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Collaborative knowledge construction in digital environments: Politics, policy, and communities
Government Information Quarterly 28 (2011) 409–415
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Government Information Quarterly j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / g o v i n f
Review
Collaborative knowledge construction in digital environments: Politics, policy, and communities Jeanine Finn ⁎ School of Information, University of Texas at Austin, 1616 Guadalupe Suite #5.202 Austin, TX 78701-1213, USA
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Available online 20 May 2011 Keywords: Knowledge-sharing Networks Policy
a b s t r a c t How individuals share information with respect to politics and policy in networked research environments is an area ripe for interdisciplinary study. In this analysis, I explore some of the more current and salient research findings from several disciplinary literatures (communications, computer science, organizational behavior, information science, and public policy) to examine how current research perceives the influence of technology-aided communications on policy-making conversations. I suggest that a community-centric view, which takes into account online and offline group affiliations and their related power dynamics, is just as important as an individual-based unit of analysis. This understanding points to directions for the thoughtful creation of digital resources that appropriately reflect and support inter- and intra-group knowledge-sharing behavior. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Contents 1. 2.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Democracy and information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. The relationship between democratic functions and information 2.2. Communitarianism and critical communitarianism . . . . . . 3. Polarization, isolation, confusion in online communications . . . . . 3.1. Birds of a feather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2. The importance of context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Lowered barriers, the public sphere, and information markets . . . . 5. Understanding community participation: subactivism . . . . . . . . 6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1. Introduction
Without the hum of everyday information sharing, it is unlikely that a community's members will be on the same page when a political issue emerges. The dividing line between “political” and “nonpolitical” communication is, for this reason, nonexistent. (Agre, 2002, p. 321)
⁎ Fax: + 1 512 471 3971. E-mail address: jefi[email protected]. 0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.giq.2010.10.004
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The area of intersection between computer-mediated-communication and theoretical models of democratic processes is a rich field for inter-disciplinary study. Scholars from fields such as law, political science, human–computer interaction, and gender studies have contributed to a growing body of research, and there is no shortage of theories and models that suggest networked communications have the power to reshape the interpersonal and intra-group relationships that make up political and civic communications (Bers, 2006; Bimber, 2003; Dahlberg, 2001; Ess, 1996). Research and theoretical models emerging from this cross-disciplinary space have not yet diffused in any great measure through information studies, however. I would suggest that in the 21st century digital space, information often travels less visibly anchored to traditional concepts of authority or
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context. Information distribution systems are flattened, and data, theories, news, and stories often travel at an inter-personal level, rather than being mediated by any agency or authority. If information scholars don't incorporate a broader, more critical view of concepts of social capital and community participation, particularly when they turn their attentions to creating and supporting digital information environments, traditional information studies theories of information behavior will fall short in explaining the networked knowledge work of humans in deliberative spaces. The purpose of this paper is to unpack some of the complex ideas about democracy, its conversations, and consensus-building activities that are embedded in literature on Internet-mediated communications. This paper also summarizes some of the most relevant current research and applies a community-focused perspective to the most salient findings. While there are many discussions of the influence of ICTs on group knowledge sharing, a unit of analysis that suggests more than the atomistic level of the individual (a traditional liberal democratic approach), a community-focused analysis, informed by some communitarian thinkers (Etzioni, Putnam) and their critics (Arneil, Barzali) seems most appropriate when looking at issues of public policy and politics. This examination of a variety of perspectives on digitally-aided knowledge sharing in political/policy environments provides (1) An overview of the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs), which are often perceived as either positive or negative, in terms of supporting inter- and intragroup information sharing; (2) A rationale for a shift from a liberal democratic perspective to a critical communitarian perspective that may color these perceptions within the context of a more nuanced definition of political participation and group behaviors; and (3) An explication of the implications from research and theory from 1 and 2 that suggest approaches for the thoughtful and appropriate creation of digital resources.
group- or community-level unit of analysis, and resources like social capital, as defined by scholars like Pierre Bourdieu: Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition — or in other words, to membership in a group (Bourdieu, 1986, pp. 248–249) Citizens in a technologically networked environment are constantly engaging in group behaviors that both shape and are shaped by the role of others in that environment. The “networks” of social capital traffic in “exchanges” according to the model of Bourdieu. In the amplified environment of digital networks, these exchanges are broader and more dispersed. It remains unclear if all online deliberative environments (Web forums, email lists, virtual environments) with their varying affordances for identity creation and disclosure are robust enough to support the creation of social capital, at least in the traditional sense. But clearly, something is happening, and the rise of social computing ensures that a great deal more of it will continue to happen. Networked information spaces in a digital environment have been envisioned both as utopian and dystopian and as a cure for flagging political participation and civic disconnection (Bers, 2006; Crossley & Roberts, 2004, p. 131), but also as a serious threat that could negate any efforts toward rational political discussions by encouraging like minds to gather in their respective corners and eschew intra-group contact (Sunstein, 2007; Van Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 2005). While most research has concluded with a more neutral or nuanced evaluation, it is worthwhile to examine some of these more normative conclusions critically, as the elements that go into normative assumptions about the role of information in a democracy offer the tools to establish a finergrained analysis that supports both a useful criticism and a theoretical basis for building a new generation of digital environments. 2. Democracy and information
While these issues are substantial and could certainly support a more lengthy analysis with an even broader examination of multidisciplinary literature, the hope is that by building on such retrospective works from diverse fields such as those represented by Bimber, 2003), Dervin, 1994) and Robbin, Courtright and Davis (2004), this work will provide a launching point for future efforts. In industrialized republics that increasingly live online, the view that “information sharing is the essence of persuasion” (Breton & Dalmazzone, 2002, p. 53) allows a perspective that lets us consider information behaviors in an embedded context and as more than value-neutral transactions. Digital environments, with their immense flexibility and connectivity, offer many avenues to engage in persuasive communications. In any group knowledge-sharing environment (which could be, arguably, any group) there are pressures to disclose what one knows and pressures to stay silent — these pressures vary within the affordances of an ICT environment. Between “the same as it ever was” view and technological determinism (i.e., the tools of a dialog determine the content) lies the model of amplification of existing forces and pressures of the offline world. This amplification model describes how existing pressures and motivations of individuals and groups will “have the volume turned up” in a digital environment, as the quantity and frequency of communications increase exponentially, but that digital environments will not fundamentally alter the relationships and processes already at work in the offline world (Agre, 2002). Lateral communications increase within groups, but inter-group boundaries persist. While the amplification model may encourage analysis of the processes of identity creation and recreation (Shin & Kim, 2010) at an individual level, it suggests an even greater need for attention to the
