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Para Além da Mediação:reflexões sobre o lugar da Internet nas Cidades Digitais

Marcos Palacios

II Colóquio Internacional sobre Redes e Cibercidades

Aveiro - Novembro 2002

From an initial stage that emphasized technological obstacles for the materialization of such projects (access to computers, terminals, servers, etc), the discussion has shifted towards the identification of socio-cultural obstacles (educational standards; digital literacy; differential capacity to look for, select and use information; free time availability, etc) that lay beyond the purely technological or economical limitations of the potential users’ physical access to a workstation and can undermine the implementation and/or generalization of digital citizenship.

Is it also necessary to consider another set of problems, under the general

classification of demand and motivation issues: a) which needs are being contemplated in a Digital City project? b) who determines the hierarchy of needs to be assisted? c) through what criteria?, etc.

In other words, besides having physical access to a workstation, the potential telematic citizen must know how to efficiently use the resources made available by the project, how to navigate in the virtual city and, above all, he/she has to want to be a digital citizen and participate in the project.

Digital Cities and InternetThis communication presents some ideas relating to the place and role of Internet in Digital Cities, suggesting ways to improve theoretical models available for the qualitative analysis of Digital Cities projects.

The main point of departure for the arguments is the shortcomings of the characterization of Internet solely as a New Medium, in the context of its role as change catalyst or accelerator in experiments of creation of Digital Cities.

Fundamental Distinctions

• Grounded x Non-Grounded Web City (Aurigi&Grahan, 1998; Lemos, 2001)

• The Web City of the Aveiro Digital Project is an obvious case of Grounded Web City

• Digital City x Web City (Mamede & Branco, 2002)

• Internet is just one the dimensions of Digital City projects, as they also involve intranets (linking hospitals, libraries, archives, etc) and direct applications of telematic technologies to urban equipment (traffic control, environment monitoring, etc)

• The term Web City is applied to refer to the Internet component of the Project.

Shortcomings of Characterisation of Internet as a Medium

• A Fundamental problem with the characterisation of Internet, and therefore of Web Cities, as a Medium is that it maintains an image of a communicational system, comparable to other communicational systems (e.g. radio, TV).

• Even in more sophisticated versions (Dominique Wolton) which tries to differentiate between Diffusion Media (One All) and Access Media (All All) the central elements in the characterisation are the functions of articulation and exchange of messages involving human actors.

• Although we agree that Mediation is one of the functions of the Web City in a Digital City, there is an array of other activities which are performed through Internet and are beyond mediation. Even a Web Radio Station, which is by definition a Media Site can be the locus for other type of (“non-communicational”) actions, as for instance direct selling and buying of advertised goods...

Two points suggested by Branco & Mamede (2002) provide material for reflection:

1) “Enquanto medium, a cidade web acumula os atributos dos media tradicionais, a exemplo de imprensa, rádio e televisão; enquanto dispositivo digital possibilita uma integração desses media com as tecnologias telemáticas incorporadas ao território. E mais, o ambiente comunicacional que resulta dessa integração, parece-nos ainda em vias de ser melhor compreendido e, em consequência, melhor explorado” (nosso grifo).

2) “...as cidades web portuguesas encontram-se ainda numa fase da Sociedade da Informação em que a acepção do termo informação está ainda marcado pelas características dos tradicionais meios de comunicação midiáticos, ou seja, centralizada, sem interatividade e de sentido único. As cidades web parecem ser, por isso, a face pobre das cidades digitais, apesar de serem a principal interface pela qual o território poderia se integrar”. (nosso grifo)

It is the specificity of this Communicational Environment, resulting from this integration (1), that we consider worth exploring further, in order to try to generate new frameworks to understand the dynamics of a Digital City project, including of course the apparent backwardness (2) detected by Branco & Mamede in their analyses of the Portuguese Digital Cities.

Hybrid Networks(Thierry Bardini, 1996)

We suggest the incorporation of the notion of Hybrid Networks (reseaux hybrides), as proposed by Thierry Bardini, applied in the context of Systemic Theory, as an attempt to deal with the multiple functions of Internet in complex networks, such as Digital Cities.

• “It is necessary to replace the outdated conception of human actors linked through an instrumental, material medium, by a mediation conception in which all is Hybrid Network, a set of more or less stable associations between humans and non-humans, in which the “presence” of actors (humans) and actants (non-humans) may vary in a continuum which goes from physical and concrete presence to its existence solely as objects of discourse”

Addiction, Recombination and Diversity

• Furthermore, one has to take into account another specificity of Internet which, differently from other previous media, evolves by addiction and re-combinations not by substitution of communicational devices (Patrice Flichy, 2000). As a result, Diversity becomes one of its fundamental traits:

• “Internet can not be unified neither around an economic model, nor a communicational format. It is not a media, but a system, which tends to become as complex as the society of which it is a virtual copy”.

• (? copy)

Systems and Environments

• Having introduced the ideas of Diversity and of Internet as System, our next step is to try to establish the specificity of the Web City as (sub)system in the Hybrid Network which constitutes the Digital City.

• Although it is obviously impossible to deal with the complexities of the relationship between the pair of concepts System/Environment in this presentation, some basic tenets of our position be established:

Basic Assumptions• a) the complementary nature of the pair System/Environment is

shared by all schools of System Analysis. There is no System without Environment;

• b) we share Luhmann´s idea that all Systems are both Closed (which makes possible to refer to a Juridical, Educational, Economic, etc System) and Open in the sense that they are capable to interact with the Environment, process information and evolve. There are no rigid boundaries between Systems and Environment;

• c) as Environment is always defined in relation to a System, it follows that the Environment is always more complex than the System. It is this complexity of the Environment in relation to the Systems, “that can lead to the formation of sub-systems in each System, allowing it to approach with greater effectiveness the complexity of the Environment" (IZUZQUIZA, 1990:159).

