Suchergebnisse

Untersucht wurden politische Einstellungen der wahlberechtigten Bevölkerung (ab 16 Jahren) in Österreich. Dieser Datensatz basiert auf dem TV-Debatten-Panel zur österreichischen Nationalratswahl 2013 und ergänzt die ersten vier Wellen um zwei weitere Wellen. Die fünfte Erhebungswelle wurde anlässlich der Wahlen zum Europäischen Parlament 2014 durchgeführt, im Jahr 2015 erfolgte eine Zwischenwahlbefragung. Die Befragung wurde in insgesamt sechs Wellen vom 16.8.2013 bis 25.11.2015 mittels CAWI/interaktivem Selbstausfüller durchgeführt. In der ersten Welle wurden 3084 Respondenten mittels Quotenauswahl aus einem bereits existierenden Online-Panel rekrutiert und in den fünf Folgewellen erneut kontaktiert. Zu den Schwerpunkten aus den ersten vier Wellen, TV-Debatten und die Beurteilung von Spitzenkandidaten und -kandidatinnen, kommen die Wahlen zum Europäischen Parlament in Welle 5. Weitere Variablen umfassen u. a. politische Einstellungen; Medienkonsum; Wahrnehmung des Wahlkampfs; Wahlverhalten; Einstellungen gegenüber der freiheitlichen Partei, Muslimen und Zuwanderung. Zusätzliche Variablen erfassen demographische Informationen und technische Informationen zur Online-Befragung.

Welle 1: Politikinteresse; persönlich wichtige Politikfelder bei der
kommenden Nationalratswahl; Wahrscheinlichkeit jemals die Parteien SPÖ,
ÖVP, FPÖ, Grüne, Team Stronach und BZÖ zu wählen;
Bundeskanzlerpräferenz; Sympathie-Skalometer für die Politiker Werner
Faymann, Michael Spindelegger, Heinz-Christian Strache, Josef Bucher,
Eva Glawischnig und Frank Stronach; Beurteilung der vorgenannten
Politiker hinsichtlich ihrer Kompetenz, Ehrlichkeit, Ausstrahlung und
Durchsetzungsfähigkeit; Links-Rechts-Selbsteinstufung; Einschätzung der
Entwicklung der Zuwanderung; Veränderung im Zusammenleben von
Österreichern und Zuwanderern in den letzten drei Jahren; Veränderung
der Wirtschaftslage im Land in den letzten 3 Jahren; Beurteilung der
Wirtschaftslage in der eigenen Region im Vergleich zu anderen Regionen
in Österreich; Entwicklung der eigenen wirtschaftlichen Lage in den
letzten ein bis zwei Jahren; Meinung zu ausgewählten politischen Fragen
(Issues) (Politik soll sich aus Wirtschaft heraushalten, Politik soll
Unterschiede zwischen Einkommen ausgleichen, Kampf gegen
Arbeitslosigkeit trotz hoher Staatsschulden, Bevorzugung von Frauen bei
gleicher Qualifikation, gesetzliche Gleichstellung von
gleichgeschlechtlichen Partnerschaften mit Ehen, Gefühl der Fremdheit
aufgrund der vielen Muslime im Land, europäischer und muslimischer
Lebensstil sind vereinbar, Muslime sollten sich anpassen, Muslime haben
vom österreichischen Staat mehr bekommen als sie verdienen, Muslime
tragen Schuld an Spannungen zwischen Muslimen und Nicht-Muslimen in
Österreich, Heirat des eigenen Kindes mit Muslim wäre unangenehm,
Bereicherung der österreichischen Kultur durch Zuwanderung, Zuwanderung
nach Österreich stoppen, Autoritarismus: dankbar für führende Köpfe,
Tugenden Disziplin und Gehorsam sind veraltet, Straftäter hart
bestrafen, wichtig, auch die Rechte von Kriminellen zu schützen, Land
braucht Menschen, die sich Traditionen widersetzen und Neues
ausprobieren, junge Leute sollten sich mehr auf Werte und Traditionen
besinnen); Wahrscheinlichkeit der Teilnahme an den Nationalratswahlen
(Wahlbeteiligungsabsicht) und voraussichtliche Wahlentscheidung
(Parteipräferenz); Ausgang der Nationalratswahl noch offen oder bereits
entschieden; erwarteter Wahlsieger; Häufigkeit von Informationen über
das politische Geschehen in Österreich in den Medien (Fernsehen,
Zeitungen, Radio, Internet); Anzahl der Tage pro Woche für die Lektüre
ausgewählter Tageszeitungen, die Rezeption von ausgewählten
Online-Nachrichtenportalen und Fernsehnachrichtensendungen; registriert
in ausgewählten sozialen Netzwerken; in sozialen Netzwerken mit
österreichischen Politikern oder politischen Gruppen vernetzt;
Politiker bzw. politische Gruppen mit denen der Befragte vernetzt ist;
beabsichtigte Rezeption der TV-Debatten zur Nationalratswahl; Meinung
zu TV-Debatten; erwartetes Auftreten der jeweiligen Spitzenpolitiker
bei den TV-Debatten; Parteinähe, Parteiidentifikation und Partei;
Stärke der Parteiidentifikation; Nachbarschaft ohne Muslime bevorzugt.

Demographie: Österreichische Staatsbürgerschaft; Alter (Geburtsmonat
und Geburtsjahr bzw. Altersgruppe); Geschlecht; Bundesland; Anzahl der
Personen im Haushalt (Haushaltsgröße); Anzahl der Personen unter 18
Jahren im Haushalt; höchster Bildungsabschluss; Religionsgemeinschaft;
Selbsteinschätzung der Religiosität; Häufigkeit von
Gottesdienstbesuchen; Berufstätigkeit bzw. derzeitige Situation;
berufliche Situation; derzeitige bzw. letzte berufliche Stellung;
österreichische Staatsbürgerschaft seit Geburt; Geburtsland des
Befragten und seiner Eltern (Migrationshintergrund); andere Sprache als
Deutsch im Haushalt bzw. in der Familie; andere gesprochene Sprache
bzw. Sprachen; Gewerkschaftsmitglied; Beurteilung der
Einkommenssituation; monatliches Haushaltsnettoeinkommen;
Urbanisierungsgrad des Wohngebietes; Wohndauer im Wohngebiet.

Welle 2: Implizite Einstellung zu Muslimen Affect Misattribution
Procedure (AMP); Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber dem laufenden Wahlkampf;
Bewertung des Wahlkampfs als fair, aggressiv, langweilig bzw.
unterhaltsam; persönlich wichtige Politikfelder bei der kommenden
Nationalratswahl; Wahrscheinlichkeit jemals die Parteien SPÖ, ÖVP, FPÖ,
Grüne, Team Stronach, BZÖ und NEOS zu wählen; Bundeskanzlerpräferenz;
Sympathie-Skalometer für die Politiker Werner Faymann, Michael
Spindelegger und Heinz-Christian Strache; Beurteilung der vorgenannten
Politiker hinsichtlich ihrer Kompetenz, Ehrlichkeit, Ausstrahlung und
Durchsetzungsfähigkeit; Rezeption von ausgewählten ORF TV-Debatten
(Split A: Spindelegger versus Strache) und Rezeptionsart (z.B. während
der Ausstrahlung im Fernsehen, später über die ORF-TVthek usw.);
Rezeption der ORF TV-Debatte zwischen Michael Spindelegger und
Heinz-Christian Strache am 09.09.2013 und Rezeptionsart; Zeitumfang der
gesehenen TV-Debatte; Live-Foren oder Blogs im Internet zur TV-Debatte
zwischen Michael Spindelegger und Heinz-Christian Strache gelesen;
selbst Kommentare zur TV-Debatte verfasst bzw. gepostet; Rezeption von
Informationen über das Gespräch in ausgewählten Medien; gesehene
konkrete Fernsehsendungen, gelesene Zeitungen, Onlinemedien bzw.
Onlinezeitungen und Meinungen in sozialen Netzwerken; Beurteilung der
Berichterstattung in den jeweiligen Medien; selbst zur TV-Debatte in
sozialen Netzwerken gepostet; Gespräche über die TV-Debatte mit
Arbeitskollegen, Freunden, Partner oder anderen Familienmitgliedern;
Häufigkeit anderer Meinung als Gesprächspartner; zentrales Thema der
TV-Debatte; persönlich wichtigstes Thema der TV-Debatte; Kandidat mit
den überzeugenderen Argumenten zum Hauptthema; Beurteilung des
jeweiligen Abschneidens der beiden Kandidaten; Sieger der TV-Debatte
vom 09.09.2013; Bewertung des TV-Auftritts des jeweiligen Kandidaten in
der Berichterstattung der Medien; von den Medien als Gewinner der
TV-Debatte dargestellter Kandidat; Bewertung des TV-Auftritts von
Michael Spindelegger und Heinz-Christian Strache anhand von
Gegensatzpaaren (Polaritätsprofil, semantisches Differential); Split B:
Faymann versus Strache, TV-Debatte vom 17.09.2013: analoge Abfragen wie
vor.

Welle 3: Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber dem laufenden Wahlkampf; Bewertung
des Wahlkampfs als fair, aggressiv, langweilig bzw. unterhaltsam;
Rezeption von ausgewählten ORF TV-Debatten und Rezeptionsart (z.B.
während der Ausstrahlung im Fernsehen, später über die ORF-TVthek
usw.); Rezeption anderer TV-Formate und Fernsehsendungen zur
Nationalratswahl; persönlich wichtige Politikfelder bei der kommenden
Nationalratswahl; Veränderung im Zusammenleben von Österreichern und
Zuwanderern in den letzten drei Jahren; Veränderung der Wirtschaftslage
im Land in den letzten zwölf Monaten; Wahrscheinlichkeit jemals die
Parteien SPÖ, ÖVP, FPÖ, Grüne, Team Stronach, BZÖ und NEOS zu wählen;
psychologische Selbstcharakterisierung (Big 5: Extraversion
(zurückhaltend, reserviert, aus sich herausgehen, gesellig),
Agareeableness (leichtes Vertrauen, glaube an das Gute im Menschen,
Neigung, andere zu kritisieren), Conscientiousness (bequem, neige zur
Faulheit, gründliche Aufgabenerledigung), Neuroticism (entspannt, durch
Stress nicht aus der Ruhe bringen lassen, leicht nervös und unsicher),
Openness (wenig künstlerisches Interesse, aktive Vorstellungskraft und
phantasievoll); Bundeskanzlerpräferenz; Sympathie-Skalometer für die
Politiker Werner Faymann, Michael Spindelegger und Heinz-Christian
Strache; Beurteilung der vorgenannten Politiker hinsichtlich ihrer
Kompetenz, Ehrlichkeit, Ausstrahlung und Durchsetzungsfähigkeit;
Wahrscheinlichkeit der Teilnahme an den Nationalratswahlen
(Wahlbeteiligungsabsicht) und voraussichtliche Wahlentscheidung
(Parteipräferenz); Briefwähler: Zeitpunkt der Briefwahl und
Wahlentscheidung; Koalitionspräferenzen und
Koalitionswahrscheinlichkeit; Ausgang der Nationalratswahl noch offen
oder bereits entschieden; erwarteter Wahlsieger;
Demokratiezufriedenheit; Einstellungen zu Muslimen als Nachbarn
Crosswise Modul (CM); implizite Einstellung zur FPÖ Single Category
Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT).

Welle 4: Meinung zu ausgewählten politischen Fragen (Issues) (Politik
soll sich aus Wirtschaft heraushalten, Politik soll Unterschiede
zwischen Einkommen ausgleichen, Kampf gegen Arbeitslosigkeit trotz
hoher Staatsschulden, Bevorzugung von Frauen bei gleicher
Qualifikation, gleiche Betreuung in der Kinderkrippe wie bei Eltern
oder Großeltern; gesetzliche Gleichstellung von gleichgeschlechtlichen
Partnerschaften mit Ehen, Straftäter hart bestrafen, Gesamtschule für
alle bis 14 Jahre, Umweltschutz um jeden Preis, Bereicherung der
österreichischen Kultur durch Zuwanderung, Österreich soll streng sein
bei der Aufnahme von Asylbewerbern, Zuwanderung nach Österreich
stoppen); Wichtigkeit der vorgenannten Themen für den Befragten
persönlich; Wahlbeteiligung und Wahlentscheidung bei der letzten
Nationalratswahl; Zeitpunkt der Wahlentscheidung; persönlich wichtige
Politikfelder bei der Nationalratswahl; Einschätzung der
Wirtschaftslage in der eigenen Region im Vergleich mit
Gesamtösterreich; Veränderung der eigenen wirtschaftlichen Lage in den
letzten ein bis zwei Jahren; erwartete Veränderung des eigenen
Lebensstandards in den nächsten zehn Jahren bzw. des
Haushaltseinkommens in den nächsten zwölf Monaten;
Demokratiezufriedenheit; Split A: in den letzten drei Jahren einen
Leserbrief geschrieben, in einem Verein aktiv gewesen, den
Hauptwohnsitz gewechselt, Geld gespendet, Split B: zusätzlich: FPÖ
gewählt.

