Category Archives: Theory

The Safety Net

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CCT alum Molly Moran flying high! (courtesy of Garrison Le Masters

CCT alum Molly Moran flying high!

In some circumstances, it really behooves one to have a safety net! That’s why when children take their initial steps, and teenagers first get behind the wheel, mothers and fathers are close at hand. A ritualistic dance ensues–as children develop their skills and talents, parents step back, making room for them to grow. The trick is establishing the right distance, appropriate for the circumstances at hand. 

Even as adults we benefit from safety nets, although they are far more transparent, receding into the background until a need for them arises. For example, I vividly recall a time a few summers ago, when my husband Brock and I came to appreciate the value of a safety net, while vacationing at our home at Hawthorne Lake.

Hawthorne at Sunset (courtesy of RHITMrB)

Hawthorne at Sunset (courtesy of RHITMrB)

As is our habit, Brock got up early to make coffee, which we planned to drink in bed, while watching the sun come up. Eager to watch the dawn break, he went down to the dock while waiting for the water to boil. Unfortunately he fell asleep. When he awoke the kitchen wall was in flames. Smelling the smoke, I ran downstairs, almost colliding with my husband who was racing up from the dock. Somehow we managed to call the fire deparment all the while throwing buckets of water at the fire. Driving ten miles up the mountain road–the last leg of which is dirt–the firemen finally arrived. They were there just in time to tell us that we had successfully put out the fire.

Sparta Fire Department

Sparta Fire Department

We were panicked nonetheless. How were we to inform my son Stephen–one of the fifth generation to grow up at the lake–that we had destroyed his patrimony? How were we had to restore the kitchen, much less Crossepatch, our smoke filled house, to it’s historic charm? Although it seemed a hopeless cause, we jumped into the car and raced to town, where we purchased every cleaning apparatus, and cleaning solution, in sight. Scrubbing away over the next few hours, our efforts seemed hopeless. However, not much later, my sister Anne came along, and–sympathetic to our plight, but surprised by our endeavors–reminded us our house was safe: As she pointed out, we had a safety net–our insurance company.

Crossepatch in Summer (courtesy of Haley Collins)

Crossepatch in Summer (courtesy of Haley Collins)

Safety nets are not always institutionalized. Nor do they necessarily require financial investments. Even though we are less cognizant of them, many safety nets inhere in the social structure in which we are embedded. This fact was brought home to me ten day’s ago after my husband’s fall. Within a few hours of the event, the phone began to ring. Neighbors and friends alike emerged from out of nowhere, looking for ways to help. Most touching to me was the call from Rachael, my husband’s ex-wife, who–reassuring me that “she was there for me–” invited me over to share her delicious, Seder left-overs.

Some say that the safety nets that emerge from social interactions are no different from formal institutions–such as insurance companies–in which we consciously invest in order to hedge our bets about the future. Thus, for example, rational actor theorists such as Nan Lin insist that individuals weigh the costs and benefits of investing their time and energy in establishing connections in the hopes of capturing future returns in the form of greater resources. I beg to disagree. Just as Mark Buchanan has argued in his book The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbors Usually Look Like You, humans motivations are far more complex than rational actor theorists might surmise. As Buchanan emphasizes, we are essentially social atoms whose behavior is guided as much by our evolutionary instincts and emotional needs as it is by rational choice.

And thank goodness! Circumstances call for a variety of actions, and a variety of responses. When our formal institutions fail us, we have our social relations to fall back on–just as in the hard times of today, when family and friends are turning inwards to support one another. If scholars such as Robert Putam are correct, these informal groups might generate greater social capital in the course of their interactions, which can be employed, in turn, to help reshape and rebuild much sturdier formal institutions for future generations.

