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samara hartnett

Public Radio's Social Media Experiments: Risk, Opportunity, Challenge - 4 views

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    I have centered my approach to the main theme of Mobile Phones and Crowd Sourcing on both the Radio and Retail industries. With the acknowledgment that Mobile Phones, Crowd Sourcing and Social Media are all connected through the creation and distribution of information, this article further explores the individual adoptions or resistance to associated practices relating to the main theme. The article 'Public Radios Social Media Experiments' (Levenshus, 2007) proves itself very useful in its ability to pin point relevant conclusions regarding the role of the audience, the nature of online communities, the use of associated tools and reasons of reluctance towards industry integration. Although this article responds directly to Radio the points of analysis can also be applied to the Retail industry. These conclusions referred to the transformation of listeners/consumers into potential sources of information and the ability of audiences/consumers to contribute and reveal an unexpected wealth of knowledge. It is here that the connection to information obtained by crowd sourcing on social media platforms is supported and the seamless integrated of mobile devices into this process could be assumed. The article also surmises that social media and crowd sourcing strategies are essential to the future of public broadcasting. This should also be considered with reference to Retail. There are explanations as to why resistance to social media opportunities may occur. For example, resistance is due to the lack of knowledge, resource allocation and institutional culture (Levenshus, 2007). But above all the article describes online communities as organic, dynamic and having lives of their own (2007), giving us a valuable base with which to analyse the role of mobile devices in sourcing information. The provisions of such analytical conclusions help to develop a better understanding of the overall affects to industries such as Radio and Retail as they reconsider busi
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    Thanks for the heads up Dean - the link loads fine in a new tab for me... Have I done something wrong in my post do you think?
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    I have been a big fan of listening to podcasts for years from http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/ . I subscribe to them in Facebook. So I have seen how they have slowly improved how they engage with the public. So your example I think is a good one for an industry that previously just has synchronous communication and now because of Social Media has A Synchronous to leverage its value. What has happened for radio has good lessons for those business owners that think business has got tougher. Radio previously had an audience/users that was "out there" and many other businesses have an audience that is "in here." Regardless of how the audience/client is connected/contacted then this touch point can be leveraged and value added by social media. The Curtin University Gym has users that are "in here" and whilst people are in the gym using the equipment they can see TV's that include advertisements for Physiotherapy etc. This is a basic form of social media interaction, The user arrives and the TV delivers. The Gym also has a Facebook page that they seek to have users or all of Curtin University to like. Maybe they also make use of Flickr and other social mediums that all adds up to adding value to the business through indirect advertising and awareness creation. So the point I am trying to make is that if you have "in here" users then you ought to connect with them whilst they are in the gym with as much social media as is acceptable. Can the Endomodo App be given a Curtin University Brand/Logo so that the many users can utilise? If not then the Curtin Gym can make use of Endomodo Groups so that the elderly classes can better network and collaborate etc. The more connected a business is with its client base then the more value it can deliver to them and the more revenue that business can collect from advertisers in the case of a radio station. A supply busines
samara hartnett

Radio's Social Media Performance is Pathetic | Mark Ramsey Media LLC - 0 views

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    This article is by Mark Ramsey the author of two radio industry bestsellers. He has extensive experience in broadcasting, both television and radio, and is influential in media research and strategic implementation (Ramsey, 2010). Mark Ramsey states 'Radio can have a huge stake in social media thanks in no small part to our powerful megaphones' (2010). It is with this remark that the rest of the article can be better understood as a valuable resource when discussing mobile devices, crowd sourcing and their importance to radio if it wishes to embrace a new media platform. The ease with which users/ 'audience will give up information' (Ramsey, 2010) and participate in real-time interactions (ie.tweeting or sms stations) highlights a need of the audience to not just listen but join the conversation. Radio is shifting from a once passive 'you push, they consume ' to an active ' you join in, and they share' medium (2010). Although this article skims over any direct reference to mobile devices, it remains relevant because it highlights the driving want of audience participation and the role of radio to 'respect the audience and add value to their lives' (Ramsey, 2010). This shifting relationship is facilitated in large by current developments in mobile device technologies. Traditional forms of media such as radio have to now reconsider how their content is being consumed and respond adequately to their audience. Ramsey, M. 2010. About. Retrieved from:http://www.markramseymedia.com/about/ Ramsey, M. (2010, July 26). Radio's Social Media Performance is Pathetic. [Web log post]. Retrieved from: http://www.markramseymedia.com/2010/07/radios-social-media-performance-is-pathetic/
theresia sandjaja

Social Interaction and Co-Viewing With YouTube: Blending Mass Communication Reception a... - 0 views

