Announcing FCJ28 : Creative Robotics – Rethinking Human Machine Configurations

We are happy to announce the publication of FCJ28: Creative Robotics — Rethinking Human Machine Configurations. This is our second issue for 2016. Computing the City, edited by Armin Beverungen, Florian Sprenger and Su Ballard, will follow later in 2017.

FCJ-198 New International Information Order (NIIO) Revisited: Global Algorithmic Governance and Neocolonialism

Danny ButtUniversity of Melbourne [Abstract] At the beginning of the 20th century, competing global telegraph networks struggled to monopolise the international circulation of information. Governments did not nationalise the cable industry (as they had telephony and the postal system) and even at the peak of “new imperialism” in 1910 only 20% of the world’s cable networks were state-owned (Winseck and Pike, 2009: 33). European governments instead used infrastructural subsidies to promote their telecommunication aims. Yet during this period of technological expansion and militarisation — perhaps relevant to our own — the nation state was far from hands off, as the market leading Marconi company discovered. Their resistance to wartime government control of their infrastructure led to the expropriation of their US assets. While the US Navy patriotically painted Marconi British puppets, Marconi’s bid for the troubled Reuters agency in England also failed due to political interference: the British Government secretly…

more..

Issue 27: Network War/Conflict

From representational to operational media in the war of perception The Australian Government has explicitly framed the treatment of asylum seekers arriving by sea to be a military operation. When he hadn’t yet been removed from power by members of his own party, Prime Minister Tony Abbott compared the operation to being on a war footing (ABC News, 2014a). The government minister responsible at the time, Scott Morrison, tragi-comically responded to questions from journalists by stating that he will not comment on “operational” and “on-water matters”. However, details of “operational matters” have been reported on in the Australian Navy’s internal publications (ABC News, 2014b) and Morrison seemed to enjoy making jokes about his immigration portfolio on the politico-lifestyle program Kitchen Cabinet. Kitchen Cabinet sees host Annabel Crabb interview politicians as they prepare a meal together. Rather than critical commentary provided by a journalistic interview, the goal of Kitchen Cabinet is…

more..

Announcing FCJ26: Entanglements – Activism and Technology

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new Special Issue FCJ26: Entanglements – Activism and Technology edited by Pip Shea, Tanya Notley and Jean Burgess with Fibreculture Journal Editor Su Ballard. There is an extraordinary amount of work here and i’d like to thank everyone involved. This is the largest issue in FCJ history and includes an additional section dedicated to reports from practitioners -‘on the ground’ Issue 26 features: FCJ-188 Disability’s Digital Frictions: Activism, Technology, and Politics Katie Ellis, Gerard Goggin and Mike Kent FCJ-189 Reimagining Work: Entanglements and Frictions around Future of Work Narratives Laura Forlano and Megan Halpern FCJ-190 Building a Better Twitter: A Study of the Twitter Alternatives GNU social, Quitter, rstat.us, and Twister Robert W. Gehl FCJ-191 Mirroring the Videos of Anonymous: Cloud Activism, Living Networks, and Political Mimesis Adam Fish FCJ-192 Sand in the Information Society Machine: How Digital Technologies Change and…

more..

FCJMESH-011 : ‘We don’t work with video, we work with People’: Reflections on Participatory Video Activism in Indonesia

M. Zamzam Fauzanafi Kampung Halaman doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.011.2015 In this article Indonesian visual anthropologist and co-founder of Kampung Halaman, Zamzam Fauzanafi, reflects on what he has learnt through almost a decade’s experience of using video technologies to support grassroots activism. He argues that while technologies will always change, what matters is a deep understanding of how they help or hinder your capacity to work with the people your work is meant to support. A different nature opens itself to the camera than opens to the naked eye—if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man. (Walter Benjamin [1936], 1968: 236). In 1993 in Indonesia—long before I started to develop a participatory video program with the not-for-profit organisation Kampung Halaman—I learnt about Roem Topatimasang, who was using participatory tools for community empowerment in the small and remote Kei Islands, southeast of Moluccas. He supported the…

more..

