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:‘ial Media

Web 2•O The Egyptian street protests of Israel’s attack on Hamos in


Gaza in late 2008 had become a standard sight for Egypt’s
government, but discussions and anger spilled from the street
to another type of social venue—Focebook.
Facebook has become wildly popular in mudi of the Arab world,
typically ranking In the top ten of most-visited Internet sites in the region and ranking
third in Egypt, behind Google and Yahoo.
Parity because Egypt’s restrictive laws hinder the ability of journalists and citizens
to criticize the government publicIc Focebook has become an important space for
dissenters to gather and discuss As with most

:
social-networking sites, groups can wax and
wane according to the whims of its users, but is ip;
one group has attracted seventy thousand
Defining Social Media
• Media Quiz: How Connected Are You? members In only about a yeac

What Is “Social” About Social Media? The April 6 Youth Movement Is a group
• International Perspectives: Lily Allen:
MySpoce Star Reaches the Stars
createdinsprlng2008tohelporganizeana-
lrjpes of Social Media tionwide strike. The group’s members, mostly
Why Social Networks Matter young and educated Egyptians. now use the
• Convergence Culture: Are We Really group to discuss ways to improve Egypt, rang
Separated by Six Degrees? ing from freeing jailed joumalists to making
Collaborative Media Work
Ethical and Legal Issues with Social the economy strongeL
Media (‘CHAPTER OBJECTIVES Mother aspect of social media has be
• Convergence Context Web 3.0: come evident Members are not content sim
The Semantic Web In this chapter we will:
ply talking about the issues online but have
Looking Bock and Moving Forward • Define what social media is.
Discussion Questions organized events and protests. (This use of so- -
• Explore the differences between sooal media ,
‘I
Further Reading and traditional media.
clal media and the interactions they encour
‘i -:
Media Quiz Answer age has also become evident in the United
• List the main characteristics of social media.
States and elsewhere, particularly in political
• Explain the historical development of social
media within a larger mass-communications campaigns.) Furthermore, all the interaction
context, occurs without the need for any traditional
• Understand how audiences are changing from media channels, making Egypt’s government controls on the press and broadcast sta
consumers to “produsers’ tions largely ineffectual for those with access to Facebook.
• Explore some of the ethical and legal
implications around social media

251
How Connected Axe You?

1. How do you define”soclal media’?


2. How many social-networking sites do you have profiles on?
3. WhIch social-networking site do you use primarily? Why?
r 4. How often do you add content toyour page on your main social networking site?
5. (TIE) “Web 2.0” refers to a radical technological updating of the Web in 2003 that allowed for the
creation of social-networking sites like Facebook.
he tools and capabilities of social media have
“4
6. Have you ever contributed content to a wiki, such as Wikipedia?
been around in some form ever since the earliest days of the 7. Have you ever tagged content?
B. Do you share your bookmarks on sites like Delicious?
Internet, but not until the past few years has their true potential been
9. How would you feet if a total stranger approached you and started talking to you as if he knew you
realized in business and media companies. Many of the changes have been driven because he saw your profile page on a social-networking site?
from the ground up, rather than by traditional media companies, a fact that 10. What is your Kevin Bacon number?
simultaneously gives power to social media and often greatly threatens traditional
business models. In some cases, the nature of certain professions is being called
into question, due in part to a combination of economic forces and new ways of
producing and sharing content,
The term “Web 2,o” has become popular in describing various aspects of social popular sites or trends seem to lose popularity almost as quickly as they came into
media. Coined at a 2004 conference by technology publisher O’Reilly, the term. the limelight and were touted as The Next Big Thing.
despite its popularity, has had questionable descriptive value. Although catchy in We can look at some commonly used dehnitions and from these definitions
that it mirrors the terminology used for new versions of software, it also to some start to parse underlying elements common to all of them, then apply these to the
extent misleads. realm of mass communication.
There was no major technological shift or improvement in the Web that would According to John Jantsch, author of the Duct Tape Marketing blog, “social
differentiate “Web to” from “Web 2.0.” Rather, the term was meant to symbolize media” can be defined as “the use of technology combined with social interaction
a few changing aspects of the Web. One was the sense of the Web being revived to create or co-create value.”’ He keeps the definition concise because his readers
after the dot-corn collapse of 2000, when much of the hype surrounding the Web are busy marketing professionals.
economy during the late 19905 turned out to be so much hot air. Another was the PR professional and social-media expert Brian Solis defines social media
changing uses of the Web, involving more people working with and talking to each as “a shift in how people discover, read, and share news and information and
other than had been seen before. Wikipedia is a notable example of this kind of sea content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue
change in cooperation and content creation, but there are many other examples, (one to many) into dialog (many to many.)””
some of which will be discussed in this chapter. Anvil Media, a search engine marketing firm, provides a definition derived
Although Web 2.0 (along with the many variations it has spawned since from sociology:
then—Me 2.0, etc.) will likely remain as a general term to describe the fundamen An umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social in
tal changes taking place in online media today, we will try to avoid the term and teraction, and the construction of words and pictures. This interaction, and the mannvr
use the more descriptive “social media.” As we will see, this term also needs to be in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and ‘building”
carefully defined. of shared meaning, as people share their stories, and understandings.
There are certain common aspects of these definitions. All mention the in
tersection of technology, social interaction, and information sharing. These may
Defining Social Media seem like simple elements, but they have transformed many aspects of mass com
munication and promise to disrupt them even more.
“Social media” is still a new enough idea that it continues to be defined by schol Before looking at the elements in more detail and exploring how they are dis
ars, professionals, and the press. It is hard to find a definition everyone agrees on, rupting mass communication and media industries, it is necessary to see how
partly because the tools for social media change with advances in technologies, and social media differ from traditional media.

PART 3 / HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD www.oap,vom/as/pavik


