Lecture 4: Virtual Communities

"It's far too early to tell what the tools of social psychology and sociology will help us make of the raw material of group interaction that proliferates in cyberspace. This is an area where adroit use of the Net by scholars could have a profound effect on the nature of the Net. One of the great problems with the atmosphere of free expression now tolerated on the Net is the fragility of communities and their susceptibility to disruption. The only alternative to imposing potentially dangerous restrictions on freedom of expression is to develop norms, folklore, ways of acceptable behavior that are widely modeled, taught, and valued, that can give the citizens of cyberspace clear ideas of what they can and cannot do with the medium, how they can gain leverage, and where they must beware of pitfalls inherent in the medium, if we intend to use it for community-building. But all arguments about virtual community values take place in the absence of any base of even roughly quantified systematic observation.

Right now, all we have on the Net is folklore, like the Netiquette that old-timers try to teach the flood of new arrivals, and debates about freedom of expression versus nurturance of community. About two dozen social scientists, working for several years, might produce conclusions that would help inform these debates and furnish a basis of validated observation for all the theories flying around. A science of Net behavior is not going to reshape the way people behave online, but knowledge of the dynamics of how people do behave is an important social feedback loop to install if the Net is to be self-governing at any scale."

~The Virtual Community, Howard Rheingold

In this seminar following the lecture on virtual communities we'd like you to consider some questions.

Some things you might want to keep in mind when thinking about these questions are how they relate to things such as globalisation, subjective and objective interests, authority, the public sphere (Habermas), social capital, “real life”.

You also might want to think about the different types of virtual community that might be constituted using different media forms (e.g. mobile phones, MUDs, Second Life, Web forums, social network sites, newspapers).

Questions

1. Is what happens in virtual worlds important? Perhaps keeping in mind the examples from the lecture of A Rape in Cyberspace and the protest against Le Pen in Second Life can you think of any reasons why we should or shouldn’t take virtual worlds seriously?


2. What is the difference between a social network and a virtual community? What are the differences between different social networking sites (E.g. Facebook, Myspace, asmallworld)?


3. Is there increased diversity in virtual communities (as compared to your experience of real life communities)?


4. Do you think virtual communities enhance democracy?


5. Do you think the notion of a virtual community is a useful one?

Seminar 3: Pros and Cons of Citizen Media

In today's lecture we learned about Andrew Keen's idea of the internet and the role amateurs play. We also were directed to read the excellent exchange between Keen and Emily Bell of The Guardian.

In the seminars we debated the pros and cons of the plethora of information available online. We wondered who it benefits and what (new) role the audience and producers might have to play.










All seminar groups were asked to submit some notes they made while discussing the merits of both Keen and Bell's arguments which appear below.

In Jess's seminar the current attempt of RadioHead to change their business model was raised as an example of a benefit of freely available content. However, it was noted that RadioHead could *afford* to try out this experiment as they already have a plethora of loyal fans. Students agreed that newer bands/musicians probably would not be able to use this method as an entry point into the market. Some interesting comments on this experiment:

"Radiohead's music model is noble, but will it spread?" Larry Magid
"Radiohead online release on track" CBC
"Radiohead Online Album Crushing Success" Richard Menta
"Radiohead Offers up New Album as Pay-What-You-Can to Fans" Ezra Winton
"STOP! Music IS the new economy" Gmuva.

In Jess's seminar session some photos were taken with the agreement of all students (if you've had a change of heart e-mail me - jlaccetti AT dmu DOT ac DOT uk - and I will take the photos down).

Lecture 3: The Cult of the Amateur vs Citizen Media

Following on from last week's lecture on Web 2.0, we're going to explore the pros and cons of the web as platform. With easy-to-use CMS (content management systems) so that blogging, vlogging, etc... are not the sole reserve of *techies* comes the possibility for anyone to say anything. (Sure this might be true with other media but perhaps to a lesser degree).

Andrew Keen's diatribe invoked some concern from a lot of people:

" The people have finally spoken. The media has become their message and the people are self-broadcasting this message of emancipation on their 70 million blogs, their hundreds of millions of YouTube videos, their MySpace pages and their Wikipedia entries.

