Centre for Internet and Society

Global Censorship Conference

praskrishna — 2012-03-30T11:34:07Z

The Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression at Yale Law School is holding a conference on global censorship from March 30 to April 1, 2012, at Yale Law School. The programme is sponsored by the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and Thomson Reuters.

"This conference is the first major event for the Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, and it brings together an exciting group of thinkers from law, political science, computer science, business and the non-profit sector to discuss the lessons of the past few years,” explained Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin, director of the Abrams Institute and the Information Society Project. “We think the study of free expression in the digital age should be international and interdisciplinary."[1]

Rishabh Dara, Google Policy Fellow who worked at CIS office in Bangalore on freedom of expression and internet-related policy issues is participating in the event as a speaker in the panel on Case Studies of Censorship. The panel will explore recent instances of censorship in the United States, Egypt, Syria, Brazil, and India and the common themes and important differences that emerged.

This conference will consider how censorship has changed in a networked world, exploring how networks have altered the practices of both governments and their citizens. Panels will include discussions of how governments can and do censor and how speakers can command technical and legal tools to preserve their ability to speak. The conference will conclude with a discussion of new controversies in censorship, including laws designed to prevent online bullying and intellectual property infringement.

Agenda

Friday March 30, 2012

2:00	Begin Registration
3:15 – 4:45	The Means of Change, Familiar and New (co-sponsored by Sponsored by the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights) In the popular story of the political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa, information technology stands out as the new factor that was critical to rapid mass mobilization for demanding change. The media have been credited with making popular demands for change contagious. Enthusiasts for the potential of technology to foster progressive change have labeled these apparently sudden developments a Facebook revolution. Governments responded by seeking to curtail the use of mobile phones and the Internet. What role has technology played in igniting, sustaining and shaping recent political changes in the Arab world? Anupam Chander, Professor of Law, University of California, Davis and Director, California International Law Center Rebecca MacKinnon, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation John Pollock, journalist
5:00– 6:30	Keynote Lecture (co-sponsored by Sponsored by the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights) Irwin Cotler, Canadian Parliament, former Attorney General of Canada
6:30– 9:00	Reception for Panelists of the Global Censorship Conference

Saturday March 31, 2012

9:00 – 10:00	Registration and Breakfast
10:00– 11:30	Panel One: Old and New Forms of Censorship Years ago, activists met in person to plan protests and quietly shared subversive texts. Now, events can be planned over social networking sites, and arguments for change are posted online. How have governments responded to these changes? How have activist practices and governments’ reactions changed the way we conceptualize censorship? Jack Balkin, Yale Law School Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School Navid Hassanpour, Yale Political Science Deptartment Rebecca MacKinnon, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
11:45 – 1:15	Panel Two: Technical Architectures of Censorship There are a number of choke points across the Internet and a number of different censorship mechanisms that can be deployed at various points across the network. Censorship can be executed at the router level, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) level, the Internet Content Provider (ICP) level, or the device level. Additionally, countries can employ a number of different technologies at each level. This panel will explore the many technical options for censorship and the strategic value of different choices. Laura DeNardis, Associate Professor of Communication at American University, and Affiliated Fellow, Information Society Project at Yale Law School Nagla Rizk, American University in Cairo Hal Roberts, Fellow at Berkman Center for Internet & Technology Ashkan Soltani, Independent Researcher and Consultant on Privacy and Security
1:15 – 2:15	Lunch
2:15 – 3:45	Panel Three: Case Studies of Censorship In the wake of censorship both domestically and abroad, many questions emerged about how the censorship was executed, what effects it had, if and how activists were able to route around the it, and how, if it all, it was eventually stopped. This panel will explore recent instances of censorship in the United States, Egypt, Syria, Brazil, and India and the common themes and important differences that emerged. Sherwin Siy, Deputy Legal Director and the Kahle/Austin Promise Fellow at Public Knowledge Lina Attalah, Journalist, Managing Editor of Al-Masry Al-Youm Anas Qtiesh, Blogger, Editor of Global Voices Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza, Vice-Coordinator of the Center for Technology & Society (CTS) at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School Rishabh Dara, Researcher at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
4:00 – 5:30	Panel Four: Technical Methods of Circumventing Censorship New technology may provide governments with new tools to censor, but it also creates opportunities for speakers and “hactivists” everywhere. How can individuals evade identification online and access blocked content? Can activists circumvent attempts to shut down the internet during periods of political unrest? What new methods are being developed to preserve free speech online? Roger Dingledine, The Tor Project Peter Fein, Telecomix Alex Halderman, University of Michigan, Dept. of Computer Science Sascha Meinrath, Open Technology Initiative Director, New America Foundation Wendy Seltzer, Senior Fellow, Information Society Project at Yale Law School
6:00 – 9:00	Dinner for Speakers

Sunday, April 1, 2012

9:00 – 9:30	Breakfast
9:30 – 11:00	Panel Five: Legal Solutions to Censorship Given the way censorship technologies have slowly crept into acceptable use because of concerns like piracy, child pornography, or national security, there is much debate about the role and capacity of law in combatting these new, digital forms of government censorship, domestically and internationally. This panel will discuss if and how legal solutions to censorship can be deployed most effectively. Derek Bambauer, Brooklyn Law School Jim Dempsey, Vice President of Public Policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology Molly Land, New York Law School Linda Lye, ACLU Northern California Jillian York, Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
11:15 – 12:45	Panel Six: New Controversies in Censorship Does new technology change the appropriate scope of free expression rights? Can policing intellectual property infringement burden free speech interests? Does surveillance ever have a censoring effect? This panel will wrestle with whether a variety of government activities constitutes inappropriate censorship or necessary actions to protect the public interest. Rebecca Bolin, Fellow at Information Society Project, Yale Law School Mark MacCarthy, Vice President for Public Policy, Software and Information Industry Association; Adjunct Professor, Communication, Culture and Technology Program, Georgetown University Preston Padden, Senior Fellow at the Silicon Flatirons Center and an Adjunct Professor at the University Of Colorado's Law School and Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program David Post, Temple University, Beasley School of Law Christopher Soghoian, Graduate Fellow, Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, Indiana University
12:45	Bagged Lunch Available

[1].Global Censorship Conference to be Held March 30-April 1 at Yale Law School | Yale Law School, last accessed on March 30, 2012, http://www.law.yale.edu/news/15140.htm

Read the original posted in Yale Law School website

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/global-censorship-conference

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD 2013) - CIS panel

maria — 2021-09-27T08:34:34Z

Interested in understanding the importance of accessibility and how technology can become more accessible by persons with disabilities? Read this post on the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)!

Last week, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) held a panel on the Global Accessibility Awareness Day which entailed a three hour discussion on how technology can become more accessible by persons with disabilities. GAAD is a community-driven effort with an aim to raise the profile of digital accessibility and people with different disabilities. The target audience of the panel was the design, development, usability and related communities who build, shape, fund and influence technology and its use. This event consisted of presentations by Accessibility professionals in the industry, as well as of hands on demonstrations of how people with disabilities can use technology.

Vivek Gaikwad started his presentation by defining the term “accessibility” as easy access and by pointing out that the World Health Organization considers “disability” an umbrella term covering impairment, activity limitation and participation restriction, which would not only entail the deaf and blind, but even pregnant women. Assistive technology was defined as a device, a technology or a process used by individuals with disabilities to perform functions which might otherwise have been impossible. Gaikwad emphasized that accessibility is an extremely significant issue in terms of legal compliance and would also help create new markets by including people with disabilities.

Section 508 of the U.S. Workforce Rehabilitation Act 1973 was pointed out by Gaikwad, as well as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative- which provide an internationally recognized benchmark for accessibility of web content. Gaikwad argued that India should comply with such guidelines and that the best practices to adopt could be the following:

● Provide an appropriate alternative text for all images

● Provide meaningful and hierarchical heading structure

● Provide accessible colours

● Ensure that the application is usable by both the keyboard and the mouse

● Ensure that the focus caret is shown on the active control on the screen

● Ensure that the link purpose is clear

● Specify language of the page

● Understand ECAG 2.0/Section 508 thoroughly

● Educate teams/peers

● Create your own best practices and share them

● Learn how to use a screen reader/other testing tools

● Think in different ways to satisfy a guideline

Lavanya Lakshman started her presentation by introducing the the different types of disabilities and by emphasizing the significance of accessibility. In particular, Lakshman argued that accessibility is important not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because it is the law, it offers benefits for all users, it enhances innovative technology and it creates new market opportunities. Lakshman referred to the various assistive technologies used by persons with disabilities, such as screen readers, to use the computer. It was emphasized that SME testing is important because experts understand how the underlying technologies interact and that end-user testing is also crucial because they are the real experts in their own abilities and their own assistive technology. Accessibility can be tested through automated tools and manual testing and SME testing can be conducted through screening, tool based inspection and evaluation, and code inspection. Laksham highly emphasized that most assistive technologies for people with motor disabilities either work through the keyboard or emulate the functionality of the keyboard, which is why assistive technologies - such as an over sized trackball, an eye-tracker and a head-wand, were recommended.

Srividya Vaidyanathan argued that audio visual media accessibility is needed by everyone and that it should not only be restricted to persons with disabilities. Intelligence picture and sound, accessible players and access services are needed and as there is not much of TV and radio accessibility in India, this field should be further developed. Vaidyanathan also referred to the various types of access services, such as captions (closed and open), sign language and audio description.

Anusuya Das focused her presentation on the print disabled, which are persons who cannot read standard print because of visual impairment, cognitive disabilities (such as dyslexia, autism, ADHD and others), or physical disabilities that limit one´s ability to hold a book. In particular, she argued that braille books include print alternatives and that time and format are critical factors while creating accessible materials. Structure, navigation and simplicity are central concepts of accessible content and it should comply with the Digitial Accessibility Information System (DAISY) standards, which are international standards for accessible content. Das referred to the various advanced accessibility features, such as bookmarking, and emphasized that combined text and audio can increase learning effectiveness by nearly 50%. E-Pub is the mainstream standard, but the United Nations have recommended the DAISY standards. My Studio PC, Obi, Microsoft save as DAISY, Sigtuna DAR 3, Tobi and Dolphin Producer include authoring and production tools.

