Does Web 3.0 come after Web 2.0? Deconstructing theoretical assumptions through practice

Abstract

Current internet research has been influenced by application developers and computer engineers who see the development of the Web as being divided into three different stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. This article will argue that this understanding – although important when analysing the political economy of the Web – can have serious limitations when applied to everyday contexts and the lived experience of technologies. Drawing from the context of the Italian student movement, we show that the division between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is often deconstructed by activists’ media practices. Therefore, we highlight the importance of developing an approach that – by focusing on practice – draws attention to the interplay between Web platforms rather than their transition. This approach, we believe, is essential to the understanding of the complex relationship between Web developments, human negotiations and everyday social contexts.

Full text

http://nms.sagepub.com/
New Media & Society
http://nms.sagepub.com/content/14/8/1269
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/1461444812445878
2012 14: 1269 originally published online 14 June 2012New Media Society
Veronica Barassi and Emiliano Treré
through practice
Does Web 3.0 come after Web 2.0? Deconstructing theoretical assumptions
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
can be found at:New Media & SocietyAdditional services and information for
http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://nms.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
What is This?
- Jun 14, 2012OnlineFirst Version of Record
- Nov 22, 2012Version of Record >>
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

new media & society
14(8) 1269 –1285
© The Author(s) 2012
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1461444812445878
nms.sagepub.com
Does Web 3.0 come after Web
2.0? Deconstructing theoretical
assumptions through practice
Veronica Barassi
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Emiliano Treré
Autonomous University of Querétaro, Mexico
Abstract
Current internet research has been influenced by application developers and computer
engineers who see the development of the Web as being divided into three different
stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. This article will argue that this understanding –
although important when analysing the political economy of the Web – can have serious
limitations when applied to everyday contexts and the lived experience of technologies.
Drawing from the context of the Italian student movement, we show that the division
between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is often deconstructed by activists’ media
practices. Therefore, we highlight the importance of developing an approach that – by
focusing on practice – draws attention to the interplay between Web platforms rather
than their transition. This approach, we believe, is essential to the understanding of the
complex relationship between Web developments, human negotiations and everyday
social contexts.
Keywords
alternative media, Anomalous Wave, media practice, social media, social movements,
Web 2.0, Web 3.0
Corresponding author:
Veronica Barassi, Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London, New
Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK
Email: v.barassi@gold.ac.uk
445878NMS
14810.1177/1461444812445878Barassi and Trerénew media & society
2012
Article
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

1270 new media & society 14(8)
Introduction
In recent years, internet and media scholars have been confronted with new develop-
ments of the Web, developments that have seen the growth of social networking sites, the
extension of mobile technologies and an increase in user participation. The term Web
2.0, as proposed by Tim O’Reilly (2005), has been adopted in a variety of studies aimed
at offering at times very critical perspectives on the political economy of Web develop-
ments (Fuchs, 2010; Jarrett, 2008; Terranova, 2004, 2004; Van Dijck and Nieborg, 2009;
Zimmer, 2008). At present, business and application developers are suggesting that there
will be a new era of the Web: Web 3.0. This will be defined by a new online environment,
which will integrate users’ generated data to create new meaning. In contrast to Web 2.0,
which is understood as being based on users’ participation, Web 3.0 will be based on
users’ cooperation (Fuchs et al., 2010; Harris, 2008; Tasner, 2010; Watson, 2009). Within
these debates, the overall assumption is that the Web is changing and that these changes
impact on the economic and political organization of society, as well as on people’s atti-
tudes, beliefs and practices.
This article explores the somewhat scattered body of literature on Web developments
and seeks to understand the logic of terms such as Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 by critically
engaging with them. It will argue that although these concepts can be crucial when ana-
lysing the political economy of the Web, they present two main theoretical and methodo-
logical limitations for social research. In the first place, as some scholars have noticed
(Everitt and Mills, 2009; Finnemann, 2010; Fuchs et al., 2010), they are entrenched
within an evolutionary and temporary understanding of Web developments, which does
not reflect processes of technological transformation and tends to give a linear progres-
sion to coexisting social and technical trends. The second problem – which has not yet
been addressed in current debates and will be the main focus of this article – is the prob-
lem of practice. Concepts of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 often carry assumptions of users’
practices: Web 2.0 is seen as enabling user participation whilst Web 3.0 is seen as trig-
gering users’ cooperation. In this article we argue that these assumptions can have seri-
ous limitations when exploring the impact of Web developments on people’s everyday
experience. Drawing from multi-sited ethnographic research (Marcus, 1998) within the
Italian student movement, this article will show that the division between different stages
of Web development is not reflected within the everyday practices of activists. In fact, it
will be argued that activists not only use different platforms to mediate their messages
but they often use Web 2.0 platforms in non-interactive ways and in ways that would be
classified as Web 1.0. Consequently, it will be shown that the Web uses of Italian activ-
ists challenge linear interpretations of Web developments, and shed light on how people
critically negotiate with technological structures, and the political economy of the Web.
Web 2.0 between participation and exploitation
In 2004, at the first Web 2.0 Conference, Tim O’Reilly (2005) explained that the early
2000s had seen the development of a different type of Web, Web 2.0, which harnesses
‘the collective intelligence of crowds to create value’ (O’Reilly, 2005: para. 25). The new
Web, in contrast to Web 1.0, is no longer based on a network of hypertexts, but is defined
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Barassi and Treré 1271
by a new ‘architecture of participation’ (O’Reilly, 2005: para. 24), which facilitates the
co-production of information, social networking and rich user experiences. In the year
following its introduction, the term Web 2.0 became extremely popular in a wide variety
of contexts, to the point that at the end of 2005 it counted 9.5 million citations on Google
(O’Reilly, 2005: para. 3). Also within academic circles the concept has become extremely
pervasive. In her analysis of theoretical approaches, Song suggested that ‘Web 2.0 marks
a broader cultural moment’ (2010: 270). It certainly marked the growth of significant
debates within academic disciplines on the importance of analysing the internet as a
technology in constant transformation and defined by different phases of development.
