Popular education and the digital citizen: a genealogical analysis

This paper historicises and problematises the concept of the digital citizen and how it is constructed in Sweden today. Specifically, it examines the role of popular education in such an entanglement. It makes use of a genealogical analysis to produce a critical ‘history of the present’ by mapping out the debates and controversies around the emergence of the digital citizen in the 1970s and 1980s, and following to its manifestations in contemporary debates. This article argues that free and voluntary adult education (popular education) is and has been fundamental in efforts to construe the digital citizen. A central argument of the paper is that popular education aiming for digital inclusion is not a 21st century phenomenon; it actually commenced in the 1970s. However, this digitisation of citizens has also changed focus dramatically since the 1970s. During the 1970s, computers and computerisation were described as disconcerting, and as requiring popular education in order to counter the risk of the technology “running wild”. In current discourses, digitalisation is constructed in a non-ideological and post-political way. These post-political tendencies of today can be referred to as a post-digital present where computers have become so ordinary, domesticized and ubiquitous in everyday life that they are thereby also beyond criticism. (DIPF/Orig.

Forums for citizen journalists? Adoption of user generated content initiatives by online news media

The mainstream online news media face accusations of being slow to respond to so-called 'grassroots' or 'citizen journalism', which uses the world wide web, and in particular blogs and wikis, to publish and promote independent news-related content. This article argues that the adaptation of established news websites to the increasing demand from readers for space to express their views is driven as much by local organizational and technical conditions as it is by any attachment to traditional editorial practices. The article uses qualitative research interviews with the editors and managing editors of nine major British news websites to reveal the debates journalists are having about their changing roles, the challenges of meeting commercial expectations and legal obligations, and the innovations taking place in online newsrooms. It provides journalism and interactive media scholars with case studies on the changes taking place in journalism's relationship with its consumers

Framing the cuts: an analysis of the BBC’s discursive framing of the ConDem cuts agenda

This study analyses the discursive framing of the British government’s economic policies by BBC News Online. Specifically, it focuses on the coverage of the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010, in which the details of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s broader ‘austerity’ agenda were released. Using frame analysis informed by critical theory, we analyse three online BBC features and compare their framing of the economic crisis – and the range of possible policy responses to it – with that of the government’s. In addition, we analyse editorial blogs and training materials associated with the BBC’s special ‘Spending Review season’; we also situate the analysis in the historical context of the BBC’s relationship with previous governments at moments of political and economic crisis. Contrary to dominant ideas that the BBC is biased to the left, our findings suggest that its economic journalism discursively normalises neoliberal economics, not necessarily as desirable, but certainly as inevitable

ANTICORRUPTION NATIONAL SYSTEM: Model Whistleblowers direct citizen action against corruption in Mexico

The phenomenon of corruption is a cancer that affects our country and that it is necessary to eradicate; This dilutes the opportunities for economic and social development, privileging the single conjunction of particular interests, political actors in non-legal agreements for their own benefit, which lead to acts of corruption. Recent studies indicate that the level of corruption present in a political system is directly related to the type of institutional structure that defines it (Boehm and Lambsdorff, 2009), as well as the ineffectiveness of the control organisms (Casar, 2015; Cárdenas, 2010, Rojas, 2010, Carbonell, 2009, Restrepo, 2004), which requires citizen action to combat corruption (Sandoval, 2010, Villanueva, 2006). This work, focuses our attention on the federal public administration, presenting as a proposal to empower the citizen action in the fight against corruption and in the National Anticorruption System; the figure of Whistleblowers or generator of citizen alert, based on two fundamental principles: i) recognizing the citizen's obligation to report acts of corruption and ii) the granting by the authority of witness protection. These two actions will result in two important results: i) Consolidate the citizen's complaint to inform society about acts of corruption and ii) and the exercise of freedom of information so that society is able to be informed about acts of corruption. These actions will allow promoting and consolidating a culture of reporting acts of corruption that may constitute a crime as a fundamental pillar in the National Anticorruption System in Mexico

Proceedings of the 2011 New York Workshop on Computer, Earth and Space Science

The purpose of the New York Workshop on Computer, Earth and Space Sciences is to bring together the New York area's finest Astronomers, Statisticians, Computer Scientists, Space and Earth Scientists to explore potential synergies between their respective fields. The 2011 edition (CESS2011) was a great success, and we would like to thank all of the presenters and participants for attending. This year was also special as it included authors from the upcoming book titled "Advances in Machine Learning and Data Mining for Astronomy". Over two days, the latest advanced techniques used to analyze the vast amounts of information now available for the understanding of our universe and our planet were presented. These proceedings attempt to provide a small window into what the current state of research is in this vast interdisciplinary field and we'd like to thank the speakers who spent the time to contribute to this volume.Comment: Author lists modified. 82 pages. Workshop Proceedings from CESS 2011 in New York City, Goddard Institute for Space Studie

Ethics of e-voting: an essay on requirements and values in Internet elections

In this paper, we investigate ethical issues involved in the development and implementation of Internet voting technology. From a phenomenological perspective, we describe how voting via the Internet mediates the relation between people and democracy. In this relation, trust plays a major role. The dynamics of trust in the relation between people and their world forms the basis for our analysis of the ethical issues involved. First, we consider established principles of voting, confirming the identity of our democracy, which function as expectations in current experiments with online voting in the Netherlands. We investigate whether and how Internet voting can meet these expectations and thereby earn trust, based on the experiments in the Netherlands. We identify major challenges, and provide a basis for ethical and political discussion on these issues, especially the changed relation between public and private. If we decide that we want to vote via the Internet, more practical matters come into play in the implementation of the technology. The choices involved here are discussed in relation to the mediating role of concrete voting technologies in the relation between citizen and state