w CHAPTER 9 / SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB 2,0

I I
• DIFFERENCES WITH TRADITIONAL MEDIA ments there. He may find that many others share his opinion and have already
One clear difference between social media and traditional media is the change suggested ways to show their displeasure to the show’s creators.
from a broadcast or monolog model of one-to-many to a more dialogic model of Perhaps one of the members in the group has created a mash-up video of
many-to-many communication. Of course this does not mean that mass media such stereotypes found on various prime-time shows or in the news. The video is
audiences prior to the Internet never spoke with each other—there were fan dubs. uploaded to YouTube. where it gets viewed hundreds of thousands of times within
letters to the editor, and a variety of ways people did interact. However, the flow of a couple weeks, generating further discussions among YouTube viewers in the
communication favored the broadcaster sending a message to many people simul comments section of the video. If the video is viewed enough times or talked about
taneously, with audience members having limited means to share their thoughts enough, mainstream news organizations may cover the story, amplifying the inter.
with each other. est among the public and getting more people to the discussions.
Consider how someone in the 9705 might be able to share his thoughts on What is notable in this latter example is that, except with the original source
the previous night’s episode of a popular yet controversial situation comedy like material, traditional mass media organizations are not involved (until perhaps
All in the Thamily, lfhe watched with friends or family he could of course share his later in the processl, yet far more members of the public may be affected in avery
thoughts with them during or after the show. Similarly, he might discuss the show short time than would be the case in the i97oS—or even the i990S. More impor
at the office the next day. tantly, our viewer may never even think to write a letter to the editor of the local
However, if the viewer felt particularly strongly about a racist remark made by newspaper or try to get news-media attention for his campaign. A complete media
the character Archie Bunker and felt that others should be aware of the harm such ecosystem can be created and sustained through social interaction using tools that
a remark could have, his options to communicate his feelings to a broad audience social media provide. Mainstream media may still play a role, of course, but they
were limited, expensive, and generally did not generate dialog. He could write a let do not have to be involved like in the past.
ter of complaint to the network or the FCC, with no guarantee that he would hear This follows what new-media scholar and NYU professor Clay Shirky calls a
from either. He could write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, but even if publish, then fllter model. Traditional media industries such as news are based
it was published, it would reach a limited audience of only the paper’s readers (and on a filter, then publish model of information. From a vast universe of possible
only those who read the letters to the editor that day>. He could purchase an ad. information, specialists or professionals (editors, music producers. etc.) select
vertisement in the newspaper, which might get more attention than a letter to the which information will be used as their content. They act as a bottleneck to the
flow of information available to the public by the decisions they make
(and the
editor, but that would be expensive or the paper might choose not to accept such an
limitations of their medium, such as time limits in TV news or space limits in
ad. Or he could create a flyer, make photocopies, and hand them out or mail them
print medial.
to people, which would be both expensive and time-consuming.
If the viewer was persistent (or flamboyant) This material—the news in a newspaper or the bands promoted by a major
enough, or if he got enough people to join his record label or MTV—is then distributed to the general public. The public is likely
cause and perhaps hold a demonstration or march, completely unaware oi all the other possible types of information it could have
his crusade might get picked up as a news story received. Media business models have been built around this way of controlling
in the local press, perhaps even local television. and disseminating information, and even entire professions have made this model
thus perhaps attracting more people to his cause. an essential part of their professional identities. An example is journalism, which
Although at first glance this would seem to be a many journalists recite is necessary for a healthy democracy because of the role
kind of many.to.many form of communication, they play in informing the public and being watchdogs of govemment. This puts
consider the mechanisms by which it occurred— joumalists squarely in the role of gatekeepers of information. as professionals with
his message was communicated primarily through special access to the halls of power and unique skills and training that presumably
mass media channels. Furthermore, isis unlikely give them the ability to decide what information should be disseminated to the
that he would have had the resources—either time, public.
money, or media attention—to carry out a cam However, as seen in the publish, then filter model, which is prevalent in
paign like this in the first place. social media. many of these professional assumptions are being challenged, as are
Now let’s look at what this viewer would do the business models. If the public can connect directly with the vast universe of
circa 2009. Let us say that a regular viewer of 24 information out there and find what is relevant through a combination of social
networks, ratings systems, and online discussions, then what role do organiza.
gets offended at a stereotypical depiction of an
Arab as a terrorist. tions that restrict the flow of information serve?
His first public complaint is likely not a letter Another big difference between social media and traditional media is cost.
to the FCC or the Fox network but to the discus. Most people cannot afford to start a newspaper, or to create a radio or television
in
sion-board area of the show’s website, where fans station, as the costs are simply too high. However, as has been noted earlier
of the show talk about a range of issues. Or maybe this book, with digital media and the Internet the costs for creating media content
are well
he goes to any number of other discussion groups and widely distributing it have been greatly reduced, to the point that they
Today viewers of popular programs have many ways to communicate with within the reach of many.
each other through social media, creating discussions on all aspects of a show. or fan sites devoted to the popular show and com

www.oup.coarslus/pvlik CHAPTER 91 SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB 2.0


r4’ irawii.is DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD
This is not to say that traditional mass media are no longer important or power. This alters how some media are produced, how they are promoted and marketed.
ful, as they clearly are for a couple different reasons. First, they provide much of the and even what types of content may be created in the first place.
source material that the public then discusses. In this way, the media can be said to
asrda settireg - serve an important agenda-setting function, in that they give us much of the mate.
•‘CONVERSATION
* ‘tie the ,edIa v:ay rial that we talk about, even if they do not necessarily tell us what to think. Second,
dectdI,,o w”ith toOths to hocv’
they tend to amplify events through media coverage and because they generally From the earliest days of the Internet conversation was important, and it continues
t’-ur, t, virt,.t-t,’ the act
art
have larger audiences than the majority of social.media sites. Audiences may be to be a defining characteristic of social media. Discussion groups, Usenet, email,
fragmenting with traditional media channels such as cable television, but for the IM, and Twitter have been or continue to be important tools that give people the
most part the audiences with traditional media are still larger than the majority of ability to communicate easily with each other on a scale and in ways not possible
social-media sites. with traditional media.
Companies have had their reputations tarnished or made because of online
conversations, unknown artists have become famous through them, and funny or
embarrassing moments caught on videotape have made some people instant (if
What Is Social About Social Media? short-lived) celebrities.
There has always been a social component with media, of course. From the earli. Comcast has learned the hard way about the power of social media. In 2006, a
ext days of print, reading was usually done aloud and in groups. Families gathered customer posted a video on YouTube of a Comcast technician sleeping in the cus
around the radio in the 19305 and i940s to listen to their favorite radio shows, and tomer’s home while waiting on hold—with Comeast—for over an hour. In 2oo8,
people came together to listen to music, dance, and of course socialize. Even televi Comcast was ranked at the bottom of the American Customer Satisfaction Index,
sion, that maligned most passive and isolating of mediums, often has important and hundreds of customers contributed their complaints to the website Comcast.
social aspects, as families and friends gather to watch shows or sporting events and MustDie.com. As part of its efforts to improve customer service, Comcast started
of course talk about the programs afterwards. Some of H BO’s most popular origi monitoring blogs and online conversations. Many companies follow online dis
nal series generated what became known as “water-cooler buzz,” or discussions cussions about themselves, but Comcast took an extra step in often responding to
among workers about a show the day after it aired, which in turn created more bloggers and engaging in conversation with them.
interest among people who hadn’t seen the show. Many companies have discovered that their brands and corporate images are
When looking at social interaction compared to traditional media, perhaps a not what they claim, in traditional advertising or public relations efforts, but what
more accurate question is actually this: How are social media more “social” than the customers say they are. The focus on conversation is one other example of the
traditional media? shift from a lecture to a dialog between companies (including media companies)
It is a fundamental and important qsiestion. If it can be shown that traditional and the public.
media are no less social than what is being touted as a revolutionary, transforma
tive new kind of media, then it would follow that Web z.o and all the talk around it ••CUEATION
is just the latest hype about new technology.
The Center for Social Media in the School of Communication at American With so many options available today, how do people begin to make sense of it all?
University says that there are five fundamental ways in which people’s media The traditional gatekeepers of information and knowledge, such as media profes.
habits are changing: choice, conversation, curation, creation, and collaboration.a sionals and librarians, are finding their roles changing in the social-media environ.
Although others may use different terms, or scholars may place more emphasis ment One major change is a shift from a “gatekeeping” model to what Australian
media scholar Axel Bruns calls a “gatewatching” model, in which people act as
on one activity or another, these five components provide an excellent framework
their own filters, classifiers, and reviewers.
within which to better understand social media.
Classifying content happens through an activity such as tagging or creating tagging
folksonomies of definitions. This helps bring some order to the vast array of con a eo’e 0’

IICHOICE tent that is out there and helps in searches. An important difference in tagging cope, hope *t (tlqttal ed!a

The public of course has far more media choices than it did in the past and far more is that people are not waiting to hear from an authority on how to classify terms, a non-hi erarch,c,e
desrr,00 ahat the
options of styles and genres within media types than it ever did. Even so, thinking of such as a librarian would do—they are doing it themselves. Sites such as Delicious, that hAle—

the public or audience primarily as passive consumers of media ignores the variety of photo.sharing site Flickr, and YouTube have all encouraged tagging among users,
ways people can interact and find the media content they want. Through search en which makes the content more searchable and helps users see relations they may
ro1kson.is
gines, recommendations from friends (often known only from online interactions), never have seen before between terms.
A c*Ilptt:sn o tans created Ep
RSS feeds, and of course traditional media channels people today are generally more Digg is an example of how curatorial activities among users can enhance a users that ethuideeeta-data,

proactive in getting the type of content they want than in the past. site’s relevance for everyone. Users vote on stories that have been submitted, and or dat a aptu’. data, redact,,.,q

Note that “choice” does not necessarily mean “quality.” Simply that there are stories with the most votes get pushed to the front page. This creates a kind of
many more options does not mean that the quality of content people may seek is natural hierarchy of content, where typically material that is deemed most relevant
going to be better. However, greater choice does mean that more media types and or interesting to the Digg community becomes more visible to other users of the
channels are competing with each other to attract the attention of the audience. site, even if they do not vote on stories themselves.

www.oap.com/res/pavhk CHAPTER 9 SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB 2.0


PART 3 / HOW DIDITAL MEOIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD
The online environment lends itself so a curatorial mode of contributing to encourage supporters to get together in person and act, generating millions of dol widget

