OpenJournal and A Communications Theory of Open Source by risa
by Risa Dickens
What I didn’t quite say in my first open source related public talk…
Well, I walked into the conference room at CRIM for my little talk about OpenJournaL last night and immediately began deciding to ditch my written presentation and just have a talk with these folks. The guys that straggled in were all different degrees of polite and friendly, bi-lingual geeks; and after a few minutes of programming-speak and acronyms it was clear that my communications theory about how open source interacts with monopolies of knowledge was the wrong place to start.
I left my notes in my bag on the seat next to Elran and stood in front of our very own Open projected huge and high quality on a giant screen embedded behind me in the wall, and faced the room of linux users and local leaders with only a few laptops and a small mic between us. I started out just trying to introduce the idea of the site: our intention to open up the act of writing, and to open up boundaries between disciplines, and to draw open source into the communication discourse in some different ways.
(communication discourse: all those people and texts that talk about communication. The field of Communication Studies)
At Open we’re trying to make a space that bridges huge communication gaps between geeks of different kinds (theory, literature, health, law, or code geeks), and between geeks and non-geeks. And the deep need for this kind of space was made all the more evident by the few gaps and snags we met, and collectively surpassed, last night.
The most interesting moment for me was in a back and forth with Brad from Ubuntu and Hubert, an independent software consultant, about how personal ego and programmer-brain can get in the way of the expansive potential of open source. We talked about how the design of a graphic user interface- the face of the software being made, or of the bug-reporting site for the software- can fail to communicate with Others who aren’t already part of the in-club. And this echoed the comments I’d already made about my intentions with the evolving design of Open- of trying to keep some white space, and of trying speak in a language that’s not too theory-y and alienating.
The interesting thing to realize is that we all have this potential to speak in domain-specific or peer-specific language. We all know specialized terms, and we can all get so used to them we forget how they sound to an equally-intelligent outsider. It is even possible to assume that we understand each other, because we translate their phrases through our own assumptions and biases. (Never assume, my grade 8 teacher told the class, or you’ll make an ass out of u and me.)
For example, have you ever watched a television show with other people and realized by the way they are making fun of it that they are missing some information about how it works, or what its intention is, or what the real character relationships are? Or have you ever realized in the middle of a fight (with your mom, say) that the other person isn’t accusing you of the thing you are angrily defending yourself against? We have no means of ‘perfect’ communication between humans, we’re all alone in these bodies of ours, we make mistakes all the time.
The two examples I just described are situations where the gap between the message sent and the message being received becomes apparent, but what happens when it doesn’t? And how do media - the systems we build to enable and extend this flawed communication of ours - interact with our messages? Harold Innis, my favorite communication theorist, says that media distort knowledge when they are structured by monopolies. He suggests we think about how personalities are distorted by power, and how they then support the formation and expansion of monopolies of knowledge (PE in the MS, intro.). A monopoly of knowledge is a fixed version of reality determined by the communicative choices made by an elite (regulations, protocols, etc.) A monopoly of knowledge is formed by the means of communication becoming un-accessible: one-sided. And eventually it is brought down by force.
My suggestion, based on Innis’ theories about public opinion and crisis, is that the open source process offers us the best means of deflating that tendency. Open source software will be continuously improved by surprising perspectives, and so will produce layered media for open source communication- beyond the desktop, or the browser, or the website, other means and metaphors for the network will emerge. This communication will have the potential to bridge gaps in communication (like Unicode already does) but will build layered ways for this to happen over time: gradually and in fits and starts opening up communication between math and other kinds of languages, and between cultures, and between genders.
I hope some of this came across last night, but every failure makes the usefulness of the evolving space/metaphor that is OpenJournaL more apparent.
September 17th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
…and between genders ?
What is this nonsense?
How about talking to people face to face onstead of relying on FLOSS to do it for you/
If anything, the net doesnt open up communication between cultures,
it keeps them in their own little ghettoized world.
September 17th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
Do you really think the net keeps people in their own little ghettoized world, angry rex? i haven’t found that to be particularly true. maybe its bc you’re a little angry? or maybe it’s bc you’re using acronyms like FLOSS that are a bit exclusive. you make a good point though, by drawing attention to the ‘gender’ thing i seem to throw in at the end there.
during the discussion i mentionned in the post above (after i presented on our website and, more generally, on the subject of my thesis work re: open source and mechanisms for balanced communication suggested in an unpublished speech by harold innis in 1943) we spoke about the fact that i was the only girl in the room. These guys were a bit concerned that programming in general and open source in specific have seemed to attract far fewer numbers of women. There are whole branches of research about gender and communication, and that’s not my particular specialization, but i do think that open source can be open to people- to new perspectives, to new eyes, in a way that other kinds of code can’t. I guess I was thinking about sites like http://www.scriptygoddess.com/
But also, in a vaguer and more theoretical way that will probably make you angry again, i imagine the fact that servers, and web programming languages and applications are freely available and changeable is creating a space where the barrier to entry for communication becomes quite low, and where the communicative space of the internet can be shaped by more different kinds of people. so you don’t rely on software to do your communicating for you, but you sure do use it to have a conversation- just like this one. i agree that face to face is great, but there is a place for all these other ways of communicating across space and time. And so if you are inclined to travel outside your bubble, and to be open to the ideas you might encounter there, its possible that your stereotypes about genders or races or whatever might change. i know i’m startled by the endless variety of people out there all the time.
anyway, good luck getting out of the ghetto and thanks for your input, rex
r
September 20th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
in connection, and on the importance of open source software as a wey of feeling your way around this massive hub:
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=444
September 29th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Hi,
sorry for the late reply. I enjoyed your talk, but would really have appreciated to hear the real thing. People shouldn’t (but we’ll always do) make up their mind at a glance. It would have been a great opportunity for us to hear something new. We’re quite open in many senses of the term.
That being said, it was great to have you. I’ll try to get a venue for the Semaine québécoise de l’informatique libre where you could give your actual talk. And this time, I’ll mean business
Grr, I hit TAB to hit the next field (name, mail, website) but the cursor kept flying back to the login submit button. Please fix it, Elran
September 30th, 2005 at 11:17 am
Hi Robin, How’s it goin?
Yeah, I’d like to give the actual talk at some point and get your opinions on it. In the moment I felt like it was a bit formal for our first time meeting you, when you all already knew each other. The environment seemed casual and friendly, and so I just wanted to dive in and get a conversation going. On the spot decision, who knows if it was right.
If you like, you can see the notes for the original talk here: http://open.touchbasic.com/journal/opening-up-to-other-eyes-the-story-and-theory-of-openjournal/
ps- whaddya mean you’ll mean business? are you gonna put me in front of a firing squad?
pps- elran’s on it….in a spare time kind of way..)
November 27th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Very interesting… as always! Cheers from -Switzerland-.