Tag Archive for social media

| March 22, 2013
2 comments

What is participatory media?

One of the key aspects of my PhD research is the practice and theory of participatory media, which I originally took to be more self-explanatory than it apparently is.

For me, the term participatory media has always encompassed and been greater than the term Web 2.0, which I find reflects old paradigms of thinking about technology and, perhaps more importantly, human interaction with technology1. For starters, Web 2.0 is technological determinism in its most bizarre and insidious form. Whereas it might seem Web 2.0 puts emphasis on the social aspects of the web, to me it places the emphasis on the medium (the Web) while deliberately attempting to obscure that fact. Take, for example, this definition of Web 2.0:

a collection of Web tools that facilitate collaboration and information sharing. (Casey and Li 2012, p.204)2

This clearly places the primacy on the technology in use. Such a construct is insufficient for the nuances of participatory media as I imagine it.

Participatory media needs to include aspects of shared knowledge making, where the users are in dialogue with each other. Penman describes it as being a situated interpreter, or “to engage in sense-making in our relation with others” (2000, p.45)3 This is very much a Bakhtinian sense of dialogue, which recognises the essential joint (or social) nature of human relationships and language (Penman 2000)34. This understanding of dialogue is important also for conceptualising how I see participatory media articulating with existing structures of Web 2.0. Participatory media is in a dialogue with Web 2.0. As such, without a solid understanding of what Web 2.0 is and where it comes from (the topic of another blog post), participatory media cannot be fully articulated. Suffice to say that Web 2.0 is both too restrictive and discursively destructive to play too great a role in underpinning understandings of participatory media.

Aside from being a shared process of knowledge making, mediated though it is, participatory media is also in a superior dialogue with theories of participatory culture. Indeed, it would be plausible to argue that participatory media are absolutely integral to the modern participatory culture. Here’s how Henry Jenkins describes participatory culture:

A graphic showing Henry Jenkins' typology of participatory culture

(Jenkins 2006)5

If this is a participatory culture, than we can assume participatory media to be those electronic tools that are used (as opposed to ‘enable’) to participate. In my research, the method and form of participation is that enabled by local government authorities. For Casey and Li, this is only effective if it is “sought early, often and ongoing and utilized at multiple phases of the decision-making process.” (2012, p.198)2

The implications of participatory media (in a participatory culture) include the rewriting of old concepts like citizen, consumer and audience. Clay Shirky puts it this way:

Just as social tools are creating members of the former audience, they are creating legions of former consumers, if by “consumer” we mean an atomized and voiceless purchaser of goods and services. Consumers now talk back to businesses and speak out to the general public, and they can do so en masse and in coordinated ways.” (2008 p179)6

The citizen too was “atomized and voiceless” but now has the ability to “talk back… and speak out”. How local governments respond to this, and whether/how they use participatory media to do so, is essentially the core of my research.

  1. See my post on The Human Internet for some of my thoughts on that aspect. [↩]
  2. Casey, C. & Li, J., 2012. Web 2.0 Technologies and Authentic Public Participation: Engaging Citizens in Decision Making Processes. In K. Kloby & M. J. D’Agostino, eds. Citizen 2.0: Public and Government Interaction Through Web 2.0 Technologies. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference, pp. 197–223. [↩] [↩]
  3. Penman, R., 2000. Reconstructing Communicating: Looking to a Future, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [↩] [↩]
  4. See also Bakhtin on Wikipedia [↩]
  5. Jenkins, H., 2006. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture : Media Education for the 21st Century, Chicago. Available at: http://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF [↩]
  6. Shirky, C., 2008. Here Comes Everybody, New York: The Penguin Press. [↩]
Category: Social Media, Uni, Web | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| January 31, 2013
No comments

A Framework of Questions

Some questions to consider during my PhD project.

  • Why do local governments use social networks? Is it because the councillors think its a good idea? Because the managers do? Is there a push from the ‘citizen’ for social media use? Is it just what everyone else is doing?
  • How do local governments use social networks? Is it for consultation or broadcast? Do they only use it during unusual events like emergencies? Why do they do it this way?
  • What other participatory media are being used? Do they have wikis? What functionality do their websites have? Do councillors formally crowdsource motions, ideas, etc?
  • Are local governments using participatory media under a well-defined framework, or on the fly? Is there a broad strategy or ad hoc adaptation?
  • What is eGovernment and how does it apply to local governments? Do local governments pay attention to concepts like ‘eGovernment’? Do they know what it means?
  • What is participatory about local government? Is the citizen only relevant at election time?
  • What does the citizen think about all of this? Do they care?

If you think you can offer some insight into any or all of these, I’d be happy to hear from you. Leave a comment or tweet me.

Category: Media, Social Media, Uni, Web | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
| January 21, 2013
One comment

Someone is going to get Mendelaid

Have you heard that Elsevier is buying Mendeley? No? Well, that’s probably because you don’t care.

In the hustle of daily start-up takeover news that has been the staple of TechCrunch and Mashable for the last few years, this one is small bikkies. But TechCrunch did report on it, which spurred others to re-report. Then someone started a feedback query in Mendeley protesting the rumour. It has 72 votes so far. Against the supposed $100million payoff, I doubt Mendeley has taken much notice of the protests. Blinded by green, you might call it.

I’m a user of Mendeley, but I’m not overly attached to it. It certainly is the best reference manager I’ve come across, but there are other tools out there, and really, what does it matter what I care about the deal anyway. The whole episode raises some interesting questions about the nature of academic publishing, and the players in that space. Not because Mendeley is “disrupting” academic publishing (according to TechCrunch’s source) but precisely because it isn’t as disruptive as it might be, as some have identified.

