Introduction

Discussing the development of long-distance communication technologies at the turn of the

twentieth century, sociologist Paul Starr postulated a link between patterns of governance and
modes of public address facilitated by various media. Glibly, he contrasted the United States’
investment in telephone infrastructure with the Soviet Union’s push for “another new
technology – the loudspeaker,” conflating the political ideologies and concomitant
technological mythologies surrounding new media into a single issue.1 Roughly one hundred
years removed, we find that popular “democratic” media such as newspapers, radio, and
television surprisingly resemble loudspeakers, obscuring diversity, discouraging dissent, and
substituting passive entertainment for conversation and community.

In a sense agreeing with Starr’s suggestion that media forms contain implicit ideologies and
may lend themselves to particular forms of communicative interaction, scholars such as Cass
Sunstein, Allucquère Stone, Mark Taylor, and others suggest that technological developments
have the potential to reconfigure hierarchical producer / consumer relationships by inviting
audiences into the media creation process. This essay situates a new set of technologies
collectively called “Web 2.0” in a historical context, explores associated utopian and dystopian
narratives, provides a theoretical framework for analyzing the convergence of sociology and
technology, and offers a practical assessment of the democratic implications of participatory
online communities through a case study of Newsvine.com.

The Rise of Web 2.0: “One Man’s Dream…”

Prior to entering this discussion, a brief history of the rise, fall, and resurrection of the notion
of the web-as-democratic-space will be helpful. Following the debut of the “World Wide
Web” in 1990, many suggested that the Internet had the potential to vivify the nation’s
dormant public culture, promising an electronic world in which all can maintain a private
space, offer perspectives, and converse or debate with like-minded others at very little cost.
Looking toward Y2K with extreme anxiety, it seemed unlikely that the “dot-com crash” would

1
On The Media, 2004.
result from poor investment practices rather than the much-hyped technical error. Yet as the
virtual economy crumbled in the fourth quarter of 2001 along with hopes for the web as a
stable community space, a new Internet was rising from the ashes.2 Sensing fertile soil
following the failure of its predecessor, “Web 2.0” took root and began to grow.

Web 2.0 can be understood as an emerging phenomenon that is as much a new technology as
it is a computing paradigm, lifestyle, ideology, and even epistemology. Unlike the old
Internet, Web 2.0 promises organic content, distributed processing and interaction, and
converging media formats. Within this conceptual framework, “the Internet” is no longer a
media delivery system by which individual users (as “consumers”) request content from large,
centralized corporate servers. Instead, Web 2.0 operates as an interdependent grassroots
community of individuals, organizations, and sites whose relevance and authority are
established through interaction and participation – in short, a quintessentially human +
network. Freelance writer and blogger Kevin Kelly describes the phenomenon as a way to
extend his

“…passion to a far wider group for no extra cost or effort. In this way, my site is part of a…visible
underground of valuable creations - text, music, film, software, tools, and services - all given away for
free. This gift economy fuels an abundance of choices…It permits easy modification and reuse, and thus
promotes consumers into producers.” 3

Kelly and other “technologists” envision Web 2.0 as a virtual space in a perpetual state of
emergence, continually reshaping itself as users publish text and multimedia content,
comment upon others’ work, and celebrate contributions, collectively crafting a new public
culture.

“…is another man’s nightmare.”

However, this sentiment is far from universal. Traditional media outlets are recognizing the
dualistic potential and concomitant threat of Web 2.0. In December 2006, Time Magazine

2
Fittingly, the Mozilla Foundation released Phoenix, the forerunner to Firefox and later, Flock (the de facto
browsers of Web 2.0) shortly following the “dot-com crash” in 2002.
3
Wired Magazine, August 2005 (emphasis mine). Kevin’s blog is located at http://www.kk.org.
named “You” the person of the year, referring to the unprecedented proliferation of citizen
media. The article also remarked that citizen journalists are at times “beating the pros” and
even competing for audiences.4 Others have suggested that Web 2.0 may usher in the
apocalypse, fearing the challenges it poses to (neo-)traditional epistemologies, economies, and
lifestyles. By presenting compendia of folk knowledge such as Wikipedia and Squidoo as
authoritative works, the participatory Internet has the potential to undermine institutionally-
validated scholarship. Emerging peer-to-peer file distribution systems such as BitTorrent and
Gnutella threaten the business models of media giants by wresting the control of distribution
networks from studios. Perhaps most harrowing, others fear the growing technological
dependence and perceived need for constant connection created by media convergence. By
“liberating” the body from the office, a vast array of gadgets such as notebook PCs,
Blackberries, and mobile networks enable employees to “stay in touch” anywhere at any time,
transforming all places into workplaces.

