Question 1

What could a healthier communications market look like? How can the right balance be achieved between investment, competition and services in a changing technological environment?

Many of the questions in this review focus on aspects of competition and industrial policy, however it is our view that for the economic benefits of the Internet to be maximised, attention must also be devoted to closing the digital divide. Efforts such as Race Online 2012 demonstrate that the UK government realizes the significance of access to the Internet in supporting efforts to erase the digital divide, increase participation and enhance digital media literacy. Yet less than 30 percent of adults in the UK report receiving training in media literacy, even though training could promote participation among those with little to no experience (Ofcom, 2011; Livingstone & Wang, 2011). Our view is that access must be paired with understanding of options and risks to promote a healthier communications market.  Based on our 2011 OxIS survey findings, 73 percent of individuals in the UK use the Internet, leaving more than a quarter of the population off the Internet.  Efforts to increase Internet use among Britons has critical significance for 21st century economic and civic participation, but need adequate resources to promote understanding of the associated opportunities and risks.

For earlier OxIS figures see:

Dutton, W. H., Helsper, H. J., and Gerber, M. M. (2009), The Internet in Britain. Oxford: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.

Livingstone, S. & Wang, Y. (20110) Media Literacy and the Communications Act. London: LSE.

Ofcom (2011b). UK adults’ media literacy. London: Ofcom.

Question 3

Is regulatory convergence across different platforms desirable and, if so, what are the potential issues to implementation?

This question was discussed at a recent policy forum convened by the Oxford Internet Institute, in which field-leading academics with media, communications and regulatory expertise were asked to consider the proposed Review of the Communications Act. This forum served to reinforce our view that it would be a significant mistake to seek regulatory convergence across platforms if this means imposing a model of broadcast regulation on the Internet. It is often assumed that the Internet is a modern era ‘Wild West’, lawless and unregulated. In fact, the opposite is true – there is already extensive regulation of Internet service provision, content and activities. We would argue that traditional regulatory models for broadcasting, common carriers (such as post or telecommunications) and the press cannot be imposed wholesale on the Internet without serious risks to its vitality and its contribution to the UK economy as well as potential chilling effects of speech. Further analysis of this point can be found in: Dutton, W. H. (2010b), ‘Aiming at Copyright Infringers and Hitting the Digital Economy’, Prometheus, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 385-388, December 2010. Available at SSRN:http://ssrn.com/abstract=1778422

Question 13

Where has self- and co-regulation worked successfully and what can be learnt from specific approaches? Where specific approaches haven’t worked, how can the framework of content regulation be made sufficiently coherent and not create barriers to growth, but at the same time protect citizens and enable consumer confidence?

Many different regulatory models have been applied to various aspects of the Internet. Mobile operators in the UK voluntarily adopted industry codes of conduct to limit Internet access to adult content to minors, and to limit the use of location-aware services. Similarly the UK-licensed Internet gambling industry has proved that age verification (at least for the 18 threshold) is possible, and further has been widely recognised to have implemented this so successfully that even the child protection lobby have registered their satisfaction with this system. The UK model for control of illegal content, such as child pornography and hate speech, could undoubtedly benefit from more transparency and judicial oversight, but has broadly proved an effective way to limit the distribution of such material. Such measures are almost all co-regulatory – individual businesses and industry bodies signing up to common codes of conduct or unofficial norms, with the backing (or threat) of legislation.

We do not believe that the Internet requires further heavy-handed regulation, and would propose two principles as a suitable basis for advance:

·       A presumption in favour of ‘democratised regulation’, namely pushing more control to the users and producers of communication and information services – the public. This is not simply another term for self-regulation, as it requires regulatory support at many levels (see below). A good example of democratised regulation would be the currently evolving system for content regulation whereby only extremely limited forms of illegal content (such as child pornography) might be blocked by mandate or on a centralized basis, with users having access to PC-based tools, a ‘home hub,’ or an ISP filtering system that enables them to choose how much content (if any) they want filtered. In this sense, parents, educators and users generally, could be given more control over their own communications infrastructure in a way that is low cost for government and industry.

·       A presumption in favour of regulation only where it is needed to ensure the preservation of a fair, accessible and open Internet, or to protect the most fundamental rights such as freedom of speech or protection from abuse.

I would also like to draw your attention to related post by Roger Darlington at http://www.rogerdarlington.me.uk/commswatch/?p=2900 Roger has been posting links to other submissions here: http://www.rogerdarlington.me.uk/commswatch/

Roger Darlington’s Website: http://www.rogerdarlington.me.uk/convergence.html

David Grahams’ Blog: http://www.attentional.com/david-grahams-blog/2011/05/a-new-communications-bill-is-coming/

‘The Need for Achieving Appropriate Information Sharing and Information Protection’

I was held on Friday, 8 April 2011 at 16.00-17.30 at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St Giles Oxford OX1 3JS

The slides are posted on Slideshare at: http://www.slideshare.net/WHDutton/information-sharing-and-protection and an audio recording of his talk should be posted in due course in the OII’s Webcasting archive.

