Paris, 9-10 November 2011 (noon on 9 November – noon on 10 November)

International Diplomatic Academy

A UK ESRC Digital Policy Forum in Collaboration with the International Diplomatic Academy, Paris, organized by the International Diplomatic Academy and the Oxford Internet Institute as one of a series of seminars on ‘Digital Policy’. This seminar is supported by Afilias and the ESRC Seminar Series, entitled ‘Digital Policy: Connectivity, Creativity & Rights’[1].

Purpose

Digital policy initiatives are emerging in nations across the world amidst a transnational effort to coordinate Internet governance, most prominently through the Internet Governance Forum. This seminar brings together key participants in global and national initiatives to govern the Internet. The seminar will seek to describe the state of developments within the IGF, and discuss the ways that national developments interact with transnational efforts, such as the IGF.  Each aspect will be addressed in one of the half-day sessions.

Outline Agenda

1 – Evolution of the global IGF

The meeting will begin at noon on 9 November, with a first half-day session focusing on developments within the IGF, reflecting on the 2011 IGF in Nairobi. It will discuss the differing views regarding how much change can be brought to the IGF without losing what makes its value, at what speed such improvements can be introduced, and the role of the IGF within the larger ecosystem of organizations and actors dealing with Internet-related issues, particularly the UN, ITU, or ICANN. The session will not aim at developing a consensus, but seek to inform and stimulate debate about the future of the IGF.

Discussion will continue informally over a reception and dinner.

2 – National Internet Governance and Policy: Recent Initiatives and their Implications

The second half-day session on 10 November (9am to noon) will focus on national developments, including the role of national IGFs, but include any initiatives in policy or governance of the Internet. The objective is to understand the possible implications of national efforts to govern the Internet and their impact on international efforts.

Participation

Participation in the seminar will be limited to about 25 invited participants, but a summary of the discussions will be prepared for a wider audience. All participants will be encouraged to prepare a very short (1 page) position paper on each of the two topics that will be explored.

Organizers

William Dutton, Professor of Internet Studies, OII

Bertrand de La Chapelle, Program Director at the International Diplomatic Academy and member of the ICANN Board of Directors

Desiree Miloshevic, Senior Public Policy Adviser at Afilias, ISOC Advisory Council Co-Chair, Afilias, and Visiting Industry Associate, OII

‘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.

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.

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

UNESCO

UNESCO is holding an ‘International Symposium on Freedom of Expression‘ on 26 January 2011, with the support of the Swedish National Commission for UNESCO. One panel session will focus on freedom of expression on the Internet, and we also expect that our UNESCO publication, entitled ‘Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression‘, will be launched. A penultimate draft of the manuscript is online at SSRN, but a print version will be available by the date of the symposium.

There has hardly been a more critical time to focus on freedom of expression. It is not simply WikiLeaks that makes this a timely topic, but also worldwide trends in policy and practice that could undermine expression online unless the larger ecology of policies shaping expression are more fully understood.

Symposium site at: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/resources/events/international-symposium-on-freedom-of-expression/

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 event is free to attend (and lunch will be provided), but the number of seats is limited – so register soon. Details on the event, registration, agenda, and sponsorship are found at <http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/inet/10/london.shtml>

Do let me know what you think of the conference, should you be able to attend.

UNESCO Workshop 81 “Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression:

The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet”

Room 6,  Lithuanian Exhibition Centre LITEXPO, Vilnius

11:30-13:30, 14 September, 2010

Organizer: UNESCO

This workshop is a follow-up of the well-attended discussion on Internet Censorship and Filtering by the participants of IGF 2009 in Sharm el Sheik. UNESCO would also take the occasion to release an in-depth analysis and report entitled “Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression: The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet”(Executive Summary attached), which builds upon previous discussions and provides a panorama of observations and useful exploration on the subject, conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute.

Given the increasing debate on the issue of free flow of information at global level since last year, the Vilnius workshop seeks to bring global policy makers, industry leaders, civil society, legal experts and other stakeholders together to dialogue and exchange views on feasible approaches and policy. What recommendations are in order to shape the changing legal and regulatory ecology in ways that are conducive to preserving freedom of expression, the free flow of information and knowledge, and the integrity of cyberspace as a public good, without being increasingly fragmented?  The sub-themes include:

• Internet Filtering and Censorship
• Right to Access to Information and Knowledge
• Privacy and Data Protection
• Child Protection
• Network Neutrality

Agenda

Note 1: The workshop welcomes remote participation. Pls contact remote moderator Ms Xianhong Hu (x.hu@unesco.org), Communication and Information Sector, UNESCO.

Note 2: Ps find the Executive Summary of the report enclosed below:

Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression:

The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet

by William H. Dutton, Anna Dopatka, Michael Hills, Ginette Law, and Victoria Nash, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Executive Summary

Over the first decade of the 21^st Century, the Internet and its convergence with mobile communications has enabled greater access to information and communication resources. In 2010, nearly 2 billion people worldwide – over one-quarter of the world’s population – use the Internet. However, during the same period, defenders of digital rights have raised growing concerns over how legal and regulatory trends might be constraining online freedom of expression. Anecdotal accounts of the arrests of bloggers, the filtering of content, and the disconnection of users have sparked these concerns. However, they are reinforced by more systematic studies that provide empirical evidence of encroachments on freedom of expression, such as through the increased use of content filtering.

