Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2232046

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Governing Media through Technology:

The Empowerment Perspective

Antonios Broumas

A. Prologue

From the age of the printing press to that of the next generation networks, technology has always

mediated human communication. Today, both the rapid convergence of information and

communication technologies and its widespread effect on the media have upgraded the mediating

role of technology on how we communicate, get informed, socialize, engage in political activity,

create, consume and play. Such mediation does not come in the simplistic form of merely

extending human capabilities (McLuhan 1964), but in the much more sophisticated form of

structuring their potential field of action. By this it is meant that the physical and logical

infrastructure of the technologies underlying the media eventually determine their architecture.

Technology as the architecture of today’s media enables some human activities, while

discouraging others, functioning in this way as a double-edged tool of both empowerment and

control.

This chapter deals with the issue of media governance and its interrelation with technology from

an empowerment perspective. It supports the view that, if governing is defined as the act of

structuring the possible field of action for others (Foucault 1983), then the most subtle mode of

media governance is the architecting of media space and time by technological means. Having as

starting point the fact that technology plays an ever-growing role in the media, I proceed by

analyzing the concept of technology as media architecture. Furthermore, I attempt to categorize in

a coherent manner the ways that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are

developed and utilized for purposes of individual and collective empowerment, each time

structuring the media in corresponding ways. In parallel, I explore the interaction of technological

rules with media law and policy, as these are deployed and enforced in practice either in collision

or in harmonious combination with each other. The main hypotheses employed throughout the

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2232046

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chapter are that (a) technology and society are intrinsically related to each other in a dynamic loop

of mutual influence, in which humans shape technology and technology conditions social activity,

(b) technological evolution does not follow predetermined trajectories, rather it is influenced by

socio-historical relations of power, (c) therefore, research on the social use and effect of technology

is meaningful only if it is conducted in connection with specific technologies in specific social

contexts. Furthermore, and contrary to certain established lines of thought that emphasize media

governance through technology only in relation to regulation and control (Zittrain 2008; Lessig

2006), my central argument is that media can also be governed by technological means in a

decentralized and democratic manner to empower access to information, knowledge and culture,

enable creativity and cooperation, and deepen democracy.

The media are today’s prominent source of social power (Castells, 2009). Communication among

people, groups and societies determines how we collectively construct and attribute meaning to

our natural and artificial world and, hence, affect human practices. As contemporary societies are

more and more based on the use of information and communication, the association of media with

social power becomes predominant and ubiquitous. Thus, the ways that modern media are

structured via technological means becomes an issue of major social importance. Since ICTs are

neither good, nor bad, nor neutral, but they rather bear certain properties, capacities and potential

to produce and reproduce existing or alternative social structures and systems, the way that these

technologies are invented, developed and utilized may prove to be decisive for social change.

Whether the balance in media governance choices will be tipped towards more empowerment or

more control is a matter ultimately dependent on politics in its deepest sense, namely on political

activation, mobilization and participation.

B. Architecting the Media

i. The Growing Role of Technology

Historically, different media evolved on separate physical and logical infrastructures. As a

consequence, different kinds of media content (i.e. data, images, sound, and video) have been

communicated via distinct networks and service providers. Two disruptive waves of technological

achievement in information and communication technologies are currently shifting both the media

ecology and its social context in the opposite direction. The gradual transition of media from

analogue to the digital world has enabled effi cient conveyance of any kind of content on multiple

infrastructures and delivery platforms. Since the 1990s, digitization has been combined with the

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development and social diffusion of wireless communication technologies in the forms of mobile

telephony, wireless broadband and satellite broadcasting services (Castells 2009). Concomitantly,

popularization of the Internet and the user experience of its many-to-many (either in real or chosen

time) interactive communication, are creating a strong social demand for the implementation of

similar characteristics to other media, such as mobile telephony and broadcasting. As a result,

media-related technologies, both at the core and at the edges of contemporary media networks, are

currently in a state of rapid convergence. At the core—the network physical infrastructure and

communication standards—there are signs of convergence between old and new media towards a

packet – based general purpose communications medium, capable of being compatible with all

kinds of information and services. At the edges, devices are being manufactured with the capacity

to connect to multiple networks and technological infrastructure (wired, wireless and satellite) and

to deliver all kinds of information and services. The ongoing phenomenon of technological

convergence has already proved to have far reaching socio–economic effects. In the media

industry, ownership is accumulated in fewer hands, while corporations strive to acquire horizontal

and vertical integration to both incumbent and new media infrastructure and services (Castells

2009). As these effects deepen, changing industries and consumer behavior, the locus of social

gravity and the focus of economic activity is transferred from traditional media online.

In the context of this chapter, the phenomenon of technological convergence raises two important

points. First, it is empirically self-evident that the significance of technological mediation in human

communications is on the rise. This can be determined in both quantitative and qualitative terms.

As technological convergence shifts the center of political, economic and cultural activity from

traditional media, such as the press, to new media, such as mobile telephony and the Internet,

peer–to–peer human communication becomes increasingly dependent on ICTs. This rise in

significance also has a qualitative aspect: as contemporary media develops in complexity and

sophistication, it becomes ever-more important not just for communication of information, but also

for entertainment, socializing, collaboration, work, political activity and cultural creativity. In this

way, technological framing now penetrates in multiple ways into a growing variety of human

experiences and social activities. The growing role of technology in human communication is

having a corresponding effect on media law and policy. Thus, technology is now seen as an

important component of media governance, while modes of governing media through technology

increasingly appear in practice. Second, technological convergence brings Internet governance into

the forefront. In the current transitory phase of convergence, in which all media gradually

converge in a single network of networks based on packet switching technologies, the internet has

become the archetypal communication medium of our times. Therefore, how this medium is

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governed and the choices made about its destiny acquire major importance for the media sector as

a whole. As the Internet leads the way to a common future for all media, its governance inevitably

molds this specific future. For this reason, analysis of how media is governed today through

technological means should emphasize Internet governance, taking into account any important

aspects of the media ecosystem as a whole.

ii. Technology as Media Architecture

Architecture, in general, has strong connections with governance. To govern is to “structure the

possible field of action of others” (Foucault 1983 : 221), and structure places “limits upon the

feasible range of options open to an actor in a given circumstance” (Giddens 1984: 177). Therefore,

architecture both enables and constrains human activity. In the context of media, especially new

media, architecture is mainly synthetic in the sense that the structure and rules defining it are to a

large extent man-made using technological means. Rules in this space and time are implanted and,

at the same time, enforced through the design of communication networks and devices and

through communication standards and software code. Depending on the prevailing choices and

aims pursued, the technological structure of the media is designed to enable certain human

activities and capabilities and to discourage others. In this way, media–related technology

functions as a tool of both individual/collective empowerment and social control.

Media governance refers to the strategies and techniques by which the media ecosystem is

rendered governable. The media are constructed as networks: flexible, interactive, and gradually

borderless. As a result, media governance is ultimately about managing and steering networks. As

networks, the media have certain values embedded in them that crystallize in the form of

“protocols” (i.e. rules and standards that govern relationships). In the context of new media,

protocols are first and foremost technological. They are located at the physical and logical layers of

their architecture—at components of their physical infrastructure, such as wires, wireless links,

backbone network equipment and end-user devices, and at components of their logical

infrastructure, such as standards and software. Constituting actual human choices in the design of

these technologies, protocols play the key role in the framing of social activity at the content layer

of new media.1 Therefore, as media gradually converge into a general purpose packet-based

communication medium, technology as its architecture is becoming the key of sovereignty within

the jurisdiction of this environment, giving to its holders the power to structure media space and

1 There are several ways to conceptualize new media architecture as a layered system (see Zittrain 2008 with further references). The general three-layered model, first introduced by Jochai Benkler (Benkler 2000), is employed here as more helpful in our context.

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time by defining the boundaries of social activity and exploiting such formations as a means either

for empowerment or for rule enforcement and control. These characteristics render technology as

architecture a strategic tool for governing contemporary media in combination with other modes

of governance, such as law, markets and social norms (Lessig 2006).

