The Wealth of Networks

Having taken a little time to digest the wealth of information that is Jochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks, I can identify the main point of the book that has stuck with me. Benkler presents an excellent description of how information production is different in this late modern era, compared to information production in the earlier modern era. Just as the production of physical goods has changed (somewhat) from the Fordist command and control model, the production of information is also changing. Controls placed on the production of information can have a chilling effect, hampering the ability to create something new based on the old (Herald's discussion of copyright and copyleft is much clearer now after having read Benkler). By extension, creativity can be enhanced by the free, or freer, flow of information and by opportunities for collaboration.

If I were to sum up what the quarter's readings were all about, I would say that they were about information and collaboration. Industry, government, and media -- and our experience of interacting with them -- suffer when information is closed off and collaboration is discouraged or eliminated. Inventive capacities multiply when information is made accessible and people are given the ability to work together. This, according to Benkler, is what the networked economy is about -- sites of production located with individuals who come together on their initiative, who have the tools to do the work they want, and who do not depend on formalized structures to produce that which they want to produce.

For someone who does not participate fully in the software open commons and who just dabbles with producing a "blog" on "The Internets," these descriptions of the present and future of production still seem a bit foreign. As an academic, I do see how collaboration and access to information are important but when I think about how this might apply to how everyone else participates in the economy, with government, or interacts with the media I am less certain of how transformative the new economy is. We still have heavy manufacturing in this country. We still have coal mines. And we have exported our heavy manufacturing to the developing world. Being a consumer of media and of government is still how many people interact with those institutions, for better or for worse.

Bottom line, though, the access to information that we have today and the ability to use that information to new ends, to distribute it widely, and therefore to participate in knowledge construction is like no other time.

Ourspace

Christine Harold's Our Space provides a good deal for thought. The book is a complex discussion about the necessity of constructing publics, but one that argues against thinking about these publics as existing in opposition to capitalism. Harold argues (perhaps in a Foucaultian manner) that attempting to create something new in opposition to that which currently exists is a hopeless project, and one that actually may reinforce existing power dynamics.

This changes the terms of the debate over the relationship between corporations and individuals. While some worry about, as discussed by Harold, the danger posed to websites such as MySpace by corporate interests -- that something organic will be squashed by corporate interests -- Harold sees this as a false description of the relationship between individual and corporation. First, there is no mythical time we can hark back on in which "rebels" existed free from outside influence. Second, the idea of a rebel is something that can and has been appropriated by corporate interests.

Her critique of those who would outrightly steal copyrights and attempt to redistribute them to the public is, of all her examples, in my mind the most illuminating of how this is so. The very idea of stealing something depends on an idea of ownership. Stealing reinforces claims of ownership and involves the apparatus of the state in enforcement ownership rights. The Creative Commons, and other "open source" projects attempt to work through ownership by creating a spectrum of ownership rights that allow and encourage collaboration.

The metaphor of working through or going with the flow emerges many times in this book, including in the conclusion when Harold compares football to surfing. Harold uses it in reference to culture jammers or hackers who understand the system and work within the system in order to change the system.

There is also a strong collaborative element to Harold's prescriptions. This stands in contrast to the mass media model in which the relationship between media and consumer is top-down. Of course, as Harold has noted, corporations have discovered the potential of allowing individuals cooperate in the construct of their entertainment. Again, Harold would caution against seeing this as an out and out appropriation of the individual. Nor would she take the opposite, perhaps naive, stance that it is not an appropriation of the individual. Rather, Harold seems to say that there is a good deal of potential in collaborative relationship. Further, more equal collaborative relationships are possible.

My critiques of the book are few. I think I could have benefited more from some examples of the problems associated with copyright laws. Harold discusses Disney's successful efforts to protect its copyrights over Mickey Mouse and other Disney products and also, in less detail, the efforts on the part of corporations to product their products in the digital age. I am not really sure what the public are missing out on. Free copies of Disney movies? I see how this is more important in scientific and scholarly work -- but it also seems as if there are strong collaborative norms in the sciences.

I also think that Harold could have provided a more clearer road map. I think it is a powerful suggestion to think about how to work within the system, but to what ends?

Paper topic

This paper will examine the potential for citizen participation in the construction of administrative law to serve as an opportunity for deliberative democracy. I will first provide an overview of the necessity of fostering deliberative democracy as well as a discussion of what forms deliberative democracy may take. Using Coleman and Blumler's concept of a "civic commons" as a roadmap, I offer a description of the ways in which the administrative law process may approximate a "civic commons." I end with a research design aimed to test the potential relationship between administrative law and deliberative democracy.

