The Return of the Salon and the End of Mass Media
by Alphaville Herald on 24/01/07 at 11:12 pm
Pointyheaditorial by Urizenus Sklar
Denizens of the internet have long noted that many online meeting places have served roles like those of the literary salons and coffee houses of the 18th century. Online conferencing systems like The WELL and Mindvox, MUDS and MOOs like Xerox PARC’s LamdaMOO and MediaMOO, and graphical social spaces like The Sims Online and Second Life have become places where robust and innovative political, social, and artistic ideas have been discussed and debated. In this essay, I will say a bit about why such “cybersalons” are important, raise the question of whether they are endangered, and ask whether there is anything we must do to preserve them.
It is interesting that during the decades in which the cybersalons have emerged on the scene, the philosopher Jürgen Habermas has written extensively on the concept of the “public sphere” and its demise. For Habermas, the 18th century French coffee houses and salons formed a kind of paradigmatic model of the exchange of ideas in the public sphere, and in his view it was the critical exchange of ideas in these 18th century venues that led to parliamentary democracy and other great social advances that western culture has enjoyed. In Habermas’ view, however, this model of the public sphere has been crippled by the rise of mass media – the problem with mass media being that it turns media into a consumable commodity rather than a forum to critically debate important ideas.
Clearly, Habermas has not been spending a lot of time online. If he had, he might have sounded more optimistic. Of course, the discourse that takes place on the chat boards and in online worlds like Second Life is not always of the highest order, and it certainly has its share of intolerant “trolls” and unreflective, self-important spammers, but no doubt the literary salons of the 18th century had to suffer though these as well. The key point is that the *structure* of the online salons is conducive to the exchange of ideas – it is not a format conducive to mass media, but rather to word of mouth exchanges between small groups of individuals.
Has the literary salon returned to its old glory? If it has returned in the form of online communities, is its new incarnation sustainable, or will it be absorbed (“borged”) by the mass media? There is certainly some cause for concern. In the first place, most of these new online spaces are owned by private corporations, and the corporate owners have not always been tolerant of criticism and controversy. Most of the corporations insist that their users sign onerous “terms of service” agreements which, in some cases, require the user to not criticize the platform owner and in any case often allow the platform owner to ban a user “for any reason or no reason.”
In the second place, large media companies have seen the rise of Web 2.0 social spaces ranging from MySpace and YouTube to Second Life, and have registered concern that this new social iteration of the web is undermining traditional “push media” like television and mass market newspapers in which a single source broadcasts ideas to a passive audience. The media companies have accordingly attempted to control the content in social spaces as to monetize it on the mass media model (for example by paying people to post entries on blogs or even create fake blogs to advance ideas).
The first bit of good news is that platform owners like Electronic Arts Corporation and Linden Lab have discovered that enforcing the terms of service to silence critics simply doesn’t work, and at best it is counterproductive — generating more negative publicity in the blogosphere than the critic ever did when s/he was protesting “in world”. Furthermore, there are many platforms for users to participate in, and users have shown a willingness to abandon platforms that are restrictive and move to more liberal and accommodating spaces. Indeed, platforms like Second Life are currently moving to an “open source” format and many other new virtual platforms are being developed as of this writing, so there is good reason to expect that users will be able to vote with their virtual feet. Not *every* cafe must tolerate open and free exchange of ideas. It is enough that *many* of them do.
The other bit of good news is that attempts to commercialize the social media forums in this way has not been successful, and indeed has been met with near universal derision. So far, the social web has successfully fought back against the mass media model – or perhaps more accurately, the mass media model simply does not work for social spaces. There was no need to fight at all. The mass media model of pushing information at thousands or millions of captive eyeballs failed all by itself.
The mass media model fails particularly badly in online graphical spaces like second life, which are currently limited in the number of people that they can support. At the present, no more than 40 to 50 people can simultaneously attend an event in a single location in Second Life.
If this is true, then what replaces the mass media model? In Life After the 30 Second Spot, Joseph Jaffe has argued that the age of push media and mass media may be fading, and businesses must now rethink their marketing strategies. Broadcasting to a large Superbowl audience may have to give way to one-on-one contacts, word of mouth marketing, the cultivation of quality contacts, and playing “the long tail” for an eventual payoff.