Media governance through technology is not only a static top-down process, in which those who

shape technologies are unresponsive to how these are used in societies. Technological design is

shaped through a dynamic, dialectical process, in which the social use of technology has an

interactive relationship with its fundamental processes.2 The social use of ICTs influences the

architecture of the media in specific ways. First of all, users and user communities influence design

choices through their consumer power in the markets of media services. Henry Jenkins has

showed how social demand for interactivity and ubiquitous connectivity has pushed technological

convergence in the media sector (Jenkins 2006). Much earlier, David Post had emphasized the

ability of Internet users to switch between “jurisdictions,” or regulatory environments, of

cyberspace and choose the rule-sets that suit them (Post 1995). Furthermore, the social use of

technologies may take forms unexpected by their initial designers, thus wrenching control away

from them and released to other social actors and/or society at large (Benjamin 1973). The Internet,

which was initially intended to be used as a war technology, gradually evolved through social use

into the most developed communication medium of our times (Leiner et. al. 2003). Most important,

in the context of ICTs, technological design acquires radically democratic, bottom–up

characteristics. The ability of individual users or communities of users to modify, reprogram and

redesign existing technologies or even to create new ones in order to meet their needs

democratizes technological design, influences the media ecosystem as a whole and, ultimately,

plays a central role in the structure and governance of the media.

iii. Social Processes and Modes of Technological Design in Modern Media

If decisions over technological design matter, then special attention should be granted to the social

processes and modes of such decision-making as these have evolved throughout the history of

new media. Roughly, two general social modes of technological design have emerged and defined

contemporary ICT–based media: one based on bureaucratic, hierarchical and formal processes of

decision–making and another based on consensus-based and informal modes of collaborative

innovation. The best example illustrating the direct collision and comparison in practice of these

two modes is the Internet–OSI standards war (Bygrave and Bing 2009). 2 For an analysis of this approach see Fuchs 2008 (pages 3-4), with further references. For a wider technological perspective see Pinch & Kline 1996.

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In 1977, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) formed a subcommittee in

collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to set the ground rules for

network interconnection, with the strategic goal of defining the future of emerging ICTs. Decision–

making processes on the design of the model were formal, hierarchical and based on top–down

commands, reproducing the organizational structure of ISO, an international organization

consisting of formal industrial and governmental membership (Russell 2006). The Open Systems

Interconnection model was gradually adopted by several governments, including the United

States, and became popular during the 1980s and the 1990s; at the time, it seemed as if it would

replace TCP/IP protocols as the prevailing standard for computer networks. Ultimately, however,

the pragmatic approach of the Internet engineering community, with the capacity to pool and

integrate high quality, specialized knowledge, produced much simpler, more functional and

freedom-enabling networking standards that outperformed OSI in practice. Elements of such

community-based technological design and decision-making can be traced back at the early days

of the ARPANET and the inception of the TCP/IP protocol suites. Innovation in these projects was

boosted due to certain characteristics in their organization and management that permitted

freedom of initiative, loose coordination and division of labor of the participating researchers,

combined with strong relations with the wider scientific community (Abbate 2000; Leiner et. al.

2003). But the mode of community - based technological design has been crystallized in the

formation of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), former Internet Configuration Control Board

(ICCB), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Society (ISOC), the bodies of

the Internet engineering community that have governed Internet protocols from 1979 until today.

Driven by the motto “(w)e reject: kings, presidents, and voting. (w)e believe in: rough consensus

and running code” (Clark 1992 : 543) and an informal, open and free, international membership,

the community’s decision-making processes have led to architectural choices that rendered

Internet protocols the most efficient, innovation–friendly and widely used standards in computer

networking. The tipping point in the standards war was reached in 1994 in favour of TCP/IP with

the rapid popularization of the world wide web, the now prevalent set of application protocols

running over the internet, which was made possible its end – to – end design (Berners – Lee, 2000 :

16).

The historical example highlighted above pinpoints the deep differences between the bureaucratic

and the community–based modes of decision–making in ICT design. Bureaucratic modes are

governed in the form of formal top–down and “command and control” structures with clearly

delineated rules as to who is responsible, who has authority over whom and what sort of

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accountability is to be expected, and structured mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement of

rules. In contrast, communal modes are the product of self–organization, characterized by

informal, consensus–based decision–making and structured in more decentralized and multi–

dependent poles of power that constantly evolve in order to correspond to the needs of the

community. Bureaucratic modes refer more or less to social innovation inside relatively small

groups of people with a clear division of labor and allocation of power, whereas community-based

ones refer to social innovation between large numbers of peers with a strongly developed

communal culture and voluntary task allocation based on personal inclination and motivation

(Benkler 2005). In relation to informational flows, in the bureaucratic modes, knowledge and

innovation (both as input and as output) tend to be treated as property, while in community-based

modes the free flow of information inside and outside the community’s boundaries is considered

to be a prerequisite for effective peer review process and collaborative innovation. Holding this

last characteristic as central in his categorization, Eric Von Hippel categorizes these modes under

the terms “private investment” and “collective action” models of innovation (Von Hippel 2006).

iv. Who Controls the Architects?

From a moral standpoint, ICT design can be viewed as an assertion of power by the actors of

decision–making, i.e. technology designers, vis a vis the actors who are influenced by such

decisions, i.e. the users of these technologies. In this perspective, bureaucratic and community –

based modes of technological design and the types of processes they establish need to be morally

justified. Such a normative evaluation of the legitimacy of such power can follow either the

instrumental/consequential or the deontological approach. Within the instrumental approach,

moral justification is related to the degree of effectiveness these modes have in increasing general

social welfare. In this context, the nature of innovation is critical. Innovation is invariably a

collaborative effort, on the one hand because the necessary information, knowledge and talent

needed to achieve it are distributed among individuals and, on the other hand, because it is based

on a laborious “trial and error” problem solving process that normally requires extensive human

resources. Several authors claim that the characteristics of collaboration between large numbers of

individuals, the capacity to pool and aggregate knowledge and talent, the freely flowing

information and the peer review processes guarantee that communal innovation in ICT design is

much more efficient in producing socially beneficial technological innovations than bureaucratic

forms of decision-making (Bauwens 2006; Benkler 2006; Sunstein 2006; Tapscott and Williams

2006; Von Hippel 2006).3 Another approach of normative evaluation, which can be termed as

3 Eric Raymond has coined the phrase “(g)iven enough eyes, all bugs are shallow” to show the superiority of

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deontological, establishes the moral justification of modes of ICT design in relation to the degrees

of participation, equality, accountability and transparency that their decision-making processes

afford. Viewed with this approach, community–based modes of technological design appear to

perform better than bureaucratic ones. Through consensus–based processes of decision–making

they guarantee wider user participation. Even in communities of innovation that do not take

decisions by consensus, the decentralized, multi–dependent structures of power and the voluntary

character of their members’ contribution result in greater accountability. Finally, community–

based modes rely heavily on collaboration, knowledge pooling, peer review and the free flow of

information, therefore keeping innovations and the rules engraved on them open and transparent

to literally everybody. While community–based modes of ICT design are not strictly democratic,

since asymmetries of power and lack of peer equality in decision-making are frequent among

them, they nevertheless exhibit greater degrees of moral justification than bureaucratic ones.

The relationship between technology and society is interactive: social actors develop technologies

as a means to attain specific aims, and the use of these technologies by societies contributes to

social change. ICT design should be considered both as a result of power relations and as a tool to

influence and change these relations; social use of ICTs may take forms that were not predicted or

expected at the stage of their design, and the social use of existing ICTs may also involve their

further development by their users to satisfy arising social needs. Thus, exertion of power at the

stage of ICT design by certain social actors does not guarantee their sovereignty. Conversely, ICTs

designed for specific purposes may be utilized and modified by other social actors to serve

completely different aims. Therefore, contrary not only to techno-deterministic beliefs, according

to which technological development follows a predetermined trajectory uninfluenced by given

social conditions4, but also to techno–reductionist views, according to which technological design

and development is a mere mirror of the social conditions (Williams 1985; Harraway 1991), a more

balanced approach sees the moment of designing any new technology as a moment of human

choice between a wide spectrum of socially constructed and value–laden alternatives (Williams &

Edge 1996; Stefik 1999). The effect upon the social domain is, to a certain extent, unpredictable and

uncontrollable.

massive peer review processes in the context of free software (Raymond 2001: 30).4 Technological determinism is based on two presuppositions, i.e. on the one hand the claim that technological development is autonomous and, on the other hand, the position that societal development is determined by technology (Bijker, 1995, p. 238). According to this view, technology acquires anthropomorphic characteristics, conceptualized as an autonomous entity with an inner logic of its own, which then coerces and determines social relationships and institutions (Williams and Edge, 1996). In effect, society is merely responsive, as technology moulds society according to its needs. Thus, technology becomes in itself the major actor of social change in human history. For a grand narrative of the evolution of technologically deterministic views throughout the history of the 20th and the advent of the 21st century see Barbrook, 2007.

