The Participatory Condition in the Digital Age


Book edited by Darin Barney, Gabriella Coleman, Christine Ross, Jonathan Sterne, and Tamar Tembeck:

The Participatory Condition in the Digital Age

“Just what is the “participatory condition”? It is the situation in which taking part in something with others has become both environmental and normative. The fact that we have always participated does not mean we have always lived under the participatory condition. What is distinctive about the present is the extent to which the everyday social, economic, cultural, and political activities that comprise simply being in the world have been thematized and organized around the priority of participation.

Structured along four axes investigating the relations between participation and politics, surveillance, openness, and aesthetics, The Participatory Condition in the Digital Age comprises fifteen essays that explore the promises, possibilities, and failures of contemporary participatory media practices as related to power, Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring uprisings, worker-owned cooperatives for the post-Internet age; paradoxes of participation, media activism, open source projects; participatory civic life; commercial surveillance; contemporary art and design; and education.

This book represents the most comprehensive and transdisciplinary endeavor to date to examine the nature, place, and value of participation in the digital age. Just as in 1979, when Jean-François Lyotard proposed that “the postmodern condition” was characterized by the questioning of historical grand narratives, The Participatory Condition in the Digital Age investigates how participation has become a central preoccupation of our time….(More)”

Tackling Corruption with People-Powered Data


Sandra Prüfer at Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth: “Informal fees plague India’s “free” maternal health services. In Nigeria, village households don’t receive the clean cookstoves their government paid for. Around the world, corruption – coupled with the inability to find and share information about it – stymies development in low-income communities.

Now, digital transparency platforms – supplemented with features illiterate and rural populations can use – make it possible for traditionally excluded groups to make their voices heard and access tools they need to grow.

Mapping Corruption Hot Spots in India

One of the problems surrounding access to information is the lack of reliable information in the first place: a popular method to create knowledge is crowdsourcing and enlisting the public to monitor and report on certain issues.

The Mera Swasthya Meri Aawaz platform, which means “Our Health, Our Voice”, is an interactive map in Uttar Pradesh launched by the Indian non-profit organization SAHAYOG. It enables women to anonymously report illicit fees charged for services at maternal health clinics using their mobile phones.

To reduce infant mortality and deaths in childbirth, the Indian government provides free prenatal care and cash incentives to use maternal health clinics, but many charge illegal fees anyway – cutting mothers off from lifesaving healthcare and inhibiting communities’ growth. An estimated 45,000 women in India died in 2015 from complications of pregnancy and childbirth – one of the highest rates of any country in the world; low-income women are disproportionately affected….“Documenting illegal payment demands in real time and aggregating the data online increased governmental willingness to listen,” Sandhya says. “Because the data is linked to technology, its authenticity is not questioned.”

Following the Money in Nigeria

In Nigeria, Connected Development (CODE) also champions open data to combat corruption in infrastructure building, health and education projects. Its mission is to improve access to information and empower local communities to share data that can expose financial irregularities. Since 2012, the Abuja-based watchdog group has investigated twelve capital projects, successfully pressuring the government to release funds including $5.3 million to treat 1,500 lead-poisoned children.

“People activate us: if they know about any project that is supposed to be in their community, but isn’t, they tell us they want us to follow the money – and we’ll take it from there,” says CODE co-founder Oludotun Babayemi.

Users alert the watchdog group directly through its webpage, which publishes open-source data about development projects that are supposed to be happening, based on reports from freedom of information requests to Nigeria’s federal minister of environment, World Bank data and government press releases.

Last year, as part of their #WomenCookstoves reporting campaign, CODE revealed an apparent scam by tracking a $49.8 million government project that was supposed to purchase 750,000 clean cookstoves for rural women. Smoke inhalation diseases disproportionately affect women who spend time cooking over wood fires; according to the World Health Organization, almost 100,000 people die yearly in Nigeria from inhaling wood smoke, the country’s third biggest killer after malaria and AIDS.

“After three months, we found out that only 15 percent of the $48 million was given to the contractor – meaning there were only 45,000 cook stoves out of 750,000 in the county,” Babayemi says….(More)”

Design Thinking for Educators


IDEO: “The Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit gives teachers the tools and methods they need to apply design thinking—discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation and evolution—in real-world scenarios….

