Athina Karatzogianni * Confronting the difficulties of learning from the open source for contemporary social movements (was: [ox-en] Conference documentation)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:39:44 +0200
Hi all!
The next documentation from the conference. Again as a paraphrased
plain text and a PDF.
Gr|_e
Stefan
=== 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< ===
Confronting the difficulties of learning from the open source for contemporary social movements
Dr Athina Karatzogianni
4th Oekonux Conference
27-29 March 2009
Manchester
Social movements and their use of the internet
==============================================
* Instead of using traditional means like election campaigns or public
relations and marketing
* Social movements use the internet putting forward new rules of the
game: the rules of new technology
* Political communication becomes cheaper, faster, groups that were
excluded in the past have a voice
* BUT goals remain the same: power, participation democracy, justice,
social transformation
* Quality of life
* Redistributive issues
* Opposition to the present forms of life
* Issues that challenge modern state domination
* 'A challenge to authority can be directed at technology design in
addition to or instead of being directed at technology policies.
Campaigns for or protests against regulatory and research policies,
also changes in consumptions patterns and lifestyles (technology use
patterns)' (Hess 2005)
Social Movement Theory
======================
* Two forms of explanations:
* Based on structural conditions
* Based on the differences in the values and psychology of individuals
* Europe: Systemic approach links NSMs to post-industrial capitalism.
Others emphasize the identity-oriented paradigm
* United States: Resource Mobilization Theory (RMT)
* Central issues in NSM theory
* How new are new social movements?
* Are NSMs a product of a shift to a post industrial economy?
* The middle class argument
* Pursuit of collective interests
* Reconstruction of a cultural, social, political identity
* Changing the rules of the game
* Defense of status and privileges
* Social control of the main cultural patterns
* Creation of new order (revolution)
* National conflicts
RMT
===
* Resource Mobilization Theory
* Collective action involves the rational pursuit of interests of
groups
* Grievances are permanent products of power, cannot account for the
formation of movements
* Looks at changes in resources, organizations and opportunities
* Criticisms of RMT
* We know the how but not the why of collective action
* It sets out an impoverished interpretation of human motivation
* Reduces it to instrumental rationality
* The classical RMT model
* Mobilizing structures (participation, recruitment, tactics, goals)
* Strategic framing (issues, strategy, identity)
* Political opportunity structure
* Sociopolitical Cyberconflicts forms:
* Hacktivists attack virtually chosen political targets
* Persons organize through the internet to protest, or carry through
email a political message
* Create FOSS software?
Mobilization Structures
=======================
* Mobilization
* NSMs are open, decentralized, networked, ideal for internetted
communication
* Spectacular alliances between NGOs, culture jammers, small groups of
activists, opinion leaders, ordinary citizens
* Network/rhizomatic politics: people are included not according to
status, but because they have the resources needed
* Key issues of mobilization structures
* Ideology (many ideologies with FOSS, free and open, peer and p2p
apolitical agnosticism and neutrality etc)
* Goals (e.g. Weinberg SM might distrust orgs developing or selling
services seen as private sector vehicles, long term adherence to SM
goals difficult to maintain)
* Tactics (e.g. main means of protest was creating an alternative
technology/product (rare instances of protest politics in FOSS such
as picketing Microsoft over refunding unused Microsoft OS)
* Participation --- private sector participation: major information
technology firms incorporating open source
* Recruitment
* Entry
* Movement phase
* Influence
* Key issues and key organizations
Participation and Recruitment
=============================
* Participation and Recruitment
The fewer and weaker the social ties to alternative networks, the
greater the structural availability for movement participation, the
greater the probability of accepting recruitment invitation (Snow,
Zurcher and Olson, 1980)
* Identity formation (TOURAINE)
* e.g. 'The technical distinctions between licences are a primary site
for the ongoing object conflicts in the open source movement as it
negotiates its way through the incorporation and transformation
process.' (Hess 2005)
* 'It is felt that if FOSS was directed towards a political end, it
would sully the "purity" of the technical decision-making process.
Political affiliation also might deter people from participating on
development, thus creating an artificial barrier to entry into this
sphere whose ideal and idealized form is transparent meritocracy'.
