Media

Digital Public – Opportunities and Risks Involved in Creating Virtual Society – an Intercultural Comparison USA-Germany

The USA and Germany are among the world’s heaviest users of the Internet (USA is in first place in the world with 69.7% of the population connected to the web and Germany accounts for 16% of all internet-users in Europe with 61% of the population connected). So it is certainly of interest to the German-American discourse to look at what the consequences of this development are on public life and on the daily life of individuals in our two societies.

The following tendencies will be considered in all projects on this topic:

1) Changes in the relationship between private and public life
The differences between “private” life and “public” life are increasingly blurred because public-ness is created via the internet and the various possibilities it offers. This means that more and more discussions are taking place not in the traditional public meeting places and in the form of orderly public discourse (panel discussions, talk shows, etc.) but rather in YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, in Blogs, and in Chat Groups. A criticism of this development: what happens to the voices of those people who for various reasons cannot become part of the Digital Public (“digital divide” issue)?

2) Simplification of Communication and Internationalization of the Public
Because of the digitizing of information, the development and improvement of search engines like Google and the growth of internet portals the accumulated knowledge of the world is practically accessible everywhere and at all times. How does it change our lives, if all information is directly accessible to us by digital means? Who uses the flood of information from the internet and how do they use it given sources like Wikipedia, Perlentaucher.de (online German compilation of significant press articles in the cultural arena) or SignandSight.com (English-language media service)?

3) Simplification of Public Mobility
For citizen initiatives, informal political activists and also for individuals, modern technology has made it easier to have an influence on public discourse. Many of the political scandals of recent times have been brought to public attention thanks to information from the internet; certain blogs and chat-rooms play an important role in defining the themes of public discourse.

4) New Forms of Self-Representation for the Public
Leaving behind “Web 1.0”, in which the internet was principally an informational medium and served for the diffusion of news, we are now in the second phase, “Web 2.0”, in which the internet is a “design medium,” in which the individual appears via the internet and meets the public in various ways. What previously belonged to the private sphere and was only shared with a small group of friends can now be presented to a public numbered in the millions, which will then immediately comment on the presentation. The private becomes public and the public deals with private matters (YouTube, Facebook).

5) New Forms of Creation of a Public Space via Parallel Worlds

In what may be a third phase of the internet, “Web 3.0” presents us with parallel worlds like Second Life.
Second Life is a three-dimensional multi-user online world with more than seven million “residents.” It was created in 2003 by Linden Lab. Here again the borders between private and public lives are blurred more and more.

Projects on this Subject

Various experts from Germany and the United States (scholars of communication, sociologists, philosophers) as well as active users of digital means (bloggers, MySpace-Users, Facebook-users, YouTube-artists) should be given the opportunity to discuss the possibilities and uses of the new digital media and to analyze the different approaches and attitudes present in the USA and Germany

• Panel discussions taking place simultaneously at all or many Goethe-Institut locations in North America
• Video conferencing between places
• Bloggers commenting live on the events

The programs will be videotaped and presented on a a Goethe-Institut page in MySpace. Additional artist projects can be developed (Digital Literature/Poetry, Theater, Performance). These could also be connected to the Goethe-Institut presence in Second Life.