MPhil CAST Module 5 YouMedia: Participatory Practices and Cultural Citizenship

You Media Participatory Practices and Cultural Citizenship on Web 2.0

Supervisors: Dr. Bas van Heur Prof. Dr. Sally Wyatt

Andreas Mitzschke Thomas Mougey Malte Quarz Tessa Reijnders Pigeonhole # 165 Date: 05.06.2009 CAST Module 5 Referencing: APA style

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Contents

Andreas Mitzschke, Thomas Mougey, Malte Quarz, Tessa Reijnders..p.3 General Introduction

Andreas Mitzschkep.10 Challenging Conventional Notions of Citizenship Negotiating Political Participation on the Citizen-Journalism Website Indymedia

Thomas Mougeyp.28 Web-mediated Cultural Participation of the Moroccan Diasporas: Community-Building, Identity Formation and Heritage Remediation on the Forum Yabiladi.com.

Malte Quartz..p.45 Emancipating Distribution and Consumption Practices of Bands and Fans? An Ethnography of MySpace

Tessa Reijnders..p.59 Museums in Command of Open-Source Wikis. The Possibilities, Benefits and Risks of Wikis for Museums

Andreas Mitzschke, Thomas Mougey, Malte Quarz, Tessa Reijnders..p.72 Collective Conclusion

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General Introduction to this Volume Andreas Mitzschke, Thomas Mougey, Malte Quarz, Tessa Reijnders

This volume discusses and analyses matters of participation and cultural citizenship in media practices on the internet. More precisely, it will critically question the alluded qualitative and quantitative increase in participation, amounting to a participatory turn (Scholz, 2007) induced by the second generation of web technologies on the internet, hailed as web 2.0. The term web 2.0 refers to the second generation of web-based technologies that foregrounds user-controlled platforms, inviting productive engagement and enticing bloggers, music uploaders, reviewers, writers of entries, private traders, video sharers, and others, to interact with and contribute content to the virtual universe (van Dijk, 2007, p.2). Web 2.0 is however far from unequivocal. OReilly explains the concept to be an essentially contested one: Web 2.0 does not have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core (2005 a, p.1). To him, web 2.0 is a set of principles and practices which most basically have in common to constitute platforms where users can generate their own content. These profound changes in the dynamics of content creation(OReilly, 2005 a , p.2) vary from hyperlinking, open source software such as Wikis, citizen online journalism, and weblogging, to online discussion fora and social network sites1. Web 2.0 is however not always equality in access and use since the content is subject to control mechanisms such as format, accessibility control, privacy rules, etc. Obviously, it requires knowledge and resources to use internet technology at all. Deriving from considerations of user-generated content of powerful ICTs, Scholz (2007) alludes a participatory turn precipitated by web 2.0 applications. His definition of web 2.0 resembles OReillys as generative internet tools that are radically decentralised and which allow a rapid growth of participation in social and possibly civic life online through the possibility to generate online content by the users themselves. Bennett confirms the notion of web 2.0 technologies as new media which reposition their users in society, making them both producers and consumers of information (2008, p.9). We however should be sceptical about allusions of digital empowerment of the individual through those technologies, since ICTs seem too easily ascribed the potential to overcome constraints imposed by peoples bodies, their geographical location, social surroundings, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Also, participation in the offline world such as the dissemination of music, museum visits, or political activism might be different from online practices, though the relation between the online and the offline might be reciprocal.
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For a clarification of terms and in-depth analysis, see the individual contributions in this volume.

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We thus explicitly try to avoid a position which regards technologies as necessarily having particular social effects. Regarding the internet as a force of social transformation per se accounts to technological determinism since this technology itself is neither a historically inevitable, nor a fixed medium, just like communities, networks, or identities are not (Deuze, 2006, p.68). Rather, technologies such as the internet entail meanings expressed through language and symbols; they are material artefacts of the interests and values of various social groups; and the actual functioning of technologies is an outcome of the intervention of and negotiation amongst relevant users ranging from individuals, to groups and institutions (Henwood, Wyatt, Miller, & Senker, 2000, p.11). While these social communities on the web entail the potential to incorporate civic aspects, authors such as Montgomery (2008) caution that public interest deliberations may clash with the trend towards commercialisation of these online communities. In addition to that, the idea of taking a critical stance towards ICTs (such as Henwood et al., 2000) and the alleged participatory turn leading to an empowerment of the individual or the formation of coherent communities2 (see Brouwers, Cornips, Kaltenbrunner, Lamerichs, Schepers, Wolters, 2008) shall inform our work towards taking a critical analysis of new media practices on the world wide web. As Burgess, Foth and Klaebe (2006, p.1) indicate, the prominence of media platforms and so-called social software on the internet allows an unparalleled proliferation of the production, distribution, negotiation and dissemination of ideas, public deliberation and organisation in networks online as well as offline. These networks foster identity and solidarity amongst their users. Thus, new media practices of web 2.0 amount to constitutive elements of social communities (Bennett, 2008, p.11). To some, it might seem that web 2.0 separates the civic and the social with the formation of loosely defined networks for online sharing of music, photos, movies and information, and the hunt for current and prospective social relations on social fora being exemplary of this development. The social is supposedly predominating as an individual lifestyle expression which renders the respective online communities devoid of politics and issues of civil society and cultural participation (see e.g. the disengaged youth paradigm as explained by Bennett, 2008). In this volume we question this alleged depoliticisation through web 2.0. Burgess et al (2006) infer that the traditional view of citizenship focuses exclusively on traditional forms of participation through political and civic rights and responsibilities such
For an insightful discussion community formation and web 2.0 technology, see Brouwers, Cornips, Kaltenbrunner, Lamerichs, Schepers, Wolters (2008) analysis of Youtube, a user-generated video-website.
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as petitioning, voting, protesting, and writing newspaper articles, which justifies the supposed absence of the civic from web 2.0 practices. This perspective seems outdated however, since the traditional view limits the cultural dimensions of citizenship to the individual freedom to express ones culture and the responsibility to accept the rights of others to do the same, which constitutes a narrow perception of cultural participation. This in turn excludes the spheres of entertainment, leisure, and consumption activities to potentially be expressions of forms of cultural citizenship and participation per se (p.2). It appears however that the classical notion of political participation and cultural citizenship gets redefined and renegotiated since new media practices contribute to a change of the relationship between media text, consumers, and producers of media on the one hand. On the other, this leads to new practices of the formation and operation of cultural communities, and the modes of their interaction (Burgess et al, 2006; Deuze, 2006). Entertainment has always been there, but in regard of new media practices of web 2.0, it seems easier to participate in the distribution and consumption of cultural texts, themselves being part of public deliberation, which is a form of cultural participation itself. The literature not only identifies signs of the integration of classical civic issues within these virtual communities but also new forms of cultural citizenship beyond the traditional conception. It is assumed that citizenship is also practiced through everyday life, leisure, critical consumption, popular entertainment (so not only traditional politics and current affairs) and that the use of digital storytelling and the internet complements rather than replaces existing practices of cultural participation and citizenship (Bennett, 2008, p.3-4; Burgess et al, 2006, p.11; Deuze, 2006; McGuigan, 2005, p.435). This exemplifies a shift of these dimensions through new media towards an everyday active participation in a networked, highly heterogeneous, and open cultural public sphere (Burgess et all, 2006, p.5). This redefined notion of Cultural citizenship is significant and contributes to new forms of engagement and participation in the public sphere (Burgess et all, 2006, p.2; see also McGuigan, 2005; Hermes, 2005). The opportunities created by the new technologies of web 2.0 for cultural participation seem enormous. In this volume, specific case-studies of Web2.0 applications will explore if and how they enable a participatory turn in cultural practices. Do they create possibilities to emancipate from local allegiances, hierarchies and authorities within and beyond those communities that form on web 2.0? What implications can we derive from this for the notions of cultural participation and cultural citizenship? There seems to be a general consensus or assumption in the literature that web2.0 applications do in fact make possible some kind of -5-

participatory turn (Scholz, 2007; Deane, 2008; De Oliveira, 2008, Tyner & Kuhlke 2000; Bernal, 2006; Loukili, 2007). However, the specific practices involved in this turn are rarely described and analysed: As OReilly explains, the patterns that constitute Web 2.0 are far from completely understood(OReilly, 2005 b) and Burgess et all (2006, p.4) allude that new conceptions of cultural citizenship and participation need further refinement in regard of the increase in consumer-created content in new media contexts which they see to be part of the transformation in popular culture. Our case-studies will specify web2.0 induced participatory practices along three dimensions: 1)The way cultural texts are defined and interacted with; 2) The way cultural communities are formed and operate; 3) The way users understand rights and obligations as cultural citizens acting within a new type of cultural public sphere. We employ these dimensions to approach our analysis towards an inclusion of digital cultures nexus of everyday life, creative content and knowledge production, and social life, as parts of everyday cultural participation and changing notions of citizenship based on the practices of web 2.0. Following the three analytic levels, the articles in this volume address the possibilities of web 2.0 for web-generated identities and the consequences thereof for practices of participation and notions of cultural citizenship. This entails immanently the question how emerging cultural practices of web2.0 (re-) produce processes of inclusion and exclusion, and how this relates to existing/dominating socio-cultural institutions, authorities and hierarchies. In the first article of this volume, Mitzschke investigates how classical and alternative notions of participation get negotiated on the citizen-journalism website Indymedia. In his case study of a forum-discussion linked to an Indymedia article about the G20 protests in London, he also discusses how participation on Indymedia itself looks like. Mitzschke asks how cultural texts get redefined and how cultural communities are formed and composed on Indymedia. He also looks into the implications one may derive from this for (un-) conventional notions of citizenship. Mougey, in the second article of this volume, critically examines how diasporic communities make use of web 2.0 technologies on the internet. In his analysis of the circulation, appropriation, and remodelling of cultural texts of the Moroccan Diaspora on the internet forum Yabiladi, Mougey closely analyses the potentially new dynamics of community formation, identity construction, and practices of cultural remembering/heritage on a diasporic cyberspace. He questions whether the latter constitutes an alternative and emancipatory space for marginalised second-generation French-Moroccan migrants.

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Apart from online fora, web 2.0 offers a wider range of media practices which are less obviously engaged in deliberations about participation and identity. Taking a closer look at social networks on the internet, in the third article of this volume, Quarz scrutinises the specific mechanisms involved in the networking and self-promotion of music bands on MySpace. He asks whether Myspace helps musicians to emancipate from local music scenes and to bypass existing hierarchies of the music industry. Quarz therefore looks at the reciprocity in text-related fan-band interactions and networking and questions practices of community formation on Myspace. Finally, Reijnders takes a critical stance towards questions of control and participation. She addresses the role of Wikis for museums as the classical institutions for the preservation of cultural heritage. She focuses on the tension between the museum as a knowledge institution with a high degree of cultural authority and the general trend towards more participation embodied in such web 2.0 applications as Wikis. Reijnders asks whether Wikis may help museums to evolve from their function as guardians of knowledge and heritage towards participatory institutions. The theoretical orientation, as well as the methodologies employed by the authors resembles their backgrounds and the interdisciplinary approach of this volume: Reijnders is not only a researcher, but also works as government-advisor for cultural policy and as a conservator. In her structural analysis of Wiki pages such as Wikipedia, a general Museums Wiki, the Brooklyn Museums Wiki website, and the Science Museums Object Wiki she draws on literature from Museum and Media Studies. Quarz, who is a musician himself, makes a virtual ethnography of the social networking site MySpace. He equally draws on Media Studies and theoretically substantiates his analysis with findings from Popular Music Studies. Mougey and Mitzschke both critically approach their case studies with Discourse Analyses. Both authors have a background in political science and economics. Theoretically, they situate their work not only in Media Studies just as Reijnders and Quarz. Also, Mougey adds insights from Diaspora and Immigration Studies to his analysis of Yabiladi for his investigation of community and identity, while Mitzschke draws on a plethora of existing literature on Indymedia and Political Philosophy in approaching more closely the concept of citizenship.

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References: Bennett, W. L. (2008). Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age. In W.L. Bennett (Ed.), Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth, pp.1-24. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Bernal, V. (2006). Diaspora, Cyberspace and Political Imagination: The Eritrean Diaspora Online. Global networks 6(2), 61-179. Burgess, Jean, Foth, Marcus, & Klaebe, Helen (2006). Everyday Creativity as Civic Engagement: A Cultural Citizenship View of New Media. In Proceedings Communications Policy & Research Forum, Sydney. Accessed from http://eprints.qut.edu.au Brouwers, J., Cornips, L., Kaltenbrunner, W., Lamerichs, N., Schepers, S., & Wolters, A. (2008). Youtube. Broadcast Yourself. Academic Journal Cultures of Arts, Science and Technology, 1 (1). Maastricht: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.fdcw.org/castresearchmaster/CASTYoutube.pdf Deane, J. (2008). Democratic Advancement or Retreat? Communicative Power and Current Media Developments. In M.Albrow, H.Anheier, M.Glasius, M.E. Price,& M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global Civil Society 2007/08 (pp.144-165). London: Sage. De Oliveira, M.D. (2008). Deepening Democracy in Latin America. In M.Albrow, H.Anheier, M.Glasius, M.E. Price,& M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global Civil Society 2007/08 (pp.114-123). London: Sage. Deuze, M. (2006). Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture. The Information Society, 22, 63-75. Dijck, J. van. (2007). Television 2.0: YouTube and the Emergence of Homecasting. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://web.mit.edu/commforum/mit5/papers/vanDijck_Television2.0.article.MiT5.pdf Henwood, F., Wyatt, S., Miller, N., & Senker, P. (2000). Critical Perspectives on Technologies, In/Equalities and the Information Society. In S. Wyatt, F. Henwood, N.Miller, & P. Senker (Eds.), Technolgy and In/Equality. Questioning the Information Society (pp.118). London, New York: Routledge. Hermes, Joke (2000) Cultural Citizenship and Crime Fiction: Politics and the Interpretive Community. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2): 215-232. Loukili, A, (2007). Moroccan Diaspora, Internet and National Imagination. Building a Community Online through the Internet Portal Yabiladi. Paper presented at the Nordic Africa Days in Uppsala, 5-7 October 2007. McGuigan, J. (2005). The Cultural Public Sphere. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 8 (4), 427-443. Montgomery, Kathryn C. (2008). Youth and Digital Democracy: Intersections of Practice, Policy, and the Marketplace. In W.L. Bennett (Ed.), Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth (pp.25-49). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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OReilly, T. (2005 a). What is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation Software. Retrieved May 14, 2009, http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=1 OReilly, T. (2005 b). Not 2.0? Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/08/not-20.html Scholz, T. (2007). The Participatory Turn on Social Life Online. Department of Media Study. Lecture available on the Internet. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.slideshare.net/trebor/the-participatory-turn Tyner J. A. & Kuhlke, O. (2000). Pan-national Identities: Representations of the Philippine Diaspora on the World Wide Web. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 41(3), 231-252.

