Kim's R and T Annotated Bibliography


Rhetoric and Technology Annotated Bibliography
 
Association of Internet Researchers (Aoir), and Charles Ess. Ethical decision-making
            and Internet research: Recommendations from the aoir ethics working committee.
            Aoir, Nov. 27, 2002. www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf. Accessed 10/31/08.
This document has an excellent bibliography for ethics in research and privacy. It provides samples of various research request forms. There is an excellent case study on research in a public space. It states the obvious, “US law provides virtually no protection for workers privacy, in contrast with European law which forbids employers’ surveillance and monitoring” (15). The document is addressed to researchers, ethicists, students, organizations, and academic societies. The purpose is to act as a resource because “the internet has opened up a wide range of new ways to examine human interactions in new contexts…and raises critical issues of risks and safety to the human subject” (2). The document stresses ethical pluralism, cross-cultural awareness, and guidelines. If the venue or site is public in nature there is a less expectation for privacy. 
 
Berry, David M. “Internet Research: privacy, ethics, and alienation:
            an open source approach”. Emerald Research Register, 14:4, 2004, 323-332.
            www.emeraldinsight.com/1066-2243.html.
The focus of Berry is ethics in internet research. His position is for open-source ethics. Berry explores “early sociological research projects…, contemporary debates surrounding the ethics of internet research…, FLOSS together with an examination of the principles of an ethics of care” (324).  The Association of Internet Researcher has drawn up a code of ethics. Some of these ethics are based on “particularistic or situational judgments if value” and the remainder of the ethics are based on the golden rule where the consequences of the act is the premise of the action (325).  
 
Berry cites two examples of research ethics gone awry. One is the case of Small Town in Mass Society that debates the issue of privacy for research subjects. The second case of Humphrey’s and Gouldner is the use of deceit in research. The debate goes deeper with the definition of public versus private space. He brings up other issues surrounding online communities such as “lurking” and “harvesting”, or do texts-- which standard copyright restrictions apply require permission to be used or used out of context. Are there any rights to online communities to prevent them from being exploited? 
 
Berry precedes to cover four guidelines to internet research and reports heavily on Free/Libre and Open Source Software. He concludes his paper stating that “ethical research boards should avoid mandating monolithic ethical guidelines in online research, especially unreflexively advocating ethics drawn from human subject research” (330).
I can’t help but wonder: are those whom are concerned about technological ethics or philosophy, because of their “smartness,” naïve or idealistic about the abuses of some of the other “smart” technos who abuse technology. Our laws, the populaces naïveté, and it seems to me, our techno leaders—are way behind on the abuses of the internet.            
 
 
Brey, Philip. “Theorizing the Cultural Quality of New Media.” Techné: Research in  
            Philosophy and Technology, 11:1 Fall 2007: 2-18. 
            http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/spt.html. Accessed 10/18/08. 
Brey tackles the analysis and criticism of social and cultural effects of new media. New media being defined as interactive computer based technology. Brey does not address the three normative analyses: ethical, political, and aesthetic. It is six critiques that do not fit into these categories that are examined. The categories are: how cyberspace blurs reality between fact and fiction, a cyber identity as a non-unitary multiple self, how online computer education cannot transfer necessary commitment and identity, how our capitalist consumer society speeds up production and consumption and results in a feeling of “confinement or incarceration” that “only allows for shallowness,” how virtual communities do not equal real communities and we lose out because of this, and finally how cyberspace has “revolutionized the role of imagination in personal relationships” (3).  Brey states these are cultural critiques and still involve the ethical, political, and aesthetic, but they are in a class of their own. 
 
First, Brey defines theories of good and their relation to culture. He covers the ancient theories of good, but states that new media effects “on human culture is so profound that general questions about the good are being raised that cannot be answered in terms of the narrow categories of ethics, politics, and aesthetics.” He is therefore proposing the “development of an applied area of research where theories of the good are applied and developed in relation to new media and new media culture” (5). Brey reviews “the major theories of the good…developed in philosophy…, how such theories may be useful in constructing a theory of the goodness of culture,” and how “the theories of the good may be applied to the analysis of technology in general” and specifically new media culture (6). 
           
