Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by David Chandler and Christian Fuchs: “This volume explores activism, research and critique in the age of digital subjects and objects and Big Data capitalism after a digital turn said to have radically transformed our political futures. Optimists assert that the ‘digital’ promises: new forms of community and ways of knowing and sensing, innovation, participatory culture, networked activism, and distributed democracy. Pessimists argue that digital technologies have extended domination via new forms of control, networked authoritarianism and exploitation, dehumanization and the surveillance society. Leading international scholars present varied interdisciplinary assessments of such claims – in theory and via dialogue – and of the digital’s impact on society and the potentials, pitfalls, limits and ideologies, of digital activism. They reflect on whether computational social science, digital humanities and ubiquitous datafication lead to digital positivism that threatens critical research or lead to new horizons in theory and society.

An electronic version of this book is freely available….(More)

Report by the National Skills Coalition: “In order to provide actionable information to stakeholders, state longitudinal data systems use administrative data that state agencies collect through administering programs. Thus, state longitudinal data systems must maintain strong working relationships with the state agencies collecting necessary administrative data. These state agencies can include K-12 and higher education agencies, workforce agencies, and those administering social service programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

When state longitudinal data systems have strong relationships with agencies, agencies willingly and promptly share their data with the system, engage with data governance when needed, approve research requests in a timely manner, and continue to cooperate with the system over the long term. If state agencies do not participate with their state’s longitudinal data system, the work of the system is put into jeopardy. States may find that research and performance reporting can be stalled or stopped outright.

Kentucky and Virginia have been able to build and maintain support for their systems among state agencies. Their example demonstrates how states can effectively utilize their state longitudinal data systems….(More)”.

DiploFoundation: “This report provides an overview of the evolution of diplomacy in the context of artificial intelligence (AI). AI has emerged as a very hot topic on the international agenda impacting numerous aspects of our political, social, and economic lives. It is clear that AI will remain a permanent feature of international debates and will continue to shape societies and international relations.

It is impossible to ignore the challenges – and opportunities – AI is bringing to the diplomatic realm. Its relevance as a topic for diplomats and others working in international relations will only increase….(More)”.

Paper by Christian Iaione, Elena de Nictolis and Anna Berti Suman: “Internet of Things, Internet of Everything and Internet of People are concepts suggesting that objects, devices and people will be increasingly interconnected through digital infrastructure that will generate a growing gathering of data. Parallel to this is the celebration of the smart city and sharing city as urban policy visions that by relying heavily on new technologies bear the promise of a efficient and thriving cities. Law and policy scholarship has either focused on questions related to privacy, discrimination, security or issues related to the production and use of big data, digital public services. Little or no attention in the literature has been paid to the disruptive impact of technological development on urban governance and city inhabitants’ rights of equal access, participation, management and even ownership, in order to understand whether and how technology can also enhance the protection of human rights and social justice in the city.

This article advances the proposal of complementing the technological and digital infrastructure with a legal and institutional infrastructure, the Internet of Humans, by construing and injecting in the legal and policy framework of the city the principle of Tech Justice. Building on the literature review on and from the analysis of selected case studies this article stresses the dichotomy existing between the market-based and the society-based applications of technology, the first likely to increase the digital divide and the challenges to human rights in the city, the latter bearing the promise to promote equal access to technology in the city. The main argument advanced by this paper is indeed that Tech Justice is an empirical dimension that can steer the developments of smart city and sharing city policies toward a more just and democratic city….(More)”.

Gianluca Sgueo in Ius Publicum Network Review: Streets embedded with sensors to manage traffic congestion, public spaces monitored by high-tech command centres to detect suspicious activities, real-time and publicly accessible data on energy, transportation and waste management – in academia, there is still no generally agreed definition of ‘smart cities’. But in the collective imagination, the connotations are clear: smart cities are seen as efficient machines governed by algorithms. For decades, the combination of technology and data has been a key feature of smart urban management. Under this scheme, what branded a city as smart was the efficiency of (digital) public services. Over time, concerns have grown over this privatization of public services. Who owns the data processed by private companies? Who guarantees that data are treated ethically? How inclusive are the public services provided by increasingly privatised smart cities? 

