[Air-L] Research on "passive" social media use?

[M.B.Gaved]

Hi Amparo, all

It's certainly an interesting debate on what we should call users of social media who do not post comments or upload content.

I agree "passive" is maybe not a strong enough expression for non-contributory participation but I find it so much nicer than the terrible expression "lurkers" to describe such users!

I cringe and recoil when I hear the term "lurker". It suggests presence with dubious intentions to me, I think of some guy in a 1940s Hollywood gangster movie with a big coat and turned up collar waiting in a dark alley... :-)


Kind regards
Mark Gaved

The Open University
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
http://www.pi-project.ac.uk/

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of MARIA AMPARO LASEN DIAZ
Sent: 04 November 2009 17:24
To: klastrup at itu.dk
Cc: air-l at listserv.aoir.org; klastrup at itu.dk
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Research on "passive" social media use?

Hi Lisbeth,

I wonder whether we shoud keep using this term "passive" to describe users who do not post comments or upload content, as listening, watching and reading are rich and meaningful ways of interacting with content (there is a vaste and not so new amount of scholar work on how the audiences in litterature and arts contribute to make what they listen, read and watch by these same activities of reading or lietening), regarding Internet Kate Crawford is working on this topic, you can found the paper she presented in the COST298 conference in Copenhagen this year in the online proceedings at

http://miha2.ef.uni-lj.si/cost298/gbc2009-proceedings/papers/P202.pdf

Best

Amparo



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