Welle 5: Implizite Einstellung zu Muslimen Affect Misattribution
Procedure (AMP); Politikinteresse; Zufriedenheit mit der
Bundesregierung aus SPÖ und ÖVP; Häufigkeit von Informationen über die
EU-Politik in ausgewählten Medien; Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber dem
Wahlkampf zur Europawahl; Bewertung des Wahlkampfs zur Europawahl als
fair, aggressiv, langweilig bzw. unterhaltsam; persönlich wichtige
Politikfelder bei der Europawahl; derzeitige Entscheidungsebene für
diese Politikfelder (lokale bzw. regionale, nationale oder europäische
Ebene); Zufriedenheit mit den politischen Entscheidungen der EU in den
letzten zwölf Monaten; Veränderung der eigenen wirtschaftlichen Lage in
den letzten ein bis zwei Jahren; Veränderung der Wirtschaftslage in
Österreich in den letzten zwölf Monaten; Parteinähe und
Parteiidentifikation; Partei und Stärke der Parteiidentifikation;
eigene Wahlbeteiligung bei der Wahl zum Europaparlament 2014; Gründe
für Nichtwahl bzw. die eigene Wahlbeteiligung; Wahlentscheidung bei
der Wahl zum Europaparlament; mehr Vorteile oder Nachteile durch die
EU-Mitgliedschaft für Österreich; Links-Rechts-Selbsteinstufung;
Zufriedenheit mit dem Ergebnis der Europawahl; EU-Mitgliedschaft
Österreichs als gute oder schlechte Sache; Meinung zur europäischen
Einigung; Einordnung der Parteien SPÖ, ÖVP, FPÖ, Grüne und NEOS zum
Thema europäische Einigung; Meinung zu ausgewählten politischen Fragen
(Issues) (Politik soll sich aus Wirtschaft heraushalten, Politik soll
Unterschiede zwischen Einkommen ausgleichen, Kampf gegen
Arbeitslosigkeit trotz hoher Staatsschulden, Bevorzugung von Frauen bei
gleicher Qualifikation, gleiche Betreuung in der Kinderkrippe wie bei
Eltern oder Großeltern; gesetzliche Gleichstellung von
gleichgeschlechtlichen Partnerschaften mit Ehen, Straftäter hart
bestrafen, Gesamtschule für alle bis 14 Jahre, Umweltschutz um jeden
Preis, Bereicherung der österreichischen Kultur durch Zuwanderung,
Österreich soll streng sein bei der Aufnahme von Asylbewerbern,
Zuwanderung nach Österreich stoppen, Vertrauen in den Euro, Euro wird
langfristig als gemeinsame Währung Bestand haben); Einschätzung der
Informiertheit über das Europäische Parlament, die österreichischen
Europaabgeordneten und über europapolitische Inhalte nach der
Europawahl; Wahrscheinlichkeit jemals die Parteien SPÖ, ÖVP, FPÖ, Grüne
und NEOS zu wählen; Meinung zu finanzieller Hilfe für andere
EU-Mitgliedsstaaten in Schwierigkeiten; Stolz Europäer bzw. Europäerin
zu sein; Nationalstolz; Demokratiezufriedenheit (Europäische Union und
Österreich); im Schulunterricht über Politik allgemein bzw. über
EU-Politik gesprochen, bei Projekt zur EU mitgemacht bzw. an einem
EU-Austauschprogramm teilgenommen; Semester oder Auslandsjahr in einem
anderen EU-Mitgliedsstaat im Rahmen von ERASMUS; bereits in einem
anderen EU-Mitgliedsstaat gelebt oder gearbeitet.

Welle 6: Politikinteresse; Demokratiezufriedenheit; Zufriedenheit mit
der Bundesregierung aus SPÖ und ÖVP; Meinung zu ausgewählten
politischen Fragen (Issues) (Politik soll sich aus Wirtschaft
heraushalten, Politik soll Unterschiede zwischen Einkommen ausgleichen,
Kampf gegen Arbeitslosigkeit trotz hoher Staatsschulden, Bevorzugung
von Frauen bei gleicher Qualifikation, gleiche Betreuung in der
Kinderkrippe wie bei Eltern oder Großeltern; gesetzliche Gleichstellung
von gleichgeschlechtlichen Partnerschaften mit Ehen, Straftäter hart
bestrafen, Gesamtschule für alle bis 14 Jahre, Umweltschutz um jeden
Preis, Bereicherung der österreichischen Kultur durch Zuwanderung,
Österreich soll streng sein bei der Aufnahme von Asylbewerbern,
Zuwanderung nach Österreich stoppen); eigene Wahlbeteiligung und
Wahlentscheidung bei der letzten Landtagswahl (Burgenland, Steiermark,
Oberösterreich bzw. Wien); Veränderung der Wirtschaftslage in
Österreich in den letzten zwölf Monaten; Experiment
Bürgermeisterbewertung: Bewertung eines Bürgermeisters, der bei
öffentlichen Aufträgen Unternehmen bevorzugt hat, die für seinen
Wahlkampf hohe Summen gespendet hatten (Split 1A: anderer
Gemeindepolitiker deckt auf (Split 1B: Bürgermeister gehört der ÖVP
an, anderer Gemeindepolitiker einer anderen Partei deckt auf, Split 1C:
Bürgermeister dieser Stadt- Gemeindepolitiker der Grünen deckt auf,
Split 1D: Bürgermeister gehört der ÖVP an, Gemeindepolitiker der Grünen
deckt auf); präferierte Partei bei der Bürgermeisterwahl; politische
Gespräche: Beziehung zu dem Gesprächspartner, Gesprächshäufigkeit;
Einschätzung des politischen Wissens dieser Personen; Häufigkeit der
Zustimmung zur Meinung dieser Person; vermutete Wahlentscheidung dieser
Personen bei der letzten Nationalratswahl 2013; Einstellung zu
Migranten, Flüchtlingen und Asylbewerbern (Migranten nehmen
Österreichern die Jobs weg, Migranten soll geholfen werden, keine
finanzielle Unterstützung für Flüchtlinge, Flüchtlinge werden in ihrem
Heimatland verfolgt, keine Arbeitserlaubnis für Asylbewerber in
Österreich, Familiennachzug für anerkannte Asylbewerber);
Links-Rechts-Selbsteinstufung; Sicherheit dieser Selbsteinstufung;
Wahrscheinlichkeit jemals die Parteien SPÖ, ÖVP, FPÖ, NEOS, Grüne und
Team Stronach zu wählen; Experiment zur Links-Rechts-Einstufung von
fiktiven Parteien aufgrund ihrer Position zu Lohnsteuersenkungen für
Besserverdiener bzw. Geringverdiener; Links-Rechts Parteipräferenz;
Selbsteinschätzung der Risikobereitschaft; persönlich wichtige
Politikfelder; voraussichtliche Wahlentscheidung bei der
Nationalratswahl (Sonntagsfrage); Stolz Europäer bzw. Europäerin zu
sein; Nationalstolz; Stolz Burgenländer, Steirer, Oberösterreicher bzw.
Wiener zu sein; Einschätzung der Wahrscheinlichkeit ausgewählter
Verschwörungstheorien im Hinblick auf die Finanzkrise, Handystrahlung,
Zuwanderung, Versprühen chemischer Substanzen (Chemtrails) und den
Flugzeugabsturz in der Ukraine; Einschätzung der Anzahl von Politikern
in Österreich, die ehrlich zu den Wählern sind bzw. die versuchen viel
für sich herauszuholen; in sozialen Netzwerken registriert; Häufigkeit
der Nutzung sozialer Netzwerke für ausgewählte Aktivitäten;
Konsumverhalten: Häufigkeit des Boykotts bzw. des Kaufs bestimmter
Produkte aus politischen oder moralischen Gründen; Häufigkeit
politischer Partizipation (Geldspenden für wohltätige Zwecke,
Beteiligung an Unterschriftensammlung, Politiker kontaktiert);
Informationshäufigkeit über das politische Geschehen in ausgewählten
Medien (Fernsehen, Zeitungen, Radio, Internet); Anzahl der Tage pro
Woche für die Rezeption ausgewählter Tageszeitungen, Online-Medien und
Fernsehsendungen; Einschätzung dieser Medien hinsichtlich der
Parteilichkeit in ihrer Berichterstattung; subjektive Einschätzung
welche Parteien begünstigt werden; Vertrauen in ausgewählte Medien
bezüglich der Informationen in der politischen Berichterstattung;
Meinung zu ausgewählten Aussagen zum Thema Medien: österreichischen
Medien arbeiten sorgfältig, sind parteiisch, kann österreichischen
Medien vertrauen, kann österreichischen Parteien vertrauen, mehr
Vertrauen in Informationen aus Facebook oder Twitter, gut über
politisches Geschehen in Österreich informiert, Freunde informieren
über das Wichtigste, kann gut informiert sein, ohne aktiv die
Nachrichten zu verfolgen, Nachrichten erreichen mich sowieso);
Experiment zur Zuwanderung mit unterschiedlichen Bild Stimuli (Split 3A
Treatment 1 Xenophobie, Split 3B Treatment 2 Parteisympathie, Split 3C
Treatment 3 Kontrollgruppe: Geschätzter Anteil Zuwanderer pro 100
Einwohner in Österreich; Einschätzung der Entwicklung der Zuwanderung
nach Österreich während der letzten zwölf Monate; implizite
Einstellung zu Immigranten Single Category Implicit Association Test
(SC-IAT).

Demografie Welle 6: Region; höchster Bildungsabschluss, derzeitige
Situation bzw. berufliche Situation; Haushaltsnettoeinkommen.

Zusätzlich verkodet wurde: Status Welle 6: Befragter hat das Interview
komplett durchgeführt.

Zusätzlich verkodet wurde: Browser Informationen (ID, User Agent
String, Version); Flash Version; Hardware/Gerätetyp; Operating System
ID und Browser Version; Nutzung von Smartphone oder Tablet;
Befragten-ID; Panel-ID; Interviewbeginn und Interviewende Wellen 1 bis
6; Welle 2 Split-ID; Wellen-Kennung Wellen 1 bis 6.