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    This article examines on various factors of uses and gratification on why people utilise media in Youtube. First factor is motivation, where the writers believe that the media behaviour is goal directed and purposive. This motivation is part of the central concept in acquiring media within online space. Youtube technology enable the user to satisfy interpersonal needs and communicate their opinion to others thus creating social bond between users. Secondly, the activity factor explained that Youtube provides a medium to facilitate activities to audience before, during and after media exposure. This activity can influence how audience perceive certain (media exposure) through social interaction. Last factor, which is affinity, described how Youtube enable users to select various channel of media for their own interest. For example, active users tend to create their own video and share with the public, while the less active users may only need to find information or entertainment. These factors relates well with the reading by Wasko (2005), which examine why online users voluntarily contribute knowledge and ideas to help others in online environment.  Following the factors above, the writer also includes the study on user background characteristics that shape their activity on Youtube. This characteristics including: social activities and interpersonal interaction, locus of control where belief is reflected to control events, sensation seeking and innovativeness. The study is based on the quantitative research to support their hypothesis. 
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    To conclude the article, there was an argument that previously, researchers believed the Internet would blur the lines between mass and interpersonal communication. Through the analytical data that were included, the writer argued that the new social networking sites would blend the mass and interpersonal communication.
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    The link above only provide first page free sample. For complete version of this reading please access through Curtin Library catalogue Source: Haridakis, P. & Hanson, G. (2009) 'Social interaction and co-viewing with Youtube: blending mass communication reception and social connection'. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, June 2009, 53(2), p.317 (19) available online through Curtin Catalogue. Additional reference: Wasko, M. M. & Faraj, S. (2005), 'Why Should I Share? Examining Social Capital and Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Networks of Practice', MIS Quarterly, 29(1), p. 35-57.
Jarrad Long

The Wisdom of Crowds - 26 views

This Wikipedia article presents a summary of the 2004 book of the same name by New York Journalist James Surowiecki. Initially it explains Surowiecki's ideas about how crowd intelligence works and ...

Net308_508 Collaboration organisation kony 2012 social media wise crowd wisdom of the crowds

Stephen R

Online Activism - 14 views

My topic of choice is the Anonymous activist group who's activities are often, but not exclusively, enacted online. The online activism by Anonymous is similar to the online activism described in Y...

Net308_508 collaboration organisation crowds china kony 2012 online activism

theresia sandjaja

Communicating Creativity on YouTube: What and for Whom? - 1 views

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    Youtube has lowered the barriers for amateurs to upload their video online, this allows users to share content to large scale of audience. This article explores on how nonprofessional users connect to the mass at many different levels. Based on the quantitative research in this article there are combination of elements that contribute to the usage of Youtube: primary level by identifying the video narrative content from as expressing idea or opinion to displaying skills (music, sports, etc.) and secondary level by analysing the creativity made by the users and whether the production of creativity covey message about the uploader's personality traits.  The first study analyse the varieties of narrative contents uploaded in Youtube. The contents available consist from personal creativity that contain self-made sound and images, remix creativity containing both self made footage and drawing on popular culture, and borrowed creativity that consists third party performances that were rarely edited The study on the second level analyse the personality traits of the uploader which classified into: actual and ideal self when opening their personality to the audience in the online environment.   Youtube producers use their creations to connect socially by uploading their videos and sharing them to the public. This highlighted the needs of 'strong social orientation and the desire to engage in social interaction' within online environment. The collective works available on Youtube has blurred the line between authors and audiences, creators and consumers as well as experts and amateurs. 
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    Source: Courtois C., Mechant P., De Marez L. (2012) Communicating creativity on YouTube: what and for whom? Cyberphsychology, behavior and social networking. March 2012, 15(3): 129-134. Available online through Curtin Library Since the publication quite recent, to access this reading please go to Curtin Library catalogue and find the article through journal name.
Victoria Jobling

Digital Prefigurative Participation: The Entwinement of Online Communication and Offlin... - 0 views

