What's Mine is Yours Response - Digital Textuality Final Paper

Rebecca Case

Digital Textuality

Spring 2011

There is no doubt that the change in media has had its effect on culture. From the invention of the written word to today’s communication technologies, such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, the medium greatly affects how ideas and resources are shared. A common theme has emerged, that today we live with the promise of a new utopian age of the Internet; that because the technology for egalitarian access to information exists, there is equality in the access to information amongst all people. The Internet and key Internet programs have revolutionized communication and organization of the public sphere, but the truth is that the egalitarian opportunities are rapidly being commodified and consolidated by traditional media elites both socially and financially. Wealthy, white males and the financial control they have traditionally possessed still retain their power over shaping communication in the Internet age. This paper explores the connections between the utopian portrayal of new media technologies in Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers’ What’s Mine is Yours and Jurgen Habermas’ “Public Sphere.” Though the Botsman and Rogers’ of today will say that this moment in time marks a new era in the public sphere, it is not without its problems.

Habermas’ public sphere is a conceptual, not physical, public arena where people come outside of their private lives to discuss and debate the ideas of the day. He states, “only when the exercise of political control is effectively subordinated to the democratic demand that information be accessible to the public, does the political public sphere win an institutionalized influence over the government through the instrument of law-making bodies” (73). The public sphere is key in understanding the democratic age we live in here in America. At it’s best, it affords people the opportunity to connect to political authority and government and act as a place where the needs of the people can be discussed and made known. In the age before the Internet, this was commonly represented by people protesting in the streets, attending a public lecture series, or a town hall meeting. Habermas claims that the public sphere is a not a result of natural evolution, but is historical. The public sphere came to be out of bourgeois culture, where for the first time in history, the private individual came to discuss publicly the issues of the day, but not in political arena. This is unlike the old idea of feudal power, where the head is sovereign and represents power. In a democracy, people become caretakers of power and the ruling class evolves to serve the public. Habermas characterizes modern constitutions as “the catalogues of fundamental rights [that] were the perfect image of the liberal model of the public sphere” (76). They gave society a guarantee of private autonomy and restricted the public authority.

Doubtful, few will argue that the Habermasean ideal of the public sphere resembles the public discourses of the 20^th century. Marked by media conglomerates, the pursuit of ratings and a one way method of cultural distribution, the private individual has had very little say in the shaping of his society, unless he was a wealthy, educated white male; outside of this elite class exists few exceptions. Can the Age of the Internet rescue the ideals of Habermas’ public sphere? What’s Mine Is Yours claims that modern social tools, made possible through the advent of the Internet, remove obstacles to public collaboration. Botsman and Rogers attest collaborative consumption is “traditional sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping, redefined through technology and peer communities. Collaborative Consumption is enabling people to realize the enormous benefits of access to products and services over ownership, and at the same time save money, space, and time; make new friends; and become active citizens once again” (xv). There are sites such as Freecycle, Couchsurfing and Zipcar make the sharing of resources possible for anyone with an Internet connection. Flickr makes the publication of pictures possible and, on MySpace and Facebook, one can do the same with both text and music. Putting ones possessions thoughts, or work in a public arena is no longer bottlenecked by conventional publication and marketing.

This power of the amateur to connect with one another in new ways can ignite social change. What’s Mine Is Yours cites the example of the “Let’s do It” grassroots campaign. In 2008, Rainer Nolvak, Tiina Urm and Ahti Heinla, masterminded a national clean-up day in Estonia. These three people were able to get “720 volunteers to scour the country and photograph sites using mobile phones to pinpoint more than 10,500 locations where rubbish had been illegally dumped” (53). Fifty thousand people joined forces to clean up illegal dump-sites. They were able to use the resources of today break into public consciousness without the barrier of traditional press. Everyone now has the ability to access the public and make a difference. This is why Botsman and Rogers see these contemporary Internet tools as a venue for anyone to have access to the utopian public sphere.

However, the true, modern public sphere is not utopian or free from outside influence. Habermas notes this happening as early as with the growing influence of newspapers. He notes how the editorial staff of a newspaper has the power to wield public opinion. The slant individual newspapers take on the issues becomes intrinsically linked to the view the public takes on those same issues. “The publishers insured the newspapers a commercial basis, yet without commercializing them as such. The press remained an institution of the public sphere itself, effective in the manner of a mediator and intensifier of public discussion, no longer a mere organ for spreading of news but not the medium of a consumer culture” (76). As commercialization increases, the public sphere becomes more about growth in capital and less about making the needs of the people known.