Free flows of information are often assumed to be a necessary and implicit part of a functioning democracy. Widely available information of high quality can support the kind of rational deliberative dialog that is essential to the idea of the Habermasian public sphere. Shared public knowledge is implicit in the creation and use of social capital within a civic society. But who gets to speak about what topics in a communal conversation? A critical communitarian perspective on the notion of a “public sphere” may allow for both a reflective examination of the democratic assumptions about widely-available information, and an understanding of the multiple epistemologies inherent in any society with varying degrees of power and engagement. 2.1. The relationship between democratic functions and information flows If we are to critically examine more polarized judgments of ICTs (as either being supportive of or destructive to democratic ideals), an examination of some of the implications of the presumed democracy– information relationship is useful. Many of the foundational assumptions about information and democracy are articulated in the Habermasian ideal of the public sphere as a place for rational human discourse and rational claims-making activity (Habermas, 1991, p. 4). Much of the behavior in networked information spaces related to politics and policy is characterized by attempts at knowledge-building, mobilization, and validity claims (Dahlberg, 2001; Kim, 2006) — who said what when, whose data is the most reliable, what are the relevant historical facts, what is the best course of action, and so on. While these activities evoke the rational–critical behavior understood as part of the function of a public sphere broad accessibility and “low-enough”
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barriers of entry provoke instant and emotional response (shortcircuiting reflexivity) (Sunstein, 2007, p. 207), normatively valued in the deliberative space. Also “high-enough” barriers of entry (cost, technological skill) keep certain members of the polity from participating fully (A. L. Kavanaugh et al., 2005,, p. 24). Assumptions about the symbiotic relationship between the free flow of information and a functioning democracy are interwoven into many of the narratives and normative theories of communication in networked information spaces (particularly when discussing notions such as the “Digital Divide” (Fisher, 2004)); if left unexamined, these assumptions cannot be sustained when tested by time, efficacy, finances, and other constraints in real-world applications (Dervin, 1994). Vague notions about the value of access to good information may need to be more clearly articulated in any kind of constructed online environment. Real-world constraints could quickly overpower unclear and poorly articulated priorities. There are several levels of epistemological and ontological assumptions that underlie the information/democracy relationship (Dervin, 1994). The earliest (historically) are dogmatic and authoritarian structures that assume one true truth; all information should be orderly representations of that truth and there is therefore little need to explicitly value multiple perspectives or dialogic processes. This assumption is related to positivist epistemologies from the Enlightenment and is still common in representations of the information–democracy relationship. This model is presently manifested, among other places, by groups and activities that purport to fact-check in real-time (or close to it) the statements of public officials and media outlets. They assert that the realm of facts can used to keep a deliberative policy conversation on-track, and not dominated by issues of mere opinion. Groups such as the Annenberg Center's factcheck.org state their mission as “to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics” by “increas[ing] public knowledge and understanding.” (Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2010). 2.2. Communitarianism and critical communitarianism If exchanges in the realm of “facts” keep a democracy functioning, by what means do we ensure that we are sharing the same facts and evaluating them according to the same standards? It's been argued recently that that isn't happening at all and facts may simply be optedout of (Manjoo, 2008). The role of civil society in supporting democratic functions has been broadly examined from an information perspective (Robbin et al., 2004) and has emerged most visibly in communitarian perspectives such as Putnam (2001), and Cass Sunstein's Republic.com 2.0 (2007). These authors assert that the lack of a communal truth, or shared understanding of relevant facts of public concern, is harmful to democratic civil society. Putnam specifically identifies the lack of participation in community groups (bowling alone vs. the league bowling popular in the U.S. in the mid 20th-century) as limiting our stores of social capital. Without this social capital “our economy, our democracy, and even our health and happiness” are threatened (Putnam, 2001, p. 28). However, critical communitarian perspectives, which embrace the notion of multiple perspectives and multiple epistemologies (Arneil, 2006; Barzilai, 2003), have been used to establish a middle ground between a positivistic communitarian perspective and the complete “chaos” of postmodernity (which assumes no truth, no means of knowing). A critical stance can benefit from a community perspective without embracing the necessity of a “shared truth” (Dervin, 1994) which authors see as implicit in the modern communitarian Bowling Alone in its notion of an “idyllic and unified ‘American community’” (Arneil, 2006, p. 2). Within the critical communitarian framework, the hegemonic power of the dominant group in terms of establishing political and legal culture (which helps determine information processes and practices) must be considered, in contrast to more traditional liberal democratic analyses that view individuals through
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an atomistic lens at the expense of social and group power relationship examination. Group associations and the power differentials between the groups are important determinants of who gets to speak about shared problems. Embracing a community-oriented framework seems the most appropriate in the multi-modal, distributed world of technologicallysupported democratic dialog, especially as blogs and social computing tools become dominant forms of digital expression. Without an explicit recognition of the importance of dialog and critical communitarian knowledge-building, we are unable to make thoughtful onthe-ground decisions about specific features of our technological creations — will our networks support collaboration and ground-up information-sharing, or will content creation be allowed for only certain “authorities,” for example. This recognition of the importance of process is a useful foundation when examining the social practices that emerge within and around digital information spaces. As information studies practitioners, we are increasingly likely to be involved in the creation of information spaces, the selection of appropriate resources within them, and in an iterative development process, rather than in the somewhat more straightforward act of finding enough appropriate information resources for a particular collection. (Bawden & Robinson, 2009, p. 182). In practice, studies have found a correlation between frequent internet use and civic engagement, as defined in traditional ways; clearly there is evidence to suggest that humans are engaging with each other politically in networked environments (Horrigan et al., 2004; A. Kavanaugh et al., 2007; Weber et al., 2003). The benefits and risks of this type of engagement are beginning to be described in a more nuanced way. The following table is an effort to present a summary of the major effects of the ICT environment on shared knowledge (Table 1) and consensus-building activities, as they are understood by researchers and theorists. They are broadly grouped at opposite ends of a polarization/integration continuum, though it should be understood that most studies included elements from both ends of the continuum and generally offer a mixed assessment. 3. Polarization, isolation, confusion in online communications “Information” is a negotiated exchange in any environment, whether analog or digital, and always presents potential opportunities for misinterpretation and uncivil application. However, there are some affordances in the digital environment that have been cause for particular concern among scholars of digital communication. Many of the purported “virtues” of networked digital information (for example, the infinite customization and flattened or non-existent authority networks) are also what lead to some people's perception that networked digital information is a potential weakness and even a threat to civil society. There are a number of critiques that suggest that these features threaten a citizen's ability to accrue meaningful social capital and engage in any kind of rational-critical debate. 3.1. Birds of a feather One of the purported dangers of the digital information environment is that the high degree of personalization and filtering possible, coupled with the limits of bounded rationality, or information satisficing (Bawden & Robinson, 2009, p. 185), in the face of huge quantities of information, pushes people into their own information pods, interacting with only those who share certain interests (Putnam, 2001, p. 178). In digital spaces, choosing to avoid news and information that conflicts with our closely-held beliefs (or that is personally threatening) is relatively easy (Barbour et al., 2009; Sunstein, 2007). Without relying on shared sources of information, some theorists suggest that we will harm civic society and our ability to sustain democracy. This view argues that without a shared national narrative, extreme views can persist, reinforce themselves, and
