The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst


Book by Jeff Jarvis: “The age of print is a grand exception in history. For five centuries it fostered what some call print culture – a worldview shaped by the completeness, permanence, and authority of the printed word. As a technology, print at its birth was as disruptive as the digital migration of today. Now, as the internet ushers us past print culture, journalist Jeff Jarvis offers important lessons from the era we leave behind.

To understand our transition out of the Gutenberg Age, Jarvis first examines the transition into it. Tracking Western industrialized print to its origins, he explores its invention, spread, and evolution, as well as the bureaucracy and censorship that followed. He also reveals how print gave rise to the idea of the mass – mass media, mass market, mass culture, mass politics, and so on – that came to dominate the public sphere.

What can we glean from the captivating, profound, and challenging history of our devotion to print? Could it be that we are returning to a time before mass media, to a society built on conversation, and that we are relearning how to hold that conversation with ourselves? Brimming with broader implications for today’s debates over communication, authorship, and ownership, Jarvis’ exploration of print on a grand scale is also a complex, compelling history of technology and power…(More)”

Shallowfakes

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by James R. Ostrowski: “…This dystopian fantasy, we are told, is what the average social media feed looks like today: a war zone of high-tech disinformation operations, vying for your attention, your support, your compliance. Journalist Joseph Bernstein, in his 2021 Harper’s piece “Bad News,” attributes this perception of social media to “Big Disinfo” — a cartel of think tanks, academic institutions, and prestige media outlets that spend their days spilling barrels of ink into op-eds about foreign powers’ newest disinformation tactics. The technology’s specific impact is always vague, yet somehow devastating. Democracy is dying, shot in the chest by artificial intelligence.

The problem with Big Disinfo isn’t that disinformation campaigns aren’t happening but that claims of mind-warping, AI-enabled propaganda go largely unscrutinized and often amount to mere speculation. There is little systematic public information about the scale at which foreign governments use deepfakes, bot armies, or generative text in influence ops. What little we know is gleaned through irregular investigations or leaked documents. In lieu of data, Big Disinfo squints into the fog, crying “Bigfoot!” at every oak tree.

Any machine learning researcher will admit that there is a critical disconnect between what’s possible in the lab and what’s happening in the field. Take deepfakes. When the technology was first developed, public discourse was saturated with proclamations that it would slacken society’s grip on reality. A 2019 New York Times op-ed, indicative of the general sentiment of this time, was titled “Deepfakes Are Coming. We Can No Longer Believe What We See.” That same week, Politico sounded the alarm in its article “‘Nightmarish’: Lawmakers brace for swarm of 2020 deepfakes.” A Forbes article asked us to imagine a deepfake video of President Trump announcing a nuclear weapons launch against North Korea. These stories, like others in the genre, gloss over questions of practicality…(More)”.

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance 

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Open Access Book edited by Stephen Boucher, Carina Antonia Hallin, and Lex Paulson: “…explores the concepts, methodologies, and implications of collective intelligence for democratic governance, in the first comprehensive survey of this field.

Illustrated by a collection of inspiring case studies and edited by three pioneers in collective intelligence, this handbook serves as a unique primer on the science of collective intelligence applied to public challenges and will inspire public actors, academics, students, and activists across the world to apply collective intelligence in policymaking and administration to explore its potential, both to foster policy innovations and reinvent democracy…(More)”.

Governing the Unknown

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Kaushik Basu: “Technology is changing the world faster than policymakers can devise new ways to cope with it. As a result, societies are becoming polarized, inequality is rising, and authoritarian regimes and corporations are doctoring reality and undermining democracy.

For ordinary people, there is ample reason to be “a little bit scared,” as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently put it. Major advances in artificial intelligence raise concerns about education, work, warfare, and other risks that could destabilize civilization long before climate change does. To his credit, Altman is urging lawmakers to regulate his industry.

In confronting this challenge, we must keep two concerns in mind. The first is the need for speed. If we take too long, we may find ourselves closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. That is what happened with the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: It came 23 years too late. If we had managed to establish some minimal rules after World War II, the NPT’s ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament might have been achievable.

