[experimental society conference: lancaster]

International conference: The Experimental Society, Lancaster University, 7-9 July 2010

Experimentation, with its distinctive way of joining action and knowledge, has played a crucial role in the culture and politics of modern society, but one that has a number of contradictory strands.  In one strand, experimentation is associated with the opening up of the closed medieval universe into an open world of endless possibility.  This story would include the development of the arts as an autonomous space for free exploration, and practices of social, cultural and political experimentation that invent new ways of living.  It had perhaps its leading advocate in Friedrich Nietzsche, with his notion of life as a continuous experiment, but in the contemporary world it is also manifested in the everyday creativity (de Certeau) with which people experiment ‘casually’ with new forms of humanity, technology, space, economic exchange and political participation (Hayles, Stelarc, Soja, Ghosh, Rheingold, Lury).  

 Yet the dominant strand to the modern experiment has surely been that of experimental science, which from the 17^th century offered to solve the problem of social dissensus by putting all truth claims to public test, thereby replacing the received certainties of traditional society with the new certainties of objective facts and natural laws (Shapin, Schaffer, Toulmin).  In performing the split between nature and culture that Bruno Latour calls the ‘modern constitution’, the experiment thus started its long relationship with social ordering, technology and power, which has helped to legitimise the instrumental paradigm of modern political action (Ezrahi), drive forward the grand projects of 20^th century high-modernist statecraft (Scott), and shape the contemporary world of evidence-based policy, clinical trials and audits.  Critiques of this development include early warnings about the iron cage of instrumental rationality (Weber), twentieth century unease about technocracy and the scientisation of politics (the Frankfurt school) and autonomous technology (Ellul, Winner), and contemporary concern about the proliferation of states of exception in which experimental subjection and the reduction of the human to ‘bare life’ becomes the norm (Agamben).



It is time to ask whether the experiment is now too complicit with power to act as a carrier of the hopes of (post)modernity, or whether its emancipatory potential can be renewed through a sustained inquiry into the different forms that it takes in science and technology, in the arts and in wider culture. If experimentation and innovation have become too integrated with imaginaries of technological control, and thereby with consequent externalisations (Wynne and Felt), then further large questions arise not only for politics, but also for environmental sustainability.
However, any such project also needs to be sensitive to ways in which the key role played by experimentation in the ordering of society seems to be shifting away from the special to the general experiment – from the experiment as a bounded episode situated in time and space, to a generalised, performative experimentality.  Driven by pervasive informationalisation, we can observe a number of interlinked trends, including: the acceleration and proliferation of feedback loops between action and reaction; the displacement of fixed structures by networks and dissipative structures; the abandonment of fixed goals for continuous repositioning; and the carrying out of knowledge-work in the context of application.  Such trends can be observed in domains as disparate as science and innovation, network-centric digital warfare, finance capitalism, product design, software engineering, new media and popular culture.  Do these add up to a systemic transformation of how society is being ordered? Are humans no longer in control of their experimental ‘projects’, and what does this mean for our conceptualisation of the human and of politics?  Does this create the conditions in which a new kind of experimental society might be possible? How might we imagine this, and perhaps influence its form?
This three-day international conference is the culmination of Lancaster’s year-long research programme Experimentality, which in six two-day workshops and a range of arts events in the North West has been exploring the varieties and transformations of experimentation.  It will draw on the inquiries held in these events: into experimentation and eventality, into the forms of subject and object implicated in experimentation, into the experimentality of matter itself and into the social and spatial organisation of experimentation in urban life.  It will draw on recent work on experimentation as having its own logic (Hacking), as being shaped into experimental systems which produce novelty and surprise (Rheinberger), as involving pervasive everyday improvisation (Ingold), as brought to closure in different ways (Galison) and as enacted in different experimental spaces or 'truth-spots' (Gieryn).  It will bring together scholars from a range of disciplines, and practitioners from different spheres of social life, to set out and debate different diagnoses and visions of the experimental society.  It will be an interdisciplinary, collaborative exploration of the power of experimentation to shape the future. 
Questions to be pursued in the conference will include the following:

