Masudul Biswas
The discussions on various aspects of digital divide and elites’ control of the Internet content made me frustrated about new media. But applications of Action Research (AR) approach, use of the Internet for political empowerment and successes of e-government programs have again made me optimistic.
In the perspective of race, class and gender issues, the AR approach is important as it includes “disenfranchised users.” Bharat Mehra argues that the approach can help the marginalized users to change their disadvantaged life experiences and “better fit cyberculture to their real life needs and expectations” (p. 205). In this approach, professional action researchers work in collaboration with an organization or community for addressing any problem. This is not fully a top-down approach. It is an “interpretative inquiry” that allows horizontal communication. Mehra explains, “All stakeholders involve themselves in the collaboration to define the problems to be examined, learn and execute social research techniques, take actions, and interpret the results of the actions based on what they have learned” (p. 207). Thus, AR considers the expertise and knowledge of local participants. It involves those for whom the development is meant for. A collaborative partnership between faculty and students of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and neighborhood volunteers helped to develop online resources for a local library, Paseo Boricua Community Library.
AR can also develop situated and practical applications that are meaningful to the community. The goal of AR approach is to match the Internet services to local needs and expectations of community members. For example, the small digital library project in Urbana-Champaign developed culturally relevant cyber content through participation and feedback from local community. The goal of the project was to provide useful business information to the disadvantageous business community and low-income residents. The project was helpful as it addressed small business needs of the disadvantageous business community and low-income residents in Urbana-Champaign.
As Shanthi Kalathil discusses, the Internet has started to promote horizontal communication between the government and citizens, and has also started to “stamp out” corruption in some Asian countries. The Internet is not only providing services to the citizens by making government services and information online, but also helping to empower community. E-government program is an ideal step to make the establishment “more citizen-centered” through technology. E-government goes hand in hand with pro-transparency regulation. Democratic countries like the Philippines, India and South Korea have effectively introduced e-government program. For bringing transparency in the activities of the middle-level government managers, South Korean authorities introduced an online monitoring system, the Online Procedures Enhancement for Civil Applications, to track the service delivery performance. India has implemented several e-government projects for increasing transparency and promoting government accountability. The state of Andhra Pradesh developed an online program through which citizens could efficiently complete land registration processes. Such system saved the people of that state from institutional “extortion.”
Though the adoption of the Internet in the structure of governance can ensure transparency, it depends on political will. But political will varies country to country. Some democratic countries in Asia have already demonstrated efforts to ensure transparency, accountability and people’s participation through online, while most other countries of the region have limited e-government programs to information and online services. A World Bank-funded study identified three phases of e-government – publishing phase, interactive phase and transaction phase. Interactive phase is important from the empowerment perspective as it allows the participation of citizens. In Asia, most governments have not adopted the interaction culture in e-government. Authoritarian countries like Burma, North Korea, and Vietnam and “semi-authoritarian” Singapore prefer to use e-government for service purposes but not for serving democratic goals. For its capability to deliver integrated services through a web site, Singapore’s “eCitizen” project is a “standout model” of e-government for both developed and developing countries. That is why successful e-government does not necessarily refer to more transparency, accountability and public participation in government.
New media can politically empower and agitate the citizens. Cell phone text messaging initiated the resignation of Philippine president Joseph Estrada in 2000. Online Korean news sites allowed ordinary citizens to play the role of journalists in creating awareness among the Internet users for political change. E-government programs are also helping to facilitate “decentralized, participatory decision-making within the policy apparatus.” But we cannot ignore media access problem in developing and poor countries. We have the successful examples of AR approach in cyber applications for improving the conditions of disadvantageous and low-income communities in Urbana Chmapaign. In similar fashion, local advocacy groups and foreign development agencies, active in developing countries, can apply AR approach at the local-level e-government development in culturally-meaningful way.