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If there is no predetermined form or function of ICTs and, instead, the eventual outcome of the

process of ICT–related innovation is determined by the selections and preferences of human

actors, not mechanical or digital systems, then who controls the processes of such innovation? In

answering this question, it should first be noted that the choices that determine the shape of these

technologies are not just the product of individual practices, assumptions and beliefs. ICTs are

neither constituted nor utilized by individuals inside a social vacuum, but are in dialectic

relationship with their social context (Fuchs 2008 : 3 -4). Due to the fact that our societies are realms

where antagonism prevails over cooperation and, as a result, they tend to be extensively

hierarchical, stratified and laden by conflict between competing social actors (Mann 1986 : 1 - 33),

ICTs can be more properly perceived as a tool for power, in relation to which social actors engage

in antagonistic relationships in order both to define their design and control their use according to

their own needs and purposes. Depending on which actors each time dominate these processes,

the ways that ICTs are constituted and utilized may produce and reproduce either existing or

alternative social conditions and institutions. Structures and institutions, such as states,

transnational/international organizations and universities, are also crucial for processes of ICT

design and use, since they play a decisive role in the allocation of resources and the coordination

of scientific research; at the same time, states, interstate organizations and transnational law

enforcement agencies exercise control on these processes through the enacting and enforcement of

legal rules. In addition to incumbent social actors, such as political parties, cultural organizations

and private corporations, contemporary ICTs have provided the technological base for an

emerging category of collective social action in the media and in society in general, such as

grassroots political movements, non-market modes of production and networked forms of social

self-organization. Due to its multiplicity, which however preserves unity in action, this new

category can best be termed as the multitude5.

2. Information and Communication Technologies as a Tool for Empowerment

Baron Haussmann rebuilt Paris after the 1848 revolution in such a way so that social upheavals

would be discouraged (Benjamin 2002). He changed the architecture of public space in order to 5 In contrast to the People, which is considered as one subject in unity, the multitude is composed of numerous different individuals and classes, remaining in this way plural and multiple. It is composed of a set of singularities – and by singularity here we mean a social subject whose difference cannot be reduced to sameness, a difference that remains different. The multitude, however, although it remains multiple, is not fragmented, anarchical or incoherent. In this way the multitude is contrasted to other collectivities, such as the crowd, the masses and the mob. The components of the crowd, the masses and the mob are not singularities – and this is obvious from the fact that their differences so easily collapse into the indifference of the whole. Moreover, these social subjects are fundamentally passive in the sense that they cannot act by themselves but rather must be led. The multitude designates an active social subject, which acts on the basis of what the singularities share in common. The multitude is an internally different, multiple social subject whose constitution and action is based not on identity or unity (or, much less, indifference) but on what it has in common (Hardt and Negri, 2004, pp. xi and 99).

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regulate collective behavior and apply social control to a mass scale. Like Hausmann in post-1848

Paris, after the Internet revolution, large private enterprises find themselves in the position to code

media space and time, whereas states enhance their capacity to enforce technological choices

through law. However, much more than the citizens of Paris during Haussmann’s wide–scale

project of redesigning public space, media citizens have the tools in their hands to autonomously

be the architect of media space and time in radically democratic processes and build a media

ecology that can greatly encourage individual and collective empowerment. The term

“empowerment” is used here to mean increasing access to and use of necessary media resources,

of enhancing creativity and cooperation and of deepening democracy. By exploiting certain

properties of modern ICTs, individuals and collectivities are able to effectively manage media

infrastructure and resources, to extensively produce and freely disseminate information,

knowledge and culture in collaboration with each other, and to participate in and coordinate

political activity. This capability of collective action steers contemporary media using technological

means in the direction of enabling access, empowering creativity and cooperation and deepening

democracy. Alongside political / cultural organizations and market forces, this emerging

capability of collective action gives substance to the multitude, a novel form of social subject,

united in its multiplicity and yet, still capable of steering the media and shaping social change.

i. Enabling Access to Infrastructure

Media infrastructure refers to the physical and logical layers of media networks. The physical layer

consists of the natural resources which enable communication through airwaves, i.e. the radio

spectrum, and several components of the necessary physical infrastructure that is required for

media networks and end – user connectivity, such as network components and equipment and

end – user devices. The logical layer includes technological standards and basic software

applications that are needed to establish functionality and connectivity between network

components. Deployment and access to the physical and logical layers of media networks is a

prerequisite for accessing media environments. Due to their significance in contemporary societies,

citizen access to media is interwoven with the fundamental human rights to freedom of

information and expression (Balkin 2009) and the foundations for individual and collective

empowerment, that is, economic opportunity and human development (Benkler 2006 : 13 - 14).

Post–WWII media policies in Western Europe and the United States were founded on the view of

media as a fundamental public service and emphasized tight state control of broadcasting and

communications through the establishment of either state or private monopolies in these sectors

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(Cuilenburg and McQuail 2003). By the 1980s it was evident that this approach would not allow

the rapid deployment and social access to newly developed ICTs, such as the Internet and mobile

telephony. During the 1980s and 1990s, media privatization and liberalization proved widely

successful in diffusing these new technologies to societies at large. At the same time, however,

these modes tend to create barriers to access new media for those that cannot afford it and they

retain media infrastructure under private control. In general, control over access, whether state or

private, means control over deciding who gets access to what resources, when, where, how, and on

what conditions.

Today, in parallel with and supplemental to the statist and the proprietary, a new commons–based

mode of media infrastructure deployment and management has arisen. This mode, which is likely

to spread in the future, if favored or at least taken into account in public policy, has the potential to

increase access for all on an equal footing and radically democratize control on media

infrastructure.

a. Spectrum Commons

Unregulated or inefficiently regulated access to common scarce resources is bound to lead to their

overuse, waste and depletion. Privatization is claimed to be the best solution to the problem of the

“tragedy of the commons,” as private control (through allocation of exclusive property rights) is

supposed to result in more efficient management of scarce resources (Hardin 1968). Applied on

radio spectrum management, this school of thought has led to the adoption of auctioning off

exclusive and long–lasting rights of use of radio frequencies as the most efficient way for states to

manage spectrum and avoid overuse and interference (Coase 1959). Today, conventional spectrum

management and regulation follow the same mentality, based upon the assumption that radio

spectrum is a scarce resource. Yet, recent innovations in wireless technologies and mesh wireless

equipment, such as “smart radios” and “white space devices” (WSDs), make possible the

simultaneous and dynamic sharing of spectrum frequencies by multiple users and operators with

low or minimal risk of harmful interference. Many of the technologies mentioned above build

upon the logic of wi-fi, a now widely used technology, which has been developed to utilize the

normally unlicenced industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) frequency bands and has proven that

spectrum sharing is practically efficient without allocation of exclusive rights of use, when certain

technological specifications are mandated through law. Arising from the growing social demand

for constant and ubiquitous wireless connectivity and the increasing capabilities of individuals to

autonomously construct wireless mesh networks, these technological developments are gradually

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transforming radio spectrum from a scarce into a relatively abundant common resource (Lehr and

Crowford 2006 : 8 - 9). This change calls for extensive policy reforms that apply commons–based

forms of spectrum access alongside spectrum privatization regimes, and limit regulation only in

regard to the devices and uses permitted (Lehr and Crowford 2006). Advantages of such policy

reforms are that they diminish phenomena of privatized spectrum underutilization and spectrum

warehousing by incumbent media enterprises, which are widespread under exclusive licensing

regimes, and, furthermore, increase access and open the spectrum to the dynamics of social

collaboration, scientific innovation and business creativity (Benkler 2002 : 72 - 74).

