The Problem of the Information Format (for networks) 2/2

Categories » Issue Network Interventions

Proceedings of the Issue Mapping workshop by the Govcom.org Foundation, Amsterdam.

Hosted by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Cartagena, Colombia, with support from the Open Society Institute, Budapest.

23-31 October 2003

Prepared by Dr. Richard Rogers with the help of all participants

PDF version » gco_format.pdf

Table of Contents

Preface

The information format as a problem (for networks)

Introduction: The old media format
What do new media networks do with old media?

Formats for networks

1. The network and the press release: APC’s statement on the downing of the Al-jazeera Web site
Calendrical and terminological formatting work for (issue) networks
Contrasting networks and movements (through anti-war efforts)
2.Is APC a social network or an issue network?
3.The hybridization of ICT at WSIS: Opening up
the issue of ICT to development, gender and rights.
4. ‘e-formatting’. Is e-governance a women's issue?
5.From sustainable development around the world, to a sustainable Colombian network.
6.Cancun. The missing middle, or is the United States the issue?
7. An issue-geographical reorganization of North-South from the South.

Appendix

Selected (Issue) Network Format
Project participant list (with original project names)
Literature
Acknowledgements

5.From sustainable development around the world, to a sustainable Colombian network.

Is the Columbian Sustainable Development network real, or could it be made real?



Figure ten. Rds.org.co, the Colombian Sustainable Development Network site’s front page.

Figure ten is rds.org.co, the Web site of the Colombian sustainable development network. Organisations have registered with the network, and they are organised into thematic groups on the site. However, judging from the site, or for that matter, from the information available to the networks host, there is no way of telling whether this network is also an active, coherent and committed network. We ask, how real, and how human, is the Colombian Sustainable Development network? This is especially important to us, as the international sustainable development network seems to be disintegrating. The site of the Panama network is no longer running, and neither is the Nicaraguan one. There is, however, a living Colombian network on Sustainable Development on the Web.

Tracing the Colombian Sustainable Development network on the Web, we are happy to find what looks like a strong and healthy network. (See figure eleven.) To begin with, the network that is disclosed by its members is clearly a national one. These organisations do not lead us into the foggy world of international organisations, but keep us firmly in the Colombian space. Secondly, the network appears to be active and self-sustaining. We find dense inter-linkings among the network's players, which is to say that the network does not depend exclusively on rds.org for its survival, or only appear as if it is a network by virtue of a single ‘network’ site. Certainly, the network acknowledges rds.org.co as one of its homes, but it is not held together solely by its host.



Figure eleven. A healthy Colombian sustainable development network.

Remarkably, the Colombian Sustainable Development Network on the Web is also about sustainable development. (See figure twelve.) If we look at the issues around which the network on the Web is organised, we find strong and clear terms which expressly fit the concept of sustainable development: education, community, environment, development, sustainable development. The network is organised by projects and arrangements that are true to the agenda of sustainable development. The network’s players appear to be strongly committed to it as well.

Internationally, Sustainable Development, as an agenda, may be going through a difficult time, but as far as the Colombian network is concerned, the term makes perfect sense: it covers the issues of the network. The Colombian Sustainable Development Network may not yet be ‘real’, but it is certainly sustainable!

By virtue of the thematic coherences among the work of network members, and the many connections, among them, the Columbian sustainable development network appears to be alive and kicking. The association that rds.org.co seeks to put in place does not just depend on rds.org.co. A Columbian sustainable development network has configured on the Web, which consists of committed players, both with respect to other organisations, and to the themes in the name of which this network deploys its activities. For this network to become real, or even human, it will need to have its coming out during an event. Whether and how this can happen the network on the Web cannot tell us. But the Web does show us that the Colombian network is sustainable. It is ready to become real.



Figure twelve. The Colombian Sustainable Development Network is about Sustainable Development.

6.Cancun. The missing middle, or is the United States the issue?

