Face to Face with CMC..

Digital culture, digital communication and digital conferences are often described, by their participants, in terms of positive outcomes for society. However, a characteristic of Computer Mediated Communications (CMC) often overlooked is: "the possibility, even likelihood, that as CMC grows in popularity, there will be less need for face-to-face interaction. It is one of the supreme ironies of the Utopian view of CMC, that it is likely to reduce that felt sense of community that it so nostalgically seems to uphold as virtuous." (http://well.com/user/hlr/text/VCcivil.html)

With CMC fast becoming as accepted and normal as face to face communications is it possible to envision a future where the two forms of communication become so intertwined that they become indistinguishable from each other? Or are CMC, as a digital form of communication, still too foreign to our daily existence? Are face to face communications the cement which bind our community together? Still, once Skype sort out their audio - how often have you fiddled with it shouting 'Can you hear me? - the sky, it would seem, is no longer a limit...

...as I'm writing this critical analysis I'm being forced away from our home computer by my girlfriend who urgently needs to go on-line to talk to one of her video chat room friends somewhere in the world...

:(

Currently the communication mediums of our digital culture do not allow for the nuances of free expression provided by face to face contact. Subtle nuances communicated through, for example, visual references of body language, attitude or subtle facial expressions. All are lost; greatly disturbing the transmission of a message (especially when Skyping). During CMC it is not difficult to disguise real emotions thus rendering the message less personal. In popular social networks, where the participants can not see each other, such as the email and messaging services of Microsoft Live Hotmail, Yahoo, Facebook or MySpace, people hide behind emoticons or abbreviations (lol) to communicate feelings or thoughts quite different to what may truly be felt.

Even CMC where participants can see each other, such as our friend Skype, do not signal true intent as clearly as when having a face to face discussion, no amount of swaying slightly left to right will blur what is really on your chest. Visual as well as a host of other clues telling a true friend all he or she needs to know. More meaningful interaction between community members is created through face to face communications as any ambiguities are more intimately and informatively transmitted.

It is obvious during direct, personal, face to face communications when one of the party is disinterested, bored, angry, sad or perhaps preoccupied with more pressing matters. Face to face communications allow for the creation of the trust needed to bind us together as a community on a level not as yet achieved by CMC primarily as modern cultures, despite the enthuses of the participants in our digital culture, are still vastly reliant on face to face communications.

To Indigenous communities around the world the communication of knowledge orally is an important part of establishing and maintaining status. This is likewise true in our society where one aspect of maintaining status is best achieved face to face, namely, resolving misunderstanding or even conflict. "It is either the height of arrogance or defeat when one chooses or is forced to leave his or her community over an unresolved conflict"
(http://well.com/user/hlr/text/VCcivil.html). This is one of the multiple layers of face to face communications which enable an immediate resolution of misunderstanding or conflict thus keeping intact our standing within our community.

This naturally takes many forms, in fact, as many different expressions as there are human like creatures we can relate to. This could be in the form of 'saving face' as seen in many cultures or as right now... my girlfriend allowing me to get back on-line to continue blogging. In the meantime her video chat room friend experiencing, hopefully (for I'm not a jealous man), a far diminished personal communication with her then I've just had. Face to face communications, in whatever form, even a humble lets-make-up kiss, allows for a truer freedom of expression then provided for in the dingy chat rooms of digital culture... :)

Despite the claims of the pornographers of CMC, any vision of any harmonious intertwining of CMC and face to face communications may have to wait for generation Z. CMC's inherent depersonalisation of its participants, its inability to meaningfully resolve misunderstandings or conflict and create the trust needed to tightly bond our real life community together will not see it become too entangled with any sort of face to face communication for some time yet... x x x

Australian Cyber Politics

It was Kevin Rudd's understanding of his e-lectorate and his recognition that if successful as a nation the basis for our economic wealth creation must be intellectual capital, which helped him win a landslide victory. Despite the fact that today we're still waiting for a sign that the promises will be kept, he did, at the time, have his finger on the nation's pulse. For the first time it felt it was finally dawning on our leaders that Australia was being left far behind in the quest to use the available information technologies to created a smart nation capable of dealing with whatever the future might throw at us.