In response to such criticism, urban management has progressively shifted the focus from the efficiency of public services to citizens’ concerns. This new approach puts inclusiveness at the centre of public services design. Citizens are actively engaged in all phases of urban management, from planning to service provision. However, the quest for inclusive urban management is confronted by four challenges. The first is dimensional, the second regulatory, the third financial, and the fourth relational.

The moment we combine these four challenges together, uncertainty arises: can a smart city be inclusive at the same time? It goes beyond the scope of this article to thoroughly delve into this question. My aim is to contribute to reflections on where the quest for inclusiveness is leading smart urban management. To this end, this article focuses on one specific form of innovative urban management: a combination of technology and fun design described as ‘gamification’.

The article reviews the use of gamification at the municipal level. After describing seven case studies of gamified urban governance, it analyses three shared traits of these initiatives, namely: the structure, the design, and the purposes. It then discusses the (potential) benefits and (actual) drawbacks of gamification in urban environments. The article concludes by assessing the contribution that gamification is making to the evolution of smart cities. It is argued that gamification offers a meaningful solution to more inclusive urban decision-making. But it is also warned about three common misconceptions in discourses on the future of smart cities. The first is the myth of inclusive technology; the second consists of the illusion of the democratic potential of games; finally, the third points at the downsides of regulatory experimentalism….(More)”.

Ava Kofman at the Intercept: “Most of the data collected by urban planners is messy, complex, and difficult to represent. It looks nothing like the smooth graphs and clean charts of city life in urban simulator games like “SimCity.” A new initiative from Sidewalk Labs, the city-building subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has set out to change that.

The program, known as Replica, offers planning agencies the ability to model an entire city’s patterns of movement. Like “SimCity,” Replica’s “user-friendly” tool deploys statistical simulations to give a comprehensive view of how, when, and where people travel in urban areas. It’s an appealing prospect for planners making critical decisions about transportation and land use. In recent months, transportation authorities in Kansas City, Portland, and the Chicago area have signed up to glean its insights. The only catch: They’re not completely sure where the data is coming from.

Typical urban planners rely on processes like surveys and trip counters that are often time-consuming, labor-intensive, and outdated. Replica, instead, uses real-time mobile location data. As Nick Bowden of Sidewalk Labs has explained, “Replica provides a full set of baseline travel measures that are very difficult to gather and maintain today, including the total number of people on a highway or local street network, what mode they’re using (car, transit, bike, or foot), and their trip purpose (commuting to work, going shopping, heading to school).”

To make these measurements, the program gathers and de-identifies the location of cellphone users, which it obtains from unspecified third-party vendors. It then models this anonymized data in simulations — creating a synthetic population that faithfully replicates a city’s real-world patterns but that “obscures the real-world travel habits of individual people,” as Bowden told The Intercept.

The program comes at a time of growing unease with how tech companies use and share our personal data — and raises new questions about Google’s encroachment on the physical world….(More)”.

EU Science Hub: “Data analysis highlights very diverse development patterns and inequalities across cities and world regions.

Building on the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL), the new database provides more detailed information on the cities’ location and size as well as characteristics such as greenness, night time light emission, population size, the built-up areas exposed to natural hazards, and travel time to the capital city.

For several of these attributes, the database contains information recorded over time, dating as far back as 1975. 

Responding to a lack of consistent data, or data only limited to large cities, the Urban Centre Database now makes it possible to map, classify and count all human settlements in the world in a standardised way.

An analysis of the data reveals very different development patterns in the different parts of the world.

“The data shows that in the low-income countries, high population growth has resulted only into moderate increases in the built-up areas, while in the high-income countries, moderate population growth has resulted into very big increases in the built-up areas. In practice, cities have grown more in size in richer countries, with respect to poorer countries where the populations are growing faster”, said JRC researcher Thomas Kemper.

According to JRC scientists, around 75% of the global population now live in cities, towns or suburbs….

