Can information technologies contribute to building participatory democracy? A case example at the...

Informationsphilosophie. Information und urbanes Systeme 1

Mälardalen University, June 2013

José María Díaz NafríaUniversidad de León, Spanien | Munich University A.S.

Can Information Tecnologies Contribute tothe Building of Participatory Democracy?

1. Utopical Perspective: from social utopias to tecnoutopism

2. Brief notes on telecommunication history

3. The projects of the Information Society

4. Case Example at the EHEA - My University Project

2June 2013 Information technologies and participatory democracy

I. Utopic perspective

“Someone made a remark about the telegraph which seems to me infinitely correct, and which brings out its full importance, namely that, at bottom, this invention might suffice to make possible the establishment of democracy among a large population. Many respectable men, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, thought that the establishment of democracy was impossible among large populations. How could such a people deliberate? Among the Ancients, all the citizens were assembled in a single place; they communicated their will…. The invention of the telegraph is a new factor that Rousseau did not include in his calculations. I can be used to speak at great distances as fluently and as distinctly as in a room. There is no reason why it would not be possible for all citizens of France to communicate their will, within a rather short time, in such a way that this communication might be considered instantaneous.” (Alexander Vandermonde, 1795)


I. Utopic perspective

“Universal History is perhaps the history of a few metaphors” (J.L. Borges)

“You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true. And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of administration in a state which a woman has because she is a woman, or which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both; all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man… Isn’t it the best for the republic counting with the best men and the best women?...”(Plato, The Republic)


I. Long running utopias

5

Utopic background Supporters Utopias of the Information Society

Supporters Dystopia

Perfect Language Lull, Wilkins Computable Language Turing, Chomsky

Borges: „The analytic language of John Wilkins“

Perfect thought Lull, Leibniz Computable Thought Babbage, Hollerith, Turing

Hesse: „The Glass Bed Game“

Perfect wisdom Bacon, Encyclopedist,Comte

Unlimited Availability of Knowledge

Outlet, La Fontaine

Borges: „The library of Babel“, „Funes the Memorius“

Perfect social order Nicholas of Cusa, Computable Social Order (Normalization)

Saint Simon, Comte, Babbage

Huxley: „Brave New World“Deleuze: „Control society“

Transparent society Rousseau,Emerson, Chevalier

Communication without borders

Mumford, Shannon, McLuhan

Orwell: „1984“

Trustful society Bentham, Tarde Security vs Trust of the Information Society

J. Nye, Orwell: „1984“

June 2013 Information technologies and participatory democracy

1. Long-running Utopias

6

Ideas

Form AppearanceI

Observador

Decontextualizing: Die existing Forms belong to the otherworldliness (a-

spatial, a-temporal)


7


• From the viewpoint of the modern signal theory (Digital Transmission): Ideal of transparence

Si{S1, S2,… SN}

Noise

Si’ Compared with{S1, S2,… SN}

Si


8



9



10



11Information technologies and participatory democracy

• How long can the human voice reach?

Understanding-thresholdPerception-Threshold

Reach of a human speaking voice

Reach of an screaming voice

2. Brief Notes on ICT History


Aeschylus (5.Jh)Agamemnon (Clytemnestra receives the messageof Troja‘s victory)

Argos Troya

Kaz DagAthos, 2033 m

177 km

154 km



Hellenical Optical Telegraph (Towers-System)

Roman Optical Telegraph(Towers-System)

Polybios (s.II v.Chr.) Sextus Julius Africanus (s.III dC)



Electrical Telegraph (Gauss, Weber, Canstadt, Steinheil, Wheatstone, Cooke, Siemens, Morse)

Telephone (Antonio Meucci, P. Reiss, E. Gray, A.G. Bell)


3. The Projects of theInformation Society


M.Foucault (The eye of the power): „Bentham was the complement to Rousseau. What in fact was the Rousseauist dream that motivated many of the revolutionaries? It was the dream of a transparent society, visible and legible in each of its parts, the dream of there no longer existing any zones of darkness [...] It was the dream that each individual, whatever portion he occupied, might be able to see the whole society…”

3. The Projects of the Information Society


• G. Tarde (Sociologist and criminologist)“All the improvements of social organization… have the consequence of enabling that one meditated, coherent, individual project arrives purer, lesser polluted, deeper, and through the safer and shorter means into the minds of all the associated” (Tarde, Public opinion and the crowd. 1690, §107).

• Public Opinion (co-option) ~ Control Society (Deleuze)“The material and economic aspects of opinion were not acknowledged. They believed it “is fair by nature, it disseminates by itself, and it is a sort of democratic surveillance […]” (Foucault)

• Decolonization and reaction (1950-1970s)• New International Economic Order (1974), New World

Inf. and Comm. Order (1974), C. MacBride• Hard Power vs. Soft Power (Joseph Nye)

Global Information Dominance (Echelon, NationalImagery and Mapping Agency, Future Imagery Architecture)

4. Case Example at the EHEA -My University Project


Project website: www.myuniversity‐project.eu

Duration: 30 months (October 2010‐March 2013)

Programme: the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Policy Support Programme of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP)‐(CIP‐ICT PSP‐2009‐3bis)



Close cooperation and interaction between:

Governments Higher education institutions Students Staff Employers Quality assurance agencies,

towards the success of the Bologna Process and the creation of unified European Higher Education Area.

Is information a sufficient basis for cognition?22

Can information technologies contribute to building participatory democracy? A case example at the...

Technology

Transcript of Can information technologies contribute to building participatory democracy? A case example at the...