1.6/( 1, I446( 1: Teorizing the Web 2014 A35,&.( 38-4-2015Designing Networked Publics for CommunicativeActionSebastian Benthall< 2015 B(05+$..=,4 813- ,4 .,&(04(' 60'(3 $ C3($5,7( C1//104 A?3,%65,10-S+$3( A.,-( 4.0 L,&(04(.I05(3)$&( (2373-4914) ,4 26%.,4+(' $006$..: %: =( B(3*.60' C(05(3 (P$&,>& U0,7(34,5:) ,0 &1..$%13$5,10 8,5+ 5+( P$&,>& U0,7(34,5:L,%3$3,(4.R(&1//(0'(' C,5$5,10B(05+$.., S(%$45,$0. (2015) D(4,*0,0* N(5813-(' P6%.,&4 )13 C1//60,&$5,7( A&5,10. J(00: D$7,4 & N$5+$0 J63*(0410 (('4.)=(13,;,0* 5+( !(% 2014 "S2(&,$. I446(#. Interface 1.1. 1 - 30. DOI: +?2://'9.'1,.13*/10.7710/2373-4914.1003Interface/Theorizing the Web 2014/ 1Designing Networked Publics for Communicative ActionBy Sebastian Benthall *UC Berkeley School of InformationOn-line social network sites are a major organ of civic life. For many, theyareaprimarysourceofnewsandlocusofpoliticaldiscussion. Algorithms mediate the online interactions of millions of participants withpotentiallyvastpoliticalimplications.Insuchaworld, intellectualsilosofsocialtheory,systemstheory,andengineering mustcollapselestpoliticaloutcomesbedrivenbyunconsciousor illegitimate actors. Thispaperhastwopurposes,onenestedintheother.Inthefirst majorsection,Iwillshowhownormativeclaimsfromsocial theorycaninspirethetechnicaldesignofpubliccommunications infrastructure. I draw political values from work on the public sphere Benthall, Sebastian. (2015) Designing Networked Publics for Communica-tive Action. Jenny Davis & Nathan Jurgenson (eds.) Theorizing the Web 2014 [Special Issue]. Interface 1.1. 1 - 30.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2373-4914.1003Peer Reviewed Formoreinformationonourpeer-reviewprocesssee:http://commons.pacificu.edu/interface/policies.htmlInterface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 2 /by Habermas [1] and Fraser. [2] Their concerns about media power and participatory disparity, respectively, can be articulated with the tools ofnetworkscience[3]toinformthedesignofrelevancealgorithms [4] for networked publics. [5] For the sake of concreteness, I present @TheTweetserve,anopensourceTwitterbotIbuiltbasedonthese principles.The second purpose is to justify and extend an invitation to sociologists of technology to join recursive publics, as identified by Kelty: publics thatopenlydesign,buildandmaintaintheirowncommunication infrastructureusingtheInternet.[6]Addressingresearcherswhose work is itself mediated by networked publics, I present this invitation as a way of managing context collapse between researchers of different disciplines.Thispaperitselfisanattemptatdisciplinarycollapse modeled on context collusion. [7] I offer disciplinary collapse within recursive publics as an alternative to a pessimism about our ability to contend in a scholarly way with powerful algorithms. [8]Inthefinalsectionofthispaper,Iopentheresearchproblemof designing a recursive networked public suitable for our own scholarly communication.Wecanapproachthedesignofsuchasystemas legalscholarsstudyingsociallaws,lawsthatcanbeimplemented assoftwarecode.IproposethatHabermassdistinctionbetween social system, where action is coordinated non-linguistically through steeringmedialikemoneyandpower,andsociallifeworldwhere actioniscoordinatedthroughlinguisticconsensus,isusefulfor thinking about the goals of such a scholarly, recursive, and networked / 3Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015public.Apublicdesignedtoenablemutualunderstandingthrough communicativeactionamongscholarscouldserveasamodelfor other networked publics.Networked publics: theory and designIn this paper, I will analyze the workings of social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook as networked publics, following boyd (2010). I will not recapitulate vastness of academic literature on publics and thepublicsphere.Ihopenottobuildontopofthatbutratherto demonstrate how one can cut across it towards what those in human-computerinteraction(HCI)wouldcallimplicationsfordesign. [9]TothisendIwillfocusontheworksofJrgenHabermas,who originated scholarship on the public sphere in 1962 and has developed hispositionthroughouthiscareer.Ianticipatethatsimilarmoves from theory to application can be made from otherss scholarship.IfocusontheconceptofthepublicsphereraisedbyHabermasand inparticularhisidealofthepublicasaspaceofdiscourseamong participantswithequalvoice.Elaboratingonthechallengesof accomplishing such an ideal, I draw on Frasers critiques of actually existingpublicsandtheirintrapublicandinterpublicinequality. Settingdiscussionofnon-networkedpublicsasideasbeyondthe scopeofthispaper,Itranslatetheseconceptsintothedomainof networkedpublicsandarguethatourunderstandingofarelevant notion of inequality within them can be articulated using the tools of network science, [10] and particularly through the idea of preferential Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 4 /attachment,asocialmechanismthroughwhichthewell-connected becomeevenmorewell-connected.Thatfactcombinedwiththe relevancealgorithms[11]thatdeterminewhatcontentisdisplayed asrelevantleadsomenetworkedpublics,suchasTwitter,tofallfar short of the Habermasian ideal. Theaffordancesofnetworkpublicsenableourveryspecific understandingofthisformofinequality.Theyalsoallowthe constructionofactuallyexistingalternatives.Iwilldescribe@TheTweetserve,abotthatembedsanalternativealgorithmic mechanism within the larger context of Twitter as a public sphere. This intervention is a simple demonstration of how technical interventions and algorithm provision can be motivated by normative social theory andaformofpoliticalexpression.Italsoexposesdesigntrade-offsthatIarguemustbetakenintoaccountincriticallyinformed discussion of networked publics.Ideals and critiques of the public sphereJrgenHabermassearlyworkonthepublicspherewasoriginally publishedinGermanin1962,thenlatertranslatedunderthetitle TheStructuralTransformationofthePublicSphere: AnInquiryinto aCategoryofBourgeoisSociety.