Yes, it’s a big one.
Filed under: Advertising, Branding, Culture, DCS, Facebook, Marketing, Media, New Media, Opinion, SEO, Synergy, Theory
April 26, 2011 • 10:02 am 0
Mega post: What does digital communication really mean?
March 26, 2011 • 12:03 pm 0
Zuckerberg. He’s not the messiah; he’s a very naughty boy!
Ethics of social media, web 2.0 and their potential utilisation by brands.
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The ethics of UGC/web 2.0
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In 2006, TIME magazine proclaimed the year of ‘you’, the year of web 2.0. The year where ‘the many wrested power from the few and help one another for nothing.’
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That sounds very new age and hopeful, but looking back (and considering Gartner’s hype cycle), although things have changed, we didn’t get the ‘community creative utopia’ we were all promised.
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What happened?
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I wouldn’t describe myself as a Marxist, but Andrew McStay’s theory of UGC/web 2.0 as ‘surplus labou
r’ (Marx, 1867). Today we call ‘surplus labour’ unpaid work. UGC and web 2.0 is the work which creates value on the respective websites, drives traffic and earns revenue. Facebook users, Wikia authors, and YouTube gurus are ‘at work at the wheels of capitalism’ as much the Tesco checkout assistant.
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Q: UGC is ‘working for the man’, why do people participate in web 2.0 at all. Why do people work for a for-profit company without pay?
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A: People do not know they are working for free, and they enjoy it.
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Where’s the unethical behaviour here then? I don’t believe it is unethical in a
nd of itself for users to submit UGC as ‘surplus labour’; users are getting a ‘free’ medium to discuss their content, and sites need to cover their running costs, and generate acceptable profit margins (the web is not, in large, a charity). If users don’t have a problem with working for free, who are we to tell them otherwise?
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For me the ethical problem lies with audiences (in general) not knowing that they are effectively working for free. If those audiences knew that it is their work that generates billions of dollars of revenue for web 2.0 sites across the world, they act differently online. Users should be told (in the nicest possible way) that they are being ‘used’.
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Some Marxists will take offense to how UGC creativity is assigned a market value with web 2.0, but I believe this is a bit of a straw man argument; if people value something, and are willing to give time or money to acquire or experience it, it has value whether you like it or not.
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Moving on… to Facebook
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Since my (and my friends) Facebook statuses (and other FB UGC) earn Facebook the majority of its revenue (through advertising), it would be fair to assume that Facebook would pay more respect to their ‘workers
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Despite Facebook’s disregard for privacy, it is still one of the most popular tools used by brands for CSR, and brand-consumer conversations.
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What does it say about the brands when they use a site like Facebook, to promote them being ethical and considerate to consumers? It’s like a vegetarian buying groceries ar a butcher’s; a complete contradiction. How are audiences expected to take CSR seriously, when the medium itself is ‘tainted’?
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Web 2.0, TIME: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
Gartner hype cycle: http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-cycle.jsp
Marx’s ‘surplus labour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_labour
Andy McStay: http://advertising-communications-culture.blogspot.com/
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Also, Shephard (2009) ‘participation on web not equal’, therefore UGC creation not equal either. Balance of creativity on the net damaged. The net is populated by ‘the loud kid in the class who would always shout out the answer’.
Filed under: Advertising, Branding, Creative, Culture, DCS, Facebook, Marketing, Media, New Media, Opinion, Points of interest, SEO, Social
March 20, 2011 • 11:32 am 1
2 + 2 = 4, not 5.
Activism and digital dissent.
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Digital activism, is just like all other activism in it’s intent and purpose, to enact political or corporate change. It only differs from traditional activism in its accessibility and ‘instaneity’.
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Digital activism allows constant networked global communication, it promotes instant support and mobilisation (demonstrations etc), it also demonstrates traits of Chris Anderson’s ‘long tail’; it allows niche interest groups that would be fractured by geography or lack of awareness to unite for a mutual cause.
Digital activism movements tends to have no public leaders (though, there are always flag bearers and instigators), and therefore acts like a mutual movement in the eyes of the activists themselves, promoting ‘ownership’ and involvement. One lone person cannot enact a fantastic degree of change, but as the clichéd saying goes, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’.
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Don’t believe me? Look at Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Iran, Thailand etc. Where were these protests 10 years ago? Social networks and digital may not have caused these uprisings, but they have certainly acted as a conduit, endowing the movements with staying power and legitimacy.
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Ok, that’s all well and good, but what’s the downside?
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I honestly think that the main reason for the popularity of digital activism (Facebook groups/trends), as opposed to other forms of activism, is the rise of what I call ‘Me too’ culture, a culture that revolves aro
und shared experiences ‘hey I joined that group too!’, or ‘I don’t want to look selfish by not changing my profile picture for charity’.
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Does ‘me too’ culture promote insincerity in activism? Or does it let people feel like they have become a part of something, a piece of history. Also, like many things digital, participation is governed by the convenience to the user of that participation; if all it takes for a user to ‘enact change’ is to change their profile picture, change their status, ‘like’ a group, or write your email on a petition then many will gladly take part. These are not true activists.
Kavada (2010:108), argues that it is not only necessary for movements to be seen as mutual, leaderless, movements for audiences to be truly engaged with the movement (eg, proactive, communicative), but they must also feel like they are part of the decision making process (not very common in many forms of digital activism). A lack of power in the decision making process can lead to a lack of ownership and commitment to the relevant cause.
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What this means for advertising?
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If your brand does a ‘bad thing’, you can bet your ad spend someone will find out about it. You can also count on people drumming up support and awareness to your actions. If it serious enough, you may end up on the front page of the Guardian, or even worse, the Daily Mail. Some awareness campaigns create movements, this is ‘muchos mal’ if you are at the receiving end of the discontent, expensive to repair.
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Kavada: Joyce, M., ed., 2010. Digital Activism Decoded. New York: International Debate Association. Available at: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/digiact10all.pdf
AP: Social Networking’s role in Middle East protests. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XgtxAg-TSk.
Chris Anderson’s http://www.longtail.com/
Egypt: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12289475
Tunisia: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12180738
Iran: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201121412571299951.html Naughty Mahmoud
Thailand: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7584005.stm
Would you like to know more? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932011_Middle_East_and_North_Africa_protests
Filed under: Advertising, Culture, DCS, Facebook, Flickr, Marketing, Media, New Media, Opinion, Points of interest, Social
January 25, 2011 • 7:38 pm 0
But wait, there’s more!
An interesting TED talk from the creator of ‘permission marketing’, Seth Godin.
Have fun.
Filed under: Advertising, Branding, Culture, Marketing, Media, New Media, Opinion, Points of interest, TED
