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Folksonomy and the Folks

Well, let’s first discuss what Folksonomy is and then we’ll look at a recent event where it was prevalent and evident in the blogosphere (where I am referring to the inter-connected communal collection of blogs, the variety of social networks and the internet community in general).   Folksonomy is a combination of the words folks and taxanomy. As Wikipedia defines it, folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content.  To simplify, you know those hash tags you see on people’s twitter or on blog post, that’s a kind of folksonomy.  The basic purpose of this is so users (as well as advertisers, service providers and 3^rd party research firms) can collectively classify and find info.  (You’ve probably seen it and not recognized what you were looking at.  Have you ever seen an image like  on Flickr? Boom, Tag Cloud.)  Of course there are some problems in dealing with tags and the like because not everyone uses the same vernacular while using the internet.  Newer programs and analyses have shown there is actually a shared internet vocabulary where a consensus of language manifests itself as a stable distribution, even when there is a lack of a centrally defined vocabulary.  This basically means these tags enable searchability in a similar fashion to how keywords were used in Web 1.0, and the systems which analyze them categorize similar content into groups.

Now that we’ve discussed the definition, let’s look at the application in the real/digital world.  We’re gonna look at the Oscars to see how folksonomy in action changed the social landscape.  First, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had a twitter account where you could follow a real-time list of the award winners. This was probably the least followed twitter account dealing with Oscar related tweets.  The reason for this, the 2011 Oscars were hosted by Anne Hathaway and James Franco.  This was a significant event because not only were they the youngest duo to host the show in its 83 year history, but they were also a strange detour from the typical hosting selection, which is usually limited to comedians or dramatic actors with real comedic credits.  The duo’s appointment was, to say it nicely, a fireable decision.  To describe the show, two words come to mind: Epically Unfunny.  Hathaway even used the phrase, “young and hip oscars” which blew up on the internet.  The top trending topic on social networks during the broadcast was #youngandhiposcar “with the consensus being the show was anything but.” The brunt of the criticism during the broadcast was severely negative.  Some of the most scathing tweets and posts were "I'm almost certain Franco & Hathaway thought this was a dress rehearsal,"  "Finally a real host" (when multiple time host Billy Crystal presented), "The hosts made me miss Billy Crystal, Crystal made me wish for Bob Hope and Hope actually made me laugh and he's dead," (which was posted by Daily Show writer Rory Albanese.)

The unofficial twitter resource on the blog mediabistro.com had a post about the best Oscar related tweets.  In the post above they gave out awards for the best hashtags (#gaysuperbowl), best summing up (“Franco (v.): 1.) To smoke up before a big event to take the edge off only to take the edge off your performance. 2.) Bleary-eyed MC-ing.”), and best best-picture tweet (“AMBER ALERT reported in LA. Little boy named Oscar taken from rightful owner David Fincher. Culprit believed to be foreigner.”). 

(Not so brief aside, I think it’s really amazing that arguably the best movie of the year was a film about social networking.  I think the academy went the safe route selecting The King’s Speech, granted it too was phenomenal film.  The typical election of the dramatic love story, war epic, period piece or traditional adaptation of another work, has become bland and unsurprising.  The Social Network may  be, unlike Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, The Sound of Music and Forrest Gump, a defining/penultimate/revolutionary film which spoke to and about the youth of American.  Each of the abovementioned films voiced the older generation, who had control over Hollywood and The Academy at the time.  They were (obviously) amazing films with some of the greatest actors and performances of all time, but they all depicted the distant past. Gone with the Wind was a novel about 19^th century America, the Godfather was  an adapted novel about the post-WWII influence of the mafia in the US, The Sound of Music was  based on a Broadway play about WWII Europe, and Forrest Gump was basically a two and a half  hour montage of the baby boomer experience.   The Social Network , Casablanca, On the Waterfront and The Hurt Locker were all (except Social Network) the big winner on Oscar night.  They depicted recent event which were in the process of altering our history as people sat in the seat in the theatre.  Casablanca was just another WWII movie made in 1942 until the Allied forces invaded North Africa, On the Waterfront was based on New York Sun reports from five years before the movie was made, and the Hurt Locker was set in 2004 Iraq.   Social Network captured a world-wide phenomenon in a gritty, and memorable style.  Films which celebrate the now need to be distinguished.  They are an insightful way to reflect on society as it is, as opposed to how it was. Keep in mind I’ve only discussed 10% of the Best Picture winners so my theory may not be watertight, but I wanted to share my opinion.)

Back to the Oscars and folksonomy.  Some people who didn’t even tune in, posted "Did not watch, could care less. Everyone on Twitter kept me up to date on what I wasn't missing." Some people even suggested the "In future, live show producers should have contingency plans to make on-the-fly changes when social media chatter shows trainwrecks,” like Richard Robbins, director of Social Innovation at AT&T.  I think this is a very interesting aspect of the folksonomy phenomena.  The coordinators of live, televised events could follow the internet chatter and possibly adjust the subsequent events.  Imagine, everyone in America tweeting their disgust of the lackluster performance of Hathaway and Franco, and then all of a sudden, the producers scramble, lock the hosts in their dressing rooms, and get Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin to reprise their hosting duties from last year, take over the show and rescues the audience from the massive three hour bomb slowly detonating at the Kodak Theatre.  It’s an intriguing thought. 

