The Revolution Will Not Be Downloaded. Dissent in the Digital Age

237 Pages·2008·3.934 MB·English

by  Tara Brabazon (Eds.)

The Revolution Will Not Be Downloaded
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The Revolution Will Not
Be Downloaded
Dissent in the digital age
E
DITED
BY
T B
ARA RABAZON
Chandos Publishing
Oxford · England
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First published in Great Britain in 2008
ISBN:
978 1 84334 459 9 (paperback)
978 1 84334 460 5 (hardback)
1 84334 459 9 (paperback)
1 84334 460 2 (hardback)
© The contributors,2008
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List of figures and tables
Figures
2.1 Survey of First Click participants 18
3.1 Microwaving change 47
3.2 Domesticating technology 50
3.3 The complexity of access 52
3.4 Technology in the lounge room 53
3.5 The ‘digital shed’ 56
3.6 A war over space 57
3.7 Barriers to access 59
3.8 A mode of exclusion 61
Tables
3.1 Computer and internet usage by seniors 32
3.2 Origin of overseas-born seniors in Western Australia, 2001 34
3.3 Eastbourne senior population by age group 40
4.1 International students in Australian higher education 79
vii
About the contributors
Sonia Bellhouse is a mature student currently studying English,
communications, cultural studies, and social history in Western
Australia, with a view to extending her research profile through higher
degree scholarship. She is an avid reader of all literary genres and a
prolific writer. As coordinator of the Perth-based Westfield Reading
Group she enthusiastically inspires others to extend their reading
repertoire and writing expertise.
Rebecca Bennetthas completed a PhD in cultural studies and backpacker
tourism. She is the convener of the tourism hub in the Popular Culture
Collective, a sessional lecturer at Curtin University and a part-time
administrative manager of the student guild at Murdoch University in
Western Australia. She has spent many years overseas in the UK, Europe
and North America, but has returned to settle in her home city of Perth,
Western Australia.
Tara Brabazon is Professor of Media at the University of Brighton, UK
and director of the Popular Culture Collective. She is the author of nine
books including Digital Hemlock and The University of Google. Her
interests include media education, cultural history, creative industries
strategies, sonic media and postcolonial theory. A former national
teaching award winner, she teaches students from first-year to doctoral
level and is the course leader for the Master of Arts Creative Media.
Felicity Cullhas a BA (Hons) in communications and is a PhD candidate
at Murdoch University. She is the rhythm and movement hub convenor
for the Popular Culture Collective, and a sessional academic at Curtin
University. Her academic interests include the role of music in cultural
and political resistance in conservative times, masculinity studies and
creative industries.
Valentin E. Fyrst has a background in business administration,
psychology (clinical and organisational) and French. He is employed as
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The Revolution Will Not Be Downloaded
a business consultant within the Strategy and Corporate Affairs Division
of Western Power (Western Australian Electricity Networks Corporation).
Before joining Western Power, Valentin worked as a project officer within
the Electricity Reform Implementation Unit of the Western Australian
Office of Energy where he had extensive involvement in the development,
drafting and approval processes underpinning the restructure of the
vertically integrated Western Power Corporation into its four successor
entities (Western Power, Synergy, Verve Energy and Horizon Power).
Luke Jacques is currently working for the Australian government. He
writes articles and commentaries for Australian queer free street press
and is beginning a PhD in 2008. His research interests are in the
convergence of postcolonial and queer theory.
Mike Kentis based at the University of Brighton, where he is a researcher
for the Art Design and Media Subject Centre of the Higher Education
Academy. He is also the critical digital hub convenor for the Popular
Culture Collective. Mike has been actively involved with the internet
since 1996 when he co-founded an internet service provider. His research
is focused on the impact of new media and communications technology
on society.
Christina Lee is Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Curtin
University of Technology, Western Australia. Her areas of research are
youth cinema, Chinese cinema, nostalgia and memory in film, and
gender studies. She has published on a wide range of topics in
publications such as Continuum, Cultural Studies Review, Images of the
‘Modern Woman’ in Asia: Global Media, Local Meaningsand Liverpool
of the South Seas: Perth and Its Popular Music. She is editor of Violating
Time: History, Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema (Continuum Books,
2008) and is writing a book on youth iconography and politics in cinema
(Ashgate Publishing).
Garan Lewis is presently living in Perth, Western Australia. In 2006 he
completed a bachelor of arts degree, majoring in political science, with a
