Category: knowledge work

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exam readings knowledge work networks public participation in science

Exam reading: “Crowdsourcing”

This book was more substantial and less rah-rah than I’d originally suspected it would be. There’s a fair amount of discussion of the different types of crowdsourcing, which includes public participation in science as well as the more profound stuff like t-shirt design 🙂

Jeff Howe. Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. New York: Crown Business Press, 2009.

Summary: Howe discusses the rise of the “reputation economy”: unpaid work for recognition within a community, as an outgrowth of cheap production, underemployed creativity, and online communities. He calls crowdsourcing a “perfect meritocracy;” it fosters collaboration (as its own reward) and community formation. He does discuss drawbacks: shifts in business models/professions (photography, journalism), globalization & flattening of work hierarchies, and the possibility of ushering in cultural mediocrity (though he thinks the last is unlikely.) Overall, he suggests it’s away to utilize human talent better (idea is that people would still have day jobs, and collaborative projects would provide a creative outlet.) Howe outlines several types of crowdsourcing: collective intelligence (group innovation for problem solving; need diversity, and interaction can lead to a limiting consensus), crowd creation (making things, rather than applying existing expertise; need interaction for this), crowd voting/ranking, crowd finance (e.g., microloans.) For success, you need the right crowd and incentives, some professional employees (crowds are great at gathering data/brainstorming, but bad at analysis & organization), an overall frame and guidance for participants, and breakdown of tasks into doable pieces. Mentions 90% rule: 89% of everything is crap/10% is good/1% is great.

Comments: I’m still trying to decide whether crowdsourcing is a brilliant way to achieve meaningful personal expression or a clever ploy by the capitalist system to get free labor. I don’t want to be too negative about these efforts, because they do have great potential to add to the human experience. It seems like crowdsourcing operates much like academia is traditionally supposed to: open exchange of ideas, focus on interesting problems, etc., except that in academia people get paid for their work (I also wonder if there are also connections here to the current diminishing status of experts in a crowdsourcing world, which goes along with reduction in academic pay…) While academia left out a big group of people who now have potential to use this process, there’s still a majority without access to these technologies or who do not have time for this sort of collaboration that are being left out. Perhaps it’s best to think of these projects as a good place to start, rather than an endpoint.

Links to: Lave & Wenger (participants can be seen as LPPers); Liu (core list-politics of knowledge economy)

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings knowledge work learning theory

Exam reading: “Minds on fire”

I had a strong reaction to this paper, probably because I’ve been thinking about these issues from a different perspective than the authors. This paper ties into some of my core T&T readings, like “Laws of Cool” and “Datacloud,” that address the knowledge economy and the future of work. However, here the focus is on learning.

John Seely Brown, and Richard P. Adler. “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0.” Educause Review Jan/Feb 2008.

Summary: Main idea is that an educated workforce with opportunities for lifelong learning is necessary to maintain competitive centers in a globalized world. The need for education for multiple careers and constant re-skilling (my term; they use more positive vocabulary) can be facilitated by Web-based free education & Web 2.0 networking technologies. The Web facilitates social, collaborative learning: work in small groups, “learning to be” a participant plus traditional “learning about” a subject, problem-based collaboration. Idea of legitimate peripheral participation: learners gain both explicit (factual) and implicit (social) knowledge at once. The authors look at online tools for learning: Second Life, “e-science,” informal discussions in social networking sites (I would argue that several of their suggestions aren’t good examples.) Discuss similarities between “long tail” niche marketing being supported by more popular commerce- the Web facilitates this setup- and how online education can be similar (once niche courses are developed, they’re out there forever.) Overall idea is to provide an environment that both facilitates and promotes lifelong learning; they call this “demand-pull” rather than “supply-push” approach.

Comments: Authors do not discuss what to do about the digital divide, the social dislocation associated with constant retraining, how hypothetical developers of free online courses would actually be employed themselves, how to evaluate accurate vs. inaccurate content, erosion of expertise and traditional methods of validating knowledge, etc. Basically, this reads like a Web 2.0 cheerleading piece for non-centralized/distributed education systems, and does not address a wide range of major economic and social justice issues (granted, this is probably not their intent.) The fact that the authors lump in non-online examples into their “online tools for learning” section suggests that they are stretching for examples.

