COST298 2009

Copenhagen.
The next COST298 speaker is Ágnes Urbán, who wants us to move beyond innovators and early adopters in studies of Web 2.0 and other innovative developments. This builds on Rogers's diffusion theory and its extension in the context of new communication theory (network effects, user-led diffusion of ideas).

In Hungary, 41% of the population used the Net in 2007; another 7% have access to computers, but are not online. The rest of the population lag behind in technology adoption. What are the incentives and obstacles to their Internet usage, then? The study divided its focus on non-users with positive attitudes towards ICTs, non-users with negative attitudes, and light users who use computers and the Net,but have no access at home.

Copenhagen.
The next COST298 speaker is Serge Proulx, whose interest is in forms of user contribution in Web 2.0. Here, users are voluntary contributing en masse to create large amounts of content, and this is increasingly harnessed by corporations as value added to their services. Why are users so ready to contribute in this way - are they voluntary participating in a new form of information capitalism, and expropriating the social link put in the service of the economic sphere of production, and/or are they participating in the emergence of a new form of individualised mass media, a form of symmetric media which may empower users through the social capital they construct, potentially leading to the creation of a more participative democracy?

Copenhagen.
The next session at COST298 begins with a paper by Eva van Passel, whose focus is on open and dynamic archives. Digitisation and digital preservation are increasingly seen as important strategies to safeguard audiovisual heritage - but the digital versions of such audiovisual materials are often almost as fragile as the original materials, due to changing standards. In Belgium, the BOM-Vlaanderen project drives some of the thinking on these issues - and it is especially interested also in incorporating user wants and needs into its process.

Copenhagen.
Finally we move on to Aylin Aydogan here at COST298. She, too, points to the changes associated with the rise of Web 2.0, and especially the emergence of user-generated content. Views of these changes as positive developments are hardly new, however - earlier Web-related developments were similarly seen as progress. Today, however, changes are very clearly driven by users and their motivations, and this is shifting the relationship between users and media organisations.

Past research in this context has focussed especially on the impact of citizen journalism and news blogging on news organisations; Aylin's study adds to this in the Turkish context. (She's taking a long time to take us through the existing work in this field, though - I wish she'd get to her work!)

Copenhagen.
We move on at COST298 to Stijn Bannier, who focusses on the musical network in the context of Web 2.0 (or 3.0, as the case may be). By 'musical network', Stijn means the network of artists, producers, labels, distributors, and other music industry institutions, which together constitute the industry itself. These are affected by the rise of Web 2.0, not least as it enables users to create, consume, share and remix music; this is potentially exacerbated by further developments towards Web 3.0.

Stijn points as an example to artist self-promotion and self-distribution on MySpace and elsewhere; to musical reproduction, tagging, and metadata sharing (e.g. on last.fm), which may also be analysed quantitatively; to distribution networks built on social networks, peer-to-peer filesharing, and other Web 2.0 media; and to the abundance of content which this creates. This is where Web 3.0 may come in, with its increased emphasis on metadata generation and evaluation.

Copenhagen.
Next at COST298 is Mijke Slot, whose interest is in user motivations in the online entertaiment domain in general. This is based on previous work surveying the possible roles users may take online, across a large number of Web 2.0 sites. Mijke begins by taking us through some of the perceived pros and cons of Web 2.0 first - the negative and positive side effects of user empowerment. But what does an actual observation of user roles tell us?

Mijke's research surveyed some 600 mainly Dutch Internet users, and examined their (self-reported) online roles - key terms here include consuming and communicating, but also creating and facilitating. Consumption, not unexpectedly, still dominates, though, and less active roles are carried out more often than more active forms of participation. However, there are also substantial generational differences here - younger users are online for longer, and engage in more activities; they engage in more novel activities, and are more active on social network sites; but they don't classify themselves as more skilled than the average (what they perceive as 'average' may differ from older age groups, though!).

Copenhagen.
Next at COST298 is Rita Espanha, who shifts our interest to the effects of peer-to-peer filesharing of movies on cinema in Portugal. She begins by taking us through the key features of European cinema (as opposed to Hollywood) - the different content and narrative style, the funding support by national governments and related institutions, and the comparatively more limited distribution.

There are a number of different consumer types here, too - traditional consumers (mainstream TV channels, regular cinema goers), mainstream consumers (mainstream channels, less frequent cinema goers), and innovative (networked) consumers (also using other media, and especially the Internet, to access cinema content).

Copenhagen.
I've made the trip to Ballerup again for the second day of COST298 (my last - tomorrow I've got to travel back to Germany). We begin with Ike Picone, whose interest is in user motivations for participation in produsing the news. Ike begins by extending the produsage model to a two-dimensional structure (from production to usage, and from passive to active; 'old media' are therefore largely passive and comsumptive, while many Web media forms also remain consumptive, but are more active (passive and active could also be translated here into 'lean back' and 'lean forward', then).

Copenhagen.
The final speaker at COST298 is Peter Mechant, who draws our attention to the different modes of participation in social networking, and begins by showing a number of existing approaches to understanding these different participatory modes. Interactivity can also be divided in user-to-user, user-to-document, and user-to-system interaction, and each of these forms of interaction can be further subcategorised (e.g. can documents only be accessed, or can users add information; indeed, can document creators specify the range of interactions which they wish to allow).

Copenhagen.
Lene Sørensen is up next at COST298, presenting on user demands for the next generation of social networking sites. Social networking is a very widespread activity now, and takes place across a large number of sites; it is no longer the domain of young users or a space for private activities only. Social network users engage in creative activities, and in self-management in relation to activities.

A number of further developments (towards Web 3.0 and Web 4.0) have already been foreshadowed by various authors - but what is it that actual users are interested in? To establish answers to such questions is non-trivial; for the most part, user expectations are limited by their knowledge of what is possible using existing information technology. Developers, too, operate mainly on their best guess of what additional features users may want.