[phpslash-users] [OT] CmdrTaco and Hemo at MIT

[nathan r. h. <nh...@ar...>]

Yep, you heard right..
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/09/21/0021259&mode=nested

If anyone's in the MIT area, please go and see if they makes asses out of
them selves. (Rob's not even planning to say anything just answer questions
[from his adoring fans..?] though Hemos' talk looks interesting, I'm not
sure how he'll stand with more rigorous academics)

Here's the abstract to Hemos' talk at the Media Lab...
---
A new generation of public intellectuals has emerged, at home with digital
media, engaged in cultural and political debates central to the new
communities of cyberspace. These new public intellectuals found their voices
in the zines that appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, expressing the values of
various subcultural communities. These new intellectuals have created
Webzines such as Slashdot and Bad Subjects, which reach a global audience
and enable immediate responses to political and cultural issues.


How Slashdot (Dys)functions
Jeff Bates will discuss the evolution of his geek-oriented Webzine Slashdot.

The New Public Sphere: Pillar of Democracy or Tower of Babel?
Stephen Duncombe will argue that new technologies of reproduction and
dissemination -- from Xerox machines to the Internet -- have blown open the
gates of public discourse, as ordinary people become information producers
as well as consumers. But is this creating a new cadre of public
intellectuals? Or is the sheer volume of commentators and their diverse
concerns creating a public sphere that is Balkanized into interest ghettoes:
a world where everyone speaks but no one listens? Choosing examples from the
zine world as well as the Web, Duncombe will discuss the political
ramifications of the explosion in do-it-yourself media.

Beyond the Valley of the Silicon: Cultural Debris and Revolt on the Internet
Annalee Newitz will offer part autobiography and part cultural analysis in
her exploration of the ironic and neurotic relationship between the booming
new economy and subversive communication on the Internet.
---

-n