Electric Dreams

Computers in American Culture

In "Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture" Ted Friedman explores the cultural history of computers, beginning with the failure of Charles Babbage's "difference engine" in the 19th century to contemporary issues such as file-swapping, open source software and the future of online journalism. To do so, he uses a variety of sources such as texts, film, novels, advertisements, comptuer games and blogs as examples.

Friedman, an assistant professor of moving image studies at Georgia State University, was online at 2 p.m. ET Friday, Feb. 10 to discuss how computers are leading us into the future.

A transcript follows.

Friedman's blog can be found at http://www.tedfriedman.com/ .

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Ted Friedman: Hi Everybody -

I'm Ted Friedman, author of Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture, just out from NYU Press. I also write a weblog on the politics of new media and popular culture at http://www.tedfriedman.com.

Electric Dreams examines at the cultural history of computers, from Babbage to blogs. I argue that when we talk about computers, we're often really talking about our visions for the future. Cyberculture, I conclude, is a "utopian sphere" - a space where there's room to imagine a radically different kind of world, beyond our present moment of late capitalism.

From the transition from analog to digital computing in the 1940s, to the rise of the personal computer in the 1970s, to the development of Napster, Linux, and the blogosphere today, cyberculture has been a forum for differing visions of what we want the world to look like in the future. I bring together Jurgen Habermas's notion of the "public sphere" with Fredric Jameson's examination of the utopian dimensions of popular culture, to develop this notion of a "utopian sphere."

My point isn't that cyberspace is an ideal universe where everything's perfect - there's plenty of inequity in cyberspace, starting with the digital divide between info-haves and info-have-nots. But cyberspace is a place where visions that are usually dismissed as too pie-in-the-sky can be nurtured. In the long run, it's the utopian visions - from Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward to Martin Luther King's promise, "I have a dream" - that allow us to turn our heads up from the morass of our everyday struggles and envision a larger purpose to our work, our play, our politics, and the rest of our lives.

During this talk, I'd love to answer questions about the history of computers, about issues in technology today, and about the future.

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Georgia: What single development in the tech world is most interesting to you personally right now?

Ted Friedman: Great question! Right now, for me it would have to be the growing political influence of blogs. There's a discussion in the conclusion of my book about the influence of bloggers on the 2004 campaigns. I started that chapter during the height of Howard Dean mania, when for a moment it looked like the "netroots" might take over the Democratic party. Of course, it turned out not to be that easy - forcing a somewhat more sober-minded rewrite of the chapter. But I'm wary of those who claim the Dean phenomenon was just a "bubble," like the dot.com boom and crash. Or rather, if it was, in a way that's OK. The Dean web universe was a perfect example of the utopian sphere in action - the web created a safe space for Deaniacs to get together and dream. It's not surprising that they faced new challenges in the transition from the utopian sphere to the public sphere. But without that utopian sphere, they never would have gotten that far.

I think it's possible that the Dean campaign of 2004 may be looked back upon like the Goldwater campaign of 1964 - a losing battle that helped lay the groundwork for winning the larger struggle. I'm really taken by the argument that the historian of American conservatism Rick Perlstein (sp?) makes about this is his pamphlet from Prickly Paradigm Press, "The Stock Market and the Superjumbo." He argues that the Democratic party needs to learn some lessons from the conservative movement of the 1960s, and think much more long-term. That's utopian thinking. And I think blogs are perfectly placed to cultivate that kind of visionary work.

The other half of this story is that blogs have also come a long way since the Dean boom: their audiences are bigger, their credibility is higher, and they've learned some lessons. My own utopian fantasy is that blogs could usher in a truly vibrant 21st century culture of news and debate that combines the reasoned civic discourse of the New England town hall, the muckracking of the Progressive era, and the critical independence of I.F. Stone. That's not likely to be the case any time soon. But it's something to shoot for.

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New York, NY: Have computers made individuals more isolated?