Das also referred to the various types of DAISY books which may include a full audio and navigation centre, text and no audio or text with audio. Das emphasized upon the need to create accessible word documents, as well as to give alternate text for images and to edit hyperlinks. Principles for regional languages were mentioned, along with the need to convert texts to other formats, such as converting word to HTML. Das also argued that accessible powerpoint files should be created, which would ensure that files have correctly-structured headings among other features. PlexTalk Portable Recorder includes a hardware option for people with disabilities, while Symbian Nokia phones include mobile phone options and other software options are included in the DAISY Book Players.

Rama Chari, the final panelist, referred to the various types of disabilities, as well as to the built needs of people with disabilities. She emphasized that easy navigation in a website is extremely important and that the architecture should be simplified. It was further argued that India should comply with the international standards for information accessibility and that some of the best practices need to be adopted to create new standards. However, such practices vary from state to state in India (e.g. the fire safety standards) which is problematic. Nonetheless, Chari mentioned an organization in Delhi called “Accessibility”, which has very useful guidelines; these include standards for ramps, staircases and washrooms, and it is significant to evaluate the challenges that people with different disabilities face in order to improve such standards.

A discussion on the various tools to increase accessibility followed the presentations of the five panelists, as well as a hands on demonstration by Vivek Gaikwad of how to use more accessible mobile phones. The outcome of the GAAD panel was that in the current Digital Age, persons with disabilities should not be marginalised, but should be included in the social, political and economic structures of the contemporary digitised world. The tools discussed throughout the panel could potentially provide a decisive step in ensuring that persons with disabilities have equal access to technology. As technology today is the gateway to the contemporary world, accessibility is a fundamental human right and persons with disabilities should not be excluded. Through the thorough examination of the various needs of persons with disabilities and the subsequent enactment of adequate laws, standards and guidelines, India should enhance accessibility to technology if it wants to be the democracy it claims to be.

Presentation File

Srividya's Presentation

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/global-accessibility-awareness-day-event

GLAM in India: 10 tips for successful GLAM projects

subha — 2014-05-27T09:13:42Z

GLAM initiatives work as a gateway to unleash knowledge, decode archived documentation to build modern wonders and also educate people about their past cultural and scientific journey.

This was published in OpenGLAM on May 22, 2014.

In 2012, India celebrated its first GLAM project on Hindi Wikipedia at the National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum, New Delhi. This museum houses a vast majority of Indian crafts - Pattachitra from Odisha, Bidri from Karnataka, colorful and intricate Banarasi sari from northern India and Saura art from indigenous tribes of Eastern India to name a few. It is also a workshop and home to many artisans and folk artists who live, paint, carve, sell, sing, perform and make a living being based in the museum as resident artisans.


A weaver weaving a shawl using handloom (Anil Bhardwaj / CC-BY-SA 3.0)

For this project, Wikimedia India and the India Program were roped in to plan, design and have the Wikimedia community train staffers on how to document Indian crafts, from royal lineage to folk. This resulted in the creation of many Indian craft-related articles in the Hindi Wikipedia and English Wikipedia as well as images on Wikimedia Commons.

Based upon my first hand experience of working closely with the staffers and the Wikimedia community during this project, I would like to share a few tips that might help you while planning and implementing a GLAM project:

1. Show what is it in for them

Large, public entities like museums, archives and libraries can be hesitant to open their doors for free public access. While discussing the potential of a GLAM project, it is wise to explain how the project will bring popularity, highlight the work that institutes are doing and will in turn benefit the government in preserving the state’s culture. Give examples of other such GLAM institutions which have gained public attention by adopting open strategies or by holding public events.

2. Show the institutions the big picture

Institutions often see their success in terms of number of visitors, number of media mentions or the number of sales (if they have some publications or a sales desk selling handicrafts or postcards for example). Tell them how an online presence could bring them local, national as well as international visitors, especially when they have an online presence in popular sites like Wikipedia or Wikitravel.

3. Push beyond your limits

Institutions operate in their own ways and often you might feel like you get stuck. Working with new staffers in a new institution is a big challenge and the pace of work cannot be smooth. What really matters is how much you impart your knowledge among the staffers and educate them about things that will be beneficial for the institution for continuing more GLAM projects in the future.

4. Track work-in-progress

It is always crucial to have smart trackers. These could be as simple as a spreadsheet (Excel, Google, …) or a wiki table for a team’s online tracking. You can of course always design your own. A database containing participant details with different colours for indicating progress in a project is a great way for assigning work, knowing strengths and learning about areas for improvement. Evaluating work internally by making use of smart charts and keeping deadlines is a must when there is a set of activities to be done.

5. Start with claps, swags in the middle, award at the end

Mobilizing volunteer contributors, especially government staffers, is always challenging. Outreach coordinators play a key role in keeping a group motivated enough to work collaboratively for a GLAM project. Participating staff members need to be given special attention during In real life meetups and gatherings, as well as specific guidance during training sessions. Fun games and activities that engage people help breaking communication barriers and build friendship. Swags also excite people to join. When a project starts rolling, keep different levels of excitement by giving different kinds of customized swags like caps, pens, stickers and buttons etc. Printed handouts that work like cheat-sheets are also useful. Creating levels to achieve and awarding the best achievers is another way of keeping people excited. Recognition drives!


Staff being trained by GLAM coordinators (Anil Bhardwaj / CC-BY-SA 3.0)

6. Bring media attention towards the middle of the project

When a significant amount of work is done, break it to the media. Regional and national media coverage and few blog posts covering a project gives a lot of visibility to the institution and the people involved. This is in fact the best way to get internal administration level support for implementing a project. Interview some of the achievers, put them up on the project page and blogs and show those posts to them. Many people love to see audio-visual and printed news, and showing the participants their video interviews and published blogs is another way of letting them know about their great contribution.

7. Fail fast, think long term

If a GLAM project does not result in substantial success or sustains for long, it is essential to realize the fact that it is not an easy task to make changes to the system that is set over centuries. It takes time to mobilize and be brave to admit the failure. But it is also never really a failure when there is plenty of learning which others could benefit from before starting similar projects. Starting a new GLAM project is always an investment for the future. Milestones and even scars caused during the course of mobilizing an institution to open up its treasures for the public count and they, over time become parameters others consider.

8. Exit with a few leaders and chuck out way forwards

While working with a group of people, seek out for people who could lead a group and do specific work. This will not just reduce your workload, but will help to have a more decentralized focused work.

9. Document the flow

It is really really essential to document the work in a human manner. If resources permit, bring a professional to take candid shots, shoot a few interviews and B-rolls. You can also be frugal or hire a professional from the open source community for free and do the same. Documentation of learning, challenges and tips for others are essential things that you, as a good samaritan-community member could bring other GLAMers.

10. Empathy is the key

Over and above, empathy is the only key while dealing with real people in a real space. Connect to every person in a group, put yourself in their shoes and try being one of them: nothing works better in implementing a huge project. Knowledge transfer is a subset of the process of building a cordial relationship. Not all GLAM institutions have a system in place to educate their staff about technical aspects of archiving or renovating or developing skill-sets in general. Your presence should leverage the learning and knowledge that you would acquire from multiple levels.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-glam-may-22-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-glam-in-india-10-tips-for-successful-glam-projects

GIGW 2017

Admin — 2017-11-26T06:58:08Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/files/gigw-2017

GI-tagged products to get Wiki pages

praskrishna — 2016-01-27T16:33:47Z

Ever realised that the famous, red hot Naga Mirchi (a special variety of chilli from Nagaland) doesn’t have a Wikipedia page?

The article by S. Anandan was published in the Hindu on January 26, 2016.

And that Cannanore Home Furnishings — textile home furnishings from Kannur — is a brand with geographical indication (GI) registration? Wiki, which is an open and free repository of knowledge on the Internet, does not have pages, in English and other recognised Indian languages, on most GI-tagged Indian products.

The Centre for Internet and Society-Access to Knowledge — popular as CIS-A2K— which is a not-for-profit movement to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development, launched an India Edit-a-thon for seven days from January 25 to generate Wikimedia pages in English and Indian languages on Indian products recognised by the GI Registry of India.

“Kerala alone boasts 23 products, mostly agricultural, with the GI tag. But Malayalam Wiki doesn’t have information on all of them. Besides the Aranmula Kannadi, none of the other GI-tagged products from Kerala have Wiki pages in English. Nationally, there are about 213 GI-tagged products and we know nothing of most of them. There isn’t a single article on many of them even in English. It’s in this context that the Edit-a-thon becomes extremely relevant. It’s being held to celebrate the Republic Day,” says Wiki activist Manoj Karingamadathil.

13 pages already

The campaign, launched on Monday, has evoked enthusiastic response from Wiki activists who have begun to create pages on most of these products. At the time of going to press, 13 GI-tagged Kerala products have got Wiki pages and editors are at work to generate content for these products in English.

Apart from existing Wiki editors, freshers may also be part of the campaign. “All they have to do is to create a Wiki account before sending in researched content,” points out Mr. Manoj. The campaign will be on till January 31.

Seven-day India Edit-a-thon begins; Wiki activists begin creating pages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hindu-s-anandan-january-26-2016-gi-tagged-products-to-get-wiki-pages

GGF 2027 - Session 3, New Delhi - Agenda

sumandro — 2017-01-15T11:43:05Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/ggf-2027-session-3-new-delhi-agenda

GFM 2013

praskrishna — 2013-10-06T07:58:06Z

Nishant Shah participated in a panel discussion with Wendy Chun, Tom Levine and Geert Lovink , around 'The End of Bibliographies: New Media and Research'. Nishant also participated as a panelist in a panel discussion on 'Open Up: Pragmatism and Politics of Open Access'. The programme was held at the University of Luneberg in Germany from October 3 to 5, 2013.