• Is experimentality becoming a key trope of contemporary society?  Is it taking new forms, and if so with what implications? 
• How can we learn from the differences between the modes of experimentality operating within science, the arts and wider culture?
• How do notions of experimentality intersect with other dominant notions of social change, such as societal reflexivity, liquidity, knowing capitalism, cosmopolitanism, mobility and complexity?
• What dangers to human freedom are posed by new, experimental forms of power?
• If a shift is occurring in modern society's ontology, so that ‘society’ is itself becoming self-interrogating, what does this mean for the social sciences? 
• How can the power to shape our socio-technical future be distributed more evenly in society?  Can people and publics appropriate 'the experiment' so that it operates as an engine of human freedom harnessed to the task of building a common world, rather than as a tool of power?
• If modern society is implicated in, perhaps dependent upon, forms of uncontrolled, unintended or blind experiment, what forms of regulatory ordering might be required? 

Plenary speakers will include:

·        Ulrich Beck (London School of Economics)

·        Dieter Daniels (Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig)

·        Bülent Diken (Lancaster University)

·        Silvio Funtowicz (European Commission Joint Research Centre)

·        Josephine Green (Social Innovation, Philips Design)

·        Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen)

·        Scott Lash (Goldsmiths, University of London)

·        Helga Nowotny (European Research Council)

·        Jerome Ravetz (University of Oxford)

·        Gísli Pálsson (University of Iceland)

·        James Wilsdon (Royal Society)

For further information and to book a place please go to http://www.lancs.ac.uk/experimentality/event/international-conference-experimental-society

If you have a query please contact:
Anne-Marie Mumford
Institute for Advanced Studies
County South
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YD, UK
Email: a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1524 510816
Fax: +44 (0) 1524 510857


 

[google 'phone home]

Via Jason Hiner on Tech Republic:

"Google’s haphazard attitude toward data privacy was my biggest concern, and it made me want to limit to amount of data I gave to Google. Since I was already doing most of my Web searches through Google.com and handling most of my personal email through Gmail, I decided to avoid the Chrome Web browser and the Android smartphone platform.


If Google had all four of those platforms then it would have had a near-complete digital footprint of my online activities. Limiting it to two seemed wise. I was especially concerned with Chrome saving and storing my entire Web browsing history and sending it back to Google.


However, for people like me — along with concerned IT leaders and technology professionals — Google recently published a YouTube video (see below) explaining Google’s privacy approach in Chrome. In this video Google says, “Using Chrome doesn’t mean sharing any more information with Google than using any other browser.”

[conference: foundations of information science]

Conference Date:
August 20-23, 2010

Deadline of Paper Submission:
May 20th, 2010

Notification of Acceptance:

 June 20th, 2010

Location:

Beijing

Continuing the series of FIS Conferences (Madrid 1994, Vienna 1996, Paris 2005) a new venue will be held in Beijing 2010. In our times, an increasing number of disciplines are dealing with information in very different ways: from information society and information technology to communication studies (and related subjects like codes, meaning, knowledge, and intelligence), as well as quantum information, bioinformation, knowledge economy, network science, computer science and Internet, to name but a few. At the same time, an increasing number of scientists in the East and the West have been engaged with the foundational problems underlying this development, to such an extent that the integration of disciplines revolving around information seems an idea whose time has come. A new science of information can be envisaged that explores the possibilities of establishing a common ground, of constructing a new scientific perspective that connects the different information-related disciplines and provides a new framework for transdisciplinary research.

