Here Comes Wikipedia (and Everybody Else Too)

Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody was by far the most enjoyable and readable book that we've read so far this semester. I would recommend it to anybody who works in the media professionally or even as a hobby. I may even find a way to recommend it to my boss!

While discussing this book with my dad at lunch on Sunday, the subject of Wikipedia came up. Not surprising, since Shirky uses it as a prevalent example of the possibilities of organizing people over the Internet.  My dad, of course, is one of the Wikipedia nay-sayers, who is convinced that something that can be edited by anybody can not be relied on to be correct in any way. He pointed to the article on Barack Obama, which months before the election already said that he was the 44th president of the United States.  This may have been true, but if he had check in the next day, the incorrect information would probably have already been fixed. My dad would have  probably preferred the failed Nupedia, which relied on academic experts donating their time to create articles which were highly regulated and had to go through several approval levels before being published (p.111).  Although, had the website survived, these articles would have been more academically accepted, there would have been much fewer of them, and they would never be as up to date as the existing Wikipedia, which can be updated as events are happening. 

The amazing thing about Wikipedia and other sites like it is not just that it exists, but that it functions,  and functions well.  The fact that people are willing to come together and work on an encyclopedia for free, and that it is actually correct most of the time is the truly amazing thing.  Or is it? According the Shirky, this type of behavior is popping up all over the net. From collaborative programmers creating Linux to long lost friends finding each-other and planning reunions, people who may have never worked together are now cooperating to create things. 

The reason people are doing this (get ready for an Economics word) is because the transaction cost has been greatly lowered (p.47). Things that used to be so prohibitively expensive or inconvenient that they were barely, if ever, considered possible are now as simple as a click of a button.  

Prior to the Internet, especially Facebook, I probably would have never stayed in contact with many (if any) high school or college friends. Now, I know what they are up to, and can share in their life changes (so many babies!!) and coordinate meeting up with them when they are in town with nearly effortless ease.  My 5 year college reunion is coming up in a few weeks, and although I'm excited about seeing everyone, I kind of already know what's going on in their lives. What I'm really exited to do, is to finally meet all of those husbands and babies I've seen pictures of and to see Kelly's new hair cut in real life.  No matter that I have not seen or technically talked to most of these people since graduation, I still feel like I am part of their lives.  Because of this type of connection, a group of my friends have been able to coordinate an informal reunion during the official reunion weekend.

Of course, as Shirky points out, participation in this coordination is not in any way equal. There are 1 or 2 people who have been doing the majority of the discussion and preparation on the email list, while the majority of people have only stated whether or not they will be able to attend. This is what Shirky refers to (Economic word again) as  the power law distribution.  " A power law describes data in which the nth position has 1/nth of the first position's rank (p.125)," and it seems to be in effect for any participation/coordination/creation that goes on on the web. For example, the vast majority of Wikipedia users end their participation at that; using. A small percentage of users do end up for one reason or another) becoming contributors. The vast majority of these contributors end up (like myself)  only  making one edit to one article.  A small percentage of those contributors make more than one edit, and as the amount of edits goes up, the amount of contributors making those edits goes down exponentially, resulting in a fraction of a percentage of people being responsible for the vast majority of the work.  

This is also referred to as the 80/20 rule, meaning that 20% of  the participants count for 80% of the work. This statistic would never fly in the corporate (or any paying) world, but it works on the web, because the transaction cost is so low. People are working for free, because they want to. And other people's work, or lack of work is not taking away from the work that they have done. The ones doing the most work (like the people organizing our informal reunion) are the ones who care the most, and the ones who participate the least are the ones that have the least time/interest, but still want to be a part. Shirky contends that social media provides for both types of users, and everyone in between, thus creating a place where everyone can participate in the way that they are most willing/able, and in doing so, they can create things/possibilities that were never before conceivable.

