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surfing - when and who coined the term
by Rune Dalgaard 13 May '03

13 May '03

Hi all A question some might readily know the answer too. Is it known when and by whom the notion of 'surfing' was introduced to describe browsing/navigation/information seeking on the web? I never thought that the concept was particularly fit but I would like to know its genealogy in the context of the web/hypertext). Thanks, Rune ________________________________________________ Rune Dalgaard | MA, Ph.D. Candidate | Information and Media Studies | Aarhus University | Denmark runed(a)imv.au.dk | http://www.imv.au.dk/medarbejdere/runed

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Virtual Art - book review
by Pete J. Otis 12 May '03

12 May '03

Fellow Colleagues and Listers, Concerning the ongoing discussion of the use of virtual imagery in human history, this new book finds interesting ties between art history and contemporary immersive-media art. Gibbs provides a concise overview. Enjoy! Pete Otis OLIVER GRAU: VIRTUAL ART: From Illusion to Immersion MIT Press January 2003 Review by Michael Gibbs, in: Art Monthly, March 2003. Virtual art is all too often precisely that - almost, but not quite, art. Much of Oliver Grau's book, especially the part dealing with immersive virtual reality environments, is replete with reservations about whether what he is writing about really qualifies as important art, given that it lacks the quality of distance that is essential for critical reflection. When one experiences a totally immersive environment one is in the image, and so one cannot step back to gain an overview, nor is one supposed to be aware of the illusion-creating technology used to produce the image. Moreover, as Grau points out, many examples of virtual art are suffused with mystical or mythological undertones that do not sit easily with the criticality and irony that are the hallmarks of today's art. Here, at the point where science and art overlap, it is often the science that is more advanced. Indeed, Grau's history of illusion-producing art shows how it has always relied on technological progress, from control of lighting conditions to complex computer hardware and software. As befits a thorough (and typically German) exercise in media archaeology, Grau's story begins in antiquity, with the frescoes covering the walls of the Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii. These paintings, representing figures participating in Dionysian rituals, offer visitors a full 360º vision, thus prefiguring the panoramas that were to become popular in the 19th century. The Renaissance invention of perspective was one of the technical means that allowed artists to more convincingly create the illusion of three-dimensional spaces. Baldassare Peruzzi's Sala delle Prospettive in Rome, painted in the 16th century, transformed the end wall of a room into a colonnaded portico looking onto an illusionistic view of ancient Rome. Another way of turning two into three dimensions was to add sculptured figures against a painted backdrop, a technique pioneered in the 16th century (the chapels at Sacro Monte depicting the stations of Christ's suffering), and further elaborated in Baroque church architecture before reaching its apogee in the popular dioramas and panoramas of the 19th century. Grau's account of these developments is detailed and informed by considerable research. The same goes for his history of the panorama, which deliberately sought to represent landscapes and cityscapes as spectacular illusions for the benefit of a paying public. The idea of painting a completely circular canvas in correct perspective was first patented by Robert Barker in 1787 and actually constructed a few years later. Grau observes that "the inception of the panorama was characterised by a combination of media and military history". Early panoramas served reconnaissance purposes, but their military effectiveness was short-lived and was soon overtaken by their value as propaganda. Panoramic battle scenes, such as the Battle of Sedan by Anton von Werner depicting Prussia's victory over the French in 1870, to which Grau devotes a lengthy chapter, became well-attended spectacles, ushering in an age in which manufacturing panoramas was more an industrial than an artistic process. Indeed, Anton von Werner himself never contributed a single brush stroke to the work, which was actually carried out by a team of specialist craftsmen under the direction of foreign (in this case, Belgian) investors. In a similar way, multinational capital was to transform the military inception of virtual reality a century later into a form of mass entertainment. The industrial mode of producing illusionistic or immersive experiences continued with the invention of film, which proved to be an immediate success and a major crowd-puller. Grau retells the story of the panic ensuing at the first showings of August and Louis Lumière's film of an approaching train, placing the event within the wider context of later developments such as 3D cinema and Cinerama. While some of these inventions, like the panorama itself, were to end up on the scrap heap, the urge to create fully immersive environments continued with the advent of digital simulation and computer-aided interactivity. The second half of Grau's book concentrates on the evolution of art and media since the mid-80s, when computing power became sufficiently powerful and available to enable artists to collaborate with technicians on highly complex interactive projects, often with the aid of funding from research laboratories and electronic art centres. Typical of these is Charlotte Davies's Osmose (1995), which required viewers to don a head mounted display in order to dive (almost literally) into a fusion of organic and natural imagery, which some critics have dismissed as 'virtual kitsch'. In the work of the Austro-German group Knowbotic Research, the viewer is absorbed into chaotic clouds of data streams accessed from various sources, but the result is deliberately left so abstract that interpretation becomes futile. Viewer-controlled interactivity has led in some cases to various forms of 'telepresence' in which robots or avatars interact with visitors in real time, while tele-conferencing allows people in different locations to be linked, as in Paul Sermon's Telematic Dreaming (1992) in which people can react to the projected virtual presence of another person on a real bed. Just as telepresence has a 'subhistory', so too does another fast-growing offshoot of virtual art, genetic art, which "attempts to integrate the forms, processes and effects of life into art". Virtual plants and other life forms, complete with computer-aided genetic evolution, have been modelled by digital artists, continuing the tradition of eighteenth century mechanical androids, and anticipating the current trend of 'transgenic art', which extends the power of the artist over life itself. The static nature of the painted panorama may have been replaced by the transitoriness of the image in computer-driven virtual art, but both have been and are subject to rapid obsolescence. As Grau rightly observes, process-based works are by definition unfinished and relative, which is perhaps why very little virtual art still exists in its original form. Many of its premises and interfaces, however, have been absorbed and commercialised by the games industry, which, it seems, has an equal stake in producing the illusion of controlled immersion. What Grau's fascinating archaeological investigations reveal, above all, is that illusion is nothing more than a fleeting, utopian dream, whether it be classified as art or as entertainment. Michael Gibbs

