Controversies in the standardization of the interactivity middleware of the brazilian digital tv: Technical democracy to the test of the normative device of the innovation ginga

Abstract

The goal of this text is to rebuild the scene of the controversial standardization of Ginga, the interactive middleware of the digital Brazilian TV which final architecture generated the combination of two languages: NCL-Lua (open code) and Java-DTV (owner). Our purpose is to demonstrate how, in the terms of the technical democracy, the dispute among distinct actors of the Brazilian Digital and Interactive TV System (SBTVi) took place between the management of symbolic digitalization, high definition and interaction in service of the market and government’s social inclusion projects by open TV. We are interested on the values and norms proposed by researchers, developers, broadcasters, government, software industry, leaders of social movements in favour of the democratization of the communication concerning the standardization device Ginga, the SBTVi Forum. The history of Ginga exemplifies how the standardization o innovation are associated with social and technical schemes in which technical and human issues get attached and turn apart according to the course of deals. Based on the realization of documental analysis and semi-structured interviews, we discuss the constitution of a border-object output of conflicts among actors who express diverse participations on the interactive project combined with the Brazilian social inclusion and industrial politic, purposes initially attributed to the SBTVi.