Two distinct strategies seem to be crystallizing in relation to sustainable development, with characteristic patterns of public engagement, technical experimentation, and network building. On the one hand, in many of the various projects of so-called ecological modernization, participation is primarily conceived in a top-down way, with the public given the role of the environmentally-conscious consumer or offered opportunities for ecological employment. On the other hand, and opposed to this, are the bottom-up approaches emanating from locally-based initiatives, where forms of participation remain open-ended and highly diverse. The pursuit of environmental sustainability provides a catalyst in many of these cases for experimentation with new forms of sociality and community.
In the 1960s, as part of his two volume work on The Myth of the Machine, the American writer Lewis Mumford made a distinction between two fundamental types, or modes, of technological development, which he called “authoritarian” and “democratic”, and which resemble, in many ways, the two strategies that have emerged in the quest for sustainable development. Despite their being somewhat provocative, Mumford’s terms can be a useful way to characterize what might be termed the emerging þdialectics of sustainable technicsþ. Mumford’s argument was that the two types of technics had coexisted throughout history, and that they each had their advantages and disadvantages, but he felt that by the 1960s, the megamachine had become far too dominant. With the powerful “military-industrial complex” and the other large corporations dominating technological development, the opportunities for democratic technics were seriously threatened. And like many other writers and critics of the time, Lewis Mumford called for a reaffirmation, or reinvention, of democratic alternatives to the megamachine.
This idea of a democratic technics - which Mumford and other cultural critics, like Herbert Marcuse, Rachel Carson, Paolo Friere, Ivan Illich, Paul Goodman, and many others articulated in the 1960s - was one of the sources of inspiration for a wide range of activities that came to take place in the 1970s, within the environmental and other social movements that developed at the time. In many ways, the alternative technology movement of the 1970s - like so many social movements before and since - was a victim of its own success. Many innovations - in renewable energy, environmental technology, organic agriculture, and ecological design - that were made in movement workshops and production collectives, in alternative “grass roots” organizations, showed themselves to be profitable. And the temptation became too strong for the entrepreneurial types in the movement to commercialize their work, to set up companies, to go into business.
Others set out on a long march through the institutions, seeking ways to translate their ideas about democratic technological development into the more instrumental, or authoritarian, language of policy making and management. In Denmark and the Netherlands, the term that was used most often was technology assessment. The way to change technology development into more socially desirable directions, many seemed to feel, was to examine the consequences in advance. If you could predict what the negative effects would be of a new product or process, then you could perhaps make it less harmful, both to the environment and to the eventual users.
Still others were won over by the charms and attractions of the new technologies that were coming out of the laboratories of the big corporations - the personal computers and the fascinating new ways to manipulate genetic material. Many were the former critics who became enamored with the new “high” technologies, arguing that they did not carry with them the same negative values and negative implications that nuclear technology and chemical technologies had. And so gradually, the alternative, or democratic, technology movement faded away, and a new “entrepreneurialism” emerged to take its place.
To return to Mumford’s language, there came in the 1980s a new period of dominance for the megamachine, for authoritarian technics. As a result, the balance was once again lost, and the commercial ethos, or spirit, spread to other societal domains. But, with the call for a more sustainable development that began to be heard in the late 1980s, there are signs of new types of democratic technics emerging here and there. They are fragile to be sure, and it is not at all the same kind of movement that it was in the 1970s. Rather, as we have come to understand them in our project, the experiments in democratic technics that are taking place across Europe are quite limited and do not make up a coherent, or integrated movement, as the experiments in the 1970s seemed to many of us - both then and now in retrospect.
The contemporary experiments are much more fragmented, and many of them appear, on closer examination, to be more rhetorical than real. They are more talk about what could be done - or should be done - than practices that are actually taking place on a wide scale. Many of them go under the name of technology assessment, but often with a new prefix attached: constructive technology assessment or interactive technology assessment or participatory technology assessment. Particularly in the Netherlands, but also in Denmark, a number of policy makers and academic students of technology and society have carried out projects that have tried to involve various public groups in technological development. There is the sustainable technology program in the Netherlands, and the Infralab that has involved those who are affected by infrastructural projects in scenario workshops and various planning activities. There are lay panels that have been established to formulate their ideas about technological development projects, through the auspices of Offices for Technology Assessment, and there are the consensus conferences that have begun to spread as an export product from Denmark to other countries. Recently, both Korea and Australia have held their first consensus conferences.
