Jack and all, Thanks for the helpful pointers. I received one additional pointer off list, namely to Michael Warner (Publics and counterpublics). I also constructed a rough prototype of a "staked boundary", as sketched in the original post.
The Occupy movement, especially OccupySandy meets your broad definition.
That's true, and I didn't realize it. It got me thinking that even this mailing list meets the definition. The boundaries of both the mailing list and the Occupy movement are defined by formal criteria, not just topical criteria. On reflection, this seems inconsistent with other parts of the definition. So I think I was wrong to allow formal criteria for this purpose. We may speak correctly of a self-determined public *on the topic* of the Occupy movement, but not *in the form* of an occupation, or *in the form* of a movement. Restricting the public to a given form is almost certain to restrict access, making it less of a public. The form of the Occupy movement in particular seems more appropriate to the definition of a counterpublic (Warner), than to a public. So I think publics are better identified by topical criteria alone, as in the original definition I posted earlier to Liberationtech: https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-July/010399.html I put together a rough prototype of a "staked boundary", which here I call a "public mirror". This is the front of the mirror where the image of the public is reflected: http://www.reddit.com/r/MirMir/new/ The topic there is "mirroring and the self-determination of publics"; so I'm thinking it might be possible to bootstrap one of these things. Mike Jack Harris said:
The Occupy movement, especially OccupySandy meets your broad definition.
On Jul 31, 2013 7:24 AM, "Michael Allan" <mike@zelea.com> wrote:
Hi folks, a request for pointers,
Below I define what I call "self-determined publics". Has anything similar been attempted before?
A self-determined public is an open community that stakes out the definitive bounds of its own communications. The boundary stakes are formed as a timely sequence of references (e.g. web links) each pointing to a communication of the public, such that all references together define the total of that public's communications in time and space. For example:
Ago Place Title (click to visit thread) ------- --------- ------------------------------------------ 17 min r/Foo How do we attach the doohickey? 5 hr Foo-L The problem with so and so's proposal. 1 day FuBarz Who are these Foos, anyway? 1 day r/Foo This, that, and the next thing. 2 days FooStack What's the best thingamy for such and such? . . . and so on
The staked boundary is similar in form to a conventional news feed. It concerns a specific topic, or style, or other quality of communication. The differences are in a) the exclusion of mass communications, b) the claim to totality, and c) the self-determin- ation that redeems that claim. (a) A principle criterion for the inclusion of a boundary reference is that one may immediately join the referenced communication and reply in kind, as a peer. Unidirectional, mass communications are excluded.
(b) The staked boundary is asserted to cover the entire public discussion of the topic across all communication media and sites; or the entire public dialogue in the style of the community; and so forth. It claims to be the most complete, accurate and up-to-date outline of the extended dialogue that is available anywhere.
(c) This claim is redeemed by the public members themselves who continually submit the boundary references, self-organize the necessary labour, and self-constitute the necessary government. No aspect of this redeeming self-determination is limited by an external authority, not even by the authority of their own, past decisions.
I'm looking for brief pointers, please. I don't know of any actual implementations of this, or projects that are working on it. I'll share what's found with the list. Pointers so far: Heather Marsh (Concentric groups, knowledge bridges and epistemic communities); Chris Kelty (Two bits, recursive publics); Anthony Cohen (Symbolic construction of community); and Sebastian Benthall (Weird Twitter). https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-July/thread.html#...
Apologies if you received this message twice, -- Michael Allan
Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/