Ted Friedman: That's a hard question to answer. The social scientific survey data appears mixed - computers can help some people expand their "real-world" universe of friends, but can also help some people stay cut off from face-to-face interaction. I think it's too big an issue to say there's just one answer. Rather, we need to look at specific practices in specific contexts - then, encourage models which help people integrate cyberspace into their everyday "real-world" lives.

Of course, I'm putting "real-world" in quotes, because obviously, when you're online, you're still in the real world. I guess what worries me the most is the way cyberspace can encourage the fantasy that you've escaped the bounds of the flesh, when in fact your body is still there, typing away the whole time. It's that repression of the body that can lead to problems like carpal tunnel syndrome - something I sufferred from for years while writing the book, until I stopped spending quite so much time in front of my computer, and started doing yoga and meditating. The American obesity and diabetes epidemics seem like more evidence of this problem.

Of course, this isn't all just kids playing Everquest all night. Most of you reading this chat right now are probably sitting at computers at your jobs. You didn't necessarily choose to enter cyberspace - it's what your employers demand of you. So nurturing a healthy relationship between mind and body isn't just a self-help issue - it's also a labor issue, and so a political issue.

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Atlanta, Ga.: Your book examines various landmark depictions of the computer in popular culture, with the goal of illustrating how people have come to terms (or failed to come to terms) with the computerization of our world. One recurring way in which this is acted out seems to be the theme of human-computer romance. I'm thinking of the 1950's movie Desk Set, where the "electronic brain" is humorously referred to as Spencer Tracy's jealous mistress, and the 1960's movie 2001, which hints at the pretty homophobic notion that Hal is acting like a spurned, and deranged, gay lover. The book even shares its very title with a 1980's movie about a PC that falls in love with its owner's girlfriend. Why do you think this theme has continued to pop up across the decades? Do you think it's still meaningful in today's technological era, one that's characterized by a glut of online opportunities for human-to-human (but computer-mediated) sex and romance?

Ted Friedman: That's a juicy question. I think this is part of the larger phenomenon of anthropomorphization, in which computers are given human-like qualities. I argue in the book that this happens not so much because we actually think computers will one day become superintelligent and rule over us (or seduce us), but because it allows us to allegorize our present-day frustrations with, hopes for, and anxieties about technology. Desk Set, for example, is all about the threat of technological deskilling to pink collar jobs. 2001 is about surveillance and military technocracy. These aren't far-fetched fears: they were relavant when the movies were made in the 1950s and 1960s, and they're even more relevant today. Recasting this somewhat abstract issues of technology as a battle between humans and machines - either a struggle to the death, as in 2001 or the Terminator films, or a romantic sparring match, as in Desk Set or the film Electric Dreams - is a way to dramatize and personalize the way all of us come into conflict with these large social forces.

That's not to say computers won't someday make us their slaves - or maybe even their love slaves. But the history of artificial intelligence research is full of grand predictions that truly sentient machines are right around the corner. Each time, it turns out that consciousness is a much tougher nut to crack than anybody thought. I think the fundamental flaw in AI research, historically, has been the Cartesian fallacy - the idea that there's a separation of body and mind, the mind is where the real person is, and a machine can simply replicate the processes of the mind. In reality, our consciousness is the experience of our entire body, and can't be so easily reduced to a set of algorithms, however fast your processing power. More recent research with neural nets and hive mind processes seem much more promising, but even then, I wouldn't hold my breath for Hal or Terminator to show up any time soon.

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New York, NY: What sparked your interest in this subject?

Ted Friedman: In my first semester of grad school back in the dark ages of 1992, I took a course in media studies. We read film theory and television theory, but there was no equivalent work in the humanities in "computer theory." Meanwhile, back in my apartment, I was spending much more time playing SimCity and Civilization than watching TV or movies. It seemed computer games needed to be thought through along the same lines as other media. So, I wrote an essay called "Making Sense of Software: The Semiotics of SimCity."

From there, I started writing more about computer game, but soon decided I wanted to broaden my inquiry to cyberculture as a whole. Reading the stuff on cyberculture that was available in the mid-1990s, it seemed like a lot of it was frustratingly speculative and ungrounded.

