Re: <amarc-3> QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

["Kevin C. Facemyer" <KCFacemyer@facemyer.org> (by way of Elvira Truglia <elv@alcor.concordia.ca>)]

Greetings,

Kevin from Digital Ekistics here.  I would like to think out loud about the issues of questions #1, 2, 4, 5, 6, in a global and perhaps slightly random way for a moment.

>1. How can we ensure that civil society’s interests are considered in the
>current technological environment?

>2. How can cultural and social issues gain a more prominent place in the
>debate over technological convergence (telecommunications, computing,
>broadcasting)?

>4. Specifically, when regulating the media environment, how can we ensure
>that a space is reserved for communication services run by and for
>citizens, communities and social organizations, and not solely based on the
>interests of government and industry?

>5. And, how can we ensure universal access to new communications
>technologies to avoid the creation of a two tier system of "haves" and
>"have-nots"? (universal access - the social and economic argument and its
>implications)

>6. How can regulation be influenced so that smaller independent and
>community broadcasters survive the clutches of larger media companies whose
>concentration of ownership increasingly threatens plurality?

These all seem to be questions about how to separate the features of politics, economy, technology from their impact on communications.  Is that so?  

If "communications" is the central feature, the culture and social aspects are most important to me as these are the reasons for community, and community is the thing that communications seems to support.  So perhaps our discussion is based on human rights and how communications is basic among those rights.

Then the discussion becomes how do we manage (or what should be included in the declaration):
A.	the social and cultural implications and involvement of communications,
B.	the political mechanisms of allocation and governance, 
C.	the economic forces and there moderation or lack thereof, and 
D.	the technical features of the communications systems and  communities.

It seem to me that the social and cultural goals/elements are the essential features of the Declaration and that the answers to the political, economic and technical features should all support these goals/elements.

Answering question 1, with a short list of features a good system would afford all its participants might help define the answers to the next questions.  If the list for individuals included: Freedom, (to participate and choose)&  Control (personal data, incoming data, and participation) (with others you might add)  then aligning the other features of the Declaration becomes easier.  

Answering and drafting mechanisms of Question 2 into the early parts of any declaration makes subsequent features of mechanism serve these important social and cultural features.  (I suspect that the order in which Elvira asked these question is not random and that it was a well considered list of questions.  That list of questions described in that order may answer question #2; answer this first and economy, mechanism, and technology follow.)

Or is that too naive?


Just thinking,
Kevin

Kevin C. Facemyer, Ph.D.
CEO of Digital Ekistics

A nonprofit organization
dedicated to studying and improving 
communities via virtual ekistics




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