Selected Citations on Peer to Peer Media

For the sources, see here:

* Algorithmic Authority

Algorithmic authority is the decision to regard as authoritative an unmanaged process of extracting value from diverse, untrustworthy sources, without any human standing beside the result saying “Trust this because you trust me.” This model of authority differs from personal or institutional authority. … Algorithmic authority handles the “Garbage In, Garbage Out” problem by accepting the garbage as an input, rather than trying to clean the data first; it provides the output to the end user without any human supervisor checking it at the penultimate step; and these processes are eroding the previous institutional monopoly on the kind of authority we are used to in a number of public spheres, including the sphere of news.

It is of the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, like crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on. – Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed, 1974

Print media, including internet media, should not be looked at as a content production industry, but rather, as a lobby selection industry, which balances production subsidies with reader interest. In this manner it is analogous to the legislative economy which balances subsidies from political lobbies with electoral credulity. – Julian Assange

In the 21st century power no longer comes from the barrel of a gun. It comes from the blocking of a message. – Loz Kaye

“Publication is not the production of books but the production of a public for whom those books have meaning. There is no pre-existing public. The public is created through deliberate, willful acts: the circulation of texts, discussions and gatherings in physical space, and the maintenance of a related digital commons. These construct a common space of conversation, a public space, which beckons a public into being. This is publication in its fullest sense.” – castillo/corrales – Section 7 books

“Don’t hate the media. Become the media.” – Jello Biafra

* On a Remediated world

We must completely abandon the notion that there is a real and a virtual world, as if the two were opposed. Instead, we must look at how new media is layering over existing spaces, thus reorganizing them. Graham is building on the notion of Bolter and Grusin; remediation. It is constituted (the virtual) on top of our real world. Remediation is taking place constantly. Remediation of painting, film and television, of cities, houses and streets. The old notion of holographic pods, parallel worlds, cyberspace, does not exist. We are far from it.” – Stephen Graham

The Internet has democratized the means of self-expression, but it has not democratized the rewards of self-expression. – Adam Kirsch

* Against communication monopolies

“A monopoly on the means of communication may define a ruling elite more precisely than the celebrated Marxian formula of `monopoly in the means of production.’ Since man extends his nervous system though channels of communication like the written word, the telephone, radio, etc., he who controls these media controls part of the nervous system of every member of society. The contents of these media become part of the contents of every individual’s brain.” — Robert Anton Wilson

Literacy means being able to consume and produce the media forms of the day. The default media form has shifted from the essay to the multimedia collage. – Jason Ohler

* The real business of publishing

The huge opportunity for book publishers is to get unstuck. You’re not in the printing business. The life and death of trees is not your concern. You’re in the business of leveraging the big ideas authors have. There are a hundred ways to do that, yet book publishers obsess about just one or two of them. – Seth Godin

The value in media is no longer in sources but in flows; when we collaborate in sharing our cognitive surplus, it creates value that doesn’t exist when we operate in isolation. – Clay Shirky

* A true democracy needs symmetrical media

“We must understand how the dominant organizing principle our national communications infrastructure shapes and determines our politics. If we want a truly democratic politics, based on the notions of equality with justice and fairness for all, based upon truly symmetrical relationships, we will have to have a communications paradigm that supports that goal.” – Extreme Democracy

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