[liberationtech] Cyber-sceptics wanted!

Thu Mar 3 13:04:21 PST 2011

HI all,

Nice to see that this discussion is so susceptible for repetition :);
but much nicer to see some of you I met in Stanford last week are here
too.

Shortly; I am based in Oxford; work at an institute that is
specialised in internet studies; focus in my research on activists in
the arab world using the internet [where in other words 'strong ties'
is not about life-style but refer to a basic necessity in order to
deal with the risky conditions, i.e. where engagement can mean being
shot in the head at an israeli checkpoint or picked up by the
mokhabarat in north Lebanon and where these conditions render the role
of the internet in a somewhat different way...]; I am in town that
week and I think bus 1 and 5 from Cowley road to city centre is less
then 2 £ so in terms of travel costs its doable ;-).

Salaams
Miriyam

Ps. if you really want to have a discussion that goes beyond the
tiring utopian-dystopian one its worthwhile to consider actually
inviting someone that can represent an ethnographic case/angle that is
not dominant in hegemonic media and academia and perhaps even actively
avoided; or like someone pointed out during our round table last week:
why is it that all eyes were first on Iran and now on MENA and not say
Sri Lanka, surely not only because there is conflict? Im sure we all
have different answers but adding this will at least at once
problematise the useless dichotomy and make the discussion more
interesting/deeper...

