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”

9

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