Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: Chapters 4 & 5

CHAPTER 4

Ito talks about learning and literacy and focuses on out-of-school learning. She says learning and culture are inextricably tied. Learning should not be about filling heads with knowledge, but rather about belonging, participating, contributing. Her example using real-world math is good. I wonder if the guy measuring would have "gotten it" though, without years of background, however shaky, in academic mathematics learning in schools. Likely, he wouldn't have known how to read a fraction. I think you need both types of learning. A mini lesson to pour information into heads, and then practical real-world participation to use and learn the information.

When she talks about kids who learn because of their own interests, she is right that they will work harder to pursue their interests than to pursue a grade. But she also warns that this applies only to some kids, and says, "The youth who are learning in this way are not typical....Most young people needed support from parents, educators, or other caring adults in order to broker connections across settings." We need to learn how to best fill that role for the kids who aren't self-directed.

boyd talks about information overload, and says it's not easy to decide what to focus on.

Ito draws a comparison of calorie abundance to information overload. Excellent analogy.

Jenkins touches briefly on values and civility. Then boyd says:

What captures people's attention is often the most salacious, fearful, and gossipy content available. It's the junk food of content.

I agree with boyd. Problem is, you can't call anyone's content junk. It would offend, and the implication would be that you don't value their self-expression, therefore you are (fill in the blank). So how to we navigate Jenkin's question of values and civility, and boyd's discusson of junk? boyd says,

...social media democratizes participation, but is this what we mean or even want?

But this doesn't mean we necessarily need to enforce controls onto the web, or consider it "bad." Wikipedia, the authors feel, is considered bad in academia. My class uses it as a springboard for research, but I don't allow them to actually use or cite the page as information. I show them how to read for general knowledge and use the sources at the end of the post.



Jenkins talks about high-circulating videos and says they "tend a bit towards the lowest common denominator." Meaning what? Who gets to say that? I know what he's talking about, but in another forum, he would be ostracized for downplaying other people's media contributions.

boyd raises questions about niche information, and what happens when there is no common ground because everyone chooses which niche to occupy and pay attention to. Students used to discuss this and write a 5-paragraph essay on this topic in remedial English at Essex.

What is this Phonar? Cool, and it's still operating! The prof posted a 45 minute lecture on soundcloud. I think that's a bit long, but I like the soundcloud idea. Must try for the hybrid course.

boyd talks about disempowerment and manipulation. Oh, this rang a bell. Reminded me of the 2012 elections. My Essex students were all talking about a text they received. No one could tell me who the text was from, but each one who received it believed it, no fact checking, no triangulation, no questions asked. And it significantly altered their emotions and actions. Many registered to vote that morning, and brought family members with them. The text said, "Mitt Romney issued a statement today saying, if elected, he will bring back slavery."

boyd says, "All too often, correlation gets associated with causation." Er, this wouldn't happen if people had a basic understanding of math and statistics. Reminds me of the reading for #WritingResearch. Jenkins adds that "brain science" is more believed than the humanist perspective. Again, #WritingResearch.

Valuable contributions and valuable interests are discussed at length. A pervasive them of the authors is that adults seem to ruin everything for the kids, except in a few rare circumstances. They end the chapter by encouraging schools to connect in-school learning to the learning in the wider world.

CHAPTER 5

Remember Postman's lesson about Crap Detection? I detect lots of crap in this chapter. The type of crap: the inane. Techie-scholars feigning informed and authoritative knowledge about the economy and politics, and using their positions as professors and experts in one subject to suggest expertise in other subjects. (boyd in particular.) Perhaps they'll start giving medical advise next... Don't get me wrong, everyone's entitled to an opinion, and everyone's opinion matters. But theirs is no more informed than the general public's, though they are positioning themselves as authoritative.

boyd questions the "moral and societal implications" of Web 2.0. She says that issues are not strictly black or white and insists that the issues are nuanced and we must move beyond simple explanations and caricatures. Agreed. And then she procedes to draw caricatures and simplistic explanations of any issues that she disagrees with: business, the tech industry pre-2000, economics, capitalism (the system that allowed her to become an expert in her field and make a living doing so). She says it's time to let go of the money and focus on ideas. Great, but it is, as she said, a more nuanced issue than simply one or the other.

