Workshop “New Directions in Communication Policy Research” ECREA Section “Communication Law and Policy” Zürich, November 6-7, 2009. Christian Katzenbach Institute for Media and Communication Studies Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Icons by Melih Bilgil, http://www.picol.org/, under CC BY-SA

1. Technologies as Institutions
Rethinking the role of technology
in media governance constellations
Christian Katzenbach
Institute for Media and Communication Studies
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Workshop “New Directions in Communication Policy Research”
ECREA Section “Communication Law and Policy”
Zürich, November 6-7, 2009.

2. Introduction

3. Introduction
‣ Governance as Background and Frame
‣ Technology as Blind Spot
‣ The „Politics of Information and Communication Technologies“
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

4. “ [.…] a politics deeply embedded not just within the institutions
that design and distribute technologies and services, but within
the technology itself, as software products and information
networks both prescribe and proscribe, configuring suppliers
and users, containing and constraining behaviour, and
embodying in their algorithms and their gateways both the
normative and the seductive.
Mansell /Silverstone, 1996

5. Introduction
‣ Governance as Background and Frame
‣ Technology as Blind Spot
‣ The „Politics of Information and Communication Technologies“
Goal:
Foundations for the (re-)integration of technology and its
interrelations in the governance discourse
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

6. Governance

7. Governance as a Theoretical Frame
‣ Governance Frame: Regulation in a wider sense
Focus on new sets of actors
‣ gained attention as analytical concept and practical approach
‣ Shift of focus in several dimensions:
‣ Actors: Vertical and Horizontal Extension of the traditional
mode of rule-making through the nation-state
‣ Vertical: International Institutions
‣ Horizontal: Inclusion of private actors (self- and Co-
Regulation)
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

8. Values
Norms
Coordination
Markets Discourse
Focus on new mechanisms
Competition
Institutions
Legitimation Expertise
Legislation Knowledge
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

9. Governance in Communication Research
‣ From the "Golden-Age Nation State" to heterogenous
regulatory constellations
‣ Focus on new sets of actors, not on mechanisms
Role of technology in media governance constellations?
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

10. Governance and Institutions
‣ Broad Concept of Governance:
„Patterns to cope with interdependencies between actors“
‣ Schuppert: Structures of coordination, rather than regulation
‣ Institutions as analytical hinge
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

11. “[Institutions are] symbolic and behavioral systems containing
representational, constitutive and normative rules together with
regulatory mechanisms that define a common meaning system
and give rise to distinctive actors and action routines.
Scott, 1994

12. Governance and Institutions
‣ Broad Concept of Governance:
„Patterns to cope with interdependencies between actors“
‣ Schuppert: Structures of coordination, rather than regulation
‣ Institutions as analytical hinge
‣ They are both outcome…
‣ … as well as instruments of regulation.
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

13. Technology in Media Governance
‣ Constructivist Turn in the 1980s: Focus on Domestication and
Adoption
‣ Disregard of the Politics of Technologies
1
Impacts of Technology on social
behaviour and sectoral change
‣ Technology as form of (indirect)
2
Political and Social Construction
of Technology
‣ Domestication and Adoption
regulation ‣ Development of Standards
‣ Regulation of Emerging
DANGER! Technologies
Technological ‣ Case Studies
Determinism!
Technology does not follow its own
teleological path
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

14. “ Indeed, the very design of the Internet seemed technologically
proof against attempts to put the genie back in the bottle. […]
[It] treats censorship like damage and routes around it.
Walker 2003

15. Lessig 2007

16. Technology in Media Governance
‣ Constructivist Turn in the 1980s: Focus on Domestication and
Adoption
‣ Disregard of the Politics of Technologies
1
Impacts of Technology on social
behaviour and sectoral change
‣ Technology as form of (indirect)
2
Political and Social Construction
of Technology
‣ Domestication and Adoption
regulation ‣ Development of Standards
‣ Regulation of Emerging
DANGER! Technologies
Technological ‣ Case Studies
Determinism!
‣ Interplay and Interdependencies
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

17. Insights from the Sociology
of Science and Technology
‣ Core Interest: Technology — Action — Socio-political Structures
1
Impacts of Technology on social
behaviour and sectoral change
‣ Technology as functional
2
Political and Social Construction
of Technology
‣ Technology in Use
equivalent ‣ Meaning and Usage are
‣ Durkheimʻs social facts ascribed, not determined
‣ Hardened social action and ‣ Domestication
structured
‣ Technology Development
‣ Technology is Society made ‣ „Leitbilder“
durable ‣ Standardisation
‣ Regulation
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