[12]Itdescribedthedevelopment ofwhathenamedthebourgeoispublicsphere,wherebourgeois refers to its origins in the merchant class in the European Renaissance. Asthisclassgrewinpoliticalpowerrelativetotheoldaristocracy, itneededspacesandmedia,suchassalonsandnewspapers,with / 5Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015whichitcouldcoordinatebusinessandgovernmentinterestsinthe interestofglobalexpansion.Habermasnamedthesespacesand media collectively the public sphere.Habermass interest in the public sphere is due partly to his interest inthelegitimatefoundationofdemocracy.Withoutasocialprocess whereprivatecitizenscandiscusstheirconcernsandcometo agreement, political or economic power will go unchecked by citizen oversight. In Habermass philosophical work in the 70s he theorized theconditionsunderwhichconsensusarisingfromdiscussionis alegitimatesynthesisoftheinterestsoftheparticipants:theideal speechsituation.[13]Amongtheconditionsofthisidealarethat nobodycapableofmakingarelevantcontributionisexcludedand that they have an equal voice. [14]FrasercritiquesHabermassconceptionofthepublicsphereon severalspecificpoints,someofwhichIwilltakeuphere.[15]One critiqueconcernstheroleofsocialstatusandpowerwithinpublic discourse. In Habermass conception, social statussuch as conferred byclassorgendershouldbebracketedinpublicdiscourse.Fraser contends that this obscures the way status affects discursive outcomes byaffectingconversationsatthelevelofturn-takingandtowhom responsesaredirected.Fraserarguesthatfarfrombeingbracketed, within an equitable public this manifestation of social power must be explicitly thematized and counteracted.Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 6 /Fraser also critiques the singularity of Habermass conception of the public sphere, noting the historical existence of multiple counterpublics, whereinmarginalizedgroupsresolvedandarticulatedtheirown interestsbeforerejoiningthedominantbourgeoismasculinist public.ForFraser,theexistingpublicsphereinstratifiedsocietyis anexusofcompetingunequalpublics,andtheidealmulticultural public sphere maintains a multiplicity of publics of different cultures. Whilethisneednotprecludethepossibilityofanadditional,more comprehensivearenainwhichmembersofdifferent,morelimited publics talk across lines of cultural diversity, for Fraser in 1990, the possibility of such a comprehensive inter-cultural public center is an empirical question.FraserscritiqueschallengedHabermassconceptionofthepublic sphere, while in many ways maintaining the ideal of its being the site of democratic legitimation in society. In the spirit of Habermass call for an ideal speech situation with participatory parity, she raises issues of interpublic and intrapublic inequality that prevent actually existing publicsfromachievingthisideal.Otherconsiderationspreventing the actuality of an ideal public arise in Habermass own work, which iscriticaloftheroleofconsumer-orientedmedia.Habermasnotes that media-driven discussion is not based in interpersonal consensus but rather on factors like who owns channels of mass communication.BothHabermasandFraserwereobservantofhistoricalpublicsand held them to a higher normative standard of participatory parity. They / 7Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015setthestageforanevaluationofcontemporarynetworkedpublics on the basis of how they structure discursive participation, topology (includingtheirsingularityorplurality,aswellastheirinterpublic connectivity), and susceptibility to media power.Networked power in networked publicsCarryingtheseconceptsintothe21stcentury,wecanaskhowwell contemporarynetworkedpublicsapproximateanidealspeech situation, and to what extent they are beset by the problems of media powerandinequality.Iarguethatthetoolsofnetworkscience[16] giveuswaystothinkrigorouslyaboutparityandpowerwithin networked publics. This rigorous understanding can then be used to design politically motivated technical interventions.boydnotesthatoneofthesignificantfeaturesofnetworkedpublics istheexistenceoffriendslists.Sheexplainsthatchoosingwhether or not to friend another user is a social and political choice that can bereadasanarticulationofthepublic,astatementofthepeople withwhomtheuserimaginesthemselvesinassociation.[17]In contemporarynetworkedpublicslikeTwitterandFacebook,the friends list also plays a crucial role in determining information flows withinthesystem.OnFacebook,onesfriendshipsareaninputto the EdgeRank algorithm that determines what is displayed on ones newsfeed.