What is Web 2.0 and does it advance Democratic ideals?

By Prince t.

© God’s Business Mag, 2008
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Web 2.0 is, according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 “a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. According to Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle, web2.0 can rightly be defined as:

“a social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation”.

In other words, it is that form that moves away from static websites (i.e. the use of search engines and surfing the net from one website to the next) to “a more dynamic and interactive World Wide Web” (ibid). It is characterized by interactivity, by sharing and open communication or its tendency toward a decentralization of power, with regard the dissemination of information.

Web 2.0 thus has a huge tendency toward leaning toward building interactivity and rudimentary social-networkingsocial networks which are aimed at producing content and thus exploit
network effects available to its end-user.

In this sense web 2.0 encourages and advances democratic ideals among, firstly the consumers who benefit from the products produced by members and also it helps provide enough information and aids interactivity and discussions between the investor, the consumer and the media as regards what each expects in the relationships that they have with each other.

In this regard, access to consumer-generated content facilitated by Web 2.0 brings the web closer to Tim Berners-Lee's original concept of the web as a democratic, personal, and (Do It Your self) DIY medium of communication. In fact Paul Graham reckons Democracy is one of the greater ideals for which Web 2.0 was established. See for more.

To demonstrate this democratic ideal, Paul Graham href="http://www.paulgraham.com/bubble.html"> argues that examples of amateurs surpassing professionals in this business is a testimony to Web 2.0’s commitment to advancing democratic and providing equal opportunities for amateurs to channel their efforts in the right direction.

Wikipedia Wikipedia he argues may be the most famous form of such efforts, although ‘experts’ have given it middling reviews. It (Wikipedia) advances democratic ideals in that it is free for all to read. Most web based articles are for sale and even if one was willing to pay for them, they do not in most cases provide the option for one to link to them for future use.

For Paul with whom I concur this shows that such articles are not “part of the conversation”.Web 2.0 as an advancer and proponent of democratic ideals in information production and dissemination, has as one of its portal the involvement of the reader in deciding what counts as news. This is indeed one other place for which the democratic ideal it safe guards seems to win the race against its rivals.

News sites like Reddit Reddit. carry quality news and allow people the opportunity to choose not to be bothered with reading the front pages of newspapers or magazines anymore. Whereas Wikipedia's main appeal is that it is good enough and free, these sites suggest that voters do a significantly better job than human editors. Readers are participants in deciding what qualifies as news; they are actively involved in the process as democratic participants whose say is worth something.

According to Paul Graham the most dramatic example of Web 2.0 democracy is not in the selection of ideas, but their production. He further notes that the news we often read on individual people's sites is as good as or better than those we might read in newspapers and magazines. Thus such a realisation gives the reader independent evidence: besides, the top links on Reddit href="http://reddit.com">Reddit are generally links to individual people's sites rather than to magazine articles or news stories.

On the Web, people are free to write what they want and nearly all of it falls short of what Paul Graham calls “the editor-damped” writing common in print publications. Furthermore, Paul argues that because the pool of online writers is very, very large, then if it's large enough, then the lack of damping means the best writing online should surpass the best in print. He further claims that because the web has evolved mechanisms for selecting good stuff, it means therefore that its selection of stories beats the damping-down of print media, for the same reasons market economies beat centrally planned ones.

However, it must be noted that sceptics may see the term "Web 2.0" as little more than a buzzword; or they may suggest that it means whatever its proponents want it to mean in order to convince their customers, investors and the media that they have begun building something fundamentally new, rather than continuing to develop and use well-established technologies[2].

Whatever the case might be, it should be noted that Web 2.0 has brought a completely new spin to the information dissemination than ever before. And it should also be noted that not having a centrally directed editorial body or governor, predisposes Web 2.0 to a lot of vials. The ‘Free-flow’ of its information may not necessarily be such a good ideal in dispensing information.

The line that separates right and proper dissemination of information and its abuse thereof is quite faint to say the least. Thus it is with much faith in those that are involved in disseminating information through the use of Web 2.0 networking effects that I argue that Web 2.0 should be seen as a system that advances democratic ideals with regards information production and dissemination.