iRevolution

I had lunch with two of my favorite people at the World Food Program (WFP) today. We got talking about my dissertation research and the ability of repressive regimes to block, censor and/or monitor information. I mentioned that the government of Thailand had switched off the mobile phone network during the two days leading up to the recent elections in order to prevent any smartmob behavior by local civil society groups.

This is when one of the two WFP’ers, a seasoned humanitarian with extensive field experience, shared the top two best excuses she has heard vis-a-vis the blocking of information by a repressive state. This was during field work in the Sudan.

“The dog chewed through the cable…”

Naturally, when the network needs to be down for longer than just a few hours (during which the government can carry out more atrocities), Khartoum needs another excuse:

“We only have one repair man to fix the mobile phone network… the broken cable is next to a beehive… Abdul is allergic to bees…”

Any humanitarians out there hear of better excuses?

Patrick Philippe Meier

One of the constraints of using SMS to evade state censorship in developing countries under repressive rule is literacy—or lack thereof. TwitterFone is a new service that converts voice to text and then posts it to Twitter. While Jott and Spinvox already enable voice to text conversion for Twitter and Facebook, TwitterFone is said to be far simpler to use.

According to TechCrunch,

The service launched moments ago into private beta. To use it you need to verify your phone number and Twitter account, and TwitterFone will then give you a local phone number to call to leave messages (they support the U.S., UK and Ireland now, adding more). Then, any message you send will be transcribed, and posted to Twitter along with a link to the recording. If the message is longer than 140 characters, just the first part is transcribed, but the entire recording is still available. There is a time limit of 15 seconds on the recording. The service is partially automated via voice recognition software, and flagged words go to a human for translation.

Patrick Philippe Meier

I recently read Athina Karatzogianni’s The Politics of Cyberconflict and met the author at the Politics 2.0 International Conference in London last month. This blog entry is a mini “review” of Athina’s book based on my dissertation research thus far. By review, I mean to provide several excerpts from the study and to comment on them. In particular, I address the role of technology in fostering new organizational structures.

New Social Movements are open, decentralized, non-hierarchical and ideal for internet communication. At the same time, uses of the internet may have important effects on organizational structures, both inside member organizations and in terms of overall network stability and capacity.

The information revolution is favoring and strengthening networked organizational designs, often at the expense of hierarchies. States need to wake up to the fact and realize that networks can be fought effectively only by flexible network-style responses.

Painting modern resistance movements as decentralized and states as hierarchical is increasingly fashionable. However, I know of no study that empirically supports (or denies) the validity of these broad caricatures. Such a study would certainly be feasible and especially interesting if it were to employ networks analysis. I suspect that one would find resistance movements resembling hybrid networks rather than strictly decentralized organizational forms.

In any event, a question oft overlooked vis-a-vis the information revolution’s influence on organizational structure is technology’s impact on authoritarian rule. If the thesis is that decentralized, distributed and mobile technologies “flattens” preexisting organizational structures, then is modern information communication technology likely to have a similar impact on repressive regimes over time? If a coercive, centralized state were to “wake up” and make more effective use of networked and peer-to-peer communication technologies, would this necessarily delegate and distribute power? My inclination, based on the theory of power in the nonviolence literature, is to say yes.

Information technology is constantly being modified, enhanced and overtaken by better ideas, leaving importing states to engage in an expensive and never-ending game of catch-up technologies which have been conducive to state power, even to coercive state power.

I see Athina’s point but at the same time would argue that a number of nondemocratic regimes have been effective in limiting the import and use of technologies that purport to threaten their “information blockade”. This is true of Burma, Cuba, Nigeria and North Korea amongst several others.

Patrick Philippe Meier

A good friend of mine works as a professional jazz singer in Shanghai. She recently tried to access my iRevolution blog but without success. However, she did note that Wikipedia is finally accessible as well as other blog sites. The Great Chinese Firewall appears to be filtering my blog. Shucks. In better news though, I successfully defended my dissertation proposal today, so I can finally get back to blogging on a more regular basis.