This phenomenon is not particularly new – new media and new technologies are often
accompanied by a host of utopian and dystopian narratives, rarely delivering upon either
promise. Writing in 1932, Bertolt Brecht celebrated the technological triumph of radio as a
form of mass communication. However, Brecht envisioned a higher purpose for the
technology, suggesting that it could be the “finest possible communication apparatus in public
life…if it knew…how to let the listener speak as well as hear.”5 The capacity to bring distant
individuals into conversation and community surrounding a common text evoked dreams of a
truly democratic medium by which listeners could speak back. That same year, Aldous
Huxley published Brave New World in which he speculated that unprecedented advances in
technology and production would give birth to a global technocracy promising “COMMUNITY,
IDENTITY, [and] STABILITY” by sacrificing democracy, freedom, and humanity.6 This
phenomenon has repeated itself many times since, following the debut of electronic
computing, personal microcomputers, global data networks, ubiquitous wireless
communication, and in-home high speed internet connections. Though each of these have

4
Grossman, Lev. “Time’s Person of the Year: You.” Time Magazine, 12/13/2006.
5
Brecht, Bertolt. “The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication” (1932).
6
Page 3.
introduced new modalities and paradigms for communication and cultural interaction, they
have failed to deliver upon their promises of a blissful technotopia or hellish nightmare.
Instead, we find ourselves in a world that is merely different.

Such speculation assumes that the ability to virtualize information as well as bodies and to
convey them across time and space will irrevocably revolutionize the manner in which we live
and interact with one another. We would do well to question the proclamations of
technophila and neo-Luddism, both of which speak proud words that overlook the complex
process of niche-seeking and market development. For new media generally supplement rather
than supplant old ones – at the moment, I am within an arm’s reach of a newspaper, telephone,
and radio, all of which debuted over a century ago. Despite its best efforts, my personal
computer has eliminated none of them. Suddenly, the grand récit of Web 2.0 as the catalyst of
unfettered democracy seems a bit petit. Perhaps ironically, Web 2.0’s obsession with emerging
niche communities and markets (called “the long tail”)7 may be its greatest contribution to the
public sphere.

From “Culture Consumption” to “Cooperative Production”

Having established the dual extrema of hope and dread surrounding new media in a historical
context, we are free to explore the tension that lies in between at present. New technologies
have certainly touched all areas of Western life, rendering porous traditional boundaries such
as public / private,8 citizen / consumer,9 work / home, and even self / other.10 Media such as
newspapers, radio, and television have also altered patterns of distribution and reception. The
possibility of disconnected individuals spanning thousands of miles to simultaneously
experience a single media text united a nation as an audience, rooting the experience of viewing
media within a paradigm of consumption. In this manner, Jürgen Habermas suggests that “the

7
The “long tail” is a marketing term referring to an asymptotic graph in which the
target niche lies in “tail” section that gradually approaches zero, rather than the rich
but crowded market space near the y-axis (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons).
8
See Mark C. Taylor’s discussion of the television as a device transforming the living
room from a private family space into a site of consumption in Hiding.
9
Gary Cross offers a brilliant extended treatment of the rise of consumerism in An All-Consuming Century.
10
See Allucquère Stone’s work on virtualized selfhood in The War of Desire and Technology.
public sphere…was replaced by the pseudo-public…world of culture-consumption.”11
Recapitulating the Brechtian lament, Habermas suggests that the difficulty of facilitating
meaningful conversation regarding cultural artifacts broadcast via unidirectional media and
the relative ease of passive, individual enjoyment has produced a public that consumes
“culture” as a commodity. Though the public is certainly complicit in this shift, Habermas’
critique is empowering, for the capacity to capitulate implies that resistance, too, is possible.

