Web Annotation as Conversation and Interruption

Abstract

This article showcases both the conventional and disruptive features of web annotation as media practice. To do so, we orchestrated a series of thematic exchanges about media practice, specifically those associated with openness and politics. We then publicly invited responses to our initial manuscript via the online web annotation platform Hypothes.is. The two thematic conversations inspired an ensemble of public contributors to join us in ongoing discussion for over a month, layering atop our source text over 100 original web annotations, creating a laminated and multi-authored document. Following this shared activity, we reflected upon our experience and the generated content, and authored a complementary synthesis that explores the tenor and tensions of web annotation as a disruptive media practice, as well as web annotation as performative publishing. Alongside public contributors, we worked a cyclical dialectic of process and product, discussing web annotation as disruptive media practice by publicly practicing web annotation as an act of co-created disruption. It is our hope that this experiment-turned-article, part collaboratively authored dialogue and part post-hoc synthesis, models and begins to theorize new and disruptive media practices for research design, peer review, and scholarly communication.

Keywords:

• web annotation
• collaboration
• social media
• scholarly publishing
• peer review
• digital culture

We advanced our contribution to this “disrupted” issue of the Journal of Media Practice based upon two tacit presumptions. First, we believe that the features of web annotation - whether social, technical, or political - are amplifications of traditional media practices. It is possible to connect web annotation to both historic precedent and contemporary influence; from Bush’s (1945) predictions of “a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record” (sec. 8, par. 2), to recent commentary about the role of new technologies in amplifying dynamic qualities of written text, for “texts have always been liquid and living … changing technology just brings to our attention things we should have been thinking about” (McDougall 2015, 5). Web annotation complements everyday activities associated with mediated information literacy, such as how people access media, curate resources, converse, and critique ideas and power.

We also contend that web annotation has the potential to alter conventional author-reader interactions with information and media. Though it may seem paradoxical, web annotation is both closely associated with everyday media practices and also necessarily disruptive of those very practices. Such disruption meaningfully emerges given certain conditions. For example, while an individual can publicly or privately annotate online texts using a variety of free web-based platforms, the disruptive possibilities associated with social and collaborative annotation become readily apparent when these practices occur with greater speed and at broader scales (Schacht 2015). Web annotation may also be disruptive of formal education and enabling of student-centered and interest-driven learning when embraced as hybrid learning opportunities that thrive alongside “the digital margins of our daily lives” (Dean and Schulten 2015, par. 7; see also Collier [2016] and Hollett and Kalir [2016]).

Our exchange was also inspired, in part, by recent conversation-as-scholarship that has explored relationships among media practices and participatory cultures (Jenkins, Ito, and boyd 2015). Additionally, we echoed this journal’s previous openness towards disruption through multivocal discourse that brings “different perspectives to the conversation, transparently” (McDougall 2015, 1). Furthermore, the layering of public annotation as commentary and ongoing conversation atop an initial exchange recalls Goffman’s (1981) attention to social interaction as “laminated,” or the ways in which everyday communication is composed of multiple and overlapping layers of referents, meanings, and negotiations. Finally, we found that Prior’s (2001) emphasis on “reenvoicing” resonated strongly with our effort, as “written texts may be quite literally multi-voiced, the product of heterogeneous processes in which multiple texts and authors come to intermingle in a single text” (68). How, specifically, did multiple texts and authors intermingle in our collaborative exchange?

AUTHORING AN ANNOTATED CONVERSATION

To showcase both the everyday, or more conventional, as well as disruptive features of - and possibilities for - web annotation, we (Kalir and Dean) orchestrated a series of thematic exchanges about media practices, and then invited responses to our initial manuscript via the online annotation platform Hypothes.is (see Perkel [2015] for a description of how the Hypothes.is platform affords annotation of the scholarly web). In December of 2016, we published online a back-and-forth dialogue structured by two keywords - openness and politics (included below). These two thematic conversations inspired an ensemble of public contributors to join us in ongoing discussion for a few months, through February of 2017. The contributors were a smattering of educators writ large, including K-12 classroom teachers and administrators, an education consultant, a graduate student, and a few professors from related disciplines; some in this emergent collective were close colleagues, whereas others joined via “weak ties” (Granovetter 1973) established from online social networks like Twitter. In concert with this group, we worked a cyclical dialectic of process and product, discussing web annotation as disruptive media practice by publicly practicing web annotation as an act of co-created disruption.