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Challenging Conventional Notions of Citizenship Negotiating Political Participation on the Citizen-Journalism Website Indymedia Andreas Mitzschke
Abstract: Indymedia is a website based on an open publishing system, which allows every internet user to contribute to what is considered an alternative to mainstream media. Resembling the much hailed emancipatory potential of web 2.0 technologies, Indymedia poses a challenge to existing hierarchies of cultural value and authority. It therefore serves as a research site for inquiring chaning dynamics of cultural participation: The case study of this paper analyseses an Indymedia weblog discussion to uncover the social dynamics of cultural circulation on Indymedia with a focus on which kind of alternative conceptionsof participation and citizenship are constructed by which group of authors. Keywords: Indymedia, web 2.0, participation, citizenship, cultural text, cultural community, cultural citizens

Introduction: ICTs, Participation, & Citizenship New information and communication technologies (ICTs), foremost the internet, offer a plethora of digital entertainment environments, online social networks, and virtual consumer paradises. Simultaneously, citizens in western democracies allegedly turn away from public life while increasingly getting disconnected from traditional forms of civic involvement and forms of political participation (Bennett, 2008). The civic seems to lose appeal given the imagination that politics has no space and place in the realm of the internet where the personal and private seem to tower above concerns of the civic and matters of political participation. However, the G20 protests in London in April 2009 render such a scenario less gloomy than it appears. Dissent is still taking place in traditional forms. At the same time networks form to communicate, organise and debate such dissent and ultimately protest - not only offline but also on-line (Castells, 1996). Moreover, since the mid 1990s, activism increasingly relies upon internet strategies and network social structures (Pickard 2006 b, p.316). Web 2.0 applications and ICT in general are considered enabling tools for a new type of communication: personal, participatory, and interactive (de Oliveira, 2008, p.121) tilting society towards forms of participation different from traditional political engagement. As this collective volume addresses the possibilities to emancipate from local allegiances, hierarchies, and authorities in internet-based communities that employ web2.0 media practices, an analysis of so-called forms of online citizen journalism provides an interesting object of research to look beyond myopic allegations about the end of cultural - 10 -

citizenship. Indymedia is such a user-generated online forum for posting audio, video, and text files. It is a website for exchanging information, mobilising constituencies and coordinating collective action, i.e. forms of participatory practice. Indymedia is the institutionalisation on the internet of so-called Independent Media Centres (IMCs) which originated in the 1999 WTO protest in Seattle to provide a platform for citizen journalism and a network for political activism. Using the merits of ICTs, Indymedia constitutes an interactive news website, a global network of activism and alternative journalism, and even a radically democratic organisation (Pickard, 2006 b, p.317). While activists have created temporary media hubs to generate alternative information on Indymedia, the website also allows experimenting with new technologies, and exchanging ideas and resources since it provides a permanent space for deliberation online (Juris, 2005, p.198; 192), e.g. through weblogs3. Consequently, Indymedia is a site of media practices on the internet in which cultural texts get redefined and where cultural communities are formed. It is a place where new ways of how users understand rights and obligations as cultural citizens acting within a new type of cultural public sphere get negotiated. Pickard (2006 b) regards Indymedia as one of the most significant developments on the internet within the last decade, he however contends that practice has largely outrun researchers attempts to theorize Indymedia (p.317). Therefore, taking a closer look at the technological artefacts, communicative activities, textual practices, and social arrangements that form around Indymedia we may ask: What constitutes cultural participation on Indymedia? What kinds of participation are seen as legitimate and which implications does this have for the notion of cultural citizenship? Bennett (2008) presents two paradigms of civic engagement that resemble what these questions imply: The disengaged youth paradigm(p.2-3) emphasises the decline of traditional forms of civic involvement and forms of political participation while regarding developments of alternative forms of public expression through ICTs as a threat to democracy. The engaged youth paradigm(p.3-5) nevertheless notes the decline of credibility and authenticity of conventional political life that goes hand in hand with the growing importance of peer networks, online communities, and generational changes in social identity, and ultimately forms of public deliberation and participation. Burgess, Foth and Klaebe (2006) also include leisure activities, critical consumption, and popular entertainment, i.e. everyday life practices previously regarded as ephemeral, into their analysis of citizenship. Therefore,
A weblog is a frequently updated website consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first (Walker, 2003, quoted in Deuze, 2006).
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studying Indymedia as a new spectrum of civic action, where participation takes new forms and where subsequently alternative imaginaries of the citizenship concept get (re-)negotiated, offers a valid case study of new online media practices in the light of my research question. These questions link with one of the main concerns of this volume about the manifestations and changing notions of cultural citizenship in regard of an asserted participatory turn (Urricho, 2004) induced by the social dynamics of circulating and producing meaning through media practices of user-generated content on the internet, termed as web 2.0. In the following part of this paper, I will first review existing academic literature on Indymedia. In agreeing with Pickard that new forms of the political such as embodied in the practices on Indymedia require new theoretical models (2006 b, p.318), it seems justified to analyse the discourse on an Indymedia weblog with the theoretical focus on citizenship and participation which I will summarise thereafter. In part three, I will thus review the empirical findings my discourse analysis of 114 comments of a weblog discussion attached to an Indymedia issue about the death of a man at the site of the G20 protests in London in early April 2009. My approach is informed by semiotics and serves as a plethora of examples how web-mediated cultural practices deal with issues such as protest, violence, the role of mainstream and alternative media, democracy, and notions of participation and citizenship. The assumption from which my work derives is that rather than technology itself being the essential drive of change, the uses and understandings of technology, i.e. the practices on Indymedia and the meanings ascribed to them, are more important. So, we have to investigate the ways in which technology is experienced in use to reveal the taken for granted and tacit ways with which people make sense of their lives and actions (Hine, 2000, p.4-5). Here, this evolves around matters of political participation, public deliberation, and notions of the good citizen.

Situating Indymedia Radical Democracy and New Forms of Citizenship? Before empirically approaching how alternative modes of citizenship embody in the discursive space of Indymedia, the following literature review defines what Indymedia is and situates this article in preceding scholarly work on the topic. Moreover, it affirmatively answers the question whether the social dynamics of cultural circulation on Indymedia constitute a participatory turn in cultural production and consumption (Urricho, 2004) induced by new ICTs and media practices. Previous research also answers the question whether this contributes to the challenging of existing hierarchies of cultural value and - 12 -

authority which opens up the discussion to the empirical case study analysis that focuses on participation and alternative conceptions of citizenship. Pickard (2006 b) describes Indymedia as a website for exchanging information, mobilising constituencies, and coordinating collective action: Indymedia is a prime institutional exemplar for [] internet based activism, network formation and participatory politics(p.317). The website provides an online forum for posting audio, video, and text files, while activists have also created temporary media hubs to generate alternative information, experiment with ICTs, and negotiate ideas and resources of political action and deliberation. Indymedia originates in the 1999 WTO protest in Seattle, where Independent Media Centres (IMCs) were set up to provide noncorporate accounts of grassroots political events (Pickard, 2006 b, p.317). The network has consolidated and expanded since, with about 5000 individuals and more than 150 IMCs that run local websites in more than 50 countries spanning six continents (ibid.). Indymedia not only constitutes grassroots news websites for citizen online journalism to provide an alternative to mainstream media accounts. It also offers nodes within an expanding global network of activists and social movements committed to global justice and a democratic media landscape (Pickard, 2006 a, p.19). Juris (2005) suggests that Indymedia has helped mobilize hundreds of thousands of anticorporate globalization protesters around the world, while creating radical social movement publics for the circulation of alternative news and information (p.191). It thus poses a challenge to the authority of the mainstream media. Deuze (2006) describes Indymedia as a journalistic genre that is based on usergenerated content which allows anyone to post and upload files, information, and files without a formal editorial moderation or filtering process (p.65). Central to this is Indymedias uniform web-based structure that streamlines and links the local IMC websites to each other despite of differing social, cultural, and political contexts from which they emerge. Although Bob, Haynes, Pickard, Keenan, and Couldry (2008, p.207) caution not to overgeneralise tendencies within the globally spanning IMC network, they point to its uniformity in terms of common website architecture, the commitment to consensus-based decision making and other radical democratic practices4. The uniformity of the IMC websites allows for comparative analyses of the radical and reformist expressions with a regard to the topics covered and predominating text-related ideological focal points (Pickard, 2006 b, p.325) which will be important for the empirical analysis below.

These radical democratic practices are codified in a shared manifesto or charter called the principles of unity .

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Juris (2005) examines the innovative ways in which anticorporate globalization activists have used new digital technologies to coordinate actions, build networks, practice media activism, and physically manifest their emerging political ideals. He asks why forces of law and order [] consider independent media so threatening?(p.191) and identifies Indymedia to be deeply influenced by anarchism and peer-to-peer network logics. Juris offers Indymedias web 2.0 applications to epitomise an emerging network ideal(p.189) of organisation and participation on the one hand. On the other, he suggests these technologies function as concrete tools to express alternative political imaginaries. He consequently regards Indymedia as a cornerstone of a new digital media culture [], involving experimentation with new technologies and the projection of utopian ideals regarding open participation and horizontal collaboration onto emerging forms of networked space(p.205). This comes close to Castells (1996) analysis of a networking logic that is gradually replacing linear and hierarchically structured paradigms of democratic processes. Juris finally comes to the conclusion that Indymedia allows for globally coordinated transnational counter-publics while providing creative mechanisms for flexibly intervening within dominant

communication circuits (2005, p.204). Pickard analyses the radical democratic practices in Indymedias discursive, technical and institutional setup (2006 a) and addresses questions related to network sustainability, radical democratic practice, internet-based activism and social movement organizations (2006 b, p.317). He identifies Indymedia as a prime example of democratising media production, non-hierarchical communication structures, and cooperative action sustained through mutually constitutive institutional and technological structures provided by the network of websites. However, is seems unlikely that without internet communications, Indymedias radical democratic institutional structure could exist at the global level (2006 a). Moreover, Pickard reveals Indymedia as a viable democratic communications model(2006 b, p.327) which leads to organisational cohesion and network-growth based on a radical democratic discourse at the cost of the necessity of collective identity framing as alleged by social movement theorists. Based upon Castells (2005) idea of a global network society manifesting itself in the artefacts, practices, and structures of new media, Deuze (2006) investigates Indymedia as a manifestation of an emerging digital culture(2006, p.65). To him, Indymedia is a journalistic genre in itself, a participatory practice and a set of social arrangements based upon practices and ideals of open publishing and collaborative non-hierarchical storytelling (ibid.). The question whether norms, values, and expectations can be considered to be - 14 -

principal components of digital culture is answered by Deuze affirmatively. He focuses in particular on the blurring of the distinctions between producers and consumers of news which challenges the authority of mainstream media and offers new channels for civic participation (2005, p.70; also Deuze, 2003). He also identifies participation as a defining principle of digital culture(p.67) and alludes that its political dimension lies in the transformation of the passive informational citizen into an active citizen within a rights based, monitorial, and voluntarist citizenry (p.67), i.e. traditional participation-inherent hierarchies are challenged. The practices of contemporary network society lie at the core of the digital culture Deuze explicates: New forms of communities emerge of which Indymedia is exemplary since it reflects individualisation, post-nationalism, and globalisation alike and contributes to a transformation of the notion of participation by making use of networked internet technology (p.68). The political and cultural dimensions of this new quality of participation are also reflected in the open software design of Indymedias open publishing and weblogging architecture (ibid). Finally, Deuze offers three implications of new participatory practices through new media contexts for the extent and ways in which individuals engage with media. In the manifesting digital culture he depicts, we become: 1. Active agents in the process of meaning-making (we become participants). 2. We adopt but at the same time modify, manipulate, and thus reform consensual ways of understanding reality (we engage in remediation). 3. We reflexively assemble our own particular versions of such reality (we are bricoleurs). (Deuze, 2006, p.66) These notions possibly affect our understandings of the citizens role in a democratic society, the question to which I will turn in my analysis further below. To summarise, Indymedia is described by scholars as an anarchic or radical democratic model based on openness, inclusiveness, lateral decision-making, non-hierarchy, global justice, and transparency (Bob, Haynes, Pickard, Keenan, Couldry, 2008, p.207); it offers opportunities for new participatory practices and challenges traditional hierarchies of cultural value and authority. The literature on citizenship and cultural participation informs my empirical analysis further below: Burgess et al. (2006) object to a narrow conception of citizenship which excludes everyday life practices of citizens and focuses on traditional political and civic rights. They allege that this view entails a restricted perception of the cultural dimension of civic rights and responsibilities while excluding the possibility that citizenship may also include leisure activities, critical consumption patterns, and expressions of popular culture. Embracing the latter into the conception of a cultural public sphere and subsequently citizenship seems significant and contributes to new approaches towards forms of engagement - 15 -

and participation in the public sphere (Burgess et al., 2006, p.2). Still, the above reviewed conceptions all seem to be at least immanently inspired by a Habermasian conception of a public sphere which includes everyday life to be a site of democracy. Despite of including expressions of popular culture, Habermas episodic and occasional publics are still assumed to communicate deliberately and rationally (Habermas, 1996), which will be a point of criticism in regard to my empirical findings. Feminist critiques already point at the misconception of such an idea of a universal public sphere (referred to in Burgess et al., 2006). Despite of the consideration that expressions of commercial popular culture and everyday life practices are as constitutive of cultural citizenship for particular social identity groups as are the spaces of formal politics(ibid, p.2), we will gain differing insights into the conceptions of public sphere, participation and citizenship. One may see from my empirical analysis below, that the public sphere on Indymedia is differentiated according to certain groups of users which also has an impact on the degree of the deliberateness and rationality of the Indymedia discourse. McGuigan equally expands the notion of a cultural public sphere to include a range of media and popular culture where concerns with politics, public and personal, as a contested terrain through affective- aesthetic and emotional- [] modes of communication (2005, p.435) get articulated. Moreover, the definition of cultural citizenship as the the process of bonding and community building, and reflection on that bonding that is implied in partaking in the text-related practices of reading, consuming, celebrating, and criticizing offered in the realm of (popular) culture (2005, p.10), renders Indymedia exemplary of such a public sphere. This is not only in regard of how cultural texts get (re-) defined, but also how cultural communities are formed and operate since the concept of cultural citizenship entails categories of inclusion and exclusion, of identity construction, ideology and (moral) obligations and rights (Burgess et al., 2006, p.4). Furthermore, the thought of aesthetic and emotional communicative acts within the public sphere discourse bears resemblance to the criticism of its assumed rationality and deliberateness. This becomes clear in my empirical analysis further below. In regard to the alleged demise of the civic induced by new ICTs, we may ask what Indymedia means in regard of participatory practices and notions of cultural citizenship: How does Juris (2005, p.189) network ideal materialise? Also Pickards analysis of Indymedias radical democratic principles making it a viable democratic communications model(2006 b, p.327) leaves open the question, which concept of citizenship based on these radical democratic practices is negotiated on Indymedia. How would Deuze conceptualise the civic - 16 -

regarding the misleading thought of contemporary media and social theory that digital culture is an exclusive lifestyle expression of an individualised society within a globalised world (2006, p.63)? Finally, which forms of participation are considered legitimate and which idea of citizenship is negotiated on the discursive space Indymedia provides? Subsequently, an analysis of web 2.0 media practices on Indymedia reveals how the routinely mediated aesthetic and emotional reflections on how we live and imagine the good life( McGuigan, 2005, p.435) reproduce alternative conceptions of citizenship and participation - two essential concepts of democratic culture. How these concepts are negotiated on Indymedias discursive space has been overlooked by scholars previously (Pickard, 2006 b, p.317). So, this will be subject of the following case study which complements the existing research on Indymedia to provide the basis for an empirically founded theoretical reconfiguration of the implications ICTs can have on a culture in general (Deuze, 2006, p.63) and on participation practices and notions of citizenship in particular. This avoids the view that technologies have particular social effects and are forces of social transformation per se, which accounts to technological determinism. Rather, the media practices under investigation are neither historically inevitable, nor is the internet a fixed medium, just like communities, networks, or identities are not (Deuze, 2006, p.68).

Case Study Indymedia: A Death during the Anti-G20 Protests in London The anti-G20 protests which took place in London on April 1, 2009, feature prominently on the Indymedia-UK website. The chosen topic reveals the internet to be the technological infrastructure for network-based political activism and citizen journalism (Juris, 2005, p.191) and subsequently uncovers the social dynamics between the on- and offline with a focus on participation and visions of citizenship. I analysed 114 comments added by Indymedia users to a weblog linked to an article that presents the issue of a man, Ian Tomlinson, who died during the demonstration and on the site of the protests in London on April 1, 2009 (Indymedia, 2009). Although it remains unclear whether Tomlinson was a protestor or a by-passer, Indymedia presents the conflicting perspectives offered by police, the mainstream media, and eye-witnesses of his death. The article was published on April 2, 2009 and amended with new information throughout the following days. The 114 comments were added to the weblog between April 2 and April 21 with two thirds of the comments (eighty) adjoined within the first eight days. It is difficult to infer who is writing the posts in the weblog. This is because of Indymedias policy of guaranteeing anonymity not only to article authorship, but also to - 17 -

weblogging posts. It is however necessary to assign categories of identity according to the presence and absence of textual signs, intertextuality, and certain narratives and metaphors to make sense of these communicative acts (Bertrand & Hughes, 2005). Thus, my discourse analytic approach is informed by semiotics to infer what constitutes legitimate participation and which forms of citizenship are discursively constructed in the weblog discussion on Indymedia about Tomlinsons death during the G20 protests. Tomlinsons death provides an extreme case which reveals a plethora of empirical findings because they [extreme cases] activate more actors and more basic mechanisms in the situation studied(Flyvbjerg, 2004, p.425). Compared to the weblog entries to other articles, the feature about Tomlinson shows considerable discursive activity on a variety of topics and resembles McGuigans idea about affective aesthetic and emotional modes of communication (2005, p.435) as constituting a public sphere online5. I coded the 114 comments on the weblog primarily inferring from implicit and explicit communicative acts about the use of violence since this constitutes a central focus of the discourse: Discussions on the weblog evolve around Tomlinsons death and even more prominently around wider issues such as il/legitimate police violence, il/legitimate use of violence as a form of protest, non-/cooperation with state authorities and debates on how offline protest should look like. This gave an initial direction to assign the authorship identity labels radical, protestor/moderate, activist, and conservative. The coding was refined during the process of analysis and supplemented by qualitative categories of genre and discursive context, and through identifying the relation between on- and offline, the assignment of the responsibility for violence during demonstrations in general and Tomlinsons death in particular, as well as discursive traces revealing imagination, ideology, and political vision. The frequent use of hyperlinks opens my analysis to additional photos, videos and texts on the internet which helps assigning authorship identity. Indeed, this could not be done with twenty-two entries of which fifteen provide a hyperlink only, because these data were too inadequate to allow inferring authorship identity with minimal certainty. For all other entries, I added the degree of relatedness of the communicative acts to each other: A total of thirty-seven entries are related at least to the Indymedia article, sixty-one comments are linked to other entries of the same weblog, and only sixteen entries are connected to neither of these. This suggests a high degree of relatedness of the comments to each other and resembles
I will reference the authors within Indymedias public sphere with their weblog-name and date and time of their comments (name, dd.mm., hh:mm). The weblog can be found on Indymedia (2009) below the article; selecting one comment-title leads to the complete weblog with all its entries.
5

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OReillys analogy of weblogging as synapses [which] form in the brain, with associations becoming stronger through repetition or intensity, the web of connections grows organically as an output of the collective activity of all web users (OReilly, 2005 a, p.2). Since the public sphere is differentiated into levels according to the density of communication, organizational complexity, and range (Habermas, 1996, p.374 quoted in Burgess et al.), I grouped the weblog entries into clusters of days: During the first two days (i.e. April 2,3) the weblog discourse is clearly dominated by radicals comments (twelve of twenty-nine entries with four entries by activists, six by moderate protestors, and two by conservative discussants, respectively). April 4 to April 6 however shows an overall reduced participation with mainly activists and unknown authors posting hyperlinks gradually taking over the discussion (five and six entries respectively out of a total of seventeen entries). This constitutes the first discursive cluster. I located the second cluster to start on April 7, when a video footage was made public that shows Tomlinson being victim of police violence minutes before his death. Subsequently, the weblog discussion is reanimated from that day onwards. Between April 7 and April 9, a total of thirty-four weblog entries consist of sixteen made by activists, four by moderate protestors, and one each by a radical and a conservative. Twelve comments were not assigned authorship in this period. The latter is the time of the most intensive discursive activity where notions of participation and conceptions of citizenship are immanent to the weblog discourse. As from April 10 (up to April 12), one finds a resurgence of radicals comments but the overall participation ebbs gradually away until the last entry made on April 21. The third cluster ranges from April 13 to April 21 with scattered entries that are increasingly unrelated to each other (in terms of time and relatedness of the authorship groups comments to each others comments). To approach issues of meaning and context in respect of my research question, I will commence the discourse analysis giving concrete examples of my inferences by referring directly to the communicative acts on the Indymedia weblog. This will show more concretely how different imaginations about participation and citizenship are articulated, discussed and negotiated on Indymedia. Which groups contribute to the weblog discussion at which time, tells us about the relatedness of their discursive acts to each other. This ultimately allows inferring about the degree of deliberateness and extent of the commentators ambitions to generate a reciprocal discourse within a public sphere.

