media consciousness

Social and Environmental Linkages

in
Links: 
Local knowledge, Power Research, Voices of the Unheard, Follow the Money, Grassroots Public Policy Development, Self-Designed Development, Environmental Impact Remediation, The Commons, Arts of Resilience, Citizen Tribunal, Environmental Impact Mitigation, Salvage Computing, Transparency
Douglas Schuler
Version: 
1
Problem: 
The fact that the social world of trade, culture, consciousness, etc. influences the environmental world — and vice versa — is obvious to anyone who thinks about it. On the other hand, questions about what do about those linkages and where to go with them, are often omitted or undervalued in relation to considerations that focus to one world or the other. Some environmental remedies may end up hurting precarious communities [2].
 
Identifying environmental degradation and tipping points for environmental crises, clearly two important elements of environmentalism, are by themselves insufficient for addressing them. It is also the case that trying to inject technology into a situation without thinking of the linkages is likely to result in unintended consequences; work in the social world to distribute it, advocate for it, adopt it, reject it etc. must be part of the program.
Context: 

Linking social and environmental factors should be inherent in the work of the LIMITS community—and to virtually any other project concerned about social justice and/or environmentalism. This pattern should be useful, both implicitly or explicitly, whenever analyzing or designing for environmental or social amelioration.

Discussion: 
The original concept that inspired the work on this pattern was in relation to the Green New Deal. The genius—and the audacity—of the Green New Deal is that it acknowledges that environmental problems such as climate change and species disappearance and social problems such as poverty, mass incarceration, xenophobia, and war are inextricably linked. And like the original New Deal, the Green New Deal is extremely wide-ranging with respect to the magnitude of resources proposed and the breadth of its consideration, which addresses agriculture, energy, transportation, economic security, the environment, and the entire social sphere besides.
 
Unfortunately, unlike the Green New Deal, policy is often developed around a single goal, often from an efficiency point of view, and often is simply imposed on people. Thus, all countries should reduce their use of oil or coal regardless of how the burden fell and on whom. Realizing the connections between social problems and environmental issues, especially where one exacerbates the other or when reducing one reduces the other, should offer clues as to where to look for interventions.
 
Which is not to say that this will be easy. As Dobson points out, neither social justice nor environmental sustainability necessarily produces the other [6]. And, for example, if increased environmental sustainability raises the taxes or makes gas prices higher than some kind of resistance is virtually guaranteed. In fact, it's not an easy matter to convince some people that computing can have any detrimental effects on the environment, presumably because the connection is harder to see and because of portrayal as a “green industry” [5].
 
What Linkages?
Human activity, as we know, is now the main driving force behind the major changes that are now disrupting the Earth's systems. But in many ways this is just the beginning of the story. 
We need to know what types of human activities are behind these changes? How do they work and how can they be interrupted or diverted? Sabie, Salman, and Easterbrook, for example, discuss how the computer has revolutionized the field of architecture, allowing new dazzling buildings to be built, but are asking the ICT community to accept the "challenge of providing shelter, primarily housing, in existing and future scarce-resource contexts." [30]
Who are the stakeholders? They include the people who affect the changes, the people who must endure the consequences, and the people in between. What can we do with the information? For one thing, it must be recognized that people in marginalized communities are often also in environmentally compromised areas. Linking the social and the environmental means including people from these communities in any conversation or deliberation that will affect them and find an appropriate approach not as an economic rationalistic imposed "solution" but derived through an ongoing negotiating process.
 
What Does Computing Have to Do With It?
Computer scientists, researchers, and practitioners—and the people that pay them—are reshaping the world — or at least they are making the reshaping happen more quickly. The impacts of computing are linked to both the social field and the environment, sometimes through propagating ignorance on the global scale, sometimes helping us further our understanding. 
 
What damage are we enabling? What are our roles and which ones can we step into? Powering the cloud has just bypassed the airline industry in terms of carbon and other pollutants. And crypto currency mining, like actual mining, is consuming vast, increasing amounts of energy, reenacting the fairy tale through spinning bits into gold. Computing as a vast collective activity has gone beyond enabling others to cause damage in their own way to being actual, direct producers of damage. Moreover, the hardware we employ (and throw away in record numbers) is constructed using rare earth metals that are acquired under harsh conditions that degrades both human and environmental health [2]. 
 
This pattern suggests that linkages might prove themselves to be important tools. What leverage points might we identify and leverage? The more we know about this the better our chances become. It might turn out, for example, that if the miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo decided to unionize, then a demand for transparency in supply chains at the same time, might be well-warranted.
 
