Posts Tagged ‘zuckerman’

In Tim Wu’s new review of Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, the Columbia Law professor spends considerable time explaining how the economics of media have historically led to a consolidation that many would see as anathema to the diverse marketplace of ideas that we want. His discussion is well worth a read, but what I thought was most important from the piece was his mention of the many threats to the generative Internet:

“But I must part company with Zittrain over his main and more somber argument: that security crises will form the driving narrative of the Internet’s future. I do not doubt that there will be never-ending security problems and reactions. But the question is not whether cybersecurity will matter, but whether it will matter most. Zittrain’s security saga does not look to me like a full account of the future. He is leaving out many of the external forces that will change the Internet. One is the power of government, which, especially overseas, has begun reshaping the network to fit its obsessions. Another is the combined forces of language and culture, which are driving a once-global Internet into something more like a series of national ones: a Japanese Internet, a Spanish Internet, and so on.

But most important, the real story may lie in the power of industry structure and the long trend toward centralized control in the media industries. Over the last decade, the Internet has become interwoven with media and communications industries collectively worth trillions, with economics all of their own. Unlike Zittrain, I think that industry dynamics, more than a demand for safe appliances, will determine the future of this strange and extraordinary medium.”

A Typology of Threats to the ‘Net

So which threat is the most disconcerting? He points to four:

1. Zittrain’s security-driven adoption of sterile devices,
2. Wu’s economic-driven centralization,
3. Zuckerman’s culture- and language-driven splintered Internet, or
4. Barlow’s government intervention

Personally, I’m inclined to think a splintered net is the most troublesome because it destroys the forum for international conversation and deliberation we wanted the Internet to become. But what macro trend concerns you?

Years ago, The Economist ran a special report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo which described the country as “the bleeding heart of Africa.” The description has stuck with me, even if it hasn’t resonated with Western media which typically pays very little attention to the enormous African nation which has seen civil war take more than 5 million lives in the past ten years. The scale of this conflict - more deaths than any other conflict since WWII - defies comprehension and the lack of reporting coming out of the DRC doesn’t help. In fact, because this conflict is so intractable, it makes it difficult for the media to pay any attention to it; it would simply take longer than CNN can afford to sufficiently explain.

Which is what made the recent attention paid to the DRC even more interesting. You see, the DRC is home to one of the largest National Parks in the world. Virunga National Park is a 2 million acre area in the eastern half of the country which borders Rwanda and Uganda. The park is home to many of the remaining mountain gorillas. The park also houses a number of rebel factions, including the FDLR which came about when fleeing Hutu militias from Rwanda teamed up with disaffected members of the Congolese army. In response, a Tutsi Congolese general, Laurent Nkunda, formed the CNDP which has fought, with the backing of Rwanda, the FDLR, turning the south of Virunga National Park into a bloody battlefield. Add to the mix a Congolese army which is known to commit atrocities as frequently as the CNDP and FDLR, and you can begin to understand the horror of the situation.

A situation which went mostly unreported for years. Then, last year, someone killed seven of the mountain gorillas in cold blood. It wasn’t poachers because the animals’ bodies were left untouched. The animals and humans had lived for years in cohabitation, so why were they killed? The answer, as you might expect, involved many rebels, black-market economies and the politics of a failed state.

Western media jumped on the case. The striking photographs of the magnificent slain animals and the desperate people of the Congo were splashed across TV screens and newspapers. Suddenly, America cared about the DR Congo.

As much as the death of those seven creatures is tragic, no one could think it is more tragic than the millions of displaced or murdered Congolese over the past ten years. Shouldn’t that have created an uproar? Shouldn’t that lead to lengthy investigative journalism or talk shows centered around the DRC?

Normatively, very few people, I think, would disagree. But the answer as to why it doesn’t happen is complicated, but I think it comes down to a “circle of not-caring”. David Weinberger, in his recent newsletter, took a look at this issue with the help of Ethan Zuckerman who spends much of his time working to correct media miscoverage. David’s question was why are Nigeria and Japan, countries whose populations are roughly equal, so disproportionately represented in Western media. His answer comes down to ninjas.

“One reason we care about Japan more than Nigeria (generally) is that Japan has a cool culture. We’ve heard about that culture because some Westerners wrote bestselling books about ninjas, and then Hollywood made ninja movies. Love them ninjas! Nigeria undoubtedly has something as cool as ninjas. Ok, something almost as cool as ninjas. If we had some blockblusters about the Nigerian equivalent of ninjas, we’d start to be interested Nigeria.”

Generally, the DR Congo suffers from the same problem that Nigeria does - it doesn’t have ninjas. To resonate with an audience, news must be reified. Ninjas make Japan concrete. Gorillas made the Congo concrete. We’ve all seen gorillas in movies, zoos or on the Discovery Channel. We’ve stood in awe of their size and power. The murder of a gorilla is shocking, both because they are huge animals and because it is unique. Uncomfortable as it is, rebel warfare and African strife are hard for the average American to separate or distinguish. Gorillas? Murdered? Well, that’s something everyone can understand.

