Activism in the Information Age |
The crowded auditorium at the opening of the conference was welcomed by Yehuda Elkana, President and Rector of the Central European University, with the statement, “There is no single democracy in the world where everything works perfectly – human rights, social justice, gender equality. That is why it is important to learn how to use new technologies for improving society."
Both the Rector and the next speaker, Kalman Kovacs, Minister of Informatics and Communication of Hungary, stressed that it could not just be assumed that new technologies would automatically produce democratic and social justice developments. They contained great potential for this, but it needed to be fought for if it was to be realised. There was a “window of opportunity” that must not be missed. Yehuda Elkana drew a parallel with the history of radio where initial democratic potential had been lost to centralised control and he accentuated this must not be allowed to happen again. The two officials had to leave early, but they expressed their hope that the conference would make a serious contribution towards addressing key issues concerning the use of technology for democratic purposes.
Michael Delli Carpini, Dean of the Annenberg School of Communication, was the third speaker. "I have witnessed two fundamental changes recently", he said, "the development of Information Technologies (IT), which contain an inherent quality, a potential for change, and on the other hand democratic changes – both in established democracies and in the new ones." Carpini hoped that certain boundaries would be crossed at the conference - the ones between consumers and producers of information; university boundaries, where collaboration should be achieved instead of individualism; the boundaries between theory and practice; and between scholars and practitioners. The ultimate goal should be to think about ways to use IT to improve the level of democracy all around the world. IT blurs traditional boundaries of geography and culture. The way people think about democracy has changed, merging together citizens’, consumers’ and producers’ attitudes. The combination of politics and culture in the topics of the conference must in the end be productive, but there are still important questions to raise – like what we mean by activism and change. Carpini’s hope for the event was to see learning there as taking the best of knowledge, applying it to the world, then stepping back to see what has been done.
Saskia Sassen, Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, defined the subjects she wanted to address, hoping that the conference will be making not just talking:
How do new technologies make a difference for poor and disadvantaged people?
She put a stress on the issue of mobility, which according to her did not mean just speed and communication, but had another potentiality, too. Technology enables disadvantaged people to become part of global politics. Political and social capital comes out of the practices. New technologies can bring velocities to the political actions and social projects that can make a change. They can enable immobile people to participate in global politics.
What are different cultures of use (predefined by the digital divide or attitudes to media)?
Saskia Sassen outlined the importance of recognizing different cultures of use, which is a prerequisite to building knowledge of what somebody can use new technologies for and what they cannot.
In the New Media and Global Civil Society panel, led by Saskia Sassen, Daniel Drache, Professor at York University, Toronto, spoke about new geographies of global activism and the destructive cycle of globalisation. He accentuated that people wanted politics of choice, reinforcing social inclusion.
Chris Bailey from the Internet Rights Bulgaria Foundation (IRBF), then impressed the audience with a lively presentation on The Liverpool Dockworkers’ Strike 1995 – 1998 and the Internet. It was the first more narrative than theoretical presentation, explaining how the Internet could connect lots of people to stand together for a cause, but at the same time could put enormous power in the hands of some individuals using it, thus serving democracy and being authoritative at the same time. He said the issue of how we could build democratic rather than authoritarian structures on the Internet was critical for its use by progressive social movements.
Ferenc Hammer from the Institute of Art Theory and Media Studies, Budapest, presented how commercial media could pick up a subject and transform it in different ways so that the initial idea become quite different. He made the example of a study by T. Fuchs and L.Wobmann, commenting on the availability of computers and students’ performance. The research got quoted in tens of newspapers, websites, etc., all transforming the original message in a different way, but with one common feature – the demonising of computers. "Media like to build the black-and-white image of the villain and the saviour in stories, not the shared responsibility between actors like parents, school, and the state", concluded Mr Hammer.
The afternoon panel about civic uses of new media gathered together various participants in terms of nationality, age and organizational background (with a strong presence of Indymedia members). The main idea expressed and debated was that to gain rights people should push the boundaries of what was legal, thus setting the discussion of legality and illegality. A conclusion was made by one of the participants that activists should not look upon boundaries as granted. The topic of activism was passing through all the discussions at the conference, as well as the notion of alternative, explained to be both context dependent and structure dependent in terms of approach.
The panel about democratic elections and new media concentrated on a variety of topics. The audience responded most vigorously to the presentation of Prof. Alexander Trachsel from the European University Institute at Florence - on E-voting and the Future of Elections. A woman from Kurdistan put a question about marginalization of countries in terms of media attention, agreeing with a statement of a Russian activist about media and democratization. In a way, the lack of response from the speakers proved that activists from the East and the West often have different priorities and views about global problems. "Why do you want to do e-democracy if you don’t have real democracy?" the Russian activist was asked by someone from Western Europe. People in so called developed democracies look upon new media as a way to build on social progress, while in many countries they are the only means to make different voices avoid censorship.
The presentation about the importance of the use of open standards in organizations stressed the fact that activists must be in control of their own technological destiny. Technical geeks have too much power and often do not understand the mission of the movements they work for. If technical decision making is concentrated in the hands of one person, this raises concerns. Non-governmental organizations should be encouraged to think about data organizing and storing, which is also connected to the issue of inclusion. New media create trust in relationships, but people should think about the balance between anonymity, privacy and security.
At the panel about archiving, different aspects of media and activism were considered. Archives are metaphors, they should not be viewed upon as something from the past, but as something to build on in the future. They are communicators of meanings and a creative approach can result in interesting outcomes. For example, memory in Iraq was rejected for 15 years. Now that the archives of the Saddam regime, which was very much obsessed with projecting itself, are open, it is important not to forget the past, to match the pieces and think about them without the constraints of the dictatorship and censorship. These are some of the objectives of a project for archiving the regime, which was one of the topics at the afternoon session on the second day of the conference. Some nations do not like to look back to their past, but understanding the past is the bridge to realizing and improving the future, the speaker reminded us. The question where to stop when revealing a regime like the one in Iraq is very complicated. One faces facts that are important to be reported to society, but they can destroy lots of personal lives.
On the second day of the conference, an important debate took place on the political economy of peer production, which considered once again the question of pushing the boundaries of what is legal. Some argued that the law on such things as copyright didn’t matter. People were just disobeying these laws anyway – through piracy. Lawrence Lessig, Founder of Creative Commons, argued strongly against this position. He insisted: “We must not romanticise the underground. ... I understand why there was an underground of creativity in a communist system. But it is outrageous that there has to be an underground for creativity in what we call a “democracy”. We have to stand up and change the law, not just behave as criminals.” He stressed that he was in favour of breaking the present laws, but, in the same way as the black civil rights movement in America had been prepared to go to jail in its fight to change the law.
Activism, alternative media, democracy, Information Technology development and potential – a lot of major issues were discussed at the Re:activism conference in Budapest with participants coming from various backgrounds. Bridging the boundaries, which was stated as one of the objectives at the beginning of the event, happened indeed, because lots of activists had the opportunity to speak to each other, certainly making steps forward in the struggle for social development.