Cellular networks have witnessed phenomenal traffic growth recently fueled by new high speed broadband cellular access technologies. This growth is in large part driven by the emergence of the HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) as a new video delivery method. In HAS, several qualities of the same videos are made available in the network so that clients can choose the quality that best fits their bandwidth capacity. This strongly impacts the viewing pattern of the clients, their switching behavior between video qualities, and thus beyond on content delivery systems.Our first contribution consists in providing an analysis of a real HAS dataset collected in France and provided by the largest French mobile operator. Firstly, we analyze and model the viewing patterns of VoD and live streaming HAS sessions and we propose a new cache replacement strategy, named WA-LRU. WA-LRU leverages the time locality of video segments within the HAS content. We show that WA-LRU improves the cache hit-ratio mostly at the loading phase while it reduces significantly the processing overhead at the cache.In our second contribution, we analyze and model the adaptation logic between the video qualities based on empirical observations. We show that high switching behaviors lead to sub optimal caching performance, since several versions of the same content compete to be cached. In this context we investigate the benefits of a Cache Friendly HAS system (CF-DASH) which aims at improving the caching efficiency in mobile networks and to sustain the quality of experience of mobile clients. We evaluate CF-dash based on trace-driven simulations and test-bed experiments. Our validation results are promising. Simulations on real HAS traffic show that we achieve a significant gain in hit-ratio that ranges from 15% up to 50%.In the second part of this thesis, we investigate the mobile video prefetching opportunities. Online media services are reshaping the way video content is watched. People with similar interests tend to request same content. This provides enormous potential to predict which content users are interested in. Besides, mobile devices are commonly used to watch videos which popularity is largely driven by their social success. We design a system, named "Central Predictor System (CPsys)", which aims at predicting and prefetching relevant content for each mobile client. To fine tune our prefetching system, we rely on a large dataset collected from a large mobile carrier in Europe. The rationale of our prefetching strategy is first to form a graph and build implicit or explicit ties between similar users. On top of this graph, we propose the Most Popular and Most Recent (MPMR) policy to predict relevant videos for each user. We show that CPSys can achieve high performance as regards prediction correctness and network utilization efficiency. We further show that CPSys outperforms other prefetching schemes from the state of the art. At the end, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation of our prefetching system. ; Les réseaux cellulaires ont connu une croissance phénoménale du trafic alimentée par les nouvelles technologies d'accès cellulaire à large bande. Cette croissance est tirée en grande partie par le trafic HTTP adaptatif streaming (HAS) comme une nouvelle technique de diffu- sion de contenus audiovisuel. Le principe du HAS est de rendre disponible plusieurs qualités de la même vidéo en ligne et que les clients choisissent la meilleure qualité qui correspond à leur bande passante. Chaque niveau d'encodage est segmenté en des petits vidéos qu'on appelle segments ou chunks et dont la durée varie entre 2 à 10 secondes. L'émergence du HAS a introduit des nouvelles contraintes sur les systèmes de livraison des contenus vidéo en particulier sur les systèmes de cache. Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à l'étude de cet impact et à proposer des algorithmes et des solutions qui optimisent les fonctionnalités de ces systèmes. D'autre part, la consommation des contenus est fortement impactée par les nouvelles technologies du Web2.0 tel que l'émergence des réseaux sociaux. Dans cette thèse, nous exploitons les réseaux sociaux afin de proposer un service de préchargement des contenus VoD sur terminaux mobiles. Notre solution permet l'amélioration de la QoE des utilisateurs et permet de bien gérer les ressources réseaux mobile.Nous listons nos contributions comme suit :Notre première contribution consiste à mener une analyse détaillée des données sur un trafic HAS réel collecté en France et fournie par le plus grand opérateur de téléphonie mobile du pays. Tout d'abord, nous analysons et modélisons le comportement des clients qui demandent des contenus catch-up et live. Nous constatons que le nombre de requêtes par segment suit deux types de distribution : La loi log-normal pour modéliser les 40 premiers chunks par session de streaming, ensuite on observe une queue qui peut être modélisé par la loi de Pareto. Cette observation suggère que les clients ne consomment pas la totalité du contenu catch-up. On montre par simulation que si le cache implémente des logiques de caching qui ne tiennent pas en compte les caractéristiques des flux HAS, sa performance diminuerait considérablement.Dans ce contexte, nous proposons un nouvel algorithme de remplacement des contenus que nous appelons Workload Aware-LRU (WA-LRU). WA-LRU permet d'améliorer la performance des systèmes de cache en augmentant le Hit-Ratio en particulier pour les premiers segments et en diminuant le temps requis pour la mise à jour de la liste des objets cachés. En fonction de la capacité du cache et de la charge du trafic dans le réseau, WA-LRU estime un seuil sur le rang du segment à cacher. Si le rang du chunk demandé dépasse ce seuil, le chunk ne sera pas caché sinon il sera caché. Comme WA-LRU dépend de la charge du trafic dans le réseau, cela suppose que le seuil choisit par WA-LRU est dynamique sur la journée. WA-LRU est plus agressif pendant les heures chargées (i.e. il cache moins de chunks, ceux qui sont les plus demandés) que pendant les heures creuses où le réseau est moins chargé.Dans notre deuxième contribution, nous étudions plus en détail les facteurs qui poussent les clients HAS à changer de qualité lors d'une session vidéo. Nous modélisons également ce changement de qualité en se basant sur des données empiriques provenant de notre trace de trafic. Au niveau du cache, nous montrons que le changement fréquent de qualité crée une compétition entre les différents profiles d'encodages. Cela réduit les performances du système de cache. Dans ce contexte, nous proposons Cache Friendly-DASH (CF-DASH), une implémentation d'un player HAS compatible avec le standard DASH, qui assure une meilleure stabilité du player. Nous montrons à travers des simulations et des expérimentations que CF- DASH améliore expérience client et permet aussi d'atteindre un gain significatif du hit-ratio qui peut varier entre 15% à 50%.Dans la deuxième partie de cette thèse, nous proposons un système de préchargement de contenus vidéos sur terminaux mobile. La consommation des contenus vidéo en ligne est fortement impactée par les nouvelles technologies du Web2.0 et les réseaux sociaux. Les personnes qui partagent des intérêts similaires ont tendance à demander le même contenu. Cela permet de prédire le comportement des clients et identifier les contenus qui peuvent les intéresser. Par ailleurs, les smartphones et tablettes sont de plus en plus adaptés pour visionner des vidéos et assurer une meilleure qualité d'expérience. Dans cette thèse, nous concevons un système qu'on appelle CPSys (Central Predictor System) permettant d'identifier les vidéos les plus pertinentes pour chaque utilisateur. Pour bien paramétrer notre système de préchargement, nous analysons des traces de trafic de type User Generated Videos (UGC). En particulier, nous analysons la popularité des contenus YouTube et Facebook, ainsi que l'évolution de la popularité des contenus en fonction du temps. Nous observons que 10% des requêtes se font sur une fenêtre de temps d'une heure après avoir mis les vidéos en ligne et 40% des requêtes se font sur une fenêtre de temps de un jour. On présente aussi des analyses sur le comportement des clients. On observe que la consommation des contenus vidéo varie significativement entre les clients mobiles. On distingue 2 types de clients :• les grands consommateurs : Ils forment une minorité mais consomment plusieurs vidéos sur une journée.• lespetitsconsommateurs:Ilsformentlamajoritédesclientsmaisconsommentquelques vidéos par jour voir sur une période plus longue.On s'appuyant sur ces observations, notre système de préchargement adapte le mode de pré- chargement selon le profil utilisateur qui est déduit à partir de l'historique de la consommation de chaque client.Dans un premier temps, CPSys crée un graphe regroupant les utilisateurs qui sont similaires. Le graphe peut être soit explicite (type Facebook) ou implicite qui est construit à la base des techniques de colllaborative filtering dérivés des systèmes de recommandations. Une fois le graphe est créé, nous proposons la politique Most Popular Most Recent (MPMR) qui permet d'inférer quel contenu doit-on précharger pour chaque utilisateur. MPMR trie les vidéos candidats selon la popularité locale du contenu définit comme le nombre de vues effectués par les voisins les plus similaires, ensuite MPMR donne la priorité aux contenus les plus frais. Nous montrons que CPSys peut atteindre des performances élevées par rapport à d'autres techniques présentées dans l'état de l'art. CPSys améliore la qualité de la prédiction et réduit d'une manière significative le trafic réseau.Finalement, nous développons une preuve de concept de notre système de préchargement.