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    Mercea, D. (2012). Digital Prefigurative Participation: The Entwinement of Online Communication and Offline Participation in Protest Events. New Media and Society, 14(1), 153-169. Retrieved March 25, 2012, from Sage Journals Database. http://nms.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/14/1/153.full.pdf+html In this article, the authors aim to identify the use of computer-mediated communication prior to two offline protests, to determine the role and impact it plays on participants. Social media evidently played a strong role in the recent Arab uprising, but unlike the environmental protests studied in this article, there was a widespread urgency for change influencing the use of online resources. The study included FanFest, an environmental festival supporting change in Romania, and Camp for Climate Change, a traditional and direct style protest involving damage to property and blockades, in the UK (p.158-159). FanFest was considered a low-risk event, and Climate Camp was deemed a high-risk event (p.158), due to the level of activism involved. This article is valuable as it determines a correlation between individuals not associated with any activist organizations and their involvement preceding offline events. The idea that potential activists are more likely to attend low-risk events was reinforced, as a large percentage of people who attended FanFest fit this category (p.159-160). The online organization of the festival attracted new participants, as people were able to discuss the event online and collaborate, by offering suggestions to improve future festivals (p.163). The event aimed to engage the public in environmentalism, rather than demand change, like Climate Camp. This enabled people to freely discuss ideas online, without needing to meet in person. This contrasts with Climate Camp, as many participants d
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    In this article Mercea (2011, p. 155) observes how computer-mediated-communications are contributing to "participation in protest events run by social movement organisations". He aims to study specifically what role online communication plays in the relationship between online and offline environments in relation to activism. This article ties in well with the Kony 2012 campaign I am currently observing and has strong links to an article I read called 'Online Activism' by Guobin Yang. In the two cases Mercea presents, the power of the crowds mediated through computer-communication allows online activism to occur (Yang, 2009, pp. 33). Through interactions on Web 2.0 outlets, Social Movement Organisations have become a force for social change (Mercea, 2012, p.156). Mercea and Yang both agree on the idea that organisations that utilise Web 2.0 platforms are more successful at harnessing crowds, and in doing so promote discussions, real life meeting points, and ultimately plan towards a groups next step in action. The Invisible Children organisation is classified as a 'Social Organisation Movement' and is a prime example of how computer-mediated-communication combined with Web 2.0 platforms facilitates participation. Interactions on Web 2.0 outlets have allowed the Invisible Children's Kony 2012 campaign to become a force for social change. The Kony 2012 campaign reinforces Mercea's observation that interactions online can encourage activism to cross over into the offline environment. The Invisible Children's action plan, focused for April 20th 2012 dubbed 'Cover the Night', enables audiences to actively become involved with the campaign offline while engaging with it online. The success of the Invisible Children's campaign can be pin-pointed to how it was aimed at a particular audience, reinforced by social media platforms, and most importantly how it has harnessed Web 2.0 tools to deliver the mission of the Kony 2012 campaign, to make J
Stephen R

Beyond Microblogging: Conversation and Collaboration via Twitter - 1 views

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    Courtenay Honeycutt and Susan Herring discuss the collaborative potential of Twitter. This is of particular relevance to the discussion of Anonymous organisation tools, as Anonymous uses Twitter for a large amount of its public relations. @Anonops, @AnonymousIRC and @Youranonnews are twitter users with substantial followers, each with greater than 250,000 followers. Anonymous's favourite method of attack - Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS - works better with every additional participant. Anonymous must recruit members to participate in such attacks through Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Twitter presents the most anonymous and easily digestible communication channel of the three, whilst also being extremerly active during past operations such as #oppayback. Therefore, Twitter plays a central role in the collaboration of anonymous, especially communicating with those who do not take an active role in IRC chats. Honeycutt and Herring examine the conversational and collaborative potential of Twitter with the use of the @ symbol to direct conversation. This activity is very prominent among the Anonymous Twitter account listed earlier. Anonymous Twitter feeds are full of responses to criticisms and answers to questions. It is worthwhile to note that Honeycutt and Herrings article was written in 2009, before use of the @ symbol became recognised by Twitter as a certified way of creating conversation. Now, it is easy to transverse conversation simply by clicking tweets with an @ symbol. During Anonymous operations, Twitter provides an invaluable resource in being able to address such a number of followers at once. Honeycutt and Herring also note similarities between Twitter and IRC channels, also noting that the hectic, crossing conversation are perhaps part of the appeal to some of IRC. This is certainly present in Twitter, but without the constraints of server based IRC channels. Twitter presents a global audience to which Anonymous reaches out, when recruiting
Stephen R

