notes on iculture by anna

As the only  girl in the group Tesekkur ederim (thank you in Turkish, in case you were all wondering) I will admit perhaps half heartedly that online shopping is a hobby\borderline addiction. Businesses are  no longer  targeting mass groups, but individuals in new and interactive ways we could have never conceived of even ten-fifteen years ago. Ways we cannot resist. Mark Andrejevic's chapter on Three Dimensions of iCulture, exploits the positive and negative ramifications of the rapidly emerging and constantly evolving global market.

Adrejevic starts his chapter by discussing the marketing strategy of worldwide corporation, Nike, who launched an interactive campaign allowing customers to design their own sneakers (color, style, etc) which is rather ingenious. I'm a pretty serious shopper, it takes me a while to find things that I will actually wear more than once so if I were to find out that someone else had the same outfit as me, I would be disappointed needless to say. Nikes strategy avoids this problem of discontent. Whatever item the individual purchases is undoubtably and authentically theirs. Though the promise of individualization is encouraging in a world where products were mass-produced, privatization gives way to lack of community environment ."  . . . A third aspect of the promise of interactivity is the provocation of nostalgia for a lost sense of community retroactively associated with pre-mass media,"(24). In other words, face-to -face communication is gone. The consumer has become the producer.

One problem that is discussed that is discussed in relation to the subject of individualistic marketing and consumerism is the degree of limitations. For instance, when an individual wanted "sweatshop" customized on their sneakers, Nike intervened, saying they did not want that message associated with their company. The power does not completely rest with the people. 

'iCulture' is the promise of interactivity, cultural producers. Andrejevic uses the example of an online website where authors could contribute anonymously to a book of poetry (another example of this is Frank Warner's book of secrets). Both of these examples ,as well as others, think music mixes, self published websites, scrapbooks, etc, scream the message that creativity is more accessible than ever.

An issue that we have been discussing and one that Andrejevic addresses are the positive and negative affects of monitoring and surveillance. One if the most illuminating examples. Andrejevic exploits is the "Forget -Me-Not- Panties" hoax, where a father buys his daughter undergarments that allow him to follow her actions " . . . if we see her temperature rising too high, we intervene,"(33). This is an example of a phenomenon called "biometrics" or can be thought of as physical. In a post 9\11 world, surveillance has become essential to our security , but when parents are using GPS's in their children's cars and monitoring their relationships, surveillance has gone too far. Do we want to live in a world where we have no privacy, online or in our regular day-to-day lives?I would argue that it is not worth it. I like the idea of feeling safe, but online especially, where nobody is who you think they are, and trust does not exist. 

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