On Technorati: Add new tag, child rearing, evolution, Lake Hawthorne, Mark Buchanan, Molly Moran CCT alum, Nan Lin, rational actor theory, social captial, the social atom

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Communications and Complexity: The Need for a Policy Interface

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communication by Guacamole Goalie

communication by Guacamole Goalie

Tomorrow, the Communication Culture and Technology Program at Georgetown University will join together with the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law, Michigan State University, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and University of Konstanz, Germany,
in hosting a conference on Applying Complexity Theory to Improve Communications Policy. The conference is based on the premise that the field of communication constitutes a complex adaptive system, such that we need new regulatory approaches and tools that can take this complexity into account. We plan to cover four topic areas: 1) the value added of complexity theory; 2) tools and methodology for using complexity theory; 3) applying complexity theory to national broadband policy; and 4) building support for, and incorporating, complexity theory into communications policy.

I have been thinking about how one might structure the policy environment so as to foster greater interaction of policy actors and their diverse approaches and ideas

Having been assigned the task of facilitating the final panel, I have been pondering structural approaches to promoting complexity analysis–in particular, I have been thinking about how one might structure the policy environment so as to foster greater interaction of policy actors and their diverse approaches and ideas. My assumption is that to analyze complexity adequately, the policy structure must, itself, reflect it.  Some thoughts come to mind in this regard. 

For example, building on Ron Burt‘s characterization of good ideas, it would appear that policy organizations should be structured in such a way that policy actors benefit not only from strong ties among like-minded associates, but also from weak ties across diverse associations. As Burt notes:

Opinion and behavior are more homogeneous within than between groups so people connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving, which give them more options to select and synthesize from alternatives (http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/ronald.burt/research/SHGI.pdf)

One might conclude, therefore, that–for complexity to be attended to–the  architecture of the policy making arena must provide links across diverse policy domains. 

This conclusion coincides with the conclusions of a paper that my colleagues Ellen Surles, Qi Chen and I wrote for the Social Science Research Council, entitled Fostering a Communication Policy Dialogue: The Need for a Sustainable Communication Interface. In this paper, we adopted  John Kingdon‘s description of policy making as a non-linear process, which entails the convergence of three different streams–identifying problems, identifying solutions, and making political decisions. Kingdon argues that when these streams converge there is a window of opportunity when policy outcomes can occur. In our paper, my colleagues and I sought to identify the structural properties that would allow such convergence to take place. Viewing these three policy streams as distinct worlds, each with its own habitus, we identified the need for a policy interface, that would help policy actors to communicate with one another. As we argued:

The policy debate can become inhibited and muted in part because many players lack the resources and skills to communicate across these fields of policy activities. It is especially helpful when a number of diverse actors interact and engage with one another to the extent that they create a space where they can find common ground. We call this space the policy interface. Issues rise on the policy agenda when [policy streams] converge in such a way that ideas are translated and actors come to value each other’s perspectives and therefore perceive policy issues in a congruent way.

Much as in the case of Burt’s notion of good ideas, the architecture of the interface that we described provides for both weak and strong ties.  It allowed policy actors from different activity fields to maintain their individual perspectives, while coming together in a common space where they might have a productive–and far richer–dialogue. 

The US communication policy arena lacks such an interface, and policy making suffers as a result.  Jurisdiction is divided among numerous agencies, whose independent actions often lead to conflicting outcomes.  Issues are not considered to be complex; rather they are typically reduced to approximate the specific mission of the agency in which they are resolved.  

Time to Push the Restart Button for OTA

Time to Push the Restart Button for OTA

The outstanding question, therefore, is where might we look for such a policy interface?  Not surprisingly, given my own background, I would look to a government agency such as the Office of Technology Assessment, which not only brought diverse actors together, and incorporated their perspectives in the agency’s research results. As importantly, OTA translated complex problems into narratives that both Congress and the public could grapple with.

On Technorati: broadband policy, communications policy, complexity, good ideas, John Kingdon, Office of Technology Assessment, policy interface, policy streams, Ron Burt, telecommunications

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Honoring the Office of Technology Assessment

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The Office of Technology Assessment was deprived of its funding by the 104th Congress.  The Agency, which we as staffers labeled “Congress’ Own Think Tank,” had become official in 1972, and was tasked with taking a long-term look at the implications of technology on all aspects of society.  By most accounts, we did a phenomenal job.  Although Congress has yet to rally enough support to reauthorize the Office of Technology Assessment, the former Agency’s loyal supporters and advocates have written frequently about the role the OTA could be playing in public discourse.  They have also recently launched an on-line archive of all of OTA’s work, which also depicts and details its 20+ year history.