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Table 1 Generalized effects of networked communications on democratic knowledge-sharing per recent literature. Theory Polarization/isolation/confusion Digital divide
Manifestation
Caveats
More men than women, fewer low-income people, more white than black online, etc. Extremist groups' presence online, links to similar groups only
Scope and extent of digital divide remains questionable
This happened before the internet — extremists have always had their own information outlets Customization of info RSS feeds, newsgroups and news outlets The “portal” trend pretty plainly fizzled out Balkanization More in-group than out-group links; only choosing news sources Some evidence in studies to indicate the opposite is true we like Lack of context Misuse of stats by politically motivated; misunderstanding of Individual critical thinking skills remain important, unclearly scientific research understood in this context Many issues at play– Internet has affected old-school media in Lack of shared reality/no general-interest Major media outlets suffering financially; polls revealing lack ways we don't clearly understand; “shared reality” issue was intermediaries of consensus over responsibility for 9/11, moon landing always questionable, perhaps more an issue of more voices “hoaxers,” etc. being heard now (women, minorities, other disenfranchised with “marginal” views) Extremism feeds on information control
Integration Easier for socially awkward/isolated than Studies show more “chatting” online than in person f2f Lack of physical and geographic Global penetration of the Internet boundaries Open government/transparency Volume of government information online; government initiatives to improve accessibility of government information More nuanced levels of participation Subactivism — participation in non-political groups may trend toward political as issues emerge Potential for rational discourse free of Freenets economic power-holders Free marketplace Success of Wikipedia w/out explicit authority of ideas
become completely detached from counterbalancing narratives in a customizable world of digital information. There is some empirical support for this view in examining the networked information behavior of political/policy actors over time. A recent study of the behavior of Korean National Assembly members (Park & Kluver, 2009) examined their blog creations, and how the networked linkages evolved over the course of approximately two years. While overall blog usage increased, over time the networks become more centralized and less broadly-linked. Members were measurably more likely to link to other members and groups already part of their affiliated (off-line) circle and less likely to link to individuals and groups further afield. Park and Kluver suggest that the cultural embeddedness of digital networks is an important consideration. Group relationships and affiliations, arguably even more important in Korean culture than in most Western societies, were seen as profound predictors of online behavior. In the U.S., a study of political blogging following the 2004 elections demonstrated a profoundly “divided blogosphere” (Adamic & Glance, 2005). Liberal bloggers following the presidential elections primarily linked to other liberal sources, while conservatives linked to conservatives. This phenomenon does not stay confined to just blogs, as arguments and rhetorical framing of issues initiated there often percolate into other media settings (Drezner & Farrell, 2004). Social network theory also provides some evidence of those behavioral trends. Personal and group contact can be looked at via these types of models that purport to understand the behavior of different communities along an “index of balkanization,” which takes individual preferences into account (Van Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 2005). With the increase of information choices and the decrease in the effect of geography as a limiting factor, specialization and individual preferences (what incentives make individuals willing to act as information conduits) will naturally have a more significant role. While this kind of clustering around shared interests can be useful within academic disciplines, overspecialization could be harmful to the “overall welfare of society” (Van Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 2005, p. 865) some suggest. Cross-disciplinary academic and scientific scholarship is a particular
Limited depth of personal connection Political boundaries and law still matter — for example, in China Online information can be less accessible – for example, it can be pulled down from government servers (unlike paper copies distributed to depositories) We don't really understand how “political” this is yet Development of Web technology is driven by corporate interests generally Wikipedia contributions have trailed off; the model hasn't worked elsewhere
concern. As specialized experts come to know more about their particular discipline, anything more than a passing familiarity with other areas may slip away, and inter-disciplinary work suffers. A similar theme that is re-iterated in the work of Cass Sunstein (currently the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) is the importance of general interest intermediaries. “Intermediate people in a chain must be willing to serve as conduits for data that need not necessarily pertain to them,” (Van Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 2005, p. 853). Agents are unlikely to pass along information that they find useless, irrelevant, or even particularly offensive and obnoxious. In Sunstein's interpretation (2007), mass media have most recently served this function — passing along information from a variety of sources was their role and to their economic benefit (appealing to the broadest audience possible). His thinking continues a long history of theories on the importance of shared general-interest intermediaries (particularly newspapers) in fostering associations in democratic nations, perhaps first articulated by Alexis de Tocqueville: … a newspaper, which is the only way of being able to place the same thought at the same moment into a thousand minds (Tocqueville, 2003, p. 600). When general-interest media outlets increasingly lose viewers and readers to specialized providers with more explicit and targeted political agendas, general-interest intermediaries lose their market space and it is thought that the shared space of communal knowledge-building is diminished. However, this perspective implies one (or at least a limited number) of relevant narratives in a society, and ignores relationships between its subgroups and the influence of a dominant group on shaping that narrative. 3.2. The importance of context While contexts and relationships clearly matter in consensusbuilding dialogs, many of the affordances of digital networks work to actively remove context and make relationships more ambiguous.
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Obviously this is apparent in email lists and online discussion forums, but even institutionally-created digital libraries, generally perceived as more authoritative than loose online networks, can push data and ideas out into the world, untethered from original context and intentions (Van House, 2003, p. 279). In this setting, expert authors may fear the misuse and misinterpretation of their information and be reluctant to share it in a digital environment that has that potential (p. 276). Just as notable as this reaction, are the users' reactions to data stripped away from its context — negative judgments of authority and reliability tend to be much more frequent. Discussions that are politically potent can quickly seize on an apparent lack of authority in the structure of a digital library that collects data from many different sources (p. 279). 