Agitprop, Part 4b
Convergence: Smart Phone
Cell Phone, SMS and Social Media
The hand-held “device”, or “gadget”, such as the one
illustrated above, is more than a cell phone. It delivers Internet, e-Mail,
other kinds of instant messaging including SMS, plus GPS, still and video
camera, sound recording, spreadsheet, word processing, and hundreds or even
thousands of other “applications”. It probably delivers live television efficiently
as well.
The long-predicted “convergence” has arrived. We cannot say
that this is the end of the road. There may be more surprising things coming
along. But what we can already say is that the technical ease of doing any kind
of communication has only exposed the social and human nature of such
communication.
The barriers to communication are now revealed as principally
human ones, starting with the time it takes to do things. We all have the
power, but we do not have the time, to do more than a fraction of what is
possible.
Working together, we could do more. But working together
requires organisation. We do organise, and we do succeed to work together to a
large extent, in politics.
But when it comes to ICT (Information and Communication
Technology), we now have the solo device, like the one shown above, and we have
rather limited collaboration.
Collaboration on
monopoly’s terms is not collaboration for revolution
Instead of the widespread mass creativity that caused the
very rapid advance of ICT, what monopoly brings is widespread mass conformity.
The phone and the SMS allow certain patterns of
communication, but not others. The one that is conducive to political dialogue,
it does not allow, or at least, inhibits. The model for such a dialogue is
“many-to-many”. It is neither “one-to-one”, like a telephone call, and it is not
“one-to-many”, like a radio or television broadcast.
“Many-to-many” is the revolutionary possibility that the new
devices bring. In this relationship, it is possible for all the participants to
be equally as much producers as they are consumers. This is the model of
communism. It is a model of post-capitalist relations of production.
What is the response of bourgeois society to this
possibility of its own creation? It is a combination of paternalism and
filialism (i.e. the corporate monolopies behave like parents while the
consumers are treated like children). It is done through the creation of
Facebook, Twitter, and the minor “social networking” platforms.
The characteristic of Facebook and Twitter and the whole so-called
“social networking” idea is the opposite of what it holds itself out to be.
This is precisely not the model of communism. In the world of “social
networking” all revolutionary possibilities are neutralised and frustrated.
This is so, regardless of the existence of a US Imperialism
“PRISM” system that is collecting all communications, including the “social
networking” interactions. With or without the intruding “PRISM”, social
networking is counter-revolutionary. It is a dummy. It is sterile and cannot
bear fruit.
Our Agitprop has to be the intentional antagonist of
bourgeois, counter-revolutionary ICT. Our job is to produce as many creators as
we can, meaning not only writers, but also visual artists, makers and
performers of all kinds, as well as people who can master the more difficult
parts of ICT.
- The above is the
third of three introductory texts that are compiled into a printable
booklet, Groups,
Blogs, Web Sites, Multi-Media and the Universal Device.