E-COMMUNICATION AND DIGITAL CONTENTS IN THE XXI CENTURY ART MUSEUMS Resumen:El artículo busca mostrar las nuevas maneras de operar y los tipos de relación con los públicos que han generado las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la web 2.0 en tres museos de arte ubicados en Madrid. El artículo parte con una reflexión teórica sobre la cultura y la comunicación digital hasta ejemplificar de qué manera los museos han hecho uso y han aprovechado estas nuevas posibilidades para sus fines didácticos y de comunicación. Palabras clave: Cultura digital, comunicación, web 2.0, TIC, museos de arte. Abstract:This article aims to show the operation processes and types of relationships with the public that have been generated by the new information technologies and the web 2.0 in three art museums located in Madrid. The article starts with a theorical reflection about culture and digital communication until it exemplifies the way in which museums have made use of this possibilities for their didactic purposes and communication strategies. Keywords: Digital culture, communication, web 2.0, TIC, art museums * * * * * 1. Cultura digital y nuevas tecnologías Las sociedades actuales están caracterizadas por los cambios acelerados, la globalización, las migraciones, los problemas ambientales, los avances tecnológicos, las nuevas dinámicas de comunicación, las nuevas maneras de relacionarse. Estas sociedades contemporáneas, en los últimos años han pasado a conocerse como "aldeas globales", y se han convertido en contextos cambiantes, condicionadas por trasformaciones que generan nuevas necesidades y exigen diferentes maneras de operar. En este marco, surge un nuevo paradigma: las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, en donde se desarrollan otras maneras de acceso a la información dando paso a un nuevo tipo de comunicación: la cultura digital. La cultura digital es entendida como una nueva forma de relacionarse y generar conocimiento. Hugo Lewin (2014), señala que nos encontramos en la era de la comunicación digital o e-comunicación, en donde la cultura digital se posiciona en un espacio de intercambios simbólicos y el usuario se convierte en el eje de la comunicación. La cultura digital ofrece plataformas en donde la interrelación es participativa, los usuarios no solo consumen información sino que contribuyen a la construcción de la misma. Estas plataformas se han convertido es un espacio importante para el diálogo ya que "[…] presentan poderosos espacios en red para la (re)construcción de la vida social, en la cual las motivaciones sociales, políticas y culturales prevalecen frente a otras basadas en el mercado". (Aleksandra Uzelac, 2014:32). Las nuevas tecnologías han impactado notablemente en el estilo de vida de las personas, ampliando las maneras para acercarse a la información. El ámbito digital ha permitido acceder a la gente más fácilmente a la cultura, educación, salud, etc., convirtiéndose en un medio para relacionarse entre las personas y el mundo, facilitando las posibilidades de acceso a distintos ámbitos que hasta el momento no estaban disponibles para todos. Marco Urresti (2014), en su artículo "La comunicación digital y las políticas del Estado como intervención cultural", explica, refiriéndose a la cultura digital, que la realidad social actual está compuesta de circuitos informativos contenedores de mensajes para transmitir órdenes y disposiciones. Estos circuitos se convierten en recursos fundamentales para el funcionamiento de las distintas instancias que componen la realidad. Por otro lado, destaca el importante rol que han adquirido las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en el entorno digital para la gestión de cualquier institución, ya que además del alcance que tienen, acortan las distancias territoriales, ahorran tiempo de trabajo, maximizan el rendimiento de las fuerzas productivas y abaratan costos. La cultura digital e internet han modificado los modos de comunicación entre las personas y las formas de acceso a la información, convirtiéndose en un importante medio de difusión de contenidos. Sin embargo, es importante mencionar que para el acceso y uso de toda la sociedad de estas herramientas es necesario poner en marcha políticas públicas para la creación de infraestructuras para el acceso y formación de las tecnologías para todos los sectores de la sociedad. La cultura digital puede estar orientada a ser un espacio de comunicación activo y participativo. Como señala Insa Alba (2009), para explotar todas las posibilidades que ofrecen las nuevas tecnologías es necesario implementar cuatro acciones para el desarrollo de las políticas de cultura digital: - La experimentación, para posibilitar a los creadores y agentes el acceso a las prácticas artísticas colectivas. - La producción discursiva, relacionada con creadores, gestores, público, (es necesario lograr una interacción entre todos, para mejorar la comprensión de los fenómenos y procesos artísticos). - La gestión a través de plataformas y redes para aumentar la participación de los públicos. - La divulgación tecnodigital, fundamentada sobre modelos de pensamiento crítico. En este sentido, visto el alcance de las nuevas tecnologías e internet a la hora de orientar gustos, opciones y valores, es importante recalcar el aporte de estos instrumentos como medio para la difusión de la diversidad cultural y el fomento del diálogo intercultural. Para fomentar la diversidad cultural en los contenidos digitales, según el informe de la UNESCO "Comunicación y contenidos digitales. Invertir en la diversidad cultural y en el diálogo intercultural", es necesario promover políticas que contribuyan al fomento del pluralismo y la libre circulación de ideas, aprovechando las posibilidades que ofrecen los nuevos medios y la participación de los usuarios. Así, es importante comprender que: Internet tiene potencial para apoyar la democracia comunicacional por medio de una serie de iniciativas culturales innovadoras que eluden las fuentes de información predominantes: el fomento de la identidad en el seno de las diásporas, el apoyo a estructuras que defienden los intereses de culturas minoritarias, comunidades en línea, grupos militantes y personas con intereses culturales comunes. (UNESCO, 2009:20) Este nuevo marco tecnológico no ha sido ajeno al mundo de la cultura que ha reconocido el impacto positivo de las nuevas tendencias de comunicación y se han ido adaptando a los nuevos códigos y hábitos de consumo en la red, aprovechando de esta manera la oportunidad para difundir sus contenidos, la información cultural, aumentar la participación del público en sus actividades y crear nuevas audiencias, otorgando a las nuevas tecnologías un papel importante en los procesos de producción y consumo cultural. Los contenidos digitales pueden contribuir a la diversidad cultural, para esto es necesario producir contenidos innovadores para garantizar la integración de la diversidad cultural en el sector cultural, ampliar el acceso y fomentar nuevas estrategias tanto de información como de comunicación y por último, obtener una representación equilibrada de las distintas partes de la sociedad. (UNESCO, 2014) La cultura digital e internet han ofrecido a las instituciones culturales la posibilidad de actuar como plataformas en donde los procesos de experimentación y producción son participativos, dando de esta manera la posibilidad de construir cultura de una manera colectiva. Insa Alba (2009), afirma que el verdadero reto de los gestores culturales al enfrentarse a la cultura digital consiste en "despertar una sensibilidad estética que desconecte para conectar" y tener la capacidad de transformar el espacio virtual a un espacio de aprendizaje y comunicación activo. Estas nuevas tecnologías además de haber cambiado la manera tradicional en que la cultura incide en la organización social y la experiencia artística, han sacado a la luz "[…] nuevos elementos de debate sobre aspectos que han estado en el centro de la definición de las políticas culturales contemporáneas, como son el acceso a la cultura y la participación cultural de la ciudadanía, los derechos culturales o la relación entre cultura, economía y sociedad". (Martínez, 2004: 3) Las instituciones culturales han tenido que adaptarse a este cambio de escenario, -resultado del desarrollo de las nuevas tecnologías y la cultura digital-, y han ido incorporando nuevas estrategias institucionales intentando establecer un diálogo con los nuevos públicos y de esta manera responder a este nuevo paradigma. Este hecho se ha visto en una serie de acciones reflejadas en estrategias de participación, promoción, comunicación y difusión de actividades culturales o contenidos como son: la edición y publicación de páginas web, las redes sociales, los blogs, chats, listas de correo, el streaming, las visitas virtuales a colecciones y bibliotecas, las convocatorias para proyectos artísticos en red, los dispositivos móviles, las apps, el crowdfunding, entre otros, todos esos instrumentos brindan la posibilidad de interacción y ofrecen la posibilidad de acrecentar la experiencia del visitante y cubrir las necesidades del público contemporáneo. Hugo Lewin (2014) se refiere a cinco aspectos propuestos por Carlos Scolari que conforman la nueva comunicación: la digitalización de los productos culturales, la multimedialidad donde conviven en un mismo soporte medios y lenguajes, la navegación hipertextual, la reticularidad, es decir, una configuración muchos-a-muchos y por último a interactividad. Desde hace varias décadas, se ha visto una evolución de enfoques en el ámbito museológico. Los museos a lo largo de la historia se han ido adaptando a su entorno y este fenómeno no es ajeno a los nuevos contextos de la era digital. A partir de la década de los noventa, el museo se ha ido integrado al mundo digital y ha ido incorporado la tecnología como herramienta para cumplir sus objetivos de comunicación, difusión y acceso a sus contenidos a través de una serie de estrategias digitales. Las demandas del público contemporáneo han exigido a los museos generar nuevas identidades e integrarse al mundo global. En la actualidad, las nuevas tecnologías, internet y la web 2.0 han supuesto un cambio de paradigma dentro del ámbito museístico, los museos han incorporado estas nuevas estrategias virtuales y se han ido apoyando en plataformas de la web 2.0 como: flickr, youtube, vimeo, facebook, twitter, entre otros, para acceder más fácilmente al público, de esta manera asegurar una participación más activa y ofrecer una experiencia complementaria a la visita física. Las páginas web interactivas, las pantallas tecnológicas táctiles, la geolocalización, la realidad aumentada, los códigos QR, los podcast, las redes sociales, la digitalización de documentos, el crowdfunding, son estrategias que han conseguido que el museo traspase sus muros, convirtiéndolo en un lugar más social y dinámico. Con la innovación tecnológica y la web 2.0 las posibilidades de comunicación y de difusión del museo se multiplican, así como la participación del público para la interacción y la construcción de contenidos, en este sentido, la web 2.0 da la posibilidad al público además de la participación directa, generar información y ser parte del proceso informativo. Debido al alcance global y social de estas herramientas se han convertido en un medio fundamental para la comunicación, difusión de los contenidos y la participación de los públicos en los museos. Como explica Lewin: "los sistemas de comunicación actuales van más allá; aumentan la interconexión entre los usuarios y las posibilidades de modificar los objetos culturales". (2014:125) Las redes sociales reportan una serie de ventajas al sector cultural, permiten la participación directa de la sociedad civil y generan intercambios de contenidos, las instituciones culturales a través de las redes sociales pueden conocer mejor a sus usuarios, interactuar con ellos y a través de esta relación se puede obtener evaluaciones de su gestión, opiniones de las actividades propuestas, además se pueden obtener estadísticas. Las redes sociales son un tipo de marketing eficaz y mucho más económico que el tradicional, la información nos llega filtrada y a través de un "marketing de recomendación", tienen gran capacidad de convocatoria y movilización, contribuyen a una participación más accesible, incluso se han convertido en fuentes de financiación y micro-mecenazgo. El mantenimiento habitual de las redes sociales es una tarea fundamental, es importante crear una plataforma interactiva, novedosa y cercana con los usuarios para garantizar el éxito de las mismas. Uno de los problemas fundamentales a los que se enfrentan las instituciones culturales es la falta de asistencia del sector juvenil a sus actividades, en ese sentido, las redes sociales en la red constituyen una importante herramienta para atraer a las nuevas generaciones a los espacios culturales. Los museos se han ido adaptando paulatinamente a los cambios propuestos por la cultura digital e internet, varios de los museos más representativos del mundo han ido integrando la tecnología y los dispositivos para la difusión de sus contenidos. Además, han apostado por la creación de entornos de experiencia centrados en el público, direccionando su acción de acuerdo a los nuevos retos que requieren las nuevas tecnologías y las nuevas necesidades de los usuarios y públicos. Uno de los objetivos fundamentales de los museos es acercar sus contenidos a la sociedad, en ese sentido, la comunicación y difusión en el museo tiene una función primordial. Los museos en la actualidad enfocan la comunicación como parte principal en su estrategia organizativa, ellos han ido incorporando las nuevas tecnologías, internet y los nuevos modelos de relaciones para mejorar y lograr una comunicación directa con los públicos. Adaptarse a estos cambios no ha sido una tarea fácil, sin embargo; ya se han visto resultados positivos de los procesos de creación de comunidades culturales en los museos más representativos en el mundo, a través de redes como facebook, twiter, o youtube y de la incorporación de las nuevas tecnologías para la difusión de los contenidos del museo y el enriquecimiento de la visita del público. La razón fundamental para utilizar las redes sociales como estrategia comunicativa en los museos consiste en crear comunidades para compartir experiencias culturales y artísticas, como resultado de este proceso de interacción se pueden obtener "[…] dos efectos inmediatos: por una parte, compromiso y cercanía (engagement en la terminología del marketing) y por otra, difusión, más allá de lo que otros medios de comunicación son capaces de conseguir y a mucho menor precio". (De la Peña:2014:103). 1.1 Museos de arte, nuevas tecnologías y web 2.0 El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Reina Sofía (MNCARS)[1] de Madrid constituye uno de los ejemplos paradigmáticos en cuanto a buenas prácticas en el uso los nuevos contenidos digitales, la estrategia de comunicación propuesta para las redes sociales y el uso de su página web como plataforma de distribución de los contenidos del Museo. El Museo Reina Sofía en lo que tiene que ver con el uso de las nuevas tecnologías y la presencia en la red ha planteado a través del Plan General de actuación 2014-2017, los siguientes objetivos y proyectos: - Dinamizar el diálogo entre el Museo y sus públicos a través de las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones, a través de la investigación y desarrollo de aplicaciones (apps) para dispositivos móviles y otras tecnologías de comunicación, que ofrezcan acceso a contenidos del Museo y el aumento de la presencia del Museo en las redes sociales y de su capacidad de interacción y expansión, desarrollo de programas online, web, y otras herramientas digitales. - Fomentar la edición y distribución digital de las publicaciones para ampliar y facilitar su difusión. - Desarrollar un programa de acción educativa para los diversos públicos con discapacidad, y mejora de la accesibilidad teniendo en cuenta los nuevos recursos tecnológicos. El Museo desde el 2004 con la aparición de las redes sociales ha buscado diversificar su acción online y responder a las necesidades de los usuarios y los nuevos públicos, obteniendo resultados positivos, en primer lugar ha logrado crear una potente comunidad en la red y en segundo lugar ha logrado un importante acercamiento e interacción con el público. Para el contacto en red con los usuarios el Museo utiliza las redes de facebook y twiter, a través de su cuenta propone las distintas actividades que organiza el museo, como inauguraciones de exposiciones, información sobre talleres, las conferencias se suelen transmitir en directo a través de twiter, de esta manera ofrece la posibilidad de producir un feedback entre el conferenciante, el público virtual y presencial. La cuenta de facebook del Museo, es una página activa, en donde se ofrece información y se debate sobre la actividad del Museo, la comunidad es participativa y se percibe una constante interrelación entre el público y la institución. La página cuenta con más de 37.000 seguidores. Además, el Museo usa las plataformas de twiter, delicious y flircks. Los nuevos canales de comunicación del museo han conseguido cubrir sus propósitos logrando establecer una plataforma virtual en donde convergen la comunicación y la participación activa del público. Esta comunicación interactiva y cercana se convierte en una ventaja para el Museo ya que el aporte de "Los nuevos sistemas de recomendación de contenidos culturales basados en la satisfacción real de anteriores visitas permitirán a los gestores culturales recomendar visitas de forma muy personalizada ya que conocerán las afinidades reales de sus clientes, así como el grado de satisfacción de las mismas". (Dosdoce.com Museos en la era digital, 2013:4) El Museo del Prado de Madrid[2] en su Plan estratégico 2013-2016, cuenta con el apartado "Prado online" en donde se proponen los lineamientos para el desarrollo de los recursos web y de los canales digitales del Museo. El Plan propone las líneas de actuación para el desarrollo de los canales y plataformas digitales para el cumplimiento de los siguientes objetivos: incrementar el conocimiento sobre la Colección y las actividades del Museo a través de internet; optimizar y facilitar el acceso online a contenidos e información sobre el Museo independientemente del lugar, dispositivo y plataforma de acceso y crear comunidad a través de las redes sociales participando en el diálogo actual sobre arte y museos. Las líneas de actuación se ejecutarán a partir de tres programas: el primero es el "Prado Web", consiste en incrementar el acceso, utilidad y conocimiento de la colección a través de su página web, para esto propone un nuevo diseño, estructura y funcionalidad de la página web a través de la reestructuración y ampliación de los contenidos del canal y la actualización tecnológica, otra propuesta dentro de este programa es la creación del nuevo website del canal Prado database por el cual se podrán acceder al catálogo actualizado y completo de la base de datos documentales de la colección del Museo; el segundo programa es el "Prado mobile" que tiene como objetivo la ampliación de la disponibilidad on line para el visitante y el usuario de contenidos multimedia. Una de las acciones prioritarias en este programa consiste en la creación de un programa para el desarrollo de las apps específicas para diferentes usos y públicos, diversos dispositivos y plataformas, el último programa propuesto es el "Prado. Redes Sociales", el programa tiene el objetivo de ampliar la presencia del museo en las redes sociales para ampliar la comunicación, cooperación e interacción del museo con los usuarios e instituciones interesadas. El Museo propone un plan de coordinación de las actividades de las distintas áreas del museo para los gestores de las redes sociales orientado a la difusión diaria de la actividad y los contenidos científicos y educativos de la institución y para promover la implicación de los usuarios con la institución por medio de concursos, encuentros on line, etc. Por último, el Museo del Prado hace la evaluación constante de la pertinencia en el uso de las redes sociales, el perfeccionamiento de las estrategias de comunicación on line y el monitoreo de las nuevas tendencias en redes sociales. El Museo del Prado tiene un apartado en su página web para el acceso directo a las páginas de las redes de facebook, twiter, instagran, pinterest, spotify y los canales rrss desde donde destaca las noticias más relevantes de las redes. De la Peña, explica en su artículo la importancia de las redes sociales para crear, financiar, impulsar y dar futuro a la cultura, al mismo tiempo señala sobre la creación de la cultura en las sociedades actuales que: La creación cultural ha de diseñarse tomando en cuenta esta nueva realidad, sabiendo que existe una cultura digital en la que confluir para encontrarse con su público más activo. Hay que abrir la cultura a esta nueva cultura digital y al mismo tiempo aprovechar lo que puede aportar y el ahorro que puede suponer en todo lo que suponga difusión. Hacerlo bien precisa de estrategia, de objetivos claros y de medición constante. (De la Peña, 2014:104). En cuanto a los contenidos digitales el Prado cuenta con la página web que potencia la interactividad directa y participativa con los usuarios y permite abarcar la actividad educativa, investigativa y científica el Museo, las aplicaciones para teléfonos celulares y tablets: La guía del Prado que proporciona información acerca de los contenidos del Museo y fomenta la interacividad. "Second cavas" que ofrece un estudio detallado de 14 obras en formato gigapixel de la colección del Museo, además ofrece radiografías e infrarrojos de los cuadros. Por último, tenemos a la aplicación "Photo Prado" es una aplicación de realidad aumentada que permite la realización de fotografías, el dispositivo reconoce puntos específicos y se crea una foto entre los visitantes y las obras, superando de esta manera los límites del Museo. Como hemos visto, además de las redes sociales los Museos se han decantado por incorporar a su estrategia de comunicación y educación las aplicaciones digitales para los dispositivos móviles conocidas como las "apps", disponibles por lo general para los smartphones y las tablets. Estos recursos se han convertido en una de las tendencias más importantes dentro de la comunicación y difusión del museo debido a las posibilidades que ofrecen para enriquecer la visita del público y por la facilidad que brindan para acceder a los contenidos desde cualquier parte del mundo. En los últimos años los museos se han ido posicionando como importantes espacios de cultura y aprendizaje, son espacios en los que han surgido proyectos que han significado verdaderas revoluciones didácticas. El área educativa de los Museos no ha desaprovechado la oportunidad que ofrecen los recursos digitales y la web, han surgido varios propuestas didácticas on line aportando varios proyectos educativos innovadores. Una iniciativa interesante para atraer la atención de los nuevos públicos de la red es a través de la gamificación, este es un recurso que toma los planteamientos de los juegos para involucrar a los usuarios, varios museos han realizado esta práctica con éxito, algunos de ellos han compartido los juegos en las redes sociales para acrecentar la difusión de la colección o las exposiciones temporales, el crecimiento de la comunidad y aumentar de interés de los "fans" por el mundo del arte. Existen varias propuestas del uso de este recurso en los museos españoles, el Museo del Prado cuenta con la sección llamada "Mi Prado", en este canal se pueden diseñar recorridos temáticos potenciado las cualidades curatoriales de los usuarios, de la misma manera están disponibles juegos que tienen el propósito de presentar las obras de colección a los usuarios a través de técnicas lúdicas. El Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza[3] de Madrid ha realizado una verdadera innovación tecnológica experimentando nuevas formas de transmitir conocimiento a través de las diferentes posibilidades que aportan las nuevas tecnologías e incorporado los recursos de la red y de la web 2.0 con fines educativos. En este sentido el Museo ha propuesto un programa de educación conocido como Educathyssen, es un proyecto del área de educación que cuenta con su propio espacio virtual, y a su vez está conectado con la página web principal. En esta página encontraremos los diferentes programas educativos y las acciones de apoyo interpretativo, divulgativo y de mediación entre el público y el Museo. El programa debido a su carácter innovador se ha convertido en uno de los referentes metodológicos en educación a nivel Iberoamericano. Educathyssen.org[4], es un portal que usa las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación como recurso educativo, está concebido como un espacio de reflexión y encuentro para el aprendizaje, el disfrute del arte y el intercambio del conocimiento de los contenidos del Museo a través de las nuevas tecnologías y las posibilidades que ofrece la red y los diferentes canales. En esta página web, que en si constituye un recurso didáctico, encontramos varios proyectos educativos que usan las tecnologías de la información y comunicación como medio y herramienta de apoyo para el aprendizaje, como son los juegos y los videos educativos e informativos. Dentro del área de los juegos tenemos a uno de los más importantes proyectos de la estrategia digital propuesta por el área de educación, se trata de Nubla, es un juego estudiado y cuidado metodológicamente por especialistas, con el propósito de desarrollar acciones educativas en torno a la tecnología y los videojuegos. El videojuego es un laboratorio de innovación que tiene el objetivo de potenciar la creatividad de los usuarios por medio del arte y de acercarlos al Museo a través de la tecnología. El juego consiste en descubrir el pasado y la relación con las obras de arte, de un personaje que vive en el interior de los cuadros a través de diferentes rompecabezas. Estos rompecabezas tienen que ver con conceptos como el arte, la conservación, en un contexto de diferentes disciplinas. El juego ha sido diseñado por un equipo multidisciplinar de jóvenes programadores, diseñadores, ilustradores, historiadores, entre otros. Cuenta con disponibilidad además de la web, para dispositivos móviles con apps compatibles para tablets y smartphones. Como recursos educativos, además del área de juegos podemos encontrar propuestas como: Viaje al Oeste, es un viaje interactivo protagonizado por pintores amantes de la aventura, especialmente los norteamericanos del siglo XIX, es una experiencia que a través de los relatos de los artistas nos permite conocer sus biografías y los mapas de contexto. Experiment now!, a través de la participación lúdica de los participantes da a conocer las obras más importantes del Museo y las exposiciones temporales a través de un punto de vista didáctico. Publicaciones educativas "Quiosco Thyssen", son publicaciones digitales con carácter educativo. Itinerarios artísticos: son cuatro itinerarios propuestos para conocer la evolución del espacio en la pintura y la historia de las técnicas artísticas. En cuanto a los recursos de la web 2.0 para la comunicación y difusión de las actividades, el Museo cuenta con un canal en youtube donde publica toda la información de las actividades en formato video, el registro fotográfico de todas las actividades del Museo se puede encontrar en la cuenta de flickr, la presencia en las redes sociales y en la web 2.0 la encontramos en el perfil de twiter y la cuenta de facebook, que es usada con carácter sobretodo informativo. Todos estos canales han tenido gran aceptación y cuentan con un número importante de participación en Iberoamérica. Como hemos visto, la cultura digital y las nuevas tecnologías ofrecen numerosas posibilidades para enriquecer la comunicación, la investigación y la educación en un museo. Los resultados de la investigación del equipo de Dosdoce.com realizado en el año 2013, "Los Museos en la era digital. Uso de nuevas tecnologías Antes, Durante y Después de visitar un museo, centro cultural o galería de arte", muestran que existe un alto porcentaje de acceso por parte del público a las redes sociales y a los dispositivos móviles antes de la exposición, sin embargo; el nivel va disminuyendo durante la visita y después de la visita los índices son bajos por lo que recomienda potenciar las actividades y propiciar la interacción para el momento y después de la exposición. Por otro lado, la investigación antes citada, sugiere una serie de acciones para optimizar el desarrollo de las estrategias de comunicación y difusión de las colecciones y actividades de los museos como establecer una retroalimentación entre las acciones analógicas y digitales para enriquecer la experiencia del visitante, relacionar la estrategia digital a la estrategia global de la organización y extenderse a todos los departamentos de la institución para la captación de nuevas audiencias. Por último destaca que tanto la experiencia virtual como la analógica se complementan mutuamente. Conclusión Los Museos se han ido adaptando a las posibilidades que brindan las nuevas tecnologías, además de lograr una integración de una comunidad para los fines del museo, han incorporado las tecnologías 2.0 como pilares fundamentales para el desarrollo de las estrategias de comunicación, difusión, educación e investigación de las instituciones. Las herramientas de las redes sociales y los recursos digitales han contribuido a lograr una participación del público más accesible y han permitido que la experiencia de la visita al museo se convierta en una interacción comunitaria. Varios estudios han constatado que el impacto del uso de las nuevas tecnologías y las redes sociales en los Museos ha sido positivo, por esta razón, consideramos que es importante adaptarse y hacer uso de las posibilidades que nos brindan las nuevas tecnologías y la web 2.0 pero sin perder la esencia del Museo. [1] Página web del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Reina Sofía (España), disponible en: http://www.museoreinasofia.es/en[2] Página web del Museo del Prado (España), disponible en: https://www.museodelprado.es/en[3] Página web disponible en: http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen/home[4] Página web disponible en: http://www.educathyssen.org/