4. Lowered barriers, the public sphere, and information markets While the majority of analyses describe some positive and negative elements of the role of online communication in democratic deliberation, there is a consistent thread that runs through the literature on digital information spaces that suggests the affordances of these new technologies offer a forum for much broader participation and are the ideal means to minimize costs of participation in an “idea market.” Marginalized members of a group may not be able to attend meetings in a public way, or serve on representative boards, but through tools like email (and free access in public spaces like public libraries) even highly disadvantaged individuals can contribute to a deliberative conversation. Wikipedia is frequently invoked as an example of a Hayek-style “idea market.” As a collaborative networked resource, with relatively low barriers for entry encouraging individual information sharing, the intentionality behind Wikipedia cannot be fully understood without an understanding of Hayek, according to Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales (Sunstein, 2006, p. 157). Accepting Hayek's notion that information is imperfectly distributed in a group, a system such as Wikipedia that streamlines the process of contributing to shared “more perfect” knowledge, and properly incentivizes sharing, should articulate the idealistic position wherein the social and economic functions of a dispersed knowledge economy are facilitated by technological tools to create the rational-deliberative space of a public sphere a la Habermas. However, the incentives behind Wikipedia and other related sites are unclear and may be unsustainable (“Volunteers log off as Wikipedia ages 2009”). It seems that the multi-level incentives for contributing in such an environment (being perceived as an authority, the chance to create identity, a spirit of community, a chance to participate in something novel) complicate the clear rational principles of Hayek's model. Even if knowledge is imperfectly shared, the possibility of connecting with differently-minded individuals can be a beneficial effect of the lowered thresholds provided by ICTs and digital libraries. While other theorists have seen the personalization and filtering aspects of networked technologies as a threat to social interaction, other researchers looking at communicative activities see this as an aid to helping participants, who may suffer from social anxieties in interpersonal contact situations (Amichai-Hamburger & McKenna, 2006). Online contact situations offer more opportunities to be customized in ways that suit the needs (and concerns) of the interacting groups. In many cases, this electronic contact may be superior to traditional face-to-face encounters. Importantly, in an online environment one can hit two birds with one stone; one can heighten the perception of the individual members as representative of their disparate groups while simultaneously fostering feelings of kinship and attachment to the “new group” composed of all members taking part in the exercise. (Amichai-Hamburger & McKenna, 2006) At the very least, ICTs can serve the purpose of lightening the burden of participation in civic forums (A. Kavanaugh et al., 2007) and
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provide more support for a variety of bridging relationships between groups. Other views are somewhat less optimistic, but present evidence that the “cyberbalkanization” threat may be overstated. A study published in 2007 (Williams, 2007) examined how internet tools may help or hinder the formation of social capital. In a study of approximately 900 internet users, the authors found no evidence to support the “cyberbalkanization” hypothesis (more out-group antagonism and less bridging) and, in fact, some evidence to support more out-group contact (p. 401). It should be noted, though, that 87% of the participants in the Williams study were male; it is an open question how seriously these findings could relate to more heterogeneous groups, or groups that consist of primarily minority and/or female members. While the quality of affective connections was found neither to be very deep nor lasting, there were significant interactions among groups. Personality types may play a significant role, as may the type of interaction (discussion forums, email lists, etc.). Other studies have supported a cautiously optimistic view of online discussion groups as supportive of public sphere development, not only pointing out frequent robust civil exchanges, but also acknowledging the tendency of certain individuals to dominate discussions and for females to often be “conspicuously absent” (Papacharissi, 2004). 5. Understanding community participation: subactivism The diversity of the participants in a civic exchanged may be improved, however, when one begins to define political engagement a bit more broadly to include different categories of participation, such as participating in local or specialized online forums (fan forums, neighborhood email lists) that are not overtly political but may take on political characteristics as contributors allude to political topics, the picture of political information-sharing becomes a bit more nuanced and traditional measures of political engagement may need to be redefined. Many Americans do not often describe their civic engagement as political, and may feel actively discouraged, an account of their gender, for example, from doing so (Eliasoph, 1998). Maria Bakardjieva, writing in The Information Society, posits a category of political engagement she describes as “subactivism” that may provide a tool to understand previously “invisible” participants in civic exchanges. Members of a local group of native plant enthusiasts for example, may not be part of an overtly “political group”, but their engagement in purposeful information sharing and community-building activities on interactive message boards around their area of interest could begin to broach political or policy issues if an issue of public water or land use emerges into the political space. They may not have existed as stakeholders in a debate on water use without the issue being embedded into their daily community practices of informationsharing. They are invested in their local community through their “sub-political” interest and thereby poised to respond to political questions. In a classical republican framework, individuals, who, at least on some level, set aside their personal priorities on behalf of the greater good of the society of which they are a member, are expected to posses and use skills for reason and deliberation in the public sphere. For Bakardjieva, this is a particular shortcoming in the republican model of citizenship as it cannot properly express more flexible boundaries between personal and public concerns and priorities, supported by the overlapping and flexible affordances of digital communication environments. I would suggest that a critical communitarian view, which allows for membership in subgroups and acknowledges overlapping group identities and power differentials, is more supportive of the subactivist analysis. This idea is fully articulated in the proposal of a theory of “radicaldemocratic citizenship” (Bakardjieva, 2009) that embraces the notion of the “the personal as political” and has the potential to recognize the widely-varying levels of access to resources, different social norms,
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and hegemonic power of certain groups over others. Without being critical of the power differentials between certain groups, we cannot properly understand how they interact in a public deliberative space — and recognize that their interactions may look quite different, but still be substantively “political.” An understanding of this type allows for a more subtle and multileveled analysis of the places between personal identity and public/ political personae, and suggests how the variety of interactions supported by the technology of the internet can help reify and reiterate these levels of participation, while not necessarily creating them. Varying levels of engagement in democratic processes are confirmed by broad-based analyses of internet-based political participation (Horrigan et al., 2004; A. Kavanaugh et al., 2007; Weber et al., 2003). While these analyses find a correlation between political participation and Internet usage, the persistence of specific socioeconomic differences between the participation of certain groups was notable, as were differences in participation based on offline social roles and associations (Lento et al., 2006; Park & Kluver, 2009; Weber et al., 2003, pp. 38–39). This research suggests that while the digital information technology can reduce the cost of participation in public life and “turn up the volume” on interactions, as Agre (2002) suggests in his “amplification” model, barriers still exist for participation for many underrepresented groups and/or typically more reticent individuals.
6. Conclusion
Civil association is a system of interlocking institutions, not a shapeless meeting of unformed minds, and the internet allows the relational order of those institutions to be inscribed into the finest details of daily life. (Agre, 2002, p. 323)
The relationship of an individual with his/her technological tools presents many unique variables that emerge and evolve as technology matures and as humans adapt and personalize their technology behaviors. When the unit of analysis of these variables shifts from the individual to a group, it would seem useful to make use of existing understandings of how groups conceive of themselves, organize their activities, and communicate, and apply these understandings to a networked information environment. Making full use of the tools at our disposal to understand human behavior (both alone and in groups) will help information scholars avoid an easy slide into technological determinism. While studies from a variety of disciplines may continue to identify inconsistencies and even pathologies related to human information use in the public sphere, it is worthwhile to keep in mind the huge number of “successful” information negotiations humans manage each day in the digital environment. We do a lot of things remarkably well. While the modes and affordances of digital communication change daily, humans have learned to use off-line and online communities and social understandings as a source of support in negotiating difficult issues such as credibility and civility. Being able to accurately assess this context in its totality, without an unduly pessimistic or deterministic view, will serve future research well.
Acknowledgments Many thanks to Dr. William Aspray and Dr. Lynn Westbrook and for their helpful comments.