The relationship between the social and environmental worlds to be thoroughly considered and explicitly linked in any policy that gets developed. 
Solution: 
SEED. Linkages connect stakeholders, tools, outcomes, goals, social and environmental entities and processes. We find and identify existing linkages. But, crucially, we also invent them. The LIMITS community links computing with sustainability issues. It also helps establish new links between people.
 
Linkages is an important concept but we need to go beyond that. We need to seek out the value of knowing about linkages. How can we help identify, hypothesize, leverage, illustrate, write stories about, rewrite, rewire, or create new necessary linkages?
Categories: 
orientation
Categories: 
organization
Categories: 
engagement
Themes: 
Research for Action
Themes: 
Policy
Themes: 
Social Movement
Themes: 
Theory
Verbiage for pattern card: 

Social and environmental issues are inextricably intertwined. Neither can be addressed without addressing the other. This pattern focuses on how those linkages manifest and what can be done to address both effectively and simultaneously.

Information about introductory graphic: 
Land and Sea, Todros

Socially Conscious Hip-Hop and Rap

in
Adam Selon
Version: 
1
Problem: 

Too many young black Americans are pushed, in the face of bleak opportunities for employment and higher education, to resort to crime. While hip-hop has served as a crucial creative outlet and community-builder for black youths since the 1980s, much of hip-hop culture contains undeniable streaks of proud violence, misogyny, drug-use and general disdain for life that are civically unintelligent, to say the least.

Context: 

The so-called Hip-Hop Generation was the first to grow up post-segregation, and its members have blazed new trails with few resources. Black american males have endured decades of institutional failure and systemic oppression that has created lasting damage to the black community and society as a whole. Currently young black males are given fewer opportunities than most and are at disproportionately greater risk for incarceration.(1) The narratives in hip-hop and rap music seem to either reflect this survival and then encourage personal reflection, social awareness, learning and growth for the black community or reflect this survival and then instead endorse unhealthy and unrealistic lifestyles, drug use, gang violence, and misogynistic behavior.

Discussion: 

Socially conscious or political hip hop narratives are not new to the industry, on the contrary they were more prevalent in the early years of hip hop in the 80s. Inspired by poets and preachers of the late seventies, such as The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron, young black musicians rapped about what they saw in their communities and started a trend. in 1982, Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five featured one such song--”The Message”, widely regarded as the first socio-political hip hop song--on their first studio album. This song would inspire many more like it for generations to come and effectively dislodge hip hop from the house party environment and into the realm of social commentary. Paving the way for artists like NWA, Public Enemy, and Rage Against the Machine that took this a step further and made all their music socially and politically relevant. Doubtless, much of hip-hop’s dark imagery is autobiographical expression, a cathartic act that all people—and especially those from underprivileged backgrounds—have the right to. But this message has become confused or manipulated, turning a criminal lifestyle from the starting point into the goal. Rap Stars affiliation to very-real city gangs adds to the pressure for inner city youth to join gangs. that is not to say that one would join a gang simply due a rappers allegiance. Indeed most are pushed into gang membership by regional survival necessity and a lack of healthy alternatives. Kitwana, Bakari writes, “For many both in and outside of street gangs and cliques, selling drugs is one of the most viable “job” options in the face of limited meaningful employment...high imprisonment rates due to increased policing focused on drug crimes have landed nearly 1 million Black men, many of them hip-hop generation's, behind bars” (39-40). 2

Largely the public education system has failed young black americans. Today there are more young black high school dropouts in prison or jail than those with paying jobs. Black men are more likely to go to prison than to graduate with a four-year college degree or complete military service and the population of incarcerated peoples in America is in a significant majority black men. These statistics indicate a community under attack and in need of hope. Across Americas notorious history of oppression against the black community--from Slavery to the assassination of MLK and Malcolm X -- to the current overpopulation in prisons. Music and rhythm has been a community strength and vessel to carry messages of hope, solidarity, and culture. Like the spirituals that provided hope amid the ultimate despair of slavery, socially conscious hip hop and rap music that reflect current struggles within the black community can provide messages of healing and do so in a form popular among young black people. with tremendous detail and articulation.