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Thursday, October 25, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
# 6: Hypermedia campaign in political communication
Masudul Biswas
The design of political campaigns cannot be separated from the digital interface in the age of digital media. Grassroots and elite political campaigns have gone online, built multimedia strategies and constructed complex relational databases. In such context, Philip N. Howard examined the effects of the use of new communication technologies in political campaigns. Howard should be given a credit for taking a lead to introduce this technological issue in new media research. Similarly, hypermedia campaign is relatively a new phenomenon in political communication. As online activisms and web-based political campaigns got popularity, hypermedia started to become a part of political culture in the United States. Howard exemplified the applications of hypermedia tools in organizing as well as consuming political campaigns online. However, we cannot keep hypermedia applications out of the ambit of criticisms when the issues like invasion to privacy or uninformed consents, the design of hypermedia tools and the commercialization of political campaigns appear before us.
Those who designed the hypermedia tools had commercial goals in mind. This reminds me about our previous discussion on cultural-inappropriate structure of communication technologies in digital divide context. Commercial vision of hypermedia has no difference with the concept of e-commerce. Online-based political data-mining agency (DataBank.com) and political information providers (Voting.com) collected information about individuals and sold them to political campaigners and other political clients for designing different types of strategic messages for different types of voters. It has changed the culture of political campaign. Voters traditionally look for information about candidates. But hypermedia tools help political campaigners to target voters with specific information.
Emergence of internet-based hypermedia tools gave a signal to traditional mass media like televisions that the Internet has powerful influence on public opinion. Hypermedia campaigns are different from mass media campaigns. Mass media campaigns rely on traditional surveys, television advertising, and elite political consultants, while hypermedia campaigns narrowcast messages designed for select citizens, “polls of narrowly tailored samples,” and “data mining” of relevant political and consumer information. Most importantly, these techniques of hypermedia campaigns are not something exclusive or elite-controlled; they have availability in the marketplace. Narrowly-focused campaign strategy of hypermedia allows both citizens and campaigners to engage in “redlining,” which means citizens encounter filtered and less information constantly. Hypermedia tools like spyware, avatar, opinionbots, spam or unsolicited commercial e-mails, and ‘spider’ (crawled over the web) can collect and store profile information and web activities of web users. By doing this, hypermedia tools have shrunk public sphere. In one of our discussions on digital divide, we pointed out that new media created segmented communities and enforced the real life segregations in virtual life.
On the other hand, hypermedia campaigns are not organized in a hierarchical manner like mass media. They rather followed “Epistemic heterarchy,” because participants are interdependent in hypermedia campaigns where information flows horizontally instead of vertically and with accountability. Such structure obviously does have democratic potentials. Mass media political campaigns develop policy positions to convey the opinion of the constituents or leaders while hypermedia campaigns present appealing features and conceal less appealing features. Political hypermedia itself does not segment citizens. But it gives campaign managers the power to segregate the public in terms of message dissemination. Political hypermedia can allow individuals to construct their own conduits for political information. People assemble their own networks for conveying political information. These are all meant for decentralizing control over mass communications by “increasing the control that information consumers have over what messages they receive and when, and increasing the control that producers have over which audiences receive which messages and when” (p. 125). Still political campaigners have the power to set the agenda or boundary for the web users. But the practice of data mining continually monitors citizens’ preferences without informed consent. Howard termed this an invasion to privacy and recommended government oversight of hypermedia campaign practices for a “safe digital democracy.”
Howard explained the act of political campaigning and the changing pattern of political campaigns during the elections from 1996 to 2004. Role of the Internet has changed from 1996 to 2000. In 1996, it played a publicity role. In 2000, it appeared as an organizational tool. By 2004, hypermedia became the part of political communication in the US. Hypermedia helped to develop “entrenched patterns of campaign strategy” in political communication. Like other web applications, hypermedia tools have democratic potentials but they are used for managing and controlling political culture. Online political campaign managers have still control over the framing of discussions on political issues.
