Research into media literacy is the study of the human ability to "access, analyse, evaluate and communicate messages in a variety of forms". In an internetworked digitally intermediated world, how media literate do you have to be to translate human potential into actual results? Are these skills universal or dependent on cultural and/or social context? Can media literacy skills promote individual abilities to contribute to and draw out of a networked collective intelligence, defined by technologist and philosopher Pierre Levy as "a universally distributed intelligence that is enhanced, coordinated, and mobilized in real time"?
The central focus of these emerging areas of research is the impact of grid computing for the human brain (our know-how repositories) connecting with our inter-networked information collections (our know-about repositories) to open possibilities and improve our lives. The premise is that we require a new framework for understanding literacy in an increasingly digitally intermediated world and that establishing this framework will provide a foundation for individual abilities to access the wealth and depth of knowledge digitally stored (the collective intelligence) and accessible through human/computer interfaces. My draft PhD central research hypothesis is: "There is a teachable media literacy skill-set that promotes collective intelligence."
Any questions/thoughts?
This is the second post on the Chris Brauer Media Project for this topic. The first post can be found through this wormhole
Labels: collective_intelligence, sociology
My interest in the recent work of Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto (property assets) and participation in the grid computing SETI project (processing power) at NASA brought together a common theme: turning latent resources into formal or performing resources creates value. This led me to wonder why the same concept could not be applied to realize a greater proportion of our collective potential in the form of individual contributions to collective networked intelligence. This path led me to Pierre Levy, Chair of Collective Intelligence at the University of Ottawa, but I will post more formally on that later in this blog. For now the only part of this concept that I can firmly grasp is that we need to promote our individual abilities to contribute to the collective. All of us can relate to a feeling of unfufiled potential, frustrated ambition, and of dreams, realized and otherwise.
As a young naturalist traveling the world Charles Darwin wrote in his journal: If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin (Darwin, 1909). This thought resonates today as the networked economy becomes a modern pervasive global institution and vigorous efforts should be directed to examining how efforts can contribute to developing this still public, but increasingly privatized institution. Darwin would approve of addressing critical issues so early in an evolution. His observation could be made of the networked economy: if it provides opportunities for individuals, families and communities to improve their lives but we ignore opportunities to promote application in this regard, great is our sin.
What if the World Wide Web was all about that?
Labels: collective_intelligence, internet