Yes, the people have finally spoken. And spoken. And spoken.

Now they won't shut up. The problem is that YOU! have forgotten how to listen, how to read, how to watch. Thus, the meteoric rise of Web 2.0's free citizen media is mirrored by the equally steep decline in paid mainstream media and the mass redundancies amongst journalists, editors, recording engineers, cameramen and talent agents. Newspapers and the music business are in structural crisis, Hollywood and the publishing business aren't far behind. We've lost truth and interest in the objectivity of mainstream media because of our self-infatuation with the subjectivity of our own messages. It's what, in "Cult of the Amateur," I call digital narcissism. A flattened media is a personalized, chaotic media without that the essential epistemological anchor of truth. The impartiality of the authoritative, accountable expert is replaced by murkiness of the anonymous amateur. When everyone claims to be an author, there can be no art, no reliable information, no audience."

Someone who disagrees with Keen's sweeping statements is David Weinberger who aptly responds:

"But your dichotomy is false. The Web isn't Cinderella facing Gregor "The Cockroach" Samsa in a deathmatch. Despite Time -- which, as a pillar of the mainstream press is of course free of the hyperbole so common on the Web -- the Web isn't even You. It's us. And that is the problem.

Your wildly unflattering picture of life on the Web could also be painted of life before the Web. People chatter endlessly. They believe the most appalling things. They express prejudices that would peel the paint off a park bench. They waste their time watching endless hours of TV, wear jerseys as if they were members of the local sports team, are fooled by politicians who don't even lie convincingly, can't find Mexico on a map, and don't believe humans once ran with the dinosaurs. So, Andrew, you join a long list of those who predict the decline of civilization and pin the blame on the latest popular medium, except this time it's not comic books, TV, or shock jock radio. It's the Web.

[...]

Amateurs aren't driving out the pros, Andrew. The old media are available on line. If some falter, other credentialed experts will emerge. But the criteria governing our choice of whom to listen to are expanding from "Those are the only channels I get" and "I read it in a book" to "I've heard this person respond intelligently when challenged," "People I respect recommend her," and even "A mob finds this person amusing." This is the new media literary, suited to the new abundance."

Andrew Keen on a web2.0 platform, YouTube, presenting (to Google employees) ideas from his book The Cult of the Amateur (what he calls "a subversion of a subversion.")



Have a read of the excellent "Internet Smackdown: The Amateur vs The Professional" by Tony Long in Wired.

Check out these principles of citizen media. How do you think these principles improve the kind of information we might receive?

Video on Citizen Media:

Lecture 1: What’s New About New Media?

• What are the new consequences for human beings?
• Is innovation both a technological and social process?
• Do new media create new meanings? Do they enable or disable social change?

Roger Silverstone, New Media & Society Vol 1 (1)

With every change in the way we communicate in our culture there is a struggle over meaning, significance, knowledge and power. Old rules and orders cannot be applied perfectly under the new regime of communication and thus formations of power are under threat from these new forms of expression. The premise is not exactly a technological determinist argument; that is, it is not saying that technology determines culture. New forms of communications are only partially determined by their technology and are shaped from social and cultural conditions, and from the various manners in which cultural expression and intentions are conveyed.

P. David Marshall, New Media Cultures

Lev Manovich - 5 Principles of New Media

1. Numerical representation
2. Modularity
3. Automation
4. Variability
5. Transcoding

New Media Networks are typically:
• Decentralised
• Less Hierarchical

This makes them
• Difficult for Regulating and Managing Content
• Difficult for Regulating and Managing Access
• Physically Robust
• Example: the Internet

~~~~
For the Seminar:

In the lecture today we looked at some of the suggested attributes of new media, both cultural and technological, that have been proposed in an attempt to define it.

Nate Harrison’s piece, “Can I have an Amen” tells the story of how a six-second drum loop became the foundation for a whole musical sub-genre.

While listening to the piece make a note of how the attributes outlined in the lecture apply to the case of the “amen break.”