[Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools

Thu Mar 15 06:05:43 PDT 2018

Harshad, in the American context I think "family values" is
exactly what is not going to solve the problem of gun
violence - if indeed anything can "solve" it at all.

It is civic participation. By committing themselves to solve
this problem through protest, debate and civic action,
demanding that Congresspeople act in the public interest -
these schoolkids are doing exactly the kind of thing that
can make some progress.

On the other hand, the consciousness that says (and this is
what many American men think) "It is *my* responsibility to
defend *my* family, so I demand *my* right to have a gun to
shoot anyone who comes near *my* house and *my family*" is
what the gun culture feeds on.

That's my take ... safely on the other side of the Pacific
Ocean.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 15/03/2018 11:54 PM, Harshad Dave wrote:
> 15 March 2018.
>
> Dear friends,
>
> I write here with reference to email message from Michael (Wed, Mar 14,
> 2018 at 9:25 PM). As far as protest for gun control and debate on it is
> concerned, I put some views here.
>
> We all are aware that this is not the first event of open fire on school
> students as well as mass killing with gun fire on public place (recall Las
> Vegas shooting and other). Right from beginning, when Columbus discovered
> the New World, the road of establishing civilized society on continent
> America was not a comfortable one. The people passed through challenges,
> hardship and peril in day to day life during the travel on the road. This
> journey moulded a responsible and wisdom full culture in the blood of
> people living there. They fought for independence and emerged with a unity
> named USA, they sustained with and sacrificed in civil war, they passed
> through the severe recession of 1930 after World War I, and they fought
> thousands of kilometres away from native place along with allied nations in
> World War II. These all are the untold, unwritten qualification of the
> people of the time that decorated with a right of freedom to keep weapons
> with them. We never heard of such insane events of mass killing in this
> society in the history of this people though freedom to keep gun/weapon was
> and has been a right.
>
> [NB: Please note, I am neither in favour nor in opposition to the protest.
> I try to just bring one point of consideration to the reader.]
>
> After August 1945, USA emerged with some exceptional lead over other
> nations of the world. If we consider a period of 25 years as generation
> change, the third and fourth generation constitutes present youth. Those
> who were born in and after August 1945 could study the history of the above
> path that was traveled by their ancestors. There is much difference between
> reading a history and making living in the same history.
>
> Moreover, I recall the words of President Roosevelt, “*The only limit to
> our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.*” It brought a new
> style and different culture with comfortable life and inexperienced
> thinking and thoughts in new generations. The emerging social constitution
> of society in USA and its systems as well as institutions grew with a rapid
> progress and incessant changes. Majority people believe that “*dollars”* is
> the ultimate key towards happiness and peace. Institutions and system of
> society worked as if “*science and technology”* has the entire competency
> to settle any social problem.
>
> Wise people.... perhaps... failed to understand that our society is stable
> and balance on four pillars.... they (pillars) are Philosophy, Ethics and
> Religion, Science and Technology and Economics. Uneven growth in one or
> more pillars will destabilize the society. Now a day, we are searching all
> the answers of social issues from *science and technology*. We try to sort
> out every problem through *dollars* only, and we do not know if it is
> sorted out or postponed. Neither we honestly give adequate stress on
> ethical value nor do we have uniform philosophy on which our society might
> rest. Family system is all most paralyzed. Youth are encouraged or
> instigated to be independent and self sufficient as soon as they reach at a
> prescribed age. We treat them as freedom to youth. Our youth mass is not
> aware of all this fact and every street and corners are equipped with a
> net-work to misleading the youth.
>
> Now, this mass of the youth protests with an esteemed trust that the
> subject gun law will bring a safety. They never know, “*Safety never come
> from the enacted laws, it does come from the healthy and balanced social
> system.*” Presently, it seems to me that protesters are with a trust to
> bring safety by introducing the subject gun law, but the events of
> shootings shout for the grass root changes in social system with balance
> uniform growth in the above said four pillars. It demands for reintroducing
> an affectionate family system again and fundamental education that dollars
> cannot always bring happiness and peace but where the real happiness and
> peace lie.