Anonymous: serious threat or mere annoyance? - 5 views

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    Steve Mansfield-Devine, editor of Network Security, analyses the threat of the Anonymous activist hacking group. In doing so he discusses the collaborative tools used to organise the members of Anonymous into a focussed effort. The tools discussed include the Low Orbit Ion Cannnon (LOIC) and various spinoffs, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Twitter. Mansfield-Devine's discusses the Anonymous group's usage of the LOIC as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) weapon. Mansfield-Devine makes a clear point that only with enough users is the LOIC effective, making the effective usage of the LOIC a collaborative operation. The more users collaborating with the tool, the more effective it becomes. Mansfield-Devine discusses how Anonymous members are coerced into participating in an LOIC attack, specifying IRC and Twitter as the main forms of mobilisation of members. His discussion highlights IRC as a primary form of organisation, with Twitter being taking a more secondary role in directing potential participants into IRC channels. Mansfield-Devine does note that Twitter became an integral part of Anonymous organisation when their domain names were taken offline by authorities during Anonymous operations. Tweets were sent out to redirect the Anonymous participants into new IRC chat rooms to continue the attack. Overall, this article concisely covers IRC, Twitter and LOIC based aspects of Anonymous collaboration and organisation. Mansfield-Devine, Steve. 2011. "Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance?" Network Security 1: 4-10. http://dx.doi.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1016/S1353-4858(11)70004-6
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    In this article Mansfield-Devine explores the threat of the organisation Anonymous and the collaborative tools they use to organise the group. In relation to this, he specifies that Anonymous uses "Low Orbit Ion Cannnon (LOIC) and various versions, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Twitter" as his key tools for facilitating organised attacks on institutions (Mansfield-Devine, 2011, p. 4). This article links to the article 'Kony 2012: The Template for Effective Crowdsourcing?' by Olubunmi Emenanjo, on more than one level, they are both about outside organisations against institutions, and they both undeniably rely on social media and the power of the crowds for the mobilization and facilitation of their actions and recruitment (Emenanjo, 2012). The success of the Kony 2012 campaign and Anonymous's attacks can be pin-pointed to how the organisations are aimed at a particular audience, reinforced by social media platforms, and most importantly how they harnessed networking tools to deliver their messages. However a major difference between the two groups is that the Kony 2012 organisation has a consistent online identity, while Anonymous has anonymity. Little is known about the organisation itself but the tools they utilise (LOIC, IRC, and Twitter) lead us so assume that their audiences engage with the organisation. References Emenanjo, O. (2012). Kony 2012: The Template for Effective Crowdsourcing? Communia. Retrieved from http://stipcommunia.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/kony-2012-the-template-for-effective-crowdsourcing/ Mansfield-Devine. (2011). Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance?. Network Security, 1, 4-10. http://dx.doi.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1016/S13534858(11)70004-6
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    Although much of this article is not particularly useful to my focus on Anonymous, this article still raises some interesting notes. The way in which the author plays down the impact of Anonymous' actions towards the end of this article is of particular interest. The author often refers to the disorganized nature of the Anonymous movement, and suggests frequently that although a number of individuals may be involved, automated 'botnets' are often more effective than Anonymous members (Mansfield-Devine, 2011). For my focus, this is the most important part of the article because of the way in which the author neglects to take note of Anonymous members who do more than simply use LOIC and other DDoS attacks. Although it may be true that Anonymous DDoS attacks may not result in significant, long term damage to their targets, the disruption caused by such attacks can often provide enough distraction for Anonymous hacktivists to retrieve data from said targets. With hacktivist groups within movements such as Anonymous being responsible for the largest amount of stolen data in 2011 (AFP, 2012), Anonymous DDoS attacks could pave the way for much more damage to be done to websites than the temporary service disruptions noted by the author of this article. Mansfield-Devine, S. (2011). Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance? Network Security 1: 4-10. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/science/article/pii/S1353485811700046 AFP. (2012). 'Hacktivists' biggest data thieves in 2011: Verizon. Retrieved from http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/13242086/hacktivists-biggest-data-thieves-in-2011-verizon/
theresia sandjaja

The YouTube Effect: How YouTube has Provided New Ways to Consume, Create, and Share Music - 1 views

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    Youtube acts as a place that enables users to access media, create, connect, collaborate and share between other Youtube users. This article explores how Youtube provides community space through technology that facilitates music creativity by the users. The article is divided by two sections; firstly, the relationship of art and technology will be examined and reflected on appropriate literatures, the other section will analyse a case study of an amateur musician who consumes music and ideas, recreates and shares back this 'art' work. Through Youtube, masses are able to view and listen digitalised artwork and the technological revolution enable users to play, reconstruct and share innovative ideas. Thus this action has created democratisation of art where previously artworks were constrained by institutions and now the artwork politic has become bias. The case study included in this article covers many aspect on how a user utilise Youtube to collaborate online. Firstly, Youtube as a medium has the ability to connect communities of users with similar interest. Secondly, Youtube enables users to combine talents and create a piece of work even though the creators live in different geographical area. Thirdly, difficulties that affecting the production were discussed: time differences constrain, physical distance between creators, file size, different Internet access and privacy of creators. The factors mentioned is similar to the three properties of digital networks explained by Sassen (2002), which are: decentralized access, simultaneity and interconnectivity. Youtube enable the producers to promote themselves by distributing their creation to the crowd. The audience has become the 'jury' to give feedback on how they perceive the work and may become producer recreating new original work and supplementing the existing one. This made the communication and ideas to circulate within the online community.
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    Resource: Cayari, C. (2011) "The YouTube Effect: How YouTube has Provided New Ways to Consume, Create, and Share Music." International journal of education and the arts, July 2011, 12(6). Available online at http://www.ijea.org/v12n6/ Additional reference: Sassen, S. (2002), 'Towards a Sociology of Information Technology', Current Sociology, May, 50(3): 365-388 available online at http://transnationalism.uchicago.edu/infotech.pdf
theresia sandjaja

Why do people write for Wikipedia? Incentives to contribute to open-content publishing. - 45 views

This paper discusses the reasons why people would voluntarily share their knowledge to the online community. In the first section of the paper, the author uses theory based on the scientific commun...

Net308_508 Wikipedia Contribution publishing

Jarrad Long

Become a Citizen Scientist - 10 views

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/imagine/20110506_DMI/index.php?startid=10 (I'm doing mobile phone crowd-sourcing) This article describes a suite of participatory sensing apps developed at UCLA th...

