HIST 697: Remixing the Internet
Watching Hans Rosling’s TED Talk, Debunking Third-World Myths, the first thing I thought was, “Wow, all that data and the way it’s displayed is wonderful. I’m so glad there are other people out there who want to do things like that, because I sure don’t.” Then his lecture ended with a bit on how actually, no one wants to compile, display, and analyze data the way he does. Actually, what he didn’t make clear, at least to me, was whether or not this impediment is caused by those who keep the data in regards to monetary concerns – they simply don’t want to fund it? They don’t want to release it without making a profit?
And so what was the point, really, of his talk? That we need not only people willing to do this kind of statistical analysis (which I think he proved is completely possible) but that we also need freedom of access to the information and between those working on the data? I found myself far more interested in the very large among of time he spent using the statistical analysis/data to deconstruct his students’ (and perhaps our own) notions about the way the world looks in terms of its economic flatness. It reminded me of the First World Problems Meme:
Making jokes about having “first world problems” I think began as a way for those of us in the “first world” to acknowledge how truly, truly trivial some of the things that vex us can be. It’s ostensibly meant to be mocking of ourselves. But this meme, and these kind of jokes, have quite rightly come under fire for being, well, racist may be the right word, and if not certainly ignorant, in assuming that just because someone lives in the “third world” they wouldn’t have problems with things like takeout menus or cellphones not working properly or wifi being slow because we flatten the “Third World” and forget or aren’t even aware that these technologies and the ridiculous vexations that come along with them are also globally available. Another, more explicitly race-coded term for these jokes is “white people problems.” Naming the meme is this way makes its problematic title that more clear.
Seeing the data Rosling displayed really drove home to me how valid the criticisms of this meme are – when Rosling displayed as world flattened by the internet he was raising an interesting point that I wish he’d spent a bit more time on. Designing for a web audience means that we are designing for a world wide audience, and this means we must redefine our understanding of audience. This audience may speak a different language but have the same literacy skills and face the same kinds of challenges we do, and also have the same interests and curiosities we do. We cannot, must not, look at the internet as a first world problem.
The second TED Talk, Lawrence Lessig’s How Creativity is Being Strangled, also spoke, much more directly than Rosling, to the ways in which the old system of information and cultural creation and dissemination (read culture) refuses to cede ground to the re-emergence of read-write culture. I though a lot about his notion that presenting the established paradigm with competition is the best way to disable or shift it, and I think he’s right. I wonder just how powerful these new technologies are. The simple expectation of new users that the right to remix (and it is seen as a right) be available to them (us) suggests to me that those in control are fighting a losing battle.
Even before watching Lessig’s video, I wanted to share this website with you all. In it, Kevin Weir has gone into the Library of Congress’s digital archive of historical images and animated many of them. Some of them are ghostly reimaginings of what the photo might look like brought to life:
But wait, who’s that in the background? Surely it’s not H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu! Still, consciously intended or not, this image communicates a sense of looming dread over the evils of warfare, whether or not you know who Cthulhu is. The image of a dark monster peering out through drifting smoke, peering down at the bombed out ruins of a town is quite evocative. Indeed, many of the animations are much less subtle and border on the absurd; many are almost Monty Pythonesque.
Perhaps we scholars wouldn’t use images like these with such artistic license, but it made me think about our ongoing debates in class about what it means to alter an image, when it’s appropriate. Sometimes, even, and perhaps especially in their caricature, these animations capture the way we in the present might imagine the historical mood of the image:
These images also represent the way that, through remix culture, we might be able to bring historical images to life. Image you’re staring at a photograph of Abraham Lincoln and he blinks at you. How does that alter not only the users experience, but our own narrative?
Edit: So far this week I have commented on Sheri’s blog, as well as Richard’s.
Wow, thanks for sharing those animations! Quite impressive, a lot of fun.
Also, you make a great point about the Internet not being a “first world problem.” Indeed, with the advent of mobile devices, Internet access is growing all over the world–and our work may be seen by people all over. Of course, that leads to the question of how our work will be perceived through different cultural lenses. Ack, another thing to think about when designing our digital work!
I think that at least twice a day I say something along the lines of “Ugh I dont want to do that… white people problems.” And the video which focused on third world statistics was certainly a clear example of just how trivial my problems really are. But I too preferred the overarching point about copy right. I also liked your point that publishing content on the internet makes it international – something which I think the “Visual Architecture” website reading actually addressed well in reminding all of us that not every culture reads left to right, top to bottom, and because of this we need to work other visual cues in to our sites to make them usable.