Although scholars concur on the importance of embracing the concept of Web 2.0 to
address the Web developments of the last years, the Web 2.0 literature is defined by a
variety of perspectives on how best to understand these technological transformations.
The problem scholars are confronted with is represented by the fact that Web 2.0 tech-
nologies are defined by a double-sided nature, which Zimmer (2008) called the ‘Faustian
bargain of Search 2.0’ and that was further developed by Langlois et al. (2009) as the
‘Web 2.0 Faustian trade-off’. On the one hand, Web 2.0 platforms such as Flickr,
YouTube, Twitter, MySpace and Facebook allow users to become so-called prosumers
(Bruns, 2008; Toffler, 1980). Hence, some scholars have argued that the interactive fea-
tures of Web 2.0 technologies offer unprecedented democratic possibilities for individual
engagement and empowerment (Castells, 2007, 2009; Gillmor, 2004; Reynolds, 2006;
Shirky, 2008; Tapscott and Williams, 2006).
On the other hand, as Zimmer (2008) explained, Web 2.0 technologies also enable an
increased flow of personal information across networks, the emergence of powerful tools
for peer surveillance, the exploitation of free labour for commercial gain and an increased
corporatization of online social spaces and outputs (Zimmer, 2008: 1). Therefore, many
scholars have argued that, far from being democratic, the new online economy is linked
to issues of neo-liberal surveillance, corporate control and the exploitation of users’
immaterial labour (Andrejevic, 2005; Everitt and Mills, 2009; Terranova, 2004; Van
Dijck and Nieborg, 2009). It is for this reason that that Sandoval and Fuchs (2010) relied
on Marcuse to argue that the participatory culture of the Web is today nothing more than
‘repressive tolerance’ (Sandoval and Fuchs, 2010: 144–145).
All these discussions on the capitalist and exploitative character of Web 2.0 tech-
nologies are of extreme importance, because they critically address the ideological and
business rhetoric embedded in the concept of Web 2.0 as proposed by O’Reilly and
others. Van Dijck and Nieborg (2009), for instance, brilliantly deconstructed Web 2.0
manifestos such as Wikinomics (Tapscott and Williams, 2006), showing how business
gurus endorse a notion of public collectivism that functions entirely inside commodity
culture.
However, drawing from Langlois et al. (2009), we believe that often the rich cultural
experiences witnessed on Web platforms cannot be ‘simply dismissed as yet another
form of corporate control over culture, or Orwellian dataveillant machine’ (Langlois
et al., 2009: 1). In fact, as Jenkins (2006) remarked, while it is undeniable that corpora-
tions make profits, hiding behind the ideological rhetoric of empowerment, it is also true
that thanks to the multiple possibilities offered by Web 2.0 platforms, individuals have a
new decoding power. Furthermore, as Castells (2007, 2009) argued, we must appreciate
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

1272 new media & society 14(8)
that the interactive and participatory features of Web 2.0 technologies have enabled a
new form of mass communication of the self, which has given rise to new expressions of
insurgent politics. Therefore, we believe that it is important to understand the participa-
tory potential of Web 2.0 technologies, whilst at the same time – as Cammaerts (2008)
does – take into account issues of commoditization, state censorship and market
appropriation.
However, while we share the emphasis on Web 2.0’s capacity to strengthen networked
protests, and we agree with Cammaerts (2008) about the necessity to assess critically the
challenges to political participation on Web 2.0, in this article we urge scholars to take a
step back. Thus, we question whether the interactive and participative possibilities –
which, for most of the literature, characterize Web 2.0 technologies – will somehow be
necessarily appropriated by users, and in particular by networked movements and
activists.
Beyond Web 2.0? The rise of Web 3.0 and the semantic
web
In the last few years a new concept has started to emerge amongst business Web develop-
ers and beyond: the notion of Web 3.0. Ideas on the current developments of the Web are
still blurred and confused, yet contemporary business models stress the importance of
moving beyond Web 2.0 and finding new ways to manage, organize and create meaning
from the vast amount of user-generated data (Funk, 2008; Harris, 2008; Tasner, 2010;
Watson, 2009).
The concept of Web 3.0, as it is imagined by business models and Web developers, is
often associated with the idea of the Semantic Web. The idea was first coined in 1999 by
Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, who foresaw the possibility of
enabling machines to ‘talk to one another’ and to understand and create meaning from
semantic data (Berners-Lee in Floridi, 2009: 27). Floridi (2009) contended that the
Semantic Web as portrayed by Tim Berners-Lee and the people of the W3C (World Wide
Web Consortium) is not feasible either technically (at least not yet) or socially, but he
argues that the Web is developing well beyond the interactive processes of Web 2.0 in a
variety of different ways.
One such transformation is defined by the fact that businesses and computer engi-
neers are developing increasingly small and mobile applications that harness the coop-
eration of crowds and work as databases organizing the data on the Web (Harris, 2008;
Watson, 2009). The model shows some similarities to the Wikipedia model, which
unlike Google – which works by matching words – contextualizes concepts, creating
new information (Harris, 2008: 29–31). One example of this is provided by salesforce.
com, a cloud service for companies that works as a database which integrates different
data (e.g. the individual profiling of customers with the company information or the
latest statistics) to create new data that strengthen marketing strategies (Harris, 2008:
29–31). A very different example of Web 3.0 technology is quora.com. This is a pri-
vately owned searchable question and answer platform of general knowledge, which
harnesses the collaboration of users by enabling them to update their questions and
answers live via social networking sites. As these two different examples of Web 3.0
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Barassi and Treré 1273
technologies show, these new applications and platforms offer users the possibility to
cooperate in the creation of Web data, whilst at the same time searching the Web in an
intelligent way. Therefore, as many have noticed (Funk, 2008; Harris, 2008; Tasner,
2010; Watson, 2009), if ‘user participation’ was the key word within business models
of Web 2.0, ‘users’ cooperation’ has become the new buzz word that identifies Web 3.0
technologies.
