Co-Evolution of Technology, Media and Collective Action

Questions From the Audience

These questions were posed to Howard and discussed after his presentation. You can extend the discussion by commenting on them here.

Bryan Zelmanov: Did early communication make organized religion possible? Or vice-versa? or both, dialectically?

Need Writer: Do you think that avatars are an extension of human capabilities, and if so, can we see virtual worlds as extending possibilities for social justice (Martha Nussbaum argues, for example, that social justice is the maximization of human capabilities)

Desideria Stockton: Will the nature of communication ethics change with new media formats and virtual worlds?

Pepto Majestic: Do you think our ability to adapt to change in how we communicate, initiated by our own actions, is keeping up with the rate of those rapid changes?

CJ Carnot: How do we ascertain who or what ideas are socially important or beneficial now that the media available to us no longer defines or filters them as they did in the past ?

ZacharyLark Zhangsun: How has English language use in online communication affected non-English lang speakers? is this another aspect of the so-called digital divide? I'm wondering what we English-only communicators are missing out on, and whether this is the new imperialism?

Kah3na Falken: You stress the democratizing imperatives inherent in the development of print, but in fact, print was also quickly split into class forms, "high art" and "Low art." Our postmodern time translates this into access: upper-class has access, while the poor and underclass often does not. How does this impact collective action in your sense?

Meridelle Mauvaise: What size of a community is a "functional" community and how will intimacy and friendship change accordingly?

Maor Quimby: Through the mobile- the lines between the digital and physical space are being 'blurred'... can you speak to the public vs private identity issues of the user ?

Bryan Zelmanov: Question about literacy and elites: is the proportion of the population with the power to use the tools recurrent?