ICT
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07wkict17-cyber-part2.pptxICT Policy and Strategy
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Structure and mapping
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Here is one approach to mapping proximity
http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html
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Where is this?
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Where is this from?
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What is this about?
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There is no ‘inherent structure’ to the WWW or Internet resources.
All structures (and maps) are constructed.
This is a very unique situation – previous repositories of information have been indexed and catalogued according to various schemes such as the Dewey Decimal system or the Library of Congress classification system.
Some, including Tim Berners-Lee believe that the answer is the ‘semantic web’ in which a universal classification system is devised.
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http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm
Cory Doctorow has severely criticised such schemes in an article entitled
“Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia”
(reference below). Doctorow’s argument…
1 People lie -- e.g. to achieve a better position in search results
2 People are lazy – Microsoft created default titling of documents from first line because of hard drives full of ‘untitled document.doc’
3 People are stupid – find e-Bay listing for Plam pilot to get a good deal
4 Mission: Impossible -- know thyself – people are very poor observers and record keepers of their own behaviours
5 Schemas aren't neutral – how you classify reflects how you see the world
6 Metrics influence results – they produce league tables in which those on top are favoured (that’s one way Google makes money).
7 There's more than one way to describe something – as we are saying
Conclusion: Google’s processing of who refers to what provides a useful index of ‘reliability’ (or at least notice) of information and this may be as good as it gets. Improving on this is would be a big hit!!
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3. Transport – you can’t get there from here
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This is just to remind – the WWW is not an entirely open resource
Many resources are proprietary and behind walls
A considerable number of ‘potential’ web pages are only generated dynamically
Web search engines only ‘crawl’ to a certain depth in any Website
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4. Access – Present and Future
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Current Access to the WWW
Relies largely on desktop computers with keyboards (although changing rapidly)
Depends upon connection speed
Universities are still relatively privileged in access speed but the gap is closing
Depends upon the skill and knowledge of the user
Is powerfully shaped by the metaphors of point and click and browsing/searching
All of these are subject to radical change in the next years!
Mobile phone access is very rapidly increasing.
Moreover, the rest of the world is joining!
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The $100 laptop prototype
Will provide a new means of information distribution challenging existing models
How will these change in response to large numbers of devices with slow or no direct connection?
Are we then moving towards ‘ubiquitous computing’?
And what does this imply for structure and processes of codification?
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5. Codification – ontologies and memory
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The problems with structure and mapping do not mean that we give up in trying to create systems for recording, classifying, finding, and reproducing knowledge.
We refer to the problem of capturing and reproducing knowledge as a problem in codification – rendering knowledge into information that can be used to reproduce knowledge
The extent to which this can be done is referred to as the ‘codification debate’ – is information sufficient for reproducing knowledge? (we will return to this in a later lecture)
Codification
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The Boundary Object
Very frequently in information systems we have representations that are shared by different groups of people for different purposes.
Customer purchase information at TESCO may be shared by marketers, accountants, logistics planners, and store managers. Each is looking at this data from a different perspective.
As a consequence the way in which information is organised needs to reflect these possible uses.
Hence, it is not only a problem of ‘codifying’ data but creating means of representation that allow the data to be shared as a boundary object by different groups.
René Magritte, The Treason of Images (1928-29)
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Ontologies
A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualization: the objects, concepts, and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them (Genesereth & Nilsson, 1987).
A conceptualization is an abstract, simplified view of the world that we wish to represent for some purpose. Every knowledge base, knowledge-based system, or knowledge-level agent is committed to some conceptualization, explicitly or implicitly.
Much of the text on this page is from Tom Gruber -- http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html
Short definition:
An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization.
An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualization. The term is borrowed from philosophy, where an Ontology is a systematic account of Existence.
For Artificial Intelligence systems, what "exists" is that which can be represented.
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Memory and Cognition
To record and exchange knowledge we need to codify it as information that can be used as a boundary object for people with different ‘mental maps’ or cognition.
This involves committing to an ontology.
There is no single ontology governing the information on the Internet.
Therefore, cyberspace will remain extensible, amorphous and flexible as a medium of knowledge representation.
This is a good thing in terms of creativity and expression.
It is not such a good thing if we must rely on it to help structure our understanding or memory of the world
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Cyber-Culture
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Cyber-Culture
How the new ICTs influence people – their language, culture, socialising behaviour, learning, expression
The distinctive set of behaviours and institutions (norms, rules and standards) that has arisen from Internet use
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Returning to Will Mitchell’s analogy of the meeting spaces of the Internet
as being like a piazza…
The problem with the analogy is that the ‘piazza’ has a variety of social enforcement mechanisms.
