Smart mobs
the power of the mobile many
by Howard Rheingold
Howard Rheingold is the introducer of “smart mobs”. He states that “Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other”. A few worldwide examples are used to illustrate the concept of smart mobs including Philippine, Britain, Toronto and so on. Smart mobs use many of the current technologies to spread out certain idea. It is easily found in protests.
The idea of “netwars” is similar to smart mobs since they are both created by the network.
The “swarming” strategies mean many small units work together with some purposes.
Wearable news-gathering system is related to peer-to-peer journalism. Swarm intelligence talks about the power of group activity rather than individual.
Questions are raised by the writer at the end:
1. What do we know now about the emergent properties of ad hoc mobile computing networks, and what do we need to know in the future?
2. What are the central issues for individuals in a world pervaded by surveillance devices – in terms of what we can do about it?
3. What are the long-term consequences of near-term political decisions on the way we’ll use and be affected by mobile, pervasive, always-on media?
I think Kiki has presented very clearly. She had covered almost all main ideas in the article.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, my reading is not that much as some of other classmates, so it's not difficult to present the idea. Besides, Wesley would explain some of the main concepts of each week's reading in the lecture. I realised that examples are needed for discussing "smart mobs". I also found that different concepts can be related to each other, for instance, smarts mobs and post-humanism.
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