The understanding of Web 3.0 as a site of user cooperation can also be found in the
work of Fuchs (2008). For him Web 3.0 is created by ‘networked digital technologies
that support human cooperation’ (2008: 127). This focus on cooperation can be problem-
atic. In fact, if we consider contemporary business models and objectives that are attached
to the development of new Web 3.0 applications, we cannot overlook the fact that in
stressing cooperation these applications propose to manage, organize and create meaning
from user-generated data in such a way that it maximizes the tracing of digital identities
(Harris, 2008; Watson, 2009) and behavioural advertising (Tasner, 2010). In this frame-
work, we believe that it is essential to start thinking about the larger political implications
that such Web developments would bring about, especially in terms of the issues of pri-
vacy, surveillance and control. Research in this area has become imperative.
In this article, however, our focus is not on foreseeing these implications but rather
questioning whether concepts such as Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, which are entrenched within
business rhetoric, can be appropriate theoretical and methodological tools for social
research. Our understanding is that such concepts can be crucial to the analyses of the
political economy of the Web, because they enable scholars to assess critically the busi-
ness rhetoric embedded in understandings of Web developments. As we have seen above,
the critical Web 2.0 literature that emerged as a response to Tim O’Reilly’s (2005) con-
ceptualization of Web 2.0, has been crucial in unmasking the capital exploitation that
was intrinsic to the discourse of a new ‘architecture of participation’. In similar ways,
new literature and research should thoroughly engage with notions of Web 3.0, with the
aim of exposing the logic of neo-liberal surveillance embedded in these new Web devel-
opments and critically assessing ideas of ‘cooperation’. Although the importance of such
concepts in the analysis of the political economy cannot be dismissed, we believe that
scholars must take a step back and critically reflect on the hidden theoretical and meth-
odological limitations of such terms.
Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and the problem of practice
One of the key problems with the terms Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is represented by
the fact that, as Finnemann (2010) argued, they do not reflect the actual technological
transformation of the Web, and, as Everitt and Mills (2009) showed, such concepts apply
a version number and a consequent notion of progress ‘to cultural shifts that speak more
of a complex alliance of social, technological and commercial aims’ (2009: 765). The
problem is that linear and evolutionary understandings of Web developments imply that
one form of the Web can replace another. However, as Fuchs et al. (2010) argued, differ-
ent Web platforms do not replace one another. Rather, the Web needs to be understood as
an integrated socio-technical system, in which different Web applications and stages
coexist.
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

1274 new media & society 14(8)
Fuchs et al. (2010) argued for the importance of abandoning evolutionary and linear
models of Web developments, yet within their work they contend that these concepts are
important because they enable us to appreciate how different Web technologies facilitate
different communication processes. In fact, the scholars contend that Web 1.0 technolo-
gies enable cognitive processes of communication, which are made possible through the
individual’s relationship with the hypertext. Web 2.0 technologies create the basis for the
development of communicative processes, which are guaranteed by interactive platforms
(e.g. social media), and Web 3.0 technologies facilitate cooperative processes that are
integrative in the construction of new information and meaning.
The understanding of the Web as an integrated socio-technical system, we believe, is
crucial to contemporary critical theory of the internet, because it challenges linear under-
standings of evolutionary progress. However, in our understanding of Web developments
we distance ourselves from that of Fuchs et al. (2010) and question whether the fact that
Web technologies can enable different communication processes (cognition, participa-
tion, cooperation), implies that these communication processes become the key definers
of Web uses.
This question is particularly important for current research. In fact we believe that
although the pitfalls of embracing evolutionary models of Web developments have been
recognized by scholars (Everitt and Mills, 2009; Finnemann, 2010; Fuchs et al., 2010),
another central problem embedded in these concepts has yet to be addressed. This is the
problem of practice. Concepts such as Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 often deploy un-
problematized assumptions of users’ practices. Yet, in this article we ask: what does an
analysis of users’ practices tell us about these concepts as analytical and methodological
models?
Deconstructing theoretical assumptions through
practice
Since the early developments of new information and communication technologies,
social theorists – and especially those who grounded their work on an ethnographic and
qualitative perspective – have focused on the concept of practice in order to analyse how
people creatively negotiate with and appropriate the structures of technologies (De
Sanctis and Poole, 1994; Grint and Woolgar, 1995). Particularly significant in this regard
is the contribution of those scholars who studied the workplace and organizations, and
explored how everyday working life is structured around multiple and complex human
processes of interaction and negotiation with technologies (Button, 1993; Orlikowski,
1992; Suchman, et al. 1999). The focus on practice enabled scholars to shed light on the
social impacts of technologies, by highlighting the dynamic relationship between tech-
nological structures and social use.
In recent years, within media studies, much attention has been paid to the importance
of developing a new paradigm of research that focuses on the understanding of media as
practice (Couldry, 2004; Postill, 2010). Whilst there are those who contend that practice
theory in the analysis of media is particularly important because it discards holistic
assumptions on structure, culture or order (Hobart, 2010), others argue that the richness
of a practice approach lies in its ability to look at the negotiations with structures and
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Barassi and Treré 1275
power (Bird, 2010; Postill, 2010). In the understanding of Web developments, therefore,
we believe that a focus on practice theory enables scholars not only to explore how struc-
tural models are internalized – as Bourdieu (1977) and Giddens (1984) pointed out – but
also to consider how actors interact and shape technologies in significant ways. In this
regard, we draw heavily on the work of Orlikowski (2000), and believe that in the under-
standing of technological developments, it is important to complement the notion of
‘embodied structure’ with the notion of ‘emergent structure’, and the one of ‘appropria-
tion’ with that of ‘enactment’ (Orlikowski, 2000: 405). In fact, as Orlikowski has argued
(2000), scholars have much to gain if rather than starting with the ‘technology’ and
examining how actors appropriate its embodied structures, they start with ‘human action’
and examine how people enact emergent structures through recurrent interaction with the
technology at hand (2000: 407). This approach is particularly important in the analysis
of Web developments, because as Orlikowski (2000) has pointed out:
Focusing attention on how structures are constituted and reconstituted in recurrent social
practices acknowledges that while users can and do use technologies as they were designed,
they also can and do circumvent inscribed ways of using the technologies […] (Orlikowski,
2000: 407)
Riding ‘The Wave’: Exploring the Italian student
movement
In order to reflect on how people critically negotiate with technological structures, in this
article we draw on two different multi-sited ethnographic projects (Marcus, 1998), which
studied the Web practices of activists within the Italian student movement. In 2008,
Maria Stella Gelmini, the Education Minister of the Berlusconi Government, put forward
a controversial decree aimed at cutting state funds for the education sector. By October
2008, at national level a large student movement emerged that was not only defined by
the participation of students (high school and university students), but also by the partici-
pation of young activists and precarious workers (Mattoni, 2008). The movement was
known as Onda Anomala (Anomalous Wave) or simply L’Onda (The Wave). The two
different multi-sited ethnographic projects were undertaken during and after the Onda
movement.