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Cluster One: Radicals Reactions and Contemplations about Violence As stated above, the weblog entries from April 2 to April 6 are dominated by radicals: The genre varies from accusing the police of Tomlinsons death, to binary divisions into evil empire, i.e. police, mainstream media (AnnArchy,02.04.,12:03) and the soldiers of humanity, i.e. anarchists (george coombs,04.04.,00:51) to calls for violence to the violence of the state (George,02.04.16:59) and revolution (jason,02.04.,12:57; Old Fart,03.04.,18:35). The radicals political imaginary is clearly influenced by Marxist and anarchist ideology. They also regard the deliberations on Indymedia essential to negotiate an offline action strategy (e.g. anon,03.04.,09:34), although these considerations identify political participation radically different from conventional notions of civic engagement: Nine out of fourteen radical statements between April 2 and April 6 announce violence to be a legitimate protest expression. Moreover, police is generally considered to be soulless, aggressive, and angry (chrisgo1,02.04.,20:31), and responsible for Tomlinsons death. Cooperation with state authorities, generally depicted as oppressive instruments, is thus rejected in general (anon, 03.04.,09:34; FACKED OFF,03.04.,14:50). Another concern of the radicals comments is the role of mainstream media which are accused of propagandising on behalf of the states interest (FACKED OFF,03.04.,15:11). Indymedia itself is seen by some radicals as providing ideological structure and approaches (FACKED OFF,03.04.,14:45) and as a medium that itself becomes the message of a radical protest movement (Old Fart,03.04.18:35). This confirms Pickards notion that the structural, technical, and institutional designs of Indymedia an intertwined with political imaginaries of radical democracy (2006 b, p.318), despite his neglect of the implications the considerations regarding violence might have. It seems rather important to the radical discourse whether Tomlinson was a protestor or just a passer-by which anticipates the ideological instrumentalisation of Tomlinsons death: even if he wasnt there [the site of protests] we can still use this to help smash the system(anarchist,04.04.,01:13). Moderate protestors however neglect the radicals notions of what considers legitimate participation. Despite of the assumption that aggressive police tactics triggers violent reactions on the side of the protestors, the use of violence itself is generally negated (Stroppyoldgirl,02.04.,17:09; Chris,02.04.20:29). Also, moderates condemn the

instrumentalisation of Tomlinsons death (CJ,03.04.,14:56; DanDare,04.04.08:39) and rather point to the lack of information about the incident. They equally criticise the possibility of mainstream media and state authorities to make the death reflect well on them and badly on us (satsuna,04.04.,18:06). Generally speaking, moderate protestors condemn the use of - 20 -

violence even though police are generally assumed to be responsible for Tomlinsons death, which renders violent protest understandable in certain instances (Kwela, 04.04.,15:02). The group of commentators that has been labelled activist, turns out to be the most critical and reflexive. Participation consists of constructively contributing to the discourse on Indymedia, critically reflecting on the weblog discussion, as well as online coordination of offline traditional participatory practices: London activists call for solidarity demonstrations against police violence and refer to the lack of information on Tomlinsons death (ellimac, 02.04.,10:17; billstickers,03.04.,15:10). Also, Indymedia as an alternative news platform is critically questioned through complaints about the lack of media material of the supposed incident leading up to or of this mans death (Lenny,03.04.,14:32). Moreover, it is clearly the activists aim to uncover police misbehaviour (ACAB,03.04.,14:50) which is done by providing hyperlinks to videos (e.g. Youtube) of eyewitness-like accounts of police violence and also the issue of Tomlinson having been victim of police violence minutes before his death (pfm,03.04.,19:10). Moreover, as a reaction to polemic radical statements, anon (04.04.,11:44) points to the incoherence of the weblog entries and lack of genuine discussion. Activists entries also show the highest degree of relatedness to other comments. Conservatives, who amount to three entries within the first time cluster, generally condemn protestor violence but also refer to protest demonstrations as pointmless marches (@realist,04.04.,10:27) and accuse protestors in general of vandalism and a propensity to commit crimes. Conservative statements subsequently have a low degree of relatedness in terms of discussion substance and topics but rather amount to conservative counter-statements in the face of radicals comments. It is however outstanding that out of forty-six comments, only five neither are related to the Indymedia article, nor to other weblog entries; this testifies the overall high degree of connectedness of the discursive acts, in particular among activists.

Cluster Two: Critical Considerations and a Deliberate Discourse among Activists The high intensity of comments made by activists between April 2 and 6 prepares the ground for time cluster two (April 7-12), in which first activists (April 7-9), and later radicals (April 10-12) dominate the discourse. This is because on April 7, a video was released showing Tomlinson being victim of police violence minutes before his death on the streets of London. Activists provide hyperlinks, other media accounts, video footages provided by demonstrators, eyewitness reports, and concrete advice on how to behave during demonstrations. They therefore construct a collage of various media, both alternative and mainstream, to uncover the politics of misinformation by official sources. The discourse also shows how activists - 21 -

imagine dissent and participation: Participatory practices with a focus on ICTs and deliberating the relation between on- and offline participation. This happens within a constructive discursive space where the relatedness between the comments is high, and where moderate protestors equally partake in the online deliberations such as an average 9-5 office worker(Glenn,07.04.,21:28) or a protestors father (ArthurShaw,08.04.,12:10). Activists also continue to use the online forum to coordinate political action offline which resembles Juris idea of the internet as a technological architecture, where activists move back and forth between online and offline political activity(2005, p.191). Citizenship is actively practiced and voiced as having an emancipatory demand challenging classical public authorities (police, government, mainstream media) for political bias. Also, the importance of of ICTs for participation, coordination and action is highlighted (upthera,08.04.,11:35; Fabbri, 09.04.,01:05). It is however still a question how accurate media coverage on Indymedia itself was, since the crucial video revealing Tomlinson being attacked by police appeared on mainstream media (Norvello, 08.04.,13:01) which is a sign of self-reflexivity among activists. Surprisingly, the previous intensity of radical statements is not revitalised between April 7 and 9. Rather, radicals engage in a discussion on the legitimacy of violence against police horses and dogs, a point of discussion raised by an explicit anarchist (George,02.04., 16:59). Between April 10 and 12, this triggers a whole discussion on the role of animals as state instruments of repression and abused objects of a suppressive state apparatus (e.g. anon, 10.04.,12:40) and matters of the legitimacy of violence in case of self-defence (slight,10.04., 18:28). It is remarkable that, despite the radical visions voiced, consensus is reached on the matter: Violence against police animals is considered unfeasible since it would endanger protestors and police alike. The option of principally violent-free protest is however left aside; i.e. it is assumed that violence against the police is legitimate per se which leaves an unresolved ambivalence in the radicals discourse. The relatedness of their comments is however restricted. Radicals seem to ignore the activists reflexive discussions and rather communicate among themselves. They opt for considerations about the use of violence in the future: well know what to expect in the future and respond accordingly (upthera, 07.04.,19:32) instead of joining a constructive deliberation among various interests and ideas.

Cluster Three: From a Disrupted Discourse to the Sonic Device The last time cluster I identified ranges from April 13 to the last weblog entry on April 21 with a total of 18 comments. The discourse within this time frame is, due to the unconnectedness of the communicative acts, rather disrupted with a majority of radical - 22 -

comments and scattered notes by activists, moderates and a conservative. In case communicative acts are linked to each other, they evolve around the technical and legal implications of a long range sonic device to defend against police horses (e.g. Danny,12.04.) while the only critical comment is given by a moderate who states that the culture we have been born into is founded upon the rationalisation and justification of violence against all creatures that refuse to comply(corelu minous,13.04.17:31). Subsequently, cluster three resembles an unconnected accumulation of comments which, if connected to each other, do not deliberate but rather assume the legitimacy of violence: It is only a handful of radicals (in particular Danny, e.g. 11.04.,12.04.,13.04.,14.04.,16.04.,19.04.) discussing vividly the legal and technical details of the anti-horse acoustic device.

Indymedia A Discursive Space for the Negotiation of Participation and Alternative Conceptions of Citizenship The analysis above reveals different conceptions of participation and citizenship. The former can be identified on two levels. Firstly, the contributions to the Indymedia weblog show a high degree of relatedness which constitutes participation in itself: Regarding the discourse I analysed on Indymedia, participation consists of the everyday life practices of citizens online within a cultural public sphere that includes expressions of popular culture (Burgess et al., 2006). Terming Indymedia as a forum for unconventional expressions of participatory culture (Burgess et al., 2006, p.5) is valid in regard to all those comments showing a degree of relatedness within the discourse, independent of the political imaginaries and authorship identities behind them. What counts is the fact that Indymedia weblogs provide an alternative space for public deliberation: Web 2.0 applications and ICT therefore constitute enabling tools for a new type of communication: personal, participatory, and interactive (de Oliveira, 2008, p.121). This however necessitates further differentiation. Secondly, the analysis reflects Deuzes notion of online participation being constitutive of digital culture (2006, p.67). However, this also necessitates looking at the relationship between the online and offline participation practices. The literature review has shown that a gap exists in scholarly approaches to web 2.0 practices as potentially being more than merely lifestyle expressions without covering aspects of citizenship. Web 2.0 has implications for the notion of what constitutes legitimate participation and the duties and rights of the good citizen. My research fills the gap regarding which forms of participation practice are negotiated on Indymedia and what implications this has for conceptions of a public sphere and notions of citizenship. - 23 -

In this regard, Habermas notion of a universal public sphere composed of deliberate and rational discussion seems illusionary and justifies questioning whether Indymedia really is a model for viable democratic communications as proposed by Pickard (2006 b). What would Habermas have said in regard of the radicals deliberations about violence? In addition, the aesthetic and emotional mode of communication shows that only certain groups are present on Indymedia. So we should ask whether these are representative of the even larger offline groups of activists and radicals, and who is excluded from the discourse. Moreover, my analysis also alludes to the often implicit conflation of culture- as in shared norms, values, practices, and expectations of a group of people with communication technologies (ibid, p.63), i.e. we have seen that different groups within the same discursive space negotiate participation in terms of offline action quite differently: Activists comments bear resemblance to traditional forms of participation emphasising the importance of the connection between online deliberation and the offline action (see Juris, 2005, p.191). They extensively make use of the whole range of ICTs, not only of the weblog, but also via hyperlinking to other online sources of eyewitness accounts, videos, and mainstream media references. The activists appear as the most critical and reflexive author group engaged in media practice complementing offline political participation; they engage, in Deuzes words, in remediation and as bricoleurs (2006, p.66). The cultural text of the weblog consequently gets redefined to constitute a public sphere, thus bears wider political significance in terms of public civic deliberation. Radicals nevertheless discursively construct a vision of participation and citizenship that includes the legitimate use of violence a highly different premise explaining why there is a low degree of connectedness between the radicals and the activists comments 6 . Moreover, this points to an unresolved ambivalence within the radicals discourse opening the discussion to wider (normative) questions of the differing conceptions of democracy of the groups participating in Indymedia weblog discussions. The fissure between activists and radicals as the two groups dominating my case studys discourse becomes obvious once we refer to the second analytic level of this issue: The definition of cultural citizenship as the the process of bonding and community building, and reflection on that bonding that is implied in partaking in the text-related practices of reading, consuming, celebrating, and criticizing offered in the realm of (popular) culture (McGuigan 2005, p.10). While activists show a self-reflexive attitude to their own

Vice versa (activists commenting on radicals statements) this is the case

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participation practices, radicals construct participation as including violence for the offline, while online deliberations focus on the question of legitimacy of violence as a form of protest. Looking at community-building practices, we see that both groups form discursive communities free from any necessary relations to the nation state, which together with participation, are regarded as the prerequisites for the enactment of cultural citizenship (Burgess et al., 2006, p.148). At the same time, the discourse on the weblog shows that it is not one coherent group deliberating in order to reach consensus, but different groups that focus on their internal agenda (media related activism for activists, violence for radicals) and eventually reach consensus internally. To see how conceptions of citizenship between those groups might reach consensus or whether these discourse based distinctions hold in reality, further methodologically diversified research with a particular focus on citizenship conceptions must be conducted in the future. The fact that sometimes radicals appeared to also give moderate comments (e.g. anon), indicates a difficulty I encountered in my coding, which necessitates taking a closer look at the groups identified. This also questions the persistence of discursive consistency once it comes to offline protest, activism, and the manifestations of alternative notions of civic rights and obligations in modern democratic society. In addition, with regard to the relation between online deliberation and offline practices of activists and radicals alike, further research is necessary. To go more into depth in relation to the significance of web2.0 for the offline world, further qualitative methods such as participant observation, interviewing, and ethnographic field trips would allow triangulation of my findings. I have just laid the basis to approach an empirically founded theoretical reconfiguration of my central concepts. To sum up, Bennetts idea to transcend the disengaged and the engaged youth paradigms is confirmed; we neither see a radical decline of traditional forms of participation, nor do web 2.0 practices endanger democracy per se. Rather, we see new forms of media practices leading to new definitions of participation and alternative notions of citizenship. Furthermore, Pickards notion of Indymedia as a form of internet based activism, network formation and participatory politics (2006 b, p.317) is confirmed by my findings. We also see that the model of cultural citizenship is subject to discursive reconfiguration, as proposed by Urricho who states that certain forms of [...] participatory culture [...] in fact constitute sites of cultural citizenship [] particularly collaborative communities, sites of collective activity that exist thanks only to the creative contributions, sharing, and active participation of their members. (2004, p.148). To what extent these discursive constructions have an impact on changing notions of participation and citizenship offline remains to be seen. - 25 -

References: Bennett, W. L. (2008). Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age. In W.L. Bennett (Ed.), Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth, pp.1-24. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Bertrand, I. & Hughes, P. (2005). Media Research Methods. Audiences, Institutions, Texts. Houndsmills, etc.: Palgrave Mcmillan. Bob, C., Haynes, J., Pickard, V., Keenan, T., & Couldry, N. (2008). Media Spaces: Innovation and Activism. In In M.Albrow, H.Anheier, M.Glasius, M.E. Price,& M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global Civil Society 2007/08 (pp.198-223). London: Sage. Burgess, J., Foth, M., & Klaebe, H. (2006). Everyday Creativity as Civic Engagement: A Cultural Citizenship View of New Media. In Proceedings Communications Policy & Research Forum, Sydney. Accessed from http://eprints.qut.edu.au Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. I. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Castells, M. (2005). The network society: A cross-cultural perspective. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. De Oliveira, M.D. (2008). Deepening Democracy in Latin America. In M.Albrow, H.Anheier, M.Glasius, M.E. Price,& M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global Civil Society 2007/08 (pp.114-123). London: Sage. Deuze, M. (2003). The Web and its Journalisms: Considering the Consequences of Different Types of News Media Online. New Media and Society, 5 (2), 139-152. Deuze, M. (2006). Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture. The Information Society, 22, 63-75. Flyvbjerg, B. (2004). Five Misunderstandings about case-study research. In C. Seale, G. Gobo, J.B. Gubrium, & D. Silverman (Eds.), Qualitative Research Practice, pp.420-434. London: Sage Publications. Habermas, J. (1996) Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, Polity Press. Hermes, J. (2000). Cultural Citizenship and Crime Fiction: Politics and the Interpretive Community. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2), 215-232. Hine, C. (2000). Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage. McGuigan, J. (2005). The Cultural Public Sphere. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 8 (4), 427-443. Juris, J.S. (2005). The new Digital Media and Activist Networking within Anti-Corporate Globalisation Movements. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 597, 198-208. - 26 -

Pickard, V.W. (2006 a). Assessing he Radical Democracy of Indymedia: Discursive, Technical and Institutional Constructions. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 23 (1), 19-38. Pickard, V.W. (2006 b). United yet autonomous: Indymedia and the struggle to sustain a radical democratic network. Media Culture Society, 28, 315-336. Uricchio, W. (2004). Cultural Citizenship in the Age of P2P Networks. In I. Bondebjerg & P. Golding (Eds.), European Culture and the Media, pp. 139- 163. Bristol: Intellect Books. Walker, J. (2003). Final version of weblog definition. Retrieved June 26, 2006, from http://jilltxt.net/archives /blog theorising /final version of weblog definition.html.