(Coleman and Hill)
Framing Process (identity, issue, strategy)
===========================================
* Frames are specific metaphors, symbolic representations, and
cognitive cues that we use to evaluate and suggest alternative modes
of action
* Symbols, frames and ideologies are created and changed through the
framing process
* The framing process involves:
* The cultural kits available to would-be insurgents
* The strategic framing efforts of movement groups
* The frame contests between movement and other collective actors
* The structure and role of media
* The cultural impact of the movement in modifying the cultural kit
* e.g. Coleman 'Forms of political neutrality are immanent to free
speech Critiques treat the contextualized neutrality primarily as
ideological scaffolding that justifies a politics of individual
liberties over those of structural equality.'
* It is felt that if FOSS was directed towards a political end, it
would sully the "purity" of the technical decision-making process.
Political affiliation also might deter people from participating on
development, thus creating an artificial barrier to entry into this
sphere whose ideal and idealized form is transparent meritocracy.
* A political tag is a hugely polluted association to conjure?
Strategy or Identity?
=====================
* Opposite sides to the same coin
* Ability of the actor to:
* Adapt to change successfully (elites)
* Secure protection from change (operatives)
* Or victimization by change (marginalized masses)
* Tactics
* Mobilizing supporters
* Neutralizing supporters
* Transforming mass and elite publics into sympathizers
* Influenced by: organizational competition and cooperation
(internally) and public opinion and the state (externally)
* Political opportunity structure: The media-the internet
* Media sensitivity and event density
* Media are important means of reaching the general public, to
mobilise
* link movements with other political and social actors
* Can provide psychological support for social movements
=======================
* The internet and mobilization
* Information dissemination and retrieval
* Recruitment
* Pickard - Poletta notes that the participatory model becomes
strained once membership expands beyond the small group level. E.g.
'Given the sheer enormity of the global IMC and its fast-paced
growth, some of these strategic qualities may be diminished
(increased solidarity, innovation and personal development)'
* Soliciting opinions, opinion polling and discussions
* Networking, communication and coordination within and with other
organizations
* Two broad groups:
* those concerned with global issues, the level of negotiation is open
for debate
* Those concerned with their own liberation from the state, less
inclined to negotiate
Hacktivism
==========
* The development and use of technology to foster human rights and the
open exchange of information
* Radical geeks brought together by antiglobalisation protests and the
Indymedia network have developed their own network of skills sharing
free software and solidarity (example of open source movement -
although issues with Political Neutrality remain)
* The internet has revolutionized protest
but the leaderless and dispersed nature of online activism fails to
reach the vast majority of the world, where many activists have
little or no access to the internet
Dotcauses
=========
* 'Many dotcauses are prominent in the Movement such as the Globalize
Resistance, Reclaim the Streets, and in many of the coalitions
organizing protests at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World
Trade Organization (WTO), and the G8 meetings. From a social
movement perspective, dotcauses can be seen as "mobilization
structures". That's is collective vehicles through which people
mobilize and engage in collective action' (McAdam et al. 1996)
[Clarck and Themudo]
* Fuchs
* 'Cyberprotest is a global structural coupling and mutual production
of self-organization processes of the Internet and self-organization
processes of the protest system of society.'
* Self-organization is a process where a system reproduces itself with
the help of its own logic and components, i.e. the system produces
itself based on an internal logic.
* The duality of structure, Giddens, has considered structures as
medium and outcome of human practices 'According to the notion of
the duality of structure, the structural properties of social
systems are both medium and outcome of the practices they
recursively organise'
anti-war movement
=================
[See picture on slide 12]
Indymedia Pickard 2006
======================
* all IMCs use technological platforms that allow for easy data
sharing.
* For organizational processes, the platform consists of multiple
local or network-wide email lists (running on Mailman, the GNU mail
list manager) to which members can post using their own email
clients of choice.
* IRC channels are used for more ephemeral exchanges. The transient
nature of communication on IRC, however, makes it unsuited for
transparent decision-making. Furthermore, relationships between the
two communication channels are not always smooth.
* power asymmetries within the network (north/south,
reformist/radical) and lingering traditional hierarchies dominated
by white North American men.