%iicfous: Social booknrarking


the social-media space. It is much easier to tag something with terms, or to write lars for his campaign in the process. Although Dean eventually dropped out of the A po,’tabl e clunk ntc ado that

ww’w.detiriouscom a one-paragraph review of a book, or to write a few lines on a product recently presidential race, the lessons learned from that campaign were applied to Obama’s can So e.bedded i, cacoc
and that oftpn qjueccn,..-r
purchased. Similarly, it is much easier to find fault with something. Online re presidential campaign in zooS. Potra fjnCtinna lv Ic ‘‘-c.
views have become increasingly important in consumers’ decisions ranging from In some ways, the realization that people need real-world socializing to Com
household goods to media products. plement their online socializing harkens back to the earliest days of social media,
long before that term was applied. In fact, the need to meet, interact, and discuss
was an impetus for the earliest online communities, many of which are precursors
•‘CREATION to today’s social-media tools and still widely used today.
The digital media tools that make it easy for people to create Content have played a
major role in the rise of user-generated media content. The other important factor,
as discussed in the previous chapter, is the low cost of distributing that content
through online networks. Without the ability to easily and cheaply disseminate
content, the media landscape today would look vastly different. It could even be
said that social media as we know them now would not exist.
Simply because the toots are readily available to create media does not ofcourse
mean that everyone will start churning out great works of art. Most people in fact
will be satisfied consuming media and not creating anything, and there will be far Lily Allen: MySpace Star Reaches the Stars
more amateurish or poor-quality types of content online than there will be high
art. Even with something like Twitter, in which messages are o characters or less, single by an up-and-coming artist is nothing new, but
90 percent of the content is generated by only to percent of the users.
1 However,
even ifs small percentage of the people online create and share content, there will
still be a larger poe1 of media content than existed in the traditional media world
A what makes Lily Allen’s rise to pop stardom in the music
charts unique is her use of MySpace and the tote it
played in getting her noticed by mainstream music media and
because of the sheer numbers of people online. launching her to fame.
Creating content is not without its challenges. As noted elsewhere in this book, Allen was not a complete newbie to the music and arts
intellectual property laws are being challenged by a digital culture that sees noth scene in the UK She already had some experience singing
ing wrong with borrowing freely from existing media to create something new. and performing in some films, and had a record contract
with Regal Records, but they were unable to support her
Furthermore, many people online have come to expect a variety of media content
album much due to their commitments with other record
for free, Rather than encourage creativity, as intellectual property laws were meant ing artists.
to do, more restrictive laws may have the opposite effect in that they will remove So Allen used her MySpace page to release and pro
creative material from the public domain. Bus by the same token, content creators mote demos of her songs, and her site started attracting
should be compensated for their work. thousands of listeners, When a music pubhcatron noted her
growing popularity on MySpace that attracted even more
people to her site to download her music. By early 2009,
COLLABORATION her songs had been downloaded from the site more than
Although it may not seem like collaboration is an important element of social me• 32 million times, and she had nearly five hundred thousand
dia, when reading some of the vitriol, name-calling, and inane comments often MySpace friends
found on discussion groups, in fact collaboration underpins much of social media. As a sign of the different dynamics of social media and
The willingness of people to collaborate on a common good for no personal the complexities that come with stardom in the mainstream,
Allen often used her MySpace page to discuss personal
monetary gain is perhaps one of the biggest surprises one encounters when first
issues or criticize her press coverage and even her own
examining social media. It is one thing to spend hours creating a widget with the behavior. Similarly, when she had a miscarriage in 2008,
hopes of selling it or copyrighting it for licensing, but quite another to do so and the page became the hub for countless condolences from
provide it to the Web community for free use, or to provide open access to your fans But by 2009 she slopped making pemonal posts, as
project and invite others to work on it and improve on it, as Linus Torvalds did with she felt her words were often getting twisted in the main
what became the Linux operating system. stream media.
There have been a number of cases of collaboration extending from the online In 2007 her second album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, debuted
realm to offline, especially in organizing people around politics or social move at number one on the charts in Australia and the UK. Her
ments, In fact, the most successful uses of online tools in political campaigns have first album, Alrighf Still, has won her numerous awards and
Wlctgets are usefut applicatIons created included ample opportunities for people to socialize in real-world settings as well, sold over 2.6 million copies worldwide.
and shared by members of the public,
often tot free bat sometimes
This was the lesson learned by the Howard Dean campaign in 2004, from look
tor a smatt fee. ing at Al Gore’s failed presidential campaign in 2000. Dean used online tools to

— CI-IAPTER 9, SL)UAL MIL)IA AND WEt 20


Mailing lists offer some of the same benefits as discussion boards. Longer
Types of Social Media discussions can take place, with comments written when it is convenient for par
In 1980
France launched its videotext service, or text delivery over the air or by ticipants to write, and often complex arguments can take place. Messages have the
cable for presentation on
television screens or other electronic displays, known added benefit of arriving directly to a member’s email inhox, making it more likely
then as Teletel and today as Minitel, Ahead of its time, Minitel survives to this day, a participant will read or at least scan them. Drawbacks of mailing lists include
and in the s9 0s was pointed to as an example of an early successful interactive
8 information overload as the inbox gets full of messages and potential monopoliza.
online information service. Minitel worked because the government subsidized it hon of the list by one or a few members sending multiple posts each day or send
and provided access devices to every home. Its biggest problem tumed out to be ing irrelevant or inflammatory messages. It does not take too many of these types
the emergence of the World Wide Web, which has made the stand-alone Minisel of posts for the value of a listserv to diminish for most participants.
model, with its slow modem speeds and clunky graphics, obsolete. One part of Media organizations have taken advantage of mailing lists to help attract in
Minitel that really did point the way toward how popular social media would be ternet users to their sites or to send them information they have specifically said
come was the blue rooms,” or adult-oriented chat rooms, which were the only part they want. When registering for a website, a person is often asked to check boxes
of the service that generated a significant revenue stream. indicating content preferences for emails or whether any should he sent at all. This
Many of the tools we now commonly associate with social is called an opt-in list and can be especially valuable to marketers, as the customers opt-in

media actually were used before social media or Web z.o were have given permission in requesting certain types of content. Email newsletters a oacllnq list in wtccrl the
user has Chosen to rece ion
defined as such in 2004. Some, like Minitel, were used even may be used to keep an audience informed about the organization or for mar vedils and narCotIc
5 materials
before the Web was created. In that respect, there is nothing keting purposes. Sending email newsletters and email marketing messages helps
particularly new about today’s social media. However, one reduce mailing and pnnting costs for Companies using direct mail marketing.
main difference has been the development of tools that make The principles that allow for easy creation of mailing lists are also responsible
creating and sharing content easier than ever. Another big dii’ for what many consider the scourge of email: spam, or unsolicited email advertis spa.

ference has been the rise in people going online and the in. ing. Spam, once rare and considered extremely bad form in the early days of the Unuanted oeacl Sent out t
5
advertisers an a na mailina.
crease in broadband Internet connections, which change the Intemet, is now unfortunately all too common. Companies buy lists of email ad.
user experience of the Web. Wireless Internet capabilities in dresses much like print publishers buy mailing addresses from other magazines
mobile devices such as cell phones, PDAs, and lapsops have or organizations. They create a bulk mailing list and send mass mailings advertis
also played a role in increasing our ability to share Content. ing their products or services.
Here we will look specifically at some of the social-media Computer programs troll the Intemet and find email addresses, harvesting
tools and how they have developed and changed overtime. Just them to a central location that a spammer can then use to send messages or sell
Wireless connections with POAs have made it easy fo, people as it is important to understand how print media developed in the list of emails to other companies.
to keep op with ernails or online news at all times.
order to understand how the industry works today and why it
works the way it does, it is useful to know how some of what we use online came
about and how that has affected our social-media experiences.