Along these lines, legislators and regulatory authorities around the world have taken cautious

steps towards opening the spectrum and managing it as a common public resource. The U.S.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted rules to make the unused spectrum in

the TV bands available for unlicensed broadband wireless devices (FCC 2008 and 2010). The

European Union has enacted spectrum commons provisions in the decision establishing its first

radio spectrum policy program, urging member states to open spectrum white spaces and

encourage the deployment of wireless mesh networks (EU 2012). And in the UK, the regulatory

agency Ofcom has announced that it purports to allow license-exempt wireless devices to access

TV white space spectrum (OFCOM 2011). Arising interest on these issues shows that policymakers

are gradually realizing the social and economic benefit of commons-based spectrum management

and are trying to gain a competitive edge.

b. Infrastructure Commons

The emerging spectrum commons, which has been triggered by the diffusion of wi-fi technologies

and infrastructure and the utilization of unlicensed spectrum bands, has constituted the base for a

growing wireless infrastructure commons. Thus, radically decentralized and democratic modes of

media governance through technology gradually emerge in rapidly spreading schemes of

communal deployment and management of media infrastructure. Social, economic and

technological factors such as the relatively low cost of network equipment and the usefulness of

pooling and sharing resources combined with the easier dissemination of necessary knowledge

and information through the media and the social need for autonomous all–to–all connectivity

give rise to self-organized community wireless networks (CWNs), in which individuals deploy

nodal equipment at their own cost and connect between themselves in order to construct and

participate in wider networks (Flickenger 2002 : 10 -11). CWNs are not marginal phenomena, on

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the contrary, they can be found all around the globe6. Indicatively, one of the largest, the Greek

Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN) comprises 1129 backbone nodes and counts

more than 10.735 client computers, spreading even outside the borders of the city of Athens with

the most southern point being Epidaurus and the most northern point being the town of Nea

Artaki on the island of Euboea (100 km and 85 km correspondingly from the city centre)7. Yet, due

to rapid technological developments that arise from the social need to facilitate connectivity,

wireless networks can now be even easier to deploy, further cutting infrastructure costs. With the

use of specially equipped mobile devices, such as laptops and cell phones, which have the capacity

to let information hop between them and act as radio nodes of a wider network, collectives of

individuals are capable of constructing communication networks with a mesh topology on an ad –

hoc and ephemeral basis. Indicative of the trend, OLPC's XO laptops have been designed and

manufactured with the capacity to automatically establish wireless mesh networks, in order to

help students in developing countries share and spatially stretch internet access8. Accordingly, the

US government is reported to finance technological and field projects of wireless mesh networking

in order to provide an integrated “internet in a suitcase” infrastructure to dissidents in totalitarian

regimes, which shall enable them to detour state – controlled media infrastructure and

communicate between themselves and with the international community9.

In CWNs and wireless mesh networks, nodal equipment is individually owned and controlled but

the whole network is managed and controlled collectively by all participants. Therefore, such

networks can best be described as self–organized infrastructure commons, governed through the

participation and collective decision–making of their members. In the future, the popularization

and social diffusion of three - dimensional printing10 and community digital fabrication

laboratories11 in combination with the sharing of the essential knowledge through open industrial

6 For an indicative list of CWN projects around the world check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region (accessed on September 30th, 2011). 7 The site of the AWMN community is available at http://www.awmn.net/content.php?r=168 (accessed on September 30th, 2011). Statistics and map of the network available at http://wind.awmn.net/?page=nodes&session_lang=english (accessed on September 30th, 2011). 8 See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Mesh_Network_Details, (accessed on September 30th, 2011).9 See Glanz James and Markoff John (June, 12, 2011), U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors, New York Times, available : http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12internet.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all, accessed on September 30th, 2011. 10 Three – dimensional printing is the process of laying down successive layers of materials by specially designed printing machinery so as to build physical products based on digital 3D data. It is a cheap and flexible form of additive manufacturing that, among others, is being adopted so as to be implemented in low – scale manufacturing. For further information see The Economist, (February 10th, 2011). 3D Printing, The Printed World, available : http://www.economist.com/node/18114221?story_id=18114221, accessed on September 30th, 2011. 11 Digital fabrication laboratories (FabLabs in short) use 3D printing technologies, open design and open source software to manufacture physical products. The most prominent initiatives of digital fabrication laboratories are the FabLabs initiative monitored by MIT (a list of active FabLabs can be found at http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/labs/, accessed on September 30th, 2011) and the 100K Garages initiative (the community website available at

14

design12 may further empower communities to independently construct their own media

infrastructure without the need of external physical resources other than raw materials13.

c. Open Standards

As mentioned above, new media are architected as networks. The rules of communication between

infrastructure equipment and end – user devices in media networks are determined by sets of

technological standards. These rules are not strictly technological, but they rather have a social

aspect, since they embed specific human choices and values, frame social activity at the content

layer of the new media and ultimately govern social relationships within the networks (Galloway

& Thacker, 2007 : 28). Therefore, computer networking and software standards can best be defined

as techno – social rules of communication between both machines and people. Control on

standards entails the ability to control media by technological means.

Open standards are a necessary element of open ICT ecosystems, enabling efficiency, innovation

and growth (Berkman Center for Internet & Society 2004). The characterization of open in-

computer networking and software standards generally refers to participatory, transparent and

consensus or majority–based processes of standards development and their unrestrained

availability and usage by all interested parties14. Indeed, open standards effectively ensure

interoperability between machines and software originating by different manufacturers and http://www.100kgarages.com/, accessed on September 30th, 2011), both organized as networks of information and knowledge sharing. Fab@Home is an online project that gives information and advice on how to set up such a laboratory at home (see : http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page, accessed on September 30th, 2011). 12 As Von Hippel pinpoints, physical products are information products during the design stage …... Today, designs for new products are commonly encoded in computer – aided design (CAD) files. These files can be created and seen as two – dimensional and three – dimensional renderings by designers. The designs they contain can also be subjected to automated analysis by various engineering tools to determine, for example, whether they can stand up to stresses to which they will be subjected. CAD files can then be downloaded to computer – controlled fabrication machinery that will actually build the component parts of the design (Von Hippel, 2006, p. 104). Inspired from the free software community, open design communities collaborate on the design of physical products through use of information in the public domain and license the products of their work under copyleft licences (for further analysis see Bauwens Michel (2009). The Emergence of Open Design and Open Manufacturing, We Magazine, 2/2009, available : http://www.we-magazine.net/we-volume-02/the-emergence-of-open-design-and-open-manufacturing/, accessed on September 30th, 2011. 13 FabLab Jalalabad is such an initiative that has managed to build equipment for a wireless mesh network in the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, that currently counts already 45 nodes (for more information see : http://fabfiblog.fabfolk.com/, accessed on September 30th, 2011).14 Whereas there are numerous definitions of the term “open standards” by public bodies, market institutions and civil society organizations, the one preferred here due to its clarity, helpfulness and inclusiveness is that of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), which considers an open standard as a format or protocol that is (1) subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties; (2) without any components or extensions that have dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open Standard themselves; (3) free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by any party or in any business model;

(4) managed and further developed independently of any single vendor in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties; (5) available in multiple complete implementations by competing vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all parties (available : http://fsfe.org/projects/os/def.en.html, accessed on September 30th, 2011).

15

suppliers and, therefore, enhance product and service efficiency. Furthermore, characteristics of

transparency, participatory development of the rules implemented and unrestrained access

guarantee flourishing innovation at upper layers of media architecture by users and businesses15.

Open standards are the ideal vehicle of ensuring collaboration between competitors at a crucial

aspect of the logical layer, thus avoiding closed-standards wars that result in inefficient

exploitation of social resources; they also boost competition at upper media layers, thus leading to

economic growth (Shapiro 2001; Ghosh 2005). Yet, arguments in favor of open standards are not

only economic but also deeply political. Due to the centrality of standards in media ecology, the

issue of whom and how one decides upon the rules engraved on them acquires major importance.

In contrast to proprietary standardization, in which decisions are privately taken, open standards’

processes of development, decision-making and management are participatory, based on the

consensus or the will of the majority of the communities built around them. Furthermore, the

techno-social rules they implement are transparent to all and therefore open to critique and the

freedom to choose not to use them. Finally, open standards are freely available for use and

innovation, thus constructing a vibrant commons at the logical layer of new media and providing

momentum to democratic modes of governing media through technology.

