Van Dijck and Nieborg discussing Forrester’s survey of participation (Groundswell etc):
An interesting detail in these figures is the stratification of income among different types of users: the average income of passive spectators of user-generated content sites is significantly higher than the median income of content creators. In other words, the contingent of spectators and inactives, which is much larger than the 13 percent of actual creators, constitutes an appealing demographic to site owners and advertisers. The active participation and creation of digital content seems to be much less relevant than the crowds they attract: the homogenous term ‘users’ is misleading in that it conceals the difference between active and passive involvement or, put differently, between producers and consumers of user-generated content. Manifestos such as Wikinomics and ‘We-Think’ make one believe that, since every user is an active, creative contributor, the very idea of ‘consumer’ is definitely passé. The term ‘user’ turns out to be a catch-all phrase covering a wide range of behaviour, from merely clicking to blogging and uploading videos. Mass creativity, by and large, is consumptive behaviour by a different name.
- José Van Dijk and David Nieborg, 2009, ‘Wikinomics and its discontents: a critical analysis of Web 2.0 business manifestos’, New Media and Society, 11(5), 855-874.
A popular response to the recognition of this very fact is an attempt to develop continuums, spectrums, and ladders of participation. Such efforts have resulted in some good interrogation of what participation means in the contemporary moment. I can’t help but wonder, however, if a more fruitful path is to avoid trying to group everything under one label, no matter how nuanced, complex, or structured the models are. As Ien Ang wrote once, the challenge with the ratings industry is that it pushes forward a singular proposition of what it means to “watch” television. Even complex models of ‘users’ or ‘participation’ might replicate the same problem.
joshgreen
