Design Example: Restoring Synchrony

Here's another example for you. This is something I wrote after reflecting on the many things that seem to have been lost in culture due to information technology over the past few decades. I think it's an interesting design idea, but there's a ton of detail to get right in it that the short form doesn't quite convey. I do think it does a good job of giving an experiential sense of the problem, and provides reasonable broad outlines of the proposed idea. One thing that would really strengthen it would be to provide a diagram of the overall proposed process and required information technology to make the proposal work. Because it's missing those details, I'd give it a 3.5.

Restoring Synchrony in Cultural Moments

Amy J. Ko

When I was a child, my media landscape was punctuated by and endless series of synchronous cultural events. At the small scale, it was the latest episode Animaniacs, which my friends and I used to watch together at our houses before doing homework each day. At the large scale, it was opening day of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie, or the release of Super Mario Bros 3 for the Nintendo. And at the grandest of scales, it was the night before elections, when my family used to gather to discuss each of the electoral decisions on the ballot, and their pros and cons. Each of these were times when the people in my life came together to share stories, to celebrate culture, or to make decisions about our rights and responsibilities in society.

As I’ve aged, however, I’ve watched the amazing power of information technology (Chapter 5, Information Technology Links to an external site.) replace these synchronized cultural moments with a fragmented convenience. I can watch television on any device, anywhere, at any time, but because I can, I rarely do this with others, because the gathering now has a cost. I can go to movie theaters on opening day with friends, but the fragmentation of people’s time, and the option to see the film later on streaming, means that aligning our calendars is not absolutely necessary. And so we never do. And while elections in many U.S. states are still single day events, we are increasingly moving to mail-in voting, which means that voting together means planning to vote together, which generally doesn’t happen. The result is a feeling of cultural fragmentation, where we are all having cultural moments, but different wants, and rather than talking about culture together, we are telling each other about our separate cultures.

None of this is inherently bad; I’ve enjoyed the convience of choice and immediacy, and I’ve certainly benefited from moving away from cultural monoliths such as studios and broadcast television. I like that there are virtually infinite numbers of creators for every possible interest; it means I can truly curate my own cultural experiences. I just have to enjoy them either alone, or with people scattered around the globe, rather than in community, in person. And I miss that. It’s meant more isolation and a weaker sense of group identity Links to an external site..

I’d like to restore some of that, even though this newer world of technology, distance, and pandemics has changed the economics of gathering. I propose something radical: that city governments take on the task of designing an “infrastructure” of cultural moments into the patterns of our towns. The general concept is that the city council would structure a weekly, monthly, and annual calendar that defines collective space for shared, synchronous in-person culture. Citizens could submit ideas for weekly, monthly, or annual events, or proposals to end events, and city councils would review and select them, curating the calendar. Crucially, these event proposals would tie that calendar to the use of city infrastructure, not only offering places and transit for people to gather, but also to change the economics of participation to account for the infinite opportunities to disengage online. It would also tie to the use of city taxes; these events would be linked to a culture tax, that takes a percent of local corporate profit to enrich city life. 

Here is an example. Suppose I wanted the first Saturday after the new year to be "neighborhood brunch" day, once per year. I would write a proposal, explaining the idea, sharing that I want a way for communities to gather in the morning, do a potluck brunch on dedicated streets in every city neighborhood. I would request that the city block off those streets to non-local traffic, and subsdize event organizers' planning by offering resources to neighborhoods to pay musicians, artists, and restaurants to offer the event. This proposal would leverage key city infrastructure, such as our community centers and parks. The city council would review this proposal, check the calendar for conflicts, and make a democratic vote on whether to include it on the calendar and in the city budget. If approved, the event would appear on a dedicated city calendar mobile application and website, where any resident could see what was happening in their neighborhood, who is attending, and how to participate. The next time that date approaches, the city would make a call for proposals, distribute funding, and neighborhood brunch days would pop up across the city, defining their own cultural traditions, designed around their physical spaces and resident wishes.

Here is another example. Suppose I wanted every Saturday night one of each LINK car to be a discoteque. I would write this proposal, including a budget for the sound system, infrastructure, and staff required, and coordinate with Sound Transit on the idea, including them as a partner in the proposal, so that one of the cars could have its seats removed to open space for dancing (and for bicycles every other day). The city council would review it, and if passed, we would build the team, grow a community of DJs, and have a nightly dance party, from Northgate to Angle Lake, back and forth, at the back of the train. This event would appear on the city app, and become a part of the city's weekly rhythm of cultural moments.

While this model could greatly increase our opportunities to gather in community, in physical space and time, it is in tension with the many benefits of having a "long tail" of culture that we do with the internet. For example, it would be key for the city to subsdize the work to propose and plan these events, so that people from across the city can participate in shaping culture. Without subsidy, the only people with capacity to propose and run events would be people with the time and resources to do that planning. It would also be essential to ensure that the events that are planned have clear equity guidelines: creating events that exclude, intentionally or unintentionally, would not be in the sprit of civic and collective gathering, and so shaping the criteria that the city council applies to selecting events and curating the calendar would be essential. The model would also need some other way of broadcasting events than digitally, as not everyone has a access to the internet.

I don't hold any hope of returning to the monolithic culture of my youth in the 1980's and 1990's. But also don't want to lose the great things that came from it. I think a civic approach to resynchronizing cultural moments could be one way to get the best of both models: creating opportunities for synchrony, but also applying information technology to ensure everyone can participate, and that culture reflects everyone's desires, not just those in charge.