The story was understandable. As Ethan wrote in his response to the Ninja Gap theory, in order to break the “circle of not-caring,” “tell good stories in a compelling way. And it wouldn’t hurt to throw a ninja or two in there while you’re at it.”

Mark Jenkins, one of my favorite journalists, did that in the most recent issue of National Geographic. His article, “Who Murdered the Virunga Gorillas” is part war-journalism, part environmental exposé. But more than anything, it is a compelling story about the often overlooked conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Charlie Rose, too, takes the time to understand the conflict and tells the story (albeit in a slightly less compelling manner).

However, has the creation of compelling stories (thanks to ninjas) helped? Has outside attention on the DRC resulted in progress towards stability and peace? Understandably, helping the Congo would be a lengthy journey involving many peace talks and much healing, but has this happened? It may be too soon, but it doesn’t seem like it. Does this mean the Ninja Gap theory is bunk? I don’t think so - the net effect is still probably positive. More people now know that the DRC is in trouble (and knowing it exists is probably new for some). This is a step in the right direction and hopefully the right people are paying attention now more than before.

[For a skeptical look at the Ninja Gap, check this out.]

Wikimedia, the non-profit which oversees Wikipedia, is holding its annual conference in Alexandria, Egypt. One of the debates making headlines is the discussion about how to facilitate the growth of the Arabic language Wikipedia which is the 29th largest Wikipedia - well behind the imaginary language Esperanto. This is an issue which has been persisting within the Wikipedia community for a number of years: how do you create an online, user-generated encyclopedia in a language whose speakers have little access to the Internet or free time to contribute?

I was first introduced to this issue by a question posed by Ethan Zuckerman at Berkman@10. He asked Jimmy Wales how the desperately poor could be expected to take the time to contribute to Wikipedia. His concern was perceptive and suggests that generating online content is a post-materialist pursuit. Only after attaining a certain level of material security can people afford to contribute to human knowledge. Others, too, have noticed this. At the 2nd Wikimania Conference in 2006, a Dutch Wikipedian, Kasper Souren, spoke about paying $1 for speakers of Bambara, a language of 3 million speakers in Mali, to contribute an article. Through this method he was able to amass more than 100 articles by the 2006 conference, but as of today, the Bambara Wikipedia only has 211 articles. I’m not sure if Mr. Souren is still soliciting articles in this manner or if he stopped, but, either way, I’m not convinced this is the way to create a viable native-language Wikipedia.

In The Gift, Lewis Hyde goes to great length to explain the ways in which the gift economy operate differently than the commodity economy. When money is introduced into a system, it undergoes substantial changes in ethic. The market efficiently allocates many things, but Wikipedia exists in a non-monetary economy. People contribute for many reasons, but the English language Wikiepdia did not reach more than 2 million articles because people wanted a new source of income. To convince Bambara speakers to contribute to Wikipedia, one needs to understand the motivations of a Wikipedian - reputation, principled support of universal access to knowledge or social.

In preparation for the 2006 Wikimania Conference, Ethan wrote an insightful post about the bilingual Wikipedians who decide to write in English instead of their native language. He notes that the tendency to edit the English Wikipedia probably comes from the desire to “influence perception and opinion on topics important to them by creating articles on political figures, important issues, issues of national or regional pride. And it makes sense to contribute to the wikipedia which has a broad audience and, therefore, a maximum chance of being read and influencing opinion.” I would tie this directly to the well-documented “reputation economy” which motivates open source programmers and many Wikipedians. As he points out, until a critical mass is reached in the Bambara Wikipedia, or any other smaller project, it may not be worth the time to edit it, even if you have the time, because your edits are falling trees in an empty forest. How, then, can Wikipedia make it a reputable task to edit smaller languages? Leader-boards or some other public displays of affection for editors? One might think that it comes down to paying for contributions until a critical mass is reached and it is worth people’s time to contribute. But what is that critical mass? And how would one go about stopping payments? The hypocrisy of paying for smaller encyclopedias until they reach a certain size would disillusion many would-be contributors.

Which brings us back to the Arabic Wikipedia. Cultural (Arab opposition to creating technology) and technical (lack of Arabic keyboards) reasons have been proposed to explain the lack of articles, but I don’t buy either. Sure, technicalities may cause incremental difficulty, but plenty of non-Roman languages have flourishing Wikipedias and the idea that Arabic-speakers are for some reason opposed to editing online encyclopedias is not very convincing.

Which makes an attempted solution so promising:

One volunteer, Abdel Rahman Hussein, an engineering student in Alexandria, pointed to the Facebook page he help administrate for the conference (593 members) and showed the events they had staged to spread the word long before the visitors had arrived. He said he had shown more than 1,000 people how to contribute to Wikipedia at his college in May. Bloggers have been enlisted, and some have added a banner in Arabic encouraging people to build up Arabic Wikipedia.

This takes advantage of the social and web-native nature of Wikipedia. By teaching people to edit Wikipedia and showing that it is socially acceptable, Abdel and the blogging community are providing an important impetus for the enabling of a community around the Arabic Wikipedia.

Update: See Ethan’s response to this post, where he considers the popularity of blogging in Egypt compared to Wikipedia.