Read the original posted on GFM Blogspot

Donnerstag, 03. Oktober 2013, ab 10:00 Uhr - Registrierung im Hörsaalgang

Begrüßung | Donnerstag, 03. Oktober 2013, 12:00 Uhr–13:30 Uhr in C HS1
Grußworte und Eröffnungsvortrag von Hans Jörg Rheinberger (Berlin) Wissenschaftsgeschichte und das Wissen der Medien

Mittagessen | Donnerstag, 03. Oktober 2013, 13:30 Uhr–14:30 Uhr in der Mensa

Session 1 | Donnerstag, 03. Oktober 2013, 14:30 Uhr–16:30 Uhr
Panel 1.1 | Maß und Medium – Medien der Messung in C HS3
Elektrisierte Zeit. Mediale Strategien in Helmholtz’ Messung der Nervenleitgeschwindigkeit von Henning Schmidgen (Regensburg)

Nachhall: Schallmessung im elektroakustischen Zeitalter von Roland Wittje (Regensburg)

Measuring with moving images in Albert Michotte’s perception experiments von Sigrid Leyssen (Paris | Regensburg)

Understanding Television: TV – als Meßgerätegeschichte von Bernhard Dotzler (Regensburg)

Moderation: Markus Krajewski (Lüneburg | Weimar)

Panel 1.2 | Medienanthropologische Szenarien. Wie situieren sich die Medien der Psychophysik und Psychologie? in C HS4

Intensität und Infinitesimales. Grenzen der Messbarkeit bei Hermann Cohen und Gilles Deleuze von Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky (Bochum)

Empfindung, Wahrnehmbarkeit, Medialität. Historische Psychologie und ihre Medien von Anna Tuschling (Bochum)

Was Zahlen in der sozialpsychologischen Medienwirkungsforschung erzählen. Das Problem der »Gewaltmedien«
von Estrid Sørensen (Bochum)

Moderation: Christoph Engemann (Lüneburg)

Panel 1.3 | Mediale Bedingungen von Behinderung in C HS5

Die (Re-)Sozialisierung technischer Objekte in Patientennetzwerken. Ein Fallbeispiel zur Herstellung des Cochlea-Implantats von Markus Spöhrer (Konstanz)

Netzhautimplantate und Eyeborgs. Visualisierungstechniken zwischen Prothese und Human Enhancement von Robert Stock (Konstanz)

Zur Produktion von Behinderung im Fotoarchiv von Anna Grebe (Konstanz)

Zur Um/Bildung von Gemeinschaften. Das Cochlea-Implantat und die »Sourds en colère« von Beate Ochsner (Konstanz)

Moderation: Anne Ganzert (Konstanz)

Panel 1.4 | (Film-)Wissen als Modus der Kinoerfahrung in C 14.027

Transnationale Filmgeschichte(n) schreiben von Wolfgang Fuhrmann (Zürich)

Filmwissenschaft und ihre Quellen. Historisches Wissen und digitale Repräsentationsformen von Film und Kino von Franziska Heller (Zürich)

Filmwissen/Erfahrungswissen/Kinoerfahrung. Anmerkungen zum Verhältnis von Kinoerfahrung und Wissenserwerb von Florian Mundhenke (Leipzig)

Moderation: Florian Mundhenke (Leipzig)

Panel 1.5 | Was vom Leben bleibt in C 14.001

Vom täglichen Kampf gegen das ›Gestaltsehen‹ und der Hartnäckigkeit von Bildtraditionen. Biologisches Wissen auf der Schwelle eines Medienwandels von Nina Samuel (New York | Berlin)

Über zwei Arten des Gebrauchs von Datenbanken in der Molekularbiologie von Robert Meunier (Berlin)

Moderation: Janina Wellmann (Lüneburg)

Workshop 1.6 | Fakturen in C 14.006

In der Ausstellung »Fakturen – Medien der Wissenschaften«, die anlässlich der GfM–Tagung an der Leuphana stattfindet, reflektieren Künstler_innen wie Martin John Callanan (UK), Driessens & Verstappen (NL), Sabrina Raaf (US), Jan Peter E.R. Sonntag (D) und Herwig Turk (A|PT) über die Ästhetik wissenschaftlicher Instrumentarien, Modelle und Methoden.

In diesem Workshop stellen die Künstler_innen ihre Projekte vor und diskutieren mit den Teilnehmer_innen die spezifischen Erkenntnismöglichkeiten künstlerischer Forschung und Darstellung.

Organisiert vom Leuphana Arts Program (Andreas Broeckmann, Alexandra Waligorski) mit freundlicher Unterstützung des Kunstraum der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg.

AG-Treffen 1.7 | Comicforschung in C 12.001

AG-Treffen 1.8 | Auditive Kultur und Sound Studies in C 12.006

Kaffeepause | Donnerstag, 03. Oktober 2013, 16:30 Uhr–17:00 Uhr im Hörsaalgang

Session 2 | Donnerstag, 03. Oktober 2013, 17:00 Uhr–19:00 Uhr
Panel 2.1 | Medien der Philologie – Philologie der Medien in C HS3

Was ist eine medienphilologische Frage? von Rupert Gaderer (Bochum)

Ist Medienphilologie reaktionär? von Friedrich Balke (Bochum)

Medienphilologie als Verfahren von Natalie Binczek (Bochum)

Braucht die Medienwissenschaft Philologie? von Harun Maye (Weimar)

Moderation: Daniel Eschkötter (Weimar)

Panel 2.2 | Kosmotechnologie in C HS4

Freischwebende Sterne im Stereokomparator von Kohei Suzuki (Berlin)

Nomos, Physis, Techné. Zum Konzept der Kosmotechnologie bei Walter Benjamin von Hans-Christian von Herrmann (Berlin)

Vektorkosmologie. Buckminster Fullers Ausdehnungslehre von Christina Vagt (Berlin)

Das Projektionsplanetarium als Medium kosmologischer Weltbilder von Julian Furrer (Berlin)

Moderation: Isabell Schrickel (Lüneburg)

Panel 2.3 | Akustische Medien als Werkzeuge wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis in C HS5

Stimmgabeln. Vom Lernen über das Hören und der Verwissenschaftlichung des Gehörs am Beispiel der Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane (1890–1915) von Heiner Stahl (Erfurt)

Geschulte Ohren und akustische Repräsentation. Zur Geschichte der auditiven Kultur der Naturwissenschaften von Axel Volmar (Siegen)

Tiere, Töne: Tatsachen? Zur Rolle von Medientechnologien in bioakustischer Feldforschung von Judith Willkomm (Siegen)

Insect Noise in Stored Foodstuff. Zur Interferenz von Wissenschaft und Kunst im Feld der Radiophonie von Ania Mauruschat (Basel)

Moderation: Ute Holl (Basel)

Panel 2.4 | Wissenschaft und Audiovision. Vom Denken in und mit bewegten Bildern in C 14.027

Filmmaterial, Fühlbarkeit und Diskurs von Naomi Rolef (Berlin)

What you see is what you get. Zur Rhetorik wissenschaftlicher Vorträge von Christina Schmitt (Berlin) | Sarah Greifenstein (Berlin)

Animierte Filmwissenschaft. Multimediale Publikation und analytische Zugänge zur Ästhetik audiovisueller Medien
von Jan-Hendrik Bakels (Berlin) | Cilli Poggoda (Berlin)

Das Gehirn als Kosmos. Neurowissenschaftliche Bilder und ihre Präsentation in populärwissenschaftlichen audiovisuellen Formaten von Regina Brückner (Berlin) | Sarah Greifenstein (Berlin)

Moderation: Andreas Kirchner (Lüneburg)

Panel 2.5 | Experimentelle Anordnungen zur Erforschung des Medialen in C 14.001

Stil, Experiment und Medium – die epistemische Dimension des Stilbegriffs in Wissenschaft und Kunst von Veronika Pöhnl (Konstanz)

Experimental Television: Versuchsanordnungen der Fernsehkunst von Samantha Schramm (Konstanz)

Die Erkundung des »videospace« in der Arbeit des National Center for Experiments in Television (1967–1975)
von Barbara Filser (Karlsruhe)

Wenn das Wohnzimmer zum Labor wird von Matthias Wieser (Klagenfurt)

Moderation: Isabell Otto (Konstanz)

Panel 2.6 | Medien im Maßstab. Wie sich Feld- und Laborforschung als situierte Medienpraxis untersuchen lassen in C 14.006

Sammeln, Ordnen, Vergleichen. Über die Domestizierung fremder Dinge von Anna Brus (Siegen)

Andere Medien? Anderes Wissen? Anderes Streiten? Weblogs als Formen der internen Wissenschaftskommunikation von Matthias Meiler (Siegen)

Wissenschaftsmedien in »freier Wildbahn«. Computersimulationen und gesellschaftliches Zukunftswissen in Wirtschaft und Politik von Cornelius Schubert (Siegen)

Fliegen, Fotografieren und Wettermachen. Zur Relevanz fotografischer Praktiken im Cloud Seeding von Nadine Taha (Siegen)

Moderation: Gabriele Schabacher (Siegen)

AG-Treffen 2.7 | Medienkultur und Bildung in C 12.001 AG-Treffen 2.8 | Medienwissenschaft und politische Theorie in C 12.006

Abendessen | Donnerstag, 03. Oktober 2013, 19:00 Uhr–20:30 Uhr in der Mensa

Podiumsdiskussion | Donnerstag, 03. Oktober 2013, 20:30 Uhr–21:30 Uhr
Am Ende der Bibliographien. Vom neuen (medialen) Selbstverständnis wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens in C HS 1
mit: Wendy Chun (Providence | Lüneburg), Ute Holl (Basel), Thomas Y. Levin (Princeton | Lüneburg), Geert Lovink (Amsterdam | Lüneburg), Nishant Shah (Bangalore | Lüneburg), Frank Schirrmacher (Frankfurt)

Moderation: Wolfgang Hagen (Lüneburg)

Session 3 | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 9:30 Uhr–11:30 Uhr
Panel 3.1 | Dokumentarischer Film zwischen wissenschaftlicher Forschung und populärer Wissensvermittlung in C HS 3

Die Welt mit dem Röntgenblick sehen von Kay Hoffmann (Stuttgart)

Körperpolitik zwischen den Trümmern: Gesundheitsfilme aus der Besatzungszeit 1946 bis 1949 von Ursula von Keitz (Konstanz)

Die Encyclopaedia Cinematographica – ein analoger Computer von Eva Knopf (Berlin)

Dokumentarische Langzeitstudien als Gegenstand und Verfahren sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschung von Britta Hartmann (Bonn)

Moderation: Thomas Weber (Hamburg)

Panel 3.2 | Informationsumwelten in C HS 4
Record and Erase: Magnettonbandtechnik und die Historiographie des Kalten Kriegs von Monika Dommann (Zürich)

What you see is what you get? Grafische Benutzeroberflächen als infrastrukturelle Bildsysteme von Margarete Pratschke (Zürich)

