October 26, 2005
Jay raised a fantastic question Saturday that I haven't been able to get out of my head since:
Do the benefits of MySpace outweigh the benefits of My Space?
Rendered unclever: Which is better? To publish and participate in a closed social networking environment or to publish a blog/videoblog/podcast on your own server with your own blog installation?
Jay comes down on the side of My Space. He wants to see everyone self-publish with their own straight-up blog and their own server space. If personal media is partially about self-expression, then it is, in a way, also about self-determination. Content creation within MySpace comes with a whole slew of content restrictions and user agreements that many content creators may come up against one day. Plus there's that little issue of content ownership. As Eli pointed out to me the other day, News Corp owns any content produced on MySpace. In this sense, content creation within MySpace might be likened to slaves on a ship talking about who got the flyest chain.
But there are a ton of reasons to not dismiss MySpace as a platform for participatory media, primary among them are the social rewards that are crucial to introducing newbies to the world of blog authoring. (Even the videobloggers have their own "MySpace". It's called the Yahoo Videoblogging Group.)
Years of participatory media classes by Liz and Tricia have taught me that without strong, constructive and immediate feedback from one's peers, most students will stop blogging as soon as the class ends. There is no consistent reward down on the low end of the long tail, so unless you're able to connect a student's content creation with their existing social networks, that student's Blogger account will most likely go inactive soon after (and sometimes well before) the class ends. Meanwhile, these same students will continue to participate (and create content!) online within social networking services like MySpace.
So if a social networking service's user base includes a significant portion of a student's immediate social network, shouldn't that be our target space for introducing them to participatory media? If we teach them how to blog/videoblog/podcast within their existing social network, aren't we empowering them within their existing context?
In a content creation economy without financial rewards, peer feedback will drive users to create more sophisticated content. Within social networking spaces, comments -- along with more valuable "friends" links -- are the currency of that economy.
If we teach someone how to post a videoblog entry on their MySpace home page, they have a greater chance of receiving feedback from their friends (and a few strangers) than they would posting to a Blogger account. As they receive more comments ("That's so COOL!"), it may spur them to post more content. As they post more content, they hone their content creation skills, and the sophistication of their posts increases.
This is the thinking behind the latest changes to the videoblogging curricula I'm involved in implementing. It's only been a few weeks, so check back in a few months and I'll tell you how it goes. In the meantime, one thing I know for certain is that I shouldn't be teaching participatory content creation without a strong, relevant social framework to place people in. My hope is that other folks will do the same.