[18]Itisalsoameansbywhichusersmanagewhohas permission to see their updates at all. In the case of Twitter, a users timeline consists of updates from all the accounts they follow. To a first Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 8 /order of approximation, the number of followers one has on Twitter isanindicationofonesinfluence.Thisisanextremesimplification, onethat featuressowidelyinpublicperceptionthatthereis alarge marketforfakeTwitterfollowers.Inpractice,notonlyhowmany followersauserhas,butwhothosefollowersarecontributestoa users ability to control public discourse.Castellsgivesthenamenetworkedpowertothepoweranagent has because of their place within a network. [19] He uses network-making power to refer to the power of agents who control the structure mediating the network. These concepts are useful for thinking about networkedpublics:userswithinfluentialfollowersonTwitterhave substantial networked power. The Twitter corporation itself has great network-makingpower.MyownethnographicresearchofTwitter [20]hasconfirmedtherolethathighlyfollowedaccountswhether they are professional social media personalities like digital journalists or hobbyist micro-celebrities [21]have in shaping public discourse, especially around what topics go viral.Thefieldofnetworkscience,whichcombinesmathematicalgraph theorywithsocialnetworkanalysis,hasflourishedbecauseofthe availability of data from social network sites. This data has confirmed robust laws of social network formation. One of these regularities is extreme inequality in number of social connections. In mathematical graphtheory,thenumberofconnectionsanodehaswithothersis calleditsdegree.Inmanygraphsgeneratedbysocialprocess,such asthefriendshipgraphsfromsocialnetworksites,nodedegreeis / 9Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015distributed according to a power law distribution. This is the same sort of distribution as the distribution of global wealthhighly unequal, with a few very rich and many very poor. In contrast, the distribution ofpersonalheightisnormallydistributedroughlybellshaped, with many people around average height and a few extremes in both directions.[22]Networksthathavepowerlawdegreedistribution are called scale-free networks.NetworkscientistsBarabsiandAlberthavesoughttoexplainthe prevalence of scale-free networks through a general mechanism called preferential attachment. [23] If when a network grows new nodes are morelikelytoconnecttonodeswithhighdegreethannodeswith low degree, then it will grow into a scale-free network. An example of preferential attachment is when Twitter recommends that new users followcelebritiesorotherwell-knownfigureswhentheyjointhe network.Empiricalstudiesofsocialnetworksiteshaveconfirmed thattheirnetworksarescalefreeandthattheirgrowthshows preferential attachment, specifically through social recommendation to peers [24] and content sharing. [25] This scientific result has social implications: preferential attachment on social network sites implies large disparities in networked power.In a networked public, networked power is as useful conceptualization of intrapublic inequality. Operationalizing forms of networked power withinthelanguageofnetworksciencegivesuspurchaseonhow unequal distributions of power are reproduced. If one accepts number of followers as a first approximation of networked power, then when Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 10 /both media outlets and individuals participate in the same network, it follows from the above reasoning that preferential attachment will compoundanyinitialinequalityduetofinancialinvestment,social status, or access. These participatory disparities then affect discursive outcomesasthosewithprivilegedpositionsinthenetworkdirect information flow.Anothercharacteristicofsocialnetworks,asopposedtobiological andtechnicalnetworks,isassortativemixing,thepropertythat nodeswithhighdegreearemorelikelytobeconnectedwithother nodes with high degree. [26] This is a special case of another common propertyofnetworkformation,homophily,thetendencyofpeople toconnectwithotherssimilartothem.[27]Assuming,aswehave, thatnodedegreeiscorrelatedwithnetworkedpower,thisimplies thatpowerfulpeoplewithinanetworkedpublicwillbeclustered together. Anassortativelymixednetworklooksalotlikethepublic spheredescribedbyFraser:notjustmarkedbyinequalitybetween individuals,butbetweenpublicsandcounterpublics.[28]Thus, network science provides tools for understanding not just intrapublic inequality,butalsointerpublicinequality,subsumingtheseundera broader and more flexible idea of network topology.Networksciencepaintsableakpictureforequalparticipationin thepublicsphere. Associalnetworksgrownaturally,theyreinforce existing inequality of networked power within them. This process is especially transparent in networked publics because of their explicit representationofthesocialgraph.Theimplicationisthatmedia / 11Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015power and privileged groups will dominate discourse in networked publics,andsothesepublicswillfailtoarriveatdemocratically legitimatediscursiveoutcomes.However,thatnetworkedpoweris explicitwithinthesocialgraphisalsoanopportunity.Ratherthan bracketingthesesocialdifferences,inthespiritofFraserwecan design networked publics that counteract them.Actually-existing alternativesWeneednotresignourselvestothebleakpictureofinequality.By acquiringandexercisingnetwork-makingpower,wecanalterthe algorithmicstructuresofnetworkedpublicsforpoliticalpurposes. Asademonstrationofthis,IhavedevelopedaTwitterbot,@TheTweetserve, which counteracts preferential attachment.@TheTweetserve is inspired by The Listserve, a project developed by Josh Begley, Alvin Chang, Yoonjo Choi, Greg Dorsainville, and Zena Koo in 2012. The Listserve is a mailing list that is free to join. Once a day, a subscriber is selected at random and given the opportunity to write everyone else on the list. At the time of this writing, The Listserve hasover20,000subscribers.Inlightoftheprecedinganalysis,The Listservessimplemechanismofrandomselectionavoidsmanyof theshortcomingsofnetworkedpublics.Membersareequalbefore the algorithm that controls the discourse.