Debrief: Social Software and Web 2.0 seminar
Posted on Sunday, October 8th, 2006 at 7:37 pmI presented at the Social Software and Web 2.0: Critical Perspectives and Challenges for Research and Business seminar and workshop a few days ago at Aalborg University in Denmark. My talk, “The Panoptic Gaze of Web 2.0: How Web 2.0 Platforms Act as Infrastructures of Dataveillance” can be downloaded here (PDF), and the slides from my presentation are here (large 7.1MB PDF). Two other excellent presentations were made:
Søren Mørk Petersen, a PhD student at IT University of Copenhagen, presented his research on moblogging and challenged us to break out of the typical Web 2.0 discourse that modulates between two poles: the alpha geek (where Web 2.0 prepresents democracy, liberation, freedom) vs. the alpha geist (where Web 2.0 brings narcissism, aflattening of culture & knowledge, a public-private breakdown).
And Mikkel Holm Sørensen (a recent PhD from IT University of Copenhagen) discussed the innovative work he’s doing at Actics Ltd, where the are trying to bring “action ethics” into the realm of “corporate social responsibility” by building online tools for companies to measure, manage and act on their corporate values. An example is [link removed], where a profile can be created for a company to list their purported values and then let employees and customers rate how they are performing - kinda like MySpace for corporate values. Cool stuff.
It was a great seminar, and I enjoyed learning about the kind of work being done in Denmark surrounding Web 2.0 specifically, and the ethical implications of technology generally. Congrats to Anders Albrechtslund & Thomas Ryberg for an excellent event.
Related Posts:
- Critical Perspectives on Social Software and Web 2.0
- Why Web 2.0 will end your privacy
- Peer Surveillance of Pot Smokers at Farrand Field
- Keen: Web 2.0, Marxism, and Unintended Consequences




Web Search: Multi-
disciplinary Perspectives
October 10th, 2006 at 8:17 am
Die YouTube Übernahme und der panoptische Blick…
Zur Übernahme von YouTube durch Google und für alle, die Google bzw. Web 2.0 Dienste intensiv nutzen, empfehle ich den Text The Panoptic Gaze of Web 2.0: How Web 2.0 platforms act as Infrastructures of Dataveillance von Michael Zimmer, den er als Vor…
October 14th, 2006 at 1:29 am
I want my Google Data Privacy….
…
October 16th, 2006 at 7:58 am
[...] Google can give you “me” - an accurate reflection of yourself - becuase they know a lot about you. Underlyling all these cool products, Google has built itself an infrastructure of dataveillance, arming Google with the ability to collect and aggregate a wide array of personal and intellectual information about its users, extending beyond just what website they search for, but also including what news they read, what interests they have, the blogs they follow, the books they enjoy, the stocks in their portfolio, and perhaps even every website they visit. As noted in the aritlce: The expansion of Google’s reach into so many areas of people’s lives has some worried. Other than the National Security Agency, said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “I don’t think any entity has ever been in a position to collect so much private data about people. [...]