Six Different Schools of Thought About Knowledge Intermediation
Source: SIRCA White Paper ([1])
Typology
Katherine Reilly:
Decentralization School
"The decentralization school starts from the assumption that the internet allows knowledge to be openly available. Incumbent institutions that rely on proprietary knowledge should relinquish their power given the new possibilities offered by information age. Proponents of this school focus their attention on ensuring that both the internet and the knowledge commons remain open, because openness empowers citizens, consumers, knowledge producers, and similarly decentralized ‘user’ groups. An open knowledge commons driven by the internet will disempower gatekeepers and disintermediate relationships in ways that decentralize power and bring people on the peripheries of networks into contact with each other.
In some ways this school could be seen as a rejection of intermediation, however this is not exactly the case. Rather, this school prioritizes code or systems design as the force that intermediates radical decentralization of the power to produce knowledge. This school can be seen as an expression of early libertarian views about cyberspace, such as John Perry Barlow’s 1996 manifesto “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” which argued that netizens could self-govern and as a result, old sovereignties should fade away. Also, open source and hacker culture help us to understand this school of thought, given the prioritization of decentralized forms of organization, free and open information, and the emphasis on individual freedoms in the realization of epistemic contributions.
It is important to recognize this approach to intermediation because it is historical (i.e. an early approach to thinking about the intermediation of openness), because it offers a baseline for other ways of thinking about intermediation, and because we must always remind ourselves that no intermediation is also a valid choice with regards to intermediation. However many scholars now recognize that active intermediation is required to realize the decentralization and empowerment promised by the Internet and open knowledge, particularly in social justice, social change or development spaces.
Sample Articles:
- Julia Powles. Net neutrality is only the beginning of an open internet. The Guardian, February 26, 2015.
“We citizens, often derogated as ‘users’ or ‘consumers’, have much to win in a global communication space. That is much more than simply a ‘neutral network’. Instead, it is a truly open, distributed network where everyone’s fundamental rights are respected. Not having our access providers acting as interested gatekeepers may be a step in the right direction, but it is by no means an end. Many other distortive factors remain and we will not have an open space until we get rid of them all.”
- The Open Data Handbook
URL = http://opendatahandbook.org/guide/en/why-open-data/
“...untapped potential can be unleashed if we turn public government data into open data. This will only happen, however, if it is really open, i.e. if there are no restrictions (legal, financial or technological) to its re-use by others. Every restriction will exclude people from re-using the public data, and make it harder to find valuable ways of doing that. For the potential to be realized, public data needs to be open data.”
- Juan Pablo Alperin. The Public Impact of Latin America’s Approach to Open Access. Stanford University, 2015.
URL = http://purl.stanford.edu/jr256tk1194
Because of Latin America’s broad adoption of open access, this study also speaks to the open access movement, and to other efforts around the world to provide access to research to the public. It is, after all, one of the promises of open access to expand access to those beyond the confines of academia. While open access is in large part still about scholars communicating research to each other (and doing so more effectively) it is also one of the tenets of the open access movement that “disseminating knowledge is only half complete if the information is not made widely and readily available to society” (Max Planck, 2003, n.p.). However, making research publicly available (through OA or otherwise) is only part of the challenge, the greater challenge is having individuals who would not otherwise have had access use the work. Yet, as the results of this study reveal, there is interest by the public in using research and scholarship, and the substantial levels of public access provided through open access in Latin America provide an interesting case study for OA proponents.
- Stefan Baack. Datafication and empowerment: How the open data movement re-articulates notions of democracy, participation, and journalism. Big Data and Society, 2(2), July 2015. DOI: 10.1177/2053951715594634
Baack asks “how do activists apply practices and values from open source culture to data, and what does this tell us, in return, about agency in datafied publics?” He finds that open raw data is a prerequisite for generating knowledge, because “Sharing raw data would allow others to make their own interpretation of it and generate their own knowledge, which represents a ‘democratization of information’ for activists.” This is important because “Sharing raw data makes the process of interpreting it transparent and breaks governments’ monopoly, which means that everybody could make his or her own interpretation of the data that governments use to make and justify their decisions—allowing people to examine biases in government’s data collection and interpretation.” Activists adhere to technical definitions of complete openness, because, even though “personal data and data crucial to security should not be made available in this way … legal and technical conditions are necessary to effectively break the interpretative monopoly of governments.”
