bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Public participatory GIS in community-based disaster risk reduction
Authors: Kemp Randall B.
Published: May 2018

Natural hazards, such as earthquakes and floods, result in disasters for several reasons. One of the important factors is reducing risk before an incident arises. Such efforts are commonly termed disaster risk reduction (DRR). DRR is the process and engagement of a local community to explore factors of risk and implement methods, practices, and even cultural change, which will reduce the probability that a natural hazard will result in a severe disaster.In this paper I explore the applicability of public participatory GIS (PPGIS) technologies into DRR efforts. Geographic information systems (GIS) function as an electronic spatial data storage, mapping, and analysis tool compromised of software, hardware, and data inputs. GIS can produce simple maps as well as complicated analysis based on several data sources (or layers). Like standard participatory research methods, PPGIS incorporates end users, research subjects, and researchers into a collaborative environment where GIS are structured under the guidance of both the expert and the novice. One intended result are GIS appropriate to the needs and uses of a given community, with specific attention to the cultural underpinnings of that community.Introducing PPGIS tools into community-based DRR is not a neutral effort. The information and communication technologies (ICT) embedded in GIS can both aid the DRR efforts as well as impact the community in unintended ways. ICTs may be common in communities engaged in DRR efforts so the introduction of PPGIS may have minimal impact. What are the societal ramifications, however, of PPGIS methods in DRR efforts when ICTs are a relatively new aspect of a given community?  What are the communication methods pertinent to PPGIS in the DRR context?  How does the ICT literature address PPGIS methods?  The paper addresses these and other influences of ICT on societies prone to natural hazards.
ICTs in national and transnational mobilizations
Authors: Mattoni Alice
Published: May 2018

This article deals with the use of ICTs in national and transnational mobilizations. The case study under investigation is the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP) against precarity, which occurred at both the national and transnational level. The articles focus on three aspects of social movement activities. First, organizational processes in which ICTs are used at both the national and transnational level of the EMP in combination with face-to-face interactions, which play an important role in sustaining protest planning. Second, identification processes in which ICTs have a more important impact at the transnational level than at the national level of the EMP. Third, ICTs are not only seen as opportunities but also as challenges that activist groups involved in the EMP had to deal with in the preparation of the EMP. In presenting these results, the article suggests that a comparison between the national and transnational level of the same protest campaign could highlight new aspects in the use of ICTs, which deserve further investigation.
The Convergence of the Codex Book and the e-Book
Authors: Logan Robert K.
Published: May 2018

Abstract - We are proposing a platform for a new form of the book, the sBook, which is a combination of the codex book and the e-book. The sBook combines the advantages of these two formats of the book as well as some additional features that we have designed for this new hybrid book. We describe one possible form of an sBook, which is a codex book that has been “smart tagged” so that the book directs one’s Enabler to a Web site that contains the digital form of the text of the codex book. The Enabler could be a desktop or notebook computer, a PDA or a smart phone such as the iPhone. As a result the sBook system - consisting of the codex book, the Enabler, and the Web site - is readable, searchable, networkable, updatable, smart and promotes “active reading”. The book is very readable because the sBook still retains the codex format of ink on paper. Because the “smart tag” directs the reader to a Web site with the digital text and room for comments by readers and updates by the author, the sBook is searchable, networkable and updatable. Finally by incorporating a recommender system installed on the Enabler the sBook can match its content to that of the reader’s research and information interests. The recommender system can also search the Net for pertinent information. This paper explores some of the possible applications of the sBook and its impact on authors, readers, publishers, booksellers and libraries.
Information as Form
Authors: Pervez Anis
Published: May 2018

An interpretive understanding of information can be developed by drawing on a number of premises of autopoiesis in combination with Spencer-Brown’s laws of form. Such understanding views information as self-referential meaning construction by observing an object. Therefore, information can be perceived as form resulted from individuals’ making distinction of their environment. By analyzing forms - token of indications - one can empirically understand what information is constructed. Such investigation is a qualitative exploration of human actions and interpretations.
World and mind, information and semantic content
Authors: Liz Antonio Manuel
Published: May 2018

Many times, the notion of information is used in such a way that the following two theses are suggested: 1) that the world might be no more than information, and 2) that our minds might be no more that information. This paper rejects both theses. In relation to that, I will argue for the need to take into account non-informational aspects of reality that are epistemically accessible. Only that way, we could deal with the problem of selecting a determinate semantic content and with the problem of error. The two more common strategies to deal with these problems appeal to some primitive “referential capacities” or to some special kinds of (natural) “functions”. We propose another strategy based on very simple processes of signalization. With the help of that strategy, we offer a new way of defining semantic content.
Towards a Semantic Theory of Information
Authors: Pérez-Amat García Ricardo
Published: May 2018

