Definition: A culture in which citizens are not just media consumers but also media producers, usually through social media such as Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Such users of media are sometimes referred to as “prosumers.”
Expansion: Related to social networks and how they enable a culture of mass participation.
Definition: The face-to-face or electronic relations between people for formal and informal purposes. In the context of this book, the social network especially includes those aspects enabled or harmed by new media.
Definition: A method for the academic study of social networks, with special attention to actors, ties between actors, network structure (patterns of ties), and major influences (such as culture) on the formation and durability of networks.
It’s a methodology developed in the social and behavioural sciences to map interpersonal linkages using statistical and graphical techniques.
Key elements of social network analysis:
Actors and their actions are viewed as interdependent—that is, formed through relationships to others.
Relational ties, or what are referred to as linkages, are channels for the flow of resources, which may be material (capital, commodities, etc.) or immaterial (power, influence, information, etc.) in nature.
Network models view the network structural environment as providing opportunities for or presenting constraints upon individual behaviour.
Network models conceptualize structure (social, economic, political, etc.) as lasting patterns of relations among actors.
Definition: An approach to the study of networks and society that pays attention to both human and non-human (such as technology or organizations) actors.
Comparing with Social Network Analysis, it not only focuses on people, but also things.
Definition: The creation of goods and services, including “informational goods,” in a social or collaborative fashion. Many aspects of user-generated content can be included here, but social production is not necessarily outside the market economy. Wikipedia is an excellent example of social production.
Benkler argues that social production has gained prominence in the networked information economy from the confluence of two factors:
Definition: According to Benkler, the properties of a project that determine “the extent to which it can be broken down into smaller components, or modules, that can be independently produced before they are assembled into a whole.”
Example:
Wikipedia demonstrates successfully the degree to which the assembling of an online encyclopedia can occur through the agglomeration of a vast and diverse range of independent inputs.
Definition: According to Benkler, “the smallest possible individual investment necessary to participate in a project.”
The size of the modules, in terms of the time and effort that an individual must invest in producing them, which sets “the smallest possible individual investment necessary to participate in a project”.
Example:
Wikipedia is again a good example, as the investment of time and resources involved in making a single contribution is relatively small, or in Benkler’s terms, “fine-grained.” We can also see these kinds of fine-grained contributions in music posted to SoundCloud or art found in DeviantArt.
Definition:
Definition: A term popularized by Henry Jenkins to describe media forms and consumption that cross many different sites and formats and incorporate both professional and amateur aspects.
Example:
Contemporary phenomena associated with Web 2.0 (activities like blogging and sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Flickr) need to be understood in the historical context of fan cultures that have developed alongside popular media over a number of years.
Definition: The emergence of “professional amateurs,” people who are producing media content that rivals professional media in terms of quality.
Pro-ams: “innovative, committed and networked amateurs working to professional standards.”
This process is often enabled by new technologies such as digital recording and editing that are cheaper, smaller, and nearly as capable as their professional equivalents. It is controversial to the extent that pro-ams begin to siphon funding away from professionals or lower the prices paid for media (e.g., stock photography).
Example:
The authors identify pro-am activities as diverse as rap music sampling to the Linux open-source software program as examples of how, “when pro-ams are networked together, they can have a huge impact on politics and culture, economics and development”
Definition:
The weblog was initially a simple reverse chronological listing of (typically) webpages encountered in one’s daily surfing habits.
Elaborated, refined, and expanded with dedicated software that made it easier to start, add multimedia content to, and maintain, blogging became a widespread amateur and commercial activity and a way to not just share links but commentary, photos, and videos.
Definition: An attempt to describe in economic terms the assets one possesses in the form of relationships with others. This takes the form of bonding, bridging, and linking.
Putnam’s definition of social capital:
“features of social life—networks, norms, and trust—that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared interests. . . . Social capital, in short, refers to social connections and the attendant norms and trust.”
Definition: A society in which individuals and groups are organized as a type of richly interconnected network rather than a hierarchy, with a resulting emphasis on trust and reciprocity rather than power.
Information and information and communications technology occupy a special place in such societies.
(Example too long, check it out in the textbook.)