In case anyone was confused... The first sentence, second paragraph below should read "I should say though that when I was talking about "framing" in the blogpost I was referring not just to WikiLeaks... Apologies. M -----Original Message----- From: Michael Gurstein [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2011 2:42 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Subject: RE: [Futurework] FW: Blogpost: Wikileaks, Open Information and Effective Use: Exploring the Limits of Open Government
Good points Nathalie and I take your comment on "framing the information"... I should say though that when I was talking about "framing" in the blogpost I was referring just to WikiLeaks where a lot of the framing is being done for the individual messages by the news media (and secondarily by critics of US or other's policies),. I was also pointing to issues <http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/open-data-empowering-the-empowered -or-effective-data-use-for-everyone/> arising from the Open Data/Open Access/Open Information/Open Goverment "movement". The advocates of "openness" don't seem to recognize that the information that they are being provided with in the course of governments becoming more "open" is being pre-framed by the agencies. What WikiLeaks points out to governments is the risks involved in opening up information without "pre-framing it" to serve their interests and what it should point out to the "open" advocates is that the information that they are going to be getting is not the raw information that WikiLeaks is exposing but rather the already framed information that government wants folks to see. Mike -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of D and N Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2011 2:22 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Blogpost: Wikileaks, Open Information and Effective Use: Exploring the Limits of Open Government Hi Mike, When I listened to an interview on CBC with Ms. Jonsdottir, she described a situation that had grown intolerable. As you related, her interest lay more around people being able to make submissions and actual use of the WikiLeaks info, and felt that sensationalist leaks of such emotionally charged international scale were causing untenable operational havoc. People in need would no longer be able to get vital info to act upon, and sadly, some within the group would lose their jobs. I suspect it would have been more wise to have created two completely differently-named groups. One for the original mandate, and another for Assange's Megaleaks intentions. One can appreciate that information may get into the wrong hands. That something tragic could result. And that if nothing can be done by the recipient, then perhaps it's going out to the wrong party. Even that framing is everything. But these kinds of objections not only are rarely problematic, they are often a judgment born out of exclusivity and fear, especially when coming from US government policy. Their concerns about WikiLeaks sensationalism creating possible collateral damage, for example, in Iraq. Well, if anything does occur, Who started the war, then performed the atrocities, then tried to cover them up in the first place? Reactions, if any, will also be on their heads. They wouldn't worry about framing if they'd kept their noses clean in the fist place, but the problem is they rarely do. In closing, you summarized:What this says (or at least should say) to Open Information/Open Access/Open Government advocates is that what they are likely to get will either be information which has already been sanitized of those elements revelatory of the real processes or in other cases the process of gaining access to "open information" will necessarily become a constitutive element of the deeper internal processes. Thus governments who move in this direction (and many at least at the more local levels appear to be sympathetic to this approach) must be prepared for this and willing to accept and respond to the consequences and not incidentally to ensure that those receiving access to the information are in a position to make effective and constructive use of it within a context being actively developed iteratively between both providers and recipients. In this sense then WikiLeaks is a harbinger of what is to come and provides a set of lessons on how to respond both for those receiving access to this information and those who are intent on providing it. Clearly to ensure that "open information" is not a series of "leaks" and ensuing scandals or becomes a form of information based cooptation and manipulation, those advocating for "open information" and those who are agreeable to providing it must provide a framing and contextualizing as effective use which goes much beyond anything provided by WikiLeaks in partnership with its press collaborators or beyond simply making various statistical runs or information files available to public users. This is clear enough, yet makes me worry that framing within open systems will become just another division that news and information already get filtered through, and that it must be further filtered for an uneducated or unprepared public. Well, their business and their expenditures are very much our own if government or subsidized industry, and when they find need to re-frame, there is generally deception afoot. This is not unlike the framing of the meat rendering plants activities that, should actual truth around this industry emerge, would cause too many to become vegetarians if they were to learn that animals regularly suffer countless hardships and atrocities in order to satisfy the collective craving and affordability of their favorite dishes. How does one re-frame cattle standing, not on grasslands, but in their own urine and feces for months on end in a tiny corral waiting for the largest of companies to take them for slaughter? I should think that you simply never get that info out to the public. Supposedly for their own good. Where does one draw the line? Who's the decider? I think framing is a real money maker, and its primary use, where government, military and industry operate, is to deceive. Though one could come up with exceptions, they do not justify the policies of secrecy and cover-ups. We own the info by virtue of hiring them to conduct government or military ops. Multi-Nationals should be completely honest and responsible for their products' health and safety aspects, how they are produced and their environmental sustainability. Iraq, one of the most under-reported stories of our time, continues to be framed as a disappearing notion in the minds of billions, yet media, even in a post-Bush world, believe they could still be held to account, so they've dropped the ball altogether. It makes blood boil for anyone who has toiled through the reports of collateral damage of about 5 million Iraqis, which includes over one million dead, 1million plus widows, and 4.5 million displaced. No infrastructure, little food or potable water, and depleted uranium soil for half a million years to come. The innocents arrested and tortured, whose numbers so far outweigh the numbers killed on 9/11 by non-Iraqis, that one has no choice but to conclude the US doesn't give a damn about collateral damage. Nor do the sick soldiers who execute these atrocities, nor do any of the Americans who supported this war. No one is so stupid as to think that the loss was entirely American, and where there remains such posturing, I'm sure it could be permanently scared out of them with a little bit of America's own water-boarding treatments. America and her government had this coming, for the sake of accountability, just as all other potentially damaging leaks change the playing field to one of greater need for responsible actions. The internet is being used responsibly where governments, military and industry are trying to keep secret their blundering and misguided dealings. Media, most often controlled, is looking bad and irresponsible too, and rightly so. Just for Iraq alone they should have lost their jobs. And still, having today realized how swept up they became in Bush's bandwagon to wealth, they would never have the nerve to do what Assange did in any format. If not Assange, then who? Neither government, military nor Multi-National would ever risk such openness because integrity is what the wage earners are supposed to possess, not the world leaders. Certainly not those in media we hope will at least expose profit in deceit. Natalia Kuzmyn On 12/31/2010 9:10 AM, Michael Gurstein wrote: A bit off topic and probably of interest more to folks directly involved in "e" and/or "open" stuff but... I've done a bit of a think piece on the significance of WikiLeaks for open government and community informatics (a rather closer connection than might first be expected!) -- in part riffing on an interesting interview with Birgitta Jonsdottir formerly a WikiLeaks insider. http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/wikileaks-open-information-and-effe ctive-use-exploring-the-limits-of-open-government Comments are appreciated. Best for the season, Mike _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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