Die Grenzen der Cyborgmetaphorik. Zur Rolle des fliegerischen Gefühls im Zeitalter der Flugautomation von Christian Kehrt (Hamburg)

Psychologie und Schalttafel. Oder, Informationszeitalter »from below« von Max Stadler (Zürich)

Moderation: Cornelius Borck (Lübeck)

Panel 3.3 | Aperture Sciences. Spielen im Labor des Spielens in C HS 5

»The Cake is a Lie«. Das Portal-Labor als Verhaltensexperiment von Rolf F. Nohr (Braunschweig)

Von sprechenden Kartoffeln und anderen (epistemischen) Dingen. Portal als Experimentalensemble von Markus Rautzenberg (Berlin)

Laborgeschichten von Benjamin Beil (Köln)

»Know your paradoxes!« Das Computerspiel als multistabiles Bild von Thomas Hensel (Siegen)

Moderation: Panelteilnehmer

Panel 3.4 | Szenariotechniken des Anthropozäns. Daten, Kosmogramme, Simulationen in C 14.027
Analoge Signale. Das Anthropozän im geohistorischen Rauschen von Christoph Rosol (Berlin)

Welt – Bild – Technik. Zum Begriff des Visineerings von Isabell Schrickel (Berlin)

Burning Planets – Kosmogramm des Anthropozäns? Eine Medienkritik der Klimavisualisierung von Birgit Schneider (Potsdam)

Vernetzte Daten – Webbasierte Datenbanken in der Klimafolgenforschung von Christine Hanke (Potsdam)

Moderation: Sebastian Vehlken (Lüneburg)

Panel 3.5 | Vor Augen führen in C 14.001

Von Bildern, die »freylich noch vollkommener seyn könnten«. Vetreter der frühen Hirnforschung als Bildkritiker von Wibke Larink (Hamburg)

Orpheus im Atlas oder: Das epistemische Bild bei Aby Warburg von Eva Frey (Lüneburg)

Aufzeichnen. Transformieren. Verzeichnen. Medien der Geschichtsschreibung ephemerer Kunstformen (Performance und Aufführungen) von Barbara Büscher (Leipzig | Köln)

Medien der Medienwissenschaft. Zwischen Gebrauchs- und Diskursgeschichte von Martina Leeker (Lüneburg)

Moderation: Wolfgang Hagen (Lüneburg)

Workshop 3.6 | Das Wissen der Instrumente in C 14.006

Der Workshop »Das Wissen der Instrumente« präsentiert konkrete (medien-)instrumentale Settings als Materialisierungen ästhetischen Wissens. Dabei wird sensorische Medienarbeit mit akademischen Diskursen kurzgeschlossen. Dafür werden die Settings nicht nur in theoretischen Statements vorgestellt, sondern auch von den Teilnehmenden praktisch erprobt.

Organisiert vom Schwerpunktbereich audio^[+] Ästhetische Strategien des Instituts für Kultur und Ästhetik Digitaler Medien, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg (Rolf Großmann, Sarah-Indriyati Hardjowirogo, Andreas Otto, Malte Pelleter) und der Forschungsstelle Musik und Medientechnologie der Universität Osnabrück (Arne Bense).

AG-Treffen 3.7 | Medien und Kunst / Kunst und Medien in C 12.001

AG-Treffen 3.8 | Daten und Netzwerke in C 12.006

Kaffeepause | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 11:30 Uhr–12:00 Uhr im Hörsaalgang

Session 4 | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 12:00 Uhr–13:30 Uhr
Panel 4.1 | Wissensmedium Patent – Kulturtechnik Patentieren in C HS 3

Patentstörungen. Sollbruchstörungen im Medium des Patents von Christian Kassung (Berlin)

Be it known that I ... - Digitalisierte historische Patente als Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Forschung von Marius Hug (Berlin)

Was erzählt ein Patent? Casellis bildtelegraphische Patente als Medien der Wissenschaften von Julia Zons (Konstanz)

Moderation: Thomas Brandstetter (Basel)

Panel 4.2 | Verhalten bilden in C HS 4

Wahnsinnige Bilder. Zu einer medialen Wissensgeschichte des Irrationalen um 1900 von Veronika Rall (Zürich)

Familien-stellen. Zur Medialität der systemischen Therapie von Katja Rothe (Berlin)

Fotografie, vergleichende Verhaltensforschung und Evolutionslehre am Moskauer Darwin Museum von Margarete Vöhringer (Berlin)

Moderation: Christoph Windgaetter (Berlin)

Panel 4.3 | Programme verstehen - Verstehen programmieren in C HS 5

Source Code als Quelle. Arbeiten mit Friedrich Kittlers Programmierwerk von Paul Feigelfeld (Berlin) | Peter Berz (Berlin)

»Digital Humanities« und das neue Wissen der Bilder. Über Praxis, Theorie und Geschichte der apparativen Bildsortierung von Matthias Wannhoff (Berlin)

Intermedialitätsbegriff und Sinnverstehen im Kontext alternativer Arbeitstechnik von Miklas Schulz (Lüneburg)

Moderation: Martin Warnke (Lüneburg)

Panel 4.4 | Diagramme als Medien des Wissens in C 14.027

Information als Konfiguration. Zum Verhältnis von Gestalt und Gehalt in Diagrammen von Matthias Bauer (Flensburg)

Diagramme als Generatoren wissenschaftlicher Autorität von Christoph Ernst (Erlangen | Nürnberg)

Konfiguration, Leib und Geometrie. Merleau-Pontys Philosophie der Mathematik von Jan Wöbking (Berlin)

Moderation: Gottfried Schnödl (Lüneburg)

Panel 4.5 | HIV|AIDS als visuelles Wissen in C 14.001

Der AIDS-Atlas. AIDS als klinisches Krankheitsbild von Lukas Engelmann (Berlin)

Toxische Körper. Medien der Ansteckung und Affektpolitiken zur Zeit der frühen AIDS-Krise von Katrin Köppert (Berlin)

»Art about AIDS«. Über die Konstruktion von Wissen über Menschen mit AIDS von Sophie Junge (Zürich)

Moderation: Brigitte Weingart (Bonn)

Panel 4.6 | Wissenschaft in Serie. Fernsehen als Versuchsanordnung in C 14.006

Serielle Epidemiologie von Daniela Wentz (Weimar)

Situationen, Labor, Experiment. Die Sitcom als Medium der Wissenschaft des Menschen von Herbert Schwaab (Regensburg)

Die Physik der Serie. Modell und Motiv der Tafel in »The Big Bang Theory« von Dominik Maeder (Siegen)

Moderation: Thomas Waitz (Wien)

AG-Treffen 4.7 | Genre Studies in C 12.001

AG-Treffen 4.8 | Games in C 12.006

Mittagessen | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 13:30 Uhr–14:30 Uhr in der Mensa

Session 5 | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 14:30 Uhr–16:30 Uhr
Panel 5.1 | Medien(Affekt)Wissen in C HS 3

»Von uns schweigen wir...«. Narrative Affektmodulationen in Philosophie und Wissenschaft von Bernd Bösel (Köln)

Affektenlehre, Sonic Warfare und die Medienschriften der auditiven Affizierung von Rolf Großmann (Lüneburg)

Verdrahtete und durchleuchtete Gehirne. Zur Verwendung von Videospielen in neurologischer und psychologischer Forschung von Serjoscha Wiemer (Paderborn)

Affektmedialisierung im diskursiven und sozialen Bereich von Michaela Ott (Hamburg)

Moderation: Marie-Luise Angerer (Köln)

Panel 5.2 | Geteilte Bilder. Fotografieforschung im Internet in C HS 4

Digitale Bildbestände als Grundlage neuer Visualisierungskulturen von Winfried Gerling (Potsdam)

Die Wiederkehr des Analogen. Rezeptionsweisen von Fundfotografien von Susanne Holschbach (Berlin)

Collective Collections. Wissensordnung digitaler Bildersammlungen von Petra Löffler (Berlin)

Neue Bilder, alte Orte. Räume der Bildberichterstattung von Kathrin Peters (Oldenburg)

Moderation: Katja Müller-Helle (Berlin)

Panel 5.3 | Das Wissen der Oberfläche in C HS 5
Oberflächenmoderne von Stefan Rieger (Bochum)

Das Display. Am Beispiel akustischer Texte von Natalie Binczek (Bochum)

Oberflächen und Ränder des Urbanen. Photodokumentarische Forschungen um 1970 von Christoph Eggersglüß (Weimar)

Vom Grund zur Oberfläche. Messung, Behandlung und Beschreibung von Oberflächen in volkssprachlichen Fachtexten der Frühen Neuzeit von Christina Lechtermann (Bochum)

Moderation: Claus Pias (Lüneburg)

Panel 5.4 | Passt schon! in C 14.027

»Pi mal Daumen«. Medien der Ingenieurswissenschaft zwischen »Applied Sciences« und »reiner« Wissenschaft von Florian Hoof (Frankfurt)

Siegesversuchskörper. Planen, Prüfen, Erinnern von Ingo Landwehr (Berlin)

Bilder von antizipierten Ruinen als Orte der Identitätsformation von Sibylle Machat (Flensburg)

Messen ohne Skalen. Warum der Geigerzähler kein Messgerät ist von Marc-Robin Wendt (Berlin)

Moderation: Peter Berz (Berlin)

Panel 5.5 | Weltfrieden. Medien und Methoden möglicher Zukünfte in C 14.001

Nash Equilibrium von Ana Teixera Pinto (Berlin)

Der globale Körper. Heinz von Foerster und Noa Eshkol am Biological Computer Laboratory von Eva Wilson (Berlin)

Unzeitgenössische Welt von Ana Ofak (Berlin)

Moderation: Isabell Schrickel (Lüneburg)

Panel 5.6 | Mediamorphosen der Wissenschaft. Zwischen Unsinn und Eigensinn in C 14.006

»Wenn Sie mir dies einmal beschreiben würden…«. »Medien der Wissenschaften« in audiovisuellen Essays von Alexander Kluge von Florian Wobser (Rostock)

Philosophie diesseits der Wende zur Bildlichkeit. Der Buch-Bausatz Kant für die Hand als mediale Herausforderung
von Hanno Depner (Rostock)

Paranoische Decodierung. Zur Intermedialität einer Pseudowissenschaft von John Seidler (Rostock)

