Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony

Ian Tomlinson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECMVdl-9SQ 

Political

• During the G20 summit protests in London in 2009, an amateur video was posted online which showed Ian Tomlinson being hit by a policeman using a baton
• This emphasises how audiences challenge authority and official version of events
• The policeman(Simon Harwood) is to be tried for manslaughter
• "Technology empowers the people, who, oppressed by years of authoritarian rule, will inevitably rebel, mobilizing themselves through text messages, Facebook, Twitter…" - Morozov (2011)
• Internet has given people a powerful tool to communicate with each other
• As more and more governments are harnessing the power of the internet, 'We Media'(web 2.0) is not strong enough to allow people power to succeed
• The internet has loosened official control but has not stopped it

Zoo Visits and Laughing Babies

Trivial

• In their research into YouTube, Jean Burgess and Joshua Green (2009) found that 42% of the clips they analysed were uploaded by fans rather than the traditional media companies themselves. 
• Last two years this percentage will have increased, as YouTube has become a medium of ‘catch up’ distribution in the UK, for Channels 4 and 5.
• Burgess and Green conclude that there are two YouTubes; they argue it is ‘a space where these two categories [traditional media and home video] co-exist and collide, but do not really converge’ (41).
• Even as we become used to watching television programmes on computers, mobile phones or music players, we still experience it as television.

Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values.  To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

Tim O'Reilly in 2005 defined Web 2.0 as a medium that allows audiences to become producers of media texts.As anyone with an internet connection can create and publish text (User Generated Content) it has increased the need for gatekeepers. And with more of the world getting connected to the internet, more gatekeepers are needed with increasing threats of terrorism and hacking. The internet has increased pluralism; it has provided people with a platform to voice their opinions. Another advantage of new and digital media is that it “interprets censorship as damage and routes around it”(John Gilmore) therefore, it allows pluralism to flourish .The views and ideologies of political leaders and governments can now be challenged through the internet, by the internet. As Al Gore called the internet “Exciting and revolutionary” and went further to say it has had a “more profound impact than the printing press.”  Since 1991, from when the first website went online, ¼ of the world is now online and this number is expanding.  As Tim Bernes Lee said ‘let the people be free’ and this is exactly what the internet has provided, freedom. Many everyday things can now be done online for example banking (97% of bank transactions are done online in Estonia). New and digital media has provided the globe with a “New World Currency.” The web collapses distances.

However, with so much freedom there must be flaws.  New and digital media has created a digital divide, the digital haves and the digital have nots.  Lee Sigel, New York writer and cultural critic, called the internet a “double edged sword”.  The web has provoked Al Qaeda & Taliban to use shock tactics as a form of propaganda. 90%of the market is Microsoft who pressurised company's to have computers with windows software preinstalled. This has shown that the online world also has a hierarchy like the real world with websites such as Google and Face Book dominating the online market. The freedom given to the audience has decreased with sites like Wikipedia now having admins to restrict and police what users post up on Wikipedia. The accuracy of information online has also caused a concern; Andrew Keen compares the people posting information on the internet to “a million of monkeys on computers”.   It is difficult to take information off the internet, someone once said… "You can't take something off the Internet - it's like taking pee out of a pool." The growth of new media has caused piracy to increase in both the film and music industry with sites such as Napster playing a major role in the increase.