Hybrid Digital Culture

What could possibly be said of LOLCats that is of any consequence at all? After all, LOLCats are nothing but pictures of cats with silly captions that defy conventional rules of spelling and grammar. What do they matter? They don't. Or at least, the content -- the "what" -- of LOLCats doesn't much matter. But the why of LOLCats has proved to be rich terrain for Kate Miltner who received her Master's Degree from the London School of Economics for her dissertation on the appeal of LOLCats  (pdf) and spoke at ROFLCon -- a conference devoted to Internet memes and the mini-celebrities that have emerged -- on a panel called "Adventures in Aca-meme-ia" this past weekend at MIT. (A video by my colleague Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg, "Memes Are People Too,"  explores the events of ROFLCon in greater detail.)

NEW YORK - It started with a story for a magazine. In 2008, during a trip to Japan, New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear decided to write about cellphone novels, a phenomenon - involving young women writing largely for young women, posting fiction from their phones to media-sharing websites - that was then shaking up Japanese publishing.

 

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L’espressione di non-luoghi è stata coniata dall’antropologo francese Marc Augé che nel 1992 pubblicò un libro con questo titolo, sottotitolato: introduzione ad una antropologia della surmodernità. Augé, oggi direttore della “Scuola di Studi Superiori di Scienze Sociali”, prima di questa pubblicazione aveva effettuato numerose ricerche sul campo in Africa, soprattutto in Costa d’Avorio e Togo e in Sud America. Tornato in patria, ebbe l’idea di applicare gli stessi metodi di studio sul campo alla realtà parigina, vale a dire, si pose il problema di esaminare la modernità del mondo occidentale dal punto di vista di chi viene da lontano, con gli occhi di chi la vede per la prima volta. In pratica, Augé si propose di considerare il “qui” ed “ora” dei luoghi senza preconcetti.

Over the last five years, the social networking phenomenon has swept the globe. Users have direct access, in live time to most people who participate in these online communities. It is not surprising then, that many have taken to the web with information and questions about health care, disease, insurance, and reform.
For years people have been scouring the Internet to find communities of like minded individuals. Online message boards and forums were some of the first online communities and social networking avenues. Internet forums were created as early of the 1970s as a virtual bulletin board for people who were beta users and experimenters of the “World Wide Web”. By 1994 web-based Internet forums connected users on topics from gaming to politics and everything in between. Members of these forums were able to post “threads” or messages about a particular subject and respond to the posts. “Lurkers” or those who simply read the posts and responses could generally do so anonymously without signing up to a public forum.[1] Today, the basic structure of social networking is quite similar.

 

[Read full article http://goo.gl/YN8te ]

You can’t force community. If folks aren’t feeling it – either the brand, the community manager, or the people who make up the community – they’re not going to be productive members of said community. No one likes to be pressured to join a group or made to feel inferior for not participating. So it’s probably best not to get pushy about it or beg or plead for comments or activity, that just makes for an uncomfortable situation.

The best online communities achieve growth organically. That is, the community grows naturally without much pressure or prodding from the community management. That isn’t to say there isn’t much guidance, but definitely the community isn’t forced or made to feel as if they have to participate.

It’s not difficult to achieve organic community growth.

 

[Read full article  http://goo.gl/YSt6J ]

Tumblr announced a new policy Against Self-Harm Blogs on Feb. 23 that would ban blogs promoting self-mutilation, eating disorders and suicide. This announcement elicited over 25,000 responses in some form, ranging from support and gratitude to skepticism and outrage.

While almost everyone agrees that blogs should not be encouraging self-harm, many worry that a specific community of people who struggle with these issues are being targeted and banned from the website. Where will Tumblr draw the line between promotion of self-harm and expression of one’s feelings? Many fear that Tumblr is creating a hostile environment for those who are looking for a safe, and for many anonymous, a place to work through their struggles.

 

Read full article: http://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/2012/03/tumblr-censors-self-harm-blogs

Introduction

Many thanks to Alessandra Micalizzi for the kind invitation. First attempt for me at connecting practice theory with media and social change.

The story behind both – until now separate – interests: EASA Media Anthropology Network, first media and practice theory (Bräuchler and Postill 2010), more recently media and social change – Paris meeting 2012 to be co-convened with Tenhunen and Ardevol. See both websites.

Digital media and social change

All digital media scholars study social change- yet surprisingly undertheorised.

We tend to fall into vague present continuous (-ing) of how people and technologies are constantly chang-ing, what people are now do-ing with this or that digital tech, etc.

… in pursuit of next big technology, we often neglect historical and diachronic in favour of contemporary and synchronic.

Dubious idea that a technology now trending in global North will soon be trending worldwide (‘imminentism’).

 

[Read full article http://goo.gl/FZJJP ]

There are a lot of thoughts floating in the digital ether about online communities and social media. Those thoughts often collide in confusing ways. Some folks – most perhaps – think that managing an online community is the same as working in social media. While an online community is built off a social media platform, the role of a social media manager and an online community manager are much different.

In essence an online community is a collection of people with a common interest, or set of values. They meet online to think and share together. It could be for moral support (a community of military moms), or it could be a group of digital gaming fanboys. Or it could be a bunch of people who like the idea of being completely anonymous online.

 

[Read full article http://goo.gl/SCGRq ]