Links to: Howe (discusses crowdsourcing-ultimate result of this educational style? or at least linked); Lave & Wenger (LPP)

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exam readings knowledge work politics science communication science studies

Exam readings: Science in the knowledge economy

These are both chapters from Communicating Science in Social Contexts: New Models, New Practices that put science communication into a very wide context of societal changes.

In “Representation and Deliberation: New Perspectives on Communication Among Actors in Science and Technology Innovation,” Giuseppe Pellegrini wants to reform the way democracy operates:

Summary: Pellegrini takes on the relationships between scientific experts, business, political institutions, and the public, and suggests that new governance models are needed for developing technical-scientific fields (e.g., nano, biotech, communications). He contrasts representative democracy (public delegates decision-making to political class, they delegate it to scientific & business experts) to deliberative democracy (participation of all interested parties.) In recent years, doubt has been cast on both scientific experts as a community of objective decision makers (e.g., scientists going into business), and on political institutions’ ability to regulate business or even remain functional (e.g., globalization, collapse of the social contract). This has been facilitated by: greater communication, the speed of scientific and technological changes in recent years, the end of consequence-free perception of progress, and a new appreciation of the uncertainty inherent in science (facilitated by a conflict-driven media.) Pellegrini suggests a new view of rights of citizens, which would include access to opportunities to participate in scientific social decision-making, and access to information about government workings (and ability to communicate directly with decision-makers). This would expand the deliberative aspects of democracy past traditional voting, or delegation of decision-making powers to elites.

Comments: Pellegrini is not clear about who will guarantee or fund these new communication rights of citizens, or guarantee that vested interests will not attempt to manipulate the system via traditional advertising, etc., (but acknowledges these are valid criticisms), and it’s also unclear how decisions will actually be made (he’s explicitly advocating more open discussion about science-tech-society issues, not decision-making.) He does mention that not all participants’ views should be equal (so still a role for experts). Mention of “powerful and authoritative scientists” making society’s decisions is ironic, given the recent state of political discourse in the U.S.

With somewhat related themes, Bernard Schiele’s “On and About the Deficit Model in an Age of Free Flow” redefines scientific literacy in the “knowledge economy.”

Summary: Schiele’s view is that science has become integrated into the “information society” to such an extent that the deficit model of communication is no longer useful. Science began by openly communicating in the vernacular, but increasing specialization and the rise of professional science communicating media separated science “producers” from “consumers.” The deficit model assumed that both science literacy and political literacy were necessary for citizens to participate in sci-tech decision-making processes. Shiele believes that the boundary between science and non-science is becoming blurred (e.g., psychology), and that the communication process is now about fostering multiple connections between science and society. He connects these changes to the knowledge economy: universities collaborating with industry (and communicating results to public), research is becoming more applied (problem-solving and products), and scientists are also becoming replaceable knowledge workers. The public now feels able to comment on the directions research takes; non anti-science, but feels that “progress” is not the answer.

Comments: I’m not sure to what extent Schiele’s characterization of scientists as replaceable knowledge workers is accurate. He seems to equate expertise with the ability to marshal (publicly available) knowledge at need and adapt to different contexts (so everyone could potentially succeed in any field); I don’t think this knowledge flexibility necessarily maps to understanding how knowledge is created & interpreted within different domains. He also seems to be defining science literacy as a way of thinking about science and scientific culture, and assuming that the public is educated about science/scientific institutions (as cultural actors; not about how the scientific process works.)

Links to: Shamos (very different definition of scientific literacy)

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exam readings knowledge work politics

Exam reading: “Social life of information”

Do ideas meet, flirt, and spawn off cute little baby ideas? Is Google a speed dating service between your computer and the object of your search? Is your credit card having an affair with that sexy Brazilian computer it met while you were on vacation?

