Category Archives: Social Media

The final panel of the Berkman Center‘s conference addressed the issue of methodology and empirical evidence in the study of the Internet and Democracy. Victoria Stodden and Corinna di Gennaro introduced the panel by outlining three core questions:

• How do we formulate testable hypotheses?
• What existing theories can we build on?
• What are appropriate methodologies?

Michael Best gave the first presentation on various methodological approaches. He began by making a distinction between democracy and Democracy. The former is people-centric while the latter is state-centric.  Michael defines the relationship between the two as follows: democracy in the absence of Democracy. The distinction provoked a serious of questions and discussions. Do we mean bottom-up versus top-down? Informal versus the formal? Are the terms mutually distinct? Are we better off thinking of a spectrum? As far as we know, there is no theory of everthing vis-a-vis the study of Internet and Democracy that relates small d and big D democracy.

Quantitative studies (with K. Wade) suggest that a 1% increase in networks associates with a point increase on the democracy scale.  Over the 1990s the Internet came to explain ten times more variations in levels of democratization. There is no statistically significant correlation between Internet usage and democracy in the Middle East and Asia regions. In his work, Michael combines natural language parsing with time series analysis and stylostatistical analysis.

Another research question Michael is pursuing is how new interactive media can help to reconcile and heal a nation such as Liberia. A pressing challenge is how to reach out to rural Liberians. The project developed a rural interactive mobile multi-media kiosk that can be added to the back of a 4×4. See TRCofliberia.org for further information.

Victoria Stodden is doing research to understand the relationship between Internet diffusion and democracy. The first stage of her research focuses on the Middle East and country-level analyses. The most reliable and consistent source of ICT data is from the International Telelcommunication Union (ITU), an organization that surveys local federal governments. On democracy data, the Freedom House data has a lot of inertia in that there is minimal variation in that dataset. The best source seems to be the World Bank Governance indicators. In particular, these include “Voice and Accountability” and “Rule of Law”.

Her analysis suggests that beyond a particular threshold of “Rule of Law”, the amount of mobile phone use (per 100 inhabitants) takes off. The threshold figure appears to be 40 users per 100. Internet use appears to accelerate faster with an increase in “Rule of Law” figures. She also measured the World Bank’s “Voice and Accountability” indicator against mobile phone use and Internet use.

The presentation prompted numerous backs-and-forths on the reliability of the data and the challenges of concluding certain trends. These are the same challenges that the conflict analysis field has faced over the past 5 years. Using macro-level aggregate data means making a host of assumptions regarding what these measurements mean vis-a-vis the questions we are asking. As long as we are transparent about these assumptions, there is no harm in proceeding with country-year econometric analysis. Ultimately, however, these studies need to be completemented with process-tracing methods and field-based qualitative research. This nested analysis approach is the one I am taking for my dissertation research.

Patrick Philippe Meier

I moderated the final panel of the day, which focused on the impact of the Internet on democratization and authoritarian regimes. Gwendolyn Floyd and Joshua Kauffman led the first presentation. Gwendolyn and Joshua recently returned from a field study in Cuba and emphasized the importance of working in developing countries in order to seek insight into the possible future scenarios of the information society in repressive contexts.

The exchange of non-state information in Cuba occurs at the extremities of informality. Indeed, distributed public spheres are facilitated by the distributed transportation network, i.e., taxis and buses. Clandestine libraries also exist. Because of limited ICTs and access, people have built their own antennas and satellite dishes (hidden under a potato bag as one picture revealed). Crackdowns and confiscations of satellite dishes and any connected technologies recently have recently occurred. This was because the state noticed that the youths began combing their hair differently, which they concluded could only be happening if they were exposed to (illegal)  satellite television channel(s).

There is Internet in Cuba, all through satellite. There is also a large parallel market that operates vis-a-vis  ICTs. When Joshua and Gwendolyn were in Cuba they decided to put a sign up “Free Internet Access Available Here” in a marginalized neighborhood. People knew what the Internet was and suggested they take the sign down with haste lest they get in trouble. Flash drives are also widely used to share non state-controlled information.