>
> Harshad Dave
>
> Email: hhdave15@gmail.com
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Fernando and Monica,
>>
>> This is what is happening is the United States today,
>>
>> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/students-
>> from-thousands-of-schools-stage-a-walkout-to-protest-
>> gun-violence-and-honor-parkland-victims.html
>>
>> It is nothing less than extraordinary. Many are trying to limit this to
>> gun violence but I wonder, based on your article, if it will soon transform
>> into another movement. But I think it goes to show how the work you have
>> done, if only a beginning, is really important. I feel like we have missed
>> this in U.S. academic circles.  There is what is basically an idiotic
>> article on fake news in the most recent Science, supposed to be our
>> flagship.
>>
>> I feel like we have to hit the re-set button on understanding what is
>> going on and the role that what you call human-technology interaction is
>> playing.
>>
>> I have a question for some activity theorists if they are interested in
>> responding. In some ways what is going on does mirror an activity model,
>> the multi-level reciprocal transformation (unless I am misunderstanding
>> something). But as I said in an earlier message there is nobody coming in
>> doing an intervention, the transformation itself is organic, more Dewey
>> oriented I would say (I think maybe Friere also).  Is there room for this
>> in activity theory?
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Fernando Cunha
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:03 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>; mike cole
>> <mcole@ucsd.edu>
>> Cc: Lemos, Monica <monica.lemos@helsinki.fi>
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools
>>
>> Dear all,
>> I really appreciate the discussion so far, and I liked the way some of you
>> used some metaphors. It was far from our intention to reinvent the wheel or
>> to use flint stones to light fire. What I think it is important is that
>> there is no "if" in human history, and we are where we are because we
>> transform the places we live, as well as the tools we use. We can for sure
>> ride horses in the cities, but the horses would sweat so much (considering
>> the asphalt roads), that in a matter of hours they would die.
>>
>> Since life is forward, we tried to show in our article a small part of
>> what the movements organized by the students were.It is important to
>> highlight, that despite people that were not in favor of protests
>> (including some students!), it was the first time in Brazilian history that
>> students (who were not supposed to interfere) interfered in a political
>> decision. And they did so not only by using Facebook. As we mention in our
>> paper, Facebook is one aspect of the protests, and we considered it as a
>> mediational communicative tool. As I mentioned before in this answer, we as
>> human beings use tools that are available, reshape them, and sometimes use
>> them for a purpose that is completely different from the original idea.
>> I myself am a secondary education teacher, and I am also a researcher
>> because I am a secondary education teacher. We may have different points of
>> view when you research something as an outsider, and when you participate
>> (not as an ethnographer), but as a subject of the group. In my humble
>> opinion, we are still trying to conceptualize (and stabilize) things that
>> move faster than we can handle as scientists, or to compare contexts that
>> cannot be compared.
>>
>> I am looking forward to your reactions.
>> Best regards,
>>
>>
>> __________________________Fernando R. Cunha Júnior, PhD.
>>
>> http://fernandorcjr.wordpress.com
>>
>>
>>     Em segunda-feira, 12 de março de 2018 21:05:34 BRT, mike cole <
>> mcole@ucsd.edu> escreveu:
>>
>>  Alfredo et al
>>
>> I read this message before reading the prior one. You are making the point
>> I was trying to make regarding discussion of the paper.
>> In our everyday lives we are experiencing a change in the wind (to use a
>> metaphor that Dylan made famous at another such time).
>> HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE DISRUPTING THINGS AS USUAL for the first time in
>> my life. Call it 65 years.
>>
>> And we are academics and some of us are are paid to theorize such matters.
>> To theorize the social organization of society was Hugh's description of
>> the social sciences. In most American Universities, Psychology (cap P) is
>> located in the social sciences.
>> Do we approach the problem from "below" as psychologists? Do we approach
>> it from "above" as sociologists and political scientists?
