The thesis explores the relationships between knowledge and knowing in contemporary 21st century information society, using the foundation of the Faculty of Media Design & New Media Art at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milano as a research apparatus. This Faculty was established between 2003 and 2012, in Milano, Italy. The starting point of the research was established in the hypothesis that technics have tertiarised memory (Stiegler B., 1994), that knowledge is always founded on an ontological pessimism (Queneau R., 1933, Lyotard F., 1979) and on a perpetual process of the generation of meaning (Gadda C., 1923-29, Foucault M., 1966). Knowledge is always and inevitably linked to the technics with which it is passed on. Pedagogy becomes a questioning of the object of knowledge, which transmutes into a definition of the ways it can be visualised. This research then, setting out from a pessimistic position in relation to knowledge and truth, amplifies them to infinite possible forms and therefore causes a dual shift of philosophy towards art and of pedagogy towards hermeneutics. The methodology consisted of a textual and visual description of a territory in a cartography of meaning, seen as the relation between intuition and the way in which practices as knowledges, arts, form remnants.

Submitted by Priscilla Araujo (priscilla@ibict.br) on 2016-07-05T19:51:23Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) TESE DOUTORADO CIÊNCIA DA INFORMAÇÃO - 2015 - CLEIDE LUCIANE ANTONIUTTI - IBICT-ECO-UFRJ (1).pdf: 4250615 bytes, checksum: 15d67eba953ab4abafcf6b01136a4710 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-05T19:51:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) TESE DOUTORADO CIÊNCIA DA INFORMAÇÃO - 2015 - CLEIDE LUCIANE ANTONIUTTI - IBICT-ECO-UFRJ (1).pdf: 4250615 bytes, checksum: 15d67eba953ab4abafcf6b01136a4710 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-07 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta tese tem como foco os usos que campanhas eleitorais contemporâneas têm feito do big data, a partir do fenômeno da datificação da informação e da adoção de novas práticas para conquista de eleitores daí derivadas. O trabalho inicia-se discutindo a informação e a tecnologia a partir da Sociedade Informacional (Castells). Caracteriza em seguida o fenômeno da datificação a partir da disponibilidade e dos usos das mídias sociais digitais e dos dispositivos móveis. Conceitua e caracteriza o big data a partir de diferentes dimensões teóricas e práticas, apresentando os impactos do big data na vigilância, monitoramento e uso de informações pessoais de ambientes de mídias sociais digitais. Discute as características das campanhas eleitorais atuais e os conceitos de marketing eleitoral. Apresenta campanhas eleitorais centradas em dados, ilustrando com o exemplo da campanha eleitoral americana de Barack Obama de 2012. Na pesquisa empírica, investiga como empresas de dados brasileiras trabalham com o big data em campanhas eleitorais. Busca diferentes visões de especialistas sobre a temática. Observa-se diretamente uma campanha eleitoral brasileira no pleito de 2014, que foca suas estratégias no uso do big data. Considera-se o big data como um processo pouco usado, mas com grandes expectativas, contribuindo para as ações direcionadas e microsegmentadas de comunicação entre candidato e eleitores. / This thesis focuses on the uses that contemporary election campaigns have made of big data, from datificação of information phenomenon and adoption of new practices to achievement of voters derived therefrom. The work begins discussing the information and technology from the Informational Society (Castells).Features then the datificação phenomenon from the availability and use of digital social media and mobile devices. Conceptualizes and features the big data from different theoretical and practical dimensions, presenting the big data impacts on surveillance, monitoring and use of personal information of digital social media environments. Discusses the features of the current election campaigns and the concepts of electoral marketing. Presents election campaigns centered on data, illustrating the example of the American election campaign of Barack Obama 2012. In empirical research investigates how data Brazilian companies work with big data in election campaigns. Search different views of experts on the subject. It is observed directly a Brazilian election campaign in the 2014 election that focuses its strategies on the use of big data. It is considered the big data as a little-used process, but with great expectations, contributing to the targeted and microsegmentadas actions of communication between candidates and voters.

