Technologies as Institutions

Technologies as InstitutionsRethinking the role of technology

in media governance constellations

Christian Katzenbach

Institute for Media and Communication StudiesFreie Universität Berlin, Germany

Workshop “New Directions in Communication Policy Research”ECREA Section “Communication Law and Policy”

Zürich, November 6-7, 2009.

Introduction

Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

‣Governance as Background and Frame

‣ Technology as Blind Spot

‣ The „Politics of Information and Communication Technologies“

Introduction

[.…] a politics deeply embedded not just within the institutions that design and distribute technologies and services, but within

the technology itself, as software products and information networks both prescribe and proscribe, configuring suppliers

and users, containing and constraining behaviour, and embodying in their algorithms and their gateways both the

normative and the seductive.

Mansell /Silverstone, 1996

“


‣Governance as Background and Frame

‣ Technology as Blind Spot

‣ The „Politics of Information and Communication Technologies“

Introduction

Goal:Foundations for the (re-)integration of technology and its

interrelations in the governance discourse

Governance


‣Governance Frame: Regulation in a wider sense

‣ gained attention as analytical concept and practical approach

‣ Shift of focus in several dimensions:

‣ Actors: Vertical and Horizontal Extension of the traditional mode of rule-making through the nation-state

‣ Vertical: International Institutions

‣ Horizontal: Inclusion of private actors (self- and Co-Regulation)

Governance as a Theoretical Frame

Focus on new sets of actors


Focus on new mechanismsDiscourse

Values

Competition

Legislation

Norms

ExpertiseKnowledge

Institutions

Coordination

Legitimation

Markets


‣ From the "Golden-Age Nation State" to heterogenous regulatory constellations

‣ Focus on new sets of actors, not on mechanisms

Governance in Communication Research

Role of technology in media governance constellations?


‣ Broad Concept of Governance: „Patterns to cope with interdependencies between actors“

‣ Schuppert: Structures of coordination, rather than regulation

‣ Institutions as analytical hinge

Governance and Institutions

[Institutions are] symbolic and behavioral systems containing representational, constitutive and normative rules together with regulatory mechanisms that define a common meaning system

and give rise to distinctive actors and action routines.

Scott, 1994

“


‣ Broad Concept of Governance: „Patterns to cope with interdependencies between actors“

‣ Schuppert: Structures of coordination, rather than regulation

‣ Institutions as analytical hinge

‣ They are both outcome…

‣… as well as instruments of regulation.

Governance and Institutions


‣ Constructivist Turn in the 1980s: Focus on Domestication and Adoption

‣ Disregard of the Politics of Technologies

Technology in Media Governance

Impacts of Technology on social behaviour and sectoral change1 Political and Social Construction

of Technology2‣ Domestication and Adoption‣ Development of Standards‣ Regulation of Emerging Technologies ‣ Case Studies

Technology does not follow its own teleological path

‣ Technology as form of (indirect) regulation

DANGER! Technological Determinism!

Indeed, the very design of the Internet seemed technologically proof against attempts to put the genie back in the bottle. […]

[It] treats censorship like damage and routes around it.

Walker 2003

“

Lessig 2007


‣ Constructivist Turn in the 1980s: Focus on Domestication and Adoption

‣ Disregard of the Politics of Technologies

Technology in Media Governance


of Technology2‣ Domestication and Adoption‣ Development of Standards‣ Regulation of Emerging Technologies ‣ Case Studies

‣ Technology as form of (indirect) regulation

‣ Interplay and Interdependencies

DANGER! Technological Determinism!


‣ Core Interest: Technology — Action — Socio-political Structures

Insights from the Sociology of Science and Technology


of Technology2‣ Technology in Use

‣ Meaning and Usage are ascribed, not determined‣ Domestication

‣ Technology Development‣ „Leitbilder“‣ Standardisation‣ Regulation

‣ Technology as functional equivalent‣ Durkheimʻs social facts‣ Hardened social action and structured

‣ Technology is Society made durable

Picture: clemensfranz (CC By-SA 3.0)



Hints from the Sociology of Science and Technology









Hints from the Sociology of Science and Technology







Co-Evolution

Resources Routines


Technologies as Institutions: Discussion

‣ Importance of detailed look at technological and policy decisions‣ Set the frame for communication and following decisions‣ Time-lag

‣ Technologies are part of the institutional frame that individual action (communication) is embedded in‣ Interaction of user adoption and technological affordances

‣ Interplay and Interdependencies

Infrastructure / Policy

Shared Values / Communities of Usage

InteractionsMicro

Meso

Macro

Infrastructure / Architecture

Interconnection / Logics / Standards

Content

Net Neutrality

Copyright

Zero


Selected References

‣ Bijker, W. E. und Law, J. (Hrsg.). (1992). Shaping technology/building society : studies in sociotechnical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.‣ Donges, Patrick. (2007). The New Institutionalism as a theoretical foundation of media

governance. Communications, 32, 325-330. ‣ Latour, Bruno. (2007). Reassembling the social : an introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford

[u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press.‣ Latour, Bruno. (1991). Technology is Society made durable., in: John Law (Hrsg.), A Sociology of

Monsters. London: Routledge. 103-131.‣ Latzer, M., Just, N., Sauerwein, F., & Slowinski, P. (2003). Regulation Remixed: Institutional

Change through Self and Co-Regulation in the Mediamatics Sector. Communications & Strategies, 50(2), 127-157. ‣ Lessig, Lawrence. (1999). Code and other laws of cyberspace. New York, NY: Basic Books.‣ Mansell, R. & Silverstone, R. (Eds.). (1996). Communication by design: The politics of

information and communication technologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.‣ Schulz-Schaeffer, I. (2000). Sozialtheorie der Technik. Frankfurt am Main [u.a.]: Campus Verl.‣ Schuppert, Gunnar Folke. (2008). Governance: Auf der Suche nach Konturen eines "anerkannt

uneindeutigen Begriffs", in: Gunnar Folke Schuppert und Michael Zürn (Hrsg.), Governance in einer sich wandelnden Welt. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. 13-40.‣ Walker, John. (2003). "The digital imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the internet

genie back in the bottle". Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 16(3), 24-77.‣ Winner, Langdon. (1980). "Do Artifacts Have Politics?". Daedulus, 109, 121-136.

Paying for Music Consuming Music but not Paying

Technological SettingLegal Setting

Norms and Values

Analog – Copying as ExceptionFair UseCreators



Norms and Values

Analog – Copying as ExceptionFair UseCreators



Norms and Values

Digitally Networked – Copying = UsageFair Use???Creators, but also: Rip, Mix, and Burn / Sharing