How do Wikipedians form Consensus?

Wikipedia is a revolution in organising online content in an easy-to-navigate format. Because it implements open source, there is constant speculation about the reliability of its content. Wiki (as it is affectionately known) is placed under the social software umbrella (Bruns, 2008, 102). Wiki is a primary example of produsage, people are able to create a new entry or update an existing one, which millions of people have access to. Wiki adheres to Bruns' second principle of produsage: fluid heterarchies organised through ad hoc meritocratic governance. This concept is explored in my previous blog:

2. Fluid Heterarchy, ad hoc meritocracy. In open source contributors grow in the community through their esteem and influence on the project. There is no set dictator for the duration of the project. Leaders are fluid and ever changing according to their abilities and the merit of their contributions. In closed source the production development team is subject to traditional hierarchical structures. There is an appointed leader for the duration of the project and each employee has set individual tasks to complete.

As stated by Jenkins (cited in Bruns, 2008, 108), "any knowledge that gets posted can and most likely will be revised and corrected by other readers." Though it has no set hierarchical structure, Wiki remains a popular source of information, especially for university students.

A new search engine, Powerset, has recently been released, allowing questions, phrases and topics to be explored. Answers can be broken down into facts or scan summaries, and searches Wikipedia entries and other reputable sources (such as Freebase). Check this one out...

Reference

Bruns, A. 2008. Wikipedia: Representations of Knowledge in Axel Bruns, Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang. p 101-136.

How do communites evaluate quality?

Citizen journalism is similar in nature to a peer assessment. Whereby, the quality of content is evaluated by individuals over time who then critique and build upon the existing information, in a snowball like effect. The more attention a post attracts (eg through comments or rating systems) the more credible and transparent a source becomes. It is through this peer assessment process that the reputation of a citizen journalist is built and the quality of the information produced is improved.

As humans it is in our nature to analyse and critique the information we receive. For example, Wikipedia, depsite being disputed as a credible source, studies have found that the information presented is generally accurate and of a reasonable standard (see here). Open participation allows a post to be freely and immediately evaluated by anyone. This may result in either positive or negative feedback, in effect rating the quality of the post. This process is constantly evolving, overlapping and interwoven. As Bruns (2008, 79) states, "citizen journalism is a clear example of fluid heterarchy, ad hoc meritocracy; a fundamental principle of produsage... The community governs itself through a constant process of mutual evaluation through peer commentary and criticism."

By Emma, Nat and Ella.

Reference

Bruns, A. 2008. News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: Perpetual Collaboration in Evaluating the News in Bruns, A. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, New York: Peter Lang, 69-100.

Sidestep university... Hello advertising career!

I am in my third year studying advertising so when I graduate I will have a higher chance of becoming employed in this elusive industry, some people opt out of completing a somewhat time consuming and expensive exercise and instead, turn to the Internet.

Introducing Adcandy! This is a website developed by Per Hoffman to provide the public with the opportunity to contribute advertising ideas, thus eliminating the middleman between companies and consumers. Adcandy has enabled the average Joe to penetrate the advertising industry with no educational background (Duncan cited in Cohn, 2005). Currently entrants receive modest monetary rewards for their ideas, though Hoffman is hopeful that the success of the website will allow for more generous rewards (Cohn, 2005).

Traditional advertising has seen a great change with the emergence of new media technologies (Cunningham and Tuner, 2002, 211), thus, it seems only too appropriate that the advertising industry has begun to see the benefits of produsage. Advertising has already capitalised on convergence and is now expanding to accommodate societal trends (Jenkins, 2002, 164).

“People want to participate in all forms of culture, so why not commercials, for better or for worse?” Hoffman (Cohn, 2005).

Hoffman’s idea for Adcandy originated from open-source programming, where its success solely depends on the enthusiasm and ability of the participants the project attracts (Bruns, 2008, 38).

“People are participating out of the love of doing it, not necessarily for professional reasons,” Hoffman (Cohn, 2005).

Advertising experts predict online open-source advertising will quickly become a new method to reach the public (Cohn, 2005). Mainstream marketers are embracing guerrilla tactics with audiences proving more difficult to reach with traditional advertising (Ives, 2004). Hoffman is hoping his unique approach to communicate with consumers will attract more companies, allowing advertisers the opportunity to gain insight into customers’ perceptions of their product, and possibly coming across a slogan or catch-phrase which proves useful for future campaigns (Cohn, 2005).

Adcandy also implements produsage to the highest degree, allowing open participation, communal evaluation (Bruns, 2008, 41). Adcandy’s mission is “to give consumers a voice and platform to express their creative advertising ideas, product improvement suggestions, and images. In doing so, [Adcandy] also hope to provide for companies with a unique look into the minds of their consumers,” (Adcandy, 2007). The project enables anyone to contribute by submitting entries into Adcandy’s competitions, viewers are able to ‘rate an ad’ and ‘vote on ads’, thus influencing competition results.

Adcandy embodies new media technologies, produsage and open source programming. Although internet advertising is popular amongst advertising agencies to target niche markets (Anderson, 2004), Hoffman has given the audience a chance to influence the industry. The shift from an active to interactive audience implies a greater connection to others, plus a greater sense of control over content (Croll, n.d).

References:

Adcandy. Where Consumers Make the Ads. http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au/cite/harvard/index.jsp. (Accessed April 30, 2008).

Anderson, C. 2004. The Long Tail. Wired. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html?pg=5&topic=tail&topic_set= (Accessed April 1, 2008)

Bruns, A. 2008. Open Source Software Development: Probabilistic Eyeballs in Bruns, A. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, New York: Peter Lang, pp.37-68.

Cohn, D. 2005. You, Too, Could be in Advertising. Wired. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/09/68949 (Accessed April 30, 2008).

Croll, J. n.d. The Changing Face of Media. http://www.mediamonitors.com.au/documents/The_Changing%20Face_of_the_Media.pdf (accessed April 17, 2008).

Ives, N. 2004. The Media Business: Advertising; Guerrilla campaigns are going to extremes, but will the message stick? The New York Times. June 24. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E3DD1E39F937A15755C0A9629C8B63 (Accessed April 30, 2008).

Jenkins, H. 2002. Interactive Audiences. In The New Media Book, ed D. Harries, 157-170. London: BFI Publishing.