Question 8--Winner's Definition of Politics

According to Langdon Winner, Politics are an arrangement of power. He does suggest that although the system in which the tools are embedded plays a significant role in the ways technologies are shaped, there are ways that technologies themselves can have politics. He claims there are "two ways in which artifacts can contain political properties." These are when the artifact becomes a method for settling an issue in a community and when an item is "strongly compatible with particular kinds of political relationships."

Using these definitions, it is easy to see how certain web tools could be considered inherintly political. Looking at tools in terms of an arrangement of power shows that a tool such as the webquest gives the teacher more power than the students. A blog on the otherhand is an arrangement of power in which all parties can be equal.

Web tools do not necessarily seem to be settling issues in a community, but can certainly be used for it. A website for example, may be added to a community because they have a communication issue. In this case, the website would have politics.

Each tool needs to be looked at individually and its reasons for being present should be considered, but the potential for the tools themselves having politics is there according to Winner. For Winner, every tool could have politics.

Which tools...

The question is:
Which tools seem most/least adapted to educate members of Gen Y? Examples?

Answer:
Most adapted

• Blog: the Y generation seems to have a fascination with publishing their intimate thoughts in a public space.
• Chat/IM: I feel that a chat group would probably be less interesting to them but I think they would still find it useful.
• Podcast: Anything they can put on their iPod or other digital media device is golden.
• WIKI: this gives the students vested interest in a site since they can influence the content.
• Email: perhaps a bit antiquated in gen Y standards. Still as important as the telephone was to previous generations.

Least adapted

• discussion boards are great, especially for college students and distance learning, but gen Y would probably not want to use them as much as other tools discussed above.
• Virtual museums? Gen Yers, for the most part, show little interest in real museums. But virtual could be a completely different story. I think we will have to see how this evolves.
• Wequest would fit in this category only because most of them are very linear in design and are much like a lesson in a book.

If you have anything to add please feel free to comment.