Empirical Data: Indymedia (2009, April 2). G20 Policing Caused Mans Death: Police Coverup and Media Lies. Retrieved May 22, 2009, from http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/426083.html

Annex: Screnshot Indymedia UK website (source: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/426083.html)

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Web-Mediated Cultural Participation of the Moroccan Diasporas: Community-Building, Identity Formation and Heritage Remediation on the Forum Yabiladi.com. Thomas Mougey
Abstract: In this article, I explore and assess the participatory turn induced by web2.0 application by uncovering the specific use made of the World Wide Web by the Moroccan Diasporas. Challenging the traditional conception of internet as a space of national borderless territory that enables pan-national convergence, I demonstrate, through the analysis of the forum Yabiladi, that cyberspace rather foster a remapping of the offline social and territorial boundaries. Enhancing intra-diasporic community construction, Yabiladi constitute a unique empowering space for 2nd generation migrants to collectively, re-appropriate inherited cultural heritage and create their specific sense of Moroccanness. Keywords: Moroccan Diaspora, digital community, cultural participation, cultural identity Introduction. In an era of globalization characterized by intense population movements and an accelerated development of far-reaching Informations and Communication Technologies (ICTS), the Internet was acknowledged as the ultimate tool for migrants to re-link with fellow citizens and re-root in a common sense of community their cultural placelessness (Appadurai, 1996). While migrant communities have always been keen to exploit ICTs such as newspapers, radios and TV broadcast to maintain linkages with homeland, the democratization of the World Wide Web opened up new possibilities of community building. Understood as participatory, decentralized and egalitarian media, the development of web2.0 applications empowered highly diasporic communities to overcome geographical distance and barriers to re-enact their cultural heritage and create transnational virtual diasporic spaces (Ignacio, 2005; Bernal, 2006; Appadurai, 1996). spacebound understanding of community Breaking away from a traditional computer-mediated community

building,

construction is now floating within a global [regional]/local nexus where actual presence and its proxi implode (Tsakili, 2003, p.174). Disturbing traditional sender-receiver models of mass communication (Appadurai, 1996) and allowing user-generated content, Internet and especially web2.0 media brought about a participatory turn in cultural production, consumption and community building (Tyner & Kuhlke, 2000; Bernal, 2006; Loukili, 2007)

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as they are assumed to empower users by facilitating works of imagination and the continuous creation of new imagined world and imagined selves (Appadurai, 1996). Since this collective volume aims at assessing the possibilities offered by web2.0 applications to emancipate from offline allegiances, hierarchies and authorities and foster new form of cultural practices, my research seeks to uncover, in the specific case of European-based Moroccan Diaspora, how, with the aim of gathering the whole Moroccan community, these diasporic digital spaces take shape and operate? To what extent this digital gathering allows new cultural practices of community building and identity construction? This article explores the following. First, it challenges the traditional conception of the Internet as breaking down physical as well as social boundaries (e.g. disappearance of racism on internet). Rather than a borderless world it has brought about a reconfiguration of social and territorial boundaries. Examining the Moroccan online portal Yabiladi, the research withnesses the formation of inter- and intra-diasporic communities rather than a mythical convergence of culture towards the establishment of a pan-moroccan national community. Second it investigates the use of Yabiladi forum made by 2nd generations in collectively experiencing, discovering and reappropriating cultural text to shape their common cultural heritage and strengthen the ties of a new virtual diasporic community. Not animated by the myth of return, disconnected from the traditional mode of remembrance invested by their parents, engaged in identity conflict and marginalized by both the original homeland and the country of residence, Yabiladi constitutes a unique space for 2nd generation to experience and remediate collectively and autonomously their specific sense of Moroccanness. Methodology. This case study is based on a discourse analysis of the forum of Yabiladi portal (www.yabiladi.net). Though a plurality of portal of community-linked practices7 is available Yabiladi is by far the most popular community website in activity to date. Created in 2002, Yabiladi.com managed to activate a lively diasporic community on a firm basis with 40000 visits per day and over a million per month in 2008 (lavieeco.com, 2008). As a digital diasporic portal, Yabiladi8 fulfils a number of uses for both nationals and migrants: it contains a multi-lingual review of local and international press articles dealing with Morocco at large, an array of administrative information, e.g. Moroccan consulates contact information, up-todate information about Moroccan-related cultural events in Europe and Morocco. It includes sections about religion (Koran) and even food recipes (Choumicha). It also provides

7 8

e.g. www.bladi.com, www.marocblabla.ning.com, www.el-annabi.com/forum/. my country in Arabic.

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access to public Moroccan TV (e.g. 2M or RTM), and to Moroccan radio (e.g. Yabiladi, Radio 2M). Interactive applications are available such as video and photo sharing platforms, a chatroom and a forum, the latter being the most intensively used. While Loukilis recent and unique work carried out on Moroccan cyberspace shows how the portal Yabiladi, as a web-mediated diasporic public space, is used by Moroccan migrants to overcome the national censorship and stonewalling (2007), my research rather focus on Yabiladi forum and the use made of it by the specific population of 2nd generation migrants. Willing to avoid any technological determinism (i.e. web2.0 as emancipatory per se), I assess and examine the alleged emancipatory turn triggered by web2.0 applications through the observation of the form, dynamic and content of the cultural practices adopted and generated by the participants. Thus, operating from Yabiladi archives made all accessible by a free registration on the forum, the analysis covered all discussions related to Moroccan identity, culture, values, cultural heritage and society by analyzing the title and content of the introductory post. Covering a time period of over a year, the selection resulted in the collection of about fifty discussions which were subjected to examination according to an array of criteria encompassing processes of production of digital Moroccan diasporic realities. The focus on 2nd generation was made possible by the information (e.g. country and city of residence, Google map) available on each participants profile. Assuming the honesty and sincerity of the participants statements, the profile information, as sometimes incoherent or scarce, was easily tallied or furthered by the personal stories that punctuate participants interventions.

Diasporic community building on the Internet: an aggregation of communities. Diasporas and community building: Deterritorialization and hybridity. Through the experience of migration, migrants may experience both spatial and temporal dislocation from homeland which can end up in the failure to fully inhabit the present or present space [host country] (Amhed, 1999, p.343). In Ahmeds view, migration involves, a splitting of home as place of origin and home as the sensory world of everyday experience (p.341). As argued by Bhabba, migrants are therefore embedded in a state of in-betweenessbetween host (or everyday home) and home (place of origin), inclusion and exclusion, resistance and acculturation. It is in this in-between space (Bhabha, 1994) that migrants mentally bridge the homeland and the new location and thereby re-root their floating life. Within diasporic settings, individuals are progressing in a discursive space shaped by an - 30 -

interveawing aspiration for traditions and a return to cultural purity and a process of translation and hybridization resulting from their integration in the host culture. This third space (Bhabba, 1994) constitutes the migrants discursive conditions of enunciation of identity (p.37) and the grounds of diasporic community building. Community is then the product of a continuous translation and mediation between the cultural signs, sought and received from homeland and the social and historical embededness of the migrants. Babbhas perspective thereby challenges the understanding of culture and community as geographically bounded entity traditionnally correlated to ethnicity. Thus, meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity and fixity (p.37) but are socially constructed, translated and rehistoricized. Not only geographically, migrants are to some extent irremediably culturally displaced from homeland. Deterritorialized and hybridized, diasporas are thereby a multifaceted aggregation of different subcultural groups varying from each other for their specific social and historical backgrounds, trajectory and embeddedness. This layering results in an array of connection and attachment but also estrangement and distantiation that structure relations and understanding shared by world spread diasporic communities about each other (Srinivasan & Pyati, 2007). Internet and the myth of the borderless community: geographic transgression, social reproduction. Often estranged from mother culture and uncomfortable in their country of residence, migrants maintain linkages with homeland as a mean to re-link cultures to places and to fulfil the desire for memory, myth, and rediscovery (Shi, 2005, p.57). Migrants, as Karim argues, have been developing networks of communication that use a variety of media that include mail, telephone, fax, film, audiotape, videotape, satellite television and ultimately the Internet (2003, p.1). New media such as the Internet gave rise to new spaces of communication and forms of linkages with homeland. The Internet enabled diasporas to activate, what Karim calls, transnational third space as a site of multiple border transgressing physical boundaries where, as in the case of Yabiladi, members of diasporas proceeding from all over the world gather. Unlike traditional medias, the participatory turn induced by Internet applications (i.e. synchronous and asynchronous interaction, consumersgenerated content..) enables diaporic members to re-create and re-invent the commonality and fellowship they once shared (Tsaliki, p.162). While undubiously bridging the localglobal continuum and re-linking migrants to homeland by offering a participatory transnational space, Internet capabilities have been, however, idealized and overestimated. - 31 -

Early research on the cyberspace tended to comprehend digital social spaces as autonomous from the offline reality and as constituting a socially and physically borderless space. Even though the hasty optimistic claims such as the diseapearance of Racism on the Internet were rapidly abandoned, the myth of a digital convergence of cultures still prevailed in cultural studies of migration. However, as Bernal argues, when understanding digital diasporic communities as world of itself, many studies on e-diasporas failed to explore the relationship between online activities of virtual community and physical experiences of belonging (2006, p.164) grounded in the real social world. As we will see with Yabiladi forum, the dynamics of community formation remain influenced by the social embeddedness of the users, thus generating differentiated form of gathering. In an interview to an online African journal Afrik.com, Yabiladi creator M.Ezzouak, explained that the primary goal of the portal Yabiladi was to federate all Moroccans in the world. (Afrik.com, 2002). Though enabling cross-boundaries communication, Yabiladi seems to be unable to reproduce the linguistic diversity of the Moroccan society. Even though the webmasters recently added a category dedicated to Moroccan dialects (forum Darija, Arabe, Tamazight), the large majority of the discussions is dominated by French which is strikingly contrasting with the offline linguistic reality of Morocco. For the bulk of the Moroccans, use of French is rather restricted to occasional circumstances (i.e. the public administration) whereas regular use is limited to Moroccan upper class. The most common language is rather Darija (Moroccan Arabic dialect) and to a lesser extent Berber dialects such as Tamazight. Thus rather than overcoming, Yabiladi creates new forms of exclusion (Darija speakers) and exacerbates the already existing social marginalization of ethnic groups (e.g. Amazigh, Chleuh). It is especially due to the difficulty to transcribe in European-based internet script (Latin alphabet) Berber and Darija dialects (Semitic language). Indeed, the absence of Berber and Darija internet scripts in the western-dominated World Wide Web, forces the participants to translate their dialects into a combination of Latin alphabet and numbers. Moreover, according to several users, this alternative renders the understanding complicated and sometimes puzzling. Thus Yabiladi tends to create a specific online language hierarchy which rules out the majority of Moroccans non-current French speaker (and writer) from participating. The linguistic reconfiguration of the Moroccan community on Yabiladi is also the reflect of the European origins of the large majority of its users. According to the statistic collected by Loukili, 50 percent of Yabiladi users lives in France, 25 per cent in Morocco and the rest of users are based in different geographical location (Loukili, p.5). This overrepresentation of European based users stems from the limited accessibility of nationals to the - 32 -

Internet which, in Morocco, remains a weakly developed and still expensive technology reserved to upper social categories. This asymmetric representation is determining in the mechanism of social networking within Yabiladi when it comes to consider the social trajectory and embeddedness of European-based migrant users. In general discussions, regular clashes break out between nationals and migrants over distinctive understanding and representations of Moroccan culture, societal changes, and identity markers which turns out to split up the forum. Repeatedly when discussing about Moroccos present and future, participants end up in fierce controversies about the societal impact of the Moroccos ongoing social and economic changes. While most of the nationals welcome the dynamism of their country for the direct impact it has on their everyday life, migrants are rather dubious. Though particularly aware of the challenge of Moroccos development, they criticize the westernization involved by development (e.g. alcohol consumption, use of French over Darija) and denigrate the lost of cultural and social values usually crystallized by the big cities, the gharb (Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech..etc) where the people is so envious the Europeans and their lifestyle that they tried to imitate them ending up in a poor ersatz9 (Udjedjid). Their fear of westernization and scorn for corrupted big cities is outweigh by a strong attachment to an idealized countryside as the temple of authentic Marocanness (i.e. these values we still have them in the countryside as well as in our villages [] The Berbers are the best guardians of our values10, Irhoud). This structuring cleavage/divide can be understood as an outcome of different social history, embeddedness and experience of homeland. Migrants connection to homeland is marked by an experience of discontinuity between past and present. Migrant communities are barely able to efficiently synchronize with the on-going changes occuring in their homeland. As Karanfil puts it about Turkish migrants, the connection had been established and reproduced but only with the [Morocco] of the 1970s rather than a constantly changing [Morocco] (2007, p.61). Moreover, the original Home is usually reified as a key point of reference for cultural sustenance and transmission which often ends up in situation where migrants and their children turn become more conservative about social changes than nationals (Aksoy & Robins, 2003). Imprisoned in a static and rather outdated conception of homeland and Morrocanness, migrants biased regard does not assess changes the way nationals do.

qui envient les europeens ainsi que leurs modes de vies,au point meme de vouloir les imiters mais ce qui finalement ne donne qu'une sorte de "contrefaons". 10 ...ces valeures on les a encors dans nos compagnes et villages[...]les berberes sont les meilleures garidiens de nos valeures.

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Therefore considering the influence of offline social embeddedness, the apparent anarchy and cacophony leave place to inter- and intra-diasporic logics of gathering and networking directly related to the offline social reality and trajectory of the participants. Discussions about Maghreb are a case in a point of inter-diasporic gathering. Debating about the cultural similarities shared by Moroccans and Algerians, Algerian and Moroccan migrants gather around the idea of sameness and of an existing overarching Magrhebi identity leading Amiratoon to ironically conclude that they are so similar that they cant stand each other11. On the other hand, nationals are insistent in asserting the profound cultural differences separating the two countries such as the way they talk, clothes, food, traditions Cha3bi vs rai (type of Algerian and Moroccan music) according to Malika_malika.12. Though referring to same cultural and historical references (e.g. French colonisation), the narratives of identity/history constructed by both side are dramatically different displaying the underlying impact of different social embeddedness as Glamorous puts it: Living in France and having as a neighbor an Algerian or a Moroccan, do not display the differences that separate the two people13. In other words, the comparable post-colonial histories of immigration, the similar spatial and temporal dislocations endured and the common social marginalization in and categorization by the French society (i.e. beurs, jeunes des banlieues) remain strong determinants in the networking mechanism operating on the cyberspace. Unable to bridge the sheer social and cultural gap that has gradually separated nationals from migrants and to overcome digital linguistic hierarchies, Yabiladi fails to foster a convergence of Moroccan cultures. However, Yabiladi enables the transgression of the physical boundaries separating the different Moroccan communities in France by fostering intra-diasporic digital networking/gathering. As we will see hereafter, Yabiladi opens up an empowering space for marginalized and bondless 2nd generation to model their specific diasporic reality and sense of Moroccanness.