Speakers

• Dr David Bray, Information Sharing Environment (ISE)

Abstract

In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States began a historic transformation aimed at preventing future attacks and improving its ability to protect institutions at home and abroad. As a result, the US is now better informed of terrorist intentions and plans, and better prepared to detect, prevent, and respond to their actions. Enhanced information sharing has provided a greater capacity for coordinated and integrated action.

The Information Sharing Environment (ISE, www.ise.gov) was established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The ISE provides analysts, operators and investigators with integrated and synthesized information on terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and homeland security. This talk will describe what the ISE is and by doing so will explore post-9/11 information sharing in the United States, and the efforts being made towards information sharing and protection. David will also give a brief outline of on-going ISE development efforts.

In essence, this talk highlights that when examining the full scope of information sharing and protection, there are many widespread and complex challenges that must be addressed and solved by multiple agencies together. Policies and solutions should be framed to address all types of protected information, classified and unclassified, as critical national and homeland security issues cut across security domains. Protection also includes privacy and civil liberties protections. Without privacy and civil liberties protections, sharing is not possible; and without sharing, protection loses its relevance.

About David Bray

Dr. David A. Bray is Executive for Innovation, Integration, and Interoperability, Office of the Program Manager, Information Sharing Environment. He  joined the Office of the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE) in October 2010 as a Senior National Intelligence Service Executive. The Program Manager has government-wide authority to plan, oversee the build-out, and manage use of the ISE to implement the President’s information sharing priorities. Dr. Bray’s work focuses on empowering the ISE partnerships of five communities – Defense, Intelligence, Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, and Law Enforcement – in support of whole-of-government solutions for assured information sharing, protection, and access. Prior to joining ISE, Dr. Bray served as a strategist at the Institute for Defense Analyses and the Science and Technology Policy Institute. Dr. Bray holds a PhD in information systems, a MSPH in public health informatics, and a BSCI in computer science and biology from Emory University, alongside two post-doctoral associateships with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Collective Intelligence and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Leadership for a Networked World Program. He also serves as a Visiting Associate with the National Defense University.

This first seminar was entitled ‘Digital Wales: Inclusive Creativity and Economy’ to take full advantage of key speakers and participants from Wales, including: Cardiff University Professor Ian Hargreaves, one of the founding members of the Ofcom Board; David Warrender, Director of Digital Wales for the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG); Alan Burge, Communities Directorate for the WAG; and Rhodri Williams, Director Ofcom Wales. This worked well, in part because Wales has placed a real priority on a set of initiatives around a ‘Digital Wales’, focused largely on the creative industries, but also on access to next generation Internet infrastructures. http://wales.gov.uk/topics/businessandeconomy/publications/heartofdigitalwales/?lang=en

The discussion was wide-ranging and engaging – too broad to be summarized here, but it will be summarized in due course on the series Web site. However, Professor Young has posted a short overview of the objectives of the series online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzKZF6Ff7JY

I came away from the launch seminar more fully convinced of the value of having a focus on specific local, regional and national initiatives, such as Digital Wales. It anchors the discussion in a specific setting and provides an impetus to discuss specific projects, such as initiatives in video production across Wales. My own contribution to the forum focused on providing one perspective on the agenda for the series as a whole. I argued that the series could make a contribution by focusing on the UK context and the particular issues raised for nations, and such issues as rural access, the vitality of small businesses, and emerging debate over the ‘big society’. In addition, I thought we should focus on clarifying distinctions between initiatives relevant to network individuals, as well as networked institutions. And of course we need to address key issues of infrastructure, content regulation and new policy, such as the drafting of a new communications act for the UK.

My other point was the there were several ways in which academic participation in this policy discussion could add value. One was the role we could play in assessing alternative policy initiatives from the perspective of connectivity, creativity and rights, among other criteria. We should be particularly well equipped to bring evidence and empirical research to bear on these issues, and be well positioned to question taken-for-granted assumptions about the impact of policy. Secondly, we should be well positioned to provide a neutral meeting ground for discussion among a full range of stakeholders. We may have interests and preferences ourselves, but our primary incentive is to be open, and accountable as academics. If we do not provide a neutral meeting ground, our reputation is at risk. Thirdly, we should have a special role in putting local developments, whether in Wales or Britain as a whole, in a broader context, whether that be global trends or the broader ecology of particular policy areas. I used my work on the ecology of choices shaping freedom of expression as an example. Finally, I hope that the participation by academics opens up discussion of the policy process in Britain. Is the policy process providing adequate opportunities for debate? Is it sufficiently transparent and publicly accountable? Is government tapping the expertise of citizens? My own sense is that progress could be made on all of these fronts.

Slides for my own presentation are posted on Slideshare at: http://www.slideshare.net/WHDutton/towards-an-agenda-on-digital-wales-2011

William H. Dutton, Anna Dopatka, Michael Hills, Ginette Law, and Victoria Nash (2011), Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression: The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet. Paris: UNESCO, Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace.

