Written by Danica Radovanovic · comments (0)
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Written by Danica Radovanovic · comments (0)
Share: Donate · facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Written by Danica Radovanovic · comments (0)
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The findings [.zip, sr] cited by Huge Media, in collaboration with Marko Tomić, a student from the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, show that Slovenia has the highest Internet service penetration (63.29 percent), while Bosnia and Herzegovina has the lowest (51.76 percent of Internet users).

It is interesting that over a half of the Serbian and Croatian population is on the Internet, and the authors of these findings consider [sr] that there's an incomplete research evaluation of Internet usage by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (RZS):

…As for the Internet users, we think that the RZS assessment is incomplete and does not include users of mobile internet. [...they are] only examining a particular set of data that gives us information about a particular topic, but not the complete story that interests us.

Facebook is the most popular destination: over 70 percent of Internet users have a Facebook account in Serbia, and 63 percent – in Croatia:

The average time spent on Facebok is 25 minutes (both for Serbia and Croatia), and the average user in Serbia checks his/her Facebook account 16 times a day, while in Croatia it is 13 times a day.

[...]

The increasing number of Facebook users can be explained by non-residents of Serbia and Croatia using this social network during their travels.

The online social dynamics and the activities on Facebook do not differ much in other Balkan countries. Last year, we published the data on the Serbian young adults who spend the most of their time on Facebook, communicating with their friends (61 percent), “like”-ing their statuses (66 percent), sharing content and information (56 percent), writing private messages (47 percent), and playing games (22.4 percent).

Statistical and educational institutions in each of the Balkan countries could generate and use the data on the relevant online activities to detect and focus on their critical users, to adjust their policies and action plans based on the data.

It would be also interesting to see age distribution among users and other relevant demographics, as well as the analysis of online social interactions on other Internet services and social media sites.

Currently, research is being conducted on the social media usage among young adults, students, educators, and scholars in Serbia, but it is limited, in a way, as it cannot be considered a sample for the entire Balkan population. Each country could work on their local national data for cross-statistical area analyses for the future.

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Usage of Facebook among Serbian youth. Photo by Danica Radovanovic

The new school year in Serbia is about to start, and Serbian daily newspapers publish numerous articles on the bad effects of the most popular social network, Facebook, frightening both parents and young people with negative and techno anti-utopian statements. A survey on the usage of Facebook among the youth in Serbia has been published recently, too, however, and its results suggest that things aren't really that bad.

Serbia is a country in transition; the political, economic and social turbulence of the '90s has influenced its culture and ethical values, as well as information and communication technologies (ICT's) and the creation of the online public sphere. It's not surprising that the younger and older generations in urban areas have embraced the new social media forms very quickly. But what about information, digital and media literacy, and critical thinking skills that will enable the people to use Internet services wisely and selectively?

For my doctoral research ethnographic data on Internet, I was talking recently with Nikola, an undergraduate student of the School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade, an open source activist and geek, and he told me how his generation was spending time in the socially (and ethically) distorted surrounding:

…in Serbia, the parameter of success represents a few statuses: a well-paid job in some government institution, or a marriage to a foreigner, an athlete or some businessman. For young men, similar values can be found. The idols are [popular Turbo-folk singers] Ceca, Karleusa and Seka, Paris Hilton, politicians, war criminals, criminals. The only thing that young people think about is money, hanging and fooling around, and instant success.

Even at universities! Recently I enrolled at the Faculty of Engineering. In my department, during the freshman welcome party, they played house music for two hours, domestic/local dance/turbo music of the '90s for another four hours, and kitsch folk music for the rest of time. [...]

Few of them are interested in open source software, which is tragic: those are the future software developers, so they could learn a lot, but all they see is [Microsoft] and $$$. It's humiliating that some kids from my department don't understand the basic concepts of the Internet service usage, and yet they are hanging out on Facebook day and night.

This is not the first time that I hear from the young people who think differently than the majority of the young population in Serbia about the difficulties of growing up in an environment where there is the lack of a communication culture and education on the one hand, and the existence of kitsch on the other, and these forms of behavior are perceived as “correct” and desirable.

Many of these young people have left the country for postgraduate studies or to work abroad. Political events, social and economic changes, brain drain, high rate of unemployment, a visible gap between the nouveau riche and the lower classes, distorted values presented in the media and through street propaganda – all this has influenced the situation in the households and educational institutions, and is reflected every day in the (lost) art of communication.