The first project was carried out between 2008 and 2009, and involved a five-month
period of participant observation (October 2008 to February 2009) and 17 individual
semi-structured interviews, amongst the students of the ‘Permanent Assembly of the
Anomalous Wave Movement’ collective, at the Faculty of Political Science of the
University of Bologna. The city of Bologna was chosen for its pivotal role in the student
struggles, a role that this city has repeatedly played in student protests (Tarrow and
Maddaloni, 1990). In addition to that, five group interviews (N = 21) were also carried
out with activists of the following student groups: ‘Collettivo 133’, University of Trieste;
‘Autoconvocati’, University of Udine; ‘Permanent Assembly of the Liberal Arts College’,
University of Siena; ‘AutArt’ collective, Brera Art Academy (Milan); and the ‘Onda
Anomala Padova’, University of Padova. The groups were selected due to the important
role played by the universities in the protest (Milan, Padova, Siena), but more peripheral
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

1276 new media & society 14(8)
realities were also taken into account (Trieste, Udine). Participant observation and quali-
tative interviews were also enriched with the qualitative content analysis of both online
and offline documents produced by activists.
The second project was a year-long ethnographic research with a political group
based in Milan – the Corsari (in English, Pirates) – which was born during the Onda
Movement. The Corsari was created in July 2008, and brought together different student
groups (collettivi studenteschi) that belonged to the Onda movement with activists who
belonged to those Milanese social centres (especially Bulk, Orso, Panetteria Okkupata,
etc.) that had been closed down by the right-wing Milanese city administration. In
January 2011, the Corsari – together with the Rete degli Studenti (a secondary school
activist network) and other political collectives – opened a new social centre, Zona
Autonoma Milano (ZAM – Autonomous Zone Milan). The research amongst the Corsari/
ZAM took place between July 2010 and July 2011, and combined four periods of two
weeks’ fieldwork that took place over the course of one year with 12 months of online
ethnography. The offline ethnography consisted of attending meetings, events and par-
ties, following key informants in their everyday life and taking part in actions and dem-
onstrations. The one-year online ethnography by contrast consisted of daily participant
observation of their social networking sites and mailing lists, combined with a qualitative
analysis of the texts produced. The ethnographic research was also enriched by 25 one-
hour-long semi-structured interviews with key members of the group and other net-
worked organizations (e.g. ‘Autistici Inventati’, ‘Rete Studenti’, Partigiani in ogni
Quartiere; Uninversi; Milano Movida; Zona Autonoma Milano, etc.). All the interviews
focused on a life history approach, which analysed the political biography of the inform-
ants as well as narratives of technological adaptation. The aim of the project amongst the
Corsari was to gain an in-depth and thick understanding of the critical Web practices and
the human experience of technologies, by looking at the life of a political group that was
born within the Onda Movement and has today become a key player in the antagonist
scene in Milan.
The Italian student movement and its critical Web
practices
The ethnographic context of the Italian student movement is particularly interesting for
the social analysis of Web practices for two main reasons: in the first place because activ-
ists combine a variety of Web 1.0 and 2.0 platforms (e.g. traditional websites such as
http://www.uniriot.org – ‘the network of rebellious faculties’, the use of mailing lists,
social networking sites and blogs), and in doing so through their everyday Web practices
complicate linear understandings of Web development; in the second place, because
within this social context activists use the Web critically.
During our research it emerged that, whilst activists recognized the participatory
potential of Web 2.0 technologies for the mobilization of political action, they also
believed that political ‘participation’ on Web 2.0 platforms, (e.g. the posting of informa-
tion and the engagement in online political discussion) needed to be controlled and lim-
ited in order to counteract the risks of information leaking and data mining involved in
the use of Web 2.0 platforms.
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Barassi and Treré 1277
Because of this critical understanding of the Web, activists combined the use of cor-
porate Web platforms with the use of ‘autonomous’ ones, provided by Autistici Inventati.
This is a tech-collective that was born in 2001 with the aim of developing a strategy of
internet resistance against the appropriation of users’ data. Hosting more than 5000 email
addresses, around 500 websites and over 700 mailing lists, A/I today is committed to
protecting the online autonomy, anonymity and privacy of Italian activists who share
left-wing and progressive ideologies. In order to do so, A/I provides email addresses and
blogs to activists, without requesting them to input personal data, and provides them with
a certain degree of autonomy from the commercial and governmental tracing of digital
identities. Although activists were aware of the pivotal importance of defending their
internet autonomy, they also feared that the exclusive use of autonomous networks would
confine their alternative messages to ‘online ghettos’; for this reason they strategically
combined the use of A/I platforms with the sharing of communication within the online
spaces of social media, in particular Facebook and YouTube. However, as we shall see
later, they used these platforms critically by limiting the content posted and controlling
the information disclosed.
The critical use of the Web by Italian activists reveals an important complexity of Web
practices that can inform further research. In fact our research reveals that Web practices
are embedded in a tension between strategies and tactics (De Certeau et al., 1980; De
Certeau, 1984), and that understanding such a tension is of pivotal importance in order to
challenge contemporary generalized assumptions on the relationship between web devel-
opments and users’ practices.
