Per-Olof Ågren: 69 teser om internet (2011) [Swedish]

Internet är ett mångfacetterat fenomen som måste förstås på ett mångfacetterat sätt. I 69 teser om internet lägger Per-Olof Ågren fram ett antal olika teser från ett flertal olika perspektiv. “Internet eroderar geniet”, “Internet är ett kvasiobjekt”, “Sokrates hade älskat internet”, “Vi bubblifieras på internet”, “Internet genererar u-samhället”, “På internet verkar smittor” och “Internet glittrar” är några exempel på bokens teser.

Publisher Books on Demand GmbH, Stockholm, December 2011
ISBN 978-91-7463-326-9
88 pages

commentary (Rasmus Fleischer, Copyriot.se, in Swedish)

author

PDF

International Review of Information Ethics, No 15: Ethics of Sharing (2011)

“In information ethics though ‘sharing’ has been discussed so far only implicitly in terms of privacy, intellectual property, secrecy, security and freedom of speech. But not only that libraries have been at least challenged by search engines but also recent developments of a second order like the encyclopedia project Wikipedia, the emergence of social networks like facebook or disclosure platforms like WikiLeaks have shown that there is a need to go beyond the scientific habits and legal standards of sharing knowledge and distributing information to understand and govern the communicative space and exchange of information made possible by the internet and its respective platforms.

So, has sharing of information a special virtue in the information society? How are choices of sharing or withholding of information justified? Is sharing subversive of the new global information regime, or an integral aspect of it?

This issue brings together contributions towards an ethics of sharing that embed the new technological potentialities linking them to their actual social impact. In our understanding, information ethics “deals with ethical questions in the field of digital production and reproduction of phenomena and processes such as the exchange, combination and use of information.” So, the task of developing an ethics of sharing is both descriptive – helping us to understand the contemporary complexities of the ethics of exchanging information as it emerges from using digital technologies across a global range of social and cultural contexts – as well as normative – helping us to address blind-spots and clarifying possible ethical frameworks to address unresolved issues regarding these practices.” (from Editorial)

Contributions by Andreas Wittel, Mayo Fuster Morell, Marie-Luisa Frick and Andreas Oberprantacher, Vito Campanelli, Clemens Apprich, Michel Bauwens, Alessandro Delfanti

Edited by Felix Stalder and Wolfgang Sützl
Published by International Center for Information Ethics, September 2011
ISSN: 1614-1687

authors

PDF
PDF (PDF articles)

Patrick Meier: Do “Liberation Technologies” Change the Balance of Power Between Repressive States and Civil Society? (2011)

Do new information and communication technologies (ICTs) empower repressive regimes at the expense of civil society, or vice versa? For example, does access to the Internet and mobile phones alter the balance of power between repressive regimes and civil society? These questions are especially pertinent today given the role that ICTs played during this year’s uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and beyond. Indeed, as one Egyptian activist stated, “We use Facebook to schedule our protests, Twitter to coordinate and YouTube to tell the world.” But do these new ICTs—so called “liberation technologies”—really threaten repressive rule? The purpose of this dissertation is to use mixed-methods research to answer these questions.

The first half of this doctoral study comprises a large-N econometric analysis to test whether “liberation technologies” are a statistically significant predictor of anti-government protests in countries with repressive regimes. If using the Internet and mobile phones facilitates organization, mobilization and coordination, then one should expect a discernible link between an increase in access to ICTs and the frequency of protests—particularly in repressive states. The results of the quantitative analysis were combined with other selection criteria to identify two country case studies for further qualitative comparative analysis: Egypt and the Sudan. The second half of the dissertation assesses the impact of “liberation technologies” during the Egyptian Parliamentary Elections and Sudanese Presidential Elections of 2010. The analysis focused specifically on the use of Ushahidi—a platform often referred to as a “liberation technology.” Descriptive analysis, process tracing and semi-structured interviews were carried out for each case study.

Dissertation thesis
Faculty of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Dissertation Committee: D. Drezner, L. Diamond, Clay Shirky, C. Gideon
286 pages

author

PDF