The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life:
From Mass Consumption to Mass Cultural Production?
Manovich
The explosion of usercreated media content on the web has unleashed a new media
universe. On a practical level, this universe was made possible by free web
platforms and inexpensive software tools that enable people to share their
media and easily access media produced by others. We have moved from
media to social media.
What does this shift mean for how media functions and for the terms we use
to talk about media? What do trends in web use mean for culture in general
and for professional art in particular?
Today social media is often discussed in relation to another term, web 2.0:
1) Shift from small group of professional producers TO content produced
by nonprofessional users. That doesn’t mean that every user has become a
producer or that every user consumes mostly amateur material.
2) Shift from a publishing medium TO a social communication medium.
The numbers of people participating in some way in social networks are
indeed supported by statistics and are astonishing.
Further, in commercial media sites we have seen a fundamental shift in
cultural consumption, referred to as the longtail phenomenon. Not only the
socalled Top 40 sites but most of the content available online—including
content produced by amateurs—finds an audience. This translates into a new
economics of media.
Clearly, in the 2000s we are going through a fundamental shift in modern
media culture. So what does media mean after web 2.0?
From Mass Consumption to Mass Cultural Production?
Manovich
The explosion of usercreated media content on the web has unleashed a new media
universe. On a practical level, this universe was made possible by free web
platforms and inexpensive software tools that enable people to share their
media and easily access media produced by others. We have moved from
media to social media.
What does this shift mean for how media functions and for the terms we use
to talk about media? What do trends in web use mean for culture in general
and for professional art in particular?
Today social media is often discussed in relation to another term, web 2.0:
1) Shift from small group of professional producers TO content produced
by nonprofessional users. That doesn’t mean that every user has become a
producer or that every user consumes mostly amateur material.
2) Shift from a publishing medium TO a social communication medium.
The numbers of people participating in some way in social networks are
indeed supported by statistics and are astonishing.
Further, in commercial media sites we have seen a fundamental shift in
cultural consumption, referred to as the longtail phenomenon. Not only the
socalled Top 40 sites but most of the content available online—including
content produced by amateurs—finds an audience. This translates into a new
economics of media.
Clearly, in the 2000s we are going through a fundamental shift in modern
media culture. So what does media mean after web 2.0?
