Internet Literacy

Ted Naylor and Charlene Croft, with E. Dianne Looker
from May 2007

While issues of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure remain essential, it is also paramount that on top of connectivity we recognize that inclusive access does not end at being ‘connected’. Rather, inclusion and participation in the knowledge society is tied to social processes that are dynamic and complex and which vary across different socio-economic contexts.

To this end, we introduce and discuss the notion of ICT literacy. This concept provides an analytical approach that makes visible that there are important differences in use, skill levels and objectives in using ICTs throughout the social order, particularly across the key socio-economic sectors of governance, business, education and community. ICT literacy therefore provides the analytical link to understanding how to navigate and use the information highway in ways that cuts experiences of users in different ways; people form literacies with meaning that are socially and culturally mediated. An equitable knowledge society is indeed a connected one, yet is also one based on acknowledging that a plurality of ICT literacies exist; there are not ‘dumb’ users of technology and ‘smart’ users of technology when considering how individuals employ ICTs in ways that matter to their lives, circumstances and needs.

From a policy and practice perspective, we believe this approach helpfully moves us away from the prevailing tendency to understand ICT literacy as a singular, hierarchy ranked, uniform set of competencies with computers or technologies that can be measured, standardized and taught.

The Knowledge Economy

It is now generally acknowledged that Canada, similar to other advanced social democracies, is becoming a knowledge based economy. This shift is premised on the accentuation of “knowledge” as the most important factor of production, surpassing land, labour, and capital based on the diffusion of information communication technologies (ICTs) throughout the social order (Parayil 2005).

From a federal policy and programme perspective, Canada has aggressively positioned itself as a leading proponent of the knowledge economy, making massive investments in infrastructure and programs based on the understanding that “Canada needs a highly skilled and educated workforce to remain competitive and sustain its prosperity in an increasingly global and knowledge-based economy” (Berger et al. 2007).

The Knowledge Society

While there has been a great deal of focus on creating an advantageous climate for growing the knowledge economy, considerably less focus has been put into considering how we might ensure the development of an equitable knowledge society. In broad terms, a knowledge society centre’s around the social capabilities to identify, process, transform, disseminate and use information to build and apply knowledge for human development (UNESCO).

However, while issues of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure remain essential, it is also paramount that on top of connectivity we recognize that inclusive access does not end at being ‘connected’. Rather, inclusion and participation in the knowledge society is tied to social processes that are dynamic and complex and which vary across different socio-economic contexts.

Indeed, scholars of the ‘digital divide’ now point out that this divide cannot be reduced to just technological access, “solved” through “simple technological fixes” (Parayil 2005) because connectivity and access to infrastructures are not a sufficient basis to develop a knowledge society based on equitable inclusion and participation (UNESCO).

In both cases, the concept of the knowledge society and economy hinges on access to computing infrastructures – while government policy and programme has begun to successfully conquer the ‘digital divide’ in terms of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure it has not yet sufficiently addressed the digital divide in terms of ensuring adequate levels of literacy with ICTs.

ICT literacy addresses the post-connectivity question of, what now? For those with access to the ubiquitous information highway, ICT literacy provides the analytical link to understanding how to navigate and use the information highway in ways that cuts experiences of users in different ways. This approach makes visible that there are important differences in use, skill levels and objectives in using ICTs throughout the social order and that these differences should not, and do not, necessarily follow along a hierarchal ordering of ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ skills within the social realm – there are not ‘dumb’ users of technology and ‘smart’ users of technology when considering how individuals employ ICTs in ways that matter to their lives, circumstances and needs.

ICT literacy

While there are many definitions of ICT literacy within the scholarly literature (see Bawden 2001 for a review), ICT literacy is generally taken as an “umbrella term” that attempts to describe a new set of literacies which have emerged as a result of a broader shift to an “information society” and the accompanying technologies embedded in that shift. As Warschauer (in press: 16) concludes, “Today, the social, economic, and technological transformations are again aligned to bring about major changes in literacy practices.”

Currently, the prevailing tendency in understanding ICT literacy is to understand it as a singular, standardized set of competencies with computers or technologies. In the tradition of traditional literacy, we then find those agents and organizations wishing “to define ‘it’, to teach it, measure it, assess it, and remediate it – in a word, to universalize and standardize it (Lankshear and Knobel 2005).” If you don’t have ‘it’, then you better get ‘it’ because you will need ‘it’ in the future, goes the rationale. Within the education sector, for example, this approach is ensconced within traditional curriculum programs that understand ICT literacy as a teachable and unified set of skills to be learned. However, evidence from our study, among others, suggests that ICT literacy should be more accurately understood across a broad range of competencies and skills, and that individuals use ICTs in ways that matter to them, and not necessarily along a fixed continuum of ‘advancing’ skills.

Our understanding of ICT literacy therefore differs from the normative understandings of ICT literacy by recognizing that there are social and cultural elements which draw our attention to understanding literacy in different ways which vary in different social contexts (Simpson 2005).  Freire (2000) describes literacy as “an active phenomenon, deeply linked to personal and cultural identity. Its power lies not in a received ability to read and write, but rather in an individual’s capacity to put those skills to work in shaping the course of his or her own life.” In this context, ICT literacy conceptualizes a whole host of social practices of how people engage in making meaning “mediated by texts that are produced, received, distributed, exchanged, etc., via digital codification” (Lankshear and Knobel 2005: 9). People form literacies with meaning that are socially and culturally mediated, which is not the result from some universally learned skill or technique.

