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