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Dealing with documents on the net ? Go to DOCAM '03
by Niels Windfeld Lund 12 May '03

12 May '03

DEALING WITH DOCUMENTS INSIDE OR OUTSIDE THE INTERNET ? IN ANY CASE, IT IS NOW TIME FOR REGISTRATION TO THE FIRST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE DOCUMENT ACADEMY DOCAM 2003 13th - 15th August 2003 , SOUTH HALL, SIMS, UC BERKELEY DOCAM '03 is the first annual meeting of The Document Academy, a collaborative project of The Department of Documentation Science, University of Tromsoe, Norway and The School of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley. The aim of The Document Academy is to create a worldwide space for experimental and critical research on documents in a wide sense drawing on traditions and experiences around the world. DOCAM '03 is an International Conference on Document Research and Development in Sciences, Arts and Business dealing with : - Document theory, - Document history - Forms of documentation in Sciences, Arts and Business - Tools and media for production, use and organisation of document The program can be seen on the web site of The Document Academy: http://thedocumentacademy.hum.uit.no/events/announcements/DOCAM03.Program.h… It will take place in South Hall at The School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS), University of California, Berkeley August 13th. - 15th. 2003 It is organized by The Department of Documentation Science, University of Tromsø, Norway and The School of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley, California. Registration can be made at the this site: http://thedocumentacademy.hum.uit.no/events/announcements/docam03_registrat… Any questions concerning the DOCAM '03 and The Document Academy in general can be addressed to the following emails : niels.windfeld.lund(a)hum.uit.no or docam03(a)list.thedocumentacademy.org Welcome to DOCAM '03 Niels Windfeld Lund chair of the Document Academy -- Niels Windfeld Lund, professor, Instituttleder / Head of Department Institutt for dokumentasjonsvitenskap / Department of Documentation Science HUM-FAK, Universitetet i Tromsø/University of Tromsoe Breivika, N-9037 Tromsoe, Norway tlf. +47-77646284, fax + 47-77644239 http://thedocumentacademy.hum.uit.no