The thesis deals with media education with special reference to new media. Media education has been a part of Czech curicula since 2004 and schools struggle with how to cope with it. In past few years new media came out to be a significant element of media education. New media are important part of everyone's life in informational society. Therefore it is neccessary to widen media literacy to new media as well. Children are growing with new media and they take them as a natural part of their lives. On the contrary teachers very often do not need new media and use them marginally. The author of the thesis tries to map how teachers and children are facing new media not only in media education but even in their lives. The first part of the thesis describes basic elements of the issue - informational society, media literacy, media education and new media. One chapter deals with media education in the Czech Republic, its past and present. The second part of it describes the methodology of the research with its advantages and disadvantages. The main part of the thesis contains a mixed research combining two methods (questionnaries and in-depth interviews). The research was implemented in elementary schools with children as well as with teachers. Results of the research show gaps in the media education emphasizing...

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:21:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mauricio Nascimento dos Santos.pdf: 1764954 bytes, checksum: 0ba027335965b69790ab7f8a36c8d10b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Digital culture - forged by the information revolution of the 60s by the advent of new information technologies and communication, especially the computer and the Internet - has constituted this century a social process of long unplanned duration, inaugurating a new social and cultural space: cyberspace. The world has become culture, a culture-world, where power flows is more important than the power flows in an informational and global society. In this society in transformation, tecnichian process, whose technique is an anthropological constant, the notions of individual, species, society and culture, need to be (re) connected to understand the new ways of thinking, acting and feeling this new social context. Among the diverse cultural practices daily reading, it is one of the most important and is constituted as a reality shared meanings intersubjectively and expressed in language, constituent elements of social reality. Therefore, we sought to understand the impact of digital culture in the contemporary world, in everyday life and reading as a cultural practice, by knowing the contexts of social relations in social reality. The daily was considered as leverage the knowledge and theoretical and methodological route. We conducted a case study on a project developed in cyberspace, in a distance learning platform: the "Literary Virtual Itineraries: Guimarães Rosa". Through a virtual ethnography and a phenomenological approach, analyzed the social interactions of the participants understood as subjective meanings of social action and a relevant reference of the sociology of everyday life. As a universal manifestation of all men, literature is much closer to the sociological and analyzed experiment constituted a powerful source of cultural repertoire expansion. It proved to be an important gathering of information and communication technologies, in cyberspace, with the changes of reading as a cultural practice, and literature, enabling an understanding of the social context of digital culture and innovate in sociological do, as an intellectual craft / A cultura digital - forjada pela revolução informacional dos anos 60 pelo advento das novas tecnologias da informação e comunicação, principalmente do computador e da internet - vem se constituindo neste século num processo social de longa duração não planejado, inaugurando um novo espaço social e cultural: o ciberespaço. O mundo se tornou cultura, uma cultura-mundo, em que poder dos fluxos é mais importante que os fluxos de poder, numa sociedade informacional e global. Nesta sociedade em transformação, o processo de tecnização, cuja técnica é uma constante antropológica, as noções de indivíduo, espécie, sociedade e cultura, precisam ser (re)conectadas para se compreender as novas maneiras de pensar, agir e sentir neste novo contexto social. Dentre as diversas práticas culturais cotidianas a leitura, é umas das mais importantes e se constitui como uma realidade com significados compartilhados intersubjetivamente e expressos na linguagem, elementos constitutivos da realidade social. Por isso, buscou-se, entender as consequências da cultura digital no mundo contemporâneo, no cotidiano e na leitura como prática cultural, conhecendo-se os contextos das relações sociais no real social. O cotidiano foi considerado como uma alavanca do conhecimento e um percurso teórico-metodológico. Realizou-se um estudo de caso, em um projeto desenvolvido no ciberespaço, em uma plataforma de ensino a distância: os Itinerários Literários Virtuais: Guimarães Rosa . Por meio de uma etnografia virtual e de uma abordagem fenomenológica, analisaram-se as interações sociais dos participantes, compreendidas como significados subjetivos da ação social e um referencial relevante da Sociologia da vida cotidiana. Como uma manifestação universal de todos os homens, a literatura se aproxima muito mais do fazer sociológico e o experimento analisado se constituiu numa fonte potente de ampliação de repertório cultural. Revelou-se um importante encontro das tecnologias de informação e comunicação, no ciberespaço, com as mudanças da leitura, como prática cultural, e da literatura, possibilitando uma compreensão do contexto social da cultura digital e um inovar no fazer sociológico, como artesanato intelectual