For example, although the ‘forwardness’ of some men with respect to women might be a problem for foreigners, it is most often seen as ‘safe’ behaviour by the women that receive the attention
The Internet does not have these mechanisms and is therefore more like Leicester Square after dark – those unattached are ‘fair game’ for a variety of types of harassment or ‘advance’
Moreover, because there are no follow-on consequences to aggressive behaviour (either good or bad) behaviours are only governed by individual choice
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Identity (1)
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Identity (2)
The Internet creates a social space for individuals that is distinct from the ‘off-line’ social space in which individuals reside
In addition to the negative features of freeing ‘libertines,’ this ability to redefine and experiment with personal identity can become a ‘new’ means for human development
Moreover, we are still in the process of change … what today is text is tomorrow images – video chat, avatars (graphic representations of oneself as in computer gaming), and a flood of image exchange are around the corner with new modes of interpersonal interaction with unknown consequences
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Identity (3)
Several strands of cultural influence have shaped the early evolution of the Internet
Libertarianism – a strong version of liberalism that argues that intervening in individual behaviour that is not harming others is wrong
Anarchism – the monopoly of force and power held by the state needs to be destroyed
The weaker form, anti-authoritarianism seeks to attack all concentrations of power
Communalism – it is against the common social interest for non-rival goods to become property
Various combinations of these ideas inform the ‘information wants to be free’ doctrine of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, the hacker culture, and the open source movement
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Identity (4)
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Thomas Jefferson
John Perry Barlow, ‘The Economy of Ideas,’ Wired, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas.html
A key statement of communalism…
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Consequences
Privacy -- Your ‘address’ in e-mail is likely to become available and your mailbox fills up with unwanted and unsolicited material
For the libertarian, this is the cost of ‘freedom’ – an idealised ‘piazza’ which is inclusive brings with it a nuisance factor.
However, nuisance can become harm.
The ‘death of distance’ means that individuals who ‘spam’ (send unwanted advertisements) or ‘flame’ (inundate or flood others with messages or rants) are not on a street corner – they are IN YOUR HOUSE (like Ali G)
How to regulate such behaviour?
Inevitably, this must require new social and technological solutions that involve ‘negotiating’ access (introductions, calling cards, etc.) as in the non-virtual world
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Cyber-Culture Collision
The boundaries between libertarian (absolute guarantee of individual expression) and libertine (lack of moral restraint) are indistinct
This is even more so when we cross cultural boundaries
Efforts to regulate the content of the Internet are a search for a global consensus on what constitutes legitimate self-expression
The absence of such consensus suggests that cyber-culture will continue to generate controversy
e-pornography is a leading source of e-commerce revenue
child pornography and pornography depicting violence are available – local enforcement requires abridging individual privacy
The desire to create a ‘child-safe’ Internet is a powerful force that will have a growing impact
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Cyber-culture – Surfacing the ‘Underground’
The Internet provides a means to
cater to the ever-present and large market for pornography as well as
‘underground’ cultures ranging from
‘new age’ religions to conspiracy
theories concerning world history.
As well as ‘surfacing’ the underground due to universal proximity, the Internet assists in recruiting individuals that did not have a means to find other ‘like minded’ individuals or expressions.
It is important to understand, however, that the Internet is only one part of the story. Hotels, for example, are a major outlet for pornographic movies.
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Cyberculture and Existing Cultures
One of the controversial arguments about the Internet is the argument that it should be governed by one international standards.
Each of the three strands – libertarianism, anarchism, and communalism – that have had a major impact on the emergence of a distinct cyberculture are more or less in opposition to all forms of authority and therefore continuous raise questions regarding governance.
Google has recently admitted that its compliance with local standards in China has, overall, been damaging for the company. This is one case among many lower profile cases in which the collision between cultural values, political power, and the existing norms of cyberculture have come into conflict.
We are certain to see more of this in the future!
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Further Reading on Cyber-Culture
The academic literature:
D. Bell and B. M. Kennedy, The Cyber-Cultures Reader, London: Routledge, 2000.
Provides a wide survey with many of the major contributors and substantial
references to much of the rest of the literature
S. Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Aging, but still the starting point
The bridge to science fiction (science fiction has been very influential in forming ideas about cyberculture):
S. Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993.
This work of literary criticism traces the origins as well as some of the contemporary manifestations of the literature. It is still relevant even though a lot has been written in the past decade.
Science Fiction:
Neil Stephenson – The Diamond Age and Snowcrash
Sometimes longwinded, but lots of ideas
William Gibson – anything by this author
Dark visions of the cyber-future that have been very influential
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