Patrick Philippe Meier

People-centered early warning is about empowering at-risk communities so that they may get out of harm’s way when conflict escalates in their direction. I have already blogged about the use of technology for survival in areas of conflict: see Fallujah, El Salvador and an overview here. I have also noted that the disaster management community tends to adopt new technology long before the conflict prevention community does. Today’s Wired magazine features a neat review of “Survival Gear that’s Just Crazy Enough to Work.” While the review does not evaluate the gear for purposes of survival in conflict zones, at least two types of gear reviewed may be relevant.

Take for example the Bedu Emergency Rapid Response kit below. The kit fits in a keg-sized drum and is designed to “support eight adults for up to five years and it includes a water-filtration system, medicine and tool kits, a multi-fuel stove, a radio and a hand-crank generator with a photovoltaic battery pack and a strip-cell blanket. Not only that, but the skeleton of the barrel can be used to create a shelter.”

As Wired’s editors note, packing up the drum may take hours, which is not particularly useful in crisis zones when minutes can make the difference between life and death. However, alternative versions of the kit could be designed for quick set-up and quick packing. The drum could also be buried for later use if carrying it with were not an option.

Perhaps of more interest is the Grundig Eton Radio below. This device “includes AM/FM and weather-band frequencies, a two-way walkie-talkie channel, a flashlight, a siren, a beacon light and a cellphone charger.” According to Wired, the radio is also incredibly tough and only $150.

Patrick Philippe Meier

The Aegis Trust in London has turned to Facebook and Google Maps/Earth to track the movements of Sudanese Government Minister Ahmad Harun and Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb. The two are charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with organizing the destruction of Darfur’s town during which more than 100 civilians were murdered, and women and girls raped. Some 34,000 people were forced to flee in the mayhem which also saw the destruction of food stores and the mosque.

Could this be the beginnings of Michele Foucault’s Panopticon albeit reversed? The panopticon is a prison structure originally designed by Jeremy Bentham in which well-lit prison cells surround a central watchtower. Guards can monitor any prisoner’s activities without the latter knowing they are being watched. Foucault uses Bentham’s panopticon as a metaphor for power dynamics in society more generally. However, the information revolution potentially challenges this metaphor, allowing the multitude to observe elites.

While the predominant feature of the information society in the West is the spread of the Internet this is not the case for the majority of developing countries with repressive regimes. Indeed, mobile phones are the most widely spread ICT in developing countries and also the technology of choice for activist networks in these regions. To this end, I hope the Aegis Trust will include SMS text messaging as a way to report sightings of individuals charged with crimes against humanity.

Patrick Philippe Meier

As Winston Churchill once said, “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” Understanding the unraveling of the Soviet Union from perspective of information communication technologies is particularly instructive in this regard. I noted in a previous blog that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics communication network was so centralized that phone calls between two neighboring towns several hundred kilometers away from the capital would nevertheless be routed through a single switchboard in Moscow. How was the Kremlin’s iron grip on the information blockade eventually loosened?

Former US Secretary of State George Shultz recalls a conversation he had with Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow back in 1985, more than 20 years ago:

I then talked about the information age: “Society is beginning to reorganize itself in profound ways. Closed and compartmented societies cannot take advantage of the information age. People must be free to express themselves, move around, emigrate and travel if they want to, challenge accepted ways without fear. Otherwise they can’t take advantage of the opportunities available. The Soviet economy will have to be radically changed to adapt to the new era.”

Far from being offended, Gorbachev suggested, “You should take over the planning office here in Moscow, become the new head of Gosplan [the Soviet ministry charged with economic planning], because you have more ideas than they have.”

Three years later, Gorbachev would address the UN’s General Assembly thus:

The newest techniques of communications, mass information and transport have made the world more visible and more tangible to everyone. International communication is easier now than ever before. Nowadays, it is virtually impossible for any society to be “closed.”

The literature towards the end of the 1980s was already taking note that modern horizontal ICTs emerging within the Soviet Union were eroding the “top-down vertical” systems of the Kremlin. As part of Gorbachev’s glasnost campaign, the USSR’s first privately owned and operated telecommunication network, Relcom, or Reliable Communication, came online in 1989.