Sadly, this book answers none of these questions. “The Social Life of Information,” by John Brown & Paul Duguid, is about the perils of techno-cheerleading in the knowledge economy. “Social life” refers to the fact that there is a strong social context to information; we are not really floating in a sea of decontextualized data.

Summary: Brown & Duguid lay out some considerations that should be made in order to avoid “tunnel design” (a focus on information & ignoring social/material context) for businesses & technologies. They believe that social interaction is crucial for businesses to function & technologies to be used effectively. They take several myths of the information age to task: “endisms” (end of politics, the press, etc.), reframing everything in an information-processing perspective (e.g., universities as information-transmitting centers), all businesses will be “flattened” & disaggregated, etc. They address the trend toward decentralized & work-at-home offices, emphasizing that social interaction is needed and we need more in our work environment than just a computer (desk, tech support, post-its, etc.) They discuss the network structure of business: both stepwise processes and the lateral links that let workers share practices are important; links within companies (e.g., between specializations) and between companies (in professional/discipline networks) are also crucial. They make a distinction between knowledge (contextual, requires a knower, needs assimilation for meaning) and information; there are also two dimensions of knowledge: explicit (knowing that) and tacit (knowing how). A big part of their discussion is communities of practice and how members learn through day-to-day interactions with more experienced members; distributed businesses had better have really good communication networks in order to facilitate even an approximation at this type of interaction.

Comments: Skipping discussion of bots & what they can & can’t do (technical capabilities, legal/ethical issues), the future of paper (yep, we’ll still need it). While their discussion of how universities will change (distributed systems with a mix of online components and physical centers) mentions that physical interactions in traditional universities are important, I think they downplay the importance of these interactions. For example, you can’t get a thorough education in a technical field or science without lab or field work; I don’t think their suggestion of internships or brief stints at research centers would work here.

Links to: Liu (knowledge work); Spinuzzi (info networks); Johnson-Eilola (knowledge work envt.)

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exam readings identity knowledge work transparency

Exam reading: “Essential McLuhan”

This book includes selected works by Marshall McLuhan, a popular figure in cultural criticism:

Summary: McLuhan’s main thesis is that the media by which we communicate are powerful shapers of psychology and culture. Media are our ways of extending human sense organs into the environment. When new media technologies are introduced, the levels of different senses used by people shift (e.g., writing started to emphasize vision, and eventually print enabled logic, 3-D perception, and the individual ego). There’s a fundamental difference between vision (acts to separate people from their environment) and all other senses (immerse people in their environment). Non-literate cultures (he includes those using non-alphabetic writing in this group) exist in primarily auditory, tribal societies, while alphabet-using cultures are visual and civilized. Electronic media are in the process of making the entire world auditory and tribal; these media affect feeling, not thought. Media are more important than the message, in terms of influencing society. Even visual media are changing-the juxtaposition of multiple visual elements creates a symbolic landscape, in contrast to single linear chains of argument & evidence. Holistic/systems thinking is the new paradigm; we will no longer need specialists, because generalists immersed in the new sensory paradigm will be able to figure everything out.

Comments: McLuhan’s formulation of the relationship between media use & culture is strongly deterministic. Distinguishes between “hot” (aural, “hyperesthetic,” demand low participation by audence) and “cool” (visual, detached, demand high audience participation) media, but contradicts himself about which technologies are which and where writing fits in- I don’t find this formulation convincing (I’m sticking with the vision/other senses distinction, which at least he’s consistent about). Uses some questionable (from a sociology perspective) interpretations of examples from Africa and China to support his ideas about alphabetic literacy. McLuhan’s style of writing and futuristic bent is horoscope-like: it’s easy to pick out predictions that seem to have come true while ignoring those that have not.

Links to: Feenberg (technological determinism); Ong (more scholarly analysis of media & representation); Brown & Duguid (knowledge work cheerleader)

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exam readings identity knowledge work politics research methods/philosophy

Exam reading: “Cyborgs, simians, and women”

This book, by Donna Haraway, has some very influential ideas about identity and politics in an increasingly technologically-mediated world. Unfortunately, there’s a lot in here that I really can’t agree with- namely, her attack on science from a feminist/Marxist perspective. While I agree with her thesis that science often has been used to justify oppression of various sorts, my perspective is that this is a misappropriation of science for political purposes, rather than an unavoidable outcome of objective rationality.

