[governance] process

[Garth Graham]

On 27-Oct-05, at 7:04 AM, Danny Butt wrote:

> Over the long term, until there is a clear articulation of civil  
> society principles and an organisational structure is aligned with  
> them I fail to see how effective interventions can be made into  
> current processes, because proposed text will keep foundering on  
> radical gaps in understanding about what we're here to do and how  
> we should do it.


On October 26, 2005 1:52:23 AM PDT, Ronda Hauben wrote:

> How to encourage a broader set of participation would be a useful  
> question  for this mailing list to consider as part of its effort  
> to contribute to the civil society and wsis process.


As Geert Lovink  (see below) has asked, “What’s out of control?”   
Isn’t the first  point, from a civil society perspective,  about  
understanding,  sustaining and extending the effectiveness of the  
Internet’s impact on socio-economic and political change?   If so,  
then the second point has to be about explaining which intentions to  
manage or contain its impacts do the least harm.

It seems to me that “a clear articulation of civil   society  
principles”  would be about the effective uses of the Internet in the  
service  of human development.  In that context we would have to say  
that being online affects the conditions under which development  
occurs – that the “development” question, and the role of nation  
states in it, has become a subset of the Internet question.   
Therefore the “Internet Governance”  question, not to be an oxymoron,  
is now about governance “by” the Internet, not governance “of “ it.

Garth Graham
Telecommunities Canada

> From:          Geert Lovink
>
> Subject: <incom> WSIS and beyond: a dialogue between Soenke Zehle &  
> Geert Lovink [u]
>
> Date: October 26, 2005 2:42:15 AM PDT
>
> To:               incom-l at incommunicado.info
>
> What's striking about the NGO/civil society scene is the way in  
> which it is dominated by language (control) issues. WSIS is a  
> discourse nightmare. That's funny because for so many involved in  
> new media, the issues are of such a practical nature. Of course  
> they 'grow' out of concepts that are first put in words, but they  
> always soon after materialize as code, graphics, human-machine  
> machine interfaces or even hardware. Add to this the recycling of  
> used PCs, or training programs. THIS MAKES YOU WONDER WHY THERE IS  
> SUCH A COMMONLY SHARED BELIEF IN THE PRIMACY OF NATIONAL AND GLOBAL  
> POLICY MAKING. (emphasis added)
>
>
> …. why do media activists, people who claim to know the Internet  
> issues, buy into all this? Why should something that flourishes  
> anyway be regulated? There is often a tremendous fear for the  
> unknown.  Instead of focusing on empowerment , people start  
> speaking in the tongues of fear, resentment and anxiety, as if  
> there is something out of control.
>

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