So Gwendolyn and Joshua have developed a device that allows for the rapid copying of flash drives without the need for a computer. This means that data on flash drives can be copied during a taxi ride, for example. The device also includes a small LCD screen and a built-in speaker. It can be operated using batteries and/or solar power. In addition, the device can be plugged into a television to watch video clips since there are virtually no computers in Cuba while one in five Cubans own a TV.

Gwendolyn and Joshua also spoke about Cuba’s University of Information Science (UCI), the largest university in Cuba with some 10,000 students. The university is a direct extension of the state, which uses surveillance as market research on public opinion which they can then respond to without acknowledging the  existance of the surveillance infrastructure. Students work on developing technologies and software for surveillance purposes, such as pattern recognition of visual images. For example, one project extracts headline information from CNN broadcasts by recognizing any text that might be displayed on the screen. This technology proved key in disseminating a YouTube video of (non-UCI) students challenging government officials directly at a university talk.

It was particularly insightful to learn the selection criteria for students accepted to the program: (1) highly developed computer and analytical skills; (2) lack of world knowledge and interest in world affairs. Students are also kept on campus six days a week. The presenters are working on a follow up project to introduce the technology in Burma. The challenge, like in Cuba, is twofold: (1) how to extract sensitive information, and (2) how to create and maintain a secure network of sensitive information.

One of the important findings from their research in Cuba was that people are not prepared to take on the responsibility that comes with democratic action and activism simply because the idea is particularly foreign to Cubans given the long history of state control. Understanding the local culture and history is absolutely critical before introducing any type of “liberating technology.” In Cuba’s case, the question is how to promote small “d” democracy? How does one ready a people for small “d” participation? Another question is whether technology that facilitates information dissemination increases incentives to engage in activist events because of the assurance that these will be widely distributed?

John Kelly‘s work blends social network analysis, content analysis and statistics to render complex online networks more visible and understandable. John began his presentation by showing the different structures/typologies/clusters of blogospheres in different languages. Which of the network structures might reveal more democratic societies? Individual blogs can also be color coded to represent different ideologies and attitudes to public issues. See my previous blog entry on the Iranian blogosphere here. John asks whether it is possible to have an online democratic society operate within an offline repressive regime?

John compared the network structure of the Iranian and Russian blogospheres that showed evident differences in structure. The former was more mixed while the latter clearly more clustered. His network visualization software also depicts how the networks appear differently depending on where blogs are blocked or not within the countries in question. More detailed characteristics of individual blogs can also be depicted as a social network, such as age, areas of interest and so on. Of particular interest are blogs that critize the current goverment. Key word social network rendering can also be visualized, such as blogs that use terms such as democracy, Palestine etc.

During the Q & A session, it was argued that the Blogosphere is not representative of any nation state in terms of age, gender, economic status, education, etc. On the other hand, even if Blogospheres are characterized by the participation of elites, the number of different elites and arguments/ideologies can serve as a good sign of democracy in (virtual) action.

Patrick Philippe Meier

This blog entry summarizes the first day of Harvard’s Berkman@10 conference in Boston. The blog includes talks given by Jonathan Zittrain, John Palfrey, Jimmy Wales and Yochai Benkler.

Jonathan Zittrain kicked off Berkman’s birthday party with an animated presentation of his book, The Future of the Internet, and How to Stop It. I began reading JZ’s book last week in the hopes of having finished it by today but alas it was not to be. So I will write a review on The Future of Internet in a future blog entry. In any event, JZ’s concern seems to be a re-centralization, or control, of the Internet and associated technologies like the iPhone. He is particularly peeved by Steve Jobs’ comments when he launched the iPhone:

We define everything that is on the phone … You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.

Zittrain worries that companies like Apple and Facebook will increasingly constrain the generative nature of the Internet and thereby undermine the creativity, freedom and innovation that have driven the information revolution to this day. He likens this to dark matter or energy which keeps the universe expanding at an accelerating rate. JZ is genuinely concerned that the IT ecosystem’s dark energy will cease expand the Internet as we know it today; a reversal of the “bit bang” to the “bit crunch“.