Open standards have played a decisive role in the constitution of the Internet’s public character

and its gradual transformation into the paradigmatic communications medium of our times. Since

their invention, the TCP/IP standards were released without usage constraints, while their

management and development by the IETF has always been open, participatory and consensus–

based16. Accordingly, the world wide web set of standards was openly released by Tim Berners-

Lee in order to ensure its universal availability (Berners-Lee 2000) and is until today managed by

the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in a transparent and participatory manner. Open

standardization has made the Internet a truly open ICT ecosystem and has become a key factor of

its success. Open software standards and formats are also the basis of all free software projects,

which are greatly widespread in the new media. Due to their advantages, open standards'

processes of design and management are increasingly employed by international standardization

organizations, such as the International Telecommunication Union and European Standardization

Organizations (ESOs), and market consortia, such as the Organization for the Advancement of

15 For a discussion of the advantages of open versus closed standardization in providing more efficient and innovative solutions seeGuasch J. Luis, Racine Jean – Louis, Sanchez Isabel and Diop Makhtar (2007), Quality Systems and Standards for a Competitive Edge, World Bank, pp. 52 – 54, available : http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/69LACQualityandStandardsPubNov2007.pdf, accessed on September 30th, 2011. 16 As Vint Cerf has rightly stated, “the Internet is fundamentally based on the existence of open, non-proprietary standards” (Cerf, V. (2008), On Open Internet Standards, keynote speech at the Standards and the Future of the Internet Conference, organized by Open Forum Europe, Geneva, Switzerland, 25 -27 February 2008).

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Structured Information Standards (OASIS). Legislators and regulatory bodies around the globe

have focused on policies that encourage open ICT standardization, and have made the use of open

standards compulsory in the public sector. For example, the WTO has set certain criteria for good

standards development, including openness, transparency and consensus (WTO 1994), and the

World Summit on the Information Society recommended that open standards implementation

constitutes the best practice for e-government applications in order to enhance their growth and

interoperability (WSIS 2005). Accordingly, the Council of Europe has called its member states to

promote “technical interoperability, open standards and cultural diversity in ICT policy covering

telecommunications, broadcasting and the Internet” (CoE 2007). In addition, the European Union

has committed its ESOs to follow the principles of coherence, transparency, openness, consensus,

independence of special interests and efficiency in order to achieve efficient ICT standards and

interoperability of ICT networks and systems17. Finally, a growing number of countries have either

already legislated for the compulsory use of open standards in their public sectors, such as

Denmark,18 or have released action plans for their gradual implementation, such as the United

Kingdom.19

d. Free Software

The free software movement is a prominent example of commons–based peer production at the

logical layer of new media20. The movement has its historical roots in the hacker culture cultivated

among the first programmers’ communities at the early ages of the computer revolution (Himanen

2002; Levy 2010; Stallman 2010). It consists of communities of programmers from all around the

world who together write and improve software code on a voluntary basis. Every free software

community is built around a specific software project and shares the aim of maintaining and

improving it, while also catering for its dissemination. Membership is normally informal and

dependent on individual hard work and programming skills (Von Krogh, Spaeth, and Lakhani

2003). Production processes in the movement are held together by a wide variety of governance

17 See recital 24 of Directive 98/34/EC on “laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations” (L 204/37), Commission Communication on “a strategic vision for European Standards (COM(2011) 311 final, 1.6.2011), Proposal for a Regulation on “European Standardization” (COM(2011) 315 final, 1.6.2011), Commission Communication on “A Digital Agenda for Europe” (COM(2010) 245 final/2, 26.6.2010).18 Denmark (2007), Agreement between the government, local government Denmark and Danish regions about open standards for software, available : http://en.itst.dk/it-architecture-standards/open-standards, accessed on 4 May 2012.19 See UK Government Action Plan (2010). Open Source, Open Standards and ReUse, available : http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/open_source.pdf, accessed on 4 May 2012.20 Benkler states : “...... the networked environment makes possible a new modality of organizing production: radically decentralized, collaborative, and nonproprietary; based on sharing resources and outputs among widely distributed, loosely connected individuals who cooperate with each other without relying on either market signals or managerial commands. This is what I call “commons-based peer production” (Benkler, 2006, p. 60).

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mechanisms that are in constant flux in order to meet community needs. Division of labor

mechanisms are characterized by flexibility and constant adaptability to the needs of the project

development and the particular characteristics of its participants. Tasks are allocated by the

community on meritocratic criteria and on the condition that they are accepted by the appointed

individual21. Decision-making mechanisms vary, depending on the maturity and the size of the

community. In start – up free software projects governance mechanisms have a still unformed, de

facto character. During that stage decisions are taken either consensually / democratically among

peers (Weber 2004 : 186) or hierarchically by individuals that legitimize their authority vis a vis the

community from their central role as developers in the project and/or from their decision - making

skills (Raymond 2001 : 65 – 111). In larger and longer – lasting communities governance

mechanisms acquire more stabilized and persistent forms of even institutional status22. Large

communities develop pyramidal structures of decision–making (Weber 2004 : 187 - 189), while

communities with more distributed and participatory traditions, such as Debian, have developed a

mixture of direct democratic and representative rules of decision–making (Siobhan & Fabrizio

2007). Due to the voluntary character of free software communities and the ever possible menace

of project forking23, positional authority exerted through these mechanisms functions as a means

towards collective empowerment, i.e. safeguarding functionality of decision – making processes,

communal cohesiveness, sustainability and integrity, rather than as a tool of coercion, i.e. based on

a “command and control” approach (Weber 2004 : 170). Despite a number of serious drawbacks,

the production processes of the movement have proven to be very successful. Today, key parts of

the internet software infrastructure both at the core and at the edges consist to a certain extent of

free software.

The foundations of the free software movement also feature a crucial socio–legal pillar. Free

software communities use a variety of sui generis licensing schemes to release their products.

Having their legal basis in copyright and contract law, these licenses function as social contracts

both for relations inside the community and relations of the community with its user–base. Their

philosophy is based on the reversal of the “all rights reserved” logic of copyright law and the

21 Indicatively, the Apache Software Foundation describes its division of labor process as follows : “(t)he project is a meritocracy -- the more work you have done, the more you will be allowed to do” (available : http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html, accessed on September 30th, 2011). The Apache Software Foundation is one of the most successful free software communities, which has, among others, developed the apache HTTP server software, used in 63% of all websites worldwide.22 The biggest and most popular free software communities, such as those built around GNU and the Apache, Mozilla and Linux software, have established formal forms of legal representation, such as non – profit foundations and associations. 23 Forking in free software refers to a split in the development of a specific software project. According to Eric Raymond, “(t)he overall predisposition against forking [...] holds things together in an imperfect way. The fundamental right to fork keeps the pressure on that bargain at all times” (Raymond 2001 : 127).

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release of software code under four basic freedoms: free use and sharing of the licensed work,

openness of its source code, freedom to make derivative works and viral licensing.24 From an

empowerment perspective, the free software movement is important because it acts in the

direction of democratizing the design of the media software infrastructure and the

“decommodifying” of key software products. The ability of free software communities to modify,

reprogram and redesign existing software, or to develop new software infrastructure, influences

the media ecosystem as a whole and, ultimately, plays a central role in the structure and

governance of the media. Social processes of design in the movement follow a communal,

consensus-based and voluntary mode of collaborative innovation, which guarantees an increased

degree of accountability in regard to the design choices being made. In addition, the openness of

source code introduces transparency in usage by permitting end – users to be aware of the techno

– social rules embedded in free software and letting them make informed choices of what to run on

their personal computers. Finally, the right to redistribute copies unleashes free software products

from any restrictions of access that normally accompany commodities, and pushes for–profit

activities to fields of services built around their customization or maintenance and support. Thus,

the production processes of the movement have managed to ensure access for all to at least the

basic media software tools, constituting a significant step forward towards bridging the digital

divide.

ii. Enabling Creativity & Cooperation

Contemporary ICTs have increased to an unprecedented extent both the connectivity between

people and devices and the human capability to process and store data (Castells 1996).

Simultaneously, the cost of computation, communication, and storage has significantly declined,

resulting in the diffusion of the material means of information and cultural production to a large

portion of the world’s population (Benkler 2006 : 3 - 4). Social exploitation of these technological

properties has given rise to widespread patterns of human communication, creativity and

cooperation that have been described as mass self–communication and commons–based

intellectual peer production. Given the technological tools, multitudes of individuals around the

globe increasingly share information, knowledge and culture and engage in cultural creation and

information production. Social use of media in the ways mentioned above has a defining,

transformative effect on media ecosystems and their governance.

