http://web.edu.hku.hk/research/docs/FRT%2013082013.pdf There seems to be a widening gap between perceiving and using the Internet and digital technologies: we feel as if we are connected to the rest of the world but the actual information and media consumption is rather parochial. We face the issues of "Imaginary Cosmopolitanism" (Zuckerman, 2010) and information “Filter Bubbles” (Pariser, 2011). Anecdotally, I was also told by several Hong Kong educators that despite the fact that Hong Kong is a well-connected global city, many Hong Kong students suffer from narrow parochial views of their life world. As my research has been focusing on analysing geographic and linguistic factors for Internet and digital social research, I see some of the theoretical and methodological tools can be repurposed for building new (cross-cultural) literacies by helping both teachers and students first to recognize the existence of information filter bubbles, then to understand the underlying mechanism, and finally to repurpose these information sorting and summarizing devices, which together can contribute to the “new literacies” practices. These devices include search engine results, keyword suggestions (e.g. Google autocomplete), user-generated encyclopedias, popularity metrics in social media websites, etc. I will demonstrate viable and tangible options for better cosmopolitan learning and thinking so as to make "think global, act local" more than just a slogan or a dream. A summer fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) and a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), Han-Teng Liao examines how geographic and linguistic factors (humanities and social sciences) and hyperlinked web data (webometrics and information science) shape the sense of ”fellow users” in digital networked environments. With more than twelve years of combined information science, media/communication and open source/open data working experience, his research focus has been on user-generated content and data, Web analytics (webometrics), Chinese Internet Research and integrated digital research designs (both qualitative and quantitative). He enjoys networking with professionals on the geographic and linguistic growth/dynamics/exchanges of the Internet. He holds an MSc in Computer Science and Information Engineering, an MA in Journalism, a BSc in Electrical Engineering and a BA in Foreign Languages and Literatures. At the Oxford Internet Institute, his PhD project compares two Chinese user-contributed encyclopedias, Chinese Wikipedia and Baidu Baike.

1. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Geo-linguistic Realities and “Imaginary Cosmopolitanism”:
Repurposing filter bubble devices for new
(cross-cultural) literacies
for Faculty of Education | HKU
13 August 2013
Chair: Dr. Angel Lin
(currently a summer fellow
at the HIIG, Berlin)

2. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Key terms
 Purposes of information systems
 Information “filter bubbles”
 “Imaginary cosmopolitanism”
 Digital methods
 Repurpose of dominant online devices

3. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Realities: Geo-linguisic realities of
information systems
 “Filter bubbles”?
 TED talk (Pariser, 2011)
 “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding
from You”
 My understanding
 We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and
don't get exposed to information that could
challenge or broaden our worldview.
 My assessment
No and Yes:
 not strong effects of
personalization
(Zittrain,2011)
 Localization (L10n)
effects substantial

4. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
●
So when I was growing up in a really rural area in Maine, the
Internet meant something very different to me. It meant a
connection to the world. It meant something that would connect
us all together. And I was sure that it was going to be great for
democracy and for our society. But there's this shift in how
information is flowing online, and it's invisible. And if we don't
pay attention to it, it could be a real problem.
TED talk (Pariser, 2011)

5. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
“... with the demise of the universal search engine
and the rise of local domain Googles and
personalization that return sources (and ads) tailored
at least to location and language, the relevant
sources returned have changed.
DMI (Rogers, 2013)
Shifting from the universal to the local?

6. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Grounding geographical and linguistic
specificity
“[T]he web is increasingly grounded with geographical
and linguistic specificity by platform and space”
(Rogers, 2013, p. 58)

7. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Findings of bubbles?
Visualized Chinese SERPs (2011 data)

8. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Issues:
“Imaginary cosmopolitanism”
 Sources:
 TED talk (Zuckerman, 2010)
 Rewire (Zuckerman, 2013)
 My understanding:
Unconscious of the specificities
of her/his own information
environment and the lack of
experience of others'
 Consequences:
 Parochial worldviews
 Divisive politics
 Cross-cultural and/or
cross-lingual
misunderstandings

9. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Chinese Bubbles and/or
“Imaginary Chinese nationalism”?

10. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Chinese Information Sources and Order

11. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Regional Variations:
Baidu_CN = Baidu

12. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Regional Variations:
Google_CN = China Google

13. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Regional Variations:
Google Hong Kong

14. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Solutions: Towards
Digital Cross-cultural Literacies
 To recognize the existence of information filter bubbles
 To understand the underlying mechanism
(e.g. geo-linguistic parameters “zh-HK” “ar-EG”)
 To experience of others' information envirnoment
 To repurosing the sorting and summarizing devices (e.g.
websites such as Google and Wikipedia)

15. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Search as Research: DMI (Rogers, 2013)
“… here I discuss the tension between Google's local domain as
organizing the national or the language web”
“the local is not about local sources, but about market reach into
national search markets”
“Google may be considered a globalizing machine, and
analyzed through such concepts as the postcolonial, the
transnational and the glocal.

16. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Repurposing:
Detecting and Exposing Biases
 The “Lippmannian Device”
(Rogers, 2013)
 … is meant to be an everyday
piece of equipment for the
analysis of issue spaces …
 … a coarse means to detect
bias, partisanship, or more
general alignment
 以彼之矛 攻彼之盾
 Rewire (Zuckerman, 2013)
 “Digital Cosmopolitans in
the Age of Connection”

17. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Google Borders (based on Autocomplete)
 Source: http://www.aviz.fr/Research/GoogleBorders

18. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Language Spheres (Rogers, 2013)

19. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
DMI menstration project:
Menstruation across cultures online
 Source: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/CrossLingualArtSpacesOnWikipedia

20. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Cross-cultrual learning
 “Are any colour meanings universal across cultures and continents?"
 Source: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/colours-in-cultures/

21. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Cross-lingual Art Spaces on Wikipedia
 Source: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/CrossLingualArtSpacesOnWikipedia

22. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Core

23. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Cluster: Iberian

24. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Core-Periphery

25. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
What can be done and taguht?
 “Clean slate” and “fresh start”
 Clean research browsers
 Non localized version (query design: e.g. ncr in Google)
 Hide geographic and linguistic traces
 Different starting points
 Manipulation of geo-lang codes: locale switch, query desgin, etc.
 Manipulation of geo-IP locations
 Exercise of advanced qurey desgins for different filtering outcomes
 digital literacy site:edu.hku.hk
 digital literacy link:hku.hk site:.edu
 Engaging cross-cultural differences

26. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Mapping the Iranian Web

27. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Mapping the Chinese Web:
geo-IP of SERPs

28. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Mapping the Chinese Web: languages of
the SERPs

29. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Mapping the Chinese Web:
inter-language links in Wikipedia

30. 13 August 2013For Faculty of
Education, HKU
Implications for New Literacies
Key Suggestions
 Review national literacies and
information systems
 Import national Web Studies
 Identify “imaginary
cosmopolitanism” biases
 Teach simple digital methods
 Manipulate geo-linguistic variations
of websites
Key terms
 Purposes of information systems
 Information “filter bubbles”
 “Imaginary cosmopolitanism”
 Digital methods
 Repurpose of dominant websites