- Joshua Kopstein. The Mission to Decentralize the Internet. The New Yorker, December 12, 2013.
URL = http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-mission-to-decentralize-the-internet
In this article Kopstein details forces that have worked to re-intermediate the Internet, and offers a list of different solutions that could help to disintermediate information flows once again. The solutions he offers address both systems and data disintermediation. In particular, he explains the potential of peer-to-peer architecture for decentralization. He concludes the argument by saying: “Though Snowden has raised the profile of privacy technology, it will be up to engineers and their allies to make that technology viable for the masses. ... ‘Discussions about innovation, resilience, open protocols, data ownership and the numerous surrounding issues,’ said Redecentralize’s Bolychevsky, ‘need to become mainstream if we want the Internet to stay free, democratic, and engaging.’”
Arterial School
The arterial school recognizes that even when data or information is made freely available on the internet, people often face obstacles to access it--that there are blockages in the informational arteries that reach out into society. Often commentators point out that “just opening up the data is not enough” to ensure awareness, use or engagement. Intermediaries or ‘info-mediaries’ are prescribed as a means to overcome barriers. Originally this discussion focused on supporting ‘access, use and appropriation’ of ICTs through public access computing (PAC) at libraries, cybercafes and telecentres. More recently, as attention has become more focused on open data, the emphasis has shifted towards platforms and tools that facilitate access to information, and also to make sense of that information (such as data visualization tools). Intermediaries in the open data spaces may also advocate for openness often through creation and implementation of access to information laws.
This school is sometimes referred to as the “one way street” school of intermediation (Pollock, 2011), because much of the literature focuses on ensuring that marginalized users gain access to information that comes from centralized information sources. Also this school is often more concerned with making data flow outwards from centres of power than creating information feedback loops. So for example, the discussion often revolves around ensuring that citizens are able to access and make sense of government information, but less attention is paid to how the data work of citizens can flow back into decision-making processes. However, this need not necessarily be the case. It could also be that info-mediaries facilitate flows of information from citizens to governments, or between different stakeholders.
Sample articles:
- M. Sein and B. Furuholt. Intermediaries: bridges across the digital divide. Information Technology for Development 18(4), 2012: 332-344.
In this widely cited article, Sein and Furuholt argue that intermediaries are the “human link between the Internet and its users” (p. 334). They provide services such as physical access, user support and training.
- Ricardo Gomez et al. Lending a visible hand: an analysis of infomediary behavior in Colombian public access computing venues. Information Development. 28(2), 2012: 117–131.
This empirical study of infomediaries working at public access computing centres in developing countries (libraries, telecentres and cybercafes) finds that “Operators in each type of venue were essential in enabling patrons to access and use information technologies to solve problems, and in some cases, gain a sense of personal and community empowerment.” “Sharing information is a key function in libraries and in telecenters. While libraries tend to focus on offering free access to multiple information resources (not just computers but also books and other printed materials), telecenters tend to focus on offering access to specific types of information to meet local community needs.”
- E. Beck, S. Madon & S. Sahay. (2004). On the margins of the information society: A comparative study of mediation. The Information Society, 20(4), 279–290. doi:10.1080/01972240490481009
This piece argues that mediating actors such as government agencies, NGOs and international agencies can help to build informational networks to combat marginalization in the knowledge society, however the authors emphasize that mediation must be done in ways that are appropriate to needs of marginalized communities. In particular, this work must focus on helping marginalized people to achieve anchored forms of social inclusion, and this requires careful attention to the relational nature of exclusion.