FCJMESH-010 : Getting Open Development Right

Zara Rahman the engine room 10.15307/fcj.mesh.010.2015 
 In this article Zara Rahman, from the engine room, explores tensions between the activist motivations that are driving the use of technologies in Open Development and the rights and aspirations of vulnerable people and communities. She discusses how we might and why we must resist the push for new technologies to be adopted too quickly in pursuing an Open Development agenda.
 This article will look at a few issues around the Open Development movement, which is a relatively new agenda within the field of international development. Open Development is centred on the idea that ‘openness’—in different forms—can improve the international development sector. Generally, there are a few broad themes that come up in most definitions of what Open Development includes: • the availability and use of (open) data relating to development programs • participatory decision making and involvement from those affected by the…

more..

FCJMESH-009 Ranking Digital Rights: Keeping the Internet Safe for Advocacy

Nathalie Maréchal Ranking Digital Rights Project doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.009.2015 The Ranking Digital Rights project is creating a system to evaluate the world’s Internet and mobile companies on policies and practices related to free expression and privacy in the context of international human rights law. In this article, project researcher, Nathalie Maréchal, talks about the ideas and events that have informed the project and the challenges and opportunities involved in taking it forward. (Deibert, 2013; MacKinnon, 2012; Morozov, 2011). These discourses are now being shaped by Edward Snowden’s revelations about the United States government’s mass surveillance programs which have brought privacy issues to the fore, and by the subsequent proliferation of news reports about Internet safety and security which have reinforced that this is a serious issue that is not going away. Notwithstanding the United States government’s protestations to the contrary, a recent report led the United Nations High Commissioner, Navi Pillay…

more..

FCJMESH-009 Ranking Digital Rights: Keeping the Internet Safe for Advocacy

Nathalie Maréchal Ranking Digital Rights Project doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.009.2015 The Ranking Digital Rights project is creating a system to evaluate the world’s Internet and mobile companies on policies and practices related to free expression and privacy in the context of international human rights law. In this article, project researcher, Nathalie Maréchal, talks about the ideas and events that have informed the project and the challenges and opportunities involved in taking it forward. The techno-utopianism of the early 2000s has given way to new discourses warning about the threats that the Internet poses to democracy and human rights ([Deibert, 2013](https://blackcodebook.com); [MacKinnon, 2012](https://consentofthenetworked.com); [Morozov, 2011)](httpss://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Net_Delusion.html?id=ctwEIggfIDEC). (Deibert, 2013; MacKinnon, 2012; Morozov, 2011). These discourses are now being shaped by Edward Snowden’s revelations about the United States government’s mass surveillance programs which have brought privacy issues to the fore, and by the subsequent proliferation of news reports about Internet safety and security which have reinforced…

more..

Issue 26: Entanglements – Activism and Technology

During the 2009 post-election protests in Iran, YouTube proved useful for raising awareness and mobilising people; but later, the Iranian government used these videos to crowd-source the identification of protesters. Activists used Skype to communicate during the Egyptian uprising thinking it was safer than the terrestrial telephone system; however, when they examined files from the intelligence agency in the chaos after Mubarak’s fall they learnt their Skype calls were being closely monitored by Egypt’s security service . One of the most circulated images appealing for public sympathy and money following the 2015 catastrophic Nepal earthquake turned out to be a ruse—an old image from North Vietnam—its circulation initiated by unknown people with unknown motivations. These examples serve to remind us that while digital technologies are now deeply entangled with activist practices that are focused on contributing to social change, the philosophies and capacities embedded within these technologies often contradict, counteract,…

more..

FCJMESH-008 Solutions for Online Harassment Don’t Come Easily

Jillian C. York Electronic Frontier Foundation doi: 10.15307/fcj.mesh.008.2015 When popular technologies are being used to work against people, it is natural we look for solutions. But what if there is no perfect solution? In this article he Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jillian York, examines how social media harassment leads to complicated frictions between free speech and the protection of other basic human rights. Don’t feed the trolls. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. They’re just words. These are just a few of the things said to individuals—particularly women—who speak out about harassment they’ve experienced online. Time and time again, they are told to simply ignore it, to clamp down on their own privacy settings, or worse, that online harassment or stalking isn’t real harassment or stalking. The problem appears to be getting worse. As we increasingly…

more..