Realizing Governance 2.0Capturing the Value of Networked Citizens

and the Fifth Estate

William H. Dutton

Oxford Internet Institute (OII) University of Oxford

www.ox.ac.uk

Presentation for Instituto de Comunicación y Nuevas Technologías, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile, 29 July 2011.

The Problem

• Governments 1.0 – Informational Websites

• Citizens 0.0 – Apathy

• 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011• Cross-sectional Surveys versus Panels• Multi-Stage Probability Sample • England, Scotland & Wales

• Respondents: 14 years and older

• Face-to-face Interviews, High Response Rates

• Sponsorship for 2011 from the Nominet Trust, British Library, Ofcom, O2, and ITV.com

• Component of World Internet Project (WIP)

Oxford Internet Surveys

Innovations in Use

• Social Networking – User Generated Content (UGC)

• Emergence of Next Generation Users

• Rise of Collaborative Network Organizations

• Collaboration of OII, INSEAD, and comScore for the World Economic Forum (WEF)

• Online Global Survey • Completed by 5,400 Adult Internet Users • Conducted from Oct-Nov 2010• 13 countries: Australia/New Zealand, Brazil,

Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom

The Global Internet Values Project*

*Dutta, S., Dutton, W. H. and Law, G. (2011), The New Internet World: A Global Perspective on Freedom of Expression, Privacy, Trust and Security Online. New York: The World Economic Forum, April. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1810005

Electronic Networks of Expertise

• The Emergency Management Information Systems And Reference Index (EMISARI) 1971

• PCs and Groupware, Group Decision Support

• Citizen Consultation: QUBE Columbus, Ohio 1980s

• Santa Monica’s Public Electronic Network (PEN) early-1990s

Case study

• News aggregators

• Sermo

• Seriosity

• Information markets

• Atlas

• ASOA

• Firefox development

• Simple Wikipedia

Source: OII

Case Studies of ‘Distributed Problem Solving Networks’

What is it about?

• Different paradigms to find, rate, and prioritize news available online

• Physicians sharing medical information

• Use of multi-player game features to help prioritize use of e-mail and attention foci

• Aggregating judgments to predict public and private events

• Designing and building a high energy physics (HEP) experiment

• Financing and creating an Open Content Feature Film

• Making an Open Source web browser “Mom-and-Dad” friendly

• Improve readability of Wikipedia

A Simple Typology of CNOs

Collaboration on documents, data, objects

1.0. Sharing: hypertextual

2.0. Contributing: hypertextual + user-

generated

3.0. Co-creating: hypertextual + user-generated

+ cooperative work

• Atlas • Bugzilla • Innocentive

• Digg News• Information Markets/

Prediction Markets• Seriosity • Sermo

• Firefox• Simple Wikipedia• Swarm of Angels

Enabling Institutional Change

Governments 2.0

• Citizen Consultation

• Citizen Sourcing of Expertise

• Citizen’s as Sources of Information

Wider Conceptions of the Public:

• Public as Citizens: Voters within a Constituency supported by e-consultation, Voting and Polling, …

• Public as Advisors: Experts Distributed around the World

Citizen Opinion Expert Advice

Engaging Networked Individuals

Citizen Consultation, Polling, ePetitions

Distributed Intelligence through Collaborative Network Organizations

Individuals, Interest Groups and Lobbies

Meetings, Hearings, Letters, Petitions, Elections

Paid Consultants, Representatives of Interest Groups

Many Reasons to Avoid CNOs:

1. Risk Aversion

2. Concern over Levels of Participation

3. Quality: Focus on Evidence-based Policy

4. Gaming of Outcomes

5. Revealing Problems or Strategies

6. Loss of Control over Communication

7. Concern over Civility

8. Concern over Committing Politicians and Officials

Strategies for Government Champions:

1. Don’t reinvent the technology

2. Start small, but with scalable design

3. Be flexible in where you go for expertise

4. No one solution to all problems

5. Cultivate bottom up development of projects

6. Get colleagues involved in distributed collaboration

7. Capture, reward and publicize best practice

Networked Individuals versus Institutions

The ‘Fifth Estate’

Empowering Networked Individuals

Networked Institutions, such as in e-Health

Networked Individuals:

going to the Internet for health and medical information

networking physicians via Sermo

Networked Institutions v Networked Individuals

Sermo

How is the Internet being used to ‘reconfigure access’? Are there discernable patterns?