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The design of political campaigns cannot be separated from the digital interface in the age of digital media. Grassroots and elite political campaigns have gone online, built multimedia strategies and constructed complex relational databases. In such context, Philip N. Howard examined the effects of the use of new communication technologies in political campaigns. Howard should be given a credit for taking a lead to introduce this technological issue in new media research. Similarly, hypermedia campaign is relatively a new phenomenon in political communication. As online activisms and web-based political campaigns got popularity, hypermedia started to become a part of political culture in the United States. Howard exemplified the applications of hypermedia tools in organizing as well as consuming political campaigns online. However, we cannot keep hypermedia applications out of the ambit of criticisms when the issues like invasion to privacy or uninformed consents, the design of hypermedia tools and the commercialization of political campaigns appear before us.
Those who designed the hypermedia tools had commercial goals in mind. This reminds me about our previous discussion on cultural-inappropriate structure of communication technologies in digital divide context. Commercial vision of hypermedia has no difference with the concept of e-commerce. Online-based political data-mining agency (DataBank.com) and political information providers (Voting.com) collected information about individuals and sold them to political campaigners and other political clients for designing different types of strategic messages for different types of voters. It has changed the culture of political campaign. Voters traditionally look for information about candidates. But hypermedia tools help political campaigners to target voters with specific information.
Emergence of internet-based hypermedia tools gave a signal to traditional mass media like televisions that the Internet has powerful influence on public opinion. Hypermedia campaigns are different from mass media campaigns. Mass media campaigns rely on traditional surveys, television advertising, and elite political consultants, while hypermedia campaigns narrowcast messages designed for select citizens, “polls of narrowly tailored samples,” and “data mining” of relevant political and consumer information. Most importantly, these techniques of hypermedia campaigns are not something exclusive or elite-controlled; they have availability in the marketplace. Narrowly-focused campaign strategy of hypermedia allows both citizens and campaigners to engage in “redlining,” which means citizens encounter filtered and less information constantly. Hypermedia tools like spyware, avatar, opinionbots, spam or unsolicited commercial e-mails, and ‘spider’ (crawled over the web) can collect and store profile information and web activities of web users. By doing this, hypermedia tools have shrunk public sphere. In one of our discussions on digital divide, we pointed out that new media created segmented communities and enforced the real life segregations in virtual life.
On the other hand, hypermedia campaigns are not organized in a hierarchical manner like mass media. They rather followed “Epistemic heterarchy,” because participants are interdependent in hypermedia campaigns where information flows horizontally instead of vertically and with accountability. Such structure obviously does have democratic potentials. Mass media political campaigns develop policy positions to convey the opinion of the constituents or leaders while hypermedia campaigns present appealing features and conceal less appealing features. Political hypermedia itself does not segment citizens. But it gives campaign managers the power to segregate the public in terms of message dissemination. Political hypermedia can allow individuals to construct their own conduits for political information. People assemble their own networks for conveying political information. These are all meant for decentralizing control over mass communications by “increasing the control that information consumers have over what messages they receive and when, and increasing the control that producers have over which audiences receive which messages and when” (p. 125). Still political campaigners have the power to set the agenda or boundary for the web users. But the practice of data mining continually monitors citizens’ preferences without informed consent. Howard termed this an invasion to privacy and recommended government oversight of hypermedia campaign practices for a “safe digital democracy.”
Howard explained the act of political campaigning and the changing pattern of political campaigns during the elections from 1996 to 2004. Role of the Internet has changed from 1996 to 2000. In 1996, it played a publicity role. In 2000, it appeared as an organizational tool. By 2004, hypermedia became the part of political communication in the US. Hypermedia helped to develop “entrenched patterns of campaign strategy” in political communication. Like other web applications, hypermedia tools have democratic potentials but they are used for managing and controlling political culture. Online political campaign managers have still control over the framing of discussions on political issues.
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Thursday, October 4, 2007
Internet use and Content: Questions and Ideas
(Thought paper # 5)
Is the Internet different from other mass media? The interactivity feature, multiple applications and technical differences make the Internet different from television, radio and newspaper. The interactivity feature of the Internet gives its user the control over content creation. It is hoped that users with multicultural backgrounds will make the web contents diverse. But, is it really happening? Are all the users taking the benefit of the interactivity feature of the Internet? When we study the contents and mode of communication on the Internet, we see the reflection of real world in virtual world. Real world situations in terms of race, education, employment and economic status are reflected through online contents and the Internet use. We hardly see any difference in the manifestation of ideological beliefs between the online communities and the reality.