Wikipedia works against all odds, because people care enough to make sure that it does. The same thing applies to any of thousands (or maybe millions) of other collaborative Internet sites, because of love. Not the squishy kind of love, but the passionate kind of love. Social media opens up doors to success (and even more failure) that allow people to explore and pursue their passions in ways they have not been able to do before. What doors has it opened for you?

The Public Sphere of Starbucks

In high school and sometimes in undergrad, I used to go to Starbucks and other coffee houses to hang out with my friends. We would meet and spend all evening hanging out and talking. We'd even meet other customers and talk with them; it wasn't just a cup of coffee, it was an event. I can't remember the last time I did that. These days, if I make time to even go inside a Starbucks, or any coffee establishment, it's to grab a quick cup and get on my way. I still see the people settled in for a long evening, but most are typing on their laptops or studying/in deep conversation with 1 or 2 other people. What happened? Is it just my habits that have changed, or is it society as a whole?

According to Sociologist and author, Bryant Simon, Starbucks culture has changed or at least capitalized on change in the American culture. He contends that Starbucks has contributed to the death of the traditional public sphere found in places like coffee shops, public libraries, town halls, and church meetings. These used to be places where people could go to enjoy public discourse and debate, to discuss the goings on in the world with whoever would listen. Simon notes that in many instances "public spaces have become less available — and less desirable — since municipal resources are focused elsewhere." But what about Starbucks? They still provide a public place where people come to hang out and talk, but things like small tables, to-go cups, and especially Wi-Fi make spontaneous interaction less likely to occur. People are more likely to work on their own or talk only with the people that they came with. But is this a symptom of Starbucks culture or something bigger? To answer this question, we must first look at the history of the public sphere.

According to The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia essay by Jurgen Habermas, the public sphere is "a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens. A portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body (p. 73)." The public sphere is theoretically a place where any member of a society can come and have a voice in determining public opinion on a matter. This is more than just voting in an election or poll, this is public discourse, where real conversation and debate takes place.

Newspapers immediately began to effect the public sphere as soon as they came into being. They were a way to disseminate information and opinion without physically gathering the public body of people. But then, "in the transition from literary journalism of private individuals to the public services of the mass media, the public sphere was transformed by the influx of private interests, which received special prominence in the mass media (Habermas, 76)." According to Habermas, the commercialization of the media, especially electronic media, changed communication and the "pureness" of the public sphere. With the invention of things like Public Relations, the line between news and advertisement became blurred. "Discourse degenerated into publicity, and publicity used the increasing power of electronic media to alter perceptions and shape beliefs," adds Pieter Boeder. So, although in some ways the public sphere was growing, it was also distorting, and becoming a somewhat tainted place. However, what was happening in the media became a place to start conversations in more classic public arenas.

The real change happened with the introduction of the Internet. Suddenly, nearly instant communication across the world was possible, opening up the possibilities for a global public sphere. "Although news media increasingly transcend national borders," Boeder warns," this process does not automatically create a public sphere at a transnational or global level." Too many things, from political to language barriers stand in the way of a truly global public sphere. "Media globalization does not automatically entail the creation of a singular global public sphere, but rather a process of gradual blurring and differentiation of the public sphere to a multi-layered media structure, accompanied by an increase in interconnections (Boeder)."

One thing that we must keep in mind is that "the Internet is above all a decentralized communication system (Cyberdemocracy, Mark Poster, p.262)." As much as it brings the world together, it is not one big public forum where all users can meet and discuss public issues. Instead it is comprised of millions of individual sites and pages, where people with similar interests can (if they want to) discuss those interests. Even social networking sites that bring people together, like Facebook and Twitter, are only as public as the user makes them. One can not read and discuss every single tweet or status update or blog posting that occurs on the Internet. Not only are some set to "private," but it's just physically impossible. Instead, users have to select the posts that are interesting and relevant to them. Which begs the question, "If 'public' discourse exists as pixels and screens generated at remote locations by individuals one has never and probably will never meet, as it is in the case of the Internet with its 'virtual communities' and 'electronic cafes,' then how is it to be distinguished from 'private' letters, print face and so forth (Poster, p. 265)?" The line between public and private has now blurred, so that someone can be sitting in a public place with her laptop, having a discussion with friends all over the world, via the Internet.