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Fluxus Performance Workbook ... If you had difficulties downloading the .pdf
by Ken Friedman 12 May '03

12 May '03

Dear Colleagues, Last week I sent out a note about the free digital edition of the Fluxus Performance Workbook. While many people were able to download a copy, I had notes from several colleagues that there were problems. I am not sure whether this was a software problem or whether the demand was too great at any one moment. If you had difficulties, this is an invitation to try again. If site traffic is too great at any given moment, please try later. Best regards, Ken Friedman -- Performance Research has released a free digital edition of the long unavailable Fluxus Performance Workbook, a collection of short performance works and event scores by over forty artists. The first examples of what were to become Fluxus event scores date back to John Cage's famous class at The New School where artists such as George Brecht, Al Hansen, Allan Kaprow, and Alison Knowles began to create art works and performances in musical form. One of these forms was the event. Events tend to be scored in brief verbal notes known as event scores. In a general sense, they are proposals, propositions, and instructions for different kinds of actions. To accompany a special Fluxus issue of Performance Research, Ken Friedman, Owen Smith, and Lauren Sawchyn edited a fortieth anniversary edition of the Fluxus Performance Workbook. The workbook is now available in a free electronic edition. This book can be viewed on-line or downloaded. The download is a .pdf file that can also be printed. This expanded and updated edition of the Workbook contains scores by George Brecht, Jean Dupuy, Dick Higgins, Joe Jones, Bengt af Klintberg, Milan Knizak, George Maciunas, Larry Miller, Nam June Paik, Mieko Shiomi, Robert Watts, and many more. To get a copy of the Workbook, go to URL: http://www.performance-research.net/pages/epublications.html Then, go to the line reading: Click here to view [or download] a printable PDF version of the Workbook And follow the instructions on the next line: to download and save the document, right-click (PC) or control-click (Mac) the link above and choose 'Save target as...' -- For information on the special Fluxus issue of Performance Research, go to URL: http://www.performance-research.net/pages/currentissue.html And click on the line reading: On Fluxus - PR 7:3 (September 2002) -- On Fluxus Performance Research Volume 7, Number 3 (2002) Issue Editors: Ric Allsopp, Ken Friedman and Owen Smith

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Please post/forward: CONSULTANT/PROJECT DIRECTOR (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility)
by RG Lentz 12 May '03

12 May '03

POSITION AVAILABLE: CONSULTANT/PROJECT DIRECTOR Deadline for applications is May 20, 2003. CPSR seeks a Consultant/Project Director to develop its organizational capacity. Employment will be part-time over 18 months. The position is funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation's Media, Arts and Culture's portfolio in media policy and technology to increase CPSR's capacity to serve as the voice of civil society in media policy and technology issues, at the local, national, and global levels. Work is structured around capacity-building in various areas: · Governance · Press Relations · Publications · Chapter Development · International Administration · Event Organizing · Facilitating Policy Expertise Qualifications: · Familiarity with and commitment to CPSR's mission · Expertise in nonprofit administration and organizing volunteers. · Excellent communication skills (multiple languages a plus) · Ability to work autonomously and predominantly through email Work will be organized according to a deliverables-based workplan to be developed jointly by the Consultant and CPSR. The grant is budgeted on the assumption that on average 12-15 hours of work will be required weekly. Work will be conducted autonomously with minimal day-to-day oversight, and most work can be done via email and the web. Relocation is not required. U.S. residency is preferable. To apply, please send cover letter, resume, two contacts for references, and relevant writing samples in an easily shared electronic format to Susan Evoy, 650-322-3778, cpsr(a)cpsr.org. Deadline for applications is May 20, 2003. Start date will be in early summer 2003. > -- Susan Evoy * Managing Director Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility P.O. Box 717 * Palo Alto * CA * 94302 Phone: (650) 322-3778 * (650) 322-4748 (fax) Email: evoy@cpsr.orghttp://www.cpsr.org/ RG Lentz/UT Austin