@TheTweetserveworkssimilarly.Twitteruserssubscribetothe botbyfollowingitandthenmentioningit.Theyhavetheoption Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 12 /offollowingitandnotmentioningitiftheywouldratherlurk. Atregularintervals,@TheTweetserverandomlyselectsasubscriber andretweetstheirmostrecenttweet. Allsubscribershaveanequal probability of being selected.NormallyonTwitterthosewhopostmostfrequentlyandhave thehighestnumberoffollowersaremorelikelytobeheard.@TheTweetservefollowsadifferentlogic.Itisindifferenttothe numberoffollowersofitssubscribers.Infrequenttweetersarenot disadvantaged compared to frequent tweeters that may have greater accesstoTwitter,forexamplethroughmoreexpensivesmartphone data plans. Ihavepublishedthesourcecode,amere150linesofPython,on GitHub, a code hosting and issue tracking site that is itself a networked public.[29]ThecodehasanopensourcelicenseandIwelcome featurerequests,includingrequestsforimproveddocumentation. Dear Reader, this is a backstage pass.It is possible to build such a technical intervention because Twitter has an open Application Program Interface (API). Through this interface, externalapplicationscommunicatewithTwittersinfrastructure, readingandwritingtoitsdatabaseandinteractingwithobjects defined within it. This API is well-documented on Twitters website.[30]/ 13Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015At the time of this writing, @TheTweetserve has attracted under fifty followers and has not in my estimation had a significant impact on the topologyofTwitterasanetworkedpublic.Unlikemanyautomated Twitter accounts, it lacks a growth mechanism; it does not, for example, automaticallyfollowotheruserstogettheirattention.Changnotes that @TheTweetserve currently lacks a value mechanism, something thatwouldselectfororencouragehighqualitycontributions.This couldbeanotherreasonforitsfailuretorevolutionizenetworked society. [31] This highlights a concrete design trade-off. Davies points outthetensionbetweensocialequalityandconsumerquality.[32] Tofiltersubscriberscontentbyalgorithmicallyestimatedquality wouldbetomakeapoliticalchoicethatismoredistantfromthe Habermasian ideal. Ipresent@TheTweetserveasanactuallyexistingalternativeto networkedpublicsgovernedbycommerciallymotivatedrelevance algorithms.[33]Idosowithsomemeasureofirony.Usersmaynot bemotivatedtousesocialnetworksitesthatexposethemtoothers chosenatrandom.Thinkingbeyondadiscussionoftheavailable technological options, do the motivation of users preclude these sites fromservingasidealHabermasianpublicspheres?Whenpeople choose to use social network sites organized around logic chosen by site providers, does that not speak to the success of that design? The choicetouseFacebookorTwitterisachoiceofcomplicityinthese networked publics political logic, though alternatives exist.Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 14 /My invitation and challenge to the scholarly community is to produce aconcretedesignofsomethingbetter.@TheTweetserveisanave prototype.Whatwouldamoreadvancedversionlooklike?For example,itispossibletobuildasimilarbotthattakespositioning within the social network into account when determining relevance. Rather than select subscribers from a uniform distribution, a networked public that was more sensitive to Frasers critiques could first select a cluster of usersone of many unequal publics and counterpublicsand then retweet a representative selected from within it. This is just one of a vast array of possibilities.Notallpoliticalgoalscanbearticulatedusingnetworkscience andimplementedintotechnicalarchitecture.Forexample,other conditionsofHabermassidealspeechsituationincludethelack ofcoercionandtheparticipantsabilitytoexpresstheirauthentic interests free of deception and self-deception. I do not see how these can be addressed directly with social network site design (though this may be due to lack of imagination). I have left these considerations to onesidenotbecausetheyareunimportantbutbecauseofthescope ofthispaper.Amorecompletescienceofnetworkedpublics,one thatIthinkiswellworthaspiringto,wouldcombinebothadeep technicalunderstandingofthedynamicsofthedigitalnetworkand a nuanced account of its social context. The following section of this paperdiscusseshownetworkedpublicsprovidetheconditionsof such a science and proposes a way forward./ 15Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015Expanding the recursive public through disciplinary collapseIntheprecedingsections,Ihaveprovidedaconcreteexampleof how historically informed normative social theory can be articulated usingnetworkscience,thentranslatedintodesigncriteriaand implemented as an actually existing networked public. This research takesinspirationfromtheValuesInDesignapproach,[34]which combinesphilosophicalinquiry,technicalimplementation,and empiricalstudyintoaunified,pragmaticactivity.Inadditiontoits value as research in its own right, I intend this work as demonstration against a scholarly attitude that critical political study of networked publicsandtheirtechnicalimplementationshouldormustbe separate intellectual disciplines. In the remainder of this paper, I will argue that achieving normative goals in actually existing networked publics requires disciplinary collapse.Going beyond exclusively sociological inquiryIhavedemonstratedaboveasociotechnicalinquiryintonetworked publicsandthealgorithmstheyemploy.Ihavedonesoinorderto builduponandchallengeaprominentscholarlypositionofwhich TartletonGillespiesTheRelevanceofAlgorithmsisanexquisite representative.