There was a launch event in Paris on 30 May, with a press release providing details on the launch and access to the online and print versions of the manuscript at: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31418&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Networking Public Expertise

Abstract

The potential of crowd sourcing has captured the imagination of many managers and professionals across all sectors of society, but left many others quite skeptical. This is not only because conceptions of the wisdom of crowds appear counter-intuitive, but also, if taken literally, these concepts can be misleading and therefore dysfunctional for governments seeking to adopt innovations in distributed collaboration. This paper challenges conventional notions of the wisdom of crowds, arguing that distributed intelligence must be well structured by technical platforms and management strategies. After clarifying these conceptual issues, the paper explains how collaborative networking can be used to harness the distributed expertise of citizens, as distinguished from citizen consultation, which seeks to engage citizens – each on an equal footing. Networking the public as advisors aims to involve experts on particular public issues and problems distributed anywhere in the world. The paper then describes the lessons learned from previous efforts to citizen source advice, and why governments should again pursue this strategy as a means to inform policy and decision-making. This is followed by a set of nine strategies for fostering the bottom-up development of governmental initiatives aimed at harnessing distributed public expertise.

If there is any difficulty obtaining this paper, a copy is available on SSRN at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1767870

President Obama in Cairo

Abstract:

The Internet has stimulated innovation in American public diplomacy methods towards the Middle East, from one-way communication through broadcasting and the print media to a more interactive model in which the government joins the conversation. This paper assesses the potential of this new model through an analysis of an early US government Web 2.0 public diplomacy initiative, the State Department’s Digital Outreach Team (DOT), focusing on an embedded case study, that of Arabic Internet discussions of Barack Obama’s Cairo speech of 4 June 2009, in which the DOT participated.
Your comments would be welcomed.

Tech weekly:  WikiLeaks, Anonymous and cyber war
Guardian Online, 14/12/10
Professor William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute joins a panel on a podcast hosted by Jemima Kiss to discuss WikiLeaks and the news that major internet companies and services have been taken offline in a battle between hackers and government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/audio/2010/dec/14/tech-weekly-wikileaks-cables-cyberwar-audio

Who rules the web?
Al Jazeera net, 14/12/10
Professor Bill Dutton, professor of internet studies at Oxford University, is on Inside Story, which asks: ‘Who controls the flow of information on the internet? Who sets the rules and under what terms?’
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2010/12/201012151234554295.html

Online Petitions

This initiative has already led to concerns being raised over ‘frivolous’ petitions and the gaming of this system by organized pressure groups. This ignores the degree that bad ideas are raised, from time to time, by parliamentarians, and dismisses the ability of parliament to assess the merits of a petition drive. This should be an all party initiative given the role that the Labour Party played in introducing e-Petitions in the UK, but in opposition, the Labour Party might not follow through on this innovation.

Of course, a valid concern is over the potential for a large segment of the public to support measures that are unwise. For example, many referenda supported in California have been judged unconstitutional by the courts. However, this is not a referendum, but only an opportunity to put an issue on the table. What better way is there for politicians to explain and debate issues of concern to the public. They need not be tied by a petition to discuss the issue.

Hopefully, the government will sense public support for this initiative so that it moves ahead as soon as practical.

For press coverage, see:

eWeek Government Moves Towards Bills By Crowdsourcing, December 28, 2010 by Eric Doyle

MPs, the class apart by Daily Mail Comment, 29th December 2010

Petitions and Democracy

A Perspectives Workshop supported by Dagstuhl

[27.09.09 - 02.10.09, Seminar 09402]

Organized by:

David Chaum (K.U. Leuven, BE)
William H. Dutton (University of Oxford, GB)
Miroslaw Kutylowski (Wroclaw University of Technology, PL)
Tracy Westen (Center for Governmental Studies – Los Angeles, US)

Three Organizers Finding Their Way Near Dagstuhl

Summary

The workshop was a meeting forum for experts in the area of computer security and social sciences. The main idea of the seminar was to discuss new challenges for democracy during the transition from traditional society into a society where network communication influences so much social and political life.

The workshop participants discussed the key issues behind success or failure of electronic systems in e-democracy. While advances of technology play a central role in evolution of e-democracy, the main threats and failures are due to insufficient cooperation and lack of understanding between IT specialists and those from political and social sciences. In the past, major failures can be attributed to a narrow view of the systems supporting e-democracy. For this reason many fundamental mistakes have been made.

Some major problems arise when technical sciences and social sciences meet. On the one hand, computer specialists are often unaware of real requirements for the emerging systems, on the other hand the specialists from social sciences might be unaware of technical limitations due to hermetic language of computer security professionals. Nevertheless, the workshop participants succeeded immediately in building up a working group focused on identifying the most crucial issues for development of future e-democracy systems.

The result of the workshop is a set of recommendations for decision-makers regarding e-democracy systems. The list does not consider all problems that may arise, but brings focus to those that in our opinion have the biggest impact.

Dagstuhl Castle

Recommendations

1. Encourage Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Severe design errors may result from making decisions based on partial expertise, or from separate groups working in isolation. As design processes for technologies used in democratic systems should include a wide range of competencies, it is vital that lawyers, public officials and social scientists are engaged as well as computer scientists and engineers. Unfortunately, the workshop participants observe that this is not a common practice today and many fundamental errors in the past resulted from partial expertise.