From a posting on an FAS listserv by Nate Hafer, of the Federation of American Scientists:

Today the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) launched the Office of Technology Assessment Archive, http://www.fas.org/ota . The site allows the public to access over 720 reports and documents produced by OTA during its 23 year history, including many that have not been available to the public previously. OTA served as an independent branch of the U.S. Congress that provided nonpartisan science and technology advice from 1972 until it was defunded and forced to close in 1995.

The site also features a new video interview with Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), who has been spearheading the effort on Capitol Hill to revive OTA. According to Rep. Holt, “if OTA were here, doing this kind of work, we would have better legislation for school safety, chemical exposure, grain dust explosions, the R&D tax credit, on and on.” He goes on to describe some current policy issues that OTA could address and explains why Congress should bring back OTA.

“The OTA was an invaluable resource that informed Congress about an incredibly broad range of science and technology issues,” said Henry Kelly, President of the Federation of American Scientists and a former OTA staff member. “Numerous reports, on subjects such as transportation, energy, health care, and information technology remain relevant, more than 10 years after OTA issued its final report.”

“OTA produced the first report raising the possibility of genetic discrimination in the workplace almost 17 years before the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act was passed,” according to Michael Stebbins, Director of Biology Policy at FAS. “That kind of foresight into major policy issues is sorely missed in Washington today.”

The Archive will track efforts to bring back OTA and will also highlight items not previously available to the public in a “Document of the Day” feature. The website also includes a new search engine that allows users to quickly and easily find specific content in OTA reports.

Visit the Office of Technology Assessment Archive at http://www.fas.org/ota

As a former OTA employee, I would like to add a tribute of my own.  From my perspective, the OTA not only provided Congress and the public with outstanding policy foresight on technology-related issues, in so doing, it also greatly advanced interdisciplinary research.  As Einstein once commented, problems cannot be solved within the context in which they were originally created.  The methods and practices at OTA implicitly took this insight into account.  Because many of its reports were problem-centered, OTA analysts reached out across a variety of venues to garner information and engage in cross-disciplinary dialogues.  As a result, those analysts frequently generated a number of creative, and often quite successful, policy solutions.

I owe my interest and devotion to interdisciplinary scholarship in part to the twenty years that I was fortunate enough to have worked at the Congressional Office of Technology.  Today, I try to maintain that legacy by bringing what I learned at OTA to Georgetown University’s interdisciplinary program — the Communication, Culture and Technology Program — where I presently serve as Director.  I like to believe that, in teaching my students to think holistically, and to conceptualize their research in an interdisciplinary framework, I am planting the seed corn for the time when Congress regains its wits and revives the OTA.

On Technorati: blogosphere, Congress, Interdisciplinarity, OTA, policy, research, science

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Reading, Writing… and Scientific Inquiry

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When I was a young girl living in New Jersey, my father would try to console me, whenever my world seemed upside down, by talking about Toynbee’s optimum challenge. He noted that the historian Toynbee had concluded — based on his comparative history — that societies prosper when they have a challenge that stimulates them into action, but one that does not overwhelm them at the same time. Accordingly, my father would interpret my situation — however unfortunate it might have been — as “an opportunity for growth as well as for the development of my character.” As one might imagine, more often than not, I would protest, sotto voce, saying that I was satisfied with the amount of character that I already had. However, with the wisdom of years, as well as the opportunities and challenges of raising a child of my own, I have come to appreciate Toynbee’s perspective and incorporate it into my own way of thinking. Just ask my son!

Perhaps it is time to give Toynbee another look. In today’s increasingly complex world, narrowly focused analyses that are based on rigid, disciplinary methodological standards sometimes miss the point.

