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7/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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Communication Technologies
and Change
Lecture 9
Week 10
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Todays lecture
What is governance?
Relations of visibility and questions of governance.
Media regulation?
#destroythejoint
Activist groups and practices of mobilisation.
Thanks Getup!
Communication platform assemblages Social media
The creation and control of agency
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WHAT IS GOVERNANCE?
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What is governance?
Traditional view
Sovereign power power over life and death
State-based politics
Top-down conception of government
Current ACT election
Liberal Democratic politics
Access power through political representation
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What is governance?
Governmentality
Study of the art of government
Government, broadly conceived
Comes from Michel Foucaults College de France
lectures 1978, 1982-1984
Neoliberal governmentality
Power is decentred and citizens play an active role
in their own governance.
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What is governance?
People take over control of their own lives
Power is dispersed
Governmentality of health
Function of lifestyle rather than chance
Responsibility placed on individuals
Managed by analysing populations (biopolitics)
Health security insurance, risk Insure against possible future events
Calculus of probably across entire populations
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What is governance?
The ensemble formed by the institutions,
procedures, analyses and reflections, the
calculations and tactics that allow the exercise
of this very specific albeit complex form of
power, which has as its target population, as
its principal form of knowledge political
economy, and as its essential technical meansapparatuses of security. (Foucault 2007: 108)
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What is governance?
Power relations internalised
Relations of visibility
Not just what you see
Visibility as a function of knowledge and technologicalassemblages
TV show House
Medical doctors capacity to render visible disease
and affirmity Function of technical knowledge, probabilities and
analysis of symptoms via medical technology
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What is governance?
Compositions of relations that produce
different visibilities
Road safety
At risk populations
Insurance
Self-policing?
Technological visibility speed cameras, point-to-
point
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What is governance?
Data retention legislation
Would enable the Federal government to
potentially assess online activity
Producing new forms of visibility
Data in this context means meta-data about
online activities
Produce an aggregate appreciation of online
population
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What is governance?
Dismantling of the centralised top-downregulatory agencies in the 1980s and 1990s
Open up regulatory process
Online transparency, let citizens regulate
Regulatory solutions through market mechanisms
Fair Trade movement
Gov 2.0 movement Part of the Department of Finance and
Deregulation (ironic title in context of today!)
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What is governance?
Media regulation?
Focus of the Convergence Review The review considered the existing regulatory framework
applying to media and communications services includingbroadcast and mobile, in addition to internet content such aswebsites, internet applications and both audio and audiovisualmaterial.
Examined whether current regulation and policy frameworksremain the most appropriate and effective means in aconverging environment.
Aimed to ensure that media and communications services areprovided within an environment that fosters competition, istechnology-neutral, encourages a diversity of voices, andprotects Australian culture, community values and citizens'rights.
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/convergence_reviewhttp://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/convergence_review7/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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What is governance?
Independent Media Inquiry
The effectiveness of the current media codes ofpractice in Australia, particularly in light of
technological change that is leading to themigration of print media to digital and onlineplatforms.
Report suggested increased opportunity for
citizens/audiences lead regulatory framework My submission: explored power relations of
cross-platform media assemblages
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiryhttp://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry7/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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What is governance?
Recent Gender Wars
Largely organised around
comments made by
radio broadcaster Alan
Jones
MRN station 2GB
eventually pulled all
advertising
Released a statement
Jenna Price responded
on ABCs AM radio show
http://www.afr.com/rw/2009-2014/AFR/2012/10/07/Photos/6ee985ee-102b-11e2-9f93-49336f40a88b_Macquarie%20Radio%20Network%20Limited.pdfhttp://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-08/anti-jones-campaigner-denies-cyber-bullying/4300628http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-08/anti-jones-campaigner-denies-cyber-bullying/4300628http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-08/anti-jones-campaigner-denies-cyber-bullying/4300628http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-08/anti-jones-campaigner-denies-cyber-bullying/4300628http://www.afr.com/rw/2009-2014/AFR/2012/10/07/Photos/6ee985ee-102b-11e2-9f93-49336f40a88b_Macquarie%20Radio%20Network%20Limited.pdf7/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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ACTIVIST GROUPS AND PRACTICESOF MOBILISATION
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/wikileaks/assange/sign-the-petition7/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
Not what to think but what to think about(Cohen 1963)
Agenda-setting, salience
Affective salience tone of message
Substantive salience informational content
Transfer of object from one agenda to anotherfirst-level agenda setting (what to think about)
Attribute saliencesecond-level agenda setting(how to think about)
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
Inter-media agenda setting (Ragas and Kiousis 2010)
MoveOn.orgs Obama in 30 Seconds Political advertisement competition
Partisan media coverage (The Nation) Congruent (strong) first-level agenda setting
Explored relation between affective salience andsecond-level agenda setting
Obama official ads and MoveOn.orgs ads
Strong correlation between Obama negative ads andMoveOn ads
Weak correlation between Obama positive ads andMoveOn ads
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2010.515372http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2010.515372http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2010.515372http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2010.5153727/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
GetUp! and MoveOn
Hybrid organisation a blend of traditional
hierarchical decision-making by the core staff
and Board, coupled with rapid response
networked member participation (Vromen
and Coleman 2011: 80).
