Blogtrax

I think I half-promised to do something around social software, and since that’s more than likely to be the organising feature of the up-coming book, it could do with some attention. JG was of the opinion that the label ’social software’ was unhelpful, because many forms of software have a communicative (social) function, and may be used by particular bounded groups and also as work, or at the very least task-orientated affinity spaces. I think I’ve got that right, and it’s a good point to make, because drawing up a boundary may exclude all sorts of interesting stuff and depending on your point of view, that ‘other’ stuff becomes less interesting. Alternatively of course those vibrant and hugely popular tools and communities could simply be dismissed as only being social, being less in some way or another.

In the discourse around online communities the term ’social software’ is of course regularly used (not that that alone invalidates JG’s point), but I was using it in that accepted sense, assuming that people knew what I was on about. I ended up suggesting that it was something to do with community, participation, and low content software - in hindsight I could have said transparent. Transparent because there could not really be a blog at all until someone posted on it.

So I suppose the point of social software is to create a space for participation, for the development of community and that is its sole raison d’etre (irrespective of its particular software history). Isn’t this the essence of the killer MySpace - that has become so hugely popular. If MySpace is about anything, it’s about what people put on MySpace and how their individual stuff inter-relates. From Wikipedia, I got the singularly unhelpful line posing as a definition, suggesting that social software is

the use of two or more modes of computer-mediated communication that result in community formation.

At least that emphasises the importance of communication. Here, though, there’s plenty of ongoing discussion of social software. So much that you can almost abstract what it is from the examples given. On the linked page, for example, one discovers the list meme and that really does seem to pin it down through exemplification. So here goes:

I’m kicking off an informal poll: what are your top five favorite social software services currently in use? I’ll start:

1. (drumroll, please)… Flickr. Shocking, I know.
2. del.icio.us
3. My Web 2.0 — I tend to store everything in My Web 2.0 and only a subset of things to del.icio.us, but I use both frequently to find cool stuff.
4. Memeorandum — when I need news fast, which is all the time, this is what I use.
5. YouTube is emerging as a new favorite. I like that I can so easily embed video on my own blogs.

I’m spending a lot of time again thinking about my blog. I posted before about how fast moving this liquid world is and I was reminded of this talking to Dr J on the phone today. Even the affinity space is changing. Trois Tetes is silent, Mary Plain and Simply Clare have entered the arena. Strange thing I thought I heard their voices, and the geographical information suggested I might know them, but I was reluctant to reach any conclusions. Dr J revealed their true identity and only then did I feel OK about linking them on my blog. There’s something about inclusion in a social network here …that and the overlapping of real and virtual worlds.

Play, not surprisingly, is also on my mind (as a result of the up-coming ESRC series). I’ve been thinking about blog play and message play. The latter seems quite straight forward since it’s an extension or development of informal language games. But, blog play? Well blogs are quite playful…they can be frivolous (but not necessarily), they are boundary-blurring, but also they can be a bit like work, too. Can the blogosphere be seen as a play space? The play

…becomes an experience changing the person who experiences it…For play has its own essence, independent of the conciousness of those who play. Play also exists - indeed properly…where there are no subjects who are behaving ‘playfully’…The players are not the subjects of the play; instead the play merely reaches representation through the player.
(Gadamer, 1982)

OK I am wanting to describe the affiliations we have on the web in our online affinities.
I am planning to write an article on blogging academics for Discourse, (and is this too public to declare that here? Is it dangerous? Or does it help me stake out a space at an early stage?)

And I want to include the idea of power, not just about a lovely, cuddly creative commons, as there is clearly a pecking order, a hierarchy etc etc. I also want something in there about how the coming together of people from a llover the world allows for exciting dynamics and the creation of new cultures online. Do these then impact on our work as researchers?

Nice phrases I am thinking about:

· Third space

· Co construction

· Satellites of temporary coherences

· Cultures of participation

· Affinity spaces

· Communities of Practice

· Emergent/divergent cultures

· Glocalisation

· Glocality

· Synthetic cultures

· Synergetic cultures

How about …. Digital Glocalities??

This is all embryonic but I am thinking hard.