Die Quantifizierung von Reputation in den Sozialwissenschaften. Zitationsindizes und Zeitschriftenrankings – reflexive oder vorreflexive Beziehung zur eigenen Medialität? von Dennis Wutzke (Rostock)

Moderation: Elizabeth Prommer (Rostock)

AG-Treffen 5.7 | Filmwissenschaft in C 12.001

AG-Treffen 5.8 | Medienphilosophie in C 12.006

Kaffeepause | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 16:30 Uhr–17:00 Uhr im Hörsaalgang

Session 6 | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 17:00 Uhr–19:00 Uhr
Panel 6.1 | Medien der Universität in C HS 3

Die Medialität wissenschaftlicher Zeitschriften von Martina Franzen (Bielefeld)

Medienreflektionen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert: »Massenmedien im gelehrten Diskurs« von Kai Lohsträter (Hamburg)

Entwürfe der Grenzüberschreitung. Interdisziplinarität und die mediale Konstitution von Epistemologien (1960 – 1980) von Susanne Schregel (Weimar)

Das technische und das ökonomische Regime der Universität. Effekte der Ökonomisierung und des Internets auf Wissen und Lehre von Stefan Heidenreich (Lüneburg)

Moderation: Claus Pias (Lüneburg)

Panel 6.2 | Mit/in/durch Medien? Praktiken der Medientheorie in C HS 4

Trennen und Verbinden von Peter Bexte (Köln)

Revidieren von Manuela Klaut (Weimar)

Reflektieren von Katerina Krtilova (Weimar)

Re-make von Katharina Wloszczynska (Weimar)

Moderation: Lorenz Engell (Weimar)

Workshop 6.3 | Open Up! The Politics and Pragmatics of Open Access in C HS 5
Our academic landscape adapted fast to the disruption of Open Access: commercial publishers have started several successful Open Access platforms, and Open Access is by now the EU's official funding guideline. But there remain open questions. What modes of openness are called for in knowledge production and dissemination? Does the take-up of Open Access fully satisfy the drive towards openness stirred up by digital media? How is Open Access challenging academic research practices or even our understanding of knowledge? What are the limits to openness? The Hybrid Publishing Lab and its international guests will present their research.

The workshop is also open to short example-oriented presentations of participants who want to engage in the discussion. Please email us beforehand at hybridpublishing@inkubator.leuphana.de

Organisiert vom Hybrid Publishing Lab der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg mit Janneke Adema (Coventry University) und Nishant Shah (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore).

Panel 6.4 | Wissenschaftsdiskursivierung im Medium Comic in C 14.027
Comic als Medium der Wissenschaft von Jens Meinrenken (Berlin)

Selbstreflexive Wissensvermittlungen im Comic. Wenn Comics Comics erklären von Simon Klingler (Hamburg) | Andreas Veits (Hamburg)

Die Szenographie der Alltagsnavigation: Manga-Grafiken zur Darstellung von Wirkungszusammenhängen im öffentlichen Raum von Lukas Wilde (Tübingen)

Ikonizität und Zeugenschaft. Dokumentarische Comics über den israelisch-palästinensischen Konflikt von Roman Mauer (Mainz)

Moderation: Véronique Sina (Bochum)

Panel 6.5 | Modelle als Medien in C 14.001

Fragile Netzwerke, zerbrechliche Schönheiten. Die Harvard Glass Flowers als Medien zwischen Wissenschaft und Kunst von Florian Huber (Wien)

Von Modell zu Modell von Jan Müggenburg (Lüneburg)

Modell-Licht-Bild. Medien im Mathematikunterricht 1910 bis 1920 von Anja Sattelmacher (Berlin)

Drogulus. Ein mechanisches Modell maschinischen Lebens um 1960 von Thomas Brandstetter (Basel)

Moderation: Stefan Rieger (Bochum)

Panel 6.6 | Wissenschaftskulturen der Bio- und Öko-Medialität in C 14.006
Conways »Game of Life« zwischen Unterhaltungsspiel und epistemischem Werkzeug von Serjoscha Wiemer (Paderborn)

»What I cannot create, I do not understand«. Synthetische Biologie, Biopolitik, Biomedialität von Martin Müller (Paderborn)

Für eine kleine Ökologie von Maren Schwieger (Bochum)

Leben im Kreis. Uexkülls Medien von Christoph Neubert (Paderborn)

Moderation: Marie-Luise Angerer (Köln)

AG-Treffen 6.7 | Treffen in C 12.001

17:00 Uhr–18:00 Uhr: AG »Medienindustrien«
18:00 Uhr–19:00 Uhr: AG »Fotografieforschung«

AG-Treffen 6.8 | Gender Studies und Medienwissenschaft in C 12.006

Abendessen | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 19:00 Uhr–20:30 Uhr

Buffet mit Weinempfang im Hörsaalgang

Keynote | Freitag, 04. Oktober 2013, 20:30 Uhr–21:30 Uhr in C HS 1

Feierliche Eröffnung des Digital Cultures Research Lab der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg

Festvortrag von Bernard Stiegler (London)

Digital studies as an organology of mind
anschließend Party im Salon Hansen

Session 7 | Samstag, 05. Oktober 2013, 9:30 Uhr–11:30 Uhr

Panel 7.1 | KonferenzWissen in C HS 3

Do’s and Don’ts and How to Break Them: Conferences and the Mediated Performance of Knowledge von Kristoffer Gansing (Berlin)

Das Wissen der Versammlung. Vorschlag zur Einrichtung eines experimentellen Lecture Theatre von Sybille Peters (Gießen)

Stammbücher als Medien der methodischen Orientierung von Anna Echterhölter (Berlin)

Ethos, Pathos, Logos – Über Digitales Präsentieren von Wolfgang Hagen (Lüneburg)

Moderation: Oliver Lerone-Schultz (Lüneburg)

Panel 7.2 | Medienbildung und Digital Humanities. Die Medienvergessenheit technisierter Geisteswissenschaften in C HS 4

Die Digitalisierung der Medienwissenschaft? Computergestützte audiovisuelle Analyse und Software Studies – Methoden zur rechnergestützten medienwissenschaftlichen Forschung und Lehre von Petra Missomelius (Innsbruck)

Unbegrenzte Möglichkeiten und die Grenzen der Möglichkeiten. Das Web 2.0 und seine Erkenntnispotentiale von Katja Grashöfer (Bochum)

Digital (Media) Studies zwischen Datenbank und Narration von Roberto Simanowski (Basel)

Algorithmische Kritik oder Kritik der Algorithmen? von Till Andreas Heilmann (Basel)

Moderation: Petra Missomelius (Innsbruck)

Panel 7.3 | Aus dem Rahmen fallen in C HS 5

Wuchernde Milieus. Meeresbiologische Medien um 1900 von Christina Wessely (Berlin)

»The Breaking of the Second Frame«. Transgressive Denkfiguren der Avantgarde von Katja Müller-Helle (Berlin)

Die Kinoleinwand als Ausstellungsobjekt von Dennis Göttel (Braunschweig)

Touristische Selbst- und Fremdbeobachtung. Film, Reise und Reflexivität von Thomas Morsch (Berlin)

Moderation: Gloria Meynen (Friedrichshafen)

Panel 7.4 | Spielend wissen in C 14.027

Robot Challenges. Zur Performanz künstlicher Intelligenz von Ulf Otto (Hildesheim)

Welt spielen. Sim Earth als Grenzfall zwischen Spiel und wissenschaftlicher Simulation von Niklas Schrape (Lüneburg)

Spielprototypen als Form spielanalytischer Wissensproduktion von Stefan Werning (Bayreuth)

Potentiality and Actuality of Computer-based Simulation Environments von Sabine Thürmel (München)

Moderation: Jan Müggenburg (Lüneburg)

Panel 7.5 | Medienwissenschaft ohne Gedächtnis? Hindernisse und Lösungswege beim Zugang zum audiovisuellen Medienerbe in C 14.001

Sind Rundfunkarchive immer noch Geheimarchive? Oder bewegen Sie sich doch?
von Michael Crone (Darmstadt)

Vom Geheimschatz zum Allgemeingut? Strategien der audiovisuellen Medienerbe-Verwaltung im internationalen Vergleich
von Leif Kramp (Bremen)

Das Recht als Schranke. Juristische Perspektiven beim Umgang mit dem audiovisuellen Medienerbe in Deutschland
von Paul Klimpel (Berlin)

Digitale Archive der »zweiten Öffentlichkeit«. Forschungsmethoden und »participatory research« von Katalin Cseh (Wien)

Moderation: Christoph Classen (Potsdam)

AG-Treffen 7.6 | Treffen in C 12.001
9:30 Uhr–10:30 Uhr: AG »Populärkultur und Medien«
10:30 Uhr–11:30 Uhr: AG »Animation«

AG-Treffen 7.7 | Medienwissenschaft und Wissenschaftsforschung in C 12.006

Kaffeepause | Samstag, 05. Oktober 2013, 11:30 Uhr–12:00 Uhr im Hörsaalgang

Session 8 | Samstag, 05. Oktober 2013, 12:00 Uhr–13:30 Uhr
Panel 8.1 | Eingeräumt: Darstellen in 3-D in C HS 3

Das Bild des Raumorgans. Zur historischen Epistemologie der Dreidimensionalität von Stephan Günzel (Berlin)

Dreidimensionale Bilder als Medien der Teilchenphysik von Jens Schröter (Siegen)

Vom Raum im Raum. Mutmassungen über die Anfänge menschlicher Raumbildungen im Tanz von Walter Siegfried (München)

Moderation: Inge Hinterwaldner (Lüneburg | Basel)

Panel 8.2 | The Revolution Will Not Be Televised in C HS 4
Netzkritik revisited! Eine Diskursgeschichte der Medienwissenschaft von Clemens Apprich (Lüneburg)

Die Aporie des Neuen. Medienwissenschaftliche Deutungsmuster des Internets von Linda Groß (Hamburg) | Lisa Wiedemann (Hamburg)

Moderation: Andreas Broeckmann (Lüneburg)

Panel 8.3 | Licht – Glas – Kälte. Zum Tempus »wohltemperierter« Bilder der Wissenschaft in C HS 5
-273 °C – Eine Reise in die Tiefe der Temperaturskala. Die Exploration der Kälte im populären Wissenschaftsfilm von Claudia Pinkas–Thompson (Karlsruhe)

