[iDC] city as social network
Eric Gordon
eric_gordon at emerson.edu
Sun Jul 8 15:55:31 EDT 2007
Thanks to Lucas and Eugenio for the insightful comments. I want to
pick up on something Eugenio said that I think was quite intriguing.
>> I believe it is wrong (a populist measure, as you put it) for
>> governments to try to appropriate these modes of dialog by putting
>> forward "web 2.0-like" tools to communicate with the citizens. By
>> this, they would bring the conversation to their own headquarters,
>> restricting the relative liberty that citizens may feel when
>> speaking on a more neutral ground, and rendering dialog
>> ineffective. In order to bring forward social change, a certain
>> degree of antagonism (and hence, independence) is needed.
Does the same logic apply to governments that apply to corporations?
Can there be "real" anti-corporate dialogue on YouTube simply because
the conversation is being hosted in the "master's house?" Or is
there a difference that has to be drawn between government and
corporate control of civic participation? This would seem to
reverberate with Daniel Solove's definition of privacy in his book
The Digital Person. He suggests that privacy concerns that emerge in
contemporary digital culture are not simply a matter of total
surveillance by a malevolent overseer; instead, they are a matter of
data disclosure to “objective” machines. Each user builds for
herself a “digital dossier,” personal data connected to an IP address
or username, that can easily be recalled by a machine. For instance,
Amazon’s “recommend” feature, or YouTube’s personal statistics or
private channels, or even automatic forms, are silently customized
through everyday use. In essence, the machine is watching our every
move, recording it and then playing it back for us. Solove argues
that instead of looking to Orwell’s 1984 as a descriptive metaphor
for digital surveillance, it is more accurate to look to Kafka’s The
Trial. We are being watched, but by whom and for what reason is
unclear, even for those doing the watching. If, in fact, privacy is
no longer a matter of fortifying one's person, but controlling the
mechanisms by which machine's understand persons, than how can
"responsible" governments support citizen privacy while taking
advantage of new digital tools?
So let me direct this to a project in which I am currently engaged.
I am working with the City of Boston to develop "progressive"
mechanisms for participation using Web. 2.0 technologies. I am not
the government, but I am working with the government. And we have
drafted the following objectives for the project - currently entitled
Hub2:
OBJECTIVES
1. Hub2 asks Boston’s residents and institutions, through the use
of social media technologies, to consider how community, civic
engagement, and public space function in their neighborhoods.
2. Hub2 seeks to visualize those functions, using online virtual
worlds and web-based social media, as a means of creating an active,
community-driven representation of the City of Boston.
3. Hub2 seeks to establish a reproducible methodology, that is
participatory and inclusive, for the design and implementation of
city-sponsored social media platforms and virtual representations.
So what are the limits of power? The results of this work will
surely be used to monitor populations? It will also be used to give
voices to populations previously denied the privileges of
expression. For me the question is not whether governments should
use the technology, but how governments should use it. And what
safeguards and affordances communities should fight for.
Eric
On Jul 6, 2007, at 5:55 PM, Lucas Bambozzi wrote:
> In my humble opinion, the project Tisseli mentions has been one of
> the most interesting projects so far dealing with recent mobile
> media for shaping 'tools' for minimal mediation (I would call it
> 'reality-based interfaces', but it might be a too long story). It
> suggests a possibility for networking from//to "real life" and
> public spaces -- not a communication between private-to-private
> bubbles that most mediating technologies tend to design --
> foreseeing a possible use of devices that could encourage
> individuals to participate in the shaping of public spaces,
> evolving awareness regarding social reality
> I like the expression 'to go out of "The House"', used by Tisseli
> and would take it as an idea to go public, as a possibility to
> shape the use of the technology that has been dropped on us as
> consumers. Can any community use face the official powers and
> corporations strategies mentioned by Eric? Not really, as
> corporative thinking would rather tend to fabricate "realities"
> according to their marketing needs and it is somehow happening
> around web 2.0 discourses.
> Back to Tisseli's project (Zexe.net, by Toni Abad), I would really
> like to be optimistic enough to foresee there a distribution of
> mobile phone technology to the internet over a "many-to-many
> architecture", which could/should somehow shape the use of the
> technology.
>
> Whether a strongly connected community will produce independence,
> bring forward social change or just add more hype over social
> networking sites, is a further question. And to point it to the
> Brazilian context is a really complex matter.
> Cheers
>
> Lucas Bambozzi
>
>
>
> At 18:49 +0200 6/7/07, Eugenio Tisselli wrote:
>> Hi Eric, hi all,
>>
>> I am also a subscriber to this list, and this is my first
>> intervention. My name is Eugenio Tisselli, and I am the developer
>> behind zexe.net (http://www.zexe.net), a project in which specific
>> urban collectives broadcast their daily experiences from mobile
>> phones directly to the web. These collectives have included so far
>> people on wheelchairs in Barcelona mapping the architecural
>> barriers in the city, and motorcycle messengers (motoboys) in Sao
>> Paulo, Brazil, among others.
>> From my point of view, small collectives engaged in communicative
>> processes which are mediated by digital technology seek not only
>> to represent themselves as a social entity, but also to make
>> visible the invisible: the day to day issues that they encounter
>> in their cities, which are particlar to them and many times
>> constitute problems or specific issues that affect their urban
>> life. This process of visibilization is intended to have an effect
>> not only on the general public, but also on the local government.
>> It is a dialog initiated by a concerned party; a dialog in which
>> the ones that are directly affected by a problem present their
>> points of view by telling exactly where the problem is and how it
>> could be solved. Then, as in every dialog, they expect an answer
>> from their fellow citizens (people on wheelchairs, for example,
>> took pictures of cars parked on the sidewalks that blocked their
>> way... they hoped that their fellow citizens would stop doing that
>> after seeing the pictures) and the government (again, in the case
>> of the disabled people, a map with all the obstacles was printed
>> out and handed to local authorities, hoping that they would act
>> and adapt the public infrastructures)
>>
>> The key here is dialog. Each part has to hold its ground. The
>> dialog should develop on a ground that is as neutral as possible.