A Key Word Analysis of the Official Speeches at the Opening of the WTO Summit in Cancun (Fifth Ministerial, 10-14 September 2003).

NGO activities often follow inter-governmental schedules. On schedule, they have their own formats that are placed beside the inter-governmental formats. There are counter-summits, demonstrations and more. NGO summit preparation parallels inter-governmental preparation, and great use is made of the Internet in the logistical organization of NGO parallel events. This much we know.

In this piece of research, we are interested in having some idea about how to fill in the parallel format. We decide to fill it in by doing an analysis of the ‘other building’, that is, not what NGOs are talking about, but what governments are talking about.

In the run-up to the WTO meeting in Cancun in September 2003, certain delegates from developing countries strengthened their ‘bloc’ known as the G20, or, as it has grown, the G22 or the G22+. Certain delegates made statements that the new bloc should seek ties with ‘civil society’. The delegates have the impression that civil society and civil society networks may well be able to exert the necessary pressure on the other country configurations – the G8 and non-G8/G22 actors – to effect (substantive) change.

Before being able to answer any questions about the capacity of NGO networks to influence WTO Summit issue agendas (and the ‘language’ of final declarations, a subject of the WSIS research above), we decided to enquire into the substance of the three blocs (G8, G22, non-G8/G22+), and how the issue language may or may not overlap across blocs. How is the G8/G22/non-G8-G22 space textually organized?

We took a tidy set of data, the 130 official opening speeches of ministerial delegates. (Remarkably, delegates from Russia and the United States did not take the podium.) Having read some, we thought the opening day speeches are suitable for analysis into the overall Summit issue space, for each speech, typically, has three parts. First, there is the cordial welcoming, where new members are applauded. (Nepal and Cambodia joined the round this time around.) Second, there is commentary on the Summit process, the rules in particular. Finally, there are opinions expressed about which issues are most pertinent, the focus.

We undertook standard textual analysis, whereby a list of most significant terms is created. Certain of the terms are tagged, after we create a dictionary. The dictionary was made on the basis of summaries of the substance of the summit, provided by the Third World Institute, Montevideo, Uruguay. In particular, we tagged the ‘Singapore issues’, the agenda put forward by the G22 bloc, as well as other significant terms that arose from the textual analysis. Finally, we inquired into what the three blocs textually share.

Figure thirteen. The Missing Middle, or is the United States the Issue?


Figure thirteen. The Missing Middle, or is the United States the Issue?

Figure thirteen is a depiction of the analysis, and the textual overlap of the three blocs. We have entitled each overlap space as follows. G8 + Other (non-G8/non-G22) is the formality space, G8 + G22 is the dialogue space, and G22 + Other is ‘the United States as issue?’ space.

The G8 and non-G8/G22 delegates are together enjoying diplomatic protocols and formalities. Welcome to the club! The introduction of Nepal and Cambodia gives the G8 countries and the non-G8/G22 countries the opportunity to share aims, rules and process with the rest of the world (with the exception of the G22, which may not celebrate the formality).

Issue shared by G8 and rest of world (without G22)

Welcome (new members)
Doha Development Agenda
Doha Declaration
Doha Round
Integrated Framework
Medicines
Dispute settlement
Economic Growth

Looking at the depiction, as we expected, G8 and G22 actors share the "Singapore issues," and they are enunciated in two languages, the formal Singapore Issues and the emerging, more contested language in the Singapore Issue space (see below). This is the substance of ‘dialogue’ between the G8 and the G22.

Issues shared by G22 and G8

Formal Singapore Issues
investment
competition policy
transparency
in-government procurement
trade facilitation

Other Issues in the Singapore Issue Space
trade-distorting
industrial tariffs
livelihood
transparency
education
human rights
forestry
food security
quota-free
North-South
rhetoric

Whilst the G22 and the G8 talk about the 'big issues', the G22 approaches the rest of the world with something else: the relationship between least-developed countries and United States. The G22 feels secure, we thought, to speak of the United States as the issue with the rest of world as opposed to the G8, in a classic case of leverage politics (pressure by proxy).