- F. Al-Sobhi, V. Weerakkody, & M. M. Kamal. Transforming Government. People, Process and Policy, 4(1), 2010: 14–36. doi:10.1108/17506161011028786
This piece emphasizes the importance of intermediaries in processes of adoption and diffusion of new informational programs, particularly in the face of low levels of trust, capacity and access. In this case, intermediaries are organizations that facilitate coordination between public services and users. “The intermediary provides a trusted information channel gateway and also provides help and support, which may have an impact on citizens’ usage toward e-government services.”
- M. K. Sein. The “I” between G and C: E-government intermediaries in developing countries. EJISDC, 48(2), 2011: 1–14.
This piece reminds us that in addition to providing access and building trust, intermediaries provide information and assistance that responds to local needs, and act as champions or catalysts for the community. Also, Sein notes that “there is also a potentially dark side. Intermediaries can increase corruption as they represent another layer between common citizens and the system.”
- M. Janssen et al. Benefits, Adoption Barriers and Myths of Open Data and Open Government. Information Systems Management. 29(4), 2012: 258–268.
Janssen points out that it “cannot be expected that the public has the same amount of knowledge and capabilities as researchers do. Lowering the knowledge level required for use is key to large-scale dissemination” (p. 264). Tools exist to lower barriers, such as data visualization. However, they require “that current efforts take the user’s perspective into account and monitor the need, ultimately helping users and lowering the threshold to using open data” (p. 265).
- Michael Gurstein. Open data: Empowering the empowered or effective data use for
everyone? First Monday 16:2, 2011. http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3316
Gurstein argues that in order to overcome the data divide, it is necessary to ensure that ”those for whom access is being provided are in a position to actually make use of the now available access (to the Internet or to data) in ways that are meaningful and beneficial for them. He worries that open data “empowers those with access to the basic infrastructure and the background knowledge and skills to make use of the data for specific ends” and that it may “further empower and enrich the already empowered and the well provided for rather than those most in need of the benefits of such new developments.” He advocated an effective use approach to open data which would use training programs to ensure that “opportunities and resources for translating this open data into useful outcomes would be available (and adapted) for the widest possible range of users.”
- Stefan Baack. Datafication and empowerment: How the open data movement re-articulates notions of democracy, participation, and journalism. Big Data and Society, 2(2), July 2015. DOI: 10.1177/2053951715594634
“Even though the idea behind the democratization of information is to potentially allow everybody to interpret raw data, activists are well aware that the average citizen does not have the time and expert knowledge to do so.” “... what kind of intermediaries are deemed necessary to empower citizens. Three criteria can be identified that constitute an ‘empowering intermediary’ in the eyes of activists. First, they should be data-driven, which means that they should be able to handle large and complex datasets to make them accessible to others. Second, empowering intermediaries should be open, which means that they should make the data from which they generate stories or build applications available to their audiences … Third, empowering intermediaries should be engaging, which means that they should actively involve citizens in public issues.”
Ecosystems School
The ecosystems school observes that in complex institutional relationships, as between a government and its stakeholders, data is generated by many different information systems that are attached to a wide variety of different social processes. The goal of the ecosystem school is to ensure the production of quality data or information, that will produce value. This requires careful analysis of a variety of different intermediaries, and the many different ways in which they add value within the ecosystem, as well as the policies and systems that support those intermediaries. This approach is a welcome advance on arterial approaches which are too simplistic to capture the contemporary reality of data intermediation.
However, the ecosystem metaphor raises questions about the goal of adding value to information within a system. What kind of social value can result from open data ecosystems? Indeed, what values determine the organization of open data ecosystems? At times this literature seems to suggest that a healthy open data ecosystem is necessary to help solve complex social problems. At other times, this literature expresses a need for industrial policy to ensure the viability, innovativeness and economic productivity of open data ecosystems. Innovation is a common theme within this literature, however It is often unclear whether the literature is referring to new forms of intermediation, new approaches to social entrepreneurship, or the creation of new tech clusters.
