Panel: Politics in the Internet age (II) Arnau Monterde (chair), Marta G. Franco (Acampada Sol participant), Javier Toret (Democracia Real Ya Barcelona participant), Mayo Fuster (Berkman center for Internet & Society)
Arnau Monterde
The different movements that have been born on the Internet (especially) during 2011 have many things in common, and not only about the form, but also in what are their goals, their purposes, the reasons and causes behind their protests, etc.
On the other hand, forms also matter. There is, beyond the organization of the protests, a sort of metaorganization linking and binding together the sprawl of local movements at a global level, thus contributing in the emergence of a global movement and its organization.
The globalization of the movement, or the collectivization of the movement, have also meant that despair due to lack of a clear horizon has turned out into hope due to the openness of the movement itself.
Javier Toret
Technopolitics and the 15M: flow, power, hack, translate, sensibility.
Nowadays, communication and organization are increasingly tied together: most communications actually invite people to engage in a specific action, and do not only give a piece of information or news to a passive receiver.
Our literacies are determined by new technologies that require new literacies. Indeed, these new literacies determine our habits, the way we interact, the way we consume… the way we live.
In this framework, how were the 15m protests in Spain organized?
In February 2011, a group of people meets on Face book and creates a platform to coordinate their actions and to call the citizenry to action. The reaction of people fed back the project and, in many senses, helped in defining what was acceptable in a society and what was bearable (or unbearable, as a matter of fact). The definition of what was unbearable became the actual message to spread and driver for further mobilizations.
Especially, the first big success was building a communicative ball that succeeded in going through the communication wall of mass media.
The movement took the plazas partly because there was an actual list of social demands, but more importantly because it succeeded in creating a collective frame of mind about specific issues and its broad context.
There was a collective building of a Twitter strategy, where many different Twitter users swarmed together to globally broadcast a few, direct, clear messages and a huge debate around them. The openness and simplicity of the process (Twitter + camp) helped the movement to be replicated all around the world. And the fact that most information could be geolocalized also contributed in making the different local initiatives be part of a global movement.
An interesting outcome of the movements has been the reflection about the process of organization and the proliferation of free software tools to empower and boost the optimization of such processes and its cheap and fast replication.
Marta G. Franco
Acampada Sol started as a way to reflect together and settle things down after the demonstration of 15m. The idea behind the acampada was not to stay or not, but to stay together and try to overcome everyone’s fears.
This sense of collective spreads beyond the geographical bounds of the acampadas, as they begin to link and talk one to another one, share fears, ideas, doubts, feelings.
The challenge was how to have a single voice without centralizing the thousand of voices of the movement. That became particularly evident when it came to registering the Internet domain(s) where to publish a website. In the end, there were as many domains/pages as camps or initiatives that joined the movement implicitly.
Another challenge was how to put together the online and offline worlds, each one with their one procedures and processes and ways of acting. A certain degree of success came whenever it was possible to take the best of both worlds, but that was not always an easy thing to do.
In general, mass media missed the way the Indignants were organized, what they were claiming, etc. In fact, most of them ended up taking Acampada Sol (the Madrid Camp of the Indignants) as their unique source of news and information, thus forgetting that Acampada Sol did not represent anyone (any other acampada) but themselves. On the other hand, though, many journalists would be more confident reporting from the sources of user generated media rather than form “official” communicates, even citing verbatim non-official declaration by particular individuals taking part in the protests. Twitter was used to hack the mass media system.
Alternative tools, like the social networking site N-1, were used to stand free from the potential control of third parties, in a sort of techno-political strategies of activism.
Mayo Fuster
Most of social movements are thought as ways to challenge the political agenda and the conventional political organization. Another dimension is challenging the established productive model and the cultural codes.
Besides the usual ways to manage the resources by either the State or the market, a third way is a model of management and provision of resources by the civil society: the commons.
The origin of the new digital commons can be tracked back until the 1950s with the hacker culture and the hippy contraculture, the free software ideology and communities, the Creative Commons, etc. The logic of the commons is opposite to the corporate logic, the former one based on openness, freedom and autonomy. In this sense, the system becomes an open one with a governance that enables participation. The conflict between both logics is the reason behind the free culture (and knowledge) movement.