With the prevalence of the Internet, "the alliance of the public sphere with a particular place or territory diminishes (Boeder)," in favor of virtual communities. So, just because public discourse is not happening as much between patrons of the same Starbucks, doesn't mean it's not happening on their laptops.

On Your Marx...

"Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone is really exists for me personally as well; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other men ." - Karl Marx, The German Ideology

What is language other than encoding one's consciousness then distributing it in the form or words, pictures, movements, etc. for someone to then decode. Hopefully they get some kind of accurate meaning from it. According to philosophers like Plato, the only way to achieve truth was through meaningful discourse (or as Marx calls it, "intercourse"). For them, the truth does not exist unless it is communicated. Although more modern philosophers like Stuart Hall believe that "reality exists outside of language," they also concede that "it is constantly mediated by and through language and what we can know and say has to be produced in and through discourse (Stuart Hall, Encoding/Decoding, p.166-167)." So, even if the truth or reality does in deed exist outside of language, it still has to be communicated effectively to have any meaning.

According to Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, "the linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image (p.78)." The concept (signified) is invoked by the sound image (signifier). In order to communicate effectively with each other, two (or more) human beings must know the same signifier/signified "code." Without this basic concept, communication can be very hard if not impossible. "If no 'meaning' is taken, there can be no 'consumption (Hall, p.164)."

My father-in-law recently had his hearing checked, and apparently the doctor said that he has some frequency damage that makes it hard for him to hear the female voice. Assuming this is true, it is difficult for his ear to decode what is encoded in the female voice. However, some people might contend that most men have a hard time decoding anything that females encode and try to communicate with them. However, this may actually have to do with encoding and decoding different levels of a sign. "The level of connotation of the visual sign, of its contextual reference and positioning in different discursive fields of meaning and associations, is the point where already coded signs intersect with deeply semantic codes of a culture and take on additional, more active ideological dimensions (Hall, 168)." For example, taking part of the Marx quote I used earlier, " intercourse with other men," out of context can be lead to quite a misunderstanding, because people can read into different (and wrong) connotative levels of that particular phrase.

According to Dictionary.com, the most dominant connotation (or definition) of the word intercourse is"dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc." The second most dominant connotation is "interchange of thoughts, feelings, etc." and finally the third (and least) dominant connotation is "sexual relations." This may no longer be accurate in everyday language, which is why "we say dominant, not 'determined', because it is always possible to order, classify, assign and decode an event within more than one 'mapping' (Hall, 169)."

The example above and others like it are constantly in the mind of the communicator. The 6:00 news and most local newspapers tend to make sure that they communicate in as straight forward a way as possible, making sure that the correct information gets out to the intended audience and that the right message gets across. "Broadcasters are concerned that the audience has failed to take the meaning as they - the broadcasters - intended...that viewers are bit operating within the "dominant" or "preferred" code. Their ideal is "perfectly transparent communication" (Hall, 170). However, other some media intended for less broad, possibly more intelligent, audiences, like the NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me actually want the consumer to read the less dominant code, opting for a more tongue in cheek form of communication. The larger the audience's vocabulary and ability to decode the communicated material, the richer the potential for true, in-depth communication.

Marx believed that "the real intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the wealth of his real connections (German Ideology, Ch. 1)." In his opinion, the more people an individual really communicated and identified with, the richer his pool of knowledge was. Although, I can't say that I agree with everything that Marx says, I do agree with this claim. The more real connections a person has in his environment, be it at home, at work, or in a community, the better off that person is. Feeling as though you are understood by someone is one of the best, most satisfying feelings in the world. Second only to someone completely understanding you and liking you anyway.