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:55:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mauricio Nascimento dos Santos.pdf: 1764954 bytes, checksum: 0ba027335965b69790ab7f8a36c8d10b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Digital culture - forged by the information revolution of the 60s by the advent of new information technologies and communication, especially the computer and the Internet - has constituted this century a social process of long unplanned duration, inaugurating a new social and cultural space: cyberspace. The world has become culture, a culture-world, where power flows is more important than the power flows in an informational and global society. In this society in transformation, tecnichian process, whose technique is an anthropological constant, the notions of individual, species, society and culture, need to be (re) connected to understand the new ways of thinking, acting and feeling this new social context. Among the diverse cultural practices daily reading, it is one of the most important and is constituted as a reality shared meanings intersubjectively and expressed in language, constituent elements of social reality. Therefore, we sought to understand the impact of digital culture in the contemporary world, in everyday life and reading as a cultural practice, by knowing the contexts of social relations in social reality. The daily was considered as leverage the knowledge and theoretical and methodological route. We conducted a case study on a project developed in cyberspace, in a distance learning platform: the "Literary Virtual Itineraries: Guimarães Rosa". Through a virtual ethnography and a phenomenological approach, analyzed the social interactions of the participants understood as subjective meanings of social action and a relevant reference of the sociology of everyday life. As a universal manifestation of all men, literature is much closer to the sociological and analyzed experiment constituted a powerful source of cultural repertoire expansion. It proved to be an important gathering of information and communication technologies, in cyberspace, with the changes of reading as a cultural practice, and literature, enabling an understanding of the social context of digital culture and innovate in sociological do, as an intellectual craft / A cultura digital - forjada pela revolução informacional dos anos 60 pelo advento das novas tecnologias da informação e comunicação, principalmente do computador e da internet - vem se constituindo neste século num processo social de longa duração não planejado, inaugurando um novo espaço social e cultural: o ciberespaço. O mundo se tornou cultura, uma cultura-mundo, em que poder dos fluxos é mais importante que os fluxos de poder, numa sociedade informacional e global. Nesta sociedade em transformação, o processo de tecnização, cuja técnica é uma constante antropológica, as noções de indivíduo, espécie, sociedade e cultura, precisam ser (re)conectadas para se compreender as novas maneiras de pensar, agir e sentir neste novo contexto social. Dentre as diversas práticas culturais cotidianas a leitura, é umas das mais importantes e se constitui como uma realidade com significados compartilhados intersubjetivamente e expressos na linguagem, elementos constitutivos da realidade social. Por isso, buscou-se, entender as consequências da cultura digital no mundo contemporâneo, no cotidiano e na leitura como prática cultural, conhecendo-se os contextos das relações sociais no real social. O cotidiano foi considerado como uma alavanca do conhecimento e um percurso teórico-metodológico. Realizou-se um estudo de caso, em um projeto desenvolvido no ciberespaço, em uma plataforma de ensino a distância: os Itinerários Literários Virtuais: Guimarães Rosa . Por meio de uma etnografia virtual e de uma abordagem fenomenológica, analisaram-se as interações sociais dos participantes, compreendidas como significados subjetivos da ação social e um referencial relevante da Sociologia da vida cotidiana. Como uma manifestação universal de todos os homens, a literatura se aproxima muito mais do fazer sociológico e o experimento analisado se constituiu numa fonte potente de ampliação de repertório cultural. Revelou-se um importante encontro das tecnologias de informação e comunicação, no ciberespaço, com as mudanças da leitura, como prática cultural, e da literatura, possibilitando uma compreensão do contexto social da cultura digital e um inovar no fazer sociológico, como artesanato intelectual

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This study aimed to examine the legal treatment of the right to public information in Brazil and Mexico, comparing the laws through the observation of the portals of the federal Legislative Power, checking the state of that matter in these countries to determine how the use of portals can contribute to active transparency. Based on the assumption that, in the context of informational society, there is a great potential in the use of ICT as a tool for spontaneous disclosure of information, enabling the effective exercise of accountability, it was verified the importance of analyzing how the portals of the federal Legislative Power are being used as an instrument for implementation of the Law of Access to Information. For such, it was chosen a comparative analysis with Mexico, seeking contributions to the discussion of this subject in Brazil, developing