Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

eng
p r e s e n t a t i o n
This book gathers important contributions presented during the debates held
in Seminário Cidadania e Redes Digitais [Citizenship and Digital Networks
Seminar] in November 2009, at Faculdade Cásper Líbero in São Paulo.
The Seminar counted on the support from Comitê Gestor da Internet
no Brasil [Internet Managing Committee in Brazil], from NIC.br and from
W3C Escritório Brasil, as well as the participation of the Fórum de Cultura Digital
[Digital Culture Forum] organized by the Ministry of Culture and by the Rede Nacional
de Pesquisa [National Education and Research Network]. The initiative had the
purpose of exploring the relations between information and communication technologies
and the construction and maintenance of the rights in the networked societies.
In addition to the Seminar's contributions, the book gathers texts dealing with various
aspects of the informational world and its interfaces with citizenship expansion, as
well as exploring the ambivalences and possibilities of communication in digital networks
far from the challenges of a networked public sphere. One of the crucial points of
the debates on a cyber citizenship is the analysis of the principle of network neutrality
relative to the possibilities of blocking or discriminating the informational flows, claimed
by the connection infrastructure controllers. Such discussion also sets the battlefield for
the network reconfiguration, captured in this compilation as confronts for the change of
social rights. This is made clear when one discusses the themes of intellectual property,
the commons construction and the collaborative practices in the digital world.
Finally, the communication right in a society in network is discussed in the scenario of
the social inclusion processes and digital cities implementation. The descriptive and theoretical
efforts made in the sense of thinking about the limits, the possibilities, the risks and the
opportunities of citizen, cultural and political participation, which enables one to place the
relationship of State, Society, collective and individuals, in a new level; which opens space
for a new transparency, for open governments and public data available in formats that may
be manipulated by any individual, using machines or not, from their homes or institutions.
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Sergio Amadeu da Silveira