Having in mind such an environment, the online public sphere created on the networking sites is no different, and the problems are magnified. There are numerous places where young people in Serbia spend their time online, and one of the most popular ones is Facebook.

Of the 7.3 million inhabitants of Serbia, 55.9% are Internet users, and over 2 million of them are on Facebook. They use the Internet for communication (sending/receiving emails) – 79.2%; for playing or downloading games, photos, films or music (64%); for sending chat messages to groups or forums (42.3%), and only 26.4% use the Internet to search for information regarding education, training or courses.

Recently, the Belgrade Open School carried out a research, asking this question: What high school students like to do on the Internet? It was conducted among 300 high school students taking the School's training program on online reputation. One should have in mind that these 300 young people use Internet every day, and they should not be considered as a representative sample, as it says in the survey's introduction. The results of the survey can be taken as indicators of some basic trends in online behavior of young people. According to the data, 55% of the respondents would rather spend more time online than studying for school.

When online, the Serbian youth are frequently on social network sites (Facebook, My Space, Twitter), chatting with their friends or downloading entertaining multimedia. The survey also showed that 75% of the respondents meet new people online as well, and for almost half of them these sites are an important source of information. Every third high school student says that they spend time with their friends equally face to face and online, while more than a half of the respondents spend their day in traditional forms of communication.

What do they do on Facebook? The two most frequent activities that this group of Serbian high school teens indicated are: making contact with their friends (61%) and “like”-ing their statuses (66%). Then: sharing content and information (56%), writing private messages (47%). Asked if they would add their teachers as Facebook friends if they asked them to, they said they wouldn’t mind (70% accepted their professors as contacts). Same about their parents (18% have a parent as their contact).

It's interesting that only 22.4% of the respondents play online games on Facebook: they'd rather spend time chatting with friends who are online (78%). Also, 13.4% of the respondents answered they would use Facebook for school and collaboration with their teachers, while 31.6% actively participate in groups, causes and fan pages they have joined.

One of the numerous comments on Facebook from a Serbian daily newspaper:

I think that the Facebook mania was created by the media who write about it non-stop! Each generation has something that differs from the previous one. A long time ago, the youth were obsessed with cinema, then with music and concerts, motorbikes, and now, in the computer era, it's time for the Internet and Facebook.

Sanja made an interesting comment:

Considering the tough times and the surroundings we live in – it is better to be inside the house with Facebook than in the streets with criminals… at least you know where your children are.

Milos says:

Facebook is a great way to get connected with friends abroad, I have a lot of them, so this way we can communicate much better and I can see what is going on in their lives. Also, Facebook is saving the time and money for mobile phone… While I was in school, it was much easier to send a message to my entire classroom on Facebook if we needed to make plans for something than to send text messages to all of them, individually. Facebook flaws? When you're spending time on Face and you don't have a reason for that… you waste time browsing other people's profiles.

However, the Serbian youth do not differ in their communication practices from their peers elsewhere in the world, or, at least, in Southeastern Europe, as my preliminary dissertation research data indicate. They are interested in the same things as the previous generations, they spend their time online and on Facebook for very clear, understandable, social reasons: they want to interact with their peers, friends from pre-existing networks in analogue life. They want to stay informed and exchange either information or gossip, as well as goofing, hanging around, joking, flirting, poking, “like”-ing on Facebook.

The social dynamics has not changed, but the new technologies have: it is always the same motivation, but different environments.

It is very important that both parents and educators on the one side and the Serbian media on the other side realize that the Internet is yet another channel for communication, not an evil tool, but also not some magic wand that will solve all their problems. Young people and their parents should build some trust in communication and help each other to understand the new technologies, introducing them to each other. Educators could work with students on information and media literacy, teaching them to think and process information online, to develop critical thinking skills, so they could navigate and grow up to be smart, young professionals.

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Recently, the Serbian Ministry for Telecommunication and Information Society has launched a project for Serbia's primary schools – called Digital School (SRP). It is part of a bigger project, Digital Serbia, whose goal is to foster and improve the functioning of the information society. In their initial announcement and call for application (SRP), it is stated that the Ministry has allotted 650 million Serbian dinars (6 200 000 euros) for setting up digital labs and classrooms in primary schools by the end of the next school year.

The program will enable 1,100 primary schools in Serbia to be equipped with computer hardware, and each digital study lab will have enough space for up to 30 students. According to the Ministry's announcement, besides computer units for students, there will also be appropriate equipment for teachers, software, and computer connection in the classrooms where children take courses other than computer science.