2. Ensure Effective Take-up of E-democracy Solutions. At present, government-driven processes (like elections, disclosure of information) are often so conservative that they fail to take full advantage of new technologies and approaches, despite that they have proved effective elsewhere. The reason for this phenomenon is a discrepancy between available solutions that are ready to use and specific requirements of e-democracy. Substantial amount of research is necessary to adapt emerging technologies to meet the diverse requirements of e-democracy.

3. Deploy Appropriate Design Models. The lesson we have learnt during the last decades is that the really successful systems are in practice the flexible ones that were not designed by a single organization but have instead developed through collaborative efforts of many participants driven by their interests and needs. Therefore we feel that new technical systems supporting e-democracy should be small, flexible, modular and based on proven off-the-shelf technical components, rather than be large, centralized special-purpose systems.

4. Promote Best Practice. There are examples of excellent solutions which are implemented and used in practice. However, dissemination of such best practices is limited. A survey should be conducted of best practices. This is particularly important for making government information accessible online inexpensively, efficiently and in forms that are easy to use by the public. Today, inefficient access to information is one of the major weaknesses of democracies, despite many efforts. Pilot projects should then be funded to implement these best practices in a number of different jurisdictions. Information on best practices and pilot projects should be made available to the public in easily accessible formats.

5. Support Open-Audit Systems. Research on electronic voting systems has shown that our approach to security assurance should be redefined. Traditional certification by trusted bodies should be continued, however in order to provide undeniable evidence open-audit concepts should be developed. In particular, current field trials of open-audit voting systems should be carefully assessed and documented. When they are successful, larger-scale trials should be encouraged.

6. Learn from Web 2.0 Innovations. Public officials and system designers should draw on the experience of Web-based social networks. There are substantial technical and social challenges related to Web 2.0, but there are opportunities as well. This should be taken into account when planning online systems for democratic decision making.

7. Address Conflicting Requirements. Quite often, requirements for e-democracy systems are in conflict. A prominent example are e-voting systems, which have to provide strong privacy of vote casting and voters’ identification at the same time. Since according to the present state-of-the-art the answers for many fundamental questions are still missing, more research should be directed towards new technologies that have the potential to reconcile between such conflicting requirements. This concerns in particular privacy enhancing technologies, identity management and cryptographic protocols.

8. Gain Public Acceptance. One of preconditions for introducing technical systems supporting democratic processes is gaining understanding, acceptance and confidence by the lay, non-scientific public. A failure to do so would immediately undermine the citizens’ will to engage in the process. Therefore technical solutions for e-democracy that support democratic processes should be made simple enough, or must be so widely endorsed by the scientific community and other trusted societal leaders. Democratic technologies should be designed with widespread public acceptance as a key design parameter.

9. Fund Civic Engagement Experiments. Since in the field of e-democracy we are entering unknown grounds, a lot can be learned from examples. For this reason, governments should be encouraged to fund experimentations with technologies that support greater online civic engagement in democratic processes (voting, information acquisition, collaborative participation in government decisions). On the one hand, such government funding will encourage technological research as well as provide computer scientists with the priorities they require. On the other hand, these experimentations will allow the citizens to influence design evolution so that it goes in the right direction.

10. Share Knowledge Between Disciplines. Lack of interaction and sometimes even barriers for interdisciplinary work is one of the main risk factors for development of e-systems supporting democracy. Therefore, various contributions made by different disciplines to e-democracy development can be strengthened through forums that encourage (not only verbally) dialogue between multidisciplinary groups of computer and social scientists, legal scholars, practitioners and policy experts.

For more about results of the seminar see the article in Social Sciences Research Network Machiavelli Confronts 21st Century Digital Technology: Democracy in a Network Society published by the workshop participants.

Related Seminars

• 07311: “Frontiers of Electronic Voting “ (2007)

A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society

University of Oxford

21-24 September 2011

Event: Symposium

Location: OxfordUniversity of Oxford with sessions at the Social Sciences Manor Road Building, and Said Business School

Organized by: Oxford Internet Institute and iCS (the journal Information, Communication and Society)

Sponsors include: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group)

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and the journal, Information, Communication and Society (iCS) are co-organizing a symposium to critically assess the last decade of social research on the Internet and identify directions for research over the next. The symposium will be held in Oxford from the afternoon of 21 September until noon on the 24^th. This event will be punctuated by a celebration of the 10^th anniversary of the founding of the OII, providing an opportunity to relate broader lessons for the field to the case of one of the first departments at a major university focused on the societal implications of the Internet and related information and communication technologies. Ten years is only a moment in the span of social research, but eons in Internet time. Has social research across the disciplines been up to the challenges?

There will be parallel sessions across the days, with late-afternoon plenary sessions, and ample time for informal discussion. One plenary session will focus on the Anniversary of the OII. The parallel sessions will focus on the presentation of papers submitted for review in response to this call.

Invited Keynotes

Manuel Castells is Research Professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), in Barcelona. He also a University Professor and the holder of the Wallis Annenberg Chair of Communication Technology and Society at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, the Marvin and Joanne Grossman Distinguished Professor of Technology and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford University. He was Professor of Sociology and of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley (1979-2003).