Sample articles:
- Rose, F. 1999. The Economics, Concept, and Design of Information Intermediaries: A Theoretic Approach. Heidelberg, Germany: PhysicaVerlag.
“Information intermediaries are economic agents supporting the production, exchange, and utilization of information in order to increase the value of the information for its end-user or to reduce the costs of information acquisition. … The aim to make profit is the origin of their activities. The information processing activities of information intermediaries can generate an informational surplus or added value.”
- Tomasz Janowski, Jeanne Holm, and Elsa Estevez (Eds.). Open Growth: Stimulating Demand for Open Data in the UK. Briefing Note. Deloitte Analytics. 2012.
URL = http://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/deloitte-analytics/articles/stimulating-demand-for-open-data-in-the-uk.html DOI: 9781450324564/00/0010.
“Intermediaries are the supporting industries such as data management and storage companies, platform and software providers, crowdsourcing hosts and advisory services PLUS app developers and businesses that occupy the space between open data suppliers and final consumers. The latter take open data and ‘enrich it’ and add services to it so that it can be used by governments, business and individuals. This benefits the wider economy by providing economic growth, increased innovation and efficiency savings.”
- M. Sorrentino and B. Niehaves, B. Intermediaries in E-inclusion: A literature review. In Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, January 5–8, 2010, Kauai, HI.
These authors note that where in the past e-government focused on infrastructure, capabilities and new forms of service delivery, in the future “eGovernment will be increasingly built on public-private partnerships and will introduce new intermediaries to the public service delivery chain and democratic processes.” With this in mind, they address e-government as an open system in which “rational or efficiency-based forces are not the only drivers at work.” They note that in some studies, the focus is on providing access to public services, however in other cases, intermediaries are associated with “the ability to process, generate and (re)combine data and information” with the realization of a specific social value in mind.
- Sumandro Chattapadhyay. Opening Government Data through Mediation: Exploring the Roles, Practices and Strategies of Data Intermediary Organisations in India. World Wide Web Foundation, 2014.
URL = http://www.opendataresearch.org/sites/default/files/publications/sumandro_oddc_project_report_0.pdf
This study explores the practices of data intermediary organizations in India. These organizations “enhance the quality and amplify the circulation of data opened up by the government agencies, through acts of sanitising, organising, compiling, formatting, and documenting available open government data. These organisations may also additionally function as repositories of open data sourced from nongovernment actors. Thus, within the overall ecosystem, open data intermediaries will create focused – either regional or sectoral – loops of data flow and value-addition and augment the ecosystem as a whole.”
- François van Schalkwyk, Michael Caňares, Sumandro Chattapadhyay & Alexander Andrason. Open Data Intermediaries in Developing Countries (2015)
“There are several stumbling blocks in the path of extracting the benefits from open data. … Open data intermediaries are seen as playing a crucial role in linking complex open datasets with user needs.” “An open data intermediary is an agent (i) positioned at some point in a data supply chain that incorporates an open dataset, (ii) positioned between two agents in the supply chain, and (iii) facilitates the use of open data that may otherwise not have been the case.“ “the ICT ecosystem is driven by innovation (i.e. the injection of new knowledge into the ecosystem). Firms compete and co-operate symbiotically, and the interaction between firms and consumers (that is, between knowledge creators and knowledge consumers) generates new knowledge which leads to innovation in the ecosystem. It is the pursuit of innovation that keeps the ICT ecosystem in motion.”
- Gustavo Magalhaes, Catarina Roseira, and Sharon Strover. Open Government Data Intermediaries: A Terminology Framework. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, 2013.
This literature review about open data intermediaries argues that open data services two goals: public accountability and economic growth. They define intermediaries as the ecosystem of innovators that lie between civil society and governments who work “to stimulate innovation and operate as part of an interdependent information-intensive social system.”
