View Laura Stein 2011
“Policy, Participation & Power on YouTube, Facebook, Blogger and Wikipedia”
Laura Stein, University of Texas at Austin
Slides from this talk are available on SlideShare.
Aim: to throw a critical spotlight on issues of online public participation through an analysis of Terms of Service
Critical Questions:
1. Do specific instances of participation challenge or reinforce existing power structures? (empowering or disempowering?)
2. Are opportunities to participate equitably distributed? (marginalized groups have access)
3. What are the terms and conditions of participation?
4. Do governments and markets support or suppress participation?
Analysis:
Focusing on question #3, critically examine the Terms of Service policies of user-generated platforms. An analysis of TOS is one lens through which we can critically think about power relations and the ways in which policies hinder or enhance online public participation.
Terms of Service are relevant because they are:
- often legally binding contracts that specify user power
- part of the social arrangements influencing platform use
- potential default position platform owners can evoke in cases of conflict
Background/Approach:
Digital media provide opportunities for public participation (in the Habermasian sense of the public) and could potentially be constructed as alternative media. According to John Downing’s perspective, alternative media
- offer alternative to mainstream media
- challenge existing power structures
- represent/empower marginalized groups
- make horizontal linkages between communities of interest
- provide an alternative public forum
Example of analog alternative media:
Paper Tiger TV - a 3 minute clip used as an example of analog alternative media. It can be considered alternative in that it:
- deconstructs dominant media
- is critical of ideological structures
- utilizes an alternative and punk aesthetics
- employs an alternative production model of organization
- enables a different relationship with its audience
- With analog it was easier to identify what constituted alternative media, however digital media complicates conceptions and identification of alternative media. But even on digital platforms, issues and concepts of power still matter and must be questioned.
Emerging questions:
- With digital media, what constitutes public space and a public site (in the Habermasian sense of the public)?
- What are the difficulties and opportunities for public or alternative media online?
According to Henry Jenkins and Yochai Benkler:
- public/alternative media have low barriers to participation
- users have the ability to configure their use of online media
- participation fosters empowerment & democracy through non-proprietary and decentralized structures
Models of Participation:
Sherry Arnstein’s “Ladder of Citizen Participation” (see slide)
- citizen power (citizen control, delegated power, partnership)
- tokenism (placation, consultation, informing)
- nonparticipation (manipulation, therapy)
Laura’s typology builds upon Arnstein’s ladder (see slide)
- empowering (control, influence)
- semi-empowering (choice, input, information, informed consent)
- no power/disempowering (uninformed consent, nonparticipation)
Group exercise:
- analyze the TOS of Facebook, Wikipedia, Blogger, YouTube, and Indymedia Portugal (5 most popular user-generated platforms in Portugal). Applying Laura’s typology, to what extent do the TOS of each of these platforms empower or disempower users?
We broke out into 5 groups - each group discussed, analyzed, and interpreted the TOS of one of the platforms. Each group shared their findings:
- Facebook determined to be semi-empowering in that users had some input and could opt out of some features
- Wikipedia – potential to be empowering, editing limits user freedom but not necessarily disempowering (e.g. blocking edit wars)
- Blogger – empowering and disempowering depending on context (e.g. hate speech); Google (who owns Blogger) says you own your content but they have right to do with it what they want so TOS seem to contradict itself
- YouTube – mixture of semi- and empowering; restrictive for users under 18; information is used by third party networks; uninformed consent (disempowering)
- IndyMedia Portugal – collective editing group can take down content, but anyone can be a part of it (empowering); users can’t contribute to policies (semi-empowering)