Skip to main content

The Culture of Connectivity - Jose Van Dijck - Chapter 6



In this chapter, Van Dijck focuses on YouTube.

YouTube started with the intentions of being an alternative to broadcast television. Like Flickr, its origins and its present state do not function the same. Where it used to focus on user generated content, the user is considered more of a consumer now with the intention of watching rather than posting.

However, YouTube introduced some new abilities that have had a lasting impact. YouTube introduced the idea of streamed content, the ability to upload video, and combined these with aspects of social networking! YouTube videos are rarely downloaded, viewers do not own the content, but they have access to view the material.

Where YouTube differs from Flickr is that in its adaptions of the purpose and focus, Some of the original users of the platform were disgruntled by the changes, but the majority of users supported the change and embraced it as a part of their everyday lives, particularly with their capabilities of meshing almost seamlessly with their other social media like Facbook and Twitter. Resulting in YouTube being one of the top 3 most used social media platforms on the web.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Culture of Connectivity - Jose Van Dijck - Chapter 2

In chapter 2, van Dijck gets a little more technical. He presents definitions for various aspects of the social media construction.  Technologies included: data, metadata, algorithm, protocols, interfaces, and defaults He broke down the concepts of users and usage: " Implicit participation is the usage inscribed in the engineer's design by means of the coding mechanisms" (p.33).  " Explicit use refers to how real or actual users interact with social media" (p.33). He discuses content (text, music, or videos) and how these display the opinions of the users, the things they are interested in or want, and other social trends and consumer practices.  He describes ownership of the social media site, governance (mechanisms, communication and data traffic management), and business models and intentions of the site and how these 3 things work with the previous 3 things (content, user agency, and content) to create online sociality. Ultimately the focus of this chapter...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Big Sleep - Book Suggestion

Reading has always been a bit of an escape for me. As long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with fiction and the ability to get away from my present and go pretty much anywhere. Even as I am pursuing my Phd, I find that I am constantly buying (odd for someone with a Library degree) the next novel that I want to read. I almost always have a novel on me, I think I really picked the habit up when I moved to New York and realized there is so much time to read throughout the day that you might miss. Taking the train, waiting rooms, random periods when you are in between tasks, etc. So since then, I find that I get through more novels that expected, even though I'm in a period of study that requires a lot of reading. I've been on a bit of a noir kick. I love the old movies and I've discovered that some of my favorites are based on novels and that the author has written many more. I've always loved The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and found out tha...
2 comments
Read more

The Culture of Connectivity - Jose Van Dijck - Intro and Chapter 1

One of the adventures I've decided to take on during this course is an additional reading of a book titled: The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media . The book is written by Jose Van Dijck (2013) with the aim to:  "offer an analytical model to elucidate how platforms have become central forces in the construction of sociality, how owners and users have helped shape and are shaped by this construction; in other words, it wants to enhance a historical understanding of social media's impact on the everyday lives of families" (p.23). She begins with an introduction of social media and defines it as a group of online applications, inspired by the ideology and foundations of Web 2.0, that focus on the generation of content by its users. The ideology behind Web 2.0 tech is focused on connectedness and a participatory culture. He identifies several types of social media: social network sites (SNS), user-generated content (UGC), trading and marketing sit...
1 comment
Read more