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

[Glassman, Michael]

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
>