Why design thinking? Hear firsthand stories about how design thinking can apply to education.

Included in the toolkit are the Designer’s Workbook, workshops and an ongoing free five-week virtual class to help hone skills and empower teachers to create desirable solutions.

The effort is helping teachers become agents of change within their schools, driving new small- and large-scale innovations. Visit the Design Thinking Toolkit for Educators site for stories, case studies, process outlines, engagement opportunities, and more….(More)

100 Stories: The Impact of Open Access


Report by Jean-Gabriel Bankier and Promita Chatterji: “It is time to reassess how we talk about the impact of open access. Early thought leaders in the field of scholarly communications sparked our collective imagination with a compelling vision for open access: improving global access to knowledge, advancing science, and providing greater access to education.1 But despite the fact that open access has gained a sizable foothold, discussions about the impact of open access are often still stuck at the level of aspirational or potential benefit. Shouldn’t we be able to gather real examples of positive outcomes to demonstrate the impact of open access? We need to get more concrete. Measurements like

Measurements like altmetrics and download counts provide useful data about usage, but remain largely indicators of early-level interest rather actual outcomes and benefits. There has been considerable research into how open access affects citation counts,2 but beyond that discussion there is still a gap between the hypothetical societal good of open access and the minutiae of usage and interest measurements. This report begins to bridge that gap by presenting a framework, drawn from 100 real stories that describe the impact of open access. Collected by bepress from across 500 institutions and 1400 journals using Digital Commons as their publishing and/or institutional repository platform, these stories present information about actual outcomes, benefits, and impacts.

This report brings to light the wide variety of scholarly and cultural activity that takes place on university campuses and the benefit resulting from greater visibility and access to these materials. We hope that administrators, authors, students, and others will be empowered to articulate and amplify the impact of their own work. We also created the framework to serve as a tool for stakeholders who are interested in advocating for open access on their campus yet lack the specific vocabulary and suitable examples. Whether it is a librarian hoping to make the case for open access with reluctant administrators or faculty, a faculty member who wants to educate students about changing modes of publishing, a funding agency looking for evidence in support of its open access requirement, or students advocating for educational affordability, the framework and stories themselves can be a catalyst for these endeavors. Put more simply, these are 100 stories to answer the question: “why does open access matter?”…(More)”

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Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing Our Cities


Book by Peter Hirshberg, Dale Dougherty, and Marcia Kadanoff: “Maker City, or the Maker City Playbook is a comprehensive set of case studies and how-to information useful for city leaders, civic innovators, nonprofits, and others engaged in urban economic development. The Maker City Playbook is committed to going beyond stories to find patterns and discern promising practices to help city leaders make even more informed decisions.

  • Chapter 1: Introduction and a Call to Action
  • Chapter 2: The Maker movement and Cities
  • Chapter 3: The Maker City as Open Ecosystem
  • Chapter 4: Education and Learning in the Maker City
  • Chapter 5: Workforce Development in the Maker City
  • Chapter 6: Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chain inside the Maker City
  • Chapter 7: Real Estate Matters in the Maker City
  • Chapter 8: Civic Engagement in the Maker City
  • Chapter 9: The Future of the Maker City

Maker City Project is a collaboration between the Kauffman Foundation, the Gray Area for the Arts, and Maker Media. Read for free here: https://makercitybook.com/

Reframing Data Transparency


“Recently, the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) at Hunton & Williams LLP, a privacy and information policy think tank based in Brussels, London and Washington, D.C., and Telefónica, one of the largest telecommunications company in the world, issued a joint white paper on Reframing Data Transparency (the “white paper”). The white paper was the outcome of a June 2016 roundtable held by the two organizations in London, in which senior business leaders, Data Privacy Officers, lawyers and academics discussed the importance of user-centric transparency to the data driven economy….The issues explored during the roundtable and in the white paper include the following:

  • The transparency deficit in the digital age. There is a growing gap between traditional, legal privacy notices and user-centric transparency that is capable of delivering understandable and actionable information concerning an organization’s data use policies and practices, including why it processes data, what the benefits are to individuals and society, how it protects the data and how users can manage and control the use of their data.
  • The impact of the transparency deficit. The transparency deficit undermines customer trust and customers’ ability to participate more effectively in the digital economy.
  • Challenges of delivering user-centric transparency. In a connected world where there may be no direct relationship between companies and their end users, both transparency and consent as a basis for processing are particularly challenging.
  • Transparency as a multistakeholder challenge. Transparency is not solely a legal issue, but a multistakeholder challenge, which requires engagement of regulators, companies, individuals, behavioral economists, social scientists, psychologists and user experience specialists.
  • The role of data protection authorities (“DPAs”). DPAs play a key role in promoting and incentivizing effective data transparency approaches and tools.
  • The role of companies. Data transparency is a critical business issue because transparency drives digital trust as well as business opportunities. Organizations must innovate on how to deliver user-centric transparency. Data driven companies must research and develop new approaches to transparency that explain the value exchange between customers and companies and the companies’ data practices, and create tools that enable their customers to exercise effective engagement and control.
  • The importance of empowering individuals. It is crucial to support and enhance individuals’ digital literacy, which includes an understanding of the uses of personal data and the benefits of data processing, as well as knowledge of relevant privacy rights and the data management tools that are available to them. Government bodies, regulators and industry should be involved in educating the public regarding digital literacy. Such education should take place in schools and universities, and through consumer education campaigns. Transparency is the foundation and sine qua non of individual empowerment.
  • The role of behavioral economists, social scientists, psychologists and user experience specialists. Experts from these disciplines will be crucial in developing user-centric transparency and controls….(More)”.

One Crucial Thing Can Help End Violence Against Girls


Eleanor Goldberg at The Huffington Post: “…There are statistics that demonstrate how many girls are in school, for example. But there’s a glaring lack of information on how many of them have dropped out ― and why ― concluded a new study, “Counting the Invisible Girls,” published this month by Plan International.

Why Data On Women And Girls Is Crucial

Without accurate information about the struggles girls face, such as abuse, child marriage, and dropout rates, governments and nonprofit groups can’t develop programs that cater to the specific needs of underserved girls. As a result, struggling girls across the globe, have little chance of escaping the problems that prevent them from pursuing an education and becoming economically independent.

“If data used for policy-making is incomplete, we have a real challenge. Current data is not telling the full story,” Emily Courey Pryor, senior director of Data2X, said at the Social Good Summit in New York City last month. Data2X is a U.N.-led group that works with data collectors and policymakers to identify gender data issues and to help bring about solutions.

Plan International released its report to coincide with a number of major recent events….

How Data Helps Improve The Lives Of Women And Girls 

While data isn’t a panacea, it has proven in a number of instances to help marginalized groups.

Until last year, it was legal in Guatemala for a girl to marry at age 14 ― despite the numerous health risks associated with the practice. Young brides are more vulnerable to sexual abuse and more likely to face fatal complications related to pregnancy and childbirth than those who marry later.

To urge lawmakers to raise the minimum age of marriage, Plan International partnered with advocates and civil society groups to launch its “Because I am a Girl” initiative. It analyzed traditional Mayan laws and gathered evidence about the prevalence of child marriage and its impact on children’s lives. The group presented the information before Guatemala’s Congress and in August of last year, the minimum age for marriage was raised to 18.

A number of groups are heeding the call to continue to amass better data.

In May, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $80 million over the next three years to gather robust and reliable data.

In September, the U.N. women announced “Making Every Woman and Girl Count,”a public-private partnership that’s working to tackle the data issue. The program was unveiled at the U.N. General Assembly, and is working with the Gates Foundation, Data2X and a number of world leaders…(More)”

Knowledge – Is Knowledge Power?


Book by Marian Adolf and Nico Stehr: “As we move through our modern world, the phenomenon we call knowledge is always involved. Whether we talk of know-how, technology, innovation, politics or education, it is the concept of knowledge that ties them all together. But despite its ubiquity as a modern trope we seldom encounter knowledge in itself. How is it produced, where does it reside, and who owns it? Is knowledge always beneficial, will we know all there is to know at some point in the future, and does knowledge really equal power? This book pursues an original approach to this concept that seems to define so many aspects of modern societies. It explores the topic from a distinctly sociological perspective, and traces the many ways that knowledge is woven into the very fabric of modern society….(More)”

For Better Citizenship, Scratch and Win


Tina Rosenberg in the New York Times: “China, with its largely cash economy, has a huge problem with tax evasion. Not just grand tax evasion, but the everyday “no receipt, please” kind, even though there have been harsh penalties: Before 2011, some forms of tax evasion were even punishable by death.