Web Cities as (sub)System and Environmentin Hybrid Networks (Digital Cities)

• We suggest that, given the characteristics of Diversity,Addiction and Recombination associated to Internet, Web Cities should be viewed, in the context of Digital Cities, as a (sub)system which acts as a Multiple and Heterogeneous Environment of Information, Communication and Action to other (sub)systems in the Hybrid Network.

• Its systemic specificity is that, beyond its existence as a technical artefact or medium (system), it is constituted by the conjunction of several other (sub)systems in the Digital City (Hybrid Network) and to which the Web City is an Environment.

• The Heterogeneous and Multiple character of the Web City makes full sense when one look at it from the point of view of the functioning of other (sub)Systems in the Digital City which have part of its Environment in the Internet. These different (sub) Systems exert on their Environment their specific pressures and demands, generating specific solutions, which may or may not be generalised to the totality of the Hybrid Network, in the addictive and recombinant way Internet evolves.

• The characterisation of Internet (and Web Cities) as (sub)System AND Environment in a Hybrid Network offers a framework to view it as an entity endowed with its own dynamics and evolution patterns and not solely as a material technological support and mediation device.

Constituting an Environment of Information, Communication and Action for a multiplicity of distinct sub-Systems, and as a result of that multiplicity and heterogeneity, Internet makes possible the co-existence, side by side within the complex network, of informational environments (databases of the most varied types), journalistic environments (newspapers online, radios online, negotiate of news, etc) educational environments (courses at the distance, specialized discussion lists, educational simulations, libraries), interaction and communication environments (chats, forums, electronic mail), leisure and cultural environments (games online, museums), service environments (banks, sites for declaration of taxes online), commercial environments (electronic malls), work environments, etc, etc.

Thus for instance, when a site of a digital radio is accessed, and it reproduces, via Internet, the program grid that is simultaneously broadcast "live" through hertzian waves, but also complements it with audience forums, facilities for the online purchase of advertised goods, sound and image archives, etc, we are dealing with multiple and heterogeneous environments (of information, communication and action) juxtaposed in a same support (Internet), in which Dominique Wolton´s logic of demand and the logic of offer can be said to co-exist side by side. The heterogeneity and the multiplicity of functions one detects when analysing Internet become comprehensible when we look at them from the standpoint of the logic of operation of other sub-Systems of society that use Internet as an important element of their environments and not, inversely, from the standpoint of Internet as a System and a medium.

To the extent that Internet is characterized by its situation of shared Environment to multiple sub-Systems, the diversification of functions observed derives from specific demands of the various sub-Systems involved in a particular network, in a particular moment or situation.

This leads, for instance, to the creation of specific software applications, that later on may be appropriated and used by other sub-Systems. For instance, a software application that originates from specific demands of the financial sub-System (banking), to respond to the need to accomplish fast data transfers in electronic transactions, can afterwards (and very quickly) be incorporated in sites and activities of other sub-Systems, and used for activities of a completely different nature and scope, as in Education, Journalism, etc.

The simultaneous use of Internet as an Environment by a multiplicity of sub-Systems puts differentiated and combined pressures in terms of its evolution, since multiple demands generate specific solutions that tend to be diffused and generalized to the totality of the network, being incorporated in the practices and activities of other sub-Systems. It is in this sense that, as suggested by authors like Levy (1997), Stockinger (2001) and other, “the Net lives“.

The widespread and seemingly simplistic idea that "one can find anything in the Net", reflects that situation of shared Environment. The characterization of Internet as sub-System and Environment in a hybrid network allows us to picture it as:

a) a (quasi) autonomous social being, endowed with its own operation dynamics and evolution patterns, and

b) responding to the combined demands exerted on it by the sub-Systems that use it as Environment.

We believe that the development of theoretical models anchored on this type of approach can lead to a better characterization of the nature of Internet and its role in the construction and management of Digital Cities, as the fracture between Physical and Virtual Spaces is replaced by the image of a

Continuum.

Two points suggested by Branco & Mamede (2002) provide material for reflection:

1) “Enquanto medium, a cidade web acumula os atributos dos media tradicionais, a exemplo de imprensa, rádio e televisão; enquanto dispositivo digital possibilita uma integração desses media com as tecnologias telemáticas incorporadas ao território. E mais, o ambiente comunicacional que resulta dessa integração, parece-nos ainda em vias de ser melhor compreendido e, em consequência, melhor explorado” (nosso grifo).

2) “...as cidades web portuguesas encontram-se ainda numa fase da Sociedade da Informação em que a acepção do termo informação está ainda marcado pelas características dos tradicionais meios de comunicação midiáticos, ou seja, centralizada, sem interatividade e de sentido único. As cidades web parecem ser, por isso, a face pobre das cidades digitais, apesar de serem a principal interface pela qual o território poderia se integrar”. (nosso grifo)

It is the specificity of this Communicational Environment, resulting from this integration (1), that we consider worth exploring further, in order to try to generate new frameworks to understand the dynamics of a Digital City project, including of course the apparent backwardness (2) detected by Branco & Mamede in their analyses of the Portuguese Digital Cities.

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II Colóquio Internacional sobre Redes e Cibercidades

Aveiro - Novembro 2002