The Ministry said they would help 40 most undeveloped municipalities to create adequate learning conditions, from electricity to internet installations. Teachers will be responsible for technical functioning of digital study classrooms, and, prior to the program's implementation, they would need to go through training to operate the computers. Belgrade region, for example, is seven times more developed than the Serbian south, but schools in both developed, urban, and underdeveloped, rural, areas are expected to benefit from the project.

As daily newspaper BlicOnline wrote recently,

[...] Implementation of this program allows each participating school to provide students across Serbia with the same conditions for interactive education as their peers enjoy in the European Union. [...]

Serbian citizens, many of whom are frustrated by tough living conditions, do not seem particularly interested in these plans for educational innovation, and it remains to be seen how many primary schools end up applying for the program. Some think that computer classes would be of more use in high schools. One student left this bitter comment (SRP) to the article cited above:

…initially, we had multimedia classrooms that were useless, now they will go digital … and it will all be again left unused and empty … and the textbooks are getting thinner and thinner … I am taught computer science by someone who had learned about computers 20 years ago, and an average person who understands computers knows more than [this teacher]. We work on the old computers that date back to the times before Christ, and the new computers are stored in schools, and they don't allow students to work on them, they are there only for the showing off purposes … let them visit a few schools and see who, how and where teaches computer science.

In Serbia, 55.9% of the 7.3 million population are Internet users; the country has the highest Internet service penetration in the Balkans; 39.5% of the users have DSL connection, 29.3% still use modems to get online, and 23.4% use cable Internet (according to the latest data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, SRP). However, speaking of overall adult literacy rates, according to UNDP's Human Development Report 2009 (.pdf file), Serbia is behind other Balkan countries.

Below are some of the challenges that have to be overcome for the Digital School project to succeed:

- The authorities need to address the lack of basic amenities in many primary schools in Serbia (e.g., electricity, sanitary needs, and other utilities for normal everyday functioning).

- Besides providing training for teachers in using computers and software, the curriculum for primary school students also needs to be adjusted. Educators who teach information and media literacy have to come up with new syllabuses that would be well-suited for the new environment, in order to motivate children to be creative and open for collaboration; new educational modules adjusted for human-computer interaction need to be created; otherwise, the hardware will stay unused.

- Teachers need to teach critical thinking to enable students to start right on the Internet. Being digital natives, children first learn how to play computer games (64% of the Serbian population use the Internet to play games), but are often unable to question the credibility of information found online. Promoting and practicing information and digital literacy should be among the requirements for collaboration between schools, libraries and educational program developers.

- It has to be decided whether the country is willing to spend money on buying new software or to use open source programs.

- Broadband or wi-fi Internet connection needs to be installed wherever possible, especially in rural or remote regions.

However, this and similar projects in Serbia or in any other country in transition are relevant for the development of the information society, but it is also very important that the authorities and educational institutions collaborate on developing educational programs, in order to efficiently use the hardware.

Written by Danica Radovanovic · comments (3)
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This document of instructions defines technical requirements for authorized monitoring of some specific telecommunications and provides a list of duties for telecommunication operators, which are obligated to act according to the Constitution Law of Republic of Serbia as well as elements of it.

According to element 55 (Law of Telecommunications), subpart 3, these Instructions were issued by RATEL in cooperation with public telecommunication operators and the governmental body responsible for immediate conduct of electronic monitoring.

This means implementation of massive tracking and archiving in all forms of electronic communications for the purposes of the national agency for the security.

Internet Service Providers (ISP) are obligated to enable governmental bodies to access updated databases with personal data on users, contracts, maximum speed of data transfer, identification addresses as well as access to database about email users. ISPs are also obligated to provide hardware and software for passive monitoring in real time, collecting and analysing Internet activities, statistics, interception of email, attachments, web mail, IP video traffic, phone traffic, interception of IM traffic, peer-to-peer networks, service of email and forwarding the email content towards the center of governmental bodies for supervision. Technical requirements (hardware and software) should enable reconstruction of traffic interception up to the level of application and filtering within these criteria: username, user phone number, email address, IP address, MAC address, IM identification.

All those technical requirements are active and they will be used if there is request or need of the governmental bodies or police to monitor in cases of serious security violation or crime act. This Instruction does not define the privacy of the data as violation of the citizens’ privacy (in telecommunication terms it is forbidden). The privacy is protected by the Law of Telecommunication, as well as by the Serbian Constitution.

