In recent years the term ‘spreadable media’ has been used by Jenkins, Ford and Green (2013) to describe the technical and cultural potential for internet users to share content for their own purposes. They argue that if online media “doesn’t spread, it’s dead”. The term refers “not just those text which circulate broadly but also those that achieve particularly deep engagement within a niche community (ibid.:22)
media ecosystem, along with the complex and diverse ways in which various forms of media are circulated. Conceptually this is different to the more marketing derived term ‘viral’ as viral videos “strips the audiences of active participation in the pass- along process” (ibid.). Whereas spreadable media is “the continuous process of repurposing and recirculation” (ibid.:27). They reject the term ‘user-generated content’ preferring ‘user-circulated content’ as a more appropriate description of the practice.
Jenkins et al. argue that predictions by Web 2.0 enthusiasts of a new era of producer-consumer relationships have fallen short of their potential due to the failure of producers to develop reciprocal long-term relationships with users. This is because profit-driven media producers are unable to recognise the social and personal motivations that facilitate content sharing where users/audiences are driven by the reciprocity of a gift economy. Financially motivated producers are more likely to protect their ownership of content for them to appreciate the value of freely spreadable content and suggest that sometimes producers “would rather die than give up control” (ibid.:293). Here the authors consider different economical models that can accommodate both positions. In citing E. P. Thompson’s use of the term ‘moral economy’ to describe “the social norms and mutual understandings that makes it possible for two parties to conduct business” (ibid.:52) they suggest a relationship that is more symbiotic to both a content creating ‘audience’ and media professionals. Indeed, adoption of a ‘digi-gratis’ economy, a term described by Paul Booth as a mutually beneficial fusion between the gift and the market economies within contemporary media culture, would tie commodity and gift metaphor’s together and helps us “more fully appreciate the extent of contemporary content creation" (Jenkins, 2010).
Consideration is given to the media industry’s consumer/producer disputes over piracy and the shifting habits from an appointment-based, linear model of television viewing to an engagement-based model of data downloading and ‘time shifting’ technologies. “Such models value the spread of media texts as these engaged audiences are more likely to recommend, discuss, research, pass along, and even generate new material in response” (Jenkins et al., 2013:116). While Jenkins et al,
of media consumption, they also recognise that people perform different participatory roles in different media environments, such as evaluation, appraisal, critique, and recirculation. Thus, it would also be inaccurate to assume that activities requiring greater skill are more meaningful or participatory.
Jenkins et al. revisit Chris Anderson’s ‘long tail’ marketing concept and argue that niche media content “may accrue value at a different pace, on a different scale, through different infrastructure, and on the basis of different appeals” (ibid.:238). Therefore, while Web 2.0 technologies increase the spreadability of such texts, the potential audience is likely to consist of those with niche tastes and interests. In designing for spreadability the authors consider John Fiske's concept of ‘producerly texts’, where texts offer multiple layers of interpretations for audience adaptation or modification. In so doing they suggest that an understanding of audience motivation, a subject covered later in this chapter, is important in understanding how online media content is made for spreadability, which includes collective values, shared references, humour, parody and ambiguous or unfinished narratives, mysteries and fantasies, controversies, and rumours.
In contrast Social Media, A Critical Introduction (2014) Fuch’s views the concept of social media and content sharing from Marxist viewpoint, which is in opposition to the views and arguments of Jenkins. Fuchs comes from a power and resource distribution perspective and examines exploitation and domination of both political economy and political communication of social media. He questions Jenkins’ promotion of participatory culture and web-based participatory democracy. Fuchs argues that genuine participatory culture must have equality of ownership with much greater and significant roles played by citizen ‘prosumers’. Since the internet is governed and dominated by large corporations who own platforms with extensive online reach, the internet cannot be considered to be participatory. He continues by asserting that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google reflect the power structures of capitalist society by exploiting the data given for free by users.
Jose van Dijck’s book The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media (2013a) highlights the links and relationships between media, sociality, and profitability. She offers analyse in terms of its ecosystem of users, technology and
content. The primary focus of the book is SNS’s and UGC, with an analysis of five social platforms Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia. van Dijck argues that early declarations of Google, to “do no evil” and Facebook to “make the web more social” and transparent has been overtaken by motivations of profit (with the exception of Wikipedia) and “a marketplace first and a public forum second” (ibid.:16).