Participation, Power& Online Platforms

Laura SteinLstein@mail.utexas.edu

Overview

• Alternative media scholarship/practice• Conceptual tools to examine the conditions of

participation• Hopes/concerns for the future

Alternative Media (Downing)

• Offers alternative to mainstream media• Challenges existing power structures• Represents/empowers marginalized groups• Makes horizontal linkages between

communities of interest• Provides an alternative public forum

Alternative Dimensions

• Content• Aesthetic• Organization• Relationship to Audience/Users• Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times• Paper Tiger Reads Paper Tiger TV

Paper Tiger Reads Paper Tiger Television

Participatory Culture

• Jenkins- digital media consumers actively participate in the creation and circulation of new content (though under unclear rules and conditions of differential power)

• Benkler- radically decentralized, collaborative and nonproprietary ways of organizing production (commons-based peer production)

• Participation fosters empowerment & democracy

Critical Questions:

• Do specific instances of participation challenge or reinforce existing power structures?

• Are opportunities to participate equitably distributed?

• What are the terms and conditions of participation?

• Do governments and markets support or suppress participation?

Exercise (with 5 groups)

• Pick a platform and collectively examine its platform policies [Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, Wikipedia, or Indymedia Portugal].

• Where do these platform policies fall on the ladder of citizen participation? Why?

• Briefly report your findings back to the larger group

Selected Steps on the Ladder• Citizen control- puts citizens in full charge of policy and

management• Delegated power- gives citizens majority of decision-making power• Partnership- lets people negotiate and engage in trade-offs with

power-holders• Placation- people can advise, but power-holders retain right to

judge legitimacy/feasibility of advice• Consultation- people can hear and be heard, but can’t insure

they’re listened to• Informing- people may get necessary information, but the process

is one-way with no opportunity for feedback or negotiation