How does Youtube (or other online social networking/collaborative platforms) compare to public access TV or other community media projects we've looked at? Use the example of Youtube and at least two other examples from the links below to anchor your response to this question. Bonus question: Who benefits and who is in control?
Public access television offers itself to be a wonderful platform for communities to communicate with each others. But this form of communication (between the maker of whatever is put on TV and the viewer) is one that is predominantly a place to share and inform then a place to engage in interaction and dialogues. For PAT, communication begins with one person/group's idea to advertise something or communicate something (perhaps through making and displaying a film), but it remains mainly a monologue. What's wonderful with web 2.0 is that it enables interaction with either friends through sites such as facebook or even strangers through website such as Vimeo where viewers can comment and ask questions about the videos. The most fascinating web 2.0 from our list to me is certainly the Lunchtimers. It brilliantly provides a platforms for collaborative doodling. Being able to create and response some stranger's creativity is extremely satisfying. The web creates a sort of intimacy (although temporal) for people to imagine a human connection. Just like web-based video games, viewers can pretend that they belong to a community of interactions. The virtual community can even grow to a point when it can demonstrate societal norms such as the natural separation of leaders and followers. Web 2.0 works has its advantage of preserving the anonymity. I as a participant of Lunchtimers feels the increased freedom to draw whatever comes to mind as my name and my identity is not exposed.
Anonymity is a fascinating ingredient in the web 2.0 world. During my playtime on Lunchtimers, I was able to see how the article "Metacrap" rightly identify the weaknesses of web 2.0. "Metacrap" describes how people lie and can spam a search site or even your e-mail. But I would say that there is also the case when people are simply trying to be destructive. When I was happily doodling on Lunchtimers, my anonymous drawing buddy decided to write "Child Porn" and "Free Child Porn" all over our screen. He/she definitely got my attention as I change to another drawing "chat room" because I felt uncomfortable seeing his/her message all over the place. Except, the stranger was already in another chat room spreading his incredibly distasteful comment. I would assume that the stranger simply wanted to mess around, and in turns ruined my desire to go back to the site. The abuse of anonymity is a weakness of web 2.0. My experience on Lunchtimers gave me a good understanding of how the web 2.0 system can be abused and attract user generated censorship, coined by Annalee Newitz.
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