(One last blog from Digital Genres. My laptop was requisitioned for projectile servitude during Laura’s presentation so I actually had to take notes on paper. Oh, the humiliation! BTW, my piece yesterday about Shock and Awe was an improved version of something I said at the conference during the discussion of Laura’s paper.)

Laura notes a structural similarity between the way the Defense Department is reforming the military and the bottom-up, emergent networks the Internet is enabling. While we’re all familiar with the Net’s way of enabling groups to form, Laura says that the Defense Department isn’t just using complex network theory when deploying troops, it’s also engaged in a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) that transforms the nature of peace and governance. In fact, Laura sees RMA not as limited to the military but as an overall strategy employed by the Bush administration.

The difference between the Defense Department and the emergent groups on the Internet is that the DoD harnesses smart mobs to a top-down strategy whereas groups on the ‘Net are organized purely bottom-up. So, in the political struggle between the DoD and the d00ds, the DoD have a distinct advantage.

(Laura recommends the work of “Slovenian Marxist-Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Zizek.” I haven’t heard of him.)

[Abstract]

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