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capitalism
January 2009 
Interactivity on Their Terms
Posted on Feb 18th, 2008
by 
L'el
L'el
More from my reading assignment (reminds me of the uniqueness of Gaia's willingness to have a conversation about/alter its terms of service).
New telecommunications networks allow ordinary people to communicate with vast numbers of fellow human beings, routing around existing media gatekeepers and offering competing content. People are no longer simply consumers of prepackaged content from mass media companies that are controlled by a limited number of speakers. Instead, people can use the new telecommunications networks to become active participants in the production of public culture.
But the very same technologies that offer these possibilities also offer media companies ever new ways to advertise, sell products, and push their favored content. Thus, just as in the case of intellectual property, businesses that control telecommunications networks will seek to limit forms of participation and cultural innovation that are inconsistent with their economic interests. Once again, the goal is not necessarily censorship of unpopular ideas but rather diversion and co-optation of audience attention. Businesses want to direct the Internet user toward increased consumption of their own goods and services as well as the products of their advertising partners. Recognizing that there is money to be made in advertising, sales, and delivery of content, telecommunications companies do not want to be pure conduits for the speech of others, and they do not want too much content competition from their customers.
Instead, they want to use the architecture of the Internet to nudge their customers into planned communities of consumerist experience, to shelter end users into a world that combines everyday activities of communication seamlessly with consumption and entertainment. In some respects, businesses seek to push consumers back into their pre-Internet roles as relatively passive recipients of mass media content. In other respects, however, they openly encourage interactivity, but interactivity on their terms—the sort of interactivity that facilitates or encourages the purchase of goods and services.
[bold added]
Other types of businesses may be able to get away with this more, but I think there will be more pressure for social networking sites to be more responsive and acknowledge user participation in shaping terms of service (as Gaia has). This has already happened to some degree with those other sites MyBook and FaceSpace, but primarily as isolated incidents regarding specific points (rather than as an ongoing dialogue process). When Google et al. get the open source social network model up and running, that is likely to shift TOS norms toward user interests, and perhaps towards having more user participation in the drafting of such terms. Maybe. Possibly. IMHO.
New telecommunications networks allow ordinary people to communicate with vast numbers of fellow human beings, routing around existing media gatekeepers and offering competing content. People are no longer simply consumers of prepackaged content from mass media companies that are controlled by a limited number of speakers. Instead, people can use the new telecommunications networks to become active participants in the production of public culture.
But the very same technologies that offer these possibilities also offer media companies ever new ways to advertise, sell products, and push their favored content. Thus, just as in the case of intellectual property, businesses that control telecommunications networks will seek to limit forms of participation and cultural innovation that are inconsistent with their economic interests. Once again, the goal is not necessarily censorship of unpopular ideas but rather diversion and co-optation of audience attention. Businesses want to direct the Internet user toward increased consumption of their own goods and services as well as the products of their advertising partners. Recognizing that there is money to be made in advertising, sales, and delivery of content, telecommunications companies do not want to be pure conduits for the speech of others, and they do not want too much content competition from their customers.
Instead, they want to use the architecture of the Internet to nudge their customers into planned communities of consumerist experience, to shelter end users into a world that combines everyday activities of communication seamlessly with consumption and entertainment. In some respects, businesses seek to push consumers back into their pre-Internet roles as relatively passive recipients of mass media content. In other respects, however, they openly encourage interactivity, but interactivity on their terms—the sort of interactivity that facilitates or encourages the purchase of goods and services.
[bold added]
Other types of businesses may be able to get away with this more, but I think there will be more pressure for social networking sites to be more responsive and acknowledge user participation in shaping terms of service (as Gaia has). This has already happened to some degree with those other sites MyBook and FaceSpace, but primarily as isolated incidents regarding specific points (rather than as an ongoing dialogue process). When Google et al. get the open source social network model up and running, that is likely to shift TOS norms toward user interests, and perhaps towards having more user participation in the drafting of such terms. Maybe. Possibly. IMHO.
Access: Public
