I found a connection between this two readings, while they seem to be far away in concept. By looking into the concept of Fuller’s reading in a more general manner, you’ll find out that mass production and system design are integrated definitions. When mass production enters the battle, variety goes away. Hence, by producing something including, houses, automobiles, and nowadays smartphones to the market, people are made to buy goods which are very clear and predictable to almost everyone especially people who works in the related field.
It goes without saying that mass production and diversity are against each other. I found Rheingold’s approach an optimist one. Speaking about all opportunity which these kids of new social technologies give us doesn’t match with my own experience in these recent years. If you are using to somehow the result of a mass production; e.g. the smart phone, email, etc., I dare say in 2014 it is not hard at all to stop you and impair your usage.
In 2009, the green movement (protestors to the result of election in Iran), found their emails, phones, services like, SMS, voice call, etc., completely useless in specific districts of Tehran they were all impaired by the providers. Think about a situation that all tools that you use for communication stop working one day. You will probably feel disable and passive. And you have nothing to do.
When you are one member of the world population who use the same communication systems, protocols, etc. (as the gift of mass production), you can be spied easier than you could be in past.
Finally, unlike Rheingold, I think though the fact that the communication technologies which we use world widely has a lot of potentials, there are deconstructive aspects which are noticeable. Just like when we, as architects, can guess the spatial organization of a house which is the result of a mass production, governments, specialists, or those sitting on chairs of power ownership are pretty much capable to control, spy, and impair your devices of communication if necessary.
