melanie mcbride online

“The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.”
- Gunter Grass

Gunter Grass’ message is especially critical to those early-to-late majority users (i.e., everybody) who may not know the value or importance of their voice in the battle for a many-to-many democratic internet.

This post seeks to address why this is with resources and activities designed specifically for early-late majority users to find and use their voice for digital democracy.

Some history and definitions

Right now, we’re in a very different place with the internet than we were ten years ago. The nature of internet user in relation to the technology adoption lifecycle is one of the key differences. In my view, this difference - between innovators, early adopters, early majority and late majority - explains much of what is good and bad about the internet as we presently know and experience it. The nature of these differences has a lot to do with the nature of the differences between users. For my purposes, the lifecycle is one (but not the only) means of defining the differences between user groups via terms that are still widely in use.

The technology adoption lifecycle

For those unfamiliar with these terms, here’s an overview from Wikipedia:

“The technology adoption lifecycle is a sociological model, originally developed by Joe M. Bohlen and George M. Beal in 1957 at Iowa State College.^[1] Its purpose was to track the purchase patterns of hybrid seed corn by farmers. Approximately six years later Everett Rogers broadened the use of this model in his book, Diffusion of Innovations.

The demographic and psychological (or “psychographic“) profiles of each adoption group were originally specified by the North Central Rural Sociology Committee, Subcommittee for the Study of the Diffusion of Farm Practices (as cited by Beal and Bohlen in their study above).

• innovators - had larger farms, were more educated, more prosperous and more risk-oriented
• early adopters - younger, more educated, tended to be community leaders
• early majority - more conservative but open to new ideas, active in community and influence to neighbours
• late majority - older, less educated, fairly conservative and less socially active
• laggards - very conservative, smalls farms and capital, oldest and least educated”

Here’s my version of that list:

• innovators - freaks and geeks who make things
• early adopters - the friends of freaks and geeks
• early majority - the family of freaks and geeks
• late majority - the inlaws of the families of freaks and geeks
• laggards - the neighbours of the inlaws

Digital democracy and you

Since the late 1990s, the internet has undergone rapid and radical change. A lot of the early ideas of what the internet was and would be inspired the creation and adoption of the most important innovations in our social history - namely, the social and participatory media and the philosophies that informed the use of those tools.

As these tools and trends were adopted by an increasingly mainstream user base, their use and design began to change. Unlike the early users who consisted of programmers, activists, artists and academics, this new user base, did not see themselves as stakeholders in design of those tools. Nor were they encouraged or interested in interrogating these tools. For the early and late majority, technology has to have a purpose and value. It’s not a hobby, exploration or source of critical inquiry. Unfortunately, these differences have led to the arrival and profusion of some of the worst precedents in internet history. Among them:

1. Increased surveillance and privacy abuses
2. Opt-out and other marketer friendly account settings
3. User unfriendly Terms of Service
4. Diminished or questionable user controls and user-centered design models
5. ISP traffic shaping and abuses of civil liberties online

NOTE: Please see Yale law professor Susan Crawford’s (much more substantial) list from the CFP2008 conference.

CURRICULUM FOR DIGITAL DEMOCRACY

Digital Democracy 101: In 5 videos

In response to all of this, I have put together a very short list of MUST SEE videos that articulate - in far more detail - the nature of the changes that are afoot and how we COULD respond. I chose these videos with the early to late majority user in mind. Since you likely do not have the time available to watch them all in one sitting, I strongly urge you to bookmark them all and set aside the time to view each of them. The ideas contained may change the way you currently think about the internet or perhaps enhance conclusions you’ve already made but haven’t acted upon.

1. Humanity Lobotomy: Net Neutrality Open-Source Documentary
   http://blip.tv/file/103105
2. Larry Lessig: TED | How creativity is being strangled by the law
   www.ted.com/talks/view/id/187
3. Jonathan Zittrain on The future of the internet (and how to stop it)
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7UlYTFKFqY
4. Privacy and social networks: The nature of corporate TOS
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7gWEgHeXcA… and finally, the potential of what we can do with the web - if only we think about our role as stakeholders in the future …
5. The machine is us/ing us
   http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

ACTIVITIES FOR DIGITAL DEMOCRACY

Questions for further discussion:

Q: Where do you stand in relation to the the following issues? Do you see yourself as a stakeholder? Why? Why not?

Q: Do you feel the current design of the services and tools you use has your needs in mind or the needs of the owners and third party investors in those tools (i.e., user controls, privacy, terms of service)

Q: In what ways are you actively participating in shaping and defining the future of the internet? If not, why not?

A classroom activity: Where do you stand?

The digital affinity line

Early on in my course I explain these differences and definitions and ask my students to line themselves up according to where they feel they stand in relation to the technology adoption lifecycle - you may wish to provide a handout explaining the differences. I also make it clear that we may be more than one of these things in relation to technology - for example late majority harware users (because of cost) but early adopter to applications/ideas. Then I go through the line and ask participants in each part, how they define themselves and why. It’s an immediate and physical way to illuminate the technology adoption lifecycle.

[note: I learned about the "affinity line" while at teachers college at OISE]