Wikipedia and Twitter, supporting open many-to-many communications and participation, form a new online commons. This supports a deliberative adhocracy slicing through geographic, ethnic and economic classes. With this, journalism still has an important role, by guiding citizens towards wisdom at the top of the information pyramid.

1. The Internet’s New Public Spaces
Andrew Lih
The Wikipedia Revolution
15 June 2009

2. Old Media
One Many
In person Publishing
One Phone call Broadcasting
Letter to editor
Many Call-in show

3. Web 1.0 Media
One Many
Email, SMS Email blast
One Instant message Web site, CMS
Feedback form Chat room
Many Comments Mailing list

4. Web 2.0 Media
One Many
Facebook
One LinkedIn Blogging
(Discovery)
Blog
Many comments
Wikipedia

5. Twitter
One Many
Direct
One message
µ blogging
Many @username #hashtag

6. Commons
One Many
One Wikipedia
(Knowledge commons)
Twitter
Many (Information commons)

7. Metaphors: Wikipedia
Community names: village
pump, forum, esplanade

9. Commons properties
Open and accessible
Navigable
Human-oriented
Safe
Adaptable

10. Wikipedia and Twitter
Community driven norms
Situated (custom) software
Fast adaptation
Low participation barrier
Public spaces/zeitgeist

11. Distinction
“Free culture” and Creative
Commons
vs.
Communications commons
creating public spaces

12. Lessig
“weirdly totalitarian”
communications of the
20th century yields to
“read/write”

13. M2M Information Pyramid
?
wisdom
Wikipedia
knowledge / collaboration
Twitter
Information / messaging
P2P, BitTorrent
data / transmission

14. News industry
Journalism not doomed
Guiding the public to
wisdom
Fortune at the top of the
pyramid?

15. A new digital commons
has emerged as a global
public space for discourse
and deliberation, fulfilling a
journalistic need

16. The old monolithic media giants
will go away for good
A modern and diverse news
landscape will be re-constituted in
these public spaces

17. Approach
Democracy x
Socialism x
Deliberative adhocracy √

18. For China,
a technology first adopted
for entertainment, can be
a deliberative space
designed for social justice