* indymedia's radical democratic practice entails an active
negotiation of all power relationships by democratizing the media
(exemplified by an interactive web-based interface), levelling power
hierarchies (exemplified by consensus-based decision-making), and
countering proprietary logic (exemplified by open-source software)
* The ninth principle of unity states, "All IMCs shall be committed to
the use of free source code, whenever possible, in order to develop
the digital infrastructure, and to increase the independence of the
network by not relying on proprietary software".
* These improved models make it easier to replicate, update, and
modify the IMC website; they usually run on the open source Linux,
allowing activists to distribute information easily through shared
calendars, group listings, and multimedia news discussions
* 'But several less tech-savvy activists whom I interviewed say wikis
have mixed results. Some feel that introducing such a new tech-heavy
tool - despite being user friendly - has alienated many people who
were just becoming comfortable with web-based organizing.'
Why invest in social movements? Why social movements use FOSS
=============================================================
* Hung 2007 '...Why will big business invest money to develop FLOSS,
for example, or to encourage any free content project in general?
More generally, why will big business make donations to any social
movement groups, again considering the free culture communities as
special case of the social movement groups? Likely not because they
think the investment in FLOSS or any other social movement is
profitable, but because it improves the public perception of their
business and/or meets their bottom line.'
* Coleman 'A number of prominent NGO-based FOSS success stories (both
inside and outside the U.S.) have played a large role in widening
FOSS enthusiasm in the sector. This enthusiasm belied - and
sometimes ran around against - the considerable difficulties many
organizations faced (and continue to face) in transitioning to
FOSS.'
* green peace runs good portion of their servers on GNU linux;
SchoolNet Namimbia; India Goa Schools Computers Project, Sakura
Project, Ganesha Project, Nodo Tau in Argentina, Rigoberta Menchu
Tum Guatemala
* Most NGOs use only three kinds of software, internet servers mail
exchange, intranet and destop Linux distributions, for examples, are
so well-stocked with applications ... that knowing what to use and
trust has become a laborious and frustrating research exercise in
navigating help programs and testing software.
* To minimize this source of confusion, several initiatives are
emphasizing streamlined distributions that provide only "essential"
tools to meet the needs of NGOs (Debian Non-Profit and TTC's NGO in
a Box are two notable examples)?
Difficulties of using FOSS
==========================
* McLelland '...the value of open source software rises with one's
technological experience. If you do not know how to program, what
good is having access to the source code? Adoption of open source
software and methods has progressed the furthest in subsectors where
organizations are larger and have full-time IT Staff. ...'
* majority of nonprofit organizations are small, with less than one
full time IT staffer?are not necessarily in a position to take
advantage of open source software's flexibility.
* they aren't necessarily underwriting their development or enhancing
the code themselves with phantom technical resources they cannot
afford.
SM and FOSS
===========
* golden hammer 'common aim against corporatocracy on Slashdot and on
the street'
* Dominique Cardon
* So it's the same kind of co-operation, where different organizations
and social movements decide what they want to propose.
* But we don't have the second part of the Linux collaboration which
is the collective and public appreciation and evaluation of what has
been done and what has been said at the forum. We don't have the
evaluation which asks: what is being done? What is being proposed?
What is the agenda of all those people who want to contribute to the
forum?
* We could improve the WSF by having a collective reflection and
memory of what is being said, a collective evaluation of what has
been said in order to create a common language and common
acquisition after the forum, if we are to try to take the Linux form
for the organization of World Social Forums.
* Singer
* Bruce Perens 2003 at the LinuxWorld Conference
* 'This is a "Linux" show, focusing upon a product. But the real
subject of this trade show - Free Software and open Source - is a
social movement. Like other social movements, its advances its own
ideas - in our case ideas about software equality, competition,
copyrights and patents as property. It's extremely unusual in that
few other social movements make real products. The only thing that
comes close to it in the social space is art. We gave so far
manufactured over $2 billion U.S. dollars worth of software for
everyone's free use. And the fact that we make real products has
made us real enemies'
Conclusion
==========
* De Landa:
* What matters about the open source movement is not so much the
intentional actions of its main protagonists, actions which are
informed by specific philosophies, but its unintended collective
consequences
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