In his seminal work on the understanding of everyday social practices, De Certeau
(1984; De Certeau et al., 1980) argues that institutions and power structures usually have
a spatial dimension in which they operate and therefore that their practices can be under-
stood as strategies that shape specific social environments. Hence for De Certeau (1980)
strategies have a spatial dimension and reflect the relationship between power, theory
and practice (1980: 7). However, De Certeau believes that the practices of power (strate-
gies) need to be differentiated from the practices of the ‘weak’. This latter, instead, need
to be understood as tactics. Tactics, in contrast to strategies, reflect the relationship
between ‘negotiation, practice and experimentation, they have a temporal dimension and
they are connected to the idea of cultural adaptation’ (1980:7). This is because, for De
Certeau, the weak must continuously turn to their own ends forces that are alien to them’
(1984: 11).
In a recent article Manovich (2009) has adapted De Certeau’s theory to the analysis of
Web 2.0 technologies and has argued that business strategies have incorporated people’s
tactics, by developing business models that strategically exploit users’ ability to custom-
ize Web content. Our research shows that if, within the Web 2.0 environment, business
models are strategically incorporating the tactics of Web users, Web users are appropriat-
ing the communication strategies of business models to develop their own communica-
tion tactics. Examples of this can be found in the choice by Italian activists of opening
accounts on corporate social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube despite
being critical of these Web spaces or – as we shall see later in an interview with an organ-
izer of A/I – another example can be found in current discussions amongst activists on
how to appropriate contemporary business models for their own cause.
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

1278 new media & society 14(8)
However, despite activists developing communication strategies that follow linear
understanding of technological developments (e.g. Web 2.0; Web 3.0 etc.), and seeming
to believe in the insurgent potential of the Web 2.0 (Castells, 2009), they use these plat-
forms tactically, by actively negotiating with the structural constrains of technologies.
This tactical use of Web platforms, we argue, challenges linear understandings of Web
developments, and sheds light on the complexities involved in people’s everyday inter-
action with technological structures.
The use of Facebook and blogs as one-sided platforms
Throughout our different research projects, it emerged that within the Italian student
movement, Facebook, one of the most characteristic examples of Web 2.0 technologies
(Fuchs, 2009), is regularly used as a one-sided platform. Often Facebook is used by stu-
dents as just another online space to post their information, not as a site for discussion,
sharing and participation. In the words of Alessandro, part of the ‘Autoconvocati’ collec-
tive from the University of Udine: ‘Our use [of Facebook] is limited only to put informa-
tion. We never proposed any discussion and I don’t think that we’ll ever use it in that
way.’ In his interview, Alessandro explained that limiting online participation and discus-
sion was particularly important for them in order to safeguard activists’ privacy and
autonomy.
This unilaterality present in the use of Facebook found its most interesting expression
at the time of the Anomalous Wave within the University of Trieste, when students used
Facebook simply as a way to count the number of people who joined their events and
actions or as a space within which to paste the list of upcoming events, in a similar way
to old HTML internet sites. As Giorgio, from the University of Trieste, clarified,
‘Facebook was used essentially to count us (…) to count how many people said yes to
initiatives and then see who was actually participating and then make a comparison.’
The use of Web 2.0 platforms in non-interactive ways was not limited to Facebook,
but also to the way in which activists employed their A/I blogs. Within the interviews and
informal conversations many referred to their blogs as ‘boards’, ‘containers’, ‘windows’
and ‘posters’, not as instruments of debate. Thus, it is not surprising that most of their
blogs appear as a long list of posts without comments in a one-way communication flow
like the one that characterized the ‘old-fashioned’ internet sites of the Web 1.0 era. As
Pamela, a student who is a participant in the AutArt collective of the Brera Art Academy
(Milan), pointed out:
Our blog was just a container of all the actions that have been taken. We are aware that the blog
is not an exchange tool, in the sense that most of the time it becomes the expression of something
I have to say, but not an instrument of dialogue (…)
Pamela has been an active actor in the movement, especially online, heavily posting on
several platforms including the blog of the collective. Nevertheless, she has never used
or conceived the blog as a means for creating dialogue.
Earlier approaches to the study of blogs have repeatedly emphasized that blogs repre-
sent the conversational backbone of the Web (Gillmor, 2004). Kahn and Kellner (2004: 91)
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Barassi and Treré 1279
argued that on the one side, ‘blogs are partly successful because they are relatively easy to
create and maintain’ and on the other side that ‘blogs make the idea of a dynamic network
of on-going debate, dialogue and commentary central’ (Kahn and Kellner, 2004: 91).
Our research shows that the choice of activists to create a blog is often motivated by
the fact that blogs are cheaper and easier to manage, as Kahn and Kellner (2004) pointed
out, but only occasionally did activists mention that their choice to create a blog was
motivated by a will to use a more dynamic Web tool that facilitated dialogue and debate.
As shown above, within the Anomalous Wave movement blogs appear to be no
more about conversation than Web 1.0 (one-to-many) internet sites. All these findings
relate well to Lovink’s (2008) latest work and his argument that – with the exception of
some fortunate A-listers’ blogs – overall most blogging sites either have no comments or
have closed down the possibility to respond.
Our research suggests that there are often social and political reasons why people
choose to limit the interactive features of Web 2.0 technologies, which need to be inves-
tigated. In the case of the Italian student movement these reasons need to be found in
activists’ concern with privacy. Their concern needs to be understood with reference not
only to activists’ awareness of the commoditization of their online activities, but also to
the fact that at present, in Italy, left-wing activist groups and social movements are con-
stantly targeted with court actions due to the politics of zero tolerance and repression put
forward by Berlusconi’s Government.
