Howard Rheingold in the introduction to his book Virtual Communities: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier briefly touched on the potential for cyberspace to act as a vehicle of political liberation. He states, “If a government is to rule according to the consent of the governed, the effectiveness of that government is heavily influenced by how much the governed know about the issues that affect them” (Rheingold, XXIX). Writing before the advent of the World Wide Web, Rheingold believed that the peer discussion and many to many messaging capabilities of CMC could circumvent the traditional media which, being manipulated by a handful of wealthy individuals, could serve as a powerful mechanism of control. I’m sure Rheingold was ecstatic as the World Wide Web came into being and personal web pages proliferated. Later when blogs became common place and began to supplement existing web communities, public discourse and the electronic agora might have seem assured…or is it?
The internet does not look like it did in the days that Rheingold was writing Virtual Communities. Corporate and government institutions have had an opportunity to gain a foothold on the web. In some ways this is a good thing. A community cannot function without laws that protect the rights of its members. We as a society and even as an international community have spoken out to condemn child pornography and identity theft that exploded as the internet grew. Even the WELL, the community about which Rheingold participated and wrote about, had one incontrovertible law that one had to abide by in order to participate: You had to use your real name. This allowed for accountability for ones actions within the system and in many ways made it possible for this community to function. In other ways the introduction of corporate and governmental control is a very bad thing. Lawrence Lessig has stated that the code on which internet itself is built is the law of online societies as it determines what is possible within a virtual community. He makes a call for more open source software to be written in an effort to preserve freedom inherent in the network. He fears that as large corporations develop applications using proprietary source individuals can find themselves limited in their ability to shape and control the media environment in which they are saturated. Unfortunately one can already see these predictions coming true as government and corporations start to use this technology to funnel individuals to sites under the control or supervision of a minority.
Rheingold states, “I believe that most citizens of democratic societies given access to clearly presented information about the state of the Net, will make wise decisions about how the net ought to be governed” (Rheingold, pg. XXXII). Unfortunately we face a dilemma in that a majority of users have neither the skill or expertise to create or modify code and are trapped in the systems created for them by others. Many to many communication is not assured and can be controlled using tools such as firewalls. Danah Boyd on the blog Many 2 Many poses the question of what should a good architect (ie. coder) do? In the cathedrals of the middle ages the architect was not the stone mason. He did not carve or set the molds and scaffolding. Rather he drew up plans and showed the masses how the building would fit together. He guided creation. A good architect on the internet should do the same. Coding has become too complex and convoluted for the average citizen to understand. As the architect it is their responsibility to create easily usable tools for the masses that allow them great latitude in what they create. He must allow workers to modify their tools if they are capable to suit the job facing them. Furthermore, when something is not working or new function is needed an architect must trouble shoot these issues and find new functional solutions. In short, the architect must coordinate but leave the masses to create.