24 These freedoms are summarized in the Free Software Definition of Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Definition (Open Source Initiative (OSI), correspondingly available at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html and http://opensource.org/docs/osd (both accessed on 4 May 2012).

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a. Enabling Wider Sharing of Information

As Isaac Newton famously remarked, intellectual progress proceeds by “standing on the shoulders

of giants”25. The core meaning of this phrase is that intellectual production is not a process of

parthenogenesis, meaning that present and future intellectual efforts always derive from

knowledge and art accumulated from the past. Indeed, processes of intellectual production are

influenced by the nature of their product, namely information, on the one hand because its non -

rival characteristics render it a public good26 and on the other hand due to the fact that the primary

input of these processes is the same as their output, that is again information. Accordingly,

intellectual production and innovation is an inherently collective, socialized process, bearing a

very close relation with cooperation, collaboration and communication (Hardt and Negri 2004 :

147).

New media have extensive beneficial effects at the input phase of intellectual production by

making available an abundance of information, knowledge and culture to authors, innovators and

artists. In particular, media networks enable the wider sharing of information, knowledge and

culture between individuals and communities by significantly diminishing the obstacles of space

and time and the capacity of control on informational flows. Access is increased on the public

domain, as both pro-profit and non-profit initiatives gradually upload and make available on the

Internet a growing wealth of intellectual works that are not protected under intellectual property

or whose protection has expired. Widespread social practice has also led towards de facto

decommodification and unencumbered flow of proprietary informational goods (Barbrook 2005).

Furthermore, users of the new media have developed cultures of information sharing by offering

their own intellectual works online on a non-commercial, access-free basis. Indicatively, a growing

number of authors and artists choose to license their works under the Creative Commons (CC)

licensing schemes, which are based on the notion of reserving some, rather than all, authorship

rights under copyright law, whereas CC licensing is pervasive on web content27. Furthermore, an

25 Newton Isaac, February 5th, 1676, Letter to Robert Hooke. Actual paternity of the phrase is attributed to the twelfth century philosopher Bernard of Chartres. 26 The non-rivalrous character of information has been brilliantly expressed by Thomas Jefferson in his famous quote about sharing of ideas : “(i)f nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me” (Jefferson Thomas (13 August 1813). Letter to Isaac McPherson, available : http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html, accessed on September 30th, 2011).27 For more information about the activities of the Creative Commons Foundation visit http://wiki.creativecommons.org/. For lists of works licensed under CC visit http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Case_Studies (both accessed on September 30th, 2011).

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increasing number of scientific journals participate in open access publishing schemes, offering

their articles under unrestricted access terms28, while open access online repositories of scientific

publications are proliferating29. Finally, in the field of software infrastructure a radical social

movement, termed as the free software movement which is based on decentralized collaboration

of hacker multitudes, feverishly works together on code and gives it open to the public under

copyleft licensing schemes (Stallman, 2010)30.

Social use of ICTs in the ways mentioned above results in access to information at marginal or no

cost for individuals and collectivities. This lowers the social cost of using existing information as

input into new information production to close to zero (Benkler 2005). As a result, abundance of

information, knowledge and culture at the content layer of new media constitutes the input basis

for a thriving cultural creativity and intellectual production based on sharing and cooperation. For

these reasons the global free flow of information is gradually perceived as a vital characteristic of

the Internet economy, with international organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Co-

operation and Development, calling for its promotion and protection in a balanced and prudent

manner (OECD 2011).

b. Encouraging Cultural Creativity

Cultural production should be viewed as an inherently collective process of constructing and

attributing meaning to our natural and social environment. When individuals have a fair

opportunity to participate in a self–determining manner in the forms of meaning-making, then

cultural production can be claimed to be democratic (Balkin 2004 : 3). Technological properties of

new media offer the material basis for a radical empowerment of individual and collective cultural

expression. Depending on whether and to what extent these properties are exploited in practice by

media users around the globe, a new folk culture may possibly flourish and radically influence the

entrenched modes of cultural production that dominated the industrial era (Benkler 2006 : 15).

Modern ICTs empower users to engage in cultural creativity in multiple ways. I described above

how new media facilitate and expand access to prior information, knowledge and culture for 28 The Directory of Open Access Journals has reported that on September 15th, 2011, it had 7000 scientific journals enlisted in its categories (available : http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTempl&templ=110915&uiLanguage=en, both accessed on September 30th, 2011). 29 Over 2.200 open access repositories and 9 million records have been indexed at the Registry of Open Access Repositories up to August, 2011 (available : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roar1aug2011.png, both accessed on September 30th, 2011). 30 As of February, 2009, more than 230,000 free software projects have been registered to SourceForge.net, the largest collection of open source tools and applications on the net (see http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/What%20is%20SourceForge.net, accessed on September 30th, 2011).

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individuals and collectivities. As information about art flows down to societies at large in all types

of digital formats, wide access to prior works of art boosts innovative capabilities of users,

communities and social groups. Alongside this, new media provide their users with the necessary

technological tools to create art. Equipment relevant to artistic creation, such as personal

computers, cameras, and microphones, has been made readily available to a large segment of the

world population as a result of declining cost along with a variety of free or proprietary software

tools. Media users can now create works of speech, music and video individually or collectively in

an independent, self–determining manner. In addition, such tools give users the opportunity to

manipulate and remix prior works of art, thereby boosting creativity at the domain of derivative

art (Lessig 2008). Finally, new media open novel perspectives in regard to the modes of cultural

consumption by enabling free communication between creators and their audience and a reduced

need for intermediating industries. As a result, the lines between producers and consumers of

culture blur and give rise to a more participatory and democratic culture (Benkler 2006; Fisher

2004; Lessig 2004, 2008; Reuveni 2007).

c. Enhancing Cooperation

Innovation and intellectual production are inherently collective, socialized processes, bearing a

very close relation with cooperation, collaboration and communication (Hardt and Negri 2004).

The capacities of modern ICTs in regard to connectivity, information storage and processing have

empowered individuals around the globe to coordinate, cooperate and produce on a voluntary,

peer–to–peer basis and offer the intellectual products of their work on non–commercial terms

(Bauwens 2006; Benkler 2006). A novel mode of intellectual production, termed as commons-based

peer production, is flourishing in the new media, at work in parallel to traditional for-profit

modes. This mode reveals more than anything else the emergence of the multitude, a post-

industrial social subject able to democratically produce and reproduce the logical and content

layers of new media and shape wider social change (Hardt & Negri 2004).

The free software movement has already been referred to as a prevalent mode of commons-based

peer production at the logical layer of new media. Similar modes flourish at the content layer; the

most impressive is Wikipedia, the unrivaled online encyclopedia managed by the Wikimedia

Foundation. In numbers, as of March 24th, 2012, Wikipedia consisted of 19.7 million articles in 282

languages, written collaboratively by approximately 90,000 regularly active volunteers and

manifold more contributors around the world (Wikipedia 2012a). The whole project is held

together by a complex set of rules governing the generation of its content that has involved

22

through time by a self–governing process of trial and error inside its collaborative community.

Content contributors must follow certain rules of lawfulness, verifiability, neutrality and respect

among peers and follow specific editing policies that ensure content uniformity (Wikipedia 2012b).

Dispute resolution in content generation and editing procedures is solved by a series of

hierarchically organized community mechanisms (Hoffman & Mehra 2009). In order to control

vandalism or other antisocial misuse of content editing, a small number of editors appointed by

the community acquire sysops (system operators) status and have the powers to “protect, delete

and restore pages, move pages over redirects, hide and delete page revisions, edit protected pages,

and block other editors” (Wikipedia 2012c). In general, Wikipedia is an original community of

collaborative intellectual production with radically participatory and democratic characteristics

and mechanisms of governance. Since 2005, Wikipedians have met annually in open conferences

or informal gatherings to discuss, work together and strengthen communal relationships. Licensed

under Creative Commons, Wikipedia content is freely accessed and shared for non–profit

purposes, constituting a vast and sufficiently reliable source of knowledge and news. According to

Alexa, Wikipedia was the sixth most popular site on the web in 2011. In terms of content quality, at

least one scientific comparison of Wikipedia with the world-renowned Encyclopedia Britannica

has found a similar level of accuracy and rate of errors between the two (Giles 2005). Other

commons-based peer production, including online tools, such as blogs, forums, and wikis,

constitute a communication and information ecosystem where individuals jointly produce and

freely share digital content without spatiotemporal copresence, flooding communication networks

with the fruits of their intellectual labor and collaboration (Benkler 2006; Fuchs 2008). Hence, in

parallel to growing commercialization, the development, improvement and social use of these

technologies of cooperation also steers the new media ecosystem towards a more participatory and

democratic mode of intellectual production.