What all of these activities have in common is a democratic ambition, but so far anyway, there is still an enormous distance between the technology assessment activity and the dominant, authoritarian centers of technological research, development and innovation. The technology assessment activities have become institutionalized and, to a certain extent, professionalized, but they have not yet entered into the real world of technological decision-making.
A very different kind of public participation has been taking place around Europe in the name of local Agenda 21. In many places, particularly when local environmental activists have been able to exercise some kind of control over the process, a number of things have started to happen that, at least to me, look more like a movement of democratic technology development. New kinds of links, or horizontal networks, are being established, through local Agenda 21, between people from different places - small busines activities that are taking place across Europe that can be interpreted as seeds of a more democratic technology development. But they are rather weak and uncoordinated in relation to the dominant forces of “authoritarian” technics. What PESTO has indicated is that there is a good deal that we, as academic students of technology and society, can do, both to analyze the conditions and criteria for a more democratic technological development, but also to shape new kinds of linkages between experts and lay people. [1]
What was so central to the movements of the 1970s, I believe, was the fact that many academics stepped out of the universities and worked with labor groups and environmental groups and other kinds of activist organizations. Of course, it was a different social and political climate then, but it still should be possible to do more than is being done today. I think that we, who are at the universities, should think seriously about the roles that we play in relation to authoritarian technics, on their place. Many environmental organizations have come to play a consulting role, and act to a large extent as business firms, in relation to Agenda 21, but also in relation to such things as environmental consumption. Other former environmental activists have become promoters of renewable energy, cleaner technology or ecological food, which is certainly a positive development, but is not necessarily a part of democratic technology development.
A final personal conclusion, then, is that there are many activities that are taking place across Europe that can be interpreted as seeds of a more democratic technology development. But they are rather weak and uncoordinated in relation to the dominant forces of “authoritarian” technics. What PESTO has indicated is that there is a good deal that we, as academic students of technology and society, can do, both to analyze the conditions and criteria for a more democratic technological development, but also to shape new kinds of linkages between experts and lay people. [1]
What was so central to the movements of the 1970s, I believe, was the fact that many academics stepped out of the universities and worked with labor groups and environmental groups and other kinds of activist organizations. Of course, it was a different social and political climate then, but it still should be possible to do more than is being done today. I think that we, who are at the universities, should think seriously about the roles that we play in relation to authoritarian technics, on the one hand, and democratic technics on the other. The fragile experiments in democratic technology development need some help if they are to survive and continue to grow. And, as we discuss science and technology policy options, we need to bring about a better balance between the democratic and authoritarian modes of technological development.
Note
authorþs address: andy@i4.auc.dk
Far and wide the claim can be heard that the WWW has become the Wild, Wild West. The analogy between the Internet and a rugged place full of entrepreneurial frontiersmen refers to the unprecedented possibilities for discovery, adventure and excitement on offer. It seems to me, however, that the use of the term Wild West is more appropriately understood as a reference to the screaming voices of the astounding number and variety of people who are touting their opinions and knowledge about the importance of the Internet. To apply the Wild West metaphor, it is not only the country sheriff who is occupied by the small town murder. The whole country, with its entire police force, governmental institutions, intellectual and scientific communities, and opiniated citizenry, is involved. To put it bluntly, everyone is talking about the Net like crazy.
The recently held Symposium at De Waag in Amsterdam confirms this once more. The enticing title was “Preferred Placement: The hit economy, hyperlink diplomacy and web epistemology.” The speakers included computer scientists, programmers, computer technicians, communication scientists, journalists, sociologists and the odd philosopher. Sitting through a day filled with the diverging presentations that the symposium offered truly was an exciting, freak-like show, in a nice sort of way. The Jan van Eyck Academy, the event organisers, lived up to the expectations by offering a variety of speakers, combining critical, theoretical viewpoints and visual, practical approaches to a subject matter that is undeniably bothering us all. Preferred placement, as the title of the symposium indicates, is an important issue that affects the ways we navigate the Net, which information we find, who controls that information and how valuable and trustworthy that information is. In a sense, therefore, the practice of preferred placement influences the reliability of Net information retrieval and our Web presence.
Preferred placement refers to a shortly lived practice of a search engine (AltaVista) selling key words to companies that wanted their URLs returned when certain terms were queried. After much criticism, Alta Vista cancelled the service. Goto.com’s search engine still uses, openly this time, the “bid-for-placement” technique. The preferred placement incident raises some questions about the workings of the Web. First, the reliability and objectivity of search engines becomes uncertain. How trustworthy are the sites, presented to us in search engine results, if they derive not from algorithm but from commerce? Secondly, the apparent desire for preferred placement in the industry raises questions about the significance of Web presence more generally, and how it could be determined according to different logics. Nowadays, organisations achieve “presence” by virtue of their appearance in search engine results, but also on portals, and other web sites, through links made to them. How is this presence to be analysed and defined?