the following research problem: through comparative study of Brazilian and Mexican parliament portals, how is the state of matter of the implementation of the laws on the portals of the federal legislature of each country? From this analysis, to what extent can be verified that the use of portals can contribute to the accomplishment of active transparency, achieving accountability in a more complete and appropriate way, and enabling greater social control over the administrative, financial and budgetary management of federal Legislative Power? The theoretical framework was composed by the works of Guillermo O'Donnell and Antonio Enrique Perez-Luño, adding the concepts of network society and informational society developed by Manuel Castells. To answer the research problem, it was used a hypothetical deductive approach, and a combination between comparative and monographic method of procedure. Along with that, it was used the technique of research in documentary sources and the bibliographic research, performing in the end the analysis of the portals of Mexican s and Brazilian s Legislative Power, using a structured online form. With the analysis, it was found that Brazil showed greater effectiveness in the implementation of active transparency in the surveyed. It was also noticed that Mexican law is very advanced, however, the progressive legislation and lifetime factors - the key variables that led to the choice of Mexico - do not automatically convert to a better implementation of the law. It was concluded that the use of portals as a tool to actualize the active transparency has great potential in the sense of leading civil society to supervise and monitor the performance of public officials, increasing the degree of accountability and thus enabling the empowerment of social actors in democracy. However, the fact that information is available does not mean immediate appropriation by citizens, because in many cases the information is not disclosed in an updated, completed and affordable way, as well as the potential must be weighed against the issue of digital inclusion, and with the understanding that technology is nothing more than an instrument of democratization, but that its results will depend largely on the attitude that the state adopts in relation to information disclosure. / O presente trabalho objetivou analisar o tratamento normativo do direito à informação pública no Brasil e no México, cotejando as legislações com a observação dos portais do Poder Legislativo federal, a fim de averiguar o estado da questão nos Estados investigados para determinar em que medida a utilização de portais pode contribuir para a transparência ativa. Partindo-se do pressuposto que, no contexto da sociedade informacional existe um grande potencial na utilização das TIC como instrumento de divulgação espontânea de informações, possibilitando o exercício efetivo da accountability, verificou-se a relevância de analisar de que maneira estão sendo utilizados os portais do Poder Legislativo federal como instrumento para aplicação da Lei de Acesso à Informação. Para tanto, optou-se pela análise comparada com o México, de modo a buscar contribuições para o recente debate sobre o tema no Brasil, objetivando responder ao seguinte questionamento: comparando-se os portais dos parlamentos brasileiro e mexicano, qual o estado da questão em relação à implementação das legislações nos portais do Poder Legislativo federal de cada país? A partir de tal análise, em que medida se verifica que a utilização de portais pode contribuir para a concretização da transparência ativa, atendendo assim de maneira mais completa e adequada à accountability e permitindo maior controle social sobre a gestão administrativa, financeira e orçamentária do Poder Legislativo federal? O marco teórico do presente trabalho foi composto pelas obras dos autores Guillermo O Donnell e Antonio Henrique Perez-Luño, agregando-se os conceitos de sociedade em rede e sociedade informacional desenvolvidos por Manuel Castells. Para responder ao problema de pesquisa, optou-se pelo método de abordagem hipotético-dedutivo e pela combinação entre os métodos de procedimento comparativo e monográfico. Em conjunto, utilizou-se a técnica de pesquisa em fontes documentais e a pesquisa bibliográfica para, ao final, efetuar a análise dos portais do Poder Legislativo federal mexicano e brasileiro, utilizando-se um formulário estruturado online. Com a análise, verificou-se que o Brasil foi o que apresentou maior efetividade na implementação da transparência ativa nos portais pesquisados. Constatou-se que a lei mexicana é bastante avançada, contudo, os fatores legislação progressista e tempo de vigência as principais variáveis que levaram à escolha do México não se converteram automaticamente numa melhor implementação da lei. Concluiu-se que a utilização de portais como instrumento para efetivar a transparência ativa possui grande potencial no sentido de propiciar à sociedade civil fiscalizar e acompanhar a atuação dos agentes públicos, aumentando o grau de accountability e, consequentemente, possibilitando o fortalecimento dos atores sociais na democracia. Contudo, o fato de a informação estar disponível não significa imediata apropriação por parte dos cidadãos, pois em muitos casos a informação não é divulgada de maneira atualizada, completa e acessível, assim como o potencial deve ser sopesado com a questão da inclusão digital, e com o entendimento que a tecnologia é nada mais que um instrumento de democratização, mas que seus resultados dependerão, em grande parte, da postura que o Estado adotar em relação à divulgação de informações.

