<nettime> Learning from Fukushima - report

[Krystian Woznicki <kw@berlinergazette.de>]

Dear nettimers,

below I am sending you the report about our conference LEARNING FROM 
FUKUSHIMA --- please read and forward. The contents are:

1. Report
2. Further Info on the Internet
3. Credits

Best wishes,

Krystian

----------------------------------

1. Report

March 11th, 2011: earthquake, tsunami, nuclear meltdown. The triple
disaster in Japan shocked the world community, particularly Germany.
It was detected via real-time Internet and prompted the disturbing
question: can an advanced G8 country actually be forced to its knees?
A short time later paradigm shifts in Germany's (nuclear) policy were
initiated. In Japan itself a critical public started to emerge, trying
to influence politicians to reconsider public policy. Against this
backgrop the conference "Learning from Fukushima" asked the following
questions:

How does a critical public emerge in times of crisis? How can citizens
participate in this process? Which role does the Internet play? At
the conference experts from Atlanta, Berlin, Compiègne, Los Angeles,
Munich, New York, Prague, Tokyo and Vienna were looking for answers.
They provided best-practice examples, thereby establishing a rich base
for discussions.

"All humans are sensors."

Someone in the audience said: "All humans are sensors. They absorb data 
- whether it concerns the supply situation in a conflict zone or 
radiation levels." The Internet can help to organize such data. The 
mechanisms for this are still immature. People still need to learn many 
things. A major crisis may accelerate this process. Tomomi Sasaki 
elaborated upon this in her presentation. As a speaker in the conference 
slot "State of Emergency in Japan – also in the Field of Media?" Sasaki 
observed that her country completed a "crash course in social media" 
after the triple catastrophe from 11th March 2011. Like other speakers, 
she addressed the question: What are the offline-consequences of this 
process?

Thorsten Schilling had already touched upon this issue in his
welcoming speech. The director of the Multimedia Department at the
Federal Agency for Civic Education stressed that a long breath
is necessary if a social movement is to emerge from an eventful
experience of community like after march 11th. A really long breath,
because various processes of questioning the foundations of society
emerge on so many different levels simultaneously.

While similar processes are on the way in other regions of the
industrialized world as well, in Japan the ruptures are manifest
in a particularly strong way due to the consequences of the triple
disaster. The following questions pop up almost everywhere: "How
sustainable is our economic system? What is our stance on the
environment? How do we want to supply us with energy? Do our media
function sufficiently?" Hardly any of those questions can be answered
individually. Everything is connected. But what does this mean in
practice? The radiation mappers Andreas Schneider (IIDJ) and Sean
Bonner (Safecast.rog) dwelled upon this issue. "In Los Angeles, the
radiation is higher than in Tokyo," Bonner said. "Radioactivity is
part of everyday life," Schneider confirmed. While quite accurate
radiation data can be aquired, the risks are usually relative. So
the Post-Fukushima radiation in the metropolis of Tokyo cannot be
understood out of context. Its risk can only be assessed in a dialogue
conducted by society as a whole.

"The First Online Contact with Readers was a Shock."

Japan's society is weakened by the triple disaster and its aftermath.
The transformation taking place on parallel planes leads to a
perceived paralysis. At the same time there is a desire for the
"old normal". Therefore, things change very slowly and almost
imperceptibly. The more important it is to make these changes visible
as a whole. Only a critical public can fulfill this important task.
The means of traditional mass media to go about this are limited
because they are part of the change itself - and in many ways at odds
with the inherent challenges.

Frank Patalong made an interesting point in this context. As a speaker
of the conference slot "The Online-Disaster – Business as Usual?" he
looked back at the first decade of online journalism. In the late
1990s Patalong began to build the department "Netzwelt" (Network
World) at Spiegel Online and was its director for ten years. At
the conference, he remembered the first direct online contact with
readers: "It was a shock. A positive shock that is."

For an veterane onliner like Patalong the positive aspect of this
experience with the "sensors" seems natural by now. For many other
journalists it isn't. So many in this industry have not overcome the
shock to this day. Or they have not even made the experience at all.
Symptomatic of this: The major media companies in Germany are afraid
to supply the masses with collaborative news platforms. They still
lag behind developments that have become part of the media everday in
countries like Great Britain, South Korea and the US.

The speakers of the conference slot "Scenarios of Audience
Participation – what is seminal?" illuminated the potenial of
collaborative platforms. Lila King presented iReport. People who
traditionally have been allocated to the audience are reporters here.
The digital platform gives them the opportunity to contribute text,
audio and video. This is how they can become part of the global news
of CNN.

The Ushahidi field representative in Port-au-Prince coordinated the
crisis response after the last major earthquake in Haiti. Valuch's
team consisted of a handful of Internet activists organizing SMS
messages sent by people affected in the disaster area as well as
numerous volunteers from around the world, who helped translating and
filtering the data making it available on a crisis map that also made
possible the humanitarian mission of the United Nations.

After this spontaneous action the activists around Valuch have become
a tightly organized band of volunteers. Working under the name The
Standby Task Force, they demonstrate that citizens in a heavy crisis
do not have to limit themselves to the role of victims. One can
influence the crisis management actively – using the Internet as a
tool. The motto being: You have to engage upon new alliances and you
have to collaborate with people with whom you previously have not been
working together.

Looking ahead

"Learning from Fukushima" has tried to reflect critically this new
culture of collaboration. However the conference also tried to
practice it. Interpreting the overwhelmingly positive reactions of the
audience, it can be said, that this ambitious gole has been achieved
to a certain degree. About 200 participants were on site throughout
the day, about 50 in the Internet via live stream and Twitter. A
lively exchange that will continue – in discussions and projects.

In the noise of the here and now it is not easy to get an idea for
sustainable values. In times of crisis this is even more difficult. In
"Learning from Fukushima" the participants gained such a notion - at
least with respect to the new culture of collaboration. This expansion
of consciousness does not help only in crisis management on our own
doorstep - whether facing the civil uprisings in London or in Athens.
It can also be transported to Japan.

A translation of this report about "Learning from Fukushima" is
planned into Japanese with the intention to circulate it – not only
in citizen media but also in the realms of official government
publications.



2. Further Info on the Internet

* The conference in the press
* Photos of the conference
* Video-Interviews (70% English)
* Report in German
URL: http://berlinergazette.de/learning-from-fukushima

* Live-Video-Recording (80% English)
http://vimeo.com/album/1736345

* Archive of Twitter-Postings (#LFF2910)
URL: http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23LFF2910

* English programme
URL: https://plus.google.com/107214655315602744984/posts/hoS1TXxTGgA



3. Credits

The all-day symposium „Learning from Fukushima“ was a project of
the Berlin Gazette (berlinergazette.de) and was supported by the
Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische
Bildung/bpb). The cooperation partners were: Institue for Information
Design Japan, Institute of Communication in Social Media, Youth Press
Germany, iq consult, Sapporo City University, TAB ticket broker and
General Public.

Contact person | author of this report:

Krystian Woznicki
Berliner Gazette
Danzigerstr. 31
10435 Berlin
Tel: 030-60947246
kw@berlinergazette.de
http://berlinergazette.de



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