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Author Makes His Mark; In the Middle
Monday, February 2, 2009 at 7:44PM
Copyright 1997 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
Wisconsin State Journal
November 7, 1997, Friday, ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: Click/Daybreak, Pg. 1D
LENGTH: 1269 words
HEADLINE: AUTHOR MAKES HIS MARK; IN THE MIDDLE
BYLINE: Dave Becker Wisconsin State Journal
BODY:
It's easy to get confused if you listen to the cyberpundits very long.
In one corner are the technological evangelists, enthusiastically proclaiming a future in which computer connections have banished human ailments from racism to poverty.
Then there are the digital Cassandras, warning of a corporate-controlled computer culture that subtly strip us of free will and identity.
Somewhere in the increasingly rare middle ground is Douglas Rushkoff, author of a half-dozen books that deftly explore various corners of the computer explosion and affiliated new media.
An unabashedly optimistic observer of the emerging digital culture in the early 1990s, when he wrote the groundbreaking ''Cyberia,'' Rushkoff has evolved into a seasoned and reasoned chronicler of cyberspace, acutely aware of both its pitfalls and promises.
''Sometimes it's very hard to maintain that balanced optimism,'' says the author and New York Times columnist, who appears in Madison next week as part of a National Telemedia Council seminar on popular culture.
''But to me, that's part of maintaining your individuality, not jumping into either camp. Which is what the whole new media thing was supposed to be about anyway.
''Besides, from the beginning, I've felt like that whole left-wing, right-wing schism is obsolete. We've got to move to a more collective and balanced vision of the future.''
Rushkoff says he never set out to become a specialist in digital life. He was just a writer looking for something to sink his teeth into when he stumbled onto the emerging cyberculture. Tying together the rave scene, virtual reality and online communities, Rushkoff argued in ''Cyberia'' that an exciting new cultural shift was taking place.
'' I'm not a cyberguru or a technological sage,'' he says. ''Back in '91, that was just the most interesting thing to write about; that was the freshest, most exciting cultural phenomenon.
''It wasn't so much that I was optimistic as saying that these people who look so weird to you are actually on to something. There's an expanding technology behind it that's going to allow good old-fashioned people like you and me to experience the world in different ways.''
Subsequent books such as ''Playing the Future,'' a look at how children experience technology and media, and the ''Generation X Reader'' cemented Rushkoff's reputation as a chronicler of the new frontier.
''If people are able to relate to me, I think it's because I'm half in the old world, linear mode of expression with a deeply middle-class set of values, yet I've had enough involvement in and exposure to the new world that I understand some of it,'' he says.
''That allows me to talk to the audience I want to reach, which is not the young people in the middle of this movement but the ones on the sidelines.
''All I've been trying to do is to tell people the stuff they're looking at -- 'Beavis and Butt-head,' mosh pits, rave culture -- just because they don't understand it, they shouldn't condemn it. There really is something going on there.
''People need to get over their fear of change. That's my real purpose -- to reduce the level of fear about what's happening to our culture.''
That's the very overt message of last year's ''Playing the Future,'' which argued that children should essentially be left alone to explore the online world and other outgrowths of the new media, since they instinctively understand such ventures better than their parents.
''Kids are natives in a place where their parents are immigrants,'' he says. ''They're comfortable with non-linear media and other things that confuse adults.
''Kids today are just more media literate. They know how to remain autonomous in these new areas, how to resist efforts to program their behavior.''
Rushkoff further argues that attempts to regulate content on the Internet are more a result of adult sexual fears and kinks rather than any real threat.
''What's really going on is a result of adults being afraid of what they'd do if left to their own devices,'' he says. ''They're not sure what they'd do with the tremendous power of the Internet. Would they sit around for hours looking at dirty pictures? And they project that fear onto children.''
''I think the people who worry about it the most are getting off on it -- that's where the biggest and sickest sexual thrill is going on.''
Rushkoff's most recent venture is his first novel, ''Ecstasy Club,'' a tale of Northern California rave and cyberculture. The book touches on several recurring themes in the writer's work, including the link between cyberspace and psychedelia (Rushkoff was good friends with the late Timothy Leary) and the rise of conspiracy thinking in cyberspace.
''I think paranoia is what naturally happens if you have no real grounding,'' he says. ''If you spend all your time with your head in the ether, if you spend all your time in a space as confusing as the new media, where it's very hard to recognize patterns or find stories, you lose your grip.''
