WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT WEB 2.0

FAUSTO COLOMBOHEAD OF DEPARTMENT

MEDIA AND PERFORMING ARTSUNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE - MILANO

Index

1. Introduction

2. Cultural dimension

3. Economic dimension

4. Political dimension

5. Conclusions

1. INTRODUCTIONA SOCIO-HISTORICAL APPROACH

Point of view(s)• The importance of not using stereotypes:– digital immigrants– digital natives

• Socio-technical apparatus as a mix: different dimensions shape each other

• The dynamic of the change: need of analyzing it without too much enphasis on the novelty

• social media video

Sociality of social media

• “The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect — to help people work together — and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner” (Berners-Lee 1999, p. 110)

A Timeline

Infrastructures• 1957 Sputnik, the first earth

orbit satellite; • 1974 the first setup of

Ethernet• 1984 Fidonet system

interacted with different BBSs (Bulletin Board System)

• 1989 DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)

Computers• 40’ von Neumann’s and

Turing’s experiments • 1965 desktop computers, • 1975 micro computers • 1982 Time proclaimed the

computer “person of the year”

• 1984 Apple Macintosh• 1985 Gates launched

Windows

A Timeline 2

Connections• 1969 Arpanet• 1971 first e-mail• 1979 emoticons• 1985 first community, The

Well. Modems and national domains

• 1989 first chat line, HTML and the WWW

• 1992 first webcam, first browser (Mosaic)

Hybridation• 1981the digital camera Sony

Mavica• 1983 Ithiel de Sola Pool

talked about convergence• 1995 DVD was on the

market• 1996 Nokia 9000

Communicator improved GSM service allowing sending emails from mobile.

Social media history• 1991the High Performance

Computing Act extends the web for commercial purposes.

• 1994 Yahoo and Netscape. “New Economy”, Nasdaq indexLinux open source software,

• 1995 MSN, Amazon and eBay • 1997 SixDegree, the first social

network• 1998 first mp3, Google, first

eBook• 1999 ADSL, Myspace and

Napster

• 2000 collapse of the Nasdaq• 2001 Wikipedia and Second

Life Apple iPod • 2003 ITunes Store, • 2004 Flickr and Facebook, first

eBook reader, LIBRIè. • 2005 YouTube • 2006 Twitter.• 2007 Apple iPhone • 2010 Apple iPad

Social media history (2)

The term Web 2.0 became then the label for:- new services and new web platforms such as

Google and Youtube - chat services such as Windows Messenger - and finally blogs and social networking sites.The main features of these media are well known: multimedia, usability, allowing users to upload contents and to make them visible, and to create a reputation.

2. THE CULTURAL DIMENSION

Digital ConvergenceA medium’s content may shift (…), its audience may change (…), and its social status may rise or fall …), but once a medium establishes itself as satisfying some core human demand, it continues to function within the larger system of communication options. (…) Printed words did not kill spoken words. Cinema did not kill theater. Television did not kill radio. Each old medium was forced to coexist with the emerging media. That’s why convergence seems more plausible as a way of understanding the past several decades of media change than the old digital revolution paradigm was. Old media are not being displaced. Rather, their functions and status are shifted by the introduction of new technologies. (Jenkins 2006, pp. 14-15)

Three long revolutions

• Writing/reading: from one-dimensional to multi-dimensional perspective

• Text: from textuality to hyper-textuality

• Image: from iconism to hybrid-reality

A networked culture

“A network society is a society whose social structure is made around networks activated by microelectronics-based, digitally processed information and communication technologies. I understand social structures to be the organizational arrangements of humans in relationships of production, consumption, reproduction, experience, and power expressed in meaningful communication coded by culture” (Castells 2009, p. 24).

Networked as globalized

“Globalization as complex connectivity referring to the rapidly developing and ever more complex network of interconnections and interdependencies that characterize modern social life”. (Tomlinson 1999, pp. 1-2).

A synthetic society?

• Simplicity as a result of speed vs slowness as a result of complexity (Wiki)

• Hybridation vs pureness (multimedia)

• Artificial vs natural (mediated relations)

3. ECONOMIC DIMENSION

Digital Capitalism?

• From the web as a place for sociality to the web 2.0 as a market place

• From the explosion of expression to exploitation of playbor

• From the utopia of long tail to the reality of oligopoly

Web 2.0 as a market place

• In 2004 during the “Web 2.0 conference” Tim O’ Reilly explained in detail the meaning of “Web 2.0”: all those services survived to stock market crash of 2000 and those born after. O’Reilly noted that the first had even been strengthened, while the latter tended to develop new and original market strategies.

Oligopoly: power law (Barabasi)

Playbor

• Amateurs labor as a possible new form of exploitation

• From wage labor to occasional labor (or free labor)

• De-valuation of the cultural labor

4. POLITICAL DIMENSIONSocievolezza e socialità

Utopia and reality: a new political set

• Social media as a tool for traditional democracy

• Social media as a tool for a new democracy

• Social media as a new democratic space

Tool for traditional democracy

In today’s media landscape, being able to put various communicative skills to new uses for civic participation takes on extra significant (…). As new affordances appear with increasing rapidity, new practices are generated. Skills can develop through practices, and in this process foster a sense of empowerment. Civic practices and skills help forge personal and social meaning to the ideals of democracy, and not least help in coalescing forms of civic identities. (Dahlgren 2011, p. 14).

Tool for new democracy

• Direct, continuous democracy against representative democracy

• Risk of a post-democratic society: see Badiou theory of synthesis between egualitarism and leaderism)

New democratic space

• Self mass communication vs narcissism and individualism

• Talkative society vs gossip and indifference

• New sociality beyond neoliberism or hyperliberistic society?

Conclusions: ambiguity of web 2.0

• Hystorical and dynamic identity of the social media

• Growing pressure of communication in everyday life

• Growing hegemony of economic dimension (digital capitalism)

• Political dimension linked to crisis of democracies