Open Password – Friday June 18, 2021
#936
Future of information science – gender equality – age discrimination –
Ulla Wimmer – Open Password – Bernd Jörs – Institute for Library and Information Science – Humboldt University Berlin – 7th Librarians’ Congress – Gender Speech Gap – Willi Bredemeier – Information Behavioral Science – N. Mazar – C.-B. Zhong – Psychological Science – Priming Effect – Library and Information Science – Age and Socialization Background as Explanatory Indicators – John B. Goodenough – M. Spitzer – Neurology – Berlin Information Working Group – Hegelian Understanding of Scientific Language – Karl R. Popper – Sociology of Science – Theory of Science – Daniel Eberharter – growwisr.com – BuB – Diversity – Forms of Discrimination – ZBW – Annual Reports – Augmented Reality – Research Data – Economic Research – Experian Germany – Advanced Analytics – Artificial Intelligence – Global Identity & Fraud Report 2021 – Germany – Visual Personal Branding – Nicholas Qyl – Halem-Verlag – Framing – brand semiotics
I
Cover story: Future of information science – denunciation of the lack of gender equality offset by one’s own demand for age discrimination
II.
ZBW: Annual report with augmented reality for the first time
III.
Experian Germany: German Companies needed to catch up
in advanced analytics and artificial intelligence
IV.
Newly published: Visual Person Branding: the person as a brand
Bernd Jörs
Future of information science
Denouncing the lack of gender equality
with your own demands
charged according to age discrimination
Notes on Open Password contribution # 919: Ulla Wimmer on the “Future of Information Science” (1): “ Where information science comes from and how it has changed – how do we bring this together?”, May 7, 2021
By Bernd Jörs
The author of the review, Dr. Ulla Wimmer, who “sees herself as coming from the position of one
“a university employee who left library practice late,” works as an academic employee at the Institute for Library and Information Science in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin and, in a very commendable way, has completed her doctorate at a relatively advanced age (52). In doing so, the author herself has confirmed that, as numerous Silverager studies and neuroscientific studies on brain plasticity have shown, one can and should work scientifically productively. The author also acts as a coordinator for the advanced distance learning master’s program “Library and Information Science”.
At the 7th Librarians’ Congress in Leipzig (2019), the author presented, among other things, the results of her own dissertation topic (“The story of the great Ö. The position of the Public libraries in the library field and in the specialist library discourse in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1964”). She actively exposed aspects of the obvious discrimination against women and called for more gender equality in the specialist discourse on topics in the area of public libraries (gender speech gap). This happened because of her sober insight: “To this day, the division of labor in librarianship completely corresponds to the classic role distribution of activities classified as “male” and “female.” With this gender-friendly attitude, the author probably received brownie points for her ethical and moral behavior.
She also notes in her review that there is a gender gap in Willi Bredemeier’s anthology (chapter 1): “And thirdly, there is a gender gap: the four (of 33) first authors of the volume all speak in part 2 ; There are no women involved in the debate in Part 1.” In doing so, the author points to deficits in the world of scientific publishing that discriminates against women.
“Deserving,” one would also think at this point, if behavioral science research had not been warning people to be cautious with its results for a long time.
(Information) behavioral science research only entered German-speaking information science with a long delay, namely in 2015, when new chair territory was entered at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Research into this topic had already been going on for more than twenty years in the context of Informing Science and Information Science in the Anglo-American-speaking world. Over ten years ago, N. Mazar and CB Zhong showed in their behavioral science experiments (Mazar, N.; Zhong, C.-B.: Do green products make better people, 2010, Psychological Science, Volume: 21 issue: 4, page( s): 494-498) that people whose actions are often assessed as ethically and morally high are happy to allow themselves to violate ethical and moral values that they have denounced elsewhere. This “priming effect” has since been proven again and again in further studies. This effect now also applies to Ms. Wimmer, as she offsets her merits in the fight against discrimination against women and gender violations with actively pursued and desired direct and indirect age discrimination, hidden under her demand for a “scientific-sociological case study.”
Right at the beginning of her review, the author, who is still part of Gen . But that is only the harbinger of her subsequent, technically irrelevant “generation gap” references, combined with the regret: “…unfortunately the list of authors does not contain any dates of birth that would make this easier to understand.” The author has refrained from conducting her own research on this subject – as an expression of the often invoked library information competence. If this embarrassing reference to birth date evidence was typical of the current scientific discourse, one would have to speak of an intellectual decline and a deserved marginalization of the small subject of “library and information science” in the scientific community. Further closures of these courses were no longer surprising or would even have to be recommended.
Meanwhile, the author continues her age-discriminatory statements in a way that is as cheerful as it is naive:
“This gap shows that the group (part 1) was primarily socialized in the 1970s and the others later.”
“Secondly, this creates a gap between emeritus scientists and scientists who are still active in science.”
“Because the chronological and biographical classification of the authors’ points of view… the discussion could have gained significantly in plasticity and depth and led to a real debate about the development and perspectives of the discipline.”
“To put it simply: not making the specific biographical position of the authors fruitful for the debate is a mistake…”
“Age and socialization background” as the only explanatory indicators? This is very weak and a declaration of argumentation bankruptcy. She accepts the violation of the principle of equal treatment, which Ms. Wimmer likes to denounce in her ethical and moral commitment to gender equality, by using the biographies of the anthology authors and their “socialization” as the only evaluation indicator. John B. Goodenough, Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in 2019 at the age of 97, would therefore have to return his award immediately, according to the Berlin librarian and university employee’s understanding of the sociology of science. He was already “socialized” in the 1920s and 1930s.