As mentioned, I have yet to finish Zittrain’s book but my preliminary thoughts are one of skepticism. My reaction is based on my recent dissertation research. I suspect that we are unlikely to see the kind of tipping point described by JZ, which I refer to as the “bit crunch” theory of the Internet. Zittrain draws on the example of hitchhiking, once a widespread mode of transportation but much less so today given fears over personal safety. At the same time, Zittrain does highlight the fact that websites dedicated to hitchhiking do exist. In my opinion, this points to a game of cyber cat-and-mouse, a dynamic whereby adaptation and evolution are likely to be the Internet’s constants, i.e., factors unlikely to change in the dark energy equation of the Internet regardless of who the players are.

Other tidbits: JZ made interesting references to the IETF, Nanog, StopBadWare.org and the origins of ITU (to deal with encryption in telegrams).

John Palfrey led a discussion on the impact of the Internet on Democracy, a topic closely related to my dissertation research. In John’s words, “The internet allows more speech from more people than ever… but states are finding more and more ways to restrict online speech and to practice surveillance.” My dissertation question is whether repressive regimes will manage to impose an information blockade on sensitive communications or whether resistance groups will ultimately prevail, and why?

John made references to Global Voices and asked Ethan Zuckerman to comment on the projects impact and continuing challenges. Ethan opined that the biggest challenge was not necessarily government censorship but rather that citizen journalism had yet to influence mainstream media in a concerted and significant way. Later on in John’s moderation of the discussion, the subject of Cuba and in particular the use of flash drives came up. Interestingly, flash drives are the ICT of choice for activists in Cuba who seek to communicate and share information with one another. As one blogger in Havana exclaimed:

Cubans have a new saint. It is a small and is called USB-flash, memory stick….Praise be this new protector and distributor of information that has come into our lives!

Several interesting points were articulated during the question and answers session:

• There are now more Internet users in China than in the US, and the vast majority of these users actually welcome censorship.
• The Internet is ultimately about people, not routers. If we want to change the future of the Internet, we need to change people, who will find ways to exert power in new network fashion as they learn about the world of network organizing (Ethan Zuckerman).
• The impact of the Internet on democracy (small “d” as opposed to big “D”) is an area of study that is as important as the impact on Democracy (Beth Kolko).
• The Kyrgyz revolution was particularly interesting vis-a-vis the use of information communication technology beyond the Internet. Indeed, mobile phone usage is particularly high, and civil society made use of this technology to protect shops and stores from being looted by marauders. In other words, ICTs were used for protection by civil society where and when the state was unable to do so (Beth Kolko).
• The impact of computer games should not be overlooked since young people who wish to play inevitably become accosted to technology and find ways to deal with the last mile problem in order to play. This also enables them to access new sources of technology that they were not privy to heretofore (Beth Kolko).

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and Yochai Benkler also spoke at Bekrman@10. Both made very interest points and intriguing references. For example, Jimmy explained why consensus was more important than democratic voting. For example, if 30% of individuals who vote on an issue are then overruled by the majority vote, the tyranny of the majority is unlikely to appease potential spoilers (much like challenges in managing peace processes). So instead, Jimmy emphasizes the importances of process, i.e., continued deliberation and rewriting of Wikipedia entries until consensus is reached, by which time some engaged in the ongoing arguments will have demonstrated behavioral problems and therefore have been discredited. This reminded me of the value of Wikis emphasized by the creaters of Intellipedia, which I blogged about here.

Benkler’s comments were very much in line with his book The Wealth of Networks, so I shan’t repeat them here. Benkler did make a number of interesting references, however. For example, Porkbusters and Kaltura. The question is whether features can be designed to improve or incite more sustained cooperation. While I’m skeptical about the feasibility of such goals, I thought Jimmy made an excellent point, “make it cheaper to do something good and more expensive to do something bad.” In essence, Jimmy’s Wikipedia experiment demonstrates that people tend to cooperate far more often than traditional theories in sociology and political science would allow.

This is the stuff that Jonathan Zittrain’s dark matter is ultimately made of, which explains why I am skeptical about his tipping point thesis regarding the Internet. The human desire to communicate and be heard is innate and unlikely to lay dormant for long should JZ’s future temporarily come to pass.

Patrick Philippe Meier