If Jaffe is right, then we needn’t man the barricades to protect the new online spaces. The giant media corporations will not be swallowing them up. Paradoxically, contemporary marketing will not destroy the virtual salons; the virtual salons are destroying contemporary marketing strategy and replacing it with something altogether new. Or rather, with something altogether old: the very sorts of forums for the exchange of ideas and information that led to the revolutionary modes of thinking that emerged in the 18th Century.
Myrrh Massiel
Jan 25th, 2007
…who are you and what did you do with the real urizenus?..
…seriously, though, a nice substantive piece and a welcomed change of pace from the usual fare…
Jeff
Jan 25th, 2007
Awesome article Uri!
From my perspective though, the lack of a built in VOIP tool is serious limiting factor for SL in this sense. Most people would much rather participate in discourse verbally rather than by text chatting. I’ve participated in some very heavy verbal discussions on There.com of all places. The topics ranged in scope from the treatment of gays in the middle east, to the inevitability of the technological singularity.
Either way, this new medium is not going away and definitely WILL supplant more traditional ways for people to meet and have discussions.
Kami Harbinger
Jan 25th, 2007
Indeed, sir. Consider the highfalutin’ discourse shown here…
Okay, but seriously.
I’m not particularly interested in VOIP. Text encourages slightly more rational discussion, one loud person cannot shout over others, and there’s a permanent record (if you have chat logging turned on). The ephemerality of voice is its largest drawback.
Chat’s good for resolving immediate issues or conducting interviews, but still not very good for considering heavy subjects. Blogging’s done a fantastic job of bringing back, not the salon, but chains of letters (consider H.P. Lovecraft’s massive output of letters with other writers).
Podcasting works best as a spoken letter or interview between one to three people with similar interests. When you get conflicts in a podcast, well, listen to the recent SecondCast with the argument over Prokofy. That’s the worst-case example of VOIP. More than three people trying to talk at once is terrible.
I’ve used teamspeak in various online games, and it’s a nightmare, and pushes women almost entirely out of the discussion, because few women will assert themselves in public speech. It also makes cross-gender avatars difficult, bordering on impossible.
Speech-to-text on the client side might be a good idea for people who won’t expend the minimal effort to learn how to type effectively, but perhaps leaving such people as second-class citizens is not such a bad idea.
Seola Sassoon
Jan 25th, 2007
I totally agree with Kami, especially on one point in particular:
“”"”I’ve used teamspeak in various online games, and it’s a nightmare, and pushes women almost entirely out of the discussion, because few women will assert themselves in public speech. It also makes cross-gender avatars difficult, bordering on impossible.”"”"
Even if a woman did assert herself, she’s usually drowned out by males who will much more easily and loudly talk over, because most women see no need to yell.
I’ve been in guilds/clans and such through time and about the only time a woman gets to speak up… in all women clans. It isn’t anti-male at all, it’s just my personal experience and those of other girls I’ve spoke with in the gaming area.
Try telling your “clan leader” male he’s about to be shot by a sniper in a tree while they are shouting at each other to do something… then you get blamed for not saying anything! lol
I’m glad for lack of VOIP. I have a 3 year old that does run about when I DJ and I try to keep his mouth away from the mic, having an intellectual debate if he needs a Kleenex to blow his nose, I miss the voice spoken, but I can’t go back. If it’s in chat, I can catch up and form a real opinion without missing a beat.
Not to mention, how many of us actually say “I’m going afk to use the bathroom”? Most of us can go and make it back with no one any the wiser. Go with VOIP and you have to semi-explain each absence.
Artemis Fate
Jan 25th, 2007
This is a surprising turn of events for Herald postings, Urizenus! Very interesting article, I never quite thought of what the internet and Viral communication is doing to the old standing idea of mass media. I always enjoy getting in these deep political, philosophical, and theological conversations in world even though they are unfortunately rare.
Of course, you can’t take that mass media structure ENTIRELY out of this. Since, in the 18th century, I imagine most of what was discussed in salons current event wise was local french news heard by word of mouth or rumor. That doesn’t quite work so well for international news, but what is important is that we could take these large media structures and use the information they give as evidence for debate and conjecture on what is happening and what it means.
