Information Society Project

 

Abstract:

Mobile and wireless technologies – including mobile phones, wireless fidelity (WiFi), radio frequency identification tags (RFID) and wireless sensors – are rapidly being innovated, adopted and used.  These technologies comprise an “invisible” information layer in physical spaces however, there has been little theoretical or applied research conducted to shape the ways in which they are designed and used.  This project analyzes the socio-cultural, economic and political dimensions of mobile and wireless technologies, focusing on the ways in which they privilege local innovation, use and community-formation.

The current research has identified a number of important findings, which contradict much thinking about the socio-economic dimensions of the Internet.  This is because much research focuses primarily on the virtual and networked aspects of the Internet rather than the local significance.  WiFi provides an excellent opportunity to learn more about the Internet’s more local dimensions.  The focus on localism emerged from an ongoing research project, which was organized into three parts:  1) a four-year ethnographic study of community wireless organizations and their role in building, using and innovating local infrastructures in the United States and abroad; 2) a 40-question online survey on the use of WiFi in public spaces that was conducted simultaneously in New York, Montreal and Budapest, and garnered over 1300 responses; and, 3) 29 in-depth interviews with mobile professionals who use WiFi in public spaces including parks, cafes and other public spaces.

First, community wireless organizations are significant in that they were early adopters of WiFi technology, having innovated open source software for managing wireless networks.  These groups exemplify peer-to-peer production with one significant difference; rather than organizing their activities merely online, they must work face-to-face, climbing towers and rooftops, in order to build their networks.  Second, community wireless networks were important forerunners to the municipal wireless networks that are currently being proposed and implemented.  One challenge that municipal wireless networks face is that they know very little about the ways in which wireless networks are currently being used.  The survey on the use of WiFi, conducted in three cities, aims to better understand the way WiFi use differs from Internet use.  The wireless network at Bryant Park in New York, which was sponsored by Google for two years, emerged from the survey as one of the most frequently used wireless networks.  Research findings illustrate that the availability of WiFi is a significant factor in determining where people go and that the majority of people surveyed use WiFi to search for information relevant to their geographic location.  However, to date, few business models have capitalized on the possibility of using ‘splash pages’ on wireless networks for featuring content and advertising.  Finally, the in-depth interviews with mobile professionals expand upon the survey findings by offering qualitative descriptions of the ways in which communities that form around WiFi hotspots in cafes, parks and other public spaces enable social support, knowledge-sharing and collaboration.  In sum, this project argues that WiFi interacts with socio-economic factors to support local innovation, use and community-formation, an argument that could be adopted for the analysis of other mobile and wireless technologies.

This project has important business and public policy implications.  From a business perspective, it helps to define the kinds of content, services and applications – including advertising and search -- that might be designed for mobile and wireless technologies.  From a public policy perspective, it provides empirical evidence for specific policy recommendations with respect to municipal wireless networks, spectrum regulation, and network neutrality.
 

Biography:

Laura Forlano is a Visiting Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and a Ph.D. Candidate in Communications at Columbia University. She is researching the intersection of the adoption and use of mobile and wireless technologies and organizational innovation. In particular, her dissertation focuses on the way that community wireless organizations, new proposals for regulating spectrum, and the use of wireless networks are examples of the re-emergence of a community form of organizing, collaboration and coordination. She received partial funding for her dissertation project from Microsoft Research and conducted comparative international research in Japan, Hungary and Germany. Forlano is an Adjunct Faculty member in the Design and Management department at Parsons The New School for Design where she teaches Design in Everyday Experience, Introduction to Design and Management, and Sustainable Design. She serves as a board member of NYCwireless, a non-profit organization that promotes the deployment of free, public WiFi networks and the New York City Computer Human Interaction Association.

---

Michael Zimmer, PhD
Assistant Professor
School of Information Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
e: zimmerm@uwm.edu
w: www.michaelzimmer.org