Vint Cerf is a computer scientist who is recognized as one of the ‘fathers of the Internet’. His contributions have been widely acknowledged by many honorary degrees and awards, including the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and membership in the National Academy of Engineering. Vint Cerf is currently Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. [Provisional Acceptance]

Andrew Graham is the Master of Balliol College, University of Oxford, and founding Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Oxford Internet Institute. He was the driving force in establishing the OII and was the Acting Director of the OII until July 2002. An Oxford graduate, Andrew Graham became economic adviser to Prime Minister Harold Wilson, 1967–69, before joining Balliol as a Tutorial Fellow in Economics. He returned to 10 Downing Street as a Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister, 1974–76 and later, from 1988–94, became economic advisor to the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and, from 1992, Leader of the Labour Party, John Smith.

Laura DeNardis is a Research Scholar, Lecturer, and the Executive Director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. DeNardis is an Internet governance scholar and the author of Protocol Politics: The Globalization of Internet Governance (MIT Press 2009), Information Technology in Theory (Thompson 2007 with Pelin Aksoy), and numerous book chapters and articles. DeNardis received a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from Virginia Tech, a Master of Engineering degree from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Engineering Science from Dartmouth College.

Eszter Hargittai is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Faculty Associate of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University where she heads the Web Use Project. Eszter received a B.A. in Sociology from Smith College and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University where she was a Wilson Scholar. She was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (2006-07) and a fellow at the Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin (2007). Currently, she is a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Lisa Nakamura is the Director of the Asian American Studies Program, Professor in the Institute of Communication Research and Media Studies Program and Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. She is the author of Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (University of Minnesota Press, 2008), Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity and Identity on the Internet (Routledge, 2002) and co-editor of Race in Cyberspace (Routledge, 2000). She is editing a collection with Peter Chow-White entitled Digital Race: An Anthology (Routledge, forthcoming) and is writing a new monograph on social inequality in virtual worlds, tentatively entitled ‘Workers Without Bodies: Towards a Theory of Race and Digital Labor in Virtual Worlds, or, Why World of Warcraft needs a Civil Rights Movement’.

Barry Wellman is the S.D. Clark Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto, where he directs NetLab. He is also a cross-appointed member of the university’s Knowledge Media Design Institute, and Faculty of Information. With Lee Rainie, he’s just finished Networked: The New Social Operating System, to be published by MIT Press, January 2012.

Call for Papers and Panel Proposals

Authors are invited to submit abstracts of unpublished, original work for initial review as symposium papers. Abstracts for papers should be limited to approximately 500 words; abstracts for proposed panels or workshops to 1000 words, including information about participants.

Abstracts for papers or panels should be submitted by 8 December 2010 to events@oii.ox.ac.uk and have ‘iCS Symposium’ in the subject. Authors for whom abstracts are accepted will be asked to provide a completed paper by 12 September 2011.

Abstracts and papers may address any topic concerning social research on the Internet and related technologies. Proposals can be made for individual papers or for a panel. They will be evaluated on the basis of their originality and promise for shaping theoretical, methodological or empirical advances in the study of the Internet. Work that has a promise to shape research, policy or practice in this emerging field would be especially welcomed.

Themes of parallel and plenary sessions are likely to focus on change over time, including, but not limited, to such themes as:

• The diffusion of the Internet: shifts and plateaus in digital inclusion and divides across geography, generations, and society;
• Sizing the Internet economy and its growth over time and space;
• Changing patterns and requirements for digital literacy and skills;
• Trust over time and across areas of Internet use, from commerce to public services and news and information;
• Emerging roles of networking in the public domain, government, and democratic institutions and processes, such as in election campaigns, democratic accountability and the rise of a Fifth Estate;
• The role of the Internet in major societal crises and natural disasters;
• Evolution of digital academe, including digital collections, formal and informal learning, e-research and academic publishing;
• The quality and changing sources of information – from news to research – and their consequences;
• Collaboration – myths and realities of new forms of collaborative network organizations and technologies;
• The developing role of the Internet in social networking, whether in the workplace, everyday life, or in shaping major life chances;
• The dark side of the Internet: growth of cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism, malicious computing, and approaches to addressing these problems;
• Collective action – the evolving role of the Internet in social and political movements;
• Privacy and surveillance trends and research;
• Localism – the new Internet frontier;
• Closing of the Internet through appliances, aps, and regulations;
• The rise of Internet governance and regulation in areas ranging across policy arenas, from standards to freedom of expression?
• The development of Internet research and digital research methods.