If Ms. Wimmer’s claims are incomprehensible, can they perhaps be explained? The neuroscientist M. Spitzer stated:
“The corresponding empirically proven behavior seems to be based on the fact that many people carry around a kind of internal “Excel spreadsheet” in which their good and bad deeds are listed and offset against each other. “The bottom line” is the sum of all actions, which remains unchanged as long as bad actions are canceled out by good ones. This type of psychological balancing of moral good and evil was probably also the basis of the indulgence trade that flourished in the Renaissance, one of the triggers of the Reformation. (M. Spitzer: Buy green – act selfishly; in: Neurology, issue 5/2010, pages 315-317).
It is frightening how an age-discriminatory culture of argumentation has flourished in German-speaking library and information science as a “small subject”. With her “scientific-sociological” irrelevance, the Berlin author agrees with the views of other “younger” representatives of library and information science. In a contribution from Open Password from 2019 (#664, November 19, 2019) to an event organized by the Berlin Information Working Group, reference is made to the views of the Hamburg librarian and information scientist Dirk Lewandowski, which is the only criterion for the scientific acceptance of German-speaking information scientists again used the “age discrimination argument”: “The critics, most of whom belong to an older generation of still active information scientists, focused on the past. They are referring to a time that does not exist or no longer exists.” With her review article, Wimmer continues the devaluation of certain age and professional age cohorts, even though she herself was born on the border of the OK Boomer generation.
In addition, the article suffers from the author’s Hegelian-influenced understanding of scientific language. If you were to let young students read the review and interpret the passage: “Sometimes the texts lack elements that would form part of a coherent argument, sometimes the mutual references lead to a certain overlap,” one would probably get a shake of the head and a warning from the philosopher of science Karl R. Popper reminds:
“It has led to the fact that in universities – in many universities, of course not in all – there is a tradition of expressing things in a Hegelian way, and that the people who have learned this not only see it as their right to speak that way, but rather as their duty. But this linguistic attitude to express things in a difficult and therefore impressive way makes German intellectuals irresponsible… Intellectual responsibility consists in making a point so clear that if the person in question says something wrong or unclear or ambiguous, you can prove that that it is so. There’s a kind of recipe for these things:…say things that sound great but have no substance, and then add raisins to them – the raisins are trivialities. And the reader feels upset because he says, this is an incredibly difficult book!”
To associate two articles in the anthology with the term “perplexity” should be seen as a capitulation to a serious scientific discourse and makes an “argumentation gap” or a “debate gap” visible on the part of the author.
Already in his response to Wimmer’s review, the editor of Open Password, Willi Bredemeier, points out the very reduced, purely scientific-sociological evaluation of the anthology on the “Future of Information Science”: “Sociology of science does not replace a theory of science (nor its disciplinary variants)” (Open password, #919).
Daniel Eberharter is even more specific in his blog: “But anyone who uses ‘OK Boomer’ solely to dismiss people’s opinions as unnecessary simply because of their age is definitely in the area of age discrimination. And that is like resolutely rejecting any kind of discrimination such as racism, sexism, homophobia.”
( https://www.growwisr.com/post/was-bedeutet-ok-boomer-eigentlich?lang=de ).
The trade magazine “BuB” should take its editing more seriously. Especially when you publish a special issue with the topic of “diversity” (issue 2-3/2021) and introduce it with the following words: “Diversity has many aspects. “Primarily, it is about avoiding discrimination based on cultural affiliation, age , gender or sexual orientation, a handicap or membership of a particular religion or belief.” The book review (issue 2-3/2021, pp. 143-145) by Ms. Wimmer is therefore likely to be an own goal for BuB.
E.g
Annual report
with augmented reality for the first time
The ZBW annual report has been published: Open – The ZBW annual review, published in:. E
For the first time, the ZBW has enriched one of its annual reports with augmented reality elements. The main focus in terms of content is: “Research data – The ZBW has its finger on the pulse of economic research”.
Experian Germany
German Companies needed to catch up
in advanced analytics and artificial intelligence
(BIIA) During the Pandemic more and more consumers are digitally engaging with businesses to shop, bank, or pay bills; since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, online transactions have increased by 20%. Results from Experian’s latest “Global Identity & Fraud Report 2021” show that consumers continue to place a high value on security when they go online. At the same time, new physical and behavioral methods of fraud prevention have become increasingly important since the start of the pandemic.
The companies surveyed were very aware of the importance of security. In a global comparison, German companies invested more than the average in fraud prevention. The report also showed that there is a considerable catch up needed in areas such as advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). Germany is the worst performer in this area when compared with other countries in Europe. Against the background of the high security expectations placed on companies by customers, this could prove to be a disadvantage in the long term.
Since advanced analytics and AI tools ensure today’s identification processes are more secure, faster, and less error-prone, when used intelligently they can significantly strengthen consumers’ sense of security.To compile the study, Experian surveyed more than 9,000 consumers and 2,700+ companies in 10 countries in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia in three waves. 900 of the consumers surveyed and 270 companies were from Germany.
Business Information Industry Association (Hong Kong) is the international partner of Open Password.
Newly published
Visual person branding: the person as a brand
(Halem-Verlag) Newly published: Nicholas Qyl, Visual Person Branding: the person as a brand – A frame-analytical view of iconic personal brands, Halem-Verlag 2021.
Using the example of two extremely prominent personal brands – the pop icon Madonna and the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld – strategies of visual representation and means of shaping public perception are examined, which model long-term successful personal brands. The author also takes into account the perspective of the fans who are co-creatively involved in brand building. He supports his statements with numerous picture examples.
The volume draws on a diverse theoretical background and cleverly combines approaches from social semiotics and framing research to create cognitive brand semiotics. This makes it possible to prepare the empirical investigation of selected case studies in a comprehensive and detailed ‘structural model of image-based meaning management’, which systematizes the analysis and construction of personal brands from a visual perspective.
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