Together, all annotators layered atop the original 5,320 words more than 100 Hypothes.is web annotations; among the many original annotations and threaded replies, we (Kalir and Dean) authored 2 original annotations and 34 replies. This layer of web annotation, as a whole, added more than 6,000 words, creating a laminated and multi-vocal text that was both substantive and experimental, playful and provocative. Yet by creating the conditions for - and in helping to author - this conversation, it is necessary to also recognize how aspects of power were inherent to both the content and process of our effort. We selected the two keywords that guided our initial exchange and the subsequent responses from contributors. The themes of openness and politics reflected our biases toward content that we deemed timely, of consequence, and inviting of public discourse. We then directed interaction via Hypothes.is, a decision that amplified our proof of concept yet may have inadvertently constrained participation (i.e. requiring internet access and an account with a specific annotation client). Like any cultural technology, the Hypothes.is web annotation platform affords particular behaviors; in the context of our conversation, this tool helped establish ground rules for what counted as mediated dialogue. Such an activity structure instantiated its own mesh of political and power relations that contingently reflected multiple factors, including contributors’ interest in and access to our exchange, perceived risks associated with public participation, and our actions.

Many contributions by annotators expressed curiosity, as with actualham’s question, “What exactly makes the sociality or structure of a space ‘open’?”. Some annotations incorporated the conventions of social media upvoting, like BMBOD’s standalone “±1.” One annotation included a screenshot of text as a picture embedded in the annotation - onewheeljoe’s reference to Rheingold’s (2012) Net Smart when remarking upon social norms in online interaction. And ndsteinmetz addressed the tangled relations among power, voice, and authority directly when noting: “How often we presume the author to be the authority. It's important to be open and willing to listen to the ideas of others if we are really seeking expertise.” We encourage readers to access and then continue interpreting and further disrupting these conversations in situ via http://bit.ly/JMPannotation.

SYNTHESIZING AN ANNOTATED CONVERSATION

We hope that the synthesis provided here, as another discursive layer, facilitates continued conversation beyond what may be perceived as a static end-point via publication as a more conventional journal article. We present a series of insights gleaned from this experience about web annotation as an everyday and disruptive media practice. Specifically, we discuss the tenor and tensions of web annotation as disruptive media, as well as qualities of web annotation as performative publishing.

WEB ANNOTATION AS DISRUPTIVE MEDIA PRACTICE

Our dialogue suggests that while web annotation is both a traditional and disruptive media practice, there is no consensus about the full meaning and import of such disruption for everyday activities like (online) reading, writing, and learning (see related discussions by Glover, Xu, and Hardaker [2007], Jones [2014], and Schneider, Groza, and Passant [2013]). What, precisely, is being disrupted by web annotation - a text, a point of view, or the conventions of written and scholarly discourse? Regarding power architected by annotation technologies, who benefits, and who may be harmed (e.g. Perton 2016), by such disruption? And under what conditions is this disruptive practice useful, merely superfluous noise, or a harbinger of changes to processes like academic peer review and regular author-reader interaction? The tenor of web annotation as disruptive media is defined in no small measure by attendant tensions about the locus, meaning, and impact of such disruption.

In one respect, the layer of web annotation added to our dialogue aligns well with Broekman and colleagues’ (2014) advocacy for a critical and creative disruption of learning that is engendered, in part, by exploring “new and different inflections” (14) of media practice. Among the new and different inflections evident in our laminated discourse were more than 70 distinct questions raised via annotation about topics as diverse as pedagogy, equity, and epistemology, suggesting a collective curiosity and search for shared insight. There were also over a dozen unique tags added by contributors as descriptors of their annotations, such as “institutional critique,” “languagematters,” and “sticky notes aren't a genre” (a full list is available via bit.ly/JMPannotationInfo). Inflections also included perceptive criticism from many contributors about traditional approaches to scholarly inquiry, knowledge production, and authoritative voice. A representative annotation from contributor amidont noted:

There is, truly, so much potential in these tools and approaches toward asynchronous, distributed reading and writing. One question I have, already, is how such distributed forms of production-consumption further dissolve notions of textuality and authorship so entrenched within traditional notions and practices of scholarship and empirical research.