Civic Commons

Coleman and Blumler discuss the potential for the Internet serving as a "civic commons," and describe the "civic commons" as:

an enduring structure which could realize more fully the democratic potential of the new interactive media. This would involve the establishment of an entirely new kind of public agency, designed to forge fresh links between communication and politics and to connect the voice of the people more meaningfully to the daily activities of democratic institutions. The organization would be publicly funded but would be independent from government. It would be responsible for eliciting, gathering, and coordinating citizens' deliberations upon and reactions to problems faced and proposals issues by public bodies (ranging from local councisl to parliaments and government departments), which would then be expected to react formally to whatever emerges from the public discussion (Coleman and Blumler 181).

While not conforming entirely to the parameters of a civic commons described by Coleman and Blumler, various characteristics of administrative agencies in the United States mirror these parameters. In certain circumstances, administrative agencies are required by law to respond to petitions for agency action submitted by citizens, must produce a record that reflects input received from interested parties, and often must base their decision or be able to justify their decision on what is contained in that record. Furthermore, administrative agencies are encouraged by law to utilize "electronic dockets" to allow interested persons to participate in agency decision making procedures by submitting documents electronically (Funk et al. 2006: 111). Certain aspects of the administrative law process, then, contain elements of a civic commons as they encourage public input and hold decision makers accountable.

The Political Brain

Drew Westen provides a compelling analysis of relationship between how people think and political campaigns. Arguing against a rational choice model of decision making in which individuals are assumed to calculate the costs and benefits of certain actions and are assumed to then follow the course of action that maximizes benefits over costs, Westen adopts instead a model of behavior in which emotion plays a stronger role in decision making. When it comes down to it, most decisions are made not based on some rational calculation but on "gut feeling." Westen faults the Democrats for attempting to appeal to rationality when they should be appealing to emotion.

Westen's analysis is comprehensive and compelling, but there are a number of problems. First, I think Westen only partially describes how political scientists understand decision making, especially those who adopt a boundedly rational model of decision making. He paints all political scientists, including those who adopt bounded rationality, as rational choicers. The difference is that bounded rationality assumes not that people always make rational cacluations (as rational choice does) but that there are circumstances in which people are able to make these calculations and circumstances when they are not. By extension, there are times when people are able to make political decisions based on a "rational" analysis of what they are being offered by politicians, and times when they are no able to do so.

Second, I think Westen is really critiqing a certain type of political communication and does not adequately distinguish between mass communciation and deliberative democracy. It may be true that emotion is a more important factor in mass communication, but does that hold true for the kinds of smaller scale deliberative communication that civic engagement scholars envision? If Westen is correct (and no distinction exists), it suggests to me that you could never persuade with rational communication but that emotion will always triumph. However, if we can distinguish between types of political communication, then there seems to be a role for both emotion and rationality.

Third, I think Westen errs in conflating the personal communication failures of a few albeit important national Democratic politicians. Perhaps they individually suffer from an inability to connect with people emotionally. Is that enought to castigate wide swathes of the population as fundamentally not understanding how people think?

Hearing the Other Side

In Hearing the Other Side, Diana C. Mutz provides a compelling theoretical and empirical examination of the complicated relationship between deliberation and democracy. Questioning the normative prescription that a good citizen, by definition, engages in deliberation with those who have different opinions as part of the political process, Mutz asks if and how Americans actually engage with other Americans who might disagree with them. Despite the attractiveness of a normative argument for interaction between likes and unlikes, Mutz shows that in practice there are numerous factors that work against interaction, including geographic segregation and social practice. Not only do people tend to live amongst those with whom they agree, social norms work against discussing politics in public let alone airing a minority opinion. Mutz describes benefits associated with talking with people with different opinions: such activity increases one's knowledge of other opinions and is associated with greater tolerance. Additionally, and surprisingly, Mutz finds that the factors that encourage deliberation may work against factors that encourage political participation. Homogeneous social networks may reinforce individuals' political beliefs and encourage people to vote (as they known they are in the "right"), but homogeneous social networks are not the best sources of cross-cutting political information. On the other hand, heterogeneous social networks provide a good deal of interaction with other political positions but may dampen political behavior such as voting as being exposed to ideas that challenge one's own position may undermine beliefs.