Today socially conscious rap artists dominate mainstream hip hop charts--Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, CNas, common, Jay-Z,-but whether the same holds true in underground circles remains to be determined. But by comparison the artists that choose to speak about the institutional failings that have and continue to negatively impact the black community seem to garner a much less attention than those that choose (or are instructed) to rap about money, “hoes” and [insert product placement]. More and more new artists are embracing these same conscious perspectives and transforming hip hop simply by being different and gaining popularity for it. Macklemore is an interesting example of new avenues being paved in hip hop music--he is white, dresses extravagantly, created a hit song about gay love and together with Ryan Lewis recorded, produced and released their album, The Heist, which debuted at #1 on itunes. But hip hop is not only becoming more racially diverse it is also having to confront deeply held prejudices such as homophobia--Frank Ocean was one of the first major artists to announce he had fallen in love with someone of the same sex, prompting many in the hip hop community to speak out in support of Ocean and the many silent fans whom his actions might inspire. following his open letter Russell Simons was widely quoted saying “Today is a big day for hip-hop. It is a day that will define who we really are. How compassionate will we be? How loving can we be? How inclusive are we?”

The following are lyrics from Canadian producer and rapper“had..In the song Brother (Watching) he raps “​(Saturated with negative images and a limited range of Possibilities is strange...)And it's sad cause that naturally do/ Sort of condition your mind and over time/ That's what's attractive to you/ So young blacks don’t see themselves in/ Scholastic pursuits/ Or the more practical routes/ It's makin tracks or it's hoops/ Or God-forbid movin packs for the loot/Even with this music we so limited - it's rap or produce/ And that narrow conception of what's black isn't true/ Of course, still we feel forced to adapt to this view/ Like there's something that you're havin to prove/ Now add that to the slew/ Of justification the capitalists use/ For the new blaxploitation/..​.”

Solution: 

Since socially conscious narratives have been observable in hip hop since its inception, the question becomes; what can be done to reinvigorate this and bolster the hip hop’s standing in political and social territory? “The cloud of capitalism prevents the Hip Hop audience from seeing that, for the conscious artist, it is the record company, itself that is "ground zero" for the battle for the minds of African people. But they rap about an external enemy when the internal, major enemy of Black Liberation is sitting in the boardroom two doors down from their recording studio. In order for conscious Hip Hop and Hip Hop in general to survive, it must become what the system never really allowed it to be; a way to educate, inform and inspire Afrikan people to become involved in the betterment of their global communities.”3

Youth organizations such as, Project Hip-Hop, are a great example of what it means to bringing socially conscious hip hop into proper frame. They seek to:

– Develop artistic leadership in youth – Challenge and shift societal narratives – Unite people through common culture – Use art as a tool for campaign organizing

An example of this is their ​Girlz and Guyz Cyphers ​ program in which they “bring young MCs and poets together to strengthen their skills as performers, develop their content as socially conscious artists, and engage in conversations about their lives—all within a Hip-Hop-based social justice curriculum.”4

1 Kitwana, Bakari, ​The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture (2002)

2 Kitwana, Bakari, ​The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture (2002)3

3 Anon. n.d. “How Conscious Hip Hop Failed Us in Davey D’s Daiy Hip Hop News Forum.” Retrieved June 5, 2013 (http://hiphopnews.yuku.com/topic/502#.Ua6u9Jy8M3I).

4 Anon. n.d. “Project HIP-HOP » Programs.” Retrieved June 5, 2013

Categories: 
orientation
Categories: 
engagement
Categories: 
social
Categories: 
products
Themes: 
Digital Divide
Themes: 
Education
Themes: 
Social Critique
Themes: 
Community Action

Community Oriented Social Media

in
Pattern ID: 
138
Rudyard
Discussion: 

Access to information and connections is essential to be successful in the 21st century. There is talk in many cities across the country of establishing municipal broadband- for example the grassroots organization “Upgrade Seattle” wants to “make the internet a city-owned and operated utility.” in Seattle.

 

A possible step further would be to create a publicly owned, operated and funded Social Network that would fill a role similar to that of radio and TV public broadcasting. The first and most obvious benefit would be the same one that comes from public broadcasting, that is- providing an alternative to the corporately owned, commercially funded media platforms, with a greater emphasis on community issues.

 

The services that companies like Facebook provide are valuable, and many of us willing give up a lot of equally valuable information in exchange for those services. The personal data Facebook mines from us is sold to other companies and used for market analysis, as well for generating personally targeted advertisements. A great wealth of information is produced thru all the clicks and likes and views from the users. All this data could go to good uses the private sector is not likely to be concerned with. Collection of census data and statistics for aiding scientific research are some of the immediate possibilities.

 

There is a need for people to have greater control over their information and how it is used. Perhaps not only a need, but a right. Then, beyond the issue of how our information is used, there’s the issue of how information filters to us through our “feeds.” The posts we see from our friends and the pages we follow (as well as advertisers) are sifted and prioritized based on hidden algorithms. There should be concern about how this system can create personal bubbles and opinion echo-chambers. Not to mention how it could influence people’s mental states (based on whether they see more police shootings or puppy videos, for example).

