Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony Notes ?......
producers to audiences, or audeinces just absorbed into the values of ‘old media’.
(+) Web 2.0 (Tim O’Reilly in 2005) allows audiences to become producers of media : E.G : blogs, where audiences can produce & share, their work.
Web 2.0, often referred to as ‘we media’, as it democratises the media, as anyone create and publish texts UGC we no longer have to rely upon professionals (traditional ‘old’ media) to act as the gatekeepers.
"it allows thousands of people and small producers to create products, access markets, and satisfy customers in ways that only large corporations could manage in the pastTapscott and Williams 2006"
(-) Some believe that less gatekeepers mean ---> ‘dumbing down’ and ‘the cult of the amateur’
as ....anyone, regardless of ability or expertise, can create texts/info .
IAN THOMLINSON :
(+)**A New York lawyer sent a video he’d made of the incident to The Guardian. This showed that the police version of events of the Ian Tomlinson death was not true.
Although the newspaper is an example of traditional media, the fact that it could put the user-generated video on its website, and make it available on YouTube, emphasises how audiences can more readily challenge the official version of events.
Examples of the ‘political’ impact of amateur video on the web was the death of Ian Tomlinson.....(who died after being hit by a policeman during the 2009 /G20 summit protests in London)
policeman Simon Harwood, seen on video attacking Tomlinson, is to be tried for manslaughter next year; without the ‘Web 2.0’ intervention it is unlikely thatthe case would ever have gone to court.
(-) In April 1979 Blair Peach was killed in similar circumstances as Ian Thomlinson, and to this day no one has been charged with his death.
INTERNET
(+) The argument that the internet has a liberating political function , because authorities cannot control it as it is a decentralised network
Technology empowers the people, who, oppressed by years of authoritarian rule, will inevitably rebel, mobilizing themselves through Facebook, Twitter…Morozov 2011: xiv
Twitter is an information-distribution network,
not different from the telephone or email or text messaging, except that it is
real-time and massively distributed — a message posted by a blogger can be re-published thousands of times and transmitted halfway around the world instantly
The ability to go ‘viral’, is something that was not possible in pre-internet days.
the internet has given the people a potentially powerful tool to communicate with each other, and so to challenge their rulers social networking sites have made the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings which enabled protestors to bypass the centralised state media
Yahoo was prosecuted successfully in a French court for allowing Nazi memorabilia to be sold on a site it was hosting
Although Yahoo is based in USA, where such behaviour is not illegal, in France it is.
The case showed that the law of the nation state remained powerfull, even in the ‘boundary-less’ world of the internet.
(-) It is believed that cyberspace might challenge the authority of nation-states and move the world to a new, post-territorial era. Goldsmith and Wu 2006
E:G : authoritarian countries – those without a free press
The internet has loosened official control, but not eradicated it. ‘We Media’ is not strong enough to allow ‘people power’ to succeed.
countries like China and Iran have successfully controlled the general population’s access to the internet, and so have prevented the free circulation of information
YOUTUBE / Dummbed Down -// Trivial( of little value) (+) YouTube allows users to create their own ‘channels’. ‘My’ YouTube home page is currently plugging channels by artists such as Rhianna, Beyonce and Katy Perry. Clearly artists are using the site as a promotional vehicle.
Burgess and Green conclude that there are two YouTubes; they argue it is
‘a space where these two categories [traditional media and home video] co-exist and collide, but do not really converge’ (41).
YouTube is now used more frequently as a commercial network for promotional and catch-up purposes that runs alongside, and probably dominates, the original, usually trivial, user-generated content.
Carmody 2011: even as we become used to watching television programmes on computers, mobile phones or music players, we still experience it as television.
(-)
The first ever video posted on youtube was ‘Me at the zoo’ (April 23, 2005): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw
It was typical of the original ‘home video’ , Although it has been watched 6,131,062 times as of 13th December 2011, it is entirely trivial; so too is the ‘Laughing baby ripping paper’, although this is much more watchable (over 41m views): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXXm696UbKY).
Jean Burgess and Joshua Green (2009) found that 42% of the sampled clips were uploaded by fans rather than the traditional media companies themselves.
In the last two years this percentage will have increased, as YouTube has become a medium of ‘catch up’ distribution in the UK, for Channels 4 and 5.
"it allows thousands of people and small producers to create products, access markets, and satisfy customers in ways that only large corporations could manage in the pastTapscott and Williams 2006"
(-) Some believe that less gatekeepers mean ---> ‘dumbing down’ and ‘the cult of the amateur’
as ....anyone, regardless of ability or expertise, can create texts/info .
as ....anyone, regardless of ability or expertise, can create texts/info .
IAN THOMLINSON :
(+)**A New York lawyer sent a video he’d made of the incident to The Guardian. This showed that the police version of events of the Ian Tomlinson death was not true.
Although the newspaper is an example of traditional media, the fact that it could put the user-generated video on its website, and make it available on YouTube, emphasises how audiences can more readily challenge the official version of events.
Examples of the ‘political’ impact of amateur video on the web was the death of Ian Tomlinson.....(who died after being hit by a policeman during the 2009 /G20 summit protests in London)
policeman Simon Harwood, seen on video attacking Tomlinson, is to be tried for manslaughter next year; without the ‘Web 2.0’ intervention it is unlikely thatthe case would ever have gone to court.