Mailing lists as ‘already 2.0’ technologies
If social networking sites and blogs are often used as uni-directional platforms by the
Italian student movement, a completely different scenario appears if we move our analysis
from the use of blogs and social networking sites to the use of mailing lists, which are usu-
ally considered a tool of Web 1.0. Within the student movement, mailing lists emerged as
the privileged sites for discussion and debate used by the students. As Elisabetta, from the
University of Udine, explained, even when a particular document was posted simultane-
ously on the blog and on the mailing lists, the preferential tool for the discussion was still
the list. While blogs have mainly been used as unidirectional boards and displays for the
outside world, mailing lists have been the fuel for the internal communication of the Wave.
Therefore, within the context of the student movement in Italy, this ‘old’ internet
application plays a more central role than social networking sites in the creation of dis-
cussions and organization of collective action. This point is made brilliantly clear by the
following quote taken from an interview with Pamela:
Actually this Web 2.0 … inside a movement of this kind that uses the mailing list not as a
newsletter but as a political tool, the mailing list was already 2.0 … 2.0 has not introduced
anything new anyway into groups like ours. The mailing list is already a social network, a point
of reference; it works as production and sharing of contents. Of course we know that things are
changing and that people move to huge social networks, like Facebook or other, but the mailing
list is still a fundamental tool.
Fuchs (2008) already recognized the participatory nature of mailing lists to the point
that he defined them as ‘Web 2.0 asynchronous technologies’. When one brings together
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

1280 new media & society 14(8)
our analysis of activists’ practices – and considers the way in which the concepts of Web
1.0 and 2.0 become confused within everyday Web uses – with Fuchs’s (2008, 2009,
2010) reflection on asynchronous Web applications and technologies, the question seems
to be more pressing then ever: are Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 useful theoretical tools?
As argued above, in using Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 as theoretical models scholars must realize
that these concepts can be very helpful in uncovering the business models and changing
political economy of the Web. Yet not only can they prevent us from appreciating the
interplay between different phases of the Web in an everyday context, but most impor-
tantly – as the case of the Italian movement has shown – they can prevent scholars from
appreciating how the Web is used ‘tactically’. Our research, therefore, shows that scholars
should not take the technological affordances of Web technologies for granted – in par-
ticular of Web 2.0 (more interactivity and increased participation) and Web 3.0 (more
collaboration) – but should carefully consider the way in which users understand, appro-
priate and experience the technological developments of the Web.
New Web developments and resistance
This final point is especially important when approaching questions on the new develop-
ments of the Web and on the advent of Web 3.0 technologies. As it has emerged within
our research, people are engaging with the current transformations affecting the Web in
a variety of different ways. They are not only finding ways to understand current Web
developments and to foresee their implications, but they are also engaged in imagining
and continuously developing ways to resist them. These resistance practices are part of
the on-going struggle against the ‘interactive cyberspectacle’ (Best and Kellner, 1999).
One pressing issue that emerged during fieldwork is the problem of digital identity.
Activists recognized that new Web applications and platforms – which are often reliant
on mobile technologies, and cloud services, as well as on a cultural politics, and that
exhort users to openly share information across Web platforms and collaborate in the
construction of new content – make the tracing of digital identities even more effective.
This final point is made clear by Blicero, from the Autistici/Inventati collective, when
during an interview he explained:
It is evident that there is no going back, now the importance is to understand the implication of
these transformations, and to seriously start reflecting on the issue of identity. Where does your
personal/private identity begin? And where does the public one start? (…)
At the moment we should be starting to imagine how to create an infrastructure, similar to the
new corporate models, but that is free from corporate power and challenges them. One idea
could be to develop a service such as Open ID, which today enables Web users to create a
digital identity and surf the Web with it. But Open ID requires your personal details. My idea is
to create a service that gives a digital identity to people, without requiring their personal details.
So when you surf the Web they will not be able to identify you, and your Web practices will no
longer be linked to your personal/computer ID (…)
You know we are at a difficult point, we know more or less what will happen, and we can
predict the next stages of the Web, but we don’t really know yet what we are going to make of
it, and what type of resources we’ll have available (…)
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Barassi and Treré 1281
As it emerges from Blicero’s interview, activists are trying to find ways to resist tech-
nological structures, and to develop Web tactics that challenge ideas of uncritical ‘col-
laboration’ promoted by business models and that are informed by critical questions on
users’ practices. In addition, Blicero talks about the importance of developing a new
infrastructure, which copies business models, whilst at the same time enabling activists
to limit processes of online surveillance and the tracing of digital identities. Looking at
these practices of resistance and creation is of central importance in order to appreciate
what Orlikowski (2000) calls ‘emergent structures’, and to recognize that users circum-
vent inscribed ways of using technologies ‘either ignoring certain properties of the tech-
nology, working around them or inventing new ones that may go beyond or even
contradict them’ (2000: 407). Understanding the relationship between users’ tactics and
strategies, and looking at the ways in which they interact with technological structures to
create new ones that often challenge business models, we believe, is of crucial impor-
tance for the analysis of Web developments.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the critical Web 2.0 literature that has emerged in recent years has been of
fundamental importance in highlighting the political economy and the neo-liberal dis-
courses of new Web applications, and in pointing out that Web 2.0 is a cultural construct
profoundly influenced by business rhetoric (Everitt and Mills, 2009; Fisher, 2010; Fuchs,
2010; Sandoval and Fuchs, 2010; Van Dijck and Nieborg, 2009; Zimmer, 2008).
This article is intended as a contribution to the on-going critical debate on Web devel-
opments. While we highlight the business rhetoric that often blankets the ideas related to
Web developments, we also question whether concepts such as Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 can
be viable and successful theoretical models for social analysis. Our aim has been on the
one hand to urge scholars to take a step back and question the appropriateness of their
theoretical models and on the other hand to stimulate the need to investigate users’ media
practices as a way to inform the development of these models.
