Figure 2 - uploaded by Linda Gallant
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Feedback Loops. This figure illustrates the types of communication, including behaviors, that are captured in Spheres 2 and 3 to be fed back to Sphere 1 for surveillance, analysis, and commoditization. The data are in a continuous loop with information storage and access.
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Communicative informatics reflects the interactive complexity of web-based communication and a paradigm shift away from mass communication. Three discursive spheres (database and information systems, human computer interaction , and active audiences) work together to control online communication openness and its consequences for post-mass media soc...
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... and its implications for public communication and public commons. Even though governments can control and analyze Internet communication, we primari- ly focus our attention on corporate control of online communication to investigate the implications of commoditizing private and public communication through social media. Communication is the basis of human organizing (Gallant, 2006) and, online, people communica- tively engage more in cultural production than with any older more passive traditional media (Benkler, 2006). Globally, social networks and blogs are visited by three-quarters of consumers who go online worldwide (Nielsen, 2010a) and are the most popular web-based information spaces when ranked by average time spent online, followed by online games, and instant messaging (Nielsen, 2010b). Time spent using social media is surpassing online searches as evidenced by people spending more time on Facebook than in searching on Google (ComScore, 2010). This increase in social media use by active audience members is unleashing a torrent of user-generated content. As Siegler (2010) notes: “Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003 ... pictures, instant messages, and tweets all add to this.” Communicative informatics is the formation of online audiences by people’s everyday private and public communication in a continuously feedback loop between users and organizations through corporate information systems that store and analyze audience communication. Public communication is the expression of ideas, messages, or images to many people. Goodnight (1982) defines the private discursive as informal everyday communication where individuals discuss personal events and topics that are ephemeral and lack preservation. For the first time in history, the private discursive, although mediated, is accessed, stored, and analyzed by corporations. The transitory nature of everyday discourse is transformed to one that is lasting and preserved foremost by corporate and government interests. Thus, a more complex digitized two-way feedback loop alters post-mass media audiences as a commodity. Traditional one-way mass media has been a colonizer of audience “free time” which is sold to advertisers by media corporations (Jhally, 1990, p. 183-184). This traditional mass media audience was conceptualized by Smythe (2006, pp. 233-238) as a “commodity audience.” In a post-mass media society, the commodity audience with rapid online two-way communication is constructed differently. Mass media communication is a one-way communication to publics and there is a need to gather public opinion using opinion polls and surveys. These surveys are limited to a small num- ber of people in the sample and entail a lag time before the data can be analyzed. In contrast, corporations in post-mass media society dig into their databases and analyze public opinion using people’s online communication with family, friends, and communities in real-time. By data mining people’s online communication, corporations have an entry into audience communication and its meanings, which provides vital knowledge for devising persuasive messages influencing people’s opinions and behaviors. With this shift, we must closely inspect the implications of allowing corporations to own, analyze, and monetize our private and public communication which together, as Hauser (2007) contends, encompasses our society’s formal and informal communication patterns that have an impact on democracy and our public common for communication activities. We define a public common as space where citizens can freely engage in public communication. To better understand the monitoring of online private and public communication, we outline how three major discursive spheres work together to control online communication openness and its consequences for post-mass media society’s public common. These spheres of discourse, which combine human communication and information systems, are depicted in Figure 1. Sphere 1 (database information systems) is where data information systems facilitate the technological means of social media to operate, as well as to collect, store, and analyze user data. Sphere 2 (human computer interaction) is the interface between users and technology devices. If Spheres 1 and 2 work to provide a high enough level of usability and positive user-experience with technology interfaces, then Sphere 3 (active audiences) can be enacted and human-to-human communication can occur in the private and public rhetorical speech situations that are vital to democracy. The ownership of online personal communication filtered through corporate databases is a grey area from a legal standpoint. People provide corporations with personal demographic information, purchase information, personal dialogues, and