These issues refer to a more general concern that is raised by preferred placement, namely the quality and reliability of Web information with “presence”. The “hit economy”, as the symposium calls it, has put into place notions of relevance synonomous with popularity; organisations assert that hit counts shows the popularity and thus relevence of their sites. Another way to consider relevance is through an understanding of “hyperlink diplomacy”, organisations referring to each other, and thus establishing networks. Appearance in one of these networks, organised around knowledge themes, would amount to another kind of presence, perhaps a more relevant and reliable indicator of meaninful presence. The notion of “Web epistemology”, one of the main concerns of the symposium, opens the discussion surrounding new practices and understandings of web presence; it looks into ways in which knowledge is being gained on and from the Net by “reading between the links”.
The issue of web epistemology was taken up by a number of speakers during the day, in very different ways. The early morning appeared to be reserved for the charismatic and polemic speeches of two London intellectuals. Nick Durrant of MetaDesign (London) was supposed to present us with a reasonable defense of the hit economy, but he spent most of the time discussing the downsides of the Internet - the messy space it inevitably is, the meaningless metaphors that are attached to it, and the sorry state of most sites. His defence of the hit economy came down to an apology (and an implicit invitation). It has only existed for ten years and it has been designed by 25 year-olds in the Silicon Valley. Durrant’s ideas of the Web as a media space or market place were then taken up by Korinna Patelis (Goldsmiths College) who argued against the use of market place and naturalistic metaphors for the Internet. The Internet is increasingly being promoted as a place of direct exchange, with the middleman cut out. The idea is flawed because it underestimates the importance of mediation and the structured experience. On-line navigating is inevitably structured by software, search engines, Internet service providers, etc. - contrary to what the market place model of direct exchange implies.
The second part of the morning was dedicated to more practical stories on mapping and path tracing, presenting us with programmes that help us navigate and understand the Web. Martin Dodge (University College London) showed different sorts of maps and their use for the individual navigator. Individual site maps offer an overview of a single site, and web maps indicate the various elements of a search result. The most interesting maps, however, seem to be the “dynamic surf maps” that follow you around the Web and offer a graphical representation of the places you have been. This makes navigating through the Web, especially when using many hyperlinks, more understandable and less disorienting for the individual user. It is makes the surfer’s path an object of study. Matthew Chalmers (University of Glasgow) mentioned the problems connected with this kind of mapping. First of all, it is difficult to find a logical and illuminating structure in the content of information - an issue that seems to be most pressing with individual site maps. The second difficulty is finding forms of representation that are in accordance with our perception; maps should be nice to look at, and appear to give a logical representation of the information structure. A third problem is posed by the complexity of the Web itself. It is difficult to make sense of its structure and the paths made by hyperlinks and taken by surfers. Another downside of mapping seems to be the increased possibilities for tracking - an issue that Matthew Chalmers addressed after discussing his Recer (or “recommender”) navigation tool. Recer traces the path of the surfer while taking into account subjectivity and context. Paths, like maps, can be a useful tool for the surfer visiting extensive numbers of sites. But they can also be useful for marketeers tracking and monitoring the consumer. This possible threat opened the way to a more theoretical discussion of the issues of privacy and freedom on the Net. Internet bookstore Amazon already makes use of paths when recommending books to an individual buyer. Limitations of privacy and freedom of choice are, according to Chalmers, therefore often the downsides of good marketing and quality service. In the privacy debate, there should thus be an evaluation of the pros and cons of privacy protection to determine what we deem more important: protection of privacy or utility. The same choice has to be made between marketing and service.
The Jan van Eyck Academy presented some of its views in the early afternoon, introducing Richard Rogers, Noortje Marres, Stephanie Hankey, Ian Morris and Alex Bruce Wilkie as theorists and designers. The theoretical perspectives focused on the several issues posed by the symposium programme: strategy, authority and power relations influencing Web reliability and objectivity. The practice of rogue sites amusingly illustrates these issues. Rogue sites try to look as real as possible, imitating the style of the person or institution they attack. “Fudging” (making small and easily overlooked changes in URLs) enables rogues to lure innocent surfers into their sites, and thus to introduce them to their ideas. Search engines are often unable to discern between “real” sites and the rogue ones, which results in uncertain and unreliable information and epistemology. As a counter-attack American businesses now buy up URLs and metatags as brand names to prevent rogues from using them. However, the ‘look and feel’ of sites are difficult to protect - and often easy to copy for rogues. The “de-pluralising engine” that the Academy has designed offers a visual link language that shows how authority and reliability on the Web can be authored. The engine shows a graphical model of voices with different authoritative stance in various discourses - thus illuminating the power structures and actors within a social debate, like the issues connected with genetically manipulated food. Issues surrounding public discourse were taken up by the next speaker, Michael Murtaugh. He presented a ‘public debate engine’ used as an input device for policy-making, and other projects that help public dialogue that he has designed at newMetropolis Science & Technology Center (Amsterdam) and with his company, Jam! New Media for Public Dialog.