>> Can you link the Leontiev who writes about the nature of human
>> consciousness, psychologically speaking and conducts experiments in the
>> laboratory that look for all the world like what goes on in my psychology
>> department, AND as someone who can help understand the growth of social
>> movements? This may also be a way to address and understanding of the
>> overlap and variability in the ideas of Vygotsky and Friere.
>>
>> Monica and Fernando must be reeling from all the complicated English we
>> are spewing. I look forward to the discussion.
>>
>> Still worrying about Figure 3! I know I need to be able to interpret it
>> but I am doing a lousy job.
>>
>> mike
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 5:34 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for finding and sharing the link, Andy, and thanks Michael and
>>> Mike for bringing the absolutely relevant connection to Parklands.
>>>
>>> There was not so long ago a discussion here as well as in a couple of
>>> articles in MCA about how crises leading to development most often
>>> result from quantitative increments that lead to qualitative leaps
>>> such that new forms of organization emerge from previous ones. So,
>>> David, I don't see why increments in the pace of circulation (e.g., of
>>> information) would not be expected to bring with them changes in the
>>> organisation of the whole economy system. I would not say that social
>>> media is just bringing a lot more of the same, just as I would not a
>>> priori reject the possibility that bringing a lot more of the same
>>> might not end up bringing new qualitative forms of communicating. The
>>> observation that "like" is intransitive in Facebook is interesting;
>>> but to me it needs to be put in its larger context of use. And so, are
>>> we analysing Facebook as a grammar closed up in itself, or as one more
>> chain in a larger grammar of possible cooperation?
>>> I am myself concerned that Social Media like Facebook may be
>>> amplifying dichotomical thinking beyond the innocuous and often
>>> way-to-verbose essays we academics enjoy entertaining with much more
>>> complex verbal forms than Facebook's intransitive "likes", only that
>>> the confrontations now seem to be moving to family's dinner tables,
>>> quarrels among protesters in public squares, or previously unheard of
>>> incarcerations for publishing tweets and rap songs that critique the
>>> crown in a supposedly modern democracy like Spain (e.g.:
>>> http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/02/20/tribunales/1519135083_
>>> 106543.html). But the article here discussed also shows that there are
>>> forms of organization that these technologies are affording that may
>>> bring more positive changes, like the case again in Spain of March 8th
>>> women's strike, the extent of which no politician or journalist had
>>> anticipated and which led the government to quickly adopt a much more
>>> equity-friendly discourse than even the evening before
>>> (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4_11iIELdfc). So, no, probably that
>>> one strike, or that one social media that may have made it possible,
>>> won't change the system. But they seem to incrementally add to
>> something, don't they?
>>> Alfredo Jornet
>>> ________________________________
>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and
>>> intransitive dimensions"
>>> Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden
>>> <andyb@marxists.org>
>>> Sent: 12 March 2018 06:39
>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
>>> schools
>>>
>>> That headline does not exist, but is it this:
>>>
>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social-media.h
>>> tml
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Andy Blunden
>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>> On 12/03/2018 4:02 PM, mike cole wrote:
>>>> Michael - I have been trying to find a digital copy of a story in
>>>> today's NY Times titled "the social media warriors of parkland." For
>>>> some reason
>>> it
>>>> is not visible on the digital version.... yet. Maybe someone out
>>>> there in  xmca-land can find it for us? I will check again  in the
>>>> morning to see if it appears.
>>>>      It seems especially relevant to Monica and Fernando's article,
>>>> and
>>> to
>>>> David's comment that "  it is very hard for me to pinpoint any
>>>> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was made
>>> possible by
>>>> Facebook."  The voices and forms of speaking used by the students
>>>> was
>>> not,
>>>> so far as I could tell, the source of data. There are no quotations
>>>> of
>>> any
>>>> students speaking differently. I assumed that this article was about
>>>> collective action.
