Notes from: Raine, Lee and Barry Wellman. 2012. Networked: The New Social Operating System. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

PART II: HOW NETWORKED INDIVIDUALISM WORKS

CHAPTER 8 – NETWORKED CREATORS

• Triple Revolution allows anyone to create online content that can reach a wide audience.
• Boundaries between producers and consumers are blurred.
• “Charlie on the Commuter Line” blog created by Peter Maranci.
  • Focused on problems found on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority trains
  • Led to an article in free daily paper, BostonNOW.
  • Maranci was not a journalist or politician, but he was able to fill these roles.
• Limitation: unpaid networked creators can become less involved if they lose interest or the opportunity
• 2/3 of adult Internet users have created online material.
• Creating media (ex. text, photos, audio, artwork, videos) serves several purposes:
  • Documenting memories.
  • Way to communicate with others and build friendships.
  • Learning and exploring new topics.
  • Self-promotion and demonstration of skills.
• Pew Internet research found content creation activities are increasing over time.
• Most networked individuals are involved in multiple types of content creation.
• Can both expand social network and also elevate social status.
• Yelp in St. Louis.

Creating in the Age of the Triple Revolution

• “Making is connecting” by David Gauntlett.
• Content creation sites like Facebook and Wikipedia only have value because people use and contribute to them.
• Noncredentialed amateurs are starting to do work previously reserved for professionals and experts.
• Creating is often voluntary.
• Expands collective knowledge and is used to solve problems

Collaborative Content Creation on Wikipedia

• Currently 4,675,000 articles.
• 23.5 million users (though only a small portion of these do most of the editing).
• Interconnectivity of articles, ideas, and people.
• People link groups, but groups also link people.
• “Edit Wars” occur when users debate over facts, interpretations, and sourcing.
• Japanese earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 saw thousands of revisions in the two weeks following the incident across 75 relevant articles.
• Part of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham’s page was changed from “Religious Beliefs” to “Spiritual Beliefs” (this section is now titled “Personal Beliefs”).
• Disagreements about how articles are edited follow Wikipedian norms like verifiability, civility, and neutral point of view.
• Articles are almost always edited after being created instead of being fact-checked by a third party ahead of time.
• Traditional journalistic processes of creating reliable information are abandoned.
• Professional media producers no longer have a monopoly on content creation and dissemination.
• Crowdsourcing – knowledge produced by groups of people who are interested, motivated, and have internet access (the future of education?).

Tag You’re It!

• “tagging” – adding a label; metadata.
• Users are able to create their own information taxonomies through their tags.
• Institutional actors are starting to explore the collaborative potential of networked creation and integrating it into their own work processes.
• In 2008, the U.S. Library of Congress gave up some control over their content by asking people to tag photos on Flickr.
• Photos were reblogged by networked individuals.
• Used in creative ways; photos did not lose context once on personal blogs.
• The Library’s material was enriched, expanded, and made more accurate and accessible through opening up the content to networked individuals.
• By the end of 2011, 56 more museums, libraries, and archives participated in the Flickr Commons initiative.

The Egyptian Revolt, On and Offline

• Arab Spring.
• Triple Revolution – use of Facebook, Twitter, email, and mobile phones.
• Online content creation, community building, and offline gatherings supported mass mobilizations.
• Young adult Cairo men (most likely to use the Internet in Egypt) were central to the revolt.
• Social movement built upon established network of friends and political groups.
• Digital tools helped Egyptians build networks within their country.
• “We Are All Khaled Said” Facebook page had 100,000 followers at the time of protests on January 25 (over 300,000 now).
• A place where citizens could voice their frustrations, share expertise, and overcome the fear of living under an oppressive regime
• A sense of shared purpose arose and communities of mutual trust and assistance developed
• Traditional media like flyers were also used to mobilize people without internet access.
• Higher mobile phone ownership than personal computers
• There were used to send bulletins by Twitter and text and upload videos of protest and repression onto YouTube.

