Aldo, <div><br></div><div>This is an interesting debate. I was trying to compose a response in blog-post form - but will instead opt for the moment for some responses in-line below. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:29 AM, Aldo Matteucci <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:aldo.matteucci@gmail.com">aldo.matteucci@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt 36pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><i><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">Ginger
Paque : Personally, I <b>disagree</b>,
because when an online communication gets 'too interactive', we have chaos, and
I think that short, pithy comments or questions are preferable in a webinar.
Bandwidth limitations must be taken into consideration as well. This is one
advantage to an email list like the IGC: it allows for full multi-party
discussion.</font></font></span></i></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt 36pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><i><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">Ricardo:
i do <b>agree</b> that short communication
works better. Of course, it should be well sistematized (is this the right
word? Hehe) and everyone on the webinar should agree with a document on a wiki
or pad, </font></font></span></i></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><i><span><font size="4" face="Garamond"></font></span></i></p></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Ginger and Ricardo point to one of the properties of short communication that can be very valuable in online dialogues - it can scale to involve a larger number of participants who each get to offer some input. It's hard to hold a deep dialogue with a lot of people (note Plato's dialogues rarely have a large crowd of characters), whereas the shorter form communication enabled by small comment boxes can support more people to be part of a conversation in a short time.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As Ginger and Ricardo alude to - this can lead to a chaotic conversations, or a cacophony of voices - or to some voices still dominating the discussion. There are two complementary responses I think to this: one is active (open) facilitation of a dialogue when there are a large number of people taking part; the second is in having good platforms that help everyone make short comments in semi-structured ways, weaving twitter-length contributions collaboratively into a larger whole. </div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">I
have raised an issue in my blog (The twitter is the message), on which I invited you all to reflect. What I got back
was two votes (see above): yours, with a “vote explication” that was no more
than an assertion.</font></font></span></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt 36pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">Of course short is better than long. My issue
was whether the twitter format was structurally so short as to stifle the very
essence of a dialogue – which is to deliberate.</font></font></span></p></blockquote><div><br></div><div>It can be useful to distinguish between the twitter format with a time-limit, twitter-length communication over time, and communication on twitter.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Putting an arbitrary limit of 140 characters on input into a short synchronous online dialogue does seem likely to shape the discussion towards short assertions, rather than expression of more deliberative and complex ideas - certainly unless the community develop shorthands to fit their communication within the limit.</div>
<div><br></div><div>However, when communication is extended over time, as it is in many twitter conversations, which are asychronous, then a lot of deliberation and nuance can start to be incorporated. Scholars of Computer Mediated Communication have looked at how, with reduced cues from non-verbal interactions people over time compensate and find ways to pick up meaning not only from the content of a message, but also the timing, sequencing and other signals. Twitter itself creates some very nuanced social conventions, of reference to issues with hash-tags, people with @'s and so-on. Conversations can take place on a slow-burn over weeks and months on Twitter itself, enabling interesting forms of deliberation.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt 36pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">Paul got the message, but then drifted into a
different – though very noteworthy issue – that of reception. In his framework
length of reply is irrelevant. Money determines who gets the message. And
indeed – in the future governments will no longer shut people up; they’ll just
render them ineffectual. When was it last time a soapbox man in Hyde Park
started a revolution?</font></font></span></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">Democracy
ought to be deliberative. By rushing to vote (agree/disagree) even before having
taken the time to reflect, you have terminated the discussion. The rest of the
group stood in silence – and I presume they agreed with you (qui tacet
consentire videtur). It was in ways a plebiscite.</font></font></span></p></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Not necessarily. We may have been aware that a detailed reply takes time. Quick vote-style replies can move a dialogue on, and then the reply to those can draw other people in... </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">Coming
back now to my point: take any of Plato’s great dialogues and replace all the entries
in it (but those of Socrates) by a twitter message. Then tell me whether you
think it has improved the symposion text.</font></font></span></p></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Not if you leave it in Tweet-form in the book. Take Plato's dialogues and tweet them over time, interacting with those who reply, and building a dialogue through interaction - now you have changed, and for some of the audience, improved the text.</div>
<div><br></div><div>There will be those who get to engage with the ideas for the first time seeing them in short form. For some the short-form will crystalise things they had already read, for others, it will act as a teaser - encouraging them to look at the longer and more in-depth form. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Twitter-like communication is one layer of dialogue. Different layers engage different people at different times - our challenge in facilitating dialogue is to link these layers if we can. </div><div>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">My
blog very imperfectly pointed to the essence of being human (you know that
latest of the tailless apes) – their ability to have common goals, and to
create new ones by deliberation. The Western idea of the (intellectual) hero
who points to the way forward and is followed by group is historically inaccurate. Because