In the academic world, Toynbee was generally appreciated for the extent of his knowledge. However, he was typically criticized — and sometime scathingly so — for what others perceived to be his scientific pretensions. His writings were ambitious, to say the least. For example, Toynbee’s A Study in History employs a number of case studies to examine the process of history. It aims to identify plausible generalizations, if not Laws, about the way in which the world works. It was in this regard that Toynbee’s work was not always well received by the scholarly community: His critics felt that he went much too far in making generalizations based on, what they claimed to be, faulty methodology, subjective interpretations, and an inadequate and incomplete empirical body of knowledge.

Perhaps it is time to give Toynbee another look. In today’s increasingly complex world, narrowly focused analyses that are based on rigid, disciplinary methodological standards sometimes miss the point. Looking comparatively, at an ever-unfolding, evolutionary process of history, Toynbee — without the benefit of today’s electronic technologies — brought into relief, even while trying to simplify, the extraordinarily complex nature of the interconnections and interactions that drive human existence forward. A similar case can be made for Fernand Braudel’s historical work, which focuses on the longue durée. One need only consider his three volume masterpiece in which he analyzes the evolution of world capitalism through the lens of all of its varied aspects — social, political, cultural, demographic, as well as economic (1992). It seems to me that Joshua Epstein’s most recent book Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling (2007), is in this tradition. Looking for a way to bring all of the social sciences to bear in accounting for societal evolution (and in particular the disappearance of the Anasazi), he takes advantage of new, computational technologies to model their behavior. Optimally challenging, this book is a major contribution to the furtherance and interaction of all academic disciplines.

Arnold J. Toynbee (1961)

Arnold J. Toynbee (1961)

While Toynbee’s work may not be scientific in the strictest sense of the word, to be sure it is very insightful and, as importantly, meaningful in providing guidance about the difficult choices that we, as intelligent humans, must make. I imagine what my life might have been like had I been risk-adverse, and not taken Toynbee’s revealing insight about optimal challenges to heart. I might never have taken courses in economics; selected in the early Sixties to have been one of only five women in my graduate class at Columbia; backpacked in the area of Glacier Peak, in the North Cascades; lived on Kibbutz Ketura in Israel’s southern desert; or survived, and even been a good caretaker, as my husband successfully battled the dread disease, multiple myeloma. As well, I might never have accepted my husband’s challenge to undertake this exciting and new blogging adventure. And, who knows, in today’s environment, Toynbee, too, might very well have been a blogger!

On Technorati: comparatism, Epstein, history, scientism, simulation, Toynbee

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It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

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Last night there were no frogs. It was raining. I lay awake listening to the sounds of rain on the roof, more like the monotone tap, tap, tap of a snare drum rather than the plucking of a cello string. As the rain’s intensity increased, the individual taps appeared to merge together — or should I say emerge, in somewhat of a phase transition — culminating in the thunderous boom of the kettle drum and the clashing clang of the cymbal, just as the lightning struck. Wide awake and idling the early morning hours away, I began wondering: Are the heavens a complex, networked system, and — if so — what constitutes its parts? How do they communicate with one another? What type of signals do they use? How does change in the weather system come about? There was no possibility of falling asleep after that! Too many books, too many theories, too many questions, I thought.

In the morning it was still raining. Based on nature’s signals, many of which I had noted yesterday, I might have anticipated that this would be the case. As I learned from my husband Brock, a seasoned environmentalist, if you want to know how the weather will unfold, pay attention, as other species do, to a number of signals. Specifically, when at our cottage at the Lake, you might look for a shift in the ambience of the air — in particular, sudden changes in the temperature, the direction of the breeze, as well as the level of humidity. For example, a sudden drop in the air temperature, accompanied by a rising breeze from the west, indicates that a cool front, most likely preceded by a storm, is on its way. However, while this information is helpful for planning a daily itinerary, it does not explain how nature and its subsidiary parts — a complex system — know when and how to react. For sure, this is a subject of future inquiry.