[35]Intheinterestofclarifyingmyownposition,I will address that article here directly. It is interesting to note that even before its official publication this article has been distributed widely over the Internet as a PDF. As such, it is already a noted intellectual Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 16 /accomplishment that has inspired many. In more ways than one it is a very relevant article.Gillespieisconcernedwiththekindofinquirythatisbrought tobearonpublicrelevancealgorithms,thealgorithmsusedby networked publics and search engines to determine what information shouldbeseenbyusers.Arguingagainstsimplistictechnological determinism,hewrites,wemustfirmlyresistputtingtechnology intheexplanatorydriversseat....Asociologicalanalysismustnot conceive of algorithms as abstract, technical achievements, but must unpackthewarmhumanandinstitutionalchoicesthatliebehind thesecoldmechanisms.Hegoesontopointoutmanyexamplesof how various features of the user interfaces of social network sites reify sociallyconstructedcategoriesandreflectthecommercialinterests ofalgorithmprovidersdespiteprevalentrhetoricsuggestingthese systems objectivity.Gillespie writes critically about both the availability of this commercial technicalinfrastructuretoresearchersandthecomputational techniques using data collected from them as social scientific methods. He notes the difficulty researchers have in understanding the specifics ofmanycommercialrelevancealgorithmsduetolackofbackstage access. These algorithms are not shared with the public for practical reasonsofmaintainingprofitabilityandpreventingspammersfrom gaming them. / 17Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015Becausethesealgorithmsanddatabasescreatedbythemarenot available to researchers, Gillespie argues that we should be skeptical of the computational methods they enable. He notes that these methods arealluringandseductivetosocialscientistsbutaresuspect whenthedatausedbythemiscreatedbyproprietarysystems.He writes,somewhatcryptically,Computationalresearchtechniques are not barometers of the social. They produce hieroglyphs: shaped by the tool by which they are carved, requiring of priestly interpretation, they tell powerful but often mythological storiesusually in service of the gods.These considerations lead Gillespie to a pessimism about our ability to understand the powerful algorithms that govern us. [T]here may besomething,intheend,impenetrableaboutalgorithms.Theyare designed to work without human intervention, they are deliberately obfuscated,andtheyworkwithinformationonascalethatishard tocomprehend(atleastwithoutotheralgorithmictools).Gillespie iscorrecttowarnsocialscientistsagainstsimplistictechnological determinismandtheproblemsofproprietarysearchenginesand socialmediaposeforourengagementwiththemasusersand researchers. But these impediments are surmountable. Therearealternativealgorithmsthatarenotsodeliberately obscured,suchasthecasesofwell-documentedAPIsandopen sourcesoftware.Thesetechnologiesaffordcomputationalmethods andunderstandingthatarenothieroglyphic.Theyareanalphabet Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 18 /withconcretesocialinterpretation,legibletothosewithsufficient trainingoranopenmind.Soasaproductivealternativetopurely sociological criticality of proprietary algorithms, I offer an invitation tosociologistsoftechnologytoengageinsociotechnicalinquiry withalgorithmprovidersthatarecommittedtotransparency.There aretechnologistswhoarebothcommittedtotransparencyoftheir algorithmsandinvestedinthesocialimpactoftheirwork.Manyof thesebelongtotheFreeSoftwaremovement,anexampleofwhat Kelty identifies as a recursive public. [36]An invitation to engage recursive publicsKelty defines recursive publics as publics concerned with the ability to build, control, modify, and maintain the infrastructure that allows themtocomeintobeinginthefirstplace.Heappliesthisconcept to the communities that build the infrastructure of the Internet, such asUsenet,email,theWorldWideWeb,UNIX,freeandopensource software, and web standards. His work shows how these communities are engaged in political activity not primarily as vocal ideologues but in the creation, modification, and maintenance of software, networks, andlaw.Inwaysnormallyunrecognizedbypoliticaltheory,these actionscanexpressideasaboutthemoral orderofsociety.Theycan also challenge political and economic power through the creation of actually existing alternatives.RecursivepublicsbuildfoundationalinfrastructurefortheInternet andparticipateintheproductionofapplicationlayerfunctionality / 19Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015suchassocialnetworksites.FacebookandTwitterbothemploy developerswhoworkonopensourcesoftware.Wordpress.com,a commercial social blog host that is built on the open source Wordpress software,andGitHub,whichopensourcesalmostallofitscode [37]aretwoexamplesofnetworkedpublicsthathavedeeprootsin recursive publics. As a matter of best practice, successful open source communitiesdeliberatelyputasmuchoftheircommunicationas possibleintopublicandarchivedfora,[38]alleviatingGillespies concernaboutlimitedbackstageaccess.Ihavedevelopedand presented @TheTweetserve as a demonstration of these practices and their relevance to networked publics.FroomkinhasstudiedthepracticesoftheInternetEngineering TaskForce(IETF),acommitteeoriginallycomprisedofgraduate students that determines the protocols and standards of the Internet. [39]Heclaimsthatthisgroupandperhapsothersinvolvedinthe Internet standards process fulfill Habermass notoriously demanding