Contemporary Culture and the Web

1
Contemporary Cultureand the Web

• Dr Axel Bruns
• Creative Industries Faculty
• Queensland University of Technology
• a.bruns_at_qut.edu.au

2
A Tale of Two Webs

• Web development in divergent directions
• towards greater commercialisation high
  production values, broadband-ready, but
  relatively non-interactive packaged content
• towards more user co-creativity highly
  interactive, open-ended and unfinished forms,
  emerging from the grassroots

3
A From Homepages to Blogs

• Homepages
• began as basic information pages, with personal
  details, favourite links, etc.
• usually static, using plain HTML, infrequently
  edited, non-interactive
• Blogs
• ranging from public diaries to personal
  commentary on current events
• dynamic, database-driven, frequently updated,
  enabling user commentary and interlinkage with
  other sites (e.g. snurb.info)
• embedded in a vast, loose network of blogs the
  blogosphere

4
B From Community News to Open News

• Community News
• began as a simple way of updating current events
  of interest to a specific group
• usually on static HTML pages, updated by a small
  group of enthusiasts, non-interactive
• Open News
• large-scale Web publications created and edited
  by the community itself
• dynamic, database-driven content enabling any
  user to submit new content or comment on
  published stories, or even to help edit submitted
  content (e.g. Kuro5hin.org)

5
C From Resource Sites to Wikis

• Resource sites
• began as collections of background information on
  specific topics
• usually on static HTML pages, maintained by a
  small group of experts in their field,
  non-interactive
• Wikis
• collaboratively edited, database-driven
  encyclopaedias on specific topics
• drawing on the expertise of large user
  communities which are able to add and edit
  content at any time (e.g. the Wikipedia)

6
Common Traits

• Technology
• reliance on database backends makes sites
  dynamic, interactive, and searchable
• such technology is now in the hands of end users,
  not just corporations (users are often the
  earliest adopters)
• Community
• move from individual to communal authorship
  users comment on and edit one anothers work
  (sites resemble palimpsests)
• open source model trust in the power of
  eyeballs in improving the quality of content
• heterarchical rather than hierarchical power
  structures
• Creativity
• move from mere interactivity to intercreativity
  (Tim Berners-Lee)
• free contribution of ones work in support of a
  greater good (a creative commons)

7
Beyond the Webpage

• Change in the basic unit of information
• from the individual page to the individual entry
• e.g. a blog posting
• e.g. a news story
• e.g. an encyclopedia entry
• towards syndication of information
• e.g. through RSS (Rich Site Summary)
  newsfeeds(see RSS feed for BBC News ? on
  snurb.info)
• e.g. through feed aggregator and analyser
  services(see Daypop rankings of most popular
  topics and links)
• e.g. through TrackBack and other networking
  tools(see TrackBacks in Lawrence Lessigs blog)

8
Information as Virus

• Information becomes viral
• detached from its traditional host, the Webpage
• carried rapidly through multiple channels
• attaching itself to various hosts in mutated
  forms
• Content is detached from format
• embedded in different contexts, modified and
  commented upon
• forming a true web of information, not merely a
  web of pages
• widely distributed across multiple platforms and
  contexts
• analogous to filesharing, where music is detached
  from its physical carrier medium (but here
  usually legal and intentional)

9
Implications for Web Archiving

• What should be archived?
• it may begin to make more sense to archive
  individual entries rather than whole pages
• Who is the author?
• collaboratively edited content has complex,
  multiple authorship which is not always readily
  apparent
• How to capture the context?
• distributed webs of information spread across
  multiple Websites are difficult to archive
• How to capture the functionality?
• content may only become visible as users query
  these Websites it may be useful to archive the
  database backend
• How to identify new trends?