A dissipation of “traditional notions and practices” associated with inquiry and peer review is evident, in and of itself, by the fact that we convened an interdisciplinary conversation among higher education professors, K-12 teachers, and education technologists as one attempt at “evolution” in scholarly production (Walker 2016) . We contend this is a notable accomplishment given momentum toward specialization and siloed expertise within the academy (e.g. Jacobs, 2013), as well as longterm and well-worn disconnects between the concerns of K-12 and higher education stakeholders. Moreover, our annotated conversation disrupts the largely transactional - rather than discursive and more equitable - relationship between those who develop tools and media (i.e. technologists) and those who adopt and use technologies, like educators (there are, of course, notable exceptions, from Papert [1980] to Williams-Pierce [2016]).

While imbued with tensions between power and voice, our resultant dialogue troubles assumptions of expertise, discipline, and context associated not only with focal subjects (i.e. openness, politics, media), but also with the formal steps of collective inquiry, collaborative writing, and peer review. In this respect, we join Fitzpatrick (2011) in exploring “the extent to which the means of media production and distribution are undergoing a process of radical democratization in the Web 2.0 era, and a desire to test the limits of that democratization” (16). Our experiment pushed against a boundary of participatory scholarship, whereby a diverse collective of reader-annotators challenged presumptions of authorial expertise, and also collapsed the distance and distinction between producer and consumer. While inspired by the content and process of our multi-authored dialogue, we also believe more robust possibilities for web annotation as disruptive media have yet to be fully realized among and across various academic disciplines, scholarly activities, and everyday media practices.

WEB ANNOTATION AS PERFORMATIVE PUBLISHING

Web annotation is also a promising means for enacting and exploring new registers among the performative aspects of publication. Many intellectual and scholarly activities are performative; whether in practice or metaphor, the performativity of publication appears throughout private and anonymous processes like peer review, as well as the public dissemination and debate of scholarship. In this discussion, we suggest web annotation is distinctly performative, expanding possibilities for how publications may be produced, engaged, and transformed, particularly in the realm of open scholarship.

Like improvisation among a group of musicians, our ensemble created and subsequently curated moments of both harmony and dissonance (e.g. Lewis 2000), as a heteroglossic crescendo - authored during our initial dialogue and amplified via annotation and reply - surfaced various forms of text, agency, and materiality (see also Holden, Poggione, and Kupperman [2016], Liu [2014], and Long [2012]). Glimpses of such intricate arrangement appear throughout our dialogue, from SenorG’s comment that began with the caveat “Allow me to push back a bit here,” and which inspired four replies from three other annotators, to actualham’s observation “I love that H [Hypothes.is] lets us focus on critique without a requirement that we devalue the work - in fact, quite the opposite (we critique what has value and potential and impact and utility).” As this special issue about disruptive media explores the range and resonance of performative publishing, we suggest web annotation both accentuates and helps record a number of distinctive and salient qualities about performance in scholarly production and interaction.

From Gutenberg’s printing press to experiments in open peer review (e.g. Fitzpatrick 2011), there is little doubt that processes of publication have been, and will continue to be, influenced by contexts of social and technical interaction. Platforms like Hypothes.is, which afford social and collaborative web annotation, demonstrate the ease with which authors and their audience can create a sociotechnical milieu to share thinking in progress, voice wonder, and rehearse informal dispositions in service of publication. In this respect, web annotation is an unscripted performance, with expressions of agreement, criticism, and curiosity improvised toward unknown outcomes and meanings. After we posted our initial exchange, and posited our formative thoughts about openness and politics, we could not have anticipated - much less controlled - who would join as reader or conversant, what they would contribute as an annotator, and how we would subsequently react.