I discussed Bourdieu’s Forms of Capital with Jackie and Anne-Marie.
I am thinking about a model for online learning communities which takes appropriate bits from Communities of Practice and Affinity Spaces but which also includes the dimension of power dynamics.
Bourdieu talks about social alliances like this: ‘Each member of the group is thus instituted as a custodian of the limits of the group: because the definition of the criteria of entry is at stake in each new entry, he can modify the group by modifying the limits of legitimate exchange through some form of misalliance.’ which is highly resonant of Flickr groups, in the way people set up new themes but these then develop and there is some kind of negotiation going on through the comments system, which reflect what things are valued and what are not. I believe that certain discourses become highly valued on Flickr; for examle the discourses of gratitude, of appreciation etc. People praise each other’s work, their houses, their babies, their belongings even. On Star not Star this is exemplified very well here, where the photographer tells so much of her life in describing the ciircumstances by which she took the photo. She reveals lots about her family life, her lack of expertise, here gratitude for praise and also for receiving useful critique to help her understand something about her photo she had taken. The way she received the comments from others seemed to facilitate more teeming in. I have seen this elsewhere on the site. This is all about being a member of the group who can use the right discourses. This does not have to be calculated at all, I am not suggesting that . I am saying that some discourses are very powerful and that people who are popular in the groups are able to interact in these ways.

Another interesting group is Pirates. TT set up a Pirates group where he intended to invite pictures not of literal pirates but of transgressive people in urban settings- a kind of intellectual pirate, a pirate who challenges social norms. The group is now filled with loads of pictures of real pirates; TT was not actually in control of what pictures went on. The power is illusory sometimes. This does not mean that social capital has not been acquired where it is apparent, for I think in these spaces where the right discourses are used, (discourses of gratitude of admiration, etc) powere is sustained. I.e. power is embedded in the discourses and the modes of the space. So ther is power also in images and people’s critique of what makes a good picture helps to shape what is valued in the shared images!!

Anyway there is lots there; I want to describe the way Flickr uses the space of the web to help me make a stab at describing an online community which draws on the notion of affinities, of learning, of valuing different types of knowledge, etc etc but which also acknowledges those elements of power which are undermined by other models. Gee talks about leadership in affinity spaces being ‘porous’; I certainly feel that there is more opportunity for leadership in online groups, (and that is probably part of the attraction - to feel empowered in a safe (ish) space) ; but I also think groups are subject to hierarchies. We cannot forget for example, that it is Yahoo that supports a system of ‘favourites’ which help confer status. Or that the system of picking people as contacts is seen as acquisitive in some way; the discourses of mutuality are perhaps a little bit misleading over in the Flickr camp.
If I can try to draw up a model for Flickr I can then think about testing it in other groups.

I am feeling quite excited about all this. Multi modal forms of capital, yeah.

I am still not sure about Communities of Practice and I am not sure Affinity Spaces are the answer. The thing is that many of us have used the Communities of Practice model to understand online communities but there is a real probem with notions of membership and boundaries etc which are really not an accurate descriptin of the dynamics which seem at once intensive and dynamic. Temporary coherences. Affinity spaces, first talked about by Gee I think, (and building on his idea of the semiotic domain) evolved as a term around online gaming, but again I m am not sure it is properly transferrable as a model for non gaming online groups, although I, like Michelle Knobel, have also used this term.
In this book, Massey talks about ‘constellatons of temporary coherences’ in regard to groups of youth meeting - but is not talking about cyberspace, but I think it could be applied to online groups and want to think more on this.

In Flickr people belong to lots of different groups; the whole site does not really constitute a coherent community it is a series of groups.
Individuals in the groups interact with each other and some belong to numbers of groups where they meet again.
They have in jokes, interests and conversations which are thematically dropped and picked up again.
Individuals carry across specific identities and social histories. These are shown multimodally in words and images and in the associations they trace across the groups.
Individuals seem to develop online identities and coherences.
they teach each other.

Some groups are VERY popular and there are some definite stars on the board;movers and shakers who influence.

There are some individuals who start groups which no one joins.
I have seen one big argument and this I think is an unusual occurence although I have spotted this too.

Finally there is this fab new thing I have been invited to join. The Flat Stanley Project is a very exciting idea in my opinion and there is also a blog to go with it.
So it is an example of online learning collaboration across generations. I think itis antastic the way adults are invited to help in the education of children in this way..