Transparency, Social Media and Cultural Patterns

Guest: Who is stealing from who? Where is the ‘quid pro quo’?

@collentine — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:52:45 +0000

Who is stealing from who? (A guest post by Antonio Garcia under a CC-BY license)

“The Statute of Anne had a much broader social focus and remit than the monopoly granted to the Stationers’ Company. The statute was concerned with the reading public, the continued production of useful literature, and the advancement and spread of education. The central plank of the statute is a social quid pro quo; to encourage “learned men to compose and write useful books” the statute guaranteed the finite right to print and reprint those works. It established a pragmatic bargain involving authors, the booksellers and the public.[14] The Statute of Anne ended the old system whereby only literature that met the censorship standards administered by the booksellers could appear in print. The statute furthermore created a public domain for literature, as previously all literature belonged to the booksellers forever.” (source)

What has become of that social focus, the social quid pro quo?

I do not believe many of us grasp the real situation here. The problem of the editors with the Internet and digital copying is not principally the fact that we copy today’s books, films and music even before they hit the shelves… it is the fact that people only have X hours a week to devote to leisure under the form of reading, watching and listening to artistic production, and besides time at a far second place there is the need for a budget.

While production of books, films and music relied on physical media and they were difficult to copy in good quality, the editors could discontinue production of older creations and make them rare, in such a way opening the market of attention for new creations because the old, even if you wanted them, could not be found easily anymore.

With digital copying as production mechanism and the internet as distribution medium… what they face now is the fact that all those discontinued productions that are in the public domain but did not become available because they ceased to produce them physically (not keeping their part of the bargain -remember, the continued production of useful literature, the quid pro quo? they took the quid, and forgot the quo!-) do now become available to all in enormous quantities. Enormous quantities of top quality works… for free (with only the effort to digitalize once generously donated by a few) become available through the Internet that acts as a worldwide, immediate and very convenient distribution system.

More works… means less of the chunk of the available time per work, and as commercial selling works are now only a fraction of what is available, they get only a tiny fraction of our time. That is bad news for an industry that has been working on the optimization of their production through economies of scale. Say you invest in a printing plant because you can sell 100.000 copies a week, and you take a 40 years mortgage because selling 100.000 copies a week you will earn enough to pay for it… and 10 years into that bargain, the internet and digital copying emerges. That leaves you with 30 years of mortgage you do not know how to pay. Sad but true, I know about newspapers that have had to sell their new printing plants because they could no longer pay the fixed costs of their maintenance, renting part of their production capacity back to continue printing the newspapers.

Another aspect is the budget part… as we are being squeezed into austerity, the first thing people can forfeit is optional culture and leisure, so less and less people have enough to spend to keep the industry in the black numbers, and more and more people find it convenient to pay for a good internet access and fill their leisure time with anything free that can be accessed (for the ethically strict) or anything that can freely be accessed (for the not so ethically strict and those that are so pissed off that they strike back where they can).

There is only one way the industry can really stall its demise: close the Internet to downloading.

Prolonging the terms of copyright protection (like when they avoid Mickey Mouse to enter the public domain) is only short term relief.

Pursuing those that download productions actually under copyright is nothing more than a harassing technique intended to scare people and stall the inevitable.

And they can harass us… because the governments are using their struggle as an excuse to impose measures through which they can censor the Internet without coming out as the ones that really want it… for reasons that have nothing to do with the copyright industry.

[pic: CC-BY-NC-ND, BCLT BerkeleyLaw]

Transforming Into a Digital Government: Organizational Development

@collentine — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:37:05 +0000

Part of an assignment I wrote in a course about ‘the digital government’.
Part 1 Fundamental Changes
Part 2 Citizen Interactions

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Part 3/3 – Organizational Development

“There’s no final solution, no definitive theory, no solve-all methodology. We have to constantly test and explore new temporary solutions. Change, uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity must not be seen as sources of problems to be subsequently solved, but as transitions, potential sources of opportunities, innovation and profit” (Angell&Ilharco 2004, p.55).

Looking forward and reaching for our visions keeps us in course. Having something to strive for makes us find new solutions and constantly evolve. This is why it is good that the 24hour government has high visions and ambitions.