The other concern involves deep uncertainty. This is such a new world that even those working on AI do not know where their inventions will ultimately take us. A law enacted with the best intentions can still backfire. When America’s founders drafted the Second Amendment conferring the “right to keep and bear arms,” they could not have known how firearms technology would change in the future, thereby changing the very meaning of the word “arms.” Nor did they foresee how their descendants would fail to realize this even after seeing the change.

But uncertainty does not justify fatalism. Policymakers can still effectively govern the unknown as long as they keep certain broad considerations in mind. For example, one idea that came up during a recent Senate hearing was to create a licensing system whereby only select corporations would be permitted to work on AI.

This approach comes with some obvious risks of its own. Licensing can often be a step toward cronyism, so we would also need new laws to deter politicians from abusing the system. Moreover, slowing your country’s AI development with additional checks does not mean that others will adopt similar measures. In the worst case, you may find yourself facing adversaries wielding precisely the kind of malevolent tools that you eschewed. That is why AI is best regulated multilaterally, even if that is a tall order in today’s world…(More)”.

Citizens’ juries can help fix democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Martin Wolf: “…our democratic processes do not work very well. Adding referendums to elections does not solve the problem. But adding citizens’ assemblies might.

In his farewell address, George Washington warned against the spirit of faction. He argued that the “alternate domination of one faction over another . . . is itself a frightful despotism. But . . . The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual”. If one looks at the US today, that peril is evident. In current electoral politics, manipulation of the emotions of a rationally ill-informed electorate is the path to power. The outcome is likely to be rule by those with the greatest talent for demagogy.

Elections are necessary. But unbridled majoritarianism is a disaster. A successful liberal democracy requires constraining institutions: independent oversight over elections, an independent judiciary and an independent bureaucracy. But are they enough? No. In my book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, I follow the Australian economist Nicholas Gruen in arguing for the addition of citizens’ assemblies or citizens’ juries. These would insert an important element of ancient Greek democracy into the parliamentary tradition.

There are two arguments for introducing sortition (lottery) into the political process. First, these assemblies would be more representative than professional politicians can ever be. Second, it would temper the impact of political campaigning, nowadays made more distorting by the arts of advertising and the algorithms of social media…(More)”.

Why voters who value democracy participate in democratic backsliding

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Braley, A., Lenz, G.S., Adjodah, D. et al.: “Around the world, citizens are voting away the democracies they claim to cherish. Here we present evidence that this behaviour is driven in part by the belief that their opponents will undermine democracy first. In an observational study (N = 1,973), we find that US partisans are willing to subvert democratic norms to the extent that they believe opposing partisans are willing to do the same. In experimental studies (N = 2,543, N = 1,848), we revealed to partisans that their opponents are more committed to democratic norms than they think. As a result, the partisans became more committed to upholding democratic norms themselves and less willing to vote for candidates who break these norms. These findings suggest that aspiring autocrats may instigate democratic backsliding by accusing their opponents of subverting democracy and that we can foster democratic stability by informing partisans about the other side’s commitment to democracy…(More)”

Actualizing Digital Self Determination: From Theory to Practice

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Blog by Stefaan G. Verhulst: “The world is undergoing a rapid process of datafication, providing immense potential for addressing various challenges in society and the environment through responsible data reuse. However, datafication also results in imbalances, asymmetries, and silos that hinder the full realization of this potential and pose significant public policy challenges. In a recent paper, I suggest a key way to address these asymmetries–through a process of operationalizing digital self-determination. The paper, published open access in the journal Data and Policy (Cambridge University Press), is built around four key themes:…

Operationalizing DSD requires translating theoretical concepts into practical implementation. The paper proposes a four-pronged framework that covers processes, people and organizations, policies, products and technologies:

  • Processes include citizen engagement programs, public deliberations, and participatory impact assessments, can inform responsible data use.
  • People and organizations, including data stewards and intermediaries, play a vital role in fostering a culture of data agency and responsible data reuse.
  • Effective governance and policies, such as charters, social licenses, and codes of conduct, are key for implementing DSD.
  • Finally, technological tools and products need to focus on trusted data spaces, data portability, privacy-enhancing technologies, transparency, consent management, algorithmic accountability, and ethical AI….(More)” See also: International Network on Digital Self Determination.
Four ways to actualize digital self determination, Stefaan G. Verhulst

