Blogs

Copenhagen.
Finally on to Selva Ersöz, who continues the Turkish theme at COST298. She notes the change in political discourse with the increasing use of the Internet - as some hope, Internet use may improve citizens' knowledge of political affairs, and enable them to participate in political processes more directly, while others fear misinformation, polarisation, and the continued domination of particular social classes.

Selva's study (during May/June 2007) examined the interactive features of four key political sites in Turkey, focussing on the question of whether they enabled better online political communication between citizens or whether they simply republished information available elsewhere. (Interactivity is divided here into user-to-user, user-to-document, and user-to-system interactivity.)

Copenhagen.
The third speaker in this session at COST298 is Funda Başaran Özdemir. Her interest is in the use of alternative news Websites in Turkey - in particular, of the labour movement site Sendika.org. Traditionally, monopolies of knowledge have determined what qualifies as knowledge and how it it disseminated; they derive their power from mastery of complexity, the control of raw media materials, and their performativity, speed, and the ability to afford high costs. Opposed to such strategic interests are tactical initiatives which insert themselves into the cracks and exploit temporary opportunities.

Copenhagen.
Next up at COST298 is Lelia Green, who shifts our interest to online participation by minors. The Net is often perceived as a risky place, but at the same time also as educational, fun, and communal - we must therefore consider what potential opportunities are cut off if the focus on risk comes to the fore.

A recent report from the US, for example, raises concerns about social networking sites; in February 2009, in fact, MySpace admitted the expulsion of 90,000 registered sex offenders during 2007-9 (out of a total number of 70 million members). EU Kids Online has similarly examined conduct, content, and contact online, and highlighted risks and challenges. In Australia, a 2007 Media and Communications in Australian Families report surveyed children aged 8-17 and their families.

Copenhagen.
The post-lunch session at COST298 kicks off with Lilia Raycheva, who notes that TV is still the most significant source of nformation in European households; they view an average of 3 hours per day, and by 2010 there will be some 120 HDTV channels. Analogue switchoff is supposed to be complete by 2012, but a number of European countries are lagging behind and may not meet that deadline. There is also a question whether current content regulations (diversity, local programming, etc.) will be able to be sustained in the new DTV environment.

Copenhagen.
And this pre-lunch session here at COST298 ends with Chantal de Gournay and Frank Thomas, who approach digital cities from a different perspective. Amongst the key issues for them are how to combine real, virtual, and social spaces, how to address local and global identities,communities, and neighbourhoods, and how to understand different modes of participation in the digital city.

Chantal highlights the possibility for a fifth screen (after TV, PC, videogames, and mobile phones) as urban spaces become augmented realities through the introduction of digital screens that allow both more traditional forms of broadcasting and new forms of 'egocasting', perhaps in response to people in the vicinity. This ubiquitous paradigm creates the 'seamless city', in which real and virtual life merge and different times and spaces blend into one. Potentially, in such spaces, everywhere is nowhere, and there is no sense of the here and now.

Copenhagen.
We move on to Marinka Vangenck and (again) Jo Pierson as the next speakers at COST298, focussing now on user-driven innovation in 3D urban environments. This requires a thorough understanding of users themselves, and their systematic involvement as early as possible and throughout the entire innovation process. This R&D innovation process took place with computer-generated 3D city models in the present case, and aimed for service innovation and its adoption - test cases here were planning and going on a city trip, and researching and purchasing real estate.

Copenhagen.
The next presentation at COST298 is by An Jacobs and Jo Pierson. Their interest is in the role of users in innovation - an increasingly prominent perception, but which 'user' are we talking about here, and where are they taking us? Their ability to innovate also depends on contextual factors, of course, some of which may not be entirely known to them.

In the digital environment, there are two key conceptions of innovation: innovation as dominated by technology, and disruptive (rather than incremental) innovation. Users themselves are placed along a continuum from everyday users to productive users to users who are even mainly producers (and there are also non-users, of course); innovation at the lower, everyday end can be described more from a dominant, incremental sociotechnological innovation perspective, while innovation at the production end is more often seen from a breakthrough technology innovation perspective. These forms of participation also spread across content creation, technological innovation, and more general forms of innovation.

Copenhagen.
The first main session at the COST298 conference is on interdisciplinary design, and begins with a presentation by James Stewart and Laurence Claeys. They ask how speculative research for innovation can be conducted within interdisciplinary frameworks. Problem here include that different disciplines work within very different time scales (e.g. rapid prototyping vs. long-term observation of users), that they use different mental models, and that disciplines tend to under-value one another and misuse one another's research approaches.

Copenhagen.
Following the next09 conference last week, I've now made my way to Copenhagen, to attend the COST298 conference with the somewhat unwieldy title "The Good, the Bad, and the Challenging" - don't hold that against it, though: the actual theme of the conference (and of the COST298 EU research programme) is participation in the broadband society, so it should be interesting. (The two-volume proceedings alone are going to seriously push my luggage weight over the edge on the flight back.) Also, erm, interesting is the choice of location, at Aalborg University's campus in Ballerup on the outskirts of Copenhagen, almost an hour's metro ride out of town - I must say I much preferred the IT University campus, just cross from the city centre, where we held the AoIR conference last year.

Hamburg.
The final presenter at next09 is conductor (as in, music) Itay Talgam. He begins by describing the way an orchestra tunes up - everyone doing their own thing; this is noise, not yet music. But when the conductor steps up to the podium, attention is focussed, and music begins. Whose creation is this music? Who is responsible? Who contributed to the success of the performance?

This is a question of ownership, of course - and it applies just as much to collaborative online environments as it does to an orchestra. The conductor of the orchestra provides the leadership, controls the process, and the musicians follow - but in the process, the musicians also lose some of their independence, their ability to introduce their own personality into the performance.