•IEMjJl r
Email, or electronic mail, was one of the first uses of the Internet and is still the :“—‘:
.

moss popular use, accounting for most of the traffic on the Internet. It is easy to
overlook email as an element of social media, but its ease of use, prevalence, and
capabilities to vend messages to more than one person make it a powerflsl com
munication tool.
Although email is an exchange of messages via telecommunication between
two people, it is quite easy for an individual to create a mailing list and send out yppt—_ )ITJkRTI
a single message to multiple people, in a sense broadcasting” the message. This MAY 5th
capability has caused more than a few red faces, as anyone can attest who has been
on a mailing list in which one member made disparaging remarks about another,
Tists#a’-os thinking the response was only going to an individu.al and not to the entire list.
Also kOosin as liv tsorvos, they Mailing lists differ from discussion boards in that messages posted get sent I -

are autocated calling-list


adninistrators that allow for
directly to subscribers’ email inboxes rather than remaining in a location that a •1 ,:
easy Subscription, subscription member must visit in order to read the messages. Listservs are automated mailing-
cancellation, dod sending of list administrators that allow for easy subscription, subscription cancellation, and
flails to Subscribers 00 the Spam has become a huge problem cloggrng chores and costing eompan.es miltions of dollars
list. sending of emails to subscribers on the list.

PART 3 / HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING 01)11 WORLD wwwoup.com/osipuslik


A battle continues between spammers and companies creating software to Discussion boards are a vital form of mass communication on the Internet.
block spam. Automated filtering software often removes much of the spam but Their format and asynchronous nature (i.e., not requiring users to be online at
may also inadvertently remove desired messages. the tame time> allow for relatively lengthy expositions on topics written whenever
The problem with spam clogging the Internet and inboxes reflects the down is convenient for the person sending the message. They also provide value even
side of easily being able to share content. Just as lowered costs of distribution on to members who do not post messages but simply read what others are writing, a
the Internet have helped create online communities and give the public a chance practice called lurking. Some discussion-hoard creators encourage newcomers to lurker
to distribute media content on a par with established media companies, it has lurk for a while so they can become familiar with the tone and type of topics being
also made it easier for individuals and companies to abuse that distribution sys A pe’-son 0’ 0” nnhie
discussed on the hoard before posting messages of their own. dccsso, board woo 0000 oct
tem, making it less valuable for all. l.egislators are fighting back in several states, One of the earliest online communities, crested through discussion groups, ccot’jhcte to di0cSb1r by
however, with increasingly stringent antispam laws that penalize spammers. Still, flo3t’9eooS0uoc tt
is still thriving today. The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) began in 1985 and
antispam laws are generally not effective if the spammers are based overseas, as continues to do well as a place of high-quality and interesting discussions among
many are. its members, many of whom are noted intellectuals, artists, authors, and creative
thinkers.
. . DISCUSSION BOARDS AND WEB FORUMS The WELL has been likened to “the Park Place of email addresses” in a Wired
story, and its unusual policy of demanding that users provide their real names
A discussion board is a type of online “bulletin board” where Internet users can rather than user names is supposed to have both helped she quality of discussion Web Link>>>
post messages that can be seen by others coming to the discussion board and in and fostered the strong sense of community that has built up among its members.
which they can post responses to previous messages, or posts, or create their own Now owned by the Salon Media Group, publisher of Salon magazine, it charges
discussions on a new topic. Series of messages that reply to a certain post are or its members fifteen dollars a month to belong (which, in Internet terms, may also
ganized by threads according to their subject headers, making it easier for users help distinguish it as a Park Place address). It is one of the few online communities
coming to a discussion topic to follow the thread of the discussion back to earlier that have been successful in charging members to get in simply for discussions.
replies and the original posting.
Today, most discussions are on Web-based forums, which provide a variety of
user-friendly tools so create and post discussions. The precursor to the web forums CHAT ROOMS
was Usenet, created in 1979. which even today provides thousands of discussion A chat room is a virtual room” in which a community of users can visit and talk
newogroups boards, each separated by categories called newsgroups. Separating newsgroups with each other through text messages, in real time. Like discussion groups, chat
by general categories, as well as letting anyone create their own newsgroup on any rooms are usually divided by topic, ranging from highly technical computer issues
topic, helps make finding discussions of interest to users easier and facilitates us to pop stars to sex. Chat rooms differ from instant messaging, which also takes jfl5t,t .esSaqing
ers starting their own communities. place in real time, in that instant messaging usually involves an online conversa Ofteo abb,eolated to 1ff,
The formation of newsgroups by users shows how firmly rooted certain as tion between two or at most a few people.
pects of social media are in the Internet. Within general categories already created, Since chat rooms are synchronous, or take place in real time, they can be ef at r’.r.roqb tV-i-ad

users can create very specific subcategories, thus defining communities of interest. fectively used by media organizations to promote special guests online and let the
Until recently, most news organizations did not permit or encourage discussion audience “speak” to them, much like a radio station would have a musician visit
boards on their websites, in part because of their fear of being held liable for what the station and talk to callers.
readers might say on the boards and in part because they were worried that such Even without a star attraction, a chat room can often be chaotic and much like
discussion boards would detract from the focus the news organization wanted the trying to talk to someone across the room at a crowded, noisy party. It can be dif’
audience to have—consuming the news content created by the organization. ficult to tell who is being addressed, although some chat rooms have general rules
However, now most news organizations have seen that providing a forum for and guidelines posted for proper behavior. Although messages may be sent in real
readers to discuss news stories or other topics of interest related to the news has time, the fact that they must be typed inevitably slows down the give-and-take that
increased readers’ engagement with the organization. At times, the conversation occurs during natural conversations—which can lead to confusion, as one chat
about a single news article may take on a life of its own, even perhaps outweighing room member may be responding to something asked two or more comments
the original article in terms of the value of information provided. ago. Some chatters can monopolize the conversation as well or repeatedly post
Partly because of the ease of sending messages, discussion boards often suffer the same message, a practice called scrolling, which quickly draws the ire of other scroiling
from a few individuals who either tend messages not related to the discussion- chatters in the room. One practice of sipOy
board topic or send numerous messages on variations of the same topic, effectively Chat rooms are perhaps best used when the topic of conversation is focused ‘ooeatiog fhesae.essaqeioa
‘cc,,.
monopolizing the conversation space. Some discussion boards are moderated, and relatively narrow. Viewers of a television show, for example, could be in cbs’
tve op of
w”ocb q0100:y
other pa.-ticV000ts.
dr0wt

which means a moderator either approves all messages before they are posted or a chat room during the show and discuss aspects of the stars, plot, or series
has the ability to kick anyone off the discussion hoard or to block his or her posts. with each other. This type of interactivity, although not directly part of the show,
Another weakness of discussion boards is the difficulty in fully exploring an issue, greatly empowers audience members as they establish connections between like-
especially when many people are commenting on various aspects of a complex minded individuals in online communities and inform. educate, and entertain
topic, and the ease in which members can go off.topic. each other.

PART 3 I HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD www.oupcom u, poonk LHUP 19 9 001.191. MLUI ANLI 1016 2 0
•‘.BLOGS and has quickly come to rival the established encyclopedias in terms of scope and
Weblogs, or Nags, are web pages of short, frequently updated postings by an indi accuracy. However, like most other social-media tools used today, the roots of wikis
blog or’ ieb1og
vidual that are arranged chronologically, much like a series of diary entries or jour go back much further.
5 tyn” Of bsitn Wit” a
Ia nal pages. Blogs can contain thoughts, links to sites of interest, rants, or whatever A wild, which means quick” or speedy” in Hawaiian, is essentially a web page tribE
0
ha, entries th the posts
the blogger wants to write about. The earliest blogs go back to t994, although it that allows anyone to edit it. Vannevar Bush, in his remarkably prescient Atlantic A obbsitetba; p’s
ar—d,’opdcfl--ono oqicalIy. add edtt Or , ‘
was more cumbersome to update posts then because of the technology. Monthly artide “As We May Think” in July t945, envisioned an editable, hypertext drd 0”,
, Pr

