In Chapter Seven Benkler addresses the arguments that have been laid out against the networked public sphere. I thought that Benkler offered solid counter points to the typical remarks made against the public sphere, however I have a slightly different point of view than his in regards to his rebuttal statement about how the emergence of the public sphere will hurt the press and their position as the fourth estate.
At this point in our culture I think we can agree that the press has fallen from this esteemed position as being the fourth estate because of the current mentality of …read more

In Chapter 6 Benkler begins to lay the groundwork of how the information economy has changed mass media, I believe I see where the argument is going but want to wait until Benkler frames his debate before I talk about the transformation that is currently going on from a consumer culture to a prosumer. One topic that I want to address, that I think Benkler did an outstanding job on tackling, is the topic of control, specifically how we were served and how we used to consume mass media. I believe that Benkler is setting the stage to talk about …read more

In reading chapter five of The Wealth of Networks it began to dawn on me on how elitist the conversation is for this chapter. Benkler doesn’t do enough to discuss the lack of access provided to people and their inability to participate in the information economy. It feels like the assumption that is made from the beginning is that we all have access, this autonomy that he talks about is a false autonomy that is only available to the elite.
Only 66% of the adults in this country own a computer, with only 40% able to access the internet. Benkler’s discussion …read more

In Benkler’s analysis of social production he examines why people in the open source software community operate the way they do. I find it interesting that there is such a diverse group of individuals working on open source software with market and non-market goals fueling their efforts.
“The large free software projects might integrate thousands of people who are acting primarily for social psychological reasons – because it is fun or cool: a few hundred young programmers aiming to make a name for themselves so as to become employable; and dozens of programmers who are paid to write free software by …read more

In Chapter 3 Benkler looks at how different groups leverage the computing power of the masses, be it either volunteers or customers, through different peering environments. Some of the examples given were non-profit and profit based, with the non-profits operating with people working towards working on a common cause. The main for profit program listed, Skype, was the one program I found to be rather troubling.
I find it interesting that people are so willing to give up their resources to various online entities because they feel that doing so doesn’t intrude on them but in reality are they giving up …read more

I think that chapter 2 and the additional sources that Benkler cited raised some interesting questions about where we are going in regards to patent protection and innovation. Our patent system looks at the information economy from the lens of the industrial age. The federal government and industry need to take steps to reform the patent process, without this reform innovation and discovery that can help society is restrained to the determent of everyone.
One of the major problems is how restrictive companies are with their intellectual property and patents. Most major companies will hold onto the patents and intellectual property …read more

At the start of the semester I brought up the fact that I am taking a class that focuses on “The Wealth of Networks” by Yochai Benkler. I was going to share various chapter reviews and forgot to do it, so I am going to take the time to share them now.
Chapter 1
“The networked information economy improves the practical capacities of individuals along three dimensions: (1) it improves their capacity to do more for and by themselves; (2) it enhances their capacity to do more in loose commonality with others, without being constrained to organize their relationship through a price …read more