Past and Emerging Themes in Policy and Internet Studies

by Vili Lehdonvirta 12/05/2014

It is simply not possible to consider public policy today without some regard for the intertwining of information technologies with everyday life and society.

by Vili Lehdonvirta 12/05/2014

We can't understand, analyse or make public policy without understanding the technological, social and economic shifts associated with the Internet. Image from the (post-PRISM) "Stop Watching Us" Berlin Demonstration (2013) by mw238.

In the journal’s inaugural issue, founding Editor-in-Chief Helen Margetts outlined what are essentially two central premises behind Policy & Internet’s launch. The first is that “we cannot understand, analyse or make public policy without understanding the technological, social and economic shifts associated with the Internet” (Margetts 2009, 1). It is simply not possible to consider public policy today without some regard for the intertwining of information technologies with everyday life and society. The second premise is that the rise of the Internet is associated with shifts in how policy itself is made. In particular, she proposed that impacts of Internet adoption would be felt in the tools through which policies are effected, and the values that policy processes embody. The purpose of the Policy and Internet journal was to take up these two challenges: the public policy implications of Internet-related social change, and Internet-related changes in policy processes themselves. In recognition of the inherently multi-disciplinary nature of policy research, the journal is designed to act as a meeting place for all kinds of disciplinary and methodological approaches. Helen predicted that methodological approaches based on large-scale transactional data, network analysis, and experimentation would turn out to be particularly important for policy and Internet studies. Driving the advancement of these methods was therefore the journal’s third purpose. Today, the journal has reached a significant milestone: over one hundred high-quality peer-reviewed articles published. This seems an opportune moment to take stock of what kind of research we have published in practice, and see how it stacks up against the original vision. At the most general level, the journal’s articles fall into three broad categories: the Internet and public policy (48 articles), the Internet and policy processes (51 articles), and discussion of novel methodologies (10 articles). The first of these categories, “the Internet and public policy,” can be further broken down into a number of subcategories. One of the most prominent of these streams…

Interviews, Tools

The social economies of networked cultural production (or, how to make a movie with complete strangers)

by Isis Hjorth 28/04/2014

Looking at “networked cultural production”—ie the creation of cultural goods like films through crowdsourcing platforms—specifically in the ‘wreckamovie’ community

by Isis Hjorth 28/04/2014

Nomad, the perky-looking Mars rover from the crowdsourced documentary Solar System 3D (Wreckamovie).

Ed: You have been looking at “networked cultural production”—ie the creation of cultural goods like films through crowdsourcing platforms—specifically in the ‘wreckamovie’ community. What is wreckamovie? Isis: Wreckamovie is an open online platform that is designed to facilitate collaborate film production. The main advantage of the platform is that it encourages a granular and modular approach to cultural production; this means that the whole process is broken down into small, specific tasks. In doing so, it allows a diverse range of geographically dispersed, self-selected members to contribute in accordance with their expertise, interests and skills. The platform was launched by a group of young Finnish filmmakers in 2008, having successfully produced films with the aid of an online forum since the late 1990s. Officially, there are more than 11,000 Wreckamovie members, but the active core, the community, consists of fewer than 300 individuals. Ed: You mentioned a tendency in the literature to regard production systems as being either ‘market driven’ (eg Hollywood) or ‘not market driven’ (eg open or crowdsourced things); is that a distinction you recognised in your research? Isis: There’s been a lot of talk about the disruptive and transformative powers nested in networked technologies, and most often Wikipedia or open source software are highlighted as examples of new production models, denoting a discontinuity from established practices of the cultural industries. Typically, the production models are discriminated based on their relation to the market: are they market-driven or fuelled by virtues such as sharing and collaboration? This way of explaining differences in cultural production isn’t just present in contemporary literature dealing with networked phenomena, though. For example, the sociologist Bourdieu equally theorised cultural production by drawing this distinction between market and non-market production, portraying the irreconcilable differences in their underlying value systems, as proposed in his The Rules of Art. However, one of the key findings of my research is that the shaping force of these productions is…

Development, Interviews

The economic expectations and potentials of broadband Internet in East Africa

by David Sutcliffe 13/03/2014

Were firms adopting internet, as it became cheaper? Had this new connectivity had the effects that were anticipated, or was it purely hype?

