Ten things about social mediaProfessor Terry FlewQueensland University of TechnologyPresentation to Global Media Industries and New Media TechnologiesMurdoch 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:Low participation thresholdsHighly granular participation tasksAssumption that users have equal potential to contribute (not that they are equal contributors)Shared content ownership

There is a time-lag between new technologies and their socio-economic impactKondratiev long wavesLevels of technological impact (Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2005)Development of new devices/artifactsNew activities and practices associated with their useSocial and institutional arrangements arising from their developmentTechno-economic paradigms: Manuel Castells Carlota Perez

The Internet was the radical innovation, not social mediaSource: Carlota Perez, Technological Revolutions, Paradigm Shifts and Socio-Institutional Change (2004)

Social media is related to, but not the same as, Web 2.0?

We may be coming to the end of the Web 2.0/social media hype cycleEntries to Wikipedia now growing at a slower ratePressures to better manage editing of WikipediaRupert Murdoch lost more money on MySpace than newspapersIs 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 (YochaiBenkler, 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”

From mass communications media to social media: the crisis of news9

Social Media and PoliticsBarack Obama’s 2008 US Presidential campaign “reverse-engineered” campaign fundraising Difficult to carry campaigning into government (health care reform oppositionGovernment 2.0 Task Force in AustraliaMay be less “Left versus Right” than insurgents versus incumbentsSarah Palin’s 800,000 Facebook friends

Social Media and Global Politics: plus ca change?Iran: Social media influence on 2009 election resultsChina: Internet influence on politics contained