Net308_508 collaboration crowd-sourcing participatory sensing

started by Jarrad Long on 24 Mar 12 no follow-up yet
Emily Lloyd

A knowledge sharing and collaboration platform. - 33 views

A Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration Platform provides a good summary of some of the advantages wikis provide for businesses. Written by Dr Donna Hendrix, and Griet Johannsen, both part of the She...

Net308_508 wikis education corporations collaboration

Jocelyn Workman

Distributed Networks and Collaboration Following a Technological Disaster - 13 views

Sutton's article discusses the use of Twitter following a technological disaster on 22 December 2008 at the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Kingston Fossil Plant where a coal waste containment p...

Net308_508 collaboration social media technology twitter community mobilization Wikipedia recovery crisis disaster management organisation microvolunteering

Tamlin Dobrich

The More, The Wikier - 4 views

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    Ball, P. (2007, February 27). The more, the wikier. Nature: International weekly journal of Science. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com The More, The Wikier is an article published on Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science, which explores the secret behind the quality of Wikipedia entries when anyone, anywhere has the ability to write and edit content. The article looks at three groups of researchers who "claim to have untangled the process by which many Wikipedia entries achieve their impressive accuracy". Wikipedia is an organisation in which users collaborate their knowledge to create an encyclopedia of information. "The percentage of edits made by the Wikipedia 'élite' of administrators" is steadily declining and "Wikipedia is now dominated by users who are much more numerous than the elite but individually less active." "The wisdom of the crowds" principle suggests that the combined knowledge of a large and diverse group is superior to the knowledge of a few experts. Ball explains that content accuracy and quality of Wikipedia articles is related to a high number of edits by a large number of users. For example, articles that deal with very topical issues receive a higher level of attention from a large and diverse audience and therefore are of higher quality than articles that are not as topical and thus do not attract the same attention. The three research groups referenced in the article are: Dennis Wilkinson and Bernardo Huberman of Hewlett Packard's research laboratories who studied how a high number of edits by a large number of users create the 'best' Wikipedia articles, Aniket Kittur of the University of California, and co-workers who explored how the Wiki community has evolved from a small governing group to a democracy, and Ofer Arazy and colleagues at the University of Alberta who discuss the importance of this diversification of Wikipedia contributors to the overall success of its articles.
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    I found the article, The More, the Wikier, useful to the topic I am studying, which is Wikipedia and how James Surowiecki's 'the wisdom of crowds' theory (Surowiecki, 2004) relates to it. The research Philip Ball refers to, suggests that the best Wikipedia articles are those with a large number of edits by a large number of contributors (Ball, 2007, para. 2). This supports 'the wisdom of crowds' theory which basically rests on the idea that if more people are involved in a project, the results will be stronger (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 5). The article also states that, not only is it important to have a large number of contributors to achieve good results, the contributors should come from a wide range of demographics (Ball, 2007, para. 14). Roy Rosenzweig, the author of one of the resources I chose, Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, and Farhad Manjoo, the author of Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? another article that Tamlin Dobrich uploaded to this Diigo group, both support this claim also. Rosenzweig and Manjoo write about the bias in the types of Wikipedia contributors there are (the majority are white, English-speaking, educated, Western males) which contribute to some topics and views being missed (Rosenzweig, 2006, p. 128; Manjoo, 2009, para. 9). While this article does discuss some important points about Wikipedia and 'the wisdom of crowds' (Surowiecki, 2004) which are important to the topic I am studying, I think this resource would be more valuable if Ball had included more examples to support the statements he makes, in order to further bolster his arguments. References Ball, P. (2007, February 27). The More, the Wikier. Nature. doi: 10.1038/news070226-6 Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success?. Time. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar
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    This article takes a look at the crowd sourcing idea that Wikipedia thrives on. 'Lots of edits by lots of people'. Crowd sourcing makes use of the knowledge of crowds. The more people you have contributing information to an article the more information the article will contain. This is however affected when fewer people begin to contribute to the writing and collaboration process. A person contributing to the Wikipedia page may only be making a change as small as a simple grammatical correction but it means quite a lot to the overall aesthetic of the page. People are far less likely to believe the information presented by an article filled with errors and punctuation problems. It might seem like a small issue but this is how many hands make light work. Wikipedia's reliability comes from its ability to be edited by many people with small alterations. It is strange however that in your other article regarding Wikipedia being its own worst enemy you have points made there of why Wikipedia is leaning towards extinction. These mainly are concerned with the decreasing number of people editing. So is Wikipedia going to stay strong or will it slowly become just another encyclopedia?
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    Ball's article highlights the successful nature of Wikipedia's open source network and how quality of information is achieved. He suggests that the 'secret' to Wikipedia's credibility is the increasing number of contributors and the 'diversification' it brings to the platform through collective knowledge (Ball, 2007). I can relate Ball's article to Surowiecki's (2004) article Wisdom of the Crowds because it reinforces the notion that people must be unrelated, independent, and have diversity of mind from one another to form good opinions. The architecture of the collaborative platform Wikipedia harnesses the 'power of the crowds' in such a way that encourages diverse participation, as opposed to a group-think scenario, and thus produces 'wisdom' through quality information (Surowiecki, 2004, p5). Ball observes that Wikipedia's structure allows for an above average quality of information on more topical articles. This occurs because popular topics create more traffic, which in turn enables more contributors to edit an article and therefore creating more 'diverse' and 'reliable' information (Ball, 2007). This reinforces the quality of an article through diversification and mass collaboration. This notion of 'quality' can be applied to the Kony 2012 campaign page on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony_2012), which has been edited over 500 times and has been viewed 1,227,982 times since 6 March 2012, when the Kony 2012 campaign was first launched (Wikipedia Article Page Statistics, 2012). However, it is at this point that the similarities between Ball and Surowiecki cease. According to Ball, the Kony 2012 Wikipedia article is a prime example of a topical issue. The statistics reinforce his observations about Wikipedia's crowds and how they are able to create credible and reliable information due to diversification brought into the article by 1,227,98
Tamlin Dobrich

Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? - 8 views

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    Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? is an article which suggests Wikipedia's achievement level has reached its peak and eventually will see its downfall. The article looks in depth at the potential causes for Wikipedia's slowing growth and how these elements could possibly lead to the community's eventual failure. It suggests one reason for Wikipedia's decelerating growth rate is simply that "the site has hit the natural limit of knowledge expansion" and the only possible remaining contributions are obscure topics and "janitorial" editing job such as formatting and fixing grammar. The article claims "Wikipedia's natural resource is emotion" and editors are motivated by the "rush of joy" they receive when contributing their unique wisdom to an audience of 300 million people. What this means is that as the need for significant edits diminishes, so too does participation enthusiasm. Additionally, as Wikipedia has grown, so too has the bureaucracy and complex laws of Wikipedia, resulting in a community that has become unwelcoming to novice Wikipedians. The article discusses how Wikipedia editors are made up of a narrow class of participants dominated by young males from wealthy countries and academic backgrounds. The Wikipedia author-base is not as broad and diverse as first thought and it seems "the encyclopedia is missing the voices of people in developing countries, women and experts in various specialties that have traditionally been divorced from tech". This too is given as a reason for Wikipedia's imminent downfall.
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    An interesting topic of diminishing contributors and a conclusion I had already theorised must be happening for the exact theories stated in the article. I think this article will be good to reflect on in future years. Maybe a future article will be on If You Do Not Innovate Then You Die. I see Wikipedia only having to start including a genealogy aspect where everyone can geo tag relatives grave sites and stories about then and their relatives and what they achieved in their life to see a boom in contributors and tie all the history in Wikipedia to real every day people. So when I read in Wikipedia about a civil war or history of a country I can also choose to see who's firends relatives were there at that time etc. Later DNA results can further be added. So I do not see Wikipedia dying if it Innovates.
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    Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? is an interesting article, as it suggests that since 2007, the number of people contributing to Wikipedia has decreased (Manjoo, 2009, para. 2). This is further reinforced by the following graph from the Wikipedia website (http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMFArticlesVsContrib.png), which also shows that the number of contributors is plateauing (Bridgestone Partners, 2009). Farhad Manjoo's explanation for this - that the encyclopedia has "hit the natural limit of knowledge expansion" and the only editing jobs left are 'janitorial' - seems plausible (Manjoo, 2009, para. 6). Personally, this is what I have found through my own use of Wikipedia, that while there are areas which need some work, they are generally topics and jobs which are rather mundane. The success of collaborative projects does rest on ensuring the contributors are enthusiastic about what they are doing, in order for them to continue to produce quality contributions (Anthony, Smith & Williamson, 2007). One of the resources I chose for this assignment further reinforces this. Katherine Ehmann, Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshti in Collaboration in Context: Comparing Article Evolution among Subject Disciplines in Wikipedia find that through their research, an average of 90.3 percent of the initial Wikipedia article text remained over time (Ehmann et al., 2008, para. 40). Therefore, it seems that contributors are less inclined to change a great deal of the original entry, and if Manjoo's suggestions are correct, and Wikipedia does already cover the majority of the topics required by users, there is less chance that contributors will continue to go back and edit these existing entries. As Dean Strautins suggests in the comment above, Wikipedia may need to look into new ways of continuing to engage their contribu
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    References Anthony, D., Smith, S.W., & Williamson, T. (2007) The Quality of Open Source Production: Zealots and Good Samaritans in the Case of Wikipedia. Dartmouth Computer Science Technical Report TR2007-606. Retrieved from http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR2007-606.pdf Bridgestone Partners. (2009). File: WMFArticlesVsContrib.png. Retrieved from http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMFArticlesVsContrib.png Ehmann, K., Large, A., & Beheshti, J. (2008). Collaboration in Context: Comparing Article Evolution among Subject Disciplines in Wikipedia. First Monday, 13(10). Retrieved from: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2217/2034 Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success?. Time. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1924492,00.html
