Google Evil Agenda

October 2, 2009 at 9:48 pm · Filed under digital humanities, digitisation, internet

This doco doesn’t really offer any solution to Google’s domination of online search. However, full marks for at least trying to be critical. I will see what else I can dig up and get back to you.

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The Internet as playground and factory

September 28, 2009 at 7:53 pm · Filed under internet, video

Patrica Clough interviewed at a recent conference at the New School, NY. The interview is a bit of a hot-air rant that lacks any form of evidence, but there are some good ideas buried in there. Thanks to Trebor S for the link

The Internet as Playground and Factory - Patricia Clough from Trebor Scholz on Vimeo.

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Quick Response: Oxford Social Media Convention 2009 #oxsmc09

September 21, 2009 at 5:14 pm · Filed under conferences, events, internet, political communication, video, video diary, web2.0

(Transcript below if you can’t follow my polemical prose; and sorry but the synchronisation in this clip has a mind of its own).

I attended the Oxford Social Media Convention 2009 on Friday (18 September) at the Said Business School. The theme of the Convention was ‘assessing the evolution, impact and potential of social media’; a fairly monumental tasks for a one day convention with speakers from both sides of the Atlantic and from the Academy, business, media, and politics. The Convention was ordered around panel discussion with a lot of participation from the audience. At times subversive and always humorous ‘tweets’ from the audience were also projected on the wall behind the speakers (we voted to do this earlier in the day).

Rather than divide my time between all the speakers, I will concentrate on two of the most distinctive speakers that hopefully convey the timbre of the conference. The first speaker is Mathew Hindman, an academic at the University of Phoenix and author of the recently published ‘The Myth of Digital Democracy (Princeton University Press; 2009). The other speaker I will discuss is Kara Swisher, the Technology Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Oxford Internet Surveys

August 12, 2009 at 2:50 pm · Filed under governance, internet, web2.0

(Another important ‘big picture’ Internet impact study from the Oxford Internet Institute).

Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS) research is designed to offer detailed insights into the influence of the Internet on everyday life in Britain. Launched in 2003 by the Oxford Internet Institute, OxIS is an authoritative source of information about Internet access, use and attitudes. Some of the areas covered include: digital and social inclusion and exclusion; regulation and governance of the Internet; privacy, trust and risk concerns; social networking and entertainment; and online education (link).

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Stop Internet Censorship…

July 9, 2009 at 3:44 pm · Filed under internet, politics, social media, video, web2.0

An add from that wonderful crew Getup.org.au. They are waging a campaign against internet censorship in Australia.

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Oxford Internet Survey 2009 Report: The Internet in Britain

June 22, 2009 at 11:56 am · Filed under internet, web2.0

(A interesting new report from the Oxford Internet Institute)

The Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, has today released the OxIS Report 2009, the latest report in a series of Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS) that cover the changing landscape of Internet access, use and attitudes in Britain. Dutton, W.H., Helsper, E.J. and Gerber, M.M. (2009) Oxford Internet Survey 2009 Report: The Internet in Britain. Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Download OxIS 2009 [PDF, 1.9MB]: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/oxis/oxis2009_report.pdf OxIS website: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/oxis/ The Report will be formally launched at the House of Commons later this afternoon at an event hosted by Derek Wyatt, MP. Presentations on the significance of OxIS will be given by representatives from the sponsoring organisations: Adrian Arthur (British Library), James Thickett (Ofcom) and Mark Cowtan (Scottish and Southern Energy). Read the rest of this entry »

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jill/txt writing with a little help from your friends

May 27, 2009 at 3:38 pm · Filed under blogs, digital humanities, e-science, eresearch, humanities computing, internet, web2.0

One of the blogs I try and read regularly is by Jill Walker’s from the University of Bergen in Norway .  Jill’s research is within the ‘new media’ field and in large, offers analysis of the use of popular technologies  such as blogs, wikis, and other social software applications within the public sphere (a blog about blogs) .  She is an active participant online and her well-written and insightful blog is well-know in the broader new-media research field  (I wish I had more time to write like this!).  Plus she has been a tireless blogger since 2000;  a good three years more than this blogger.