Some old and some new problems will arise from the digitalization. Integrity issues is a major problem that gets amplified by the increased amount of information available from an electronic government. Another issue that the 24hour government has to deal a lot with is security in protecting all of their sensitive data. Some of the problems are diminished with the digitalization, we no longer have the same time and cost for transportation of data. Amplified problems are not only bad. They enable us to see problems that previously went undetected due to being too small. Once a problem is detected we can work on changing the organization to fix the problem.

All the time “organizations are emergent, undergoing continual change driven by social and environmental dynamics” (Baskerville&Land 2004, p.264). When encountering problems and trying to find a ’final solution’ you do good as long as you keep trying. If you manage to find a ’final solution’ it probably means you have failed by letting the organization become static and obsolete.
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Josef Ohlsson Collentine, 24 Aug 2010, josef@collentine.com
CC-BY, please link to http://collentine.com if you use this material. Written for the course ’Verksamhetsutveckling i den digitala myndigheten’

[pic: CC-BY-NC, fairfaxcounty]

REFERENCES

Angell, I. & Ilharco, F. (2004). Solution is the problem: a story of transitions and opportunities. In Avgerou, C., Ciborra, C. & Land, F., ed. The social study of information and communication technology. New York, Oxford University Press. Ch. 2.

Baskerville, R. & Land, F. (2004). Socially self-destructing systems. In Avgerou, C., Ciborra, C. & Land, F., ed. The social study of information and communication technology. New York, Oxford University Press. Ch. 13.

Transforming Into a Digital Government: Citizen Interactions

@collentine — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:07:43 +0000

Part of an assignment I wrote in a course about ‘the digital government’.
Part 1 Fundamental Changes
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Part 2/3 – How Internet changes the citizen interactions

Internet breaks down a lot of barriers in society. We are now able to communicate easily across time and space with each other. This conversation without borders is one of the visions in the 24hour government. When technology changes and is improved it is important to consider all aspects of the change. “In most cases the development of electronic services is considered a technical project. Even if [...] questions concerning users, usability and organization are more important they are fully [ignored]” (Grönlund 2001b, p.191, translated from Swedish)

“Information systems needed to be seen as social systems, admittedly with an increasingly technical component—but not as technological systems per se” (Galliers 2004, p.248). We live in a social revolution when more and more communication is taking place across the Internet (mainly through Social Media tools like Facebook, blogs or Twitter). It’s important for the Government to be able to take a part of this social revolution and be a part of the discussed.

With the shift towards a participatory culture in our society people become more collaborative. Tools on the internet are increasingly improved to work in a collaborative fashion. Some examples are Piratepad.net (allowing people to work in the same notepad at the same time) and dropbox (allowing an easy sharing of documents between people). Another very important example for political change towards participation is the use of liquid democracy.

Involving the citizens in collaborative project that would help the government and the society is one of the opportunities an electronic government brings. To enable easy citizen engagement it is important building a platform system enabling participatory use. By building a platform and sharing a lot of the data freely it would enable citizens with specific interests to have access in a collaborative environment where they could create new data or knowledge. This new information might not have been constructed if it was not easily available.
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[pic: CC-BY, ssoosay]

REFERENCES

Galliers, R. (2004). Reflections on information systems strategizing. In Avgerou, C., Ciborra, C. & Land, F., ed. The social study of information and communication technology. New York, Oxford University Press. Ch. 12.

Grönlund, Å. (2001b). “The long and winding road”. In Grönlund, Å. & Ranerup, A., ed. Elektronisk förvaltning, elektronisk demokrati. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Ch. 5.

Death in Venice – Thomas Mann

@collentine — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:11:02 +0000

A presentation made with two others for my literature course about Thomas Mann who wrote Death in Venice.

Thomas Mann has a very strong and rich language with many images to evoke connections: “Black as nothing else on eath except a coffin”. He uses many symbols and comparison in his texts. Throughout Death in Venice we see several comparisons with greek gods: Apollo, Dionysus, Phaex, Eros etc. By using such a rich language he does wonders with his writing.

