Authorship, Authority, Citing and the Internet

At this very moment I'm home alone trying to compose the methodological framework for my monograph. But is not the methodological framework what concerns me but the theoretical one.

You see, I'm working with this "peer reviewing on web-based platforms" stuff and thigs go OK up to the point in which I have to deal with defining some web concepts as, for example, "blog".

As you know, nowadays academic writing has a lot to do with citing and references. These are required, among other reasons, to demonstrate that your statements are the result of a wide and careful reading of the literature on the topic your writing about. In these references mentioning authors is very important, specially recognized authors, since these will imprint your writing with trust and authority: these authors are people who have gained recognition by doing deep and good and reliable research and it is with their ideas as well as with the authors themselves that you are going to interact in your writing. Everything's OK so far.

Now, as you may know, centuries ago authors were not important at all, but writings: it was the content of texts what mattered: histories, poems, chants. The texts were completely acceptable without having an author signing them. Later on this situation switched and authors sign was necessary for the acceptance of the text. Today we have both: author and content as requirements for judging the reliability of a text. (And yes, you may be asking "what are the sources you used for saying what you just said?" Well, I read it days ago, on "What is an author?" by Michel Foucaul, and I had read it as well in a book on anthropology and in some texts provided in my English classes) My point is that there has been a change back to the contents, leaving authors aside; this happens only (and up to know) when it comes to the information and knowledge that has been constructed on/through the internet.

Let's take back my example of defining "blog", giving its characteristics and showing the social, cultural and educational usage and impact of this tool. Yes, I found definitions on books, but I found them as well on the internet, specially Wikipedia. So happened when defining "Web 2.0": yes, there is some information in the books, but there is much more and deeper information on the internet and, guess what: this much more and deeper information has no authors at all.

What you find in authored books about internet sometimes doesn't not have a different source than that of the information you find on the internet: millions and millions of users of the web who, through interaction, have developed these concepts, have made them evolve, are making them evolve.

I could locate the very first authored-definitions given for "blog" and "Web 2.0", but they are "old" (although when it comes to technology everything is old after one year) and partially valid. The meanings of these concepts have changed and they are different from their formers. If I were willing to cite one of those authors it wouldn't be of any help since what they stated is not what I'm going to use for my research, what I'm going to use are those concepts that are valid at this very moment and that have been constructed by a whole internet society.

Take as an example Wikipedia. I know it's not quite a reliable source but there are many things in there that you are not going to find in books, besides it contains millions and millions of articles, all elaborated brick by brick by anonymous people. Actually, one article at Wikipedia may have hundreds of authors who have been complementing and correcting it, and the weird thing is that the names of those authors are never there.

In the same way as in Wikipedia, the discussions and ideas circulating through web forums, blogs, chats and other applications construct and shape new concepts.

So, who the fuck am I going to cite when defining Web 2.0? I don't know. Will the academia accept that I use author-less citations? I don't know.

Just as not to finish the discussion with the end of this text, in invite you to revise the new ways in which authorship is being managed: yet being authors, some people permit not only the free circulation of their work but permit as well the modification and adaptation of it (and all this for free) Read some documentation on Creative Commons Licences, GNU licences, and other Open licences as well. Think of their impact on the matter of authorship.

That's all for now.

David Pérez Marulada

PS.

1. As you may have noticed, this text is full of links all over. This is a different approach to reading: Hypertext Reading, which is, among other things, non-linear and interactive.

2. Shit! all of this time I had been saying "monography" over and over again. I just found out that's not the right word, the right word is "monograph"! That's why it's good to use spell-check.

Let's talk, get into the discussion with your comments.

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A couple of very, very recommended readings, specially the second one (and it says "Zemanta" because that's the name of the web application I use for finding related articles.)

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