1 Vol 16 Issue 2 – 3 Virtual Communities and Podcasting: the emergence and transformation of public electronic space Mark McGuire University of Otago Dunedin, New Zealand
[email protected] ABSTRACT membership that includes anyone willing to work in a voluntary, cooperative and collective fashion to create a In this paper, I discuss the Podcasting phenomenon within the global “electronic commons” for the benefit of the world at context of other efforts to utilize the Internet as a space for large [59]. This utopian vision reflects the early, optimistic social communication. Drawing upon Jürgen Habermas’s work period in the development of the Internet, when it was on the emergence of the “public sphere,” and its imagined to be an open public forum that provided an transformation into a “sphere of culture consumption,” I argue alternative to privately owned print media and commercial that a similar transformation has taken place in electronic broadcast networks. The first Netizens engaged in space. Early attempts to construct virtual communities to conversations through text contributions on Usenet and support open communication have led to private, commercial bulletin board systems. Soon, sites that were designed to sites that serve business objectives. A similar transformation support virtual communities emerged. can be traced in the development of podcasting, as amateur, volunteer efforts are overshadowed by professional, corporate In his 1993 account of his experiences as a participant in The content. I conclude that, in the privatized environment of the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), one of the earliest efforts Internet, efforts to engage in open, public communication will to construct a social space online, Howard Rheingold defines continue to be limited as businesses develop new strategies to virtual communities as “social aggregations that emerge from ensure that the digital domain supports consumption, rather the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions than social communication.