Woven into the very fabric of Web 2.0, the imperatives of cultural production, “gift”
economics, and unlimited distribution potential have important implications for public
culture. The fact that sophisticated, easy-to-use multimedia production tools are available to
the public at very low cost can no longer be overlooked. Creating new media and new media
outlets, citizens are “taking back culture” from “big media” by creating their own, opening up
new discursive spaces in the process. The ideology is gaining traction as well; citizen
journalists are writing with the explicit intent of resuscitating civil society. An e-mail invitation
to a May 2007 conference on new media and society crystallizes this optimism (as re-posted by
an attendee): “the emergence of web 2.0 offers an opportunity to revive the idealism of a
decade ago...we can envisage web 2.0 encouraging a rich and constructive 'us and us' dialogue
in which citizens deliberate, innovate and act together [sic].”12 Promising speakers such as Cass
Sunstein and Adam Chadwick, the resurrected dreams for the Internet are drawing significant
academic attention. Nonetheless, relatively little scholarship has focused upon the theoretical
convergence of technology and society within the context of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 as a Human + Network

I suggest that Web 2.0 can be understood as an organic sociological process recreating itself in
a technological realm, rendering such categorical distinctions porous and ultimately
untenable. Within this realm, clusters of web and database servers function in tandem to
power web applications used by humans as well as other web applications. By processing
information using grids of inexpensive servers rather than a few prohibitively expensive

11
Page 161.
12
Wilcox, David (emphasis mine). Designing for Civil Society, March 2007. This weblog is an excellent resource
for anyone studying the interaction between emerging media formats and public culture.
mainframes, system administrators increase the reliability of the network by distributing
processing tasks across multiple interdependent nodes, a number of which could fail before
adversely affecting the network as a whole. This method of distributing power, authority, and
responsibility among bodies should sound familiar.

As individuals and robots cooperatively produce content and establish hyperlinks between
items as well as relationships with one another, the complexity of the network increases. In
the same manner that no single individual can consume (or “process”) all content items
published on the network (unlike a local newspaper), no single server can “understand” or
contain the totality of relationships and interactions that occur. Consisting of an endless web
of interfaces facilitating interaction between humans and machines, humans and humans,
machines and machines, and even machines and humans, Web 2.0 complicates distinctions
between the technological and social, deprecating these categories in the process.13 As Mark C.
Taylor suggests, “this transfiguration of the material and immaterial infinitely extends
processes through which reality is virtualized and virtuality is realized.”14 The network is no
longer a cold technological “medium” to be used for communicating information, but rather
the livable, inhabitable, relational space from which culture emerges.

When this biomechanical mode of interaction is refigured in political terms, the result is
strikingly democratic. With the majority of content produced by users volunteering their time
rather than professional authors and developers, Web 2.0 facilitates a participatory culture in
which members understand the discussion, commentary, and engagement of other’s
contributions as a civic duty. Though individuals maintain a variety of perspectives,
consensus tends to emerge through dialogue as communities formulate opinions often guided
by and even referring to previous events and discussions occurring in the given forum. By
transforming “cultural consumption” into an interactive event uniting author and audience,
Web 2.0 encourages individuals to comment upon others’ work or produce a piece of their
own rather than “getting their fill,” changing the channel, and grumbling about “the media.”

13
I use the word “deprecate” in the technological sense, meaning “to render obsolete” or “to mark for deletion,”
though the conventional pejorative use of the term is equally applicable.
14
Page 324.
Cooperative Newsmaking: Newsvine.com
We move now to a case study, a sustained examination of the content and culture of the
popular Web 2.0 current events community Newsvine.com. Based in Seattle, Newsvine, Inc.
launched in March 2006 and has gathered an audience of 90,000 monthly visitors.15 The site
synthesizes Associated Press articles and images, citizen journalism, and user-submitted links
called “seeds.” Content displayed on the front page is ordered by the number of votes
received and comments left, though AP headlines appeared above their organic counterparts
until a redesign of the front page launched on April 24, 2007. Individuals who publish articles
on the site are compensated with a portion of the advertising revenue earned from a banner
appearing atop the page. The site facilitates engagement and conversation by placing a public
discussion section below each article in which visitors can comment, vote for others’
comments, reply in threaded conversations, and report abuse. These conversations are tracked
via a widget at the top of each page, offering notifications of replies to foster further dialogue.16