Such participatory contingency reiterates how the social context instantiated by web annotation is not free of conflict, with inevitable tension generative of hybrid discourses that are cyclically produced, interpreted, and interrupted. While any published text is the result of a temporally-bound process, the iterative affordances of web annotation alter the temporal fluidity of textual production, revision, and publication. Ensemble interaction sustained by web annotation remains temporally fluid for greater periods of time; the shifting cadences of fluctuating text are less stable yet more visible, and the tensions and tradeoffs of revision easily discerned. Similar to the acts of a play and the movements of an orchestral score, an annotated text unfurls given activity stretched over time (e.g. Hollett and Kalir 2016), defined by bursts of activity, welcome intermission, and renewed engagement. Furthermore, web annotation also affords curation, creating a static but unstable record of this emergent and dynamic performance, accenting via hypertext particular ideas and moments from a malleable document.

A FINAL REMARK

As one means of conclusion (for we genuinely hope that conversation continues, and that this article does not represent completion), we offer a critical reflection about our initial exchange and subsequent annotation conversation. We anticipated, given the sociotechnical affordances of the Hypothes.is platform and our prior experiences designing learning opportunities via collaborative web annotation, that discourse about provocative content (such as openness and politics) would elicit substantive response from readers-as-annotators. Yet as a manufactured effort for this special issue, it is feasible - and fair - to suggest that this dialogue was a contrived experiment. While this exercise had an unknown outcome, it also favored predictable participation. At the same time, even given such expectations, the radical openness of the project nonetheless made the authors productively uncomfortable at times. Such a deliberatively performative stance toward disruption highlights a tension between artifice and authenticity. There are, for example, established academic communities of practice that regularly use open web annotation to accomplish their goals (e.g. Revkin 2016; Udell 2017). As a point of contrast to our dialogue, we suggest scholarship also examine how the conventional and disruptive media practices afforded by web annotation have already been adopted and adapted by established academic and interest-driven groups.

In the introduction to our original dialogue we remarked, “One challenge is whether - or how - this conversation becomes generative of traditional scholarship, such as a more linear, peer-reviewed article.” Atop this wondering, contributor amidont layered an annotation which stated in part: “Flattened hierarchies, especially, threaten the institutionalized power structures which have tightly controlled the design, review, and dissemination of scholarship and research.” It is our hope that this experiment-turned-article, part collaboratively authored dialogue and part post-hoc synthesis, models and begins to theorize new and disruptive media practices for research design, peer review, and scholarly communication.

Selected excerpts from Part 1 demonstrating Hypothesis annotation

Excerpt 1 by RK & JD from Introduction (5 in-line annotations, 7 replies):

This is a series of thematic conversations on the politics and practices of web annotation between Remi Kalir, Assistant Professor of Information and Learning Technologies at the University of Colorado Denver, and Jeremy Dean, Director of Education for Hypothes.is. We have each chosen specific keywords

| We have each chosen specific keywords

onewheeljoe Dec 12, 2016

This reminds me of Paul Allison's LRNG playlist in which youth have to choose keywords associated with their own inquiry questions.

remikalir Dec 23, 2016

Paul is also using Hypothesis and web annotation in various ways, yes? If you can share some public resources with us that would be grand.

and offered the other an initial provocation. A dialogue ensued. Once published online, this dialogue will be interrupted

| interrupted

BMBOD Dec 7, 2016

Interrupted seems like such a harsh word here. Perhaps punctuated fits better? You don't have to interrupt reading the conversation with the annotations, but you can. Of course in a journal of disruptive media, maybe interruption is exactly the disruption desired … 

remikalir Dec 23, 2016

You've certainly highlighted an important tension about how web annotation can be practiced and interpreted. With many of our friends and colleagues (like you!) contributing here, web annotation is a continuation of social collaboration and longstanding conversation. Yet with the possibility that anyone can jump into these margins, we're “open” for interruption.

 jeremydean Jan 3, 2017

 I think “interrupted” was my word. It's intended to be provocative and to some extent embody a potential critique of annotation as a practice--not my own--that such layering destabilizes text/author/authority in ways that are not desirable or generative.

through the practice of web annotation itself as we invite colleagues to join our conversation and further open the growing discourse to the public.

