Controversy Mapping: A Field Guide

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Tommaso Venturini, and Anders Kristian Munk: “As disputes concerning the environment, the economy, and pandemics occupy public debate, we need to learn to navigate matters of public concern when facts are in doubt and expertise is contested.

Controversy Mapping is the first book to introduce readers to the observation and representation of contested issues on digital media. Drawing on actor-network theory and digital methods, Venturini and Munk outline the conceptual underpinnings and the many tools and techniques of controversy mapping. They review its history in science and technology studies, discuss its methodological potential, and unfold its political implications. Through a range of cases and examples, they demonstrate how to chart actors and issues using digital fieldwork and computational techniques. A preface by Richard Rogers and an interview with Bruno Latour are also included.

A crucial field guide and hands-on companion for the digital age, Controversy Mapping is an indispensable resource for students and scholars of media and communication, as well as activists, journalists, citizens, and decision makers…(More)”.

Imaginable: How to see the future coming and be ready for anything

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Jane McGonigal: “When we think about the future it can be difficult to feel that we have any control. We aren’t confident that we can take actions and make decisions that help determine what happens next. We want to feel prepared, hopeful and equipped, and to face the future with optimism. Or, better yet, change the future. But how do we map out our lives when it feels impossible to predict what the world will be like next week, let alone next year?

Jane McGonigal, a renowned future forecaster, reveals that ‘unimaginable’ events aren’t unimaginable before they happen. It is possible to see them coming and it’s a mindset that can be learned by engaging with tools, games, and ideas that will allow you to dive into the future before you live it.

By learning to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable you can better plan for a future you’d like to see. And by seeing what’s coming faster, you can adapt to new challenges, reduce anxiety, and build hope and resilience…(More)”.

Superpowers as Inspiration for Visualization

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Wesley Willett et al: “We explore how the lens of fictional superpowers can help characterize how visualizations empower people and provide inspiration for new visualization systems. Researchers and practitioners often tout visualizations’ ability to “make the invisible visible” and to “enhance cognitive abilities.” Meanwhile superhero comics and other modern fiction often depict characters with similarly fantastic abilities that allow them to see and interpret the world in ways that transcend traditional human perception. We investigate the intersection of these domains, and show how the language of superpowers can be used to characterize existing visualization systems and suggest opportunities for new and empowering ones. We introduce two frameworks: The first characterizes seven underlying mechanisms that form the basis for a variety of visual superpowers portrayed in fiction. The second identifies seven ways in which visualization tools and interfaces can instill a sense of empowerment in the people who use them. Building on these observations, we illustrate a diverse set of “visualization superpowers” and highlight opportunities for the visualization community to create new systems and interactions that empower new experiences with data…(More).”

Where Do My Tax Dollars Go? Tax Morale Effects of Perceived Government Spending

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Matias Giaccobasso, Brad C. Nathan, Ricardo Perez-Truglia & Alejandro Zentner: “Do perceptions about how the government spends tax dollars affect the willingness to pay taxes? We designed a field experiment to test this hypothesis in a natural, high-stakes context and via revealed preferences. We measure perceptions about the share of property tax revenues that fund public schools and the share of property taxes that are redistributed to disadvantaged districts. We find that even though information on where tax dollars go is publicly available and easily accessible, taxpayers still have significant misperceptions. We use an information-provision experiment to induce exogenous shocks to these perceptions. Using administrative data on tax appeals, we measure the causal effect of perceived government spending on the willingness to pay taxes. We find that some perceptions about government spending have a significant effect on the probability of filing a tax appeal and in a manner that is consistent with the classical theory of benefit-based taxation. We discuss implications for researchers and policy makers…(More)”.

On the Dynamics of Human Behavior: The Past, Present, and Future of Culture, Conflict, and Cooperation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Nathan Nunn: “I provide a theoretically-guided discussion of the dynamics of human behavior, focusing on the importance of culture (socially-learned information) and tradition (transmission of culture across generations). Decision-making that relies on tradition can be an effective strategy and arises in equilibrium. While dynamically optimal, it generates static `mismatch.’ When the world changes, since traits evolve slowly, they may not be beneficial in their new environment. I discuss how mismatch helps explain the world around us, presents special challenges and opportunities for policy, and provides important lessons for our future as a human species…(More)”.

How to avoid sharing bad information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Abby Ohlheiser at MIT Technology Review: “The fast-paced online coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Wednesday followed a pattern that’s become familiar in other recent crises that have unfolded around the world. Photos, videos, and other information are posted and reshared across platforms much faster than they can be verified.

The result is that falsehoods are mistaken for truth and amplified, even by well-intentioned people. This can help bad actors to terrorize innocent civilians or advance disturbing ideologies, causing real harm.

Disinformation has been a prominent and explicit part of the Russian government’s campaign to justify the invasion. Russia falsely claimed that Ukrainian forces in Donbas, a city in the southeastern part of the country that harbors a large number of pro-Russian separatists, were planning violent attacks, engaging in antagonistic shelling, and committing genocide. Fake videos of those nonexistent attacks became part of a domestic propaganda campaign. (The US government, meanwhile, has been working to debunk and “prebunk” these lies.)

Meanwhile, even people who are not part of such government campaigns may intentionally share bad, misleading, or false information about the invasion to promote ideological narratives, or simply to harvest clicks, with little care about the harm they’re causing. In other cases, honest mistakes made amid the fog of war take off and go viral….

Your attention matters …

First, realize that what you do online makes a difference. “People often think that because they’re not influencers, they’re not politicians, they’re not journalists, that what they do [online] doesn’t matter,” Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor of communication and rhetorical studies at Syracuse University, told me in 2020. But it does matter. Sharing dubious information with even a small circle of friends and family can lead to its wider dissemination.