standardsofconsensuslegitimizingdiscourse.Thisisanoteworthy historicalexampleofascholarlyrecursivepublicself-organizedfor legitimacyalegitimacysocompletethatforthevastmajorityof Internet users its influence is unquestioned and invisible.Iinvitethoseinvolvedinthecriticalstudyofnetworkedpublicsto participateinrecursivepublicsandincludethemintheirimagined audience.Whilethereisimportantandsubstantialscholarshipon open source communities, rarely is work on normative social theory directedtothemasanaudience.Thisisduepartlybecauseofthe Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 20 /natively technical disciplinary orientation of many recursive publics and the perception that they are not receptive to other forms of inquiry. If scholars accept this invitation, perhaps one day our participation in the networked publics will not be based on ignorance and unfairness, butratheronlegitimateconsensusaboutnormsandinfrastructure. Thiscannotbeaccomplishedwhilemaintainingcleandistinctions between academic disciplines.Disciplinary collapseThinking reflexively about the process of the research I present here, I recall that it began with a conversation on Twitter involving myself and two other researchers whom I had never met in person, Nathan Matias and Brian Keegan. [40] Matias introduced me to Frasers work; Keegan introduced me to assortative mixing in social networks. Later, while developing @TheTweetserve as an aspiring relevance algorithm provider, I followed a link to where a preprint draft of Gillespie was posted on-line. [41]Thispaperistheresultofcontextcollapse.DavisandJurgenson review how the collapse of social contexts is a noted characteristic of interactionsinnetworkedpublics,anddistinguishbetweencontext collision, or accidental collapse, and context collusion, or intentional collapse.[42] Asmoreofacademicdiscussionmovestoopenaccess journalsandmoreresearchersencountereachotheronline,the mechanism of context collapse plays more of a role in the encounters / 21Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015between normally contextually separated academic disciplines. These collapses may be disciplinary collisions or disciplinary collusions.Imaintainthatthesecollapsesareproductivebothforscholarly understandingofnetworkedpublicsandforthepragmaticgoalof improvingourtechnicaloptions.We(speakingnowtorecursive publicsgenerally,inclusiveofresearchersstudyingsocialtheory, networked publics, and values in design) stand to gain more if we are, by default, open to each others ideas. While this process of collapse will not always be easy, it can bear fruit in the form of new technical and political options. [43] Totheextentthatnetworkedpublicscoordinatetheinteractions between those that research them, we work under conditions of context collapseandpreferentialattachment.Wecantakeresponsibilityfor the infrastructure we use for scholarly communication, including the relevancealgorithmsweemploy,byjoiningrecursivepublics.How thenshallwesteerthesociotechnicalsystemofourowndiscourse so that it serves our interests legitimately? For an answer, I will look once again to Habermas.Communication and law in networked recursive publicsThislineofinquiryhascomefullcircle.Thestudyofnetworked publics and the legitimacy of discourse mediated by them implicates Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 22 /our scholarly communication about the study. Those of us doing this researchinrecursivepublicstakeresponsibilityforthenetworking infrastructure itself. We cannot escape the normative question: what politics should be embodied in the networked publics that coordinate scholarly communication? How can these publics be designed to fulfill ourownintellectualfunction,letalonetheirbroadercivicfunction, in the face of unequal power and context collapse?The answer depends on our changing relationship to this infrastructure. As we shift from a position of purely sociological critique of opaque algorithmsbeyondourcontroltoasociotechnicalengagementwith transparentsystemsweareresponsiblefor,ourrelationshiptothis technology changes. It ceases to be the expression of remote powers and becomes and expression of our own interests. This suggests our workshouldaimatreconcilingourownconflictinginterestsand balancing inevitable trade-offs in the interest of more just design.Code as lawIt may be useful to frame our relationship to technology in this case as one of code as law. Lessig has argued that when software regulates society, it plays a role analogous to law. This framing of code as law is especially pertinent to recursive publics. [44] It empowers us to study algorithms and other aspects of networked publics as if we were legal scholarsinformingalegislatureofdesignersandengineers.Italso positions our support and use of networking platforms and services as a democratic choice./ 23Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015Puttingtoonesidetheambitiousgoalofdesigningthenetworked publicsphereofademocraticnation-state,wecanconsiderthe humbler but still interesting question of how to design a networked andrecursivepublicofscholars.Whatsystemofsourcecodeand normsshouldguidesuchapublic?Suchaninquiryraisesfamiliar questionsofaccess,accountability,andpower,butinanimmediate and actionable way. A public design perfected for our own purposes could serve as a model for other, larger communities.Designing systems for the lifeworldWhat should such a public be designed to accomplish? I submit that if we are to navigate the complexity of our own disciplinary collapse, we should design publics