| as we invite colleagues to join our conversation and further open the growing discourse to the public.

onewheeljoe Dec 12, 2016

The analytics of this article as inquiry are to some degree plain to interested readers. If a reader wants to test out the hypothesis that the conversation will be “interrupted,” all they have to do is check the margins. I'm curious about the choice of the word interrupted, tho. Won't bookworms in these margins build on the conversation, the way kids in a sandbox build with what they find? Do annotations interrupt or do they make plain the reader-text interactions?

remikalir Dec 23, 2016

Or both? I think you and BMBOD are on tapping into a similar tension - see my reply above.

 ndsteinmetz Jan 6, 2017

 I'm honored to be considered a colleague here, forgive my tardiness, better late than never.

We have performed a scholarly dialogue and invited interpretation of that conversation through the modern social media practice of web annotation. One challenge is whether – or how – this conversation becomes generative of traditional scholarship, such as a more linear, peer-reviewed article.

| One challenge is whether – or how – this conversation becomes generative of traditional scholarship, such as a more linear, peer-reviewed article.

amidont Dec 8, 2016

There is, truly, so much potential in these tools and approaches toward asynchronous, distributed reading and writing. One question I have, already, is how such distributed forms of production-consumption further dissolve notions of textuality and authorship so entrenched within traditional notions and practices of scholarship and empirical research. The flattened hierarchies, especially, threaten the institutionalized power structures which have tightly controlled the design, review, and dissemination of scholarship and research.

 remikalir Dec 23, 2016

 Similarly, I wonder if flattened hierarchies threaten personal power and agency as tools and practices (like web annotation) loosen control over design, review, and dissemination of scholarship. As much as I might hope that web annotation (given the context of this conversation, and as one approach to media flattening hierarchy) can impact institutional/ized power (and as we discuss, briefly, below regarding Hypothesis and speaking truth to power), I have - at least initially and primarily - experienced such “flattening” and disruption more on a personal level.

We recognize that this distributed conversation may in the end be too ethereal or too noisy, testing our ability to subsequently and usefully capture and represent a layered, versioned textual experience as more conventional academic prose.

| in the end be too ethereal or too noisy, testing our ability to subsequently and usefully capture and represent a layered, versioned textual experience as more conventional academic prose

BMBOD Dec 7, 2016

Could we perhaps use tags or groups to functionally sort through the layers of “noise”Perhaps things like: content critique, meta, grammatical nuances, etc?

ndsteinmetz Jan 6, 2017

This is a great suggestion BMBOD, I think finding ways to sort through the layers of “noise” is a critical element of our time in terms of social spaces. There seems to be “noise” and information overload everywhere and it's critical to sort through.

We embrace the emergent and unpredictable quality of web annotation as an opportunity to remark upon and disrupt scholarly communication and knowledge production.

Excerpt 2 by RK from Openness exchange (6 in-line annotations, 7 replies):

So yes, my initial perception of web annotation did associate open with public. It is also emphasized “open-ended,” a nod to the emergent and unanticipated activities associated with more playful learning. And I also perceived web annotation as a means of checking my tacit authority, as distributing the source and concern of conversation amongst learners and away from my agenda.

| distributing the source and concern of conversation amongst learners and away from my agenda

BMBOD Dec 7, 2016

I think this is such a powerful motivation for using web annotation as a component of peer-review and academic conversations.

ndsteinmetz Jan 6, 2017

Yes, not only powerful motivation but critically important to genuine learning environments and opportunities

 silvertwin Feb 27, 2017

 Is this a version of ethnography - in the sense that the ethnographer attempts to reduce her power, avoid an outsider's agenda - or at least be reflexive about it?

Noting this idealized conception, it’s useful to contrast my nascent thinking with reflections on my experience with open web annotation at the conclusion of this course. How did my experience, alongside a cohort of graduate learners, alter my definition of open?

| How did my experience, alongside a cohort of graduate learners, alter my definition of open?

onewheeljoe Dec 12, 2016

Great question because it shows how our language evolves as we learn in much the same way we do.

 remikalir Dec 23, 2016

 Indeed. When I look back at 2016, particularly through a lens of reflective practice, open is a defining theme. I'm eager to continue wresting with this concept and associated set of practices in the coming year, too.

