10 november session

Moderators:
Mirjam Dissel
Lieven Van Speybroeck

Keywords

Users as developers
Wisdom of the crowd vs skill/knowledge of experts
(Old) mainstream media vs (new) democratized media
Classification of users
Corporate responses to further user-development/hacking/modifying/... of their products

Summary of key points raised in the texts:

Henry Jenkins - Fans, Gamers and Bloggers
NYU Press, Sept. 2006
(see also: here)

Originally (2001) misperceived due to unfortunate editorial changes
Bloggers as minutemen of the digital revolution
2 kinds of media-power:

media concentration: "corporate" broadcasting

Grassroots media: user-driven

-> evolution of media is shaped through the interactions between both

Once a column appears, the writer's authorial control ends and theirs begins

Andrew Keen - The Cult of the Amateur
Crown Business, Jun. 2004
(see also: here)

Digital T.H. Huxley:

web 2.0: infinite monkeys providing infinite information for infinite readers, perpetuating the cycle of misinformation and ignorance.

Web 2.0: one long commercial break

Mainstream ("trustworthy) media vs democratized (flattened) media

Gatekeepers/experts (middlemen) vs wisdom of the crowd

-> loss of intermediaries (<-> opposite viewpoint on new media then Jenkins': creation of intermediary media

-> internet as a mirror: narcissistic approach to information

-> extinction of old media

Lack of media literacy: unable to distinguish the good from the bad

Eric S. Raymond - The New Hacker's Dictionary
The MIT Press, Oct. 1996

User: using the computer as a means rather than an end, someone who pays to use it

See: Real User: programmers that don't think twice before contacting the maintainer

Luser: using the computer (software) from the outside, without getting into the internals of the program.
User-friendly: programmer-hostile
Hacker: using the software from the inside

Lev Grossman - Person of the Year 2006: You.
Time Magazine, Dec. 2006

Web 2.0:

- threatening when you believe that an excess of democracy is the road to anarchy

- harnesses both the stupidity as wisdom of crowds

- Impact on (blogging) traditional journalism & (wikipedia ) traditional encyclopedic research:

- most web 2.0 is not challenging the authority of a traditional expert (<-> Keen). It's a working zone where there are no experts, or the users themselves are experts.

- local knowledge used to be mouth-to-mouth, now it has a broadcast channel

Mirko Schaefer - Made by Users
Mar. 2004

Collaborative work of users leads to innovation
User-driven networks: new communication systems
Computer technology -> space for cultural production/reception and a platform for cultural discourse:

- ~ Jenkins on blogging: once a product gets released by a company, a new stage of further development through it's users begins

-> Cultural freedom

Collective intelligence (wisdom of the crowd) can be much more productive and innovative than a company's research and development department (<-> Keen)
Copyright issues: digital distribution = reproduction

Discussion notes and afterthoughts:

Big difference between dilettantes (superficial, passive) & amateurs (love, passion, driven)
Early ('pioneer') hackers saw themselves as amateurs
Hard to find real collaboration between corporations and user communities (NASA Clickworkers)
Why are mainstream media to be considered trustworthy (as opposed to democratized media)?
Is there more at stake for mainstream media to be 'correct' because of their position?
User-driven communities/development leads to copyright issues: necessary redefinition of copyright laws?
Can we compare the contemporary fear of new technology/media with earlier technical/industrial/technological/... revolutions in history?
Searching for analogies (the car metaphor) for the personal computer is problematic. Why? We'll go further into that next session.