to enable what Habermas calls communicative actionaction oriented towards mutual understanding, as opposed tostrategicactionsmotivatedbyindividualgain.Habermasmade this distinction almost 20 years after his early work on the bourgeois public sphere in The Theory of Communicative Action. [45] In these works, he leaves behind the concept of the ideal speech situation. He shiftsfromconsideringlegitimacyastheproductofasituationto legitimacy as the outcome of the human intention to reach agreement. Hethendrawsouttheimplicationsofhistheoryofactionforthe interaction between civil society and political and economic power.Inthiswork,Habermasdrawsadistinctionbetweenthelifeworld, thosesocialbackgroundsandcontextswhereitispossibleto Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 24 /coordinateactionthroughlinguisticconsensus,andsystem,where action is coordinated non-linguistically through other media such as money and poweror steering media, in Habermass terminology. Habermasgesturesatcivilsocietyinstitutionsasthesiteofthe lifeworld,incontrastwithstatebureaucraciesandthemarketas examplesofsystems.[46][47]Heelaboratesontherelationship between the steering media and lifeworld-coordinated action in this passage from The Theory of Communicative Action, volume 2:Thetransferofactioncoordinationfromlanguageoverto steeringmediameansanuncouplingofinteractionfrom lifeworldcontexts.Mediasuchasmoneyandpowerattach toempiricalties;theyencodeapurposive-rationalattitude towardcalculableamountsofvalueandmakeitpossible toexertgeneralized,strategicinfluenceonthedecisionsof otherparticipantswhilebypassingprocessesofconsensus-orientedcommunication.Inasmuchastheydonotmerely simplifylinguisticcommunication,butreplaceitwith asymbolicgeneralizationofrewardsandpunishments, thelifeworldcontextsinwhichprocessesofreaching understandingarealwaysdevaluedinfavorofmedia-steeredinteractions;thelifeworldisnolongerneededfor the coordination of action. [48] ForHabermas,theinteractionbetweenlifeworldandsystemis mediatedbylaw,whichisintelligibletocivilsocietybutalsoa controlling force upon or function within the steering media. [49] In / 25Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015networked publics, I submit that lifeworld and system are mediated bysourcecode,theintelligibleandmutablespecificationofnon-linguistic control mechanisms. In recursive publics, that source code isavailablefordiscursiveconsiderationandtherearenormsfor changingitinlightofdecisionsmadeinthelifeworld.Ichallenge scholarstodesignarecursivenetworkedpublicthatisaviableand legitimate system for supporting our scholarly communicative action. Fraserscritiquesofthepublicspherenotedabovearesomeofthe reasonswhydesignofsuchapublicisnotatrivialtaskbutrather one that requires subtle thinking about, for example, social network topology.Participatorydisparityisanexampleofwhatarecursive networked publics code can regulate against.I have in this paper traced a movement from social theory (Habermas, Fraser) to abstract operationalization (Watts, Castells) to open technical implementation. This implementation shows how abstract theoretical ideascanbemadeconcretebutalsoexposesdesigntradeoffsthat must be considered in responsible criticism of technology. This work servesasademonstrationtowardoffpessimismaboutresearchers ability to understand critical social algorithms (Gillespie) and invite otherresearcherstojoinandwriteforrecursivepublicsthatbuild, control,andmaintaintheirowncommunicationsinfrastructure (Kelty). An open and actionable problem facing researchers today is thedesignofarecursivenetworkedpublicthatsupportsscholarly communicative action about its own goals and the implementation of appropriately chosen algorithms as this public systems code or law.Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 26 /Notes[1]Habermas, J. (1962/1991) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence, Trans.) MIT Press(Original work published 1962)[2]Fraser,N.(1990)RethinkingthePublicSphere:AContributiontotheCritiqueof Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, No. 25/26 (1990), pp. 56-80. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/466240 [3]Watts,D.(2003)SixDegrees:TheScienceofaConnectedAge.NewYork:W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.[4]Gillespie,Tarleton.(forthcoming)TheRelevanceofAlgorithms.InMedia Technologies,ed.T.Gillespie,P.Boczkowski,andK.Foot.Cambridge,MA:MIT Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262525374.003.0009 [5]boyd, d. (2010). Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Afordances, Dynamics, andImplications.InNetworkedSelf:Identity,Community,andCultureonSocial Network Sites (ed. Zizi Papacharissi), pp. 39-58.[6]Kelty, C. (2008) Two Bits: The Cultural Signifcance of Free Software. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, USA.[7]Davis,JennyandJurgenson,Nathan(2014)Contextcollapse:theorizingcontext collusionsandcollisions.Information,Communication&Society,17:4,476-485. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2014.888458 [8]Gillespie (Forthcoming). [9]Dourish, P. (2006) Implications for design. In R. Grinter, T. Rodden, P.Aoki, E. Cutrell, R. Jefries, and G. Olson (Eds.) Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 541-550. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1124772.1124855 [10]Watts (2003)./ 27Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015[11]Gillespie (Forthcoming).[12]Habermas (1962/1991).[13]Habermas,J.