On a more personal level, I might also note how we adapt to changes in the weather here in the relatively isolated woods at Lake Hawthorne. For children, this is never a problem. They simply change their venue of play. For example, as children, we took advantage of the rain, especially during the hurricane season in 1954, to create an entire waterway in our back yard, with an elaborate bridge and canal system that extended more than fifty yards. Then, we would build little boats and watch them float from one end of the tributary to the other. Today, as adults, we often “hole up,” and take a “rain sleep,” much like the man “who went to bed with a cold in his head and didn’t get up ’till morning.” There being little chance of sleep this morning, however, my husband and I decided instead to snuggle under our comforter, and spend the day listening to The Learning Company’s tapes on the History of Rome.

700 Augustus Denarius Reverse. Roman SoldiersCall it serendipity, but I am struck at how, given my growing interest in social structure and complexity, everything that I attend to now appears to be on this subject. Consider, for example, the Learning Company lecture we heard describing the unique nature of the rise of the Roman Republic. The lecturer, Professor Garrett G. Fagan, from Pennsylvania State University, identified the way in which the Roman Republic employed a network strategy to consolidate its confederation. According to Fagan, the Romans sent many of their centurions, together with citizens of varying statuses, to strategic places throughout the peninsula, which served as intelligence nodes in an every growing and, more complex, network of governance structures. As the professor notes, this unique, networked organizational structure constituted a successful innovative strategy that allowed the Romans not only to effectively adapt to their changing environment but also to undergo their own phase transition with the evolution and establishment of an even more complex set of arrangements — the Roman Empire. Equally exciting to me, this strategy was totally in keeping with the advice of Ron Burt, one of today’s leading management experts, and author of Brokerage and Closure (2005). Burt advises businesses to do just as the Romans did: Establish links across major holes in the social structure in order to maximize innovation and control information flows.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, just as the tapes were about to end, the rain stopped. Suddenly there was silence: No frogs plinking, no birds chirping, no dogs barking, no children laughing. A momentary relief from “thinking thoroughly.” I grasped the opportunity, and fell asleep.

On Technorati: Burt, Fagan, Roman Empire, Rome, systems, TLC, weather

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Commons are Common Enough

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In all my classes I try to get students to think about theory by following James Rosenau’s prescription in his book Thinking Theory Thoroughly (2000), which calls on readers to ask themselves “What is this an instance of?” and in this way to work their way up what Rosenau calls “the ladder of abstraction.”  I took on this challenge myself when, in my last blog, I decided to reflect about my surroundings here at Lake Hawthorne through the lens of the theories I am reading about. The first book I picked up was Brian Skyrms’ The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure.  Reading it, the first related thought that came to mind was “Of course, Lake Hawthorne is a Commons.”  That is to say, it is one big, on-going stag hunt.  Let me explain…

Brian Skyrms begins his book with Rousseau’s metaphorical account of the Stag Hunt, which now constitutes a well-known game in game theory. Based on this metaphor, Skyrms explores the question of how cooperation comes about, given the relative strong disincentives not to cooperate.   At issue in this case is what a hunter will do, given a choice to hunt stag–which has a higher pay off but requires the cooperation of others, and thus entails the risk of gaining nothing–or to hunt for hare–which has a low payoff but entails little risk, because the hunter can accomplish the task independently, on his own.    

Of course Elinor Ostrom has made a convincing case for how certain kinds of institutions and “rules of the game” can alter the incentive structure so that individuals cooperate to sustain a “commons.”  But Skyrms goes further, exploring the question of how do these incentives/norms, themselves, come about.  What accounts for the evolution of the social contract? How can it overtake the strong incentive to defect? His tentative answers are very CCT-like: They all have to do with spatial structure, location, and locational interaction.  Greatly simplifying, the key to cooperation is to assure that stag hunters (cooperators) are positioned so that they come into contact with one another before they meet hare hunters (defectors) who together constitute a a basin of attraction large enough to take over the stag hunters.  With signaling–the subject of a future blog entry–the size of the cooperative community can be quite extensive and unstructured to a greater extent. 

