nettime: push media or push wired

[mercedes@techno.de (mercedes)]

Hi,

I heard 'bout your text ->Push Media by nettimer Gereon Schmitz. Since i
know via Pit Schultz that Wired is by nettime considered as ->the wrong
way<- , which i (being a regular reader of Wired, good for trains!) never
understood really, i thought it might help me to get ahold of your text.
Now i understand less ever.

Is it really clever to deal with Wired in this way? Wired is a magazine
that follows certain rules and structures in print press world. Like all
media, it is never about reality, but about media reality, we all know
this. Nobody of us ever reads Wired in believing they are telling the truth
(for sure no nettimers), nor, hopefully, was anyone looking for one. So why
triumph over a Wired, show them, that they made mistakes or that they
simply lie or think in economical terms or whatever, why give them this
importance for a silly and superficial article, put them in such a powerful
position, instead of saying something better, more concrete about PUSH
MEDIA, which is definitly an issue that should be dealt with. Do we expect
from Wired that they tell the truth and play the emperors new cloths? Gee.

Anyway, first rule of media reality, for medias are built on information,
is catching attention. If we consider the Wired cover in terms of the first
media rule we can congratulate them, they did a clever job. Of course they
won't "interrupt" anything, right now they are already finished with the
next issue, and nobody expected them to interrupt anything. Everything that
happened was that Wired got tons of attention (your text is one under
hundreds who will refer to the March issue and Wired), forced up its
circulation, gained probably new subscribes as well as, or even more
important: widened its advertisments clientel (a short look on the masses
of advertisments in Wired will show everybody familiar with print media:
they do better than ever. They must have huge advantages out of their
advertising office).

It does seem to simple to construct Wired as an enemy (which is always a
ticklish act). First, it just does function too good, you can see on the
replies you got on your Wired Critique (it is not, by the way as you
anounced it "A Push Media Critique". Here you do actually the same trick as
Wired with their interruption, but thats buisness and we all know it.) -
research on that subject showed me it belongs kind of to a "good tone" here
in Europe, to hate Wired (kind of like a represantant of american culture
against european culture, gee). Second, if Foucault was right with stating
that there is no power without resistance you give them some instead of
just make up a better and needed Push Media Critique.

So who needs really this Wired Bashing Debate? It's very obvious that Wired
is not an entity, but collects different opinions and net approaches as you
did quote it with the special bulletin. There are not just only superficial
netvisioners or utopianists talking (and there can be stated that Wired is
the only technological magazine with a very high and regular quote of
contributions of female authors, which is not only this way because
american women always have a historical relationship of integrateting work
in their lives). Besides is the method to take upcoming technology and
project it into the future a quite efficient tool, which can be taken to
view an own and different projection against it. I think this is a quite
better way than just shake hands and say, yes, they are bad. So what's to
come with Push Media?

i am not at all fond of utopianism like Kevin Kelly produces it.
Post-Toffler-Theory of that radical changes, radical future, here is the
new and there will be no problems stuff is always very boring, sit back
wait and watch theory television, I am the master of it and i tell you. I
prefer the new "if this sounds complicated, that's because it
is"-generation (Wired February, Are we borg? Donna Haraway article). Kelly
is dealing technic too much with a software attitude and forgets hardware
as much as Kittler forgets the software, and a heavy theoretical debate, a
concrete discussion of technical theory and the used terms and definitions
can here be much more interesting than a complete Wired bashing. Why don't
you kill Kevin Kelly instead?

Just want to let you know, cause i like your stuff,

Mercedes.


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