Cultural practices and the cyberspace: Yabiladi as a privileged site for 2nd generation community building and identity construction. From the provisional to the permanent: fifty years of Moroccan migration in France. After the Second World War, France had recourse to immigration in order to sustain the rapid economic growth that followed the first years of reconstruction. As ex-indigenes, the
Ils se ressemblent tellement qu'ils n'arrivent plus se supporter. L'accent: faon de parler, []la culture: vetement, nourriture, tradition, cha3bi vs ra. 13 le fait de vivre en france et d'avoir une voisine d'origine algrienne ou une voisine d'origine marocaine, ne reprsente pas les diffrences qu'il y a entre les deux peuples .
12 11

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experience of migration of African and North-African workers was conceived by the host country, the homeland and the migrants themselves as temporal (Sayad, 1979). Constructed and substantiated throughout the Fordist Compromise (1950s-1970s) as a resource, the migrant, its condition and reality was grounded in a durable provisional state as he was generated as well as revocable according to the French need for workforce. However, the remarkably long-lasting growth period of the post-war era effectively inscribed the migrants presence and experience of uprooting in a temporality of permanence. As Sayad argues, this fundamental contradiction between provisional and permanence constitute the condition of the Moroccan 1st generation of migrant. Permanent was their presence which thereby resulted in an illusion of the return but provisional remained their social status and subjective position in France as They continually live, think, act toward the return [...] the return as being inscribed within the initial act of migrating14 (Sayad, 1979, p.152). Gradually constructed throughout the experience of dislocation as an emotionally laden nostalgic time and space, homeland became, rather than an effective option for the migrants, the recipient for 1st generation homeland nostalgia. This mythified homeland becomes the frame of the sustenance of their Moroccanness and the ground for tight local community building. Experiencing the anxiety of separation, first generation tended to both reconstruct and reterritorialize a culture that had become placeless. Like the Turk migrants in Australia Turkifying the space within which they live (Karanfil, p.61), 1st generation reestablished a sense of connectedness with homeland by Moroccanizing their direct environment (i.e. Barbes, Rue Brabant), and especially their home where alimentary, hygienic, body and space-management norms are reproduced (Noiriel, p.214). As cultivating the return, first generation consume media programme from homeland searching for their reflections, even for small signs and messages that make them feel at home, (Karanfil, p.61). Object of intense nostalgic investment, homeland became sacralized places 15 , which return in the summer holidays became ritualized as a form of pilgrimage by Moroccan immigrants (Sayad, p.143). For their differentiated trajectories within the country of residence, 2nd generation tended to distantiate themselves from their parents cultural practices. Born and grown up in France they aspired for recognition and rejected the precarious consequences of a hypothetic return shared by both their parents and the French society. (Unsuccessfully) Claiming the right for a whole existence as French citizens (e.g. marche pour lgalit des chances 1981ils vivent, pensent, agissent continument dans le sens du retour,, le retour tant contenu dans lacte meme demigrer. 15 des endroits sacralis, des lieux bnis, des terres saintes.
14

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1983) and contesting the inherited provisional social, economic and political condition of their parents, the 2nd generation broke away from the subsequent state of absent presence provoked by their parents illusive return. Thus when it comes to consider practices of cultural heritage and relations to the homeland the constitutive in-betweeness of 2nd generations brings about a form of estrangement from the frame of cultural remembering, i.e. the communautary entre-soi (Noiriel, p213), elaborated by their parents throughout the years of presence in France. Marginalized within the French society, to some extent estranged from their parents cultural practices and completely detached from the myth of the return, the 2nd generation might have found with Yabiladi an alternative and emancipatory space for individual and collective remediation of their Moroccanness. Yabiladi forum and 2nd generation web-mediated remediation of Moroccanness: creative construction of an ambivalent identity. Although initially created as a space made for and by all Moroccans (lavieeco.com, 2008), Yabiladi became an acclaimed space of cultural participation for 2nd generation as Yabiladi users are mainly young (i.e. 72% aged 18-40), urban, educated and proceeding from Europe (Loukili, 2007). Circumventing impeding offline social and physical barriers (e.g. political social marginality, inaccessibility to traditional form of cultural production) thanks to Yabiladi emancipatory features (see 3.2), 2nd generation collectively explores new cultural practices of participation, remediation and to some extent bricolage (Deuze, 2006). As active meaning makers (participation), 2nd generations are adopting, modifying and reforming from their own hybrid perspective, the Moroccan cultural texts appropriated, experienced or inherited (remediation) that they assemble to consensually create a distinctive sense of Moroccanness and to re-negotiate their relation with homeland (bricolage). Yabiladi becomes that time and place when and where the scattered people [2nd generation] gather, and narrate, their myths, fantasies and experiences (Tsaliki, 2003, p.163) wherein new narratives of Moroccanness are modeled. The instantaneous interactivity allowed by the forum combined with 2nd generation multi-dimensional language of communication seems to play an important role in creating and strengthening a sense of commonality and fellowship among 2nd generation and in conveying/generating codified meanings. Inventive and resourceful, participants draw from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Participants shift from standard French to a mixture of

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French and Darija to more specific discourse such as bledard and language des quartiers16. The French bledard follows a sounds like logic rather than grammatical rules and is generally used by 2nd generation to refer to the clumsy French of their parents or nationals: Dizouli for dsol (i.e. sorry) atitsuite for tout de suite (i.e. now/later) and so forth. While this complex combination of language and discourse works as a boundary work from nationals and also from 1st generation (see 3.3) it is however, mostly used to convey specific cultural references and meaning which are particularly powerful in strengthening the participants fellowship. Unlike in other contexts within which Darija is of a rare use, Darija idioms and words, for instance, become for 2nd generation a privileged mean of connection and identification to homeland and to their Moroccan origins. As the expression of a special connectedness (i.e. nostalgia) and intimacy, participants when sharing stories of their representation and relatedness to Morocco tend to extensively use specific Darija words such as nabrik (i.e. I love it), bledi (i.e. my country),L'mma (i.e. motherland). Other

mechanisms of identification through language are operating when, for instance, participants joke affectionately about the French bldard of their parents, (i.e. Dizouli mi ci la viriti boucou il[1st generation and Nationals] son coume sa ahhh ouii 17, Tcha9liba) or when, they readily associate themselves to nationals when they involuntarily start to speak in bledard as these two participants put it: I am a non-bledarde (i.e. Moroccan born in France) converted in a bledarde (nationals) when talking with my parents/family (Soltana); people even believes that I am born in Morocco18. Conveying emotion and nostalgia, the set of language with which connectedness to homeland is asserted is also important in creating a sense of commonality, fraternity and conviviality that activate intra-diasporic cultural practices of identity construction. As Karim argues, much of the cultural production of diasporas involves the (re)creation of alternatives imaginative space [alongside existing mapping] (2003, p.7). The crucial dimensions of diasporic territorialization do not only lay in the physical occupation of space, but in the dynamics of production of diasporic reality effected and operated spatially. As we have seen, it is in this in-between space that bridges homeland to their new location, that migrants are, on the frontier of existing mappings, creating a space for themselves in which specific diasporic reality is produced. Diasporic dynamics of spatialization, however,
colloquial language: mixture of french, arabic idioms and slang. however rarely used on the forum. In standard french:Desol mais cest la vrit ils sont comme a which means Sorry but that is true, they[1st generation] are like that. 18 je suis une non bledarde transforme en bledarde, il m'arrive de parler comme mes pairs; Idem on croit meme que je suis ne au bled d fois.
17 16

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do not necessarily entails territorial appropriation like in the case of 1st generation moroccanization of a physical space, as they are mainly production of alternative imaginative spaces (i.e. third space) and therefore can take place in the textuality of the cyberspace. Sharing his personal impressions about Yabiladi, Irhoud concluded that The Yabiladi people [] want to create their ideal Morocco19. As a digital imaginative space and for its participatory features, Yabiladi enables 2nd generation, to re-appropriate cultural symbols, texts and products inherited from their parents as well as experienced through return. Collectively re-negotiating and re-contextualizing this cultural heritage according to their specific social embeddedness, they construct a particular home to which they identify themselves (as Moroccan). 2nd generation remediation of homeland perception functions as a combination of an Exotic idealization, an inherited Mythification of origins. As experienced mainly through summer holiday returns, 2nd generation perceptions of homeland tends to draw from touristic exotism and colonial Orientalism repertoire. Morocco is thus represented through its stunning landscape such as The beautiful mountains of the Rif, the Agadir backcountry (Azl95) and The stunning beaches of Saida and Achakar20 (Cro-magnon) and the fantastic weather (e.g. sun, pitch-black starry nights). These idealized representations go on with imagery about local culture boiled down to the Moroccan hospitality (i.e. the first Moroccan youll come across, even a thief! Hell take you under his wing, cause in his gene are still intact his roots and the eternal solidarity, generosity and the abundance of smiles and politeness21, Bou-maqla), gastronomy (i.e. tajines, sardines and th a la menthe) and a condescending tenderness for the locals when joking about the sardine sellers on the streets, la drague (i.e. flirting) and their naivety. Rather superficial, these representations display also a certain dislocation from homeland reality as Xylophene argues about her experience of return: this repeated half-deorientation which remind you that although you love this country you are not completely from it22. It shows/demonstrates a particular experience of the return differing from their parents. Indeed, while for their parents this temporary return is all dedicated to the family, the community. As Belamri puts it their return is not a holiday, they come to build and refurbish their house with what they found in

les YABILIDINS[]veulent creer leur Maroc ideal. les magnifiques montagnes du Rif, l'arrire pays d'Agadir or les magnifiques plage de Saida, achakar 21 Le premier marocain que tu rencontreras, mme si c'est un voleur! Il te prendras sous son aile, car dans ses gnes son demeurs intactes ses racines et par tradition l'ternelle solidarit, la gnrosit, les sourires et politesse en abondance.. 22 Ce semi depaysement repete qui te rapelle que quand bien meme tu aimes cette terre, tu n'es pas completement d'ici.
20

19

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flea markets in France for their retirement23. Unlike their parents, 2nd generations mainly experience it as tourists like Udjedjid who after a few days in his family decides to go to Al hoceima and Tetouan to enjoy the holidays in a different way: beach, sun and farniente24. A specific section of the forum (le grand douar) displays a form of migrant digital re-construction of Morocco. As the privileged site of experience of Moroccan authenticity, parents origins are a crucial site for 2nd generation to assert and legitimate their Moroccanness. Gathered according to a shared belonging to and pride for a village (i.e. Tahala), city (i.e. Marrakech) or region (i.e. province de Taza), 2nd generation collectively celebrate their origins. Through the sharing of personal experiences, knowledge, stories and history of their place of origins, 2nd generation shape, from this variety of cultural signs, a mythified Morocco of cultural authenticity deeply anchored in traditions. Participants share their regrets and worries of a growing disappearance of what they associate to Moroccan authenticity such as the Secular tradition of the people of the mountains (Azl95)25 and the Old-fashion charms of the Moroccans (Idi)26 threatened by a modernization associated to the West (e.g. blaming the proliferation of Mcdonalds in Marrakech). Simultaneously, they valorize, when coming from small villages, the reproduction of unchanged traditional lifestyle which crystallize their idealized picture of Morocco (see 3.3). The construction of these transnational localisms can be understood as a digital reproduction of and identification to their parents sacralization of origins as a site of pilgrimage (Sayad, 1979, p.143). This ambivalent Moroccaness, deeply grounded in a family/land lineage and simultaneously idealized from a tourist experience is at the core of 2nd generation negotiation of a disengaged Moroccanness as a sort of estranged attachment and identification to Morocco. Highly identified to a certain conception of Moroccan culture upon which they construct their Moroccan identity, 2nd generation tends however, and unlike their parents, to enact a sort of disengaged Moroccanness as a form of distantiated national attachment constructed out of the traditional citizen frame of responsibility and national duty maintain by their parents. As we have seen the forum is structured along lines of social and historical differences that end up in profound divergence of view and sometimes clashes (see 3.2) as

c'est mme pas des vacances il vons pour arenger la maison ou faire des travaux chez eux c'est pour a qu'ils rammnes avec eux se qu'il trouvent dans les broquante en France . 24 tu decides d'aller a Al hoceima ensuite Tetouan pour profiter des vacances autrements, la plage, le soleil et farniente. 25 traditions sculaires chez l'habitant des montagnes. 26 charme des marocaines l'ancienne.

23

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many nationals do not recognize themselves in 2nd generations conceptions of homeland and nationals as bledard (meaning as Kurtosis recalls: as everyone knows, means moron, ignorant and bumpkins who lives in poverty). This estrangement from one another seems to work the other way around as 2nd generation are subjected to an indistinction from their parents. Indeed, many participants complained about homeland perception of themselves as immigrs (i.e. immigrants). 2nd generation refuse the pressure of the return and the feeling of being disregarded as just a wallet 27 (ella001) rejecting thereby a role and responsibility established by their parents. While their parents were engaged in the return as a national and family responsibility and duty feeling forced to bring back loads of goods and clothes as they feel the pressure from the family in Morocco 28 (irhoud), their children disengage themselves from what they consider as a burden:
When arriving back home and dropping the suitcase, we have all been confronted to the stare of the family [] deception is visible on the faces of some? And then we feel forced to justify why we havent done like Flane who didnt even get his high school graduation in Morocco but brought loads of stuff and whose generosity led him to bring cigarettes and coffee even to his neighbors 29(Irhoud).

Aware of the sacrifices made by their parents and bitter about a country that never did anything for them, 2nd generation, estranged from nationals perceptions and expectations, are willing to abandon their parents blind dedication to homeland. Finally, the attachment to European standards of life resumes their irremediable distantiation from homeland reality. Sharing her experience of a failing attempt to return Gentilone argues that it was very tough knowing that the mentality and lifestyle is different from France. A lot of courage and determination is necessary to succeed
30

. Uncomfortable and not adapted to the

administration, the lack of hygiene, excessive flirting and the lack of rights, many participants do not feel attracted by an idea of return and as Ptisem argues, the older I get, the more happy I am when it comes to go back to France after the holidays31 National attachment and sense of Moroccanness is, in the case of 2nd generation, mainly performed away from the frame of the nation-state and rather shaped through their everyday cultural practices as for instance a Yabiladi user (completing other offline practices)
juste un porte monnaie. oblige de ramen un tas dobjet et de vetement []La pression de la famille sur place. 29 D'abord le regard de la famille on a tous et confront un jour au moments ou on dpose notre valise,enfin arriv [] il faut avouer que la dception est visible sur certain visage? on est oblig de justifier pourquois on ne fait pas comme Flane qui n'a meme pas eu le bac au bled mais il amnent beaucoups de chose et sa gnorisit le pousse jusqu'aux voisins avec les cigarettes ou des paquets de caf. 30 Ca t trs dur vu que la mentalit et le mode vie n'est pas le meme qu'en France. Faut beaucoup de courage et de la dtermination pour y arriver a vivre 31 plus les annes passent, et plus je suis contente de rentrer en France aprs les vacances.
28 27

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or more exceptionally through their ambivalent summer return. Drawing from inherited identification/attachment to homeland and personal experience (i.e. the specific context of the return), 2nd generation remediate and assemble collectively and consensually their ambivalent experience of homeland. 2nd generation digital cultural remediation results in the elaboration of personal/specific narratives of Moroccanness blending inherited identification and

experienced attraction with a socially and historically shaped distinction and distantiation from Morocco as no return is envisaged. feeling part of our own yabiland [] we are at home on Yabiladi32, as one participant puts it, Yabiladi is a unique space of construction and expression of 2nd generation Morocanness and remediation of connectedness to a distant imagined home. As a site of cultural remediation and identity construction for 2nd generation, Yabiladi enables modes of cultural participation that challenges our understanding of the processes of individual and collective engagement with society and culture. Not only restrained to citizenship and traditional form of participation through identity politics and civic rights, individual or collective critical engagement with society and culture, is also demonstrated in everyday life through processes of bonding, community building and collective production, circulation and consumption of cultural texts (See General Introduction, Mitzschke, Quartz, Rejinders & Mougey, 2009). Moreover, for diasporic communities and more specifically for 2nd generation, participatory web2.0 media turn out to be a privileged, if unique, site of expression of cultural citizenship. Thus rather than a mere space of entertainment and leisure, the cyberspace constitutes in the case of diasporas an emancipatory space for engagement in participatory culture.

Conclusion Although Yabiladi did not match Ezzouaks initial hope of opening up a space of convergence for the dispersed Moroccan community as it fails to overcome offline social realities and online linguistic hierarchies, the experience of Yabiladi demonstrates that web2.0 applications opens up new forms of cultural practices for diasporas. As this volume explores the participatory turn in culture triggered by web2.0 media, this article empirically observed in the case of the french-moroccan diasporas the effectivity of this shift in the way cultural text are defined and operated with (1), and the way cultural communities are formed and operated with (2). While initially based on a pre-existent commonality of social experience and trajectory, the participatory features of Yabiladi enables
32

On se sent sur un yabiland a nous[...]nous sommes chez nous sur yabiladi.

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2nd generations to initiate the construction of trans-regional community by bridging their physical remoteness. Shaping and sharing a sense of conviviality and fellowship, 2nd generation invest Yabiladi forum as an imaginative space of creation of their own diasporic reality. As we have seen the community of 2nd generations are gathered around digital construction of their sense of Morrocaness (2). Remediating a cultural heritage collected along their specific social trajectory, 2nd generation exploit and sustain this digital space to create collectively and consensually differentiated narratives of culture and belonging that subsequently participate in the shaping of their own sense of Moroccanness (1). The experience of Yabiladi demonstrates that new media opens up spaces of community building and identity construction challenging the nation-state as it is carried out outside the national environment. Moreover as we have seen with 2nd generation, highlydislocated Diasporas can model transnational or transregional form of national belonging differenciated from the traditional frame of allegiance to the (homeland)-state as they abandon, unlike their parents, the perpetuation of a sense of duty and responsibility toward homeland. Overall, the emancipatory effects of internet and web2.0 applications should not be overestimated as the social embeddedness of the different diasporic communities involved powerfully prevents the creation of monolithic cultures, contradicting the alleged homogenizing effect of globalizing ICTs. However, as the Internet use is rapidly spreading in developing country, we can hypothesize that transnational digital gathering such as Yabiladi might allow processes of synchronization and pacification of the relationship between nationals and migrants. Indeed, Yabiladi clashes between nationals and migrants often involved misconception and misunderstanding of their respective realities which led to fierce and scornful rejection. Allowing transnational permanent and instant contact, diasporic space may enable participants to mutually shape comprehensive understanding about one another with potential significant impact in the offline world. This eventuality, however, remains to be seen in the future.