I really wish that there was a place in Second Life where you could go and always find something like 5-15 people in there who all like to have these sorts of intelligent conversations and discussions. But, it seems like if it doesn’t have camping chairs, slot machines, or strippers no one gives a shit.
Also, I highly agree with Kami, voice isn’t so great, and with multiple people it can be horrible. Not to mention that whenever I do voice on FPS, the conversations tend to go like “There’s a sniper in that building!” “What?” “I said THERES A SNIPER IN THAT BUILDING DONT GO OUT THERE” “You’re feeling hyper and it’s building?” *gunshot* “Oh shit there’s a sniper in that building! Watch out!” “uh…yeah.”. Especially considering how international Second Life is becoming and how many different accents people must have.
Lynette Radio
Jan 25th, 2007
Honestly if I want to VOIP with someone from a chat-based / turn-based communication, I will Skype them myself. For most things in-world, I prefer text chat, either public or IM. The thing that lacks in text communication is ‘hand raising’ in group environments. Now, I’m not talking about live or die situations like in WoW, but discussions in SL. The educators seem to have an extreamly effective way of facilitating the group – with something as simple as a question mark.
Host throws out a question – or request for questions/comments. Each user responds by typing a ‘?’ quickly in the chat. Host then calls on someone answering ‘lynette?’ – then I type away followed by a ? on a blank line to indicate I’m finished. Host takes over again..etc. Reminds me a bit of the ‘over’ indicator on CB’s in the 70s.
I’ve been recommending this to dozens of friends and clients, and those that have implemented it have seen nothing but positive results. Gone are the times when four people post questions, and 16 answer those four questions.
It does take chatty people a bit to grasp the idea they can’t hog the floor, but then again I suspect these are the same people that shout and talk over others in VOIP. As a woman, who knows how to project her voice when need be in a RL situation, trying to out-volume a blabbermouth on VOIP just isn’t worth it.
All in all very nice thinking piece Uri.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 25th, 2007
>I never quite thought of what the internet and Viral communication is doing to the old standing idea of mass media
Well, I thought about it bunches, and wrote about it quite a bit, including just now, debated Uri, and all you could do is make snide remarks. I don’t understand this felt need to bash one and suck up to the other.
There’s actually nothing surprising about this post. Uri has had lots of thinky posts over the years, including this incredibly turgid but still useful post about Chomsky. I’d love to see more! However, I won’t be genuflecting.
I’d love to hear from somebody who really knows the history of media, especially in Europe, to see how the salons then morphed into those broadsheets of the 19th century filled with wars and rumours of wars and court scandals. Perhaps someone has a resource on this. There’s the Fang’s Media History page of course (http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/alltime.html), where you get stuff like “1815: 3,000 post offices in U.S.”
Your cramped notion that SL is all about camp chairs and there’s no place to go to have deep intellectual conversations is utter crap, Artemis. First of all, on dozens of blogs everyday, including this one and mine and Aimee’s and Walker’s, people have really heavy debates about ideas and concepts and events all the time. And inworld, they meet constantly, if not in formal events on the calendar, in smaller groups or in IMs. What’s to stop you from going to one of these events or making your own — except your own chronic, petulant dissatisfaction that makes you cast around with a sense of entitlement for someone to lay this on for you?
I sponsor salons pretty much every Friday at 6 pm at the Sutherland Dam and every other Monday at the Society for Virtual Architecture. Try coming to one of these and see if you can hold your own past the lazy way out of making nasty little forums’ snipes — you actually can’t get too far in f2f live, rolling meetings, by using the usual arsenal of forums’ nastiness. You’ll be forced to drop those pretenses and make a point.
