As I finished reading Cohen's book Reconfiguring the Networked Self, I kept being reminded of one of my favorite books, Boomsday.  Boomsday tells the story of a blogger who runs for President with the platform of incentivizing older Americans to kill themselves (or as she calls it "transitioning") by age 75 to help solve the Social Security problem.  But what is most relevant to our discussion in class is an invention the protagonist's father develops and makes his fortune on: Spider Repellent software.  The software's function is to find and erase web pages that correspond to a certain set of keywords.  Corporations and individuals use it to essentially erase any Google search results that would negatively reflect on them, like if Gary Condit wanted to eliminate any web pages referring to scandal or Chandra Levy or intern disappearance.

If such technology existed it would have a huge impact on the world as we know it.  But in some forms or another, it already does.  I believe it was Jessica who in week 2 of Strahilivetz's book discussed the "right to forget" in bankruptcy proceedings and what implications that could have in other scenarios.  Cohen mentions Michael Curry and Leah Lievrouw and the "ecologies of forgetting."  And we were all vocal last week in discussions surrounding the potential politician who keeps incriminating photos captured from facebook.  

With the advent of technology, media storage, increased surveillance, and the world wide web, this creates an environment there's not a lack of information resources so much as a lack of access to it.  Cohen describes search engines to borders, which I find a fitting comparison.  In my post last week, I tried to discuss how income equality and unequal access to technology based in large part on class serves as an additional border to information access.  I believe Jessica and Meredith's posts this week also show how gender and age relate.

Cohen states that "networked information technologies shape our perceptions of reality more comprehensively than simpler artifacts do" (p199).  She also finds that "levels of access. . . become defining conditions of privilege" (p206-7).  I was pleased with her discussion of flows of information and its effect on social meaning, and Jonathan Zittrain's "tinkerability"  idea.

We really are the product of the information around us.  And as I discussed in my post last week, the internet has the powerful ability to use availability of information as an equalizer, as does pop culture and mass media.  But with this also comes cost.  There will be an inherit inequality based on access to the "raw materials necessary for social and cultural participation" , regardless of the IP system in place.  And I feel Cohen's discussion on operational transparency can not be understated.

Gary Condit didn't need Spider Repellent software to make people forget about his scandal involving the disappearance of his intern Chandra Levy.  The news of 9/11 pushed the story out of the limelight and out of the public's minds.  Before travelocity replaced travel agents, there was a lack of operational transparency that allowed airlines to sell higher priced flights based on complexity of pricing mechanisms, business deals, and the software that gave priority to certain search results.  Limp Bizkit and other artists have been known to pay radio stations to play their music in order to generate attention and sales.  My undergraduate education in politics and the media, as well as the Daily Show, constantly reminds me of the role the media and 24 hour news cycles have on political elections.  And winner-take-all literature has explored how factors unrelated to level of talent and quality of work can be the reason a certain author or musician can be propelled to star status based on timing and luck.  

Perhaps the self-regulating market economy is a fiction, as Cohen states on page 269.  Thankfully, the market for search engines has led to Google to commit to selling "advertising, not search results" (http://www.google.com/honestresults.html).  But there is much to be said for the power of sorting mechanisms to shape "cultural environmentalism."  And I applaud Cohen for saying so much in her discussion of trade secrets, the FOIA, facebook, pop culture and so much more.