Monday, April 11, 2011

Loser Generated Content: From Participation to Exploitation

Loser Generated Content: From Participation to Exploitation, found here online: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2141/1948, an article written by Soren Mark Peterson, highlights the ways in which corporations can “piggyback” on our labour as well as how they use us as a means to an end in order to sell.  In the introduction of the article, Peterson explains the topics he will be covering.
The examples in this paper outline two different strategies within the architecture of exploitation that capitalism can benefit from:
1.      Through a distributed architecture of participation, companies can piggyback on user generated content by archiving it and making interfaces, or using other strategies such as Google’s AdSense program.
2.      Designing platforms for user generated content, such as Youtube, Flickr, Myspace and Facebook.”

A valid example of this is in Clay Shirky's video, found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu7ZpWecIS8  he refers to two different platforms (Lolcats and Ushahidi) that were very effective in demonstrating the extremes of what our potential is with "cognitive surplus." He described people as "rational self-maximizing actors"; which probably means that we are largely using our time to add to these platforms in ways that will enhance and add pleasure to our own lives, for our own entertainment and for the entertainment of those viewing and using the same platform. Not to say that this is a bad thing, but the web space could be enhanced by adding more of a different type of value. He emphasized twice in his speech that there is 1 trillion hours a year of participatory value to be added to these platforms and that that time and the participators will only grow. Using this time to put the cognitive surplus into projects with civic value, such as Ushahidi and many other projects that are going on could completely change the way in which we see and talk about the web. Imagine if we could turn the focus from online ads from companies to ads for causes, civic action, political and social awareness....If more of the web's space was taken up by these projects, it would be inevitable that we would see them and read them just as it is inevitable that we read and see product and service advertisements now. This could mean for example that more people would be informed about their government and therefore more inclined to vote, which is huge considering our generation has the lowest number of voters ever.

The demography of the people I interviewed places them on the left side of the political spectrum; they are at times directly anti–corporate/capitalist in the pictures they upload and their comments. Nonetheless, most of them do not see a problem in having such close ties with a particular company. This can only be explained with reference to the immense joy and pleasure they get out of sharing photos online. The huge amount of work that goes into each personal site is paid back in an affective currency: the joy and significance these sites bring to their users.”

Numerous blogs, for example, are dedicated to anti-establishment causes; but operating on the platforms of the establishment they may just be up against. In our effort to have our voice heard and put out ideas of our own, we essentially pay companies (by generating revenue through advertising and hits to their sites) to submit the fruits of our labour out into the world-and it doesn’t seem to bother the majority of people using these platforms. There is something about interactive sites that ground us to them and make it harder and harder to walk away: the content. If we cannot take all of our hard work with us elsewhere, why would we leave? Even though we’ve put so much in, because we’ve submitted it to this website that is not completely open-source because it does not allow us to take our material, we accept that essentially they own our work and will continue to own our work until we are ready to walk away from it, letting them keep it.

“It is when the technological infrastructure and design of these sites is combined with capitalism that the architecture begins to oscillate between exploitation and participation.”

The commercial face that has been put onto these websites allows us to continue to participate, but threatens exploitation of our work. When I was thinking about Chapter 5 of Vincent Mosco’s book ‘When Old Myths Were New: The Never Ending Story’, I wrote that the myths surrounding web 2.0 are not entirely false, they just highlight the best aspects. This is reinforced in Petersen’s point-the potential we have with the current freedoms we are given allow for change. We literally have the power to inform people enough for them to want to change their vote when deciding what kind of government will run their country. Yet, is this what is going to happen? Although we are aware of these possibilities it seems many of us prefer to spend our time creating our own version of music videos. Not that this isn’t a valid creative outlet; it’s actually quite amazing… but it’s not the limit.


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