Upcoming Events and Digital Media Roundup

Culturomics: Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books

Tuesday, May 10, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St., Cambridge, MA.

Erez Lieberman Aiden & Jean-Baptiste Michel show how an analysis of a corpus of digitized text can provide insights about fields as diverse as lexicography, the evolution of grammar, collective memory, the adoption of technology, the pursuit of fame, censorship, and historical epidemiology. Erez Lieberman Aiden is a fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and Visiting Faculty at Google. Jean-Baptiste Michel is FQEB Fellow at Harvard and Visiting Faculty at Google. With Erez Lieberman Aiden, he founded the Cultural Observatory at Harvard, where their team develops quantitative approaches to the humanities and social sciences. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group

Wednesday, May 11, 6:00pm, MIT (Room TBA)

The "Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group" is a forum for fellows and affiliates of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, Yale Law School Information Society Project, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University to discuss their ongoing research. This month's presenters will feature Malte Ziewitz on "How’s my feedback? Six puzzles and some notes on web-based review and rating schemes"; Nicholas Bramble on "Legislating by Safe Harbor"; and more. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Juan Carlos de Martin

Tuesday, May 17, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St., Cambridge, MA.

Juan Carlos de Martin, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the NEXA Center for Internet & Society at Politecnico di Torino, will speak at the Berkman Center Luncheon Series. Details TBA. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Hyper-Public: A Symposium on Designing Privacy and Public Space

June 9-10, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Technology is transforming privacy and reshaping what it means to be in public. Our interactions—personal, professional, financial, etc.—increasingly take place online, where they are archived, searchable, and easily replicated. Discussions of privacy often focus solely on the question of how to protect privacy. But a thriving public sphere, whether physical or virtual, is also essential to society. Hyper-Public: A Symposium on Designing Privacy and Public Space, hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, will bring together computer scientists, ethnographers, architects, historians, artists and legal scholars to discuss how design influences privacy and public space, how it shapes and is shaped by human behavior and experience, and how it can cultivate norms such as tolerance and diversity. Registration is open. more information on our website>

Radio Berkman 182: Fear of a Networked Fourth Estate

“Wikileaks” has become something of a neverending story. Coverage has branched out beyond the revelations of the documents allegedly leaked by Pfc. Bradley Manning in 2010, and on to ancillary territory: the flamboyant presence of founder Julian Assange; the legal propriety of Wikileaks’ actions; and the harsh treatment of Manning as a military detainee. These last two areas have garnered the attention of today’s guest. Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler recently co-authored a joint letter condemning the abuse of Bradley Manning that has since been signed by 295 scholars in the legal realm. He has also spoken out against efforts by government and private entities to stifle Wikileaks. While some have argued that facilitating the release of classified documents is unprecedented and perhaps illegal, Benkler has insisted that Wikileaks’ behavior is not only entirely constitutional, but also not exceptional. Moreover, he says, the private and governmental response to Wikileaks demonstrates an interesting insight into how networks do battle in the digital age. We sat down with Benkler this week to hear why. Download the audio>

Rethinking music: Briefing materials, videos, and resources

The Berkman Center is pleased to share a new collection of materials, Rethinking Music: A Briefing Book, prepared for the participants in Berklee College of Music's Rethink Music conference. This page also includes links to media coverage, videos from the conference, information about the special series of Radio Berkman podcasts, and more. more information on our website>