Similar cyber laws and technical instructions already exist in other countries. Formally, at least, it's good to have such regulation on one side where privacy is protected – formally, but, on the other hand, I am wondering if the Republican Agency for Telecommunications in Serbia, national security and ISP will (or will not) violate and abuse privacy of citizens in the internet community in practice.

***

Here are some of the reactions in the Serbian blogosphere, as well as possible solutions for protecting your privacy on the Web.

Tamburix, in a blog post titled “Big brother is watching, monitoring and recording you” (SRP), contemplates the invasion of privacy and compares it to Big Brother:

The latest technical requirements of the Republican Agency for Telecommunications and installation of the equipment for internet networks in Serbia, brings elements of Big Brother where the state has permission to get and use all the information regarding our online presence.

Milan posts a link to the document, saying (SRP) that there is also some positive aspects in this document:

I don't know what to think about this. It can be a good thing… great thing, to finally put a law in action on Serbian Internet. On the other hand, the possibilities of misuse are there. If someone misuses it, then it's really bad. Censorship, espionage, call it whatever you want.

Rehash blog writes (SRP):

[...] I read a lot of negative comments on this document, with which I fully agree. I can't say that I didn't expect this to come at some point. Regulations in the USA, in some countries of the EU and the UK are restricting their citizens with similar practices. Will our protests solve this problem? I'm almost sure they won't. For quite some time, our citizens have been apathetic, and they'll tolerate whatever repression methods our pseudo-democratic government is using (in the first year of my studies, professors told me that democracy doesn't exist). [...] Fine, lots of bloggers, geeks, or users of the Internet will write and protest for some time. After this, silence will come again. And what to do then?

Vesic Tehnology blog comments (SRP) on the new instructions:

Balkan Spy*, the RATEL/BIA way
It is almost impossible how some “agencies” (read: BIA and similar) through their puppet organizations (read: RATEL) try to put in use the most terrifying “technical” documents, which have only one purpose: to get complete control over your e-life.

Constitution? Law? Justice?

We'll get there probably when we make independent agencies from “independent” agencies, and when justice system and police start doing their job, and when politicians [...] start thinking of “irrelevant” things, like the well-being of those who have put them where they are now.

You still think that the most important news is the Karadzic's arrest? Think again. He's one person, and we're getting here the whole Balkan spy over all of us.

*Author's note: there is a movie named “Balkan Spy”.

Jazzva, a computer science student, critically comments on this (SRP):

Maybe the instruction defines “random user” in order not to get in the situation where only data on some users is being kept. And the Constitution defines the access to that data, so someone can get them only by the warrant issued by the Court, or in the case of violated security of Republic of Serbia.

Personalmag blog writes (SRP) about Serbia as a country of Big Brother:

What was probably expected in the totalitarian regimes is happening to us today, paradoxically in the time of “democratic” and pro-European government. RATEL, a government body for regulations of telecommunications, [...] by issuing some technical document, innocently named “Technical requirements for subsystems, devices, hardware and installation of Internet networks” [...] is bringing a totalitarian monitoring of all electronic communications by “responsible government body.

Two interesting comments on this post:

It is totally out of mind, and so expected. I knew something like this would happen, and that it would be put into use, as you said, on the small door. I'll start to crypt my thoughts, not just e-mails. This needs a reaction! It is intolerable and violation of basic human rights.

Another comment:

This is a catastrophe. The commenter who said it's the same as in Western countries – it is, but only when there is a court-issued warrant [to monitor]. Over there, the providers would be the first to react if they had to forward traffic and mails on their own expenses. And how do they think to get VoIP traffic, which is crypted, like Skype? Do they [responsible government body] expect from provider to decrypt it and provide it to them on a silver plate? We also need to protest to international organizations that protect freedom of speech and freedom of the Internet.

Sasa Bodiroza, a student of Computer Science at the University of Belgrade, writes on his blog:

Serbia’s Republic Agency for Telecommunications (RATEL), has passed a new law regulation (text in Serbian) on Internet traffic interception and redirection. Basically, it allows Serbian government to read each and every bit of our communication, including HTTP, VoIP, e-mail and IM protocol. It’s not that I have something to hide; it’s just that it’s a serious violation of my privacy. And I don’t really like that.