The role that technology plays in social media is clearly evident with the rise in microfilm system, which he called a “memex.” The actual creation of something
populanty of blogs. It was not until t999 that blogs started increasing in popular. along these lines did not happen until the i970s, and it wasn’t until the advent of
ity, largely due to new software tools that made blogging easier and did not require the Web that the idea became more practical.
knowing HTML code or programming. Blogger.com, created in t999 and bought The first wiki was created by Ward Cunningham in t994. He called it Wiki’
by Google fl 2003, S one such tool that makes creating, posting, and sharing a WikiWeb, and it was designed to easily allow computer programmers to share in
formation with each other. He took his wtki public in t995 and asked developers
blog easy even for nontechnical people.
to improve on it.
Some blogs, such as BoingBoing or the Hufflngton Post, have readerships in
Web Link>>> In zoot, Wikipedia used a version of a wiki system for its new encyclopedia
the millions and are quite influential, having an agenda-setting function much like
omgBoing that encouraged anyone to contribute and edit. This was a drastic change from
bornqboin.net
mainstream media. Agenda-setting is when a topic is covered by the media and
therefore becomes a subject of discussion among the public. traditional encyclopedias, which are the epitome of the gatekeeper media model
of authoritative, unidirectional communication to a silent and passive audience.
When a blog becomes popular and attracts a lot of readers, it becomes impos
Today a number of varieties of wikis are used for different purposes, especially
< rR)> sible for the blogger to respond to most of the comments or discussions. In this
in education. Corporations have also been using wikis to encourage knowledge
The Hufhsrglon Post way. blogs tend to develop the characteristics of traditional media, acting as a kind of
sharing between groups, especially when offices are far apart. One important as
hutfingtonpost.com broadcast” or publishing model of information or news. A key difference between
pect of wikis is the ability to see the editing history of any particular page and revert
blogs and mainstream media remains the ease in which blogs have traditionally
to an earlier version if needed. This function keeps a kind of automatic journal of
#ebLlnk>>a! allowed users to subscribe and forward posts to others, as well as allowing for com
editing changes, identifiable by user. In combination with discussion or talk pages,
Blagger fl ments, although this difference is becoming less prominent as more mainstream
www.btogger.com media companies adopt the same techniques to encourage sharing of their content.
News organizations were even slower to adopt blogs as part of their media
environment than they were to adopt discussion groups. In 2002, Steve Olafson,
Wet, Link>>> a longtime journalist for the Houston Chronicle, was fired for having a pseudony
Wa Press
www.wordpress.org mous blog in which he criticized local politicians. Today, many big news organiza E-EE-
tions encourage their journalists to have blogs. However, news organizations must
be careful about blogs from their journalists so as not to undermine the image of ) —
objectivity that journalists are supposed to present and not to undermine the orga .

nization’s own credibility as a source for important news. A concern is that readers
——

may not distinguish between an opinion shared in a journalist’s blog and the news
stories he or she files as part of the news organization.
Another element of blogs that often makes their use in the business world
problematic is that they tend to have a raw, honest, and unfiltered quality. If a
blog is too highly polished, or if it simply repeats public relations platitudes, it is
unlikely to be respected or followed. This has been difficult for companies that are
used to carefully controlling their messages to the public. The raw, honest element : r.
of blogs is a vital part of conversation, or true dialog.
Blogs have also moved from their text roots to easily include video, audio, and
multimedia. This is an example of how users are creating content by mixing and
matching different media types to make something new. Blogs also play an impor
tant curatorial role, as some popular blogs are followed because the blogger finds
the best and most interesting ideas and makes relevant comments about that con
tent, which helps the blog’s readers find information tif interest to them and see it
within a larger context.

•tWIK1S
Ananna Huffington, founder of the
Wilds have become more widely known thanks to the phenomenal success of Wiki Wikipedis it an eoretent enample otwirat ran be reused online
by ntany people working together on eonrna,kei principles.
9 The Hufhnqton Poit
influotiI bto pedia, the collaborative encyclopedia that has been created entirely by volunteers
www.oup.vomrutpavIilc CHAPTER 9, SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB 20
PARS 3/ HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD
which are associated with each artide, it provides a ready way for participants to
discuss and debate points related to the content they are working on.
What would seem like a major weakness of wikis—the ability of anyone to
Aa Degneescoor

change any content on a page at any time—has actually turned out to be a strength.
The barriers to creating content or adding some special expertise a user may have
are so low that it makes it easy to participate. Although not without its share of
trotS trolls, or people who purposely vandalize Wikipedia entries by inserting false or
A pprpn ,,hn purposely nonsensical information, the Wikipedia community has shown a remarkable abil
uand.ilizps AIkipedi,i pot-les by ity to police the vast and growing amount of content on the site.
rObe or
irsoriirg
Wikipedia has been able to avoid major disruptions at the hands of vandals, • 0teck9oo
thanks partly to technology but mostly to the norms and rules that have been cre IlinarStorro (SOS ralaunch(
ated over time by the Wikipedia community. It is an example par excellence of how
social media have the power to transform media audiences and how they work on
principles different from traditional media economic models, However. Wikipedia (SiuDegnees dwes( —

is not without its growth pains. In August 2009 it announced that they would in
stitute more restrictive editing rules for content to ensure accuracy, a move away
Ryle
from its earliest, free-wheeling days.

! SOCIAL-NETWORKING SITES Tribenet, Open 6


BCd)5n
Wtdog
The various social-networking sites today are perhaps the most visible face to social
media, and their popularity cannot be discounted, but as is clear from the brief
-

TrIElerret, Open OCIXisg


look at the other types of social media available they are by no means the only ones,
-

LaS1!M
OWst Deçsbe -165
or even the most important. -
FOde, Pao, Ute, Focetioo9 peoroa16wly(
What distinguishes social-networking sites from other types of social media is — Dsdqehafl, Care2 (SOS relaraxin)
Ca60en
that in some manner they allow users to show the connections they have, or they -es
allow others to see their social networks.’ The ability to share the map of one’s hEltos! 360
social network, and allow others to tap into that map by contacting other people in Cd !0*(

-
WuTube. XOIItO (SOS relaUnclr(
(SOS
the network, has become an incredibly powerful tool. *êiç
-
Fic65rsb W
Classmates.com, founded in t995. and SixDegrees, started in 1997, were two 043 (nelaiarctr(
- 16a4,em. BlocbPIanet Pelaureh(

early examples of social-networking sites. Classmates,com, as its name suggests, WOmbs bog Spaces
— Pacetiob (corporate netwwlcs(

primarily focused on getting people back in touch with former classmates from
— Cywortd (US.)
Twitter - ,
(esor8(
college, high school, and even grade school. However, Classmates did not provide
,--

the same level of network sharing asis commonly seen today. Sixoegrees focused
on helping people find social-network connections that they may not have other FIGURE 9-1

wise realized existed. Other social-networking sites thas appeared in rp9, such
as AsianVenue or BlackPlanet (both of which relaunched in 2005), were focused
shows a Corp. would mine the vast amount of data that MySpace had collected and use it
on relatively narrow audiences, such as certain ethnic groups. Figure 9-i
for marketing purposes. There were also concerns that News Corp. owner Rupert
timeline of social-networking-site launches.
Murdoch would Ely to make MySpace a platform for promoting Fox media content.
Launched in 2003, Friendster was created as a site to help people connect with
that had but he has remained largely hands-off as MySpace has evolved.
old friends and make new ones, It was the first social-networking site
Al Facebook began as a project within Harvard University in late 2003 called Face-
features similar so what we see today with Facebook, Linkedln, and MySpace.
mash, a version of the website Hot or Not, and launched as a social-networking site
though the popularity of Friendster rapidly waned in the United States and Europe, under its current name, but available only for Harvard students, in early 2004. A
coming
it has remained vety popular in Asia, with over 90 percent of its traffic couple months later it opened to other Ivy League schools and then expanded so
visi
from the region. With over 90 million registered users and 6t million unique include all college students. The next year it expanded to allow high-school stu
tors a month, it ranks as one of the top twenty most visited websites. dents and then companies, and in zoo6 it opened to anyone thirteen or older, Is
MySpace also launched in 2003, and in 2006 became the most popular social-
its rapidly overtook MySpace as the most popular social-networking site thanks to
networking site, only to lose that position in 2008 to Facebook. MySpace and these expansions.
for S58o
parent company, Intermix Media, were purchased by News Corp. in 2005
the Facebook’s rapid rise In popularity led to frequent media reports of potential
million, and MySpace is now run as part of a division of Fox Interactive. At
News buyoutt from larger media companies, such as Microsoft. Microsoft has invested
time of the purchase, there was concem among many Intemet users that