References Adamic, L. A., & Glance, N. (2005). The political blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. election: Divided they blog. Paper presented at the proceedings of the 3rd international workshop on link discovery. Agre, P. E. (2002). Real-time politics: The Internet and the political process. The Information Society, 18, 311–331. Amichai-Hamburger, Y., & McKenna, K. Y. A. (2006). The contact hypothesis reconsidered: Interacting via the Internet. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(3) Retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue3/amichaihamburger.html Annenberg Public Policy, Center (2010). FactCheck.org: About us. Retrieved 13 April 2010. http://www.factcheck.org/about/ from Arneil, B. (2006). Diverse communities: The problem with social capital. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. Bakardjieva, M. (2009). Subactivism: Lifeworld and politics in the age of the Internet. Information Society, 25(2), 91–104. Barbour, J. B., Rintamaki, L. S., & Brashers, D. E. (2009). Health information avoidance as uncertainty management. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the international communication association, 2009 Retrieved from http://www.allacademic.com/ meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/1/3/2/9/p13292_index.html Barzilai, G. (2003). Communities and law: Politics and cultures of legal identities. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Bawden, D., & Robinson, L. (2009). The dark side of information: Overload, anxiety and other paradoxes and pathologies. Journal of Information Science, 35(2), 180–191. Bers, M. U. (2006). Fostering civic engagement by building a virtual city. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(3). Bimber, B. (2003). Information and American democracy: Technology in the evolution of political power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood Press. 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L., Cooper, M., Carroll, J. M., Rosson, M. B., & Schmitz, J. (2005). Information technology in support of public deliberation. Communities and Technologies. (pp. 19–40). Kavanaugh, A., Zin, T., Rosson, M., Carroll, J., Schmitz, J., & Kim, B. (2007). Local groups online: Political learning and participation. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 16(4), 375–395. Kim, J. -Y. (2006). The impact of Internet use patterns on political engagement: A focus on online deliberation and virtual social capital. Information Polity: The International Journal of Government & Democracy in the Information Age, 11(1), 35–49. Lento, T., Welser, H. T., Gui, L., & Smith, M. (2006). The ties that blog: Examining the relationship between social ties and continued participation in the Wallop weblogging system. 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Jeanine Finn is a second-year doctoral student at the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her M.S. in library and information science from the University of Illinois in 1996 and has been employed as a librarian and information specialist at universities, private companies, and state government. Her research interests center on the intersections of public policy and information sharing within digital spaces.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Government Information Quarterly j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / g o v i n f
Review
Collaborative knowledge construction in digital environments: Politics, policy, and communities Jeanine Finn ⁎ School of Information, University of Texas at Austin, 1616 Guadalupe Suite #5.202 Austin, TX 78701-1213, USA
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Available online 20 May 2011 Keywords: Knowledge-sharing Networks Policy
a b s t r a c t How individuals share information with respect to politics and policy in networked research environments is an area ripe for interdisciplinary study. In this analysis, I explore some of the more current and salient research findings from several disciplinary literatures (communications, computer science, organizational behavior, information science, and public policy) to examine how current research perceives the influence of technology-aided communications on policy-making conversations. I suggest that a community-centric view, which takes into account online and offline group affiliations and their related power dynamics, is just as important as an individual-based unit of analysis. This understanding points to directions for the thoughtful creation of digital resources that appropriately reflect and support inter- and intra-group knowledge-sharing behavior. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Contents 1. 2.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Democracy and information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. The relationship between democratic functions and information 2.2. Communitarianism and critical communitarianism . . . . . . 3. Polarization, isolation, confusion in online communications . . . . . 3.1. Birds of a feather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2. The importance of context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Lowered barriers, the public sphere, and information markets . . . . 5. Understanding community participation: subactivism . . . . . . . . 6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1. Introduction
Without the hum of everyday information sharing, it is unlikely that a community's members will be on the same page when a political issue emerges. The dividing line between “political” and “nonpolitical” communication is, for this reason, nonexistent. (Agre, 2002, p. 321)
⁎ Fax: + 1 512 471 3971. E-mail address: jefi[email protected]. 0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.giq.2010.10.004
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The area of intersection between computer-mediated-communication and theoretical models of democratic processes is a rich field for inter-disciplinary study. Scholars from fields such as law, political science, human–computer interaction, and gender studies have contributed to a growing body of research, and there is no shortage of theories and models that suggest networked communications have the power to reshape the interpersonal and intra-group relationships that make up political and civic communications (Bers, 2006; Bimber, 2003; Dahlberg, 2001; Ess, 1996). Research and theoretical models emerging from this cross-disciplinary space have not yet diffused in any great measure through information studies, however. I would suggest that in the 21st century digital space, information often travels less visibly anchored to traditional concepts of authority or
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context. Information distribution systems are flattened, and data, theories, news, and stories often travel at an inter-personal level, rather than being mediated by any agency or authority. If information scholars don't incorporate a broader, more critical view of concepts of social capital and community participation, particularly when they turn their attentions to creating and supporting digital information environments, traditional information studies theories of information behavior will fall short in explaining the networked knowledge work of humans in deliberative spaces. The purpose of this paper is to unpack some of the complex ideas about democracy, its conversations, and consensus-building activities that are embedded in literature on Internet-mediated communications. This paper also summarizes some of the most relevant current research and applies a community-focused perspective to the most salient findings. While there are many discussions of the influence of ICTs on group knowledge sharing, a unit of analysis that suggests more than the atomistic level of the individual (a traditional liberal democratic approach), a community-focused analysis, informed by some communitarian thinkers (Etzioni, Putnam) and their critics (Arneil, Barzali) seems most appropriate when looking at issues of public policy and politics. This examination of a variety of perspectives on digitally-aided knowledge sharing in political/policy environments provides (1) An overview of the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs), which are often perceived as either positive or negative, in terms of supporting inter- and intragroup information sharing; (2) A rationale for a shift from a liberal democratic perspective to a critical communitarian perspective that may color these perceptions within the context of a more nuanced definition of political participation and group behaviors; and (3) An explication of the implications from research and theory from 1 and 2 that suggest approaches for the thoughtful and appropriate creation of digital resources.
group- or community-level unit of analysis, and resources like social capital, as defined by scholars like Pierre Bourdieu: Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition — or in other words, to membership in a group (Bourdieu, 1986, pp. 248–249) Citizens in a technologically networked environment are constantly engaging in group behaviors that both shape and are shaped by the role of others in that environment. The “networks” of social capital traffic in “exchanges” according to the model of Bourdieu. In the amplified environment of digital networks, these exchanges are broader and more dispersed. It remains unclear if all online deliberative environments (Web forums, email lists, virtual environments) with their varying affordances for identity creation and disclosure are robust enough to support the creation of social capital, at least in the traditional sense. But clearly, something is happening, and the rise of social computing ensures that a great deal more of it will continue to happen. Networked information spaces in a digital environment have been envisioned both as utopian and dystopian and as a cure for flagging political participation and civic disconnection (Bers, 2006; Crossley & Roberts, 2004, p. 131), but also as a serious threat that could negate any efforts toward rational political discussions by encouraging like minds to gather in their respective corners and eschew intra-group contact (Sunstein, 2007; Van Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 2005). While most research has concluded with a more neutral or nuanced evaluation, it is worthwhile to examine some of these more normative conclusions critically, as the elements that go into normative assumptions about the role of information in a democracy offer the tools to establish a finergrained analysis that supports both a useful criticism and a theoretical basis for building a new generation of digital environments. 2. Democracy and information