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Joshua Cohen <jcohen57 at stanford.edu> wrote:
> the best idea I have heard is to invite some comparativists who know some
> places in depth. that is how the discussion will start to shift in a more
> constructive direction.
> Josh
>
> On Mar 3, 2011, at 8:30 AM, Rebecca MacKinnon wrote:
>
> In that case, and since you're looking for people in the UK, another
> excellent person is Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute.
> http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=117
> Best,
> Rebecca
> On Mar 3, 2011, at 10:55 AM, Brie Rogers Lowery wrote:
>
> Thanks to all for the engaging and varying responses and views on this topic
> - it's certainly been insightful and has not only provided some further
> contacts but also a great framework for us to work into the debate.
>
> Perhaps I should have been clearer as to the reasons for this 'debate' (for
> want of a better word) - it was not, as some have queried, meant to pitch
> the for's/against's at each other.
> My colleagues and I certainly agree on the principle mentioned by many on
> here and summarised by Graham who said: "...the discussion about technology
> and democracy, liberalization, regime change, etc., has gotten to a point
> where we no longer need to argue at the extremes and we can get to the
> difficult but important task of understanding what role technology plays in
> politics."
>
> The rationale for this 'debate' was rather to provide a platform to open
> these discussions that we have all been having online in lists and forums
> similar to this one, out into the wider public and particularly to
> journalists outside of lists/blogs so as to come to that analysis of the
> role of technology in both political and social change.
>
> Much of the 'mass-media' coverage on this issue has been centered around
> vocals such as Gladwell who (as Jill said) has perhaps more clout given his
> platform than verifiable on his content. We're hoping (perhaps a little
> idealistically!) that organising this forum will help to educate/inform
> journalists particularly in the UK on the nuances and analysis necessary in
> these sweeping statements of 'twitter revolutions' or 'facebook victories'
> but also to highlight the role that internet tools have to play in
> advocating for political change.
>
> I'll let you know how that goes and if we manage to arrange webcast
> facilities for those interested in watching it.
>
> Thanks for your lively discussion and input,
> All the best,
> Brie
>
>
> --
> Brie Rogers Lowery
> Freelance eCampaigner
> FairSay - Making Campaigning Count
> +44 (0)7940 540021
> www.FairSay.com
> www.breezythinking.com
> twitter: brie_rl
>
> On 3 March 2011 11:34, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Since others are quoting from their blogs perhaps I'll quote from mine...
>>
>> "There are current disputes within the blogisariat about the role and
>> significance of social media and other technologies in animating, enabling,
>> and empowering the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.  This discussion, which
>> moves back and forth between techno-philes and techno-skeptics,
>> techno-optimists and techno-pessimists is however, mainly of interest to
>> those who are interested, that is the blogisariat and their followers.
>>
>> It may be more useful however, to look forward rather than back; to
>> identify what, from the experience of these revolutions and interwoven as
>> they were (to a greater or lesser degree) by social media and information
>> technology, might be of value as these countries go forward.  What have they
>> learned from their recent experiences that can be applied as they respond to
>> the very real social and economic issues—youth and adult unemployment, poor
>> quality and limited access to public services, rising food costs, lack of
>> opportunities for democratic participation—which ultimately provided the
>> motivation for the masses whose commitment to the movement ensured its
>> success."
>>
>> I go on to attempt a first order response to my rhetorical question at
>> http://wp.me/pJQl5-5P and somewhat earlier specifically on Tunisia
>> http://wp.me/pJQl5-4o and in a somewhat parallel discussion to talk about
>> the effects of the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia on social media
>> http://wp.me/pJQl5-5I . (My apologies as I know that this will be a
>> duplication for some of you.)
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> M
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: liberationtech-bounces at lists.stanford.edu
>> [mailto:liberationtech-bounces at lists.stanford.edu] On Behalf Of Giuseppe A.
>> Veltri
>> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 7:44 AM
>> To: Yosem Companys
>> Cc: Liberation Technologies
>> Subject: R e: [liberationtech] Cyber-sceptics wanted!
>>
>> Very nice and informative discussion, thank you.
>>
>> As an observer not directly involved this field of research, I would say
>> that there is some evidence to sustain that weak ties are important. In the
>> so in cial psychology literature, it refers to the  so-called  process of
>> ''silent conversion'' . The paradigm of minority influence (Moscovici, 1976;
>> Maass and Clark, 1984; Mugny and Perez, 1991) demonstrates how established
>> norms change under dissent and introduces the distinction between active and
>> passive deviance. Consistent active minorities inform the majority and lead
>> them to reconsider their take on the world. Organized minorities influence
>> by inducing a latent conversion among the majority but miss out on the
>> credit for achieving this: the ‘sleeper effect’ ensures that we remember the
>> message but not its source. This all suggests two different processes of
>> social influence: majorities achieve conformity in public, while dissent
>> might continue in private; minorities make us rethink privately, while we
>> still conform publicly, but maybe only for a while. Minorities induce a
>> rethink about the world (informational processes), while majorities make us