“This was a broad and tolerant atmosphere, of wide horizons. Subdued voices were speaking most of the principal European tongues. That uniform of civilization, the conventional evening dress, gave outward conformity to the varied types”

Death in Venice is about an artist named Gustav and his travels to Venice where he gets obsessed with a boy named Tadzio. The text is written from Gustavs perspective and gives us an insight into his inner world. One of the main themes running through this text is the struggle between the aestheticism and intellectualism.

In Thomas Mann’s diary from 1965 it seems like he suffered from repressed homosexuality. He grew up in a conservative and religious family with a strict father. Many parts of Death in Venice are autobiographical references to his own trip to Venice where he met a boy named Baron Wladyslow Moes.

[pic: CC-BY-NC-SA, shapeshift ]

The Day Sweden Stopped Trusting Their Citizens, #DLD

@collentine — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 07:20:10 +0000

Today is a sad day in Sweden since the government voted through a directive called the data retention directive (Datalagringsdirektivet in Swedish). What it basically means is that everyone is considered a suspect and put under surveillance by the government. The directive says that telecommunication data from all citizens must be stored 6-12 months. Some of the examples of what will be stored (including locations and times) are: IP addresses, e-mails, phone calls and text messages. In today’s connected world this would effectively allow the government to track most of your steps and activities any given day.

Left picture shows Sweden before the data retention directive where citizens are considered innocent until something makes them into suspects. They are considered innocent until proven guilty in court. The right picture shows how the citizens are always considered suspects and kept under surveillance. There are no innocents, only suspects and people judged as guilty.

Considering everyone guilty infinitely creates a very punitive atmosphere. This world view is something that needs to be looked at from behavioral science. Theory X and Y is created by McGregor where he explains human motivation.

Theory X signifies a world view where people are considered lazy and will avoid work. To motivate people to work the manager uses threats and benefits (whips and carrots). This leads to distrust, supervision and a punitive atmosphere. Theory Y signifies a more positive world view where people are considered ambitious and self-motivated. The satisfaction of doing a good job is motivation in itself. This worldview gives the people more room to be creative and come with their own suggestions.

A parallell between McGregor’s X/Y model and the data retention directive can be seen. If the Internet is seen as something that needs carrots and whips to make people more productive one needs to have more surveillance and control. This control over production restricts new creations to what is “approved by the managers”. The opposite world view would be seeing people and Internet as theory Y. This theory would put trust in a free internet, believing people can be productive and create good things on their own.

The consequences of implementing a directive like the data detention directive is that one declares everyone a suspect for an infinite amount of time. Everyone is put under surveillance 24/7. Even with “no secrets” to hide the directive will affect people’s behavior. The fact that people are under constant surveillance will make them adjust their behavior towards things that will look good and thus in effect make people less creative. Even with “nothing to hide” there is still a need for privacy and integrity e.g. toilet visits, love whispers, passwords, doctor visits, gift shopping etc. Knowing your tracked through your phone might make you avoid visiting the suburbs or the gift shop next to a harley davidson club since you might be suspected of doing something else there.

Net4change, Bahrain Revolution and Social Media Journalism

@collentine — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:08:26 +0000

RT @rysiekpl: @kyrah’s right, we’re just crazies who want to change the world. but once you get there, you don’t want to get back to sanity #net4change

This is the second part of my notes from the #net4change conference. The first part, discussing the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, can be found here. The conference was viewed through a livestream where I was interacting via twitter with participants attending as well as others like me that were attending from a distance. The conference was concerned with how the Internet helps to create democratic change and had brought in speakers from various parts of the world. This post will take up the notes I took from the seminar discussing the revolution in Bahrain.

Maryam Al-Khawaja - Bahrain: Social media and the revolution

This was a very interesting talk in many ways. Especially following it through twitter and seeing how she upset a lot of people just by talking about the Bahrain revolutions. Bahrain is a country with one of the highest levels of twitter activity they also have a smart government working at drowning messages in noise instead of censoring. This was demonstrated live when #net4change hashtag was suddenly “invaded” by persons speaking negatively about Maryam Al-Khawaja.

@MARYAMALKHAWAJA “Bahrain has one of the highest activity rates on Twitter” worldwide. #net4change

@MaryamAlKhawaja: #Bahrain government smarter than Egypt’s. Check out #net4change, Bahrain trolls will spam the hashtag.