From the perspective of digital divide, ensuring social diversity in the Internet use can be a success. Then we have to raise questions? Why we need social diversity on the Internet? Do we want to see social diversity in the Internet only in its use? If so, then how can we utilize the interactivity or empowering feature of the Internet?
The Internet has appeared as a solution to increase social capital of its users and broaden networking among its heterogeneous users. But Pippa Norris observed, “pure bonding groups are likely to occur online where social homogeneity and ideological homogeneity overlap” (p. 34). Norris in his study found that reinforcing bonding among similar type of contacts or groups is more prominent on the Internet compared to the bridging among diverse contacts or groups. That is why the Internet failed to address racial divides that exist in reality. But is it true in all cases? Is it true for political blogs or social utility networks? We see the participation of web users with different backgrounds on different political blogs. But Norris also found that the nature of developing network among diverse groups is different in case of active web users, who find the Internet as a mean of expanding the experience of different communities. It is expected that the Internet or online communities help to remove traditional divisions exist among territorial communities. This hope appears to be over ambitious. But online participation has the potential to deepen linkages among homogeneous and heterogeneous social groups.
We see different roles of men and women in reality. Similarly, we find the Internet is gendered through social uses and its design. Women use the internet for activities that correspond to their daily life. Before the advent of the Internet, women used telephone primarily for keeping contacts with family. In case of the Internet, women use its e-mail application more than men. The reason is again same, staying in touch with family, relatives and friends. The usage pattern by women users has made the Internet domesticated. But currently, social utility networks like the Facebook and My Space are being used for maintaining contacts with friends and relatives. College students, both male and female, are increasingly using the Facebook. Social and political activist groups are also launching campaigns on Facebook network. So in such context, any new study may find a different observation.
Searching health and job related information and religious or spiritual information and playing games online are the popular web activities of women. On the other hand, men like to search news, political, financial and product information and participate in auctions, selling and buying stocks and engage in public sphere. The Internet is promoted for increasing social capital of the users. But women are not using the Internet for this purpose. This may be true in most cases. But we cannot generalize the observation, because many women use the Internet as a way in which they produce and consume feminist communication. The Internet contents are also feminized targeting the use of women users. In this case, we can raise a question. What has influenced the feminization of the Internet contents? The usage pattern of women or the stereotypical perceptions about women or the entry of women groups and enterprises in virtual world? Which group of women is served by the feminized contents online? Leslie R. Shade identified that online contents are mostly developed for middle and upper class white women. That is why we see web portals on health, beauty, cooking, parenting and shopping tips. I agree with Shade that gender equity online is less optimistic. But in case of educated women and university female students, this may not be true. A study can be done to measure the gender equity online among educated men and women or among college students.
We see more critical scholarly works about the underrepresentation or misrepresentation of the people of color in traditional mass media. The earlier studies did not analyze online contents to see the portrayal of race and gender. The Pew study found that African American, Hispanics, Asian American like to consume light and “fun” contents more on the Internet compared to whites. It is not clear to what extent minor ethnic groups are taking the advantage of the interactive feature of the Internet. Future studies can investigate the content production on the Internet. Such studies can have research questions like, who with what ethnic background produce what type of web content? If people of color post or produce contents for the website, it is important to know what type of content they are producing. Are they contributing to serious and intellectual contents on the web? Like the real world, small-number of the Internet users with higher educational and economic status produces most of the web contents. I support the recommendation of Lisa Nakamura that “rigorous scholarship into the distinctions between internet users as consuming audiences and producers of online discourse is crucial to guard against the further reduction of people of color to markets.”