While these issues are substantial and could certainly support a more lengthy analysis with an even broader examination of multidisciplinary literature, the hope is that by building on such retrospective works from diverse fields such as those represented by Bimber, 2003), Dervin, 1994) and Robbin, Courtright and Davis (2004), this work will provide a launching point for future efforts. In industrialized republics that increasingly live online, the view that “information sharing is the essence of persuasion” (Breton & Dalmazzone, 2002, p. 53) allows a perspective that lets us consider information behaviors in an embedded context and as more than value-neutral transactions. Digital environments, with their immense flexibility and connectivity, offer many avenues to engage in persuasive communications. In any group knowledge-sharing environment (which could be, arguably, any group) there are pressures to disclose what one knows and pressures to stay silent — these pressures vary within the affordances of an ICT environment. Between “the same as it ever was” view and technological determinism (i.e., the tools of a dialog determine the content) lies the model of amplification of existing forces and pressures of the offline world. This amplification model describes how existing pressures and motivations of individuals and groups will “have the volume turned up” in a digital environment, as the quantity and frequency of communications increase exponentially, but that digital environments will not fundamentally alter the relationships and processes already at work in the offline world (Agre, 2002). Lateral communications increase within groups, but inter-group boundaries persist. While the amplification model may encourage analysis of the processes of identity creation and recreation (Shin & Kim, 2010) at an individual level, it suggests an even greater need for attention to the
Free flows of information are often assumed to be a necessary and implicit part of a functioning democracy. Widely available information of high quality can support the kind of rational deliberative dialog that is essential to the idea of the Habermasian public sphere. Shared public knowledge is implicit in the creation and use of social capital within a civic society. But who gets to speak about what topics in a communal conversation? A critical communitarian perspective on the notion of a “public sphere” may allow for both a reflective examination of the democratic assumptions about widely-available information, and an understanding of the multiple epistemologies inherent in any society with varying degrees of power and engagement. 2.1. The relationship between democratic functions and information flows If we are to critically examine more polarized judgments of ICTs (as either being supportive of or destructive to democratic ideals), an examination of some of the implications of the presumed democracy– information relationship is useful. Many of the foundational assumptions about information and democracy are articulated in the Habermasian ideal of the public sphere as a place for rational human discourse and rational claims-making activity (Habermas, 1991, p. 4). Much of the behavior in networked information spaces related to politics and policy is characterized by attempts at knowledge-building, mobilization, and validity claims (Dahlberg, 2001; Kim, 2006) — who said what when, whose data is the most reliable, what are the relevant historical facts, what is the best course of action, and so on. While these activities evoke the rational–critical behavior understood as part of the function of a public sphere broad accessibility and “low-enough”
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barriers of entry provoke instant and emotional response (shortcircuiting reflexivity) (Sunstein, 2007, p. 207), normatively valued in the deliberative space. Also “high-enough” barriers of entry (cost, technological skill) keep certain members of the polity from participating fully (A. L. Kavanaugh et al., 2005,, p. 24). Assumptions about the symbiotic relationship between the free flow of information and a functioning democracy are interwoven into many of the narratives and normative theories of communication in networked information spaces (particularly when discussing notions such as the “Digital Divide” (Fisher, 2004)); if left unexamined, these assumptions cannot be sustained when tested by time, efficacy, finances, and other constraints in real-world applications (Dervin, 1994). Vague notions about the value of access to good information may need to be more clearly articulated in any kind of constructed online environment. Real-world constraints could quickly overpower unclear and poorly articulated priorities. There are several levels of epistemological and ontological assumptions that underlie the information/democracy relationship (Dervin, 1994). The earliest (historically) are dogmatic and authoritarian structures that assume one true truth; all information should be orderly representations of that truth and there is therefore little need to explicitly value multiple perspectives or dialogic processes. This assumption is related to positivist epistemologies from the Enlightenment and is still common in representations of the information–democracy relationship. This model is presently manifested, among other places, by groups and activities that purport to fact-check in real-time (or close to it) the statements of public officials and media outlets. They assert that the realm of facts can used to keep a deliberative policy conversation on-track, and not dominated by issues of mere opinion. Groups such as the Annenberg Center's factcheck.org state their mission as “to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics” by “increas[ing] public knowledge and understanding.” (Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2010). 2.2. Communitarianism and critical communitarianism If exchanges in the realm of “facts” keep a democracy functioning, by what means do we ensure that we are sharing the same facts and evaluating them according to the same standards? It's been argued recently that that isn't happening at all and facts may simply be optedout of (Manjoo, 2008). The role of civil society in supporting democratic functions has been broadly examined from an information perspective (Robbin et al., 2004) and has emerged most visibly in communitarian perspectives such as Putnam (2001), and Cass Sunstein's Republic.com 2.0 (2007). These authors assert that the lack of a communal truth, or shared understanding of relevant facts of public concern, is harmful to democratic civil society. Putnam specifically identifies the lack of participation in community groups (bowling alone vs. the league bowling popular in the U.S. in the mid 20th-century) as limiting our stores of social capital. Without this social capital “our economy, our democracy, and even our health and happiness” are threatened (Putnam, 2001, p. 28). However, critical communitarian perspectives, which embrace the notion of multiple perspectives and multiple epistemologies (Arneil, 2006; Barzilai, 2003), have been used to establish a middle ground between a positivistic communitarian perspective and the complete “chaos” of postmodernity (which assumes no truth, no means of knowing). A critical stance can benefit from a community perspective without embracing the necessity of a “shared truth” (Dervin, 1994) which authors see as implicit in the modern communitarian Bowling Alone in its notion of an “idyllic and unified ‘American community’” (Arneil, 2006, p. 2). Within the critical communitarian framework, the hegemonic power of the dominant group in terms of establishing political and legal culture (which helps determine information processes and practices) must be considered, in contrast to more traditional liberal democratic analyses that view individuals through