If we link the 15M movement with the free culture movement, it is easy to find out that beyond the specific demands, there is a very important — arguably the most important one — goal that aims at changing the productive model, and it is a goal that goes implicit in the way the protests and the organization if performed: freely, openly, heavily relying on the idea of the public commons.
Some examples of these are Lawrence Lessig’s move from Creative Commons to Change Congress, or, in the case of Spain, the move from the campaign against the “Ley Sinde” to the “No les votes” campaign. In both cases, especially the latter, the free culture movement merges itself with the Indignants movement. There is somewhat the acknowledgement that there will be no “free culture” unless the whole system is transformed, thus why the change of target from culture itself (the “what”) to the political institutions (the “why”).
It is important to note that this change of the system is non-partisan, and being non-partisan is an explicit tactic so that the movement can be comprehensive and inclusive.
Discussion
Òscar Mateos: in a certain way, the 15M movements have witnessed the coexistence of the traditional civic movements with a more post-modern ones. How has this happened or been made possible? Toret: Democracia Real Ya was more a platform than an institution, and this implied that as there was no central message to be imposed over the members, anyone felt free to contribute with their own voice, either at the individual level or organized in traditional movements. Notwithstanding, there have been clashes between a more chaotic or networked way of working and the vertical and traditional ways to organize civil movements. Franco: the crisis of media and political parties — and their dependence from ideological and economic lobbies — definitely helped the movement to be something plural, a window open to fresh and unfiltered information, which was something that every citizen, despite their origin (traditional or post-modern) was in very much need of.
Gala Pin: how can the digital divide be overcome so that no people is left behind? Toret: the digital divide is addressed on a peer-to-peer basis. Many workshops and training sessions are being organized so that everyone catches up with the state-of-the art skills and technologies.
Q: how was the offline linked with he online? Toret: there was continuous feedback between both worlds. Many documents were printed or distributed in many analogue ways, but also some creations in paper or in speech were digitized (photos, footage, etc.) and spread through social networking sites.
Gala Pin: how can we focus, how can be optimize the energies poured into the movement so that they are more efficient (how can be participation optimized)? Franco: there is an ongoing challenge on how to be able to map, link and somehow organize the zillion platforms where the conversation takes place. Castells: maybe a solution could be to get in touch with research centres that are specialized in just that, so that synergies can be built between activists and people willing to do research on activism.
The IN3 has made up this year a research seminar called Communication and Civil Society to debate around the new role of communications in politics, especially when the tools to broadcast a message have become of personal use.
In this framework or communication revolution also come political revolutions like the Arab Spring, the Spanish Indignants Movement (or 15M movement) and the Occupy Wall Street Movement. To analyse these movements we need not only to approach them from the ivory tower, but from the inside, with an activist and participatory approach.
The goal of the seminar is, thus, to find out what the social impact is of this crossroads between communication and politics.
Politics is the exercise of power to accomplish common goals within the established institutions; while social movements aim at changing values of the society, at transforming people’s minds. And the problem comes when common goals and social values are disconnected. Then comes revolution, which is the occupation of the institutions by non-established means to impose the new values and transform or rewrite the rules according to them.
We live in specific communication frameworks, with which we communicate with our peers, build communities… and build our own minds in the process. It is not exactly that technology determines the way we are, but it certainly has a major role on how we build our societies. When the communication framework changes, society changes: we are shifting towards communicative autonomy, that leads towards social autonomy.
When there is oppression, there is resistance. Thus, the new communication tools that provide autonomy have had two consequences: on the one hand, the explosion of resistance; on the other hand, the attempt to control such tools to avoid resistance.
The Tunisian Revolution is a clear case of this increase of resistance to impose, through social activism, the change of a system. In Tunisia, the feeling of humiliation is worst than exploitation, as it is portrayed by the immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi.