Information can be understood as that which reduces uncertainty, no matter what origin it has. In the field of human communication, information is only meaningful if it is part of a finished or intentional action. Meaning should be gathered from the empirical perspective of the use of language. If we study the processing of signification through transmission of the normal use of language, we will see that it takes place communicating a set of prototype categories, the core or central facts, which defines meaning as empirical hypothesis. But if there are central facts showing the use of words, then other facts –more or less peripheral– should also exit, whose knowledge is necessary in order to communicate in contexts far away from the “denotative conceptual norm”. Hence meaning can be represented by a fuzzy subset of the universe of discourse partition set. This concept of meaning may be integrated in a formal model of semantic source and information may be measured by non-probabilistic entropy.
Past, present, and future of the concept of information
Authors: Capurro Rafael
Published: May 2018

This text provides an overview of the complex history of the concept of information in the Greek-Latin as well as in the Medieval and Modern traditions. It connects the Latin etymology of the term informatio with the Greek concepts of eidos/idea and morphé and shows how the objective meaning of information (‘giving form to something’) becomes obsolete in modernity where only the communicational meaning (‘telling something (new) to someone’) remains. Information theories in the 20th Century are related to the development of technical systems of message transmission. They give rise to a renaissance of the objective notion of information but under a different framework as the one of the classic pre-modern philosophy. Establishing a connection between the concepts of information and message several options are presented leading to a concept of information based on a theory of messages.
The “Commodification” of Knowledge in the Global Information Society
Authors: Fleissner Peter
Published: May 2018

With the increasing division of labour and the emergence of markets, useful things have started to become sold and bought. They began a new career as commodities. Since Aristotle the dialectic face of commodities, later on in detail elaborated by Karl Marx, is well known, they carry value in use and value in exchange. Nowadays, where we understand the economy as a social construction and are aware of the relativity of value given to objects, we are still confronted with the same distinction and also with the transition of objects into commodities. The commodification process has not come to an end yet. The paper gives an overview on the processes of commodification and de-commodification of goods and services as a background for analysing developments in the emerging information society on a global scale.Possible strategies on how to go on from now are presented, among them the struggle and on-going resistance of the European Parliament on the one hand, against the European Commission and the European Patent Office on the other, also the movements of open source/free software and the ideas of copyleft to create new rules for information goods.
The Notion of 'Being Informative' & the Praxiological-Information Perspective on Language
Authors: Florio Antonio
Published: May 2018

After a concise introduction on the analysis of truth and meaning in philosophy of language two notions of information are grasped by the analysis of Situation Semantics and Situation Theory. The first is that of correlation, the second that of constraint; the latter is reducible to the former. More than that, the phenomenon of ";alethic nature of information"; is highlighted and the notion of ";being informative"; is pointed out. The difference between a meaning-oriented and an informational-oriented perspective of language is marked. Messages are recognized as being the atomic constituents of the informational perspective of language; the architecture of language is shown; and a praxiological-information perspective on the study of language is outlined.
Analysis of Semantic Information via Information Reports
Authors: Ostalé Julio
Published: May 2018

Title Semantic information is analysed by means of two consecutive approaches. Firstly, we consider semantic information via ordinary-language reports of the form “X carries the information that Y”. Secondly, and partially based on the previous analysis, we obtain a number of a priori conditions a physical system has to fulfill for semantic information to take place in such a system.
Intracellular management of information: from DNA to proteins
Authors: Lara Juan M.
Published: May 2018

The living features of cells constitute an information flow from a central database, the nuclear DNA, to molecular effectors, proteins, which are synthesised in the cytoplasm. This flow comprises two changes in information units: transcription and translation. Transcription is carried out in the nucleus and consists in the transduction of specific instructions from the DNA to an intermediary, the RNA, which in its canonical form is a messenger (mRNA) that takes information from the cell nucleus. In the cytoplasm, information in the messenger gives the commands for a specialised molecular complex to build a specific protein. After regulation of the form, proteins are integrated as structural and/or functional units in the complex network of biological functions in the cell.
Outline of a Theory of Truth as Correctness for Semantic Information
Authors: Floridi Luciano
Published: May 2018