I totally disagree with this knee-jerk feminist perspective being displayed here about voiceless women online– it just doesn’t square with actual experience, and not only mine, but the kind you read about on gamegirladvance.com. Night after night, I listen to a group of kids play WoW. And on all these different servers, I hear women constantly speaking up. In fact you often find a “type” on Ventrillo who is quite bossy — the 30-something Midwest mom whose kids may actually be too young for WoW, telling everybody what to do, yakking it up way too much when people are trying to concentrate on complicated quests, and then needing to cuddle and babble about the quests way too much when they are done lol. (What young males prefer to do is to pick the weak members of their quest team and dress them down like marine sergeants for an hour afterwards, as the weak links silently hang their heads in shame.) It’s actually quite funny to hear this stereotype of the loud-mouthed, bossy woman played out over and over again as Middle America displays itself online in WoW.
Honestly, with games and worlds, one person’s anecdotal experience is easily trumped by another person’s anecdotal experience, and we need not only better metrics but better researchers who take up these issues more systematically; all the eggheads at TN ever seem to do is to write fascinated thumbsuckers about cross-dressing males appearing as female avatars.
There’s also the issue that there are simply less women in WoW because WoW is a boys’ game, unlke SL, which is a girls’ game.
Artemis Fate
Jan 25th, 2007
“Well, I thought about it bunches, and wrote about it quite a bit, including just now, debated Uri, and all you could do is make snide remarks. I don’t understand this felt need to bash one and suck up to the other.”
Maybe if you’d stop dousing all of your opinions and ideas in a heavy coating of bile, hatred, paranoia, and tinfoil-conspiracies, i’d be able to see the meat of the argument inside. Until then, you’re about as coherent as a crazy hobo.
“Your cramped notion that SL is all about camp chairs and there’s no place to go to have deep intellectual conversations is utter crap, Artemis.”
Like your cramped notion that SL is full of griefers trying to ruin everything without any conception that they tend to just target you because you’re loud, opinionated, and crazy? I know there are some places in SL for intellectual conversation, but generally it’s through chance or a social network that it happens, I don’t believe in the “ethics” or “philosophy” events, because they’re just spamathons where everyone tries to interject their opinion on a fuzzily maintained subject.
urizenus
Jan 25th, 2007
I’ve been to some of the solonish group meetings, ranging from Future Salon, to The Thinkers, to Prok’s meetings, and I don’t find them very helpful, but I guess those weren’t paradigmatic of the new model I had in mind. My thought was this: if I log on, there is usually someone interesting to talk to, and more importantly, I might use the online contact to jumpstart a meeting irl or maybe a discussion on email or here on the Herald. I can really only communicate effectively with one person at a time, but surely 18th century salons and coffee houses allowed that too.
Quite frankly, people on SL have to compete for my attention with a whole lot of interesting people at the University of Michigan and elsewhere in academia and the SLers hold up pretty well for the most part. I think that says something about the power of the medium and the interest of the ideas being exchanged.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 25th, 2007
Yes! so what you’re saying is that you have an IDEAL — a utopian ideal perhaps, but that’s ok, we’re in BetterWorld (TM) now — about what you WISH you could see. I found this with Raph, too, he would talk about this IDEAL, and it would kinda sorta be Cory Doctorow maybe landing and talking about sci-fi, but I have to say from going to a meeting once with Cory that fanboyz arranged, it was filled with idiocy of the type “is this laggy here?” “wow, I can’t rez this yet” “so is it 4:00 am your time?” and other intellectual jewels.
So…Herr Dr. Professor! Why are you writing thinky articles describing a phenomenon that is recurring from the 18th century, when it is only a wished-for, not actual phenom? Uri, Uri, Uri, that’s hyperventing, hon.
Yes, we have no salons.
Quite frankly, people in SL have to compete for me, too, with people from the UN and Russian poets reading in New York and bunches of other stuff, and while yes, the one-on-one intellectual conversation always works best (I especially appreciate my talks with Khamon Fate, Ordinal Malaprop, Pixeleen Mistral, for example), most of the time I find that even one-on-one people are raging assholes and entitlement-happy dickheads. I think there’s a technological reason for this. You can only type one line at a time, push hit, and while the other person reads it, your pushing your next line just as they are trying to answer your first. So you endlessly behave like two ships passing in the night.
In TSO, we were able to talk in entire paragraphs. They appeared as balloons over our head, not clunky IMs in one line templates. So it was just nicer. People were nicer to each other.
What do you think about that?
