This is a MapHist list message (when you hit 'reply' you're replying to the
whole list)
o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o +
MapHisters,
This is NOT about maps, but about our rhetoric about maps, and so I
ought to state up front that it will be considered off topic by many
of you (cue the DELETE button ;-).
For those who are still reading: I just this week had an intense
discussion off-list with Vladimiro about
"... social media and search engines which rank the quality
of content using algorithms that work well for marketing, but
not so well for education."
(This is my own private hell right now, as I struggle with search
engine optimization for a cluster of educational websites I'm
presently developing.)
Our discussion grew from my evergreen concern over listserv filtering
mechanisms and group practices of self-censorship used to block speech
(even "on topic" speech ;-) that some list members may find boring
and/or professionally discomfiting.
So _Marketplace_'s interview yesterday with the author (Eli Pariser)
of the newly-released _The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding
From You_, couldn't have come at a better time for me. ;-)
_Marketplace_ segment for Thursday, May 12, 2011
"How the Internet is being filtered specifically for you"
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/05/12/pm-how-the-internet-is-being-filtered-specifically-for-you/
with an excerpt from Pariser's Introduction available online
at _Marketplace_'s Web section, "The Big Book":
http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/the-big-book/2011/05/excerpt-the-filter-bubble.html
(from here, you can click on a link for a PDF of the book's entire
Introduction)
In addition, amazon's Web page for _The Filter Bubble: What the
Internet is Hiding From You_
http://www.amazon.com/Filter-Bubble-What-Internet-Hiding/dp/1594203008/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305308938&sr=1-1
>.
has a good "Author Q&A", in which Pariser talks about the growing need
for an "algorithmic ethics":
"What we really need is for the companies that power the
filter bubble to take responsibility for the immense power
they now have – the power to determine what we see and don’t
see, what we know and don’t know. We need them to make sure
we continue to have access to public discourse and a view of
the common good. A world based solely on things we 'Like' is
a very incomplete world.
"I’m optimistic that they can. It’s worth remembering that
newspapers weren’t always informed by a sense of journalistic
ethics. They existed for centuries without it. It was only
when critics like Walter Lippman began to point out how
important they were that the newspapers began to change. And
while journalistic ethics aren’t perfect, because of them we
have been better informed over the last century. We need
algorithmic ethics to guide us through the next."
I think Pariser raises -- in a smart and thoughtful way -- some of the
most important issues out there right now for Internet users &
developers/designers (not just of websites, but of discussion lists
such as this, also).
As we struggle to find ways of talking to one another across
boundaries (of all kinds), Pariser's insights about the new
information politics are well worth deliberating.
Deborah
_____
Deborah Taylor-Pearce
[email protected]
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