Codespaces: Community Wireless Networks and the Reconfiguration of Cities
01 Jan 2009-pp 292-309
TL;DR: This paper argues that the role of physical place has been significantly under-theorized in this first decade of the Internet’s adoption and that the authors are at a turning point.
Abstract: For over ten years—since the mainstream adoption of the Internet with the introduction of the World Wide Web in 1995—researchers, businesspeople and policymakers have conducted studies, launched applications, products and services, and implemented new laws related to the virtual, online, digital and networked properties of the information society. However, in this first decade of the Internet’s adoption, the role of physical place has been significantly under-theorized. We are at a turning point. A digital information layer is rapidly expanding throughout the physical spaces of our homes, offices, cities and towns. This digital layer includes mobile and wireless technologies such as WiFi hotspots, municipal wireless networks, cellular networks, Bluetooth headsets, wireless sensors and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. WiFi hotspots can easily be found in cofABsTRAcT
Citations
More filters
••
TL;DR: A critical perspective is provided on how open source contributions to both software and hardware increase the opportunities for democratic participation in production, governance and knowledge exchange and how incongruities across different open-source cultures and communities of practice limit the democratic potential of these processes.
Abstract: The commercial success of open source software, along with a broader socio-cultural shift towards participation in media and cultural production, have inspired attempts to extend and expand open source practices. These include expansions from software into general culture through ‘Free Culture’ movements and, more recently, expansions from software into hardware and design. This article provides a critical perspective on the democratic potential of these broader ‘open’ contribution structures by examining how open source contributions to both software and hardware increase the opportunities for democratic participation in production, governance and knowledge exchange. By analysing attempts to ‘open source’ the sharing of hardware designs, it also notes the limitations of this democratization. The insights developed in the article nuance the relationship between open source cultures and commercial and market structures, identifying how the generative opportunities created by certain aspects of open source ...
105 citations
••
TL;DR: The empirical analysis validates the two hypotheses: (1) a spatial correlation exists between the three different urban vitality measures and (2) the spatial distribution of Wi-Fi access points could be an indicator of urban vitality.
71 citations
••
13 Jul 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace how the relationship between city governments and citizens has developed over time with the introduction of urban informatics and smart city technology, and suggest reframing the design notion of usability towards "citizen-ability".
Abstract: Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to trace how the relationship between city governments and citizens has developed over time with the introduction of urban informatics and smart city technology.
Design/methodology/approach
The argument presented in the paper is backed up by a critical review approach based on a transdisciplinary assessment of social, spatial and technical research domains.
Findings
Smart cities using urban informatics can be categorised into four classes of maturity or development phases depending on the qualities of their relationship with their citizenry. The paper discusses the evolution of this maturity scale from people as residents, consumers, participants, to co-creators.
Originality/value
The paper’s contribution has practical implications for cities wanting to take advantage of urban informatics and smart city technology. First, recognising that technology is a means to an end requires cities to avoid technocratic solutions and employ participatory methodologies of urban informatics. Second, the most challenging part of unpacking city complexities is not about urban data but about a cultural shift in policy and governance style towards collaborative citymaking. The paper suggests reframing the design notion of usability towards “citizen-ability”.
67 citations
••
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report on one of the only large-scale qualitative studies of the barriers to broadband adoption in the United States, where 30% of the population lack broadband access.