INTERNET
(+) The argument that the internet has a liberating political function , because authorities cannot control it as it is a decentralised network
Twitter is an information-distribution network,
not different from the telephone or email or text messaging, except that it is
real-time and massively distributed — a message posted by a blogger can be re-published thousands of times and transmitted halfway around the world instantly
The ability to go ‘viral’, is something that was not possible in pre-internet days.
the internet has given the people a potentially powerful tool to communicate with each other, and so to challenge their rulers social networking sites have made the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings which enabled protestors to bypass the centralised state media
Yahoo was prosecuted successfully in a French court for allowing Nazi memorabilia to be sold on a site it was hosting
Although Yahoo is based in USA, where such behaviour is not illegal, in France it is.
The case showed that the law of the nation state remained powerfull, even in the ‘boundary-less’ world of the internet.
(-) It is believed that cyberspace might challenge the authority of nation-states and move the world to a new, post-territorial era. Goldsmith and Wu 2006
E:G : authoritarian countries – those without a free press The internet has loosened official control, but not eradicated it. ‘We Media’ is not strong enough to allow ‘people power’ to succeed.
The Amateur / Celebrity
(+) This co-option of the ‘amateur’ is seen in the way meaning is structured by the dominant ideological discourse.
E.G : YouTube has allowed ‘ordinary’ people to become celebrities, such as ‘Charlie is so cool like!!!’ (http://www.youtube.com/user/charlieissocoollike?blend=1&ob=4),
they do not have the same status as celebrities created by traditional media.
However, before we conclude that television has simply ‘co-opted’ (incorporated) YouTube, it has been argued that the internet offers a diversity of viewpoints, both ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’, it is much more difficult to structure how meaning is created, and so it irr4s less hegemonic (Driscoll and Gregg, 2008).
Without the help of traditional media Charlie McDonnell cannot exercise ‘celebrity power’; he is defined as a celebrity in the terms of traditional media only.Who has the power?
Has Web 2.0 switched power from producers to the audience? .
(+) the audience – no longer have to rely upon the token ‘access’ traditional media offered us E.G : newspapers’ letter pages or radio phone-ins.
we can easily produce texts ourselves, even if we seem to be more interested in mimicking traditional media by becoming YouTube celebrities, or watching music videos and/or television programmes by favourite artists.
(-) still early days in the development of user-generated content.
Over the next few years, net-based audience-produced texts may start having a more distinctive impact upon the internet.
user-generated content may develop its own codes and conventions different to those of the traditional media.
injustices can be challenged more easily; but the problem of political, and legal, controls will be harder to overcome
PLAN OF ESSAY Q:
Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values. To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?
Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values. To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?
It can be said that audiences now have access to greater variety of values and views due to Web 2.0 (social media) as it allows we media’ which democratises the media and society , for example user generated content shows that we no longer have to rely upon professionals ) to act as the gatekeepers.This highlights that more values are now given to the ordinary people. One example of this is the Ian Tomlinson scandal where a New York lawyer sent a video of the incident to The Guardian. Showing the police version were false
the UGC video was put up on the guardian .This emphasises how audiences can challenge the official version of events and now play a bigger part in society
the UGC video was put up on the guardian .This emphasises how audiences can challenge the official version of events and now play a bigger part in society
Web 2.0 also allows audiences to become producers of media for example blogs, where audiences can produce & share, + express their views this shows that internet now has a liberating political function , as authorities cannot control it anymore as it is a decentralised network meaning it gives the people a powerful tool to communicate with each other, and challenge their rulers . An example of this liberating function is seen through the ‘Arab Spring’ which led to bypass the centralised state media and shows that the state and goverment now has less control over the internet and society.
The first ever video posted on YouTube was ‘Me at the zoo’ (April 23, 2005) which has no critical or factual information and emphasises the dumbing down of the net
Furthermore ‘We Media’ (Web 2.0) is not strong enough to allow ‘people power’ to succeed as countries like China have successfully controlled the general population’s access to the internet, and so have prevented the free circulation of information. For example in china there are 30 thousand people secretly police the web -> "great firewall of china". This emphasises that regardless of the power of the web and the values and power it gioves to society it is still able to be controled.
Furthermore ‘We Media’ (Web 2.0) is not strong enough to allow ‘people power’ to succeed as countries like China have successfully controlled the general population’s access to the internet, and so have prevented the free circulation of information. For example in china there are 30 thousand people secretly police the web -> "great firewall of china". This emphasises that regardless of the power of the web and the values and power it gioves to society it is still able to be controled.
WWW: You used a good range of examples to support your points.
ReplyDeleteYou included both sides of the argument.
EBI/LR:You could use some more theories to reinforce what your saying.
Theories :
Delete1)Castelle 1996 Pluralism - Allows more people to have a voice
2)Uses and Gratifications = Blumler and Katz,social interaction
3)Marxism - Media Institutions / Gatekeepers still control over what audiences can and cannot have access to
4) Andrew Keen - Dumbing down + Cult of the Amature