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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">Jon,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">that's a very good question, Jon,
thanks for asking. The example of Peirce is excellent.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">I believe that a Peircian semiotic
could be implemented on the Internet (or a successor to the Internet), and that
this a very worthwhile goal. A sort of Peircian emphasis on content, meaning, or
deep referent as counterpoint to what is currently happening on the Internet,
which is the nightmare realization of the fundamental media-theory-insight of
McLuhan-Baudrillard that "the medium is the message" gone haywire, on drugs, so
to speak. Content means nothing right now. Everything is links, links, links,
where can i get my website or blog linked or ping-backed to as many other
websites as possible. And this happening in the context of the rampant reign of
Homo Economicus. More links to my website equals more visitors equals higher
google ranking equals the dream of the pot of gold.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">Any chat of any kind today
immediately deteriorates into: are you on Facebook?, are you registered at the
Huffington Post?, do you have Skype?, MSN?, Yahoo Messenger?, etc. Meet me at
odesk or elance and let’s get exploited together. That's a nice app you’ve got,
but does it run on iPad? Nice book there, but it is on Kindle? The media that
overwhelms the message was TV for McLuhan-Baudrillard. Today that fetishized
media is Facebook, skype, MSN, etc.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">And add to that list the fetish of
"just the facts, ma'am" of the Wikipedia gatekeepers.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">The second half of my answer to your
question will be in the context of explaining something about my project which
is my contribution to the conference reader. Focusing on Star Trek (there are
about 100 Wikipedia articles on Star Trek, at least), i am establishing myself
as a good Wikipedia citizen making contributions which, on one level, are indeed
adding to the mountain of fetishized facts. However, i am doing this with
awareness in such a way that I simultaneously deconstruct from within the fetish
of facts by subtly pointing out contextualizations, ambiguities, uncertainties,
undecidabilities. Today, for example, on this very day, I was very involved with
the Star Trek question: was the character Flint Shakespeare? (Flint is a
character in The Original Series episode "Requiem for Methuselah" who is
immortal and was many of the great creators of human history, like DaVinci and
Brahms). The "fetish of facts" nitpickers will debate until the cows come home
whether Flint was Shakespeare or not. Half will defend one thesis, half the
other. Of course that's a ridiculous binary. The episode, which is in fact a
brilliant literary story, presents evidence on both sides of the question and
the question is undecidable.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">So that's what I think is the first
step to take. We have to deconstuct Wikipedia from within. That’s what we should
do. A Trojan Horse strategy. We have to stand the coin of whether we are
Wikipedians or critics of Wikipedia on its edge, neither heads nor tails. I love
the Twilight Zone episode where the guy flips his coin into the newspaper boy's
coin box and it stands on its edge. (then he can read minds all
day)<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">Back to Peirce: Peirce is the best
semiotician, better than Eco or Derrida or Baudrillard or Greimas or Jakobsen,
because his viewpoint includes everything about the chains of signs and
signifiers that is in their systems, but Peirce also emphasizes meaning, the
referent of the sign. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">The hypertext cultural theory crowd
of the 1990s of Landow, Bolter, Brown University, etc. didn’t really get Peirce.
A Derrida-only-inspired view of hypertext is exposed to a kind of nihilism of
the chain of signifiers, it seems to me.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><SPAN
lang=EN-GB style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Alan</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">www.alan-shapiro.com </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o:p> </o:p></P></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Alan,<BR><BR>So
where would you want to go with this? The links that you gave
debouch,<BR>as they say, onto a very wide field, most of which is far more
interesting<BR>than the Wikipedestrian defile on whose fruits we currently gorge
-- or gag.<BR>To your new rhetoric I might well add the golden oldie of Peircean
semiotic,<BR>but what would be the first critical step in the application to
wikioid media?<BR><BR>Jon Awbrey<BR><BR>Alan Shapiro
wrote:<BR> ><BR> > As a contribution to the ongoing debate and
discussion, I have<BR> > posted at my website some writing by my friend
Marc Silver called<BR> > "Arguing the Case: Language and Play in
Argumentation":<BR> ><BR> > </FONT><A
style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline"
href="http://service.gmx.net/de/cgi/derefer?TYPE=3&DEST=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alan-shapiro.com%2Farguing-the-case-by-marc-silver%2F"
target=_blank><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>http://www.alan-shapiro.com/arguing-the-case-by-marc-silver/</FONT></A><BR><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3> ><BR> > This is an excerpt from
Marc's book which addresses<BR> > the question of neutrality in
discourse and knowledge.<BR> ><BR> > Marc Silver is Professor of
Linguistics at the University of Modena, Italy.<BR> ><BR> > --
Alan N. Shapiro<BR><BR>-- </FONT><BR></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>