Behind the Scenes: Information Flows in Networks

Karine Nahon

karineb@uw.edu http://eKarine.org AND http://SoMeLab.net http://twitter.com/karineb

Information Flows and Social Structure

•  Reproduction And at the same time: •  Transformation

Information flows challenge institutions and fundamentally

transform the structures of institutions and power

relations among stakeholders.

Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-pepper-spraying-cop-meme

העברות תקציביות

Empowering open, equal and decentralized platforms, where users have a critical role

Maybe more open and empowered but not equal

•  The power law •  Homophily •  Fragmentation and polarization •  Following the herd •  Network gatekeeping •  Digital Divides

Market Share of Search Engines Search  Engines  

10/02 1/03 5/04 12/08 12/10 8/11 9/12 3/13

Google   20.1   33   36.8   62.9   84.6   82.8   85.15   67.5  

Yahoo   19.6   24   26.6   16.8   6.7   6.6   7.3   12.1  

MSN   19.3   19   14.5   9.8          

Bing   -­‐               3.3   3.8   4   16.7  

AOL   13.5   12   12.8   4.1          

Baidu   -­‐               3.4   4.8   1.65  

Ask’s   2.6  

    72.5   88   90.7   93.6   98   98   98.1   98.9  

Sources: Alexa, Netmarketshare, search engine watch

Worldwide  smartphone  operaLng  system  (OS)  market  share  in  2009-­‐2015,  according  to  Gartner  

OS    

2009  market  share  

2010  market  share  

2011  market  share  

Android   3.9%   22.7%   38.5%  

BlackBerry   19.9%   16.0%   13.4%  

iOS   14.4%   15.7%   19.4%  

Symbian   46.9%   37.6%   19.2%  

Windows  Phone/Mobile  

8.7%   4.2%   5.6%  

Others   6.1%   3.8%   3.9%  

Total  smartphones  sold  

172  million  

297  million  

468  million  

Source:  Gartner  (April  2011)    

90.5%

Source:  NetMarketShare  

דפדפנים 

95.7%

•  4 blog categories

Homophily and Fragmentation

DailyKos Huffington Post

Talking Points Memo

Firedoglake

Crooks And Liars

Washington Monthly

Pandagon

America Blog

Five Thirty Eight

Digby Feministing

Juan Cole

Open Left Talk Left

Shakespeares Sister

Sadly, No!

MyDD Ezra Klein

Hot Air Gateway Pundit

Newsbusters

Powerline Blog Ann Althouse

Jawa Report

Patterico's Pontifications

IMAO Red State

QandO

Following the Herd

Network Gatekeeping •  Editors 83,000 •  Men: 91% •  Education: 65% percentile •  Who creates content?

Communal Gatekeeping

(The 7th eye, 2011)

(source: Getty Images, FARS, ABC News)

Some Democratic Illusions •  The mass: a mass or a micro? •  Big numbers = objective information? •  Wisdom of the crowd: does it represent the

population? •  Does a ‘like’ influence decision? •  Openness and participation = equality? •  Participation = deliberation?

More Democratic Illusions •  Towards which direction is the herd heading? •  Is the individual voice lost being part of the

wisdom of the crowd? •  Demanding (uncontrollable) transparency –

where do we stop? •  Endless/Ubiquitous information – but where

is the power?

What Can we do? •  Democracy by design •  Increasing inclusive participation •  Institutionalize the process of transforming

participation to decision-making •  Transparency-oriented applications •  Collaboration: people, civil society, private

sector and government