And what is needed to make those perfect salons about which you dream, Uri, before 1833 and the mass newspapers invaded with their inky scandals?
What I hear you saying is that THE WHOLE SHEBANG of SL is a “salon” — in part to chat with the person right next to you or in IM, in part to tune into some Crayonista chat-fest or whatever — it’s all flowing and you pick out of the salon-stream.
Urizenus
Jan 25th, 2007
I don’t have an ideal in mind, I’m saying that the reality is that SL creates a place where you can meet interesting people (and A-holes) and talk to them (or not). I don’t know that there is anything utopian about it, but it sure beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick (or, for that matter, watching cable news).
Prokofy Neva
Jan 26th, 2007
Yes, I agree that cable news and a poke in the eye with a sharp stick — well, sure, there are alternatives.
I guess I just have to question the Chomsky and Derrida stuff though, Uri, where everything is deconstructed, we’re all empowered, we can all make our own Oprah, we are all Salonistas….but…is it any good?
I think if you’re going for an analysis beyond just your own immediate experience and SL itself, and getting metaversal, I think your basic thesis is correct. A significant number of people have stopped sitting on the couch and waiting for push media to push at them this season’s tired lineup of warmed-over sitcoms. And even if they do want to sit through ER, they now can tape programs and remove all the commercials or surf around them, so the entire ad edifice that propped up television can no longer reach people effectively. To be sure, they reach enough people to keep the whole thing going for awhile, but they are clearly nervous, as can be painfully obviously by the stampede of marketing companies and media companies into SL.
Even if it isn’t the Next Big Thing, they still want to make sure they have a piece of it. People interacting and making their own independent content or allied content with the main push-media content providers are the engine of the new media.
The question is whether mass taste, when you free it to become not passive viewers but active amateur content-makers, leads to Salons.
Yes, those who are in the intelligentsia, let’s say, might convert this opportunity to make Salons, either amateur or professional if you will.
Or the entire concept of Salons, now mass produced and franchised, with the frying temperature standardized in each McDonald’s, might be expected to dumb down the level of discourse once achieved in, say, France in the 18th century, and even in Russia in the 19th century, before all those penny tabloids began circulating in England and the US and leading us into an era of push media.
Urizenus
Jan 26th, 2007
One effect of new technology is obviously that we aren’t wowed by penny tabloids and network television anymore — we can make our own (the Herald being a case in point). This reduces the incentive for us to abandon the salons, and in a certain sense reverses the flow. What we read here sends us back in world to talk to people and see for ourselves. Reading a rl newspaper doesn’t have that effect on a daily basis.
Will the resulting discourse be dumbed down or at a higher level? That should vary significantly from group to group and virtual venue to virtual venue, but even readers of the Herald (a cheesy virtual tabloid) can’t help but confront deep conceptual issues on a daily basis (intellectual property, free speech, governance, the dangers of techi-wiki ideology, the nature of sexuality, etc).
rikomatic
Jan 26th, 2007
Urizenus, I applaud your optimism. And share your hope for a more democratic media. I try and point to some of the most interesting “salon”-type engagements in the events notices I write for New World Notes.
However one cannot overestimate the dribs and drabs of potential seen in SL for anything close to the salon phenomenon in France.
Moreover, the challenges of transforming the American media model from a mass, consolidated, unidirectional structure to something more diversely held and produced are enormous. Ma Bell AT&T will soon re-constitute itself, like the T-2000 in Terminator II as Cobert says. Most people get their news from television. Broadcast radio is still the most widely accessible media, which is heavily concentrated in the hands of a few companies like Clear Channel. Most communities have at best two options for broadband access, set to prices that are some of the highest in the developed world. It ain’t pretty and it ain’t changing that fast.
So I echo your hope that virtual worlds and web2.0-ish tools can help transform the way people receive information and connect with each other. But let’s not over-romanticize what is at best faint rumors of the distant approach of some future media revolution.
Urizenus
Jan 26th, 2007
Yah but don’t forget that in the 18th century salons and cafes were pretty much limited to a priviledged few. Not everyone is debating deep conceptual issues on blogs and in other cybersalons, but millions are, and the price of admission is low.