The example of the Italian student movement has proven to be of central impor-
tance in highlighting how people critically use the Web, and how they negotiate with
its structures and political economy. With their critical awareness of capitalist exploi-
tation on Web 2.0, and their Web tactics directed towards the protection of activists’
political autonomy and anonymity, Italian activists provide us with important insights
on the social complexity of everyday Web practices. In fact although activists
develop their communication strategies on the basis of models of Web 1.0, 2.0 and
3.0 and benefit from technological advances (e.g. they open websites, social media
accounts, blogs, etc.), their everyday uses of these platforms do not reflect the com-
munication processes (cognition, participation, cooperation) that are usually associ-
ated with Web developments (e.g. they use social media in non-interactive,
unidirectional ways), because they are informed by tactics of resistance and adapta-
tion to technological structures. Looking at the difference between Web strategies
and Web tactics, at their tension and relationship, is of central importance for future
research as it allows scholars to deconstruct generalized understandings on the social
uses of technologies.
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

1282 new media & society 14(8)
Although the focus on the critical Web practices of Italian activists can shed some
light on the complexities of people’s everyday interaction with the Web, and on the ten-
sion between strategies and tactics, there is a main limitation of our research that needs
to be addressed. In fact, it must be acknowledged, that the Web tactics of Italian activists
are grounded on a political critique against neo-liberalism, and hence are the product of
a politically informed social discourse which critically assesses the relationship between
Web platforms and corporate and political power. Such political discourse is not com-
mon in everyday non-political contexts. Consequently, following De Certeau’s analysis
(De Certeau et al., 1980; De Certeau, 1984) of everyday practices in consumer culture,
we believe that it would be important for scholars to explore the complex tension between
Web strategies and tactics within those contexts that, contrary to our own, are not
informed by political critique. Such an approach may shed some light on the relationship
between business models, technologies and everyday Web uses, and critically inform
current research on the transformations affecting the Web.
We think that our ethnography shows that there is a need for more fine-tuned
analysis of online technologies’ adoption and resistance, especially in the field of
digital activism. In the realm of conventional politics, scholars have argued that the
possibilities provided by Web 2.0 technologies have not been fully deployed by most
actors and that in many cases we can speak more of a hybrid logic instead of a full
Web 2.0 appropriation (Nielsen, 2011; Sorice, 2010; Túñez and Sixto, 2011). In the
same vein, in this article we have shown that the opportunities offered by new online
environments are differently adopted and resisted by activists. Like many politicians
who simply create and own a Facebook account but do not use it to engage in any sort
of dialogue, activists do not want or need to use Web 2.0 platforms in their fullness of
possibilities.
Therefore, our research demonstrates the necessity, in particular within future investi-
gations regarding digital activism, to look more at the co-existence and co-evolution of
old and new online technologies and not to take for granted that activists will ‘normally’
or ‘automatically’ adopt them in their fullness of networking potential. As our research
and others (Nielsen, 2011) have shown ‘1.0 applications’ such as emails still play a deci-
sive role in movements’ communicative dynamics and are sometimes more deeply inte-
grated into mobilizing practices than 2.0 tools. Even so, they are often not considered
because there is a tendency to overemphasize the role of emerging or recently emerged
online tools (for instance social media). In the light of our findings we thus recommend
that future research on digital activism and Web practices employ an holistic and ethno-
graphic focus and explore the often complex tension between Web strategies and Web
tactics, which often defines people’s engagement with the Web. To a certain extent we see
these recommendations for future research as an ‘antidote’ to the techno-deterministic
assumptions that define much of contemporary research on digital practice.
In conclusion, while we certainly need strong theories to address the Web, we also
have to investigate users’ media practices in order to provide more fine-tuned analyses of
the multiple uses of the internet and its impact on social contexts and lived experience.
Doing so would imply that we are ready to take a first step and move beyond generalized
and fetishized assumptions of what the Web is and does. This would enable us finally to
appreciate the fact that the Web is not a monolithic thing that can be studied and analysed
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Barassi and Treré 1283
as such. It is a complex socio-technical environment that is created by a variety of differ-
ent and often contradictory technical applications, platforms, texts, discourses, cultural,
political and economic processes, practices, stories, lived experiences and human rela-
tions. Understanding this is of pivotal importance to starting to address future techno-
logical and social developments and come to terms with the fact that the notions of Web
1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 are in fact cultural constructs.
Funding
Veronica Barassi’s research for this article was funded by the Small Research Grant Scheme of The
British Academy. Emiliano Treré’s research was funded by the research grant of the PhD Program
in Multimedia Communication, Udine University (Italy).
References
Andrejevic M (2005) The work of watching one another: Lateral surveillance, risk and govern-
ance. Surveillance & Society 2(4): 479–497.
Best S and Kellner D (1999) Debord, cybersituations, and the interactive spectacle. SubStance 28:
129–156.
Bird SE (2010) Mediated practices and the interpretation of culture. In: Postill J and Braeuchler B
(eds) Theorising Media and Practice. Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 85–105.
Bourdieu P (1977) Outline of Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bruns A (2008) Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage.
New York: Peter Lang.
Button G (ed.) (1993) Technology in Working Order: Studies in Work, Interaction and Technology.
London: Routledge.
Cammaerts B (2008) Critiques on the participatory potentials of Web 2.0. Communication, Culture
& Critique 1: 358–377.
Castells M (2007) Communication, power and counter-power in the network society. International
Journal of Communication 1(1): 238–266.
Castells M (2009) Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Couldry N (2004) Theorizing media as practice. Social Semiotics 14(2): 115–132.
De Certeau M (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
De Certeau M, Jamenson F and Lovitt C (1980) On the oppositional practice of everyday life.
Social Text 3(Autumn): 3–43.
De Sanctis GM and Poole S (1994) Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use:
Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science 5(2): 121–147.
Everitt D and Mills S (2009) Cultural anxiety 2.0. Media, Culture & Society 31: 749–768.
Finnemann N (2010) Christian Fuchs: Internet and Society – Social Theory in the Information
Age, 2008. Book Review. MedieKultur 48: 159–162.
Fisher E (2010) Contemporary technology discourse and the legitimation of capitalism. European
Journal of Social Theory 13: 229.
Floridi L (2009) Web 2.0 vs. the semantic web: A philosophical assessment. Episteme 6(1): 25–37.