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Final Call for Papers: "The Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Paradigm", Minitrack, HICSS-37 - January 5 - 8, 2004, Hawaii, USA
by Kai Fischbach 09 May '03

09 May '03

CALL FOR PAPERS "The Peer-to-Peer Paradigm" Minitrack Part of the "Internet and the Digital Economy" Track at the Thirty-seventh Annual HAWAI'I INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SYSTEM SCIENCES on the Big Island of Hawaii January 5 - 8, 2004 For more information: http://www.whu.edu/ebusiness/hicss-37 This minitrack focuses on the analysis of potentials, challenges, recent developments and current research issues applying the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) paradigm. We invite contributions dealing with File Sharing, Grid Computing, Collaboration, and Instant Messaging. Furthermore we have a strong interest in papers regarding the intersection of P2P, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing. The minitrack is interdisciplinary in nature. We will invite contributions from a broad spectrum including information systems, computer science, economics and management in order to fully incorporate technical as well economic aspects of P2P. We also invite practitioners that will enrich the discussions through their experiences with business applications of P2P. The minitrack will focus on but will not be limited to the following areas: . Sharing of resources (processing cycles, storage, bandwidth, knowledge, presence) in P2P networks . Experiences with real-world implementations . P2P system architectures . Interoperability through standards: Web Services, JXTA, Globus, Jabber . Security and trust: identity management, authentication, accountability, and reputation . Incentives for fair sharing of resources in P2P networks, coping with free-riders . The intersection of P2P, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing . Currency and payment schemes within P2P networks . Peer-to-Peer business models; economic analysis of P2P electronic business strategies IMPORTANT DEADLINES June 1, 2003 Full papers submitted to Minitrack Chairs. Contact minitrack chairs for submission instructions. August 31, 2003 Notice of accepted papers sent to Authors. October 1, 2003 Accepted manuscripts sent electronically to the publisher. INSTRUCTIONS FOR PAPER SUBMISSION 1. Contact the Minitrack Chair in advance for specific submission instructions. Otherwise, submit an electronic version of the full paper, consisting of no more than 25 double- spaced pages, including diagrams, directly to the appropriate Minitrack Chair. (NOTE: The final paper must be NO MORE THAN 10 pages, double-column, single spaced.) 2. Do not submit the manuscript to more than one Minitrack Chair. Papers should contain original material and not be previously published, or currently submitted for consideration elsewhere. 3. Each paper must have a title page to include title of the paper, full name of all authors, and complete addresses including affiliation(s), telephone number(s), and e-mail address(es). 4. The first page of the manuscript should include only the title and a 300-word abstract of the paper. CONTACT INFORMATION Detlef Schoder and Kai Fischbach (primary contact) WHU, Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management Chair of Electronic Business Burgplatz 2 56179 Vallendar, Germany Phone: ++49 (0)261 6509 - 234 Fax: ++49 (0)261 6509 - 239 E-Mail: kai.fischbach(a)whu.edu For the latest information; visit the HICSS web site at: http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu HICSS conferences are devoted to advances in the information, computer, and system sciences, and encompass developments in both theory and practice. Invited papers may be theoretical, conceptual, tutorial or descriptive in nature. Submissions undergo a peer referee process and those selected for presentation will be published in the Conference Proceedings. Submissions must not have been previously published. CONFERENCE ADMINISTRATION: Ralph Sprague, Conference Chair Email: sprague(a)hawaii.edu Sandra Laney, Conference Administrator Email: hicss(a)hawaii.edu Eileen Dennis, Track Administrator Email: eidennis(a)indiana.edu 2004 CONFERENCE VENUE: Hilton Waikoloa Village (on the Big Island of Hawaii) 425 Waikoloa Beach Drive Waikoloa, Hawaii 96738 Tel: 1-808-886-1234 Fax: 1-808-886-2900 http://www.hilton.com/hotels/KOAHWHH/index.html?show=all www.hiltonwaikoloavillage.com NOTE: December 1 is the deadline to guarantee hotel room reservation at conference rate.