minor in cultural studies. He is currently finishing a diploma of
education at Murdoch University. He is interested in developing
participatory democratic ideas, tackling social justice issues and
considering ways of moving towards a more egalitarian society.
Kathryn Locke works in the area of urban regeneration and arts
management. She is also completing a doctorate in cultural studies at
x
About the contributors
Murdoch University, Western Australia. Her research and published
work encompasses topics ranging from city imaging and the political
economy to literacy theory and education policy.
Joel Matthews completed his undergraduate degree at Murdoch
University, Perth, Western Australia and is currently a postgraduate
student in the Graduate School of Intercultural Studies at Kobe
University, Japan. He specialises in cultural studies and Japanese studies,
currently focusing on contemporary Japanese media culture, popular
culture and suicide practices.
Leanne McRae is a senior researcher and creative industrial matrix
convener for the Popular Culture Collective. She is a teacher of media
studies, cultural studies, screen studies, creative industries and mobility
studies, with specialist expertise in the instruction of international
students. Currently, her research interests include popular cultural
studies, mobility and the media, pedagogy and men’s studies.
Carley Smith has a BA (Hons) in communication and cultural studies
and is a PhD candidate at Murdoch University in Western Australia. Her
early academic interests revolved around fans and fandom and her
dislike of patronising ethnographic and anthropological ‘studies’ that
pathologised fan behaviour. Her doctorate investigates the propaganda
and populism operating in and around Michael Moore’s film-making
and writing. She is currently working for the Australian government in
an industrial relations advisory field.
Joanne Smith is a PhD student at Murdoch University in Perth, Western
Australia. She is interested in the history of Australia and New Zealand
and the political, economic, social and cultural relations which have
manifested within the region. Her thesis investigates the negotiation of
postcolonialism in the Antipodes through the analysis of popular culture.
Angela Thomas-Jones is a part-time academic at Murdoch University,
Western Australia and editor of the Popular Culture Collective’s
community and hub projects. Angela’s passion is writing and her
publications include book chapters, and website and magazine articles.
These research pieces focus on different aspects of popular culture such
as fashion, body politics, the creative industries and youth.
Melinda Young is a PhD candidate at Murdoch University. Previous
degrees include BPsych and BA communication and cultural studies with
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The Revolution Will Not Be Downloaded
first-class honours. Her PhD research examines leisure and its condition
in post-work Australia, with attention to how the relationship between
class, (post) work and leisure is applied to obesity. Additional research
interests include feminism and the contemporary representation of
femininity, fatness, food discourses, post-industrial consumption, popular
culture and class. Publications range from work on feminism and fatness,
consumerism, post-work, leisure, food and class. Melinda works part-
time for the Commonwealth and Federal Business Enterprise of Australia
Post. She is also the body works hub convenor of the Popular Culture
Collective.
The authors may be contacted at:
E-mail: [email protected]
xii
Preface:
passing the digital door bitch
Tara Brabazon
The first thing you should do whenever you hear anything stated
confidently is to say, ‘Wait a minute. Is it true?’ (Noam Chomsky)1
Most things make me nervous. Going into clubs makes me
nervous. I always think that I’m not going to get into the club. All
my childhood, it was always stressful about whether you’re going
to get in or not. I was the classic person on the receiving end of,
‘You can’t come in trainers’, or ‘Sorry, it’s members only night’.
(Chris Lowe)2
The last 20 years have seen an explosion in the night-time economy.
Dance music and dance clubs have boomed out their wares, punctuating
the atmosphere with beats, smoke and mirrors. But before punters can
push through into this sensual Narnia, hopeful partiers must pass the
fashion muster from bombastic bouncers and demanding door bitches.
Even Chris Lowe, one half of the style-lifing Pet Shop Boys, expressed his
nerves in negotiating with these arbiters of identity and taste.
This analogue world, of shoes and nightclubs, membership and
belonging, has edges, borders, exclusions and inequalities. Access and
entry has always been exclusively granted to the empowered, the
fashionable and the affluent. When the internet entered popular culture
through the early 1990s and the World Wide Web interlaced with social
life in the 2000s, the dreams of Howard Rheingold3 and Sherry Turkle4
appeared to reach fruition. The incomplete revolution of May 1968
suddenly found a platform for renewal. Democracy would finally be
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