Mashing up Mashups (thanks to CC licenses)

Girl Talk, the famous mashup artist, has released a new album that is available for free on the internet, via a Creative Commons license.  While this will not guarantee revenue, it does allow for the creative use of Girl Talk’s work, as long as the terms of the artist’s license are met.  In this case, remixes and mashups are clearly legal as long as work is attributed to the original artist and is not used for commercial purposes.

The results?  A neat tool that visually breaks down each of the mashups in Girl Talk’s new album, All Day (dl here).  Click the screenshot to take it for a ride.

For me, one of the coolest aspects of this project is the option menu in the top right corner that lets you choose between metadata sources.  Wikipedia – archived or live – and AllDaySamples.com have listed the 329 songs that are remixed in Girl Talk’s newest album.  Comparing the data is interesting, too, as AllDaySamples has included timecoding for samples, while Wikipedia’s information is less robust.  I wonder what this can lead to in the future..

Pretty cool stuff!

E-Governance in the EU

How essential are laws and regulations when the government connects with citizens over the internet?  How do they structure the release of information across departments; or into the great wide open?  How does federal policy shape state policy?  How do localities fit into the picture, and what role does executive leadership play in the process?  These are just a few of the questions posed by Krassimira Paskaleva-Shapira in her 2006  article, Transitioning from e-Government to e-Governance in the Knowledge Society.

Focusing her research on the EU, Krassimira believes that the legal and regulatory framework enabling e-governance is an essential element in advancing such initiatives.  Nations in Europe will need to strategically pursue a common ground for international collaboration and, most importantly, safety.  One large assurance, though, is that the European Union has foreseen technology’s impact on governance for nearly a decade.  This provides nations with some common directives for interpreting the schema of things to come, but it has not ensured coordinated collaboration.

What does digital engagement look like?

Two of this week’s readings – “Digital Deliberation” by Thomas C. Beierle and “Design of Digital Democracies” by Pirjo Elovaara and Christina Mortberg – investigate different ways we can design the IT systems that control our engagement with government agencies.  These authors have discovered similar lessons that we have uncovered through our readings of Joe Trippi and others: top-down moderation of collective channels enables discussion, but systems designed to interact on an individual basis can empower citizens to become engaged with their government processes.

Thomas Beierle’s piece recounted a 2001 forum conducted by the EPA to moderate discussion and receive feedback on the agency’s new Public Involvemenet Policy (PIP) and to gather ideas on how it should be implemented.  This dialogue featured several elements, including an advertising campaign to recruit members, a briefing packet for participants to ready themselves for debate, basic forum tools (such as sorting options, daily summaries), and moderators who would lead discussions.

These tools, Beierle adds, make up an “interactive dialogue [that] can support a more reasoned analysis of issues by reducing the incentives for opposing interests to hew to extreme views and by subjecting assertions to direct rebuttal.” (157)

New Media Analysis of WA I-1082 Campaigns

After briefly covering some claims about WA State’s Initiative 1082 at factcheckwa.org (regulation & funding), I believe there is some further analysis that can be useful in learning about these campaigns’ use of new media.

SaveOurJobsWa.com: Sleek and design-heavy, this website honestly looks like a corporate social responsibility website.  First you are struck with humanizing photos of workers in all different industries.  Then there are quirky ads and links to newspaper endorsements before you even notice the text that explains the motivation behind the initiative.  In fact, this page is not scannable at all, and tries to pack too much into one punch.  The volunteer page is quite simple, offering a form to submit one’s interest in helping, and contributions are accepted, through a second link, on an external, generic-looking site.  The section about claims is very defensive and heavy on rhetoric.

VoteNo1082.com: The campaign against the initiative is immediately rebellious.  Large print, bold colors, and informative page names that quickly inform you as to the intent of this website: Vote No.  There are a few different ways to volunteer, which you can choose without clicking through multiple pages, which is in stark contrast to the form submission option at SaveOurJobs.  Additionally, while contributions are handled by an external firm, the page for contributions appears to the unwatchful web surfer to be seamlessly integrated into the website.  What’s more, the claims investigated on this website are backed by citations from the text of the initiative and visitors can actually download a version of the initiative with highlights of “dangerous clauses”.

Crowd Sourcing Election Vigilance?

As we all know, there are always issues with voting in America.  But can cell phones rescue our fractured democracy?

According to an article on the ABC News Website, there are at least two smartphone apps that will enable voters to report violations at the polls. I’d be interested to know (I just don’t have time to do the research right now):

1. Who created these apps?
2. Does their position/angle matter?
3. Who is getting the information, and what are they doing with it?
4. Will this information be shared in a timely & sensitive manner?

It will be interesting to see the results of this new tool.  I would also be interested in knowing if people are acting as vigilantes, shadowing their polling place, or if this is a more passive activity.  But mostly, if even somewhat successful, these apps tap into a serious distrust of our government.  And who would trust our election process after the 2000 & 2004 Presidential debacles?

Here in Washington State, we have to vote by mail, unless you are unable to do so, in which case other arrangements can be made.  Will somebody be watching over the machines and/or people counting ballots with these apps?  Certainly not – which means this isn’t a solution for voter fraud, but it is a type of watchdog role that citizens can play in protecting the sanctitiy of their vote.

Very interesting.