Within the context of media and public culture, Newsvine is unique in that the site envisions
itself as a news community rather than as a media outlet. Instead of delivering “shrink-
wrapped news items” to passive viewers, members are invited to participate in the news-
making process, collectively deciding both what is newsworthy and how events are portrayed.
Community-generated content is arguably the site’s most valuable asset. Prior to April 24,
2007, Newsvine placed AP stories above all others. The site recently re-arranged the totem-
like right column, placing the “Top Seeds” and “Newsvine Columnists” modules atop AP
content in its default configuration, requiring most users to scroll to view “traditional” news
items. As such, Newsvine now privileges organic newsmaking and discussion over
professional journalism.

The site’s deconstruction of the hierarchical author / audience relationship is significant. The
success of Newsvine is entirely contingent upon an engaged community respectfully making,

15
Statistics provided by Compete.com (3/2006 – 3/2007).
16
For a brief introduction, visit http://newsvine.com/_cms/welcome for a well-designed sixty second tour or see
the Wikipedia article (an authoritative source in this realm) for a more thorough description of features at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsvine>.
discussing, and debating news items. Proudly throwing caution to the wind with its official
“No Editors!” policy, Newsvine entrusts the task of interpretation to the hive mind of its
community rather than professional journalists. Though not all visitors are expected to
contribute and comment, user participation sets current events to a beat by offering a diverse
set of perspectives on a variety of issues. Spurning standardized authoritative content in favor
of folk knowledge,17 topics fluctuate, colloquialisms flourish, and unlikely content emerges.
Despite the pleasing diversity, community-based sites such as this must also contend with
matters such as poor writing, factual errors, abuse, plagiarism, rude behavior, and defacement.

Surprisingly, the experiment appears to be working. Rather than seizing the opportunity to
promote articles featuring reductionist perspectives and quick entertainment, this case
suggests that participants in an unregulated cultural forum perpetually in a chaotic state of
ephemeral emergence can in fact produce healthy reporting and conversation surrounding
meaningful public issues. Though the site is only a year old, it has grown from a handful of
users to reach a wide audience and is scaling well. As such, it is conceivable that sociological
research concerning civic involvement in physical communities may apply to their virtual
counterparts. Given the opportunity to participate in meaningful interaction and conversation,
electronic communities can successfully cultivate a collective identity, standards of conduct,
and an interdependent network of members strengthened by each article, comment, and vote.
This point warrants further research.

Newsvine’s independent writers have posed a formidable challenge to mainstream news

sources. The combination of the Internet’s immediate accessibility and lack of a formal
editorial process has allowed citizen journalists to deliver minute-by-minute coverage of
unfolding events. Newsvine has featured work from writers embedded in Kabul, hopeful
world-changers chronicling their political campaigns, and live reporting during the recent
tragedy at Virginia Tech. Blacksburg, VA resident and Newsvine user “Killfile” broke the

17
I use this term in its most benevolent sense, celebrating the deconstruction of the authority of knowledge by
allowing all who will the opportunity to contribute.
news of the shooting at least twenty-two minutes before the first AP coverage hit the wire.18
Synthesizing reports from police scanners, phone calls, instant messages, eye-witness
accounts, and several television stations, he provided an astonishing thirty-five updates within
three hours. Killfile did the same for a follow-up piece entitled “The Aftermath,” resulting in
eleven additional updates. When first published, both articles contained unverified accounts
and factual errors, rectified by striking inaccurate portions and appending clarifications as
better information became available. Collectively, both articles produced eighty-two pages of
conversation and discussion.

The Newsvine community has been remarkably successful in extending its efficacy beyond the
web site. While the virtualization of the discussion and deliberation process renders collective
action difficult, it certainly does not preclude it. On April 8, user “JamesJones” published an
article entitled “A Call for Political Action: Why We Should Stop Bashing Bush and Turn Our
Energies Elsewhere” that drew 67 comments.19 Replying to his manifesto, several users
suggested pathways for involvement in local progressive organizations, registered to receive
legislative updates from policy analysts, and encouraged JamesJones to facilitate further
conversation and action by creating and leading a Newsvine Group despite being relatively
new to the site. By mobilizing as a virtual community, nominating leadership, and acting at
the local level as individuals, the site enables users in distributed geographic locations to
establish an informal writing collective geared toward developing creative, meaningful, local
responses to pressing democratic issues.