She describes money as dirty, filthy, and obscene. She disagrees with Zuckerberg about philosophy and states, " ...his tools reinforce inequities more than they dissolve them." I disagree. His tools don't do that; people do. Is it Facebook's fault that not everyone can participate, or is the issue deeper?

She defines capitalism's goal as "to exploit people for personal wealth." An incomplete and biased definition. While the system isn't perfect, it shouldn't be trashed, which is exactly what she says about the Web when problems or imperfections are pointed out. I'm not sure where she's coming from: ignorant, hypocritical, or just forwarding her own political agenda?

Later she concedes that some techies who made it started by trying to solve a problem (marketers call it filling a need), and then those techies needed money to make their ventures grow. That seems acceptable, until they make a profit, and then she considers it gross.

Ito and Jenkins, while they engage in the same type of soul searching about the commercialization of the web, clearly do not agree with boyd. Ito is the voice of reason when she says,

Taking a knee-jerk anti-capitalist stance can stand in the way of thinking creatively about possible alternatives to purely profit-driven and more exploitative modes of capitalist value creation.

And then she and boyd disagree for a couple of paragraphs. I stand with Ito. Patrons are good when they support causes. boyd disagrees. Their money should be taken as taxes and spent by government officials; they shouldn't have enough money to be patrons at all. I wonder if rich folks willingly trying to do "good" spend their money better than government bureaucrats trying to force policies on the public? Zuckerberg gave $100 million to Newark schools. That was a personal donation by a rich guy. The Newark system administrated, squandered, stole, and stalled the money, and the students are not better off. That was a great example of government spending other people's money. They blew it. boyd calls for government involvment, but talks about how the COPPA regulations got distorted. She calls for change and regulations, but gives examples only of failed policy. Ito is much more positive regarding non-profit and philanthropic organizations, and champions their contributions and values.

I understand boyd's liberal view that the rich should be taxed, but where does she get the idea that the government will spend the money wisely? She says herself that she lost trust in government and gained respect for honest individuals in corporations. In fact, she's worked for most of the big name tech corps. She doesn't seem to follow her own logic.

So at this point I decided to check out boyd's blog, because I am sort of losing respect for her opinions, and I see many of her colleagues disagreeing heartily and publicly with her on her blog, saying many of the same things that I have been thinking and saying in this post. Good. Because I was feeling sort of negative about her, and wanted a reality check. According to an article by Forbes, 
"She gets bonuses based on the visibility of her writings." So while she makes a show of not commercializing her blog by running ads, she declines to explain that she is certainly profitting by her writing. I find her flip-flopping tedious.

Issue of free labor squeezing out paid labor. Hmm. I'll have to think about that. Never thought about it before.

The authors discuss the sharing economy. Funny, I was in a conversation recently where friends were saying that the sharing economy is a sign of how poorly our economy is doing, since people have to share their cars, homes, clothes, etc. I didn't see it that way, but I didn't have solidified thoughts about how to explain it. I wanted to say something about community and participation. Ito says it for me on page 140,

There's a curious mix between people who use these kinds of barter and sharing systems out of economic necessity and those who see them more as a lifestyle choice.

boyd talks about all the steps of getting a book to market, and talks about recognizing and supporting these networks, such as the truckers, printers, and mail carriers. Not sure what she is proposing in terms of recognition. She specifically says not financial recognition.

Ito's conclusion at the end of the chapter sounds very different from most of boyd's comments. She is positive and hopeful, praises philanthropic contributions, and expects good works from cooperation among non-profit, commercial, and government organizations. Instead of tearing down the system as boyd encourages, Ito realizes the fantastic possibilities available by working within the system. She says, "I need to be hopeful that these partnerships and coalitions can further progressive agendas." She got it right.