From Critical Information Studies: A Bibliographic Manifesto:
* Critical Information Studies constitutes an inchoate field that considers the ways in which culture and information are regulated, and thus the relationships among regulation and commerce, creativity, science, technology, politics, and other human affairs. CIS captures the variety of approaches and bodies of konwledge needed to make sense of important phenomena such as edecronic voting, the state of libraries, the preservation of ancient cultural traditions, or markets for sheet music.
* CIS investigates four dynamic fields of scholarly analysis and debate:
+ the abilities and liberties to use, revise, criticize,and manipulate cultural texts, images, idesa, and information;
+ the rights and abilities of users (or consumers or citizens) to alter the means and techniques through which cultural texts and information are rendered, displayed, and distributed;
+ the relationship among information control, property rights, technologies, and social norms; and
+ the cultural, political, social, and economic ramifications of global flows of culture and information.
* a rough definition of CIS: Critical Information Studies interrogates the structures, functions, habits, norms, and practices that guide global flows of information and cultural elements. Instead of being concerned merely with one’s right to speak(or sing or publish), Critical Information Studies asks questions about access, costs, and chilling effects on, within, and among audiences, citizens, emerging cultural vreators, Indigenous cultural groups, teachers, and students. Central to these issues is the idea of ’semiotic democracy’, or the ability of citizens to employ the signs and symbols ubiquitous in their environments in manners that they determine.
*two key points: the commitment to moving beyond negative liberty and to promotion of semiotic democracy.
1. negative liberty and positive liberty:
* negative liberty of speech implies that the state should do little or nothing to impede free speech, but need not do anything to foster more, or more diverse, speech.
* applied to CIS, an emphasis on negative liberty would mean scholars would be primarily -perhaps exclusively- concerned with ‘users’ rights’: the legal space to use and re-use cultural material and information.
* any state sanction or regulation that restricted users’s rights would be suspect as an encroachment of negative liberty.
* but within CIS ,a concern with positive liberty is potentially richer and more interesting, e.g. OA movement today
* the commitment to positive liberty comes through most clearly in the projiets and experiments that facilitate access to and use of scholarship and information: chiefly the development and proliferation of open access journals, open courseware, open curricula, and open archives.
2. semiotic democracy
* semiotic democracy and its broader relation, cultural democracy, are values that respect an audience’s (or a citizenry’s )rights and abilities to manipulate, comment on, criticize, and play with the signs that their culture makes available. So it unites computer scientists who are concerned with the ability to use computer code freely with cultural scholars who celebrate culture jamming.
* the most radical forms of cultural democracy(in other word: semiotic democracy?) would undermine or prohibit cultural regulatory structures such as content regulations, trademark, or copyright laws.
* within CIS, the emphasis on semiotic democracy and cultural democracy is so overt and central that it easily moves the locus of discussion from the terms of copyright restrictions to questions of information access, the meaning and regulation of celebrity, and critical reactions to mass branding.
* ’semiotic disobedience’ has arisen as a global form of resistance against the privatization of culture and civic space and as a vital assertion of the values of cultural democracy.
* by linking these observations of public meaning-making to questions of regulation and control, CIS has helped move semiotic democracy to the forefront of concern for individuals groups both inside and outside the academy.
*challenge to CIS
1. Scholarly voices from India, China, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, Indonesia, and Russia rarely find their way into bibliographies. This is major challenge for CIS.(so this is an opportunity for us! ^_^)
2. the second serous challenge to CIS is its institutional dependence. a term ‘Content Provider Paradox’ can be used for these institution where CIS scholars work.
* CIS scholars who advocate OA movement can change more than the conversation about culture,control, commerce, and copyright. They can affect the workings of an industry in flux and better serve their mission to educate and illuminate the remarkable times in which we live.
一本新的专业OA杂志Educators’ Spotlight Digest，主要内容是关于信息素养方面的。
riya是一个能自动识别照片中的人的服务，你给某个人的照片添加了一个tag，它就能自动找出所有有这个人的照片，哇！好像有点恐怖哦！
* 一个互联网档案网， 能进行很多网站的今昔对比，例如我们查到的百度公司在2000年6月的页面，虽然好多图像没有显出了，不过主要内容还是出来了，看得出它也有些好玩的地方：
+ 百度公司（Baidu.com, Inc.）结合世界级先进网络技术、中国语言特色和中国互联网发展现状，全力开发中国互联网软件基础设施技术平台，提供互联网应用软件核心技术支持，直接服务于ICP、ISP和电子商务网站，进而共同为终端用户最大可能的带去方便、准确与快捷,百度公司总部设于硅谷，在美国硅谷及北京均有其全资子公司，她是中国最优秀的互联网络技术提供商之一，也是您互联网络事业不可缺少的伙伴。
+ 5月18日 北京消息：作为中国最早的ASP厂商之一的百度在线网络技术（北京）有限公司今天宣布其第一代产品–百度中文搜索引擎已经被国内著名的IT类垂直网站硅谷动力（China Enet）采用，并且于即日起在Enet网站开始全面为网络用户提供服务。
o 当初他们确实是把自己定位在ASP上的，只提供互联网络技术，后来的转向现在看来还是相当英明的。不过当初它真的总部在硅谷？算是什么总部呢？^_^，看来刚出道多少都要吹嘘一点才行啊。
o 看了梁冬写的百度的书，总体感觉还是不错的，至少能让普通人对百度更有好感。书中不时显示出作者在电视台当“娱乐串串烧”主持人的俏皮风格，关于自己离开凤凰那一章的描述也还算诚恳。
