Access, Power and Social Marginalisation
in Cyberculture

Anthropology of Accessibility: Further Reflections on the
Perceptual Problems of Human-Computer Interactions By Anna Maj and Michal Derda-Nowakowski

This Time It’s Personal: Social Networks, Viral Politics and
Identity Management By Nils Gustafsson

Politics and Social Software: Recommendations for
Inclusive ICTs By Christina Neumayer, Celina Raffl and Robert M. Bichler

INTRODUCTION

SOCIAL NETWORKS, SOCIAL NETWORK SITES & VIRAL POLITICS

TEMPORAL EFFECTS

IDENTITY MANAGEMENT & ANNOYED PARTICIPATION

CONCLUSION

CYBERCOMMUNITIES and POLITICS

Between Real and Virtual

Knowledge Transfer and Interface Design

Selected Examples of User-oriented Design

Social Networks and their Users

Selected Examples of Assistive Technologies, Systems and
Devices

Introduction

Conclusion

A GLOBAL VIRTUAL SPHERE

INTRODUCTION

Digital Inequalities

Conclusion

Ideologists and designers of usability and accessibility

change in accessibility in symbolic and mediated
communication

The effect of the internet on politics

precursors of the new way of
thinking

Aiming to encode complicated symbolic content - Simplexity

Citizens learn and grow, as individuals, thereby bettering and emancipating themselves as human beings and contributing to better governance

Usability exceeds the limitations of political correctness with necessary of double coding and decoding of meaning

Main idea is that social capital as theorised by among others Bourdieu, is correlated to the level of participation

Anthropology situation are the natural bridge between world of those who can see and those can't or other communities with limited access to content

Social media platforms will have beneficial or adversarial effects on grassroots mobilization depends in part on active
choices of designers

reflection on the roles of mechanisms of social content-generation and visualisations of communication obstacles

John Maede narrated about simplicity and design as the story of development of iPod menu

Zexe.net website

artistic and scientific projects resulted in real changes in architural solution or development of acessibility

chances of revolution in thinking of physical space

Social Networks

Impact not only in architecture of information but also traditional meaning

The internet changes politics not only from a governmental and parliamentarian perspective but also on the individual level.

Articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection

Way of thinking in Network, communities and new ergonomics of communication is introduction to reflection on new society that lack in communication obstacles

connecting various groups of marginalised people from
different cities

View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system

Function: Canal Accessible

evolution of humans connected via computer in social term due to technological interfaces.

prostitutes

taxi drivers

serves people with movement disabilities
who create their own wikimap of Barcelona

mark all places in the city space which are not accessible for people on wheel chairs

Using social network sites

Maintain off-line connections
in an on-line environment

users are documenting their work with photographs taken with mobile phone cameras

Possible to form more or less contemporary groups, connecting people from different networks

WinkBall

social software in particular promises to enable decentralized actions, a range of possibilities to share and exchange information.

Not correct to describe or define social network sites or social media in general as the opposite of traditional or mainstream media

Function: videochat system allowing users to communicate in a
most natural way

facial expressions

these new possibilities have the potential to lay the foundation for new ways of political participation and social movement to emerge

The virtual space is not a big marketplace

first model of the interface (a jog dial with four
buttons located circularly around),

complication into four buttons and a
jog dial (separated) and simplification (integrated into one scroll dial)

Last step which is simplication that provoked both commercial success and marked rends of interfaces design

The era of interner ( 1.0 wvaes in 90s & 2.0 in 2000s

It is a space of political interaction and moreover a central resource of information.

seen as
heralding a new dawn for inclusive, non-hierarchical politics

Maeda shows the example of good quality design failure on the level of the user inability to use the device

Viral Politics

The networks include nodes and links, use many possible paths to distribute information from any link to any other, and self-regulated through flat governance hierarchies and distributed power

Provided that the message is
attractive enough to be virally shared

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Potentially transforming
factor in political life is the increased velocity and scope of the communication

important abilities in contemporary
information society

user can only gain knowledge by himself with instructions

Communities that emerge inn cyberspace lead to enhancement of political activities.

Viral politics emanates from political entrepreneurs, that most often
will be directly affected people of a certain event or phenomenon (the
‘victims’) and/or groups and organisations, both NGOs and political parties
devoted to this particular cause (Burma Action Committee, Doctors Without
Borders, Amnesty International, United Nations, Oxfam, political parties or
politicians)

Individuals manifest their commitment to their existing beliefs and move closer to political action

Fundamental problem in cyberculture in human and machine intercation

Web-based services that construct a public or semi public profile within a bounded system

According to the tradition of technological determinism a state of civilisation depends on a predominant medium

Capture symbolically by anthropologist Michael Wesch in his YouTube film The MACHINE IS Us/ing Us.

individuals acting only on behalf of
themselves, but usually being a part of a wider network of people sharing
views and notions of political strategy

questioning the design of interfaces and devices regarding the users need and ablities

spread information
and media content by word of mouth to wider groups of people through
personal interconnectedness

American Life Project indicates that the presence of older
generations in Internet is lower than the young

In 10 years this situation will change as the age progess

The concept of elite is put in opposition to the concept of
democracy.