The ability of individuals to participate in intellectual production is protected by the fundamental

human right to freedom of expression. However, the freedom of expression is not absolute, but

limited, among others, to the contours of private rights on intellectual works, as these are inscribed

on copyright law. Copyright is a system of detailed legal rules that assign to creators a set of

exclusive private rights on their works in order to ensure adequate financial incentives for

individual creativity and serve the aim of cultivating a thriving culture (Drahos, 1996, Landes and

Posner, 2003). However, its current status reflects the socio - technical conditions of intellectual

production and interrelations of power that prevailed in industrial societies (May and Sell, 2006).

Therefore, contemporary copyright law is inadequate as an attempt to determine the political

economy of the intellectual production that flourishes in the new media (Boyle, 1996). Its

23

underlying assumptions regarding collective authorship, derivative works and creative motivation

mainly ignore the decentralized, collaborative, transformative and non – commercial character of

modes of intellectual production in the new media (Reuveni, 2007). Hence, copyright law tends to

abridge freedom of expression and stifle innovation that are related to such modes (Netanel, 2008).

It is evident that the emerging participatory and democratic culture of the new media has a

disruptive impact on the contemporary system of law, exacerbating the tension between the right

to freedom of expression and copyright. The reaction of legislators, law enforcement agencies and

incumbent information industries around the world vis a vis the emergence of new media has

mainly focused on the expansion of copyright protection (Drahos & Braithwaite, 2002), the

increase in surveillance and policing of the new media and the criminalization of individual media

users for their non – profit activities. This reaction constitutes an evidence of this crisis in media

law and policy rather than an appropriate solution to it. If we are to preserve the law of copyright

orientation towards the public good in the age of computer networks and constant, ubiquitous

connectivity, laws and policy reforms are needed to accommodate the thriving participatory and

democratic culture and commons – based peer production made possible by contemporary

technology (Lessig, 2008 : 253 - 289).

iii. Deepening Democracy

Cyber-optimists prophesy that cyberspace will lead to the demise of autocratic regimes around the

world and the global prevalence of democracy (Levy 2002). In contrast, cyber–pessimists dismiss

the link between democracy and ICTs as hype and stress the potential of new media to cultivate

alienation and inability to political commitment (Dreyfus 2008) or enhance surveillance,

compromise privacy and reinforce totalitarian forms of power (Morozov 2011). Both utopian and

dystopian accounts of the relationship between ICTs and democracy suffer from technological

determinism and disorientate scientific analysis on the issue. Indeed, ICTs have certain properties

that may be utilized to deepen democracy, while at the same time they can be exploited for the

exertion of arbitrary state or corporate power and suppression (Barber 1998). Yet, it is purely a

matter of relations and correlations of power and political struggle in any given social context

which one of these contradictory social uses shall prevail and shape social change. My purpose

here is to give a brief overview of certain technological properties that link ICTs with democracy

and provide specific examples of their use by individuals, collectivities and societies at large for

political empowerment.

a. Towards an Alternate Public Sphere

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In industrial societies, the public sphere has been characterized by the accumulation of

communication power by commercial mass media corporations, allowing them extensive control

over the means of mass communication (Habermas 1989). The topology of its technological

architecture features a one - directional, hub – and - spoke structure at its center, i.e. corporate

mass media dominating the press, radio and television, and unidirectional links only to its

periphery, namely the person – to – person telephony networks (Benkler 2006 : 171). Today,

modern ICTs set the conditions for the emergence of an alternate public sphere, organized on the

basis of computer networks, in which end users become transceivers of messages, views and

meanings. The technological design of new media gradually shifts the topology of social

communication from the traditional hub-and-spoke model of mass media to a distributed

networked architecture with multidirectional connections (Benkler 2006 : 212). Furthermore,

technological properties of modern ICTs have led to a dramatic reduction in the costs of

transmitting messages to a larger audience. Enabled by these technological conditions, social use of

new media has given rise to a new form of communication, termed as mass self-communication,

which progressively disperses communication power from the center to the periphery of the

contemporary public sphere (Castells 2009 : 55). These transformations show that at the edges of

mainstream mass media the post-industrial public sphere features vibrant alternate networks of

participatory political communication that empower individuals to freely disseminate information,

autonomously exchange their political views, form collective meanings about the world around

them, and influence corporate mass media practices (Castells 2008 : 87).

The empowering effect that the social use of ICTs has on democratic dialogue and political

participation for individuals and collectivities is best examined along the well-established lines of

normative thought in regard to the relationship between media and democracy (Carpentier 2007).

Along these lines, the media are considered crucial for democracy, because they are expected to

promote informed citizenship and provide a check on the state and powerful private actors

through their public watchdog function. Furthermore, media are considered to be democratic to

the extent that they afford citizenship participation at the production of their content and at their

filtering and synthesis mechanisms. Widespread social practices in the new media, such as

hyperlinking, short message service (SMS), e-mail, blogging, Internet forum communities, instant

messaging and social networking, enable decentralized, horizontal and autonomous information

dissemination and deliberation among individuals (Benkler 2006 : 215 - 219). Furthermore, the

borderless and more censorship–resistant character of the Internet has compressed media space

and time and has blurred the boundaries between the public spheres of nation-states, thus

25

increasing awareness of the global character of certain social problems, such as climate change,

and multiplying social pressure and mobilization for globalized solutions31. With the help of

technology, collective projects in citizenship journalism, such as the global indy-media network,

non–profit Internet radio stations, web–TV projects, and online public watchdog communities,

such as Wikileaks, enable direct citizen access and participation in the formulation of the public

sphere (Gilmor 2004) and contribute to social accountability and transparency of public authorities

and arbitrary private power. In the new media, low or nonexistent communication costs allow all

voices and opinions an opportunity of being heard. Even though such an environment does not

guarantee equal opportunities to be heard, it nevertheless promotes a greater degree of pluralism

and fairness in comparison to the public sphere of industrial societies, which has been dominated

by corporate mass media.

In the past two decades, the social diffusion of ICTs has brought extensive transformations in the

state of the public sphere. At present, new and radically democratic and participatory modes of

political deliberation in the new media by end users co-exist at the edges of the incumbent

corporate mass–media. Hybrid modes of the old and the new can also be observed to gradually

gain popularity and significance, pointing a possible way towards the future.32 As the locus of

economic activity and the focus of professional journalism shifts online, the future of such

transformations remains uncertain, mostly dependent on the organizational capacity of these

social practices to acquire stability, coordination and massive scale, and the capability of social

movements and societies in general to shape the debate in the public sphere (Castells 2008 : 87).

b. From Political Deliberation to Democratic Participation and Action

Democracy is the polity that can best accommodate social change, by giving the opportunity for

political minorities to turn into majorities. It is therefore useful to examine democratic politics in

both in a top–down manner (by analyzing the existing correlations of incumbent political forces in

order to understand the present) and in a bottom–up manner (by studying the arising dynamics of

political counter–power in order to grasp the future). In the age of globalization, top-down

political analysis finds democratic institutions of nation-states to have entered a period of severe

crisis. To the contrary, bottom–up analysis shows that alongside economic globalization, the rise of

31 Castells is right to claim that “(s)ocial movements escaped their confinement in the fragmented space of places and seized the global space of flows, while not virtualizing themselves to death, keeping their local experience and the landing sites of their struggle as the material foundation of their ultimate goal: the restoration of meaning in the new space/time of our existence, made of both flows, places and their interaction” (Castells, 2007).32 Characteristic of such hybrids is the commercial collaborative blog Huffington Post, ranking as the fourth most popular news website in the world (see http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News, accessed on September 30, 2011).

