Ten things about social media
Professor Terry FlewQueensland University of Technology
Presentation to Global Media Industries and New Media Technologies
Murdoch University, Perth, WA1 September, 2009
Social Media is a development within Internet culture, rather than something radically new“Websites which build upon Web 2.0
technologies to provide space for in-depth social interaction, community formation and the tacking of collaborative projects”
Features:1. Low participation thresholds2. Highly granular participation tasks3. Assumption that users have equal potential
to contribute (not that they are equal contributors)
4. Shared content ownership
There is a time-lag between new technologies and their socio-economic impact
Levels of technological impact (Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2005)
1. Development of new devices/artifacts
2. New activities and practices associated with their use
3. Social and institutional arrangements arising from their development
Kondratiev long waves
Techno-economic paradigms:
Manuel CastellsCarlota Perez
The Internet was the radical innovation, not social media
Source: Carlota Perez, Technological Revolutions, Paradigm Shifts and Socio-Institutional Change (2004)
Social media is related to, but not the same as, Web 2.0?Web 1.0 (1995-2002)
Web 2.0 (2003-?)
Focus on design and proprietary systems (high up-front costs; software as product)
Focus on lightweight models and “off the shelf” solutions (low up-front costs; perpetual beta testing)
Audiences as traffic
Users as community
Interactivity Conversation
Content created by professionals
Content co-creation
We may be coming to the end of the Web 2.0/social media hype cycle
Entries to Wikipedia now growing at a slower rate
Pressures to better manage editing of Wikipedia
Rupert Murdoch lost more money on MySpace than newspapers
Is Facebook fatigue happening?
Hype cycle (Gartner Group)
Social Media: Creativity or Chaos? “a period of unparalleled social creativity when we sought to devise new
ways of working together to be more democratic, creative and innovative … creating a collective intelligence on a scale never before possible”
Charles Leadbeater, We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production, 2008. ‘we are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share,
to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations’
Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, 2008. ‘Democratization, despite its lofty idealisation, is undermining truth,
souring civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience and talent … the free, user-generated content extolled by the Web 2.0 revolution is decimating the ranks of our cultural gatekeepers, as professional critics, journalists, editors, musicians, moviemakers, and other purveyors of expert information are being replaced … by amateurs … the real consequence of the Web 2.0 revolution is less culture, less reliable news, and a chaos of useless information’
Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur, 2007.
Social ProductionRise of social production (Yochai Benkler, The
Wealth of Networks (2006))Rise of knowledge-intensive service industriesCo-ordinate effects of individual activities in
networked information environmentsRise of peer production and sharing of information,
knowledge and cultureAltruists versus signalers (Media International
Australia, No. 128 – Digital LiteracyJohn Quiggan: social media participation as non-
market productionJason Potts: social media participation as proto-
market production or “market signaling”
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From mass communications media to social media: the crisis of news
MASS COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA (20TH CENTURY)
SOCIAL MEDIA (21ST CENTURY)
MEDIA DISTRIBUTION
Large-scale; barriers to entry Dramatically reduced barriers to entry
MEDIA PRODUCTION
Complex division of labour; media professionals as content ‘gatekeepers’
Easy to use web 2.0 technologies; small, multi-purpose teams as “preditors” (Miller)
MEDIA POWER Assymetrical – one-way communications flow
Greater empowerment of users/audiences through interactivity and choice
MEDIA CONTENT Tendency towards standardised “mass appeal” content
Segmentation of media content markets and “long tail” economics (Anderson)
PRODUCER/CONSUMER RELATIONSHIP
Mostly impersonal, anonymous and commoditised (audience as mass market target)
Potential to be more personal; rise of the produser (Bruns); user networks and communities
PAYMENT SYSTEM Audiences cross subsidised by advertisers (commercial media) or tax revenues (public service media)
Not clear as yet: subscription, “freemium”, free?
Social Media and PoliticsBarack Obama’s 2008 US
Presidential campaign “reverse-engineered” campaign fundraising
Difficult to carry campaigning into government (health care reform opposition
Government 2.0 Task Force in Australia
May be less “Left versus Right” than insurgents versus incumbents
Sarah Palin’s 800,000 Facebook friends
Social Media and Global Politics: plus ca change?Iran: Social media
influence on 2009 election results
China: Internet influence on politics contained