I’m not arguing that scientists are pure, with no hidden biases and motivations for their research. Everyone has biases, but it seems that most scientists, when confronted with evidence of their biases, are willing to rethink their views. Are there systemic barriers to such change? In some cases, yes. But I feel that these are things that can be attacked without effectively throwing away our best system of tools for proving that bias exists, and that it’s inappropriate.

Summary: Three main sections: 1) exploration of the oppressive nature of objective science; 2) exploration of the impossibility of describing a single “women’s” or “women of color’s experience”; and 3) description of an emerging cyborg identity in which nature, culture, and technology intertwine to shape us. Subject/object distancing in science is implicated in oppression and patriarchal dominance politics (primate & human health research in particular are used to perpetuate repressive ideologies); what we need is a new situated objectivity that recognizes the limitations of our partial perspective and regards objects of knowledge as “material-semiotic actors” (constantly generating their own meanings). The cyborg concept can be seen either as the ultimate domination of nature by technology or as the fusion of nature, the human, and technology. Biological metaphors become cultural metaphors; for example, the postmodern view of no unitary identity has parallels in biology (different cell lines in immune system, women sometimes as fetus containers). She describes the information society as an “informatics of domination:” workers are becoming feminized- low job security, replaceable, shredding of the social safety net, cultural impoverishment.

Comments: After reading this book, and a few other papers on the subject, I’m still unsure what “feminist science” would entail. I see a possible continuum in Haraway’s book ranging from using standard scientific methods to investigate consistent bias within a field (e.g., asking questions about female kinship patterns in apes, rather than the traditional focus on male aggression), to a separate set of standards of evidence (and a new epistemology) for feminist science vs. mainstream science (e.g., admission of folk medicine as science because it’s a deeply-held belief), to the idea that all science is just rhetoric, used to construct social reality. While Haraway explicitly rejects that third view, she is vague about the specifics of what she wants to see. So, she does provide specific examples of the 1st view, so maybe this type of criticism is sufficient for her, but also places a lot of weight on redefining objectivity, which would seem to indicate that she wants a new epistemology. I absolutely agree with the first view, and absolutely disagree with the latter two.

Links to: Liu (politics of info economy); Hayles (top-down vs. emergent systems theory-H. book is older, so perhaps she addresses this in later work?)

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exam readings knowledge work pedagogy tech design

Exam reading: “Datacloud”

I often wonder about positive interpretations of the new, “postmodern” information-dense and chaotic work environment. For example, how well will this exciting new world of info-surfing as a model hold up, given recent evidence that we really can’t multitask? And there are also significant issues skipped over in most discussions of the changing work environment: the wide divergence of incomes between certain classes of knowledge workers and non-knowledge workers, the digital divide, and class stratification.

I certainly don’t know how these things are going to play out. But here’s another exam reading that doesn’t really address them head-on: Johndan Johnson-Eilola’s “Datacloud.” It’s probably a scope issue- he does at least mention these issues, but his focus is clearly elsewhere:

Summary: In this book, Johnson-Eilola tries to describe changes in the work environment occurring in information-based jobs, and how both education and computer workspaces should be changed to facilitate this new way of working. Describes standard model of how the “symbol-analytic” (S-A) workplace is becoming the new postmodern paradigm: fragmented, mobile, computerized. contingent, situation-specific solutions, under-defined goals, playful, and helping facilitate a concept of the self that is fluid and changeable. He focuses on how different articulations (“suggestions about acceptable meanings”) of technology can be sites of resistance to dominant cultural trajectories. “Articulation theory” is a postmodern adaptation of Marxism that says that subjects are constructed within social/class contexts, but that these sites of negotiation allow the subject some agency. His main focus is on how workspace design (mostly the computer interface, but also the physical space is important) can be changed to facilitate S-A work. S-A work requires the ability to navigate between complex spatial data representations, communicate at need with other workers, and be able to display some information in different, more permanent locations (e.g., whiteboards). Education spaces need to change to get students comfortable with these immersive work environments. Students also must learn how to be creative about representing and using information (rather than just using ppt or xls defaults).