Fuchs C (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge.
Fuchs C (2009) Information and communication technologies and society. European Journal of
Communication 24: 69.
Fuchs C (2010) Social software and Web 2.0: Their sociological foundations and implications. In:
Murugesan S (ed.) Handbook of Research on Web 2.0, 3.0, and X.0: Technologies, Business,
and Social Applications, vol. II. Hershey, PA: IGI-Global, pp.764–789.
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

1284 new media & society 14(8)
Fuchs C, Hofkirchner W, Schafranek M, et al. (2010) Theoretical foundations of the Web:
Cognition, communication, and co-operation. Towards an understanding of Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0.
Future Internet 2(1): 41–59.
Funk T (2008) Web 2.0 and Beyond: Understanding the New Online Business Models, Trends, and
Technologies. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Giddens A (1984) The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity.
Gillmor D (2004) We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People. Sebastopol,
CA: O’Reilly Media.
Grint K and Woolgar S (1995) On some failures of nerve in constructivist and feminist analyses of
technologies. Science, Technology and Human Values 20(3): 286–310.
Harris D (2008) Web 2. 0 Evolution into the Intelligent Web 3. 0: 100 Most Asked Questions
on Transformation, Ubiquitous Connectivity, Network Computing, Open Technologies, Open
Identity, Distributed Databases and Intelligent Applications. Newstead, Australia: Emereo
Publishing.
Hobart M (2010) What do we mean by media practices? In: Bräuchler B and Postill J (eds)
Theorising Media and Practice. Oxford and New York: Berghahn, pp. 55–77.
Jarrett K (2008) Interactivity is evil! A critical investigation of Web 2.0. First Monday 13(3):
34–41.
Jenkins H (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York:
New York University Press.
Kahn R and Kellner D (2004) New media and Internet activism: From the ‘Battle of Seattle’ to
blogging. New Media & Society 6: 87.
Langlois G, McKelvey F, Elmer G, et al. (2009) Mapping commercial Web 2.0 worlds: Towards
a new critical ontogenesis. Web 2.0: before, during and after the event. Fibreculture Journal
Special Issue 14.
Lovink G (2008) Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture. London and New York:
Routledge.
Manovich L (2009) The practice of everyday (media) life: From mass consumption to mass cul-
tural production? Critical Inquiry 35(2): 319–331.
Marcus G (1998) Ethnography through Thick and Thin. Princeton, NY: Princeton University Press.
Mattoni A (2008) Tra Consenso e Conflitto. Pratiche Mediali nei Movimenti Italiani contro la
Precarietà del Lavoro. Partecipazione e Conflitto 1: 97–122.
Nielsen RK (2011) Mundane internet tools, mobilizing practices, and the coproduction of citizen-
ship in political campaigns. New Media & Society 13: 755–771.
O’Reilly T (2005) What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation
of software. Available at: http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html (accessed 7
July 2010).
Orlikowski WJ (1992) The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organi-
zation. Organization Science 3(3): 398–427.
Orlikowski WJ (2000) Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens for studying
technology in organizations. Organization Science 11(4): 404–428.
Postill J (2010) Introduction: Theorising media and practice. In: Bräuchler B and Postill J (eds)
Theorising Media and Practice. Oxford and New York: Berghahn, pp.1–35.
Reynolds G (2006) An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People
to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths. Nashville, TN: Nelson Current.
Sandoval M and Fuchs C (2010) Towards a critical theory of alternative media. Telematics and
Informatics Special Issue 27(2): 141–150.
Shirky C (2008) Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.
London and New York: Penguin Books.
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Barassi and Treré 1285
Song FW (2010) Theorizing Web 2.0. Information, Communication & Society 13(2): 249–275.
Sorice M (2010) La Comunicazione Politica. Roma: Carocci editore.
Suchman L, Blomberg J, Orr JE, et al. (1999) Reconstructing technologies as social practice.
American Behavioural Scientist 43(3): 392–408.
Tapscott D and Williams A (2006) Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.
New York: Portfolio Trade, Penguin Books.
Tarrow SG and Maddaloni S (1990) Democrazia e disordine: Movimenti di protesta e politica in
Italia, 1965-1975. Bari-Roma: Laterza.
Tasner M (2010) Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 to Reach your
Customers First. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press.
Terranova T (2004) Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age. London: Pluto Press.
Toffler A (1980) The Third Wave. New York: Bantam Books.
Túñez M and Sixto J (2011) Redes sociales, política y Compromiso 2.0: La comunicación de
los diputados españoles en Facebook. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social 66: 210–246.
Available at: http://www.revistalatinacs.org/11/art/930_Santiago/09_Tunez.html (accessed 28
February 2012).
Van Dijck J and Nieborg D (2009) Wikinomics and its discontents: A critical analysis of Web 2.0
business manifestos. New Media & Society 11: 855–857.
Watson M (2009) Scripting Intelligence: Web 3.0 Information, Gathering and Processing (Apress
Series: Expert’s Voice in Open Source). New York: Springer Publishing. Zimmer M (2008)
The externalities of Search 2.0: The emerging privacy threats when the drive for the perfect
search engine meets Web 2.0. First Monday 13(3). Available at: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/
cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2136 (accessed 7 March 2009).
Veronica Barassi is Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at
Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research interests cover the cultural politics of
social networking sites, alternative media, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, media as practice, social
movements, collective narratives, digital labour, digital vs. material, media ethnography,
media ritual, and the anthropology of representation. Her work has appeared in the
Communication Review and Social Movements Studies.
Emiliano Treré is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of
the Autonomous University of Querétaro (Mexico) where he teaches courses on new
media, cybercultures, social movements and qualitative methodologies. His research
interests focus on alternative media, social movements, media practices, Web 2.0 and
new forms of television. His work has appeared on The Journal of Community Informatics,
the ESSACHESS Journal of Communication Studies and in edited books in Italian,
English and Spanish.
at Goldsmiths College Library on November 22, 2012nms.sagepub.comDownloaded from