Briefly, I came to understand open as an invitation for reciprocal networking, the ongoing negotiation of power, and as ambiguity.

| I came to understand open as an invitation for reciprocal networking, the ongoing negotiation of power, and as ambiguity.

actualham Dec 13, 2016

So much of this resonates after reading Martin Weller's wonderful little post today (and the awesome PPT embedded therein): http://blog.edtechie.net/openness/the-paradoxes-of-open-scholarship/

remikalir Dec 23, 2016

Indeed, there's a lot that resonates and I appreciate his emphasis on paradoxes. The note about building new tools and communities is certainly part of what motivates my use of Hypothesis and involvement with these/our distributed groups of thinkers, readers, and writers.

Open web annotation invited people to connect and work through meaning-making processes (to literally net-work),

| to literally net-work

BMBOD Dec 7, 2016

to amplify and honor divergent voices and viewpoints, and to orchestrate shared authorship.

| orchestrate shared authorship

BMBOD Dec 7, 2016

Are there standards for citing web annotations? How do we acknowledge and credit this shared authorship?

SenorG Dec 22, 2016

This is such a great question to be proactively thinking about rather than waiting to react when authors sensitive to this concern get upset. I wonder if this is something Jeremy's open group should be considering in their standards … perhaps a consortium of annotation tool platforms could agree on this and make life easy on us all by installing a default citation format that is automated so as to help ensure we are all able to be our best selves.

 remikalir Dec 23, 2016

 I wonder if citing an annotation would be similar to a discussion forum post? I'm out on a limb here, though as someone who works with APA perhaps this approach (from Purdue's OWL APA section) would be useful:

 “Online Forum or Discussion Board Posting

 Include the title of the message, and the URL of the newsgroup or discussion board. Please note that titles for items in online communities (e.g. blogs, newsgroups, forums) are not italicized. If the author's name is not available, provide the screen name. Place identifiers like post or message numbers, if available, in brackets. If available, provide the URL where the message is archived (e.g. “Message posted to … , archived at … ”).

 Frook, B. D. (1999, July 23). New inventions in the cyberworld of toylandia [Msg 25]. Message posted to http://groups.earthlink.com/forum/messages/00025.html”

  … or something like that

  jeremydean Jan 3, 2017

  This all has more to do with licensing standards than tech standards or citation standards--though I like the idea of an MLA entry on citing web annotations. Different annotation clients have very different licensing standards.

  For example, Genius essentially retains a right to reuse your content however they choose, for their own promotion, profit, whatever.

  In a different way, Hypothes.is has decided to make all public annotations broadly reusable. All public annotations are CC0 which is the most permissible licensing Creative Commons offers. I can actually use your content without any attribution, I believe.

Perhaps these were some of the local “standards” that my graduate learners and I collaboratively established

| collaboratively established

ndsteinmetz Jan 6, 2017

It is my hope to see this in all learning environments, too often it is pre-established or determined without respect to learners’ needs and interests.

through our use of open web annotation.

Excerpt 3 by JD from Politics exchange (4 in-line annotations, 4 replies):

The Hypothes.is project very much originated out of the idea of speaking truth to power. If you look back at the original Kickstarter campaign and how our founder Dan Whaley was talking about the project then you can hear this. The idea is there are all these official voices on the web and everyday people need a way to join that conversation. Now this isn’t a new idea. It’s kind of the originating idea of the web itself, and certainly the idea of the Web 2.0 movement - that we’re not just accessing knowledge on the internet, but creating it ourselves. But it’s not at all the way the web has evolved in terms of the everyday ability to effectively question authority, both technically and politically.

| that we’re not just accessing knowledge on the internet, but creating it ourselves. But it’s not at all the way the web has evolved in terms of the everyday ability to effectively question authority, both technically and politically.

