CIL 2010 Keynote Address

Information Fluency
Lee Rainie - Director - Pew Internet Project

The internet is the change agent

2000
46% of adults use internet
5% with broadband at home
50% own a cell phone
0% connect to internet wirelessly
<10% use "cloud"

2010
75% of adults use intent
62% with broadband at home
80% own a cell phone
53% connect to internet wirelessly
>two-thirds use "cloud"
= fast, mobile connections built around outside servers

Networked Creator Universe
57% are social networking site users
37% share photos
30% share personal creations
30% contribute rankings and ratings
28% create content tags
26% post comments on sites and blogs
19% use Twiter/other status update features
15% have personal website
15% are content remixers
14% are bloggers

The Internet Galaxy, by Manuel Castells
-Four cultures shaped the internet

1. Techno-elites
-Scientific method enshrined, openness, peer review, meritocracy

2. Hackers
-Stallman: Free speech in the computer age; freedom to create, to appropriate, to redistribute

3. Virtual Communitarians
-Early usenet groups, horizontal free communication, primacy of self-directing networks

4. Entrepreneurs
-Netscape IPO

5th culture of the internet: Networked creators
-democratized the voices in media
-challenged traditional media gatekeepers
-Inserted themselves in "expert" affairs
-Enhanced their civic and community roles
-37% of internet users contributed to news
-20% contributed to health content
-19% contributed to civic and political activities

4 ways content creater build communities

1. Produce content that helps them expand their social netowrk and increase their social standing.

Advantages to creators
-Negotiating friendship, status, identity
-Creating spaces for building social netowrks among friends AND those who share their interests
-Creating learning opportunities
-Gaining reputational capital

2. Produce content to create social posses to solve problems

Advantages to creators in posse situations
-Fact checking and transparency
-Crowdsourcing wisdom, especially among "strangers" who share a common purpose
-Production and accumulation of evidence that is easily search-able

3. Produce content to contruct "just-in-time-just-like-me" support groups

Just-in-time-just-like-me communities
-Communities of just-in-time information and support - ad hoc and "on the fly"
-Communities of "rare species" - homophily par excellence (birds of a feather)
-Communities of practice that are "space-less"

4. Produce content unlike traditional news organizations

Social media-sphere is the "5th estate"
70% of the time the top stories in social media are different from those in traditional media

Week of March 30-April 5, 2009
While the traditional press focus on Obama and the Economy, Blogosphere is filled with an eclectic mix of stories including the Guardian Prank, enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA, Angie Harmon's comments, online security, etc.

5th estate publishing tates
-Technology developments, especially activities in the social media environment
-Bloggers as "rocket boosters"
-Links as social currency
-Off-beat stories, especially those with quirky humor
-American exceptionalism stoires
-Cultural cleavages and social issues more than economic issues

Implications for libraries
1. You can be a node in people's social networks as they seek information to help them solve problems and meet their needs.

2. You can teach new literacies
-screen literacy-graphics and symbols
-navigation literacy
-conections and context literacy
-skepticism
-value of contemplative time
-how to create content
-ethical behavior in new world

3. Neet to re-vision your role in a world where much has changed
-Access to information
-Value of information
-Curating info means more than collections
-Creating media - networked creators should be your allies

***This was a good session - a lot to think about, which this early in the morning I will have to reread this post and process later. ***