From the 1990s onwards the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) adopted a range of interactive multimedia activities: CD-ROM, web publishing, datacasting and interactive television. Drawing on extensive primary research, this thesis explores why the ABC pursued an interactive multimedia program under a neo-liberal rationality and how online publishing in particular has impacted on its role as a public service broadcaster. Drawing on neo-Foucauldian governmentality theory and Scott Lash’s critique of information, the thesis examines how the ABC operates as a technology of government in the transition to an informational society. While it considers the ABC as a localised, specific form of public service broadcasting, many of the findings have importance for analysis within the broader field of state intervention in media markets. It demonstrates that networked interactive multimedia are a communications strategy appropriate to the governance of a globally implicated market-state during a period of informationalisation – characterised by increased symbolic flows, spatial and temporal compression, decontextualised and disorderly relations of information. Public service media will transition this period, characterised by rapid social change and institutional upheaval, where they can incorporate and exploit the informational relations that threaten to diminish their utility as governmental assemblage. It finds that while ABC executives used technological change to adapt to the enterprise focus of neo-liberal government, the corporation was simultaneously transformed by disorganisational influences pursuing an ethics of internetworking. Contrary to Lash’s ideal schema of institutional decline, disorganisation – embodied in the ad hoc, program-maker led push for internet access and publishing – can become a force for organisational renewal. This is observable in the development of ABC Online, a public access web service. The conclusion drawn from ABC Online’s emergence is that the era of digitalisation exposes the ABC as a mutable object, a flexible strategy of national communications governance. It is not exclusively tied to a technical system, such as radio or television, or a practice such as broadcasting. Interactive multimedia such as ABC Online may help the ABC to readdress its contradictory political rationale – the call to represent a coherent national identity in the face of infinite lived diversity – and play a new role in connecting and engaging its users.This thesis re-examines that role in light of Lash’s observations about the nature of informational power. It explores at length the response to a new self-governing, performative subject, the user of interactive multimedia technology. The user, unlike the audience, is visible, often vocal and social. She negotiates both the space of a multimedia object and dialogic interactions within that space. Her exemplary expertise may rival that of the ABC’s program-makers. This analysis indicates that in response to informational phenomena, the ABC has reconceived its space of government, its pedagogy and its production of citizenship in order to remain an effective expression of governmentality. An online ABC may act as a mediatory, contextualising strategy that helps users negotiate the construction and function of difference. It may also be altered by user knowledge. These relations are possible, although preliminary in this research, while the ABC remains wedded to the more disciplinary relations of broadcasting. The implication is that a digitally networked ABC should not be a self-enclosed institution. It is part of an informational network: a multi-sector innovation system. It should not be divorced from its public or the market except in its ethics of exchange. It is a technology that through its technocultural relations socialises, is shaped by and melds with its sometimes unruly user/citizens. It influences, is influenced by and is part of a volatile mediascape. The ABC is organisation and disorganisation, the rigidity of the one generating the other and then being reincorporated, in a cycle of institutional and industrial change.

From the 1990s onwards the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) adopted a range of interactive multimedia activities: CD-ROM, web publishing, datacasting and interactive television. Drawing on extensive primary research, this thesis explores why the ABC pursued an interactive multimedia program under a neo-liberal rationality and how online publishing in particular has impacted on its role as a public service broadcaster. Drawing on neo-Foucauldian governmentality theory and Scott Lash’s critique of information, the thesis examines how the ABC operates as a technology of government in the transition to an informational society. While it considers the ABC as a localised, specific form of public service broadcasting, many of the findings have importance for analysis within the broader field of state intervention in media markets. It demonstrates that networked interactive multimedia are a communications strategy appropriate to the governance of a globally implicated market-state during a period of informationalisation – characterised by increased symbolic flows, spatial and temporal compression, decontextualised and disorderly relations of information. Public service media will transition this period, characterised by rapid social change and institutional upheaval, where they can incorporate and exploit the informational relations that threaten to diminish their utility as governmental assemblage. It finds that while ABC executives used technological change to adapt to the enterprise focus of neo-liberal government, the corporation was simultaneously transformed by disorganisational influences pursuing an ethics of internetworking. Contrary to Lash’s ideal schema of institutional decline, disorganisation – embodied in the ad hoc, program-maker led push for internet access and publishing – can become a force for organisational renewal. This is observable in the development of ABC Online, a public access web service. The conclusion drawn from ABC Online’s emergence is that the era of digitalisation exposes the ABC as a mutable object, a