A recent post on ‘collaborative authoring’ caught my eye.  She is writing a article about social patterns that appear online through Time, Relationships, Context, and Geography.  I like how she relates these to trends to ’stories’ although I am still having a few problems making the leap;  perhaps it is because I am surrounded by people who insists on counting things! (link).

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What is technological determinism?

May 23, 2009 at 9:06 pm · Filed under digital humanities, e-science, education, humanities computing, internet, web2.0

(Watch out…technological deterministic drones will attack your free will)!

Technological determinism is circulated, maintained, and advanced within the pre-existing hierarchies in the world in which we live. Determinism has its own political agendas, its own rules, its own contexts and hierarchies and antagonisms to an imagined ‘other’. Determinism utilises a proprietary language and culture and although it cloaks itself in ideas of interdisciplinarity, deterministic discourse discourages intellectual critique, dissent, and justifies itself with the high ground of capitalist practicality. Determinist rhetoric is only interested in other knowledge so that it can demonise it, remediate it, appropriate it, make it better, wrestle it out of the hands of the ‘elite’ and make it more ‘democratic’, more in touch with ‘the people’.

I wrote this some time ago (link).  A rather disturbing report I recently read on Web 2 and Education prompted me to re-visit this writing

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Private Sheriffs in Cyberspace: Jonathan Zittrain OII Event: London, 19th May 2009

May 21, 2009 at 4:27 pm · Filed under communuity informatics, creative commons, deliberation, design, digital humanities, events, governance, humanities computing, internet, political communication, web2.0

On Tuesday evening I attended an Oxford Internet Institute sponsored lecture by Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Harvard Law School, Co-Founder and Faculty Director, Berkman Centre for Internet & Society (at the salubrious legal offices of Wragge and Co). Zittrain talked about regulation on-line by major Internet players such as Facebook and Apple and asserted that many of the regulating methods employed by them were outside of the rule of law. His contention was that many ‘Web 2’ companies have immense and increasing social and economic power within the fabric of our lives and are regulating their sites in a rather ad hoc and random way in terms of banning application developers, individuals, and groups that do not adhere to their governance structures. He used a number of examples to support his thesis, plus introduced a simple graph to illustrate emergent styles of governance:

Top-down

Hierarchy >poligarchy

Bottom-up

As an example of a ‘bottom-up’ governance structure Zittrain cited Wikipedia which includes a deliberative system to manage thorny editorial decisions. As a top-down system of governance he cited Facebook; although Facebook is beginning to include the community in decisions relating to its structure and functionality. He used the term ‘social governance’ to describe this bottom-up governance approach and suggested ways in which this approach may be designed into a system (through flagging certain tasks that help tap into the ‘reservoir of good will’ of the community). A well-designed system should have mechanisms to ask users for their input.

Although I tend to agree with many of the arguments of Zittrain, I feel there is a tendency to overstate the importance of sites such as Facebook and Youtube to the broader public. Sure they are popular, but this isn’t the British Library, the University of California, or the Library of Congress we are talking about! They are just large and fashionable web sites; a small part of the fabric of our complex lives. And commercial companies will perhaps always act in their own interests; either commercially or ideologically.

I suppose what is needed is some sort of bill of rights/responsibilities that is general to the operation of the Web within a certain geographical region balanced with the specific values of the site in question. There is nothing wrong with sites asserting behaviour norms upon users; but then again governance structures should be transparent and open; not outside of acceptable norms of the broader public sphere. A site should never assert policies that are deemed racist nor discriminatory (perhaps this is Zittrain’s anxiety when he claimed than many sites operate outside of ‘the rule of law’). The relationship between the community and the platform should always be fair and equitable; especially in large user-based sites such as Facebook. In my mind, governance structures, whether online or off, should always be open and transparent.