- C. Harrison, T. A. Pardo & M. Cook. Creating open government ecosystems: A research and development agenda. Future Internet 4, 2012: 900 - 928.
In an ecosystem approach, mediaries are like ‘keystone species’ which work to “bridge distances across institutional boundaries and translate across disciplines for members.” At the heart of the ecosystem we find “a milieu in which data, information, and technology are transformed into innovative products and citizen tools for interacting with government across a range of purposes.” “...leaders must engage in a kind of strategic ecosystem thinking, which, to sketch some basic topics, focuses on (1) identifying the people and organizations that act as essential components of the ecosystem; (2) understanding the nature of the transactions that take place between those entities, perhaps aided by the creation of a visualization of the localized ecosystem in action; (3) recognizing what resources are needed by each entity in order to engage with each other in transactions of value; and (4) observing the indicators that signal the relative health of the ecosystem as a whole.” “From the perspective of public managers, we suggest that strategic ecosystem thinking is framed by three primary interacting concerns: intentionality, value creation, and sustainability. … Government designs systems with the intent to create value, finds ways to keep them financially and politically viable, and the creation of value and sustainability feed back to influence what it is possible to design for the future. Understanding these interactions and using that understanding to inform future actions is challenging especially given that ecosystems are dynamic.” “Ultimately, the value of open data rests on whether or not it enables us to solve problems and meet important needs of individuals, communities, or society writ large.”
- M. Janssen & A. Zuiderwijk. Infomediary business models for connecting open data
providers and users. Social Science Computer Review 32(5), 2014: 694 - 711.
This article identifies and explores six types of intermediary business models: single-purpose apps, interactive apps, information aggregators, comparison models, open data repositories, and service platforms.
- M. Heimstaedt, F. Saunderson, and T. Heath. Conceptualizing Open Data Ecosystems: A timeline analysis of Open Data development in the UK. ODI Working Papers Series, 2014.
The authors note that the UK uses a distributed an intentional ecosystem model for open data. “Just as methods of production, capital stocks, etc. are interrelated in a business ecosystem, within the concept of a digital ecosystem it is the sets of data, as well as the systems and actors supporting that data, which can be understood as analogous to a cyclical, biological environment. Ultimately, the difference between a digital ecosystem and, for example, a business ecosystem is one of content: digital information (e.g. government data) in the case of the former and entities of commerce (e.g. capital and means of production) in the case of the latter.”
- Rebecca MacKinnon, Elonnai Hickok, Allon Bar and Hae-in Lim. Fostering Freedom Online: The Role of Internet Intermediaries. UNESCO, 2014.
“Internet intermediaries are heavily influenced by the legal and policy environments of states, but they do have leeway over many areas of policy and practice affecting online expression and privacy. The findings also highlighted the challenge where many state policies, laws, and regulations are – to varying degrees - poorly aligned with the duty to promote and protect intermediaries’ respect for freedom of expression.”
Bridging School
The bridging school recognizes that it can be difficult for people to make sense of open data. Mediators may be required to help ‘make data actionable,’ or reconcile different types of information. Where the arterial school gives people tools to help them arrive at their own conclusions, in this case mediators help to create consonance between disparate pieces of information, as when they work to bridge foreign, scientific or bureaucratic logics, historical context, and specific social values. Bridging activities might include translation of information between languages or formats, or facilitation of conversations between data experts and concerned citizens. Bridging also encompasses ‘localization’ of open resources within specific cultural contexts, something that teachers who work with open educational resources must often do.
These mediators bring a unique set of skills to intermediation of open data. Their work can often tend more towards the consolidation or consensuation of meaning, than the facilitation of decentralized meaning making processes. As a result, this school may be controversial among proponents of decentralization. If the original purpose of openness was disintermediation, then bridging may be seen as a re-centralization of knowledge power. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that actors such as journalists, activists and science communicators facilitate processes of meaning making. Supporters of decentralization may recognize that this is necessary, however they would likely recommend that bridging actors reveal their sources and processes so that citizens are able to trace source information and make their own assessments about the quality of the analysis. While this is certainly a good idea, the situation is more complex. Bridging actors may prefigure the production or analysis of data by setting the social, political or economic agenda, as when a teacher sets the agenda for learning in a course. The bridging school reminds us that social realities are always constructed.