The article develops a correctness theory of truth (CTT) for semantic information. After the introduction, in section two, semantic information is shown to be translatable into propositional semantic information (i). In section three, i is polarised into a query (Q) and a result (R), qualified by a specific context, a level of abstraction and a purpose. This polarization is normalised in section four, where [Q + R] is transformed into a Boolean question and its relative yes/no answer [Q + A]. This completes the reduction of the truth of i to the correctness of A. In sections five and six, it is argued that (1) A is the correct answer to Q if and only if (2) A correctly saturates (in a Fregean sense) Q by verifying and validating it (in the computer science’s sense of “verification” and “validation”); that (2) is the case if and only if (3) [Q + A] generates an adequate model (m) of the relevant system (s) identified by Q; that (3) is the case if and only if (4) m is a proxy of s (in the computer science’s sense of “proxy”) and (5) proximal access to m commutes with the distal access to s (in the category theory’s sense of “commutation”); and that (5) is the case if and only if (6) reading/writing (accessing, in the computer science’s technical sense of the term) m enables one to read/write (access) s. The last section draws a general conclusion about the nature of CTT as a theory for systems designers not just systems users.
Indexing languages in information Management, a promising future or an obsolete resource
Authors: Moreiro Jose Antonio , Morato Jorge , Sanchez-Cuadrado Sonia , Fraga Anabel
Published: May 2018

Indexing languages have traditionally been an essential tool for organizing and retrieving documental information. The inclusion of indexing languages into the digital environment leads to new frontiers, but also new opportunities. This study shows the historical evolution of the indexing languages and its application in document management field. We analyze diverse trends for their digital use from two perspectives: its integration with other digital and linguistic resources, and the adjustment of it to the Web environment. Finally, it is analyzed how these languages are used in the Web 2.0, and the incorporation of ontologies in the Semantic Web.
Situational analysis of the communication flow in audiovisual media
Authors: Aguilar Carlos , Sánchez Lydia , Campos Manuel
Published: May 2018

This paper presents a mathematical framework for the study of the information contained in audiovisual contents based on the development by Keith Devlin of Situation Theory. In order to obtain this framework, we present accounts of the processes carried out by agents from the reception of audiovisual contents to the extraction of information, in accordance with the definition by Israel and Perry. We finally justify why these accounts concerning the extraction of information from audiovisual content can be included as part of a mathematical formulation of Situation Theory
Communication, Technology, and the Planetary Creature
Authors: Longo Giuseppe O
Published: May 2018

Man and technology are inseparable: man produces technology, but the latter contributes to the continuous transformation of man. Today biological evolution based on random genetic mutations is largely exceeded by cultural (more specifically, technological) evolution, which is much faster due to the presence of Lamarckian inheritance mechanisms (imitation, learning and the like). This has two important consequences: 1) the formation of Homo technologicus, a symbiotic creature where biology meets technology intimately and is subject to a continuous transformation; and 2) the formation of a sort of Planetary Creature that originates from the interconnection of the individual man-machine symbionts and is heralded by the Internet and by the communication activities occurring in the Internet, in particular those taking place in the so-called social networks. The Planetary Creature is a single world-wide structure where important communication and cognitive processes occur, developing into a sort of connective intelligence that tends to absorb individual intelligences. This encroaching process can produce resistance and dissent as well as suffering, but can also enhance individual abilities. Actually, the growing efficiency and the decreasing costs of the communication mediated by technology offer unprecedented opportunities for augmenting knowledge and creativity and for eliciting novel forms of intellectual activity. On the other hand there might be negative consequences such as addiction to computers and virtuality, delegation of activities and abilities to machines, vulnerability of complex systems, undue control on individuals and economic exploitation. Some important consequences of these developments are examined concerning the body, the time and space categories, and in particular the identity concept.  This text is the keynote address of Guiseppe O. Longo at the 9th International Conference on Sociocybernetics, organised by the Research Committee 51 of the International Sociological Association (ISA) in Urbino, 29 June - 5 July 2009. The theme of the conference was: `Modernity 2.0 - Emerging Social Media Technologies and Their Impacts´. Longo presents here the perspective of engineering science towards sociological issues. He has published several books on that topic, so far in Italian language only. Though some of his statements in the text don't seem well-founded to sociological readers or may be deemed highly speculative, we decided to make his ideas accessible to the non- Italian world. We think they are worth discussing. Wolfgang Hofkirchner
What Is Theory? Puzzles and Maps as Metaphors in Communication Theory
Authors: Nastasia Diana Iulia , Rakow Lana F.
Published: May 2018

