17. Plurality of information or
an information cartel?
Reuters bought by Canadian financial data
provider Thomson in a deal worth about £8.7bn
[BBC, 15 May 2007]
Reuters prohibited any individual from owning
15% or more
The Thomson family now own 53%
18. Agenda-setting
Salience transfer
the ability of a mass medium to transfer relevant issues
from its news media agendas to public agendas
The agenda-setting theory
McCombs, Shaw, 1972
McCombs, 2004
The spiral of silence theory
Noelle-Neumann, 1974
19. Power of Media (!?!)
“There are no facts,
only interpretations”
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
20. Hegelian Dialectic
(spot how/where/when it is used!)
The thesis is an intellectual proposition
The antithesis is the negation of the thesis, a reaction to the
proposition
The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and
antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a
new proposition
Example(s):
Thesis: the French revolution/fire of Rome
Antithesis: the terror which followed
Synthesis: the constitutional state of free citizens/blaming the
Christians
22. Overcoming Gatekeeping ?
Internet offers an open platform where users can
interactively exchange information
News is multimedia, multi-dimensional,
timely/timeless
The user can control relevance
The user is able to choose topics, sources …
The user can interact with authors, other
readers/followers …
23. Traditional/New Media Synopsis
Traditional Search engines Social networks
media
Relevance/presence Decided by Decided by the Decided by the
of the news the algorithm network
publisher
Interaction / Not allowed Not allowed Possible
feedback
Topic Decided by Decided by the Decided by the
Content the user network
publisher
Expand topic Not allowed Allowed Allowed
Deciding Source Not allowed Allowed Allowed
Individual (trust- Absent Absent Absent
based) ranking
24. We will either find a way, or make one ...
”Aut inveniam viam aut faciam”
25. Maslow’s Law of the Instrument
”It is tempting, if the only
tool you have is a hammer,
to treat everything as if it
were a nail.”
- H. Maslow, The Psychology of
Science:A Reconnaissance.
Harper & Row, 1966
26. Time for Polidoxa now!
Create a virtual agora where people can freely discuss and exchange
information
From greek “poly", meaning many or several and “doxa" meaning
common belief or popular opinion
More control over the news/information
Think!
Discuss!
Verify!
Interact!
Take an active role!
Take (better?) decisions!
27. Polidoxa Ranking Algorithm (the „how“)
The core ranking parameters:
Configurable static parameters
trustworthiness of contacts (decided by the user)
trustworthiness of sources/domains… (by the user)
Dynamic Parameters
depending on network activities and contact’s distance
evaluate (among other things) “like” and “dislike”
many “like” for a post is and indication of how your
network perceives it
29. Some details about the algorithm…
If you can't explain it to
a six year old,
you don't understand
it yourself.”
Albert Einstein
30. Polidoxa@Twitter
Twitter is less studied than FB etc…
Only text analysis, therefore simpler (for now)
At each search the trust is recalculated for each contact and
the results are presented accordingly (higher trust first)
Trust is in range 0..100
This prototype is just a proof of concept
FB application is the next step
31. Static/Dynamic Trust
Static trust is chosen by the user
Dynamic trust is calculated according to the following
parameters :
Number of retweet
Number of Favourites
Number of Mentions
Number of hashtags #FF
Number of user’s tweets containing the searched
keyword
32. Trust Formula
Trust = static_trust + coef1*nbr_fav + coeff2*nbr_ret +
coeff_3*nbr_mentions + coeff3*nbr_FF + coeff4*nbr_tweets
static_trust = chosen by the user
nbr_fav = number of favourite tweets for this contact
nbr_ret = number of retweets you have done for this contact
nbr_ment = number of mention ("@username") relative to this contact
nbr_FF = number of FF (hashtag #FF, Follow Friday) associate to this contact
nbr_tweets = number of tweets belonging to this contact in which the search
term appears
33. Trust goes up and down
(like in real life)
Coefficients are application parameter set by the admin
(not the user)
When beyond 100% all trust values are rescaled to be within
the range
The oldest interactions (in the current prototype more than
one year old) are removed
This actually decreases the trust value for the contacts
who have been ignored for some time
34. Polidoxa
Polidoxa
Relevance of the news Decided by the user
Interaction / feedback Allowed
Topic Decided by the user and
content his/her network
Expand topic Allowed
Deciding Source Allowed
Individual trust-based ranking Possible
35. Where do you want to go today
(with Polidoxa)?
Community = Network
Relationships = Links Individuals = Nodes
Evolution of Plato’s
Evolution du
World of Ideas
monde des idées
(Iperuranio)
Social Structure = Technology
36. Collective Intelligence and Cyber-democracy?
Fin
e
an
tic
Le e s
gis ax
ce
Jus
lat T
s
i on
io n
u lat
Reg
Ex
ec uti Collective
on
Intelligence
consumption and
Forecasting
Sustainable
Key concept is
production
Cyber-feedback
Biosphere
37. Be creative when solving problems, use your
right brain hemisphere more often!
Notas do Editor
Do’s and Don’ts of Social Networking An outline of some basic points that a user should follow to make their use of the internet safer.
Situational analysis Traditional media: Publishers and the mass media determine what information is relevant, determines position, length Internet offers an open platform where users can exchange information Search engines like Googlenews, Yahoo define relevance by popularity, source credibility; allow only some user control (themes, country) Social Media Problem
Internet offers an open platform where users can exchange information