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References Ahmed, Sara (1999), Home and Away: Narratives of Migration and Estrangement, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2(3): 32947. Aksoy, A. & Robins, K. (2003), Banal Transationalism. The Difference that Television Makes in Karim, K. H. The Media of Diaspora, Oxford U.K:Routledge. Appadurai, A. (1996), Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press. Bernal, V. (2006) Diaspora, Cyberspace and Political Imagination: The Eritrean Diaspora Online, Global networks 6(2), pp.161-179. Bhabba, H. (1994) The Location of Culture, London:Routledge Press. Deuze, M. (2006). Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture, The Information Society, 22, pp.63-75. Karanfil, G (2007), Satellite Television and its Discontents: Reflections on the Experiences of Turkish-Australian Lives, Continuum. Journal of Media & cultural studies, Vol.21(1), pp.59-69. Ignacio, E. N. (2005) Building Diaspora: Filipino Cultural Community Formation on the Internet, New Brunswick, NJ:Rutgers University Press. Karim, H. K. (2003) Mapping Diasporic Mediascapes in Karim, K. H. The Media of Diaspora, Oxford U.K: Routledge. Loukili, A, (2007) Moroccan Diaspora, Internet and National Imagination. Building a Community Online through the Internet Portal Yabiladi, (paper presented at the Nordic Africa Days in Uppsala, 5-7 October 2007). Noiriel, G. (1988) Le Creuset Franais. Histoire de limmigration XIXe-XXe sicle, Paris:Edition du Seuil. Shi, Y. (2005) Identity Construction of the Chinese Diaspora, Ethnic Media Use, Community Formation, and the Possibility of Social Activism, Continuum. Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol.19(19), pp.55-72. Srinivasan, R & Pyati, A. (2007) Diasporic Information Environments: Reframing Immigrant-Focused Information Research , Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol.58(12), pp.1734-1744. Tsaliki, L. (2003) Globalisation and Hybridity. The Construction of Greekness on the Internet. in Karim, K. H. The Media of Diaspora, Oxford U.K: Routledge. Tyner J. A. & Kuhlke (2000) Pan-national Identities: Representations of the Philippine Diaspora on the World Wide Web, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, vol.41(3), pp.231-252.

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Les Marocains de ltranger craquent pour Yabiladi, (2002), Afrik.com, www.afrik.com/article4437.html. Mohamed Ezzouak, le MRE qui a lanc yabiladi.com,(2008), lavieeco.com, http://www.lavieeco.com/portraits/6596-mohamed-ezzouak-le-mre-qui-a-lanceyabiladi.com.html

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Emancipating Distribution and Consumption Practices of Bands and Fans? An Ethnography of MySpace Malte Quartz
Abstract: MySpace is a social network site where musicians and potential consumers of music can network globally. This paper inquires into newtork formation, self-promotion, distribution and consumption practices on MySpace using virtual ethnography. Although MySpace sometimes is less of a global artistic network than it appears to be, the networking and self-promotion possibilities for independent bands are enormous and help bypassing established institutions in the music industry and transgress the boundaries of local music scenes in music distribution and consumption practices. Band profiles are actively shaped by fans, linking to a participatory turn which is enabled by web2.0 technology. Keywords: MySpace, social network site, music distribution, music industry, participation, web2.0 Introduction MySpace is the biggest of the sites termed web2.0 at least concerning user accounts with the 100 millionth account created in 2006. That was only three years after its launch as a home for 20-somethings interested in the local music scene of Los Angeles (boyd, 2006). MySpace then quickly moved up from being a local network based around a local music scene to a global network for people with all kinds of interests they might pursue on MySpace: networking with friends, classmates, study and business partners, dating and even mapping your family tree 33 . On first sight, MySpace does not differ so much from other social networking sites such as Facebook. Although they give their users a bit more freedom in creating their site, the basic features remain the same: Users create an account where they upload a photo and give some basic information on themselves. People can leave comments on each others site and write each other messages. Nevertheless, MySpace regards musicians as an important core business and involves them in e.g. redesigning of the site to enable them to promote themselves efficiently (Shklovski & boyd, 2006). Since in this volume we are generally interested in the possibilities to emancipate from local allegiances, hierarchies, authorities in web2.0 media practices, I can now ask if MySpace helps bands and fans to emancipate their music distribution and consumption practices from local scenes and established institutions.

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.aboutus (Last retrieved May 28, 2009)

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Normally, independent music scenes tend to be place-based (Baym, 2007). Furthermore, the music industry is dominated by only five large companies which control most of the music which is being released (Graham et al., 2004). However, some care is needed when using words such as the music industry and independent music. The terms seem to suggest that there are two separate entities, one in which musical creativity is controlled by capital, and one where musical creativity is only subject to aesthetic considerations. A popular narrative then goes that the music industry corrupts independent music if they decide to take it under their wings (Frith, 2006, p.231). However, the situation is more complex than that. If the music industry wants to make money with independent artists, they will have to grant them a considerable degree of autonomy (Toynbee, 2000, p.228). Major and independent companies enter partnerships on a regular basis, the former for credibility-, the latter for financial reasons (Power & Hallcreutz, 2000, pp. 255-256). Still, if musicians want a big global audience for their music, this normally means signing with a major which usually involves some kind of artistic compromise. Furthermore, majors focus particularly on a certain kind of artist when chossing for music to distribute globally (Negus, 1999, pp. 152172). They will be more liekly to choose a manufactured pop act (Toynbee, 2000, p.228). It is thus fair to say that musicians might have aesthetic and ideological reasons (apart from the very practical reason that not everybody gets signed by a major) to promote and distribute their music independently to bypass the established industry and trangress local boundaries. Commentators and scholars seem to credit MySpace with quite some potential to do just that (Tucker, 2007; Colvin, 2008; Levine, 2006; Shklovski & boyd, 2006). However, they do not specify how small independent bands actually promote themselves using MySpace and how successful they are in doing so. This volume explores the participatory turn in culture along three dimensions:1) the way cultural texts are defined and interacted with; 2) the way cultural communities are formed and operate; 3) the way users understand rights and obligations as cultural citizens acting within a new type of cultural public sphere. In this chapter, band-promotion via MySpace will be specified along these three dimensions. In order to get beneath the surface of MySpace mission statements or friend lists on profiles I deem it necessary to get enmeshed in the MySpace-network myself. I therefore use an ethnographic approach which I will describe in the next section. Afterwards I will describe the findings of my ethnography, starting with local networking of Cologne-based bands, then moving to international networking, bypassing of the music industry, new band-fan interactions and finally I will make some remarks concerning the question of how indie MySpace still is.

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Methodology I explored MySpace employing virtual ethnography which is basically the same as regular ethnography, but instead of observing and talking to people on a physical site I visited an online-setting. The most important reason for choosing an ethnographic approach is that there are often hidden meanings in MySpace texts such as comments and friend lists. When people comment on someones site (Thanks for being our friend! I really enjoy your music. Props!) or befriend somebody it does not necessarily mean that they actually like their music or cherish this online friendship for personal reasons. Commenting and befriending people follow certain network dynamics which I can only discover when I am enmeshed in that network myself. That is why I created a user profile and added some bands to start my participant observation. After a while, network dynamics captured me and soon I was befriended by bands and received comments on my wall. The reason why certain things on MySpace are not what they appear to be is because people on MySpace have by now developed their own cultural code. MySpace practices and MySpace as a technology have coevolved in the sense that MySpace was designed and subsequently re-designed with the users needs in mind, and user practices (and perceived needs) have in turn been shaped by the technology profiles can be set up relatively independently, but constraints remain. Furthermore, there are formal rules for which kind of and how many people per day you can befriend, when your activities will be qualified as spam and your account blocked etc. Bands looking for ways to promote themselves and private users interested in networking, discovering new music while at the same time being vary of spam have developed a set of cultural practices which more or less respect the formal rules while at the same time allowing for the pursuit of ones interest. Possessing its own cultural codes and practices, MySpace can be regarded as a culture in its own right and deserves the same interest of ethnographers as any other culture. As Hine (2000) notes: Ethnographic studies of online settings made a major contribution to the establishment of a view of the Internet as a culture where the uses people make of the technology available to them could be studied. These approaches established cyber-space as a plausible ethnographic field site (p.9). Sadly, it is not all that simple. Other than just a culture in its own right, MySpace is also a cultural resource for other cultures for which MySpace is just another means to network. It can be regarded as a cultural artefact produced by a particular culture with particular goals (Woolgar, 1996). People who meet on MySpace might have never met in the offline-world. For them, MySpace-norms and practices will be more significant than for people who have already fully-established offline-contact (or contact through another social networking site). - 47 -

Relationships can be primarily defined by the offline or the online, and they might move back and forth between the two as they progress. If I really wanted to grasp how bands and fans network, I needed to find a way to accommodate for these complex online/offline interactions to escape from the pitfalls other researchers have fallen into: Ethnograhers have often settled for studying either online or offline contacts. To combine the two requires a rethinking of the relationship between ethnography and space, to take account of the Internet as both culture and cultural artefact (Hine, 2000, 10). One way is to interview people about these

online/offline relations (in an online and/or offline-setting); the other is by simply knowing how MySpace users operate and network in the offline world and comparing this to their online networking. I am to some degree involved in the local music scene of Cologne of course the music scene of Cologne does not exist, but I know some people across genres. I made some use of MySpace-profiles of musicians and bands I know personally in the offlineworld (Die Schlagsaite, Whos afraid of the big bad wolf?, Les Grosses Papilles and Der Yon) because I am in a privileged position to make meaning of their online contacts and of the complex online/offline dynamics involved. Other bands are used because of network dynamics (they chose and added me), or because I stumbled upon them (looking around just as on a physical ethnographic site) and they are exemplatory for a certain case or activity on MySpace. Furthermore, I play in a band myself which uses MySpace as a means for selfpromotion. I will not use this band as an example later on because I feel then I would probably go native too far. However, I still possess a certain cultural knowledge which helps me to crack certain cultural codes on MySpace. I had no way to avoid using this knowledge from time to time but I tried to be as careful as possible not to equate my personal experiences with those others have made on MySpace.

MySpace networking is not always what it seems to be... On first sight MySpace indeed seems to appear as a global network, linking bands, fans, event managers and small record labels. This is the impression I got when I looked at two profiles of Cologne-based bands: Whos afraid of the big bad wolf? and Die Schlagsaite. I chose these bands/musicians because, as I said before, I know them personally and I can evaluate their fame status and their contacts in the offline-world quite well. They all have a couple of hundred world-wide friends which also post comments on their sites, e.g. the San Francisco-

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based Indie-Label Blue Orange Records posted the following comment on the site of Whos afraid of the big bad wolf?:
Nice music guys Thanks for the request... A gift for you and all your friends :O) Blue Orange Records [the last part is a hyper-link which enables free downloads of some music on Blue Orange Records]34

The problem with such comments and friend contacts is that it is sometimes hard to say what they mean. Since a band or a label seems bigger if they have more friends it is mutually beneficial for bands and labels to befriend each other, whether they like their artistic output or not. Praising each others work can be seen as a cultural obligation in the MySpace network. If this norm is accepted then the probability is high that the praise will be returned and more importantly, that the comment will actually appear on the site. Some MySpace-users have to approve comments before they appear on the site, others might decide to delete a comment ex post if they do not like it. Since musicians always like to be praised, this is a very secure way to place advertisement the hyperlink included in the comment is probably what Blue Orange Records really cares about. Visitors to the Whos afraid of the big bad wolf- profile are supposed to stumble over this link, listen to the music and then decide to buy one of the Blue Orange Records-products. This is of course a case of global networking, but it is quite different than it looks at first sight. It is not so much that friends actually cooperate or exchange artistic ideas (although this possibility is not excluded); rather they use each other as advertisement space and status booster in this example. Most of the time, networking with real impact in the offline-world also has some origin in the offline-world. Die Schlagsaite is a band which occasionally tours beyond the borders of their hometown Cologne and also cooperates with musicians outside their region, sometimes with international artists. Still, the most important function MySpace has for them is finding local musicians to support them at a monthly gig at a local concert hall. MySpacenetworking which results in concerts being played at different venues than in Cologne and in cooperation with non-Cologne musicians tends to be initiated in the offline-world. Die Schlagsaite meets other musicians at e.g. a festival where they play, and then keep in touch with them via MySpace which later results in some kind of cooperation, the usual one being acting as a supporting act for the other band and/or vice versa. MySpace is however much more than just messaging to sustain offline-contacts. Sometimes musicians would approach
http://www.myspace.com/whoisafraidofthebigbadwolf (Last retrieved May 6 2009)
34

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Die Schlagsaite after a show which they played and then ask if they would want to give a concert together one time. Die Schlagsaite would then ask you got a MySpace-site? At home they can study the MySpace-site (most importantly the music uploaded by the band) and make a decision about whether to play with them or not. In this instance MySpace is more of a time-saver and a convenient contact-management device than a radically new enabler of artistic cooperation. Before MySpace, bands wishing to cooperate following the same trajectory as in the example above would have had to exchange their addresses and then send CDs. However, the effect of this convenience (a significant lowering of transaction costs) should not be underestimated. Since it is much less trouble to write a message than an actual letter with an enclosed CD, people (in particular musicians who tend to be a bit chaotic in the managing of their offline-contacts) will tend to network more if they can sustain offlinecontacts in the online-world.

Planning international tours via MySpace These networking opportunities are of even more importance for bands with some (mostly local) degree of fandom that plan international tours. They will have to rely on people at the locality where they want to play to do some of the organising. Here, genres play a very important role. Members of marginalised genres often regard each other as belonging to some kind of family, e.g. the country scene in Germany. I chose to contact Johnny Falstaff because they are an American band currently touring Germany independently (without the help of big agencies or organisers) and asked them how important MySpace is for them in setting up such tours. They regard MySpace as very important, in particular in combination with the sense of belonging in country-related scenes in order to plan such tours:

In short, myspace has made it possible to connect with people that have the same musical interests. It is a fantastic tool that allows people to network globally...it is awesome! It has been my experience that many people are very generous and want to help with finding and promoting shows. Is it the same with all types of music? I dont know, but the rockabilly and honky tonk folks are a great community.

This shows how MySpace is important in establishing initial contacts such tours must be planned beforehand from abroad, before offline contacts can be made. It is also clear that the norms of the offline-world prevail; MySpace is here not so much a culture in its own right, but more of a resource for a culture which already exists, namely the country-scene. As we have already seen in the case of regional cooperation, also for international cooperation MySpace plays a crucial role in maintaining contacts that have once been made in - 50 -

the offline-world. Les Grosses Papilles for example, is a French band regularly touring Germany in the summer. They do not depend on MySpace any more so heavily to make new contacts with organisers etc. in Germany. For them MySpace is now more a tool to maintain those contacts. Online-offline relations are complex. Contacts may be initiated in either the online or the offline world and then move back and forth.