Categories: 
organization
Categories: 
social
Themes: 
Community Action
Pattern status: 
Draft

Archeodata

in
Problem: 
The amount of information that we have gathered as a species, be it in digital, analog or mental formats, is staggering, but a great deal of it has simply been abandoned after it's discovery or creation. The amount of man-hours dedicated to the countless forms of information analysis by as many individuals is incalculable, but a vast array of results from those analyses is or could be readily available to any community seeking niche information. At the time of writing this entry, it was estimated that there exists over 295 exabytes of information stored digitally. A fair amount of this information may be corrupted, duplicates or even the product of random generation, but a fair amount of it is also unique.
Context: 

Archeodata is distinctly separate from cultural knowledge in that the information it contains was only relevant to it's pursuer(s) and was later abandoned. This does not necessarily mean the information has been lost completely, only that it has been virtually forgotten and/or assumed to have no value. Possible examples could include analytic or statistical data, blueprints, music or computer code, while examples such as social mores, traditions, biological drives, simple relics, physical remains or any modern common knowledge (regardless of "age"/source) would not constitute archeodata. While the medium containing the data itself can sometimes offer addition physical data, what is important to defining archeodata is the presence of qualitative and/or quantitative information that has for all intents and purposes been abandoned, but can/could be accessed and applied to developing new, "cutting edge" perspectives.

Discussion: 
As a species we excel at information organization and dissemination. We are rare in that we are capable of mirroring behavior we have not physically seen but instead visualized through analysis of abstract information. The historic correlation between new methods of information dispersal and social "progress" is well accepted, e.g. the advent of writing, the creation of the printing press and telegraph, television and radios. These new technologies have, over the centuries, allowed progressively more information to be made accessible, and with modern digital communication we are now able to disseminate vast amounts of information quickly and easily.
 
Humanity is the only species known to encode and transmit information through abstract symbolism, i.e. writing, allowing a healthy amount of current understanding to have already been built on archeodata. Modern archaeology and anthropology are focus heavily on the recovery and study of ancient archeodata while many of the modern "hard" sciences owe significant breakthroughs to the recovery and synthesis of the same. For example, during the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak Dr John Snow tracked outbreaks of the disease using a standard dot map/Voronoi diagram, then famously used the data to identify the source of the outbreak as the public well on Broad Street. Afterwards, officials rejected his assertion that water was responsible for bearing the disease and his data was abandoned until 1866 when his information was used to combat a similar outbreak in Bromley. These studies were of minor interest to the medical community at the time, but several decades later were of great interest to Pasteur, Cook and Lister as they established modern germ theory. More recently, there is much debate on the ethics of using data from the infamous Nazi freezing experiments, which remains some of our only data on death from exposure. Conversely, after the death of Nokolai Tesla many of his notes were initially seized by the US government, and after declassification showed theories applicable to to modern plasma torches, radar and wireless networks.
 
The issue of privacy does not apply to true archeodata because it has, by nature, been abandoned or lost, and thus assumed to possess no value by laypersons. Information is only considered sensitive or private when it's dispersal could potentially impact ones freedoms, but this obviously does not apply to what has been discarded. For example, online fetish communities often include a clause in their membership agreement that members cannot use any information about other members obtained through any means for any purpose; this is done with the stated intention of creating a "safe space" or judgement-free community where members can explore interests without social repercussions. Likewise, government surveillance of citizens is a hotly debated topic with similar arguments for and against, where, conversely, examining the sexuality of various historic cultures is as widely accepted as our poring over ancient journals and entering tombs. A defining hallmark of archeodata is that the information holds no value to whomever, if anyone, is aware of it.
 
Much data already exists, but in addition to organization it also requires verification. For example, until the recovery and translation of Homer's epic cycle the existence of the city of Troy had been forgotten. It was found after centuries of searching evidence to verify the data that had been implied. Conversely, while the existence of Atlantis or Camelot has been implied by various recovered sources there is much more evidence against their existences then for them.  
 
Archeodata is not limited to information or statistics. A fantastic amount of software code has been written that is considered largely obsolete, ranging from machine-specific drivers to video games, and occasionally this type of information proves useful, or at least entertaining. Conversely, the rate at which software and digital hardware develop can make recovering this type of data difficult: after going out of business, the contractor that built the US military's inventory of A-10 Thunderbolts simply threw out their schematics, forcing the US Air Force to scavenge existing parts until they learned how to build suitable replacements. Similarly, NASA engineers attempting to access old Apollo mission schematics found contemporary hardware incompatible with older storage mediums while the original computers were completely inoperable. Likewise, ancient music has been the subject of much curiosity, but while many ancient instruments have been unearthed relatively few cultures through histories had developed a system of music notation and many of the ancient ones we don't know how to read. 
 