PART 3 1 HOW DIGITAl MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR


WORLD www.oeppomrup,Avik 1’ sAPTLR 9, 501191 011019 ANO WE8 2.0
hundreds of millions of dollars in Facebook and is the sole supplier of advertising mingling at a party; we may gather some information by watching the party long
on the site, and todays estimated value of Facebook is up to $5 billion. Some see enough and noting certain interactions, but we are missing some important in
the shadows of the exuberance of the dot-corn boom in valuing a company so high formation regarding the underlying relationships, or social structure, of the party.
that still has not made any revenue. If we do not already know anyone, we could make a social blunder by talking
There are many other social-networking sites that have sprung up since 2003, to the “wrong crowd,” which could affect our perceptions of the party or the people
with some focusing on professional interests, such as Unkedln; topic interests, at the party—and affect their perceptions of us. This may seem a mundane reason
such as Dogster or Twine; media or photo sharing (Flickr); and microblogging to understand social networks, but consider if you want to meet someone specifi
and IM (Twitter, launched in 2006). Some Sites, such as Orkut, have undergone rally for a potential job or if you are an artist wanting to promote your new song.
changes as they have gamed popularity overseas. For example, as mentioned in You could ask every tingle person there if they knew of any job openings or if they
Chapter 7. in the early days ofOrkut, the Fnglish.speaking users started to feel left wanted to hear your song, but this is an inefficient (and annoying) way logo about
out as the site became wildly popular in Brazil and more Portuguese-speaking par it. Who at the party is most likely to help make the contact you need with that po
ticipants joined. Today Orkut remains a primary social-networking site in Brazil tential employer? Who at the party is an influencer othert tend to follow? There is intivencer’
and Latin America. no way to tell in Figure 9.2. A •,

All of the social-networking sites developed within the past few years provide a However, let us overlays network diagram over the same members of the party
vanety of communication and sharing tools, and many encourage users to develop and tee how that changes things, as in Figure 9-3. The black lines represent what
applications that make the sites even more useful to participants. There are two
main influences at work in these developments: the importance of social networks
in and of themselves and the culture of the open-source movement, in which pen-
pie collaborate for reasons other than monetary rewards. Understanding these two
driving forces helps us gain a better picture of why social media are transforming
not just our media habits but our world today.
Josh

Why Social Networks Matter Fr


Understanding how social networks work and the role such networks play in our
lives, the way we communicate, and even how we make sense of the world has Stuwn
been an area of social scientific research long before social-networking sites be
came prominent, going back all the way to the earliest days of sociology itself, in
the late i8oos.
A social network consists of nodes, which ran be people or even organizations, FIGURE 9-3 Aft owesso.n uIbq holh5oprdw.k hoAr onrorlhp Johns unl pnrsonPlhnp.r1
5 oponn
bouw.otthn non,bor otoroh SM ons hr Sw Jo ribs.
and links, which are the connections between nodes. The links can represent any
number of things. depending on what the researcher is studying, but generally
have some communicative function.
are called strong ties, or strong links, and represent close bonds between nodes. Stn’or-,q tips
The power of mapping social networks can be seen by comparing Figures 9-2,
The red lines represent weak ties, or weak links, which means there are connec
93, and 9-4. In the first figure. we are simply looking at a collection of people tions but they are not as frequent or as close as strong ties. In this example, we will
assume the connections represent friendship, or who someone claims as a close
friend (strong tie) or friend (weak tie).
Peter
Several things become clear when looking at the map of relationships with this week ties
John party. Shawn, the only node not connected to any other node, is standing by the t’srC3 I PP ,kdraIVH.
snack table (likely in the desperate hope of connecting with someone). In social. tflnret flP’HPn re pie
,‘

Ji’fppnt “r,II
network terms, he is called an isolate. The group of individuals in the upper left H

appears to be a very tight-knit group of friends, all connected to each other. but
with few connections to other groups at the party. Other groups are less connected
with each other, and a few individuals haves connection to only one other member.
Strawn Note the number of connections John has. especially the weak ties to mul
Usa tiple members in all the other groups. John is what is called a hub, or a node with hub

many connections to other nodes, and hubs are generally influencers in social A tdp Vat has nasy

networks, partly because of the number of connections they have. If you are new
FIGURE 9’2 Jojihoob ar Iber orrrbsSors. oohwn no oho ohob, proeobrbar.o rrretsotrpei
.
1 at the party and want to be introduced to someone else (for whatever reason),
John would likely be the best person to first introduce yourself to, as he could
make the introduction or introduce you to someone who considers the person
you want to meet a friend.
sic degrees 55 separation This is how the notion of six degrees of separation works, the idea that ev
The idea that eeo’yome in thn eryone in the world is connected by at most six other nodes in a social network.
world is sopara ted from each
Generally we simply have not had a way to know what those networks are, thus the
othvr by at most six other
nodes in a social network. amazing coincidences that occur when we learn about a mutual connection such Are We Really Separated by Six Degrees?
as attending the same school or having a common friend. Social-networking sites
have helped make our social networks visible. he notion that everyone in Bacon is calculated. This can eas
Our common sense tells us that a tight-knit group of friends like Peter has the world is separated by no ily be done through the Oracle of
small corld (called a small world, in social-network analysis) is important in social networks, more than six degrees, or six Kevin Bacon website, which uses
links in a network, gained the at the Internet Movie Database
S tiqht-knxt social network but this is not the case. Far more important are weak ties, or the connections be
tention of the public through an as its source, It can be surpris
Wit heany Sxr005 ties.
tween various small worlds, This is partly because members in a small world tend
experiment conducted by psy ing to discover how connected
to share the same resources, so if someone in Peter’s small world is looking for a chologist Stanley Milgrarn in the even long dead actors are with
job, it is likely all the members know of the same openings and may even be com 1950s. Kevin Bacon. This works so well
peting for the position. He sent copies of letters to because, if you consider the ac
people In the Midwest and asked tors gathered on a movie set as a
them to send the letter to the small world of tight connections
person they thought would be as they get to know each other
most likely to be able to forward while filming, they get to know
that letter to a certain lawyer liv a large number of other actors
Peter ing in Boston. Out of the forty- who then go on to other movies
two letters that reached the law as well,
Josfl yer’s home, the average number of links was nearly Although it is difficult
six, although the range was quite large. to find an actor or actress
Although Milgram never used the term “six de separated from Bacon by
grees of separation,” it became popularized in a 1984 more than even five de
play of that name in which his experiment was ref grees, Kevin Bacon is actu
sj erenced, The notion has become even more wide ally not the most connected
spread as “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon;’ in which the Hollywood actor. Both John Carradirte and Robert
degrees of separation of various actors with Kevin Mitchum had far more connections than Bacon has.

FIGURE 9-4 tvhnImsthpsy,thmmo-vssmssoddmkcqwepemwmsfrewe


than IhO wec nd weak 5eomn bone 1w ethos.

small worlds quickly disintegrate, making the party a collection of small worlds
unconnected to each other.
Let us say that John had to leave the party early for another engagement (he is The party example may seem mundane, and in this example one could legiti
a popular guy, after all) and see how the social-network diagram radically changes. mately ask, ‘Why doesn’t Peter just go over and talk to Lisa and her friends if he
Suddenly Josh, whose sole connection to the party was through John, becomes an wants to meet her?’ This of course is exactly what happens in parties as new links
isolate (assuming Josh did not make any meaningful friendship connections while are easily made. However, the prindples outlined here apply just as well if Peter is
John was still there). Either the party now looks a lot less interesting for Josh or in the London office, John is in New York, Lisa is in Tokyo, and Fred in Singapore.
the snack table with that strange guy lurking around it looking lonely starts to look It is the social-network structure, not the geography, that is relevant. John would
more inviting. be just as important in this example as someone who can easily connect people.
Similar changes take place for Peter and his friends, the tight-knit group In fact, because the people cannot easily meet face-to-face, his power to connect
who go everywhere together. Now if any of them want to easily meet Lisa and people through a network becomes even more important than at the party.
her friends, Peter had best go through Fred and have him make the introduction. Now consider a social-networking site you belong to and see what it does from
Although there is only one fewer member at the party, the dynamics shift dramati a social-networking perspective. The “connections’ application that shows your
cally from a communications and relationship standpoint, making some people network and friends of friends is one important element, but the other activities
hubs based on their relationships and thus elevating their status as connectors and applications that have been developed are equally important. They allow you
while isolating others. This is the power of mapping out social structures as social to see what activities others are doing, to talk directly with them, to ask them to
networks. If Fred leaves the party, friendship connections between the different join groups you are interested in, to take quizzes and share common knowledge,