Does the Internet enable key actors to reconfigure access in ways that enhance their ‘communicative power’?

Key Questions Concerning the Politics of the Digital Age

“[Edmund] Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more prominent far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or witty saying; it is a literal fact – very momentous to us in these times.”

Thomas Carlyle (1831), Heroes and Hero-Worship, at www.gutenberg.org.etext/1091

The Fourth Estate

Feudal Estates into the 21st Century

Estates Feudal Modern

Clergy Public Intellectuals

Nobility Business, Industry and Economic Elites

Commons Government

‘4th Estate’ Press Journalists and the Mass Media

Mob Civil Society, Individuals, … ?

The Fourth Estate Depends on an Independent Press – Independent in Relation to Other Estates

The Fourth Estate:

News of the World Case

Press since the 18th Century - the ‘Fourth Estate’

Internet in the 21st - enabling a Fifth Estate

−−Enabling people to network with other individuals and with information, services and technical resources in ways that support social accountability in business and industry, government, politics, and the media.

The Fourth and Fifth Estates

29

30

Pattern of Findings Supporting Conception of Networked Individuals

“Wael Ghonim, a 30-year-old executive from Google, was the administrator of an anti-torture page on Facebook, the social networking website, that is widely credited with organising the first day of protest [in Egypt] on January 25.”

Jon Swaine, The Telegraph, 11 Feb 2011

Networked Institutions v Networked Individuals of the Fifth Estate

Arenas: Networked Institutions

Networked Individuals

News Online journalism, BBC Online, Live Micro-Blogging

Citizen Journalists, Bloggers, Netizens Posting Videos

Democracy E-Democracy, E-Consultation, e-Voting

Obama campaign, Networking the Pro-Democracy Protests

Education Online Learning, Multimedia Classrooms

Backchannels, informal learning

Health and Medical NHS Direct, e-mailing safety alerts

Going to the Internet for health information, Sermo

Networked Institutions: greater ubiquity, universal access

Networked Individuals of the Fifth Estate: require a critical mass, not universal access

Networked Institutions v Networked Individuals of the Fifth Estate

Percentage of Internet Users Across Regions of the World

Regions as Percentage of the Worldwide Population of Users

18th Century Estates: 21st Century Enemies

18th Century Estates

21st Century: Enemies of the

5th Estate

Attacks

Clergy Public Intellectuals ‘Culture of Amateurism’, individualist consumerism

Nobility Business, Industry and Economic Elites

Vertical Integration; Monopoly over Search; Three Strikes

Commons Government and Regulatory Agencies

Filtering; Content Regulation; Identification; Surveillance; Disconnection

Press Journalists and the Mass Media

Echo Chambers; but

Co-opting, Imitating, Competing, and Supporting

Mob Spammers, Fraudsters, Cyberstalkers, …

Undermining Trust and Confidence; Fostering Regulation of Content

Centrality of the Internet, Trust in Government and Attitudes toward Internet Regulation over Time

OxIS 2003: N=2,029; OxIS 2005: N=2,185; OxIS 2007 N=2,350. OxIS 2009: N=2,013

Understanding the Potential

The Fifth Estate

Citizen Sourcing Expertise

Understanding the Threats

Engaging versus Resisting

Inappropriate Regulation of the Internet

Capturing the Value

Selected References:

Dutton, W. H. (2008), ‘The Wisdom of Collaborative Network Organizations: Capturing the Value of Networked Individuals’, Prometheus, 26(3), September, pp. 211-30.

Dutton, W. H. (2009), ‘The Fifth Estate Emerging through the Network of Networks’, Prometheus, Vol. 27, No. 1, March: pp. 1-15.

Dutton, W. H. (2010), ‘Networking Distributed Public Expertise: Strategies for Citizen Sourcing Advice to Government’, Occasional Paper Series in Science & Technology, Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI), Institute for Defense Analyses, Washington DC.