We are the Creators -SOCS300

Every so many decades a new media is created: phone, television, computers, Internet... And with each of these comes the good and bad- the terrorist, the citizen, and the hero. This is all very clear with the Internet- a type of media that is my favorite and also my second choice of past time (first being creating artworks). The Internet has given us the power to create. To create a world, to create a community. Yochai Benkler's book 'The Wealth of Networks' explains how the Internet is not about participating in, but rather about creating. This is clear in MMORPG's (Massive Multi player Online Role-Playing Game) such as Second life and WoW. Second life is purely based on users creating interfaces, buildings, characters. There is no story line, no scene, and no director. The game plays out according to how the users decide it will. It is a rich community of online loving users, and withing that community are sub groups of more users with even more similar interests. Within the World Wide Web, there are websites that allow the same action. Twitter is a tool that allows users to create and lead micro-blogging discussions about whichever topic they choose. Those topics that are tweeted about the most appear in Twitters top 10 at the moment tweet roll. Websites and blogs themselves are early tools that are blank canvases that users can do anything with. All i takes to make a web page is imagination- if you don't know how to code, there are programs like dreamweaver to help you out.

On page 138 of Benkler's book he describes "Users aer individuals who are sometimes consumers and sometimes producers. They are substantially more engaged participants, both in defining the terms of their productive activity, and in defining what they consume and how they consume it." I think this line best describes the actions that happen within the Internet. Sometimes we speak, some times we absorb what others post. Right now your consuming while reading this post and I'm producing, but maybe in an hour I'll read your comments and go to your blog and it'll be in reverse.

The Internet is a tool where there is not one elected storyteller like in news papers, where we read and only go by one perspective. Nor are the stories told on the Internet coming from an individual winning a vote or holding a position through hereditary status. Instead the Internet is a tool where anyone can talk, and in this society we can stop and listen if we like, or go onto the next story being told. Obviously some stories are more popular than others, but maybe the story isn't for everyone. In Clay Shirky's text, 'Here comes Everybody', he explains that there are some blogs in which the intentions of it are to tell stories to an inner group of friends. There are spelling errors and incomplete sentences, and if an outsider read it they would not understand the discussion, but it is okay as the story teller wasn't wanting 400 followers- they instead wanted their 2 friends. The Internet is a powerful, unlimited resource, a resource that has intertwined with our reality. I find it hard now adays to see borders, and have realized method of discussion has greatly altered.

I think we all need to remember that in this hopeful utopia we all have the power to create, and if you can't find what you are looking for then make it or talk about it yourself.