26

new media is one of the factors that have reinforced the phenomenon of a radically democratic and

globalized political counter-power. The ongoing transformations that are taking place in our semi–

globalized public sphere empower individuals and collectivities to coordinate and mobilize

themselves in a massive transnational scale for political purposes. In particular, the enhanced

capability to constitute and disseminate alternate collective meanings through technological means

regardless of space and time limits, along with the increased capacity for grassroots coordination

and mobilization through the social use of ICTs, contribute to the formation of powerful social

movements demanding social change in a “think global—act local” combination (Castells 2008 :

87). Furthermore, technological properties of new media open opportunities for these movements

to claim the democratic revival of traditional representative institutions through direct citizen

participation. As the implications of economic globalization accelerate and the impact of climate

change reverberates around the world, radically democratic forms of globalized political counter –

power seem to acquire momentum and impact on political agendas.

The use of new media for political purposes reveals a dynamic and dialectical relation between

technology and political activity. The properties of contemporary ICTs set the conditions of the

political use of technology, whereas at the same time people collaboratively design and develop

new technologies to adjust these conditions to their actual needs. It is clear, however, that, while

technology may be considered to provide certain tools for political deliberation, coordination,

organization and participation, it is people that form body politics through collective purposeful

action in order to enter the political arena and pursue shared aims. Hence, it is when social needs

arise and people collectively act for political purposes that contemporary ICTs are brought to the

service of grassroots political coordination and mobilization at a massive scale. Despite its open

contempt for law and its sometimes irresponsible and anti-social characteristics, the hacktivism of

the Anonymous group is an example of such political use that is worth our attention. Being

something closer to a sub--culture of cyberspace rather than a structured social movement of the

classic type, Anonymous has managed to effectively utilize ICT capacities in order to coordinate

massive online political protests and direct action events in cyberspace, while at the same time

preserving a decentralized, nodal character of decision-making. In the case of Anonymous, this

ability to achieve unity in action while preserving multiplicity of its nodes appears to be greatly

enabled through technology. Furthermore, contemporary ICTs have enhanced the organizational

capacities of grassroots political movements offline and the rapid spreading of their messages and

practices irrespective of national borders and continents. The most vivid example of such an effect

is the global real democracy movement. Since the eruption of social unrest in Tunisia in December

2010, a massive current of direct democratic peoples’ assemblies and uprisings has swept the

27

Middle East and North African region, spreading in Spain, Greece, Israel and the United States.

Although wildly dispersed around the world and born in very different social contexts, through

use of the new media, this global movement has managed to acquire critical mass, spread its

messages and practices of organization and decision-making33 and establish common general aims

towards more freedom, actual democracy and social justice34. Posts, images, and even live

streaming of the direct democratic assemblies played a decisive role in the global flow of messages,

meanings and processes and the Cairo Tahrir square tactics of direct democracy and massive

political mobilization spread to the Madrid Puerta del Sol35, the Athens Syntagma36, the Tel Aviv

Habima37 squares and the New York Zuccoti park38 in a period of less than nine months.

Coordination acquired substantial characteristics, as activists from all around the world used free

software communication tools to exchange information and knowledge39, to co-write political

manifestos40 and to even conduct global virtual assemblies so as to coordinate themselves41.

Yet, the impact of new media on the political sphere has not been confined to forms of global

grassroots political deliberation, mobilization and action; it has also led to ways for direct citizen

participation in democratic institutions. The most ambitious example of such democratic

restructuring is the recent amendment process of Iceland’s supreme law. Undergoing a harsh

period of economic recession, social unrest and popular demand to deepen democratic rule, the

parliament of Iceland has recently been compelled to follow a radical process of deliberative

democracy combined with direct electronic citizen participation in order to amend its

constitution.42 First, an assembly of 950 randomly selected Icelanders—the National Forum—was

convened on November 6, 2010, to deliberate on equal terms for a day regarding the appropriate

33 Evidence shows that social networking tools, such as facebook, help to prepare, kickstart and coordinate these types of movements (Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011), whereas microblogging sites, such as twitter, help to provide accurate reports about their development through a kind of conversational citizen journalism, thus contributing to the effective flow of their messages (Lotan et al, 2011). 34 These common general aims are evident in the “15.October – United for Global Change” call (see www.15october.net , accessed on September 30th, 2011).35 See http://www.democraciarealya.es/ (accessed on September 30th, 2011).36 See www.amesi-dimokratia.org (accessed on September 30th, 2011).37 See http://twitter.com/#!/TLV_Revolution (accessed on September 30th, 2011).38 See www.occupywallst.org (accessed on September 30th, 2011).39 Activists from the OccupyWallStreet movement, which rapidly spread throughout the US and Canada in more than 1.000 cities in a matter of weeks, had lasting and constant communication through new media with activists from the Spanish and Greek real democracy movements both before and during their protests in order to acquire know – how and cooperate together (interview with a member of the media center of the Athens Syntagma Square people's assembly, in file with author). Indicatively, OccupyWallStreet writes in its introductory online note that “we are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants”.40 See http://titanpad.com/15october, (accessed on September 30th, 2011).41 See the global virtual assembly having taken place on October 8th - 9th with free software instant messaging, audio and video teleconference tools at http://15october.net/48h-global-virtual-assembly/ (accessed on September 30th, 2011).42 For the official history of the process see http://stjornlagarad.is/english/ (accessed on 4 May 2012).

28

amendments to the Icelandic constitution. Then, the findings of the National Forum were

condensed into a 700-page report prepared by a special constitutional committee. A 25-member

constitutional council was elected by popular vote on November 30, 2010, with the task to make

the final decisions about the amendments to the constitution, based on the submitted report.

During the Council’s activities, which finished successfully in July 2011, all Icelanders were able to

participate and offer their views on weekly council meetings via live broadcasts on Facebook43 or

take part in public discussions on the council’s Youtube44 and Twitter45 accounts. The end result of

the draft constitution was approved by 66% of the constituency in a nationwide referendum and

the final decision by the Icelandic parliament for its rejection or approval is still pending.

All these stories show the growing transformations that the political use of new media brings to

political systems on a global level. Utilization of ICTs for political mobilization, organization and

action by individuals around the world reveals the emergence of the multitude, a post–industrial

social subject able to act for social change while preserving the multiplicity of its participants. In

addition, the push for stronger democracy has transformative effects on the character of new

media themselves, as they are more and more being viewed, used and redesigned as an invaluable

component for grassroots political deliberation and organization. Finally, modern ICTs are being

used as the technological basis for a revival of democratic polities through greater transparency

and accountability of public authorities and citizen participation both in the deliberative and the

decision–making political processes.

C. Conclusion

In this chapter I have attempted to show why technology constitutes the key of sovereignty in

modern media. I have also tried to describe the strategies and techniques relevant to technology by

which the multitude intervenes to influence power relations and correlations in the governance of

the contemporary media ecosystem for purposes of individual and collective empowerment. This

influence has been manifested in specific ways. In the physical and logical media layers, elements

of a nascent, community–based mode of infrastructure and resource management, which enables

social access to media on equal terms, have been observed to develop in parallel to bureaucratic

and market modes of governance. In the content layer, the phenomena of mass self–

communication and commons–based intellectual peer production, which thrive in the new media,

enable the wider sharing of information, knowledge and culture and encourage creativity and

43 See http://www.facebook.com/Stjornlagarad (accessed on September 30th, 2011).44 See http://www.youtube.com/stjornlagarad (accessed on September 30th, 2011).45 See http://twitter.com/#!/Stjornlagarad (accessed on September 30th, 2011).

29

cooperation among multitudes of individuals around the globe. Finally, in the political field, the

use of ICTs empowers individuals and collectivities to transform the contemporary public sphere

and to deepen democratic self-governance on the one hand by massive political deliberation,

mobilization and participation and, on the other hand, by reinforcement of democratic institutions.

Taking into account all these manifestations, the central claim of this chapter has been that the

multitude transforms the media ecosystem not only by directly or indirectly intervening in its

technological architecture but also by diverting its social use to purposes other than those

embedded in its design. Legislators and policymakers around the world have not been especially

receptive of the empowering potential of such transformations, at best following a cautious

approach and at worst producing suppressive effects. Despite the successes, however, their future

remains uncertain and depends on politics in its deepest sense, namely on grassroots political

mobilization and struggle.

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