>> consider others (normative processes).
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> Giuseppe
>>
>> Ref.
>>
>> Moscovici, S. (1976) Social Influence and Social Change. London: Academic
>> Press.
>>
>> Mugny, G. and Perez, J. A. (1991) The Social Psychology of Minority
>> Influence. Cambridge: CUP.
>>
>> -----------------------------------------
>> Giuseppe A. Veltri
>> personal email ga.veltri at gmail.com
>> work email Giuseppe.Veltri at ec.europa.eu
>> web http://www.giuseppeveltri.it/
>>
>>
>> On 3 March 2011 00:14, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Pranesh,
>>> My answers below.
>>>
>>>> Weak ties might act as fuel for movements, but they don't ignite them.
>>>>  A core set of strong ties (whether offline or online, whether they knew
>>>> each other from earlier or got to know each other well as part of the
>>>> movement) is required.
>>>
>>> In the absence of empirical evidence, we can't say this categorically.
>>>  Where's the data?  It's a good hypothesis though, and I agree with it, as
>>> my quotes from McAdam/Diani's work suggested.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I agree that weak ties are important.  (And disagree to the extent that
>>>> weak ties can get converted to strong ties: so Dean & Clark might have
>>>> started out as weak ties, but that subsequently changed (even before meeting
>>>> each other IRL).)
>>>
>>> How weak ties become strong ties, and vice versa, is rarely studied
>>> empirically in movements & revolutions because it's so difficult to collect
>>> good data on the phenomenon.  Longitudinal net analysts such as Powell,
>>> Strang, Tuma, Aral, Wasserman, Faust, Carley, etc. use event history
>>> analysis & hazard models to try to get at this.
>>> Some of the best work I've seen examines dynamic tie formation & change
>>> qualitatively.  For example, I wrote a working paper a few years back
>>> showing how weak ties became strong ties in 9/11.  The firm in question lost
>>> 90% of its staff, and so it called on its former employees (then weak ties,
>>> but previously stronger ties when they worked as employees) to come back and
>>> work for it; hence, strong -> weak -> strong again.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>  In fact, in a message on the Gladwell thread on this mailing list last
>>>> year I'd written:
>>>>
>>>>> 2. Even traditional political advocacy can actually be based on weak
>>>>> ties.
>>>
>>> Most, if not all, successful political advocacy requires weak ties.  All
>>> social network analyses I've seen support Granovetter's original contention
>>> that information diffusion is not possible in the absence of weak ties.
>>>  Granovetter showed this was true in the context of finding jobs.  But
>>> scholars of movements & revolutions have found this to be the case there,
>>> and so have organization scholars in all sorts of organizations.  It's a
>>> pretty robust social and political finding.
>>> This is the problem with Gladwell's argument.  He claims categorically
>>> that offline (or as you say, IRL) movements use strong ties while online
>>> movements use weak ties.  This is just patently false based on the
>>> sociological and political data.
>>> Any movement based solely on strong ties -- whether online or offline --
>>> will not be a movement at all.  It will be a densely, interconnected, closed
>>> group that speaks to no other networks, like a family.  As Burt suggested,
>>> you need weak ties to serve as brokers to new knowledge.  Information
>>> diffusion a la contagion and epidemics not possible without weak ties.
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>       Thus social
>>>>> media-based advocacy can help convert some of those with only weak ties
>>>>> into those with stronger ties.  This is thus a case of one
>>>>> complementing
>>>>> the other.  Thus, I agree with Mary that this distinction is one of
>>>>> degree and of tendency, rather than absolute.
>>>
>>> Without empirical evidence, I don't see how we can categorically say
>>> anything about the relationship between social media advocacy and tie
>>> formation & change.  We can speculate on it, but we don't have any grounded
>>> evidence to advance an argument.  But empirical research on
>>> movements/revolutions does show organizing requires strong ties, but
>>> marketing/advertising/PR -- the basis of movement growth -- requires weak
>>> ties.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> In an offlist mail to Jillian I'd written:
>>>> It seems to me we are both in agreement in terms of his argument and its
>>>> weaknesses.  But while I conclude that for the most part I agree (focussing
>>>> on its strengths), you conclude that for the most part you disagree
>>>> (focusing on its weaknesses).
>>>
>>> I agree with the comments on the Twitter list @Liberationtech, where I
>>> believe Jillian also participated in a discussion about how we need more
>>> exchange between non academic media observers and academics.  Academics have
>>> grounded evidence to share with non academics to produce fascinating
>>> practitioner books like Gladwell's The Tipping Point.  Non academics often
>>> come up with new ideas, but have to be careful not to present them as
>>> empirical evidence.  These are simply propositions or working hypotheses
>>> that academics should explore further.
>>> I think it's dangerous to make non grounded arguments about social media
>>> in the context of movements/revolutions, especially since high-risk activism
>>> employing such advice could cost lives.
>>> Best, Yosem
>>>
>>>>
>>>> - Pranesh
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Pranesh Prakash
>>>> Programme Manager
>>>> Centre for Internet and Society
>>>> W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283
>>>>
>>>
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>>
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>
>
>
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-- 
Oxford Internet Institute
miriyam.aouragh at oii.ox.ac.uk

"Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the
world." ...Howard Zinn 1922-2010