The City Centres Database provides new open data supporting the monitoring of UN Sustainable Development Goals, the UN’s New Urban Agenda and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The main findings based on the Urban Centre Database are summarised in a new edition of the Atlas of the Human Planet, published together with the database….(More)”.

Paper by Xuan Wang et al: Crowdsourcing contests have become widely adopted for idea generation and problem-solving in various companies in different industries. The success of crowdsourcing depends on the sustained participation and quality-submissions of the individuals. Yet, little is known about the factors that influence individuals’ continued participation in these contests. We address this issue, by conducting an empirical study using data from an online crowdsourcing contest platform, Kaggle, which delivers data science and machine learning solutions and models to its clients.

The findings show that the community activities and team activities do not contribute to motivating the continued participation, but tenure does significantly affect the continued participation. We also found statistically significant effects of amount of prize, number of competitions, previous team performance, and competition duration on individuals sustained participation in crowdsourcing contests. This research contributes to the literature by identifying the factors influencing individuals’ sustained participation in crowdsourcing contests…(More)”.

Paper by Ariane L.Beck et al in Energy Research & Social Sciences: “In order to help mitigate climate change and reduce the health-related consequences of air pollution, consumers need to be empowered to make better and more effective decisions regarding energy use. Utilities, government, and commercial entities offer numerous programs and consumer products to help individuals set or reach goals related to energy use.

Many of these interventions and products have related apps that use gamification in some capacity in order to improve the user experience, offer motivation, and encourage behavior change. We identified 57 apps from nearly 2400 screened apps that both target direct energy use and employ at least one element of gamification.

We evaluated these apps with specific focus on gamification components, game elements, and behavioral constructs. Our analysis shows that the average energy related app heavily underutilizes search engine optimization, gamification components, and game design elements, as well as the behavioral constructs known to impact energy-related decision-making and behavior. Our findings offer several insights for the design of more effective energy apps….(More)”.

Blog by Yoichi Funabashi: “Without the high-quality research that independent think tanks provide, there can be no effective policymaking, nor even a credible basis for debating major issues. Insofar as funding challenges, foreign influence-peddling, and populist attacks on truth pose a threat to such institutions tanks, they threaten democracy itself….

The Brookings Institution in Washington, DC – perhaps the world’s top think tank – is under scrutiny for receiving six-figure donations from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which many consider to be a security threat. And since the barbaric murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October, many other Washington-based think tanks have come under pressure to stop accepting donations from Saudi Arabia.

These recent controversies have given rise to a narrative that Washington-based think tanks are facing a funding crisis. In fact, traditional think tanks are confronting three major challenges that have put them in a uniquely difficult situation. Not only are they facing increased competition from for-profit think tanks such as the McKinsey Global Institute and the Eurasia Group; they also must negotiate rising geopolitical tensions, especially between the United States and China.And complicating matters further, many citizens, goaded by populist harangues, have become dismissive of “experts” and the fact-based analyses that think tanks produce (or at least should produce).

With respect to the first challenge, Daniel Drezner of Tufts University argues in The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas that for-profit think tanks have engaged in thought leadership by operating as platforms for provocative thinkers who push big ideas. Whereas many non-profit think tanks – as well as universities and non-governmental organizations – remain “old-fashioned” in their approach to data, their for-profit counterparts thrive by finding the one statistic that captures public attention in the digital age. Given their access to both public and proprietary information, for-profit think tanks are also able to maximize the potential of big data in ways that traditional think tanks cannot.

Moreover, with the space for balanced foreign-policy arguments narrowing, think tanks are at risk of becoming tools of geopolitical statecraft. This is especially true now that US-China relations are deteriorating and becoming more ideologically tinged.

Over time, foreign governments of all stripes have cleverly sought to influence policymaking not only in Washington, but also in London, Brussels, Berlin, and elsewhere, by becoming significant donors to think tanks. Governments realize that the well-connected think tanks that act as “power brokers” vis-à-vis the political establishment have been facing fundraising challenges since the 2008 financial crisis. In some cases, locally based think tanks have even been accused of becoming fronts for foreign authoritarian governments….(More)”.