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an atomistic lens at the expense of social and group power relationship examination. Group associations and the power differentials between the groups are important determinants of who gets to speak about shared problems. Embracing a community-oriented framework seems the most appropriate in the multi-modal, distributed world of technologicallysupported democratic dialog, especially as blogs and social computing tools become dominant forms of digital expression. Without an explicit recognition of the importance of dialog and critical communitarian knowledge-building, we are unable to make thoughtful onthe-ground decisions about specific features of our technological creations — will our networks support collaboration and ground-up information-sharing, or will content creation be allowed for only certain “authorities,” for example. This recognition of the importance of process is a useful foundation when examining the social practices that emerge within and around digital information spaces. As information studies practitioners, we are increasingly likely to be involved in the creation of information spaces, the selection of appropriate resources within them, and in an iterative development process, rather than in the somewhat more straightforward act of finding enough appropriate information resources for a particular collection. (Bawden & Robinson, 2009, p. 182). In practice, studies have found a correlation between frequent internet use and civic engagement, as defined in traditional ways; clearly there is evidence to suggest that humans are engaging with each other politically in networked environments (Horrigan et al., 2004; A. Kavanaugh et al., 2007; Weber et al., 2003). The benefits and risks of this type of engagement are beginning to be described in a more nuanced way. The following table is an effort to present a summary of the major effects of the ICT environment on shared knowledge (Table 1) and consensus-building activities, as they are understood by researchers and theorists. They are broadly grouped at opposite ends of a polarization/integration continuum, though it should be understood that most studies included elements from both ends of the continuum and generally offer a mixed assessment. 3. Polarization, isolation, confusion in online communications “Information” is a negotiated exchange in any environment, whether analog or digital, and always presents potential opportunities for misinterpretation and uncivil application. However, there are some affordances in the digital environment that have been cause for particular concern among scholars of digital communication. Many of the purported “virtues” of networked digital information (for example, the infinite customization and flattened or non-existent authority networks) are also what lead to some people's perception that networked digital information is a potential weakness and even a threat to civil society. There are a number of critiques that suggest that these features threaten a citizen's ability to accrue meaningful social capital and engage in any kind of rational-critical debate. 3.1. Birds of a feather One of the purported dangers of the digital information environment is that the high degree of personalization and filtering possible, coupled with the limits of bounded rationality, or information satisficing (Bawden & Robinson, 2009, p. 185), in the face of huge quantities of information, pushes people into their own information pods, interacting with only those who share certain interests (Putnam, 2001, p. 178). In digital spaces, choosing to avoid news and information that conflicts with our closely-held beliefs (or that is personally threatening) is relatively easy (Barbour et al., 2009; Sunstein, 2007). Without relying on shared sources of information, some theorists suggest that we will harm civic society and our ability to sustain democracy. This view argues that without a shared national narrative, extreme views can persist, reinforce themselves, and
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Table 1 Generalized effects of networked communications on democratic knowledge-sharing per recent literature. Theory Polarization/isolation/confusion Digital divide
Manifestation
Caveats
More men than women, fewer low-income people, more white than black online, etc. Extremist groups' presence online, links to similar groups only
Scope and extent of digital divide remains questionable
This happened before the internet — extremists have always had their own information outlets Customization of info RSS feeds, newsgroups and news outlets The “portal” trend pretty plainly fizzled out Balkanization More in-group than out-group links; only choosing news sources Some evidence in studies to indicate the opposite is true we like Lack of context Misuse of stats by politically motivated; misunderstanding of Individual critical thinking skills remain important, unclearly scientific research understood in this context Many issues at play– Internet has affected old-school media in Lack of shared reality/no general-interest Major media outlets suffering financially; polls revealing lack ways we don't clearly understand; “shared reality” issue was intermediaries of consensus over responsibility for 9/11, moon landing always questionable, perhaps more an issue of more voices “hoaxers,” etc. being heard now (women, minorities, other disenfranchised with “marginal” views) Extremism feeds on information control
Integration Easier for socially awkward/isolated than Studies show more “chatting” online than in person f2f Lack of physical and geographic Global penetration of the Internet boundaries Open government/transparency Volume of government information online; government initiatives to improve accessibility of government information More nuanced levels of participation Subactivism — participation in non-political groups may trend toward political as issues emerge Potential for rational discourse free of Freenets economic power-holders Free marketplace Success of Wikipedia w/out explicit authority of ideas
become completely detached from counterbalancing narratives in a customizable world of digital information. There is some empirical support for this view in examining the networked information behavior of political/policy actors over time. A recent study of the behavior of Korean National Assembly members (Park & Kluver, 2009) examined their blog creations, and how the networked linkages evolved over the course of approximately two years. While overall blog usage increased, over time the networks become more centralized and less broadly-linked. Members were measurably more likely to link to other members and groups already part of their affiliated (off-line) circle and less likely to link to individuals and groups further afield. Park and Kluver suggest that the cultural embeddedness of digital networks is an important consideration. Group relationships and affiliations, arguably even more important in Korean culture than in most Western societies, were seen as profound predictors of online behavior. In the U.S., a study of political blogging following the 2004 elections demonstrated a profoundly “divided blogosphere” (Adamic & Glance, 2005). Liberal bloggers following the presidential elections primarily linked to other liberal sources, while conservatives linked to conservatives. This phenomenon does not stay confined to just blogs, as arguments and rhetorical framing of issues initiated there often percolate into other media settings (Drezner & Farrell, 2004). Social network theory also provides some evidence of those behavioral trends. Personal and group contact can be looked at via these types of models that purport to understand the behavior of different communities along an “index of balkanization,” which takes individual preferences into account (Van Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 2005). With the increase of information choices and the decrease in the effect of geography as a limiting factor, specialization and individual preferences (what incentives make individuals willing to act as information conduits) will naturally have a more significant role. While this kind of clustering around shared interests can be useful within academic disciplines, overspecialization could be harmful to the “overall welfare of society” (Van Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 2005, p. 865) some suggest. Cross-disciplinary academic and scientific scholarship is a particular
Limited depth of personal connection Political boundaries and law still matter — for example, in China Online information can be less accessible – for example, it can be pulled down from government servers (unlike paper copies distributed to depositories) We don't really understand how “political” this is yet Development of Web technology is driven by corporate interests generally Wikipedia contributions have trailed off; the model hasn't worked elsewhere
concern. As specialized experts come to know more about their particular discipline, anything more than a passing familiarity with other areas may slip away, and inter-disciplinary work suffers. A similar theme that is re-iterated in the work of Cass Sunstein (currently the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) is the importance of general interest intermediaries. “Intermediate people in a chain must be willing to serve as conduits for data that need not necessarily pertain to them,” (Van Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 2005, p. 853). Agents are unlikely to pass along information that they find useless, irrelevant, or even particularly offensive and obnoxious. In Sunstein's interpretation (2007), mass media have most recently served this function — passing along information from a variety of sources was their role and to their economic benefit (appealing to the broadest audience possible). His thinking continues a long history of theories on the importance of shared general-interest intermediaries (particularly newspapers) in fostering associations in democratic nations, perhaps first articulated by Alexis de Tocqueville: … a newspaper, which is the only way of being able to place the same thought at the same moment into a thousand minds (Tocqueville, 2003, p. 600). When general-interest media outlets increasingly lose viewers and readers to specialized providers with more explicit and targeted political agendas, general-interest intermediaries lose their market space and it is thought that the shared space of communal knowledge-building is diminished. However, this perspective implies one (or at least a limited number) of relevant narratives in a society, and ignores relationships between its subgroups and the influence of a dominant group on shaping that narrative. 3.2. The importance of context While contexts and relationships clearly matter in consensusbuilding dialogs, many of the affordances of digital networks work to actively remove context and make relationships more ambiguous.