However, there are certain disadvantages as well, that are inherent in the technology.

the model, based on empirical studies of national elites in various
countries in the 1970s, the citizenry is divided into six strata, organised to
form a pyramid of power:

For example, the outcome, political orientation, and methods for online political activism and participation are dependent on the users, developers, and producers of social software.

Influentials

Activists

Proximate decision makers

Stratum of the attentive public

Voters

Nonparticipants

Although the Internet can potentially connect people all over the world, limitation in Internet access, lack in computer skills and literacy make the political forum it offers less inclusive - not only, but especially in the developing world.

Cultural differences can lead to misinterpretations when political mobilisation enters a global arena through digital social networks.

The heterarchical, decentralised and likewise open architecture of the Internet provides the necessary precondition.

Swedish Facebook users were
interviewed, using virtual focus groups, about their attitudes towards political
content and mobilisation on the social networking site

establish two new concepts in the academic debate over the development t of political participation in the light of changing uses of computer-mediated communication

No major differences between the answers from the
politically active participants and the non-active participants

This is for virtual communities and hence for participation, new social movements and grassroots activism to emerge

Had generally a sceptical view towards
political campaigns in Facebook

Used to describe a way of dispersing information through social networks, important ingredient in political participation in an era of networked
individualism

Cyberspace is understood according to Pierre Lévy’s definition of a space that enables social movements, i.e. grassroots democracy, and political participation.9

Complained about the large number of requests for
support from political campaigns, among an enormous number of other types
of requests and invitations, leading to Facebook fatigue and a general
reluctance toward any type of action

The web enhances networking of people from different backgrounds, histories and experiences to share interests and aspirations.

Social software has the potential to enhance political participation and grassroots activism and its also combination of tools that make the quick emergence of group-forming networks possible:

taken
part in off-line activities as a direct result of mobilisation using Facebook.

numerous media

Utilities

Applications that empower individual efforts

The Internet provides space to articulate group identity, e.g. by sharing a political cause.

As Anderson argued in the context of print media, a nation can be considered an imagined political community

In the same way, as print-media helped to distribute information for an imagined community within one nation, the Internet can have this functionality on a global scale

Online communities rather emerge from networks than groups.

Due to the networked societies, boundaries are permeable, interaction with diverse others, connections switch between multiple networks, and hierarchies can be flatter and recursive.

Social software provides the potential for political actions, although commercial structures are inherent in most websites

The changes that brought by social software

the way we perceive

The design

(re-)use information and communicate technologies

The perception of time and space has changed with the emergence of ICTs

cyberspace is a social space, because it is created, shaped and (re-)designed by technicians, constructors, engineers.

Social patterns existing in real space, including social inequalities, have an impact on cyberspace communities.

Those excluded from cyberspace thus depend on guidance of real-space-elites.

Potential access of internet and information and the disadvantages of exclusion were subsumed under the term 'digital divide'.

Designing and structuring cyberspace is a social act and cyberspace is a product of human action and creativity.

The real and the virtual sphere are closely related and interdependent and social inequalities, power structures and ideologies existing in real space are therefore transferred to the virtual sphere

Access in necessary precondition to take benefit from the positive potential of the internet and related technologies

New media and globalisation processes have a major impact on the structure and organisation of so-called Global Cities24 as well as the individual and the social

Participation, social movements, collective intelligence, collaborative knowledge production, citizen journalism, user generated content, etc are new qualities of social software

Information technologies are yet another factor contributing to the new logic for agglomeration.

These technologies make possible the geographic dispersal and simultaneous integration of many activities

According to Castells the suspension of spatial and temporal distances is the dominant social logic of the Network Society

Since humans are living in real physical space - the space of places -

this process brings along a loss of the self of individuals

Social structures are projected on the virtual space. This can be discussed in terms of Bourdieu’s understanding of capital

economic

social

symbolic

cultural capital

problem of cultural competencies in human-computer interactions is central to contemporary design

users’ activity crosses the imagination of the designer

case of Nasza-klasa.pl [Our-Class.pl] a website similar to classmates

person who wanted to become a new user had to ask directly the website designers

broaden the age categories for
potential users

users aged up to
90, whereas the asking person was 95 years old

web design is mainly directed
to young people

which seems to be logical regarding the Pew Internet
research

interfaces as smart homes that support
the users, especially aged and with disabilities

not only pure
interfaces but also habitats

HCI design is de facto the problem of
technological imagination concerning target groups

depends on multiple
functionalities built in the interface

Functionalities of interfaces and the necessity of usability are connected with anthropological problems of Web 2.0 design

rules of HCI are a kind of web design savoir-vivre and cultural competencies

Designers in a form of ritualised competition watch each other

maintain the standards of usability and develop more user-friendly interface

anthropological perspective, we can see in this process both the patterns of culture drifting into the direction of political correctness and ‘the battle for standards’

main assumptions of design 2.0 is
separation of content appearance and user’s behaviour

separation makes websites more accessible to users and more visible for bots of search engines.

