Notes | WEB 2.0 Participation or Hegemony?

·         Allows audiences to become producers of media texts

·         Democratises the media as anyone with a web connection can create and publish texts

·         We don’t have to rely on professional organisations to act as the gatekeepers

·         Some believe it has led to dumbing down because anyone can create texts

·         But some see it as beneficial

o   Allows thousands of individuals and small producers to access markets

·         How far has internet created “we media” or has it created hegemonic function that recoups divergent ideas for the mainstream

THE POLITICAL: IAN TOMLINSON

·         One of the best examples of the political impact was his death

·         The fact that it challenged what the police said and it was readily available on YouTube emphasises how audiences can challenge the official version of events

·         We don’t know whether his family will get justice but before the internet, they would have had no chance

·         Without the “Web 2.0” intervention it is unlikely that the case would have ever gone to court

·         Morozov says how countries like China and Iran have successfully controlled the general populations access to the internet and have prevented the free circulation of information

·         Also argued that social networking has facilitated the Arab spring uprisings as they enable the protestors to bypass then centralised state media

·         “Twitter is an information-distribution network… except it’s in real time and massively distributed! – Ingram 2011

·         The internet had given the people a potentially powerful tool to communicate with each other and to challenge their rulers

·         But governments can exert a large degree of control over the internet and “we meida” is not strong enough to allow “people power” to succeed.

THE TRIVIAL: ZOO VISITS AND LAUGHING BABIES

·         Best exemplified by Youtube

·         First video was “me at the zoo” (2005) and was typical of the “home video”

·         It is trivial like the “Laughing baby ripping paper” (2011)

·         Jean Burgess and Joshua Green (2009) found 42% of what they analysed  comprised of extracts from traditional media and most of those had been uploaded by users.

o   Clips uploaded by fans rather than traditional media companies

·         In the last two years this would have increased

·         Youtube has become a medium of catch up distribution in Uk for channels 4 and 5

·         Allowes users to create their own channels

·         And to use it as a promotional vehicle

·         “There are 2 youtubes, it is a space where these two categories (traditional meida and home video) co exist and collide but do not really converge”  - Burgess and Green

·         Even as we become used to watching TV programmes  on computers , mobile phones or music players we still experience it as television.

CO-OPTING THE AMATEUR

·         Evident in the way meaning is structured by the dominant ideological discourse

·         Eg; Youtube has allowed ordinary people – Charlie is so cool like – to become celebrities, they don’t have the same status as celebrities created by traditional media.

·         Because the internet does offer a variety of viewpoints  - amateur and professional – its more difficult for establishment discourses to structure how meaning is created and so is less hegemonic. – Driscoll and Gregg 2008

WHOS GOT THE POWER?

·         Has web 2.0 switched power from producers to the audience

o   No, but the balance has shifted

·         The audience don’t have to rely on token access offered by traditional media - newspaper letter pages, phone ins, etc.

·         We can easily produce texts ourselves

·         But it is still in early day of UGC

·         Audience produced texts may have a more distinctive impact on the internet

·         May develop its own codes and conventions different to traditional media