The Revolution Will Not Be Downloaded: Dissent in the Digital Age

The book consists of 18 contributions, most of which raise intriguing and disturbing questions about the digital lives so many of us live. It is a book about broken promises, media hype and some of the dark sides of the internet and its dire consequences. The authors are according to the preface all members of a group engaged in cultural studies covering many different disciplines. This implies that the reader will get a rather huge variety of approaches and viewpoints.

The book is organised in four themes. The first section is named “Scanning the silences”, The second is called “Downloading harmony”, The third is “Uploading identity” and the last is named “Packet switching resistance and terrorism”.

All the papers except one cover 8‐15 pages. The exception is a paper written by the editor. and called “Wiring God's waiting rooms: the greying of the world wide web” and it is on the basis of size the most prominent paper in the collection of essays and papers.

As usual, Tara Brabazon's paper is set on a background of social inequality and social injustice and it analyses how the digital world is perceived and used by elder citizens. The paper has some interesting twists. The main data for the paper is interviews with librarians and users about perceptions, use, reach out services and the like, but the paper also contains very thought provoking interviews with her mother and father. It is a rather unusual approach but she really succeeds in getting very interesting analyses out of the interview. In the same household in what stands out as a harmonious family the perceptions of the technology is much diversified and the classification of what constitutes technology is thought provoking. The mother tends do define technology ad all the items and assets she does not master or use while other appliances mainly situated in the kitchen is not defined or classified as technological devices. The paper also offers some insights into how traditional roles or traditional divisions of labour in a household influence the way computers and the internet are used and the insecurity it can cause. The paper further discusses concepts of literacy and in the paper the author emphasises that digital literacy is not only on the availability of hardware, software and connections but much more on motivations, confidence and the context in which people form their lives. I must admit that I found it rather amazing and interesting that it is possible to interview parents and still is able to make a convincing analysis.

There are other good papers in this part of the book focusing on digital literacy and the digital divide and it is evident

Three papers in the section on downloading focus on music and together they form an interesting read discussing topics like DRM – systems, the economy of the music industry and also how some performers bypass the industry setting up their music on the internet with a kind of “pay what you like” scheme. One of the papers also discusses the relationship between downloads and sales of music in form of compact discs.

The papers on blogs and bloggers also are also worth a read. They are placed in the section called “Uploading identity”. The possibilities embedded in blogging as e‐democracy are discussed in relation to the dangers of misuse. Other papers in this section discuss the literacies necessary to use websites like e‐bay.

Taken together, the many papers gives an illuminating view of possibilities, uses and misuses of the various parts of the internet and they also indicate rather interesting changes in the social structure of communication in the wired society.

The reviewer finds it refreshing that critique of power structures and questions about inequality are addressed as forcefully as we see in many of the papers. This critique is not conservative or technology anxious in character but necessary to give a more nuanced picture of the invading and forming communication technologies.

Most important is of course that digital literacies have the possibilities to increase the digital divide placing the excluded in an even more marginalised situation than they are now. The book is as a matter of fact also a store for ideas that indicate how professional institutions like libraries can formulate policies in relation to inequality, exclusion and technocentrism.

Overall, it is a very stimulating and provocative read. Highly recommended.