Abstract: As the Internet, and broadband in particular, becomes a platform for social and political engagement, researchers investigate more carefully both the factors that drive broadband adoption and the barriers that constrain it. This paper reports on one of the only large-scale qualitative studies of the barriers to broadband adoption in the United States, where 30% of the population lack broadband access. The primary research question asks: how can we qualitatively understand barriers to broadband adoption among low-income communities? The study’s community-based approach, undertaken in four regions of the country, reveals the complex equilibrium of broadband adoption. Drawing from 170 interviews with broadband non-adopters as well as community access providers and other intermediaries, this study finds that price is only one factor shaping home broadband adoption, and that libraries and other community organizations fill the gap between low home adoption and high demand for broadband. These intermediaries compensate for shortages in digital skills that also constitute barriers to adoption in a context where broadband is essential for gaining access to jobs, education, and e-government. These three main findings suggest that low-income people like our research participants are playing roles as actors in an ecology of broadband access games (Dutton et al. 2004). In particular, they are overcoming barriers to being online in order to participate in accessing services and gaining education. This is part of the process of defining broadband as an infrastructure for e-democracy. The paper recommends a renewed focus on factors that sustain home access rather than drive demand, as well as support for community intermediaries in provisioning public broadband access within a context of skill shortages. It recommends further qualitative research to
55 citations
•
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that while mobile technology practices have influenced urban conditions, from social practices, and workplace organisation, they can be alternately conceptualised as liminal triggers that invoke ambivalent representations of urban public space over its radical transformation.
Abstract: Since the mid-twentieth century, various architectural, urban, cultural, and computer science discourses have advanced the rhetoric that contemporary information and communications technologies (ICTs) will fundamentally transform the built and urban environment. More recently, communications and media studies, as well as computer science allied fields such as human computer interaction (HCI) and interaction design have directed significant attention to the urban contexts in which mobile information and communications technologies (mICT) are used, and on the so-called transformative practices of mobile ‘location-awareness’. These diverse fields, that simultaneously attend to the topics of urbanism, space, and technology, bring alternate perspectives, methods, and theories to bear on the notion of urban transformation. Yet equally, they also contribute to a growing body of discourse that situates mobile technology practices as a force of radical and positive urban transformation. This thesis argues that understanding and representing the impacts of mobile technology practices on the aesthetic, symbolic, and lived experience of urban public space is a contestable territory subject to a range of technical, socio-economic, and cultural variables that are difficult to account for from any singular disciplinary perspective.
Accordingly, this thesis adopts an interdisciplinary method that examines the selected discourse through the lens of liminal theory initially developed by anthropologist Victor Turner from observations of tribal ritual (1967, 1974a, 1974b, 1977a, 1977b, 1982, 1985)—a theory that has much to say on the concepts and processes of transformation. This constructs a unique critique of claims that mobile technology practices have transformed urban public space by unpacking and examining a number of underlying assumptions and ideals that connect to key conceptual frameworks as well as disciplinary biases. From this perspective, this thesis argues that while mobile technology practices have influenced urban conditions—in both a positive and negative sense—from social practices, and workplace organisation, to ways of moving, they can be alternately conceptualised as liminal triggers that invoke ambivalent representations of urban public space over its radical transformation.
The discourse examined in this thesis points to a significant investment in research that attends to the interrelationships between emerging digital technologies and the built environment in the social, cultural, and computer sciences, whereas limited engagement from the architectural discipline. As a contribution to interdisciplinary thinking the value of this thesis to the architectural discipline lies in its presentation and critique of these alternate disciplinary perspectives that have ‘made visible’ the often-abstract impacts of mobile technology practices on and within urban public space. With an eye to the current technourban imaginary and policy vehicle of the smart city, this thesis contends that from this more informed position…
35 citations
References
More filters
•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: The Rise of the Network Society as discussed by the authors is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information, which is based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world.
Abstract: From the Publisher:
This ambitious book is an account of the economic and social dynamics of the new age of information. Based on research in the USA, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, it aims to formulate a systematic theory of the information society which takes account of the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world.
The global economy is now characterized by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital and cultural communication. These flows order and condition both consumption and production. The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures. Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives enormous power to those in a position to control them to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable.
Manuel Castells describes the accelerating pace of innovation and application. He examines the processes of globalization that have marginalized and now threaten to make redundant whole countries and peoples excluded from informational networks. He investigates the culture, institutions and organizations of the network enterprise and the concomitant transformation of work and employment. He points out that in the advanced economies production is now concentrated on an educated section of the population aged between 25 and 40: many economies can do without a third or more of their people. He suggests that the effect of this accelerating trend may be less mass unemployment than the extreme flexibilization of work and individualization of labor, and, in consequence, a highly segmented socialstructure.