Talk at Brown uni, gov trolls sent out 2k emails to organizers telling them to cancel the talk.

@MARYAMALKHAWAJA: “#Bahrain hired 10-12 PR companies in Europe and the US” #net4change

Another thing the Bahrain government was not turning the population against them in the same way other countries did. Instead they were very careful to divide the population and only targeting part of it, trying to make them into a common enemy with the rest of the country. Involving their citizens in the fight also limits how open you can be towards your neighbor about your feelings.

Gov’t. In order to control you have to divide. Targeted 90% Shia, went after Shia buildings. They wanted to say we have no prolem with Sunni. Message to others: don’t get involved in “shia” protests.

RT @SultanAlQassemi: – @MaryamAlKhawaja: The govt took pictures from the protests & asked the public to identify the protesters #Net4Change

The most important difference in coverage was due to economical interests from countries and media relying on money from the Saudis.

Why was Bahrain covered in a different way? Answer: Because of the Saudi intervention. #Net4Change

AlJazeera doesn’t cover Bahrain. Financial interest reasons

.@MaryamAlKhawaja: The only governments that publicly said they wouldn’t sell arms to #Bahrain were the UK and France. #net4change

[pic: CC-BY, ssoosay]

Transforming Into a Digital Government, Fundamental Changes

@collentine — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:13:37 +0000

Part of an assignment I wrote for a course about ‘the digital government’
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Part 1/3 – Fundamental Changes for the Government

Internet has changed how the government needs to work and think. Previously the speed, accessability and shareability was severely limited by physical factors. The cost of creating, storing and accessing information was also higher before the digital government. It is important to start making use of more “dynamic flows of activities and functions instead of static structures” (Grönlund 2001a, p.51, translated).

The shift of turning into an Electronic Government means a lot of changes to the ways the government is accustomed to work. A lot of boundaries are erased, some new problems emerge but also new possibilities that were unthinkable earlier. “Digitization raises the mobility of what we have customarily thought of as not mobile, or barely mobile. At its most extreme, this liquefying dematerializes its object. Once dematerialized, it gains hypermobility — instantaneous circulation through digital networks with global span” (Sassen 2004, p.81).

With the Internet the citizens are able to access information fast and require this from the government as well. A willingness from the citizens of not waiting for opening hours is part of the changes into a 24hour government. Sending digital information is also a lot faster and has increased the pace in the ways of working.

The citizens also want to be able to access the information wherever they need it. Internet has broken down some of the physical barriers. Now it is possible to access information from a computer from whatever country you might be in or even through you cell-phone out on a boat on a lake. With digital information and storage not costing much anymore, the government is able to make a lot more material available.

This information comes to good use for the citizens interested in it. The information age has enabled an easier way of cataloging the vast amounts of information the government has. Making this information more free and shareable will benefit the citizens and society.
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[pic: CC-BY-NC, paul_clarke]

REFERENCES

Grönlund, Å. (2001a). En introduktion till Electronic Government. In Grönlund, Å. & Ranerup, A., ed. Elektronisk förvaltning, elektroniskk demokrati. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Sassen, S. (2004). Towards a sociology of information technology. In Avgerou, C., Ciborra, C. & Land, F., ed. The social study of information and communication technology. New York: Oxford University Press.

4 Ways That Social Media is Changing Our Communication

@collentine — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:03:55 +0000

With the emergence of social media into everyday life it creates a disruption on the way we used to communicate.

“Innumerable confusions and a feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transitions” -Marshall McLuhan

Four ways that social media is changing our communication:

Geolocation.
An easy way to share events and locations leads to more spontaneous meetings. 4square, facebook locations and Highlight are a few examples. Paradoxically activity online leads to more meetings offline.

Specialized interests.
Social media makes it more easy to find people with similar interests. This allows for more specialized interest. E.g. earlier people might have had a hard time finding someone that liked “taking photos of bridges” to share their “quirky interest” with.
Smaller, quicker contacts.
Being able to easily post updates or messages to other people will mean that small and quick communication will increase. It’s easier to keep track of what friends are doing through their small updates. It might also mean that deeper and more profound exchanges diminishes.
Fragmentation of information.
Many small and quick messages divides attention. Each person can chose to take part of and amplify the communication one finds interesting. A polarization of information but also a bigger pluralization can be interpreted both in positive and negative ways.

