Tag Archives: user-generated content

Comments welcome? News sites and user comments

  By netcrit | February 7, 2012 - 17:06 | Think
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This post is prompted by a discussion recently with a journalist from the excellent ABC program Media Watch about the problems caused potentially by websites (specifically news-oriented sites) that allow users to comment on stories. At issue here, in particular, is the commentary (if one can call it that) to be found at Yahoo! news in Australia. The story went to air this week (“Not all things good in moderation“) An example not covered by Media Watch is the recent report of the arrest of a man in NSW alleged to have trafficked women for sex. The comments are revealing. One asserts “Thats why these young Thai and Philipino women come here for. They work in brothels while they await some old, dirty, fat, red neck Aussie man to marry them. You see them together everywhere, these girls are young enough to be there daughters or granddaughters. Its disgusting.”. While one reply corrects the poster, pointing out that the women had no choice, another is simply insulting “Aussie men marry Asian women because they are a much better alternative than bitter twisted hags like you”. None of the comments materially add to the debate except insofar as they reveal the … Click to read more →

We all need to care for the Internet

  By netcrit | September 29, 2010 - 10:40 | Speak
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I argue, or at least declaim, that we should care for the Internet by contributing to its information stores (and more), so as to sustain it from becoming overwhelmed by self-referentinal ‘me-media’ or colonised by mass media. Of course, these two things will continue to happen (and are not, of themselves, bad) – it’s just that, as I explain, originating, recreating, amplifying and extending online content, is also necessary. I briefly analyse Wikipedia as a model for individual collaborative parallelism; give a few examples of what people can do; and conclude that caring for the Internet is actuall about “connections between people based on the generosity of spirit with which we give freely of ourselves”. Click to read more →

Identity and the Internet: towards the Content-Generated User

  By netcrit | October 10, 2009 - 01:07 | Think
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Meditations sparked by AoIR conference session on State of Internet Studies panel (part of Internet: Critical, IR 10.0). Ess sums up the shift in thinking about identity (echoed by Consalvo): identity play, postmodern, end of meatspace in 1990s – it’s now clear that research into the Internet dominated by the Internet in Everyday Life paradigm. Consalvo comments neatly that educational uses of 2nd Life, etc, started with ‘let’s re-present the classroom – chairs, lecterns etc – in 2nd Life’ but now is considering the manner in which the alternatives (flying, etc) can become educationally useful. So there is something going on in our thinking about, and using the Internet, where we try to mirror ‘real life’ (and thereby define ‘real life’ by saying the Internet isn’t real life but simulates it), or we go through the mirror into a different, twisted place. Current dominant research and analysis probably rejects both of these alternatives, and yet do people using the Internet think as we do? Linking back to Buchanan’s comments on research ethics: agency of participants in research is crucial; and agency links to identity. Thinking… Discussions of user-generated content (UGC) construct the user in ways that assume a more traditional, … Click to read more →