2005 exhibition and edited collection curated by Bruno Latour "From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik - or How to Make Things Public" seems to be simultaneously critiquing and creating Habermas's 'bourgeois public sphere'. Amongst many, many other 'things', Dingpolitik references the work of Walter Lippmann "The Phantom Public" and John Dewey's "The Public and Its Problems".
"What Is the Res of Res publica? By the German neologism Dingpolitik, we wish to designate a risky and tentative set of experiments in probing just what it could mean for political
thought to turn "things" around and to become slightly more realistic than has been attempted up to now. A few years ago, computer scientists invented the marvelous expression of "object-oriented" software to describe a new way to program their computers. We wish to use this metaphor to ask the question: "What would an object-oriented democracy look like?"
I found this recent pamphlet about "MicroPublicPlaces" from situatedtechnologies.net while hunting down Latour's Dingpolitik. Arendt's theory of acting (as opposed to Heidegger's thinking) in "The Human Condition" foreshadows Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action, in my opinion, and is seen here as operating in parallel with Latour's object-oriented democracry.
Beginning with a critique of the current state of the public realm, they follow two trajectories: one through Hannah Arendt's "vita activa" and Bruno Latour's "dingpolitiks", and another through the history of information and computation technologies. Through the former they establish an understanding of the "public" as a space of difference that is held in common, while through the latter they formulate an infrastructure that could support such a contestable space. This leads them argue for a new public realm built on specific architectural programs (water purification plants, zoos, kindergartens, repair shops, chapels) and adaptive learning environments that initiate collaborative relations between people and machines. Their goal is to foster a manifold public
through the participatory structures of MicroPublicPlaces.
US court rules that tracking once in public is public information but tracking over time in public is accumulating information usually unavailable to 'the public' therefore requiring a search warrant.
Police crowdsource to find perpetrators of the Oakleigh riot, asking the public to send in mobile phone footage, and also sourcing from internet, cctv, and news crews. Changing nature of public surveillance and law enforcement.
Google Labs tool offers a visual way to look at and analyze large public data sets on a variety of popular search topics.
The tool is specifically designed for avid data crunchers like students, journalists, policy maker
nterested parties can visually dissect — in time-lapsed animation fashion and in an array of chart types — things like fertility rate by country, employment rates, and the flux of mortality rates in the U.S
“OIX grew out of a public/private industry partnership initiated by the U.S. government at this conference last year.
OIX is a solution to this problem not just for the U.S. government, but for many different governments, industry alliances, non-profit associations, telcos, academic networks, and others all over the world who need to establish trust across a wide online population
will be accepted for registration and login at U.S. government websites.
OIX is a new organization that will try to provide identity credentials that can be accepted by both the private and public sectors. But, like some of this initiatives, government-wise it will only work, initially, in the U.S. Questions on privacy can also be raised? Wouldn't OIX allow for easier access to the whereabouts of an individual's online persona?
Four Corners and Q&A are covering the mandatory ISP filter debate tonight, should be a great double bill.
Now its off the agenda till after the election, so the Government clearly misjudged the public reaction. Thanks to widespread media coverage on the inherent flaws of the MISP, coupled with the activism of protest movements such as Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Pirate Party, its fair to say that the general public have moved beyond the Government's black and white positioning of the proposal.
This article discusses how a protest was organised against th Federal Government's Internet and Content filter plan in Australia. However, the attendance for this protest was lacking. Many arguements against the filter have stated that, it is simply a "false sense of security." Protesters continue to urge the public to write emails, make phone calls, and apply public pressure.
The Kremlin has been accused of sanctioning a Soviet-style dirty tricks campaign against opposition politicians using vintage KGB entrapment techniques of money, drugs and glamorous women.
The allegations follow the release of a string of videos on the internet purporting to show an opposition politician, a political analyst, and the editor of the Russian edition of Newsweek magazine in compromising situations.
Hidden cameras in police cars show the trio apparently offering to bribe their way out of traffic offences, while another video appears to show one of the three, Mikhail Fishman, the editor of Russian Newsweek, snorting cocaine in the company of a semi-naked glamour model.
He said he grew suspicious when a girl offering to sleep with him offered him cocaine "to relax" minutes after she and a "girlfriend" had foisted a number of bizarre sex toys upon him.
The editors-in-chief of a number of leading publications have come out in Mr Fishman's defence. They say they are concerned about "the organised campaign" against him and "the journalistic community as a whole."
A politician, a political analyst and the editor of the Russian edition of Newsweek have been, supposedly, framed by the Kremlin in order to discredit them. Videos of them in compromising positions have been distributed in the Internet: the web as a channel through which public opinion can be molded by totalitarian states. Political campaigns could "learn" a lot from the Kremlin's actions...
Even though people are aware that when they tweet it is public record, but most would assume that these tweets were not being documented. Will people censor what they say once they know it is going to be on printed public record?
The US Federal Trade Commission has release a request for public comment on the expansion of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) The initial review was scheduled for 2015 but is being brought forward. COOPA's goal is to protect the online safety and privacy of children under the age of 13. They are considering extending this to children under the age of 17.
Aust slammed by Google and US State Dept - they're the only ones allowed to filter (for agreed public good while maintaining fiction of unconstrained freedom).
This article is looking at the release of some details of former President Bush's secret cybersecurity plan. It focuses around the debate as to whether cybersecurity should be extended into infrastructure or scaled back. It will be interesting to see how President Obama will react to this issue especially now that many details have been made public which will spark interest and debate.
High school teachers in Queensland are questioned because of their profile pictures on Facebook. The fact that they may be really outstanding educators is now overlooked due to the mistake of posting "inappropriate" photos on a very public social networking site.
Another example of how Facebook can actually ruin lives.
The App Store censorship horse may have been beaten to death, but mainstream German media—whose iPhone applications have been censored by Apple because of its content—are not surrendering. I'm glad. In fact, I hope they win this war.
The censorship problem is not only about the 5,000 titillating apps that fell down in flames after Apple's latest puritanic raid
Apple took down Stern's iPhone app without notice. Stern—a very large weekly news magazine—published a gallery of erotic photos as part of its editorial content.
They learnt their lesson, since they haven't published any other material that may offend Apple's "moral police"
And it doesn't have to be about Apple or tits. There are plenty of applications that have been deemed blasphemous or offensive by Apple, and banned from publication. Would publications showing a caricature of Prophet Mohamed be taken down as well? That would get Phil Schiller plenty of complaint letters.
Apple has taken down two apps from German media, as they were considered offensive. This moves towards censorship could extend to a larger control of editorial content. Do media have to comply?