With this in mind, we would suggest four major socio-economic sectors where ICT literacy matters; it matters in the sense that while literacies with ICTs will inevitably vary among individuals, these sectors continue to form the basis of the knowledge society. Therefore a consideration of literacy with ICTs among these sectors is paramount to ensure equitable inclusion in the knowledge society.

* Governance

It is important to consider ICT literacy in relation to its significance around equitable participation within the public domain. The existence of asymmetries in democratic and governing practices in Canada is now well established. In this context, ICTs are increasingly playing an important role in inclusion around policy formulation and decision-making processes (Dale and Naylor 2006). Civic engagement processes are increasingly found on-line, and the communication possibilities created by ICTs allow the public to express itself more immediately and effectively than previously possible, helping citizens reinvigorate public talk and dialogue in entirely new ways, and with entirely new results (Dale and Naylor 2006).

Aside from ICTs contribution to civic engagement, ICTs are also now crucial to evolving notions of alternative service delivery mechanisms within government. In efforts to become more efficient and effective, many government services are now found online (http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr). The rationale is that the public can be better served by making these services available online, circumventing the traditional bureaucratic ‘silos and stovepipes’ found across departments, and offering more immediate and better services to citizens.

* Business

Simply connecting business to the Internet isn’t sufficient for ensuring effective use of the advantages offered by ICTs. In a study of rural New Zealand small businesses, the authors recommend that human capability play the key role in their E-Commerce strategy as a priority for the Government in the drive for economic transformation. To this end, among a host of recommendations, the authors direct the government to facilitate skill training for small business by ensuring the education sector focuses on ICT literacy, and that the government helps the private sector “build broader ICT literacy and capability in the community including rural areas” (Al-Qirim and Corbett 2003). In this way, ICT literacy becomes positioned as the key competitive edge for businesses once they have gained connectivity – the better literacy skills with ICTs on behalf of businesses and owners, the more competitive they become within a global marketplace where ICT literacy is presumed to be the entry fee to compete.

* Education

Canada requires a highly skilled and educated workforce to ensure it is competitive and to sustain its long-term prosperity in a knowledge-based economy (Berger et al. 2007).

At the same time, it is widely believed that students who have difficulty converting written information to knowledge are at a critical disadvantage in today’s world (Sim 2006). ICT literacy is therefore a desirable and necessary form of human capital, particularly in relation to an increasing emphasis on an individual’s success within the context of a knowledge economy.

Within the field of economics, there is also a growing theoretical consensus that the driving force behind economic growth is technological advancement; an assertion which has clearly found its way into educational policy formulation, and curriculum reform and practice for many governments, including Canada. As Milton (2005: 10) contends, “The early drivers of levels of investment in ICT in education have not changed.  ICT skills are a key factor in both individuals’ success in the labour market and in national economic growth.” So while connectivity and access remain important obstacles within education, obstacles to creating literacy with ICTs within the education sector is the key to ensuring all groups have access to tapping the potential created by connectivity within Nova Scotia, particularly those groups that have been historically marginalized (Naylor and Frank, forthcoming).

*   Community

Rural connectivity and literacy with that connectivity represents an important development in the historical use of ICTs to foster and enhance civic participation within the public domain (Dale and Naylor 2006). In this context, the use of the ICTs to expand dialogue, literacy and discourse are taken as new features of a potentially democratic process within the public sphere since to a large extent they seek to involve different groups employing different techniques to achieve different objectives.

Rural communities worldwide are now facing formidable challenges: significant demographic urban growth, with associated problems of economic and population losses in many rural and resource-dependent communities, with associated job loss and community decline; and meeting the basic necessities for clean air, clean water, energy, transportation, land use, housing, jobs, health, waste disposal, etc. Such problems are dynamically interconnected and cannot be dealt with in isolation; they require new approaches, frameworks, partnerships and tools to address them in an integrative fashion (Dale and Onyx, in press). Key to facing these challenges is the capacity of communities to coordinate and lead discussions around these issues, potentially contributing to a rapid development of social capital.

The emergent tools of Web 2.0, for example, suggest the importance of a set of communication tools that rural communities might adopt as strategies that cut across the rural socio-economic experience. It also highlights the critical need to address a plurality of literacies that need to be considered in relation to connectivity.

Internet Web 2.0 applications are “those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated services that gets better the more people use it, creating network effects through an ‘architecture of participation’ (O’Reilly 2005). In this way, Web 2.0 first assumes access to web based infrastructure but from there departs from the current understanding of the internet as a single entry point to access more information or as static communications link. Rather Web 2.0 is centered on a model of knowledge generation and production by communities.

As rural communities continue to face the challenges noted above, they require the tools to mobilize not only their civic voices and participation but their commerce and economies; and without the literacy to embrace and adapt the evolving architecture of the knowledge society and economy they risk becoming marginalized as technology ‘have-not’s’.

tangled webs of the brave new world

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen – And keep your eyes wide the chance won’t come again – And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin – And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’ – For the loser now will be later to win – For the times they are a-changin‘

For the past three days I’ve had that friggin’ song in my head.  And most definitely, it has been Bob Dylan’s version of the song.  It’s so stuck I often find myself walking down the street singing it fairly loudly, and upon recognizing that, I find myself wanting to burst on out into it… all theatrical and shit.

I love being a citizen of Now.  Observing these structurally shaking instances of history.