At the same time, I was reading fascinating works on the cultural history of technolgy such as David Nye's Electrifying America, Carolyn Marvin's When Old Technologies Were New, and Lynn Spigel's Make Room for TV. I wanted to bring this historical approach to the study of cyberculture.

I should mention that I'm not a historian - or a computer scientist - by training. I studied in the Duke Program in Literature and Literary Theory. But I felt this perspective could help me get at some of the cultural tensions and ideological undercurrents running beneath discourse about computers.

So, I wrote a dissertation on the cultural history of computers - an examination of how we have come to think the way we think about computers. After a few more years of revising and updating - writing about the history of computers is always tricky because it's such a moving target - I turned it into this book. I try to continue to keep the ideas in the book up to date through posts on my weblog at http://www.tedfriedman.com. And if you're curious about the book, sample chapters are available at http://www.tedfriedman.com/electricdreams. It's an academic book, but I've tried to make it an engaging read for nonspecialists - I used to be a freelance rock critic, so I have an aversion to too much theory jargon.

Ted Friedman: Update: this didn't post the first time around. Let's try it again.

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Brooklyn, N.Y.: Guess I'll try the obvious: since your book's publication, Google and its attitudes toward user privacy have been much in the news. Do you have an opinion about how they're handling themselves, viz. the governments of both the U.S. and China; and if you were to make a prediction, where will Google and its users come out of all this? with their privacy compromised? with their awareness (properly) heightened?

Ted Friedman: Well, first of all, this isn't just a story about Google. From what I've read, Google was the only major web company to put up a struggle when the US government asked for search records. (Somebody, please correct me if I have this or any other claim wrong - if I had more time, I would fact-check this kind of claim - probably through Google - before making it.) So here, Google seems to be living up to that motto, "Don't be evil," that Jon Stewart made fun of the other night. (It seems like some sort of depressing evidence of post dot.com bubble, post 9/11 diminishing expectations that while the '70s pioneers promised a "computer revolution" that would change the world, the best their inheritors at Google can get away with is "Don't be evil."

I do worry that the gmail model is dangerous on privacy grounds - not because of those ads in the right-hand column, but because anybody's email, as long as it's on Google's servers, or Yahoo's, or MSN Hotmail's, could be subpoenaed - or, given recent revelations, simply hacked by the government without any court supervision. I feel more comfortable keeping all my correspondence on my hard drive - although maybe I'm being naive, as well, about just how deeply my packets can be sniffed.

(I should say I'm not a computer privacy or civil liberties expert - just a very concerned citizen frightened by what my government is doing in the name of my security.)

The China issue is even tougher. The pro-Google argument is that working with China is still a step forward - "constructive engagement," as they used to call it when excusing business and government collaboration with apartheid-era South Africa in the 1980s. What I'd be most curious to know is how many backdoors exist behind China's firewalls designed to keep censored content out of the country. It would seem pretty simple to me to set up mirror all over Chinese webspace pointing out to the rest of the internet. But I don't know just how sophisticated state-of-the-art censoring technology is.

The 1990s Wired crowd promised, in Stuart Brand's famous phrase, that "information wants to be free." But I've always felt that's a dangerously naive statement. Information doesn't want anything. People want things. And if powerful people want to keep information in chains, and enough people don't resist, it'll stay locked up. That's why it's up to us to stand up for the freedom of information, at home and around the world.

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Decatur, Ga.: In your book, you discuss several of the landmark games of the contemporary era (Sim City, Civilization, and Sims), all of which can be broadly classified as simulation games. I've read that the computer and video game industry has been in a bit of a slump lately, suggesting that gamers are starting to tire of what's out there at the moment. The most popular game genres at present are, I think, first-person shooters and Grand Theft Auto-type action games, along with the most recent versions of the classic simulation games. What do you think will be (or should be) the next popular types of games? Do you anticipate some creative reworking of existing genres, or something entirely new?