>>>> Monica and Fernando - I confess I had difficulty following parts of
>>>> the article, perhaps because I am a very seldom user of Facebook. In
>>>> particular, I had difficulty understanding Figure 3.  Were the
>>>> people who started M1 also those who started M2-M3? ( " Once
>>>> students achieved the object of the activity—in the first case, to
>>>> avoid the closure of the schools—they focused the protests on another
>> object").
>>>> Did the M4 people get the idea from M1 through a FB connection form M1?
>>> Did
>>>> you get any sense of what distinguished pages that got a few hundred
>>> versus
>>>> 10,000 reactions?
>>>>
>>>> Harshad - Did you think the article failed to consider social issues?
>>> There
>>>> is no information about you on the xmca membership page, so it is
>>>> difficult to know from what part of the world you are writing.
>>>> Unless I miss my guess, some people will wonder at your use of the
>>>> word "man" where the local practice might put "humankind" or some
>>>> other gender inclusive term.
>>>>
>>>> David - Daylight saving time tonight so I find myself "working
>>>> late."  It got me to wondering how many people live in Seoul. A lot,
>> it turns out.
>>>> About 9-10 million. That got me to wondering about how much faster
>>>> all those people would be getting around on horses with all the
>>>> horse plops
>>> to
>>>> clamber over. And all that hay to haul into town for the morning
>>>> rush hour.  :-)
>>>>
>>>> mike
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 8:25 PM, Glassman, Michael
>>>> <glassman.13@osu.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi David,
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm sure those meddling kids won't come back on your lawn any time
>> soon.
>>>>> But really, the article did not say Facebook is a new type of
>>> technology.
>>>>> I believe they said that it's a form of human-technology
>>>>> interaction and suggested perhaps social media was a new type of
>>>>> human-technology interaction.  I don't agree with this phrasing. I
>>>>> tend to think of
>>> Facebook
>>>>> more as an application of Internet technology - but either way
>>>>> Facebook
>>> is
>>>>> just a form or an application. Is the internetworking of computer,
>>>>> radio and satellite communication an enormous step forward in how
>>>>> humans communicate.  I think so - it's really extraordinary on a
>>>>> number of
>>> levels
>>>>> but that's really not the conversation for this article.
>>>>>
>>>>> I do think the authors have done an analysis that is interesting
>>>>> and possibly important, especially when one considers what is
>>>>> currently
>>> going
>>>>> on down in Parkland (some might be happy to know that, at least
>>>>> from
>>> what I
>>>>> have read, Facebook isn't dominant or even that important for these
>>>>> students. Adults have been using it more for larger organizational
>>> events
>>>>> like the March 14 walkout and the March 24 march).  I have read
>>>>> some articles on organizing on online forums (and actually wrote a
>>>>> not very
>>> good
>>>>> one a few years back). Most of them are communications based an
>>>>> don't
>>> have
>>>>> strong theoretical underpinning which is why I think this article
>>>>> might
>>> be
>>>>> an important step forward.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think the idea of using third generation activity theory might be
>>>>> a
>>> good
>>>>> idea for this type of analysis. I myself have seen ties between the
>>>>> trialogical approach being developed by Hakkareinan and Paavola and
>>> what is
>>>>> going on down in Parkland. The students are creating their own
>>>>> projects
>>> and
>>>>> then getting the larger community to buy in to and support what
>>>>> they are doing which is in turn changing the quality of their
>>>>> activities. I have
>>> my
>>>>> own ideas on why this is suddenly happening and direct
>>>>> communication technologies like Twitter and texting (which seem
>>>>> primary vehicles) are only part of it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, this particular article I think is really timely and should
>>>>> give us a lot to think about.
