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Gabriella Coleman – Toward a positive critique of the social web
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In an expansive critique of the social web, argues Gabriella Coleman, one must also include those instances and examples whereby social web technologies fulfil important political work and transformations. If we limit ourselves only to a negative critique—whereby we point to the wholesale problems of social media —we risk providing a counter narrative that is as problematic as the Web 2.0 hype that we wish to interrogate.
Tere Vadén & Juha Suoranta – Social media and levels of freedom
What would the world be like, if there would be exemplars of socialist media? And what would those examples be like? Can we think wikipedia as an example of socialist media? Do we have other examples; Tere Vadén and Juha Suoranta attempt to outline the principal characteristics of socialist media.
Paula Bialski – Searching for true productiveness on the social web
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The social web will begin to decay as the context of interaction continues to be the production of commodities to be consumed. Using Erich Fromm’s concept of productiveness — where the object of production is the individual themselves – this analysis approaches the social web as a potential functional platform, one which fosters self-learning through interaction and action with others. Thus, the social web will be explained not as what it is, but what it has the potential to be.
Henrik Ingo – Ethics, freedom, and trust
The great achievement of the Web 2.0 phenomenon lies, for Henrik Ingo, in that it has significantly grown the mass of users who are at least instinctively coming to appreciate the joys of sharing (Youtube), communication (forums, Facebook) or access to information (blogs). The time has not (yet) arrived when everyone would be an active Linux user, but through Web 2.0 the same value system is penetrating into a larger crowd.
Fred Stutzman – The spatial production of friendship
An inherent expectation of the social web is the production and performance of friendship. Users of social web technologies are mandated to situate their activities in the midst of a cohort, where the technology mediates the mode, premise and content of social connection. Regulatory structures, both implicit and explicit, provide boundaries for the exchanges between actants, evidencing a new, negotiated space of social connection and control.
Vasilis Kostakis – The short manifesto of an amateur
1…The social Web – or Web 2.0 according to O’ Reilly – and the exploitation of collective intelligence and creativity are identical concepts. The second version of the Web emerged from the interstices of the first, initiating a new corporate revolution in the computer industry, since it transformed the, until recently, bureaucratic Internet to a smooth navigation and production platform.