Ted Friedman: I just read today in the WSJ that Will Wright, developer of SimCity and The Sims, has a new evolution-sim game coming out next year called Spore. He's the most innovative designer in the history of computer games, so I'm crossing my fingers that that game will shake up the industry just like his earlier games did.

I think the underlying problem isn't with a lack of creative people, but with a messed-up industry structure. As the most profitable games have become the most expensive, the industry has become increasingly risk-averse - just like Hollywood. So you get lots of sequels and me-too games. It's particularly frustrating for a long-time gamer like me, since I don't really like the top-selling paradigms right now. (First-person shooter games give me motion sickness.)

From what I hear, the real innovation right now is in games for phones and other mobile devices. Since the processing power, bandwidth, and graphics are all limited, you can't simply throw more polygons at a game and extol its "realism." You're focussed to think more about gameplay. The game designer Greg Costikyan has an interesting project designed to support more inventive, lo-fi games - you can check out his blog at http://www.costik.com/weblog. As I mention in the book, my favorite new games are all old-school, such as the text and ASCII graphics MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing. The retro gaming movement seems like another example of my generations rebellion against game industry trends, although I get wary of wallowing too deep in Atari-era nostalgia.

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Ted Friedman: By the way, I just want to say how thrilled I am at the questions I've been getting. I've been afraid everyone would want to ask me about Apple's latest quarterly earnings, or how to get rid of spyware. Please, keep 'em coming! And if you'd like to chat further after this is over, please drop by my weblog at http://www.tedfriedman.com and leave a comment or two.

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Sim City, USA: Which part of the book, or which themes, would you like to return to in future works?

Ted Friedman: The real through-line of my book is this idea of a "utopian sphere." I concentrate on how this plays out in cyberculture, since I think the connections between talking about computers and thinking about the future are so clear.

But of course, all sorts of cultural activities have utopian elements. The film scholar Richard Dyer, for example, wrote a great essay on the utopian aspects of 1930s MGM musicals. These spectacles are typically dismissed by critics as "escapism." But Dyer pushes us to think through what we mean by "escapism." Where are we escaping to? Why does this particular fantasy feel like such a pleasing respite to the rest of our lives? How might the escape change us, once we return to our everyday lives?

These are also the question my dissertation advisor, Dr. Janice Radway, asked about romance novels and their readers in her groundbreaking book, Reading the Romance. Since finishing the book, I've been working on asking similar questions about Hollywood blockbusters such as Star Wars and Cast Away. Some of this work is available on my website at http://www.tedfriedman.com/essays.

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Boston, Mass.: Regarding blogs. With all the liability issues that paralyze companies, do you believe blogs will take off in the business world, and if so, what form will they take?

Do you believe blogs can enhance a business or are they more for the citizen journalist community?

Ted Friedman: Frankly, I see businesses as mostly a threat to the potential of blogging. There have already been cases where bloggers were discovered by their employwers and fired from their jobs. I think the important thing in a democracy is that everybody have the opportunity to freely, candidly, openly participate in public discourse. I think businesses' primary responsibility is to stay out of the way and let their employees exercise their civil liberties.

Unfortunately, the trend is in the opposite direction. It amazes me how few people seem to realize that every email they send through a workplace account is completely available to their employers. Employers increasingly ask that employees give more of their lives to the firm - through more hours at work, taking work home, being constantly in touch via Blackberry, cellphone, et al - or, in the worst-case working class version of this scenerio, just being locking into a Wal-Mart overnight. The implicit bargain, at least at the white collar level, is that you'll at least be able to shop online, send emails, and maybe even blog during downtime at the job. But I fear this is a devil's bargain for employees.

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New York, N.Y.: You mentioned blogging as the most important development in recent computer history. What's the next step for blogging? Does blogging force traditional news sources to keep more on their toes? More (or less) honest?

