Andrejevic’s article talked about social network exploitation. Given immensely popular social networks and many anecdotal success stories from using social network as career makers or investor recruiting tools, social media presence is becoming a new norm for current digital age. While communications and information exchanges become more intuitive and human oriented, the boundaries between exploitation of information and sharing of contents is becoming blurry. Even worse, business worlds’ active usages on employees and customers recruitments nearly reached the point to jeopardize individual privacy. On the one hand, employers’ oversight on internal communications was never a new thing. Old wisdom prevail on employment common senses that you would better not send out your resume electronically and spend time on phone interviews at your office during the office hour because THEY can hear you and your priority of receiving pink slip would likely bump up (way up). Hence, it may not be surprising to see companies’ use of the same logic on employees’ social media usage. However, use of social media still relies on individual socialiability within privately operated infrastructure like Facebook. Hence, the separation between digital personal lives and employment should be honored with the only exception of employments that companies generate revenues from social media presence and network reach. On the other hand, such use of collected personal data by the infrastructure offering firms like Facebook cannot be qualified as exploitation because they use the voluntarily provided information that users agreed upon account creations. Although some may argue that many social media companies abuse such voluntarily provided customer information, we still need to acknowledge that any service is associated with cost, and in the case of social media companies, user-created contents are their source of incomes.

Such clashes are also extended into media sphere. Come to think of it, I was also one of content producers, although nobody actually saw my contents. When I was a kid, I used to take supposedly artistic pictures, and scribbled some weird stories. I surely lived mixed cassette tape era with my productions of romantic-mood enhancing song lists. Unlike myself, as Justin Bieber got his break from YouTube videos, social media opened up new paths where ones with talents can make their way into professional realms while established industries started to see that some wannabes are invading their turfs. In this sense, social media is disruptive and innovative.

Thus, as Jenkins elaborated, in the era of social media and higher accessibility of consumer-oriented technologies, consumer-generated contents will not disappear. Although Banks and Humphreys (2008) mentioned clashes between professionals and common users over content creations, I highly doubt that user-creations will entirely take over the realm of professionals because only few actually has talents and passions while common users often have more of passions than talents. Regardless how visible and how many user generated contents appear to dominate media sphere, in the end, only good stuffs will survive.

I’ve just been waiting for a change to bring blacksmithing back into the class discussion.  Thanks Banks and Humphreys for the opportunity.  When I began doing ornamental iron work professionally, I did it because I liked the work (which I was doing as an unpaid hobby) and I found people willing to pay me to do what I liked.  When the customer gave me some creative license and flexibility, I seldom charged for all the hours I would put into a project.  Was their exploitation involved?  If so, who exploited whom?  I got paid (even if below market value) to do what I would do for free.

Generally, I am not much of a pc game player, but I did play Oblivion in a few of its incarnations (Morrowind, Elder Scrolls, Skyrim).  The game had a large community of followers, so for the last version, Skyrim, the producers included instructions and platform for mod building where players could change the game, design elements, user interface and other things.  Not surprisingly, the first mods were to revamp female characters to be more attractive and less clothed, but whatever.  Many of these mods were practical and improved game play, some were just really funny.  Before too long, the producers were even recommending certain mods.  The game’s “mod-ability” became a selling point and was touted by reviews in gaming magazines.  The company certainly benefited from user created content.  Some of the mods achieve usage rate of 90% of gamers, but even with millions of people using mods created and distributed for free, I don’t think the creators felt exploited.

There is a very interesting book called Drive by Daniel Pink about motivation.  It looks at projects like Wikipedia vs. Encarta to show how personal interest and investment can be more powerful than material reward.  His argument undermines the capitalist/Marxist perspective on social and cultural construction. Absolutely worth a read: http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353002980&sr=1-1&keywords=drive

I appreciated the perspective provided by Banks and Humphreys and agree with their statement, “Such stark oppositions are not all that helpful when mapping these relationships” (403).  Binary modes of thinking in terms of corporate/consumer frames does little to increase understanding of changing media usage and forcing explanations into such frames may ultimately blind researchers to the broader implications.