Following the discussion on what constitutes “good” Brey forms a broad definition of culture that takes in account “a system of shared symbols, behaviors, beliefs, values, norms, artifacts and institutions that the members of a society use to cope with their world…and are transmitted from generation to generation through learning” (8). He then equates culture with the “theory of cultural quality”. Brey states how new media is responsible for “more than communication and information transmission…” it’s now responsible for “new individual and social practices and media in and through which institutions are realized” (10). 
 
He further develops his theory of good into thick conceptions of good and    comprehensive doctrines of good. A few of the comprehensive doctrines of good in today’s society might include consumerism defined as “an ideology that holds that physical well-being and the collection and consumption of material goods is the greatest good and highest value in life,” the postmodernist conception that emphasizes “personal growth, quality leisure time, contemplation, meaningful relationships, and care for the environment,” or The New Age movement that has given rise to simplicity, lower consumption, less pay and less work, and more self-reliance (11).
 
Brey addresses studying technology, culture and the good. He defines “axiology of technology” as a general study of values embedded in technology. An example of descriptive axiology Brey uses is how video games could be analyzed “as embodying or promoting hedonism and weakening community” or normative axiology could fault video games from the “perfectionist and communitarian point of view” (13). Brey claims there is a great need for “axiological studies of technology and its coevolved cultural forms” and its “attitudes to and critiques of technology and technological culture in public and academic discourse” (13). Using a possible Protestant comprehensive doctrine analyzed by an axiology of technological appraisal, Brey shows how it’s “responses to the Internet and its culture would analyze the value judgments of representatives of this religious tradition in various writings and discourses” (13).
 
Brey concludes with four controversies over the implications of cultural analysis of new media: virtual reality and hedonism and the effects on reality, the instrumental value of cyberspace and its perceived reality, disagreement over the value of virtual communities and conditions for well-being, and the internet and Orthodox Judaism that prohibits internet use because it’s doctrines claim the harm is greater than the good (14).
 
I think Brey has the right idea. It seems to me we are behind in analyzing the effects of digital, immersion type media with its accompanying effects. It is Brey’s objective to establish a paradigm for critiques of effects of new media on cultural and social aspects that “can be developed further for the philosophical study of new media and technology at large” (16).   This is a current journal article with an excellent bibliography. 
 
Coyne, Richard. “Thinking through Virtual Reality: Place, Non-Place and Situated
            Cognition.”  Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 10:3 Spring 2007:
            26-38. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/spt.html. Accessed 10/18/08.
Coyne takes the position that “non-places can be characterized as unthinking spaces” and that Virtual Reality (VR) places do not “easily accommodate thought, or thoughtful interaction” (26).  In defining non-place he sets out to prove that “digital environments…coarse graphics and the desperate nature of anonymous social intercourse, promoted in chat rooms and multi-user games suggest social dislocation and placelessness, indicative of non-place” (27). One of the more non-idealistic opinions I have read. According to Coyne we “need to pay attention to the cognitive attributes of VR” because, “VR has to be thought through by attending to transition, boundaries between conditions and thresholds” (35). The journal article is current (Spring 2007) and has an excellent bibliography.
 
Durbin, Paul T. “Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture: Comments from
            an Activist Perspective.” Techné: Journal of Society for Philosophy and
            Technology, 7.1 Fall 2003: 36-41.    
            http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/spt.html.  Accessed 10/18/08.
This paper appears to be a personal reply to an affront made by a fellow constituent.
Dr. Durbin believes philosophers need to get off their rumps and out of their thinking capsules and put their theories and brains to work with fellow activists. This paper has no value to me, although I did find it slightly humorous. 
 
