A Socratic Dialogue Over Starbucks

Jenkins is sitting in a Starbucks and browsing facebook. Just then, Fuchs trips and spills his coffee all over Jenkins and his computer.

J: Gah! You just interrupted my participation on Facebook. You have really just ruined my chances of playing a role in the collaboration and community of participatory culture on the social media platform!

F: I am truly sorry for spilling my coffee on you, however, I am not sure your absence from participation truly matters. Do you really think that your contributions are equally as valued and visible as all of the other user-generated content on the web?

J: Why of course they are! Social media provides a place for users to become actively involved because the social media platform, especially on sites such as Facebook…*ehem*, Youtube and Twitter, has extremely low barriers. This allows for a chance for a democratic digital environment, in which the consumer who is also the user plays an active role in both creating and spreading content with other users.  

F: Really, how so?

J: Everyone who participates is held as equally valuable, and therefore the community of participation is successful in the collaboration of democratic expression. In turn, the content in which the user often participates is inherently tied to the brand or platform with which it is created. This, therefore, allows both the users to feel connected with their favorite brands/corporations, and the corporations to have an influx in profit. Similarly, a sense of brand loyalty is created, as the user-generated content deeply roots the brand in the ideologically-bound input of the users.

F: This sounds like free labor and exploitation to me.

J: The consumers want to participate with the corporations. They are taking an active role on the social media platforms.

F: Are the consumers really participating in the same realm as the corporations? Or are they just being exploited for capital gains in a more passive way?

J: Well, there certainly could be problems with exploitation in digital labor. However, I like to see the social media arena as a sort of convergence between the “top-down corporate driven process and a bottom-up consumer driven process.” Both are equally important. Just because the big corporations may have more wealth and power, doesn’t mean they have a greater weigh-in on social media ongoings. On sites like YouTube, for instance, users themselves decide which videos have the most hits, and thus are responsible for what appears on the “popular” videos pages. Users are in control of the visibility of what other users see.

F. That may be true, but is it only half of the truth? Do you not think that big corporations have more control of what is seen by users because visibility is a resource that media corporations can buy?

J: You have a point, I guess….

F: So, do you not think that if larger media corporations have far more visibility power than smaller users, that perhaps the motives of the corporations will be impressed passively upon the users who are generating the content?

J: Ok! Ok! But it is the users who are generating the content. It is in their hands to cultivate the product and brand design that the big organizations will duplicate.

F: This sounds eerily similar to free outsourcing. Do you not think that the corporations are obtaining asymmetrical gains by taking advantage of the common users who, like you, believe that their contributions are of equal worth to the power of the corporations?

J: It is democratic, ok!!! It isn’t exploitation!

F: Ah, I see I might have you gotten you there. You see an organization that has far more power, has in turn, far more ownership. The owners of the social media interfaces can exert influence without anyone ever even knowing that it is there. Thus, these corporations are the ones who are actually shaping media flows, while the users who are generating content are simply passive in their contributions and are obliviously contributing not to a more socially and politically democratic state, but rather to an increasingly lopsided curve, in which the organizations are reaping the benefits of YOUR contributions. You didn’t think of this, perhaps, did you?!

J: Listen, Fuchs, I was just sitting here trying to change my profile picture on my blog, when you came along and ruined everything. Just admit that the everyday user is equally as successful and visible in their social media interests and has equal impact as everyone else. It is that simple. I MATTER.

F: I am not going to argue with you any further. If you really believe you have as much impact and visibility as say, user President Obama, or the Starbucks Corporation you’re sitting in, then I am happy that I spilled that coffee on you!!

J. …..