Klaus Schönberger: information creates true Persistent and recombined forms of activist communication or how “false“ events
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Anthropological notes on internet fakes as a pattern of action and communicating
Activists using fakes and hoaxes communicate information by speaking in the name of someone else - persons or institutions invested with power. With the spreading of internet communication, this pattern of action and communicating has acquired additional power as a means of political and social protest.
A fake imitates the language of power. It speaks for a limited period of time in the name of power, and with its authority. Several cultural techniques are crucial for the practice of faking: Camouflage, imitation, distortion, detournement and re-interpretation and exaggeration of specific languages. The more competently the faker is using the signs reserved for use by specific author(ities) - corporations, MPs, local councils - the more efficient the fake will be.
The recent DowEthics fake illustrates how the enabling potential of the internet can be realised in this context. Speaking in the name of the chemical corporation Dow, a would-be-spokesperson publicly announced that Union Carbide had finally decided to pay compensations to the victims of 1984 Bophal Disaster. This fake forced the corporation to make a statement about something that they deliberately had avoided to mention.
The paper discusses the ways in which the internet is enhancing this specific pattern of action and communicating. The channel reduction of technically processed communication increases the possibilities for fakers to speak in the name of political adversaries or corporations: this form of activist practice.is actually helped by the poverty of context (in terms of human senses) within computer mediated communication. Activists like "The Yes Men" have developed a form of cybertheatre which successfully uses the technological circumstances of "virtual life" as a starting point for "real life" actions. In a way, faking in the internet could be seen as one of those practices of culture jamming, "which sceptical voices would see as one of the many threats and uncertainities of the digital life" (CfP). However, within the framework of Guerilla Communication with its specific understanding of politics, faking develops into an efficient form of political articulation:
"Guerrilla communication is political, militant action. It differs from the conventional (...) action in as much as it does not simply aim to destroy the codes of power and sovereignty, but aims to effectively disfigure them. (..) The goal is neither the interruption nor the permanent appropriation of a communicational channel. The goal is the theft and distortion of messages. We start from the premise that the significance of communication is not just what is said but also the form of the communication itself." (autonome a.f.r.i.k.a. gruppe, 1998)
Guerilla Communication does not trust the classical principle of counterinformation. However, the "lies" of Guerilla Communication are false informations disseminated in order to create true events. The DowEthics fake forced the corporation to issue an explicit statement that they do not intend to compensate the victims of the Bhopal disaster.
Within a wider theoretical framework, in this paper the use of the internet is being characterized as either persistent or recombinant. In this view, e-petitions and virtual sit-ins illustrate more the persistence of ‚offline' patterns of action and communicationg which are transferred from ‚real life' to a new media. Similarly, Attac is trying to provide true information for both its members and the public. Its ‚strategy of expertise' is transfering the classical (offline-)practice of counterinformation to the Internet - again a ‚persistent' use of the Internet. By contrast, fakes in the internet acting as starting points for virtual-real performances of cybertheatre are seen more as an example for a "recombinant practice": Existing offline forms of protest are being recombined in a changed and intensified form under the conditions of a technified communication. In summary, internet fakes in this paper are being interpreted as an expression of a changing understanding of politics as found in parts of the new social movements critical of globalisation. Internet fakes can be used to illustrate more general patterns in use and appropiation of new technologies. Such patterns can be analyzed in terms of persistence and recombination of social and cultural practises in a novel technological environment.
Contact:
Dr. Klaus Schönberger
Forschungskolleg kulturwissenschaftliche Technikforschung
(Scientific Coordinator)
Institut für Volkskunde der Universität Hamburg
Bogenallee 11
D-20144 Hamburg
T. +49 (0) 40 42838-7250
Fax: +49 (0) 40 42838-6346
E-Mail: klaus.schoenberger[at]uni-hamburg.de
WWW: http://www.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/technik-kultur/
Weblog: http://technikforschung.twoday.net
Online-Journal: kommunikation@gesellschaft (Soziologie - Telematik - Kulturwissenschaft)
http://www.kommunikation-gesellschaft.de
Activists using fakes and hoaxes communicate information by speaking in the name of someone else - persons or institutions invested with power. With the spreading of internet communication, this pattern of action and communicating has acquired additional power as a means of political and social protest.