Citizens of Iran, speaking out against their theocracy.  The Women of Iran, finding their voices.  The Net Generation of Iran, fighting violence with information-communication technologies.  Amazing.  I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the results of this one.  Unfortunately our attention spans here in the West are so short, especially the media’s attention span.  Also unfortunately democracy always comes bundled with bureaucracy and it is possible that the institution has far more power to drag the recount process out.  I suspect the Iran saga will be anti-climatic.  They will do the recount, and the numbers won’t change.  What then?  The citizens will have to accept it.  Just as US citizens did in their 2000 election … and in the end, they didn’t even get their recount.  The Supreme Court decided… much like the Supreme Overlord will.

Unless, of course, the recount happens and the numbers do change… what will happen then?  I have no idea.

I am ultimately convinced that if Obama had not won in November, we would have seen a similar uprising in the US.  I know it is a highly theoretical thing to say, but I stand by it.  What’s happening in Iran is a smackdown of cultures.  What happened in the 2008 election was also a smackdown of cultures.  If John McCain won in a landslide, or even by a narrow margin, there would have been protests and allegations of voter fraud en masse.  In 2008, the outrage would have expanded past an audience of election wonking observers like it did in 2000 and 2004.  You would have seen these scenes from Tehran in Washington.

God I’m happy that didn’t happen.  I am increasingly impressed with Barack on a daily basis.  He is governing exactly how I hoped he would.  And, he is still using all those social media tools that got him elected to reach out to his constituents.

Though, when I read about a City in Montana that requires you submit all of you Web 2.0 logins and passwords, I think… WTF America?  Background check takes on a whole new meaning when you have to start opening up your cyberlife to your employers.  That is the depth approach to job screening.

Then I start thinking about the Bill just introduced in Canadian Parliament about intercepting Internet transmissions and gathering user information from ISPs and I think WTF Canada?   “Twenty-first century technology calls for 21st-century tools,” said Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (via CBC).  Indeed they do Minister Nicholson.

The Internet is blowing it all up.  Thrusting us into a brave new world whether we want to go or not.  We early adopters are all quite giddy about it.  Once labelled the “cyber-utopianists” it is clear the skeptics are now paying attention.  And jumping on board where they can.  The revolution could never be televised because it must be an interactive, reflexive process for it to be real.

But, now that the Internets’ transformative potential is very clear, it becomes scary.  Because Now, it is no longer theory… and you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be people trying to make their top dollars by attempting to exploit the technology for profit, for security, and for measuring an individual’s moral value by snooping around their Web 2.0 pages.

Now is, indeed an interesting and exciting time.

The line it is drawn the curse it is cast – The slow one now will later be fast – As the present now will later be past – The order is rapidly fadin’ – And the first one now will later be last – For the times they are a-changin’

Twitter FAQ for Sociologists…

What is Twitter anyway?

Twitter is a social networking site where the main activity is sending out and receiving 140 character (max) information bursts (called Tweets or Chirps).  People sign-up for membership using an email address and choose a unique username.  After disclosing of a small amount of personal information you are given your own Twitter profile.

Every profile is one page, and consists of a photo (if the user chooses to upload one), a 140 character “About Me” blurb, and if you have entered it, where in the world you are.  Your profile is also a record of your Tweets, in the order in which they have been entered, with the most recent last.

Where you “friend” people on other social sites like Myspace and Facebook, the social part of Twitter emerges as you “follow” other people’s tweets, and as people follow yours.  Your Twitter “home” then, becomes the real-time sending and receiving of tweets between and among you and those that you are following.

If you use Facebook, think of it as the Status Update feature isolated and turned into a social networking site on its own.

What kinds of information are being sent and received over Twitter?

The substance of the information bursts fall in a number of different categories:

• Mundane events (what I’m eating for breakfast or whether I’m going to get a bath or a shower)
• Personal news (where I’m going to have a beer or whether or not my best friend is pregnant)
• Making Plans with Followers (let’s go have a beer together to talk about our friend who is pregnant)
• Interesting Internet Finds (external links to articles, blogs, YouTube videos, pictures)
• Self-promotion (external links to your own blogs, YouTube videos, pictures, website, creative work)
• Citizen journalism (coverage and promotion of the local community events and news)
• Mediated journalism (external links to, interaction with and commentary on mainstream news)
• Commercial (purely service or product driven information with the intention of promotion)

Who uses Twitter?

Twitter is a social networking site predominantly used by individuals who are high-level communicators and organzations/businesses who want to reach those communicators.   Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is a good lens through which to view Twitter users.  He talks about the Connectors, the Mavens and the Salesmen as being the three types of individuals which start and spread what he calls “social epidemics.”

Connectors are individuals who know lots of people and who use those connections to their advantage.  Connectors are people who have invested in social, cultural and identity capital and who can convert those intangible resources into pretty much whatever they decide to.

Mavens are the senders and receivers of information.  They are the people who always have the pulse on the good deals and breaking stories of the day.  Mavens are the trendsetters and the people who you turn to to find out about this thing or that.  Citizen Journalists are types of Mavens, often scooping the mainstream media in reporting “from the ground”

Salesmen are the persuaders of society.  They are the people who dedicate a great deal of their lives to selling people on their ideas.

These three types of people form the Golden Triangle of trends. “Mavens are the databanks.  They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it… Salesmen [have] the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced.”  (p.70, The Tipping Point).

But there is a fourth type of Twitter user, which I will call Leachers.  Leachers are passive Twitter users who do not tweet themselves, but who set up profiles simply to follow users and extract information from them for whatever purposes they may have.  For the most part Leachers exploit Twitter and the information being provided to them from the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen.  They only use half of the application.  They take information without giving anything in return.

How Many People Use Twitter?

According to Mashable, In April 2009, it was estimated that 7.4% of adult Internet users had a Twitter account.  That’s about 12.1 million people.  How many of these are active Twitter accounts with real people behind them is probably considerably less, but this is a problem with measuring any social metrics on social networking sites.