Many handbooks, books, and articles in communication studies offer definitions of theory, as well as approaches to what are the features of theory or what makes a good theory and to what are the functions of theory or what makes a theory useful. In this essay, we configure a taxonomy of definitions of and approaches to theory through a cross-disciplinary perspective, by reflecting on the different views on theory in the discipline of communication in the broader context of views on theory at the intersection of the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities. We argue that a preeminent tendency, theory as puzzle-solving or map-reading, with its varieties science and investigation, is predominant in communication studies, based on a subject-object schism and on the preexistence of the object to the subject. We also argue that a counteracting tendency, theory as puzzle-making or map-making, with its varieties interpretation and inquiry, has been posited as an alternative in communication studies, based on a subject-object communion and on the creation of objects by subjects.
Critique of the Democratic Potentials of the Internet: A Review of Current Theory and Practice
Authors: Breindl Yana
Published: May 2018

Many scholars have hailed the democratic potential of the internet. For some the network of networks would empower individuals and foster genuine political discussions, for others, it was perceived as a threat, a Machiavellian tool that would inevitably lead to increased State surveillance and monitory of its citizens. After the turn of the century, a growing body of literature reveals the gap between the supposed democratic potentialities of the internet and the practices that are emerging in the ﬁeld. This paper reviews recent literature on online activism and e-mobilisation and argues that each potentiality recovers a continuum rather than a binary division. In order to deconstruct the democratic potentialities of the internet, we base this reﬂection upon the three axes proposed by Vedel for making sense of the political uses of the internet (2007): information, discussion and mobilisation. For each of these dimensions, evidence can be found that assesses an empowering aspect of the technology (e.g.: increased access to information can lead to a better informed citizenry) while similarly containing a demobilisation aspect (informational access also leads to issues of information overload and practices of disinformation).
Sustainable Development Requires an Integrated Design Discipline to Address Unique Problems
Authors: Dos Santos Martins Rui Helder
Published: May 2018

Sustainable development has taken centre stage in our global conscience. Until recently, wehave been focused on economic prosperity, driven by the mechanistic worldviewof the scientific method. Once the cracks appeared, as a society, we have beenlooking for a deeper meaning and approach to life. Through a literature review,the paper proposes that current ‘experts’, using the engineering profession asan example, are not able to address the wicked problems confronting us, sincethey prevail within the reductionist mode of knowledge production. We needdesign thinkers - who are natural systemic practitioners -to solve systemicproblems, which is characterised by sustainable development.A futuresecond paper will draw on the behaviour of non-linear, complex adaptive systemsas self-organising emergence at the edge of chaos and re-interpret the designthinking process in a way which encompasses the intuitive, non-linear andqualitative way in which sustainable development problems need to be addressed.
A “Weak” Reflection on Unpredictability and Social Theory
Authors: Tsekeris Charalambos , Koskinas Konstantinos
Published: May 2018

This concise reflection seeks to comprehensively interconnect the well-established theoretical and methodological logic of self-organization with a new reflexive ethos and aesthetic of epistemic modesty and humility. A brief elaboration on the issue of unpredictability further encourages a suitable and sustainable analytic framework for generating, developing and cultivating a radical ethics/aesthetics of epistemological weakness, as well as a sense of less strong and more reflexive sociological/philosophical worldview.
The Concept of “Web Science” in the Social Realm: Building Bridges between a new Interdisciplinary Field and the Cultural “Wealth of Networks”
Authors: Dick Michael
Published: May 2018

Discourse in the field of “cyber culture” largely does not take into account the major shift in constituent technology that has begun to advance the Web from one based solely on human-understandable hypertext documents to one based on machine-understandable data. Such innovation includes the refinement of new search engine technology to mine data in Web services applications (the “Deep Web”) coupled with the desire to annotate data with mark-up languages that facilitate greater interactivity and infer meaning within either user-created knowledge representation models (“folksonomies” as a part of “Web 2.0”) or more rigid ontological structures (part of the “Semantic Web” or “Web 3.0”). In this paper, I consider this overall evident and predicted shift from a “Web of documents” to a “Web of data” to be the central element in the creation of the next-generation of the Web, and the recent drive to study it within an integrated framework known as “Web Science”. Central to this shift is the need to reconsider not only the cultural aspects of the medium, but also the interactions between cultural theory and technical texts. I conclude that with the emergence of certain new technology the entire concept of intellectual property, and more specifically where value ultimately lies in terms of the creation of cultural product, is also changing. Within, I thus focus on alternative frameworks (namely the work of Yochai Benkler) to conceptualize knowledge production, in order to re-examine issues of Web-enabled participatory culture. In order to highlight new cultural paradigms, opportunities and challenges, I discuss how the concept of “social production” may foster a “cultural democracy” that transcends traditional hegemonic conditions that encumber publics.
What is Information? A multidimensional concern
Authors: Díaz Nafría José María
Published: May 2018

