Another quick rumination in response to the Vibewire e-Festival of Ideas discussions. This connects very directly to my research for my latest book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage - chapters 5 through 8, on Wikipedia, folksonomies, and related issues around knowledge management and knowledge organisation, all deal in some detail with the question of how to come to an arrangement between 'folks' and 'experts' which both respects expert knowledge and asserts the equipotentiality of contributors who are not certified experts. Here's what I wrote on that point - comments welcome!

It's interesting that the question of experts is coming up here - it's something I've thought a lot about recently, especially also in relation to the Wikipedia where that problem has been a point of ongoing discussion. There are plenty of good arguments in either direction here (let experts have far greater say than average people vs. follow the common-sense consensus of everyone) - personally, my preference would be for a middle way which respects expert knowledge but also doesn't accept it unquestioningly just because someone has a degree and a position of authority.

The Vibewire e-Festival of Ideas fora are really taking off now. In response to my post about new forms of organisation the other day, Tim Grey, Vibewire's National Editor, asked for clarification on exactly what I meant by 'institutions'. Here's my reply:

Tim, I think the question about what exactly we mean by 'institutions' is a really good one, too. I do agree that there are many differences between the different institutions you mention (government, NGOs, parties, corporations, etc.), but I think many of them are ideological or procedural rather than fundamental.

To clarify what I mean by institutions - let me start from the definition that my colleague John Hartley and his co-authors offer in their book Key Concepts in Communication (I'm working off the 1989 reprint I used during my undergrad days - it may have changed since then): for them, institutions are

Those enduring regulatory and organising structures of any society, which constrain and control individuals and individuality.

The operative words for our purposes here are 'regulatory' and 'organising' - and the way I would define institutions as I use the term (regardless of whether they're government bodies, parties, or whatever) is that they're structured collections of individuals which are organised and regulated - often quite strictly so.

I've just posted another contribution to the ongoing discussion on the Vibewire e-Festival Ideas forum. This was triggered by discussion about the New Zealand Greens' use of wiki technology to develop their policy platform, and the perhaps overly enthusiastic endorsement of this model from some of the contributors on the forum. In response, I suggest a somewhat more nuanced view of what contribution wikis and other open produsage approaches might be able to make.

Well if a bunch of people are writing policy together on a wiki it's better policy in that it's a better representation of what the group wants because its written by everyone, rather than one or two people who may filter what other people want.

OK, I'm going to take issue with this statement, at least in this very general formulation (which has quite a techno-determinist ring to it - it sounds like you're saying that policy written using wikis is automatically better/more representative policy because wikis were used in writing it).

I agree that this can be the result, but whether it is or not depends crucially on the dynamics of the the group of people participating in the process. Wiki-based projects are no more and no less subject to groupthink, flamewars, and conceptual blind spots than any other collaborative content development projects. Whether they 'work' or not (that is, capture a wide range of views and achieve a consensus that most contributors can live with) depends on whether there's an active desire (driven by the community of contributors) to listen to, engage with, and come to a consensus with these diverse views.

The Vibewire discussion on e-participation and e-democracy as part of its e-Festival of Ideas continues - and there have been a number of really interesting posts in yesterday's thread already. We're now diversifying into a number of threads, and I've posted a new contribution (picking up on some themes from yesterday) now. Comments welcome - here or on the Vibewire fora.

OK, I'll make a start here. It was very interesting to follow the discussion yesterday, and in that thread, Martin Stewart-Weeks asked a really useful critical question:

Strikes me that eDemocracy, if it's going to be anything interesting, has to play in the middle of this new (renewed?) contest between the individual and the institution. This, to me, gets close to the heart of the matter. If institutions are now, for the most part, the wrong way to harness collective intelligence for a purpose, then what will do that job in the future?

How exactly do swarms of smart, geeky "youths", for all their invention and creativity, constitute a force for sustained action and purpose - as opposed to having a wonderful time ripping down Scientology for a while?

As I've mentioned here previously, the Vibewire e-Festival of Ideas is now underway, and I'm taking part in a forum on e-democracy that also involves such luminaries as Mark Pesce, Jason Wilson, Martin Stewart-Weeks, and Tony Walker. I've now posted my first contribution, which I'm republishing here - any comments welcome, and I'll try and bring them to the discussion. Or better yet - join us!

I think it might be useful to work out in some more detail what we mean by e-democracy and related terms. Broadly, for me there are two interesting areas here: ways in which the Internet and other online media can facilitate better communication between governments and citizens (g2c, as well as c2g), and ways in which they enable citizens to engage directly with one another (c2c), possibly bypassing governments as well as mainstream media altogether.