What about Twitter Penetration into Real Life?

Typically, when patterns of technology penetration are reported and analysed, they are done so in terms of number of users, which was answered in the above statistics.  However, the type of penetration discussed here has more to do with how this virtual platform influences and penetrates the everyday life of its users.

Because of the simplicity of the platform it makes it extremely friendly for use on any mobile phone with web capability.  Whereas Facebook there are multiple pages and multiple possibilities for surfing, the Twitter feed is the only screen you need to use the site.  Twitter mobile is fully functional, because it has such a simple function.

One of the concerns with this, of course, is that heavy Twitter users will often exhibit behaviours consistent with work-a-holics, or information addicts.  Non-users will often complain that their friends who have embedded Twitter into their daily lives are missing out on the here and now, and they hate having to compete for the attention of users.

Twitter penetration has also surpassed the personal and infiltrated the institutional.  Institutions, which have been the traditional gatekeepers and disseminators of public information are jumping in the tree for their own purposes.  Politicians, libraries, universities, governments, police, celebrities, the media, corporations – all the institutions who have things to say to people – are  chirping their way into the collective consciousness of the Tweeps (or Twits if you prefer) who would find that information useful.

Why has Institutionalized Media Become so Obsessed with Twitter?

Because Twitter is a social networking site which attracts the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen; the mainstream media has become increasingly interested in hopping on board this social epidemic.  It has gotten to the point where many mainstream media outlets are using Twitter as a source for their stories, which perpetuates it’s perceived value by the users because it can create a direct line from them to the mass media.  The Trending Topics feature (a keyword top 10 of what people are tweeting about) assists the media in keeping the pulse on what the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen are talking about (it should be noted that this is also why market research firms are so interested in Twitter).

In this way, the mainstream media co-opts Twitter as a form of unpaid journalism.  The Twitter user becomes a Prosumer (from George Ritzer) – the Producer and the Consumer of “news” mediated by the mainstream media.

Why is Twitter Such a Valuable Social Tool?

Many of the social benefits of Twitter can be found in the literature around social networking sites in general.  Feelings of connectivity can lead to stronger social cohesion within cultural and geographic communities.  Because the majority of content on Twitter is user-generated, the information does not have to pass through the same vetting processes.  There are still vetting processes though, but they emerge in the form of social consensus as to what information is valid, or worth repeating (or in this case, retweeting).

Some, like Silicone Valley ex-pat Andrew Keen, are concerned with these processes of user-generated forms of culture, lamenting the death of the expert as a dangerous evolution of western civilization.  But this concern only holds water if you fundamentally believe that culture should be guarded and distributed through institutionalized gatekeepers: mainstream media, academics, admen, studied artists and record companies to name a few.

A local example of the social value of Twitter can be seen upon recollection of the Spryfield fires.  Those Haligonians who were using Twitter at the time were sending and recieving information about the state of the fires much faster than any local media outlet was.  It was the efficient delivery of important information which was personalized and unvetted, therefore it contained an inherent unmeasurable value to it which is often absent in reporting from the anchor desk.

A global example of the social value of Twitter emphasizes democratization, and information which has circumvented the institution.  This example is actually playing out as I type this, in the highly contested Iranian election.  Where state controlled media is finding it difficult to control the message and the information coming out of the country.  Even their attempts to block Internet traffic has failed, as global activists are facilitating external communication by tweeting proxy server addresses for those who might not be able to otherwise connect to the Internet.

Is Twitter for Me?

Well, the only way to find that out is by going on and trying it.  Chances are that if you consider yourself to be either a Connector, a Maven or a Salesman, Twitter would definitely be worth checking out.  Unless you are a celebrity, or have many friends and connections to people already using Twitter, it takes a while to collect a following, and really understand how it works.  Ultimately, people will follow you if you are tweeting things that are relevant to them (another benefit of Twitter is the positive identity/idea reinforcement as more and more people start following you).

It is important to remember that the thing that makes Twitter so valuable and meaningful for people is the interactive aspect of it.  The more you use it, and interact with it, the more you understand it’s value.

I think, though, overall with Twitter, we need to rethink the whole media paradigm.  The old “Medium is the message” adage becomes flipped to think about  “the Message as the Medium”, with the “viewers” flipping to the “users” and where “content” matters more than “form”.

Do you have more sociologically related questions about Twitter? Post them in the comments here or tweet me @statsgirl.

The Golden Arrow of Consumption

Now that I have you here… please take 20 minutes to watch this video I found on YouTube.  That is all…

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation…

Bread and Circuits:

“The electronic era tendency to view party politics as corny – no longer relevant or meaningful or useful to modern societal issues, and in many cases dangerous.” – from Generation X by Douglas Coupland, 1991

It occurred to me that Generation X will be turning 50 soon.  It kind of freaked me out a bit.  Is Generation X and the up-and-coming Net Generation ready to take the reigns or power during these turbulent times and over the next three decades as their Boomer parents retire?

According to demographer and digital theorist Don Tapscott (perhaps one of the most prolific demographers around today), our society is currently trying to balance the values of 4 distinct generational categories: The Boomers (those born between 1946 -1964); Generation X (1965 – 1976); The Net Generation (1977 – 1997) – also called the “me” generation, Generation Y, or the Millenials; and the Next Generation (1998 – 2008).

