[liberationtech] Self-determined publics

[Michael Allan]

Thanks all, for the helpful pointers.  I read each of the suggested
texts, at least in part.  Here's a summary: Heather Marsh (Concentric
groups, knowledge bridges and epistemic communities); Chris Kelty (Two
bits, recursive publics); Anthony Cohen (Symbolic construction of
community); Sebastian Benthall (Weird Twitter); and Michael Warner
(Publics and counterpublics).

I posted a broader definition of "self-determined publics" to Air-L,
one that allows formal boundary criteria (styles of communication,
media, etc.) in addition to topical criteria.  As Jack Harris notes,
this broader definition would cover the Occupy movement (OccupySandy):
http://listserv.aoir.org/pipermail/air-l-aoir.org/2013-July/028326.html

Which got me thinking it would also cover the community of a mailing
list, or of Twitter, and that this would be inconsistent.  I think we
can speak correctly of a self-determined public *on the topic* of
Weird Twitter, but not *in the form* of weird, or *in the form* of
Twitter.  Restricting the public to a given form necessarily restricts
access, which makes it less of a public.  The weird form in particular
seems more appropriate to the definition of a counterpublic (Warner).
And Twitter is an external authority, something to which no self-
-determined public may be bound.  So I think I was wrong here and I
shouldn't have introduced formal boundaries; publics are better
identified by topical criteria.

I constructed a prototype of a "boundary proclamation", or what I call
in this case a "public mirror".  Here's the front of the mirror where
the public's image is reflected: http://www.reddit.com/r/MirMir/new/
The topic there is "mirroring and the self-determination of publics";
I'm thinking it might be possible to bootstrap one of these things.

Mike


> Folks,
> 
> Below I define what I call "self-determined publics".  Has anything
> similar been attempted before?
> 
>    A self-determined public is an open, topical community that
>    proclaims the definitive bounds of its own communications.  The
>    proclamation takes the form of a timely sequence of references
>    (e.g. web links) each pointing to a communication of the public,
>    such that all references together define the total of that public's
>    communications in time and space.  For example:
> 
>        Ago     Place      Title              (click to visit thread)
>       -------  ---------  ------------------------------------------
>       17 min   r/Foo      How do we attach the doohickey?
>        5 hr    Foo-L      The problem with so and so's proposal.
>        1 day   FuBarz     Who are these Foos, anyway?
>        1 day   r/Foo      This, that, and the next thing.
>        2 days  FooStack   What's the best thingamy for such and such?
>               . . . and so on
> 
>    The boundary proclamation is similar in form to a conventional news
>    feed.  It concerns a specific topic or category.  Differences are
>    in a) the exclusion of mass communications, b) the claim to
>    totality, and c) the self-determination that redeems that claim.
>    (a) A principle criterion for inclusion is that one may immediately
>    join any of the referenced communications as a peer.  One-way, mass
>    communications are excluded.
> 
>    (b) The boundary proclamation claims to cover the entire public
>    discussion of the topic across all communication media and sites.
>    It claims to be the most complete, accurate and timely overview of
>    the extended discussion that is available anywhere.
> 
>    (c) This claim is redeemed by the public members themselves who
>    submit the references, self-organize the necessary labour, and
>    self-constitute the necessary government.  No aspect of this
>    redeeming self-determination is controlled by an external
>    authority.
> 
> 
> I'm looking for brief pointers, please.  I don't know of any actual
> implementations of this, or projects that are working on it.  I'll
> share what's found.
> 
> -- 
> Michael Allan
> 
> Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
> http://zelea.com/