about our new collaborative society (the essay itself is not online, but Jerry Harp has a good summary and additional thoughts at the Kenyon Review blog).

Right now we take computer literacy to be a given for our young population (to the extent that manufacturers are making super cheap PCs so as to not leave the poor behind), but just as there have always been different strata of literacy, they will be divided – or should I say parsed – in new ways, leaving some behind and leaving segments of creativity out. Jason Fry muses today in the Wall Street Journal (“Will the Digital Era Change Writing?” 1/27, requires subscription)“ about novels or an author’s work being ”mashed-up“ the way people do with music today – effectively shaping other’s work in any way you want, no matter what that does to its meaning.

To take this tangent any further, I bring up the oft-bantered issue of workshopping literature in MFA programs or classes. When Melville wrote Moby Dick he might have shown his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, but he was probably it. What would have become of that book in a collaborative environment? Artistic integrity (I think one of the forms of literacy Steiner says is its twilight) can be totally lost when your peers – or maybe even just people who happen to have a computer and care enough to do so – may completely change your work (for more on that, see the work of The Institute for the Future of the Book).

And then there’s the end user. If I were ”mashing up” Moby Dick today, – or maybe the better example is that of my friend who said she skipped over the speeches in Atlas Shrugged, leaving what, I wonder – I would drop huge swaths of the natural history chapters, but would that be Melville’s book? Does collaboration, when extending to such far reaches create a loss of ownership? Does it matter, or can these things be better, and does this idea – fear – translate into business, politics and science?

The promise of this new era comes equally with issues to be thought about. I’ll let you know if Wikinomics addresses them or any other thoughts and interesting tidbits that come up along the way. 

comments

Thanks for mentioning the Steiner piece and Jerry’s blog post.  Steiner’s essay can be found on the KR site:  http://www.kenyonreview.org/issues/winter07/steiner.php

    – meg galipault (02/01  at  08:25 AM)

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: January 29, 2007
• Filed Under:
  Blogging & Social Media

Tags: Wiki

• Comments:1
• Links to this Post: Technorati

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