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endlessend2011[at]gmail[dot]com
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The Endless End

Sharon Strover

Mashing up Consumers, Citizens and Users.

May 5, Thursday, 5 pm

It is a commonplace that digital technologies disrupt the conventions and standards commonly ascribed to media systems. However, new values and practices are quietly becoming routine, without fanfare or conscious acknowledgement, alongside some of the more obvious transformations.  I will highlight some of the less obvious disruptions and opportunities that new media platforms present.  The blending of the virtual and the “real” self, for example, has led to the commodification of reputation in the virtual world, but reputation can be fragile:  “going viral” can be either dream or nightmare.  The recent surge of democratic movements in the Middle East signals the new saliency of mundane communications systems such as the mobile phone; their reach and power multiply through applications such as Twitter and Facebook, but the opportunities for surveillance and monitoring using these same systems likewise constitute unique sources of power.   Finally, communications systems facilitate social networks that create new varieties of social capital, occasioning a more nuanced reconsideration of how “ information is power.”

Dr. Sharon Strover is the Philip G. Warner Regents Professor in Communication at the University of Texas where she teaches communications and telecommunications courses and directs the Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute. Her research investigates the relationship between economic outcomes, policy and investments in digital media programs;  social media; the digital divide; rural broadband deployment; e-government; and market structure and policy issues for international audio-visual industries. She has worked with several international, national and regional government agencies on telecommunications policy matters and has published books, several articles and chapters on subjects related to technology. She recently was detailed to the federal government in Washington, D.C. to work on a national broadband infrastructure program.
Dr. Strover received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her graduate degrees from Stanford University

May 06, 2011

End!

May 05, 2011

Tonight after dinner:

Tonight after dinner:
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