opinions. The information gathered in Spheres 2 and 3 is stored in databases in Sphere 1, where it is often invisible to users (see Figure 2). Woo (2006) posits that the new concept of privacy in the information age is the right to control one’s personal information. More data inquiry is needed to address how the immediate and unlimited access to personal and public information by corporations confounds our understanding of the right to control our personal information and how various communication campaigns (marketing, political, and social advocacy), public opinion analysis, and persuasion work in a post-mass media age. The Internet changes mediated communication feedback loops. Private online communication is fed into corporate databases from which software programs and algorithms are used to extract and analyze user data for symbolic meaning patterns. This changes the one-way process of mass media communication to a two-way process using the Internet as a conduit for feedback loops that facilitate analysis of audience texts. The new mode of feedback provides an unprecedented window into audience attitudes and behaviors, the raw materials needed to influence consumers with marketing campaigns and persuade citizens with political advocacy messages. As a result, there is a concern about the impact of corporate ownership of information systems (specifically with social media) on privacy, democracy, and the public common. In the next section, we provide a fuller inspection of how Sphere 2 (human computer interaction) holds a dialectical tension. Social media companies must promote ease-of-use to smooth the pro- gress of user interactions and increase the collection of data; however, ease-of-use is not a priority for companies if it will result in privacy settings that could diminish data collection. User data is a central commodity of the Internet (Beer & Burrows, 2007; Fuchs, 2009) but what actions and tasks are allowed by a social media is under the control of corporate owners who can filter information to and from users. User profiles, as a commodity, increase a social media’s value when more information is gathered on company databases. Profiles build online identities and provide demographic information, including geographic locations, demographics, settings, and friend connections. Identity construction and creativity are important motivational factors for using social networks such as MySpace and Facebook (Gallant, Boone, & Heap, 2007); thus, people are attitu- dinally amenable to freely give their information to corporations. Additionally, a person can supple- ment his or her identity construction with tags, RSS, and mobile tracking, which all increase information about user behaviors, habits, likes, and dislikes. Identity is complicated online because persistence of web-based communication extends the time frame of the speech act; and identity is searchable, can be replicated, and can be seen by invisible audiences (boyd, 2007). Web-based media companies need the masses to speak as much as possible in order to grow and increase profitability. The interface, or the point of interaction between user and computerized technology, is a major component in the field of human computer interaction, which promotes theories and practices to design user-friendly technologies. Thus, in order to raise their market value, for-profit social media corporations must design human computer interactions to increase user information input into their databases. Although scholars have stated that the general direction of technology development and change gives more control to the user (Cover, 2006; Shaw, Hamm, & Knott, 2000), this is, in part, an illusion of user-control. User-control in social media simply provides more opportunities for users to give more information to corporations. More pointedly, social media privacy settings, which can decrease information sharing and communication activities, may be designed to provide less user-control. Making privacy settings visible to users is not to the advantage of social networking sites that de- pend on gathering user-information as a commodity. As shown in the privacy settings located in Sphere 2, social networks sites have default privacy settings that favor information sharing. To stop information sharing, users must physically change their user-profile privacy settings. Even though socially responsible information systems must be easy to use and transparent in how a user’s personal data is being used, stored, and transmitted (Fuchs & Obrist, 2010), the usability and information architecture paths to privacy settings can be difficult to understand. The comprehension of website privacy policies and the ability to configure privacy settings by users have been found to be low, even among computer-literate people or young people (Marwick, Murgia-Diaz, & Palfrey, 2010; Proctor & Vu, 2007). These claims of obfuscation of privacy bear out in the lens of usability and human computer interaction in Sphere 2. Not only are the meanings of individual privacy settings confusing for users but, as of June 2010, ...
Citations
... Notably the interest of the corporation may not be in alignment with the goals, beliefs, priorities and offerings of the stakeholders. Steps are needed to bring transparency to these systems and underlying tensions (Gallant 2011). HCI researcher Kate Starbird closely studies the spread of disinformation online through journalism tools and social media, but admits there is very little insight into the underlying political and financial forces that inform these forces (First Draft 2020). ...