Issues shared by G22 and rest of world (without G8)

United States
Least-developed countries
Special products
Liberalisation
Fairness
Consensus

Remarkably, we found a missing middle. The three blocs do not appear to share any issues, significantly. We recall that at the World Economic Forum, the slogan is "Nothing is agreed unless everything is agreed." The slogan for the 'failed summit' in Cancun could be the "missing middle ground". The question of civil society’s role in this space may now be asked.

7. An issue-geographical reorganization of North-South from the South.

As our work was progressing, we learned of a north-south divide in the next room! There was an ICT policy workshop underway, where the participants (mainly) from the South were learning from teachers (exclusively) from the North. This arrangement paved the way for a discussion of the North-South divide.

Learning of this development, we decided to present the other room with a gift of a new map of the world that organizes North and South (and perhaps a North-South divide on southern terms) from an issue-geographical point of view.

The Third World Institute was kind enough to provide us with their database of northern and southern organizations working in the South on trade-related issues. We found that ‘trade-related issues’ appeared to be many other issues as well, or differently worded, that trade-related issues are about far more than trade.

We present a new map of the world, where relations between northern and southern organizations as well as each organization’s respective issue areas ‘geographically’ organize a space. We made this space look like a map of the world, with equatorial divide.

Appendix

Selected (Issue) Network Format

Project participant list (with original project names)

APC: "We put the ICT in Gender (and in many other issues, too)!" But in which order?

Cartographers: Karen Higgs, Maya Sooka and Richard Rogers

Is APC a social network?

Cartographers: Anriette Esterhuysen, Richard Rogers, Andrei Mogoutov and the APC members.

The hybridization of ICT at WSIS: Opening up the issue of ICT to development, gender and rights.

Cartographers: Pi Villanueva Reyes, Natasha Primo, Anriette Esterhuysen, Andrei Mogoutov and Noortje Marres

Is e-governance a women's issue?

Cartographers: Pi Villanueva Reyes, Natasha Primo, Anriette
Esterhuysen and Noortje Marres

From sustainable development around the world, to a sustainable Colombian network.

Cartographers: Julian Casasbuenas, Omar Martinez, Rodrigo Barahona and Noortje Marres

Cancun after Cancun: Discursive alignments between government and civil society?

Cartographers: Andrea Antelo, Magela Sigillito, Zoltan Varady, Andrei Mogoutov and Richard Rogers

An issue-geographical reorganization of North-South.

Cartographers: Andrea Antelo, Magela Sigillito, Zoltan Varady, Andrei Mogoutov and Richard Rogers

Literature

Hugh Heclo, "Issue networks and the Executive Establishment," in The New American Political System, American Enterprise Institute, Washington D.C., 1978, 87-124.

Maegaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activism Beyond Borders, Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1998.

Annelise Riles, The Network Inside Out, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2001.

Micheal Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, Zone Books, New York, 2002.

Acknowledgements

The govcom.org team (Richard Rogers, Noortje Marres, Andrei Mogoutov, Marieke van Dijk and Auke Touwslager) would like to thank Julián Casasbuenas, the Colnodo Director, and the Colnodo group, for seeing to all the small but important details in hosting such an event. (We really appreciated the bandwidth!) We would like to thank Anriette Esterhuysen for the opportunity to study the network and the warm invitation. All of the workshop participants deserve our special thanks for their extremely hard work in undertaking rather time-consuming analyses over a 4-day period. Thanks to Karen Higgs for setting up all the communications with APC members, and to the APC members themselves for putting up with our requests for immediate responses to questionnaires. Finally, we would like to thank the Open Society Institute for its generous support.

Noortje Marres (the WSIS, e-governance and Colombian Sustainable Development stories) and Karen Higgs (the press release story) contributed text to the document. Any errors are attributable to Richard Rogers.