Looking for an answer to the posed question, we will first go through a brief historical enquiry aiming at exploring the development of the uses given to the Latin word “information” from its Greek roots until its scientific formalisation in hands of the Mathematical Theory of Communication. Secondly and starting from the conceptual limitations of Shannon’s theory, we will put forward the most important theoretical demands claimed by many scientific and technical fields, directly concerned with the usage of information concepts. Such claims eventually entail an open critic to Shannon’s definition with different degrees of radicality, proposing a perspective change in which the different uses and disciplinary interests might be better represented. In order to foster an interdisciplinary approach aiming at gathering together the competing views of information and at bridging their theoretical and practical interests, a sketched glossary of concepts concerning information is proposed as an interdisciplinary tool.
A critical analysis of information society conceptualizations from an STS point of view
Authors: Aibar Eduard
Published: May 2018

Science and Technology Studies (STS) have developed over the last four decades very rich and deep analysis of the interaction between science, technology and society. This paper uses some STS theoretical and methodological insights and findings to identify persistent misconceptions in the specific literature on ICTs and society. Technological deterministic views, the taken-for-granted image of technological designs, the prospective character of many studies that focus mainly on potential effects, a simplistic view of uses and users, and an uncritical distinction between the technical and the social, are discussed as some of the most remarkable theoretical flaws in the field.
Crisis, What Crisis? The Media: Business and Journalism in Times of Crisis
Authors: De Mateo Rosario , Bergés Laura , Garnatxe Anna
Published: May 2018

The global financial and economic crisis is often used to justify a crisis of media and journalism: lower advertising, collapses in the share price, falls in consumption, more unemployment. But is this just a business crisis, or is it also a crisis in journalism and its role in democratic societies? In this case, is the journalism crisis attributable to the economic crisis or, rather, was it forged during the years of high profitability and high salaries in the mass media? These two sides of the crisis, in media industry and in journalism, are addressed in this article, which explores the evolution of mainly Spanish media in the years before the crisis. However, in order to understand how they reached the current situation, political and economic transformations in what has been called the Information Society and neoliberal globalization must be addressed.
3rd ICTs and Society Meeting; Paper Session - Theorizing the Internet; Paper 4: A Methodological Reflection on Converging Technologies and Their Relevance to Informa-tion Ethics
Authors: Wong Pak-Hang
Published: May 2018

In light of converging technologies, there is a clear sense that ethicists of various technological domains are coming together. Or, that they should come together. Yet, despite increasing cooperation and boundary-crossing in various fields of the ethics of technology, these efforts remain mostly at topical level. Relatively little attention has been given to issues on methodologies. The current paper aims to contribute to the current research by raising the methodological issues. In this paper, my objective is to argue that ethics of Information Technology (or Information Ethics (IE)) can benefit from the insights in other fields of the ethics of technology. Drawing the insights from other fields of the ethics of technology, I shall propose a systematic account of an Empirical Information Ethics (EIE)
3rd ICTs and Society Meeting; Paper Session - Theorizing the Internet; Paper 5: Shaping the third mode of human existence on the Internet
Authors: Ropolyi László
Published: May 2018

We propose to build up a philosophy of the Internet instead of building up its scientific theory. Our philosophy of the Internet includes several components of the philosophy of technology, information, communication, culture and organization because we use four different coexisting contexts for the better understanding of the nature of the Internet: the technological, the communication, the cultural and the organism ones. This philosophy of the Internet shows that the Internet is the sphere of a new mode of human existence, basically independent from, but built on and coexisting with the former (natural and societal) spheres of existence, and created by the late-modern humans.
Capitalist Crisis, Communication, & Culture – Introduction to the Special Issue of tripleC
Authors: Fuchs Christian , Schafranek Matthias , Hakken David , Breen Marcus
Published: May 2018

The worldwide economic downturn is indicative for a new large crisis of capitalism. The future of capitalism is in this situation not determined, but depends on collective human agency. This introduction to the special issue of tripleC on “Capitalist Crisis, Communication & Culture” presents general arguments about the crisis, a general model of the political economy of capitalist communication, and a systematic typology of literature about capitalist crisis & communication. The introduced model of the political economy of capitalist communication is comprised of seven interconnected moments: 1) the media content industry, 2) the media infrastructure industry, 3) the interaction of the media economy and the non-media economy, 4) the interaction of the finance sector and the media economy, 5) alternative media, 6) media reception, 7) media prosumption. The model is used for classifying actual and potential research about the communicative dimension of the new capitalist crisis.
Doing Research, Doing Politics: ICT Research as a Form of Activism
Authors: Webster Juliet
Published: May 2018