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PhD studentships
by katharine sarikakis 09 May '03

09 May '03

PhD studentships School of Art and Design The Communication Media and Culture Subject Group is offering two PhD studentships. We are interested in imaginative proposals from highly motivated individuals who have or expect to obtain at least upper second BA, BSc or Masters in a relevant discipline. a. in gender and ICT : any topic. For further information and an application form please contact k.ross(a)coventry.ac.uk or telephone 024 76887433 b. media and cultural policy The successful candidate will undertake a comparative analysis of media and cultural policies in the European context (including UK). Possible areas of investigation: national and supranational agencies, market vs public interest and gender/race/class issues. For further information and an application form for the studentship, please email: k.sarikakis(a)coventry.ac.uk or telephone 024 7688 7483. Please note that these opportunities are available to UK/EU candidates only Dr. Katharine Sarikakis Senior Lecturer in International Communications and Media Policy Communication Media and Culture Subject Group Coventry School of Art and Design Coventry University Priory Street Coventry CV1 5FB, UK Tel: +44.24.76887483 Fax: +44.24.76887440 Email: k.sarikakis(a)coventry.ac.uk ********************************* Project FUTURE FACULTY: Doctorate Education in Communication, Culture and Media Studies in the UK http://www.bton.ac.uk/adc-ltsn/projects.htm Editor Inter/Sections: the journal of global communications and culture http://www.muhlenberg.edu/communication/iamcr/inter ********************************************

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Research Fellowships @ OII
by jeremy hunsinger 09 May '03

09 May '03

OXFORD INTERNET INSTITUTE Research Fellowships RESEARCH STAFF GRADE RS2: £25,451 to £33,679 p.a. Applications for two Research Fellowships are invited by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), a new department in the University’s Social Science Division which aims to become the world’s leading multi-disciplinary academic centre focused on the societal implications of the Internet and related information and communication technologies (ICTs). These Fellowships offer persons of outstanding distinction or promise an opportunity to pursue research related to the OII. Applications should preferably address one of the Institute’s five current research focal points or in cognate areas. These concern the role of the Internet and ICT in: governance; learning and education; scientific and social research; everyday life and work; and policy issues that cut across all these social settings. The Fellowships will be for three years initially, tenable from October 2003, and with the possibility of renewal for a further two years. Further information may be obtained from the Personnel Assistant, Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS (tel: +44 (0) 1865 287226; e-mail: recruit(a)oii.ox.ac.uk) or from our website: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk. Applications must reach the Institute by 12:00 noon (BST) on Thursday 12th June 2003. ------------------ Claire Ledward Personnel Assistant Oxford Internet Institute Oxford University 1 St. Giles Oxford OX1 3JS Tel: 01865 287226 Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Thanks for help about internet statistics
by mdiazdeisla 09 May '03

09 May '03

Hi Colleagues, I only would like to thank to all the people who has helped me with the sources of statistics about broadband connections. Thank you very much, Regards, Isabel Diaz de Isla IN3-UOC

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CfP E-democracy workshop at ECSCW03, Helsinki
by Whyte, Angus 08 May '03