http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=627591033342578;res=IELHSShttp://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=627591033342578;res=IELHSShttp://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=627591033342578;res=IELHSShttp://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=627591033342578;res=IELHSS7/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
Membership
Members do not pay to join or receive a service
Opt in to receive emails (and they can simply opt
out at anytime as well) on GetUp! campaigns.
Recipients of GetUp!s emails choose to take
further action only on issues that matter to them.
What is this action? How is it political? Is it?
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
1. Send an email: to the federal or state legislature,a government agency, the government leader, acompany; to a newspaper editor;
2. Make a phone call: to the federal legislature, thegovernment leader, to fellow citizens to vote;
3. Sign an e-petition;
4. Join a local action;
5. Donate money; and/or
6. Watch a video. (Vromen and Coleman 2011: 84)
http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=627591033342578;res=IELHSShttp://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=627591033342578;res=IELHSS7/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
2010 election
Focus: pollution, mental
health, and refugees
Rapid response Voter enrolment issue
70% of members supported
Launched High Court action
3 week turnaround
98,138 voters enfranchised
Issue Frequency %
Carbon Pollution 4 11.5
Mental Health 5 14
Refugees 3 8.5
Native Forests 1 3
Voter Enrolment 6 17
Tony Abbotts Conservative Agenda 2 6
Internet Censorship 1 3
General Election Strategy,
progressive agenda
2 6
Election Day, visibility, scorecards 5 14
Combination of carbon pollution,
mental health, refugees
6 17
Total 35 100
GetUp! Member Emails by Election Issue
1 June - 23 August 2010 (85)
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation
Clicktivism?
One of the key opportunitiesthat the internet haspresented to contemporary
social movements is animproved capacity to organisehigh threshold offline actions.(Van Laer and Van Aelst 2010)
Creative function
Facilitating function
2010 GetUp!
7,000 people offline activities
20,000 hours volunteer work
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13691181003628307http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/136911810036283077/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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Activist Groups and Practices of
Mobilisation GetUp!s agenda-setting capacity?
Media coverage Most neutral, including 88% of
news stories
Only 13 articles negative, mostly
about Abbott & gender ads 76% did not mention political
leaning
12% called it progressive
12% called it independent
Vromen & Coleman argue thatthe routinised recognition ofGetUp! as a legitimate politicalplayer in Australia (89)
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COMMUNICATION PLATFORMASSEMBLAGES
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Communication Platform Assemblages
Affordance theory (Gibson 1979)
Action possibilities latent in the environment,objectively measurable and independent of theindividual's ability to recognise them, but always in
relation to the actor and therefore dependent on theircapabilities (wiki)
Rather than Facebook or Twitter as a platformand interface
Think about social media platforms in terms ofthe affordances for action possibilities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance7/30/2019 Communication Technologies and Change
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Communication Platform Assemblages
From a network-layered approach to
studying platforms
*The+ locus of power is shifting away from
control over content to the management of
degrees of meaningfulness and the attribution
of cultural value (Langlois 2012: 9)
Not about content, but the conditions by
which meaning can emerge (13)
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Communication Platform Assemblages
Conduits of governance in 3 ways
1. Manager of information
Abundance of information, too much!!
Selects and envelopes information in personalised
assemblages (i.e. cookie-enabled Google identity)
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Communication Platform Assemblages
2. Managing user perceptions: articulating
technical processes with cultural values
Communicative act of friending (networked
linkage) versus building actual friendships
Affordances of sharing or upvoting content
Enacts dynamics of visibility and invisibility
Produces visibilities and valorises content
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Communication Platform Assemblages
3. Shaping user agency
Level of cultural perception through distribution
of the sensible
Lazzarato, media produces a world within whichconsumers have to buy in
Level of software platform, affordances
embedded into design
Delegation of agency
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Communication Platform Assemblages
Governmental approach to platforms
Rejection of specific populations
Establishing differentialities along a continuum ofagency
Are you a super user, noob, etc.?
Two ways to think about governmentality andassemblages of communication technologies:
As citizen tools to intervene in offline governmentalprocesses and regulation
As business and government tools used to controland modulate the agency of online populations