Key Dates:

Submission of Abstracts for Papers or Panels: 8 December 2010

Notification of Acceptance of Papers and Panels: 21 December 2010

Papers due: 12 September 2011

Organization

Programme Chairs

Bill Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Brian Loader, Science and Technology Studies Unit, University of York

Victoria Nash, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Barry Wellman, Netlab, University of Toronto

Programme Committee

Members of the iCS Editorial Board

Faculty of the OII

Registration

Information about registration procedures and fees are to follow. Questions may be addressed to events@oii.ox.ac.uk

Thursday 30 September 2010  12:30-14:00

Location: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St Giles’ Oxford OX1 3JS

Registration: Free but please e-mail your name and affiliation, if any, to events@oii.ox.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0)1865 287 209

Speakers:

• Heather Blanchard, Co-Founder of CrisisCommons
• Andrew Turner, Co-Founder of CrisisCommons

Overview

Founded in March 2009, CrisisCommons is a global network of volunteers who help people in times and places of crisis. Its vision is to create and sustain ‘a culture of information sharing, improving emergency management and humanitarian activities’. See: http://crisiscommons.org/about-us/ For example, during the response to the Haiti Earthquake, CrisisCamp emerged as one of many vehicles where the public could participate in the response to help search for information. For instance, the network created new maps of Port au Prince and developed prototype tools such as Tradui, the first Kreyol mobile translator, and provided surge capacity for existing organizations such as Ushahidi and OpenStreetMap. During this time CrisisCamp volunteers worked with many agencies such as UN OCHA, USAID and the World Bank.

Granlund Haiti

Is such an activity sustainable? How can such a network link with the larger crisis response community, the privacy sector, philanthropists, and academia?

The founders of CrisisCommons and the barcamp series, CrisisCamp, will present their findings at the Oxford Internet Institute regarding how ad hoc volunteer networks can provide assistance and discuss future directions for innovation in crisis response activities at local and global levels. During this roundtable CrisisCommons will present their findings and request feedback on their market assessment, sustainability model, infrastructure model and the case for inclusion of ad hoc networks to the global response efforts.

About the Speakers

Heather Blanchard is a advocate and a communications professional. Heather is working on helping government be more collaborative, participatory and transparent through the adoption of Web 2.0 technology. Her driving passion centers around helping people be better connected during times (and places) of crisis.

Andrew Turner is a neogeographer involved in helping to build the geospatial web. He is the CTO of FortiusOne, where he and his colleagues are building GeoCommons, a platform that makes it easy for people to build and share collaborative maps and customize their slice of the GeoWeb. He is also developing a number of other open-source tools such as GeoPress and Mapstraction.

Slides that will support the presentation are available at: http://www.slideshare.net/poplifegirl/08-31-10-berkman-presentation

The issues surrounding identities online are complex and critically important, but they need to be addressed in relation to the larger ecology of issues in which they are embedded. Changes in the ways identity is handled on the Internet can have unintended consequences, such as jeopardizing the value of the Internet as a new space for democratic expression and accountability. For such reasons, a number of working groups and conferences have been organized to address these issues.[i] For the purposes of this briefing note, I will highlight issues that might not otherwise be given more attention:

1. The Internet is facing growing threats of over-regulation. Identity initiatives could add to this threat in ways that undermine the value of this new platform.

Contrary to journalistic headlines, the Internet is highly regulated. All the laws that apply offline, such as those tied to liability or fraud also govern Internet users. Many other telecommunication regulations also shape the Internet, such as copyright and other IP regulations, and existing telecommunications policy, which provides the basis for Internet provision. International bodies such as ICANN and the W3C shape the assignment of domain names and technical standards and so on. The Internet is not an unregulated ‘Wild West’ frontier.

In this current regulatory environment, the Internet is rapidly becoming the most central media of our time, increasingly viewed as essential to everyday life and work. Its successes – not its faults – are driving industries, governments, particularly the regulators of earlier communication and broadcasting media, and the public to focus increasing attention on its regulation. It is entirely possible that we are seeing the nationalization of the Internet and what was formerly known as the ‘World Wide Web’. Identity initiatives should not feed into this jurisdictional impulse to impose national regulatory regimes.

2. No single level or standard of identity is appropriate for all activities.

Freedom of expression often requires anonymity, and many other activities and services have no need for identification of users. While not everyone agrees, creating what some of us called an ‘accountability versus anonymity’ debate, it is an important issue.[ii] Often there is only a need to authenticate that a person has a right to the service, such as being over a certain age. Therefore identity systems online must support this full range, and not require a level of identification greater than required by a particular service. One European advisory board on which I sat made the following recommendation:

The EC, together with the Member States and industrial stake-holders, must give high priority to the development of a common EU framework for identity and authentication management that ensures compliance with the legal framework on personal data protection and privacy and allows for the full spectrum of activities from public administration or banking with strong authentication when required, through to simple web activities carried out in anonymity ’ (RISEPTIS 2009: 31).

Some within the technical community might want a one-size-fits-all system for identifying users because it is easier to design and implement. However, we should no more accept such a technically driven standard than we would accept one level of identification in everyday life and work. The best approach is to build incrementally with open debate around key issues.

3. We are in a transition for institutions in data handling and identity practices.

We are in the midst of a major transformation not only in technologies, but also institutional and social practices tied to identification and related privacy and data protection policy: moving from organizational-centric approaches to protecting privacy and identifying people to more federated and decentralized approaches, permitting individuals to have more control, such as with bank cards. This is a period of transition in the cultures and practices of handling information, so this will take a decade or more embed new and evolving systems into everyday life and work. This is all the more reason not to rush into a solution that could have negative unintended or unanticipated consequences, such as on privacy or freedom of expression.