>>>>>
>>>>> Michael
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
>>>>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
>>>>> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:03 PM
>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
>>> schools
>>>>> So in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg exapted extant technology
>>>>> already widely available in China and published a single text using
>>>>> moveable
>>> type
>>>>> which started a profound intellectual, cultural, and social
>>>>> revolution whose effects we still feel today: the rise of
>>>>> Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation in, among other places,
>>>>> Brazil, the Wars of
>>> Religion in
>>>>> France, the vicissitudes of a multii-confessional (political) State
>>>>> and ultimately those of a multi-confessional (psychological) state,
>>>>> In the twentieth century, Ford similarly exapted extant technology,
>>>>> this time nearly two millenia later than China, and mass-produced
>>>>> automobiles
>>> using
>>>>> Taylorism, forcing everybody to buy an identical product with
>>>>> interchangeable parts made by factories with interchangeable workers.
>>>>> The automobile "revolution" did not even give us new roads, and in
>>>>> Seoul today traffic moves notably slower than it would on
>>>>> horseback. Clearly, there are some forms of technology that are
>>>>> actually semiogenic--and
>>> others
>>>>> which merely circulate capital at a faster rate and actually slow
>>>>> the movement of people and new ideas.
>>>>>
>>>>> So my question is very simple. How do we know that "Facebook"
>>>>> (which as the name implies was originally designed to help Harvard
>>>>> freshmen decide which classmates were sufficiently hot to "like")
>>>>> is really one of the former technologies?.There are very clear
>>>>> signs , beyond the obvious
>>> ones
>>>>> surrounding the American origins, that it belongs to the latter
>>> category,
>>>>> and not a few of them appear in this very article. First of all,
>>>>> the authors are honest enough to associate Facebook with
>>>>> reactionary, xenophobic, populist movements like the clowns who run
>> the "Five Stars"
>>>>> movement in Italy. Second, on the very first page, the authors try
>>>>> but
>>> do
>>>>> not really seem to be able to distinguish between the "post first
>>>>> and organize later" technologies of Occupy Wall Street and the use
>>>>> of social media by the four movements in the article (including one
>>>>> actually
>>> called
>>>>> "Occupy Everything"). And thirdly, it is very hard for me to
>>>>> pinpoint
>>> any
>>>>> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was made
>>> possible
>>>>> by Facebook. If anything, Facebook seems to narrow semiogenic power
>>>>> to a single consumer/computer menu. Ford said, you can get a Model
>>>>> A in any color you like so long as it's black. Facebook tells us
>>>>> the same thing,
>>> but
>>>>> makes the verb "like" intransitive.
>>>>>
>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>> Sangmyung University
>>>>>
>>>>> Recent Article in *Early Years*
>>>>>
>>>>> The question of questions: Hasan’s critiques, Vygotsky’s crises,
>>>>> and the child’s first interrogatives <https://www.tandfonline.com/
>>>>> doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874>
>>>>>
>>>>> Free e-print available at:
>>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <
>>> a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear xmca'ers,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> it is (bit over) due time for introducing the article for
>>>>>> discussion from MCA's 2018 Issue 1, before Issue 2 comes upon us
>> soon.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The selected article, by Monica Ferreira Lemos and Fernando
>>>>>> Rezende da Cunha Júnior, is about two topics that were thematised
>>>>>> in the last ISCAR congress and that ought to be of much relevance
>>>>>> to current and future CHAT-related research: Social media and
>>>>>> social movements. In particular, the article examines how students
>>>>>> use social media for the organization and development of 4 social
>> movements in Brazil.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The article is attached and is Free access during the discussion
>>> period.
>>>>>> It can be accessed free in the following link:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2017.1379823
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The authors have kindly agreed to participate in the discussion
>>>>>> and they will be introducing themselves soon. I hope you  will
>>>>>> find the article interesting and please don't be shy to share
>>>>>> anything you might have learned reading it, anything you might
>>>>>> wonder about it or that you would like see discussed. Having
>>>>>> authors engage in dialogue is a great opportunity that this
>>>>>> community offers and that makes sense the most when many of you
>> participate. Good reading!
>>>>>> ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Alfredo Jornet
>>>>>>
>>>>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagning Design: Transitive and
>>>>>> intransitive dimensions"
>>>>>> Free print available:
>>>>>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
>>>>>>
>>>
>>