The history of Lake Hawthorne’s evolution is fully consistent with Skyrms’ characterization with respect to both how the social contract was established, and how it evolved and was maintained over time. The purchase of the Lake property in 1895, as a resource that was to be held in common, was greatly facilitated by the fact that all the founders already knew each other in a variety of ways.  For example, many were teachers in the Paterson/Newark New Jersey school districts, a number were related, and all were participants in a hiking club that drew its members from the same locale.  Linked to each other in so many ways, none of the founders were likely to encounter a viable hare hunter–and so defect.  Over five generations, these links have been continuously reinforced and made more dense through social interactions and the process of jointly administrating the property–activities that are sometimes difficult to differentiate.   Surely–as Skyrms points out–there is a possibility that hare hunters might invade the commons at the edges, and convert some stag hunters to hare hunters.

Snowshoe Hare / Lièvre d'AmériqueThe most dangerous prospect of this so far has been the attempt by a major developer to build luxury homes just above our mountainside, making the prospect of privatizing the commons and selling out to developers a much more lucrative option. Instead, the stag hunters of Lake Hawthorne joined together in opposition, and even extended their protest and resistance efforts to outlying towns and communities.  The result: That part of Sparta Mountain now constitutes an even greater commons–it is public parkland owned by all the people of the State of New Jersey.

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Blogging Lake Hawthorne

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It might be somewhat unusual to start a blog on vacation in the highlands of northern New Jersey, but I thought that this was a good time to read the stack of books I have been collecting, and to try to tie them together in anticipation of teaching my courses Networking, Technology, and Society and Networks and International Development in the Communications Culture and Technology Program this fall. It so happened that, once we became ensconced in our chairs on the front veranda, my husband stared at the pile of books I brought and asked somewhat skeptically: “Do all the theories is those books really tell you anything about every day life?” That statement became my inspiration. My plan now is to reflect upon and characterize my surroundings here at Lake Hawthorne through the lenses of the theories presented in my books. The question I ask myself is: What do I see that would have been invisible to me if I had not used theory to focus my attention?

First, let me say a little about Lake Hawthorne. It is located in the mountains, literally at the top of New Jersey. My great-grandfather, H. P. Dillistin, belonged to a hiking club in Paterson, NJ, and he and his friends would explore the area. One day, when he found out that he could buy the property (540 acres) for $540 dollars, he didn’t hesitate. The land was purchased and then parceled out to independent families with the number being limited to 30. This limit remain in place today.

Who knows, if behind the next turn in the road, you might find a coyote, fox, or bear. Sometimes they come visiting.

The house we live in, at the south side of the lake, was built in 1908 by my grandfather, Franklin Crosse. Except for indoor plumbing, the installation of a refrigerator to replace an “ice box,” and the electricity, the house is pretty much the way it was when my grandfather built it. Imagine the screened-in veranda facing the lake, and the creaking sound of the front porch door. The house is ten feet from the lake, so the view is both spectacular and serene. Around us is a second growth forest, which is home to a large variety of birds, including an occasional herring or bald eagle. Who knows, if behind the next turn in the road, you might find a coyote, fox, or bear. Sometimes they come visiting. The motto of Sparta, New Jersey, the township in which we are located, is very apropos: “People living with their environment.”

It has been my good fortune to have spend most of my childhood summers here, as did my son Steve and daughter-in-law Haley, who are now rearing our grandson Ben and granddaughter Sophie (five and seven), in accordance with the same kinds of traditions and activities. The common meaning of our experiences is re-enacted each year, generation after generation, so that everyone has come to take it for granted. No matter what our age, we all feel the same excitement, and know what’s in store for us, when we say: “We are going to ‘The Lake.’”

This description suffices as background materials for the coming discussion linking theory and everyday life, which I will begin to pursue next time. In particular, I will look at “the Lake” as a commons, and discuss it in terms of Brian Skyrms‘ book, The Stag Hunt (2003).

On Technorati: CCT, Georgetown, Lake Hawthorne, Skyrms

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