The New News Economy

In ____, Robert Putnam wrote ——- in his exploration of social capital in the United States, Bowling Alone. What Putnam saw disappearing was one way of creating, strengthening, using and building social capital. In an age where individuals didn’t routinely travel far from where they were born, social ties to the other people,

...It is global. It favors intangible things--ideas, information, and relationships. And it is intensely interlinked. These three attributes produce a new type of marketplace and society, one that is rooted in ubiquitous electronic networks. Kevin Kelley in The New New Economy
whether strong or weak, were based on propinquity. There was no larger or more righteous purpose for this arrangement, it simply was based on the way things were. Facing new challenges and new environments, individuals found that cooperation around shared work was a more successful strategy than competition. Many of the institutions we rever today, or wax nostalgic about, arose to foster or cement strong ties between individuals to make life easier for most of the individuals in the group.

Communal aspects of culture are emerging & doing well.

Shirky’s hierarchy of new social arrangements:

Sharing

Cooperation

Collaboration

Collectivism – exploits hierarchy, maximizes collective. Digital networking beginning to provide tools to promote this.

Characteristics include:

Distributed power among ad hoc participants

Ubiquitous, “free” resources (cloud computing.)

Volunteers who want to help

Sharing protected by licensing like Creative Commons.

Real-time communication via Twitter, RSS, etc.

Passionate opinions shared online

Sharing, cooperation, collaboration, openness, free pricing, transparency are now practical.

Examples: Craigslist, Kiva (micro loans), couchsurfing, MixedInk.

Individuate (a post-modern term) means customizing on the individual level on a massive scale.

Mass media will be part of mix, but consumers, not publishers, broadcasters, or marketers will do the mixing.

Not subsets of existing mass media offerings; it is individuals selecting from all content providers, from some content providers, and mixing choice and “agent” recommendations.

Facebook provides about 200 million people with different content selections based on their interests & friends.

Vin Crosbie, Kevin Kelley in Wired.