Dangerously overstating the significance of Web 2.0
This video is very popular among technophiles, as its ranking on Technorati demonstrates. It suggests that thanks to Web 2.0 technologies (which it neatly explains) “we’ll have to rethink copyright, identity, ethics… ourselves”.
While I am by any measure a heavy user of Web 2.0 technologies, the sunny optimism of some social web enthusiasts this video and the absence of a wider social perspective on the phenomenon really irks me.
Update: Michael Wesch responded to this post (see comments below) and it appears I have misrepresented him - I should not have read sunny optimism into the video. After all in the time available it is asking a lot to both present the potentials of Web 2.0 as he has done impressively and to critique them. But to continue…
The fact remains that according to a recent survey only a little more than a quarter of US online users have ever tagged anything and only 7% of them do so daily. And who are the people who tag (and by extension use a variety of Web 2.0 services?). As Pew notes, “classic early adopters of technology. They are more likely to be under age 40, and have higher levels of education and income.” Eszter Hargittai’s earlier research bears out this relative lack of interest in Web 2.0 usage - even among American college students. Hell, this video itself, although it is the toast of the blogosphere at the moment, has been viewed less than 20,000 times. Doesn’t that say something about the limited scale of interest in Web 2.0?
So what? Well the creator of this video and other Web 2.0 enthusiasts believe that tagging is “easy” and “anyone can do it”. Tacitly then they also believe that the contents of user-content databases and the “folksonomies” that are created therein represent (if not now then soon) the preferences and interests of everyone - or at least everyone who matters - instead of the somewhat self-reinforcing interest clusters of a technologically savvy elite.
It concerns me that thanks to this presumption and thanks to the ease with which this data can be mined by journalists, marketers, politicians, PRs and other trend-spotters, the interests and preferences of this narrow group will tend to be over-stressed at the expense of those without the time and inclination to surf and tag.
Of course tagging is in its infancy and doubtless it will grow in popularity. But does this mean it will become mainstream? I have my doubts. And even if it does I suspect most content creation and tagging will continue to be done by a passionate (or geeky) few, like myself.
This, I suggest, is what we need to bear in mind before we “rethink governance” based on an enthusiasm for this new set of technologies.
PS it is an ironic commentary on the “ease of use” of Web 2.0 technology that I had a great deal of difficulty embedding this video. Comments are now working so please feel free to add your own in the usual way (and comment on any past posts here if you had trouble doing so before!).
February 5th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Very nice commentary. You make a very good point about the bias of tagging. Tag clouds everywhere almost invariably end up with “Web 2.0″ in large luminous letters. It will be interesting to see if tagging goes mainstream, and if it does, what kinds of things become more prominent in those clouds.
As an anthropologist concerned about oppressed and under-represented people world-wide, I agree with your concerns about rethinking governance in any way that ends up favoring the tech savvy elite over others. What I wanted to point out with the video is that the entire process of governance will likely start to change (as it has already) and that we need to be keenly aware of the implications of these changes (as you seem to be). It will not change because of a buzzword phenomenon like “Web 2.0″ but because of digital technology more generally - and it won’t happen overnight. As changes occur, hopefully people like you and me who are concerned about these things will find a strong enough voice to make sure that others who are denied entry into the conversation can have their voice heard as well. Keep up the great work.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
I would only like to add one remark on the digital divide aspect of your post and Michael Wesch’s video:
Good points. It seems that digital divide can be examined both as (a) mere accessibility of the technology and (b) the ability to operate it, such as distributing information and/or creating an individual form for any given content. As for further research, it would be interesting to examine what other variables influence the use of tagging and other web 2.0 tools besides the tech-savvy factor - trust for institutional/corporate forms instead of individual “tags” with respect to the political background of a given social group; level of media literacy…
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This is by all means very interesting topic and it will certainly surface in research in the years to come - especially since web 2.0 concept has been discovered by the corporate minds…