Comments on: On The Berkman School of Thought

By: Internet Studies‽ « = thornet =

Internet Studies‽ « = thornet = — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 17:48:47 +0000

[...] of AOIR and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (see Tim Hwang’s great piece on the Berkman school of thought), a recent discussion about the merits of “internet studies” is quite provoking: [...]

By: Brett Johnson

Brett Johnson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:34:49 +0000

**Make that : “THROUGH recognizing that there could be a different structure”

By: Brett Johnson

Brett Johnson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:33:43 +0000

Thanks for this post-I also enjoy reading and writing regarding the internet.
Zittrain’s argument in his book does seem to take into greater account the role of the *many* factors that led to the ‘net ‘s current form, though recognizing that there could be a different structure than that which we are working with (and for) now if some or several of those factors were different than they had been.

That said, I am also a proponent of the positive dividends that come from the deep-rooted belief in open/open-source.

By: Reading blogs #21 : ::: Think Macro :::

Reading blogs #21 : ::: Think Macro ::: — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:15:16 +0000

[...] “On The Berkman School of Thought“ – Tim Hwang is playing with an idea of identifying “schools of thought” in the internet-related studies; I think this is an interesting and thought provoking exercise, especially now, when there is a debate emerging around the question of whether there should be a field of “internet studies” or internet-related scholarship is dealt with adequately in other disciplines. Any thoughts on the subject are welcome here or on Tim’s blog. [...]

By: Kevin Donovan

Kevin Donovan — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:30:09 +0000

I’m thinking specifically of this critique of the Berkman school of thought:

http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/2008/10/12/zittrains-foundational-myth-of-the-open-internet/

(sorry for the multiple comments)

By: Kevin Donovan

Kevin Donovan — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:25:57 +0000

Also, as for other schools of thought on the Internet, have you taken a look at this piece by Adam Thierer:

http://techliberation.com/2009/08/12/cyber-libertarianism-the-case-for-real-internet-freedom/

And Geert Lovenik’s work:

http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/

By: Kevin Donovan

Kevin Donovan — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:23:59 +0000

Tim, this is great.

I’m also interested in another characteristic of Berkman that I find compelling – that it places itself at the intersection of thinking and doing. From CC to Herdict Web, Berkman has used an entrepreneurial attitude to exert its normative worldview. It seems to me that other schools of thought have not always done this – publishing is one thing, but creating tools and services as an outcome of that writing is more unique.

Thoughts?

By: Mapping Out The Space: “Zittrainism” and More «

Mapping Out The Space: “Zittrainism” and More « — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:37:08 +0000

[...] with Graham Webster about how to start to map out the intellectual space about the internet beyond the Berkman School by using the old school polysci trick of putting everything into a 2×2 grid. Here, we’re [...]

By: Tim Hwang

Tim Hwang — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:52:54 +0000

Been thinking about this a bit — I guess it depends on your point of view, but it kind of rolls into a classic libertarian two-faces-or-a-vase problem.

It’s either a “zeroth” pillar of the Berkman School, in some sense, that freedom — before anything else — is something worth defending as a value. The Internet promotes and fosters that, so by connection it’s something worth defending.

Or, flipping it around — a commitment to freedom is an *emergent* pillar of the other four pillars of the Berkman School. If you trust users to generally make good decisions and collaborate constructively, and you think that civics are at the center of the web, then you protect freedom because anything else would only hinder progress.

Thoughts? Not sure which side most Berkmanites would fall on — in any case, think you and Jill are right, affirmatively supporting freedom ends up being a fundamental part of the general Berkman outlook (as opposed to a more agnostic look that’s indifferent between the relative freedom or constraint of the web).

By: Tim Hwang

Tim Hwang — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:43:53 +0000

Jason — absolutely! Just tracing out all the possibilities at this point and seeing where it leads the discussion, would be fascinated if this becomes part of a larger project.

Really like your comment, strikes me that in what I’ve written here there’s a distinction to be made, perhaps theory and method.

I’m thinking here to the history of science, where there’s a track of historical work that builds on the various arguments that intellectuals have in forging a consensus about a “thing” (say, physics), and there’s an equally interesting history about the instruments those intellectuals build to marshal evidence (say, “the particle accelerator”)

So with a Berkman School, also an evolution of a Berkman Method? What do you think? It’s true they’re not completely disaggregated, but separate in some sense. It’s made particularly difficult because study about the internet has been so ferociously interdisciplinary.