Ted Friedman: Well, I don't want to ruffle any feathers here at the Washington Post, but the recent controversies over how the Post have handled both internal weblogs and comments on blogs demonstrate the culture class between traditional news organizations and the blogosphere. I think this isn't foreordained. Bloggers need to keep the pressure on this insitutions up. As Joshua Micah Marshall and others have perceptively argued, the reason news institutions have tilted right in their coverage is because the pressure from conservative media "watchdogs" hasn't, until now, been matched by the left. We need the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, and every other news institution (well, almost every - I guess Fox and the Washington Times are lost causes) to be as worried about upsetting the left with their slant on a story as they are about upsetting the right.

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Stratford, Prince Edward Island, Canada: How have computers influenced literacy? With the introduction of many new methods of expression (hypertext to emoticons) has our cognitive processing changed? Are we more or less able to understand what we read? Are we now more likely to understand the same message more personally and less in a social context?

Ted Friedman: I think the computer has introduced new kinds of literacies. This has its pros and cons. I've met kids who could never sit still for a whole newspaper, or a book (except maybe Harry Potter), but will think nothing of spending hours online, IMing and browsing. That's a new kind of literacy with its own strengths. It's just up to the schools to see that it doesn't come at the expense of the ability to focus on reading and critically engaging challenging content in the way reading books and magazines traditionally has.

On this subject, I highly recommend a great new book I just taught in my grad class on new media: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, by James Paul Gee.

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New York, N.Y.: I have an older friend, a man who is around 60 years old, who is constantly telling me that "computers are evil." he refuses to get a computer, an email address, he says he will not search the internet for any piece of information.

Now, I think he's nuts. But he's utterly convinced that computers are the root of all of society's evils. I'm not kidding. Care to give me any weapons to respond to this Luddite?

Ted Friedman: You know, after working on this book for 15 years, I can't totally blame your friend. The more time I spend thinking about computers, the more I want to move out in the country somewhere on a farm with horses and goats or something. Maybe I'd keep a DSL connection, but I'd escape a lot of the pressures of modern life that computers have certainly exacerbated.

Realistically, I think it's just too broad a claim to say "computers are evil." Computers have great potential for positive good, and great potential for harm. So far, they've assisted in some of both. If the Bush administration's surveillance plans continue unimpeded that pushes the scale further in the "evil" direction. If blogs positively influence the conduct of the 2006 elections, that's a blow in favor of the virtue of the PC revolution. It's not an all or nothing thing. As Marx - or maybe Engels - said, "we make the future under circumstances not of our own making," or something like that. Computers are these amazing tools. For those of us who want to change the world for the better, we'd be crazy to blow them off. The people who aren't making the world better (by my lights, anyway) certainly aren't boycotting them.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Ted--

Greetings from a fellow TD '91 alum!

I remember in your undergraduate days, you were active in campus radio and music circles. How is today's computer technology changing the frontier in those areas (beyond Sirius and XM)?

Ted Friedman: The world of music is going in two opposite directions at high speed. On the one hand, radio industry consolidation has ruined terrestrial radio and killed pop music. On the other hand, satellite radio, file sharing, and online services like Rhapsody have made more music available to more people for less money than ever before.

I'm running out of time, but there's a chapter in my book on just this subject. In fact, I've also given a talk on this based on the chapter, and I'll upload it to my blog at http://www.tedfriedman.com later today.

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Eastern Market, D.C.: Ted,

Well, CNN has hired William Bennett, CJ Watts, and an execrable right winger whose name I can't recall... as "commentators." I'd say the "left" (read centrist in Europe, Canada, and the rest of the civilized world) has a way to go before the CNNs of this world stops their headlong rush to right wing idiocy.

Ted Friedman: They're just following the market. If they're convinced the market has changed, they'll follow in the other direction. There's still room on the cable spectrum for Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Compared to a few years ago, that's actually progress, I think.

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Ted Friedman: I'm afraid I've run out of time. Thanks to everybody who asked questions, and my apologies to those whose questions I couldn't get to. As I've mentioned before, you're all welcome to shift the party over to my blog/website at http://www.tedfriedman.com. Thanks for joining me today!

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