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Obviously this is apparent in email lists and online discussion forums, but even institutionally-created digital libraries, generally perceived as more authoritative than loose online networks, can push data and ideas out into the world, untethered from original context and intentions (Van House, 2003, p. 279). In this setting, expert authors may fear the misuse and misinterpretation of their information and be reluctant to share it in a digital environment that has that potential (p. 276). Just as notable as this reaction, are the users' reactions to data stripped away from its context — negative judgments of authority and reliability tend to be much more frequent. Discussions that are politically potent can quickly seize on an apparent lack of authority in the structure of a digital library that collects data from many different sources (p. 279). 4. Lowered barriers, the public sphere, and information markets While the majority of analyses describe some positive and negative elements of the role of online communication in democratic deliberation, there is a consistent thread that runs through the literature on digital information spaces that suggests the affordances of these new technologies offer a forum for much broader participation and are the ideal means to minimize costs of participation in an “idea market.” Marginalized members of a group may not be able to attend meetings in a public way, or serve on representative boards, but through tools like email (and free access in public spaces like public libraries) even highly disadvantaged individuals can contribute to a deliberative conversation. Wikipedia is frequently invoked as an example of a Hayek-style “idea market.” As a collaborative networked resource, with relatively low barriers for entry encouraging individual information sharing, the intentionality behind Wikipedia cannot be fully understood without an understanding of Hayek, according to Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales (Sunstein, 2006, p. 157). Accepting Hayek's notion that information is imperfectly distributed in a group, a system such as Wikipedia that streamlines the process of contributing to shared “more perfect” knowledge, and properly incentivizes sharing, should articulate the idealistic position wherein the social and economic functions of a dispersed knowledge economy are facilitated by technological tools to create the rational-deliberative space of a public sphere a la Habermas. However, the incentives behind Wikipedia and other related sites are unclear and may be unsustainable (“Volunteers log off as Wikipedia ages 2009”). It seems that the multi-level incentives for contributing in such an environment (being perceived as an authority, the chance to create identity, a spirit of community, a chance to participate in something novel) complicate the clear rational principles of Hayek's model. Even if knowledge is imperfectly shared, the possibility of connecting with differently-minded individuals can be a beneficial effect of the lowered thresholds provided by ICTs and digital libraries. While other theorists have seen the personalization and filtering aspects of networked technologies as a threat to social interaction, other researchers looking at communicative activities see this as an aid to helping participants, who may suffer from social anxieties in interpersonal contact situations (Amichai-Hamburger & McKenna, 2006). Online contact situations offer more opportunities to be customized in ways that suit the needs (and concerns) of the interacting groups. In many cases, this electronic contact may be superior to traditional face-to-face encounters. Importantly, in an online environment one can hit two birds with one stone; one can heighten the perception of the individual members as representative of their disparate groups while simultaneously fostering feelings of kinship and attachment to the “new group” composed of all members taking part in the exercise. (Amichai-Hamburger & McKenna, 2006) At the very least, ICTs can serve the purpose of lightening the burden of participation in civic forums (A. Kavanaugh et al., 2007) and
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provide more support for a variety of bridging relationships between groups. Other views are somewhat less optimistic, but present evidence that the “cyberbalkanization” threat may be overstated. A study published in 2007 (Williams, 2007) examined how internet tools may help or hinder the formation of social capital. In a study of approximately 900 internet users, the authors found no evidence to support the “cyberbalkanization” hypothesis (more out-group antagonism and less bridging) and, in fact, some evidence to support more out-group contact (p. 401). It should be noted, though, that 87% of the participants in the Williams study were male; it is an open question how seriously these findings could relate to more heterogeneous groups, or groups that consist of primarily minority and/or female members. While the quality of affective connections was found neither to be very deep nor lasting, there were significant interactions among groups. Personality types may play a significant role, as may the type of interaction (discussion forums, email lists, etc.). Other studies have supported a cautiously optimistic view of online discussion groups as supportive of public sphere development, not only pointing out frequent robust civil exchanges, but also acknowledging the tendency of certain individuals to dominate discussions and for females to often be “conspicuously absent” (Papacharissi, 2004). 5. Understanding community participation: subactivism The diversity of the participants in a civic exchanged may be improved, however, when one begins to define political engagement a bit more broadly to include different categories of participation, such as participating in local or specialized online forums (fan forums, neighborhood email lists) that are not overtly political but may take on political characteristics as contributors allude to political topics, the picture of political information-sharing becomes a bit more nuanced and traditional measures of political engagement may need to be redefined. Many Americans do not often describe their civic engagement as political, and may feel actively discouraged, an account of their gender, for example, from doing so (Eliasoph, 1998). Maria Bakardjieva, writing in The Information Society, posits a category of political engagement she describes as “subactivism” that may provide a tool to understand previously “invisible” participants in civic exchanges. Members of a local group of native plant enthusiasts for example, may not be part of an overtly “political group”, but their engagement in purposeful information sharing and community-building activities on interactive message boards around their area of interest could begin to broach political or policy issues if an issue of public water or land use emerges into the political space. They may not have existed as stakeholders in a debate on water use without the issue being embedded into their daily community practices of informationsharing. They are invested in their local community through their “sub-political” interest and thereby poised to respond to political questions. In a classical republican framework, individuals, who, at least on some level, set aside their personal priorities on behalf of the greater good of the society of which they are a member, are expected to posses and use skills for reason and deliberation in the public sphere. For Bakardjieva, this is a particular shortcoming in the republican model of citizenship as it cannot properly express more flexible boundaries between personal and public concerns and priorities, supported by the overlapping and flexible affordances of digital communication environments. I would suggest that a critical communitarian view, which allows for membership in subgroups and acknowledges overlapping group identities and power differentials, is more supportive of the subactivist analysis. This idea is fully articulated in the proposal of a theory of “radicaldemocratic citizenship” (Bakardjieva, 2009) that embraces the notion of the “the personal as political” and has the potential to recognize the widely-varying levels of access to resources, different social norms,
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and hegemonic power of certain groups over others. Without being critical of the power differentials between certain groups, we cannot properly understand how they interact in a public deliberative space — and recognize that their interactions may look quite different, but still be substantively “political.” An understanding of this type allows for a more subtle and multileveled analysis of the places between personal identity and public/ political personae, and suggests how the variety of interactions supported by the technology of the internet can help reify and reiterate these levels of participation, while not necessarily creating them. Varying levels of engagement in democratic processes are confirmed by broad-based analyses of internet-based political participation (Horrigan et al., 2004; A. Kavanaugh et al., 2007; Weber et al., 2003). While these analyses find a correlation between political participation and Internet usage, the persistence of specific socioeconomic differences between the participation of certain groups was notable, as were differences in participation based on offline social roles and associations (Lento et al., 2006; Park & Kluver, 2009; Weber et al., 2003, pp. 38–39). This research suggests that while the digital information technology can reduce the cost of participation in public life and “turn up the volume” on interactions, as Agre (2002) suggests in his “amplification” model, barriers still exist for participation for many underrepresented groups and/or typically more reticent individuals.
6. Conclusion
Civil association is a system of interlocking institutions, not a shapeless meeting of unformed minds, and the internet allows the relational order of those institutions to be inscribed into the finest details of daily life. (Agre, 2002, p. 323)
The relationship of an individual with his/her technological tools presents many unique variables that emerge and evolve as technology matures and as humans adapt and personalize their technology behaviors. When the unit of analysis of these variables shifts from the individual to a group, it would seem useful to make use of existing understandings of how groups conceive of themselves, organize their activities, and communicate, and apply these understandings to a networked information environment. Making full use of the tools at our disposal to understand human behavior (both alone and in groups) will help information scholars avoid an easy slide into technological determinism. While studies from a variety of disciplines may continue to identify inconsistencies and even pathologies related to human information use in the public sphere, it is worthwhile to keep in mind the huge number of “successful” information negotiations humans manage each day in the digital environment. We do a lot of things remarkably well. While the modes and affordances of digital communication change daily, humans have learned to use off-line and online communities and social understandings as a source of support in negotiating difficult issues such as credibility and civility. Being able to accurately assess this context in its totality, without an unduly pessimistic or deterministic view, will serve future research well.
Acknowledgments Many thanks to Dr. William Aspray and Dr. Lynn Westbrook and for their helpful comments.
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Jeanine Finn is a second-year doctoral student at the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her M.S. in library and information science from the University of Illinois in 1996 and has been employed as a librarian and information specialist at universities, private companies, and state government. Her research interests center on the intersections of public policy and information sharing within digital spaces.