The More Things Change

Sharing and social media: The decline of a keyword?

“…It would appear that the decline of "sharing" reflects a distancing from utopian visions of the role of social media in making the world a better place, and the adoption of a more pragmatic attitude instead. 8 This argument is strengthened by research presented in a pair of articles about remix and configurable culture (Rosa et al, 2021;Sinnreich et al, 2020). Using quite different data sets, but arriving at broadly similar conclusions, these articles point to a decline in idealism in relation to media practices around copyright, a field in which the very term "file sharing" has been contested precisely because of its pro-social connotations .…”

“…This argument is strengthened by research presented in a pair of articles about remix and configurable culture (Rosa et al, 2021; Sinnreich et al, 2020). Using quite different data sets, but arriving at broadly similar conclusions, these articles point to a decline in idealism in relation to media practices around copyright, a field in which the very term “file sharing” has been contested precisely because of its pro-social connotations .…”

“…Using quite different data sets, but arriving at broadly similar conclusions, these articles point to a decline in idealism in relation to media practices around copyright, a field in which the very term “file sharing” has been contested precisely because of its pro-social connotations . In the first of these articles (Sinnreich et al, 2020), the authors analyze Google search terms over 15 years and argue for a shift from what they term “utopian openness” toward “utilitarian openness.” In the second article (Rosa et al, 2021), based on longitudinal survey data, the authors find a waning of remix culture, which they attribute to the appropriation by the mainstream of practices of configurable culture, such as editing videos. In both cases, the authors’ argument is not that people are “remixing” less.…”

“…In both cases, the authors’ argument is not that people are “remixing” less. Rather, having “faded in to the ‘background noise’ of mainstream culture” (Rosa et al, 2021: 45), practices that once had a countercultural or critical aura about them no longer do.…”

“…In the first of these articles (Sinnreich et al, 2020), the authors analyze Google search terms over 15 years and argue for a shift from what they term "utopian openness" toward "utilitarian openness." In the second article (Rosa et al, 2021), based on longitudinal survey data, the authors find a waning of remix culture, which they attribute to the appropriation by the mainstream of practices of configurable culture, such as editing videos. In both cases, the authors' argument is not that people are "remixing" less.…”