Two thoughts. First, in Chapter 4 Mutz explores the possible ramifications on political behavior (including voting) of cross-pressure from within their social group. The experience of black women during this election cycle is perhaps an excellent opportunity to test the effects of cross-pressure on groups of people (as no doubt scholars are). Contrary to Mutz's description of the dampening effect of cross-pressures, however, it seems that voter registration and participation is skyrocketing among all Democrats, and potentially including among black women -- a group that should be facing a good deal of pressure. Political participation seems to be up even in the face of competing messages about the right choice. Second, Mutz speaks briefly in the conclusion about the role of the media. She contrasts an earlier media experience with the current one, speaking of the difference between broadcasting and narrowcasting. She seems to suggest that during the time of broadcasting, there was more diversity -- "As the number of potential places to obtain news multiplies, consumers must choose among them, and that exercise of choice may lead to less diversity of political exposure" (145). On the one hand, there may have been more political exposure when people were watching one of three television channels and all carried politics whereas now, people can choose not to watch politics. On the other hand, there seems to be a homogeneity of information problem regardless of whether there are few or many news sources. Bennett et al referred to media outlets as sampling from the day's new stories -- everyone carries the same basic stories but there is variation along the dimension.

The best thing about this book is that I got to cite it in a recent conversation with Mike's parents. Mike and I, the Democrats, have often found ourselves head to head with Nancy and Dick Gates, the Republicans. Dick was talking about a conversation with some of his golf buddies, who asked (jokingly or not?) if Dick was able to convince Mike and I yet of the rightness of being a Republican. Nancy and Dick are intensely interested in this presidential election and though both of them will likely vote for Senator McCain, they are very impressed in Senator Obama's candidacy and consume a variety of media -- including Rush, Chris Matthews, and Bill O'Reilly. After discussing the book, we all came to the conclusion that the conversation we were having was perhaps more important than convincing each other that they are wrong and we are right (though we'll probably keep trying to anyway). Actually, conversations with Mike's parents are more comfortable for me because I know I won't turn Republican. It is harder to talk politics with our friends Jeff and Ben because they are Obama supporters and I'm for Hillary . . .

When the Press Fails

This week's readings provide theoretical accounts of the media in the United States -- they offer theoretical explanations for why the press operates as it does as well as empirical studies to support those theoretical positions. In general, I view this week's readings as posing questions about how to define and study the press.

Timothy Cook's characterization of the press as an institution is helpful in that, in one respect, he expands on the obvious. It may be obvious, that is, that the press is an institution but applying a rigorous definition of the press as an institution leads to asking and answering different questions about the press. Thinking of the press as an institution involves asking questions about how the press as an institution formed, what is rules or norms of operation are, and traces patterns of convergence or divergence with the "norm." Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston apply this principle in When the Press Fails. In this book, they define and document what it is that the press does and how the press, as an institution, interacts and relates to other institutions.

On a side note, I found Bennett et al's discussion of the semi-independent press to be a good model for thinking about how to describe the federal judiciary -- the federal courts are also "semi-independent" in that they have the capacity in certain situations and in response to certain conditions to make independent decisions, but in the many other situations and circumstances, the judiciary acts only semi-independently.

Bennett et al seem to follow Zaller's (1992) theoretical and empirical discussion of the relationship between public opinion and consensus among elites. In brief, Zaller writes that if there is consensus among elites, public opinion is more likely to reflect elite consensus. When elites disagree and their disagreement is apparent, public opinion is also likely to reflect this disagreement.

The press, according to Bennett et al are better situated to notice elite disagreement even when opposition is not strong, but often has trouble sustain any meaningful opposition against a strongly coordinated official position. As a result, if initial opposition exists it may be quickly minimized and subsequently ignored. Additionally, institutional norms seem to push the press to report not on the actual content of news, but on the power plays behind them, or to avoid reporting on oppositional positions when they are not officially sanctioned. The Iraq War example shows how this is so: the press both reported on the power plays behind the "selling" of the war and reported on the Bush Administration's official position on the rationale for war while avoiding reporting of alternative positions. This entire characterization raises the question of what if opposition never forms?

Moments for press independence emerge mainly from, according to Bennett et al, exogenous events such as natural disasters, scandals, elections, or the emergence of within government opposition that can sustain its own message. Sometimes independence comes endogenously through the press picking up on stories directly -- often through technological advances -- without having to wait for an official line (think of Hurricane Katrina). What is interesting about this is that it seems as if large exogenous shocks are needed for error-correction. What if these shocks never come?