Why do we do research into ICTs and society at all?  Apart from advancing our analytical understanding of technological and social change, for many researchers, social studies of technology provide a way of supplying evidence for social policy, or shaping social practice.  Even if we do not always make it explicit, for many of us, our research is both political and personal.   In this paper, I consider the ways in which social and political values shape research questions and research methods.   Drawing on examples of recent feminist and other research which has investigated the employment relations of technological change, I discuss the academic and political ambitions of the work, the recognition of interests and the involvement of stakeholders, and the relationship between researchers and ‘users’ of the research.  I reflect on the importance of revealing and explicating the politics of ICT research, particularly in the context of imminent economic and social restructuring.
Embracing Technology and the Challenges of Complexity
Authors: Robbin Alice
Published: May 2018

Advances in new digital platforms, innovative applications, and the convergence of computer, information, and communication technologies are transforming our everyday lives. ICTs have consequences for governance, community, work, information, knowledge, human communication, and well being, to name only a few. We live in a world where change is a constant, where interdependencies are multiple, heterogeneous, and increasingly fragile, and where uncertainty, ambiguity, incomplete information, and unanticipated consequences are the norm. The outcomes of our engagement with technology are complex and unpredictable. They defy simple conclusions because they are historical, temporal, situational, and embedded. Moreover, they are problematic and surprising: inconsistent, paradoxical, disorderly, contradictory, and contingent. In this talk I want to examine some of the empirical evidence about the complexity of our technological landscape and suggest ways to make sense of what is happening through theoretical frameworks drawn from different disciplinary traditions. Following Nobel Laureate in Economics Elinor Ostrom, our aim should be to “dissect and harness complexity rather than eliminate it” so that we can create responsive and resilient systems.
Scientific Knowledge Management in Socio-environmental Systems Context
Authors: Alonso Luiza Beth Nunes , Sallantin Jean , Ferneda Edilson , Luzeaux Dominique
Published: May 2018

This article focuses on the efficiency of scientific knowledge involved in the context of managing a particular socio-environmental as that composed by Amazon. In a first part, we introduce the actual tools used to create and disseminate knowledge among scientists and to stakeholders. In the second part, we give a structural framework, concerning the co-construction of an interdisciplinary scientific knowledge on a specific geographical region. This structural framework, which is as mathematical object "free of context", provides a contextual efficiency of scientific work when it combines multi-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.
Toward Trust as Result. A Transdisciplinary Research Agenda for the ‘Future of the Internet’
Authors: De Paoli Stefano , Gangadharan GR , Kerr Aphra , D'Andrea Vincenzo
Published: May 2018

Trust has emerged as one of the key challenges for the Future of the Internet and as a key theme of European research. We are convinced that a transdisciplinary research agenda - that we define to as Trust as Result - shared by Sociology and Computer Science, is of paramount importance for devising sustainable Trust solutions for the (Future) Internet stakeholders. The scope of this paper is to present some aspects we consider important for building such an agenda. We distinguish our agenda by comparison with one of the current mainstream interdisciplinary approaches to Trust, that we define to as Trust Modelling and that assumes Trust to be the input of the design of trustworthy ICTs. We propose a different point of view based on the concept of Assemblage as proposed by DeLanda and focus on how we can obtain Trust as the result of the design.
Advantages, Challenges and New Frontiers in Using Information Communication Technologies in Societal and Social Movement Research
Authors: Fuster Morell Mayo
Published: May 2018

This paper includes a review of the main methodological trends and methods related to ICTs adopted in social movement research. It then reflects on the advantages and challenges of using ICTs for research. Finally, it suggests potential and new frontiers in the use of ICTs for research.
Selling You and Your Clicks: Examining the Audience Commodification of Google
Authors: Kang Hyunjin , McAllister Matthew P.
Published: May 2018

Using a political economy perspective, this paper argues that Google’s surplus value from advertising results from its extensive and transformative commodification of users. The unique features of Google as an advertising venue intensify the commodification of its users as compared to traditional media in several ways. First, the simplified valorization process of Google’s advertising methods enables Google to earn significantly more surplus value than those of traditional media. Also, Google’s personalized advertising strategies, its precise measurement of advertising costs based on users’ behaviors represented as “the number of clicks,” and the unclear distinction between advertisements and serviced content commodify its users’ online activities. Lastly, this essay asserts that Google commodifies the aggregated consciousnesses of its users because it sells keywords for advertisers to attach advertisements to search-data output, which are priced in accordance with their popularity. This “click-through” form of behavioral commodification has significant implications for the future of media.
Can Environmental Governance Benefit From an ICT-Social Capital Nexus in Civil Society?
Authors: Dhakal Subas P.
Published: May 2018