by David Sutcliffe 13/03/2014

Ed: There has a lot of excitement about the potential of increased connectivity in the region: where did this come from? And what sort of benefits were promised? Chris: Yes, at the end of the 2000s when the first fibre cables landed in East Africa, there was much anticipation about what this new connectivity would mean for the region. I remember I was in Tanzania at the time, and people were very excited about this development—being tired of the slow and expensive satellite connections where even simple websites could take a minute to load. The perception, both in the international press and from East African politicians was that the cables would be a game changer. Firms would be able to market and sell more directly to customers and reduce inefficient ‘intermediaries’. Connectivity would allow new types of digital-driven business, and it would provide opportunity for small and medium firms to become part of the global economy. We wanted to revisit this discussion. Were firms adopting internet, as it became cheaper? Had this new connectivity had the effects that were anticipated, or was it purely hype? Ed: So what is the current level and quality of broadband access in Rwanda? ie how connected are people on the ground? Chris: Internet access has greatly improved over the previous few years, and the costs of bandwidth have declined markedly. The government has installed a ‘backbone’ fibre network and in the private sector there has also been a growth in the number of firms providing Internet service. There are still some problems though. Prices are still are quite high, particularly for dedicated broadband connections, and in the industries we looked at (tea and tourism) many firms couldn’t afford it. Secondly, we heard a lot of complaints that lower bandwidth connections—WiMax and mobile internet—are unreliable and become saturated at peak times. So, Rwanda has come a long way, but we expect there will be more…

Governance & Security, Health, Wellbeing

Unpacking patient trust in the “who” and the “how” of Internet-based health records

by Ulrike Rauer 03/03/2014

Key to successful adoption of Internet-based health records is how much a patient places trust that data will be properly secured from inadvertent leakage.

by Ulrike Rauer 03/03/2014

In an attempt to reduce costs and improve quality, digital health records are permeating health systems all over the world. Internet-based access to them creates new opportunities for access and sharing—while at the same time causing nightmares to many patients: medical data floating around freely within the clouds, unprotected from strangers, being abused to target and discriminate people without their knowledge? Individuals often have little knowledge about the actual risks, and single instances of breaches are exaggerated in the media. Key to successful adoption of Internet-based health records is, however, how much a patient places trust in the technology: trust that data will be properly secured from inadvertent leakage, and trust that it will not be accessed by unauthorised strangers. Situated in this context, my own research has taken a closer look at the structural and institutional factors influencing patient trust in Internet-based health records. Utilising a survey and interviews, the research has looked specifically at Germany—a very suitable environment for this question given its wide range of actors in the health system, and often being referred to as a “hard-line privacy country”. Germany has struggled for years with the introduction of smart cards linked to centralised Electronic Health Records, not only changing its design features over several iterations, but also battling negative press coverage about data security. The first element to this question of patient trust is the “who”: that is, does it make a difference whether the health record is maintained by either a medical or a non-medical entity, and whether the entity is public or private? I found that patients clearly expressed a higher trust in medical operators, evidence of a certain “halo effect” surrounding medical professionals and organisations driven by patient faith in their good intentions. This overrode the concern that medical operators might be less adept at securing the data than (for example) most non-medical IT firms. The distinction between public and private operators is…

Governance & Security, Interviews

The challenges of government use of cloud services for public service delivery

by Kristina Irion 24/02/2014

One central concern of those governments that are leading in the public sector’s migration to cloud computing is how to retain unconditional sovereignty over their data.

by Kristina Irion 24/02/2014

Cloud services are not meant to recognise national frontiers, but to thrive on economies of scale and scope globally -- presenting particular challenges to government. Image by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Ed: You open your recent Policy and Internet article by noting that “the modern treasury of public institutions is where the wealth of public information is stored and processed,” what are the challenges of government use of cloud services? Kristina: The public sector is a very large user of information technology but data handling policies, vendor accreditation and procurement often predate the era of cloud computing. Governments first have to put in place new internal policies to ensure the security and integrity of their information assets residing in the cloud. Through this process governments are discovering that their traditional notions of control are challenged because cloud services are virtual, dynamic, and operate across borders. One central concern of those governments that are leading in the public sector’s migration to cloud computing is how to retain unconditional sovereignty over their data—after all, public sector information embodies the past, the present, and the future of a country. The ability to govern presupposes command and control over government information to the extent necessary to deliver public services, protect citizens’ personal data and to ensure the integrity of the state, among other considerations. One could even assert that in today’s interconnected world national sovereignty is conditional upon adequate data sovereignty. Ed: A basic question: if a country’s health records (in the cloud) temporarily reside on/are processed on commercial servers in a different country: who is liable for the integrity and protection of that data, and under who’s legal scheme? ie can a country actually technically lose sovereignty over its data? Kristina: There is always one line of responsibility flowing from the contract with the cloud service provider. However, when these health records cross borders they are effectively governed under a third country’s jurisdiction where disclosure authorities vis-à-vis the cloud service provider can likely be invoked. In some situations the geographical whereabouts of the public health records is not even that important because certain countries’…

Methods, Politics & Government

How easy is it to research the Chinese web?

by Han-Teng Liao 18/02/2014

The research expectations seem to be that control and intervention by Beijing will be most likely on political and cultural topics, not likely on economic or entertainment ones.

by Han-Teng Liao 18/02/2014

Access to data from the Chinese Web, like other Web data, depends on platform policies, the level of data openness, and the availability of data intermediary and tools. Image of a Chinese Internet cafe by Hal Dick.