19. Picture: clemensfranz (CC By-SA 3.0)

20. Hints from the Sociology
of Science and Technology
‣ Core Interest: Technology — Action — Socio-political Structures
1
Impacts of Technology on social
behaviour and sectoral change
‣ Technology as functional
2
Political and Social Construction
of Technology
‣ Technology in Use
equivalent ‣ Meaning and Usage are
‣ Durkheimʻs social facts ascribed, not determined
‣ Hardened social action and ‣ Domestication
structured
‣ Technology Development
‣ Technology is Society made ‣ „Leitbilder“
durable ‣ Standardisation
‣ Regulation
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

21. Hints from the Sociology
of Science and Technology
‣ Core Interest: Technology — Action — Socio-political Structures
Resources Routines
1
Impacts of Technology on social
behaviour and sectoral change
‣ Technology as functional
2
Political and Social Construction
of Technology
‣ Technology in Use
equivalent ‣ Meaning and Usage are
‣ Durkheimʻs social facts ascribed, not determined
‣ Hardened social action and ‣ Domestication
structured
‣ Technology Development
‣ Technology is Society made ‣ „Leitbilder“
durable ‣ Standardisation
‣ Regulation
Co-Evolution
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

22. Technologies as Institutions: Discussion
‣ Importance of detailed look at technological and policy decisions
‣ Set the frame for communication and following decisions
‣ Time-lag
‣ Technologies are part of the institutional frame that individual action
(communication) is embedded in
‣ Interaction of user adoption and technological affordances
‣ Interplay and Interdependencies
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

23. Macro Infrastructure / Policy
Meso Shared Values / Communities of Usage
Micro Interactions

24. Content
Interconnection / Logics /
Standards
Net Neutrality
Infrastructure / Architecture

25. Copyright

26. Zero

27. Selected References
‣ Bijker, W. E. und Law, J. (Hrsg.). (1992). Shaping technology/building society : studies in
sociotechnical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
‣ Donges, Patrick. (2007). The New Institutionalism as a theoretical foundation of media
governance. Communications, 32, 325-330.
‣ Latour, Bruno. (2007). Reassembling the social : an introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford
[u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press.
‣ Latour, Bruno. (1991). Technology is Society made durable., in: John Law (Hrsg.), A Sociology of
Monsters. London: Routledge. 103-131.
‣ Latzer, M., Just, N., Sauerwein, F., & Slowinski, P. (2003). Regulation Remixed: Institutional
Change through Self and Co-Regulation in the Mediamatics Sector. Communications &
Strategies, 50(2), 127-157.
‣ Lessig, Lawrence. (1999). Code and other laws of cyberspace. New York, NY: Basic Books.
‣ Mansell, R. & Silverstone, R. (Eds.). (1996). Communication by design: The politics of
information and communication technologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
‣ Schulz-Schaeffer, I. (2000). Sozialtheorie der Technik. Frankfurt am Main [u.a.]: Campus Verl.
‣ Schuppert, Gunnar Folke. (2008). Governance: Auf der Suche nach Konturen eines "anerkannt
uneindeutigen Begriffs", in: Gunnar Folke Schuppert und Michael Zürn (Hrsg.), Governance in
einer sich wandelnden Welt. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. 13-40.
‣ Walker, John. (2003). "The digital imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the internet
genie back in the bottle". Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 16(3), 24-77.
‣ Winner, Langdon. (1980). "Do Artifacts Have Politics?". Daedulus, 109, 121-136.
Christian Katzenbach | Technologies as Institutions | ECREA-Workshop, November 2009, Zurich

28. Technological Setting Analog – Copying as Exception
Legal Setting Fair Use
Norms and Values Creators
Paying for Music Consuming Music but not Paying

29. Technological Setting Analog – Copying as Exception
Legal Setting Fair Use
Norms and Values Creators
Paying for Music Consuming Music but not Paying

30. Technological Setting Digitally Networked – Copying = Usage
Legal Setting Fair Use???
Norms and Values Creators, but also: Rip, Mix, and Burn / Sharing
Paying for Music Consuming Music but not Paying