10 november session
Revision as of 15:58, 17 November 2010 by Lieven Van Speybroeck (talk | contribs)
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
- Gatekeepers/experts (middlemen) vs wisdom of the crowd
- 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?