Weblog by Melle Gloerich
Only a bit more than a month ago I finished my masterthesis on Online Participation which got rewarded with a 7,5/10 (which is just below ‘good’). I studied ‘New media and digital culture‘ at the Utrecht University (The Netherlands). I attached my thesis below, for you to read 
When the mobile phone was invented, not more than 40 years ago, it was just meant as a normal telephone which you could take with you. No color displays, no funky lights and most importantly no options like contactlist, alarm, texting or taking pictures. Being able to communicate wherever you are was, and still is, a revolution in itself.
But more and more features were added, and not without success. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how one was able to make good use of a mobile phone without a calendar, calculator, SMS, email or even a contactlist. It’s almost impossible to buy a new phone without camera, music-capabilities or internet functionalities. Try buying a phone without a game (or 5..) installed on it or without polyphonic/mp3 bells and whistles, it can’t be done!
All these functions and options have basically in common that they are information or supporting the transfer of information. Okay, so what? What’s the point to this telephone as information-station observation?
The era we live in is called the information age. In this age creating information, and transferring it, are the most important thing we do in our (working) lives, compared to previous era’s. In the industrial age we weren’t producing information but tangible things. I don’t want to go into all the differences between those era’s, I just want to draw the background of why mobile phones are in such a central place of our lives. Transferring information is in a telephones’ DNA, it is its reason of existence.
So to answer my own question, what is so important about mobile phones as transferring information machines? It means that every type of information, because when it is digital it is all the same anyway, can be transferred. Everything that is in its essence information will someday be transferred by your mobile phone, because that’s the thing you have on you wherever you are.
So let’s make a short list of what kinds of information already are being transferred or carried by your phone:
And now a very short list of what is still to come and is worked on by numerous companies to get it working flawlessly.
These two are not as easily implemented as other options because they are much more vulnerable, that’s why it takes longer. Rabobank already gave mobile payments a go, but not very successfully yet. I have never seen anyone using it, and I’ve only tried it once for the fun of it. I know South-Korea is miles ahead in this department, but my Korean lacks any identifiable Korean.
I’m really wondering what kinds of information I’ve left out in either one of the lists, but especially the last one of course.
In a time where bloggers check the facts, who visualizes the power-structures that produces the facts? Sorry, I had to open like this two days after Don LaFontaine passed away (via Frank-Ly en GeenCommentaar).
I’d like to talk a bit about what intrigues me lately, namely how people with high positions take their decisions. We all like to think that our politicians listen to their constituency when they vote on a certain topic. We also like to think that board members and CEO’s put the company (and shareholders) first when they decide on something. Sadly, we know that this sometimes just isn’t true, but hey, what can you do?
When we agree that their official job is not their only motivation , we agree that in order to understand their choices we need a way to know what else influences them. In Dutch a literal translation of cronyism is ‘friend-politics’ which nicely stresses the way (business)friends have an impact on decision making. It is this part of the motivation that is hard for the public to know. But it using modern technologies, this is not necessarily true anymore.
A really simple tool for this could be LinkedIn. Most of the LinkedIn users publicly state their past jobs, committees, contacts, organizations, universities, etc. etc. Using this data via an API enables us to draw a map of (or list the) connections between the one making a certain decision and the one that profits from this. Adding more info based on articles by respected news sources could further complete these profiles.
Of course, it is easy to get cynical seeing all the connections but it shouldn’t be used to proof our politicians are corrupt. A connection doesn’t proof a hidden agenda, it is only more likely and it should be investigated further. Doing that, decisions are really getting more transparent and hopefully makes it eventually harder to be corrupt or wrongly informed. This way it is actually an opportunity to be less cynical because when decisions are transparent there is no need to be as suspicious as most of us are now. Just like how newspapers can be more transparent, and more trust-worthy in a link-economy, when they show what information and from who they’ve used for every article.
One condition for all this to work properly is that every vote on every bill should be made public. A list of connections between the 30+ party members and the ones benefitting from the bill is nearly endless.
The point I’m trying to make is that nobody is original and in order to be trusted decisions should be transparent. Especially for the ones that decide on our account. Now we have an opportunity to make these decisions transparant and publicly available we should think about how we’re going to do that.
Sorry for my irregular posting, my masters thesis has top priority. That doesn’t take away my interest in good, long and thought provoking articles. Every once in a while there’s an article that seem to nail certain aspects of a technology, media or culture in a very broad sense and takes centre stage for a few weeks in the blogosphere. Sometimes it sets a standard and gets out of the blogosphere and gets referenced even years after.
Everyone who takes his job or interest in social media, new media, technology or (digital) culture seriously knows some of these articles. I’d like to list these articles for some deeper reading and see you come up with more articles. I know I don’t have much of a readerbase yet, but hey, I believe in the long tail
I plan to update or link to and from this post whenever an article comes to mind, so it might be a good idea to reply and keep posted about updates or replies. So, what do you think should be added to this list?
Ok, so I got some nice input from Yuri van Geest who pointed me to both Kevin Kelly and Bruce Sterling:
A few days ago a Dutch judge ruled that downloading a copy from an illegal source (ie. most downloading) is illegal as well. This seems fair enough, although most (all?) lawyers are not convinced that the ruling is justly banning illegal downloads. I think none of us would really care if it’s illegal or not, it would matter only if we’re likely to get caught. Enter NVPI, the Dutch RIAA, who are claiming a big victory but say that they are probably not going to go on a sueing-spree.
Nothing seemed to have changed much, everybody agrees that downloading music you haven’t paid for is not very nice….unless artists like Joss Stone encourage it. So now Joss Stone says downloading her music is fine by her, is it legal? I think it’s less of a burden on our morality. If the artist says it’s okay, who am I to disagree? If artists like Nine Inch Nails are even uploading their music to bittorrent sites is downloading their songs legal or illegal? When authors like Paulo Coelho actively help you find free downloads of their books is downloading them something you can get fined or jailtime for?
What other artists are sharing their work or promote to share it freely like these artists? Maybe a list of those artists, with right next to the download button a button to buy a concerttickets is a good businessplan Or will the future only bring streaming music?
Alexander, In this era, mobile phone had become of of lifes’ necessities. Be it for personal or business...: 
JL, Hi Melle, I’m disseminating this nice interview with Douglas Rushkoff and I thought that perhaps could be...: 
Kviklån, I guess the only way to really get rid of the problem is to somehow make it possible closing down...: 
admin, Hoi Raoul, Ernst heeft het zeker wel vermeld, sterker nog, hij verwijst precies naar mijn scriptie:...: 
Raoul Teeuwen, Hoi Melle. Ik kan me niet herinneren dat bij je aantreden bij de NGN is verteld dat je deze studie...: 
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