Monday, June 15, 2009
The Radicalization of Zeke Spier
I want to start of by saying I found this article very interesting and a good read. While I enjoyed reading it, I certainly do not agree with the majority of the article. As I read, I felt I was reminded over and over again by Larry Elin that the internet is a great place for information and communicating with others who are not physically close to you. I agree with this, I do not think many people will disagree, however this still does not convince me that internet communication is superior to face-to-face communication. Spier says, "The first place I went to was the computer to find out about the WTO...I heard about the demonstrations in the mainstream media, and I did not think it was the full picture of what happened. I didn't trust them." (103) This is one example of in the article where Elin points out to us how useful the internet was for Spier. Throughout Spier's various journeys to different protests he significantly uses the Internet as well as e-mail. I have no issue seeing how critical the internet was for Spier to gain this information and have instant access to the others with similar thoughts to him, but this brings us back to the beginning of the course when we talked about defining the internet. Spier's uses the web to the fullest for information, but just as important is the fact that Spier can contact the others of his groups. I think this story more than any other proves that the Internet is no longer just "a highway to information", but is also a way of living.
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I encourage you to watch the In Real Life dvd that we bought. I don't know if we were supposed to for this week but I thought we were so I watched it. When you mention that you are still not convinced that internet communication is superior to face-to-face communication, I immediately thought of the people in the dvd and their experience with online communication. Just seeing how close they had become to the people they met through the message board that they became a part of, even before they actually met, really made me believe that internet communication can be so powerful. You can read about it all you want and it may not seem believable, however, watching people talk about it, I feel, is so much more real. These people were so passionate about not only Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which is the board they joined, but about each other. In actuality, Buffy came second, their friendships were most important. When they talked about meeting each other in person, they said that they would see the people and feel like they didn't know them, but as soon as they saw their screen names they felt like they had known each other for a while and were friends. They were so passionate about each other and cared for each other so much that if you didn't know, you would never guess that these people met and spent a lot of the early part of their friendship strictly online. I think that the fact that they all started with something in common, made all of this easier and going in they already felt like they knew each other. But like you said, "the internet is a great place for communicating with others who are not physically close to you." For the people in the dvd, that is exactly what it was. One girl mentions that she found her best friend in a completely different part of the country and how could she have realized that without the internet and the board she joined. I think the internet is maybe not superior to face-to-face communication, however it seems to me that for a lot of people it really isn't that much different.
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