BMBOD Dec 7, 2016

I think there are particular personal epistemological assumptions tied up in this, that impact not only how we wish web annotation to be used, but how it functionally *can *and will primarily *be *used. If you approach knowledge as something coming from an authority, it is very hard to fathom being able to create it yourself, or talk back to it, even if those platforms exist. Conversely, if you think any opinion is valid, because knowledge is completely subjected as individual “truths” then I think you end up with what we see in a majority of places on the internet that allow discourse … I wonder if, and suspect that, hypothes.is could a powerful tool in shifting personal epistemology - especially where the text creators or “authorities” engage with annotators and the comments they pose … 

… forgive me, I bring everything back to personal epistemologies

remikalir Dec 23, 2016

Can you say a bit more about how your experience with open and/or collaborative web annotation is related to your understanding of personal epistemologies?

 BMBOD Jan 7, 2017

 I wrote this blog post and this post in early December, and it sort of speaks to what I was saying here.I'll try to write another blog post related directly to personal epistemology and open annotation when my cognitive function is a little higher than it is tonight, and post a link over here.

 BMBOD Jan 18, 2017

 New blog post. Not sure if I did a better job saying more, or just rambled on more of the same … I often get caught up in what I already think and forget to say things out loud; so please tell me if I need to say more, more

If anything we may have been duped into thinking everything is more transparent than it is. Siva Vaidyanathan's The Googlization of Everything was eye-opening for me when it came out in terms of thinking through the tension between the internet as the democratization of information and the internet as yet another, perhaps even more insidious, manifestation of the inextricable relationship between knowledge and power.

| the internet as the democratization of information and the internet as yet another, perhaps even more insidious, manifestation of the inextricable relationship between knowledge and power.

actualham Dec 14, 2016

Yes. This.

And it only has gotten worse since.

But the primary concern of the Kickstarter campaign is actually the problem of truth itself in the internet era. As Dan says in the video, “Hypothes.is grew out of a frustration with the difficulty of knowing what’s credible within a constant firehose of often conflicting information.” If folks were worried about the uncertain nature of truth online five years ago, it seems to have played an exceptionally terrifying role in the 2016 US presidential campaign. And as Dan argues rightly, bad information leads to bad decisions. We need means of verifying information

| verifying information

actualham Dec 14, 2016

Honestly, I am flummoxed about how to respond to the fake news/propaganda thing. Notions of “truth” and “credibility” and “verifiability” are so complicated, and I don't want to be forced by the terms of a fucked up debate to rally around reductive ideas that some things are true and some are false. And then again, I don't want to advocate for an anything-goes approach that makes room for climate-and holocaust-deniers. I am an active user of Snopes. But how do we allow for the richness and complexity of diverse perspectives and non-dominant narratives, while resisting the emerging leftist role of “truth police?” I think H might allow us to do the kind of discursive work-- dialogic work-- that helps here. I don't like to think about that work as fact-checking as much as the critical exposure of epistemologies. We are all biased. Anyone else uncomfortable with the idea that if we just science enough (or whatever) we can get to some kind of pure, irrefutable truth? How could that end up hurting the causes we are trying to advance?

BMBOD Jan 7, 2017

This sentence, so much this sentence “ Anyone else uncomfortable with the idea that if we just *science *enough (or whatever) we can get to some kind of pure, irrefutable truth?” I'm not only uncomfortable, but damn sick of that idea.

outside of the information source itself. The “hypothesis” of Hypothes.is is that web annotation will power a crowd-sourced system of fact-and bias-checking

|power a crowd-sourced system of fact-and bias-checking

BMBOD Dec 7, 2016

in the same line of thought as with choral explanations?

that acts as a corrective for bad information and propaganda.

Acknowledgements

This dialogue, and the resulting article, would not have been possible without participation from the emergent collective of co-authors who voluntarily used the web annotation platform Hypothes.is to advance a public conversation. We are most appreciative of actualham, amarkham, amidont, BMBOD, ndsteinmetz, onewheeljoe, SenorG, silvertwin, and Whippo. We also thank the editors of this special and disrupted issue of the Journal of Media Practice - Jonathan Shaw, Janneke Adema, and Luca Morini - for their steadfast encouragement and critical feedback, as well as expert facilitation of an open and public peer review process.