Web 2.0 as Strong Democracy

Cases such as Newsvine reinforce Benjamin Barber’s notion of “strong democracy” while
posing several challenges. Discussion on this site can be understood as strong democratic talk,
which Barber characterizes as a “never-ending process of deliberation, decision, and action.”20

18
See <http://killfile.newsvine.com/_news/2007/04/16/666369-shootings-on-virginia-techs-campus-at-least-33-dead> and
<http://killfile.newsvine.com/_news/2007/04/17/668114-the-aftermath-updates-from-blacksburg> for Killfile’s reporting.
19
See the article and resulting commentary here:
<http://jamesjones.newsvine.com/_news/2007/04/08/653658-a-call-for-political-action>
20
Page 151.
Articles warranting discussion rise to the front page, drawing community members to begin
offering their thoughts and engaging one another in conversation and deliberation. As the
dialogue unfolds, consensus emerges or lines are drawn between opposing parties. I do not
mean to suggest that all comments published on the site are productive, of course. Users
occasionally antagonize one another just as individuals do in face-to-face conversation.
However, this is discouraged; once the conflict passes, productive dialogue tends to resume.
Though not all articles are “actionable,” several discussions on the site have resulted in
members engaging in cooperative work (such as JamesJones’ case, mentioned above). This
process has neither a beginning nor an end – long before discussions are exhausted, new
articles rise to the “Top of the Vine,” starting the process once more.

“Talk” (and more broadly, media sharing) can function according to the nine principles
established by Barber within web-based communities. As members express concern for
common interests and share stories with one another, a deeper sense of mutuality and
togetherness emerges while drawing attention to unique diversity, autonomy, and candor
facilitated by the virtual space.21 In the process of articulating interests and goals, participants
hash out an agenda and attempt to persuade others to journey together toward a common end,
though the democratic nature of conversation enables dissenting voices to be heard.22
Particularly productive discussions often result in the formation of web-based “groups”
through the process of conceptualizing and reconceptualizing a communal purpose and
identity (as in the “JamesJones” example). This phenomenon is not unique to Newsvine; it
appears to be occurring in other popular fora such as The Daily Kos, Open Source Theology,
and Slashdot as well.

However, the virtualization of the discussion process criticizes traditional conceptions of

strong democratic talk by suggesting that such conversations need not occur at the local level.
It would seem that carrying out one’s civic duty in a virtual space would ultimately thwart
Barber’s vision of regular town hall meetings. I suggest that web-based discussions can

21
For a heart-warming example, watch the wildly popular YouTube clip “YOUTUBERS” located at
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=VXwarrIYLJ4>.
22
For a creative policy discussion, see the “Birmingham Complainers Choir” and relevant spinoffs located at
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=2w84qzHdEms>.
facilitate the development of cooperative regional and national identities – a task that many
have left to broadcast journalism, primetime television, and big-box retailers in recent years,
all of which operate under the paradigm of consumption. It is reasonable to suggest that the
grassroots cultivation of such identities may significantly transform the political and cultural
landscapes at these levels. Nonetheless, I do agree that virtual communities face difficulty in
uniting users around localities, for within the notion of “virtuality” lies an implicit categorical
rejection of “place.”23

Barber also suggests that democratic discussion should occur in a neutral “civic and public
space” unencumbered by private ownership.24 Habermas calls for the same, contending that
leaving the press “in private hands…threaten[s] the critical functions of publicist
institutions.”25 Though the business of Web 2.0 tends to operate as a “gift economy,” many
sites such as Newsvine are for-profit enterprises relying upon advertising revenue to maintain
operations. These advertisements are easily ignored and can be blocked using freely-available
software, but the issue of ownership poses a problem in that the space is not community-
controlled – rather, its very existence is contingent upon the goodwill and profitability of a
company. Should the company desire to insert more intrusive advertisements, begin charging
for access, modify the site in a way unacceptable to users, or simply cease operations, the
community has little recourse beyond vacating the space and perhaps disbanding entirely.

