I really enjoyed class today and feel that I’m getting a clearer understanding of Fuch’s theory. I agree with his emphasis on critical theory being used towards content and use of the internet. Encouraging people to ask questions about who is benefiting and who is being exploited is why I enjoy Women’s and Gender studies so much. However, I am having difficulty wrapping my head around the potential of an open sourced community on the internet.
I understand his emphasis on the concepts of potentiality and actuality. As a community we need to ask why and how we can get to the potentiality in order to create social change. Yet, when he is discussing a world where all information is free and accessible to everyone I have trouble with the “how can we get there” question. Would this open-source community not de-emphasise the importance of people who create information for a living, such as feminist scholars? Is the amount of work, research and critiques that they relentlessly continue to create not worth a price. If we allowed all information to be free then people who write thesis’s and articles for a living would be discredited and unemployed? At the same time I do think that having to subscribe to a website in order to read a feminist journal is contradictory because it is stating that only people of a certain class can access this information. However, these people need to make money so that they can continue to write about important issues. Is that not how the world goes round? I know that my struggle to see humankind in any other way is a result of being raised in a capitalist society. I guess I am just hoping that one of my class mates can give me an example of how this world can exist, because it sounds like a very nice place.
socialmediawithjill 
I have been asking myself the same questions since class yesterday. In my opinion, scholars need to be given some money as compensation for their work. If all knowledge was accessible for free, scholars would have no source of income and would likely turn to other professions as a means to support themselves. This would make knowledge easy to come by perhaps, but fewer people would be developing new theories, so fewer voices would be heard. I do agree that it would be ideal for the receivers of knowledge to have information readily accessible to them, however, what information would there be to come by if theorists stop theorizing because they receive nothing for their work. Theories of the past would still be around, but would people still be interested in analyzing the knowledge they come by if they believe there is no way they could make livings as theorists? I know some people would still engage in theory and attempt to fix the problems in our society, however, a good portion of individuals interested in gaining knowledge now would probably shy away from engaging in theory.
Jill, great blog! I agree with your reflections on the idea of an ‘open-source community’. Fuchs’ utopian way of thinking unfortunately can never make it to the real world. We live in a world where everyone wants to own their knowledge, how would anyone ever want to give out several years of university research for free over the internet? Recently, several profs on campus had issues with printing coursepacks early because of copyright issues (I don’t know too much about it), and this just shows that copyright rules are becoming stricter and stricter! Soon people would want to get paid for being quoted (LOL, seriously). Look at the rules in our university, one line of un-cited material, and you’re off to the Dean and possibly out of university for good. I don’t think people are ready to give up their knowledge for free anytime soon! Open-Source community? Not any time soon.
Hey I commented on this blog post and it’s still waiting for approval 😮
Could you please approve it (the comment about your blog post so the prof can see it lol) thankss
You can delete this one lol
I’m So sorry I had no idea that we had to approve these comments! I’m still new at this blogging thing, I hope the prof was able to see your post!
Lol I just saw this…no worries! 🙂