Although the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to foster social capital in civil society has been duly acknowledged, few studies have empirically explored the ICT-social capital nexus in the context of community organizations. Huysman and Wulf (2004) consider the lack of interest in the area of ‘ICT and social capital’ as worrisome in today’s increasingly network-centric society. Since the prospect of ICT furthering social capital is simply too significant to ignore, this paper responds to this gap by reporting on one aspect of a 2008 survey of environmental community organizations (ECOs) undertaken to develop a broader understanding of the linkages between organizational social capital and information and communication technologies in the Perth region of Western Australia. By exploring the trend of ICT uptake, pattern of intra-organizational as well as inter-organizational interactions, and the association between ICT uptake and organizational interactions, this paper critically engages in the ‘ICT and social capital’ debate and discusses the implications of ICT-social capital nexus in the context of environmental governance.
From Seven Years to 360 Degrees: Primitive Accumulation, the Social Common, and the Contractual Lockdown of Recording Artists at the Threshold of Digitalization
Authors: Stahl Matt
Published: May 2018

This article examines the apparent paradox of the persistence of long-term employment contracts for cultural industry ‘talent’ in the context of broader trends toward short-term, flexible employment. While aspirants are numberless, bankable talent is in short supply. Long-term talent contracts appear to embody a durable axiom in employment: labor shortage favors employees. The article approaches this axiom through the lens of recent reconsiderations of the concept of primitive accumulation. In the case of employment, this concept highlights employers’ impetus to transcend legal and customary barriers to and limits on their capacity to capture and compel creative labor, and to appropriate the products of contracted creative labor. The article supports this argument through the analysis of contests between Los Angeles-based recording artists and record companies over the California and federal laws that govern their power and property relations. These struggles reveal a pattern of attempts by record companies to overcome or change laws that limit their power to control, compel and dispossess recording artists. The article suggests that as contractual forms change under digitalization, familiar political dynamics continue to characterize the relationships between recording artists and the companies that depend on their labor and output.
Editorial to the Special Issue: Towards a New Science of Information – Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Foundations of Information Science, Beijing, August 21–24, 2010
Authors: Hofkirchner Wolfgang , Li Zong-Rong , Marijuán Pedro C. , Ouyang Kang
Published: May 2018

Editorial to the Special Issue: Towards a New Science of Information – Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Foundations of Information Science, Beijing, August 21–24, 2010
Exploring the Notion of Information: A Proposal for a Multifaced Understanding
Authors: Kajtazi Miranda , Haftor Darek M.
Published: May 2018

Man’s notion of ‘information’ is essential as it guides human thinking, planning, and consequent actions. Situations such as the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the financial crisis in Greece in 2010, and the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 are just a few instances of constant growing empirical dilemmas in our global society where information plays a central role. The meaning of what information is has clear implications for how we deal with it in our practical lives, which in turn may give rise to situations that we would prefer to be without. In this sense, the notion of information has evidently presented the need to question what it really means and how it dominates the functioning of our global society. To address this fundamental issue of information, two questions are explored and presented in this paper: What notions of information are dominating the scholarly literature? And what are the differences between these notions? To answer these questions, we have conducted a comprehensive literature survey of more than two hundred scholarly publications. Detailed analyses of the content of these publications identified four kinds of forms of information notions. The results show that these four forms present diverse and opposing views of the notion of information, labelled as the ‘quartet model of information’. These ad-dress different foci, contexts, and challenges. In addition, we propose an alternative and novel understanding of the notion of information, associated with how information functions in our global society. This understanding offers a new perspective intended to address significant needs of the information society.
Four Ways of Thinking about Information
Authors: Hofkrichner Wolfgang
Published: May 2018

There are four ways of thinking: reductionism, projectivism, disjunctivism, integrativism. The gap between the “hard” science perspective and the “soft” science perspective on information reflect these ways of thinking. The paper discusses how this gap might be bridged by applying the fourth way of thinking.
Is Information a Sufficient Basis for Cognition? Part 1: Critique of Dretske’s Approach
Authors: Díaz Nafría José María , Pérez-Montoro Mario
Published: May 2018

Based upon the natural limits of observation, we tackle a critical review of Dretske’s approach to information, knowledge and perception. The physics of the manifestation of an arbitrary object –tackled in Part 2 as a separate article– sets forth an informational boundary stating that information cannot be enough to support our cognitive processes. The problems do not rely –as Dretske supposes- on the lacks of the channel, but on the very nature of observation. Furthermore, Dretske’s approach –handcuffed to his maximalist support on information- presents some lacks concerning processual character of information, fuzziness of perception and knowledge, contents de dicto and conventional regularities. The posed limits and problems intend to settle new foundations for a more refined conjunction of information and knowledge.
Is Information a Sufficient Basis for Cognition? Part 2: Physical Foundations
Authors: Díaz Nafría José María , Pérez-Montoro Mario
Published: May 2018

