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April 03, 2005
Centripetal/Centrifugal
Earlier this semester in Networked Rhetorics, we discussed the centrifugal/centripetal features of the internet, and of blogging in particular. I’ve wanted to write something more about that for weeks, especially because I’ve been seeing references to these terms in other part of my studies. When a classmate in another course commented in her weekly post about observing the "simultaneous centrifugal/centripetal force" in an essay by Anthony King about Binghamton, I realized it was time to just say something, so here's some somethings.
The centrifugal effect made sense to me right away. I used to give blood regularly, and for a long while every time I went in I had to go through special screening for anemia before they’d let me donate. Several times, that meant “spinning” some blood, putting it in the centrifuge and spinning it into its parts. Even putting lettuce into a salad spinner to spin the water away from the leaves seems centrifugal. The centrifugal nature of blogging is the outward gesture. This post is an outward gesture. I’ll post it, and hope someone will read it, and maybe even comment on it. In this way, I’m inviting contact, shared knowledge and shared development of knowledge.
Centripetal was a new term for me. I understand it to be the opposite of centrifugal, a gathering in rather than a spinning out. I think a black hole falls into this category. In blogging, this is when I look out to the blogs of others, reading them and gathering information back to myself. Researching by reading blogs is a centripetal action.
Blogging allows for springboarding ideas. I read other people's blogs and see what they're thinking about and how they are approaching different aspects of the world, and if I am open to new ways of seeing my own world, I can find an idea that can be fit to whatever I'm working on. The openness is important. As a searcher, I have to be open to ideas, and those ideas have to be freely available for me to find as my openness allows. As a poster, I have to be willing to share ideas, to let go of some or all of the sense of ownership that comes with ideas and ways of thinking, and in the other direction, I have to be willing to offer thoughts and comments for others when I see their situations in a different way.
Once I had this idea in my head, I really started to see examples of it. In Six Degrees, Duncan Watts described thinking about how studies of disease spreading could apply to financial markets (193). He was able to springboard principles from one field into another, even though he wasn't an expert in either one. Outward gestures invite people with different knowledges, or different ways of seeing, to see your problem or question in new ways. Watts's description of Barabasi and Albert being "one step ahead" of the team he was on because they were looking at a different part of the probled reminded me of making a puzzle--when I've been working on it long enough that I stop seeing some details, and then another person walks up and plunks the piece I've been looking for right into the spot.
In a different field, Jeff Zaleski, a journalist who wrote about religion and the internet in a book called The Soul of Cyberspace discussed the role of the internet in providing options to mainstream or on-the-ground religions. Like blogging, online religions tend to offer flatter, less hierarchical structures. Zaleski wrote:
Because the medium influences the message, it’s possible that in the long run the internet will favour those religions and spiritual teachings that tend toward anarchy and that lack a complex hierarchy. Even now, those who log on to cyberspace may tend to gravitate to religious denominations that emphasize centrifugal rather than centripetal force, just as the medium carrying them does. Authority loses its trappings and force on the net.
Much was made during the 2004 presidential campaigns, and particularly the major party conventions, of the role of bloggers vis-a-vis traditional journalists. Bloggers bypassed the normal editorial processes to “call it as they were seeing it.” These types of blogs, many of which are purely outward gesturing, offer a new and unmediated way to receive information. Similarly, bloggers in the academic realm can self-publish, or get open feedback on works in progress, or collaborate in ways the traditional academic publishing world. This means two things. First, it means academics can share more ideas more often, and in less developed stages, thus increasing the potential for springboarding and leaps in knowledge production. Second, it means access to ideas and resources that might never make it into publication, never get past an editor’s careful marks, never get read even if published. The potential is somewhat staggering, but it also begs the immediate question, what will count as production and contributions to the field for tenure, review, and promotion purposes?
Enough for now. Next, linking up the several references to social networks and communities with the internet as the meeting ground.
Posted by cageyer at April 3, 2005 12:00 PM