Similarly, I though Jenkins highlights a salient point.  While corporations may have more legal power, the consumers ultimately have the economic power.  Pissing off your fans is never good business sense.   Media companies that remain relevant and profitable are those that will effectively negotiate a balance between their commercial interests and the fan’s creative interests by finding means of mutual benefit.

On the other hand, Adrejevic (a very communist name) presents a very different argument.  I would like to point out that an article of the same title Social Network Exploitation could be written about the hard working men and women who create, invest in, and maintain social networks sites.  These sites are provided at no direct cost to the use and clearly have some value to more than a billion people, yet their creators are criticized for making money off of their efforts.  How dare they?  Adrejevic envisions a social network platform created and maintained by happy elven magic and powered by clean burning unicorn farts.  Let me know how that works out.

Banks and Humphrey’s article “The Labour of Co-Creators” discussed the use of the term “labour” in the context of commercial and non-commercial social networks and markets, and particularly in the Auran case study Trainz. They ask, “At what points do the actors themselves start to deploy the rhetoric and discourses of labour and work? How do these discourses contribute to the construction and meanings of these co-creation relations?” (403). The purpose of this study is to expand the research on the economic benefits of social capital.

It’s interesting for sure to think about not only the willingness but the eagerness in which a public will contribute to a company without necessarily being rewarded by it. This study does reveal that fans contributed to receive something in return in a few different ways: “Many of the fan creators were attracted to the content creators program by Auran’s promise that they would enjoy early access to builds of Trainz and, more importantly, to direct support from members of the Trainz development team. They also viewed it as an opportunity to provide feedback to the development team that may then influence the design of future versions of Trainz. The creators who were pursuing commercialization of their content also viewed it as a valuable promotional opportunity” (409). However, such compensation isn’t guaranteed, and it seems like building a game takes a lot of work on the chance that one may be rewarded for it.

While I understand the purpose of this study—to analyze co-creation, audience participation, social/corporate capital, and the exploitation of an audience all in the context of new media—I wonder if the implications of the study are limited to the circumstance in which this study was realized. Can we see the results of evaluating audience feedback, its ambition to participate, and a company that invites audience participation in other scenarios, or are the implications generated by this study strictly confined to the conditions by which the study took place?

I would like to see a survey study in which many different kinds of companies are examined and tested to see if the same results of the Trainz experiment are found to be true. My thought is that only a select number of companies lend themselves to the conditions necessary to financially benefit an organization if those benefits are based on user participation. In other words, I think there are only so many kinds of companies that can exploit their audience, and the implications of this study should only be viewed in the context of this study. What we might ultimately gain from this study is general principles that reinforce theories about audience participation and social/corporate capital.

The results of the study, to me, are based on a few factors that separate this company and the ability to exploit its audience from other companies: 1) some products are more suited to audience participation and co-creation, 2) some products have a certain kind of fan base that is more apt to participate, 3) the audience must have the means and tools to participate. (e.g. it’s much easier for gamers to participate than fans of companies devoted to medical advancements).

The nerds who work for Google have innovated the company beyond what they’re paid for because they are contracted nerds. They add to the company in ways they aren’t expected to. Also, fans who are able to engage with a product is different than fans who are the recipients of a product. It is the difference between reacting to a product and acting upon a product. Products like energy drinks don’t avail themselves to audience engagement like video games do. You “plug yourself in” to video games (how far can you plug yourself into a Red Bull?). Ultimately, I’d like to see a study that surveys products, fans, and companies and the different levels of participation and exploitation.

Chapter 15 of The Social Media Reader discussed how fans of Star Wars often want to create their own “products” using the characters, plots, music and or other material from the famous movies. However, how should the individuals owning the rights to Star Wars and other brands feel about this? Although people want to create, should they be free to do as they please? The chapter pointed out how new technologies are making it possible for fans to create effects that rival those used in the original films, which may cause some confusion as to what are official Star Wars products. I can see both sides of the debate. You would like your fans to feel connected and free to be creative, but you would also like to keep control of where they take your original ideas. I also thought the chapter made a good point when it discussed legal reasons for maintaining control over fan productions. For instance, if the Star Wars Franchise did not claim to have the rights to material that has been created from their products, what would happen if one of their official products appeared to go in a direction similar to one that a fan proposed? Would they be sued?