Fear is one of the strongest feelings and one of the main barriers for revolutions. Fear is a mechanism of survival of the species. Fear paralyses and stops us from self-destruction. But once fear is overridden, the sense of community provides a feeling of security and then comes enthusiasm. That is what happens after the Tunisian Revolution, that spreads enthusiastically to Egypt, and then to Spain.
But what is the spark that helps overriding fear? In the Tunisian case that is Internet. The first call for a revolution in Egypt comes through the Internet in January 25th, 2011, when Asmaa Mahfouz posted a video of her calling out for a protest.
After that, movements like the April 6 Youth Movement join the call and activate their networks to raise the population up. And the activation is very fast because of the flat structures of the networks.
When the government tries to stop the revolution by cutting down communications, the international community comes to the rescue with several solutions. This international community is partly made up by for-profit firms (e.g. Google, Twitter, Facebook) that are interested in the success of the movement: they are in the business of selling freedom and, thus, that is their business, to provide freedom to communicate. As Lotan, Graeff, Ananny, Gaffney, Pearce and boyd demonstrated, The revolutions were tweeted.
Indeed, the total blackout of communications is nearly impossible. If the international community of hackers — like Anonymous and Telecomix in Egypt — is committed to restablishing a way of being connected, a government can make it more difficult, but not impossible.
When there is communication, a movement is strong. When communication fails, the movement gets waek and normally ends up violently, as it is the ultimate lasting resource.
Main characteristics of these movements
Instantly generated, sparked by indignation.
Multimodal, images impacting people thanks to distributed by networks.
Horizontal, and based on trust.
Disintermediation of the formal political representation.
Viral, expansive.
Have no centre, they cannot be controlled, they reconfigure their architectures all the time.
Both local and global.
Self reflective, on a continuous process of deliberation.
Both online and offline.
Leaderless, with no strong affinities.
Do not aim at political projects, but at specific goals.
Deeply transforming, deeply political, without being programmatic.
Express feelings, generate debates, but do not support political parties or governments.
Aim at rebuilding democracy, more base on direct and/or deliberative democracy. They generate utopias not as unreachable things, but as drivers of change.
Joana Conill, Amalia Cardenas
After all these revolutions, especially in Spain, what has been achieved?
It is important to note that not all achievements necessarily mean taking the (political) power.
On the one hand, a huge achievement has been transforming the processes. The processes to share information and opinion, or the process of deliberation. Within these processes, some achievements have been the acknowledgement that being wrong can be right, or that errors can be discussed and their solutions be fed back onto the deliberation process.
Meetings are facilitated so that everyone can speak despite of their gender, status, shyness. And conflict resolution mechanisms are put into practice so that participation does not only come smoothly, but conflicts are solved and actually provide good input into what is being discussed.
Feelings are put into the equation. There is a shift from the I think towards the I feel, including I believe, I guess, in my opinion, from my point of view, etc.
The ultimate goal is more and better participation.
And it is not only about more and better participation of people, about not excluding people from the process, but also about not excluding some values from the process.
The relationships amongst people determine the quality of the interchange, of the communication. If communication determines society and politics, it is crucial that we care about the quality of personal relationships.
Discussion
Q: Why people do not have (enough) fear in Spain? Why do all people agree with the Indignants but so few people participate? Why is there so much resignation? Castells: there is fear, and a lot of it: there is fear of losing one’s job or fear of breaking the rules or fear of being hit by the police. All these fears are stopping many people from participating. Nowadays, institutions are not sustained by legitimacy, but by resignation.
On 31 May 2011 I am presenting at the I Encuentro CIDER (I Conference on Digital Citizenship and Human Rights). My speech, The Network Society: rights, policies and the exercise of democracy has three parts:
First of all, it goes back to the neolithic revolution and then to the industrial revolution to reflect on how things used to be before the digital revolution. Then, it briefly aims at showing how the exercise of democracy has been (potentially) turned upside down as democratic institutions see their roles totally transformed. This is essentially the same discourse (though adapted to governments and democracies) I explained in From teaching institutions to learning people, the reason being that I believe there is a common approach when dealing about education, governments or even businesses (e.g. the recording industry) that focus on institutions, their role, their added value, and how digital technologies help citizens to circumvent them.
