Please Revise...

If you run in circles anything like mine, you may have noticed that you spent a surprising amount of time discussing the concept of openness in 2011.

 Perhaps it was in the context of participation in a theorized open government, the incremental mainstreaming of open coding practices on mobile devices, or the protection of the Internet as an open, globally governed asset.

 Many noted how heavily the press’ love affair (or, perhaps, lust affair) with various Occupy movements (previously discussed here) drew on narratives of transparent governance and tactical inclusion.

 Indeed openness and its thematic siblings—transparency, participation, agency, access, and adaptability—seem to have resurfaced in popular discourse over the past year, perhaps rejuvenated by their apparent compatibility with emerging digital spaces and platforms. If their contemporary connotation could be grouped under a single rhetorical umbrella, we might call it e-populism.

 But for every few engaging discussions on the topic this year, we were invariably caught in a deeply frustrating one. Geeky gabbers are all too familiar with these conversations: political strategy as causal apathizer; cultural policy as subsidy pit; Google as mind-controller. Doubling back on themselves in slow motion, they unfold like drunken stumbles.

 For discussions of these e-populist ideas, the consensus meta-trope seems to be chaos. Many express apprehension about the future security of their identity or personal data online. Others fear the dismantling of existing business models or affronts to competitive advantage.

 These arguments eventually prophesize the implosion of agency laws (privacy, intellectual property, etc.), transforming our prized civic superhighways into unmediated freeways of joy-riding hackers, activists, spammers, pirates, nihilists, redditors, and (of course) teens.

 The natural extension of this reasoning is an eventual overcompensation of governance, taming these out-of-control institutions with shadowy new totalitarian agencies of oppression and sedation.

 And presto! Our feared-but-fetishized digitopian (term coined, to be explained elsewhere) future is realized. Then, the hook: “So, you see, embracing openness and transparency today will only lead a more constrained future!” As with any discussion based in meta-trope, the offender reclines in satisfaction as their argument settles to fill the simple, smooth contours of its wrapping.

 As cringe-inducing as such an analysis might be, the stigma persists. At its core is the presumption that e-populism is about replacing order with chaos. In reality, proponents are more interested in its potential as a mechanism to reconcile what remains the defining characteristic of modern society. E-populism, it seems, actually represents an attempt to manage fragmentation.

 It is fairly uncontroversial to state that our societies have become less isolated and more fragmented over the last century. Airplanes and sprawl have fragmented our geographies. Scheduled labour and telephones have expanded our social behaviours and groups. Libraries and cable television have allowed our leisure to differ from our neighbour’s. Oh, and then came that Internet thingy.

 All the while, these same technologies have made us more broadly connected to one another, at once de-isolating the group and fragmenting the individual. As the trend accelerates, notions of openness, access, and transparency become key tools in navigating these increasingly complex matrices of identity.

Examine the issue in the context of curation, for instance. Yes, it was easily among the most overused terms of 2011, but in a sense that focus is warranted. Almost by definition, a fragmented landscape requires curation, organizing and assessing people, issues, and content and funneling desirable elements to interested parties.

 The concept of curation should also not be understood too narrowly. Yes museums, aggregators, and influence leaders curate, but the basic process is more universal.

 Parliament functions by aggregating the fragmented and conflicting positions of its constituents through elections, lobbies, movements, and local pressures, filtering them through committees and pilots, and proposing legislation that they hope citizens will find valuable.

 Similar dynamics govern the private sector. Businesses curate a suite of goods and services based on a fragmented set of consumer needs and opinions. Based on the dynamics of their market, they drop, add, and adapt products that balance their own interests against those of their consumers.

As much of this process of curation moves from rooms of humans to lines of code, however, e-populist concerns become increasingly relevant to our ability to continue to define these surroundings.

Apple’s iTunes store, for instance, curates a diverse suite of music, AV content, books and applications intended to accommodate the needs of a highly fragmented global audience. When one disagrees with their decision not to distribute an “undesirable” application (Grooveshark, say) or digitally limit the ability to use a purchased e-book file, they are really objecting to a lack of openness in Apple’s curation processes. 

 Similarly, if we agree that Parliaments of all compositions should have not only the duty but the desire to craft responsive and representative policies for the constituents they serve, the incorporation of tech-enabled tools that allow for consultation, participation, and recourse should be be easily argued.

 Perhaps most urgently, if we agree that an open, global Internet guides the promise of the planet described in our children’s storybooks, the spirit of collaboration, efficiency, and innovation entrenched in discussions of open software and facilitated access should be prioritized.

Before these discussions can occur, however, the myth of e-populism as enabler of chaos must be deflated.

Chaos bubbles in cauldrons of incompatibility, duplication, and perceived isolation. What notions of openness, participation, access and adaptability promote is a new way of approaching an increasingly fragmented society. More specifically, they espouse prolonged individual agency in how we choose to organize the world around us.

 De-isolated fragmentation offers citizens and consumers a previously inconceivable volume of content and connectivity. But in order to be properly leveraged, the engines of curation must remain open, accessible, and responsive.

Bring on 2012.