(1971/2001)Refectionsonthelinguisticfoundationsofsociology: TheChristianGaussLectures(PrincetonUniversity,February-March1971).In Habermas, On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction, B. Fultner (trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. 1103.; Habermas, J. (1973) Wahrheitstheorien. In H. Fahrenbach (ed.), Wirklichkeit und Refexion. Pfllingen: Neske. 211265. Reprint: 1984b, chap. 2.[14]Bohman, J and Rehg, W. (2011) Jrgen Habermas. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Winter2011Edition),EdwardN.Zalta(ed.),Retrievedfromhttp://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/habermas/[15]Fraser (1990).[16]Watts (2003).[17]boyd (2010).[18]Widman, J. Edgerank. Retrieved August 3, 2014 from http://edgerank.net/[19]Castells,M.(2009).CommunicationPower.OxfordUniversityPress,Inc.,New York, NY, USA.[20]Benthall,S.(2013,June30).WhyWeirdTwitter[Weblogpost].Retrievedfrom http://ethnographymatters.net/blog/2013/06/30/why-weird-twitter-part-1/[21]Senft,T.M.(2008).Camgirls:CelebrityandCommunityintheAgeofSocial Networks. New York: Peter Lang.[22]Watts (2003).[23]Barabsi,A.L.andAlbert,R.(1999)EmergenceofScalinginRandomNetworks. Science, 286 (5439), 509-512. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.286.5439.509Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 28 /[24]Zhou T, Medo M, Cimini G, Zhang Z-K, Zhang Y-C (2011) Emergence of Scale-Free Leadership Structure in Social Recommender Systems. PLoS ONE 6(7): e20648. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020648 [25]Tinati, R., Carr, L., Hall, W. and Bentwood, J.(2012)Scale Free: Twitters Retweet Network Structure. At Network Science 2012, Evanston, US[26]Newman,M.E.(2002)Assortativemixinginnetworks.PhysicalReviewLetters, 89(20), 208701.[27]Watts (2003).[28]Fraser (1990).[29]Benthall,S.(2014a).Tweetserve,v0.1-beta.Retrievedfromhttps://github.com/sbenthall/tweetserve/releases/tag/v0.1-beta[30]https://dev.twitter.com/docs[31]Chang, A. (2014, Apr 22). The value mechanism. [Web log post] Retrieved fromhttps://github.com/sbenthall/tweetserve/issues/12[32]Davies, W. (2014, June 23) against quality. [Web log post] Retrieved from http: //potlatch.typepad.com/weblog/2014/06/against-quality.html[33]Gillespie (Forthcoming).[34]Nissenbaum,H.(1998)ValuesintheDesignofComputerSystems.Computers andSociety28,no.1(1998):3839;Flanagan,M.,Howe,D.andNissenbaum,H. (2008)EmbodyingValuesinTechnology:TheoryandPractice.InInformation Technology and Moral Philosophy, Eds. Jeroen van den Hoven and John Weckert, Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511498725.017[35]Gillespie (Forthcoming) [36]Kelty (2008)/ 29Designing Networked Publics for Communicative Action / Benthall / Summer 2015[37]Preston-Werner,T.(2011,Nov22)OpenSource(Almost)Everything.[Weblog post]Retrievedfromhttp://tom.preston-werner.com/2011/11/22/open-source-everything.html[38]Fogel,K.(2005)Producingopensourcesoftware:Howtorunasuccessfulfree software project. OReilly Media, Inc.[39]Froomkin,A.M.(2003)Habermas@discourse.net:TowardaCriticalTheory ofCyberspace.HarvardLawReview,Vol.116,No.3.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1342583 [40]Benthall,S.(2014b,Jan10).Decentralization,democracy,andrationality[Web logpost]Retreivedfromhttp://digifesto.com/2014/01/20/decentralization-democracy-and-rationality/[41]Gillespie (forthcoming)[42]Davis,JennyandJurgenson,Nathan(2014)Contextcollapse:theorizingcontext collusionsandcollisions.Information,Communication&Society,17:4,476-485. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2014.888458 [43]c.f.Kane,S.(2014) ANew,OpenSourceFundingPlatformWithDiversity AtThe Core. Model, View, Culture. Retrieved from http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/a-new-open-source-funding-platform-with-diversity-at-the-core[44]Lessig, L. (2000) Code is Law. Harvard Magazine. Retrieved from:h t t p : / /harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html[45]Habermas,J.(1981/1984)TheTheoryofCommunicativeAction:Reasonand theRationalizationofSociety(T.McCarthy,Trans.).BeaconPress.;Habermas, J.(1981/1987)TheTheoryofCommunicativeAction:Lifeworldandsystem:a critique of functionalist reason (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Beacon Press. (Original work published 1981) [46] Bohman and Rehg (2011)Interface / Volume 1 / Issue 1 / Theorizing the Web 2014 30 /[47]The value of the concept of lifeworld has been challenged by Baxter (2011) in light of Habermas recent work and critical analysis. Baxter points out that since the term has its roots in phenomenology, and because there is undoubtedly a phenomenology ofbureaucracyandthemarket,thecontrastbetweenlifeworldandsystemis misleading. However, in the case of systems of software and network infrastructure, the distinction between lived and linguistically mediated experience and interacting material structures is even more vivid than in the context of Habermass original use of the term. Whereas the sense of system of interacting components was once a metaphor for certain structurally determined social worlds, networked publics are characterizedbysystemsofoperatingmachineswithouthumanphenomenology or linguistic capacity, yet. See: Baxter, H. (2011) Habermas: The Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Stanford University Press. Stanford, California. [48]Habermas (1981/1987).[49]Zurn, C. (2011) Discourse theory of law. Jurgen Habermas: Key Concepts. Ed. Barbara Fultner, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/upo9781844654741.009 ReferencesAshton,K.(2013)YoudidntmaketheHarlemShakegoviralcorporationsdid. 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