newspeak

Mapping Twitter Topic Networks: From Polarized Crowds to Community Clusters | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

The Journal of Community Informatics.

The Journal of Community Informatics
Vol 10, No 1 (2014)
Table of Contents
http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/issue/view/48

Editorial
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Beyond Access: Libraries are the New Telecentres
	Michael Gurstein

Articles
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Local e-Government in Sweden - Municipal Contact Center implementation with
focus on Citizens and Public Administrators
	Irene Cecilia Bernhard

Bridging the Digital Divide in Dunn County, Wisconsin: A Case Study of NPO
use of ICT
	Elizabeth Bogner,	Kevin W. Tharp,	Mary McManus

Community, Group and Individual: A Framework for Designing Community
Technologies
	Sheena L. Erete

Shared identity and personal tie in influencing cooperative behavior
	Hao Jiang,	John M. Carroll

Failures and success in using webcasts, discussion forums, Twitter, and
email to engage older people and other stakeholders in rural ageing
	Ray B Jones,	Janet Smithson,	Catherine Hennessy

From Pebble to Avalanche: How Information and Communications Technologies
Empowered Underprivileged Actors Through Ages
	Piotr Konieczny

Exploring the Formation of Social Capital in a Malaysia Virtual Community
	Dr. Shafiz Affendi Mohd Yusof,	Kamarul Faizal Hashim

Emergent digital activism: The generational/technological connection
	Fernando Adolfo Mora

Drive-by Wi-Fi and digital storytelling: development and co-creation
	Jo Tacchi,	Kathi R Kitner,	Kiran Mulenahalli

How Does Internet Usage Influence On Social Capital, Connectedness, Success
And Well-Being Of Grassroots Level Inventors In Sri Lanka?
	Chaminda Nalaka Wickramasinghe,	Nobaya Ahmad

Internet Access At Public Access Venues In A Developing Countries: Lessons
from Yogyakarta, Indonesia
	Stevanus Wisnu Wijaya,	Agnes Maria Polina

Reviews
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Changing youths role in development through ICT enterprise and investment
	Michael D Williams

Research Methods: Information, systems and contexts
	Martin Wolske

Case Studies
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Engaging Stakeholders: The First Step to Increasing Digital Inclusion
Abstract
	Angela Siefer

Notes from the field
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An Inquiry into Community Members’ Use and Attitudes toward Technology in
Mishkeegogamang First Nation
	Connie Gray-McKay,	Kerri L. Gibson,	Susan O'Donnell,	The People of
Mishkeegogamang

Seven ways Microsoft Excel could change the world | News | theguardian.com.

No doubt, the reader, if any, of this incredibly boring blog has already learned of how some UK government offices are supposedly switching to open source alternatives to that moneysucker, Microsoft Office. Included and named: OpenOffice, my old and continuing love and life (and destiny, it seems).

But here’s a charming article on the joys of Excel. Granted, Excel has seldom given me joy. But I do recognize that it is the best of Office and the one module that few who use it dedicatedly would want to give up. (I actually believe no one should really give up the tools of production they prefer but that all tools of production should be made available to those who need them, and that implies sustainable development à la open source.)

Why Your Startup Can’t Find Developers ⚙ Co.Labs ⚙ code + community.

…. and I, like many others, have probably come across more than enough companies evidencing these flaws….

Gamers Solve RNA Structures | The Scientist Magazine®.

The point is not to treat the participants as children or to offer more or less bogus rewards for work (and then pretend that it’s been turned to play) but to articulate an environment where free flows of ideas and achievements are encouraged.

5 of the most famous (and effective) growth hacks of all time – The Next Web.

These are not dumb ideas. They are kind of obvious, but that’s only because I and others have also thought of them. But that’s also irrelevant. These ideas actually work, and there is even theoretical backing that I can cite for them–always a plus, for me.

The ‘Snowden Effect’ Is Crushing US Tech Firms In China – Business Insider.

Is Data Speech? by Jane R. Bambauer :: SSRN.

The title is brilliant. And the article interesting.

The key point: “Data privacy laws regulate minds, not technology. Thus, for all practical purposes, and in every context relevant to the privacy debates, data is speech.”

The abstract:

Privacy laws rely on the unexamined assumption that the collection of data is not speech. That assumption is incorrect. Privacy scholars, recognizing an imminent clash between this long-held assumption and First Amendment protections of information, argue that data is different from the sort of speech the Constitution intended to protect. But they fail to articulate a meaningful distinction between data and other, more traditional forms of expression. Meanwhile, First Amendment scholars have not paid sufficient attention to new technologies that automatically capture data. These technologies reopen challenging questions about what “speech” is.

This Article makes two bold and overdue contributions to the First Amendment literature. First, it argues that when the scope of First Amendment coverage is ambiguous, courts should analyze the government’s motive for regulating. Second, it highlights and strengthens the strands of First Amendment theory that protect the right to create knowledge. Whenever the state regulates in order to interfere with knowledge, that regulation should draw First Amendment scrutiny.

In combination, these claims show clearly why data must receive First Amendment protection. When the collection or distribution of data troubles lawmakers, it does so because data has the potential to inform, and to inspire new opinions. Data privacy laws regulate minds, not technology. Thus, for all practical purposes, and in every context relevant to the privacy debates, data is speech.

Digital Market Manipulation by Ryan Calo :: SSRN.

The article is probably by now a classic. At any rate, worth reading and investigating the issues raised.

The essay by Andrew Leonard is worth reading, if only because of its synthesis. The familiar point, that we ought to proceed with eyes wide open and not look to “Big Data” analysis or any other seeming technological system as a panacea, bears repeating. Leonard quotes Morozov, who argues that the outcome will be less not more transparency, and also O’Reilly, who is rather more optimistic:

“The general lesson from algorithmic regulation systems is that you focus on the outcome and you continue to tweak the algorithm to achieve that outcome, precisely because people do try to game the system. At least with an algorithmic regulation system, you have a chance of adapting more quickly. With an old-fashioned paper regulatory system, people game the system too and they go on doing it for years.”

Fair enough. In a perfect world, we will always be tweaking the algorithm. But the nature of those tweaks will be just as contested as the writing of existing regulations is contested in Congress. And the same power law is likely to be as true in the black boxes of software as in the legislative sausage factory. Capital writes the rules. And the more we take humans out of the picture, the harder it will be for real people to fight the power.

I tend to believe that Leonard’s bleaker outlook is likelier to be the one most people encounter. But I also believe that in this case too the future will not be distributed equally, nor even using the same technologies. Here, as with other instances, there will be irruptions of differences that will prove disruptive. Different capital regimes in different polities alone will unmake hegemonic effects, or at least compromise them: there is no single capital market nor single consumer field.

 One code to rule them all: How big data could help the 1 percent and hurt the little guy – Salon.com.