Gläserne Gebilde. Zur Transparenz der Medien und Symbolik des Wissensdurstes von Szilvia Gellai (Karlsruhe)

Spiegelplaneten und kosmische Archive. Eine medienarchäologische Perspektive auf die Popularisierung astronomischen Wissens im 19. Jahrhundert von Dominik Schrey (Karlsruhe)

Moderation: Andreas Böhn (Karlsruhe)

Panel 8.4 | Populäre Wissenschaftskulissen. Wissen(schafts)formate in populären Medienkulturen in C 14.027
Wissen(schaft) für die Masse. Die »Urania-gesellschaft« und die Popularisierung wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse im 19. Jahrhundert von Thomas Wilke (Halle)

Philosophie im/des Fernsehens. Metamorphosen philosophischen Wissens in den Fernsehformaten »Das philosophische Quartett« und »Precht« von Marcus S. Kleiner (Siegen)

Folksonomies. Wissensaggregate im Social Web von Ramón Reichert (Wien)

Moderation: Holger Schulze (Berlin)

Filmvorführung 8.5 | »Odyssee und Nahverkehr« (2012) in C 14.006

Ein Film von Martin Schlesinger (Bochum) und Marius Boettcher (Weimar)

AG-Treffen 8.6 | Fernsehgeschichte und Television Studies in C 12.001

Kommissionstreffen 8.7 | Lehre in C 12.006

Kommissionstreffen 8.8 | Medien/Recht in C 12.006

Mittagessen | Samstag, 05. Oktober 2013, 13:30 Uhr–14:30 Uhr in der Mensa

Mitgliederversammlung | Samstag, 05. Oktober 2013, 14:30 Uhr–16:30 Uhr in HS 3
Verleihung des Best Publication Award der AG Gender Studies und Medienwissenschaft
Verleihung des Karsten-Witte-Preis der AG Film
anschließend Mitgliederversammlung der GfM

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/gfm-2013

Getting the net out of its web

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:11:22Z

Article by Malvika Tegta in Daily News and Analysis (DNA), 8 March 2009

Artists, academicians, tech heads and lawyers have come together to give the country a voice in technology, study, polity and discourse, says Malvika Tegta

-----
The Internet has changed lives in ways we haven't stopped to grasp — the real feeding into the virtual and the other way round. Also, how the Internet interacts with individuals varies across cultures and societies. Narratives on the medium originating in the West cannot size up the complexities of the developing world. In the absence of a voice from the "global south" in affecting the direction of the Internet, technologies continue to be designed for a certain kind of end user, with underlying assumptions. "That apart, as the Internet grows, it doesn't necessarily always grow for the better, with things like cyber terrorism, cyber bullying, pornography, identity theft, gambling, internet addiction, being the by-products of the information revolution," says Nishant Shah, director-research and one of the brains behind the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), initiated in August 2008, set up to take note of what we passively allow to direct our lives.

These are the issues that led Gibraltar-based Anurag Dikshit, co-founder of PartyGaming, parent company of online poker site PartyPoker.com, to think that "the time had come for India to have a voice in technology study, polity and discourse, as we quickly find ourselves becoming an Information Society". He, along with Alternative Law Forum's legal theorist Lawrence Liang, Shah and Sunil Abraham, brought CIS into being, pooling in the finest minds from the field of arts, academia, law and technology. CIS, since, has set out to produce local and contextual histories of the Internet to make voices "emerging out of Asia more visible in international dialogues around technology".

Their approach: research, awareness and advocacy. Their goal: to make sense of how the Internet is changing the world around us, with India at the heart.

CIS looks at, among other things, the way copyrights, closed standards and an absence of public policy in certain areas have affected access, innovation and kept the Internet from being less democratic and vibrant. "Copyright law is kind of a monolithic thing, like a 'one size fits all' kind of solution for encouraging creativity. It doesn't really work especially when you look at an equitable system of access," says programme manager Pranesh Prakash. He adds: "Copyright proves to be a huge barrier to promotion of accessibility, and in the Indian context needs some kind of relaxation." Programme manager at CIS, Nirmita puts this in perspective, in the particular case of internet access for the visually impaired and those with cognitive disabilities. "A blind person cannot read the written word, so you record an audio cassette or you have an e-version of it and a screen reader reads it for you. That inverts the conversion of a format, which is not permitted legally under the copyright law in India. Every time you want to convert it, you need to take permission of the copyright holder. So what that is essentially doing is depriving you of your right to read," she says. "Our country should have a law that is universal. We have signed United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that says that everything on the Internet should be in accessible formats, but it's not binding and we don't have a law on it."

In the area of science and academics, copyrights pose another challenge, that of impeding innovation by keeping from the taxpayer, results of at least the research that is funded by tax a notion CIS has been pushing for. "Scientific literature is propounded on the principles like everyone is allowed to review it and that knowledge spreads to a number of people," says Prakash. Both the scientist and the reader want that. But what we see today is that a few publishers control most of all scientific literary output, so most of it is not accessible because a month's subscription sometimes amounts to the entire library budget of an institution. That is especially a big problem for developing countries.

By the end of this year, CIS hopes that individual institutions take up open access policy. "It may not always have to be a top down approach," he says.

In the realm of governance, CIS identifies use of closed standards software as not only unwise strategy, but also socially and ethically a bad decision, and is looking at policy change in the area. Explains Sunil Abraham, director-policy, in his paper: "If I were to store data, information or knowledge in .doc, .xls or .ppt format, my ability to read my own files expires the moment the licence for my copy of Microsoft Office expires." He adds that governments have a responsibility to use open standards, especially for interactions with the public and where the data handled has a direct impact on democratic values. "In developing countries, governments have greater responsibility because most often they account for over 50% of the revenues of proprietary software vendors," he writes.

They are also exploring bridging digital divides without ignoring the "complex interplay, in the case of India for instance, of caste, language, affordability, education, literacy, and in some cases, even religion" and how the Internet is changing the landscape of higher education in India.
As Shah puts it: "Internet technologies are now becoming tools that we think with. We cannot write without the cursor blinking on an empty screen, we cannot talk in public without the aid of a digital presentation..."

It's about time, then, that we thought about the one thing that's becoming one of the bigger movers in our lives and build a discourse around it.

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To read the article in DNA's e-paper, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/getting-the-net-out-of-its-web

Getting Strategic about Openness and Privacy

praskrishna — 2014-11-09T09:19:23Z

This blog post by Tim Davies, Open Data Research Lead at Web Foundation was published in Open Up? on November 3, 2014.

Click to read the original post here. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

Information is powerful. And in a world where the amount of information generated, captured and stored has grown exponentially in recent decades, getting hold of the information you need, when you need it, relies upon having access to the data that describes it. That makes the control of data especially powerful.

Modern transparency initiatives, promoting the idea of open data, have been seeking to break the data-monopoly of privileged actors within the state — unlocking key datasets and making them available for public scrutiny and reducing the information inequalities that undermine open public discourse. Opening up government data is *one* way in which citizens can reclaim some power and reestablish the principle that “they work for us”. Open government data gives us power to know how the government is spending money, what companies are getting public sector contracts and licenses, who owns these companies, what profits they make and what royalties and taxes they pay. Yet, progress has been slow, and we have faced substantial challenges in securing reliable and standardised flows of public data that can be joined-up to give a true picture of how public resources are being used, and key decisions made. Although millions of public datasets have been placed online, the most politically salient are often lacking. The 2013 Open Data Barometer found fewer than 1 in 10 accountability datasets were truly open.

At the same time, advocates of building a more open government need to grapple with three other trends that are shaping discussions of data, power and the state:

Firstly, and most important, the revelations brought to our attention by whistleblower Edward Snowden have confirmed the extent of the secret state and the profound imbalance of power between citizens and their state created through mass surveillance. Whilst projects to disclose even basic data on the state like public spending are underfunded and ad hoc, billions of dollars are poured into tools and technologies that violate basic human rights and that threaten trust and security on the Web. Fundamentally the problem with secret mass surveillance is that it destroys the checks and balances that are meant to limit the power of the state over citizens.
Secondly, and in part due to the discussion spared by Snowden, public awareness of the data, and consequently power, held by corporations has grown. The Web has become increasingly centralised, and large companies now harvest large amounts of data on any individual technology user. In parallel, in some countries such as the UK, governments have sought to use open data agendas as cover for increased proprietary sharing of public data with private firms, seeking to go around established principles of consent to share publicly held health, tax or student records with profit-making firms. Such data-sharing is not inherently wrong if there are public benefits, but building citizen trust in the state’s stewardship of personal data, and ensuring safeguards are in place to warrant that trust, is a major challenge.
Thirdly, concerns have been raised that some of the data released through open data initiatives may also affect the privacy of citizens. Some aggregated and anonymised datasets can be combined with other data to reverse engineer identifiable information. Although early calls for “raw data now” were clear that they were not calling for open personal information, in practice the divide between personal and public can be a narrow one.

So, do these trends mean we should be more cautious about opening up? Should the balance swing back towards a focus on protecting privacy? Ultimately, a simple opposition of privacy and openness is a false dichotomy. The question is not should we focus on openness, or should we protect privacy: but is Who should be open? And how? And whose privacy should be protected, and how?

Sunil Abraham, of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, has offered a key solution in the idea that:

“Transparency should be proportional to power, privacy inversely so.”

It is on this basis that organisations working for a fairer future, with more vibrant public discourse, greater freedom, and better governments, can campaign for both privacy and openness together. Those who occupy public office, own companies, or tender for public contracts must accept that there is a legitimate public interest in information about their activities in these roles, whilst independent citizens must be afforded space to form views and live lives without constant state surveillance. Companies should not be considered to have a right to privacy: their interests are already protected by other laws and provisions.

To deliver effective openness through open data, the Web Foundation is working to understand how data gets used on the ground in different settings across the world, and, with Omidyar support, is working on the creation of inclusive open data standards for public contracting data. Standards like the Open Contracting Data Standard are part of building a new infrastructure of open governance, making it possible to join-up data from different places, helping tilt the balance of power towards citizens when it comes to scrutinising governments and corporations. Through the Open Data Barometer we keep track of the availability of key datasets that can be used for accountability, and we’re co-chairing the Open Government Partnership Open Data Working Group, seeking to set high standards for relevant and usable data disclosures by governments.