The problem for mass media is that that while they still get the most eyeballs, they aren’t getting the right eyeballs, and my optimism is only the counterpart of mass media’s pessimism about its own future. See, for example, this recent Telegraph article on the death of the newspaper: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/shanerichmond/january07/deathofnewspapers.htm
Prokofy Neva
Jan 26th, 2007
But Uri, as the 19th century came upon them, the cafes became more and more open to Bohemians, riff-raff youth, absinthe drinkers, poor artists dwelling in garrets. The unverifieds, so to speak.
Newspapers are still read because people can hold them in their hand and take them on the subway or stand in the supermarket line with them or whatever. When they make the computers that way, then the newspaper will become an exoticism.
Ramesh
Apr 16th, 2007
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Prokofy Neva
Apr 16th, 2007
rikomatic, I always marvel how people on the left create this bugabear of Fox TV and Clear Channel, as if they really do monopolize everything, and as if people wouldn’t think the same way and pick them to watch if there were diversity, as if they have no truths in them.
They don’t, and they don’t, and they do.
There are plenty of alternatives without getting all weepy and waily in despair. You have your NPR, your Nation, your moveon.com — not to mention BBC, CBC, and now, even Pravda, which you don’t have to get delivered in a brown paper wrapper anymore, you can just go online to read!
And the challenge to all the “diverse new media” (which is as kneejerk and conformist as the Clear Channel they love to hate) is to really convince and capture audiences. Commentators who serve up the same old leftoid stuff can’t get new audiences and new believers. Newspapers and magazines are dying — and that means the Times, the village heralds, and the Nation, too. I don’t think you can expect the media to drive the consciousness, the media will serve the need for consciousness or a new consciousness. It really isn’t like the Marxist idea of material shaping consciousness, people reject that. I know that’s what the Lindens hope with Second Life, it’s what all kinds of new mediacrats hope for their inventions. But the old-fashioned work of reporting the news objectively and being convincing and persuasive with the commentary has to be done.
As I think of it, we don’t have to compare our SL meetings with a stick in the eye to find them a plus, we can just compare them with life in the average town or city, even in a NY neighbourhood, where even the guy reading the book at the Barnes and Nobles feels like a commercialized fake event that you don’t bother with, where even buying and reading the New York Times Book Review feels like a chore.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 16th, 2007
rikomatic, I always marvel how people on the left create this bugabear of Fox TV and Clear Channel, as if they really do monopolize everything, and as if people wouldn’t think the same way and pick them to watch if there were diversity, as if they have no truths in them.
They don’t, and they don’t, and they do.
There are plenty of alternatives without getting all weepy and waily in despair. You have your NPR, your Nation, your moveon.com — not to mention BBC, CBC, and now, even Pravda, which you don’t have to get delivered in a brown paper wrapper anymore, you can just go online to read!
And the challenge to all the “diverse new media” (which is as kneejerk and conformist as the Clear Channel they love to hate) is to really convince and capture audiences. Commentators who serve up the same old leftoid stuff can’t get new audiences and new believers. Newspapers and magazines are dying — and that means the Times, the village heralds, and the Nation, too. I don’t think you can expect the media to drive the consciousness, the media will serve the need for consciousness or a new consciousness. It really isn’t like the Marxist idea of material shaping consciousness, people reject that. I know that’s what the Lindens hope with Second Life, it’s what all kinds of new mediacrats hope for their inventions. But the old-fashioned work of reporting the news objectively and being convincing and persuasive with the commentary has to be done.
As I think of it, we don’t have to compare our SL meetings with a stick in the eye to find them a plus, we can just compare them with life in the average town or city, even in a NY neighbourhood, where even the guy reading the book at the Barnes and Nobles feels like a commercialized fake event that you don’t bother with, where even buying and reading the New York Times Book Review feels like a chore.
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May 9th, 2007
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Prokofy Neva
Jul 11th, 2009
See, Uri and Jaffe Juice were early with this “newspapers are dying” stuff. And the salon thing is all good.
But it would be good to take another run at it. Where is the biggest threat now to the public commons or even the more cosy salon?
And it turns out it isn’t the “any reason or no reason” people, but Pixeleen and the Woodburies (not a rock group).