References

RAE (2007), Royal Academy of Engineering, Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance. London: Royal Academy.

RISEPTIS (2009), Research and Innovation on Security, Privacy and Trustworthiness in the Information Society, Trust in the Information Society. http://www.think-trust.eu/general/news-events/riseptis-report-published.html

Rundle, M. (2007), ‘e-Infrastructures for Identity Management and Data Sharing: Perspectives across the Public Sector’, Oxford Internet Institute Forum Discussion Paper No. 12, University of Oxford: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1325235

Rundle, M. and Dopatka, A. (2009), ‘Towards a Policy and Legal Framework for Identity Management: A Workshop Report’. Oxford Internet Institute Forum Discussion Paper No. 16, University of Oxford: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/publications/FD16.pdf

Notes

[ii] For example, this debate arose in the deliberations of RISEPTIS (2009), but also in a committee focused on privacy and data protection (RAE 2007).

Management utilization of computers in American local governments
William H. Dutton and Kenneth L. Kraemer, Computers as an innovation in
American local governments, Communications of the ACM, v.20 n.12,
p.945-956, Dec. 1978.
<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359364&dl=GUIDE&coll=GUIDE&CFID=80030080&CFTOKEN=55377726>

Abstract

Traditional concepts of management information systems (MIS) bear little relation to the information systems currently in use by top management in most US local governments. What exists is management-oriented computing, involving the use of relatively unsophisticated applications. Despite the unsophisticated nature of these systems, management use of computing is surprisingly common, but also varied in its extent among local governments. Management computing is most prevalent in those governments with professional management practices where top management is supportive of computing and tends to control computing decisions and where department users have less control over design and implementation activities. Finally, management computing clearly has impacts for top managers, mostly involving improvements in decision information.

The Castle at Dagstuhl

Abstract

Computer science and informatics have great potential to improve citizen engagement with public officials, voting, access to public information and other democratic processes. Yet progress towards achieving these aims on a wide scale remains slow. A main reason for this lack of progress is that digital technologies create the potential to alter significantly the relative influence of different groups and actors in the political process, and thereby quickly become embroiled in a political debate that crosses and complicates technical discussions. These political conflicts and uncertainties have been made more transparent in applications of the Internet and related Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to support democratic processes. The challenges created by these techno-political tensions, and how to address them, were the overall cross-cutting themes that emerged from the interdisciplinary Dagstuhl Seminar on Democracy in a Network Society, on which this paper is based. The seminar involved a multidisciplinary group of computer and social scientists, legal scholars, practitioners and policy experts who aimed to chart the latest technical approaches to e-democracy and governance. Their intention was not to tell politicians how to maintain and enhance their power with the support of new technologies, in the manner of Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli’s 16th Century adviser to the prince. Instead, participants explored how new technologies could enhance or constrain the power of politicians and the general public, depending on how the technologies and the systems based on them are designed and implemented.

Citation

Baer, Walter S., Borisov, Nikita, Danezis, George, Guerses, Seda F., Klonowski, Marek, Kutylowski, Miroslaw, Maier-Rabler, Ursula, Moran, Tal, Pfitzmann, Andreas, Preneel, Bart, Sadeghi, Ahmad-Reza, Vedel, Thierry, Westen, Tracy, Zagorski, Filip and Dutton, William H., Machiavelli Confronts 21st Century Digital Technology: Democracy in a Network Society (December 10, 2009). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1521222

Babes-Bolyai University, Romania

The conference seeks to critically assess developing wisdom about the political significance and implications of such innovations in the Internet and Web as Web 2.0. I encourage you to consider attending.

Schloss Dagstuhl

The conference was organized by David Chaum at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium; Miroslaw Kutylowski, at Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland; Tracy Westen, at the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, and myself, at the OII. We had a core of participants that stayed through the entire week, plus about an equal number who could only stay for 2-3 days during the week. They created a continuity but also provided a way to change the chemistry of the group in interesting ways through the week. The most interesting aspect of the conference, from my perspective, was the co-creation of our notes, which I will post on this blog when they are completed. Essentially, from the first day of the meetings, we developed a Googledoc that was edited jointly by all of the participants. In the last days of the meeting, there were sessions, such as late into the night on Thursday, when we sat around the table co-producing our findings, managing contributions in real time. At the conclusion of the meeting, we sent a note to all the participants, giving each one week to review and comment on the final draft. We then plan to have one final editorial pass through the jointly authored manuscript before posting for broader public access. We’ve entitled the document ‘Machiavelli Confronts 21st Century Technology: Notes from the Daghstuhl Workshop on Democracy in a Network Society’.

The central theme was the degree to which discussion about the design of systems to support democracy, such as electronic voting, are caught up in a highly charged political context. While I might argue that all information and communication technologies can reconfigure the relative communicative power of different actors, this is most apparent and immediate in the case of applications designed to support democratic institutions and processes. All of the participants would value comments on our notes from the discussion.