Rudd's campaign targeted the next generation, promising - as witnessed by millions of Australians participating in social networking sites - a billion dollars to be spend modernising secondary schools with access to their own computer for every high school student (years 9 to 12) and to connect the nation's 9000 schools to super fast broadband. The Herald Sun quoted Rudd as saying: "Labor understands that in the 21st century information technology is not just a key subject to learn, it is now the key to learning all subjects." Rudd recognised creators of valuable intellectual property and those who manage knowledge based businesses are needed in his super smart electronic democracy.

The pros of a democracy are that it's citizens are usually well informed and cyber savvy. As citizens are moving virtually all of their other activities to the Internet, it is logical to conclude that voting and political participation will move on line as well. Although Rudd's experiments with cyber politics might never become historically noteworthy - another polly looking to pork barrel swinging electorates - he does show an understanding for the need for his government to create a new, nationwide, high-speed system of interactive public dialogue with on-line Australia. This is attested by his Internet site - Kevin '07 - which includes his blog and links to his YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Amazon sites.

The cons of an electronic democracy solving the old and intractable issues ingrained within society can be seen in international examples. The cyber governance model of Singapore's government has led to accusations of it curbing the Internet presence of opposition parties and exploitation for political discussion and even propaganda. For Australia it has so far meant broken promises and unless the excuses for not moving forward are seen as just that we'll never become the intellectual capital of the free world and Rudd will never be the new cyber Pericles. Any political party attempting electronic governance must be held accountable for promises made as electronic voting should not solely be used as a tool to measure the shifting currents of popular opinion, as the Rudd government seems to have done.

The lack of real and effective on-line access, whether being able to access - the promised - super fast broadband or being able to meaningfully participate in governance, will be detrimental to any government presenting itself as an accountable leader of an electronic democracy. Just as no politician wants to be held to election promises, no electronic cyber government wants to be held accountable for anti social trends amongst it's citizens (such as an increase in on-line gaming) without having any real means to control it. A electronic government not as informed or cyber savvy as it's citizens faces increased cynicism and distrust from a public that demands more and has the means to hold it's leaders accountable.

O..

O..

Seemed O was in a bit of a mess, although "out of his depth" would be a kinder description, the reasons why his feet were no longer touching the ground were not entirely unknown to him. Others, close to him had suffered similar calamities but this was the first time in his so far peaceful existence that the trappings of family had become personal. A not entirely unforseen death of a loved one, his wife of 28 years, through suicide, had rocked him to the core. ‘It never rains it pours’ O’s wife would have been fond to point out to family members enduring what he was now, and he’d always knowingly agreed. Knowing that she was always right and ran the roost, the roost from which the chicken’s had now escaped..

Not for the first time now O’s dearly departed wife sounded, to O, as being full of shit. Come to think of it this would’ve been exactly the sort of drivel she’d have come up with when consoling a grieving family member. Something about rain or sunshine or silver linings. It all sounded bloody hollow now. The chickens had done, he was told, the predictable. They’d hired the best lawyers they could afford and slaughtered each other in court over mother hen’s meagre fortune. Apter clichés for his predicament ran through his head but a promise to his beloved wife regarding swearing stopped him saying anything profane out aloud. Would such promises still be binding if one found oneself in these sorts of troubled times? O, wondered briefly. He’d been having a lot of these unsettling sorts of thoughts lately and he was still a little afraid of what she’d say, if she, somehow, knew. O struggled to think of something cheerfully apt she might also have said, but found, for the life of him, that he couldn’t..

What O didn't know was that his wife had long seen it coming. ‘Pack all your troubles in an old kid bag and smile, smile, smile..’ is what she’d told him he should tell the brood if anything happened to her. He’d put it down to a major senior moment although that was exactly what he’d been doing since she’d gone to meet her maker; smiling like the deranged idiot which, everyone afterwards, would point out his unfortunate wife had become. There had been early signs and clues ofcourse, but he’d never told anyone. Not his kids, not even his wife. Whenever O’d been remotely interested, say when there was a break in the cricket on telly, he had observed others deal with the mad, so why should he? He knew of the havoc raging through his family’s life, and he always, faithfully, agreed with his wife’s assessments and the hollow platitudes she would offer, however kiltered they in hindsight sounded..