I have long been a believer in demography as being one of the most valuable social tools we have. Basic demographic data would include the salary you have, the type of neighborhood you live in, your education, your family status, how old you are, and whether or not you have a penis… to name a few.  It has been argued that the most telling, or predicting, demographic characteristic is age (they call them cohorts).  Age cohorts move in waves which are formed by the cultural conditions they are raised in… they are generally educated by the same curriculum, exposed to the same music and television, interfaced with the same technology and driven by the same cultural values.

There is a commonly accepted myth that the Net Generation is politically apathetic.  That those under the age of 30 don’t vote, because they don’t care.  They are too wrapped up in their iPods, cell phones and video games to pay attention.  And that they form a huge chunk of the non-voting block.  In his latest offering Grown up Digital (a sequel to his 2000 book, Growing up Digital), Tapscott proposes that while it is true the Net Generation doesn’t vote… they are actually more civically engaged than generations before.  The difference?  The ways that they are engaging.

Rather than going to the polls, they are going out to volunteer. Instead of casting ballots, they are writing blogs and tweeting at CNN and CBC.  They aren’t in churches listening to sermons, they are on rooftop patios with margaritas discussing the issues of the day with each other.

This generation – my generation – along with the Gen Xers who jumped on the Internet bandwagon and Yippie/Hippie  Boomers who never traded in their bullhorns and flower chains, have different values than the status quo Boomers, because my generation experienced and continues to experience culture differently than them.  It’s not one-way communication… it’s two-way.

Our brains developed differently because they were stimulated differently.  The way we learned was more mediated and interactive than the way the Boomers learned, and the things we were learning were focused around our planet, respect for diversity and individual freedom.

My generation was positively socialized.  We were taught that beauty resides on the inside, that letters and numbers were fun and that inner city living didn’t have to be all about guns and gangs. We were socialized on Sesame Street…

For the most part, my generation understands that the personal is political.  We were the first generation to experience perspective-widening effects of mass advertising with a social conscious through Unicef and Part of Your Heritage Commercials…

My generation has a different sense of humor.  We get a kick out of turning the sacred into the profane and could never quite understand the hub-bub about being politically correct.  We were entertained by the Simpsons…

My generation is far more media savvy than the Boomers.  We seem to have a vague understanding of how hegemonic culture manipulates us, how media distorts, and that things are not always as they seem.  Perhaps this explains our tendencies towards cynicism and distrust of authority. My generation learned all we needed to know about the media from Jon Stewart.

My generation is the steward of the Internet.  We are the gatekeepers of code and the social web.  We navigate the Information Highway with precision and speed, always ready to change lanes quickly, and never minding to take the scenic route to get to the proper exit.  We are the mavens and connectors of our virtual communities, and we are uninhibited to express our opinions and expose ourselves to the world.

My generation is also the generation with the greatest amount of disposable income, ergo our consumer-power has every post-modern adman scouring the Internet for the hippest music and the hippest design.  My generation is not having as many babies, but those of us who are get to revisit our childhoods through the massive recycling of Saturday Morning Cartoon Merchandise.

If it is true, that my generation doesn’t feel the urge to go out and engage with the democratic process, or participate in partisan tomfoolery, it is not because they don’t care – it is because the political system does not embrace their values.  It is because they feel as though the system doesn’t serve them.  It is because they view the system as outdated and inefficient. It is because the disenfranchisement goes way deeper than simply being lazy and apathetic.

This is why President Obama was so popular with young voters… not simply because he whipped them into a frenzy using social media, their media, but also because he promised revolutionary change in the way politics were done.  So far, he’s been true to his word, and his approval rating is holding steady despite the rabble-rousing of choice Boomer republicans who aren’t quite ready to cede power to this culture of “loose morals” and irreverence.

My generation is ready, willing and able to safely land this bird, even if it is on an uninhabited island.  In fact, we’d probably prefer an uninhabited island, so that we could experiment with new forms of democracy and social organization.

Why I am voting Green

I have a very dear friend named Greg. Greg has lived with schizophrenia for his whole adult life.  After many struggles, psychotic breaks,  pills, poverty, addictions and therapies, he has arrived at a very good place in his life.  He has found a nice balance between the meds, his art, his friends and living.  He has been on Income Assistance because of his schizophrenia for a while now.  But recently, he has expressed a desire to get off I.A. and try to find a job.  He’s in a stable housing situation, and starting to get involved in a few community and advocacy organizations around Mental Health.  Greg will need his meds to be able to maintain a job though, and if he goes off of I.A. he loses coverage for his meds… you see the problem.

I jokingly said to him the other night that his situation now was a good symbol for everything that was wrong with the Departments of Health and Community Services.  It is really not right.

So what does Greg have to do with why I’m voting Green?  Well Green is not simply about the environment.  It is actually about the approach.  You see, approaching things in a Green way means looking at them holistically (David doesn’t like it when I use that word, because it’s flaky, and we are really trying hard to reduce the stereotype that the Green Party seems to still face in Canada and especially in Nova Scotia).  Viewing something holistically means that you do your absolute best to look at it from all angles, and see exactly where it overlaps and intersects with other issues.

The reason why it’s Green, is because it is the physical environment first.

When David, Ryan (Watson) and I went to Dartmouth High last week, one of the kids there said, “so I’m going to die in 80 years and I don’t plan on having any kids, why should I care so much about the environment (he later admitted he was playing devil’s advocate).  But I said to him… if our physical environment keeps going the way that it’s going, it might not be 80 years, but 40… and David asked if he wanted to go take a dip in the Harbour.

The reason why it’s Green is because environment means more than just saving the trees and putting up windmills… it’s about our social environment to.  For too long our governments have been disconnected our selves from our environments, physical and social, for the sake of profit margins and powerful lobby groups.