After the potential benefits of “democracy 2.0”, the second part focuses on the barriers and, even more important, the threats, especially those related with (ironically) forgetting about “democracy 1.0”. In this sense, I will stress the point that democracy is time-consuming activity and that those with time and training (and technological mastership) can benefit and even corrupt democratic institutions (even unwillinglly). This is the point I brought in The disempowering Goverati: e-Aristocrats or the Delusion of e-Democracy.
Last, I am using the “power = governance + empowerment” model also developed in the previous article to analyse the Egypt and Spanish revolts during the spring of 2011.
I am taking part in a round table on “Active Citizenship” the 11 May 2011 at 17:45 with Susan Moeller (University of Maryland), Manuel Pinto (Universidade do Minho), Vladimir Gai (UNESCO) and chaired by Laura Cervi.
My presentation will heavily rely on my recently published work The disempowering Goverati: e-Aristocrats or the Delusion of e-Democracy and will showcase the revolutions in Tunisia and, especially, Egypt, were (in my opinion) a small elite of goverati successfully managed to (1) leverage the power of social networking sites to coordinate and mobilize their peers and (2) used social media to reach mainstream international mass media to speak out with images and video what was happening on the streets, thus also reaching international decision-takers, like the US Secretary of State.
What once has been put on the Web, it is never again forgotten: people is losing jobs, being banned from entering countries, etc. for having put content online that has afterwards been found by third parties, and these third parties judged the content and acted in consequence. Even if the content was long out-dated, even if the content had been removed, even if the content was addressed to other people than the ones that finally accessed it.
For ages, the problem was remembering and the norm was forgetting. Many activities had precisely remembering as their goal: language, storytelling, painting, etc. And neither the book or the phone made a change by making remembering less hard or less time consuming.
But digital technologies have.
And many institutions backed their power on the capability to remember: through scribes, the printing press, the panopticon, etc.
And it is not only about power, but about time, decision and how some decisions were made at a specific time. Seen from a distance, a decision made long ago might not be easy to understand in present time. Not being able to forget, we lose the ability to generalize and look instead at the detail (taken from Borges). We might them turn from an unforgetting to an unforgiving society.
What can be done?
Privacy rights. We can empower citizens to manage their own privacy. But what we find is that people do not care.
Information ecology. We can just use/store the necessary amount of information strictly needed to perform a task. But the problem is that we cannot foresee the future and know exactly what we will be needing or not.
Digital abstinence. That is, not sharing anything on Facebook, etc. But is that realistic?
Full contextualization. Instead of abstinence, we should put all the information we have so that a reliable context can be built around any piece of information given. It is proposal of a full transparent society, but is it feasible? is it affordable in matters of time?
Cognitive adjustment. Adjust our society, our individual processing of how we evaluate information. But history tells that forcing the human being to change just won’t work, brain rewiring is not something than can be easily done. And, indeed, what would be the appropriate mechanism to do so?
Privacy DRM. Instead of changing humans, changing technology. To ensure that only those that we have given permission to see our content can actually access it. But, then, we have to build a surveillance system that watches our moves and watches that these (registered) moves are not used for wrong purposes. That is a little bit of a contradiction.
Why not reintroducing forgetting?
Expiration date of information. Once the date expires, the content disappears. This would be the digital equivalent of oral communication. It would also link content to a specific time, keeping the sense of context with it.
The Digital Shoebox in the Attic. A way of keeping content alive, but dormant. It has to be explicitly retrieved, thus avoiding serendipity.
Forgetting should be the default, not remembering.
Discussion
Q: Who defines what we have to forget? A: This is a difficult question. For instance, in a transaction, who sets the expiration date? the customer or the seller? But sometimes there might be benefits in this. e.g. Amazon knows all the books I bought in the last 10 years, but does not know what interests me now: Amazon would be happy to know, and I would have an incentive on updating that information (by setting expiration dates) so that Amazon could do better suggestions to me.
