communication, technology, and activism

alternative ‘new’ media practices

Enzensberger, 1974: democratic potential of the ‘new’ electronic media

‘repressive use of media’ - centrally controlled; one-way flow of messages, produced by specialists or isolated individuals, promoting passive consumption

emancipatory use of media - decentralised, linking many to many, fostering interactivity, collectively produced and actively used, promoting collective mobilization

the potential of new technologies

1950s and 1960s; computer as a calculator and for information storage

1970s and 1980s; introduction of the personal computer and the individual use of new technology

1990s and 2000s; convergence of different modes - microelectronics, computers and telecommunications - into information and communication networks (picture, sound, text and data are digitalized and integrated into one single medium)

ICTs

electronic democratic projects: mid-1980s (USA), early-1990s (Europe), promoting the information and communications technology to improve the services of local authorities to citizens, and facilitate citizens’ engagement in public affairs

the assumption: by altering the form of communication the content can be changed, and more participation encouraged

- rejuvenation of local democracy

new media as means of enhancing political participation, making it possible for citizens to participate directly in the political process

facilitating access to information; deliberation; debate; voting

overcoming the barriers of representative democracy

... new pubic spaces

- local or regional in their character

- related to more or less territorially urban or suburban communities

- based on similar technological infrastructures (CMC)

... advocacy, community, government and electronic development networks, electronic public journalism ...

the experiments

new media increase the scale and speed of information provision, giving citizens more control over information

new technology can be harnessed to measure citizens’ preferences in representative democracies, making it easier for citizens to respond, resolving the perceived crisis of participation

ideology of CMC-based initiatives

CMC can transform the conditions for collective political action, creating new organizational possibilities through subject-specific discussion groups, reducing ‘communication’ costs

new communications revolution can lead to more ‘horizontal’ and less ‘vertical’ communication (Internet’s decentralized, co-operative structure)

ideology [continued]

through interaction enabled by new media, citizens will shape the ideas that shape their city

removal of ‘distorting’ mediators (journalists, parliamentary representatives, parties) from the process of political participation and decision making (less political censorship or secrecy)

ideology [continued]

efficiency of service provision; new technology offers possibility of tailoring public services to citizen/consumer needs/desires, using tools as polling, referenda, and forms of public performance review

new communication technology providing responses to problems for the theory and practice of democracy (proportional representation, strategic voting, agenda-setting, territorial basis of constituencies, etc.)

ideology [continued]

the Netherlands forerunner to the interactivity and political uses of ICT

the first claims of democratizing ICT came when the political system got out of balance (isolation of political parties vis-a-vis electorate); 1990, many city executives reviewing their links with the electorate, saw information technology as a possible help

Amsterdam has one of the most advanced cable networks; economic policy of telematics-push combined with a cultural one of demand-pull

- the new canals of Amsterdam

select information more accurately, facilitating narrow casting to a specific audience

computers and online services used in the line of improving the quality of electoral process: citizens can find information enabling them to do a well-informed choice, and politicians can target voters, access people’s wishes and grievances to which they can interact

prospects ...

City Talks, 1989, aimed at improving the quality of public debate and creating a more open climate for discussion

local municipality subsidized live discussion programs on public access channel

citizens tell politicians what they think of certain issues (poverty, unemployment, crime, housing); home audience could get extra background information via teletext; it could react, giving its opinion; and, vote certain statements or policy options

... in the course of the series of Talks the technology got more advance from telephone and teletext to computers placed in public places (libraries, town halls)

- teledemocracy

provide access to administrative information system of the local government; political parties publish their programmes and policy documents

to reach the network one needs a personal computer and connection to the internet, but public terminals available in libraries, museums, and the town hall

... a place for ordinary citizens, or a place for a ‘new’ elite and a number of ‘techno freaks’?

a community network?

civic networks voice the advantages of new technologies in terms of efficiency and competitiveness of the local economy, challenging the old and crippled commodified and fragmented mediascape

still, the socio-historical context is significant - access to hardware and software (information ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’); the opportunity of deliberation is questionable in terms of the character of engagement

reflections

culture jamming, adopts the forms, styles and conventions of popular culture and commerce (entertainment, advertising, marketing, fashion, corporate branding) with the purpose of subverting and critiquing them

hacking, activist technologists design, build and reconfigure systems with the purpose of resisting political, commercial and state restraints on open access to information and the use of information technologies

