Literature as Thought Experiment: Collaborative Knowledge Systems, Communication, and Democratic Citizenship
Keywords:
collaborative knowledge, collaborative knowledge systems, collective intelligence, information science, citizenship, mass media, democracy, democratic citizenshipAbstract
The New Media Consortium’s 2008 Horizon Report identified collective intelligence as a technology trend to watch in the next four to five years. Collective intelligence and collaborative knowledge systems are indubitably changing the ways in which information is collected, stored, transmitted and used. These changes have impacts on the reality and ideals that underlie our democratic society, particularly in the area of communication and engagement with issues and one another. The issues raised by these changes, like many others of societal importance, have been compellingly explored in literature. Three works in particular, Richard Brautigan's The Abortion (1971), Don DeLillo's White Noise (1985), and Salman Rushdie's The Fury (2001), explore these questions and thus serve as a sort of laboratory where thought experiments regarding technology, democracy, and citizenship take place. An examination of these works reveals a relationship between the portrayal of the information-driven society in the literary laboratory and actual emerging technologies. The thought experiments begun in these novels lead us on interesting journeys of inquiry and discovery as we consider how a highly technologically influenced information environment affects our actual everyday role as citizens in a democratic society, as well as our ideas about citizenship and democracy.
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Copyright (c) 2010 Michele DeSilva

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