Fuller, Steve, and James H. Collier. Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge A
New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.
“Hermeneutics.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Pub. Wed Nov. 9, 2005: 1-27.
            http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics. Accessed 10/18/08.
The philosophical history of hermeneutics is traced from the beginning. The definition has changed since Greek philosophy. The entry shows how hermeneutics is breaking new ground in the philosophical arena as it relates to history, culture, and technology of today. It is a good resource for a basic understanding of how far the study of hermeneutics has changed and which philosophers and their theories were instrumental in forming hermeneutic knowledge.
Eisler, Peter. “Commercial satellites alter global security”. USA Today.
            Friday, Nov. 27th, 2008. p13A. 
Google offers satellite imagery to the public. The problem of privacy is obvious when this technology is abused. This article elucidates the dangers technology brings to our front door.
 
Electronic Privacy Information Center. http://epic.org/privacy/brunell/
           
 
Federal Trade Commission (FTC). FTC Fact for Consumers. “Social Networking Sites:  
            A Parents Guide.” September, 2007. p1-4. 
This site offers a plethora of resources for parents who want to educate their children about safety on the internet. Many of the links listed are non-profits, such as: www.ConnectSafely.org, www.cyberbully411.org, www.GetNetWise.org , www.iKeepsafe.org, www.staysafe.org, www.wiredsafely.org, and www.missingkids.com. It is important for the parents to check children’s privacy settings as well as checking the privacy policies of the sites they visit.
 
FBI-IC3   www.fbi.gov/cyber. Accessed 11/16/08.
            The FBI internet security link offers many options for internet safety education. It has a link for complaints, recent scams, precautions, and a link for W.H.O.A. that hosts a website called stop abuse. 
 
France, Ms. Computer Literacy: Zippy Scenarios for Teaching Internet Ethics.
            http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/library/computerlit/scenarios.php. Accessed 11/10/08.
            Ms. France takes everyday situations and councils on “netiquette/ethic” issues. It
is a teaching tool. She offers very creative and current scenarios. 
 
 
Ihde, Don. “Symmetrical Archaeology: Material Hermeneutics.”
            http://traumwerk.stanford.edu:3455/symmetry/746. Accessed 10/18/08. 
Ihde defines material hermeneutics and the effects of how “technologies operate in hermeneutic ways” (1). He conveys three stories. The first story about the Viking invaders involves some archaeological (material) and textural evidence that is now considered in conflict. The second story, The Case of Otzi the Iceman involves only archaeological evidence. The third case, The Case of Contemporary Archaeology and the Bible, involves the discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls and shows textural evidence in conflict with archeological evidence. All three cases involve incorporating the history, culture, and politics into the hermeneutic understanding. Technology plays a part because we now have access to materials such as; carbon-date, x-ray, microscopes, spectrographs, that offer “what was unseen becomes visible and that which could not be heard is given ‘speech’’ and because this “requires critical interpretation” it is termed “material hermeneutics” (4).  
 
---. “Expanding Hermeneutics”. 
            http://ws.cc.stonybrook.edu/philosophy/faculty/dihde/articles/expanding_hermene
            utics.ht. Accessed 10/18/08. 
The definition of Hermeneutics has changed since Aristotle’s definition. It is Ihde’s object to re-interpret hermeneutics is a post-modern world and to relate this to science. He reviews two opposing views, gives a brief history of hermeneutics, science, and the philosophy of science. Hermeneutics originally used in the interpretation of allegories, symbols, and signification of ancient texts now falls short.  It is Ihde’s point that in hermeneutics “the position of the observer must be taken into account in all measurement” including sociology, culture, and gender factors…and be expanded by multiperspectival inclusiveness” and break from “modernist epistemology” (7). 
 
---. “How Could we ever believe Science is not Political?”
            http://ws.cc.stonybrook.edu/philosophy/faculty/dihde/articles/science_political.
            html. Accessed 10/18/08. 
Ihde’s purpose is to show that science has always been political. He cites numerous examples of science being political such as, creationism versus evolutionism, the Mars mission, and the lack of recognition of female astronomers. He is arguing for “a framing of science which sees it as a fallibilist enterprise” (11). It is a good article showing how the contemporary world clashes with the old.  
 