Finally, some have criticized sites such as Newsvine based on the fact that the majority of visits
consist of requests for content (“reads”) rather than the production thereof (“writes”). This
should not be understood as an embrace of the “consumption” paradigm plaguing traditional
media. Even among prolific authors, virtually all read far more books than they publish. Web
2.0 may enable cultural consumers to become producers, but the technology will only free the
willing. A variant of this critique argues that user-generated content conforms to the “iceberg
model,” suggesting that for every user who writes an article, ten others will never publish

23
It’s worth noting that many state-funded community networks have seen success in facilitating local
discussions online. An Indiana example can be found at <http://www.whitleynet.org>, though participation is
spotty and conversations often lack civility.
24
Page 307.
25
Page 188.
content. This is a valid argument and indeed reflects my viewing habits for many sites. Even
so, I regard the freedom to publish content a necessary and productive step toward meaningful
public engagement. Visible examples of success thus far suggest that there is hope for broader
participation.

Conclusions
Web 2.0 has clearly proven itself a popular medium. A Pew Internet and American Life study
found that nearly 150 million Americans use the Internet regularly,26 while a separate study by
the foundation uncovered 57 million blog readers and 12 million bloggers within the US.27 The
rapid success of organic media communities such as Newsvine, YouTube, Digg, Scribd, and
others suggests that such spaces are not only in demand, but also profitable. Though just a
few years old, the remarkable success of Web 2.0 in generating participatory communities and
productive interaction suggests that the medium may have a remarkable impact upon public
culture in the coming years.

Despite Newsvine’s success in providing pathways for individual action at the local level
among diverse groups of citizens, the site is ultimately united by affinity, for it is a community
designed for users who enjoy following and discussing current events. The same can be said
of most popular Web 2.0 sites – Digg offers technology news and links, YouTube a stream of
amusing videos, and Flickr albums of artful and personal photographs. Generally speaking,
these sites target their audiences based on particular interests or media formats rather than
offering holistic ecosystems encouraging users to interact with one another through multiple
formats. Social networks such as MySpace and Facebook are exceptions in that they do
facilitate multimedia interaction, but have found little success in holding productive political
discussions.

As such, I suggest that Web 2.0’s greatest contribution to the public sphere may be its ability to
enable users to contribute media of any format to any community. Though these virtual spaces

26
Pew Internet and American Life Project. “Reports: Internet Evolution” 4/22/2006.
27
Pew Internet and American Life Project as reported in the New York Times by Felicia R. Lee.
“Study of Blogosphere Finds 12 Million Voices” 06/20/2006.
may be corporately-owned, fragmented, defined by affinity, and disconnected from localities,
the medium encourages users to produce their own content and engage the contributions of
others, socializing a paradigm of media engagement and cooperative production rather than
passive consumption. Ultimately, the profitability of enabling users to publish such content
may work to the advantage of public culture by promoting further technological innovation.
Though skepticism toward corporate interests may be healthy, we would do well to encourage
a symbiotic relationship between privately held cultural fora and the users who populate
them.

Web 2.0 is neither a panacea nor a pariah – it will not save democracy and it will not condemn
us to a technocratic hell. However, the medium has shaped and will continue to shape the
manner in which we conduct our politics, business, leisure, relationships, religion, and lives in
its present form and presumably as it continues to evolve, for better or for worse. Though “the
Internet” has received significant attention from scholars in recent years, much work remains
to be done concerning the emergence of Web 2.0 as a technology, sociology, ideology, and
epistemology. Rather than confining this conversation to scholarly journals, I suggest that it
would productive to open the discussion to the emerging network, for those who power it are
more than willing to engage.28

28
As a tribute, I have published this essay under a Creative Commons license on the document sharing site Scribd
(“Scribed”) at <http://www.scribd.com/people/view/2263>. It is presently available as a PDF, Word
document, and an audiobook and can be easily embedded into a weblog.
Web 2.0 as Strong Democracy
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<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech_pr.html>.

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<http://killfile.newsvine.com/_news/2007/04/16/666369-shootings-on-virginia-techs-campus-at-least-33-dead>.

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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsvine>.

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<http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org/2007/03/free_conference.html>.

“YOUTUBERS.” Published on YouTube.com by “chris166.” September 2006. 20 April 2007

<http://youtube.com/watch?v=VXwarrIYLJ4>.