Lit review (attempt No. 1)

I read two books (OK I read selections of two books) on Google Books on the media and society's perspectives on Internet hackers over the years. My project will focus on the media's portrayal of the group Anonymous, but there is already a precedence set by the media's interaction with hackers over the past two and a half decades.

The first selection I read was from "Hacker Culture" by Douglas Thomas. He argues that media and society failed to understand the basic motivations of hackers from the beginning of the technological transformation. For this reason, and the general lack of knowledge or understanding of technology, hackers and other tech gurus were given a cold shoulder because of their relationships with technology. While this was happening, hackers began to form their own communities, bridging the divide between culture and technology - eventually forming their own culture.

Thomas claimed the hacker culture arose when boys received a new medium thorough which they could assert their independence from parents and control over certain aspects of their life. This movement was not accepted though, as Thomas says that parents and society were afraid of the culture because they did not know how to respond to a situation that did not fall into a previous prototype of typical youth rebellion. They were called criminals - unfairly in their mind. A hacker said, "We explore ... we seek knowledge and you call us criminals." The hacker also says that the hackers crimes are of curiosity and outsmarting the status quo - which will not forgive the hackers.

Throughout the increased saturation of hackers, Thomas says the hackers began to change their attack methods. They shied away from more criminal acts and became more political - which could be compared to Chanology.

The second selection was from "The Impact of the Internet on Our Moral Lives" by Robert Cavalier. Cavalier explores the reasons why the societal perceptions of hackers moved from "heroes of the computer revolution" to criminals. One idea he presents is that hackers have changed to become more criminal and indiscriminate than they were in the past, or people have become much less tolerant of their actions. The latter could be explained, Cavalier conjectures, by the government and society's need to demonize a certain group of society - in this case the ever-expanding technological culture. 

Another reason for the transition falls squarely on the shoulders of the media. Cavalier suggests that the media's portrayal of hackers has always been connotative. The words hackers and virus carry with them strong and usually bad meanings. Throughout the years, the media has inundated the public with connotative language, portraying just the controversial, possibly criminal, actions of hackers since the mid-1980s because of the media's taste for the melodramatic. Because of this inundation, society has established a prototype, or common perception, of the hacker as a criminal.

These two readings gave me a historical perspective of why Anonymous is viewed the way it is. It is viewed by the media and society just like previous hackers have been viewed. The difference with Anonymous could just be the scale of connectivity and also the increased ability to find valuable information on the Internet.