Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group

Wednesday, February 16, 6:00pm ET
Where: MIT Media Lab, Room E14-525
https://www.media.mit.edu/contact
 

Co-sponsored by the MIT Center for Future Civic Media: http://civic.mit.edu/. Please RSVP to Susanne Seitinger at susannes@mit.edu by February 15.

The "Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group" is a forum for fellows and affiliates of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT,  Yale Law School Information Society Project, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University to discuss their ongoing research.

This month's presenters will include:

LilyPad in the Wild: How Hardware?s Long Tail is Supporting New Engineering and Design Communities
Leah Buechley, Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab

This paper examines the distribution, adoption, and evolution of an open-source toolkit we developed called the LilyPad Arduino. We track the two-year history of the kit and its user community from the time the kit was commercially introduced, in October of 2007, to November of 2009. Using sales data, publicly available project documentation and surveys, we explore the relationship between the LilyPad and its adopters. We investigate the community of developers who has adopted the kit—paying special attention to gender—explore what people are building with it, describe how user feedback impacted the development of the kit and examine how and why people are contributing their own LilyPad-inspired tools back to the community. What emerges is a portrait of a new technology and a new engineering/design community in coevolution.
http://hlt.media.mit.edu/publications/buechley_DIS_10.pdf

Leah Buechley is an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab where she directs the High-Low Tech research group. The High-Low Tech group explores the integration of high and low technology from cultural, material, and practical perspectives with the goal of engaging diverse groups of people in developing their own technologies. Leah received PhD and MS degrees in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a BA in physics from Skidmore College. http://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/

= = =

Don't Think of an Online Elephant: Explaining the Dearth of Political Infrastructure Online in America
Dave Karpf, Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University.

This paper explores the failed attempts by American Conservatives to replicate the online political infrastructure developed by “Netroots” Progressives. Organizations like DailyKos.com, MoveOn.org, and ActBlue.com have provided a major advantage to leftwing political campaigns, and the success of these groups has gone unmatched by the Right. While the rise of the "Tea Party" movement has mitigated some of the infrastructure deficit, conservatives continue to face major challenges in several key areas. The paper proposes an "Outparty Innovation Incentives" thesis as a general explanation of the uptake of campaign innovations over time. According to this thesis, it is the party out-of-power that is most likely to embrace new technologies in electoral campaigns, invest in new consultants and new ideas, and launch new advocacy groups. The Outparty Innovation Incentives thesis is presented in contrast to an Ideological Determinism thesis and an Online Disruption thesis, and the three are compared based on data from the Blogosphere Authority Index, elite interviews, and several case examples.

The paper is a work-in-progress, chapter 6 of a larger book project that looks at the rise of a new generation of internet-mediated organizations among progressive advocacy groups.

Dave Karpf is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University. He is also a Faculty Associate at the Eagleton Institute of Politics and a Visiting Fellow with the Yale Information Society Project. Dave's research focuses on the internet's effect on American political associations. His work has been published in the Journal of Information Technology and Politics, IEEE Intelligent Systems, IPDI Politics and Technology Review, and Policy & Internet. He received his PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and his BA in politics from Oberlin College. http://www.davidkarpf.com

= = =

Copyright and the Vagueness Doctrine
Brad Abruzzi, Berkman Center Fellow & Associate Attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at Harvard University

The article's title is "Copyright and the Vagueness Doctrine," and it undertakes a searching constitutional review of the Copyright Act against the void-for-vagueness doctrine, which requires that laws identify with some measure of specificity and clarity what sort of conduct is prohibited and what is not. Certain aspects of vagueness review, which courts apply more rigorously in the case of laws that regulate expression, may point the way to appropriate reforms of the law that would salvage its constitutionality and mitigate the effects of the infringement action's uncertainty upon speakers.

Brad Abruzzi is an Associate Attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at Harvard University. Brad graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2001, where he served as Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review. A former law clerk to The Honorable Nancy Gertner in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Brad joined the Harvard OGC in 2005. At Harvard Brad maintains a vibrant practice advising University clients on copyright, information law, privacy, and publication tort matters. At the Berkman Center Brad researches uncertainty in copyright law and its implications for free speech and online self-publication.