- computing practices

‘white-hat’ hackers; constructive political, social and cultural purposes: seek out and expose systems and software vulnerabilities as a way to identify problems and solve them

‘black-hat’ hackers (crackers); destructive criminal, or exploitative enterprises: launch computer viruses, break into computers to destroy or steal financial data

purpose

ethical and political commitment to information access, open systems, and control over one’s personal information and communications as fundamental rights and as a necessary condition for emancipatory politics and equitable social participation

technological infrastructure itself becomes the arena for expression and social change; a stage for trying out ideas and expressing themselves, just as in other forms of creative work

focus

design and distribution of ‘open source’ or ‘free’ software, whose licensing terms undermine the intellectual-property-driven business models of mainstream software and media firms

development and circulation of data encryption programs that elude state and commercial surveillance

mapping and posting locations where users can piggyback on unsecured wireless broadband access

tactics

the term hacker was adopted within the computer/software community in the early days of the field to describe skilled programmers who created counterintuitive, elegant solutions for difficult programming problems

drawn to the counterculture values and lifestyles that flourished in 60s and 70s, computing was viewed as a force for positive social transformation

hacking represented a commitment to total and free access to computers and information, belief in improving people’s lives, mistrust of centralized authority, and evaluation by only criterion the technical virtuosity

- hacker ethic

censorship; restrictions on free speech and interaction;technical or price constraints on internet use;state and corporate secrecy;surveillance;profiling; intellectual and academic freedom;restrictive or coercive intellectual property laws ...

targets

peer-to-peer systems are distributed computing architectures that allow users to locate and retrieve files from each other’s computers

based on the idea that people seek and give advice, and make recommendations, within networks of other people with similar interests - social and cooperative environments

have been a particular target of law enforcement and media industries for over a decade

p2p

1999, Shawn Fanning, college student who wanted to help friends share music files

immediate success, attracting thousands of enthusiastic file sharing users

entertainment firms sued Fanning on the grounds that p2p architecture was intended to facilitate illegal file copying

Fanning was forced to shut Napster down and sell his software and patents to media giant Bertelsmann to meet his legal expenses

the case of Napster

over the next decade p2p services like KaZaA, Gnutella, Morpheus, the Pirate Bay, LimeWire and others have flourished

Industry rights holders have attempted to cast p2p architecture itself as illegitimate - though universities, libraries, computing industry, voice-over-IP (VoIP) services like Skype, that use p2p systems have opposed to these attempts

over time, p2p file sharing services have lost several legal cases; nonetheless, users and programmers continue to defend file sharing on social and ethical grounds (form of anti-corporate, economic and cultural resistance)

proliferation

of the Free Software Foundation opposes digital rights management (DRM) technologies that prevent the copying or distribution of information, or that may limit the ways that users may employ the products they buy - such as mobile telephone lock-out mechanisms that restrict customers’ choices of service providers (ex. Apple’s refusal to support iPhone applications that employ Adobe’s Flash software)

not only do such mechanisms block access and interactions to just those services allowed (and charged for) by the provider; they deliberately built to be defective, preventing new uses and markets

‘defective by design’ campaign

three features of alternative computing as genre of new media activism

- interventionist by definition, reconfiguring the infrastructure itself

-heterotopic in its worldview, practice and ethical commitments - distrust of centralized authority, mainstream social conventions, and privilege gained through anything except skills, resourcefulness and creativity; desire to create spaces where people can live, work and play with their peers

-small scale in conception and execution; although they can have far-reaching technological and social consequences

overall

Atton, C. (2002) Alternative Media. London: Sage

Bailey, O. G., Cammaerts, B. and Carpentier, N. (2008) Understanding Alternative Media. Berkshire: Open University Press

Brants, K., Huizenga, M. and van Meerten, R. (1996) “The New Canals of Amsterdam: an exercise in local electronic democracy”, in Media, Culture & Society, Vol.18, pp. 233-247

Bryan, C., Tsagarousianou, R. and Tambini, D. (1998) “Electronic Democracy and the Civic Networking Movement in Context”, in Tsagarousianou, R., Tambini, D. and Bryan, C. (eds.) Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London: Routledge.

Coyer, K., Dowmunt, T. and Fountain, A. (2007) The Alternative Media Handbook. London: Routledge

Lievrouw, L. (2011) Alternative and Activist Media. Cambridge: Polity Press

references

thank you for your attention

electronic frontier foundation: www.eff.org

computer professionals for social responsibility:www.cpsr.org

free software foundationwww.fsf.org

sources