I have a lot of mixed feelings on Rosling’s talk on data. I feel he had a strong agenda with his statistics on the 3rd world equaling the 1st world, and I think that is the danger in saying, “Hey look, data shows us that we are wrong.” For instance, he takes for granted the idea that child mortality going down can illustrate countries going from 3rd world to 1st world. Moreover he illustrates the way in which 3rd world countries go from having large families that have lower life expectancies to smaller families with longer life expectancies. Is a small family with long life expectancy a “neutral” ideal that countries should aspire to? Or is it the 3rd world falling in line with cultural expectations of becoming modern and more Westernized? I also think the rising incomes of different countries and the income breakdowns her provides need to be explained better. Are those taking into account inflation? What if incomes are going up by 25% but workers are increasing their labor hours by 50%? Thus to reach lower middle class they need to work lawyers hours? Perhaps the household incomes are raising not because wages are going up, but because women are entering the workplace doing part time jobs. I think there are problems when you can simplify data and try and argue that things are “getting better” when there are a lot of factors that may be at play. Maybe my bigger problem is not the data he presents, but the conclusion he reaches that disparity in wealth is disappearing slowly. He doesn’t really explain why incomes are rising, so it makes me wonder, why are they actually rising? Are governments raising wages and more committed to fighting poverty? Are lower classes developing new industries or labor unions to force higher wages?
I think Rosling should have focused more on the idea that we should present data that is more easy to digest and is more palatable, and that we should have access to the publicly funded data that we are paying for. That is an important point that is lost because I think the majority of the lecture is focused on how data can destruct our culturally slanted preconceived notions. A bunch of numbers presented to me with little explanation on what exactly they entail are not going to convince me that wealth disparity is truly shifting. I think his numbers point out that wages are increasing, but that doesn’t tell us much. I think he should have dug deeper and showed us WHY wages are increasing or found explanations for this, and perhaps that is where the value of data lies: uncovering things that we might not see in normal research. Maybe it’s just my view of data is that it often helps us uncover problems more than it solves them.
I really enjoyed reading your comment. It’s interesting that many of our classmates found Lessig’s talk to be unconvincing, I found my self more concerned with Rosling’s, partly because of the points you mentioned. His presentation was shiny and engaging, and it is important for us to think critically about our global audience, but where DO his numbers come from? I also found the flash of his presentation buried not only the complexity behind statistical representation, but also his point in general. It is about data gathering? Changing perceptions of the third world? Reading your thoughts, I hope it wasn’t about data representation. It seems in the case of both videos our class has been distracted by the shiny objects of these presentations, whatever reaction they evoked. This reaction might stand as a lesson to creators AND users of new media.
John and Claire,
I agree with you that Rosling’s talk wasn’t perfect either and had problems as well, but comparatively I thought he did a much better job than Lessig. And I found that he really proved his point, which I took to be not that the “3rd world” and “1st world” are exactly the same, but that many of the assumptions we in the “1st world” have about the “3rd world” are actually quite wrong. He was using all the data (shiny data) to prove that. Let’s be honest he’s right when he describes his students(and I’m pretty sure the average American) assumption that economically poor countries are more rural and have bigger families.
At the same time, I felt that the end was a bit weird just like you. Was he saying that no one wants to compile all the data the way he did? Was he saying that no one really has access to it because the UN, the US State Department, the CIA, the EU and whoever else compiles all this data don’t release it very readily. I don’t really know. What I do know is that his overall point about preconceived notions about the “3rd world” are very problematic. I have several friends who work within the international public health and development communities and hearing them talk about all the problems many of which are predicated upon stereotypes is really disheartening. Our preconceived notions can really obscure how we understand and view data. As historians we need to be really careful about what assumptions we make when we approach these things. But we also, as John you noted, need to be really careful with how we use data. Any entry-level stats class will teach you (or should teach you) how easily stats can be manipulated.
Oh and can I tell you how about halfway through the Rosling video I thought to myself: “I wonder what Tufte would have to say about all this visualizations?” Some of them I felt were really great like the graphs with the circles moving around like microscopic protozoa. While others I felt weren’t really effective. I mean really, flowers? What do flowers have to do with the datum he was using?
I too found myself impressed with Rosling’s talk and which point he was really trying to hammer home. What struck me the most is that his talk is 6 years old now, and his points about being able to access data and how to visualizing data can help analysis and interpretation are just as valid. We’ve read more current books and articles echoing these same issues, and yet there hasn’t yet been a substantial acceptance of these ideas (at least that I can see). Digital humanists can still be defensive about the merit of what they’re doing, and how many times have we had to explain what ClioWired and digital history is to family members, friends, and peers who either don’t quite grasp it or dismiss it? I was happy that Rosling is such an engaging speaker, because my takeaway from his talk was rather bleak.