The notion of a ‘counter public’ or a competing or alternate public sphere recognizes that hegemonic discourses devalue some communications and make some expressions of self dangerous and or risky (Cantey. N. and Robinson,C. (2015) p. 220). Taking and inhabiting space is a political act; the digital space we inhabit, the way we are given voice or made visible, allows participants to create a sense of self and form communities or tribes in these counter publics. Cantey and Robinson (2015) explain how Twitter conversations “help reinforce the use of on-line space as an alternative sphere for the sharing and creation of identities” (p. 222). Magdelena Olszanowski (2015) describes the use of Instagram hashtags in a similar manner but stresses the vulnerability in such exchanges stating “intimacy builds worlds; it creates spaces” (p.233). Panayiota Tsatsou (2009) opines “space becomes place when it acquires symbolic meaning and a concrete definition marking the whole spectrum of identity and sense of belonging” (p. 12). Digital communication technologies alter “the spatial and temporal boundaries of human interaction (Carey (2009), p. 157), but in these socially expanding communicative acts of identity creation, sharing, intimacy, vulnerability, symbolic communities and networked individualism, do we have control and possession of our creations and interactions? Are we leaving ourselves open to manipulation by corporate structures and others who would invade our privacy? What does it mean to exist and create identity in this ephemeral world? Especially as vulnerable and intimate selves.
Privacy and security are serious issues in navigating the rapidly changing world of digital communications. Industry professionals meet to discuss these concerns each year; organizations like Reboot Communications host annual summits drawing in “1,000 delegates with an interest in cutting edge policy, programs, law, research and technologies aimed at the protection of privacy and security”. https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/privsec2018/
Conversations about how to protect ourselves proliferate across the internet. https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/66-ways-to-protect-your-privacy-right-now/. How do we make sense of this so very public extension of our identities, of these risky, intimate and vulnerable communications in a space we understand so very little and have so little actual control over? Julia Angwin (2016) warns that “we implicitly agree to have our movements followed both virtually, as we browse the web, and physically, as our phones transmit our locations. We agree to have our interests cataloged and analyzed. We agree to have the content of our emails scanned. We agree to have our friends identified and analyzed in ‘‘social graphs.’’ We agree to have our images stored, shared, and tagged and our faces analyzed to help companies perfect their facial recognition tools. We agree to have our voices analyzed, our fingerprints scanned, and soon enough, the iris patterns of our eyes stored in vast, remote databases”.
If these digital spaces are indeed sites of vulnerable expression, risky places of identity construction, counter culture, and intimate communications … shouldn’t we have more control over our outputs and greater understanding of the limits of our self-expression? Is the commodification of our interests and spaces, described so agilely by Angwin (2016) a necessity? As Carey (2009) expresses in his text, we have only just begun to unpack the import and cultural ramifications of the Telegraph 178 years ago. Can these current articles, summits and symposiums do any better?
References
Cantey. N. and Robinson,C. (2015). Chapter 16. Rambukkana, N.(Ed.), Hashtag publics: The power and politics of discursive networks (pp. 221 – 228). New York: Peter Lang.
Carey, J. (2009). Chapter 8: Technology and Ideology. In Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, Revised Edition , pp. 155–177.
Olszanowski, M. (2015). Chapter 17. Rambukkana, N.(Ed.), Hashtag publics: The power and politics of discursive networks (pp. 229 – 242). New York: Peter Lang.
Tsatsou, P. (2009) ‘Reconceptualising ‘Time’ and ‘Space’ in the Era of Electronic Media and Communications’, PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication, 1: 11-32.
Angwin, J. (2016). Protecting your privacy is not as hard as you think. Consumer Reports. retrieved from https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/protecting-your-digital-privacy-is-not-as-hard-as-you-might-think/