As the day drew to a close, there was more room for theoretical debate. Journalist Gerald Wagner (Berlin) commented on the social theory that has been formed around the Internet over the past decades. The link epistemology that had been an important subject of the day’s discussion is according to Wagner the most important breakthrough in communication theories of Internet. But this still raises the question what the social importance and advantages of Internet research amount to. Steve Woolgar (Brunel University) addressed this question from another perspective, focusing on the challenges that the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) pose to social theory. The new ICTs may force us to rethink some of the traditional and accepted topics of social theory. The Virtual Society? Programme that Woolgar is working on in the UK shows some of the new themes put forward by ICT.
Woolgar’s talk was an appropriate way to finish off a day that had seen discussions of a variety of contemporary themes, both theoretical and practical. And to be fair, it was a good deal of sensible talk - nothing like the drunken boasting or the silly cowboy songs of the Wild West.
Author’s address: L.dubbeld@wmw.utwente.nl
Why I went
At the bottom of the screen something changed. A quick glance told me ‘new mail arrived’. Curiosity killed the cat, not the mouse. Symposium Announcement by the Design & Media Research Fellowship, Jan van Eyck Academy, the Netherlands. Preferred Placement: The Hit Economy, Hyperlink Diplomacy and Web Epistemology, excuse cross-postings. What is this? One of my lazy tricks to find out is to forward such messages to other group members and bring it up during lunch. Responses differed from “web epistemology? Don’t they have anything better to do?” to “authoritative voice, trust, crackpots. Fascinating! One of us should go!”
Why? What caught our interest most was the cause of the event - ‘one of the everlasting challenges of the Web’ as it was put. That challenge was how to deal with the ‘democratic nature of the Net’, authenticating the ‘real source’ and ‘distinguishing between the eminent and the crackpot’. If that isn’t thought provoking! What made me rush to Amsterdam, however, was not a strong concern for Web dictators and Cyber Soviets, but the analogy with a discussion in a rather different area, the new genetics and plant biotechnology. Like the Web much of the new genetics is about information, transmitted through DNA. What is considered a challenge in plant genetics however is completely the opposite. Most plant-genetic information of food crops is stored in gene-banks that do not stand out for their democratic nature. The biotech industry is widely criticised for claiming authenticity over genetic information through patenting and a major aim of the critics is to allow ‘crackpots’ - mostly resource-poor farmers - access to the information, something now reluctantly admitted as being important by some of the big institutes. Is there an opposite democratic tendency in the control of cyber information and genetic information? And something that is crucial in such matter, what is the role of technologies in all this? So up I went in a 16th century building to find out about the Hit Economy and Web Epistemology.
Waking up in a different world? As might have been expected, all presenters knew how to handle computer software to beef up their talks - lots of fancy frames and sexy slides, with one exception. The coffee breaks and lunch partitioned the presentations in pairs and that appeared to fit very well with what was presented.
The first couple, Nick Durrant and Korinna Patelis, were announced as defender and prosecutor of the Hit Economy. In the Hit Economy the scarce item is ‘visuality’ and companies kill to get on top of hit lists. A real problem! Well, in fact Durrant’s presentation was not about the hit economy but about web architecture. Architects have a reputation for disliking too much interference from housing committees and the like as well as abhorring the do-it-yourself enthusiasts.Durrant developed a similar position for the Web and his final plea was ‘more design’. Like a real architect he preferred to mystify rather than to clarify what that would mean. Patelis’s talk was a bit closer to the hit economy. She presented a political economy of the Web in which the major aim however was not to reveal the economic mechanisms, but the (dirty) political tricks that were played on Internet. Patelis provided some nice examples of Web politics, but she did not really put to the test whether the Web can be subjected to a straightforward politico-economic analysis. At least she left me somewhat puzzled about that. Exit the Hit Economy.