Chapter 4 from A Networked Self dealt with the idea of “free” online labor. This chapter discussed how corporations can benefit from the free work we do online, and whether or not this is a form of exploitation. For instance, it is possible for corporations to benefit from the online social networks that employees have built up. The individuals that make up these networks may be viewed as potential customers or even as potential hires. But what if companies started demanding access to one’s social network as a job requirement? What if the size and value of an individual’s network played a role in whether or not he obtained employment at a particular firm? These are all interesting questions that the chapter asked. The chapter also went on to point out, from the viewpoint of the authors, two important aspects of exploitation. These are coercion and control. That is, are individuals forced into doing this free work, and do they lose control of what they produce?

The Banks and Humphreys (2008) article asked the question of whether or not individuals are being tricked into doing free work for a global media industry. However, the article made reference to the fact that this free work we often provide is often enjoyable. This reminded me of Tom Sawyer attempting to trick kids into painting a fence for him by pretending that the work was fun. Who knew that it could actually be fun? This article made some very good distinctions between individuals who co-produced for economic gain, and those who just co-produced for social benefits. It was somewhat interesting when the paper discussed how placing a dollar value on co-production can sometimes take the fun out of doing the work.

The article was also good to point out some of the risks involved for companies who attempt to use user generated work. For instance, work that is outsourced to individuals may not coincide well with corporate schedules. If the work gets too demanding, these individuals may simply leave the project. After all, it may just be a hobby for them.

References:

Banks, J., & Humphreys, S. (2008). The labour of user co-creators: Emergent social network markets? Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 14, 401-418.

Mandiberg, M. (Ed.) (2012). The Social Media Reader. New York: NYU Press.

Papacharissi, Z. (Ed.). (2010). A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites. New York: Routledge.

Hell yea. Star Wars chapter, and only two weeks after Lucasfilm was sold to Disney. How timely. This week’s readings act as a natural extension of our readings from last week and our discussion, particularly concerning the Beyonce fan video which feeds directly into Jenkins’ consideration of “grassroots” contributions to culture. The notion that fan culture is suddenly highly visible due to technology has forced corporations to mull over what it means for their business to have a bunch of consumers contributing content. The big question asked by all three articles this week is whether this helps or hurts the situation. Does this result in exploitation or innovation? I’m inclined to support the innovation standpoint myself. Jenkins defines “interactivity” as controlled by a designer and “participation” as controlled by the consumers. Companies can either be “prohibitionists” (against) or “collaborationists” (supportive) toward the notion of consumer participation. By mentioning a bunch of Star Wars fan videos that I need to view immediately, Jenkins brings up the notion of “folk culture” and how, as filmmakers like Lucas borrowed from mythology and Walt Disney borrowed from the Brothers Grimm, creators of fan content borrow from mass culture as a wellspring shareable stories and anecdotes.

Then come limitations. Reading about the restrictions by Lucasfilm on fan fiction are humorous: no erotica or story deviations from the already established PG universe. I am curious what kind of compromising situations these fans had my beloved characters in?! But the most interesting response to restrictions arose concerning the Star Wars Galaxies game. When the company changed the rules of the game and ignored the contributions of fans, the fans became disenchanted and many left. A similar negative response was charted in the Banks and Humphreys article concerning Auran Trainz. When fan content creators, who were essential participants and co-creators of a gaming community, began to feel the increasingly rigid, deadline oriented structure of work, the community vibe soured. The question of exploitation comes up in Andrejevic article as he discusses the method of trolling Facebook for employees because, ya know, people with a lot of friends have a huge network to access. The social network as a privatized “social factory” is an interesting (and depressing) way of viewing the website, I must say. But in the end, I still think that despite our efforts as co-creators in the online spaces we inhabit, there is more benefit in being connected, accessible and potentially exploited to a degree. Even if consumers end up laboring in a certain sense for little or no immediate reward, there is the point made by Banks and Humphreys that skills learned while contributing to websites, gaming forums and fan zones can serve individuals for future work and involvement in technological innovations. Then there is the purified joy of sharing humorous versions of our favorite mass media culture. Bring on the remixes.

http://now.msn.com/skydiving-cats-star-in-commercial-for-swedish-insurance-company-folksam