Role of ICT In uniting civil society around social issues

1. Role of ICT In uniting civil society around social issues Presented by Gregory Asmolov March 29, 2011 gregory.asmolov@gmail.com

2. ICT enabled mobilization of power: Outsourcing Crowdsourcing Out of the system/ Top down Bottom up from within the system

3. as a resource of power “Networked crowd” Programming power: Construction of meaning for networked activity (what is the problem and how to respond). Switching power: Connecting networks How the meaning is constructed? By whom? Bottom up or top down? What are the networks that are engaged in mobilization? In time of crisis or challenge for society the construction of meaning to (programming) tend to be more bottom up and switching is able to connect between more various networked segments.

4. “Fifth estate” concept: William Dutton The Internet is a platform for networking individuals in ways that can challenge the influence of other more established bases of institutional authority, and that can be used to increase the accountability of the press, politicians, doctors and academics by offering networked individuals with alternative sources of information and opinion. Networked Individuals Networked Institutions

5. Role of crowdsourcing: TRASNSPERENCY ACCOUNTABILITY agenda setting/ framing SELF GOVERNANCE

6. Balance of power: • Power to frame situation as crisis that requires engagement • Power to mobilize for engagement Networked citizens State Networked citizens Wildfires Russian wildfires State Russian elections

7. Institutional response to emergency and limited statehood: State Traditional media Network society 5th estate 4th estate Blogosphere, social networks, websites Government, parliament, police, courts (etc.) TV, radio, print Online media Actors: Increasing transparency, investigating, holding government accountable Security, Welfare Law enforcement, justice Emergency response Fulfilling the gaps Functions: organization organization Non hierarchical/ networked Structure: Lack of transparency Unaccountable Limited action Relatively uncontrolled Reality: Controlled space

8. Mobilization of network power: The self-organization capacity of society The nature of challenge and how it’s framed Functions of power: “Power to” Counter power/ social protest • The core issue is the capacity of society to self organize and respond to challenges/ crises. • Mobilization is not only engagement of people to participate in addressing the challenge, but also creation of new tools for power mobilization (innovation).

9. The struggle for “crowd resource”: Scenarios of relationship between traditional institutions and networked citizen based formations: • Top down/ bottom up programming • Taking under control existent initiatives • Collaboration - synergy between traditional institutions and networked crowds • Ignoring (alternative modes of governance) • Restricting – Internet control/ filtering/ DDoS/ prosecution

10. State-network relationships: • Mobilization of civil society around social issues: • Programming and mobilizing the network power around social issues • Supporting creation of new tools and platforms • Supporting skills to use ICT for social: information literacy State Development of capacity to collaborate: New tools for dialogue and new modes of collaboration between traditional institutions and networked citizen based bottom-up structures. Creation of equal partnerships between state and society Programming Supporting Network society State collaboration switching

11. E-collaboration forms: • Development of mode for dialogue and collaboration frameworks/ platforms • Exchange of data • Division of responsibilities and modes of mutual activation • Information support • Sharing resources (Grid) • Design of platforms that enable equal participation of network initiatives and institutions • E-gov strategies as enabling infrastructure for collaboration • Online presence not only of politicians but various officials • Removing legal obstacles for activities of networks without organizational identity • Mapping potential networked resources/ topics for collaboration for various sectors of governanceand monitoring new initiatives.

12. Supporting innovation with open data:

13. Civil Resilience Network: National Resilience is based onbottom up (citizens, society, small business(and top-down (authorities, leaders)elements. Despite the concept that the state and authorities are responsible for emergency response for national crisis, in the time of crisis there is a significant gap between the expectations of citizens and the capacity of the state.State can not provide effective emergency response alone. Civil Resilience Network – it is a networked infrastructure of individuals and various organizations that are interested in increasing the capacity for response on local/national level and promotion of cooperation between various sectors. Mega-Society: networked coalition of organizations from various sectors, that are ready to cooperate for addressing challenges, that can’t be addressed with the current capacities. http://reut-institute.org/en/Publication.aspx?PublicationId=3729

14. Gdecasino.ru: You know, this is a problem of the people who work for the government. I would be very sad if every government engagement would require presidential participation. […] I think it's a question of the people growing up, in general. The only thing that I can promise, that I will continue to provide a personal example. But eventually, it is a question of how the ministers and head of departments feel. If they don't want to stay at the dumping ground [to be fired], they should react in this regard. D.Medvedev

15. Vertical crowdsourcing:

16. Crowdsourcing as emergency response: State-network collaboration in risk society. National emergency Constant emergency Daily common emergency

17. National emergency: Networked individuals: Internet users that have capacity to participate in collective action Create networked institutions Networked institutions: Enable collective actions that is focused on solution of specific problem.

18. Networked enabled coalition: (switching power)

19. Constant emergency: Lizaalert.org Platform that distributes a call about missing child and create search groups.

20. V estate and government collaboration: It’s very common to have lack of cooperation. In some cases we were asked not to participate: “Why do we need you? Everything is good here. We can do it without volunteers”. In some cases they didn’t let us to enter to the police station and didn’t give us information. In many cases they just want to stay on low profile and avoid real action. Looking for lost people is not on their mission list. But after 2-3 days of search they get closer, and the cooperation starts. And if we are talking about a region where we already worked, sometimes we get a call with a help request from police.

21. Daily emergency:Rynda.org A platform for coordination of mutual aid in daily emergency situations. http://firedepartment.mobi/

22. Matchmaking I can help I need help

23. Personal profiles User’s filters : • How to help • When to help • Where to help • Filter-based notification subscription For: Individuals, NGOs, Gov. agencies

24. Интеграция с системой документооборота органов власти Пермского края Citizens Streetjournal.org Government Receiving reports Defining responsible Implementation control Moderation by community Defining priorities Available to everyone Problems registration Solutions control Прозрачная и эффективная схема взаимодействия с гражданами по проблемам на территории From presentation by Alexey Shaposhnikov

25. Internet and Imitation of Governance: Russian regime is focused on the imitation of governance without actually governing the country. LiliyaShevtzova The Kremlin is “using the Internet to create a parody of a real political process.” Russian officials were using online tools like Twitter to demonstrate they were close to the people on a personal level, while at the same time avoiding real political change. Luke Allnutt,  “Russia's “Youtube democracy” is a Sham”,Christian Science Monitor Technology/ crowdsourcing as a substitute to governance.

26. “ When we assume people are principally selfish, we design systems that reward selfish people … Elinor Ostrom, Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences

27. Struggle between two social imaginaries in Russian society: “We can do it” – society “Like” society: internal immigration.

28. Mobilization of network power: R I S K S T A T E H O O D Crowdsourcing - mobilization of networked power. 1. “Power to” – сrowd-to-crowd emergency response mediated through ICT 2. Counter power/ social protest –against traditional institutions 3. Power to collaborate – synergy between traditional institutions and networked crowds High High Low Low

29. Peer-to-peer governance • From Client-Server(citizen-government) towards Peer-to-Peeremergency response; • New opportunities forstate-society cooperation.

30. Thank you! gregory.asmolov@gmail.com