Internet Architecture Board (IAB). “Ethics and the Internet”. Accessed 11/18/08.
            http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1087.
Declares the following as unacceptable activity: seeks to gain unauthorized access to the resources of the internet, disrupts the intended use of the Internet, wastes resources (people, capacity, computer) through such actions, destroys the integrity of computer-based information, and/or compromises the privacy of users. 
 
“Internet Ethics/Internet Privacy”. Wikipedia. 
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_ethics. Accessed 11/18/08.
            Both of these definitions are being developed on Wikipedia. The entries show good references.
 
Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: how big media uses technology and the law to lock
            down culture and control creativity. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.
            A funny thing happened on my way to the library. I needed to check out Lessig’s, The Future of Ideas (mine had developed legs). The Tampa library had a copy when I checked this morning, but when I got there it was no where to be found. Sooooo….I checked out his latest book, Free Culture: how big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity.   My intent was to read his comments on privacy, hacking, and ethics.
            What happened was I finally grasped his argument on free culture in relation to the law. Lessig describes his book as a derivative of Richard Stallman’s Free Software/Free Society. The book is comprised of stories “that set the context” (13). The story about RCA and Armstrong shows the result of Armstrong jumping out of a thirteen story window and RCA showing “its’ power to crush technology” (6). Lessig equates this power, corporations, and the Internet; “Corporations threatened by the potential of the Internet to change the way both commercial and non-commercial culture are made and shared have united to induce lawmakers to use the law to protect them” (9). The story of the lawsuit brought by a farmer because his chickens died by flying into the walls as a result of airplanes flying overhead shows how “private interest would not be allowed to defeat an obvious public gain” because obviously “common sense revolts at the idea” (xvi). The Disney/Brothers Grimm analogy about how the “key to success was the brilliance of the differences” because Disney carried Grimm “into a new age” show how art can be developed from a morbid fairy tales into palatable stories for children (30).
            The book is based on two elements, piracy and property. Lessig other stories include: the hacking story about AIBO the robot dog developed some talent and became the jazz dancing dog (his only comment on hacking); how millions of people – including his Stanford students -- are being made into criminals by DMCA act – he equates this with alcohol prohibition (his only commentary on ethics); and the his big story about Eric Eldred, the Sono Bono Act, and his disappointment in losing before the Supreme Court.
            Lessig in his preface assures us he believes in the concept of property with a William Safire quote, “A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don’t get paid, A culture without property, or in which creator can’t get paid, is anarchy, not freedom” (xvi). He wants to avoid extremism and to create a balance between anarchy and control, and to protect free culture from being “captured by a few powerful special interests” (12). 
            Lessig’s comments on privacy are in regards to the public sphere and the architecture of the Net. Prior to the net we assumed a certain amount of privacy because of “friction,” not by law, (there is no law protecting “privacy” in public spaces). Lessig is speaking of the Net as a public sphere and does not address hacking into word documents, making member chat room conversations public that might do damage to an individual, or any other privacy concerns such as identity theft. 
 
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: the extensions of man. Corte Madera, CA:
            Ginko Press, 1964, reprinted 2004.
McLuhan mentions privacy only twice and refers the reader in the index to individualism. The first instance is how the Greeks tell oral stories, but when one is asked to read letters he wants to put his fingers in his ears because he doesn’t want to invade the privacy of the addressee (112). The second instance is when he equates clothing as an extension of our skin and how “privacy, like individualism, is unknown in tribal societies” and Westerners need to realize this when outside societies view “the attractions of our way” (163). 
 
Privacy and Human Rights 2003: Overviewhttp://www.privacyinternational.org/survey
            Accessed 11/15/08, p1-10.
This site covers the definition of privacy, gives models of privacy protection, reviews the right to privacy, and gives rationales for the evolution of data protection.   The areas of focus for this paper will be self-regulation, technologies of privacy, the evolution of data protection, rationales for adopting comprehensive laws, trans-border data flows and data havens, and the United States Safe Harbor Arrangement. 
 