Design of services or designing for service? The application of design methodology in public service settings

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Kirsty Strokosch and Stephen P. Osborne: “The design of public services has traditionally been conducted by managers who aim to improve efficiency. In recent years though, human-centred design has been used increasingly to improve the experience of public service users, citizens and public service staff (Trischler and Scott, 2016). Design also encourages collaboration and creativity to understand problems and develop solutions (Wetter-Edman et al., 2014). This can include user research to understand current experiences and/or testing prototypes through quick repeated cycles of re-design.

To date, there has been little primary research on the application of design approaches in public service settings (Hermus, et al., 2020). Our article just published in Policy & Politics, Design of services or designing for service? The application of design methodology in public service settings, seeks to fill that gap.

It considers two cases in the United Kingdom: Social Security services in Scotland and Local Authority services in England. The research explores the application of design, asking three important questions: what is being designed, how is service design being practised and what are its implications?…

The research also offers three important implications for practice:

  1. Service design should be applied pragmatically. A one-size-fits-all design approach is not appropriate for public services. We need to think about the type of service, who is using it and its aims.
  2. Services should be understood in their entirety with a holistic view of both the front-end components and the back-end operational processes.  However, the complex social and institutional factors that shape service experience also need to be considered.
  3. Design needs flexibility to enable creativity. Part of this involves reducing bureaucratic work practices and a commitment from senior managers to make available the time, resources and space for creativity, testing and iteration. There needs to be space to learn and improve…(More)“.

Evidence-Based Policymaking: A Path to Data Culture

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Sajana Maharjan Amatya and Pranaya Sthapit: “…The first requirement of evidence-based planning is access to a supply of timely and reliable data. In Nepal, local governments produce lots of data, but it is too often locked away in multiple information systems operated by each municipal department. Gaining access to the data in these systems can be difficult because different departments often use different, proprietary formats. These information siloes block a 360 degree view of the available data—to say nothing of issues like redundancy, duplication, and inefficiency—and they frustrate public participation in an age when citizens expect streamlined digital access.

As a first step towards solving this artificial problem of data supply, D4D helps local governments gather their data onto one unified platform to release its full potential. We think of this as creating a “data lake” in each municipality for decentralized, democratic access. Freeing access to this already-existing evidence can open the door to fundamental changes in government procedures and the development and implementation of local policies, plans, and strategies.

Among the most telling shortcomings of Nepal’s legacy data policies has been the way that political interests have held sway in the local planning process, as exemplified by the political decision to distribute equal funds to all wards regardless of their unequal needs. In a more rational system, information about population size and other socioeconomic data about relative need would be a much more important factor in the allocation of funds. The National Planning Commission, a federal agency, has even distributed guidelines to Nepal’s local governments indicating that budgets should not simply be equal from ward to ward. But in practice, municipalities tend to allocate the same budget to each of their wards because elected leaders fear they will lose votes if they don’t get an equal share. Inevitably, ignoring evidence of relative need leads to the ad hoc allocation of funds to small, fragmented initiatives that mainly focus on infrastructure while overlooking other issues.

The application of available data to the planning cycle is what evidence-based planning is all about. The key is to codify the use of data throughout the planning process. So, D4D developed a framework and guidelines for evidence-based budgeting and planning for elected officials, committee members, and concerned citizens…(More)”.

Civic Participation in the Datafied Society

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Introduction to Special Issue by Arne Hintz, Lina Dencik, Joanna Redden, Emiliano Trere: “As data collection and analysis are increasingly deployed for a variety of both commercial and public services, state–citizen relations are becoming infused by algorithmic and automated decision making. Yet as citizens, we have few possibilities to understand and intervene into the roll-out of data systems, and to participate in policy and decision making about uses of data and artificial intelligence (AI). This introductory article unpacks the nexus of datafication and participation, reviews some of the editors’ own research on this subject, and provides an overview of the contents of the Special Section “Civic Participation in the Datafied Society.”… (More)”.