In this second part of our inquiry into the relation between information and cognition, we delve into the physical limits of the manifestation of an arbitrary object first with independence of any observer, then considering the nature of perception. The analysis of the manifestations of an object in a homogeneous environment by means of wave phenomena shows that the information carried by such manifestations offers a constitutive fuzziness and ambiguity of the observed object. On the one hand, the details that can be specified concerning the object are strictly limited by the wave length; on the other hand, the volumetric details of the object (i.e. its bowls) are outlawed to the observer, not in virtue of the object opacity, but to the very dimension or complexity of the wave phenomenon in the space surrounding the object. The analysis of perception, considering this physical boundary and the specificity of the animal sensitivity, shows the combined role of other concurrent or previous percept and some a priori knowledge in the perception and awareness of reality.
Towards an Ontology of Information and Succeeding Fundamentals in Computing Science
Authors: Luhn Gerhard
Published: May 2018

A common usage of the concept of information requires a unique definition of it. The text expands on a proposal for an ontology of information, which will be grounded in physics. Shannon’s communication theory does not conceptualize any physical variable. It will be shown that by doing so the gap between syntax and semantics can be closed by introducing the universal category of triadic information. Any informational scenario is given by the trias of a) a sender, and of b) the transformation, which happens to c) the receiver. The concept of information is taken in a broader sense, and is based on physical fundaments. The gravitational force which is exploited to a physical body holds in the same sense well defined information as a spontaneous appearance of a new, algorithmically underivable structure or event: the world gets ‘com- pleted’ within a continuous informational process. Any spontaneous process will always happen in order to increase the entropy of the world. That is, such fundamental information, which causes this completion process, is given within our uni- verse. For those reasons we have to state, that information causes any causal process, rather than ‘is’ a causal process. All living species are grounded on an information-receiving, heteronomous deep structure, which includes as well the message which corresponds to further autonomy and freedom (the completion theorem). To summarize, we are enabled to create and to enter into the so called information society by ontological evidence. Based on such foundations, an adequate concept for computer science will be shortly introduced.
Philosophy of Information and Fundamental Problems of Modern Informatics
Authors: Kolin Konstantin
Published: May 2018

Actual philosophical and scientifically methodological problems of modern Informatics as fundamental science and a complex scientific direction are considered. Communication of these problems with prospects of development of Informatics and fundamental science as a whole is shown.
The Identity of Objects: Form & Nature in Digital Museums
Authors: Hewitt Jason T
Published: May 2018

Reconciling Justus Buchler's theory of natural complexes with the Peircean triadic categorial schema, a theory of semiotic radiance is articulated that elaborates the nature of identity with regard to informatic control over objects in a mu- seum collection. The model is deployed in the context of Edwina Taborsky's description of the historical transformation of the cultural syntax of museums. It is argued that the pattern of transformation is not random, but rather follows a specific and recognizable pattern. This pattern is consistent with a general trend in culture, identified by Heidegger, that becomes particularly problematic in its later stages. A theory of the commons derived from Hardt and Negri is articulated that looks to regenerate the space of the museum with regard to its informatic structures in order to renegotiate humanism in terms of a liberation ethic. The rubric of fundamental informatics is borrowed from Toru Nishigaki to describe the inquiry that pursues that end.
Legal pluralism? Indigenous rights as legal constructs
Authors: Thornhill Chris , Calabria Carina , Cespedes Rodrigo , Dagbanja Dominic , O’Loughlin Elizabeth
Published: May 2018

This article sets out a sociological critique of the theories of legal pluralism that underpin contemporary constructions of Indigenous rights. It argues that pluralistic theories of Indigenous rights, which see Indigenous rights as challenging the legal orders of nation-states, are based in simplified analyses of the construction of such rights, and they fail to account for the subjects that lay claim to indigeneity and the relation between such subjects and national legal systems. To explain this, the article reconstructs primary patterns of Indigenous rights law in global international law, regional international law, and municipal law in Latin America and Africa. Against standard pluralistic approaches, this article argues that we need to adopt a sociological model based in world citizenship, which depends on relatively autonomous legal functions, to understand the growth of Indigenous rights. Central to this model is the claim that the imputation of Indigenous rights extends the reach of domestic legal systems and that it is closely linked to a process in which the national legal system, supported by global legal norms, penetrates more deeply and more inclusively into national society.