[pic: CC-BY-NC-SA, sfview]

Why Lawmakers Don’t Like New Technology

@collentine — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:18:08 +0000

“Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything that is invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things” – Douglas Adams

The quote explains why new technology has such a hard time when facing legislation and adjustment. Many politicians are over 35 when they come to a powerful position and definitely judges that are meant to decide whether people using new technology are breaking old laws. Being a judge you are supposed to always be very objective but there is always some subjectivity and cultural shaping no matter how hard one tries to be objective. Backed by an old law system that supports older technology and the way everything used to work the people adjusting to new technology and possibilities are at a disadvantage when facing the law.

This is a problem in our “information age” when everything is moving faster and new technology gets invented all the time. How do we manage to not digitally exclude an older generation that have a natural restriction against learning new technology? Earlier I wrote about the digital divide that currently excludes 70% of world population from the access to information that Internet gives us.

With information comes knowledge and with knowledge comes development. Based on this I feel it’s important for countries to focus on IT aid on a higher level than what is done today. ICT (Information Communication Technology) should be seen as a horizontal solution for all systems. With the help of ICT and integration in most aspects of our society we can reach into the future.

Internet is not a luxury, it’s a right in the information age we live in today

[pic: CC-BY-NC-ND, aahyeah]

Downloading Physical Objects, 3d Printing Disrupts Property

@collentine — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 20:50:07 +0000

The ability to download physical objects in the form of a 3d file and print it out in a 3d printer will change how we perceive material possessions in the future. The shops will work very differently when in many cases it’s easier, cheaper and quicker to print something at home than finding it in a shop or ordering it online. Today 3d printers are becoming affordable for most people but they are still too technically advanced to use for the average person. With the ability to print physical objects it will put further strain on the current way that copyright and patents work. Copyright was invented during a time when digital copies didn’t exist and the flow of ideas and objects went slow. Today when a 3d file of an object can be downloaded or a music file transferred almost instantly and at no cost we see that copyright is broken. When it was created copyright was there to act as an incentive for creation, today it’s often blocking the ability to create.

The above TED video gives a quick introduction to some of the possibilities of 3d printing. The 3d printing possibility is becoming a reality for average persons soon and will be a great shift in the way we live when you can print almost anything. This includes structures that were “impossible” to make with normal manufacturing techniques due to the cost and detail of some creations. The ability to print only a few objects based on an idea, instead of having to order a bulk of objects to get cost reasonable with traditional manufacturing, the 3d print will change the industry. When instead of having to go between shops looking for something that you like you can make or modify a 3d sketch and have it printed on demand. Want a light in the shape of a ball with two feet and one hand? No problem with the ability to customize products. In the earlier stages some companies will allow you to modify the product through a simple 3d interface before ordering and buying it from them.

With the help of a scanner one can recreate and modify a lot of products. Being able to scan your body and order clothes afterwards will make a future with perfectly fitting clothes. Another area that will benefit greatly from 3d printers is the medical sector. Being able to layer cells in a printer and create body parts will end the problem with not having enough donors.

Building houses can be done with the help of giant 3d printers in the future. The research into Contour Crafting will make housebuilding much quicker and cheaper in the future. A documentary about The Man Who Prints Houses will be done in April and should make for an interesting watch.

Being able to transfer data in the form of a 3d design instead of sending the finished product will be a big win for the environment and the time wasted looking for the right shop. Also smaller everyday uses like downloading a 3d print for a spare part of a discontinued product (e.g. an old vacuum cleaner) will stop some of the capitalistic “use and throw” that exists today. Culture and other material information will be more accessible (maybe print a Smithsonian statue to put in the garden?).

With the accessibility of printing objects piracy will become a problem for some creators. The Pirate Bay already has a section for 3d designs and alternatives like Thingiverse will allow creators to be inspired by others and create their own objects instead of going to the shop. What creative use of a 3d printer can you think of?

[pic: CC-BY-NC-SA, Euphy]