deliberation is oral and cannot be remembered, we ascribe the outcome to a
superior person.</font></font></span></p></blockquote><div><br></div><div>This is a really interesting observation - and I think somewhere where we have to keep a watchful eye on how Twitter-like communications impact people. Any digital conversation can now make a choice over whether or not a permanent record of the dialogue will be held - or whether only the outcome will be recorded and enter into the public sphere. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Negotiating whether or not the dialogue should be on or off-record again is a facilitation and community choice that should be consciously made. Some people value the ability to look back on the record to see how their views have changed (e.g. in working with young people, the ability to look back over their online traces and see how they have developed as an individual can be very valuable); for others, the record might create the risk of attributing the outcomes to an individual rather than the collective, or might limit the positions someone can take in the future because of their past expressions. </div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">Twitter-style
discourse tends to reduce the interaction to a vote – democratic for sure. Better than
a decision from on high by the elite. It comes at a price, however: it </font></font></span><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">negates the very essence of a deliberation: the common reflection and input
from various points of view. The intellectual “trial and error” that allows the
best idea to survive.</font></font></span></p></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm not sure this is true. Each of the above 'vote' like statements also offered some reasons. In the 'limited bandwidth' of a short message, individuals do need to make explicit what might otherwise be left as implicit views (opinion on the debate are often encoded rather than stated in longer messages, but are no less present)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Facilitation and the set-up of any discussion can reduce it to a vote or not - but unless the medium is a voting button (and even then...) it's usually flesible...</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">James
SUROWIECKI in <i>The Wisdom of crowds – Why the
many are smarter than the few</i> makes precisely this point: when people
deliberate (i.e. reflect for themselves), the outcome is – taking the long view
– better than that of any expert or elite. When people influence each other,
rather than reflect independently, one gets hysterias and manias.</font></font></span></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal"><span><font size="4"><font face="Garamond">In
the past elite did the thinking, and compliance by the majority was secured by (moral)
authority. I see no improvement in having the celebrity of the day do the same
as the elite, and her opinion being subject to plebiscite by twitter. Except
that there is a huge turnover in celebrities.</font></font></span></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm not sure I follow your point here. Are you arguing that Twitter-like communication leads to a clustering of opinions? Or that twitter itself does? Or something else? </div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal">
<span><font size="4" face="Garamond">Aldo</font></span></div></font></span></blockquote><div><br></div><div>All the best</div><div><br></div><div>Tim</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div style="margin:6pt 0cm 0pt;text-indent:0cm" class="MsoNormal">
<span><font size="4" face="Garamond"></font></span> </div><div class="gmail_quote">On 27 January 2012 14:30, Ginger Paque <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gpaque@gmail.com" target="_blank">gpaque@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">Hi there,<br><br>Aldo, Diplo's resident contrarian, criticises Diplo's webinars and modern communication, asking 'Is the medium the twitter?' at <a href="http://deepdip.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/the-medium-is-the-twitter/" target="_blank">http://deepdip.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/the-medium-is-the-twitter/</a> He argues that
the way in which the Chinese 'Party universities', among others, discuss issues, is
conceptually and practically more effective (and congenial) than modern webinar/Twitter-technique communication. Personally, I disagree, because when an online communication gets 'too interactive', we have chaos, and I think that short, pithy comments or questions are preferable in a webinar. Bandwidth limitations must be taken into consideration as well. This is one advantage to an email list like the IGC: it allows for full multi-party discussion.<br>
<br> Please let us know your views about
this dilemma as we both try to improve our communication, and explore the topic as a concept for improved e-participation. You can also join us for the next webinar and see the
potentials and limitations of this medium, as we discuss SOPA, PIPA and the recent online blackout activities: <a href="http://www.diplomacy.edu/calendar/copyright-infringement-sopapipa-megaupload" target="_blank">http://www.diplomacy.edu/calendar/copyright-infringement-sopapipa-megaupload</a><br>
<br>Personally, I am wondering if the push to stop SOPA has strengthened ACTA.<br><br>Best, Ginger<br><br><br clear="all">Ginger (Virginia) Paque<br><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">Diplo Foundation<br>
<a href="http://www.diplomacy.edu/ig" target="_blank">www.diplomacy.edu/ig</a><span style="width:16px;padding-right:16px;min-height:16px"></span><span style="width:16px;padding-right:16px;min-height:16px"></span><span style="width:16px;padding-right:16px;min-height:16px"></span><div>
<a href="mailto:VirginiaP@diplomacy.edu" target="_blank">VirginiaP@diplomacy.edu</a><br><br><b><i><span style="font-size:10pt">Join the Diplo community IG discussions: <a href="http://www.diplointernetgovernance.org" target="_blank">www.diplointernetgovernance.org</a><span style="width:16px;padding-right:16px;min-height:16px"></span><span style="width:16px;padding-right:16px;min-height:16px"></span></span></i></b></div>
</span><br></div><br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br></div></div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">-- <br>Aldo Matteucci<br>65, Pourtalèsstr.<br>CH 3074 MURI b. Bern<br>Switzerland<br><a href="mailto:aldo.matteucci@gmail.com" target="_blank">aldo.matteucci@gmail.com</a><br>
<br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><br><br><a href="http://www.timdavies.org.uk" target="_blank">http://www.timdavies.org.uk</a><br>07834 856 303.<br>@timdavies<br><br>Co-director of Practical Participation: <a href="http://www.practicalparticipation.co.uk" target="_blank">http://www.practicalparticipation.co.uk</a><br>
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