Relph, Edward. “Spirit of Place and Sense of Place in Virtual Realities.”
            Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 10:3 Spring 2007: 17-25.
            http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/spt.html. Accessed 10/18/08.
He uses McLuhan’s advice to forewarn that “electronic media change how we think and how we feel” and “our experiences of real places are being altered because of digital virtual reality and other electronic media” (17). The paper explores how we are affected by the mutual interaction between “real” place and virtual places and “our experiences of real places are being changed” (17). He begins by defining and differentiating between the terms “spirit of place” and “sense of place”. He gives credence to the benefits of electronic media, but raises important issues about authenticity and how it’s “an inappropriate concept to apply to virtual places” (23). Overall the paper voices the positive benefits of virtual reality because they can be viewed as “continuously changing works of art that reflect the combined imaginations of those who are simultaneously participants and authors” (24). He also warns one could become obsessive and dysfunctional.
 
Solove, Daniel J. The future of reputation : gossip, rumor, and privacy on the Internet .
 
            A current look at “the dark side of the story” where the internet hold “fragments about us forever” this book explains the “implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy”. Daniel Sloane addresses how “the unrestrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long standing notions of privacy need review…because we may soon discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free”.
 
 
 
US Code collection. 2701. Unlawful access to stored communications. Cornell Law
            University. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18.
            Accessed 11/15/2008.
This code covers unauthorized access to a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided or intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that facility. The key here is “stored communication”. The punishment is more severe if “the offense is committed for purposes of commercial gain. See Bunnell v.MPAA under Electronic Privacy Information Center for an example of unlawful access.
 
 
United States. Need for Internet Privacy Legislation: Hearing Before the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, July 11, 2001. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 2006.
 
United States. Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act or SPY Act: Report
(to Accompany H.R. 29) (Including Cost Estimate of the Congressional Budget Office). Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 2005.
 
Weiss, Dennis M. “Human—Technology—World”. Techné: Research in Philosophy
            and Technology, 12.2 Spring 2008: 110-119.
            http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/spt.html.   Accessed 10/18/08.
The article’s purpose is to elaborate on Postphenomenology: A Critical Companion to Idhe and to expand upon Don Ihde’s Postphenomenology: Essays in the Post Modern Context. It is Dr. Weiss’s opinion that “the nature of the human being, the emergence of the posthuman, and the place of the human being in our contemporary pluriculture” are themes that need attention and expansion with philosophical anthropology being the sub-discipline required for the task (110).
 
 It is Ihde who established the Human--Technology—World trinity. Weiss first begins with the human aspect and thinks “an important task for both philosophy of technology and philosophical anthropology is addressing this issue of orientation: how do we find our way in today’s world” (111). Weiss takes issue with Ihde’s framework, “or paradigm of understanding,” his “problem with symmetry” between technology and humans--in that he focuses on technology more than the human, because it is culture that is dependent on humans, and his failure to address “issues of gender, race, political and economic power, or spiritual understanding” (113). 
 
The second part of the trinity that Weiss addresses is philosophy of technology. Weiss feels Ihde “paid insufficient attention to the figure of the posthuman” and pays too much positive attention to the amplifying powers of technology which Weiss claims is “selective attention” (116). 
 
The third part of the trinity addresses the world “Ihde’s account of the pluriculture and its attendant form of subjectivity and suggest that it raises serious questions for the human being living in the contemporary world” (116). There are four points Weiss raises regarding Ihde’s view of pluriculture: there is an overemphasis on technological metaphor and how it drives subjectivity, “it is easier said than done when moving from centered to decentered subjectivity,” Idhe is overly optimistic that that “pluriculture will lead to the questioning of Eurocentrism and the flowering of tolerance” with there being more troubling and ethical questioning regarding multiple compound vision (117). Finally, Weiss reiterates the importance of incorporating philosophical anthropology. 
 
I agree with Weiss’ efforts pointing out the importance of the humans being in the center as he states it is a human world and this is essential to our being.   The technology arena in philosophy is totally new, like watching history be made; it is fascinating to witness new and contrasting theories regarding technology.