Information sampling and linking: Reality Hunger and the digital knowledge commons

Abstract

This article weaves together insights from the social sciences and humanities to explore the link between Web 2.0 technology, information diffusion, and what we describe as a ‘hunger for reality’. Using David Shield's book Reality Hunger as both a critical muse and analytic lens, we explore linkages between form and meaning in the digital age. We suggest that Shields' central argument in Reality Hunger accurately reflects the way new information technologies have altered information production, distribution, and meaning. As a result of opportunities created by Web 2.0 technology, information today is increasingly ‘sampled’, rather than digested in whole. Information consumption comes in bits and bytes, fragmented and disconnected from original sources; it is repurposed in ways that increasingly valorise creativity over content, social networks over corporations, and collective knowledge over private intellectual property. In this article, we explore the social consequences of this new reality. In particular, we argue that individuals are no longer merely consumers of information; through social networks, they are increasingly both producers and distributors of information in the digital age, satisfying their own hunger to define reality. Through the use of Web 2.0 technology, ordinary people around the world are creating a new digital knowledge commons. We explore the implications of this new knowledge commons for the future and suggest reasons that new forms of reality hunger are likely to emerge.

Notes

Text and citations are formatted in the style of David Shields (2010): (1) Anna Tsing, Friction, 269; (2) Saskia Sassen, A Sociology of Globalization, 80–81; (3) Anna Tsing, Friction, 271; (4) David Shields, Reality Hunger, 40; (5) Saskia Sassen, A Sociology of Globalization, 81; (6) M. Lane Bruner, Democracy's Debt 293; (7) David Shields, Reality Hunger, 31; and (8) David Shields, Reality Hunger, 204, quoting John Berger, G: A Novel (this is the fragment Shields uses to conclude his manifesto).

Available online at: http://technorati.com/blogs/directory (accessed 1 March 2012).

National Public Radio (2011) ‘Digital Music Sampling: Criminality or Creativity’ (January 28). Available online at: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/28/133306353/Digital-Music-Sampling-Creativity-Or-Criminality (accessed 20 March 2011).

Available online at: http://www.geekosystem.com/hyperlink-book (accessed 22 March 2011).

While we highlight the potential of Web 2.0 activities to increase ‘personal power’ and social networking, it is important to note that sampling and linking occur within Web 2.0 applications dominated by private companies (like Facebook) which have other goals, including profit maximization. The tension between public and private benefits of Web 2.0 provides fertile ground for future social science research.

See https://www.Facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#!/press/info.php?statistics (accessed March 2011).

See Facebook statistics as referenced in previous endnote and accessed 7 October 2011. Only China and India have larger populations than then number of active Facebook users.

Seehttp://www.pamorama.net/2011/01/05/content-sharing-trends-in-2010-infographic/ (accessed 6 October 2011).

See http://static.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=4a66226414b9b98a00db2471 (accessed 6 October 2011).

Some books that might stimulate thinking along these lines include Watts (2004) and Barabasi (2002).