Interactive Potential Of Web 2.0
- 1. THE INTERACTIVE POTENTIAL OF WEB 2.0 Eryn Grant (BA hons1) PhD Student Queensland University of Technology Social researcher Brownlow PR
- 2. SOME WEB 2.0 VOCABULARY Produsage Participatory Culture Architecture of participation Rich user experiences
- 3. WEB 2.0 Assumptions about culture and/of participation… … technology produces the connections between users
- 4. WEB 2.0 Assumptions about users… … technology directs users toward a specific social end.
- 5. RE-CONCEPTUALIZING WEB 2.0 “ The point here is that in light of Web 2.0 it is necessary to reconsider how we conceptualise what is happening. The first step may well be to construct more complete and differentiated descriptions of what is happening in Web 2.0, who is involved, and the practices entailed, in order to inform and enrich new concepts or reworkings of our theoretical staples. It is here that a movement toward a more descriptive sociology may fit”. Beer and Burrows 2007
- 6. TOWARD A DESCRIPTIVE SOCIOLOGY… Could participants be more involved in the production of Web 2.0 than the underwriting technology allows us to see from a social perspective? If so how would we as social scientists go about explaining this production order as distinct from the apparatus of technology?
- 7. WEB 2.0 AND THE CULTURAL DOPE Are we accepting the user of Web 2.0 as a cultural dope ( Garfinkel 1984)? If we are going to be analytical or theoretical about Web 2.0 from a social perspective we need to accept that many current perceptions may present some limitations…
- 8. …IN THE PAST Others have also questioned this aspect of technology more generally. Lucy Suchman 1987 ( Machines) Sherry Turkle 1995 (Games) They point toward reflexivity and agency of use, context and understanding the bigger picture. What does interaction with/through “technology” allow someone to do?
- 9. THE INTERACTIVE POTENTIAL Look toward affordance theory in shaping an analytical option for Web 2.0 Bonderup- Dohn (2009), Norman (1989), Gibson(1979) The purpose of affordances in Web 2.0 is to provide a contrast that elucidates the role of the human subject (i.e. the user) in determining the meanings of actions or the “interaction potential” of technological systems. In doing so, Web 2.0 is not positioned as a technological rule but as configurations of multiple relationships (social, spatial, temporal and technical)( Grant, 2009). In addition it provides distance from the “cultural dope” analysis.
- 10. THE ALTERNATIVE: CONTAINER TECHNOLOGIES A container technology allows the subjective purpose of a technology to be realized by its use in context to social, spatial and temporal definitions, defined by the user of the object. Zoe Sofia 2000 It looks at technology as a container through which needs can be realized by containing “stuff” for later uses that fit into social, spatial and temporal knowledge contexts. It is not the holding but the emptying of the container where its true worth is realized
- 11. CONTAINER TECHNOLOGIES IN PRACTICE Stern (2006) investigates file sharing and important dimensions of the relationship between the so-called ‘new’ media and the human body that have been neglected Richardson (2006 devices are “containers of discrete and connected virtual worlds” He looks at the logic of re-sourcing and supply via the mobile phone as a container technology.
- 12. THE PROPOSITION: EYE OF THE USER Erving Goffman’s (1982) ‘Interaction Order’ Harvey Sacks (1995) conversation analysis Use these methods to re-conceptualize the relationship between the user and Web 2.0 by placing emphasis on the subjective role of participation. In this way we can start to understand how users pursue the logic of re-sourcing and supply of Web 2.0 as an interactive potential.