08 May '03

~ With apologies for cross-posting ~ ECSCW'03 Workshop 7 ~ Monday 15 September, Helsinki, Finland ~ Call for Participation CSCW@E-Democracy: Supporting Conversation and Collaboration in Policy-making Conference website: http://ecscw2003.oulu.fi/ * Aims This one-day workshop aims to initiate a research forum to explore common ground between CSCW and e-democracy. Participants are invited to submit a short position paper (5 pages max.) on prior research or work in progress relevant to one or more of the themes outlined at the end of this call. Each of 3 workshop sessions will be led by experienced researchers and structured to encourage discussion. Workshop submissions should outline the nature of the author's proposed presentation, and will be peer reviewed. The workshop does not aim to arrive at a single consensus position, but to elaborate a limited cluster of themes relevant to the evaluation of e-democracy systems. We plan to publish the proceedings as a special issue in a major international journal and/or as a book. Submissions should be sent to a.whyte(a)napier.ac.uk by June 16, 2003. * Intended Participants (max. 16) Participants should have evaluation experience of e-democracy or related public fora such as civic networks and online communities. We hope to bring together different disciplines in addition to computer science, especially political science, sociology, and organisational science. * Topic The workshop focuses on tools and research approaches concerning the organisation of discourse or conversation, and in particular those that participants consider relevant to 'e-democracy' evaluation. For example the Zeno 'discourse support' platform has been adapted for applications in a number of relevant contexts (Gordon and Richter, 2002). We define e-democracy here as the use of network technologies to promote collaboration between actors for policy-making purposes, whether acting as citizens, their elected representatives, or on behalf of administrations, parliaments or opposition groups. The "W" in CSCW has in recent years breached the confines of the workplace to include other forms of collaborative activity in domestic and public arenas. Activities carried out in the name of democracy span each of these settings, and e-democracy systems are claimed to enhance them according to a logic that welds increasing Internet access and connectivity to increasing public participation in policy-making. Debate and speculation continues among political scientists, yet detailed empirical work remains rare. Descriptions of the fit between technology and practice that approach the richness of CSCW workplace studies are almost absent from e-democracy research. Nor are there many instances of innovation demonstrating the re-invigoration of democratic institutions and constituencies, or perhaps more accurately, there are no widely accepted methodologies to test such claims. The potential scope of e-democracy technology and methodology is wide. Many governments are actively experimenting with web applications that are intended to enhance public participation in policy-making, at local, national and international levels of government. These are often 'vertical' applications of generic tools. For example threaded discussion fora are being widely deployed by governments to inform policy, and by civic groups to articulate positions and influence agendas. Generic fora tools are embedded in policy information and guidance to pre-structure the conversations between citizen-users and moderators that purport to relate to this information and to a policy theme. Thus many applications structure discussion according to a policy-making life cycle model that begins with an agenda-setting phase, progresses through evidence gathering and analysis, followed by policy drafting, implementation and monitoring. The structure provided by e-democracy tools and their moderators/facilitators is almost invariably in pursuit of 'effective deliberation' and 'enhanced participation'. Collaborative discourse appears then to be an appropriate model or metaphor for e-democracy design. Yet little work has been done to validate e-democracy approaches against the perspectives and practices of the actors involved. What evidence is there of a 'fit' between approaches to structuring discourse and e-democracy contexts? To help initiate our discussion we propose the themes below. These may be redefined based on the workshop submissions, and used to structure the day's proceedings around 3 sessions. * Scaling up from 'the group' CSCW tools have largely been designed for 'the workgroup', framed in terms of roles, tasks, processes and/or practices. What is transferable from the 'traditional' CSCW methods of seeing and supporting work settings? How is e-democracy different? One connotation of e-democracy is of collaboration and conflict among large collectives. Yet few approaches to collaboration have seriously tackled how to structure online discussion so that large numbers (thousands) of participants can enjoy equal access, and maintain a coherent overview of the process. Visualisation is seen as key to success (Turoff et al, 1999), and interesting prototypes informed by Conversation Analysis have been described (e.g. Erikson et al, 2002). Collaborative