Information Politics on the WebMIT Press, 2004 - 200 pages Does the information on the Web offer many alternative accounts of reality, or does it subtly align with an official version? In Information Politics on the Web, Richard Rogers identifies the cultures, techniques, and devices that rank and recommend information on the Web, analyzing not only the political content of Web sites but the politics built into the Web's infrastructure. Addressing the larger question of what the Web is for, Rogers argues that the Web is still the best arena for unsettling the official and challenging the familiar.Rogers describes the politics at work on the Web as either back-end -- the politics of search engine technology -- or front-end -- the diversity, inclusivity, and relative prominence of sites publicly accessible on the Web. To analyze this, he developed four "political instruments," or software tools that gather information about the Web by capturing dynamic linking practices, attention cycles for issues, and changing political party commitments. On the basis of his findings on how information politics works, Rogers argues that the Web should be, and can be, a "collision space" for official and unofficial accounts of reality. (One chapter, "The Viagra Files" offers an entertaining analysis of official and unofficial claims for the health benefits of Viagra.) The distinctiveness of the Web as a medium lies partly in the peculiar practices that grant different statuses to information sources. The tools developed by Rogers capture these practices and contribute to the development of a new information politics that takes into account and draws from the competition between the official, the non-governmental, and the underground. |
Contents
Introduction Behind the Practice of Information Politics | 1 |
Backend Information Politics | 3 |
Frontend Information Politics | 9 |
Towards Web Epistemologies and Ontologies | 14 |
Information Instruments Doing Politics | 19 |
Political Instruments for the Web | 22 |
The Issue Barometer | 25 |
The Web Issue Index of Civil Society | 27 |
The Dutch Food Safety Debate Leaves the Netherlands | 83 |
The Challenges of Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization | 85 |
Appendixes | 87 |
After Genoa Remedying Informational Politics and Augmenting Reality with the Web | 93 |
Aggregating Global Civil Society and Demystifying Protesters | 95 |
Comparing Online and Offline Newspaper Coverage | 104 |
Reformatting the Civil Society Issue Stream | 117 |
Appendixes | 133 |
The Election Issue Tracker | 28 |
Towards a Politicoepistemological Practice with the Web | 30 |
The Viagra Files The Web as Collision Space between Official and Unofficial Accounts of Reality | 35 |
Exposing Viagra for What It Is | 38 |
Explaining Expert Search Considerations to the Laity | 40 |
Viagra According to the Web Experts | 45 |
Bringing to Life New Viagra Subjects and Situations | 54 |
Mapping Deterritorialization Classic Politics in Tatters | 59 |
Classic Politics in Action | 60 |
Historical Interlude | 61 |
The Web as Source for Dynamic Debate Mapping | 65 |
Mapping the Food Safety Issue in the Netherlands | 73 |
Where is the Dutch Food Safety Debate? | 75 |
Election Issue Tracker Monitoring the Politics of Attention | 137 |
The Purpose of the Election Issue Tracker | 139 |
Defining the Nonissues | 142 |
Information Stream Design and Infopolitical Research | 146 |
Media helped Populism? | 152 |
Appendixes | 161 |
The Practice of Information Politics on the Web | 163 |
Political Instrument Design | 168 |
Notes | 177 |
Bibliography | 189 |
197 | |
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Common terms and phrases
accessed actors adjudication agendas Amsterdam analysis back-end capture chapter citizen civil society issue classic politics collaborative filtering Consumer coverage culture de-territorialization Der Standard discussed drug Dutch dynamics e-democracy Echte Welvaart Election Issue Tracker Environment epistemology example experts food safety food safety debate front-end G8 Summit genetically modified food Genoa Genoa G8 Summit Global Civil Society Google groups HIV-AIDS info-political Infoid informational politics instrument Internet Issue Index issue lists issue network issue-makers July Kronen Zeitung Lijst Pim Fortuyn medium Netherlands newspapers NGO issues NGOs non-issues non-voluntaristic NRC Handelsblad official Oneworld organizations Paid Inclusion Paid Placement party issue Pfizer Pim Fortuyn political parties populist issues Portal positions practice press attention protesters PvdA queries reality resonance Richard Rogers Science scope of representation search engine social sources space stream Sub-issue Table techniques Technology Telegraaf tion users Viagra Viagratool.org Volkskrant