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Is the Internet different from other mass media? The interactivity feature, multiple applications and technical differences make the Internet different from television, radio and newspaper. The interactivity feature of the Internet gives its user the control over content creation. It is hoped that users with multicultural backgrounds will make the web contents diverse. But, is it really happening? Are all the users taking the benefit of the interactivity feature of the Internet? When we study the contents and mode of communication on the Internet, we see the reflection of real world in virtual world. Real world situations in terms of race, education, employment and economic status are reflected through online contents and the Internet use. We hardly see any difference in the manifestation of ideological beliefs between the online communities and the reality.
From the perspective of digital divide, ensuring social diversity in the Internet use can be a success. Then we have to raise questions? Why we need social diversity on the Internet? Do we want to see social diversity in the Internet only in its use? If so, then how can we utilize the interactivity or empowering feature of the Internet?
The Internet has appeared as a solution to increase social capital of its users and broaden networking among its heterogeneous users. But Pippa Norris observed, “pure bonding groups are likely to occur online where social homogeneity and ideological homogeneity overlap” (p. 34). Norris in his study found that reinforcing bonding among similar type of contacts or groups is more prominent on the Internet compared to the bridging among diverse contacts or groups. That is why the Internet failed to address racial divides that exist in reality. But is it true in all cases? Is it true for political blogs or social utility networks? We see the participation of web users with different backgrounds on different political blogs. But Norris also found that the nature of developing network among diverse groups is different in case of active web users, who find the Internet as a mean of expanding the experience of different communities. It is expected that the Internet or online communities help to remove traditional divisions exist among territorial communities. This hope appears to be over ambitious. But online participation has the potential to deepen linkages among homogeneous and heterogeneous social groups.
We see different roles of men and women in reality. Similarly, we find the Internet is gendered through social uses and its design. Women use the internet for activities that correspond to their daily life. Before the advent of the Internet, women used telephone primarily for keeping contacts with family. In case of the Internet, women use its e-mail application more than men. The reason is again same, staying in touch with family, relatives and friends. The usage pattern by women users has made the Internet domesticated. But currently, social utility networks like the Facebook and My Space are being used for maintaining contacts with friends and relatives. College students, both male and female, are increasingly using the Facebook. Social and political activist groups are also launching campaigns on Facebook network. So in such context, any new study may find a different observation.
Searching health and job related information and religious or spiritual information and playing games online are the popular web activities of women. On the other hand, men like to search news, political, financial and product information and participate in auctions, selling and buying stocks and engage in public sphere. The Internet is promoted for increasing social capital of the users. But women are not using the Internet for this purpose. This may be true in most cases. But we cannot generalize the observation, because many women use the Internet as a way in which they produce and consume feminist communication. The Internet contents are also feminized targeting the use of women users. In this case, we can raise a question. What has influenced the feminization of the Internet contents? The usage pattern of women or the stereotypical perceptions about women or the entry of women groups and enterprises in virtual world? Which group of women is served by the feminized contents online? Leslie R. Shade identified that online contents are mostly developed for middle and upper class white women. That is why we see web portals on health, beauty, cooking, parenting and shopping tips. I agree with Shade that gender equity online is less optimistic. But in case of educated women and university female students, this may not be true. A study can be done to measure the gender equity online among educated men and women or among college students.
We see more critical scholarly works about the underrepresentation or misrepresentation of the people of color in traditional mass media. The earlier studies did not analyze online contents to see the portrayal of race and gender. The Pew study found that African American, Hispanics, Asian American like to consume light and “fun” contents more on the Internet compared to whites. It is not clear to what extent minor ethnic groups are taking the advantage of the interactive feature of the Internet. Future studies can investigate the content production on the Internet. Such studies can have research questions like, who with what ethnic background produce what type of web content? If people of color post or produce contents for the website, it is important to know what type of content they are producing. Are they contributing to serious and intellectual contents on the web? Like the real world, small-number of the Internet users with higher educational and economic status produces most of the web contents. I support the recommendation of Lisa Nakamura that “rigorous scholarship into the distinctions between internet users as consuming audiences and producers of online discourse is crucial to guard against the further reduction of people of color to markets.”
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