Life in the Network

(To make some bucks...get it?)

I added some links to Wikipedia's Bicycle Culture article, and changed a few words around. I realize that even though I feel like an expert on bicycle enthusiasm, I don’t feel comfortable presenting myself as such by editing an article for public consumption. Based on what I see on the Talk pages, there are already plenty of cooks in the kitchen. It did go smoothly, but it seems like to get good at editing Wikipedia, I’d have to spend quite a bit of time learning how to follow all the rules of form and content. So far, there is no discussion about the links I’ve added. I was heartened to read that “A wiki also tracks and stores every version of an article edited, so no operation is ever permanently destructive…. While it may take five or ten seconds to deface one article, it can be quickly undone by others with just one click of a button.� (Lih, Wikipedia as Participatory Journalism p. 4) This impermanence could be an incentive to write more freely, presumably improving the article’s content. In my exploration of bike-related articles, I found the entry for Cars-R-Coffins, ,which seemed pretty much like an advertisement to me. Somehow, the idea of an individual (intentionally or not) adding advertising content to a wiki seems infinitely less manipulative than viral marketing, and serves as a reminder that we, as consumers, are still responsible for questioning what we read.

“In the last year or two the trend has been to remove the scent of people, so as to come as close as possible to simulating the appearance of content emerging out of the Web as if it were speaking to us as a supernatural oracle. This is where the use of the Internet crosses the line into delusion.� (Lanier, Digital Maoism) Lanier seems to be saying that collectively authored content can give the illusion that it’s not biased, that it represents all points of view equally. Complacently accepting information as if it were complete and perfect is dangerous, especially when we “bear in mind, (guerilla advertisers) are not just trying to talk to these people; (they) are trying to convince (us) to be proactive co-marketers.� (Brier, Viral Marketing) Viral marketing works by convincing viewers that our opinions and participation are important, and as in the chicken fight, that we have a hand in controlling what’s on TV: “The 12-minute fight … allowed consumers to vote on who they wanted to win the fight, and also featured a chicken-fight game viewers could play themselves. (Anderson, Dissecting Subservient Chicken ). I was particularly disturbed to see that this roundabout way of convincing people to buy more chicken sandwiches actually seems to work.