By focussing on the civic use of data, we can better identify those datasets that must be in the public domain. And by thinking about relative power when considering privacy we can address genuine privacy concerns, whilst not allowing corporations claiming privacy rights, or public figures trying to hide their financial interests, from diminishing the power of data to enable accountability.

At the same time, the Web Foundation leads the Web We Want campaign, challenging mass surveillance and seeking to secure a Web where individuals have the right to privacy, and the tools to secure it. And increasingly transparency of what the state and companies do with personal data can help increase the capacity of citizens to respond to threats to their autonomy, and can increase oversight and safeguards on state or corporate capacity.

Ultimately, our ongoing efforts to open up, and to protect individual freedoms, have to be strategic. And keeping an analysis of power, and Sunil’s maxim, in mind, provides a good starting point to guide the strategy.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/open-up-tim-davies-november-3-2014-getting-strategic-about-openness-and-privacy

Genetic Profiling: Is it all in the DNA?

praskrishna — 2015-09-13T09:47:17Z

A Bill seeks to make genetic profiling mandatory for the fight against crime—and generates a debate about the clash of ethics, freedom, science and data.

The article by Ullekh NP was published in Open Magazine on August 7, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

When British geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys first developed the DNA profiling test 31 years ago in his laboratory at Leicester University, he didn’t help the police prove a man guilty. His test—back then it took weeks to complete DNA profiling procedures as opposed to a few hours now—proved that a rape suspect in police custody was innocent. Details from the whole exercise also subsequently helped the local police nab the real criminal, who had killed his teenaged rape victim. Later, the police found that he was the one who had committed a similar crime three years earlier in a village nearby. Britain was destined to make great gains in solving crimes thanks to DNA identification, while the rest of the developed world, including the US, caught up later, but only after lagging initially thanks to the relentless—and sometimes ill-founded—opposition from civil liberties activists. In India, the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2015, a proposed law that envisages collecting DNA finger prints—which are unique to an individual—especially of criminals, has been in the making for the past 12 years. The draft bill, which will shortly be placed before the Union Cabinet for its nod, has been prepared by the Department of Biotechnology and the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting & Diagnostics (CDFD), a Hyderabad-based Central Government-run agency, after examining and reviewing submissions by a panel of experts, holding consultations with various stakeholders and getting responses from the public. Notwithstanding the claims of safeguards against any misuse of the intended DNA data base, activists, lawyers, internet freedom fighters, civil liberty activists and columnists have been up in arms against the Government, arguing that the DNA profiling bill is ill- conceived and naïve—to the extent that it would destroy an individual’s right to privacy as it lacks provisions to check data tampering.

The international experience has proved otherwise. Ever since Sir Jeffreys extracted DNA from human muscle tissue, identified and processed genetic markers (which are unique to individuals except in the case of identical twins) from what was until then considered ‘seemingly purposeless segments of the human DNA’ in the words of writers Peter Reinharz and Howard Safir, more than 500,000 ‘otherwise unsolvable’ cases have been solved in the developed world thanks to the DNA identification, note CDFD scientists. DNA is the hereditary material in the human body. It is found in blood, saliva, urine, strands of hair, semen, tears, skin, etcetera.

Dr Madhusudan Reddy Nandineni, staff scientist and group leader, laboratory of DNA fingerprinting services and laboratory of genomics and profiling applications, CDFD, is worried that opposition to the Bill is gaining momentum in India due to a raft of reasons. Of course, the West, too, has witnessed sharp protests against DNA profiling laws. One of the key reasons anti-profiling activists have an edge, says a senior Home Ministry official who asks not to be named, is that there is a “general public anxiety” over “anything to do with disclosing personal details”. He agrees that the tests are going to be intrusive, because muscle tissue may have to be collected from private parts. The procedure of DNA sample collection—as explained in the draft Bill submitted in January by a committee headed by TS Rao, senior adviser to the department of biotechnology—talks about obtaining intimate body samples of living persons (on page 6-7 of the 48- page document) from ‘the genital or anal area, the buttocks and also breasts in the case of a female’. According to the draft Bill, it also involves external examination of private parts, taking samples from pubic hair or by swabs or washing or by vacuum suction, by scraping or by lifting by tape and taking of a photograph or video recording of, or an impression or cast of a wound in those areas. “But then, it is par for the course,” says the Home Ministry official by way of justification.

American military historian and author Edward Luttwak agrees that DNA profiling is a significant intrusion into the “very body of a citizen”. That is the price one has to pay in the choice between liberty and equality before investigation, he posits. Luttwak is glad that in the US, as well as in other countries that have such profiling laws, DNA identification has yielded results. “It protects suspicious/ low status but innocent people from false accusations and helps to catch clever/high-status law-breakers,” he says.

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For his part, Dr Nandineni says that every aspect of the Human DNA Profiling Bill for India is based on similar legislation that has already been implemented in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and Continental Europe for more than 20 years. He also contends that the benefits that have accrued there are enormous, which India has missed out on for all these years. “In all these countries, the concerns of the general public on privacy matters have been allayed in their legislation,” he adds. He points out that the retention of DNA profiles in a ‘DNA Data Bank’ is meant to apprehend repeat offenders and thus serve a larger societal good. As regards privacy concerns, Dr Nandineni says that consultations on the preparations of the Bill lasted for 2-3 years and took into account the views of an expert committee whose members included representatives of NGOs.

Dr Nandineni is of the view that the opponents of the Bill have managed to get an upper hand in a national debate thanks to their media-savvy backgrounds. Agrees the Home Ministry official: “Perhaps the drafters of the Bill have not been communicative enough in getting their points across to the public and the media. Which might explain why the Bill has come under tremendous attack in the media. Even otherwise, global trends also show that civil liberty rights activists have had great initial advantage in their campaign against DNA profiling.” After all, the potential for misuse of DNA samples is not restricted to biological material collected under the provisions of the DNA Bill alone, Nandineni offers. “Any and every blood sample collected by a clinical laboratory has the same potential for misuse,” he says.

While Dr J Gowrishankar, director, CDFD, has been vocal about the positives of the Bill, its opponents have been louder. Many of those who oppose the Bill say the question is not one of being loud or feeble, but about being naïve or not.

The likes of Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based internet research organisation Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), have no argument against DNA profiling being the gold standard for all forensic investigations. “There is nothing wrong with using DNA evidence for forensic purposes,” says Abraham, “However, the draft Bill is filled with techno-utopianism; it assumes that the people and machines that leverage DNA technologies are infallible.” He goes on, “This is not true. It is easier to tamper with DNA evidence than it is to tamper with a video recording. Therefore, all we are asking for are process checks that prevent compromised persons and machines from using DNA evidence to convict or exonerate the wrong person.” His contention is that if the DNA sample is sent to two different labs and both labs come back with exactly the same result, then the courts can be convinced of the veracity of the result. “Also the Bill says that DNA labs will give courts ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to questions related to DNA matching. But ideally, the lab must give the exact match percentage along with all the detailed information that emerges from the match process so that the court can fully appreciate the significance of the DNA evidence,” he suggests.

Abraham and legal scholar Usha Ramanathan—both members of the expert panel who filed notes of dissent and disagreed with various aspects of the Bill—have a problem with the claim that the proposed DNA data bank will cover only criminals and not the general public. Points out Ramanathan: “The Bill does not restrict the data base to criminals alone, not by a long shot. The provision in the proposed Bill reads: ‘(Clause 31(4)) Every DNA Data Bank shall maintain following indices for various categories of data, namely: (a) a crime scene index; (b) a suspects’ index; (c) an offenders’ index; (d) a missing persons’ index; (e) unknown deceased persons’ index; (f) a volunteers’ index; and (g) such other DNA indices as may be specified by regulations.’ That is an elaborate set of indices. There is certainly a lot of the ‘general public’ in it.”

Supporters of the DNA Profiling Bill have maintained that a DNA data bank is not for the public but only for a limited category of individuals. The proposed law also provides for storing profiles with the consent of relatives of missing children and grownups so that relationship identities can be established.

Ramanathan is also worried that apart from purposes of criminal justice, DNA profiling may be extended to parental disputes (maternity or paternity), issues related to pedigree, those related to assisted reproductive technologies (surrogacy, in vitro fertilisation or IVF, intrauterine implantation or IUI, and so on), to transplantation of human organs (donor and recipient) under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994, and also related to immigration or emigration. She had objected to the requirement of revealing a person’s caste in the application form for offering blood samples. “This Bill is certainly not a convict data base. The ambitions are much much vaster, and little to do with crime control,” she alleges.

Abraham agrees that some safeguards have been built in the proposed law to prevent any misuse of DNA data under pressure from expert panel members such as him. However, he says, cyber security and privacy-related issues are not addressed in a comprehensive manner. “The Bill basically hopes that the Privacy Bill will address all of this when it becomes law. But unfortunately, a bill could take 7-10 years before it becomes law,” he says.

Dr Gowrishankar of CDFD and others have conceded that it was the decision of the expert panel to include an enabling provision for the privacy issues of DNA profiling to comply with the proposed Privacy Bill.

Abraham says that various measures to prevent ‘privacy harms’ to volunteers are missing in the latest draft of the Bill. “Given that biometric technology works on probabilistic matching, the larger the size of the database, the larger the incidence of mistaken identification. Therefore it is important that the database remain as small as necessary,” he asserts.

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The estimated cost of the Bill is Rs 20 crore—to create the infrastructure for the DNA Profiling Board and the data bank, which includes buildings, furniture, computer servers and so on. Among other things, the DNA Profiling Board is tasked with the responsibility of laying down and implementing standards for laboratories and proper protocols for ‘Data Bank’ operations.

CDFD scientists and government officials are keen to highlight the ‘under- hyped’ benefits of DNA profiling –similar to the Innocence Project in the US, which was aimed at securing the release of people who were erroneously convicted on the basis of other lines of evidence. Abraham has no patience for such comparisons. “DNA profiling for forensic purposes is very advanced and sophisticated, but technologies do not exist in a vacuum,” he says, “These advanced technologies have to work within traditional institutions with vulnerabilities and flaws. We need to, therefore, have non-technological procedural fixes that ensure that these technologies are not compromised by money and power. The choice is between the right to privacy and the rights and requirements of the criminal justice process.”