Selling records globally and bypassing the music industry Some bands use very privileged mechanisms and software to promote themselves globally and ultimately, sell records. The following provides a nice example for the fast global dynamics of independent music-promotion on MySpace: On April 24th 2009, I befriended der Yon, a DJ from the local electronic scene in Cologne. Then I looked at his recent events and saw that he had a gig with the French electronic band Surkin which I then befriended. On April 27th I received the following friend request from Lonely London Lad, a Los Angelesbased electronic band: I see you like Surkin. With good taste like that, theres a 91.2% chance youd dig us, too : ) Cheers! This is most certainly a case of automated selfpromotion. Lonely London Lad has over 32,400 friend contacts which makes it improbable that they will take care of every contact manually. There is software, officially not allowed by MySpace, which helps bands to expand, the most common tool being FriendBlasterPro. This software can copy friend lists from other bands and then adds them as own friends with minimal supervision which is only needed to circumvent the obstacles (so-called Captchas) posed by MySpace to make impossible such automation. Apparently, Lonely London Lads software copied Surkins friend list and this is how they found me. Both bands produce similar music which makes me a potential Lonely London Lad-fan. Not only does Lonely London Lad possess an impressive friend-list, their music is also consumed quite regularly on MySpace: they achieved nearly 100,000 plays in total and approximately 150 plays per day. They sell their music independently on Lonely London Lad Records globally via MySpace: Double CD-Release with free global shipping. I can only speculate about their sales, but I can say for certain that they very efficiently promote themselves and found a way to sell their records globally without being dependent on the established music industry. Aggressive self-promotion as in the case above is a venue for constant renegotiation of norms in the MySpace-culture. MySpace officially allows and even encourages bands to promote themselves. However, they have to protect their private users from excessive

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spamming because otherwise they might lose them and in any case, promotion would become meaningless as the hundredth message of the day by some unknown band probably will not receive too much attention. MySpaces most important tool to combat spamming is the possibility for private users to mark as spam any friend request, comment or message which they feel annoyed by. If a band collects twenty of such complaints their account will be blocked temporarily and might even be deleted in the future. This is a serious thread to a band. It might take them months, maybe even years to rebuild their site up to the point where they were when they got deleted. This is because every profile view and every play of one of the bands songs is counted, these counts are used by festival organisers, agencies etc. as a criterion for the bands status. What is a band to do if it wants to promote itself but at the same time be sure that their account will never be deleted? This is what the MySpace-team told me: Promoting yes, but not spamming. This is why we recommend you to select messages etc, carefully when sending friend requests.35 This is not of much help. You can never know if somebody will mark your request as spam. Sure, you can reduce the probability just like Lonely London Lad. They only added me because I have a band in my friend list which makes a similar kind of music and they explained how they found me in an accompanying message, which makes the request seem a bit less anonymous. Still, if you send enough friend requests (maximum allowed: 400 per day) you are bound to be marked as spam by some. MySpace does not specify when an account will be deleted (maybe after the third time it was blocked? Maybe never?). I think they do not want people to know the actual policy they want the spampromotion scale to balance out via cultural practices, not formal rules. Bands, not exactly knowing what to expect from MySpace, should be careful, meaning they will have to find cultural practices which show respect to private users. Only adding those who like similar bands and personalizing messages accompanying friend request seem to be emerging practices to cope with the problem. Interestingly, they will tend to create sub-networks certain scenes based around a music genre will network exclusively amongst each other. This is how the MySpace-policy might replicate genre codes (Negus, 1999) of the offline world in the online world.

Original in German: promoten ja, spammen aber nicht. Deshalb empfehlen wir dir, beim Versenden von Freundesanfragen, Nachrichten usw. sogfltig zu whlen.

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New band-fan interactions Shklovski & Boyd (2006) already noted that a major reason for the success of MySpace is that it catered for the need of both bands and private users (potential fans). This band-fan symbiosis makes MySpace unique. For our concerns here, the most important related point to be made is how fans now shape cultural texts: they can create fan-sites for their favourite bands (see Booth, 2008), have bands in their top friend-lists, publish blogs about bands which can actually be economically significant even for the established industry (see Vasant & Chang, 2007) and they can leave comments on their favourite bands sites and thus actively shape the content of the page. Apart from these rather basic ways for bands and fans to interact there is a growing number of bands which are more creative in involving private users to shape the content of their profile. One such example is the London/Amsterdam-based electronic band My Propane. After befriending the band I received the following comment which now appears on my profile:

HEY

MALTE-

THANKS

FOR

THE

CONNECT.

ENJOY.

WE'RE BUILDING A WEIRD FAMILY HERE - SEND US YOUR PROPANE PICTURE IF YOU LIKE AND JOIN US. YES

STAY GOOD

This way the band shaped the representation of me. The interesting element is the reciprocity. They invite fans to actively shape the representation of the band by making their own My - 53 -

Propane -banners which will be put in a specific folder36. Here is an example of such a banner created by a private user which now appears on the My Propane-profile:

Marc: 13 May 2009 8:12

Seeing that MySpace band profiles can be regarded as cultural texts this is certainly a case in which MySpace enables a participatory turn in the way cultural texts are defined and interacted with.

Is MySpace a means to bypass the music industry or is it already part of it? I have now presented a variety of ways in which MySpace helps bands to bypass established institutions of the music industry. As I said before, one has to be cautious when using such terms which hint at fixed, absolute entities which do not exist but are constructed. What is important for this section is that the people involved in founding MySpace did not see
36

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=469646020&albumId=533 591 (Last retrieved May28, 2009)

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themselves as being part of the established institutions of the music industry, they constructed themselves as independent revolutionaries. But is it not a normal process that the revolutionaries become the establishment? MySpace is now owned by the big conglomerate Fox Interactive Media. MySpace is not an unmediated site and very active itself in promoting bands. It set up applications such as the MySpace band radar which spots the MySpace band of the month, which is then advertised to private MySpace users it is not at all clear which criteria are used internally to determine that band. In 2005 MySpace also launched MySpace Records which describes itself as an independent label. Although it cooperated with corporate sponsor Textango in the past (see Aune, 2008), just to give on example, this might still be true. However, MySpace has become a powerful player in the Music business and it remains to be seen what they make of it. One could point to similar stories of social network sites such as Facebook (currently the one most frequently used globally37) or studivz (the biggest German social network site38) where a small group of entrepreneurs (mostly students) have started with a small site which then developed into a hype and subsequently attracted big investments by major companies. One could get the idea that one should not expect too much indie-ethos by MySpace either. However, MySpace was founded with a different purpose and by different people. These were people who wanted to give the Los Angeles independent music scene networking and promotion-possibilities, without the need of major companies (boyd, 2006). The founder Tom Anderson is still involved in all of MySpaces activities, even after it has been bought. Major-independent partnerships do not necessarily mean that majors control everything which is happening (Power & Hallcreutz, 2000, pp. 254-256).

Conclusion Although MySpace sometimes is less of a global artistic network than it appears to be (see section III.1), the networking and self-promotion possibilities for independent bands are enormous and help bypassing established institutions in the music industry and transgress the boundaries of local music scenes in music distribution and consumption practices. This volume explores the participatory turn in culture along three dimensions:1) the way cultural texts are defined and interacted with; 2) the way cultural communities are formed and operate; 3) the way users understand rights and obligations as cultural citizens acting within a new

37

38

http://www.comscore.com/ http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1553/umfrage/ranking-der-goessten-online-medien/ (Both last retrieved May 28, 2009)

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type of cultural public sphere. This article can specify the shift in the three dimensions in the following way: 1) band profiles on MySpace can be regarded as cultural texts. It has been shown how fans can actively shape such texts leading to more democratised band-fan relations. 2) Cultural communities are formed and operated without the need of established institutions of the music industry. Bands make use of sophisticated technology such as FriendBlasterPro and automate such cultural community formation. 3) There is a new set of cultural obligations for bands interacting with each other. Praising each other publicly has become the norm and precondition for interaction. Reciprocity in granting each other advertisement space on ones own site has become a well-accepted rule. Note that certain forms of [...] participatory culture [...] in fact constitute sites of cultural citizenship (Urricho, 2004, p.148). Participating in the consumption and distribution of music, shaping the representation of bands and exchanging artistic ideas can be seen as activities of cultural citizens. In the end one has to be cautious about the emancipatory effect of MySpace. The success of some independent bands which made it on MySpace has attracted much focus from the music industry. Furthermore, MySpace has become a big player in the music industry itself, it remains to be seen what they make of this position in the future. It is important to keep in mind that the independent music scene and the established institutions of the music industry are not two fixed entities. MySpace did not start in the former group and now ends up in the second group with all the qualities which are attributed to it. However, people who make investments will want to see profits. I just do not think that they will see them if MySpace loses its credibility (see Hesmondhalgh, 2006 for a similar discussion concerning the case of British dance music). MySpace owed much to its sucess to its display of indie-ethos. If they fail to do so in the future, investments will not yield returns.

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References Aune, S.P. (2008). New Pennywise Album is Free for Two Weeks on MySpace. Retrieved May 18, 2009, from http://mashable.com/2008/03/23/new-pennywise-album-is-free-for-two-weeks-on-myspace/ Baym, K. (2007). The new shape of online community: The example of Swedish independent music fandom. First Monday, 12 (8). Retrieved May 12, 2009, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/jfvfs/article/viewFile/2289/2046 Booth, P. (2008). Rereading fandom: MySpace character personas and narrative identification. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 25(5), 514 536. boyd, d. (2006). Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace. Retrieved May 16, 2009, from http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html Colvin, J. (2008). Music on MySpace. Music References Services Quarterly, 10 (3&4), 27-31. Dhar III, V. & Chang, E. (2007). Does Chatter Matter? The Impact of User-Generated Content on Music Sales. Retrieved May 18, 2009, from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1281347 Frith, S. (2006). The industrialization of music. In Bennett, A., Shank, B. & Toynbee, J. (eds.), The Popular Music Studies Reader, pp. 231-238. London: Routledge. Graham, G., Burnes, B., Lewis, G.J., Langer, J. (2004). The transformation of the music industry supply chain a major label perspective. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24 (11), 1087-1103. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2006). The British dance music industry: a case study of independent. cultural production. In Bennett, A., Shank, B. & Toynbee, J. (eds.), The Popular Music Studies Reader, pp. 239-252. London: Routledge. Hine, C. (2000). Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage. Levine, R. (2006). MySpace Music Store is new challenge for big labels. New York Times. Retrieved May 18, 2009, from https://www.morgenthaler.com/content/Ventures/Portfolio%20News/myspace090406.pdf Negus, K. (1999). Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. London: Routledge. Power, D. & Hallencreutz, D. (2006). Profiting from creativity? The music industry in Stockholm, Sweden and Kingston, Jamaica. In Bennett, A., Shank, B. & Toynbee, J. (eds.), The Popular Music Studies Reader, pp. 253-261. London: Routledge. Shklovski, I., boyd, d. (2006). Music as Cultural Glue: Supporting Bands and Fans on MySpace. Retrieved May 5, 2009, from http://www.danah.org/papers/BandsAndFans.pdf

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Toynbee, J. (2006). Introduction to part six. In Bennett, A., Shank, B. & Toynbee, J. (eds.), The Popular Music Studies Reader, pp. 227-230. London: Routledge Tucker, K. (2007). CMT Awards Meet the MySpace Generation. Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2042521120070421 Uricchio, W. (2004). Cultural Citizenship in the Age of P2P Networks. In I. Bondebjerg & P. Golding (Eds.), European Culture and the Media, pp. 139- 163. Bristol: Intellect Books. Woolgar, S. (1996). Technologies as cultural artefacts. In S. Woolgar (ed.) Knowledge and Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Sage.

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Museums in Command of Open-Source Wikis. The Possibilities, Benefits and Risks of Wikis for Museums. Tessa Reijnders
Abstract Wikis could help museums to evolve to more participatory institutions. But there is a tension between the preservation function of the museum and the general trend towards more participation, especially the participation embodied in web 2.0 applications as Wikis. Museums are authorities of knowledge on heritage, but wikis are open-source applications on which everyone can add information, even if it is incorrect information. This article takes a critical stance towards questions of participation and control of wikis by museums via a structural analysis of different museum wikis, which will make the possibilities, benefits and risks of wikis for museums visible. Keywords: wiki, museum, Wikipedia, participation, web 2.0, cultural citizenship Introduction Wikis are part of the second generation of web-based technologies. They constitute a set of principles and practices where users can generate their own content (OReilly, 2005) and precipitate a participatory turn (Scholz, 2007). The first wiki was launched in 1995 and since then they are struggling to receive recognition for generating credible collaborative content. The wiki concept is somewhat counterintuitive because the technical implementation itself provides no gate keeping function to ensure quality material is being contributed. Unlike typical creative efforts, no proof of identity or qualifications is needed to participate in a wiki community (Lih, 2004). One of the best known and functioning wikis today is Wikipedia, the free online multilingual encyclopaedia with thousands of international contributors. Different from early wikis, Wikipedia provides the ability to track the status of articles, review individual changes, and discuss issues. Since Wikipedia wants to provide true information in the field of general encyclopedic knowledge, it also tracks and stores every version of an article edited, so no operation is ever permanently destructive. The collaboration with that many users and the structure of Wikipedia function as social software so that the content of Wikipedia is trustworthy (Lih, 2004). Aside from Wikipedia, wikis are being used in a variety of contexts. In the private sector they are often used for internal collaboration and communication. Some companies use wikis for sharing ideas, managing projects, and collaborating across geographically-distant locations. In the public sector, some wikis have been used to engage the public, but in museums there has still been a relatively low take-up of wiki technology.

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Today, museums mainly display their artworks, collections and knowledge in the offline world. In this world they provide some information on the artworks via catalogues and leaflets. Some museums also provide some information about their artworks and collection on their museum website, but open-source online technologies, like wikis are relatively unknown to museums and are not taken up yet. The participatory possibilities of wikis could help museums to evolve to participatory institutions. The old image of museums was (and in some cases still is) that museums are dull. This had to do with the fact that you had to be completely quiet in the museums, wasnt allowed to touch anything and that there was almost no information on the displayed works. For the last decades, museums are trying to remodel themselves into participatory institutions. They are trying to attract more people, from every class of society, due to privatization, competition with amusement parks and government policy. The whole structure of the museum, including the building of the museum, became more transparent due to this. Also the amount of activities increased. People could get tours through the exhibitions, they could participate in workshops; the museum is more and more becoming a leisure activity and experience. Museums also started to incorporate coffee shops, restaurants and museum shops in their structure, so the museum experience could fill a complete day, like a trip to an amusement park (Boekman, 2004). All these participatory aspects could mean a participatory turn for museums and could change their visitors into modern cultural citizens. Some scholars also accredit wikis to contribute to the participatory turn of museums (Bowen, 2007, 2008; Bowen & Angus,2006; Looseley & Roberto, 2009; Tunsch, 2007). However, they also question the use of wikis for museums, since they also notice some risks for the museums, especially concerning the amount of control museums have over open-source media. There is a general tension between the preservation function of museums and the open-source participatory function of museums. The museums function as gatekeeper of heritage and as knowledge institution is in contrast with the lack of gate keeping of wikis. On wikis there is no assurance that quality material is being contributed and this could damage the knowledge authority of museums. This article explores the possibilities, benefits and risks of wikis for museums. It asks whether wikis can help museums to evolve from their function as guardians of knowledge and heritage to participatory institutions, and contributes therewith to the general question of this complete volume: Do web 2.0 media practices offer possibilities to emancipate from local allegiances, hierarchies, authorities? The complete volume explores the opportunities created by web 2.0 technologies for cultural participation along three dimensions: 1) the way cultural texts are defined and interacted with; 2) the way cultural communities are formed and operate; 3) the way users - 60 -

understand rights and obligations as cultural citizens acting within a new type of cultural public sphere. In this article, the use of wiki technology for museums will be specified along these three dimensions. In order to get a complete view of the possibilities, benefits and riks of wiki technology for museums, I studied three different usages of wiki technology for museums; the museum page on wikipedia, the general museums wiki and the museums wiki.

Methodology The three different usages of wiki technology for museums are studied via structural analysis. I will be looking at the purpose, the configuration, the content and the participants of the wikis and at who is in control of the different wikis. These data will give me information on 1) the way wiki texts are defined and interacted with; 2) the way wiki communities are formed and operate; and 3) the way wiki users understand rights and obligations as cultural citizens. The three selected wiki usages are an accumulation of potential wiki use for museums. All of them have a different level of control and display of content. Their analysis will answer the question whether wikis can help museums to evolve from their function as guardians of knowledge and heritage to participatory institutions. For two of the three wiki usages I chose The Brooklyn Museum as an example. In April this year, the Brooklyn Museum and especially its website, was celebrated as the best in engaging with its audience, balancing the power between museum, audience and curator and trying brave new technological things. The Brooklyn Museum is pointing us in the direction all museums should be taking in the future, according to the panel of Museums and the Web 2009, an initiative of conference.archimuse.com, a collaborative space for professionals creating culture, science and heritage on-line. Unfortunately the Brooklyn Museum does not have a page on the general museums wiki, but the museums that do have a page on there arent examples of online museum applications, according to the panel of Museums and the Web.

Wiki technology According to Wikipedia (2009) is a wiki a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone with access to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are part of Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, discussion forums and networking websites. Every Web 2.0 technology has enriched the interactivity and user-generated content on the Web. Wikis provide a facility that makes writing on a website and updating it very easy for a - 61 -

group of users. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, was launched in 1995 by Ward Cunningham and described as "the simplest online database that could possibly work." (Wikipedia, 2009). Together with co-author Bo Leuf, Cunningham describes in their book The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web the essences of the Wiki concept. 1) A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Web site, using only a Web browser; 2) A wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages; 3) A wiki seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration. The description of Cunningham and Leuf and todays definition of wikis on Wikipedia sound very promising. However, a lot of potential wiki users and scholars like Loosely & Roberto, Bowen, Tunsch, Guy and Lih do not think of the content of open-source wikis as reliable. The thing all these people worry about the most, is the level of trustworthiness of the content. Like Cunningham describes, wikis invite all users to edit any page or to create new pages and there seems to be no control of what is put on these pages. So instead of putting reliable information on a wiki page, users could also vandalize a wiki with nonsense. Wikipedia prevents its content from being polluted by its special user control structure. Wikipedia makes it easy for every user to check the status of the content, to track each step of an articles evolution, to observe the participants closely and to collect more information about registered users, but it is still a very open source because it can be edited by anyone.