Today, with mass media and the Internet, instead of seeing an improvement in open and fair communication, there is, in fact, a greater manipulation of the public sphere. The clamor for ratings has become a clamor for “hits.” The public sphere becomes dominated by advertising and instead of fostering discourse; the news has become a perpetual sales pitch and an echo chamber of sensationalism. The idea that the Internet provides a kind of digital utopia where we are all informed and our voices are equally heard is theoretically true. But the truth is the Internet is often only a dangerous evolution of traditional media outlets. There is a huge difference in being involved politically and being involved with new technologies. Habermas’ public sphere is based on reciprocity and face-to-face communication. Despite growth in Internet, we’ve seen decline in public sphere and rational public discourse. In addition, we see an increase in commoditization, more external influence from market into public sphere and more ability to inform decisions. Freedom via the Internet is a fictional notion and it is a dangerous one because it encourages the illusion of true egalitarianism. The elites still maintain power and we can actually see this in What’s Mine is Yours.

Botsman and Rogers open with the story of Airbnb.com. Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharcyzk and Brian Chesky started Airbnb in 2008 with the intention of renting out an extra room in their San Francisco apartment during an annual design conference. It was later developed into a larger version of that, allowing many people to list their extra property for rent. The site quickly grew as more and more people became attracted to the notion of reasonably priced accommodations with a local flair. This story is meant to show the goodness exhibited by the people that use the site, simply wanting to meet new people and earn a few bucks from an otherwise dormant investment and clearly, Botsman and Rogers lead with this story to point out the significance of the collaboration in the Internet Age.

The story shows the changing climate of today’s communicative realm, but it also shows that there is still a power bias in our “utopian age”. First of all, these three men have to be well-off enough that they could afford to take the time necessary to put this site together, not to mention, they are doing it to rent out a room in their over-sized loft in one of most expensive real estate areas of the country. Consider the most significant barrier to entry with this service. One needs to own a property that is desirable to strangers and large enough that the owner doesn’t need use of all of it. Additionally, and possibly most important, one must note the education level required to take on such a task. It is mentioned they are graduates of the incredibly prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. Blecharczyk, the web developer, needed considerable prior knowledge of Internet tools, both how they work and how to best utilize them. Someone with little exposure to the Internet would not be able to do this. They also needed necessary capital to buy all the technological instruments needed to own and maintain a website, such as a personal computer and the cost to own a URL. Also, it is certainly the case that an individual able to own a personal computer, and therefore spend the most time using one and learning what one can do with it, would be better able to fully utilize its tools. Although they claim to operate for the “everyman”, they are, in fact, only catering to an elite group – those who have the resources to afford travel. No matter which mode of transportation one employs, getting from one place to another is very costly in today’s economic climate. Perhaps, most importantly, is that motivation for the site. Airbnb take a 3% cut of all transactions; this site would not exist if it was not yielding the owners a profit.

When we look at the history of groups and social development, the activities that hold the most importance are group activities. We have to look at social groups to understand history. Karl Marx thought we could understand history by looking at the way we manufacture our ways of existing. Jurgen Habermas felt we could understand it by how we share information. But Botsman and Rogers says the way to understand it is by the way we form groups and collaborate with one another. This moment is so crucial because the way we create groups has radically changed. New media technology offers unprecedented opportunities to share and discuss with millions of individuals but it is disproportionately utilized by the cultural “haves”. The cold truth is every new technology championed as an outlet for the "have-nots" is quickly appropriated by the traditional media outlets and those with a financial interest in their success. Many of the most popular peer-to-peer distribution models have achieved sustainable financial success and a sufficient user base only to be bought or merged with established businesses. The examples abound—Google usurped YouTube, AOL bought the Huffington Post, eBay owns or holds a large stake in Paypal, Craigslist, Skype, Meetup.com, StubHub and StumbleUpon (and many others). The Internet and key Internet programs have revolutionized communication and organization of the public sphere, but the truth is that the egalitarian public sphere Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers describe is an illusion.

Work Cited

Botsman, Rachel, and Roo Rogers. What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. New York: Harper Business, 2010. Print.

Habermas, Jurgen. "The Public Sphere: an Encyclopedia Article." Critical Theory and Society: A Reader. New York and London: Routledge, 1989. 136-42. Print.