Socio-Technological Innovation

With a Focus on Social Activism

Updated: October 12, 2005

(slightly) Updated: May 8, 2008

Doug Schuler

How does socio-technological innovation arise?

First we must ask why we're talking about socio-technological innovation.

George Basalla writing in The Evolution of Technology (1988) suggests that three preconditions must be present in order for a technological innovation to succeed:

and to these three I would add a fourth:

I maintain that the same preconditions must hold true for any socio-technological innovation as well. Below is an example that illustrates how innovation (in the case the Web) is based on existing models.

See Bush's 1945 article As We May Think.

Big Questions...

such as: what impacts do these new forms have? (e.g. do they hasten the decline of newspaper?) Who creates these new forms? Who uses them? Who controls them? What new social roles are there? (more media producers?)

First Generation

E-mail, distribution lists, petitions.

Early Examples

Internet Community KO's Anti-FOIA Provision "Meanwhile, TAP posted several Internet updates on the West Provision, and Congress began to receive telephone calls and faxes from constituents and citizen, business and professional groups who opposed it. The American Library Association and EFF both issued Internet notes about the provision, and hundreds of individual activists wrote or forwarded messages about the controversy to different Internet lists."

Santa Monica PEN stories -- opportunities and perils of online engagement (see Strong Democracy chapter of New Community Networks)

Basic Education

CNN delegate vote counter

Revamping Political Campaigns

Obama in 30 seconds
The Empire Strikes Barack

Institutionalizing Access to Information and Communication

Community Networks, Community Technology Centers, Telecenters, Mobile Media, Free Wireless

Open Source Movement

Slashdot
Top 10 Open Source Tools for eActivism
Open Source Film Making

Lots of New Organizations, etc.

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF)

Look for...

Space (and time?) annotations & social software

Big Splash

WTO organizing -- first widespread use of Internet and email for organizing

Sustained Achievement

MoveOn -- meet with senators, vigils, simultaneous worldwide demonstration

More Digital Activism

From The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head James Moore.

As the United States government becomes more belligerent in using its power in the world, many people are longing for a "second superpower" that can keep the US in check. Indeed, many people desire a superpower that speaks for the interests of planetary society, for long-term well-being, and that encourages broad participation in the democratic process. Where can the world find such a second superpower? No nation or group of nations seems able to play this role, although the European Union sometimes seeks to, working in concert with a variety of institutions in the field of international law, including the United Nations. But even the common might of the European nations is barely a match for the current power of the United States.

There is an emerging second superpower, but it is not a nation. Instead, it is a new form of international player, constituted by the "will of the people" in a global social movement. The beautiful but deeply agitated face of this second superpower is the worldwide peace campaign, but the body of the movement is made up of millions of people concerned with a broad agenda that includes social development, environmentalism, health, and human rights. This movement has a surprisingly agile and muscular body of citizen activists who identify their interests with world society as a whole -- and who recognize that at a fundamental level we are all one.

General activism about the invasion, Posters from around the world, and a few satires.

People's Protest

Anti Bush Sites -- e.g. smirking chimp

Close but not close enough... Mimicy on the web

The official White House Web Site, the WTO, GATT and the WTO, and Yes Men.

Exposure and Accountability

Undercover Pundits of the Pentagon
Wikileaks

B92 -- media against Milosevic

B92 - Internet, Radio i TV stanica; najnovije vesti iz Srbije i Crne Gore

Collective Intelligence

Mapping Reports of the Post-Election Crisis in Kenya (2008)
New Tactics in Human Rights
Reflect / Act
Liberating Voices! Our class wiki

Zapatista

A local movement turns global...

Digital Manipulation

Endless Love
Endless Love

People's Journalism

Blogs and Indymedia ((( i )))

Communication on the move

Where's Bush?

Flash Mobs

cell phones in China: "In many of China's other recent riots, word has spread fast among organizers and protesters by way of mobile phone messages, allowing crowds to mass quickly and helping demonstrators to coordinate tactics and slogans." New York Times, Anger in China Rises Over Threat to Environment, July 19, 2005

Protest / Agitprop

What does 2,000 look like?

Deliberation Tools

About e-Liberate
E-Liberate Demo

E-Liberate Discussion
E-Liberate Actions
Main Features
Issues
Next Steps

Global Peoples Assembly -- A Grand Challenge

Motivation
Statement from this assembly (not)

Tools and Affordances

Tools
New Affordances

Theory

Appropriating the internet for social change: Towards the strategic use of networked technologies by transnational civil society organizations (pdf) by Mark Surman & Katherine Reilly.

Hacktivism

Introduction to Hactivism, What is Hactivism?, and Digital culture jamming and electronic civil disobedience. Also: Applied and Interactive Theatre Guide: Hactivism (Lots of interesting links!) and "Little war-related hactivism reported" from Computer World.

Miscellaneous -- Not Classified yet...

MoveOn Campaign ad video contests
Discussion -- Free Republic
News Hounds We watch Fox so you don't have to!
Google News Alerts
Shock and Awe book online