Dirk Messner on the dynamics
of global change and the significance of international science and technology
cooperation in the post-Western world



This is the fifth in a series of Talks dedicated to the technopolitics of International Relations, linked to the forthcoming double volume 'The Global Politics of Science and Technology' edited by Maximilian Mayer, Mariana Carpes, and Ruth Knoblich 





In recent years, the analysis of new emerging powers and shifting global order has become central to the study of international relations. While International Relations, aiming to evolve into a truly global discipline, is only just about to start opening up towards Non-Western perspectives, global power shifts have already led to a restructuring of global governance architecture in large fields of political reality and practice. Dirk Messner illustrates how far global power shifts have to lead to new patterns of international cooperation using international science and technology cooperation as a case in point. He argues that investment in joint knowledge creation and knowledge exchange is vital for managing the earth system. Messner also points to the multitude of tasks related to socio-technical systems which the political sphere is currently facing, particularly with regard to the challenge of managing the climate system. 




Print version of this Talk (pdf)




What is the most important challenge facing global politics that should be the central debate in the discipline of International Relations?



The biggest challenge of the next decades which we have to come to terms with is governing the big global commons. When I say global commons I do have in mind the atmosphere, the climate system, and other parts of the earth system, but also international financial markets and global infrastructures, such as the Internet – stability of these and other global commons is a public good much required. We need to stabilize the global commons and then manage them in a cooperative manner.



Three dynamics of global change make it specifically challenging to manage these global commons. The first wave of global change is the globalization wave; the economic globalization, cross-border dynamics, global value chains. It becomes evident that in many areas and especially when it comes to the global commons, regulation exceeds the capacity of individual nation states. The international community is required to institutionalize multilateralism and efficient global governance mechanisms in order to properly address issues arising from global dynamics. The second big global change is the shift from a Western to a post-Western world order. Global power shifts remaking the international system impede governing global commons. The third wave of global change is related to climate change, which adds a new dimension of global dynamics; human beings now have to learn how to steer, to stabilize, and how to govern the earth system as such. We are not only a species living on this planet, depending from resources and ecosystems of the earth systems. With the acceleration of economic globalization during the 1990s and the emergence of new, non-Western economic drivers of change, like China, humankind now significantly impacts the physical structures of the earth system. This trend is new. For the first 4,6 billion years of the existence of the earth system it was driven by the laws of physics, the dynamics of biology and bio-chemical processes. Homo sapiens appeared 220.000 years ago, and the impact of our species on the earth system has been marginal until the industrial revolution started 250 years ago. During the last decades human mankind became a major driver of change at a planetary scale.





How did you arrive in your current thinking about these issues?



I have always been interested in international relations, international policy dimensions, and the global economy. I started at the Free University of Berlin at the beginning of the 80's towards the mid-80's, studying Political Science and Economics. One among those professors who have been particularly important to me is Elmar Altvater. He was the supervisor of my diploma as well as of my Ph.D., and he sent me abroad. This resulted being a pivotal experience to me. I studied the last year of my first degree in Seoul, in South Korea. It was the period, the 80's, when the four Asian Tiger states emerged following Japan's example: South Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong, and Singapur. I had the chance to visit these countries, study there and learn a lot about Asia. I was fascinated by the dynamics of emerging economies and what this implied for the international arena. Somewhat later, the Latin American continent became the center of my interest. I did research in Nicaragua, Uruguay, Chile and some other Latin American countries, trying to understand liberalization-movements, how weaker actors come under pressure in Western-dominated global settings, but also how some countries managed it to become dynamic parts of the global economy (like the "Asian tigers" or Chile) and why others failed. I learnt that it is crucial to understand dynamics of global change in order to being able to build solid and inclusive economic structures and legitimate political systems at national levels. There has always been a political impulse that pulled me into certain fields I decided to work in.





What is your advice for students who would like to get into the field of global change research or international cooperation?



My first advice is: visit and work in different countries and different cultural and political settings. It is one thing to learn from scholars or books, but having studied and having lived in different contexts and countries is absolutely a key experience. This is the way to understand global dynamics, to get a feeling for differences and similarities. My second advice stems from my experience and conviction that we need much more interdisciplinary research than we currently have. We talk a lot about interdisciplinarity, however, we do not have career paths that systematically build interdisciplinary teams.



Looking particularly at global environmental changes and the future of the earth system, at the end of the day, social scientists and natural scientists need to learn how to work together and to understand each other. The future of the oceans, for example, is not a question that can be understood by ocean biologists only. They are the people studying how these elements of the earth system are actually working, the dynamics and drivers - focusing on physical, chemical, and biochemical processes. But when we look at the oceans towards 2100 from the perspective of global change, the most important drivers are now us human beings, our economies, our consumption patterns, our greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts on the oceans. And this implies that to understand dynamics of global change, we need to analyze the interactions, interdependences and feedback loops between three systems: the ecological system(s); social systems (our economies and societies) driven by humans; the technical systems and infrastructures. Therefore natural scientists, social scientists, and engineers need to interact very closely.  In the German Advisory Council on Global Change we call this approach: Transformation Research. Currently, we do not possess the appropriate university structures to adequately address this sort of problems. This is an immense institutional challenge. If I were a young scholar I would move into this direction, crossing disciplinary boundaries as much as possible.





What is the role of science and technologies in the dynamics of global change?



There are multiple important dimensions, but I would like to focus on some of them by moving through the aforementioned waves of global change. Technology is driving economic globalization, the first wave of global change. So we need to understand the dynamics of new technologies, especially the impact of ICTs, in order to understand the dynamics of economic globalization. The World Wide Web and social communication media are restructuring industrialization processes and global value chains. ICT infrastructure is also displaying a big potential for less developed regions. In Africa, for example, we saw many African countries jumping from the old telephone technologies to smartphones within less than a decade, because the old, maintenance and capital intensive communications infrastructure was no longer needed. Many African people now have access to smartphones, thus to communication- and information networks, and begin to reshape prize constellations and the global economy. Because of its restructuring effects, the impact of ICTs is relevant in all areas of the global economy. The global trend towards urbanization is similarly related to ICTs. Currently, we approach the global economy via data on national economies. But this might be about to change, as global mega-cities develop into global knowledge and financial hubs, building their own networks. In 2040, 80 percent of the global production, global GDP, global consumption, global exchange might be concentrated in 70 to 80 global cities or city regions.



Technology is also linked to the second wave of global change – the tectonic global power shift – in the way that investment in technology and knowledge in emerging economies are growing rapidly. We are not only facing economic and political power shifts, but also a remaking of the global science and research system itself. From my perspective, international cooperation in the field of science and technology research between "old powers" and "new powers", between Western countries and non-Western countries is extremely important for two reasons: First, we need to pool know-how in order to solve core global challenges and to develop patterns for managing the global commons. Interaction and cooperation in the field of science and technology is especially important for the creation of knowledge that is "better" in any way. For instance, in the field of adaptation policies to the impacts of climate change, most of the knowledge on how societies and local communities actually work or respond under these conditions exists in non-Western societies. The generation of knowledge is context dependent. We need to interact with colleagues from the respective countries for mutual learning and common knowledge improvement. My second argument is that, as an effect of the global power shift, traditional development cooperation is losing legitimacy. Many of these societies, from China to Peru, from Kenya to Vietnam, are no longer interested in our usual business, in our "aid-packages", our money, our experts or our concepts. What they are more interested in is true and reciprocal knowledge exchange and joint knowledge creation. Therefore, investments in respective forms and institutions of knowledge exchange and creation will be a central pillar of/for future oriented development cooperation or international cooperation and beneficial for all partners involved. Joint knowledge creation is a precondition for joint action and legitimate global governance initiatives.



