2: Infinite Freedom in a Finite Space; how the limits of code can’t limit expression

WordPress “masks the database and creates a continuous blogging experience within the browser” (Helmond in Reader, p. 180), yet the database is rigidly defined and categorised. Discuss how this shapes the way we interact with the World Wide Web through blogging and how it affects user agency.

The image the internet projects is an illusion. It’s an illusion in the sense that it is not what it seems.

The internet seems, from a cursory glance, to provide us with infinite choices and opportunities. It does not appear to be rigidly structured or formulaic, but rather it seems free-flowing, continuous and obscure. I have always thought of the internet, and by virtue of that – of websites – as beyond human control. I have understood the internet as something self-determined, self-sufficient and self-perpetuating which has superseded and surpassed human control. In reality, the internet is not what I have understood it to be. In reality, websites are simply code – cold, structured math.

My misunderstanding of websites however is not something which came about by accident. Indeed, I have been deliberately lured by those who created them into understanding them the way that I have. Networks, codes and the fundamental structure of websites are “out [of] the way, to not be seen… the technology should be transparent” (Galloway 2004: 64-65). The surface of internet applications like WordPress is like the outer casing of an iPod touch. It is sleek, meticulously designed and apparently simple. It gives no hint to the mass of wires, cables, batteries, chips and processors which lie beneath it. The code of the internet is this interior. It is something which must exist and which the iPod could not exist without, but something of which we’re supposed to remain blissfully unaware.

In WordPress, this unseen interior includes the WP-Content/Uploads folder which stores all the data requied to maintain each blog (Helmond, 2007: 51). It includes the 42 predetermined content types restricted by the WordPress interface (Helmond, 2007: 51), and the Open-Source MySQL database upon which WordPress is built.

While I admit – none of this makes any practical sense to me, I do understand the implications. Although WordPress seems almost infinite, and the possibilities limitless, in reality there are very real and defined limits placed upon the way that we interact with the application due to the highly structured nature of the database upon which it is built.

A number of my peers have responded to this question by suggesting that our interaction with WordPress is limited by technology. They highlight how the  internet is predictable and defined, it is structured by code and by virtue of that it limits our interactive potential.

This however will not be my response. This criticism, I believe, relates to ‘point and click’ websites. We click on a button and the button takes us where its meant to take us. We are feeding off what someone else has created and merely following the pathways of code which lead us along the way. Lev Manovich termed this ‘closed interactivity’ (Gane & Beer 2008: 92; Tulloch, 2010: 32; Manovich, 2001: 59-60).

To me however, the purpose of WordPress and the process of blogging is considerably more free and places a much greater emphasis on user agency.

Fundamental to this enhanced agency is the fact that rather than button tapping, through blogging on WordPress we are creating something individual and unique. The experience of blogging sees the two entities of technology and the human mind cohese.

Image Credit: Unknown

Even according to Manovich, the man who looked down upon the apparently ‘closed’ interactivity of electronic media, the blogosphere represents perhaps one of the purest forms of user interactivity today. After all, according to his theory of “open” and “closed” interactivity (Gane and Beer, 2008; 92), the blogosphere would have to fall into the former category. What restrictions are there on what a person may blog about? The possibilities are literally limitless. The sorts of fonts in which I may publish my blog is limited and the manner in which I may format it is limited too. But the central act of blogging which is allowed by WordPress and the ideas which I am able to express and engage with know no limit.

I am reminded of the ideas of Spiro Kiosis. He believed that to base a discussion of interactivity on the ‘technical-ness’ of the media in question is to miss the fundamental crux of the matter (Kiousis, 2002: 355 – 357). Rather he believed that interaction stems not from the potential of technical systems but from the user’s own sense of interaction. Interaction relies upon the user’s perception of the interaction being present, and their ability to achieve their desired effects from the medium in which they are engaged (Kiousis, 2002: 355 – 357).

Therefore I don’t believe that user agency in WordPress is affected by the presence of this database or the practical restrictions imposed upon us. The infinite possibilities for interaction and engagement are bound up in the lack of censorship involved in WordPress.

By writing this blog today and expressing my opinions on the matter I have been able to achieve my aims entirely. I have been free to express myself and everything which I set out to achieve has been achieved.

I have been interacting with WordPress, feeding off the plain canvas which it has provided me, and colouring it with the paint of my opinions and beliefs. Isnt that what interaction is all about?

References:

Gane, N. & Beer, D. (2008); “Interactivity”, in New Media: The Key Concepts, Oxford: Berg, pp. 87 – 102

Kiousis, S (2002); “Interactivity; A Concept Explication”, in New Media & Society, SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi (355-383)

Manovich, L. (2001); “The Language of New Media”, Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press , pp. 60, 71 – 74, 123 – 128

Tulloch, R. (2010); “A man chooses, a slave obeys; agency, interactivity and freedom in video gaming”, Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds Vol. 2, Issue 1, pp. 27  – 39