[Itself] Issue Crawling on The Web - May 25 (1.00-2.30 pm) e52-598 (fwd)

[anita chan]

Legible Networks - Mapping Issues on the Web
Tuesday, May 25th, 1:00-2:30pm, at Forester Room (E52-598)

Richard Rogers, Professor in Media Studies at the University of
Amsterdam
and Ford Fellow, will introduce the theory, methods, claims and politics

behind the Issue Crawler, server-side network location software that
maps
and analyses networks of the Web, based on hyperlink analysis.

The discussion includes:

1) Networking effects. Has there been a network effect? A network effect

may be defined as the uptake of an organizational campaign by an
existing
network, or the growth of a network around a particular campaign or
issue.
Examples include the rapid growth of the international campaign to ban
landmines, as well as the worldwide protests against the War in Iraq.
Examples of intense networking that have yet to yield major social
change
include the Burma campaigns.
<http://www.govcom.org/gco_projects/workshops/6/presentation/>Read more.

2) Regional networks. Is there a regional network around an issue? Does
global civil society fragment regional civil society? A regional network

comprises organizations from a particular region, such as the Caucuses,
Central Asia, South Central Europe, or Scandanavia. Whilst the U.S. has
its
own networks, it has proven difficult to find regional networks without
U.S. reliance.

3) Donor effects. Which networks of organizations around issues hold
together if donors and/or intergovernmental organizations are removed?
Certain actors may understand a donor-free network, or cluster, as more
authentic.
<http://www.govcom.org/gco_projects/workshops/6/presentation/WN.html>Vie
w
case study maps.

4) No Internet. Mapping issues in regions with low connectivity, low
Internet penetration. Which issues in countries or regions with low
connectivity resonate the most on the Internet? Are these the most
relevant
issues on the ground? What is the networks' understanding of the issues
in,
say, the Fergana Valley (Uzbekistan)? View case study maps
<http://www.govcom.org/publications/drafts/fergana.html>1
<http://www.govcom.org/publications/drafts/fergana2.html>2.

5) Network Evolution. HIV-AIDS in Russia. Which organizations have risen

(and which fallen) in significance over the past two years, within the
HIV-AIDs networks in Russia and Ukraine? What conclusions may be drawn
about the type of information on offer from these network dynamics? We
found that despite international funding of sex-related HIV-AIDs
information agencies, the intravenous-drug-use information providers, in

Russia, are still the most significant in the networks.
<http://www.govcom.org/publications/drafts/public-health_HIV-AIDS.pdf>Vi
ew
case study map (pdf).

6) A virtual society? Interpenetration of the online and the offline.
Does
the information available online overlap significantly with the offline?

For example, are newspaper accounts of whats going on similar to the
networks accounts? <http://www.govcom.org/web_index.html>Read more.

7) Doing without news? Has my initiative (which received press
attention)
resonated as well in the broader issue network? We may have a press
strategy. Do we need a network strategy?
<http://www.issuenetwork.org/node.php?id=46>Read more.

8) Do networks have preferred formats? Which formats circulate best in
networks? What does a network do with a press release? What does it do
with
a tool or a prize?
<http://www.issuenetwork.org/reports/apc/gco_format.pdf>Read more (pdf).
<http://www.adobe.com/svg/>

Software introduction:
<http://www.govcom.org/scenarios_use.html>http://www.govcom.org/scenario
s_use.html

Sample maps:
<http://www.govcom.org/drafts.html>http://www.govcom.org/drafts.html

Articles: http://www.govcom.org/full_list.html

Mapping workshops:
<http://www.issuenetwork.org/>http://www.issuenetwork.org (next
workshop:
21-24 June 2004, Amsterdam)

Web Issue Index of Civil Society: http://www.infoid.org


Richard Rogers is author of Technological Landscapes (Royal College of
Art,
1999), editor of Preferred Placement: Knowledge Politics on the Web (Jan

van Eyck, 2000), author of the forthcoming book, Information Politics on

the Web (MIT Press, 2004). He also has written extensively on the
history
of the Channel Tunnel.







-- 
Karim R. Lakhani
MIT Sloan | The Boston Consulting Group
Mobile: +1 (617) 851-1224
http://spoudaiospaizen.net
http://web.mit.edu/lakhani/www | http://opensource.mit.edu