The role of technologies with regard to the implications of climate change is crucial and multifaceted. In the German Advisory Council on Global Change we put forth suggestions concerning the transformation towards a low-carbon global economy. We are relatively optimistic in a technological sense. This statement is partly based on the Global Energy Assessment (GEA) research, which has been driven by Nebojsa Nakicenovic, one of our colleagues, who is working on energy modeling. The perspective there is that we know which kind of technologies we need for the transformation into a low-carbon or even zero-carbon economy. We can even calculate the investment costs and structures of different countries and regions. But we do know relatively little about the transformation processes of entire societies, economies and, eventually, the international system towards low-carbon systems. The transformation towards a low-carbon society is a "great transformation". In the entire history of mankind there might be only two examples for such a profound change: the industrial revolution 250 years ago and the Neolithic revolution 10.000 years ago, which induced the practices of agriculture. Today, we thus witness the third great transformation: the decoupling from fossil resources, from high-carbon to zero-carbon. To achieve the 2° Celsius goal, a complete decarbonization of the basic infrastructures of the global economy (the energy systems, the urban infrastructures and systems, the land use systems) is required – within a very limited period of time, until 2070. Comprehensive knowledge is key to achieve this. Let me emphasize once more the significance of international cooperation in the field of science and technology research, particularly in the IPCC context. I am sure that politicians from China, India, or Brazil only accept what the IPCC is presenting as objective knowledge, as the stand of the art knowledge, because their national scientists are deeply involved. If this were a classical western-based knowledge project it would have resulted in a lack of legitimacy. In the case of global climate policy, it is obvious that investment in joint knowledge creation is also about creating legitimacy for joint action.





What are the main obstacles of the low-carbon transformation?



The first two great transformations have been evolutionary processes. No one "planned" the industrial revolution, not to mention the Neolithic revolution.  These have been evolutionary dynamics. The sustainability transformation instead needs to be a governed process right from the beginning. In our institute, we looked at different transformation dynamics, not only the really big ones, the Neolithic, industrial, and the current sustainability transformation. We also examined structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa, the collapse of communism at the end of the 80s, the abolition of slavery, and similar other key transformations of human societies. Based on this historical perspective, we have identified four main drivers of transformation: The first one is crisis, this is the most important one. Confronted with strong crises, society and probably also individuals react and change direction. The second important driver is very often technology and scientific (r)evolution. The third driver is vision: If you are confronted with a problem but you do not know where to go to, transformation becomes very difficult. The European Union is the product of a fresh vision among elites after World War II; the United Nations is a result of the disasters of the first half of the 20th century. Advancing a vision is an essential means to move or to transform in a goal-oriented manner. Sustainability, of course, is also a vision. The fourth and last driver of transformation is "knowledge": you know that you have a certain problem constellation, and though the crisis is still not there, you react based on your knowledge in a preventive way.



For the low-carbon transformation, the fourth driver currently is absolutely key. We are able to address problems which would otherwise become much worse in the future, although the climate crisis is latent still – in contrast to, for example, the financial crisis, which is more visible in its effects. The impacts of a global warming of 4 or 5 degrees are still not visible. This makes for a huge difference. In fact, humans are not very good at acting and transforming significantly based on knowledge only. In combination with visible, tangible crises, knowledge is a strong driver of change, but without crisis, it is merely sufficient. Transformations based on knowledge and preventive action only are rare. The ozone hole is one positive example; solving the problem was possible because it required less complex technological change, affecting few industries only. Human beings are risk-averse in a sense, we are conservative, we do not like to change rapidly; we are path-dependent. John Maynard Keynes once said: "It is easy to develop new concepts and ideas. The difficult thing is to forget the old ones". Therefore, scientific tools are needed in order to sketch out future scenarios. Based on scientific knowledge, we need to convince our societies, our political decision-makers that it is necessary and possible to transform societies and economies towards sustainability – in order to avoid disruptive change in the earth system. Pushing towards sustainability at a point where the crisis has not yet materialized implies a specific and new role for science in managing global dynamics. Organizing a deep transformation towards sustainability avoiding significant crises driven by Earth system changes would be a cultural learning process – a civilizational shift.





What are the effects of growing multipolarity for global governance processes?



To start optimistically, I would argue that in contrast to historical situations in which this kind of tectonic power shifts led to conflicts or even wars, the current situation is different. The world is highly interconnected and economic interdependencies are stronger than ever. Charles Kupchan is differentiating between "war", "cold peace" and "warm peace". I think that a big "war" is not very probable, and "cold peace" is what we are in actually. "Warm peace" would be cooperative global governance: we identify our problems, have a joint problem analysis, and subsequently start acting cooperatively on them. But this does not describe the contemporary situation. While there are no severe global conflicts, we do not solve many of the global interdependency problems.



There are many barriers to global cooperation and I would like to mention two or three of those. The first one consists of power conflicts and power struggles. Hopefully realists such as John Mearsheimer are not right in claiming that "a peaceful rise of China is not possible". But the fundamental point remains that the re-organization and shuffling of power resources is rendering cooperation extremely difficult. The second point is that all the important global actors currently have severe domestic challenges to manage. The European countries are coping with the European dept crisis. Similarly, the United States is concerned with financial turbulences and rising social inequalities. China has to keep its annual growth rate of about 8 to 12 per cent and meanwhile stabilize its rapid modernization process. In India, there is still a large group of people suffering from poverty. So, managing that and trying to be a responsible global actor at the same time is not easy at all. In brief, all actors that we would like to see taking on a more responsible role on the global level are overcommitted domestically.



There is consensus among different disciplines on what cooperation is actually about. At the Centre for Global Cooperation Research we did a study on The Behavioural Dimensions of International Cooperation (2013) based on insights of very different disciplines – evolutionary biology, social anthropology, cognitive sciences, psychology, political sciences, behavioral economics – to find out what the basic mechanisms are which help human beings to cooperate at any scale towards global corporation in a world of nine billion people. Finally, we identified seven factors promoting cooperation: trust, communication, joint we-identities, reputation, fairness, enforcement – and reciprocity, which is the most fundamental prerequisite. These factors form an enable environment for cooperation and they are manmade. In contexts, actor constellations, systems, in which these basic mechanisms of cooperation are strong, they help to embed power dynamics, to solve social dilemma problems and to manage interdependencies. In contrast, contexts, actor constellations, and systems in which theses basic mechanisms of cooperation are weak, will be driven mainly by power dynamics and struggles. By looking at these factors one immediately understands why the G20 context is so difficult. We have been able to create and to well establish these factors in our old settings; in the European Union, the Western world, the transatlantic community. But now we are sitting together with new actors rather unknown. The G7/G8 world – the OECD driven and the western driven global economy and global politics – has moved towards G20 since it was acknowledged that one cannot manage any global turbulence without emerging economies. The G20 was created or rather called to meet in 2008, a few days after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers when many feared the collapse of the world's financial markets. Most western economies were highly indebted, whereas the emerging economies, especially China, were holding large currency reserves. From a behavioral perspective we have to invest in these basic factors of cooperation in the G 20 context in order to create the essential preconditions of joint action to solve the big global problems. This represents a long-term project, and unfortunately many of these global problems are highly challenging from the time perspective: a tension derives from the gap between time pressure in many of these areas and the time it probably needs to build up these basic mechanisms of cooperation. In fact, the major feeling is that international cooperation is even weaker now than a decade ago. I usually visualize the current situation of the G20 as a round table with 20 seats but no one is sitting there. Charles Kupchan's "No one's world" or Ian Bremmer's "The G0 world" deal with the same problem: international cooperation, global governance is currently so difficult, although all these interdependency problems rendered the problem of managing the global commons fully obvious. If you talk to our Foreign Ministers or Finance Ministers or Chancellors and Presidents, they of course all know exactly what is out there in terms of globalization impacts. But organizing the necessary global consensus and the governance and cooperation structures is tremendously difficult.





How far is the discipline of development research affected by global change?



This is a complex question, to which I do not have a definite answer. The whole field of development research is currently about to get redefined. In the past, the concept of development was clear: On the one side, there was the developed world, the OECD-world, consisting of 35-40 countries and on the other side, the "underdeveloped" part of the world, all other countries. Understanding the differences between developed and developing, along with thinking about the basic drivers of modernization and wealth creation in less developed countries was at the core of development research for a long period. How can poor countries become rich and as developed as OECD countries already are?



Today, it is highly questionable if even the broader categories of "development research" still serve to analyze the new realities. Do we currently still need "development economists", and how would they differ from classical "economists" doing research in those European countries suffering most from the debt crisis, high unemployment and weak institutions? Situations in many OECD countries nowadays look like what one would expect from a still developing or emerging economy, and the other way around. So, what distinguishes development research? This is an important question. Studying non-OECD countries, do we still need development research based governance theories or democratization theories – thus, theories that are systematically different from those we apply in our research on OECD countries? The discipline of development research is under immense pressure. This debate is linked to the second wave of global change we talked about: the post-western world order, emerging economies catching up, convergence trends in the global economy.



If you look at the role of international technology transfer, the same scenario arises: the North-South, donor-recipient categories have dissolved. Technology transfer has lost its distinct direction, and it is much more reciprocal and diffuse than it used to be. There are several studies currently pointing to the fact that investment rates in R&D and in technology creation are growing fast in several regions around the globe, whereas in many OECD-countries, investment is stagnating, or even decreasing. The whole map of knowledge, if you like to say so, is about to undergo deep changes. This implies that the common assumption that knowledge is based in OECD countries and transferred to the South via development cooperation is just not working any longer. We need new patterns of cooperation between different countries in this area. And we need research on global development dynamics which will be different from classical development research which has been based on the assumption of a systemic North-South divide for a long time.







How do institutions such as the World Bank react to the emerging and redefined agenda of development?



The current reorientation of the World Bank as a Knowledge Bank originates from the assumption that knowledge is just as important as money for global development. The second point is that more and more of their partners in non-OECD countries, classical developing and emerging economies, are more and more interested in the knowledge pools of the World Bank and less in their experts. And: dynamic developing countries and emerging economies are even more interested in investments in their own knowledge systems and joint knowledge creation with the World Bank. The old North-South knowledge transfer model is eroding. You might say that there currently are two contradictory global trends: on the one hand via social media and the Internet, knowledge is being widely distributed – broader than ever before and actually, theoretically accessible at any point in the world –, on the other hand the proliferation of knowledge is accompanied with access restriction and control, and the growing privatization of knowledge. Aiming to play a constructive role in collaborative knowledge generation, the World Bank invests a lot in building up freely accessible data bases and open research tools, including the provision of governance or development indicators of any kind. However, this is a difficult process that is developing slowly.



The World Bank is currently undergoing several basic re-orientations. The structures inside of the World Bank are about to become less hierarchical and more horizontal. Originally, the World Bank has been a much more western dominated organization as the Bretton Woods institutions were formed by the United States and its allies. If you look into the governance structures of the World Bank today, it is still largely dominated by OECD countries, but you can notice that this is changing. It is a global organization but 90 % of people working there have been studying at Anglo-Saxon universities. Actors especially from emerging economies have been criticizing that for long, claiming that the World Bank as a global organization should have to be represented by a global citizenship. Although this had slowly started to change already, all the knowledge and all the qualification procedures still remained very western dominated. So they asked the World Bank to diversify its partner structures, to reach out and cooperate with research institutions from around the world. This is what the World Bank is trying to do at the moment, which is really a break with its culture. Because even though the World Bank is a global organization, it has always been a very inward-looking organization. The World Bank was strong, with fantastic professionals and researchers inside, but without cooperating tools. Now they are trying to broaden their cooperation structures and to learn from and together with other institutions.





What are the opportunities and difficulties of big data analysis for global development?



Access to any kind of data is important for any kind of knowledge creation. It has been very limited for many developing countries over a very long time. So, thinking about how to assure access to serious data is significant. This would be my first point. My second point is that, when it comes to big data and the question of managing large amounts of indicators on, for example, cross-country or cross-sector modeling, I think the new technologies are opening up new research possibilities and opportunities. Big data provides the opportunity to identify patterns. Looking for similar dynamics in very different systems is a very interesting exercise, because you get deeper insights into the basic dynamics of systems. This is what I have learned from my colleague Nakicenovic, whom I have mentioned before, and who is working on the Global Energy Assessment, or from Juergen Kurths, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is studying basic structures and dynamics of very different complex systems like air traffic networks, global infrastructures and social media networks. Managing big data allows you to see patterns which cannot be seen if you only work with case studies. However, to understand the dynamics of countries and sectors, new actor constellations or communities, you need to go into detail and in this specific moment, big data is only the starting point, the background: you also need qualified, serious, very often qualitative data on the ground. Big data and qualified, specific data: they complement each other.



For sure, an important aspect of big data is that for the most part, it is gathered and stored by private businesses. We started this interview talking about global commons and we actually just defined a global commons: data on development should be a global commons, and we need standards and rules of managing those. Private actors could play a role, but within a set of rules defined by societies and policies, and not the private business sector.