The second couple, Martin Dodge and Matthew Chalmers, discussed the issue of how to find one’s bearings in virtual space.[1] Dodge gave a very solid overview of the new cyber branch of cartography called Information Visualisation. What became particularly clear was that the options of visualising information seemed to be endless. That was precisely the problem Chalmers focused on in his presentation. In his view static structures to organise information are useless. The lingual and interactive character of the Web requires structures that follow the users. One of his examples was an attempt to map weather information on Swiss web pages. The analysis of links and visitors delivered a picture that had very little to do with Swiss meteorology but was all about skiing. Besides these analytical observations it was also his provocative remarks - such as ‘this kind of stuff really bores me’ and ‘often I decide to simply switch off the machine’ - that made me realise you cannot get a clear picture of the virtual world simply by staring at a computer screen. But what do we need?
Back with both feet on the ground
After lunch there was first a group of researchers from the Jan van Eyck Academy that presented the results of a Web analysis.[2] The way they made the connection with the real world can be labeled ‘issue driven’. The chosen topic was the current debate over Genetically Modified Food. They had analysed references and cross- linkages of a selected number of websites of major players in the GM Food controversy and visualised the outcome in a nice piece of design. The analysis was meant to show ‘how authority and reliability on the web may be authored’. But what about the real issue? Did the analysis also show how authority and reliability was authored off-line? That was not a key question in the analysis, but can the question be avoided? Well, that’s the next symposium. First some words on the second presentation after lunch in which a link with the real world was made by ‘simulation’. Michael Murtaugh showed some fine examples of how computers can play a role in public debate, ‘as an input device for public policy-making’. His presentation contained several examples of software containing visualisations of issues, views of experts and politicians and the possibility for users to form an opinion and influence those of others. The software Murtaugh presented introduced the real world in cyberspace creating possibilities to enhance participation in decision making in the real world. Real interaction!
In the last two presentations of the day Gerald Wagner and Steve Woolgar gave their view on what the Web and the virtual world brought us in the past decades. Wagner was the only one who did not use any software support for his presentation and that is perhaps the best illustration for his main argument. The Internet affects modern society far less then all the web giants and media freaks want us to believe. At its best it might affect theories about communication, but for the moment there is even very little evidence for that. His main plea was to focus more on communication tools as an object for study. That was exactly what Woolgar and his impressive group of researchers did in the past couple of years. Woolgar presented some preliminary findings of the Virtual Society? Programme, delivering a sceptical but sharp picture of what’s going on. The scepticism was best illustrated by several quotes that predicted radical changes after the introduction of … the Internet? No, the telegraph (1840s), radio (1924), television (1952) and community video (1972). As a Dutch saying goes ‘the soup is never eaten as hot as it is served’. Some interesting findings by Woolgar’s group are that visual anonymity of the Web enhances identification with groups and reinforces existing social boundaries. It appeared that access to the Web is a social rather than a technical issue. And a huge amount of cyberspace is occupied by ‘global wired welfare,’ people finding relief by sharing their misery. Woolgar did not reveal what overall picture of society that would result in; ‘keep monitoring’ was his main message.
Satisfied? I missed most of the general discussion at the end, but virtually it could have gone like this. Dividing the presentations in pairs is one way to do it, but we also might draw the line between Patelis, Chalmers, Wagner and Woolgar on the one hand and the rest of the presenters at the other. A clear difference between the two is that the latter are all actively involved in constructing information technology or making software. The others merely observe and register such processes. Would they have any recommendations or suggestions for software programmers and web architects? To come back to some questions raised before, can we analyse Internet by looking at websites and software or do we need to incorporate programmers, users and the social entities they belong to? How to assess the role of cyberspace in issues like the GM food debate? Is a political economy as put forward by Patelis enough, will the ‘analytic scepticism’ and ‘constant vigilance’ of Woolgar do, or do we need to mix it up with some good-old German sociology and Scottish philosophy? This is crucial in my view not just to answer questions like whether we need more control on authenticity or to allow more crackpots to join in. What is important though is whether there are patterns in the distribution of the social and technical. Is it useful to talk about increasing participation of the lay audience in for example the GM food debate through Internet, or will ‘audience’ always be a particular audience - probably not differing very much from the ones already involved? In my view this is what Woolgar very nicely put forward as ‘how to promote technographic sensibility’. Let’s hope there will soon be a next symposium where he and others can provide some answers.
Notes
His presentation is on the Web - have a look at http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/martin/amster.pdf.
Richard Rogers, Ian Morris, Alex Wilkie, Noortje Marres and Stephanie Hankey. See http://www.govcom.org.
Author’s address: harro.maat@tao.tct.wau.nl