… and so do your angry quote tweets and duets.

While an urgent news story is developing, well-meaning people may quote, tweet, share, or duet with a post on social media to challenge and condemn it. Twitter and Facebook have introduced new rules, moderation tactics, and fact-checking provisions to try to combat misinformation. But interacting with misinformation at all risks amplifying the content you’re trying to minimize, because it signals to the platform that you find it interesting. Instead of engaging with a post you know to be wrong, try flagging it for review by the platform where you saw it.

Stop.

Mike Caulfield, a digital literacy expert, developed a method for evaluating online information that he calls SIFT: “Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, and Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.” When it comes to news about Ukraine, he says, the emphasis should be on “Stop”—that is, pause before you react to or share what you’re seeing….(More)”.

GovTech Practices in the EU

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Kuziemski, M., Mergel, I., Ulrich, P. and Martinez, A.: “To support governments in the EU embracing GovTech, this report provides an overview of the diversity of GovTech programmes and shares lessons learnt for setting up government-run GovTech programmes. While the focus of this report is on national GovTech programmes, its findings and conclusions can be applied to others levels of government as well. The term GovTech refers to the use of emerging technologies and digital products and services by government from start-ups and SMEs – instead of relying on large system integrators. This report presents an overview of how the existing GovTech programmes are set up in different EU member states and introduces practical case studies. This is followed by a discussion of the rationale of governments’ investment in GovTech and the barriers countries have encountered when engaging with the GovTech ecosystem. The report then distils important lessons learned for setting up government-run GovTech programmes. This report is aimed at anyone wanting to understand how governments are already supporting GovTech, and especially public sector managers who are looking for a starting point for establishing or improving a GovTech programme. It is part of two twin reports on GovTech developed by the JRC with support from the ISA² programme…(More)”.

A Guidebook for City and County Managers: Meeting Today’s Challenges

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by James M. Bourey: “Whether you are a student preparing for a career in public administration, a mid-career professional manager or a seasoned veteran, A Guidebook for City and County Managers provides policy guidance and advice to local governmental challenges and issues.

Assuming a knowledge of the basics of public management, James M. Bourey provides real-world recommendations for issues managers are facing this decade and beyond. Relying on experience from his long career in local government in chief executive positions in city, county and regional council management in locations throughout the United States, Bourey outlines the best approaches to the most critical issues for local governments. The book is comprehensive in its breadth of subject matter yet targeted in the recommendations that focus on the most critical issues. Social equity, environmental protection and global warming, good fiscal management, adequate public infrastructure and active citizen engagement are important themes throughout.

Merely being an administrative caretaker is not sufficient; managers must have the knowledge of ways to improve their communities and take the initiative to enhance the quality of life of its residents. Making a difference is both the reason for the job and its reward. This book helps provide a roadmap for the journey…(More)”.

How Tech Despair Can Set You Free

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Samuel Matlack: “One way to look at the twentieth century is to say that nations may rise and fall but technical progress remains forever. Its sun rises on the evil and on the good, and its rain falls on the just and on the unjust. Its sun can be brighter than a thousand suns, scorching our enemies, but, with some time and ingenuity, it can also power air conditioners and 5G. One needs to look on the bright side, living by faith and not by sight.

The century’s inquiring minds wished to know whether this faith in progress is meaningfully different from blindness. Ranking high among those minds was the French historian, sociologist, and lay theologian Jacques Ellul, and his answer was simple: No.

In America, Ellul became best known for his book The Technological Society. The book’s signature term was “technique,” an idea he developed throughout his vast body of writing. Technique is the social structure on which modern life is built. It is the consciousness that has come to govern all human affairs, suppressing questions of ultimate human purposes and meaning. Our society no longer asks why we should do anything. All that matters anymore, Ellul argued, is how to do it — to which the canned answer is always: More efficiently! Much as a modern machine can be said to run on its own, so does the technological society. Human control of it is an illusion, which means we are on a path to self-destruction — not because the social machine will necessarily kill us (although it might), but because we are fast becoming soulless creatures…(More)”.

The giant plan to track diversity in research journals

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Holly Else & Jeffrey M. Perkel: “In the next year, researchers should expect to face a sensitive set of questions whenever they send their papers to journals, and when they review or edit manuscripts. More than 50 publishers representing over 15,000 journals globally are preparing to ask scientists about their race or ethnicity — as well as their gender — in an initiative that’s part of a growing effort to analyse researcher diversity around the world. Publishers say that this information, gathered and stored securely, will help to analyse who is represented in journals, and to identify whether there are biases in editing or review that sway which findings get published. Pilot testing suggests that many scientists support the idea, although not all.

The effort comes amid a push for a wider acknowledgement of racism and structural racism in science and publishing — and the need to gather more information about it. In any one country, such as the United States, ample data show that minority groups are under-represented in science, particularly at senior levels. But data on how such imbalances are reflected — or intensified — in research journals are scarce. Publishers haven’t systematically looked, in part because journals are international and there has been no measurement framework for race and ethnicity that made sense to researchers of many cultures.

“If you don’t have the data, it is very difficult to understand where you are at, to make changes, set goals and measure progress,” says Holly Falk-Krzesinski, vice-president of research intelligence at the Dutch publisher Elsevier, who is working with the joint group and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

In the absence of data, some scientists have started measuring for themselves. Computational researchers are scouring the literature using software that tries to estimate racial and ethnic diversity across millions of published research articles, and to examine biases in who is represented or cited. Separately, over the past two years, some researchers have criticized publishers for not having diversity data already, and especially for being slow to collate information about small groups of elite decision makers: journal editors and editorial boards. At least one scientist has started publicizing those numbers himself….(More)”.