There also comes the unfortunate truth that at some point, data that is of interest to us now will also lose relevance. Our intense desire to analyze our environment is matched only by our desire to preserve our individual analyses, and it is impossible for one to predict all the ways in which information can be used. Many groups intentionally store archeodata in many forms, ranging from humble time capsules to massive national archives. Perhaps the Ur example of the intentional preperation of archeodata is Wikipedia's Terminal Event Management Policy: should a "non-localized event... render the continuation of Wikipedia in its current form untenable" occur, a series of protocols have been developed to increase the chances of the Wikimedia Foundations data banks being preserved. The "worst-case scenario" scenario, with ten minutes or less until failure, involves broadcasting the entire database, compressed, into space via radio telescopes around the world. Conversely, since 1983 the US Department of Energy has been struggling to figure out how to label nuclear waste disposal sites in such a way that their contents will be recognizable as dangerous for the length of their existence, or about 10,000 years. It feels safe to assume that in the space of that time our language and culture may be lost where artifacts remain, thus leaving the correct archeodata in an accessible way might be our only responsible option.
 
Data is much like a physical tool in that in can be applied to achieve desired results from the natural world, and in that sense finding new data is sort of like finding that a strange tool: you recognize that it is what it is, even if you just don't know what to do with it, until that perfect moment comes along when everything "clicks" and you see exactly how it can be used. The key is to remembering that even if you can use something as a wrench, that doesn't mean you might not be able to use it later on as a screwdriver or a hammer. 
Solution: 

While the internet and digital communications have already drastically increased accessibility to archeodata, there are vast archives and databases which remain, for whatever reasons, inaccessible. Communities wishing to prepare archeodata for future discovery must preserve it accordingly in an accessible manner, whether digital or analog. The advent of digital communications allow for quick and easy dissemination of large amounts of data, but with the very real possibility of network failure or hardware malfunctions the need for backups is obvious. Adding "tags" to data, or small external pieces of information by which the larger can be identified/sorted, has also shown to be a reliable means of sorting large amounts of information, e.g. the Dewey decimal system, internet tags.

Verbiage for pattern card: 

There already exists a profound amount of information, however that is really all much of it does. Countless individuals have compiled or accumulated vast amounts of data, used it for their purposes and then left it abandoned. This does not negate the validity of their data, but it does insinuate the need for making it accessible. 

Media Monopolies

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Pattern number within this pattern set: 
31
Version: 
3
Verbiage for pattern card: 

If most major media outlets are controlled by a small number of corporations pro-business perspectives and propaganda that aligns with the special interests of those corporations can dominate the public conversation.  Information that challenges or opposes those interests can be ignored or delegitimized.  Amazing progress has been made: From over 80 companies just 40 years ago, now five corporations control a large percentage of the information that American citizens see.

"Balance" Deception

in
Pattern number within this pattern set: 
32
Version: 
3
Verbiage for pattern card: 

A journalistic practice whereby one side will be presented and then, with equal time allotment, the "other side" will be presented.  This pattern can be very effective at obscuring the issue; leading to a situation where it appears that there are two equally credible ways to view an issue, when in fact there may not be.  Currently this is being used to suggest that the phenomenon is not established scientific fact.

Advertising-Funded Media

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Pattern number within this pattern set: 
33
Version: 
3
Verbiage for pattern card: 

This pattern presents the system wherein media stations are primarily funded by selling advertising time to others. This time is often very expensive and favors large companies. This creates a system in which the media answers not to the public, but to the companies that are paying for the advertising time.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

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Pattern number within this pattern set: 
34
Version: 
3
Verbiage for pattern card: 

Societal distractions can be naturally occurring or manufactured in such a way as to distract people and subvert their attention away from social and civic issues of public concern.  If properly occupied by such distractions, public outcry can be better controlled and their attention diverted to issues of unimportance such as the private lives of movie stars.

Consumerism

in
Pattern number within this pattern set: 
4
Version: 
3
Verbiage for pattern card: 

Quality of life is ultimately measured by on the acquisition and display of material goods. At the heart of consumerism is the thought that the “good life” can be purchased. Consumerism also contains a set of standards through which people can be judged based on material wealth.

Environmental Degradation

in
Pattern number within this pattern set: 
3
Version: 
3
Verbiage for pattern card: 

The natural environment; including but not limited to soil, water, air, flora, and fauna, has a natural balance. Through pollution, over usage, and lack of stewardship, the balance is broken causing the natural networks that sustain life on this planet to suffer.

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