The author concludes by examining the effects and implications of technological change on mass media culture ("the culture of real virtuality"), on urban life, global politics, and the nature of time and history. Written by one of the worlds leading social thinkers and researchers The Rise of the Network Society is the first of three linked investigations of contemporary global, economic, political and social change. It is a work of outstanding penetration, originality, and importance.
15,639 citations
01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reveal how smart design is the new competitive frontier, and why some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them, and how to choose the ones that satisfy customers.
Abstract: Revealing how smart design is the new competitive frontier, this innovative book is a powerful primer on how--and why--some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
7,238 citations
•
01 Jan 1988
TL;DR: Revealing how smart design is the new competitive frontier, this innovative book is a powerful primer on how--and why--some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
Abstract: Revealing how smart design is the new competitive frontier, this innovative book is a powerful primer on how--and why--some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
6,027 citations
•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a set of rules for managers to measure when traditional good management principles should be followed or rejected, based on the analysis of the disk drive industry, and demonstrate how a manager can overcome the challenges of disruptive technologies using these principles of disruptive innovation.
Abstract: Analyzes how successful firms fail when confronted with technological and market changes, prescribing a list of rules for firms to follow as a solution. Precisely because of their adherence to good management principles, innovative, well-managed firms fail at the emergence of disruptive technologies - that is, innovations that disrupt the existing dominant technologies in the market. Unfortunately, it usually does not make sense to invest in disruptive technologies until after they have taken over the market. Thus, instead of exercising what are typically good managerial decisions, at the introduction of technical or market change it is very often the case that managers must make counterintuitive decisions not to listen to customers, to invest in lower-performance products that produce lower margins, and to pursue small markets. From analysis of the disk drive industry, a set of rules is devised - the principles of disruptive innovation - for managers to measure when traditional good management principles should be followed or rejected. According to the principles of disruptive innovation, a manager should plan to fail early, often, and inexpensively, developing disruptive technologies in small organizations operating within a niche market and with a relevant customer base. A case study in the electric-powered vehicles market illustrates how a manager can overcome the challenges of disruptive technologies using these principles of disruptive innovation. The mechanical excavator industry in the mid-twentieth century is also described, as an example in which most companies failed because they were unwilling to forego cable excavator technology for hydraulics machines. While there is no "right answer" or formula to use when reacting to unpredictable technological change, managers will be able to adapt as long as they realize that "good" managerial practices are only situationally appropriate. Though disruptive technologies are inherently high-risk, the more a firm invests in them, the more it learns about the emerging market and the changing needs of consumers, so that incremental advances may lead to industry-changing leaps. (CJC)
4,122 citations
•
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig shows how code can make a domain, site, or network free or restrictive; how technological architectures influence people's behavior and the values they adopt; and how changes in code can have damaging consequences for individual freedoms.
Abstract: From the Publisher:
Should cyberspace be regulated? How can it be done? It's a cherished belief of techies and net denizens everywhere that cyberspace is fundamentally impossible to regulate. Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig warns that, if we're not careful we'll wake up one day to discover that the character of cyberspace has changed from under us. Cyberspace will no longer be a world of relative freedom; instead it will be a world of perfect control where our identities, actions, and desires are monitored, tracked, and analyzed for the latest market research report. Commercial forces will dictate the change, and architecturethe very structure of cyberspace itselfwill dictate the form our interactions can and cannot take.
Code And Other Laws of Cyberspace is an exciting examination of how the core values of cyberspace as we know itintellectual property, free speech, and privacy-are being threatened and what we can do to protect them. Lessig shows how codethe architecture and law of cyberspacecan make a domain, site, or network free or restrictive; how technological architectures influence people's behavior and the values they adopt; and how changes in code can have damaging consequences for individual freedoms. Code is not just for lawyers and policymakers; it is a must-read for everyone concerned with survival of democratic values in the Information Age.
2,706 citations