PART 3 / HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD www,owp.com/ws/pavlik CHAPTER 9 / SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEE 211
to laugh together at photos—any number of activities that encourage social inter browser market share. For almost any software application one can imagine there
action and the making of new social ties, and all through a mediated environment is likely an open-source equivalent to what the market offers, usually for free or
that does not necessarily rely on consuming traditional mass media fare (though for substantially cheaper than what companies sell their proprietary products for.
that does help with conversations and interaction as well). People looked at the open-source model of software and computer develop
Social networks have been used in studying how boards of directors in various ment and asked: If it works for software, then why can’t it work for entertainment.
companies are interconnected, as the same principles regarding small worlds of journalism, advertising, public relations—or any kind of content and knowledge
tight Connections and weak links of looser ties apply. These networks can often be production?
useful for companies, in that a company board member may sit on other boards
as well and thus be linked to people who could help a business in any number of S
ways. The website They Rule is a visual database that shows the interconnections S CHANGING AUDIENCES: FROM CONSUMERS TO “PRODUSERS”
Ride
www.thoyrute.net and social networks of boards of directors of major companies. This is exactly what is happening as some audiences shift from being primarily
From this brief overview of basic social-network principles, it should be clear consumers of media content to what media scholar Axel Bruns calls produsers,: produsei-s
how important it actually is when we say someone is ‘well connected.” Early sodal though others use the term “prosumrrs.” or just ‘usets. The fact that there is
media such as email and discussion groups gave people the communicative tools debate about what term to use (and that we do not already have a readily available
to connect but still did not allow people to visualize their social networks. Social- term to use( highlights how relevant and new this phenomenon is.
networking sites added that last, powerful piece to the tools that already existed, It is widely accepted that traditional media audiences were largely seen as
and that helped spur on more development of social media, thanks in part to a cul consumers by the mass media companies that created content to sell to them.
ture of collaboration that had developed in parallel with the Internet over the years. Whether they consumed media in the form of programs, books, or music, or prod.
ucts advertised through various media channels, the relationship was very much
one of producers (media industries) creating material for the public to consume.
collaborative Media Work Entire business models were built on this industrial model of production within
the media industries. Companies made our cars (or soap, or clothes, or books, or
Collaboration is one of the principal elements of social media, and it is important movies), and we bought them.
to consider not only because of the media creation that comes out of it, as in the Of course people were not as passive as that relationship would indicate, but
case ofWikipedia, but because it threatens established media business models that as discussed earlier in this chapter the chances for people to choose, create, and
have been used throughout much of the twentieth century and into this one. “talk back to producers were extremely limited prior to social media. Now, how
Without the spirit of collaboration and free sharing the Internet would look ever, people have the tools to talk back and many are doing so—what’s more, they
very different, and it could be argued it might not even exist as we know it to are not only talking back but often simply ignoring the traditional producers and
day. Remember that the Internet was developed by computer programmert and talking to each other.
engineers who had a commitment to sharing information and knowledge, free The new dynamic is a comples one, thus the difficulty in coming up with an
of the limitations the marketplace puts on such activity. Without the efforts of a adequate term to define it. ‘Prosumer still seems to emphasize the consumption
good number of very smart people either working for free or paid by taxpayer dol aspect of the relationship, almost like a ‘professional consumer” or kind of iiber
lars, the backbone of the Internet would not exist, as no company would have the consumer, which misses out on the important change in the power balance that
resources—or be willing to spend the resources if it did—to create the structure is taking place today between audiences and producers. Similarly. user dos-s not
needed, especially when there was no clear way to profit from it. capture the sense of creation or production that is an important element of the
social-media landscape.
The fact is that consumption of one form or another still predominates. Not ev
• ROOTS IN THE OPEN-SOURCE MOVEMENT eryone is (or wants to be) a producer of media content. But to contribute to the larger
Collaborative or participatory media trace their roots online to the open-source conversations taking place—to add something. however small, that helps create a
movement, or free-software movement, in which programmers created software greater whole—is easier than ever before. Posting a link to a worthwhile website or
whose source code could be improved upon by anyone. Although not always free blog that others on a discussion board may have never heard of is a form of me
in the sense of “no cost.’ there was a strong spirit of keeping the information freely dia production, collaboration, and knowledge sharing that cannot be downplayed as
available to anyone and letting everyone share in the benefits. Commonsense theo nonproductive or unimportant, especially when looked at on a large scale,
ries of human behavior indicated that nobody would work hard on a project only
to have others benefit greatly from it, but this tamed Out to be completely wrong.
S S REPUTATION, RATINGS, AND TRUST
A great number of software projects were developed on the open-source model
and have become powerful competitors to companies like Microsoft. The operating The change in audiences from consumers to produsers has had a powerful ripple
system Linux is one example, at ix the Apache server or MySQL database. OpenOf effect, not only on business models, but on a number of social factors as well. In
fice, a software suite similar to Microsoft Office, is free and developed on an open- the traditional media world, we could rely on certain established brands to give us
source model. Mozilla’s Firefox browser has steadily been eating away at Internet certain things. The Wall Street Jaw-nat or New York Ttmes delivered a kind of con
Explorer’s stranglehold on the browser market, now with nearly 23 percent of the tent that the National Ertquirer did not. and we leamed what to expect.

PART 3 / HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD (HAPTES 9 SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB 2.0

I
Today that has changed. Althosigh the traditional brands still (for the most they learn that an employer is raising questions about material found on a blog
part) retain thetr meanings for us, ills more difficult than ever for us to determine or information gleaned from a social-networking site. Most employers today do
how to trust information if it comes from unknown sources. How do we know that Google searches on bob applicants and examine social-networking profiles if they
the Amazon review ofa book we are considering was not written by someone paid can. Many also make decisions about who will be called for an interview in, port
to write a glowing review or by the author’s mother? How do we know that a Wiki based on these searches, The goofy profile picture of you half.naked at a college
pedta entry about a politician was not written by the politician’s aides, highlighting party may be hilarious to your friends on Facebook but not so amusing to a poten
only positive tiformatiori and ignoring past scandals? How do we know that the tial employer trying to gauge your value as an employee.
blog about the problem of obesity in children is not created by a pharmaceutical Along similar Itnes, Facebook has gotten into trouble at least three times from
cotnpany trying to promote their dieting drug? its misers for unannounced policy changes perceived to invade users privacy. One
These and other issues are all extremely important in today’s media world, notable case was Facebook’s Beacon, which tracked users’ activities even after they’
thus the importance of critical thinking and media literacy. Similarly, issues of had left Facebook—without informing them. To make matters worse, these off-site
trust and reputation become vital in figuring out what information we can trust. activities—such as purchasing a product or registering for a website—were broad.
Ratings systems. in which participants can rank how tiseful a review or comment cast to a user’s network of friends.
is, help us in making that decisinin. But the question also arises whether the raters There are many temptations for companies such as Facel,ook to invade users’
are trustworthy or not. privacy by tracking their online behavior, The data collected could be immensely
This is where social networks enter once again, as we generally trust friends valuable to marketers trying to figure omit how tin best tap certa ni markets—e’spe.
or people have let into our social itetworks and art’ inure likely to listen no what cialhy the lucrattve eighteen-to-tlnirty.four demographik. It is especially problematic
iltey say or res,otnntend. TIns is otti’ reason word-of-mouth or buzz niiarkrting has when companies still have not found sustainable business models to support hint
become so important for advertisers. Ratings systems as a measure of gauging activities and are looking for ways to cacti revenite.
trust will develop and lx’coinie more important itt our social-media landsm..ipi’, but Companies fiat are bought by other companies or that go out of busitness have
there svill lie some thorny ethical and legal questions that arise as ssell. databases of registered tisers and online activity that could provide very valuable
informatiout. However, wheit users registered to a site, they likely did not consider
that thetr personal data and search history night at sonic point s’uid up in tine
Ethical and Legal Issues with Social Media hands ol a different company.