Ed: How easy is it to request or scrape data from the “Chinese Web”? And how much of it is under some form of government control? Han-Teng: Access to data from the Chinese Web, like other Web data, depends on the policies of platforms, the level of data openness, and the availability of data intermediary and tools. All these factors have direct impacts on the quality and usability of data. Since there are many forms of government control and intentions, increasingly not just the websites inside mainland China under Chinese jurisdiction, but also the Chinese “soft power” institutions and individuals telling the “Chinese story” or “Chinese dream” (as opposed to “American dreams”), it requires case-by-case research to determine the extent and level of government control and interventions. Based on my own research on Chinese user-generated encyclopaedias and Chinese-language twitter and Weibo, the research expectations seem to be that control and intervention by Beijing will be most likely on political and cultural topics, not likely on economic or entertainment ones. This observation is linked to how various forms of government control and interventions are executed, which often requires massive data and human operations to filter, categorise and produce content that are often based on keywords. It is particularly true for Chinese websites in mainland China (behind the Great Firewall, excluding Hong Kong and Macao), where private website companies execute these day-to-day operations under the directives and memos of various Chinese party and government agencies. Of course there is some extra layer of challenges if researchers try to request content and traffic data from the major Chinese websites for research, especially regarding censorship. Nonetheless, since most Web content data is open, researchers such as Professor Fu in Hong Kong University manage to scrape data sample from Weibo, helping researchers like me to access the data more easily. These openly collected data can then be used to measure potential government control, as has…

Mapping, Methods, Politics & Government, Social Data Science

Mapping collective public opinion in the Russian blogosphere

by Olessia Koltsova 10/02/2014

The Russian language blogosphere counts about 85 million blogs—an amount far beyond the capacities of any government to control—and is thereby able to function as a mass medium of “public opinion” and also to exercise influence.

by Olessia Koltsova 10/02/2014

Widely reported as fraudulent, the 2011 Russian Parliamentary elections provoked mass street protest action by tens of thousands of people in Moscow and cities and towns across Russia. Image by Nikolai Vassiliev.

Blogs are becoming increasingly important for agenda setting and formation of collective public opinion on a wide range of issues. In countries like Russia where the Internet is not technically filtered, but where the traditional media is tightly controlled by the state, they may be particularly important. The Russian language blogosphere counts about 85 million blogs—an amount far beyond the capacities of any government to control—and the Russian search engine Yandex, with its blog rating service, serves as an important reference point for Russia’s educated public in its search of authoritative and independent sources of information. The blogosphere is thereby able to function as a mass medium of “public opinion” and also to exercise influence. One topic that was particularly salient over the period we studied concerned the Russian Parliamentary elections of December 2011. Widely reported as fraudulent, they provoked immediate and mass street protest action by tens of thousands of people in Moscow and cities and towns across Russia, as well as corresponding activity in the blogosphere. Protesters made effective use of the Internet to organise a movement that demanded cancellation of the parliamentary election results, and the holding of new and fair elections. These protests continued until the following summer, gaining widespread national and international attention. Most of the political and social discussion blogged in Russia is hosted on the blog platform LiveJournal. Some of these bloggers can claim a certain amount of influence; the top thirty bloggers have over 20,000 “friends” each, representing a good circulation for the average Russian newspaper. Part of the blogosphere may thereby resemble the traditional media; the deeper into the long tail of average bloggers, however, the more it functions as more as pure public opinion. This “top list” effect may be particularly important in societies (like Russia’s) where popularity lists exert a visible influence on bloggers’ competitive behaviour and on public perceptions of their significance. Given the influence of these top…

Politics & Government

Technological innovation and disruption was a big theme of the WEF 2014 in Davos: but where was government?

