Theme 1

The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC) is one of the oldest web-based Internet studies scholarly journals. It publishes work by scholars in communication, political science, sociology, media studies etc. (http://jcmc.indiana.edu/)

I chose the research article 'The fifth estate emerging through the network of networks' (2009) written by William Dutton, in: Prometheus 27 (1): 1-15.
Dutton talks about the new institutions of the Network Society: new technologies and new media lead to the appearance of new forms of democracy, such as the 'fifth estate', a network community. Dutton's discussion of the role of the Internet and related technologies is distinguished into three stages:

- Internet as ephemeral technological innovation,

- Internet as a destruction of hierarchies, or a mean of a total control,

- Internet as a network of networks, which allows different combinations to establish links between individuals and groups.

The research is based on the various theoretical, philosophical and social works (from M. Castells to T. Blair) and a historical analysis. Its aims are the proposition of Dutton's hypothesis and the intoduction of a new term, which became quite popular among social media researchers nowadays.

Bertrand Russel - The Problems of Philosophy

1)

According to Russel, 'sense-data' means the things that are immediately known in sensation as an individual personal feeling. The object cannot be identical with the sense-datum, so, the facts that we know about the subjects are our personal feelings, not the ideal universal information.

Russel introduces this notion to give a better understanding of his philosophical structure, which separates 'knowledge of things' and 'knowledge of truths'. Knowledge of things is divided on knowledge by description which needs the basis of certain 'truth' knowledge, and knowledge by acquaintance which doesn't need logical conclusions and based on the sense-data.

2)

The proposition is an obvious but abstract fact, like 'two and two are four', something we know without sensual experience. All 'a priori' knowledge deals exclusively with the relations of universals.

The statement of fact mean statements about particular objects/facts, not the idea of them. The belief is true when corresponds to the fact, and false if it doesn't.

Facts are something that has been experienced in acquaintance. We can have knowledge by description of things which we have never experienced, but this would be propositions.

3)

'Definite description' is any phrase of the form 'the so-and-so', which is having a certain property and we do not have knowledge of the same object by acquaintance.

The phrase of the form 'the so-and-so' (in the singular) is called an a 'definite' description. The example of this as follows: 'a man' is an ambiguous description, and 'the man with the iron mask' is a definite description, or 'a man as any person' or 'this particular man'.

4)

Russell duscusses theories of a priori knowledge which is not purely or not purely 'analytic'. He disagrees with rationalists who state 'a priori' as a mental general knowledge, and partly agrees with Plato's 'theory of ideas' as an attempt to solve this problem, but criticizes the idea of universals, even when this complex idea is a basis of many theories, such as monism (Spinoza, Bradley), monadism (Leibniz).

He points out that the universals are represented by adjectives and substantives, and there must be relations which are not dependent upon thought, but belong to the independent world which the thought apprehends but does not create.

His conclusion is that while many different thoughts of particular sense have in common their object, this object itself is different from all of them.