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    This article is related to my topic and starts with a brief summary of Wikipedia's start. Wikipedia started its work in 2001 and allowed Wikipedians to contribute and share their articles with others through it. Wikipedia increased its article slowly, in 2008 there were about 2200 articles being added to the Wikipedia every day and in 2009 Wikipedia had about 3 million articles in English. So, Wikipedia broken the record held by Chinese Yongle encyclopedia, which was the famous encyclopedia. The article mentioned, there are thousands of active volunteers who are editing articles or publishing new articles, volunteers check articles to correct them and make them more valid. In addition, in Wikipedia some topics absorb large number of people, for example, subject like "Barack Obama" has large number of viewers, however, other articles which are about other ordinary people do not have that much viewers, and this is a big hole for Wikipedia, because it needs to update these kind of subjects too. The article mentions, In Wikipedia's early days volunteers could be easily be staff of Wikipedia and editing or publishing the articles was not hard, but now volunteers should obey some rules and volunteers must gather some credit to get permission from Wikipedia to publish their articles, so, volunteers may think why should they contribute in Wikipedia and these rsule may decrease the volunteers of Wikipedia.
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    The change in the rate of publishing material does not determine the success of a project such as Wikipedia. New material will be sourced for Wikipedia because the world is constantly evolving. Wikipedia's only downfall is the amount of people that contribute. When Wikipedia articles are monitored by users the mediators can control their own page which they see as perfection because they have written majority of it. This is the exact reason why people have begun to shy away from adding or editing Wikipedia pages. Does this mean however that Wikipedia will fail at some point? I believe nothing could be further from the truth. I think Wikipedia will simply run in cycles as new topics are generated therefore new experts will be required to moderate and new people needed to add subject matter. As more people begin to collaborate on these pages more and more people will feel confident to edit themselves. Think of the Wikipedia cycle as one that is constantly changing with both highs and lows of activity. This current inactive period will not last long. This unit looks at the collaborative process that is being undertaken throughout the web and it is important to understand that without people adding their own pieces the puzzle is never going to be finished. Will Wikipedia run the cycle as my theory predicts?
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    This article brings up a very interesting idea: the concept of an endpoint for Web 2.0 communities. As the author relates it, this would occur as a Malthusian collapse. Whilst at first glance this seems unfeasible given the infinite expanse of virtual pastures, the article makes some interesting points for consideration: the number of contributors on Wikipedia is dropping and it seems the we have run out of topics to write. It is interesting to compare the Wikipedia community to that of Bittorrent which has found renewed growth, and purpose, in the context of its struggle against copyright laws. Wikipedia has been hailed as a revolutionary form of knowledge democratisation, it is hard to imagine that wikipedians don't share a sense of purpose in their collaboration, and, perhaps even harder to imagine that we are running out of things to write about. Whilst this article is from a highly reputable source, its bias might be considered in following that of the conservative media toward copyleft, this is highlighted by phrases like 'Wikipedia's joyride' which suggests the growth of the site as frivolous. Considering the data it presents, the article is certainly very relevant to an understanding of online collaboration and thought provoking. I cannot help but think that there are still multitudes of topics to be written about, how many contributors, for example, have penned a page for themselves? Whilst ostensibly trivial, this might be the kind of interaction that sees renewed interest in the site and attracts the minority demographics which Gardner says the site needs to make its community richer (p.2). Perhaps the flagging interest in the site comes from the reason that the site is moving too close to the status quo, that as the BitTorrent community has seen, it needs to reminded of its position in an ideological shift.
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    This article starts with a brief summary of Wikipedia's start. Wikipedia started its work in 2001 and allowed Wikipedia's to contribute and share their articles with others through it. Wikipedia increased its article slowly, in 2008 there were about 2200 articles being added to the Wikipedia every day and in 2009 Wikipedia had about 3 million articles in English. So, Wikipedia broken the record held by Chinese Yongle encyclopedia, which was the famous encyclopedia (Manjoo, 2009). According to my own studies, Wikipedia has different level of articles; they divided to low-, medium- and high quality and different people must play different roles, such as linking, editing and writing. For example, cleaning up other editor's mistake is a very important part, because some people do not add valuable information and some editors must come to increase articles quality and maybe the article needs another editor to correct the article again and this process may need to continue many times to increase quality of that article. However, that does not mean casual users work is not worthy, because, they can absorb more well-rounded contributors to make more valuable articles. To help contributors, University of Arizona suggested Wiki software, which guides contributors to know what should they do, for example, they will aware the article needs more link, references or it needs more editing and writing (Conger, 2010). Conger, C. (2010). Who writes Wikipedia articles? Retrieved from http://news.discovery.com/human/wikipedia-community-articles.html
Oliver Hennessey