Current models of entrepreneurship celebrate rapid experimentation and the open sharing of ideas to inspire new innovations in business. These models draw upon a range of resources such as technical expertise, infrastructure, and capital. To provide these resources, public and private institutions have collaborated to build innovation ecosystems to supply entrepreneurs with ideal conditions for business creation, and by extension, to drive regional economic development.
Yet this entrepreneurial model has also wreaked havoc on the world. The aggressive focus to design for immediate user needs in product design, with less consideration of future social consequences, has created vulnerabilities in products and companies for exploitation. Disinformation campaigns by nefarious actors have divided communities, undermined elections, and jeopardized global security. While the design literature demonstrates the value of design processes for complex problems in business and society, there is no current expertise in the field of design to inform new venture creation for preferred social outcomes or to combat the threat of disinformation. The companies and products produced by innovation ecosystems have in turn produced the global threat of disinformation. This research explores the role of design to create new ventures, to contend with disinformation, and to design products to afford more positive global consequences.
I conducted practice-based research over six years, as a form of action research, and consolidated my work into four case studies. I described the conditions of the Pittsburgh innovation ecosystem, the factors that inform venture creation, explored lean methods, and built rapid prototypes to formulate a venture concept. I founded the company Symkala and developed material artifacts at every stage of business creation to navigate the surplus of entrepreneurial challenges such as recruitment, ideation, production, and customer acquisition.
Symkala built a geographic information systems (GIS) software. Symkala offered a novel workflow for a GIS analyst to apply supervised machine learning techniques to poorly structured information for geographic data analysis. I then marketed this software to federal and non- government organizations throughout Washington DC. Insights from this work were then applied to redesign Geo4NonPro, a website intended to promote accurate information and citizen participation for global nuclear security via an interactive GIS interface. These case studies additionally informed a trajectory of practice transformation.
A review of the literature and selected artifacts from the case studies, alongside reflection on action, establish insights on design for new venture creation within innovation ecosystems, design to counter disinformation, and product design for systems-level impact. I found that a robust innovation ecosystem does not directly culminate into a successful venture due to resource bias, and therefore a focus on customer research through material production can enable entrepreneurs to work more slowly and mindfully to achieve bold visions. To counter disinformation through products, firms need to prioritize information validity as a central business goal, forcing changes to the organizational structures and processes that guide product delivery. To more effectively channel systems-level insights into human-scale products, the design process must prioritize clarity in goal formation, product definition, and attention to social equities throughout production.
... Regardless of their peculiar characteristics and functions, Internet-based platforms that allow users to create and exchange content are generically labelled as social media (Gallant & Boone, 2011). The exchange characteristics of social media make it unique. ...
... Regardless of their peculiar characteristics and functions, Internet-based platforms that allow users to create and exchange content are generically labelled as social media (Gallant & Boone, 2011). The exchange characteristics of social media make it unique. ...
... Social media is a generic term used to describe internet-based platforms that allow users to create and exchange content (Gallant and Boone 2011). Prominent examples include social networking platforms (Facebook, Twitter), blogs, review websites (Tripadvisor, Yelp), and video sharing platforms (Youtube, Vimeo). ...
This chapter presents and discusses a new communicative space in which contemporary cities exists. The outset of such a space is the result of two interrelated developments. First, international tourism has become a viable source of income for cities causing them to compete with each other for potential visitors. As a result, cities have widely embraced the practice of city branding for promoting themselves as touristic destinations. Second, the rise of social media use in such branding projects brought cities closer to their target audiences—at least in terms of communication. The new communicative space concept, therefore, explains a situation in which target audiences, including residents and potential visitors, interact with each other and contribute to the establishment of the reputation of a city, or its brand.