The country needed a different approach. So what did it do to get people to pay sales tax?
A. Hired a force of inspectors to raid restaurants and stores to catch people skipping the receipt, accompanied by big fines and prison terms.
B. Started an “It’s a citizen’s duty to denounce” exhortation campaign.
C. Installed cameras to photograph every transaction.
D. Turned receipts into scratch-off lottery games.

One of these things is not like the other, and that’s the answer: D. Instead of punishing under-the-table transactions, China wisely decided to encouragelegal transactions by starting a receipt lottery. Many places have done this — Brazil, Chile, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia and Taiwan, among others. In Taiwan, for example, every month the tax authorities post lottery numbers; match a few numbers for a small prize, or all of them to win more than $300,000.

China took it further. Customers need not store their receipts and wait until the end of the month to see if they’ve won money. Gratification is instant: Each receipt, known as a fapiao, is a scratch-off lottery ticket. People still game the system, but much less. The fapiao system has greatly raised collections of sales tax, business income tax and total tax. And it’s cheap to administer: one study found that new tax revenue totaled 30 times (PDF) the cost of the lottery prizes.

When a receipt is a lottery ticket, people ask for a receipt. They hope to get money, but just as important, they like to play games. Those axioms apply around the globe.

“We have groups that say: we can give out an incentive to our customers worth $15,” said Aron Ezra, chief executive of OfferCraft, an American company that designs games for businesses. “They could do that and have everyone get an incentive for $15. But they’d get better results for the same average price by having variability — some get $10, some get $100.” The lottery makes it exciting.

The huge popularity of lotteries shows this. Another example is the Save to Win program, which credit unions are using in seven states. Microscopic interest rates weren’t enough to get low-income customers to save. So instead, for every $25 they put into a savings account, depositors get one lottery entry. They can win a grand prize — in some states, $10,000 — or $100 prizes every month.

What else could lotteries do?

Los Angeles and Philadelphia have been the sites of experiments to increase dismal voter turnout in local elections by choosing a voter at random to win a large cash prize. In May 2015, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project in Los Angeles offered $25,000 to a random voter in one district during a school board election, in a project named Voteria.

Health-related lotteries aren’t new. In 1957, Glasgow held a mass X-ray campaign to diagnose tuberculosis. Health officials aimed to X-ray 250,000 people and in the end got three times that many. One reason for the enthusiasm: a weekly prize draw. A lovely vintage newsreel reported on the campaign.

More than 50 years later, researchers set up a lottery among young adults in Lesotho, designed to promote safe sex practices. Every four months the subjects were tested for two sexually transmitted diseases, syphilis and trichonomiasis. A negative test got them entered into a lottery to win either $50 (equivalent to a week’s average salary) or $100. The idea was to see if incentives to reduce the spread of syphilis would also protect against HIV.

The results were significant — a 21.4 percent reduction in the rate of new H.I.V. infections, and a 3.4 percent lower prevalence rate of HIV in the treatment group after two years. And the effect was lasting — the gains persisted a year after the experiment ended. The lottery worked in large part because it was most attractive to those most at risk: many people who take sexual risks also enjoy taking monetary risks, and might be eager to play a lottery.

The authors wrote in a blog post: “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first H.I.V. prevention intervention focusing on sexual behavior changes (as opposed to medical interventions) to have been demonstrated to lead to a significant reduction in H.I.V. incidence, the ultimate objective of any H.I.V. prevention intervention.”…(More)”

Public Administration: A Very Short Introduction


Book by Stella Z. Theodoulou and Ravi K. Roy: “In a modern democratic nation, everyday life is shaped by the decisions of those who manage and administer public policies. This Very Short Introduction provides a practical insight into the development and delivery of the decisions that shape how individuals, and society as a whole, live and interact.

  • Covers all areas of public administration, including public safety, social welfare, public transport and state provided education
  • Offers a global perspective, drawing on real case studies taken from a wide array of countries
  • Considers the issues and challenges which confront the public sector worldwide….(More)”