Despite my best instincts, I’m about to wade into an ongoing debate I have little expertise in, hopefully wearing all the appropriate personal protective equipment, especially troll-retardant. There is one very disruptive company operating in the publishing and information-sharing and gathering space that could do a very good job at spoiling the party for academic publishers wanting to own their own reference managing company – Google.

Google’s issues with privacy are well-known. Their mantra ‘Do No Evil’ has often been called into question. And, well, they’re a corporate blood-monster desperate to suck up all your spare cash and data and sell it to advertisers. But wait, there’s more: they are also very good at building truly disruptive products in markets they have little business being in. If Tom Tom or Garmin had seen Google Maps coming, investors would have sold out a decade ago. Microsoft’s Hotmail was equally as unprepared for Gmail and Google Apps. And their self-driving car technology has left the established auto-makers at the starting blocks. They haven’t quite cracked the social networking market, but they’ve largely infiltrated it by default anyway. Google Drive, Gmail, Google Plus, YouTube.

Then, there’s Google Scholar. It isn’t linked to from the Google.com homepage anymore, so you might think its on the way out, but Scholar has some very nifty features that could form the basis of a handy reference manager, with the added bonus of native connections to Google Drive. Researchers can already create professional profiles in Google Scholar, download citations to articles in a number of formats, and track the number of citations of particular authors and articles. Add to that the fact that Google is a publisher of new academic research.

Google Plus is already a niche network. It would be pretty simple for Googlers to link Scholar profiles to Plus and organise those connections around disciplines to build out an instant academic social network ready to become a reference manager as well.

Google’s mission is ”to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Aside from their core search engine, what better fits that mission than user-generated citation lists written by experts?

Category: Media, Social Media, Web | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| February 7, 2012
No comments

I Like My Work

I’m looking for work at the moment, which is always an interesting experience. I found a flexible, interesting job for a social media coordinator. Given I started a company doing this sort of work, I figured I ought to apply for this one.

It’s not until you are forced to sit down and spell out your skills that you really get an idea of what you can and cannot do. Or at least what you think you can and cannot do. In addition to attaching a PDF of my LinkedIn profile, I wrote a covering letter doing what you do in covering letters – boasting. Here are some extracts (keep in mind that I, as everyone does in job applications, am trying to sell myself in the best light here):

I am a very experienced, adaptable and adept user of all kinds of social media. I maintain my own accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Google Plus and others. Additionally, I manage/d a variety of social media profiles on behalf of other entities, as outlined in the table below.

Organisation Social Media Status
Rotaract Club of the Southern Highlands Three websites; Twitter; two Facebook pages; LinkedIn; YouTube; Flickr. Current
Rotary in the Southern Highlands Facebook; two websites. Current
Top Blokes Foundation Facebook; Twitter; blog; YouTube; LinkedIn; general strategy. Current
Anjali House Developed a Facebook fan page welcome tab. Current
The Fat Tulip Three websites; blog; Twitter; three Facebook pages; LinkedIn; Google Plus. Current
Southern Highlands Youth Arts Council Facebook; LinkedIn; Twitter; YouTube; Flickr; SCVNGR; Scribd; Website. Past
Southern Highlands Foundation Facebook; Twitter. Current
Wingecarribee Youth Forum Facebook. Current

…

In addition to being an experienced and skilled social media content producer, I am experienced at writing for blogs and I have useful HTML skills. At present, my Klout score is hovering at around 50, which is quite high for a person without an offline profile beyond my community.

I am proficient with social blogging platforms such as Tumblr and also more advanced content management systems such as WordPress. I am also able to easily create and manage RSS to Twitter and RSS to Facebook feeds. I keep up to date with social media trends, and join early adopters in testing new tools and websites.

As I said at the top, this is always an interesting experiment. It certainly shows up my skills though and that is something I am proud of.

Category: Business, Social Media | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| January 20, 2012
2 comments

Just Lines of Code

The teacher at the front of the classroom lays down a simple plan and all you have to do is follow it. I have a tee-shirt that demonstrates it nicely, with the following pic on the front:

Sometimes, the plans don’t work out how the elders expect they might. At a barbecue recently, I was asked what I plan to do now that I have graduated from uni. The questioner was an older, respectable gentleman and he asked with genuine interest. Nonetheless, my answer – continue studying in digital communications – was subsequently met with an almost startled response: “Whatever that is.”

This person, though an innovator in his time and a very hard worker, does not have any interest or knowledge of net or other digital culture. His incredulity was not surprising. But justification was needed.

I study and am interested in communication, and digital communication in particular, because virtually everything humans do is influenced by our ability to communicate. We categorise, define, share, collude, influence, create, and act on our ability to receive information from other human sources and process it. Digital communications – web 2.0 – is the newest expression of that process, which itself is thousands of years old. But the net – the crazy, collaborative produserly net – is something altogether different from previous human experience. Since the industrial revolution, we have been captive to media companies that controlled the production and flow of information. They decided what we were allowed to see. Clay Shirky described it wonderfully in his recent anti-SOPA video:

The twentieth century was a great time to be a media company because the one thing you really had on your side was scarcity. If you were making a TV show, it didn’t have to be better than all other TV shows ever made. It only had to be better than the two other shows that were on at the same time.

Now, everyone can control that information. For me, studying digital communities, networks and communication is akin to studying human society itself. I describe it most succinctly as digital anthropology, though of course I don’t presume to have all the skills on an anthropologist.

Category: Media, Social Media, Uni, Web | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries  

Switch to our mobile site