Digital Dialogues and Community 2.0 CHANDOS SOCIAL MEDIA SERIES Series Editors: Geoff Walton and Woody Evans (e-mails: [email protected] and [email protected]) This series of books is aimed at practitioners and academics involved in using social media in all its forms and in any context. This includes information professionals, academics, librarians and managers, and leaders in business. Social media can enhance services, build communication channels, and create competitive advantage. The impact of these new media and decisions that surround their use in business can no longer be ignored. The delivery of education, privacy issues, logistics, political activism and research rounds out the series’ coverage. As a resource to complement the understanding of issues relating to other areas of information science, teaching and related areas, books in this series respond with practical applications. 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Digital Dialogues and Community 2.0 After avatars, trolls and puppets EDITED BY T B ARA RABAZON Oxford Cambridge New Delhi Chandos Publishing Hexagon House Avenue 4 Station Lane Witney Oxford OX28 4BN UK Tel: +44 (0) 1993 848726 Email: [email protected] www.chandospublishing.com www.chandospublishingonline.com Chandos Publishing is an imprint of Woodhead Publishing Limited Woodhead Publishing Limited 80 High Street Sawston Cambridge CB22 3HJ UK Tel: +44 (0) 1223 499140 Fax: +44 (0) 1223 832819 www.woodheadpublishing.com First published in 2012 ISBN: 978-1-84334-695-1 (print) ISBN: 978-1-78063-302-2 (online) © The editor and contributors, 2012 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. 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List of tables and boxes Tables 9.1 Examples of iTunes U podcasts: branding and marketing 143 9.2 Examples of iTunes U podcasts: scholarly, professional development, archival and historical value 144 9.3 Examples of iTunes U podcasts: immediate educational use, student life and work 144 Boxes 9.1 Assessment of educational technology 146 16.1 Interview with a buyer of Comme il Faut products 232 xi List of abbreviations BBS Bulletin Board System ccTLD country code top-level domain CDVEC City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee DRC Disability Rights Commission DSLR Digital single lens reflex camera EAFP easier to ask for forgiveness EDSA Epifanio de los Santos Avenue fps frames per second GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GB Grameen Bank g,d&ra grin, duck and run away GPS global positioning system gTLD generic top-level domain ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICT information and communications technology IM instant messaging IP Internet Protocol ISP internet service provider JISC Joint Information Systems Committee LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender MIRAB migration, remittance, aid and bureaucracy xiii Digital Dialogues and Community 2.0 MMOG massive multiplayer online game MMORPG massive multiplayer online role playing game MUD Multi-User Domain, Multi-User Dungeon NCAM National Center for Accessible Media QR quick response RIAA Recording Industry Association of America SL Second Life SMS short message system SNS social networking site TAME Teachers Association for Media Education TLD top-level domain TRIPS Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization xiv About the contributors Nazlin Bhimani is the Research Support & Special Collections Librarian at the Institute of Education, University of London. Prior to this, Nazlin was the Librarian at Christ’s College, Cambridge. She is interested in the information-seeking behaviour of users and has worked on JISC-funded research projects and has talked about the changing role of the information profession at several EU-funded training programmes. Nazlin is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Tara Brabazon is a professor, teacher, writer and director of the Popular Culture Collective. She has published ten books including The University of Google, Thinking Popular Culture, Tracking the Jack and Digital Hemlock, along with over 150 refereed academic articles in the areas of media literacy, popular cultural studies and creative industries. Alexander Cameron is a student at the University of Brighton, reading a BA (Hons) in Media Studies. Alex is interested in both advertising and popular culture and is hoping to continue in these areas upon his graduation. Aziz Douai is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada. He received a PhD in Mass Communications from the Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, in addition to a MSc in Advertising from Boston University, Massachusetts. His research interests include social media and social change, new media and activism, cyber-threats, Arab media and democracy, global media and international conflict, among other areas of international communications. Katie Ellis is a lecturer in Media and Communications at Murdoch University in Western Australia. She is the author of two books on disability and media – Disabling Diversity: The Social Construction of Disability in 1990s Australian National Cinema (VDM-Verlag, 2008) and, with Mike Kent, Disability and New Media (Routledge, 2010). She xv Digital Dialogues and Community 2.0 is currently working on her third book, Disability and the Media (Palgrave), with Gerard Goggin. Amanda Evans is a Unit Coordinator and Lecturer in Mass Communication at Curtin College, Western Australia. She has published in the areas of media studies, mass communication and cultural studies. Faracy Grouse holds Bachelor Degrees in History and Anthropology and a Master’s Degree in Creative Media. She is currently focusing on film projects and multi-media installations. Matthew Ingram is a Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Brighton. In addition to scientific commitments he is also a researcher in new technologies and the impact they can have on the wider population. Mike Kent is a lecturer in the Department of Internet Studies at Curtin University in Western Australia. His recent book, co-authored with Katie Ellis, Disability and New Media, was published in December 2010. Laura Kinsella recently completed an MA in Creative Media at the University of Brighton. She has a background in documentary production and visual ethnography. Laura’s key areas of interest lie in the field of media literacy and participatory culture. Leanne McRae is a lecturer, course coordinator and curriculum designer of media, cultural studies, screen studies and mobility studies, in Perth, Western Australia. She specialises in international education and pursues research in popular cultural studies, creative industries, postwork, and the politics of intimacy. Venessa Paech is an online community manager, strategist and researcher, interested in closing the collaborative gap between academia and practice in social media. Her work on virtual ethnography has been published in Nebula and she is regularly engaged as a lecturer on community technologies and behaviours. Mick Winter was a member of the pioneering online community, The WELL, at its 1985 inception, and still hosts one of the first public pages on the world wide web. He is a graduate of the University of Brighton’s MA Creative Media programme, and a freelance writer living in California. xvi Introduction Introduction: new imaginings Tara Brabazon Abstract: Technology redraws the boundaries between connection, consciousness and community. This introduction offers models and theories of community to provide new ways of thinking about how identity is enabled through the read write web. Key words: community, social media, web 2.0, Benedict Anderson, imagined communities, minorities I guess my question is are we playing to real fear or are we inventing fears … that don’t ultimately address what people are afraid of. Are we dealing with what is real, or what is expedient?1 Jon Stewart Jon Stewart asks the key question of post-September 11 history. He pushes citizens and scholars to think about our lives and how we negotiate the spaces and places of identity and community.2 This book takes his question as a propulsive intellectual engine. The pages that follow were forged between two moments of change. In March 2010 – and for the first time – Facebook attracted more visitors than Google.3 This change in preferences signified a shift from searching to sharing. The second moment revealed another type of transformation. On 26 October 2010, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert organised a rally: the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. It was comedic, light, satirical, ironic and biting. It was also adversarial and operated against another event – the Restoring Honour Rally organised by Glen Beck and run on 28 August 2010. Promoted and fuelled by Fox News, Beck summoned the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr 1