In thinking about potential research projects this book presents the empirical question of what young people view as the relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq. As reported by Bennett et al, the Bush Administration was successful in convincing, at various times, a majority of Americans that such a link existed. Given what is known about disengagement on the part of young people with the media and with politics, what should their level of political knowledge on this issue be? Given what is known about the role of the media in indexing the position of those in power, what can be expected for those who do not engage with the media?

Public opinion

This week's reading proves, I think, the old statement that there is nothing new under the sun. Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion, first published in 1922, describes crises of democracy that could easily describe the present day. I'm going to sketch here some broad themes of the book.

Lippmann challenges the idea that there is such a thing as Public Opinion. He argues that referring to a concept of public opinion assumes that disparate human beings are able to or actually do view and understand the world in the same way as one another. Furthermore, it requires the assumption that human beings are able to or actually view the world objectively -- or, at least with all the facts. Rather, Lippmann argues that we are separated from knowing a good deal of what is going on by limitations that impose upon comprehension -- limitations that stem from lack of time, from the filtering by stereotypes and interests, and from basic lack of information. (Stereotypes also are shortcuts for comprehension, for better or for worse). While everyone may be subject to these limitations in one way or another, they are not subject to similar enough interpretations of the world to form a comprehensive and specific enough viewpoint on public affairs to constitute public opinion. This is not to argue that we are not able to understand that is what is local to us, that which is interesting to us, and that which is brought to our attention. Public Opinion can also be formed around, as described by Lippmann, broad symbols.

Following his description of human nature, Lippmann turns to a discussion of democracy and of the role of the media. He provides an insightful and illuminating description of the disconnect between democratic theory and what he sees as the reality of democracy in the United States. Those who construct an ideal of democracy depend upon assumptions similar to assumptions behind an idea of Public Opinion -- namely, assumptions regarding ideal forms of democracy, of ideal democratic citizens, and of the relationship between ourselves and our government. Lippmann's most devastating critique, and most true, I think, is his description of the United States Constitution as established to separate the governed from the government. This is a second big question -- What is the role of the public in government? (With the first question being -- What is Public Opinion?) Contrary to the mythology of democracy in which the common person is conceived of as having the knowledge, the morality, and the will to participate in government, Lippmann first describes the common person as ill-equipped and uninterested in such a project and then describes government as not necessarily needing the input of the common person. In his description, the United States Constitution established a form of government that excluded the common person from all but one government (though this of course has changed most notably after the 17th Amendment).

As a corollary, Lippmann tackles the myth of the independent press, and its role in democracy. He chastises against viewing the press as having the ability to cut through limitations on perception and against viewing the press as presenting accurate descriptions of the world. Not only are members of the press subject to the same limitations as the rest of us, they are not motivated to perform their function out of commitment to democratic principles but rather for economic gain (Habermas writes on this subject -- more on this later). We should not assume, then, that the press are necessarily providing us with a certain democratic function.

Finally, Lippmann prescribes his solution to the challenges faced by society: expert, unfiltered information. He suggests increasing the capacity of government agencies to collect and share information, and argues for institutional independence to allow experts to do their work free from interference. Lippmann seems to be arguing that we must strive to really know the world.

In the next day or so, I'll revisit some of these points and offer some more thoughts on Lippmann's work. Here is an outline of some thoughts:

• Lippmann is arguing for a role for increased information in democracy
• There are obvious challenges to collecting information, including time and cost
• There are also challenges posed by collecting objective information
• Even if the information is objective fact, it still needs interpretation

• Lippmann seems to argue in part that information costs are low (despite the technological limitations imposed on the dissemination of information at the time he was writing) and that most of the problem stems not from high cost of information, but from lack of use of that information by consumers (I'll try to find the page number for this one)
• This suggests that a challenge to deliberative democracy is not lack of information
• One could argue, that is, that there have always been costs to gaining information and that access to information has ebbed and flowed over time
• Rather, it seems that a challenge to deliberative democracy is related to how information is used
• Are people accessing information? Under what conditions will they access information?
• Are people learning from what they access? Under what conditions will they learn or not learn? (What does learning mean?)

• Lippmann cites some statistics regarding the consumption of news and concludes that most people are probably reading the newspaper for 30 minutes a day
• During the height of mass media, when the 3 networks dominated, what was the average length of time for consumption of purely news items. It would be interesting to see how, during this time, how people's media habits were divided.