Our physical environments and our social environments are intimately intertwined.  We need clean air, clean food, clean water and protection from the elements absolutely first.  Our survival depends on it.  Yet, it seems as though it is too much to demand these things living in our democratic and abundant society.  You may question the word abundant in these times of economic crisis, but we still have many resources at our disposal, despite the minuscule drops in our GDP.

Last night on CTV Atlantic, Ryan Watson was interviewed by Steve Murphy and he was asked, what do you mean by seeing opportunity in this global economic crisis?  Ryan responded that when a crisis emerges, it is the perfect time to take a step back and examine why we have arrived at a crisis situation.  It’s not about a few emergency room beds here and a few “green” jobs there… it’s about looking at the whole structure.  It’s about taking a step back and examining whether or not we are delivering services in the most effective and efficient ways, it’s about throwing away the perspectives that got us in this mess in the first place… it’s about moving into the 21st century with 21st century ideas using 21st century technology and organizing our government in 21st century ways…

The Green Party is the only party suggesting that it’s time to move away from the GDP as a measure of our progress and province well-being, and instead adopt the GPI, Geniune Progress Index.  The fundamental difference between the GDP and the GPI is social accounting.  Social accounting is a difficult task because really, what price tag can you put on a human life?  How to do calculate the human experience in economics?  The current trend is to simply discount it as a part of the equation.  The GDP calculates the value of the person as a consumer, and nothing more.  The GPI considers the value of a person as a person, participating and communicating with their community.

I am so sick of being referred to as a consumer.  I am a person damnit.  I have a family and a community.  My life is more meaningful than being part of the bottom line in some trans-national corporations year-end profit margins.  Greg is not a mental health consumer, he is a person who requires a little more support in his community because his brain works a little differently than most.

I love my province.  Nova Scotia is a gem.  We have a perfect-sized population, a wealth of natural resources, and a creative class with great ideas. I believe in the 6 priniciples that the Green Party embraces: Ecological wisdom, social justice, participatory democracy, nonviolence, sustainability, and respect for diversity.

I am voting Green because I want to see structural change which reflects their holisitic approach to the issues.  I am voting Green because I believe the citizens need an opportunity to participate in the dialogue.

Saving “Local” Media

I find the CTV save local media campaign amusing and absurd.  The interests on the other side of the fight have called the ethics of the campaign into question, saying it’s one-sided and biased; but that element you could expect from a mega media conglomerate trying to squeeze more money out of service providers who are posting record profits.  I don’t blame CTVglobemedia for appealing to their dwindling population of old media consumers to write to the CRTC in an effort to save their “local” media.  But, what I do find unethical is the use of the word “local” in this whole debate.

Granted, CTV Atlantic employs many people round these parts.  They have, at least, maintained local offices, anchors and reporters to cover the media-worthy stories in the region.  But to suggest that the broadcast of 4 television programs (BT, Live at 5, News at 6, and news at 11:30) are the sum of local media in this region is ridiculous.  Further, if CTVglobemedia was so concerned about the perseverance of  local broadcasting, why did they gobble up CHUM Ltd. in 2007.  You didn’t hear any calls for saving local media then.

Further still, have you ever counted the ratio of local to global stories on either the 6:00 or the 11:30 broadcasts?  It’s roughly even.  That is, for every locally-oriented story gracing the news desks of Steve Murphy and Bruce Frisko, there is one non-locally oriented story presented to Maritime viewers (this includes professional sports highlights).  This, of course, will vary based on the number of sexy local stories which present themselves as newsworthy on any given day, but you get what I’m saying.

And even further still, how is Nova Scotia local to PEI?  How is Halifax local to Sydney?  There is a distinct difference between the local and the regional.

Poor little CTVglobemedia, they’ve invested so much into mediums which are quickly becoming obsolete.  Their holdings include a vast array of television, radio and newspaper interests, but little in the way of new media.  They are fighting with the service delivers for more money to carry their signals, in an era where people rely less and less on those signals for the delivery of news and information.

For me, the Internet has replaced my need for tuning into any CTV Atlantic news broadcast.  Sure, I turn it on at 11:30 for background as I nod off to sleep, but I could easily adapt CNN into my bedtime routine and not feel as though I am less connected to the goings on in my immediate local surroundings.  Facebook keeps me thoroughly informed as to the cultural goings-on in the city way better than the BT or Live at 5 crew can, and the fine local folks I follow on Twitter, including independent operations such as haligonia and HFX, are faster and less-mediated than any media agency could ever hope to be.  The citizen journalism that emerged from the Spryfield fires was proof positive of this.

At least CTV Atlantic finally has a Twitter account, but with less than 30 tweets since March 19th and no home CTV Atlantic website to direct traffic to, for more information on their stories, it is hardly even worth a follow (though I’ve added them anyway).

I can understand the tactics of CTVglobemedia as they trot out local media personalities begging you to write the CRTC so that they can close the gaps in their operating budgets, but let’s face it, the fight is not about saving local media, it’s about saving the local media jobs.  Perhaps they should ask for a government bailout instead.  Hell, our Federal Government seems to be open to pouring billions of dollars into obsolete technology and industry.  Just ask GM.  Apparently every Canadian GM employee is worth 1.4 million dollars, surely Steve Murphy, Liz Rigney, Bruce Frisko and the CTV Atlantic gang is worth at least half of that!

“Safer” Communities Act?

On the surface, the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act is a fine piece of legislation.  It essentially empowers citizens in their communities to do something about brothels, crack-houses, gambling rings and other types of seedy operations in their neighbourhoods.  Police then take this information, assess the situation, and if evidence warrants, they get a court order to evict the tenants of these crime houses.