Comments: Mentions the ideological nature of articulations (e.g., current word processing programs make it hard to work in a dynamically interlinked environment b/c of clunky embedding), but doesn’t go into too much detail about group-level politics. Characterizes hyperspace as linear on temporal scale, rather than as a fluid network that gives up temporality. Blogs are an example of new (book was published in 2005) emergent symbolic-analytic spaces: dynamic production sites with RSS feeds to let readers experience them in different temporal & spatial sequences.

Links to: Liu (historicizes symbolic-analytic work); Brown & Duguid (less focus on specifics of work envt.); Spinuzzi (approaches topic from network theory); Bolter (hypertext)

Categories
exam readings knowledge work politics tech design

Exam reading: “Laws of cool”

Again, another book that went in a direction I didn’t expect. Alan Liu’s “Laws of Cool” raises some important questions about the relationship between corporatism and knowledge work:

Summary: In this book, Liu takes a somewhat pessimistic view of knowledge work and the information economy. He contends that knowledge work, and the culture of “free information,” is the continuation of a developmental trajectory that minimizes history and subordinates individuals (and the humanities, as a field) to corporatist, profit- and efficiency-motivated thinking. In the new corporatist economy, personal identity and social class are subsumed into the team; workers are expected to constantly improve productivity, be lifelong learners, and effectively become “nomads” across the employment landscape. The producer culture dominates life and work to the extent that counterculture is an alternative “workstyle;” “cool” is the “shadow ethos” of knowledge work- the only way to resist while not being able to escape the system. “Cool” is characterized by a fusion of ironic snark, mockery, design that delivers unimportant or information-poor content in typically information-dense formats, and a politics (or non-politics) of the “bad attitude.” Liu especially criticizes “cyberlibertarianism,” which presses for some individual freedoms (e.g., access to Internet, free speech) while ignoring others (worker health, workplace privacy), and completely ignores class issues like social justice. According to Liu, students mistakenly associate school with the dominant culture and turn to (corporate-sponsored) pop culture; in order for educators to break this association, they must help students become grounded in historically-informed critical thinking.

Comments: Some of his description of the online aesthetic was dated (the book came out in 2005). Liu’s conclusion is that the fusion of avant-garde & electronic arts with the historical perspective afforded by the humanities is the most likely site of resistance to the new corporatism (though he also discusses historical critical thinking). I think there are two reasons why this isn’t necessarily an effective approach: 1) (shallow) not everyone can relate to this sort of art; and, 2) (deeper) perhaps the social justice and labor movements, which he does discuss, are more effective approaches to resistance (as well as appealing to a wider audience). Though, in the latter case, perhaps an argument can be made that we need conditions of scarcity for people to empathize with these materially- and collectively-oriented movements; Liu’s book was written from an affluent American perspective during fairly flush times, and maybe these movements could be more effective nowadays…

Overall, this book was more thought-provoking than I expected it to be. It got me thinking about social/environmental justice issues and how these interact with new media in a very different way than the dominant culture that Liu describes. His suggestion that what the humanities should offer “cool” culture is a historical grounding was also a useful thought, and is something that has added to my thinking about dissertation projects in the last few days.

Re: libertarianism and knowledge work, this book articulates some things that I’ve thought about but not from an employment-based perspective. For example, the lack of individual responsibility for the common good and the environmental consequences of non-regulation espoused by libertarianism are things I’ve really disagreed with before. The historical lack of attention to worker rights among libertarians (when they often define themselves as knowledge workers who you’d think would need these protections) was a new thing to think about for me.

Links to: Brown & Duguid (corporatism, knowledge work, changing education culture); Feenberg (philosophy of technological development); Lessig (“free” information); Norman (user-friendly design)