Topics:

1.  The Impact of a New Science of Information on Society

2.  The Position of Intelligence Science in Information Science

       a. Information and Intelligence

       b. Intelligence Science as an Engineering Informatics in Information Science  

3.  The Role of Other Applied Information Science Disciplines (Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, Computer Mediated Communication, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Information and Communication Technologies and Society, Library and Documentation Science, …)

4.  The Basis of a New Science of Information

       a.  Feasibility of a single generic concept of information

       b.  Concepts, Principles, and Methodology of a “General Informatics” or “Theoretical Informatics”

       c.   Knowledge Structure of a Unified Theory of Information 

5.   Philosophy of Information

       a.   Information Ethics

       b.   Epistemology (Information and the Scientific Method, …)  

       c.   Ontology of Information   

       d.   Information and Philosophy of Science (Information and the System of Sciences – Transdisciplinarity – Consilience, …)

6.   Science of Information in Real-World Systems

       a.  Science of Information in Physical and Chemical Systems (Quantum Information, Molecular Recognition, …)

       b.  Science of Information in Living Systems (Biosemiotics, Systems Biology, Bioinformation, …)

       c.   Science of Information in Human / Social Systems

              i.  Science of Information in Human Cognition (Mind-Brain Theory, Consciousness, …)

              ii.  Science of Information in Human Communication (Linguistics, Social Networking,Communication Studies, …)

              iii.  Science of Information in Human Cooperation (Collective Intelligence, Knowledge Management, Advanced Intelligence, …)

7.   Science of the Information Society / Age (Information Society Theory, Internet Research, Social Informatics, New Media Studies, …)

Read more about the conference here.

[google and your "social circle"]

Via George Siemens:


"Google just announced Social Search. The services helps you "to find publicly available content from your social circle". Google extracts information on your social circle from three sources: Google Reader subscriptions, Google Profiles, and Google chat (GMail). They use the term "surfacing" connections to describe not only adding your friends, but one additional degree: your friend's friends.
This move by Google is a direct assault on Facebook. Facebook has emphasized social connections over content. Google has, to date, primarily emphasized information sorting, filtering, and ranking. Facebook's model of emphasizing social rather than information connections is a problem for Google. What is unique in Social Search is the focus on aggregation rather than place-based interaction. In theory, Google emphasizes pulling together various pieces of online interactions through aggregation, whereas Facebook emphasizes housing interactions in their environment."

[newspapers, new media & monetization]

Thanks to a link from @jayrosen_nyu I've seen this interesting article on how to obtain value from (or rather, monetize) online content. Zachary M. Seward notes that the meeting of industry execs held on Thursday was aptly titled "Models to Lawfully Monetize Content."

The report itself outlines five key changes (or "doctrines" according to Rick Edmonds).

• True Value. Establish that news content online has value by charging for it. Begin "massive experimentation with several of the most promising options."
• Fair Use. Maintain the value of professionally produced and edited content by "aggressively enforcing copyright, fair use and the right to profit from original work."
• Fair Share. Negotiate a higher price for content produced by the news industry that is aggregated and redistributed by others.
• Digital Deliverance. "Invest in technologies, platforms and systems that provide content-based e-commerce, data-sharing and other revenue generating solutions."
• Consumer Centric. Refocus on consumers and users. Shift revenue strategies from those focused on advertisers.

Why the interest in monetizing online content...to protect the print newspapers.

Paid content wall would protect print subscriptions

The report also suggests a paid content wall would help retain print subscribers, citing a recent USC Annenberg survey finding that 22 percent of online news readers said that they had dropped print subscriptions because they could most of the same content free online.

But is charging for online content the best way to generate revenue? Hard-hitting sales tactics doesn't seem synonymous with loyal readership. In James Warren's words: "collecting enhanced online newspaper user data across newspaper properties and mining that data to aggressively sell target content to specific audience segments across the network (e.g. golf enthusiasts)."

Newspapers need to get creative. Leverage some of the amazing web 2.0 tools to generate interest. Perhaps online versions might offer something for the long tail too which won't be present in the print versions (I know some newspapers are already doing this).



Note: The Huffington Post, having "reinvented the American newspaper," seems to do quite well (without a print version) though only 6% of it's news stories are original content.

[financial crisis :: humor]

[cognitive leadership for transdisciplinary research]

Reading "Enhancing Transdisciplinary Research Through Collaborative Leadership" by Barbara Grey.