“Shut ‘em down,” the mob cries.

Shutting down known crime houses, informed by the people who know best about the goings-on in their communities sounds great… no?  But what if in the end, there are no criminal charges laid against the tenants of the crime houses being evicted? Certainly criminals live in houses where criminal activities are taking place… right?  Certainly if a judge orders that tenants be removed from their homes, the tenants are facing criminal charges for their criminal activities… right?  Certainly the idea is not to shut down crime houses and then disperse criminals elsewhere in other people’s communities… right?

So why is it then, that today there is a man in Cape Breton living in his car with his dogs, while his wife and one of his sons stays with friends, and his other two sons seek help for their addictions?  According to CBC NS this morning, a family was removed from their home under the Safer Communities Act. The windows and doors boarded up for 90 days because of neighbour complaints of criminal activities taking place in the house.  No one living in the house was charged with a criminal offense… no one living in the house was carted off to jail… no one living in the house was able to face their accusers in a court of law… and denied the right to even appeal the decision.

It is alarming.

Because while the Safer Communities Act has done much to shut down brothels and crack-houses and gambling rings in low-income neighbourhoods based on community reporting of criminal activities, how is it that making this family homeless will  make the community safer?

I’m even willing to accept that criminal activity was indeed taking place in this guy’s house.  That the complaints registered against this family by their neighbours were valid.  That the consequences of having two adult sons suffering from addictions disrupted and unsettled the community.  Given that I am not party to the documents which resulted in the court order I cannot make a decision on this either way. But it sort of sounds like this guy was a victim himself.  Being a hostage to addiction in his own home.

What concerns me the most about this story, and the possible precedent that it sets, is that the burden of proof is reduced into some sort of perverted community-based panopticon.  A family is sentanced to become homeless for 90 days because their neighbours didn’t like the kind of company they kept.

Perhaps I am over-reacting.  Perhaps there is some piece of condemning evidence against this guy or other members of his family which is so compelling that such drastic measures were required.  But it seems to me that if that were the case, there would be criminal charges of some description laid.

The kicker in this story is that the accused does not even have the right to appeal the decision.  Even if he did, he cannot afford a lawyer to represent his family’s rights.

How is it that we can allow a family in this province, in the 21st century, suffer the consequences for crimes that were not committed?  How is it that our own rule of law has allowed the tyranny of the majority to trump the personal security of a citizen?  How is it that tossing a family suspected (but not convicted) of criminal activity out of their home for 90 days results in creating a safer community?

Addiction is a nasty thing.  It is a mental health condition, fed by the desperation and hopelessness of poverty. It produces all kinds of unsavory and criminal activity in our communities and neighborhoods.  But is our best strategy really to simply shut down the buildings without any plan to deal with the people inside of them?

I guess it’s just a good thing that 1) this guy didn’t have any kids under the age of 15 who were also rendered homeless by this bizzaro situation and 2) the curfew law is not yet in place… poor bugger would be facing a $500 fine everyday for the next 90 days, until they were allowed to go back into their home.

We need to seriously rethink the way we approach law and order around here.

Johnny Law may need a new slingshot… redux

I had the great pleasure of working with Donald Clairmont on the Mayor’s Roundtable of Violence and Public Safety back in 2007-2008. The Mayor’s Roundtable was a response to a crime wave involving mostly youth.  A response to Teresa McEvoy and the kiddie swarmings and the late night downtown brawls that were breaking out (though the Christmas Eve brawl came after the meetings).  A response to an American Sailor being stabbed and a few drive-by shootings.  A response to a McLean’s Magazine article ranking Halifax as having the highest rates of crime in the country.

One of my tasks was to observe the Roundtable meeting at City Hall and take notes for Don, who was helping moderate the presentations.  It was a long day, but I learned a lot about law and order in this city.  I wrote a blog after the meeting, which you can read here if you want to… but given the recent crime wave bonanza in the city I thought I’d look back and see how many of the policy proposals and suggestions we’ve implemented since those meetings in 2007:

One theme that did not go unnoticed was the call for change… some sort of change… any sort of change… Recognition that the current system is not working and the culture is moving faster than any policy can catch. Just acknowledging that there is a need to start “thinking outside the box” is a big step for some of these officials. One of the best sentiments came from the Executive Director of the newly formed Provincial Child and Youth Strategy, Robert Wright… Any policy designed to address these issues of youth culture and societal change should be inclusive and acknowledge the multiplicity of contexts that are represented in day-to-day social life. And it should acknowledge that when it comes to policy surrounding youth, they are moving targets. A good youth policy/strategy has to be malleable and move as fast to meet the needs of the moment. Now whether the government can actually speed up the processes of bureaucracy will be another matter all together.

So a few of the specific suggestions that came from that day of presentations and where we are on them:

From the urban planner, Frank Palermo – HRM should start thinking of itself as a 24-hour city with 24 hour public transit. - yeah, okay… NEXT!

From a number of presenters – The opening of schools to act as community centres in after-school hours – well parents are fighting to keep community schools open just for school so… no.

Also from a number of presenters – Possibility of “community courts” for low level crimes, mental health related crime and drug treatment – we almost got a community court a few months ago, then something happened and it’s stalled

From Strategic Planner Jack Novack – The municipal government should get all the junk off their agenda and start thinking about policy that really matters for the growth and development of the city. – feeding the ducks… need I say more?

From Don Clairmont – The employment of a public safety coordinator attached to the Mayor’s Office well we got a public safety coordinator attached to the Police Force.  I think the idea was to get an administrator in there, not another police officer… but, at least it is half there.

