Given the excitement about facebook, myspace etc, one might think it will change our way of life. Think about how things have changed since email became common place in the 90's. The social networking sites may change our social interactions, but are there public policy issues?
The Australian Communications and Media Authority have turned their minds to just that question in their paper on trends in communication (pages 15-16). They identify issues of data ownership (who owns my facebook site?), privacy (of course) and even suggest emergency services notifications by social networking sites.
But is there anything fundamentally new about these issues? Social neworking sites are a new way to do an old thing (i.e. a new process [facebook] to achieve the same outcome [electronic communication]). The challenging policy issues will be those we cannot predict, and will probably come from doing new things rather than new ways to do old things.
For now, facebook is just a neat way to do an old trick.
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1 comments:
The issues may not be new, however the ground is shifting, introducing new ways to approach old challenges.
I recommend to you Professor Wesch's Web2.0 'The Machine is us' video on Youtube as a thought-provoking piece on how instant global communication and the transformation of society from a small group of content creators/distributors to a large group of content creators/distributors with different motives changes things.
There's also a great Ted talk on the topic by Howard Rheingold.
Cheers,
Craig
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