filtering techniques employed to sustain 'online community' may also be relevant here. But is there empirical evidence of particular demands or constraints in applying these techniques, already used for community and intra-organisational needs, for e-democracy purposes? * Deliberation fora: Asymmetries and alternatives The threaded discussion forum has become a common denominator of governments rush to enhance citizen participation. But does the focus on deliberative models of participation promote asymmetries- 'double standards' for citizens and policy-makers? Citizen's comments are frequently moderated according to deliberation rules, then subject to post-hoc content analysis to assess the quality of deliberation (cf. Wilhelm, 1999). How are facilitators themselves made accountable? Can evaluation criteria and methods be considered 'democratic'? Are they applied equally to discussions among policy-makers themselves? The goal of informed deliberation has so infused e-democracy thinking (e.g. Coleman and Gøtze, 2001) that it is seldom questioned. Is there evidence that support for e-democracy 'deliberation' requires anything more (or less) than support for the turn-taking patterns of everyday conversation (Sacks et, al 1974)? Does deliberation place an onus on citizens to 'be informed' about official rationalisations for policy? The notion of testimony has been proposed as an alternative criterion for democratic participation (Sanders, 1997), and emphasises the communication to representatives of citizens versions of policy needs and effects, grounded in personal and collective experience. How do these approaches to political communication and other alternatives translate into workable e-democracy design and evaluation criteria? The policy-making cycle: grounding e-democracy in democratic practice? Policy-making may be seen as a cyclic process, beginning with agenda setting, ending with policy monitoring, and encompassing stakeholders' dialogue throughout. Yet despite the number of government online consultations of citizens (or 'e-rulemaking') there is little evidence of a good 'fit' to practice. A pay-off in greater transparency appears an elusive goal rather than a reality. More evident, or perhaps just more newsworthy, are dramatic political changes engendered by mass protests; publicised by broadcast media but apparently initiated and amplified by ad-hoc groups using messaging technologies (Rheingold, 2002). Is the net effect of 'e-participation' greater when initiated outside the policy-making loop by 'self-organising' networks of civic groups? Can new paradigms of network organisation be accommodated within systems run by and for governments? Are process modelling approaches rich enough to provide a 'fit' with democratic practice? If categories 'have politics' (Suchman, 1994), are they any more evident when democratic processes are re-engineered in order to render them computable? Workshop organisers: - Fiorella di Cindio, Computer Science Department, University of Milan - Elisabeth Davenport, Social Informatics Group, School of Computing, Napier University. - Judith Gregory, Institute for Informatics, University of Oslo - Peter Mambrey, Dept. of CSCW, Fraunhofer Inst.for Applied Information Technology FhG-FIT - Volkmar Pipek, International Institute for Socio-Informatics, Bonn - Angus Whyte, International Teledemocracy Centre, Napier University. References Coleman, Stephen and Gøtze, John (2001) Bowling Together: Online Public Engagement in Policy Deliberation online at: http://www.bowlingtogether.net/intro.html Erickson, T., Halverson, C., Kellogg, W. A., Laff, M. and Wolf, T. (2002) "Social Translucence: Designing Social Infrastructures that Make Collective Activity Visible." Communications of the ACM (Special issue on Community, ed. J. Preece), Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 40-44, 2002. Gordon, Thomas F., and Gernot Richter (2002) "Discourse Support Systems for Deliberative Democracy." eGovernment: State of the Art and Perspectives (EGOV02). Eds. Roland Traunmüller and Klaus Lenk. Aix-en-Provence: Springer Verlag, 2002. 248-55. Rheingold, Howard (2002) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution Perseus Book Group, Cambridge, MA. Sacks, H., E. A. Schegloff, G. Jefferson (1974) 'A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation' Language 50(4), 1974, pp. 696-735 Sanders, Lynn (1997) 'Against Deliberation' Political Theory 25(3), 1997, pp. 347-384 Suchman, Lucy (1994). Do Categories Have Politics? The Language /Action Perspective Reconsidered. Proceedings CSCW'94, 2(3):177--190. Turoff, M., Hiltz, S. R., Bieber, M., Fjermestad, J., & Rana, A. (1999). Collaborative discourse structures in computer mediated group communications. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 4(4). Wilhelm, A., 'Virtual sounding boards: how deliberative is online political discussion?' in: Hague, B. and Loader, B. (eds.), Digital Democracy. Discourse and decision making in the information age. pp. 154-177 Routledge, London, 1999 Dr Angus Whyte, Research Fellow International Teledemocracy Centre, Napier University 10 Colinton Rd Edinburgh EH10 5DT, U.K. a.whyte(a)napier.ac.uk www.teledemocracy.org +44 131 455 2544

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