The legal world has not nearly lw-gun tnt catch tip with the utany issus’s that online
media have raised, let abut’ social uuis’dia. Issuin’s of tradeiniark infriogettteutt sir TRANSPARENCY
other itutelbectual property issues have geiteralby beett dealt witlt using existing case Even supposedly tech-savvy companies leaditug the social-media revolution seem
laws, but other issues will tied iti-w legal thinking to be dealt with propel ly. to regularly make lnlunders similar to traditional media companies when it conies
One big issue arising in tIne legal arena is figs ring out who owns uisi’r.geiler to understanding some of the new dynamics with their audience, as the Beacon
ated content on social.medna sites. If someone decides to write a hook based out example shows.
disi.nissiotis takeit from a site like The WElL. utsitig i”steitdt’d passages ol actual Counpauuk’s trvunmg to create faux’viral videos or making fake grassroots Mugs.
discussioi,s. is this a breach ofcopyriglit? How should thus’ posts’r hi’ noinupemnsatn’d, a practice called astroturfing, are often punished severely in tlte court of pitblin .n’
fat all? Is periulissiotn needed to use the post or an excerpt of ii? list,. how niinu.It is opinion oiice lu-jr nnian.buinuations are learned. Sudden shifts in things like privacy
fair use and now intuit is nit infringeutneuut ofinitehlectiuah property? These are List policies. either unannounced or lot adequately announced. have produced similar
sotne of tin’ issues that sociul-ntedia sites will have to wrestle sithu itt thin’ hiituire, aimdieitce backlashcs.
TIme ethical and legal boundaries lx’tween privacY and traiusparn’ncv blur isi Facelnook unit’ agaimm learned this the hard way iii early zoos,> lien a change in
line, and it is especially trite with social media, The norms of acceptable hiiinits of their privacy policy. wE ich had been made a few weeks earlier bitt wetit unnoticed
privacy have mwses been fined, and the ease of social interactiiiii onhimit’ coitnbinnn’d by time general public, stated that Facebook would own the rights to tuser-generated
with the lack of face.to.face interaction often makes a volatile inns for itudis’iduals content Ott the site, inchudnmig posted photos. Found and publicized by’ a cotnsunner
as well as for compatnes. initt’rest group. lie chnantge elicited immense and immediate outrage, itncbuding a
titreat by the Electroimic Privacy lutfornuationi Center (EPICI to file a complaint with
the Federal Trade Commission.
PRIVACY
Facebook quickly did an about.face on the policy and created a group of users
The norms for privacy are also changing. For those older than Gen Y tile notionm to discuss future privacy-policy changes. The actions and reactions are emblem
of making so timmuch of one’s life ptiblic throtigh posting photos, discussing one’s atic of the shifting power dynamic between companies and the public and sonic-
thoughts or desires on a blog, or sharing otlter highly personal itiforination feels thing than other companies shotild note carefully. It would have been far better
strange. There isa sense that much of that is nobody else’s business or that that in if Facebook had created ssich a grovip in the first place, rather than only after
formation should only be shared with a select grotip of people one knows and trusts. receiving complaints. Further, Facebook’s own c,mstomers were able to use Web Lfnk>>>
Electronic Privacy lnlormaxoii Center
This “living publicly generally does not seem to bother Getm-Yers in the same the very tools that helped make Facebook so popular to organize against the epnc.org
way, yet many are rudely awakened to a sense of having their privacy invaded when company.

PART 3 / HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD ,, wwwnpcem//p.v1ik ,,. ‘pp
‘l
The balancing act between privacy, transparency, and tapping into the rich da.
tabases of compiled data from user interactions will continue to be a struggle for
CONVEGENCEJJiX social.networking Sites.

Web 3.0: The Semantic Web 1OOKNG BACK AND MOVING FORWARD
Like much of new” media, social media actually have firm roots and influences
you thought that social media and Web 2.0 have grated into tIre online space, It promises to revo in many aspects of “old media, although in this case the term old” refers more
transformed media, wait until the semantic Web lutionize our online experiences in a way that will to the earliest days of PCs and the Internet than it does to radio. TV, or print me
is fully developed. make our current Web look like a hand-cranked tele
The semantic Web is the next big project that dia. Even so, the changes that social media have brought in a relatively short time
phone from the early twentieth century.
Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web have long-lasting implications for culture, business, and society that researchers
protocol, is working on. The idea behind the sernan are only beginning to explore.
tic Web is that it builds on and extends the existing One of the biggest changes, discussed throughout this book, is the difference
Web to make it even easier for people to share in in relationship between media producers and the audience. Even without the large
formation across platforms and for the Web itself to marketing and promotion budgets that some major media companies have, aver
essentially be able to satisfy requests regarding web age people have been able to create content that has been seen, heard, or read by
content. millions or even tens of millions of people worldwide.
The project is not simply about creating a bet The networks that have formed through online communication, and that have
ter search engine that responds to natural queries. become ever more visible thanks to social-networking Sites, have given people
It contains a variety of suggestions on protocols and even more power. Through collaboration, people have shown in numerous proj.
some operating principles that are meant to help re ects what can be accomplished when many work willingly together and how their
duce incompatibility between software formats, as
efforts can benefit even greater numbers of people. Wikipedia is one such project.
well as a component that attempts to classify all in
formation on the Web according to a formal system What may be of even more significance over the long term, however, is how
that can be read and understood by all computers. social media have encouraged people to create and share knowledge structures,
We see some of the classifying and categoriz riot just knowledge. Through the sometimes heated discussions in forums or on
ing taking place among users now with tagging, the talk pages of wikis, participants are exposed to different viewpoints and ways
but this promises to be all-encompassing. It also of looking at the world, In collaborative projects they have to come to some sort of
raises interesting questions about who gets to de understanding or agreement, thus modifying what is written to satisfy everyone.
fine what terms will be used. This is bound to raise Although this does not guarantee a change in anyone’s views, simply being ex
conflicts with various groups who may define them posed to other viewpoints has an effect on our thinking.
selves one way but that are defined another way by Sharing knowledge structures, or ways of looking at the world, is also done
society. through curation, such as tagging information. Providing information about in
Regardless of the difficulties ahead, and the formation is just as valuable as creating information and in some ways can reflect
time it will take for the semantic Web to be inte worldviews just as accurately as direct comments on a discussion board. A user
who tags a photo of fighting in Somalia as genocide may suddenly see connec
tions to other photos with the same tag and learn of past incidents elsewhere.
Following the actions of many users who are collaborating without even
knowing it by using automated systems can yield amazing results. One example
is Google flu trends, which uses aggregated data of search terms in the popular
search engine to predict flu outbreaks. Google has found that, simply based on
search terms, it has been able to predict flu outbreaks up to two weeks earlier than
The need for transparency is becoming increasingly important with social traditional methods.
media—a fact that individuals and organizations forget at their peril. However, Of course, the social-media tools available are only as good as the way they are
transparency often works against strategy making and planning by companies. as used, It could be argued that a community of sorts exists around a Site like Goth or
they do not want to give away secrets to competitors. Not, but its value to all but a few may be questionable. Simply because we have the
Transparency is starting to be built into some ratings and review systems, so tools now does not mean we will always use them in a productive or efficient way.
reviewers can state how long they have had a product. for example, which helps Media companies are struggling to adapt to the world of social media, with
give readert a chance to gauge if the glowing review is about a product that is just mixed success. Companies not willing to give up control of their messages are
out of the box or if it has been used for a while. having more difficulty than those that are more open about stepping into the

PART 3 I HOW DIGITAL MEDIA ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD www.ovp.com/

to companies, however, is
controlled chaos that is social media. Of bigger concern
sprouting up. conversations often
how to earn revenues from all the conversations
to
based on content the companies have spent money aeat*
will learn in the next section.
There are no easy answers to this question. as we
shape the social-media landscape
Some industries may find it easier to adapt. otto
looking at a bleak future in which
in ways that benefit them, while others may be
be nearly unrecognizable in ten
the profession or industry as we know it today may
or twenty years.

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