by Helen Margetts 30/01/2014

The World Economic Forum engages business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

by Helen Margetts 30/01/2014

Last week, I was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the first time that the Oxford Internet Institute has been represented there. Being closeted in a Swiss ski resort with 2,500 of the great, the good and the super-rich provided me with a good chance to see what the global elite are thinking about technological change and its role in ‘The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business’, the stated focus of the WEF Annual Meeting in 2014. What follows are those impressions that relate to public policy and the internet, and reflect only my own experience there. Outside the official programme there are whole hierarchies of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and other events, most of which a newcomer to Davos finds it difficult to discover and some of which require one to be at least a president of a small to medium-sized state—or Matt Damon. There was much talk of hyperconnectivity, spirals of innovation, S-curves and exponential growth of technological diffusion, digitalisation and disruption. As you might expect, the pace of these was emphasised most by those participants from the technology industry. The future of work in the face of leaps forward in robotics was a key theme, drawing on the new book by Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, which is just out in the US. There were several sessions on digital health and the eventual fruition of decades of pilots in telehealth (a banned term now, apparently), as applications based on mobile technologies start to be used more widely. Indeed, all delegates were presented with a ‘Jawbone’ bracelet which tracks the wearer’s exercise and sleep patterns (7,801 steps so far today). And of course there was much talk about the possibilities afforded by big data, if not quite as much as I expected. The University of Oxford was represented in an…

Mapping, Methods, Social Data Science

Edit wars! Measuring and mapping society’s most controversial topics

by taha yasseri 03/12/2013

Although some topics are globally debated, like religion and politics, there are many topics which are controversial only in a single language edition. This reflects the local preferences and importances assigned to topics by different editorial communities.

by taha yasseri 03/12/2013

Ed: How did you construct your quantitative measure of ‘conflict’? Did you go beyond just looking at content flagged by editors as controversial? Taha: Yes we did. Actually, we have shown that controversy measures based on “controversial” flags are not inclusive at all and although they might have high precision, they have very low recall. Instead, we constructed an automated algorithm to locate and quantify the editorial wars taking place on the Wikipedia platform. Our algorithm is based on reversions, i.e. when editors undo each other’s contributions. We focused specifically on mutual reverts between pairs of editors and we assigned a maturity score to each editor, based on the total volume of their previous contributions. While counting the mutual reverts, we used more weight for those ones committed by/on editors with higher maturity scores; as a revert between two experienced editors indicates a more serious problem. We always validated our method and compared it with other methods, using human judgement on a random selection of articles. Ed: Was there any discrepancy between the content deemed controversial by your own quantitative measure, and what the editors themselves had flagged? Taha: We were able to capture all the flagged content, but not all the articles found to be controversial by our method are flagged. And when you check the editorial history of those articles, you soon realise that they are indeed controversial but for some reason have not been flagged. It’s worth mentioning that the flagging process is not very well implemented in smaller language editions of Wikipedia. Even if the controversy is detected and flagged in English Wikipedia, it might not be in the smaller language editions. Our model is of course independent of the size and editorial conventions of different language editions. Ed: Were there any differences in the way conflicts arose/were resolved in the different language versions? Taha: We found the main differences to be the topics of controversial…

Methods, Social Data Science

The physics of social science: using big data for real-time predictive modelling

by taha yasseri 21/11/2013

There are very interesting examples of using big data to make predictions about disease outbreaks, financial moves in the markets, social interactions based on human mobility patterns, election results, etc.

by taha yasseri 21/11/2013

Ed: You are interested in analysis of big data to understand human dynamics; how much work is being done in terms of real-time predictive modelling using these data? Taha: The socially generated transactional data that we call “big data” have been available only very recently; the amount of data we now produce about human activities in a year is comparable to the amount that used to be produced in decades (or centuries). And this is all due to recent advancements in ICTs. Despite the short period of availability of big data, the use of them in different sectors including academia and business has been significant. However, in many cases, the use of big data is limited to monitoring and post hoc analysis of different patterns. Predictive models have been rarely used in combination with big data. Nevertheless, there are very interesting examples of using big data to make predictions about disease outbreaks, financial moves in the markets, social interactions based on human mobility patterns, election results, etc. Ed: What were the advantages of using Wikipedia as a data source for your study—as opposed to Twitter, blogs, Facebook or traditional media, etc.? Taha: Our results have shown that the predictive power of Wikipedia page view and edit data outperforms similar box office-prediction models based on Twitter data. This can partially be explained by considering the different nature of Wikipedia compared to social media sites. Wikipedia is now the number one source of online information, and Wikipedia article page view statistics show how much Internet users have been interested in knowing about a specific movie. And the edit counts—even more importantly—indicate the level of interest of the editors in sharing their knowledge about the movies with others. Both indicators are much stronger than what you could measure on Twitter, which is mainly the reaction of the users after watching or reading about the movie. The cost of participation in Wikipedia’s editorial process…

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