VideoChronic: Video Activism and Video Distribution in Indonesia (2009)
Filed under report | Tags: · activism, democracy, indonesia, media activism, politics, tactical media, video, video art
VideoChronic publication is the result of a collaborative research project charting how activists are engaging with video technologies in Indonesia, addressing some of the issues of technology-mediated social movements, and exploring the potential and limitations of online video distribution.
The past decade in Indonesia has seen a dramatic increase in the use of video as a social change tool by community, campaign and activist organisations. Access to the tools for producing video have become increasingly democratised over this period, and rapidly adopted. Since the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime, space has been opened up for a host of new media projects to emerge. Individuals and organisations dealing with issues such as the environment, human rights, queer and gender issues, cultural pluralism, militarism, poverty, labour rights, globalisation and more have embraced video as a tool to communicate with both their bases and new audiences.
What groups are currently active in producing social and environmental video in the archipelago? What are the histories of that work? How is it currently being distributed? How are activists thinking they might approach distribution in the future?
Key researchers: Ferdiansyah Thajib M.A. and Nuraini Juliastuti M.Sc.
Project Manager & Editor: Andrew Lowenthal
Publisher: KUNCI Cultural Studies Center and EngageMedia, Nov 2009
ISBN: 978-0-646-52000-1
140 pages
Licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike 2.5 Australia
Joe Karaganis (ed.): Media Piracy in Emerging Economies (2011) [EN, RU, ES, CN]
Filed under report | Tags: · bolivia, brazil, copyright, culture industry, digital media market, filesharing, india, intellectual property, market, mexico, p2p, piracy, russia, south africa
“Media Piracy in Emerging Economies is the first independent, large-scale study of music, film and software piracy in emerging economies, with a focus on Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Mexico and Bolivia.
Based on three years of work by some thirty-five researchers, Media Piracy in Emerging Economies tells two overarching stories: one tracing the explosive growth of piracy as digital technologies became cheap and ubiquitous around the world, and another following the growth of industry lobbies that have reshaped laws and law enforcement around copyright protection. The report argues that these efforts have largely failed, and that the problem of piracy is better conceived as a failure of affordable access to media in legal markets.
“The choice,” said Joe Karaganis, director of the project, “isn’t between high piracy and low piracy in most media markets. The choice, rather, is between high-piracy, high-price markets and high-piracy, low price markets. Our work shows that media businesses can survive in both environments, and that developing countries have a strong interest in promoting the latter. This problem has little to do with enforcement and a lot to do with fostering competition.””
Publisher The Social Science Research Council (SSRC), 2011
Distributed under a Consumer’s Dilemma license
ISBN 978-0-98412574-6
440 pages
PDF (English, added on 2018-5-11)
PDFs (4 languages, from publisher; updated 2015-5-14)
See also Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education, 2018.
Comments (3)Lucas D. Introna, Helen Nissenbaum: Facial Recognition Technology. A Survey of Policy and Implementation Issues (2009)
Filed under report | Tags: · biometrics, ethics, identity, policy, privacy, software, surveillance, technology
Facial recognition technology (FRT) has emerged as an attractive solution to address many contemporary needs for identification and the verification of identity claims. It brings together the promise of other biometric systems, which attempt to tie identity to individually distinctive features of the body, and the more familiar functionality of visual surveillance systems. This report develops a socio-political analysis that bridges the technical and social-scientific literatures on FRT and addresses the unique challenges and concerns that attend its development, evaluation, and specific operational uses, contexts, and goals. It highlights the potential and limitations of the technology, noting those tasks for which it seems ready for deployment, those areas where performance obstacles may be overcome by future technological developments or sound operating procedures, and still other issues which appear intractable. Its concern with efficacy extends to ethical considerations.
Report of the Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response, New York University
April 2009
60 pages