One of the respondents to the talk, Ian Brown, a Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute (and author of the recent report Database state) asserted that the relationship between Citizen and State and Cyberspace needed to be reconsidered. He also claimed (from his experience) that that the issues raised by Zittrain are not well-known in the UK;  especially in senior government levels. As an historian (and not a legal expert), my  scepticism relates to the actual significance of the entire debate.  I suppose that the significance of the debates depends on the importance the public places on systems such as Facebook and their governance structures. I may agree with Eric Hobsbawn that Terrorism is more a perceived threat in the UK that an actual threat (to the state), but then again the public is led to believe otherwise so it now painfully significant.  So if the debates about governance are perceived to be important by the public; then they will become important. So we may have a ‘Facebook Parliament’ in the making deliberating about the rise of rudeness on Facebook . They should start with the Tube system!

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Open Tech 2009

May 20, 2009 at 10:04 am · Filed under communuity informatics, digital humanities, humanities computing, internet, web2.0

For those of you in London, this will be an excellent event (and it is only cost 5 quid).  And this is one community that really understands how technology works in the public sphere (if that is your thing).  It is on at ULU.

* Ticket reservations now open – Please Redistribute Freely *

Open Tech 2009
sponsored by 4iP

Saturday July 4th – ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2009/

Open Tech 2009, from UKUUG and friends,
Saturday July 4th
ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY

Tickets only £5
Students Free Entry

Totalling 33 talks across 3 sessions covering 7 hours,
some space hijacking and plenty of time to talk in the
bar after sessions which challenge, inspire or talk about
something that makes you want to help how you can. The
last two times we have sold out in advance, so you are
strongly advised to pre-register.

This year’s line up features…
* Two Cultures from Bill Thompson
* Bad Science from Ben Goldacre
* Peace & War
* Making things happen, from those who do
* Web of Power – what’s next for Politicians?
* The Guardian and Ian Tomlinson Story
* Ways our Internet Laws are Broken

The full schedule is at
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2009/

Read the rest of this entry »

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Digital Futures London 2009

April 21, 2009 at 12:43 pm · Filed under digital humanities, digitisation, humanities computing, internet, social media

This workshop is conduced periodically by my colleague at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH), Simon Tanner. It is designed for those who manage or wish to undertake digitisation projects.  It is an extensive course and includes topics such as applying for funding, metadata and most importantly, the  sustainability of digital resources (link).

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Communication Power in the Network Society

March 31, 2009 at 12:11 pm · Filed under internet, media, pod casts

Manual Castells, who has a new book out in July called ‘Communication Power’ gave a lecture at the OII (Oxford Internet Institute), in October last year. Those kind folks at OII have provided a web-cast of it online.  There are also a number of other noterieties with web-cast-lectures. Most notable Ted Nelson, Jimmy Wales, Steven Colemen. Check it oot…(link)

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Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day

March 17, 2009 at 9:48 am · Filed under internet, projects

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark’s list of banned websites.

The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA – an anti-abortion website (link).

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Google: global search trends

December 14, 2008 at 3:26 pm · Filed under governance, internet, open access, political communication, technology, web2.0

Google has released some of its search results. Releasing results like this is extremely important as it gives citizens access to some of the ‘meta-narratives’ that influence our lives. If large corporation such as Google only have acesss to these ‘meta-narratives’; it means that they can manipulate these trends and patterns to their own advantage (link)

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Digital copyright: it’s all wrong

June 11, 2008 at 9:40 pm · Filed under creative commons, internet, open source, social media

A draft treaty proposes draconian measures to protect copyright.

THE forces of reaction are fighting back. As they often do, they are carrying out their planning in secret, in the knowledge that if more people knew of their activities they would not be allowed to get away with it (link)

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