... But more often Web 2.0 is commonly associated with SNS. Social media are a platform for rhetoric where individuals, groups, corporations, governments and social movements attempt to influence people and the public (Gallant, Boone, 2011). They stand for an information stream which takes the shape of multimedia-based and multi-channel networked communication for specific social or business purposes within various types of sites, each of which builds a user community (Polańska, 2011, 73). ...
Electronic government objective to create cheaper and more effective administration is getting to be a more and more important element in the operational strategy of all countries. Numerous examples taken from developed countries prove that public administration needs to be actively engaged in creating new ways of its functioning using Web 2.0 tools. The purpose of this paper is to present trends of using Web 2.0 applications in public administration and to present practical solutions to ensure the presence of public bodies in one of these applications. Public authorities should follow verified business practices in dealing with clients as well as include Web 2.0 tools in strategies. Being active in social media presumably leads to development of civil society, building trust, and support the efficiency of the public administration
... In the networks of information, labour, and images, human bodies are conflictive yet integrated sites for both inscriptions of cultural differences and potential interventions. The Internet is structured by hierarchical protocols and multi-layered coding system (Hayles 2004;Lessig 2006;Galloway 2001;Gallant and Boone 2011). If we see them together as a newly emerged signification mechanism, two characteristics stand out as compared with the language we use. 1) Computing systems are composed of multi-layered coding-decoding systems which centralize discursive formations and are open to individual-based interventions. ...
The article makes two theoretical interventions to engage with current scholarship on digital labour. First, the author complicates the relationship between culture and production by bringing the former from the “superstructure” in the classical Marx’s framework to the “base.” As various cultural production, consumption, and economic activities converging onto digital, networked media eco-system, digital labour is indeed the indispensable source for capitals’ accumulation of surplus and, more importantly, for cultural construction around production process. How labourers perceive their relations and interactions to the digital production process as crucial as which capacity they rely on to perform their labour. Culturalization of production process (re)draws the boundaries for desirable skills and constructs ideal digital workers with normative behaviours. Second, precisely because the production process has become normative construction site, meanings and values of labouring are subject to broader social and cultural context including prior established global inequality and cultural differences.
Enformasyon ve iletişim teknolojilerindeki gelişmelere bağlı olarak medyada ve izleyicilerde büyük bir dönüşüm yaşanmaktadır. Yeni medya ortamı izleyicilere medya tüketimi sürecinde benzeri görülmemiş bir kontrol yetkisi tanımıştır. Bununla birlikte en heyecan verici değişim, doğası gereği etkileşimli ve katılımcı olan yeni medya ortamının izleyicilere içerik üretme ve dağıtma konusunda yepyeni olanaklar sunmasıdır. İzleyiciler, içerik üretiminin aktif katılımcıları olmuştur. Mesaj üreticileri ve medya izleyicileri arasındaki güç dengeleri son yıllarda hızla değişmektedir. Bu bölümde, medya ve izleyiciler arasındaki güç dengelerinin değişiminin en önemli göstergeleri olan kullanıcının ürettiği içerik biçimi ve katılımcı internet
ortamı aktif izleyici perspektifinden ele alınmıştır.
Resistance to U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies on gender equality, health care, race relations, the environment, and immigration has been large, widespread, and persistent. Following President Trump’s election, millions of people across the United States protested, creatively using slogans, signs, costumes, chants, and songs. Others engaged in resistance with online videos, songs, memes, and hashtags. By employing the communicative informatics model, we examine the relationship between online communication and the creative and active audience involved in U.S. political resistance in 2017.
Although the existence of public institutions in social media may be perceived by a part of the society as an unserious endeavor, however it is not possible to disregard the space where citizens of every country of the world are present. Therefore both public administration, as well as cultural institutions should integrate the new way of communication with theirs customers not only in a marketing strategy, remembering about threats associated with a new modus operandi. The aim of the article is to discuss the characteristics of the use of social media by tax administrations and museums in selected countries of the world with a special focus on Facebook. For analysis tax institutions and well-known museums in selected countries of three continents were chosen.