perspective of culture it is important how data transmission is performed

paradigms of knowledge transfer are far more important

point of view of the traditional form of organising data as a book

natural language

video recording

video streaming

Target user: all ages

system is user-friendly

easy to operate

encouraging also for older persons to use it

tool designed for deaf users

allow to social networking

create signed videos, signed blogs
and signed forums

create the situation, when ‘people within deaf community can communicate with each other online, using their native languages

potential users at schools for deaf children

video chat increased their abilities in
facial self-expression and in signing

expanded their possibilities of
communicative interaction with other people

art of typesetting and theory of book design was developed

issue is usability as a standard of communication it is neither readability nor accessibility

This interface has produced certain forms of perception connected with the educational system and knowledge processing

The vOICe

resulted into the appearance of specific cultural modes of thinking, restructured perceptual and cognitive processes

Gutenberg and his battle for perfect typesetting that ruined him

question of balance between the form and meaning of text has been main issue in typographers, efforts

500 years of typographic tradition that also the history of inaccessibility for blind users

idea of readability and usability prevailed in 20th century discourse on book design

New media art searches for new opportunities to diagnose abilities of human body and mind in the context of machines

analogue interfaces it was necessary to construct alternative means of perception (i.a. visual, voice and tactile)

born in Bauhaus as a mental concept for modernist humankind

Marcel Breuer’s concept of the ideal of a chair, and his also said "In the end we will sit on resilient columns of air"

this metaphor reveals designer’s consciousness of the body of the user of a piece of furniture

suggests that the need to reduce an interface to a feature that are necessary for is functionality

basic assumption leads toward conclusion that a technology user is also a participant and this is a new perpetual paradigm

prehistory of HCI can be traced back not only in engineeringbut also in artistic works of Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Christa Sommerer,Laurent Mignonneau and others

example are David Rokeby's work on Very Nervous System that described as adding new meaning to the term "interactivity"

Device consists of a camera mounted in spectacles, connected with headphones and completed by the software processing the optical signals and changing them into the soundscape

process of seeing is exchanged for hearing

stream of visual data and transformed into a stream of audial data

recognises obstacles located close to the user

warns user by emitting sound representation of objects

beyond-language conversation of human and computer

very similar to contemporary systems that enable controlling computer with the eye movement or body gestures without VR equipment

sensory substitution and synthetic vision approach

Such technologies can serve Internet users with movement disabilities helping them to control computer and interact with other Internet users

visual informationthrough an auditory display

it may be used through education and extensive immersive use with conscious and subconscious visual processing

lead to vivid and truly visual sensations, a ‘visual awakening’, by exploiting the neural plasticity of the human brain

result of the process of interfaces design for people without disabilities is augmented perception

process parallel to media convergence - sensorial convergence

final effect

reducing sensory substitution

reducing perceptual deficiency

the purpose is more to design

plays a metaphorical role, translating functional benefits into sensory and cognitive modalities

finds its shape and its place as a kind of overtone, as an echo of technology

often echoes the specific character of technology and corresponds to its basic pulse

Every new form of communication both heightens ties between those who already know one another, and raises the wall of exclusion for those lacking access to the new medium of communication

The global architecture of virtual sphere is not restricted to local or geographical constraints

The conventional media are trapped in a technology of
central production and mass distribution,which limits their
ability to allow citizens to ‘confer in an unrestricted
fashion’.

Information technologies and related to them changes in
communication structures are amongst the deep drivers of globalisation.

There is a difficult relationship between the ‘global as the principle source of
domination and the local as the principal source of resistance and emancipation

Networked, digitized information media cut across
territorial boundaries of cultural groups.They juxtapose
differences in a homogeneous medium. They bring togetherThey bring together
individuals with common interests but divergent nationalities and traditions

Places of political action and decision-making are linked by ‘rapid
communications into complex networks of political interaction

Globality is a new resource for users who mix
technical properties with local practices

The outcome of these technical properties depends on the users and
their perception of a particular political problem, worldview or ideology and
the way they are able to use the technologies.

We conclude that ICTs provide
the foundation for communities to emerge and to shape society, for both social benefits as well as negative consequences

Community building in cyberspace requires an open,
participatory framework

Societal structures and political concepts are transferred from
real world into the virtual space

The real
and the virtual cannot be seen independently from each other.

Cultural, political and societal context have to be
considered in Internet governance

The digital divide still excludes many people especially in the developing world to use social software for political engagement

Universal access is the precondition for using ICTs for
grassroots democracy

Social software provides possibilities to enhance political
engagement on a global scale

The possibilities of the technologies can be used in different ways and the future direction it takes depends upon its actors

Global use of ICTs for political participation, social movements and political activism needs alternative concepts that foster cooperation on a global scale, as well as empowered citizens in the real space.