Media Implications of the Gulf Oil Spill

The recent catastrophe in the Gulf has serious implications across many different fields of thought and focus. One of the frequently overlooked implications has to do with media.

This event has been covered in such incredible detail, down to High-Definition video of the actual leak nearly a mile beneath the surface of the ocean. Maps, GIS information, photos, videos and tens of thousands of personal accounts of the aftermath have been flooding out of the area via platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

But there is a question that is very rarely asked. Is it possible that this enormous amount of information doesn't enhance but in fact actually dilutes the impact of this event on our lives? Watching oil spew from beneath the ocean is hard to put context to and the conversations about this incident that tend to happen in mainstream news outlet are superficial at best. Are these news reports mobilizing people to action? Are our lives better that we can see in HD oil filling an ocean? And a secondary question to that, is that do these same tools of communication and media provide us with the ability to take action in a way that we couldn't before, and is that worth the possible downsides this hyper-connected media world may bring with it?

Although this event doesn't necessarily itself change the way media works (though there have been some interesting related innovations, like Grassrootsmapping.org) it is at least an interesting example of how exponential media coverage is growing in our world and should serve as a reminder of how important is to look at these issues closely. This should, at the minimum, provide a foundation for a more in-depth look into how media is changing, and how that is going to impact out lives, government, culture, environment and world.

As always, I seem to enjoy asking the questions, rather than answering, but I hope if you are reading this, you will leave your comments and thoughts on these issues below!

Examining Technology in Light of the Attempted Times Square Bombing

Saturday, May 1st, a fellow CHS graduate and I were walking uptown from New York Penn Station, enjoying the sudden onset of nice weather. Avoiding walking through Times Square, a practice that most people without cameras draped over their neck or shirts that say “I Heart NY” partake in, I overheard someone mention both “Times Square” and “bomb” in the same sentence. I pulled up the AP story on my Blackberry and read about what was currently going on only blocks from where we were standing. Being a student of emergency management, I looked for a description of what was found to figure out whether we needed to head for the hills. To my relief, the explosive device seemed not to be an immediate threat anymore.
    However, after reading a more detailed account of the incident later, my fear returned as I realized how many simple things are not in place to prevent such threats from occurring, and how separating the ‘technology’ from the ‘platform’ is a distinction that must be made to ensure the advancement of useful public safety technologies that protect both our persons and our privacy rights.
    Let’s not forget or ignore that the fuse for the bomb was successfully ignited, but because of a malfunction the actual explosives did not fully detonate, same as last December. And same as December, people are not approaching this incident as if it had happened. Imagine if a few blocks of unsuspecting people in Times Square had been incinerated in the blast from a van with stolen license plates filled with explosives and driven right into Times Square. Manhattan would be on lockdown and Americans’ conception of safety would be shaken to its very core. Let’s count our blessings that in a five month period two attempts to inflict massive causalities in this country have failed.
    Instead of waiting for someone to commit such an act successfully, let’s imagine that it did happen. That level of frustration, anger and corresponding desire for new solutions needs to exist now. Instead of allowing our country to continue flawed and slow-moving technological advancement in the field of public safety, this event should serve as a galvanizing factor for us to move forward with unique and innovative technologies that provide creative and effective public safety solutions.
    My worry is that because we are not taking appropriate actions now, when a successful attack does happen, out of fear, we will be more willing to accept technologies and policies that do violate our civil rights. People, including Congress, were so thrown off balance by the attacks of September 11th that they were willing to accept a ‘solution’ (See: USA Patriot Act) that gave far more power to the government than necessary because it was easy and quick and helped calm a nervous public. In the study of emergency management, the period of time when a public will accept these types of draconian measures (“the recovery period”) is actually part of the curriculum.   
    Even right now, we can take two current technologies: object-recognition software and police cameras that run license plates against vehicle databases. Combining these, we can create a system that would have, within seconds of the vehicle used Saturday night passing by a camera, detected that it had stolen license plates and flagged it for an in-person follow up. And as long as no data is stored and personally identifiable information cannot be accessed, such a protected automated system does not present any privacy concerns.
    When breaking down the arguments made against new technology, they have much more to do with the storage of personal information for indefinite periods than the actual technology, for example of a video camera, a device which millions of people voluntarily use daily to share private information with untold masses online. This more nuanced look at the issues makes a clear distinction between the ‘technology’ and ‘platforms.’ Technology is the capability to run a full-body image scan. The platform is how technologies are deployed, for example a full-body scanner used on people indiscriminately. Technologies themselves tend to be neutral until they are used a certain way.
    It is absolutely critical to seriously consider and discuss the implications of new technologies as they are developed. Perhaps there are protections that can be put in place to use a new technology effectively. Perhaps there are not. Either way, that debate needs to happen, needs to be robust and needs to be publicly acknowledged and understood. By thinking more outside the box than people have thus far and being more transparent and inclusive with our decisions, we can both protect our privacy and improve our nation’s public safety.

Thinking, Thinking and more Thinking

I was given the opportunity to speak to two political science classes at Seton Hall today about politics and technology. Aside from having a great time (hopefully some students came away with a new interest of exploring the implications of new technologies) it really reminded me how important it is to really engage with the different technologies that we use everyday. Before long, new technologies that at first seemed strange, encroaching on our privacy or otherwise inconvenient seem to more-so define our daily lives.

The Facebook Newsfeed is a great example. When it came out, a large percentage of Facebook users got fairly upset how their lives were being displayed publicly for anyone to see. Now, imagine if Facebook took away the News Feed and the alerts about what our friends are doing? It hardly would even seem like an interesting or useful service to use. Yet, that is exactly what the service was for the first couple years of its deployment.