Sample Articles:
- Joshua Tauberer. Open Government, Big Data and Mediators. Open Government Data. 2014.
URL = https://opengovdata.io/2014/open-government-big-data-mediators/
“The primary user of open government data is the mediator. I think we tend to forget that mediators have always played a central role in the dissemination of information. The iconic mediators of the 20th century were the radio and television anchors. Before that was the penny press, one-cent newspapers starting in 1830’s New York that began the modern sort of advertising-fueled and politically neutral journalism, and going earlier the advocacy journalism leading up to the U.S. Revolutionary War. Today’s mediators include traditional journalists, but also issue advocates, organizers, and app builders — not just programmers, but statisticians, designers, and entrepreneurs — who make information actionable.”
- Jeffrey T. Grabill & W. Michele Simmons. Toward a critical rhetoric of risk communication: Producing citizens and the role of technical communicators. Technical Communication Quarterly, 7(4), 1998.
“In this article, we build on arguments in risk communication that the predominant linear risk communication models are problematic for their failure to consider audience and additional contextual issues. The “failure”; of these risk communication models has led, some scholars argue, to a number of ethical and communicative problems. We seek to extend the critique, arguing that “risk”; is socially constructed. The claim for the social construction of risk has significant implications for both risk communication and the roles of technical communicators in risk situations. We frame these implications as a “critical rhetoric”; of risk communication that (1) dissolves the separation of risk assessment from risk communication to locate epistemology within communicative processes; (2) foregrounds power in risk communication as a way to frame ethical audience involvement; (3) argues for the technical communicator as one possessing the research and writing skills necessary for the complex processes of constructing and communicating risk.” (emphasis added)
Communities of Practice
The communities of practice literature addresses situations in which intermediaries facilitate the production and governance of common pool resources (rather than public goods). This school takes its inspiration from the work of institutional economist Elinor Ostrom (Hess and Ostrom, 2006). In some situations, there is little incentive for people to share data or information, and yet the benefits of sharing would be high. For example, data associated with research is often tightly controlled because it requires a great deal of expertise and specialized infrastructure to produce, it would be difficult to secure the information once it was leaked, and everyone is racing to be the first to extract benefits from the data (Borgman, 2015, p. 73). However, it is widely recognized that data sharing can create efficiencies in the research process, and also generate collaborations that could increase the rate of innovation resulting from research processes.
Governance of common pool resources can be tricky. The goal is to facilitate productive collaborations on the basis of quality, collaboratively produced data, but this can be difficult to achieve. On the one hand, potential participants may not feel motivated to contribute, or may lack trust in the initiative, and on the other hand, “The success of the knowledge commons depends on the ability to limit enclosure, to make exclusion difficult, and to sustain effective governance models. Libraries, archives, data repositories, and other shared-information resources are under continuous threat of free riders, enclosure, and sustainability” (Borgman, 2015, p. 73). It may be easier to realize effective governance arrangements when there is a cohesive community of actors who share a knowledge production goal, and see immediate benefits from sharing their resources.
Sample Articles:
- Evangelia Berdou. Mediating Voices and Communicating Realities: Using information crowdsourcing tools, open data initiatives and digital media to support and protect the vulnerable and marginalized. Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Research Team, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), 2011.
URL = https://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/IDSMediatingVoicesfinal.pdf
This is a study of Map Kibera, a crowd sourced citizen mapping project in Nairobi, Kenya. It emphasizes many of the challenges involved in governing the map as an information commons that requires the active input of community members, and also aims to produce benefits for that same community."
([2])