New Media: Databases Dressed to Impress

When I was about 11 years old, my dad bought my brother and me this really cool new game, Doom . Similar to Wolfenstein 3D, which we had been playing for about a year, we "were" the main character, seeing and doing everything from his perspective, exploring, killing bad guys, and getting to the next level. We had lots of fun playing that game for about a month, and got pretty good at it, until the gory, realistic graphics gave me nightmares, and we weren't allowed to play it anymore. Little did I know that 1993 was such a big year for the video game. Doom ended up being the granddaddy of the popularization of "first person" video games.


In Lev Manovich's 2001 book, The Language of New Media (which can be found in its entirety online), Doom and Myst (which also came out in 1993) are used as examples of "how computer games use — and extend — cinematic language (91)." Doom and Myst both used "cinematics" to create mood and realistic feel for the worlds they were depicting. Manovich argues that New Media as a whole borrows most of what it is from pieces of traditional media, especially cinema. Doom and Myst for example have opening credits and back stories. The player gets to be the main character, acting out the rest of the story to achieve the goal.

In fact, Manovich contends that a lot of what people see as differentiators between new and traditional media actually existed before new media. For example, multimedia display (which Bolter and Grusen would call Hypermediation) is not a unique hallmark of new media, because "sound and text (be it intertitles of the silent era or the title sequences of the later period) [has been around] for a whole century. Cinema thus was the original modern 'multimedia'(67)." He also refutes the idea that in contrast to traditional media where the order of presentation was fixed, the user can now interact with a media object, by evoking "ellipses in literary narration, missing details of objects in visual art and other representational 'shortcuts' required the user to fill-in the missing information (71)."

So what is new media? For one thing, Manovich argues that most new media objects are at the heart, databases. They store information to be accessed by the user. Whether the new media is in the form of a website, video game, or a mobile phone OS, new media devices

appear as a collections of items on which the user can perform various operations: view, navigate, search. The user experience of such computerized collections is therefore quite distinct from reading a narrative or watching a film or navigating an architectural site (194).

This is especially true for the web, which, no matter what the packaging of the website, it is in the end a way of displaying a collection of data. Social Media sites are collections of profiles and status updates for the user to access and interact with. News sites are again, databases of stories to search and read. Even gaming websites are collections of data for the user to interact with, but they exemplify better Manovich's other attribute of new media: the algorithm.

Most computer games have at least some kind of narrative or goal, which the player strives to achieve. In order to attain that goal, the player must figure out and perform the game's algorithm. For example, "when a new block appears, rotate it in such a way so it will complete the top layer of blocks on the bottom of the screen making this layer disappear (197)," is the algorithm for Tetris. Narratives, one of the results of algorithms in new media, are in some ways the opposites of databases. However, I submit that narratives need databases in order to exist. Even if the data is in a specific order to be given out in a specific way, it is still needed. And the algorithm is what holds the two together.

"In Doom and Myst — and in a great many other computer games — narrative and time itself are equated with the movement through 3D space, the progression through rooms, levels, or words (215)." This story-telling through interacting with visuals in "space" instead of only seeing or reading about them is a key element of new media. Manovich likes to talk about video games, but computer Operating Systems are also prime examples of this feature. Computer desktops contain icons that, when clicked, take the user to organized folders, documents, programs, or the Internet. All are laid out in space the way the user arranges them. Websites are also often navigable spaces meant to be explored, for example JK Rowling's Official Website. Although, like most websites it is at heart a database of news and information about the author, it is set up as her office, to be explored and interacted with to get the full experience.

So, according to Manovich, what really sets new media apart from old media is its computer-ness. Although it reflected cinema in its look and its story-telling and books and board games in its interactivity, Doom, as scary and "realistic" as it was, required a computer to be created and to function. It was after all, just a database dressed to impress.