Information Politics on the Web (Paperback)

Description

Does the information on the Web offer many alternative accounts of reality, or does it subtly align with an official version? In Information Politics on the Web, Richard Rogers identifies the cultures, techniques, and devices that rank and recommend information on the Web, analyzing not only the political content of Web sites but the politics built into the Web's infrastructure. Addressing the larger question of what the Web is for, Rogers argues that the Web is still the best arena for unsettling the official and challenging the familiar.

Rogers describes the politics at work on the Web as either back-end -- the politics of search engine technology -- or front-end -- the diversity, inclusivity, and relative prominence of sites publicly accessible on the Web. To analyze this, he developed four "political instruments," or software tools that gather information about the Web by capturing dynamic linking practices, attention cycles for issues, and changing political party commitments. On the basis of his findings on how information politics works, Rogers argues that the Web should be, and can be, a "collision space" for official and unofficial accounts of reality. (One chapter, "The Viagra Files" offers an entertaining analysis of official and unofficial claims for the health benefits of Viagra.) The distinctiveness of the Web as a medium lies partly in the peculiar practices that grant different statuses to information sources. The tools developed by Rogers capture these practices and contribute to the development of a new information politics that takes into account and draws from the competition between the official, the non-governmental, and the underground.

Richard Rogers is Director of govcom.org, an Amsterdam-based foundation dedicated to creating and hosting political tools on the Web, and Assistant Professor in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
 
 

Table of Contents

Preface vii
 
1. Introduction: Behind the Practice of Information Politics 1
 
2. The Viagra Files: The Web as Collision Space between Official and Unofficial Accounts of Reality 35
 
3. Mapping De-territorialization: Classic Politics in Tatters 59
 
4. After Genoa: Remedying Informational Politics and Augmenting Reality with the Web 93
 
5. Election Issue Tracker: Monitoring the Politics of Attention 137
 
6. The Practice of Information Politics on the Web 163
 
 Notes 177
 
 Bibliography 189
 
 Index 197 

描述

在《網絡上的資訊政治》一書中，理查德·羅傑斯（Richard Rogers）辨識了在網絡上排名和推薦資訊的文化、技術和工具，分析了網站的政治內容以及網絡基礎設施中內建的政治。羅傑斯探討了網絡的目的是什麼，並主張網絡仍然是挑戰官方版本和挑戰熟悉的最佳場所。

羅傑斯將網絡上的政治分為後端政治（搜索引擎技術的政治）和前端政治（公開訪問的網站的多樣性、包容性和相對重要性）。為了分析這一點，他開發了四種“政治工具”或軟件工具，通過捕捉動態鏈接實踐、問題的關注週期和政黨承諾的變化來收集有關網絡的信息。基於他對資訊政治運作方式的發現，羅傑斯主張網絡應該成為官方和非官方現實描述的“碰撞空間”。（其中一章“威而鋼檔案”提供了對威而鋼健康效益的官方和非官方主張的有趣分析。）網絡作為一種媒介的獨特之處在於賦予不同信息來源不同的地位。羅傑斯開發的工具捕捉了這些實踐，並有助於發展一種新的資訊政治，考慮並借鑒官方、非政府和地下之間的競爭。

理查德·羅傑斯是位於阿姆斯特丹的govcom.org基金會的主任，該基金會致力於在網絡上創建和托管政治工具，並在阿姆斯特丹大學擔任媒體研究助理教授。

目錄

前言 vii

1. 引言：資訊政治實踐背後 1

2. 威而鋼檔案：網絡作為官方和非官方現實描述的碰撞空間 35

3. 解構地域化：經典政治的破碎 59

4. 熱那亞之後：修復資訊政治，通過網絡增強現實 93

5. 選舉議題追蹤器：監測關注的政治 137

6. 網絡上的資訊政治實踐 163

註釋 177

參考文獻 189

索引 197