A brief presentation from the opening keynote session at the Politics Online 2009 conference on "Cognitive Evolution and Revolution: How the way we use technology is changing us and what that means for politics".

Cognitive evolution and revolution, part 1: #polc09 and a #diversityfail discusses the presentation and its aftermath in more detail, and links to various resources sources including Jill Miller Zimon's live blog of the session.

-- jon

Slide #	Visuals	Notes
1	Hashtags at #polc09 Jon Pincus (@jdp23) April 20, 2009 Available online at http://tinyurl.com/polc09ht
	Techmeme's version of the news about Twitter: guys writing about guys talking to guys	Male dominance on Twitter is accentuated by blog and press coverage. Every article on this Techmeme snapshot is by a guy -- and only quotes or links to guys. How many here use Techmeme or Memeorandum? Guys don’t link and Women and children last: the discursive consruction of Weblogs discuss this in more detail.
	Intersectionality and you Technology often reinforces existing interlocking dimensions of oppression Gender, race, class, geography, age, ableism, ... Many networks exhibit "rich get richer" phenomena Systems (and software) embed the perspectives of the people who create and fund them Gender HCI, "No worldview is neutral" Twitter hashtags enable collaboration that can counter this tendency	Good questions to keep this in mind during the presentations you see during the conference -- and afterwards Who's being marginalized? Are campaigners, activists, and analysts aware of and working to ameliorate the situation? More at Gender HCI: What about the Software?, Taxonomies and #amazonfail, Why Amazon Didn't Just have a Glitch Hashtags allow collaboration in ways that complement "power users" with a zillion followers. Multiple overlapping hashtags can help intersectionality become a source of strength.
2	A Twitter #hashtag can be * a "backchannel" at a conference * a communications channel * a way of organizing information * an activism and/or marketing campaign * a word in an emerging langauge * a tradition * a tribe	See Lessons from Skittles for poets and activists on The Seminal and the Building engaged communities that act presentation that Tracy Viselli and I gave at #nim09 for examples. Twitter *is* a strategy (DRAFT) and the responses have perspectives about the broader context.
		#pman, the hashtag used by proterstors in Moldova to communicate with their supporters in the outside world, is an example of hashtag as communication channel, activism campaign, word in a langauge -- and battleground in an infowar. Evgeny Morozov's The Twitter revolution is NOT a myth and Ethan Zuckerman's Studying the "Twitter revolution" in Moldova have more on the different roles of multiple social network sites in the protests about Moldova's disputed election
		The protestors -- primarily students and other youth -- were able to get international coverage. Twitter was also valuable for sharing information about proxy filters and anonymizers and what web sites were being censored.
3		Even though Twitter's user base is 53% female, 75% of Twitter's recommended users and "Follow Friday" recommendations are male. More at #women2follow: collaborative empowerment on Twitter
4		An example use of #women2follow. More on #p2 ("progressives 2.0") at http://p2pt0.wetpaint.com
5		And it's not just gender ...
10		The link goes to Storm Grant’s DEAR MR. BEZOS, I HAVE SOME HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS on The I of the Storm Disucssions of #amazonfail in the press largely focused on the question of a troll's claim to have hacked Amazon and the "i was wrong, we were a mob" view articulated by Clay Shirky and others. Feminist and disability-rights perspectives have been almost completely absent in the mainstream accounts; LGBTQ issues are generally being presented through a heteronormative lens; and so on. It's a really complex situation ... discussions from multiple perspectives here.
12		Adapting langauge and thinking to Twitter -- or other equally-complex environments -- creates a lot of possibilities. It doesn't happen overnight. For me it took several months of immersing myself in Twitter to start seeing significant changes. I think it's worth it.
	#polc09 can be * a "backchannel" at a conference * a communications channel * a way of organizing information * an activism and/or marketing campaign * a word in an emerging langauge * a tradition * a tribe Please join in! http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23polc09
13	References
14	Research background: Gender and power in online communications, Susan C. Herring Women and children last: the discursive consruction of Weblogs, Susan C. Herring, Inna Kouper, Lois Ann Scheidt, and Elijah L. Wright Gender HCI: What about the Software?, Laura Beckwith et. al., IEEE Computer Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace, danah boyd
15	From the blogosphere: Guys don’t link, Shelley Powers The Color Line Online, Amy Alexander The “new” new left is white, male, Kay Steiger Democratic National Convention state blog selection dustup, Pam Spaulding Sexist, Sexist and More Sexist: Digg Responds to Fast Company's Women in Web 2.0, Saabira Chaudhuri Gender differences in response to Skittlemania, Jon Pincus Taxonomies and #amazonfail, Laura Dawson Why Amazon Didn't Just have a Glitch, Mary Hodder
16	Hashtags at #polc09 Jon Pincus (@jdp23) April 20, 2009 Available online at http://tinyurl.com/polc09ht