Administrative Risks of Ict's: Flashmob
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ADMINISTRATIVE RISKS OF ICT’S: FLASHMOB government areas: m-healthcare (remembering patients to take AND BEYOND their medicine, laboratory results, epidemic warnings, vs.), m- agriculture, (information about harvest), m-education (exam Burak GUMUS results, shooter warnings, mobile examination through SMS), Faculty For Economics and Administrative Sciences, m-warning (flood, typhoon, forest fire, political events, early Department For Public Administration warning systems, etc..), m-fiscal (taxation, etc..), m-payment Edirne, Trakya University e-mail: [email protected] ("Mobile Money 2.0" in Uganda or the "M-Pesa" in Kenya, Nalan DEMIRAL Tanzania, Afghanistan and other countries, where payments are Faculty For Economics and Administrative Sciences, possible via mobile phone), m-search (MMS from missing Department For Public Administration people or terrorists are sent to bus drivers), m-voting in Estonia Edirne, Trakya University [4]. e-mail: [email protected] Berkan DEMIRAL When it comes to e-democarcy or m-voting, Ozgur Uckan email: [email protected] underlines the administrative model of non-central and ABSTRACT horizontal self-coordination rather than classic vertical top- The increased usage of ICT is both a blessing and a course at down models to improve the quality of democracy within a the same time. On the one side it can improve services and frame of a virtual and mobile social contract, where internet empower citizens through their facilated access to more platforms and mobile phone networks are even an arena for information. Increased transparency, cost reduction, effective participative democratic dialogue [5, p. 12, 67]. So, discursive coordination and rationalization are part of the results. On the Nation building seems to be possible by News Media. other side there are still political dangers and challenges for governments by the misuse of ICT. Social Media can be modelled as an arena, where information can also be shared by NEW MEDIA politically motivated netizens for coordination, "intelligence Why is New Media so popular that it can be used for such goals? service" and the arrangement of legal collective actions. So- The answer lies in the double character so Social Media. Social called Flashmobs are arranged by users in the internet and Network(ing) Sites (SNSs) researcher Zeynep Tüfekçi mobile phones. distinguishes between "the expressive Internet and the So, technical achievements can also be used for illegal and instrumental Internet" [6], when it comes to the usage of the illegitimate collective actions. Smart phones blurring the limits New Media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on. We between internet and mobile phones are suited well for are talking about "expressive internet"i if netizens use the endangering the political status quo by insurgency 2.0. This internet "to perform and realize social interactions, self- study shows some regional and national examples like flashmobs presentation, public performance, social capital management, or "Twitter Revolutions". furthering of social ties" [7]. "Instrumental internet"is the case, if you search for information, gather some knowledge and do Keywords: ICT, SNSs, Flashmob, Political Science, Public commercial transactions [8]. This dual characteristic of the Administration, local government internet, allowing both self-expression and coordination makes itself attractive to users. With Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, or the like WikiLeaks networks between citiziens (C2C) spread INTRODUCTION rapidly. Today, half a billion people are members of the website Facebook. According to Kruse, it's " the world's 4th great With the increasing access of ordinary people to user-freindly "nation" [9, p. 9,12]. This size leads to political influence. Every computer software, Information and Communication minute, 24 hours of video are uploaded onto YouTube [10]. Tecnology (ICTs) is more and more used in the relations between government agencies, business companies and POLITICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE NEW MEDIA citizens [1, p. 9]. E government practices are supplied via internet and can be categorized to the participants of the In the "Information Age" everything starts with information. So, information sharing is sharing of power [11]. Struggle for virtual communication: communication paths between searching and spreading of information influences the struggle governmental agencies and citizens (G2C/C2G), among for power. Information is the base of influence of public opinion. different govermental agencies (G2G) and between citizens Individual decisions on actions and collective actions depend on (C2C). Citizens visiting the websites of govermental agencies public opinion basing on information. Everybody choses do not need to go to the official govermental offices at the between different options on the basis of his information. As a certain certain opening times anymore, because there is no result, so-called “information bombs“ influencing public opinion, individual and collective action gain importance within need for face-to-face communications. a within a political struggle. One famous victim oft he information bombs is former German Minister Zu Guttenberg. Moreover, the increasing usage of mobile government practices basing on mobile phones has more advantages than e- Internet vs. German minister government practices. Citizens benefit not only everytime from govermental services, but also everywhere, because they can An example of efficient interplay and supplementation send and receive SMS in their C2G/G2C-relations. The borders between print and cyber media in one country endangering the between internet, mobile phones, video cameras, cameras, political career of government members is the case of computers are more and more fluid today, whereby the plagiarism scandal of the dissertation of Germany's Federal difference between “here” and “there” does not play a role any Defence Minister Karl Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg [12]. more [2]. M-Government practises are wide-spread in such After he had been accused of plagiarism by law professor countries, where the number of mobile phone users are bigger Andreas Fischer-Lescano in a scientific book review [13], than the number of netizens [3, p.5]. There are different m- German Newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported this allegation on February 16th, 2011 [14]. Only a few days later, a can be constated in Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, the Emirates, "crowdsourcing" campaign started by many anonymous net Algeria, Jordan, and of course in Libya, where uprisings and activists in the website revolts are organized [18]. But is internet the only cause of Twitter Revolutions? "[T]he economy, a frustated over- http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki, which educated, unemployed middle class, the trade unions, rampant was created only for this purpose of collective investigation. censorship and government corruption" [19] formed the The "sclacktivists" found out, that zu Guttenberg had necessary condition for the revolution, whereby the SNSs plagiarized almost 70 percent of his doctora thesis, where enabled the coordination and communication between books, newspaper articles, academic journals, finding results of the"angry young men with no jobs" [20], turned into the the research department of the German parliament and even protesters use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to mobilize speeches had been copied-and-pasted and used without themselves and to report. Then ordinary citizen attended the protests organized by appropriate citation. the "Facebook Youth" [21] against the old establishment. After a suicide attempt of a 26-year-old university During the crowdsourcing, the net activists compared his graduate called Mohamed Bouazizi first protest formed, dissertation with texts of authors, who had not been which spread out through the whole country with the help of mentioned in the footnotes, and presented the results on the SNSs. For example a "hacktivist" (hacker-activist) group website only within a few days [15], for that it takes many called "Anonymus" posted subversive videos on YouTube, according to LA Times [22]. Elisabeth Dickinson weeks for a scientist to do the same job. The University of defines the uprising in Tunisia as the "First WikiLeaks Bayreuth has revoked his doctoral title on 23 February 2011. Revolution" [23], because the former President Ben Ali's ruling He resigned on 1 March 2011. The fact, that the hero or villain family was described as as "mafia-esque elite who have their of this story is a prominent politician, his disser-tation was hands in every cookie jar in the entire economy" [24] in the even few days after the accusation online available for everyone, revealed State Department cables. So, Wikileaks contributed to the technologi-cally facilitated division of labour coordination the harsh reaction of the Tunisians against President Ben Ali's regime. During the revolts in Tunis maps of govermental of many activists by the SNSs, who moreover have remained buildings, prisons and other targets at Google were marked and anonym and unsanctioned, made this internet project to check spread through "maptivism" [25, p. 120] the copycat al-legations successful. ADVANTAGES OF WEB-BASED ORGANIZATIONS WIKILEAKS There are some advantages of SNSs-based movements in The online whistleblower site WikiLeaks published contrast to classic organizations. Median theorist Clay Shirky documents and video materials from the Afghanistan and Iraq claimed that social media helped angry people