The writer says part of his motivation to jump into fiction was a desire to take a few pokes at the phenomenon he helped sell to mainstream society.
'' I wanted to take some of the wind out of the sails of the whole cybermedia craze,'' he says. ''I feel kind of responsible for setting into motion something that's gone really out of control.
''I wanted to restore a sense of levity to the debate. Outlets like Wired make it all seem so deathly serious. This is not the life or death of our culture.''
Rushkoff describes his current project -- tentatively titled ''They'' -- as ''a crash course in media and cultural literacy.''
''I look at coercive techniques in our culture -- everything from Spam E-mail to shopping mall architecture. It's important for people to understand in a non-paranoid way how they're being manipulated -- and how to resist that -- if they want to maintain their individuality.''
The Internet is becoming a major part of that manipulative machinery, one reason Rushkoff has lost some of his zeal for cyberspace.
''I'm much less inspired by new media now,'' he says. ''I don't see that same explosion of creativity and originality anymore as when I wrote 'Cyberia.' I see browser wars; I see the Web turning into this big shopping catalog.
''And there's a group of us who feel kind of sad and guilty about the whole thing, because we worked so hard a few years ago to convince people this was an important thing, that it wasn't going to be the CB radio of the '90s.
Now it is an important thing, not an adventurous thing.''
Rushkoff is confident the creative and exciting side of the Internet will survive the current surge of corporate interest, however.
''The corporations pouring their money into the Internet have a very low estimation of what people want to do online, but I don't think they can completely take over,'' he says. ''The Internet seems to be very good at shrugging off attempts to turn it into anything but a personal space.'' IF YOU GO: The National Telemedia Council will present ''Mass Media and Popular Culture,'' a two-day seminar examining the often hidden implications of television, computers, shopping malls and other cultural phenomena. The program runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 14 and 15 at the Memorial Union. Besides Douglas Rushkoff, speakers include Barry Duncan, founder of the Association for Media Literacy; UW professors John Fiske and Robert McChesney; The Onion editor Scoot Dikkers; and Mary Moen of the Discovery Channel. For information on registration, call 257-7712.
GRAPHIC: In his books and lectures, Internet media expert Douglas Rushkoff tries to reach the people on the sidelines of the movement.
LOAD-DATE: November 08, 1997
Wisconsin State Journal
November 7, 1997, Friday, ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: Click/Daybreak, Pg. 1D
LENGTH: 1269 words
HEADLINE: AUTHOR MAKES HIS MARK; IN THE MIDDLE
BYLINE: Dave Becker Wisconsin State Journal
BODY:
It's easy to get confused if you listen to the cyberpundits very long.
In one corner are the technological evangelists, enthusiastically proclaiming a future in which computer connections have banished human ailments from racism to poverty.
Then there are the digital Cassandras, warning of a corporate-controlled computer culture that subtly strip us of free will and identity.
Somewhere in the increasingly rare middle ground is Douglas Rushkoff, author of a half-dozen books that deftly explore various corners of the computer explosion and affiliated new media.
An unabashedly optimistic observer of the emerging digital culture in the early 1990s, when he wrote the groundbreaking ''Cyberia,'' Rushkoff has evolved into a seasoned and reasoned chronicler of cyberspace, acutely aware of both its pitfalls and promises.
''Sometimes it's very hard to maintain that balanced optimism,'' says the author and New York Times columnist, who appears in Madison next week as part of a National Telemedia Council seminar on popular culture.
''But to me, that's part of maintaining your individuality, not jumping into either camp. Which is what the whole new media thing was supposed to be about anyway.
''Besides, from the beginning, I've felt like that whole left-wing, right-wing schism is obsolete. We've got to move to a more collective and balanced vision of the future.''
Rushkoff says he never set out to become a specialist in digital life. He was just a writer looking for something to sink his teeth into when he stumbled onto the emerging cyberculture. Tying together the rave scene, virtual reality and online communities, Rushkoff argued in ''Cyberia'' that an exciting new cultural shift was taking place.
'' I'm not a cyberguru or a technological sage,'' he says. ''Back in '91, that was just the most interesting thing to write about; that was the freshest, most exciting cultural phenomenon.
''It wasn't so much that I was optimistic as saying that these people who look so weird to you are actually on to something. There's an expanding technology behind it that's going to allow good old-fashioned people like you and me to experience the world in different ways.''