How All This User Generated Content Is Changing the Media Landscape

• The rise of social media has changed the character of the overall media environment.
• Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
• Major news stories covered by traditional news were measured in the News Coverage Index (NCI).
• Popular topics discussed in the social media universe measured in the New Media Index (NMI).
• Disparities exist in the coverage and commentary between these two indices.
• Little overlap among the channels in the stories that gained prominence.
• Bloggers gravitate toward stories that elicited emotion, concerned individual or group rights, or triggered ideological passion.
• Both liberal and conservative viewpoints were expressed strongly.
• Twitter – technology was a major topic.
• YouTube – most watched videos have a strong sense of serendipity, videos tend to transcend the language barrier.
• Blogs shared the same lead story with traditional media in 13 of 49 weeks studied.
• Twitter had the same lead story as traditional media in 4 of 29 weeks studied.
• YouTube shared traditional media’s lead story in 8 of 49 weeks studied.
• Even when story was the same, the treatment was very different (with social media focusing more on personal testimonies in reaction of developments instead of the meaning of them).

The Week of March 30 to April 5 (2009)

• Major news stories were covered in different ways by social media and traditional media.
• Mainstream media covered 5 major stories during this week:
  1. Economic summit among developed nations in London.
  2. Bernanke spoke about support for Bear Stearns and AIG bailouts
  3. White House forced the dismissal of GM CEO Rick Wagoner
  4. Shooting rampage at an immigration center in Binghamton, NY
  5. Obama’s attempts to gain support from NATO allies for the war in Afghanistan
• Social media did not give the same degree of coverage to these five stories as traditional media as social media outlets are not “on scene” or obliged to cover certain topics:
  • The most discussed story was an April Fool’s Prank by the Guardian.
    • Social media creators love practical jokes.
  • The second most discussed story in the NMI was concerned with torture as a harsh interrogation technique after a Washington Post report.
    • Hot-button issues are passed around quickly by like-minded bloggers.
  • The third most linked-to story focused on actress Angie Harmon’s comments about her opposition to Obama.
• Social media outlets tend to cover different subjects, have a different narrative sensibility, and have different pathways to capture the attention of their audience when compared to traditional media outlets.
• Participatory frame of mind of social media creators leads to a greater sense of community and efficacy.

Networked Stars Are Found and Mashed-up

• Networked creations have the potential to reach a wider audience through the use of ICTs.
• Receive validation, reputation enhancement, feedback, and crowdsourced social support.
• YouTube can act as a spring board for aspiring musicians.
  • Justin Bieber.
• Mashups (mixed and modified digital material):
  • 15% of American adults have made mashups by taking digital material they found online such as songs, texts, or images and remixing them into their own creations.
  • Kutiman’s “ThruYou” project - “The Mother of All Funk Chords”.

Identity Creation and Reputation Management

• Using the internet and mobile technology to advertise one’s self and build networks that reach out to strangers
• Patricia Lange’s study on a channel called “Beyond Reality” that was made by a mother and daughter recapping reality TV shows.
• The daughter Maddie used her YouTube work to help her get accepted into the New York University film program.
• Many people are becoming more deliberate in building their reputations online.
• Must think in new ways about their identities, creations, and the degree to which their personal information is disclosed and archived.

Why Become a Networked Creator?

1. It provides an outlet for self-expression.
2. There’s an opportunity to learn by acquiring and sharing new knowledge.
3. It offers a space for collaboration.
   • Reciprocal exchanges of information and social interaction are the norm among ICT users.
   • Teamwork may lead to new forms of innovation.
4. Networked creators enjoy a place to connect with community.
   • Spaces where people can build their social networks among friends and those who share similar interests.
   • “Just-in-Time, Just-Like-Me” communities – patient support groups whose members usually start out as strangers and turn into friends supporting friends.
5. A sense of empowerment develops.
   • Potential influence of creating gives individuals a voice .
6. Networked creators are a prelude to greater glory as some networked individuals see their creations or themselves become relatively famous.
   • Though networked creations usually do not provide material rewards in themselves, they can lead to bigger things like turning amateurs into professionals.

Everybody Wants to Get Into the Act

• Democratization of media participation allows new people to become media creators.
• New opportunities to voice opinions into the information commons and gain a following.
• Also greater dissemination of “junk information,” similar to after the printing press was invented

Chapter 9: Networked Information

Back to The Networked Society Lecture Notes

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