Sandra González-Bailon: wouldn’t it be better to forgive and not to forget? A: That would be nice, but it seems that, psychologically, forgiving and forgetting are very related. Forgiving is thinking that something of the past is not relevant any more. But recalling it again and again makes forgiveness more difficult.
Q: wouldn’t full transparency help in levelling information (i.e. power) imbalances in the world? A: It might work in some cases, but not all cases are about overcoming power imbalances: there are many many personal cases were full transparency would be harmful and not a matter of power.
Mike Jensen: making politicians accountable requires an active memory. We want protective forgetting, but don’t we want some protective remembering for some individuals? A: This is not about an ignorant society that does not remember anything. In ancient times, when remembering was expensive, people remembered what was valuable. So let’s try to shift the default from remembering to forgetting, make remembering the exception, and concentrate in remembering what is worth.
Q: isn’t putting an expiration date an active act of remembering (and not forgetting)? wouldn’t be recalling that something is about to expire recalling the fact itself and then remembering it again (and again)? A: It seems that humans cannot only automatically forget, but also actively forget. So, if I wish to actively forget something, the recalling won’t be activated by the expiration date.
Q: Wouldn’t be negotiation costs of agreeing in an expiration date very high? A: Technology can help in this, and enable information capturing devices with software that talks to other devices (e.g. my e-ID card, with several levels of recording permission) and acknowledges a specific expiration date.
Political Economy of the Network Neutrality in the European Union Meelis Kitsing, Department of Political Science, National Center for Digital Government, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Network neutrality: access providers should not charge higher prices for priority delivery, elimination of price discrimination and traffic prioritization, no denial of access to specific services or applications, etc.
In Europe both content providers and network operators supported the final version of the EU telecom packages, while normally (e.g. in the US) they have opposite visions. The reason may be that they provide complementary groups, so regulations on one party might end up impacting the other party. Of course this may be context-dependent and valid only where functional separation prevails. In any case, it is more like a coordination game, like the battle of the sexes game.
But the debate is scarce and narrowed to technical issues, leaving aside ideology.
On the other hand, even if there is an agreement at the European level, regulations have to be transposed at the national level.
Estonia is a small but critical case in pioneering ICT-related legislation, maybe because of the importance of Skype at the international level.
The information society perspective is terrific (more access to more content in less time, etc.), as terrific as terrible is the perspective over sustainable development: the ecological footprint has surpassed the biocapacity of our planet and now we are incurring into an ecological debt (WWW (2008). Living planet report, p.22), though there are several policies that could reduce this ecological debt (íbid. p.23).
Impacts of Internet and ICTs on sustainable development: first order effects (direct), second order effects (indirect) and third order effects (systemic). And some uncertainties: what technological designs and standards to connect everything and minimize environmental impacts, policies to convert first and second order effects into systemic transformation, governance principles, how to connect the Internet and ICTs to sustainable development, etc.
A project identified 10 critical Internet policy uncertainties and explored the impact on sustainable development of policy choices based on government-led, market-led, security-driven, and community-based governance scenarios.
Some recommendations are to consolidate the existing research on relationship of the Internet with sustainable development, survey research on the web 1.0 relationship between second and third order effects (individual behaviour, attitudes, values, economic structures, social structures, government structures).
Canada’s internet policy: Is ‘inclusiveness’ road-kill on the information highway Mary C. Milliken, University of New Brunswick
Many people do not participate because (a) they have no access but especially (b) they are not included in the design of the participation processes.
In Canada, civil society organizations were excluded from telecommunication policy, though they had been included and active in media policy.
Governments have a very business-oriented approach when regulating telecommunications and broadcast media, and the people have been left aside.
The CBC began using the Internet in order to be really universal, though they didn’t had specific resources to do so. After a restructure, the CBC labels itself as a content provider, and a provider of content that has to be possible to broadcast in any channel or platform.
But the Internet has no attached requirement to be a public service, and be regulated as such. If the Internet had been understood as a broadcasting media, it could have been regulated as other platforms and have attached this public service requirement/criteria.
Policy-making for digital development: the role of the government Ismael Peña-López, Open University of Catalonia