Ramanathan agrees with that view. “In the Indian context, the state of investigation is so poor that we have been looking for ways of circumventing our problems, not addressing them. That is how narco-analysis began to be used, till the court struck it down. DNA may be more reliable than most other scientific tools available to us today, but it is not all about the science. We also have to worry about contamination, what happens in the chain of custody, its potential for being planted or otherwise abused, and the errors even in the laboratory. You may remember the avowed mix-up of results in the Aarushi [Talwar murder] case, something the lab said they noticed over two years after they had given it to the investigators. The danger of treating DNA as conclusive and not needing corroboration is exacerbated in this kind of a vulnerable system. Which is why bringing this into a DNA data base law and not putting any checks on criminal procedure is less than wise,” she elaborates. She is least impressed with the ‘idea’ of ‘pedigree’ and of ‘population genetics’ in the Bill. “Institutions like the CDFD have been collecting DNA from suspects and asking for the caste of the person on the form. How does this seem innocent and safeguarded?” she asks.

Meanwhile, columnist and author Salil Tripathi says that it is sheer hubris to think that technology will provide all the answers to crime-fighting. “Tech- nology is enormously useful and powerful, but it is value-neutral; it can be used for good or bad ends… There have to be sufficient safeguards, overseen not only by technologists, law enforcement officers and bureaucrats, but also by lawyers and civil liberties experts, who can point out potential flaws and misuse and prevent those.”

Tripathi, too, is piqued that one of the markers sought is of caste. “Why?” he asks, emphatic that the country’s people should be concerned about allowing the state so much power over their lives. “And it may not be only the state; given that the scope of its future expansion is undefined, what guarantees are there that private actors won’t have access to the data, and if so, what security protocols would apply?”

Dr Gowrishankar and Dr Nandineni are right in saying that without DNA fingerprinting, many international criminals would still be at liberty, and the opponents of the Bill do not disagree with the efficacy of the technique developed by Sir Jeffreys. Instead, they are placing the spotlight on various objectionable aspects in the proposed law. In a country which first needs—according to former RAW chief Vikram Sood—to ensure access to Photofit (a technique to create an accurate image of a person that gels with a witness’ description) for its ground-level police operatives to combat crime, critics of the Bill seem to have won the war of words.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/open-magazine-august-7-2015-ullekh-np-genetic-profiling

General Comments on Data Protection Bill

Pallavi Bedi and Shweta Mohandas — 2022-02-14T15:55:10Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/general-comments-data-protection-bill.pdf

Gender and gig work: Perspectives from domestic work in India

ambika — 2021-12-07T02:11:49Z

Platforms have the potential to be instrumental in protecting workers rights, but the current platform design is not optimised to protect workers’ interests especially those of women in the gig economy, argues Ambika Tandon, a senior researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society in India and an author of the report on ‘Platforms, Power and Politics: Perspectives from Domestic and Care Work in India’.

Digital labour platforms, broadly defined as digital interfaces that enable the exchange of goods or services, have grown exponentially in cities across the world. In sectors such as transportation and delivery, Uber and similar platforms have achieved dominant status, while in other sectors platforms are still making inroads to transform consumption patterns. Researchers at India’s Centre for Internet and Society, sought to understand the impact platforms have had on the paid domestic and care work sector in India, given its importance for women workers. The workforce in this sector is largely constituted of women from Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (or caste-oppressed) and low-income groups, with a long history of socioeconomic and legal devaluation and lack of recognition. In this context, platforms have positioned themselves as intermediaries that will improve wages and conditions of work, pushing the sector towards formalisation.

To assess the impact of digital platforms on processes of recruitment and placement and on organisation and conditions of work, we undertook 60 in-depth interviews between June and November 2019. We chose two metropolitan cities, New Delhi in north India and Bengaluru in south India, as our field sites. These are key nodes in the migration corridors of domestic workers in the country. We spoke to workers who were searching for hourly or regular work through platforms, representatives of platform companies and state and central governments, as well as domestic workers unions. We found that platform design breeds and amplifies exclusion and discrimination along the lines of gender and caste, among other social characteristics.

Uber for domestic work

We found that the function of digital platforms in the sector is contingent on the historical organisation of domestic work, rather than any fundamental re-organisation of the supply chain. Unlike in the global North, platforms in India have thus far been unable to ‘gig-ify’, that is, break up most tasks that constitute domestic work – including child and elderly care and cooking – into short-term granular services that have been standardised. Domestic workers continue to find regular term full-time placements through marketplace platforms, which only connect employers to workers with no other role in determining work conditions. HelpersNearMe and Helper4u are examples of platforms that play this role by listing profiles of workers and making these available to employers. These placements are no different from work in the ‘offline’ sector, with complete informality and very little standardisation around hours, wages, and task constitution. As compared to this, on-demand platforms that offer short-term gigs (similar to the Uber model) have grown exponentially in the ‘deep’ cleaning segment by marketing it as a professional service with higher value than ‘regular’ cleaning services.

The function of digital platforms in the sector is contingent on the historical organisation of domestic work, rather than any fundamental re-organisation of the supply chain.

Cleaning gigs provided by on-demand companies have higher hourly wages than ‘regular’ cleaning services in the traditional sector. But accessing these opportunities requires workers to have regular access to a smartphone throughout the day, to be able to accept or reject tasks and receive payments through a mobile application or web-portal. Women workers from low income families have very low levels of digital access, with most phones being shared between families and controlled by male members. Also, the use of technical equipment such as vacuum cleaners and chemicals has led to deep cleaning being viewed as a masculine task. As a result, almost all cleaning workers we identified in the on-demand sector were men, even though cleaning is a feminised job role in the traditional economy. Some cleaning workers we spoke to did not identify as domestic workers at all, but rather viewed their work as holding a higher status than traditional cleaning. This trend of masculinisation of a job role coinciding with higher wages and social status has also been seen in other sectors globally, such as software programming.

Promises and risks of low-tech platforms

One of the reasons that women workers are more likely to find work through marketplace platforms rather than on-demand agencies is because they only require workers to have a basic or feature phone for one-time registration, and subsequently to answer calls from potential employers or the platform. Most platforms in this category do not intervene in task allocation or terms of work, which are negotiated directly between workers and employers. Algorithms and digital interfaces then only facilitate matching, as opposed to on-demand work where all aspects of the job are determined by the platform. This allows women workers to register using shared family phones, or those of their friends, neighbours, and in the case of one of our respondents, her landlady’s phone number. These platforms then may be able to provide placement opportunities to workers who are unable to find work through word-of-mouth networks. This is especially crucial as a result of the unemployment crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, unlike with the on-demand model, these platforms do not offer increased wages or provide better conditions of work.

Although marketplace platforms provide an additional route into finding opportunities in the sector, they also codify employers’ biases through their design. All marketplace platforms and digital placement agencies we reviewed – upwards of 20 companies – provide demographic filters to employers for filtering workers’ profiles. These include information on workers’ gender, age, religion, state of origin, and in one case, even caste. While practices of employing workers based on demographic characteristics are rampant in the sector historically, platforms build them in by design and market them as a key feature of what they are able to offer employers. These open up direct avenues for employers to discriminate against workers from minority religions and oppressed castes. It also reinforces gendered occupational segregation, as employers seek out women workers for feminised roles such as cleaning and care work, and men for tasks such as gardening and plumbing.

Power structures endemic to the domestic work sector continue to thrive in the platform economy, as do gender and caste-based occupational segregation.

Platforms have been making claims of formalising the informal sector, especially in global South economies, through increasing efficiency in matching workers to employers. Despite having the potential to be instrumental in protecting workers rights, currently platform design is not optimised to protect workers’ interests. Power structures endemic to the domestic work sector continue to thrive in the platform economy, as do gender and caste-based occupational segregation. To be able to nudge the sector towards formalisation, platforms need to directly intervene in power structures and co-design with workers, rather than merely functioning as digital recruiters. This could imply adopting practices such as removing demographic details where not relevant, introducing written contracts and minimum wage floors for placements, and addressing gender gaps in some segments of the digital economy.

This work forms part of a project on ‘Platforms, Power and Politics: Perspectives from Domestic and Care Work in India’, supported by the Association for Progressive Communications. You can read more about the project here, and find the full project report here.

This article gives the views of the author and does not represent the position of the Media@LSE blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The blog first published on LSE website can be accessed here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/lse-ambika-tandon-october-21-2021-ambika-tandon-gender-and-gig-work

Gen Comments to PDP Bill

akash — 2020-02-12T11:50:32Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/gen-comments-to-pdp-bill

Gen Comments PDP Bill 2019

pallavi — 2020-02-21T10:00:16Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/gen-comments-pdp-bill-2019

GeekUp with Alan Knott-Craig

praskrishna — 2012-06-29T11:11:52Z

HasGeek and CIS invite you to a lecture by Alan Knott-Craig at CIS office in Bangalore on June 30, 2012, from 5.00 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Alan is founder of World of Avatar and CEO of Mxit, Africa’s largest social network. Between 2003 and 2006, Alan co-founded five companies in the mobile services sector. In 2006, he was appointed managing director of iBurst, a broadband network operator in South Africa. In April 2008, he published Don’t Panic, a best selling book aimed at persuading emigrant South Africans to return home. In June 2008, he founded The Trust, an NGO focused on assisting charities access skills and capital. In 2009, he was named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In June 2012 he published Mobinomics, the story of Mxit and mobile in Africa. Alan is a qualified Chartered Accountant (SA).

The Story of MXit

MXit (pronounced "mix it") is a free instant messaging application developed by MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd. in South Africa that runs on multiple mobile and computing platforms. According to a 2011 study by consultancy World Wide Worx, MXit currently has about 10 million active subscribers, making it the largest mobile social network in Africa.

MXit allows users to send and receive one-on-one text and multimedia messages to and from other users, and in general chat rooms. MXit also supports gateways to other instant messaging platforms such as MSN Messenger, ICQ and Google Talk.

On 1 April 2009, MXit released an open-source plug-in for the libPurple library. This allows applications using the libPurple library such as Pidgin and Adium to connect to the MXit network. This coincided with the release of the MXit Developer Zone web-site and documentation on the MXit client protocol. MXit has been included as a standard protocol in Pidgin since version 2.6.4.

Agenda

17:00 - 17:05	Welcome with Tea, Coffee, and Snacks
17:05 - 17:15	Lightning Talks
17:15 - 18:00	The Story of MXit
18:00 - 18:30	Q & A

For registration, click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/geek-up-with-alan-knott-craig