Some interesting points:

• Groupthink refers to the suppression of differences within a team and its inability to bridge power differences
• the absence of process skills (e.g., decision making, problem solving, conflict resolution, information exchange, coordination, and boundary management) has also been noted as a crucial detriment to collaboration
• Viewing the leadership of transdisciplinary initiatives as a cognitive task means that leadership involves the management of meaning
• Transformational leaders high on charisma,
  for example, are seen as powerful shapers of their followers’ aspirations which positively affects team performance
• In transdisciplinary research, the cognitive tasks of leadership largely consist of visioning and framing
• Transdisciplinary leaders need to be able to envision how various disciplines may overlap in constructive ways that could generate scientific breakthroughs and new understanding
  in a specific problem area
• Structural-leadership tasks address the team’s need for coordination and information exchange— both within the team and between the team and external actors
• Research on brokers (who occupy key positions between others) in transdisciplinary networks reveals they are high on the Big Five Personality factor of openness, displayed an ability to imagine and propose potential collaborations among researchers, and engaged in active transdisciplinary mentoring of junior faculty
• Among the boundary-spanning tasks identified as key for transdisciplinary teams are
  gaining and maintaining sound institutional commitment and support,17 acquiring funds to manage emerging areas of research and training, devoting adequate attention to and securing funds for infrastructure, and building bridges to other centers and new disciplines
• Attending to the process dynamics of a transdisciplinary team demands an especially important set of interpersonal skills that are critical to successful team collaboration

[social networks and adult usage - stats]

From the Pew Internet Report by Amanda Lenhart

The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years -- from 8% in 2005 to 35% now, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's December 2008 tracking survey.

While media coverage and policy attention focus heavily on how children and young adults use social network sites, adults still make up the bulk of the users of these websites. Adults make up a larger portion of the US population than teens, which is why the 35% number represents a larger number of users than the 65% of online teens who also use online social networks.

Still, younger online adults are much more likely than their older counterparts to use social networks, with 75% of adults 18-24 using these networks, compared to just 7% of adults 65 and older. At its core, use of online social networks is still a phenomenon of the young.

Overall, personal use of social networks seems to be more prevalent than professional use of networks, both in the orientation of the networks that adults choose to use as well as the reasons they give for using the applications. Most adults, like teens, are using online social networks to connect with people they already know.

When users do use social networks for professional and personal reasons, they will often maintain multiple profiles, generally on different sites.

Most, but not all adult social network users are privacy conscious; 60% of adult social network users restrict access to their profiles so that only their friends can see it, and 58% of adult social network users restrict access to certain content within their profile.

View PDF of Report

Other Online Activities & Pursuits Resources

Memo | Adults and Video Games

Memo | Search Engine Use

Report | The Internet and Consumer Choice

Report | Online Shopping

Memo | Increased Use of Video-sharing Sites

Related Topic Areas

Technology & Media Use

[elements of digital storytelling]

Check out this amazing project over at the University of Minnesota. The School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Institute for New Media Studies and The Media Center - Nora Paul and Christina Fiebich - address questions like:

What is unique about the digitial environment? How do users respond to it? How
can its potential be maximized? The Institute for New Media Studies and New
Directions for News are investigating these questions.

The Elements of Digital Storytelling site provides a:

• Taxonomy of digital storytelling


• Analysis of current practices


• Clearinghouse of effects research


• Showcase of innovative story forms


• Forum for discussion

[pulitzer prize clarifications]

The other day I blogged about changes to the Pulitzer prize terms; now included are online-only news organisations (rather than demanding that online-content only be accepted from organisations that also had a print version). Since then Simon Owens has drawn my attention to some developments . Simon was able to interview Pulitzer administrator Sig Gissler for a PBS article and then speak with Salon, Slate and ProPublica to gauge their reaction to the news.

