Skip to main content

Crowdsourcing & Pop Culture

In reading about the topics this week, crowdsourcing stood out to me as a term I had heard of, knew a little bit about, but hadn't ever really given much thought to. The more I read about it though, the more I kept thinking about different ways I've seen, or even been apart of, crowdsourcing. In the article,  Stolen snow shovels and good ideas: The search for and generation of local knowledge in the social media community (Konsti-Laakso, S. 2017), the authors provide a literature review on online communities and crowdsourcing. The article references "three basic components of crowdsourcing: individuals (the crowd), an organization looking to benefit from the crowd's inputs and an online platform through which the communication occurs (Nam, 2012)." 

There are lots of examples of crowdsourcing, the article above makes reference to government policies that are affected through crowdsourcing, other articles discuss scientific ideas that were assisted through crowdsourcing, but some famous ones you might be familiar with also include: 
Lay's "Do Us a Flavor" 

Based on the three components described above, what about reality/voting TV shows, would those be categorized as crowdsourcing?  They are made up of individuals, they benefit from a crowd's input (this is how contestants are kept on or voted off the show) and the voting mostly occurs online, although it can occasionally occur over the phone. I would think that much in the way the crowd votes for its favorite potato chip flavor, it is also choosing its next American Idol. 

I'm not much for reality TV or the talent competitions, however every so often I get invested in a good season of Dancing with the Stars (Tallahassee folks, who didn't like seeing David Ross out there??), now I can't help but think, is it all just great crowdsourcing keeping these shows going? Here's an interview from Entrepreneur.com that provides more information about crowdsourcing, it's implications for businesses and thoughts on how it's changing. 






References:

Konsti-Laakso, S. (2017). Stolen snow shovels and good ideas: The search for and generation of local knowledge in the social media community. Government Information Quarterly, 34(1), 134-139.

Nam, T. (2012). Suggesting frameworks of citizen-sourcing via government 2.0. Gov. Inf. Q., 29(1), 12–20.

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 15, 2018 at 4:48 AM

    Here's another crowdsourcing link that I remember from recent history at our local zoo. I think that this kind of crowdsourcing serves marketing purposes, but it also makes community members feel invested in the zoo, its animals, and to the specific endangered species. Hopefully, such campaigns spur at least some participants to investigate further and become even more engaged in protecting wildlife. https://www.palmbeachzoo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.details&ArticleId=500014&returnTo=main

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Integrating Web 2.0

In learning about Web 2.0 concepts this week, I, of course, began to see Web 2.0 everywhere. I can see how meaningful the relationships can be when people, and for my work, students interact with one another and generate their own content on these Web 2.0 platforms. We love to see students engage with us and participate in career discussions. While working on a project today, I was reminded of Web 2.0 concepts although the project itself was not digital content. The task was to create a worksheet that outlined career-readiness competencies and examples. The worksheet would also have blank spaces where the students would be encouraged to write in things they have done to gain those competencies/skills ( generate content ) and space to brainstorm organizations or activities on campus where they could achieve those skills ( connect with others ).  As we were working on this project, I was starting to notice similar concepts to Web 2.0 definitions.  It made me wonder if we are d...
1 comment
Read more

Technology's impact on Diverse Abilities

"The most striking finding of the national survey is the extent of peer-to-peer help amount people living with chronic conditions...One in four internet users living with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions, lung conditions, cancer, or some other chronic ailment (23%) say they go online to find others with similar health concerns. By contrast 15% of internet users who report no chronic conditions have sough such help online." (Raine & Wellman, p.145) When I made the switch to higher education my first job was an advisor in the Office for Students with Disabilities, and it was an enlightening experiencing that has stayed with me. Since then I've been able to remain a liaison to those offices at the different places I've worked and try to help support people with diverse abilities in their career development. So I couldn't blog through this whole course and not talk about the impact that technology and social media has had on this community. ...
2 comments
Read more

Disengaging from Technology

Given work, school, and life in general I wasn't able to do the no technology challenge back when it was issued. After stepping up my social media presence and connection to online tools, I really think it will be valuable to do try this once class ends next week. So I'm vowing to go technology-free for 24 hours.  I don't think being off social media will be the hardest thing for me. I would say texting followed by television will most likely be my struggles. Of course this will have to take place on a weekend since I need my computer for work. While avoiding TV won't be too stressful, as I have a hard copy book I've been putting off reading because of my Audible membership ( Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult), I imagine it will be hard to have plans with anyone other than my husband during this time. Usually when I have plans I'm texting to confirm or letting them know when I've left, and what if they need to cancel? They won't be able to get ahold ...
2 comments
Read more

Twitter

Pinterest