It is nearly impossible to find a single inclusive civic technology that suits all my needs. This is because some needs may conflict with others, and additional attributes are needed for a technology to survive and reach a critical mass. Hereby I will provide the “shopping list” for civic technologies and potential candidates in this civic technology competition.
1. This technology needs to be cheap enough so people from most social classes can afford.
2. This technology needs to be easy enough to use, with nearly zero learning curve so there won’t be a huge gap between new comers and veteran users.
3. This technology should suit all kinds of personalities. Outgoing people and introvert people should get similar quality of experience; the same applies to people fat and thin, female and male, quiet and active, young and old.
4. This technology should equalize new players, which means new comers won’t get too much advantage because of their economic or social capital in the real world.
5. This technology should have a anti-monopoly mechanism. The rich in the system won’t get richer too fast than the poor.
Beside these equality requirements, the system need to be “civic” – which means it needs to have the potential to reach civic goals. Therefore this shopping list continues with follows:
6. This technology should be participatory. It should be able to foster dialogs among participants. And although it is allowed to form local communities, but it shouldn’t go too far that people only talk to their peers in their local groups.
7. This technology should be able to make an impact, no matter it’s forming a consensus among its participants or bring changes to the real world.
8. This technology should be democratic. The purpose of the technology should not be promoting some certain ideas. The reward system should not prefer one set of ideas while discouraging another.
9. This technology should be creative. Participants should be able to experiment freely with in the system: create new ideas, and remix with existing ideas.
And finally:
10. This technology should survive and thrive. If it is a public project, it should have easy and clear maintenance procedures; if it is run by companies or organizations, it should have a business model to keep the system alive.
Here are some instances that may suite some parts of the criteria:
1. Songs/Music. Songs are affordable, have a great penetration in all kinds of marginal communities. Songs are easy to remix, or one can just change part of their lyrics to express their ideas. Certainly there are good singers or bad singers, but you don’t need to record a perfect version to create some influence. There are already many songs on politics, and they frequently appears in events such as protests. The problem with songs is that it cannot convey dialog – you can either follow the crowd or refuse to listen to them.
2. Cameras. Cameras are good at monitoring the environment, and they are native storytelling machines. Cameras today are affordable and usually preinstalled in most phones. Most people can use a camera without proper training. It doesn’t have penalty on any specific personality type, and in terms of news photos, the gap between professional photographer and amateurs are shrinking. However, the photo ecosystem still rely on editors to filter “good” photos from mediocre ones. Traditional media power structure still work on these new devices.
3. Radio. Radio seems to be a traditional media, but it runs perfectly in a local community. When used properly, it is easy to generate discussion within a community and have everybody’s opinion represented. However, as media consumption habit change over time, there are fewer people listening to radio and this diminishes its inclusiveness.
4. Apps, particularly Facebook, Line, and Wechat. Owning a smart phone seems to be prestigious five years ago, but is not any more since the price went down so rapidly, and it is foreseeable that they will be the standard equipment for people from all social classes. The problem with these tools is that those who got a hand on social media skills always have an advantage in using these tools.
5. Scratch and alike. Scratch is a tool developed by Lifelong Kindergarten at MIT Media Lab. It is used in science classes at schools, and it encourages expression and experiment at the first place. The current user base is small, but it is possible that after several generations these tools might be as popular as Facebook or Wechat. Only by then can we see whether they follow the same fate as social media.