This report provides a new perspective on the social and political dynamics behind these threats to expression. It develops a conceptual framework on the ‘ecology of freedom of expression’ for discussing the broad context of policy and practice that should be taken into consideration in discussions of this issue. This framework structures an original synthesis of empirical research and case studies of selected technical, legal and regulatory trends. These include developments in six inter-related arenas that focus on:

1. technical initiatives, related to connection and disconnection, such as content filtering;
2. digital rights, including those tied directly to freedom of expression and  censorship, but also indirectly, through freedom of information, and privacy and data protection;
3. industrial policy and regulation, including copyright and intellectual property, industrial strategies, and ICTs for development;
4. users, such as focused on fraud, child protection, decency, libel and control of hate speech;
5. network policy and practices, including standards, such as around identity, and regulation of Internet Service Providers; and
6. security, ranging from controlling spam and viruses to protecting national security.

By placing developments in these arenas into a broad ecology of choices, it is more apparent how freedom can be eroded unintentionally as various actors strategically pursue a more diverse array of objectives. The findings reinforce the significance of concerns over freedom of expression and connection, while acknowledging countervailing trends and the open future of technology, policy and practice. Freedom of expression is not an inevitable outcome of technological innovation. It can be diminished or reinforced by the design of technologies, policies and practices – sometimes far removed from freedom of expression. This synthesis points out the need to focus systematic research on this wider ecology shaping the future of expression in the digital age.

Comments on the report would be greatly appreciated, as the authors plan to revise in light of discussion at Vilnius.

A summary of the full report follows:

Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression: The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet*

by William H. Dutton, Anna Dopatka, Michael Hills, Ginette Law, and Victoria Nash, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

*The authors thank UNESCO’s Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace for supporting the drafting of this report. We received additional support of the Fifth Estate Project at the OII, through gifts from June Klein, Electronic-Boardroom TMV^®. We owe special thanks to UNESCO’s Xianhong Hu, for her comments and guidance.

Executive Summary

Over the first decade of the 21^st Century, the Internet and its convergence with mobile communications has enabled greater access to information and communication resources. In 2010, nearly 2 billion people worldwide – over one-quarter of the world’s population – use the Internet. However, during the same period, defenders of digital rights have raised growing concerns over how legal and regulatory trends might be constraining online freedom of expression. Anecdotal accounts of the arrests of bloggers, the filtering of content, and the disconnection of users have sparked these concerns. However, they are reinforced by more systematic studies that provide empirical evidence of encroachments on freedom of expression, such as through the increased use of content filtering.

This report provides a new perspective on the social and political dynamics behind these threats to expression. It develops a conceptual framework on the ‘ecology of freedom of expression’ for discussing the broad context of policy and practice that should be taken into consideration in discussions of this issue. This framework structures an original synthesis of empirical research and case studies of selected technical, legal and regulatory trends. These include developments in six inter-related arenas that focus on:

1. technical initiatives, related to connection and disconnection, such as content filtering;
2. digital rights, including those tied directly to freedom of expression and  censorship, but also indirectly, through freedom of information, and privacy and data protection;
3. industrial policy and regulation, including copyright and intellectual property, industrial strategies, and ICTs for development;
4. users, such as focused on fraud, child protection, decency, libel and control of hate speech;
5. network policy and practices, including standards, such as around identity, and regulation of Internet Service Providers; and
6. security, ranging from controlling spam and viruses to protecting national security.

By placing developments in these arenas into a broad ecology of choices, it is more apparent how freedom can be eroded unintentionally as various actors strategically pursue a more diverse array of objectives. The findings reinforce the significance of concerns over freedom of expression and connection, while acknowledging countervailing trends and the open future of technology, policy and practice. Freedom of expression is not an inevitable outcome of technological innovation. It can be diminished or reinforced by the design of technologies, policies and practices – sometimes far removed from freedom of expression. This synthesis points out the need to focus systematic research on this wider ecology shaping the future

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.

Access the paper via: http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/?p=1194/

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

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

Alternatively, remedies in the financial sector could be applied to governance of the Internet, for better or worse. What steps could Internet governance stakeholders take to ensure that the right lessons are drawn from the financial crisis, and that inappropriate remedies are not extended to the Internet? And finally, what can be done to limit if not prevent any disruption to the continuing evolution of norms and institutions that foster openness as the guiding principle for Internet expansion and development?

On 27 April, the Oxford Internet Institute will convene a daylong workshop in London to discuss these issues. This blog is an invitation to those invited participants, and any other interested reader, to provide their views on the impact of the new economic context on Internet governance. The organizers would welcome your thoughts on such questions as:

• Will the new economic context change the dynamics of debate over governing the Internet?
• Will the changing perspectives on regulation in the financial sector spill over to the Internet, and views on the role of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)?
• Will economic constraints pose a risk to meaningful participation by civil society in Internet governance institutions and processes?
• Does the economic crisis provide any concrete, practical guidance for the need or maintenance of transparency in the delivery of Internet services or the conduct of governance and coordination?

Please help to inform this workshop by posting your perspectives on these issues as comments to this blog.

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

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