From the PBS article:

"I spoke to Pulitzer administrator Sig Gissler to find out what kind of entrants the Pulitzer Board is looking for. He told me that a special committee had made recommendations for the changes earlier this year and in November the board adopted them.

"We're not about the business of looking around the country to identify specific organizations," Gissler said. "We leave it up to the entrants to meet our criteria."

In other words, the burden of proof lies on the news organization to provide ample evidence that it meets all the qualifications for the award. Each entrant must submit a detailed cover letter with each entry, and Gissler said that the organization would have to make the case that it adheres to strict journalistic standards and engages in original reporting.

Pressing further, I asked whether sites like Salon, Slate and the Huffington Post would qualify.

"I'm not sure if they all qualify," he replied. "I think you have to determine if they're primarily original news reporting. We're really trying to push the burden on the entrants and not try to sit here and speculate about an entry that may or may not be let in."

He did, however, confirm that a blog could hypothetically qualify. If one or two people call their website a text-based newspaper, would it be eligible?" he said. "Blogs tend to fall into three categories. There are news reporting blogs, there are commentary blogs, and there's a hybrid version of the two. If they're text-based and meet our criteria, then they probably could compete. But it would be up to them to satisfy the criteria."

[...]

"NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen showed similar skepticism in a series of posts on his Twitter account. In a message to me he asked if a blogger known for insightful opinion could win the award for commentary even though she doesn't engage in original reporting. When I responded that she probably wouldn't qualify, he replied, "Oh, I see. If it's commentary at a reporting based news organization, [you're] golden. [It's] the derivation that counts."


Read the entire article here where Simon develops the conversation and presents some interesting responses from other key people involved in journalism. You can also join the conversation by answering some of Simon's questions:

"What do you think about the new eligibility for Pulitzer Prizes in journalism? Are they open enough or should they include more entrants? How would you define who should be eligible for Pulitzers?"

[pulitzer prize now includes online writings]

Pulitzer Prizes Broadened to Include Online-Only Publications Primarily Devoted to Original News Reporting




Via Netwurker Mez on Facebook.

[social media in education - cfp]

CALL FOR PAPERS

Electronic Journal of Communication (EJC)

Special Issue:

Communication Pedagogy in the Age of Social Media

Over the course of the last few years, social media technologies such as blogs, microblogs, digital videos, podcasts, wikis, and social networks, have seen a dramatic increase in adoption rates. To date, Internet users have uploaded roughly 80 million videos to YouTube and launched approximately 133 million blogs worldwide. Because of their ability to connect people and to facilitate the exchange of information and web content, social media technologies not only provide a powerful new way to interact with one another, but they also present exciting new pedagogical opportunities.

Earlier this year, the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative released the 2008 Horizon Report, which seeks to identify new technologies capable of affecting the way we teach and learn. Among the critical challenges outlined by this year’s report is the need for universities to equip students with new media literacy skills and to develop curricula that “address not only traditional capabilities like developing an argument over the course of a long paper”, but also “how to create meaningful content with today’s tools.” (The New Media Consortium, 2008, p. 6).

Considering that these tools center around the ideas of collaboration, participation, and conversation, they should hold special interest to communication researchers and educators alike. As a result, this special issue seeks to examine the pedagogical applications of social media technologies, especially with regard to the communication classroom. Examples of best practices in social media adoption in all areas of communication education are welcome, as are case studies or empirical research analyzing the effectiveness and/or effects of incorporating social media technologies into the communication classroom. Research examining the role these technologies play in the social construction of a collective knowledge pool would also fit within the scope of this special issue.

The special issue is scheduled for publication in the first half of 2010. Deadline for completed manuscripts is April 1, 2009. Submissions should be electronic (.doc or .rtf format) and must conform to the specifications of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed. Place author’s contact information in an email to the editor only, not on the title page of the submission.

Issue Editors:
Corinne Weisgerber, Ph.D. and Shannan H. Butler, Ph.D.
St. Edward’s University

Send inquiries and submissions to: corinnew AT stedwards DOT edu


via: Social Media for PR Class.