Afternoon Hike, Dagstuhl

Landscape outside Dagstuhl

In this case, however, I question my colleagues’ findings. As the Reuters story notes: ‘The Ministry of Justice said the report had no real evidence to base its assessment’ (Tim Castle 23 March 2009). On this one, I must side with the Ministry of Justice, until the authors can convince me otherwise.

The report does not explain its methodology or the nature of the evidence on which the authors draw their conclusions. The report notes that the UK public sector has ‘an enormous number of databases’ (p. 11). One agency alone, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency is said to have over 500 databases (p. 11). However, the report focuses on 46 databases across the major departments of the entire UK government (p. 4), and provides no sense of how these 46 were chosen. So there is a serious sampling issue. Because journalists are drawing conclusions that suggest this sample is somehow representative of all databases, it is very important to spell this out. Even the Chair of the Rowntree Trust writes of only six given a ‘green light’ (p. 2), as if this was a representative sample.

Even if we disregard the sampling methodology, there are other issues of measurement. The 46 datasets were graded by a ‘traffic light system’ with red indicating that that a system is not compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and that the design is such that it could not be made compliant without substantial redesign. The reader should not be in a position that requires us to trust the judgment of the authors, based on their authority, but there is no evidence provided to substantiate these ratings. Nor is there a methodology spelled out for applying or operationally defining this rating. Could someone replicate this?

In fact, from the references, it is not clear whether the authors went beyond desk or screen-based research. The acknowledgments indicate that various colleagues fed them ‘market intelligence’, but that is a problematic source for a systematic study. There do not appear to be personal interviews or field visits to meet with those managing these datasets or examine the systems. The risk is that we are reading weak journalistic coverage of research based on journalism and the input of pundits with similar views.

Their study is on a key topic at an important time. It seeks to build on a long-term debate over the role of computerization on privacy and data protection. Alan Westin and Michael Baker’s (1972) study was seminal in this area, but based on major field studies, and survey research, indicating the scale of research required in order to generate evidence. Undoubtedly available resources limit the rigour of the present study, but the limits of the study need to be clearly spelled out.

Debate over privacy and data protection is critical, but it could be undermined unless we know something more authoritative about the problem. When the Guardian (Travis 2009) reports that the ‘Right to privacy broken by a quarter of UK’s public databases, says report’, it is important to know more about the evidence on which these recommendations are based, and not rely on the authority of the authors.

References

Anderson, R., Brown, I., Dowty, T., Heath, W., and Sasse, A. (2009), Database State: A Report Commissioned by the Joseph Roundtree Reform Trust Ltd. York, UK: The Joseph Roundtree Reform Trust Ltd. http://www.jrrt.org.uk/uploads/Database%20State.pdf

Castle, T. (2009), ‘Quarter of State Databases “should be scrapped”’. Reuters, 23 March at: http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKTRE52M04N20090323

Travis, A. (2009), ‘Right to Privacy Broken by a Quarter of UK’s Public Databases, Says Report’, Guardian, 23 March: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/23/dna-database-idcards-children-index

Westin, A. and Baker, M. A. (1972), Databanks in a Free Society: Computers, Record-Keeping and Privacy. New York: Quadrangle Books.

An interim report, entitled ‘Digital Britain’, outlines a set of proposals by the UK government that should have major implications across all sectors of information and communication policy and practice in the UK and beyond. The report is available at: http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/5631.aspx

Let me encourage you to read and comment on the report at a public site for discussion: www.digitalbritainforum.org.uk

]]> http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/2009/02/27/comments-on-digital-britain/feed/ 0 http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/2009/01/02/earlier-public-access-to-government-statistical-reports/ http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/2009/01/02/earlier-public-access-to-government-statistical-reports/#comments Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:34:55 +0000 Bill http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/dutton/?p=171 The Chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, has called for a reduction in the time before official UK government statistics are available to the public (from 24 to 3 hours). Instead of allowing ministers to have reports well in advance, enabling them to anticipate or steer public reaction, this would put the public and their officials on a more level footing. Equally important, this modest reform will help put more eyeballs on public statistics at an earlier point in time, enhancing the role that the Internet can play in providing an added source of public accountability. Given my own belief that the Internet is providing a new and independent source of public accountability, a Fifth Estate, in many respects, this is good news.

There will be concerns that the public will misunderstand, and misinterpret statistical reports, unless they are positioned correctly. This does not argue against their timely publication, but for government agencies to provide clear reports, and for agencies and politicians to be better prepared to respond to public comments and to use public comments constructively to stimulate and inform debate over statistical results.

This is reported today in the Times in an article entitled: ‘Restore trust by ending privileged access to official data, says statistics watchdog’. The UK Statistics Authority is an independent, non-ministerial department, that is charged to ‘promote and safeguard the quality of official statistics that serve the public good’. It is new, being set up only in April 2008. Sir Michael Scholar, President of St John’s College, Oxford, has had a distinguished career in the civil service. He took up his appointment as Chair of the UK Statistics Authority in 2008. The article suggests that the Chair sees this move as one of a number of steps to help restore greater public trust in the reporting of government information.