Among the many reasons for my totally-not-homoerotic e-crush on Rex Sorgatz of Fimoculous (he also works for some other company I’ve never heard of), one is that while he is unabashed proponent of the interwebs, he can not only claim to have read people like Derrida and Baudrillard, I get the sense he actually knows what they’re on about too. But as much respect I have for him, I just can’t get behind his new ‘Predictions as a form of Narrative‘ theory.

Linked to the launch of a new product on MSNBC called iPredict, Sorgatz argues that plotting, analysing and predicting trends is a new mode of narrativising the scores of data we are swamped by. By examining how sets of data both interact with each other and examining what that can tell us about the future, we are able to then make sense and position the news we come across. Sorgatz “contend[s] that every news story has an interrogative kernel hidden inside — a question about the future”, and that, “[a]lthough news is immediately a historical account, it is also implicitly a gamble on the future, a suggestion of where things will be”. The examples given run from the mundane, such as whether Harry Potter will die in book seven (no he won’t!) to the serious, such as how 12 deaths in Iraq augur the situation there.

I cannot help, however, be skeptical about Sorgatz’ assertions, particularly in relation to the ‘units of data’ themselves. In the narrativisation of 12 deaths as markers from which to make a prediction, how do we avoid evacuating those deaths of meaning, leaving them as only empty signifiers in a matrix of trends, devoid of the same political import that led them into iPredict in the first place? It seems the ramifications of such an approach is to appropriate the discursive significance of events, but rob them of their subjective relevance; to wit, this new statistic will change how I view the war, but does little to counter the already numbing effect that repeated news stories of death and destruction already have. Yes, all statistics engage in this sort of displacement, and that doesn’t make them any less necessary. But if, for example, the trends contained in my Jaiku feed paint a picture of who I am, who am I outside of the commoditised music, articles and websites I consume? What exactly in this systemisation of trends is not ready for cooptation, as data itself becomes subject to its own exchange value in an economy – in all senses of the word – of information?

Similarly, the narrativisation of particular trends gets one into the messy questions of the appropriation of voice that we in literary studies are immersed in (and possibly suffocated by). In much the same way that we might ask what are the discursive predications and effects when one turns a person into a character, what happens when a set of people or behaviour becomes a data matrix or category within trends. If a statistic about, say, the rising disparity between rich and poor in India is used as a predictor of economic health or social tension, how are we to avoid the already present displacement of non-Western voices and perspectives? It seems that we again run the risk of cementing the West as the discursive centre and arbiter of global systems of information and power, paradoxically working precisely through the democracy of information and data on the Web.

It’s very possible that, as usual, I’m either being naive or just not getting the broader picture here. Perhaps matching one’s personal take on trends with broader public trends might allow one to discursively position oneself more clearly in increasingly ambiguous times. It is also possible that all forms of narrativisation thwart subjectivity and connection, and that this will actually improve the problems of voice, representation and resistance ihnherent in all commodified systems of information like ‘the News’. Right now though, I remain wary of the potential this particular trend to liberate or ameliorate the already problematic conversion of people into bits of data.

Link to Full Article on Fimoculous
iPredict on MSNBC

By way of the always-great Matthew Ingram comes Ryan Sholin’s very smart post on how newspapers are still getting it wrong when it comes to new systems of delivery and revenue. It seems traditional forms of media are, to put it mildly, still finding their way when it comes to this whole Web 2.0 thingy and, as in many cases where huge amounts of money are concerned, they are attempting to force outdated and outmoded models of business onto a new infrastructure.

In a similar vein, Techfold takes last.fm to task for their ‘sell-out’ to CBS. In the posting, the writer argues that in relenting control to an entity like CBS, last.fm relenquish the capacity to influence new developments in ways conducive to the processes and ideals of New Media. Instead, they allow Web 2.0 to become hijacked by the concerns of ‘Big Media’: centralisation, the recreation of traditional revenue streams and a sort of discursive and political uniformity.

But the way forward is stated very succinctly by Sholin:

10. Okay, here comes the big one: THE GLASS IS HALF FULL. There is excellent work being done in the new world of online journalism and it’s being done at newspapers like the Washington Post and the Lawrence Journal-World and the San Jose Mercury News and the St. Petersburg Times and the Bakersfield Californian and all sorts of papers of all sizes. You don’t need millions of dollars or HD cameras or years of training to make it happen; all you need is the right frame of mind. So let’s stop writing and groaning about how things used to be different, and let’s start building our own piece of the new world of newspapers brick by brick, story by story.

Naturally, this is much easier said than done. But the insane pace of media/Web 2.0 acquisitions suggest that Sholin’s sort of mentality is vital if the new wave of media is to maintain any sense of resistance to the overly corporatised and centralised vision of media at places like CBS.