Different wiki usages for museums The potential of vandalization of wikis is an important reason that there has still been a relatively low take-up of wiki technology in museums (Bowen, 2008). In this part of my article will I look at three different wiki usages in order to see how museums use wikis today and whether wikis can help museums to evolve to participatory institutions. The three different usages can also be seen as three different levels of wiki technology for museums. The first level, the museum page on Wikipedia, is the most distant from the museum structure. Anyone (other than a museum employee) could create a page of a museum on Wikipedia and place some information of the museum on it. The information on the museum is general (some information on the history and collection of the museum), since it is information on a online encyclopaedia. Errors on the museum page on Wikipedia would have little impact on the identity of a knowledge institution, since it is not obvious that the page is initiated by the museum itself. But preventing errors is easy for the museum; It is just one page, with minor

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entries, that now a then can be checked by a museum employee. The rest of the checking for errors will be done by the large amount of critical users of Wikipedia. The second level is the general museums wiki, where only museum personnel and museum experts can place information of the museum online, with more details than on Wikipedia and information on museums and web 2.0 technology. The possibility of vandalization on this page is almost reduced to zero by making it only accessible to a small group of museum experts. The third level of usage is the wiki started by the museum itself. Here the museum has to start the structure and content and the museums identity and authority is at stake since the museum is the one that is mainly responsible for the content of the wiki. Level 1: The museum page on Wikipedia. Wikipedia contains about thirteen million articles. The content of these articles is subject to the laws in Florida, where the Wikipedia servers are hosted, and several editorial policies and guidelines that are intended to reinforce the notion that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. Each entry in Wikipedia must be about a topic that is encyclopaedic and therefor is worthy of inclusion. Wikipedia will include an article if: 1) It has received significant coverage in secondary reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the topic 2) It exposes knowledge that is already established and recognized 3) It does not take a side 4) It does not contain commercial information (Wikipedia, 2009). The format of Wikipedia is vast, a user can add and edit information but he cant alter for example the lay-out and colors of the page, but the content of the articles is open to all users to add and edit. Both the museum and Wikipedia are communities dedicated to the expansion of knowledge (Tunch, 2007). But why would a museum want a page on Wikipedia? The most important reason is to become widely known and available to a wider public. An entry on Wikipedia can help by improving search engine rankings, directing web users to the museum website. And the biggest pro is that it costs the museum nothing, no money has to be paid to make the page. But because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, no commercial information, like information on the current exhibitions, visiting hours and entre prices, is allowed. So the amount of information on a museum page on Wikipedia is limited. This and the format of Wikipedia make it hard for a museum to distinguish its identity from other museums. There are several museum pages on Wikipedia and they all kind of look the same and provide almost the same information. Below we see a screenshot of The Brooklyn Museum page on Wikipedia. The Brooklyn Museum page contains a short introduction on the museum, some

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information on the history, funding, art and exhibitions and programs of the museum. In See also the page links to a list of museums and cultural institutions in New York and in Links you can click to the official museum website of The Brooklyn Museum. The discussion page and the history page behind the article on Wikipedia show little discussion and minor changes in the content of the article since 2006. The amount of contributors to this article is also very low, there are eight different contributors up until now. The first contribution (start-up of the page) is done by a user named Alphachimpbot. By looking up his user page I find out that Alphachimpbot (or Alphachimp) is an administrator trying to improve the experience of reading and editing Wikipedia. So nor The Brooklyn Museum or a visitor of the museum was the initiator of this page on Wikipedia. The employees of The Brooklyn Museum could of course also contribute to the page, but as far as I can see from the users on the history and discussion page, this has not happened. A museum page on Wikipedia does not have to be an initiative of a museum but it can help a museum to become more widely known. The museum page could attract more visitors to the museum, since one could become interested in the collection by seeing some part of it on Wikipedia. Unfortunately it doesnt provide all information about the museum, so a potential museum visitor has to look for more information on the museums website. Level 2: The general museums wiki. Below we see a screenshot of the museums wiki, an initiative of Jonathan Bowen in 2006. He intended this wiki for museum personnel to participate in populating this wiki with museum-related material, typically in a form that is more detailed and suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. It concentrates on technological aspects, especially museum-related wikis. (wiki, 2009). There are 183 existing

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articles on the general museums wiki and there is an associated museums wiki blog for comments and queries about the wiki and also a forum to discuss related topics. In order to make a new page or to add or edit information to existing pages, a user has to log in. Herewith the content management of the museums wiki is relatively controlled. The content of the general museums wiki is divided into categories: top content (the most favourite, the most read and the newest pages) community (information on the users, the community portal and the forum), wikis (information on wikis and links to museums wikis) and museums (pages of museums). The amount of museum pages is relatively low, it only contains twenty-five pages. Compared with the information about a museum on Wikipedia, these pages contain a little bit more information. For example the page of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art gives a mission statement next to information on the history, building and collection of the museum. The amount of information and pages on this general museums wiki is very small. The museums wiki blog and forum have no entrees so far. So I want to conclude that the idea of Bowen to start a museums wiki is very nice, but that it is not working so far. This could have to do with the unclear purpose of this wiki; What is the intention of this page and what can people get out of contributing to this page? Bowen talks about contributing museum related material, so knowledge can be shared with and passed on to other institutions. But I can imagine that not every museum wants to share everything about their organisation with other museums. Other museums could take over some of the ideas and make fame with these ideas. On the positive side, the general museums wiki could also enhance cooperation between museums, it could for example enhance the exchange of artworks between museums. But than museums will have to be more open to each other. The general museums wiki makes is easy for museum experts to find each other and to share information, but a potential museum

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visitor will not get anything of the general museum wiki. He can look at it and find some information, but he will be excluded from participating. Level 3: A museums wiki. This level will address two different museums wikis. One on which only scholars can participate and one on which everybody can participate. But before I will look at these museums wikis, I want to mention some things about what a museum has to do in order to start a wiki. First of all, before starting a wiki, a museum has to decide to what level it wants visitors and users to participate in the museums activities. The level of participation by users and visitors has to be in relation with the museums authority and identity. A museum has to realise that the content of the wiki is flexible. Anyone could add or edit the content of the wiki, and the added or edited content will be visible to every visitor of the wiki. Next to the deliberate vandalization of a wiki, putting on nonsense, people could also add or edit false information to a wiki without them consciously knowing. This flexibility of the content of a wiki could clash with the authority of the museum as a knowledge institute. Museums have qualified personnel that researches the museums objects and will produce legitimate knowledge on the objects. When a museum starts a wiki and there would be false information on this wiki, the museums reputation as a knowledge institute could be damaged. So maybe a museum would have to hire someone (a content manager) that would check the information on the wiki all the time to look for errors in the added or edited information. Not only false information could alter the identity of a museum, but already the fact that people from different knowledge levels and perspectives could add or edit content in their own way. After deciding on the level of participation by the users and visitors, and the amount of control of the wikis content, the museum can start developing the wiki accordingly. Before developing a wiki, there are also some technical barriers to overcome. First of all, the museum would have to acquire some wiki software. Most of the times this software can be (legally) downloaded from the internet for free. So a museum would not need a large amount of money to get the program. What could cost of lot of money could be someone with the expertise to build and maintain the wiki. For a museum this could mean that they have to hire someone especially for this or train someone of the museum staff. After creating the basic structure, there has to be placed some content on the wiki (Guy, 2006). The museum could ask conservators and PR-workers to write texts about different objects and to write some catchy texts on the current exhibitions. The content would be put on the wiki of the museum and people could start using and editing it. The using and editing of the wiki by the people seems a logic and easy step in the process of starting a wiki, but like Loosely & Roberto (2009) discuss: the amount of people - 66 -

using a wiki has a major impact on the functioning of the wiki. One has to realize that not every visitor of a wiki adds and edits information. Wiki visitors can be divided in active and passive users, where the amount of passive users is the largest group. For every hundred people online, one will create content, ten will interact with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other eighty-nine will just view it (Guy, 2006). So if a museum wants a properly functioning wiki, like Wikipedia, it will have to attract a lot of visitors. This large amount of visitors can function as some sort of content-controlling devise. The more people looking at the content, the less errors there will be in the content (Guy, 2006). But the attraction of visitors is not that easy. To attract a lot of visitors a wiki must have a certain goal or purpose. Simply exchanging information is in most cases not enough to enthusiasm visitors (like we saw with the general museums wiki). But for example letting visitors actually contribute to the next exhibition could be a nice way a get visitors and to have them actively participate.

The first museums wiki I want to look at is a wiki of The Brooklyn Museum, New York Citys second largest art museum. The wiki can be found on the website of The Brooklyn Museum and it is associated with the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. The goal of the wiki is to provide up-to-date academic information about the 1,038 women represented in The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago. This wiki is an effective, easy-to-use tool for collaborative authoring, and a means of facilitating accessible and continuous online dialogue about these women's contributions to history (Bowen, 2008). Scholars are invited to contribute to the entries in the Dinner Party Wiki by e-mailing the museum to gain access. Non-authorized visitors can not look at the content of the wiki or contribute to it. Because contributors to this wiki are approved by the museum, the problem of vandalization is minimized, but also the participation. For The Brooklyn Museum it is a nice way of collecting - 67 -

reliable information on women in The Dinner Party, but for general website visitors the wiki is of no use.

A completely different wiki, initiated by a museum is the Object Wiki of the Science Museum (screenshot above). It contains information about objects held in the museums public collections and the museums extensive reserve collections. Anyone can contribute to this wiki by adding information or memories of the objects to the wiki. Currently there are 407 objects represented on the wiki. Every object is represented with a picture and the categories: how it works, memories and in the Science Museum Records. The same as on Wikipedia any user can add and edit information, and all edits are kept on the history page behind the article. Different than in Wikipedia, the edit page is directly behind the articles page. Many article pages are put on the wiki by conservators and assistant conservators, but there are also little adds or edits by users from outside the museum. This wiki would need content management from inside the museum. All edits are saved in the history page, and the category memories can almost never be wrong, but since everybody can alter information on objects of the collection of the museum, the museum employees have to monitor the wiki constantly, in order to protect the knowledge authority of the museum. This object wiki differs from The Brooklyn wiki on several points. Firstly, anyone can add or edit a page on the object wiki. Unlike the Brooklyn wiki, every user is permitted to alter the content of the wiki, there is no gate keeper. Secondly, the users can add their own memories. This gives the Science Museums wiki a personal touch. This will give the users the idea that they are really contributing to the knowledge on the wiki and that their opinion counts. There are several other wikis (for example: The Amersham Museum Wiki and Placeography) that ask users to add their memories on the wiki and these are the most - 68 -

successful wikis as in having the most entries and edits. With the description of Cunningham on wikis in mind, the object wiki is the more open-source museums wiki with also more involvement of the user. On the other hand is the Brooklyn wiki the wiki that provides the most reliable information on museum objects.

Conclusion In this article I studied three different usages of wiki technology for museums. All three usages imply different things for museums when they would decide to use such a wiki technology. There is one thing that all wiki technologies would achieve for a museum and that is that visitors get the possibility to actively participate in distributing information on the museum or on the objects inside the museum. This participatory turn functions for the use of wikis along three dimensions: 1) Wikis are mainly textual web pages designed to enable anyone to contribute or modify content. Wikis have therewith enriched the interactivity and user-generated content on the web. Of course museums have to be careful with the content displayed on the wiki, because a museum is seen as an knowledge institution that does not produce false information. Therefore sometimes log-ins are put on a wiki, so the museum personnel can check who is editing what on the wiki and wiki bullies are scared off. The use of a wiki brings on certain rights of users but definitely also some obligations. 3) The weakest point of a wiki is the possibility of vandalization. This possibility scares some museums of from starting a wiki. But the vandalization can be controlled. Looking at Wikipedia, the fact that a lot of people are looking at the content, prevents Wikipedia from representing false information. Next to a history page and discussion page especially the users function as a kind of social software. 2) With containing the possible risks of a wiki, museums can add a whole new dimension to their visitor group. Online visitors can contribute to the museum practice via wikis and they can bring new offline visitors to the museum. But online visitors can also form a group apart from the offline visitors. The online community can consist of people that will never visit the offline museum, so therefore it is important that the online identity of the museum corresponds with the offline identity. Wikis can help museums to evolve to participatory institutions. Wikis are a good way for museums to connect to more people en get them to participate in museum activities. Wikis can help the museum to become well-known and attract more visitors. But before starting a wiki, a museum has to check whether the development en maintaining of a website is possible. It also has to decide whether it is comfortable with the flexible of a wiki and whether

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it is willing to alter its identity as knowledge institution, since a wiki can also produce false information. When starting a wiki a museum has to check to what level it is comfortable with wiki technology. Does it feel comfortable with the more general museum page on Wikipedia, does it want to participate in the general museums wiki on a professional level or does it really want to get visitors to participate in their information on objects and other museum practices? The online identity of a museum has to correspond with the offline identity. A very interactive and participatory museum on the internet also has to be interactive and participatory in the physical sense. As a follow-up of this article it would be useful to research the similarities and differences between the offline and online identities of museums. This would imply that next to surfing the internet, physical visits of the museums are necessary. For this article the amount of time was to limited to pursue such a research.

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References Boekman 61. (2004). Het museum van de toekomst: Pretpark of pantheon? Zaandam: Scan Laser Bowen J. & Angus J. (2006). Museums and Wikipedia, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2006: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Last retrieved Mai 1, 2009 from: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/bowen/bowen.html Bowen, J., et al. (2007). A Museums Wiki, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Last retrieved Mai 1, 2009 from: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/bowen/bowen.html Bowen, J. (2008). Wiki Software and Facilities for Museums, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2008: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Last retrieved Mai 1, 2009 from: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2008/papers/bowen/bowen.html Cunningham, W. & Leuf, B. (2001). The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web. Guy, M. (2006). Wiki or Wont he? A tale of public sector wikis. Last retrieved Mai 24, 2009 from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/guy/ Lih, A. (2004). Wikipedia as Participatory Journalism: Reliable Sources? Metrics for evaluating collaborative media as a news resource. Last retrieved Mai 22, 2009, from: http://jmsc.hku.hk/faculty/alih/publications/utaustin-2004-wikipedia-rc2.pdf Looseley, R. & Roberto, F. (2009). Museums & Wikis: Two Case Studies. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2009: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Last retrieved Mai 1, 2009, from: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2009/papers/looseley/looseley.html OReilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation Software. Last retrieved May 14, 2009, from: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=1 Scholz, T. (2007). The Participatory Turn on Social Life Online. Department of Media Study. Lecture available on the Internet. Last retrieved May 14, 2009, from: http://www.slideshare.net/trebor/the-participatory-turn Tunsch, T. (2007). Museum Documentation and Wikipedia.de: Possibilities, opportunities and advantages for scholars and museums, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Last retrieved Mai 1, http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/tunsch/tunsch.html 2009 from:

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Conclusion Andreas Mitzschke, Thomas Mougey, Malte Quarz, Tessa Reijnders

Our findings are ambivalent in suggesting an emancipatory potential of web2.0 technologies. Mitzschke is most affirmative in answering the question whether they create possibilities to emancipate from local allegiances, hierarchies and authorities within and beyond those communities that form on web 2.0. Citizen journalism and public debate on Indymedia not only challenge existing political norms in society, but also the very notion of what constitutes legitimate political participation. This leads him to suggest the broadening of the concept of cultural citizenship to almost any kind of public deliberation instead of taking the narrow view that cultural citizenship can only be exercised by traditional forms of political participation such as voting protesting, petitioning etc. Mougey is a bit more sceptical concerning the emancipatory potential of web2.0 technologies in his analysis of Yabiladi. While it enables 2nd generation migrants to overcome their social marginalization from their host country and homeland by re-historicisation and renegotiation of their cultural heritage it is still incapable of helping to overcome offline social institutions and hierarchies. In a similar vein, Quarz stresses the difference between the offline and online-appearance of global artistic networks. On MySpace a first sight suggests an actual vibrant global community of musicians. Although this is much less the case than it appears to be, networking and self-promotion possibilities for independent bands still remain enormous and can potentially help them to bypass established institutions of the music industry and transgress the boundaries of local music scenes in distribution and consumption practices. After these analyses of the emancipatory potential of web2.0 technologies Reijnders poses the important question of the desirability of overcoming existing hierarchies in specific contexts. Museums, in their function of knowledge institutions and guardians of cultural heritage, might have good reasons to resist the evolving cultural norm of participation as an unchallenged principle. Studying web2.0 technologies also provides insights in methodology for studying the online world. Mitzschke and Mougey wrestled with the problem that it is sometimes hard to ascribe authorship in internet platforms. A semiotic approach can help here to infer authorship by looking at the intertextuality of posts on Indymedia and Yabiladi. Furthermore, onlineoffline relations need to be studied to triangulate online-findings. Studies of online communities can only benefit from incorporating offline-methodologies. This is also in line with Quarzs findings. In addition, there are lessons to be learned about the notion of an

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ethnographic field site. Actually, it is not possible to look at MySpace in its totality as an ethnographic site because it is not one coherent culture. Rather, there e are numerous subcultures on MySpace which could constitute different ethnographic field sites which should be explored in their online- and offline-context. The importance of offline-contacts is also stressed by Reijnders. Online accessibility problems can be circumvented by using contacts made in the offline-world.

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