All of this not to say that these technologies, or more specifically, platforms, are necessarily, or inherently, bad, but rather that we really should make sure we all fully understand the long-term implications of the technologies that we more and more use everyday

Broadband Accessibility

Yesterday, it was reported from a study from the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration that nearly 1/3 of Americans do not have broadband internet access, with that group being split between people still using dialup or not having any internet access whatsoever.

In an effort to ensure all people have access to news, information and educational and political resources, we should make sure that over the next decade we expand that coverage and make sure that broadband internet access is affordable across the country. At that point we can begin to fully harness the energy, creativity and opinions of all of our citizens, not just those who can afford access currently.

Full article: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/almost-a-third-of-americans-still-dont-use-the-net.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

I Just Signed Up For The Personal Democracy Forum - And So Should You!

The Personal Democracy Forum, probably the foremost conference on the intersection of technology and government/politics is being held this year June 3-4th in NYC. I went last year, and the sessions and workshops I saw literally blew my mind. Here is my brief recap from last year's conference, and I look forward to more thoughtful discussions about these issues this year.

Too often we, as a nation, get stuck on a narrow-focused track moving in a certain direction, especially in politics. We are fortunate to have people like Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry who put together conferences like the Personal Democracy Forum each year and remind us of the importance of discussing critical issues in technology, most importantly how technology can impact government and politics. It's an incredible opportunity to get so many bright minds together to talk about how we can leverage technology to make government work better and work more transparently.

Check out the site and hopefully I will see you there in June!

Where Does The Blame Go?

In terms of exploring the implications of technology on our way of life, it seems to me there is an interesting, yet rarely talked about, divergence between two broad groups of people who use technology. These two groups are people who understand and engage with technology on a somewhat natural level and those who do not.

I'd say one group tends to be younger and the blame when something goes wrong with technology is placed on the technology itself. In the other group, which I would suspect tends to be older, the blame is placed on the person trying to use technology for not understanding how to use the technology correctly.

Perhaps this state of mind of the younger generation is just more egocentric than the older generation that didn't grow up with the luxuries of technology that we have and have become accustomed to. Or, perhaps this frustration at technology is what fuels so many creative and determined people to found services like Napster, Google and Facebook - someone got frustrated that a particular service didn't exist or work 'like it should,' so they created it. Does this attitude translate into other parts of life, and if so, is it creating feelings of entitlement in a younger generation or feelings of motivation to improve our world? Just one more of the many questions I hope to be able to explore, and at some point answer. Thoughts?

"Dear Internet" - The Internet as a Distinct Community

The nascent ‘online community’ that has been given the opportunity to exist from the emergence of the internet is the topic of this week’s column. Although many may define a community as being a cohesive gathering of distinct parts, often unified around one particular theme, goal or characteristic, the ‘internet’ has itself become a discreet entity that can be interacted with, in effect it is more than just the sum of its parts.
    Before the internet, it was much more difficult to directly address a community without directly addressing specific people that make up that community. However, online social communication totally changed that idea.
    As the image shows, there is a lot of communication that takes place from one person to ‘the

internet.’ That is a snapshot of the trending topics on Twitter recently, where the most used keywords and phrases being tweeted are compiled into a list and displayed, with sometimes hundreds of updates containing that specific keyword happening every minute. This same type of communication can be seen on YouTube where users address videos directly to the ‘YouTube Community.’ These people often share extremely intimate details of their lives, and do so in a way such that they have a) no idea who might watch them b) when people might watch them and c) in what context people are watching them.
        Compare the type of things that people communicate on TV, or even radio versus the internet. TV communication is censored, is strictly controlled, the messages and images (even on reality shows) are incredibly carefully pieced together, only a very few people have control over who gets to transmit that information and it is only one-way. The internet is the total opposite. As long as we have net neutrality, there are no controls or filters on what people say. Online communication can be anonymous, cannot be controlled by anyone and there is an unprecendently low barrier to access for people who want to broadcast their ideas.
    This revolution in communication creates an environment where people push in two seemingly opposite directions. One direction is some of the most unintelligent, sometimes outright hateful and barbaric content one might imagine. There are entire websites like lamebook.com that are dedicated to displaying the incredibly bizarre and sometimes outright insane or mean things people say on Facebook, in addition to the many websites which are based solely on propagating hateful content, often towards specific people or groups of people.
    At the same time, there is a wealth of truly amazing community outreach, support and inspiration for people in various challenging life situations, charitable fundraising, government accountability and intelligent issues discussions that is literally mind-boggling as to their quantity and authenticity.
    A great representation of this dichotomy is something I saw on Facebook the other day. This was an update where someone had become a fan at the same time of both a page titled “Slapping the Sh*t Out Of Stupid People” and a page titled “Victims of the Earth Quake Disaster In Haiti.”

Neither of those comments are at the total extreme, as some comedic value is is most definitely part of the first one, but the juxtaposition was too good not to mention and does represent two distinct ways people use social media.
    I see the job of people in new media development such as myself, and anyone who might be reading this, to be brainstorming and promoting platforms that encourage the latter type of new communication - the kind that is supportive, caring, informative, personal and entirely authentic. People may be inherently dichotomous, and although there is no excuse to ever censor the ability for one to freely create content online, there is so much promise in pushing to develop ways to people to use their energy and ideas to contribute positively in civic life and to the lives of other people, and not just in their online community, but in that real-world community we all do still live in.