Dirk Messner is the Director of the "German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)" since 2003 and teaches at the Institute of Political Science, University of Duisburg-Essen. He is Co-Director of the "Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR)", University Duisburg-Essen, which was established in 2012. He furthermore is Co-Chair of the "German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)", member of the "China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development", member of the "Global Knowledge Advisory Commission" of the World Bank and member of the "European Commission's Scientific Advisory Board for EU development policy". Dirk Messner's research interests and work areas include globalisation and global governance, climate change, transformation towards low carbon economies, and development policy. He directed many international research programs and thus created a close international research network.



related links:


Profile at German Development Institute
Messner, Dirk / Guarín, Alejandro / Haun, Daniel (eds.) (2013): The Behavioural Dimensions of International Cooperation, Global Cooperation Research Papers 1, Centre for Global Cooperation Research (pdf)


Read Jing Gu, John Humphrey, and Dirk Messner's (2007) Global Governance and Developing Countries: The Implications of the Rise of China here (pdf)


Messner, Dirk (2007): The European Union: Protagonist in a
Multilateral World Order or Peripheral Power
in the »Asia-Pacific« Century? (pdf)


Print version of this Talk (pdf)

Jordan Branch on Google
Maps, State Formation, and the International Politics of Cartography







The territorial
underpinnings of international politics are as familiar as they are contested
within the discipline of International Relations. While the presumed 'territorial
trap' of the discipline has been attacked from many sides (see, for instance, Theory Talk #4),
Jordan Branch is more interested in turning the question around. 

His work has
carefully addressed the historical constitutive effects of mapping practices
and technologies on the subsequent transformation of practices of, and ideas about,
rule and the international system. In this fascinating Talk, Branch,
amongst others, discusses the significance of cartography for international
politics, explores the effects that contemporary digital mapping might have on political
spaces, and illustrates how innovations in mapping impacted on rule with the historical
example of France.





Print version of this Talk (pdf)





What is according to your view the most
important challenge facing global politics and what is/should be the central
debate in the discipline of International Relations (IR)?



While
there are many different debates going on at the same time within the discipline,
the one that has interested me most is the relationship between ideas and
practical or material factors. There is a very simplistic version of this
dichotomy that has been debated to death in the constructivist versus
rationalists debates, particularly in the American field of IR—an over-drawn
distinction, as many have pointed out. I am more interested in actual
explanations for the process, outcome, or phenomenon we're looking at. Rather
than separating them out, I am interested in how the ideational and material
relate to one another, how they fit together.



This
relationship poses questions for my specific interest in technological change. We
are experiencing fast-paced technological changes—for example, the information
technology revolution—which can yield a natural yet incorrect assumption, namely,
that this change will inevitably have some kind of major effect on, or
interaction with, politics and, specifically, with international relations.
This may be true, but it is too often assumed. Indeed, this raises another
problem. Even if there is such an effect, is it something we'll be able to
observe, let alone predict or explain, as it is happening? From my historical
work on the role of maps in state formation, for example, it is quite evident that
for people at the time, there was no way to see the impact maps had on the
political/spatial/ideational constitution of the state.



The information
technology (IT) revolution is the most obvious current example of dramatic technological
change. Although it has been playing out for the last 20 or 30 years, it only
continues to accelerate. Over the past couple of years, a lot of discussion has
focused on 'big data' and what it implies for business, financial analysis, and
the like. Of course, it also presents possibilities as a new tool for social
science. But there is a danger here. There is a tendency of seeing new
technological phenomena only in their material contexts, specifically focusing
on possibilities for measurement, for example, thereby neglecting to think
about the ideational. How do ideas about collecting and using data actually
play into the collection and analysis itself? So while they are in practice
always entangled, analytically, I find the distinction between the ideational
and the material a very fruitful one, not so much as a debate between opposing
fields, but as way to think about technological change.





How
did you arrive where you currently are in your thinking about these issues?



It is
funny—people often ask this sort of question, and I did not necessarily see a
natural trajectory for my thinking or work until I began to look and think
back. This interest in connecting technological and political change goes as
far back as my undergraduate time at Stanford University, where I initially
majored in mechanical engineering, and later switched to International
Relations. While technology remained an important preoccupation, I became more
interested in politics, history, and theory. So the interest formed into
questions about the political implications of phenomena like technology. But
this didn't happen instantly. Just before beginning my PhD at the University of
California, Berkeley, I was planning to do comparative work on regime change
and democratization. Then my older brother (Adam Branch), who is also a
political scientist, gave me a copy of Hendrik Spruyt's The Sovereign State and its Competitors (1994), and he said: 'Hey
you might like this!' So, I literally read that on a beach the summer before
starting grad school—which may sound funny, but I sat down, read it, and found
it fascinating. Yet I didn't immediately start thinking about these questions
then. It took a year or two, when I started really thinking about what I wanted
to work on. I came back to this work and realised these were the kind of
questions I was interested in: the origins of the territorial state and its
characteristics.



The
interest in the state as a concept had been with me for slightly longer. As an
undergrad my first introductory course to IR was taught by Stephen Krasner (Theory Talk #21).
Krasner has strong views, and the class was very rigorous. A lot of his work
focuses on the state and I think his framings influenced me early on. I don't entirely
agree with some of Krasner's arguments about sovereignty, but these
disagreements are more about the specifics of salient time periods or cases.
Other work which influenced me early on was that of John Ruggie on
territoriality. Indeed his approach became central as I was developing these
questions myself. I also discovered a host of literature in political geography
that turned out to be very interesting and useful. 



So,
one could say that my trajectory was really more focused on understanding the
historical outcome of the territorial state than on what role technology,
specifically maps, played in this process. The focus on technology, while
existent from my engineering days, really began to materialize as a link missing
from existing explanations of state formation. I was thinking about how we might
be able to find some additional traction on these questions by including
technology more prominently. It has certainly been part of some scholarship on
state formation, as in Charles Tilly's work or William McNeill's on
technological change and warfare. Surely, technology has always been in there,
but the discussion has been centered on war fighting technology and maybe on
transport, and only to a lesser degree on communication technology in the
broader sense.



Another
piece of work which triggered my focus on the relationship between the
ideational and the material was Ron Deibert's book Parchment, Printing and Hypermedia (1997, read the 1995 PhD thesis
that became the book here, pdf). He talks about internet
communication technology but also about the printing press and the impact it
has on the global distribution of power. Yet, only when I read this book for
the second or third time just as I was finishing up my dissertation did I realize
how much his framing had shaped how I formulated my thesis. He does touch on
the role of mapping, but it is his elaboration on the way in which media
informs how people think about the world which was spot on for me. For me, maps
as a medium very importantly framed how people thought about and imagined the
world in the past—but of course these questions about technology and its role
in constituting the international political system, states, territorial
boundaries, and so on are still relevant today.





What would a student need to become a
specialist in global studies or understand the world in a global way?



I
think it is important to be really excited and interested in your topic and
what you want to do. The key thing is to enter a grad program that fits you in
terms of your interests and to be willing to do whatever methodological training
ends up being needed for your research project.



I
think there's a tendency to look for a 'one size fits all' graduate training
model, which does make sense at the initial level. Everyone should get a
certain amount of background in a variety of methods, whether they'll end up
using those or not. For example, I have not used quantitative methods in my own
research, but I'm glad that I had to take classes on those methods in grad school.
They give you the ability to understand work which may connect to your own but
comes at it from a different angle. And you should always be open to a variety
of methods. The key is to be able to understand a broad array of approaches, otherwise
you won't be able to engage in broad conversations.



I
also feel I gained a lot from exploring, and reading widely, from other
disciplines such as history and sociology. I already mentioned political
geography, which is really not too distant but, nonetheless, in the U.S. it
sits in a different department. You might think that some work is 'on the other
side of the fence' but it is important to be able to bring that work into your
thinking.



The
final thing is to be open and ready to change your mind, whether it is about
the answer you're expecting to get to your question, or even changing the
question itself. Obviously there is a certain point when you're almost done
with a project where that might not be a good idea…. but if it is early on and
it works and you can do it logistically, I think it is important to be willing
to do that. Five years later you're going to be a lot better off.





So far, your work has been mainly
historical. Can you explain the importance of 'looking back' for understanding
contemporary international relations?



I
think it is extraordinarily important and useful. A lot of us in this and other
fields do see strong connections between today's politics and past events,
institutions, and ideas. There is an important notion that we cannot engage
meaningfully with the present if we do not understand its genealogy. That is
certainly a driver for me in thinking about the origins of the state and
territorial boundaries. It may help us to observe patterns we might see
replicated or appear in some kind of altered yet recognizable form today.
Indeed, it can help us think about where were might be headed.



Although
I also hesitate here slightly: always looking to the past for the answers can
be problematic. History can help us to observe patterns, dynamics, and maybe
relationships that might tell us something about other periods or about contemporary
international relations. But we should never do so thinking that the patterns
are definitely going to be the same or are deterministic. I think one can look
for patterns or relationships without automatically assuming that they have to
apply everywhere.



Historical
analysis can be problematic in its own right, because there is no way to
discover or absorb the past 'as it really was.' All history is some kind of
construction, whether it is based on contemporary or historical sources. Additionally,
in the social sciences we often have to rely on secondary sources. That is not
inherently a problem; this fact just introduces more variables to think about.
Pure narrative purporting to capture 'what really happened' can be very
problematic.



Given these disclaimers, it is useful to consider
the past. I think what should be emphasized is that, specifically at the grad
school level, students should be encouraged to dig a little deeper
historically. They shouldn't hesitate to do that excavation work.





IR, it has been argued, rests firmly on
a spatial or territorial understanding of politics. What constitutive role does
territorial space play in IR and is that role based on historical fact or is it
myth?



I
like that question. I think it is actually both—sort of a myth and sort of a
fact.  In one sense, territory informs at
least the state ideal (i.e., states as we think of them): it informs what the
state is, the interests of states, and of course how we distinguish one state
from another. And yet, while this is all inherently territorial, we also know
that this is far from an accurate description of a lot of regions and places in
the world. There are many different spatial ideas, practices, and organizations
with political agency that are non-state or non-territorial.



But
regarding the myth of state territoriality: I think it is important to point
out there is a lot of detail in the 'conventional narrative' of the state, such
as timing of when territoriality came about as pinpointed in Westphalia, that
has been quite effectively debunked by a number of scholars in the last 10 or
20 years (scholars like Andreas Osiander or Benno Teschke, from different
theoretical perspectives). This is a strongly supported finding. But it really
hasn't penetrated the mainstream narrative very well. While we can gradually see
a little more nuanced discussion in IR textbooks in the U.S., they more often
than not will still start with 1648 and Westphalia.



We
can now confidently say that states—states as we think of them now—did not
appear in 1648, let alone earlier. This is especially true if we look at the
specifically territorial or spatial aspects of statehood, which again are so
central to how we think about the state internationally. The focus on defending
cleanly demarcated linear boundaries and the idea of asserting absolute
sovereign authority within those lines; this is really not consolidated until at
least the 19th century. So, part of the myth is the timing and the
how and why we have states.



But
there still is a factual quality to territoriality in this story we tell
ourselves about the foundation of the international system and the supposed
creation of sovereign states. In a certain setting and for a certain period I
think this describes the ideas and practices of international politics quite
well. The most obvious example of this is 19th century Europe. While
there are still ways in which it diverges from the ideals of the typical state system,
in a lot of ways it actually did fit that. This happened at the same time as
the development of modern Western historiography, and it was the setting for some
of the traditional foundation of political science and IR. So we can see how
one shaped the other: history-making and state-making. The singular territorial
ideal of statehood from the 19th century has subsequently been
applied to other issues, actors, and areas. Even if it does not fit exactly, it
is applied today still and it is made to fit retrospectively much earlier
periods, where it applied less well.



Ultimately,
it is a powerful myth which has informed how we think about international
relations to such a degree that we shouldn't just throw it out. Instead, we
should think about exactly how it actually informs the way that international
relations is understood and practiced.
Practitioners and officials don't exactly read IR journals and base their
decision-making on our knowledge production, but the basic ideas of states, boundaries,
and territory which inform the practice of international relations—as well as
the study of it—should be our concern.





You have looked specifically at how
mapping has contributed to imagining and formation of the modern state system. Could
you elaborate more on how something as technical as cartography matters for
international politics?



I've
argued in my recent work that early modern mapping technologies were really
essential to the consolidation of the territorial state, particularly the
specific territorial features of states today. Maps, which have been a popular
medium over the past few centuries, really do shape how people understand the
world and their place in it. This gets us back to the connection between the
material and the ideational.



In early
modern Europe a revolution took place, first in mapmaking technologies and,
slightly later, in the ideas and practices of political rule, especially as it
relates to territory. I argue this was really not a coincidence. How rulers and
subjects conceived of rule and how rulers conceived of their realms was really
altered as they increasingly used maps that depicted the world in this one
particular way. The key characteristics of modern statehood – at least of the
ideal of modern statehood – such as linear boundaries between homogenous territorial
claims, really appeared first in maps and only subsequently in political practices
on the ground. Of course, there were existing authority structures, but these were
not particularly spatial or were not spatial in this linear demarcated way. Subsequently,
however, these authority structures were ignored or sometimes even actively
renounced in favor of the kind of authority which could be literally shown and
drawn on a map.