Subsequent books such as ''Playing the Future,'' a look at how children experience technology and media, and the ''Generation X Reader'' cemented Rushkoff's reputation as a chronicler of the new frontier.
''If people are able to relate to me, I think it's because I'm half in the old world, linear mode of expression with a deeply middle-class set of values, yet I've had enough involvement in and exposure to the new world that I understand some of it,'' he says.
''That allows me to talk to the audience I want to reach, which is not the young people in the middle of this movement but the ones on the sidelines.
''All I've been trying to do is to tell people the stuff they're looking at -- 'Beavis and Butt-head,' mosh pits, rave culture -- just because they don't understand it, they shouldn't condemn it. There really is something going on there.
''People need to get over their fear of change. That's my real purpose -- to reduce the level of fear about what's happening to our culture.''
That's the very overt message of last year's ''Playing the Future,'' which argued that children should essentially be left alone to explore the online world and other outgrowths of the new media, since they instinctively understand such ventures better than their parents.
''Kids are natives in a place where their parents are immigrants,'' he says. ''They're comfortable with non-linear media and other things that confuse adults.
''Kids today are just more media literate. They know how to remain autonomous in these new areas, how to resist efforts to program their behavior.''
Rushkoff further argues that attempts to regulate content on the Internet are more a result of adult sexual fears and kinks rather than any real threat.
''What's really going on is a result of adults being afraid of what they'd do if left to their own devices,'' he says. ''They're not sure what they'd do with the tremendous power of the Internet. Would they sit around for hours looking at dirty pictures? And they project that fear onto children.''
''I think the people who worry about it the most are getting off on it -- that's where the biggest and sickest sexual thrill is going on.''
Rushkoff's most recent venture is his first novel, ''Ecstasy Club,'' a tale of Northern California rave and cyberculture. The book touches on several recurring themes in the writer's work, including the link between cyberspace and psychedelia (Rushkoff was good friends with the late Timothy Leary) and the rise of conspiracy thinking in cyberspace.
''I think paranoia is what naturally happens if you have no real grounding,'' he says. ''If you spend all your time with your head in the ether, if you spend all your time in a space as confusing as the new media, where it's very hard to recognize patterns or find stories, you lose your grip.''
The writer says part of his motivation to jump into fiction was a desire to take a few pokes at the phenomenon he helped sell to mainstream society.
'' I wanted to take some of the wind out of the sails of the whole cybermedia craze,'' he says. ''I feel kind of responsible for setting into motion something that's gone really out of control.
''I wanted to restore a sense of levity to the debate. Outlets like Wired make it all seem so deathly serious. This is not the life or death of our culture.''
Rushkoff describes his current project -- tentatively titled ''They'' -- as ''a crash course in media and cultural literacy.''
''I look at coercive techniques in our culture -- everything from Spam E-mail to shopping mall architecture. It's important for people to understand in a non-paranoid way how they're being manipulated -- and how to resist that -- if they want to maintain their individuality.''
The Internet is becoming a major part of that manipulative machinery, one reason Rushkoff has lost some of his zeal for cyberspace.
''I'm much less inspired by new media now,'' he says. ''I don't see that same explosion of creativity and originality anymore as when I wrote 'Cyberia.' I see browser wars; I see the Web turning into this big shopping catalog.
''And there's a group of us who feel kind of sad and guilty about the whole thing, because we worked so hard a few years ago to convince people this was an important thing, that it wasn't going to be the CB radio of the '90s.
Now it is an important thing, not an adventurous thing.''
Rushkoff is confident the creative and exciting side of the Internet will survive the current surge of corporate interest, however.
''The corporations pouring their money into the Internet have a very low estimation of what people want to do online, but I don't think they can completely take over,'' he says. ''The Internet seems to be very good at shrugging off attempts to turn it into anything but a personal space.'' IF YOU GO: The National Telemedia Council will present ''Mass Media and Popular Culture,'' a two-day seminar examining the often hidden implications of television, computers, shopping malls and other cultural phenomena. The program runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 14 and 15 at the Memorial Union. Besides Douglas Rushkoff, speakers include Barry Duncan, founder of the Association for Media Literacy; UW professors John Fiske and Robert McChesney; The Onion editor Scoot Dikkers; and Mary Moen of the Discovery Channel. For information on registration, call 257-7712.
GRAPHIC: In his books and lectures, Internet media expert Douglas Rushkoff tries to reach the people on the sidelines of the movement.
LOAD-DATE: November 08, 1997
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