Both are interesting, and there are a few notable developments here. For example, in g2c/c2g,

Over the next few weeks I'll be a participant in a number of events in Brisbane and online. As always, I'll try to do as much live-blogging as possible. Here's a preview of what's coming up:

• This Wednesday and Thursday I'm at the AMIC conference on Convergence, Citizen Journalism, and Social Change, where I'll also present my paper "Citizen Journalism in the 2007 Australian Federal Election (AMIC 2008)". I've already uploaded the Powerpoint slides and full paper for this (a round-up of citizen journalism developments during the 2007 Australian federal election), and I'll try to record the presentation as well.
  

• I'll end up missing the last half-day of the AMIC conference, though - I've also been invited to attend the "Creative Destruction: Lessons for Science and Innovation Policy from the Rise of the Creative Industries" workshop organised by the Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCi) and the Forum for European-Australian Science and Technology Cooperation (FEAST), which takes place on Thursday and Friday, and I'll make it to the Friday round-table discussions at least. The focus of this workshop is on further developing the new field of cultural science (an extension of cultural studies through a strong injection of evolutionary economics, in the context of creative industries research), and I'm currently working my way through the position papers circulated in advance of the workshop (and presented on day one) - heady stuff in an area which is closely linked with my own research into produsage. Given the complexity of the material, hopefully I'll be able to capture the key discussions at least.

• Finally, a couple of weeks later, on 8-12 April, I'll take part in the online "e-Festival of Ideas" organised by Vibewire, and discussing democracy, media, arts, and social change. More information below:

We've been meaning to slow down the Club Bloggery series a little while we get busy with other research, but have found this difficult especially at a time when so many new topics present themselves. So, the latest instalment in the series went online about a week ago already, and I'm only now getting around to posting a link to it here - this time, we look at how the U.S. blogosphere is shaping up in its coverage of the current presidential primaries, and the actual election later this year.

Along with the previous one, this latest piece generated some, um, interesting responses from self-styled professional irritators Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt, and their respective cheersquads; predictably, where they ascended beyond mere ad hominems the focus of their harrumphing appeared to centre around the fact that it's possible for research into blogging to be funded - in part - by taxpayer money. (Perhaps the logic here is "hey, if even I can be a blogger this blogging business really can't be worth researching"? How refreshingly humble.) Such comments are as common in the debating arsenal of the irrational right as they are stupidly reductive, of course - if the "Surely that money should be given to research for a cure for AIDS or cancer?" argument is taken to its logical conclusion, then 'surely' nothing save two or three major projects should receive all the funding available?

I'm happy to say that Club Bloggery has returned for 2008. Club Bloggery was our weekly series for ABC Online's Opinion pages during the 2007 election campaign - and while the election is now well and truly over, Jason, Barry, and I will continue to track developments in the Australian blogosphere and beyond during 2008 (if at a slightly more relaxed pace). While I was on holidays during the second half of January, the guys already posted an article discussing the mainstream media's feeding frenzy over Heath Ledger's death (and the role of blogs in setting the record straight) - and for our second instalment, we've returned to our old stomping grounds: we're considering what role Australia's political bloggers may be able to adopt now, in the aftermath of the election.

All of our pieces will also be published - sometimes in extended versions - on our group blog at Gatewatching.org, of course, along with other reflections on citizen journalism and news blogging.

Which Way in '08?

By Jason Wilson, Axel Bruns, Barry Saunders

The blogosphere and online independent media certainly proved themselves capable of offering an outstanding alternative narrative of last year's federal election. In several pieces during the campaign, we pointed out how the bloggers had led the way in offering participatory election coverage, and how organs like Crikey and New Matilda had managed to present a refreshing range of opinion that differed from the usual suspects in the MSM.

The election may be over, but our Club Bloggery series for ABC Online continues unabated for now (if perhaps at a pace more commensurate with the impending summer holidays). This week, we take a look back in some degree of anger at the 'just kidding' defence for political stunts gone wrong, which was employed several times during the campaign. Barry, Jason, and I have now posted the article at ABC Online and on our group blog Gatewatching.

Not Funny

By Axel Bruns, Jason Wilson, and Barry Saunders

One of the most prominent recurring features of the long election campaign we've just put behind us were our politicians' and journalists' usually ill-fated moves to attempt the humour defence whenever some political stunt or statement didn't pay off.

We saw this first with Labor's star recruit Peter Garrett, who was reported to have said "once we get in, we'll just change it all" in what he was later at pains to describe as a "short and jocular" conversation with Channel Nine personality Richard Wilkins and talk radio shock jock Steve Price.