According to the company’s president, the purpose of Relcom was,

specifically to support commercial activity otherwise stultified by the intentionally constrained Soviet telecommunication structure. [...] Although economic conditions necessitated its invention, Relcom proved to be a powerful social weapon against centralized power. During the attempted coup in 1991, for example, Relcom played an important role gathering and disseminating information.

Patrick Philippe Meier

Mohammed Ibahrine from Al Akhawayn University presented a paper on “Social Media and Political Activism in the Arab World” at the Politics 2.0 conference. Mohammed drew on the following 4-point conceptual framework to assess the role of social media in political activism: information management; conversation management; identity management and network management. The presenter stressed that conversation is more important than information.

In his presentation, Mohammed referred to the comment by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: “Broadcast media brought us broadcast politics. Participatory media will bring us participatory politics.” He drew on the Arab world’s version of YouTube called Ikbis to support his argument. Mohammed also noted that the Egyptian government, unlike others, is less bent on using physical force and detentions as a means to deter the use of the Internet for the purposes of advocacy but rather works hard on discrediting the Social Media, by referring to it spying journalism.

Patrick Philippe Meier

This is the final round of panels organized by the Politics 2.0 conference in London. The title of one presentation in particular caught my interest: “Web 2.0 and Political Conflict: Can News Blogs Strengthen Democracy through Conflict Prevention?” by Maria Touri at the University of Leicester.

Blogs provide an alternative source of news and some scholars argue that they democratize the news media system by enabling individuals to establish an online presence and to involve themselves in networked expression of opinion knowledge. To citizens, some  can effectively emerge from the spectating audience as a player and a maker of meaning. Can citizen journalists contribute to conflict prevention?

Touri draws on three components of framing to explore her research question: news framing, procedural framing and substantive framing. News framing addresses the selection/exclusion and salience of information. News stories become a platform for framing contests where political actors compete by sponsoring their preferred meanings. Blogs can therefore be a source of power. This is mediated by the cultural congruence of the frames and media-government power relations. Procedural framing is the process and politics of decision-making. In other others, procedural framing determines which aspect of specific event is being emphasized. Substantive framing is the vehicle by which decisions are justified.

Touri argues that these framing processes can combine to raise the domestic costs of conflict and war. Will perpetual blogs lead to Kant’s notion of perpetual peace? I think this remains to be seen.

Patrick Philippe Meier

Veronica Alfaro from the New School for Social Research gave an excellent presentation based on her paper entitled “Comparing Social Movements in the Virtual Public Sphere, From Silence and Disruption to Cyberactivism 2.0: Cyberzapatistas, Electrohippies and Global Voices.” Veronica opened her presentation at the Politics 2.0 conference with a reminder that most politics is not institutional; most politics is not state politics. What is particularly refreshing about her work is that she addresses the issue of cyberactivism from the perspective of sociology. To this end, Veronica does not refer to cyberspace as a tool but rather a space.

Veronica’s first case study analyzes the early stage of strategic silences, and the actions of the Electronic Disturbance Theater, the group that developed the virtual sit-in as an action of electronic civil disobedience in 1998. I found the example of FloodNet particularly interesting. The second case study assess the struggles for acting in concert through the orchestration of the protests in 1999 against the WTO in Seattle. The third case study focuses on the Global Voices project, which not only draws on blogging, but also in practices of e-advocacy that are exemplified by cyberactivism related to the conflict in Burma from August 2007 to date.

Taina Bucher from the University of Oslo presented the final paper on the same panel. Her presentation addressed “The Rhetorics of Participatory Culture: Investigating a Case of Citizen Journalism.” This was also a very interesting paper that drew on Assignment Zero as a case study. Taina seeks to understand what motivates individuals to blog and participate in the Social Web. She draws on “Kairos“, the ancient Greek word meaning the “ripe and opportune moment.” Her research findings suggest that we participate in the Social Web because it is a new, alternative and revolutionary medium for communication.

During the Q & A session, a member of the audience asked Taina whether the novelty of the Social Web would eventually wear off. I think this misses the point. The Social Web taps into the human desire to express oneself, this desire does not have a shelf-life in contrast to technologies.

Patrick Philippe Meier