>> Of course, total neutrality is an abstract and nonexistent
>> concept, but at least we can think of a place that is not directly
>> owned by any of the parts engaged in conversation. I believe it is
>> wrong (a populist measure, as you put it) for governments to try
>> to appropriate these modes of dialog by putting forward "web 2.0-
>> like" tools to communicate with the citizens. By this, they would
>> bring the conversation to their own headquarters, restricting the
>> relative liberty that citizens may feel when speaking on a more
>> neutral ground, and rendering dialog ineffective. In order to
>> bring forward social change, a certain degree of antagonism (and
>> hence, independence) is needed.
>>
>> So, for me, the central question is not necessary surveillance
>> (although it is also important) but independence. I think that
>> communities engaged in digital communicative practices should
>> reclaim and protect their independence from local governments.
>> Keeping the discussion out of "The House" is the only way that
>> demands and compromises can hold some credibility.
>>
>> Best,
>> Eugenio.
>>
>>> Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 15:29:26 -0400
>>> From: Eric Gordon <eric_gordon at emerson.edu>
>>> Subject: [iDC] city as social network
>>> To: iDC at mailman.thing.net
>>> Message-ID: <EA7AA5D6-B460-4F97-8BBB-11A88DE3BA9A at emerson.edu>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>>>
>>> Hi everyone. My name is Eric Gordon – I’ve been watching this list
>>> for some time but I’ve made only a few contributions. Perhaps as a
>>> means of forcing my involvement, Trebor has asked me to moderate a
>>> discussion on the topic that has lately occupied most of my time –
>>> place-based social media and its implications for privacy, public
>>> space, and democratic engagement. Following the recent conversation
>>> about Feedburner, I want to consider how that discussion might
>>> extend
>>> to physical communities (neighborhood, organization, city) that are
>>> enabled/bolstered/fortified by social web media. Many community
>>> groups and neighborhood organizations are using digital networking
>>> technologies to foster community interaction (http://
>>> www.ibrattleboro.com/). And of course, what is widely known as
>>> citizen journalism plays into this as well – placebloggers (http://
>>> placebloggers.com) and Community Media organizations tend towards
>>> hyperlocal networked content (http://www.cctvcambridge.org/) with an
>>> aim towards reinforcing existing geographical connections. The
>>> processes that bind non-geographical communities in networks are
>>> similar to those that are binding geographical communities – shared
>>> interests, practices, goals, etc. However, unlike traditional
>>> online communities that have a basis in anonymity, digitally
>>> annotated physical communities often rely on the full disclosure of
>>> identity for their functionality. For instance, when it comes to
>>> neighborhood issues – it is important to know one’s real name and
>>> location.
>>>
>>> And as city governments are seeking ways to adopt “web 2.0”
>>> technologies into their existing “citizen management” projects, the
>>> lack of anonymity and the simple traceability of social actions open
>>> up new concerns. Social media tools have the capacity to
>>> significantly expand participation in local governance, but they
>>> also
>>> have the capacity to trace citizen behavior and map social trends.
>>> Cities are interested in this technology for the same reason that
>>> corporations are – it offers valuable user data. Politicians can
>>> survey the concerns of their constituency; agencies can identify
>>> problems in neighborhoods; and law enforcement…well, there are many
>>> scenarios possible. It can also be turned around: citizens can have
>>> greater access to their politicians, and government proceedings can
>>> at least have the impression of transparency.
>>>
>>> While the conversations on this list have devoted considerable time
>>> to corporate surveillance, the question not often asked in this
>>> context is what should be made of local surveillance – from the
>>> people in one’s neighborhood to city governments? In the wake of
>>> connectivity, discourse and collaboration, there is always
>>> documentation, processing and interpretation. From neighborhood
>>> chatrooms to local annotated mapping projects to virtual town hall
>>> meetings, participation equals surveillance – for better or for
>>> worse.
>>>
>>> When I consider a digital future in which I want to live – it
>>> includes networked access to my neighborhood services, communities,
>>> city government and public spaces. However, there is little
>>> possibility for that to take place outside of the proliferation of
>>> data that would make communities vulnerable to excessive internal
>>> and
>>> external management. And as citywide wifi and mobile web devices
>>> proliferate, the outlets for that recycled data expand. At the same
>>> time, American cities, like corporations, are glomming onto digital
>>> media because of its populist resonances. They are paying attention
>>> to online neighborhoods and seeking to aggregate that data into
>>> meaningful information. The ideology of digital media – as
>>> evidenced
>>> in the phrases “participatory media” and “user-generated content” –
>>> is accessibility. Digital media directly aligns the rhetoric of
>>> progress with the rhetoric of populism. Social web media makes
>>> explicit what has only been implied in the recent rhetoric of city
>>> governments – that anyone, regardless of social position, can
>>> participate in the ordering of city experience and politics.
>>>
>>> From cities to towns to neighborhoods, the populist promise of
>>> social web media is transforming the nature of public space and
>>> civic
>>> participation. I am referring only to the American context, because
>>> that’s what I know, but it would be great to engage in comparative
>>> dialogue in order to better understand the scope of how these
>>> technologies are being implemented in official or unofficial
>>> capacities to change perceptions of cities and city life, not to
>>> mention public space and community engagement.
>>> I suppose I’ll leave it at that for now. I look forward to the
>>> conversation.
>>> Eric
>>>
>>>
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> bambozzi at gmail.com
> diphusa at comum.com
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