The increased of power held by the audience or in greater regard, the internet community in general, is an interesting #trend.  I do not believe this power shift from the push model of Web 1.0 to the pull model of Web 2.0 is going to be a negative symptom of the new internet.  The traditional power/information -brokers in the pre-blog era have seen their grip over the flow of news and info weaken.  The “professional” media agencies like network/cable news, magazines, newspapers, radio and books need to adapt (and many of them have already).  Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and the like can spread news in a flash.  The traditional venues have to realize that having a 2am deadline and a 4am edition doesn’t work in a world where I can Google or Bing (not really) any topic, subject or story and instantly receive dozens, hundred, thousands or MILLIONS of results at any time and probably in any language. (I think the 24-hour news cycle is a relic of Web 1.0.  A 24-hour news cycle invokes thoughts of traditional media, operating around the clock.  The news cycle in Web 2.0 is yesterday, by that I mean, “We need that story yesterday.”  Once a story is broken, you’re too late.  It’s faster than we can imagine, but this may not be a positive.  We may be sacrificing fact checking for timely reporting.  When this happens, our news agencies/reporters/outlets begin to lose credibility and the bloggers/tweeters ect. gain it.)   Instead of complaining, bashing or denouncing the technology, embrace it!  It can will probably make the professional more accessible to the public they need to reach.  Amateurs like bloggers and laypeople who tweet have an equal opportunity to communicate with the world.  The everyman on the street we used to see on the 5 o’clock news or the neighbor who had a six word quote in the local paper can now tell their story: unfiltered, unedited, and uninfluenced on Facebook or twitter.  By using folksonomy, their story can be easily found.

Now, using folksonomy can lead to discovery of new and informative proletarian commenter, or help develop an affinity for a previously unknown blog, but generally most #trendingposts are dismissed or unviewed.  As Tyler queried “Do collective online activities promote a new form of participatory democracy and the development of new and accurate folksonomies, or rather to they lead people to overestimate the value of their unconsidered posts and opinions?”  This is an interesting question.  The internet has developed into a participatory democracy now that user-generated content is everywhere.  A new form of language, information sharing and content searching is developing through folksonomy. In my opinion, I think the folks are truly getting their ideas out and are being heard.  90% of the information I used above was found, in part to using a folksonomy search.  I hadn’t previously heard of any of the people who I quoted in the pages preceding this.  Their wit and opinion would have gone unheard without the #hashtag. 

You can argue it may lead to people to overestimate the value of their unconsidered posts and opinions, but so can any other form of social interaction.  People think their opinion matters. People think they are witty.  People think they are special.  I beg to differ.  To quote Tyler Durden, “(People) are not beautiful and unique snowflake(s).  (They) are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.”  Now that is a cynical and harsh assessment, but I think it has merit.  Our culture Humanity does not celebrate the average or ordinary. We celebrate greatness, uniqueness, exceptionality, rare abilities.  Why would this change just because we are using a digital interface?  Average people who make average observations will be overlooked.  If they feel they are being heard, let them keep thinking that.  You know the guy at work who thinks he has the greatest one-liners since Bob Hope; he thinks everyone’s listening to him throughout the day but no one is.  He’s also the same guy who tweets everything that pops in his head and believes the Earth stops spinning while the populace is enjoying his wit.  It’s the same interaction.  I may be writing this as if my opinion is going to be the foundation for a groundbreaking analysis of folksonomy, but in reality my words will appear on the page in front of you, my tags will be added to the ever growing stew of compounded words and phrases floating in cyberspace, and then my words will probably be forgotten.  It’s okay though.  Maybe my opinion matters, and maybe it doesn’t.  I think in this case (folksonomy), the result is not what is important; the process is.  Folksonomy, just like many of the other aspects and features of social media/Web 2.0, allows for those few special individuals to be discovered out of the masses. 

I do not see folksonomy/Web 2.0/social networking overtaking representative democracy, academia or the other “elitist artifacts.”  I see folksonomy/Web 2.0/social networking enhancing these institutions.  Social networking was one of the most impactful aspects of the 2008 election, as well as this past November.  It changed and influenced our democratic process.  We have seen academia (at times) embrace social media, ie. this class.  When there is a change in technology which greatly impacts society such as the personal computer, more specifically the internet, some of the elite are slow to acceptance.  All throughout time we have advanced in our ability to communicate, store knowledge and learn.  At first we had nothing, then language, pictures, written word, moveable type, mass production, radio, film, television, computers, and now the internet.  We are still developing our skills with this technology.  I’m sure in its infancy, people were asking similar questions about Gutenberg’s printing press with movable type.  “Now the peasants will be able to read, they are going to overthrow all of us in traditional power roles.  We can’t let them learn how to read; it will change and ruin everything.”  I bet, in 1452, no one could imagine a world where a VAST majority of the population (at least in the industrialized world) is/has the potential to be literate.  Now we are in a situation where everyone has the ability potential to be heard.

So where do we go from here?  Are we heading towards a world where every live event, concert and television show can be impacted by trending topics? Will we all be able to voice our opinions online and have them count for something? Has the interactive world reached the pinnacle of connectivity?  5 years ago, we were fed news and information; we had to search in a style which the gatekeepers (like Google) could understand.  Now we have a dialogue.  There is a communication between the gatekeepers and the knowledge seekers.  Part of the language used is folksonomy; another piece is user generated content; and another piece is social media.  I wonder how in 5 years/months/days/minutes how are we going to be having the discussion? Regardless of how it is designed, one thing is for sure; when traditional mediums do not, cannot or will not give a voice to the masses, the masses will find their own voice.