From Don Clairmont – Race Relations The race issue is never in the forefront of crime in Halifax, ever… despite the fact that black men are waaaaay overrepresented in the criminal justice system.  Race relations are this city’s biggest shame… the ghosts of Africville haunt.

From Don Clairmont – Community Policing (not more police, but more visible police) – It seems as though they are doing both.  They’ve hired more police, so that’s why I see them all the time and everywhere in the Capital Districts…  There is a difference between visibility and feeling as though you are under siege in a police state.

Don gave about 60 recommendations to the City in total, some of them have started rolling and I think we’re seeing improvements where they have been.  It would be interesting to know, from the City, how many of the recommendations from the Roundtable have been enacted since it came out last year.

My take on the current rash of shootings is that they are mostly gang-related.  Which means they are almost certainly mostly drug-related. But there are concerning crimes happening that aren’t because of gangs .

Beazley said the public was not being targeted in the crimes that were happening.  This was the day after 2 girls were taken hostage in a bowling alley heist, and a few days before a 19-year old was shot in the head (and then died).

The murder that was down the street from me turned out to be accidental2nd degree.  In a run-down old rooming house involving folks know to the police.  That was the 2nd 2nd degree murder on my block within the year.

And in the midst of it all Jimmy Melvin Jr. becomes a citizen journalist.

Fringe Fancies of the Loonie Left

There’s a running joke at work now, they are calling me “the politician’s wife.”  My friends are calling me Michelle Obama.  Well, some of them are.  Others are asking how we got involved with with The Green Party.  Except they are phrasing it, “how did you get hooked up with these flaky loonies anyway.”  To that I got defensive (as any good partisan and politician’s wife would).

“Have you even looked at any of the Green Party’s stuff?  I mean, before you start calling them loonies, you should probably read their strategy ideas.  Remember it’s the Green Party, not the Pinko party.”

To which he responded he would read the strategy document when it was released tomorrow.

Seriously, we understand the Green Party of Nova Scotia is not in a position to take power on June 9.  This is, after all, only our second provincial election.  Even David has a realistic goal set for the day.  500 votes.  That’s the goal.  We’re asking people in our riding (Dartmouth South – Portland Valley) to be 1 of 500 who place an X in the box by David’s name.  1 of 500 who place an X in the box for an alternative approach to political representation.  1 of 500 who place an X in the box to say, I agree that the envrionment, social justice, community sustainability and participatory democracy are important issues that need to be brought to the table.

Of course, if he gets more than 500 votes, we’ll be giddy, since this riding saw 308 votes for the Greens in the last (and their first) provincial election (the third highest riding in the province). But like the tagline in the Green Party brochure, we are approaching David’s participation in this election with “clear-eyed realism.”

David would be a fabulous MLA.  Although I am obviously biassed, you will probably not find a person who knows David who would disagree with this statement.  Someone with a better grasp of political theatre you will never meet.  And he would certainly make the scrum an interesting and entertaining event.

Even our former MLA from Eastern Passage, Kevin Deveaux, understood David’s grasp of politics during the 2007 by-election in the area (that David was voting in and blogging about).  He commented “Articulate, intelligent and balanced… glad to see there are thoughtful voters who are able to see through the political bullshit and make decisions based on facts.“

David would indeed be a fabulous MLA, because he gets it…

And because he gets it, I have been able to get it.  I credit all that I understand about the political process to David.  I also credit my ability to logically attack complex problems to the late night debates and intellectual sparring which often occur in this household.  Likewise, I think David would credit me with his understanding of human behaviour and social theory, two areas which were beyond his expertise, but thoroughly entrenched in mine.  David and I make a kick ass team when we combine our strengths and mask each others deficits.

In fact if David does, by miracle, manage to get elected, Nova Scotians will be getting a good deal… two brains for the price of one.

We get that there are a myriad of issues facing Nova Scotians today.  We get that these issues are complex and interconnected with our economies and our environments.  From health care to education to the increasing cost of living, we get that Nova Scotians are struggling to cope with the uncertainty of the future, because we are struggling to cope with the uncertainty of our future.

The relationships that exist between our physical environment, our economy, our culture, and our daily existence in rural and urban Nova Scotia need to be disentangled. While our current government claims to “get it”, years of mismanaged policy and finances, coupled with a ‘wait and see’ approach to the effects of the global economic crisis on Nova Scotia, proves they just don’t get it.  While our opposition parties also claim to get it, the platforms released in this current election reveal them to be clinging to 20^th century perspectives in the face of 21^st century complexity.

We really wish our politicians did get it, so that we wouldn’t feel so compelled to set aside the beautiful month of May to actively engage with it like this.  Usually during elections, we snipe from the sidelines.  We ridicule these stale old policiticans and moan about these stale old policies.  We usually hold an alcohol-fuelled salon on election night… not an alcohol-fuelled victory party.

And I have a feeling it will be a victory party.  No matter how many votes David gets in the end.  Because it turns out that this is an exercise of participatory democracy.  We may not be getting proportional representation any time soon – but we are seizing this opportunity to have our voices heard, we are seizing this opportunity to have an excuse to go knock on the doors of our neighbors and chat with them about the things that they need, and we are seizing this opportunity to get our feet wet.

Because when the time comes that Nova Scotians realize that the environment, social justice, sustainability and paticipatory democracy are not just the fringe fancies of the loonie left, but the issues which are fundamental to a truly free and just democray, David, and I and the Green Party of Nova Scotia will have more than just a platform, we’ll have an implementable plan.