What comforting cliché would you’ve come up for this one bitch? O caught himself thinking before it was far too late. What would she have said to the chickens who we now accusing O, and each other, of causing mother hen’s mental collapse? What timeworn, slightly roasted saying would she have come up with? Share and share alike? Fat chance, O realised, of that. For the last week O had to do his own cooking, cleaning (and particularly painful; make the bed he swore was still warm) and now he was expected to glue the family together? O knew it was time for him to ‘stand on his own two feet’ and realise ‘the first step is always the hardest.’ Trouble, for O was, he’d never done so before. And worse, he’d never bothered to learn from the things which drove his wife insane. It dawned on him now they were connected but he’d run out of warm chestnuts to explain why. What he did know though; this winter he was going to starve..

Still, there was always the internet porn he’d recently become addicted to. Not surprisingly this particular does she somehow know about this guild had been the first to pass. Perhaps it was nature running its course or maybe O no longer cared. He’d even come up with his own half-arse saying to comfort himself: ‘God rewards those who’ve lived a good life with never conceived off before opportunities.’ Which even to O at times sounded more like an excuse then a reason, but hell, like swearing, there was no one to give him shit no more. O had never intentionally wanted to enter the world of internet porn. He’d seen things on midnight sport channels, knew of people that knew of people who’d surfed the net for smut and filth but he’d never dared look..

Sure, he had his own internet account, through the urgings of grandkids, on Facebook but he’d always tout himself to his wife that even though O might be a silver surfer he was not tempted to surf the surging dark rollers breaking amongst more innocent swells. “The grass is never greener on the other side of the fence” O had lovingly reassured her when they’d first gotten connected. However, the night after the funeral, checking the inbox for messages of condolences, which had poured in surprisingly few in number, he’d gotten distracted by a small hot or not? advertisement. Oblivious to his actions he’d clicked on ‘yes’. On a woman, if he’d pass her on the street, would never have recognized; thus entering a world of cheap (he’d found a good use for the credit card) gratifications and harsh (at least for the first few nights) internal battles..

O had found her hanging from the very branch she’d promised to hang herself from. Deep down he knew the brood were not to blame. If only, like them, he’d jumped when the madness started brewing. “You left her stewed too long” they’d said. “Stewed too long in the madness, till she boiled over without you there to release the pressure.” But what did it matter now that he’d turned a blind eyes to events. Yeah sure, he could’ve paid more attention to her and let the brood know but they’d not experienced the sense of freedom since he’d cut her out of the tree. The reason why he should accept anymore responsibility now he was the Head of the Family then when he was just her husband, continued to escape him. After all, he could remain as useless as he’d always been..

He’d come to see now that none of the brood would welcome this old rooster back, so O, resolute for the first time in his life, declared himself independent of the emotional tyranny family brings. Only yesterday he had to justify himself to the barflies; “behind every strong woman stands a powerful man” he had exclaimed wildly whilst buying them all another round. Yes, that's right;barflies, for yes, sadly, the drink too had caught up with O. During the funeral, as it happened. And he’d only wanted to get away from the ever hollower sounding platitudes..

The doors of The Little Red Rooster (yes, to O also it had seemed like divine intervention) had stood wide open as the progression went past on their way to O wife’s final resting place when O, not quite understanding how he’d found himself somewhere unintended, became surrounded by understanding angels propped up along a dimly lit bar. This was the first time in O’s life that he’d felt his feet lose touch with the bottom, she was no longer there, for how long that had really been O could no longer tell, all he knew in the meantime he’d developed a healthy thirst..

O knew he could outlive the lawyer letters. He was forever telling everyone so. He’d outlived everything life had thrown at him so far, proving him a true survivor. A battler who’d learned to roll with the punches, forever hope full of the prophesied sun shine after the rain had gone. The brood, believing they could see straight through his act, just saw him as a useless old wanker. He’d come to realise their insults were just more the power to him for squandering their inheritance. His game plan seemed to be that they’d eventually stop moaning and leave him alone with his on-line girls and barfly mates at The Rooster..

Then, one day, and try to wrap your head around this one, I realised I’d completely wrongly misassembled the clues and overheard scraps of conversation. You’d be as disappointed as I was learning the hours spend grieving for what never really was had been in complete vain. This was the day when O’s wife came walking into the backyard...