Relax: Twitter's New Censorship Policy Is Actually Good for Activists - 6 views

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    Catone, J. (2012). Relax: Twitter's New Censorship Policy Is Actually Good for Activists. Mashable. Retrieved March 23, 2012 from http://mashable.com/2012/01/27/twitter-censorship-activism/ This news article from the online news site Mashable takes a look at the announcement that Twitter will now censor tweets on a country-by-country basis, and argues that this is actually a good thing for online activists. This is contrary to the widespread backlash that has been made against Twitter with users pledging to boycott the service over its new censorship rules. The author points out that Twitter has always been subject to takedown requests, and that this was on a global scale so that if a tweet or user was removed it had to be done for everyone in the world. The author believes it is a lot better that "now, Twitter can remove that tweet in that country, but allow the world to see it". His rationale is that everyone outside of the offending country can still see the tweets, and that if Twitter were to refuse a takedown notice from an oppressive regime it could have its service totally blocked for all users in that country. The fact that Twitter has pledged to increase its transparency in dealing with takedown notices strengthens his argument. I agree with the author on this and find this an especially useful resource as it provides links to circumvent Twitter's technology in an effort to get around censors, and arguments that this new change could even allow the message of censored activists to be more powerful.
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    Listen to how people can create thousands of unique Twitter accounts to manipulate the messages on Twitter http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/dont-trust-the-web/3725726 Therefore Twitter needs some rules.
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    This article discusses Twitter's announcement that they can "censor tweets on a country-by-country basis" (Catone, 2012). This policy change initially received backlash online, as users did not understand how beneficial this could be for some activists. In comparison to other articles shared in the project, this news report is not of as great a value, however, it is still relevant to the topic and highlights the importance of sharing information with the world, rather than a local community. The significance of censoring on a country-by-country basis is that when a tweet or user is blocked in a specific country, like Egypt, people outside of Egypt can still view the blocked user and their tweets (Catone, 2012). Prior to the policy change, a censored user or tweet was blocked worldwide, meaning that people can still communicate with the rest of the world (Catone, 2012). This change is of great importance to political activists in many countries like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, because it means that they can continue to update other nations of the latest circumstances and events. During the Arab Revolution, people captured photos and video footage, not just to show to their local community, but also to provide credible evidence to the outside world (Beaumont, 2011). Clearly, this highlights Twitter's support for protestors in developing or struggling nations, as they have provided an outlet for activists to reach and inform a wider audience. While this article was not as useful as others, it is relevant to the topic and appears to be a reliable source. It, quite simply, demonstrates the importance of being heard in an online environment. Reference: Beaumont, P. (2011, February 25). The Truth about Twitter, Facebook and the Uprisings in the Arab World. The Guardian. Retrieved April 9, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
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    This article is of relevance to my chosen topic (the Anonymous online activism group) as it deals with Twitter and the way oppressive governments seek to deal with it's collaborative and organisational power. Mansfield-Devine (2011) discusses how Anonymous use Twitter heavily as a method of collaboration during their activism operations. Though the article says otherwise, if Twitter's censorship were to inhibit this kind of collaboration this could affect the way in which Anonymous organises itself. The reliability of the source is reasonable. Mashable may be a somewhat sensationalist online news website at times, but this article in particular has many links within allowing one to see the sources behind various claims. The article is of considerable relevance to the topic of online movements as it deals with threats to online activism. Twitter itself is subject to pressure to silence of voices of dissension in certain rendering Twitter less useful for activism purposes. I found the article somewhat useful. It highlights that Twitter impervious to control and censorship. It also highlights that Twitter is a powerful tool for organising uprisings and political movements. This article is quite valuable to the overall collaborative resource development project as it is reasonably reliable, deals with the collaborative potential of Twitter and highlights some of the threats to online movements. Mansfield-Devine, Steve. 2011. "Anonymous: Serious threat or mere annoyance?" Network Security 1: 4-10. http://dx.doi.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1016/S1353-4858(11)70004-6
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    Prior to reading this article, I had not been aware of Twitter's new censorship policy related to each individual country. After reading the title of the article, I failed to see how censorship on Twitter could possibly be considered to be a good thing for activists so I was interested to see the writer's arguments. I definitely agree that Twitter's opting to censor certain tweets is the more desirable outcome than a whole country be denied access to the site. Twitter's approach to censorship, something that they don't seem to be able to avoid on some level, has been handled in the best way possible given the circumstances. I believe that transparency of the 'take down requests' has real potential to alleviate some of the frustration users may feel when they notice that something that was there yesterday is suddenly gone today. This method of publically displaying the reason why something has been removed seems to work well for YouTube in similar censorship cases, particularly in relation to copyright cease and desist claims.
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