Update: I think I overreacted a bit in my comment. This legal act is not supposed to talk about violation of privacy. Violation of privacy is forbidden by the Serbian Telecommunication Law, and the Serbian Constitution. The whole purpose of this legal act, as I see it, is to amend article 55. of Telecommunication Law.

And he further on suggests how to protect your privacy:

Since we can’t change the law immediately, the least we can do is to protect our privacy. We can use encryption methods to encrypt our communication. Here are few advices.

Aleksandar Urosevic finishes his blog post (SRP) in a humorous manner, using irony:

From Urke's cookbook: tomorrow, you too, my dear readers, will know which toilet paper I prefer, and which finger I use to pluck my nose. Why should the government be the only privileged to this crucial information about me, I know that “the people should know”!

***

A question to Global Voices readers: What are the regulations in your country and do you feel like being watched/monitored?

Written by Danica Radovanovic · comments (3)
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Serbia is the country in transition, and right now there is a great chance for its scientific community to jump into the ICT world science highway by implementing new technologies into its scientific and educational systems. One of the main postulates of this year's workshop in Belgrade at FP 7/ICT Work Programme on science in society was that technology is worth nothing without users, content and interaction. If Serbia wants to become part of e-Europe, many things must be changed, beginning locally and then on a much broader scale.

But some representatives of Serbian educational and science institutions don't seem to care too much about information literacy and information sharing, as well as developing new information technology tools – which, ironically, happen to be open software applications and platforms that do not cost anything. One of the professors at Belgrade Open School (BOS) has described the situation in the region as not good: the educational system is neither valued enough, nor evaluated.

Blogs would have been a great medium for interaction, publishing, communication and collaboration in science, a good place for showcasing Serbian scientific achievement, which has been in the shade lately. In Serbia, however, there is only one institutional science blog – the blog of KoBSON, the Serbian Consortium of Coordinated Library Acquisition hosted and maintained by the Center for Scientific Information at the National Library of Serbia.

Besides being one and only in Serbia – and despite providing the Serbian scientific community with examples of various uses of blogs in science, education, teaching, research, networking, popularization of science and online activism – the KoBSON blog may soon disappear altogether.

Bora Zivkovic, a science blogger and the founder of the Science Blogging Initiative, reports on the problem at ScienceBlogs.com:

Do Serbian scientists need a blog of their own?

Not that it costs anything to have one…

Yet, the Konsortium of science libraries in Serbia is seriously contemplating shutting down their KOBSON blog, an invaluable tool in science communication in the region.

Danica, who the regular readers of this blog are quite familiar with as she is the Number One Champion for Open Science and Web 2.0 science in Serbia, has put a lot of effort into building the online infrastructure for Serbian scientific communication, including the KOBSON blog and the KOBSON wiki, as well as teaching and preaching to the local scientific community about the importance of catching up with the world after a decade of isolation and fully embracing the modern communication tools.”

Below is some of what other bloggers write about the value of the KoBSON blog and science blogging in general.

Journalist and blogger Ljubisa Bojic comments in Serbian version of the post at KoBSON. He believes that blogs are a necessary tool in education, at universities as well as in the scientific community, because they help to “[exchange] ideas between scientists”:

I use the KOBSON services from time to time and I think that frequent users should as well make their own blogs. Therefore, it is not only you [addressing KoBSON], but also the university professors and students who feel that your internet page is their own home and who have the need to share their views and to talk about their own research.

A colleague from Croatia, Filologanoga, who is also blogger in education and science area, thinks that communication and interaction are very important factors:

It is necessary for Institutions who are dealing with acquisition, keeping and sharing the information to have communication with their users. The only problem is that for this kind of communication two sides are necessary, at least, according to my experience, and in science this process sometimes doesn’t go very well.

Tanja, who is researching the areas of virtual communication and blogs, writes:

Excellent discussion… I think that we do not have developed audience for understanding such issues, still. [...] And, of course, it's not just the science blogs that we need :)

Solana wrote this, in English:

The more science blogging the better! Knowledge should be open to all.

What is to be done about the situation?

Bora Zivkovic suggests direct action and interaction:

There is not much more that Danica alone can do in the present situation to save the KOBSON blog, but perhaps YOU all can help. How? Let's demonstrate the power of Science 2.0 by direct example! Go to the KOBSON blog and explain the importance of such a tool in the comments of this post. Even better, if you are fluent in one or another variant of the Serbo-Croatian language, post a comment on the Serbian version of the post. Then, post a link and this plea to your own blog as well and ask your readers to do the same.

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