"Over the past five years, approximately 85 percent of the world’s population experienced a decline in press freedom in their country. Even in countries with long traditions of safeguarding free and independent journalism, financial and technological transformations have forced news outlets, espec
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ially those serving local communities, to close. With readership and advertising markets moving online, advertising revenue for newspapers plummeted by nearly half in the ten-year period ending in 2019. The subsequent COVID-19 pandemic and its global economic impact have exacerbated this trend, now threatening to create an “extinction level” event for independent journalism outlets. The 2021/2022 global edition of the flagship series of reports on World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development examines these questions with a special focus on “journalism as a public good”." (Abstract)
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"Digitale Technologien sind eine Zumutung! Um dies zu ändern, sollten wir uns nicht von ihnen abwenden, sondern uns eingehender mit ihrer transformatorischen Macht befassen. Shintaro Miyazaki ruft dazu auf, die alternativen Rhythmen des kooperativen, solidarischen Zusammenlebens (Commoning) operabe
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l zu machen und die Digitalität so zum Tanzen zu bringen. Er macht ein Leben vorstellbar, in dem Profit und Eigentum keine Rolle mehr spielen, sondern das nachhaltige Zusammenspiel der Bedürfnisse unserer lebendigen Ökosysteme mit jenen aller Menschen oberste Priorität hat. Hier trifft Kapitalismuskritik auf eine kritische, marxistisch-informierte Medientheorie der algorithmischen Modellierung anderer Zukünfte." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"In this article we consider the notion of digital global public good and articulate our understanding of it. Against this conceptual foil, we examine the development of DHIS2 (District Health Information Software Version 2), a global health platform inspired by public goods, focusing on the paradox
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es that arise in the scaling process. We find that the scaling dynamics played out differently at the macro and micro levels, giving rise to the following paradoxes: addition of new functionalities to cater to the universe of users across the world (macro level) works counter to the needs of users in particular locations (micro level); responsiveness to the requests of the donors with a global view (macro level) distorts the production process, as the voices of users, situated in remote locations in developing countries, are not adequately heard; the system needs to be simultaneously relevant across the global (macro level) and the local (micro level), when the former calls for decontextualization and the later (re)contextualization. We then discuss challenges these paradoxes create with regard to attaining non-rivalry and non-exclusion, the defining characteristics of a public good." (Abstract)
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"Wie wahren wir die Menschen-, Grund- und Bürgerrechte? Und wie können wir unsere Werte für die Gestaltung disruptiver Innovationen und der digitalen Zukunft nutzen? Die Autor*innen aus Politik, Wissenschaft und Praxis zeigen auf, wie technologische Phänomene mit unseren Werten in Einklang gebra
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cht werden können und diskutieren normative Impulse und Ideen für die Regelung des Gemeinwohls in der digitalen Welt." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Silke Helfrich und David Bollier legen überkommene Denkmuster frei und entwerfen ein Programm für ein gelingendes Miteinander, ein anderes Politikverständnis und ein sorgendes Wirtschaften. Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei Commons-Praktiken. Sie zeigen, wie wir in Verschiedenheit gemeinsame Ziele ver
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folgen. Ganz praktisch können so Häuser und Fahrzeuge in ähnlicher Weise wie die Wikipedia entstehen. Das Buch stiftet zudem an, wie ein »Commoner« zu denken." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"As capitalism faces a series of structural crises, a new social, political and economic dynamic is emerging: peer to peer. What is peer to peer (P2P)? Why is it essential for building a commons-centric future? How could this happen? These are the questions we try to answer, by tying together four o
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f its aspects: 1. P2P is a type of social relations in human networks, where participants have maximum freedom to connect. 2. P2P is also a technological infrastructure that makes the generalization and scaling up of such relations possible. 3. P2P thus enables a new mode of production and property. 4. P2P creates the potential for a transition to an economy that can be generative towards people and nature. We believe that these four aspects will profoundly change human society. P2P ideally describes systems in which any human being can contribute to the creation and maintenance of a shared resource while benefiting from it. There is an enormous variety of such systems: from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia to free and open-source software projects, to open design and hardware communities, to relocalization initiatives and community currencies." (Introduction)
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"Die vorliegende Studie kommt zu dem Schluss, dass der öffentliche Rundfunk bezüglich einiger, aber nicht bezüglich aller Merkmalen der Vorstellung eines «Media Commons» entspricht. Sollten sich öffentliche Rundfunkorganisationen also als «Media Commons» beschreiben wollen, müssten sie zuer
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st die Merkmale weiterentwickeln, bei denen sie als «Grenzfall» oder «Tragödie» evaluiert wurden. Bereits jetzt dürfte es aber in den meisten untersuchten Ländern schwierig werden, eine andere Medienorganisation auf nationaler Ebene zu finden, die dem Ideal einer gesellschaftlichen Medienorganisation näherkommt als der öffentliche Rundfunk. Öffentliche Rundfunkorganisationen sind jedoch, wie hier abschließend kurz gezeigt wird, vielerorts unter Druck, eingespart zu werden. Obwohl diese Einsparungen durch Parteien und Regierungen beschlossen werden, sind alle Gesellschaftsmitglieder – also alle «Media Commoners» – indirekt dafür mitverantwortlich." (Ausblick, Seite 241-242)
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"Key principles: 1. Data subjects must own their data – individually and collectively. 2. Our data requires protection from abuse. 3. We need the tools to control our data. 4. Data commons need appropriate governance frameworks. 5. Data protection, sharing and use require new institutions. 6. Data
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-creating work ought to come with data rights. 7. Data should be processed close to the point of its origin. 8. Cross-border data flows must be decided nationally. 9. Techno-structures need to be reclaimed as personal and public spaces. 10. We should own our software and be able to control it. 11. Key digital infrastructures need to be governed as public utilities. 12. Techno-structures must be decentralised for open use, with interoperability. 13. Global digital monopolies should be broken. 14. Societies’ datafication needs to be managed democratically. 15. Digital standards must be developed by public interest bodies. 16. The digital has to be governed in a local-to-global manner." (Pages 2-3)
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"Is China's engagement in the global governance of global public goods (GPGs) credible in terms of China's projected image as a new responsible power? Only through global cooperation can GPGs such as climate and security be effectively provided. International decision-making structures are currently
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undergoing major changes due to emerging economies such as China. Despite common interests regarding GPGs and global challenges such as climate change, there are still many obstacles for the cooperation between China and Europe." (Publisher description)
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