flexible strategy of national communications governance. It is not exclusively tied to a technical system, such as radio or television, or a practice such as broadcasting. Interactive multimedia such as ABC Online may help the ABC to readdress its contradictory political rationale – the call to represent a coherent national identity in the face of infinite lived diversity – and play a new role in connecting and engaging its users.This thesis re-examines that role in light of Lash’s observations about the nature of informational power. It explores at length the response to a new self-governing, performative subject, the user of interactive multimedia technology. The user, unlike the audience, is visible, often vocal and social. She negotiates both the space of a multimedia object and dialogic interactions within that space. Her exemplary expertise may rival that of the ABC’s program-makers. This analysis indicates that in response to informational phenomena, the ABC has reconceived its space of government, its pedagogy and its production of citizenship in order to remain an effective expression of governmentality. An online ABC may act as a mediatory, contextualising strategy that helps users negotiate the construction and function of difference. It may also be altered by user knowledge. These relations are possible, although preliminary in this research, while the ABC remains wedded to the more disciplinary relations of broadcasting. The implication is that a digitally networked ABC should not be a self-enclosed institution. It is part of an informational network: a multi-sector innovation system. It should not be divorced from its public or the market except in its ethics of exchange. It is a technology that through its technocultural relations socialises, is shaped by and melds with its sometimes unruly user/citizens. It influences, is influenced by and is part of a volatile mediascape. The ABC is organisation and disorganisation, the rigidity of the one generating the other and then being reincorporated, in a cycle of institutional and industrial change.

From the 1990s onwards the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) adopted a range of interactive multimedia activities: CD-ROM, web publishing, datacasting and interactive television. Drawing on extensive primary research, this thesis explores why the ABC pursued an interactive multimedia program under a neo-liberal rationality and how online publishing in particular has impacted on its role as a public service broadcaster. Drawing on neo-Foucauldian governmentality theory and Scott Lash’s critique of information, the thesis examines how the ABC operates as a technology of government in the transition to an informational society. While it considers the ABC as a localised, specific form of public service broadcasting, many of the findings have importance for analysis within the broader field of state intervention in media markets. It demonstrates that networked interactive multimedia are a communications strategy appropriate to the governance of a globally implicated market-state during a period of informationalisation – characterised by increased symbolic flows, spatial and temporal compression, decontextualised and disorderly relations of information. Public service media will transition this period, characterised by rapid social change and institutional upheaval, where they can incorporate and exploit the informational relations that threaten to diminish their utility as governmental assemblage. It finds that while ABC executives used technological change to adapt to the enterprise focus of neo-liberal government, the corporation was simultaneously transformed by disorganisational influences pursuing an ethics of internetworking. Contrary to Lash’s ideal schema of institutional decline, disorganisation – embodied in the ad hoc, program-maker led push for internet access and publishing – can become a force for organisational renewal. This is observable in the development of ABC Online, a public access web service. The conclusion drawn from ABC Online’s emergence is that the era of digitalisation exposes the ABC as a mutable object, a flexible strategy of national communications governance. It is not exclusively tied to a technical system, such as radio or television, or a practice such as broadcasting. Interactive multimedia such as ABC Online may help the ABC to readdress its contradictory political rationale – the call to represent a coherent national identity in the face of infinite lived diversity – and play a new role in connecting and engaging its users.This thesis re-examines that role in light of Lash’s observations about the nature of informational power. It explores at length the response to a new self-governing, performative subject, the user of interactive multimedia technology. The user, unlike the audience, is visible, often vocal and social. She negotiates both the space of a multimedia object and dialogic interactions within that space. Her exemplary expertise may rival that of the ABC’s program-makers. This analysis indicates that in response to informational phenomena, the ABC has reconceived its space of government, its pedagogy and its production of citizenship in order to remain an effective expression of governmentality. An online ABC may act as a mediatory, contextualising strategy that helps users negotiate the construction and function of difference. It may also be altered by user knowledge. These relations are possible, although preliminary in this research, while the ABC remains wedded to the more disciplinary relations of broadcasting. The implication is that a digitally networked ABC should not be a self-enclosed institution. It is part of an informational network: a multi-sector innovation system. It should not be divorced from its public or the market except in its ethics of exchange. It is a technology that through its technocultural relations socialises, is shaped by and melds with its sometimes unruly user/citizens. It influences, is influenced by and is part of a volatile mediascape. The ABC is organisation and disorganisation, the rigidity of the one generating the other and then being reincorporated, in a cycle of institutional and industrial change.