A fake imitates the language of power. It speaks for a limited period of time in the name of power, and with its authority. Several cultural techniques are crucial for the practice of faking: Camouflage, imitation, distortion, detournement and re-interpretation and exaggeration of specific languages. The more competently the faker is using the signs reserved for use by specific author(ities) - corporations, MPs, local councils - the more efficient the fake will be.
The recent DowEthics fake illustrates how the enabling potential of the internet can be realised in this context. Speaking in the name of the chemical corporation Dow, a would-be-spokesperson publicly announced that Union Carbide had finally decided to pay compensations to the victims of 1984 Bophal Disaster. This fake forced the corporation to make a statement about something that they deliberately had avoided to mention.
The paper discusses the ways in which the internet is enhancing this specific pattern of action and communicating. The channel reduction of technically processed communication increases the possibilities for fakers to speak in the name of political adversaries or corporations: this form of activist practice.is actually helped by the poverty of context (in terms of human senses) within computer mediated communication. Activists like "The Yes Men" have developed a form of cybertheatre which successfully uses the technological circumstances of "virtual life" as a starting point for "real life" actions. In a way, faking in the internet could be seen as one of those practices of culture jamming, "which sceptical voices would see as one of the many threats and uncertainities of the digital life" (CfP). However, within the framework of Guerilla Communication with its specific understanding of politics, faking develops into an efficient form of political articulation:
"Guerrilla communication is political, militant action. It differs from the conventional (...) action in as much as it does not simply aim to destroy the codes of power and sovereignty, but aims to effectively disfigure them. (..) The goal is neither the interruption nor the permanent appropriation of a communicational channel. The goal is the theft and distortion of messages. We start from the premise that the significance of communication is not just what is said but also the form of the communication itself." (autonome a.f.r.i.k.a. gruppe, 1998)
Guerilla Communication does not trust the classical principle of counterinformation. However, the "lies" of Guerilla Communication are false informations disseminated in order to create true events. The DowEthics fake forced the corporation to issue an explicit statement that they do not intend to compensate the victims of the Bhopal disaster.
Within a wider theoretical framework, in this paper the use of the internet is being characterized as either persistent or recombinant. In this view, e-petitions and virtual sit-ins illustrate more the persistence of ‚offline' patterns of action and communicationg which are transferred from ‚real life' to a new media. Similarly, Attac is trying to provide true information for both its members and the public. Its ‚strategy of expertise' is transfering the classical (offline-)practice of counterinformation to the Internet - again a ‚persistent' use of the Internet. By contrast, fakes in the internet acting as starting points for virtual-real performances of cybertheatre are seen more as an example for a "recombinant practice": Existing offline forms of protest are being recombined in a changed and intensified form under the conditions of a technified communication. In summary, internet fakes in this paper are being interpreted as an expression of a changing understanding of politics as found in parts of the new social movements critical of globalisation. Internet fakes can be used to illustrate more general patterns in use and appropiation of new technologies. Such patterns can be analyzed in terms of persistence and recombination of social and cultural practises in a novel technological environment.
Contact:
Dr. Klaus Schönberger
Forschungskolleg kulturwissenschaftliche Technikforschung
(Scientific Coordinator)
Institut für Volkskunde der Universität Hamburg
Bogenallee 11
D-20144 Hamburg
T. +49 (0) 40 42838-7250
Fax: +49 (0) 40 42838-6346
E-Mail: klaus.schoenberger[at]uni-hamburg.de
WWW: http://www.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/technik-kultur/
Weblog: http://technikforschung.twoday.net
Online-Journal: kommunikation@gesellschaft (Soziologie - Telematik - Kulturwissenschaft)
http://www.kommunikation-gesellschaft.de
