Hi Jeff, Stephen, Paul and others,<br><br>My recently completed phd looks at just this topic - the capacity for increased cultural production/participation via new media/technologies - though from a slightly different perspective than the socio/cultural/political. By drawing upon the framework of stigmergy - agent interactions with their environment stimulate further interactions which may result in emergent patterns - i map out a framework for understanding collective creative activity online (and off). If you are interested you can find a link to the abstract here:
<a href="http://mark-elliott.net/view/Dissertation">http://mark-elliott.net/view/Dissertation</a><br><br>The crux is that encodable networked media provide for the coordination of distributed, individualised contributions which may aggregate into emergent, system level behaviour such as collaborative filtering (Digg, Reddit), content creation (Second Life, YouTube) knowledge aggregation/generation (wikis, Wikipedia) etc. An important distinction to be made here, touched on in the previous posts, is that while this phenomenon achieves democratic-like outcomes, it is qualitatively different from 'democracy', in that its participants needn't be associated with or form constituent groups to advocate for or with. Instead, they act solely as individuals, with those individualistic actions contributing to emergent outcomes which provide 'use-value' for the participants and others.
<br><br>So for me it is stigmergy in combination with media and its digital/networked evolutions which is enabling the Internet, crowdsourcing, mass collaboration and user-gen content in general. And, in my opinion, this is mob rule (but one which is simultaneously individualistic and participatory), and it *is* the dawn of an empowered consumerate, but, it is probably heavily hyped too ;-).
<br><br>Jeff, you might be interested in an analysis of a number of web 2.0 type sites including Digg that I did here (scroll down a bit to see the table): <br><br><a href="http://mark-elliott.net/view/Dissertation/StigmergyDissertation#3_10_Digital_Stigmergic_Coordina">
http://mark-elliott.net/view/Dissertation/StigmergyDissertation#3_10_Digital_Stigmergic_Coordina</a><br><br>but it might need a bit of background that can probably be got here:<br><br><a href="http://mark-elliott.net/view/Dissertation/CollaborationDissertation#2_5_Coordination_Cooperation_Col">
http://mark-elliott.net/view/Dissertation/CollaborationDissertation#2_5_Coordination_Cooperation_Col</a><br><br><br>hope this is of use,<br>cheers,<br>mark<br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/5/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">
Paul B. Hartzog</b> <<a href="mailto:paulbhartzog@gmail.com">paulbhartzog@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Jeff,<br>Nice to see you here.<br><br>You may be interested in a piece I did for Many-to-Many called<br>"Culture Jams, Culture Preserves."<br><br><a href="http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/07/27/culture_jams_culture_preserves.php">
http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/07/27/culture_jams_culture_preserves.php</a><br><br>The gist of it is:<br>"Using existing mass media images to twist, mock, refute, subvert, or<br>as wikipedia more politely says "produce negative commentary about
<br>itself" is called "culture jamming." Umberto Eco calls this<br>"semiological guerrilla warfare" and supports "action which would urge<br>the audience to control the message and its multiple possibilities of
<br>interpretation." (from Travels in Hyperreality). But what happens when<br>the culture jammers actually want to continue and extend the media in<br>question?"<br><br>hope it helps :-)<br>-Paul<br><br>On 10/3/07, Howe, Jeff <
<a href="mailto:Jeff_Howe@wired.com">Jeff_Howe@wired.com</a>> wrote:<br>> iDCers,<br>><br>> I've greatly enjoyed lurking on this list for the last several months, but<br>> now I'm hoping you fine folk might help me identify anyone engaged in the
<br>> study of social media sites, aka Digg/Reddit etc. for a book I'm writing<br>> about crowdsourcing. The chapter in question is a bit broader than social<br>> media, per se, and is tentatively titled, The Crowd Votes. I'm interested in
<br>> the ways in which user feedback is influencing cultural production, as well<br>> as the capacity to be hacked. Is this mob rule or the dawn of an empowered<br>> consumerate or just a load of hype?<br>><br>
> Very grateful for any responses, online or off.<br>><br>> Jeff Howe<br>><br>> ---------------------------<br>> Jeff Howe<br>> Contributing Editor, Wired Magazine<br>> 4 Times Square, 19th Floor<br>
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--------------------------------------------------------<br>The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.<br> --Muriel Rukeyser<br><br>See differently, then you will act differently.<br> --Paul B. Hartzog
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