It is
interesting because initially, maps were not predominantly produced by rulers, states,
or officials. They were certainly involved in sponsoring some mapping projects,
buying maps, and using them, but mapmaking was more of a commercial private
scientific enterprise, if we can apply the label 'scientific' in the 16th
and 17th centuries. These map-makers certainly didn't have any articulated
goal of changing politics, at least not on this broad level. They were really
concerned with making money, maybe creating art, and advancing what they
thought was a growing science of cartography.



We
can however see that the map, as a technological artifact—maps as actual things—had
an impact on the practices of rule both between rulers and between rulers and
their subjects. I argue that this process occurred quite broadly across the
European development of the international system at that time. And you can see
this sequence really clearly in a case like France.



Let
me illustrate that. Here are three maps of 'France' ranging from the 1400s to
the 1700s—the quotation marks are necessary because the notion of there being
one entity called France across this whole period is more a matter of us labeling
it as such rather than it being one recognizable entity.









The
first map is from a 15th century manuscript about royal and noble
genealogy in France. The image is purported to represent 'all the realm of
France' and shows the country as a collection of what I would call places
rather than a single linearly demarcated space. You do have the notion of spatial
boundaries here, in terms of rivers as means for demarcation. Yet, very
clearly, the visual language of this map focuses on towns. And this is how rule
was practiced and operationalized as well: negotiations would be over places, or
maybe collections of people based on identity, jurisdiction, or where they were
allowed to reside, but not in term of linear demarcations between claims.









Now
look at the second map, which is just from about 150 years later, from the
1590s. It is from an atlas by a follower of Mercator, and its label Gallia is
the Roman designation for France. From our modern perspective we can recognize
something that looks a lot like a modern map of France. Maybe even a state, although
the boundaries are not exactly like we would expect them to be. But this is the
visual language of mapping that we are familiar with: longitude, latitude,
spatial expanses colored in, homogenous territorial claims—there is something
about the space depicted that argues that it is all the same, that is all
France.



And
despite this familiarity, it was actually far from an accurate depiction of
French rule. Not just in the actual placement of the boundaries, which are
contestable, but in the discrete nature of the boundaries themselves. Along
these frontiers, so clearly demarcated on this image, the claims of the French
king were often unclear and overlapped with those of other rulers. This was
even true for the interior of France during this period.









The
third map is another 150 years later, from the 1740s. This is from a map
showing the triangulation of the realm, undertaken by a group of geographers, known
as the Cassini survey, as several generations of the Cassini family headed up
this effort. The realm is being mapped explicitly using geometric tools with
the important emphasis that the image is actually meant to represent reality.
It is understood that way: it's supposed to measure reality, in order to enable
the French king to better understand what he rules. Moreover, this mapping took
place at the same time that rule was being implemented in practice on the
ground in terms of spatial expanses as we think of them, in the form of
demarcating boundaries with neighbors which had previously been unclear,
overlapping jurisdictions.



Although
maps of the second generation (i.e., the map from the 1590s) were 'inaccurate,'
they were extremely influential. They were widely distributed and purchased by
the elite, both inside and outside of government. Using these maps provided
rulers with this particularly new territorial meaning to their centralizing and
bureaucratizing efforts. As a consequence, the use of these maps as material
tools of governing and negotiation really changed the language of rule. Rule becomes
cartographic, at least in part. When two opposing sides come to the negotiation
table, for example, they at the very least have already agreed, implicitly, that
the division should be a linear boundary—it is just a question of where.



By
the time the third map is produced, the government is much more directly
involved in map production using accurate geometrical measurement. Yet the very
desire for this mapping was shaped by the earlier use of those commercial maps
that built up the visual grammar of geometric space. The French case is useful
because it is very well documented, but we do see the same sort of process
repeated either simultaneously or later throughout Europe and also elsewhere. In
fact, there is a lot of interesting scholarship on the introduction of mapping
and modern geographic thinking into regions outside the West. Siam Mapped (1994), a book by Thongchai Winichakul,
is a fantastic study that I found really useful for my thinking about Europe,
even though it deals with Siam (Thailand) in the late 19th and early
20th centuries.



This
is my story about mapping and territory, but I think there is a broader frame
to your question: do we want to bring in these sort of technical factors into explanations
in International Relations? And while we don't want to be technologically
determinist, there is some useful thinking around technology and its effects we
should consider. The impact of maps has been so strong, and yet they are such
common artifacts that they are largely conceived of as 'unremarkable' outside
of geographic-oriented disciplines.





So can we juxtapose this insight that mapping practices precede the
practice of rule and state formation to the anthropological present, that is,
what do the contemporary, some say radical, shifts in mapping techniques entail
for international politics?



Absolutely.
When I initially present my work, there is often an assumption that I use GIS
in my study. Instead, my work focuses on analyzing mapping itself—maps as
historical artifacts, their effects and their interaction with political
identities, interests, and organizations. But I think the ways in which methodology
and the subject of study overlap on subjects like technology could potentially
contribute to stretching the boundaries of IR. The big data question is both a
question of studying what big data means for politics but also how we can use
big data to study politics. The way in which new technologies can simultaneously
play into our methods and into our answers or questions is a pressing and
fascinating issue.



For
instance, there has been a lot of back and forth on the question of whether
more open-access mapping techniques entail some sort of democratization. While
I think we have seen that more participatory forms of mapping are possible, we
shouldn't think that this type of mapping is completely open, as no
technological system is completely open to anyone and everyone at all times.
But, indeed, there is a democratization of mapping under way. Authorship in a
whole host of domains, including mapping, is opening up where there used to be
a single authoritative voice or at least a single type of authoritative voice. So
maps are an example of this opening up and collective authorship. At the same
time, accommodating more voices also means that a lot of information is being
shared without authority or attribution or what we think of as a legitimate
source… When you open a map from Rand McNally or National Geographic, you know
that specific cartographers thought this was accurate and you can blame or
praise them. But when you open up a layer of Google Earth that has been
crowd-sourced you don't know who put that pin there, and you don't know why.



It's
really interesting to explore a bit further how this is different from the
recent past. In the 19th and first half of the 20th
century, mapmaking was essentially state-led. The U.S. geological survey, the
Ordnance Survey in Britain, or large mapmaking geographical institutions such
as National Geographic represented the owners and producers. Mapping was so
technical, so obviously technical that the everyday person would not be able to
make a map to Rand McNally's standards. This has changed, and quite importantly
so. Not only do we have the technology to do this, people are aware that they
can use it as easily as opening a smartphone app, thereby incorporating more
points of view. This is not necessarily good or bad. Politically, it does open
up new possibilities. Maps have always been political, both implicitly and
explicitly. It certainly opens up the possibility of some kind of broader shift
in ideas about territory. Let me illustrate with an example. I haven't
necessarily come across specific maps that present some completely novel visual
grammar potentially reshaping the way we think about the world. But, an
interesting example I like to bring to my students: there was a September 2011blog post on Google's Lat-Long blog (which is the company's blog about Google Maps and Google Earth). Its headline
read: 'South Sudan is now official on Google Maps,' and it displayed a
screenshot of the new boundary. 







They changed their base layer by adding a boundary between South Sudan and
Sudan. This of course followed the referendum and the UN's recognition, and all
the traditional precursors to official statehood. South
Sudan became a recognizable entity on that blog. Google Earth, a
non-governmental actor, indeed a huge corporate actor—and thus not necessarily
democratizing—becomes part of the discourse of declaring South Sudan's official
existence.



This
is an example of how things might be going. Interestingly, the whole enterprise
of mapping today actually resembles more closely that of the 16th
and early 17th centuries then that of the 19th or early
20th century, not technologically but organizationally. The
state-centric view of the world was enforced by the state-authored mappings of
the 19th and 20th centuries. Now, by contrast, there is a
kind of shared or unclear authorship, there is crowdsourcing, there are multiple
sources of conflicting and quite openly unreliable or uncertain information.
This environment of rapidly increasing distribution and use also describes the
creation of the early atlases in the late 16th century and early 17th
centuries, which involved the collation of all kinds of information from multiple
sources.



And
of course it was in the 16th and 17th century when this
sort of non-state-controlled mapping presented innovative images of the world—those
images that ended up shaping and consolidating the state form of territory. And
so it was these new tools for understanding and acting on the world which gave
the state its territorial shape. As key information-producing activities are
being opened up, some forms of power are being redistributed. This certainly
means that we need to widen our scope in terms of whom we consider to be a
stakeholder or what sort of actors we want to study. We know that the dichotomy
of state versus non-state is not sufficient. We need to be subtler in our
inquiries. In IR, of course, the stereotypical over-emphasis on states is being
questioned, and this is really just one more sign that a piece of the power of
the state, in this case map-production and distribution, is shifting elsewhere.




I
recently had a conversation with students in my undergrad seminar on technology
and international politics. I went into it saying: 'Hey, all this mobile
mapping and GPS and Google Earth is totally revolutionary. This may change how
we think about the world.' And they were all completely unconvinced, since they
use these technologies all the time—to a bunch of twenty-year-olds these tools seem
unremarkable. And maybe that is actually a more accurate analysis. But it is
interesting how it is such a different analysis from that of my generation and anyone
older, all of us who have spent a lot of time, for example, driving around
without GPS. It is partly this perception and the 'unthinking usage' which make
the relationship between technologies and social and political outcomes so difficult
to observe. Our ideas may be changed, and especially the ideas of younger
generations may be changed, without anyone particularly noticing how dramatic
the changes might be. This also means that the connections, because they are
'unthinking,' can be quite foundational to people's ideas of social identities
or political practices. They are tacit and embodied. That makes it both hard to
observe but also an interesting puzzle. But it is worthwhile mentioning that
the images presented by Google Maps and other digital mapping tools,
particularly satellite imagery, might carry a greater legitimacy in terms of
depicting 'the truth'. It looks like a picture of the world and therefore
whatever is on it, even layered on data (like a new international boundary),
must be true. It represents another apex of the scientific trajectory of
mapping.





If it is just about adding a data layer on a base map that remains the
same, does that then mean that ontologically this kind of mapping technology
actually doesn't challenge territoriality?



That
gets to an interesting point, which entangles with a lot of the more careful
discussions of globalization and the state. One version of that is that the
state is not dying, is not being destroyed. It is just that other things are
being layered on top of it, and the state and its boundaries still remain and
still matter for certain things. In this case, maps are perfectly capable of
showing state boundaries—they look very fixed, very strong—but one can layer on
top other types of information, maybe transactional flows or particular places
that are connected in different ways.



I
think that could be an interesting argument: these new mapping tools can really
show so much, and it is matter of selecting what you want to show and
unselecting things you don't want to show. Thus they don't do anything to
undermine one particular view of the world. Now that is not necessarily a good
or bad thing. If we look at the history of mapping and the origins of state
territoriality, a key part of that was that it was really hard to depict
medieval jurisdictional and personal notions of rule on early modern maps. Printing
technology and mapping tools prescribed depiction in a certain way—drawing
lines and coloring in spaces. Maps made it harder to show and thus think about
the other forms of rule. If digital maps are still perfectly capable of showing
states and their boundaries, they may do very little to undermine that notion
of territory.





Finally, if we are interested in the politics of maps, to what extent do
we need to study not only the maps as political artifacts but the mapmakers as
political actors as well?



I
think it is extremely useful to do both, and obviously if we study mapping
today, we can do both. In terms of
historical work, we can only rely on very limited sources, such as what mapmakers
themselves wrote about what they were doing. We don't know a lot about their
goals or ideas about politics. I would have loved to have been able to read
exhaustive memoirs by mapmakers such as Ortelius and Mercator. Of course, they might
not have said anything about the questions we are interested in. On the other
hand, a lot of map-makers today are involved in mapping for explicit political
reasons: for example, Ushahidi-type collaborative mapping (www.ushahidi.com), or humanitarian and
relief mapping. Here we can dig into the question of how the maps produced relate
to specific objectives. That is a great way to get more analytical leverage on
a lot of these questions.



Jordan Branch joined the Political Science
department at Brown as an Assistant Professor in summer 2012. He received his
PhD in Political Science at UC-Berkeley in 2011, and spent 2011-2012 as the
Hayward R. Alker Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Studies at
the University of Southern California. His interests include international
relations theory, the history of the sovereign state system, contemporary
challenges to statehood, and the intersection of technological and political
change. In 2014, Cambridge University Press published his book, The
Cartographic State: Maps, Territory, and the Origins of Sovereignty. His
research has also appeared in International Organization and
the European Journal of International Relations.







Related links





Faculty profile at Brown University
Read
Branch's Mapping the Sovereign State:
Technology, Authority, and Systemic Change (International Organization 2011) here (pdf) 
Read
Branch's Colonial Reflection' and
Territoriality: The Peripheral Origins of Sovereign Statehood (European Journal of International Relations,
2012) here (pdf) 








Print version of this Talk (pdf)




0
0
1
5331
30391
School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg
253
71
35651
14.0








Normal
0




false
false
false

EN-US
JA
X-NONE









































































































































































/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}