TV PROGRAM BRANDS IN BRAND PORTFOLIO OF TELEVISION COMPANIES

TV PROGRAM BRANDS IN BRAND PORTFOLIO
OF TELEVISION COMPANIES
Abstract. A characterisc feature of the modern TV market is an extremely high level of competetion between market players for aracng aenon of TV viewers between both broadcasters and other means of media. One of the negave consequences of such situaon is the so-called media cannibalism. Considering such difficult market condions experts suggest that the soluon of this problem lies in formaon of TV brands, at least among the TV companies. However, generally the brand porolio of a TV company is diversified and includes various separate brands: TV channels, TV programs, TV anchormen, producon studios and others. A systemac analysis of the system of brands formaon within the TV companies reveals that the TV program brands play an important role in the formaon process.
Keywords: brand, brand porolio, brand porolio structure, branding in the television company.
Problem definition and its connection with important scientific and practical tasks. Current rapid
increase of competition active participants of TV market heightened competition between TV companies for the attention of viewers. As a result, we can observe a significant increase of competion in TV companies brands portfolio formation f. Experts consider the brand formation of TV programs as one of the most important tools used by TV companies to attract the viewers. The article defines the meaning of brand portfolio of a TV company, its structure and the place of TV program brands. Resolution of the problem of TV program brands formation would help to understand the relevant practical problems of TV companies and allow expanding the scientific base for further analysis of the TV branding problems. Analysis of recent publications on this problem and determination still unsolved aspects of the  general problem. Problems of branding in the sphere of TV communication have been studied in the works of scientists and experts. Among of them, primarily, such authors as: M. Rogers, M. Epstein and J. Reeves1, Z. Fanbin and H. Wang2, E. Yanak3, C. Johnson4, A. Bryant5, S. Sukhpreet6, H. Lee and others. It is widely accepted that media corporations use branding to connect together media products produced in specific network companies and to differentiate them from similar products created by competitors. As rightly M. Rogers, M. Epstein and J. Reeves, US TV branding experts, conclude: “Branding also helps significantly reduce the financial risks associated with elaboration of the new media products using already established relationships between consumers and media brands”7.
Z. Fanbin and H. Wong, Chinese researchers, define the brand role in the market TV services as: “The brand can become the basis for the main choice for many viewers who have never tired watching some TV channels and programs. The influence of television products that are attractive to the audience is mainly due to brand. Even, if they are sold at a higher price. Thus, the brand creation and development – a main rule for TV companies to succeed in a difficult competitive situation. This is also true for all media. In other words, only with the creation and expansion of brand media its value can increase the brand loyalty and will provide a greater return on investment capital to get even broader space for development. Another important factor that determines the need for branding is a natural desire of TV companies to ensure their own existence in the future. Alexander Rodnyansky, well-known Ukrainian TV producer, predicts that the development of world TV business by 2025. Particular, he anticipates the emergence of thousands of new TV channels that will focus on narrower audience segments. For example, TV channels not just for history fans in general – but for lovers of the Middle Ages history; not for experts of physics – but for the specialists in low temperature physics, etc. “For the appearance of the TV channel will be sufficient even 100,000 viewers.
To name this media channel only like television will be difficult. The differences between the computer and TV will be almost absent. From the current mass channels, only the units could survive in the digital future – those whose brand is stronger. Despite the almost limitless choices, millions of viewers prefer such TV channels where someone has made for them the optimal TV viewing grid. Only those TV channels that would have created great brand portfolios will survivede. Any attempt to expand the audience is doomed to failure. For TV viewers that are remained will have to fight with many competitors – for instance, in the entertainment television not TV channels will be considered as brand, but, rather, it will be TV programs or TV anchormen” – said the expert.
Concept of TV company brand is directly connected the concept of brand portfolio. Today, almost all market proposals are branded. Business is often faced with a situation where the market cannot be covered only by one brand. So, in this condition company creates several brands. According to business dictionary the brand portfolio is defined as a business resource: “The total set of brands products or services which are available at the company”10. The same concept is interpreted by O. Zozuliov and N. Kubyshynа, Ukrainian scientists: “... as the total number of all brands and product lines that are offering by a company within a specific product category”11. Another author, V. Zotov, provides: “The portfolio of several brands – this is not a set of independent brands; the company is striving to dominate on the marketplace, requiring its maximum coverage. And it’s often impossible to use one single brand”12. Similar to the concept of brand portfolio is the brand architecture. David Aaker and Erich Yohimshtayler, the famous experts of brand management, defined this concept as: «Brand architecture – is an organizational structure of brand portfolio that defines the role of brands and the relationships between them. Thus, brand architecture – a tool that allows a group of brands operate as one system, to prevent brand cannibalism within the portfolio and provides brand synergy and development of the company as a whole”13. Let’s consider more specifically the concept of brand TV program and its place in brand portfolio of a TV company. Elizabeth Yanak, American researcher defines the TV program brand as: “The result of marketing activities on the formation of TV program content as the target product, that is different from the other, changing programs and helps to identify television network, which become is widely recognizable”14. In our opinion, the essential characteristics of the brand program should also include the certain elements of corporate identity, a single brand name, the creative concept, etc. Advanced analysis of scientific sources allows us to formulate the concept of TV program brand. By this term, we mean, a set of telecasts, integrated by a single brand name and creative concept, aimed to target certain audience of TV viewership, and characterized by the appropriate level of awareness, identity and loyalty from viewers.

Functions of Social Networking Services

COOP '08 : the 8th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems
Functions of Social Networking Services
Alexander Richter, Michael Koch
Cooperation Systems Center Munich (CSCM) Bundeswehr University Munich Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39
85577 Neubiberg, Germany {alexander.richter; michael.koch}@kooperationssysteme.de
Abstract. Social Networking Services (SNS) are the fastest growing type of social software – both in the Internet and in company-wide Intranets. Due to the fact that SNS have emerged just recently and the development speed of the services is enormous, there exist large gaps in research about this type of service. For example, so far there has been no attempt to identify and categorize the basic functionalities of SNS. This is the goal of this contribution. Six groups of functionalities for SNS are proposed and their categorization is motivated. The identification of a distinct set of SNS functions will facilitate the modularization and integration of different social network applications.
Keywords: Social Networking, Expert Finding, Yellow Pages, Knowledge Management, Web 2.0, Social Software, Enterprise 2.0
1 Introduction
While Knowledge Management activities have long been focused on the collection of documents and their storage in anonymous knowledge silos, in the past years companies are becoming more and more aware that employees are the real knowledge repositories and that real knowledge management is supporting communication and networking among the employees. Cohen and Prusak [4] for example highlight the high potential of networking employees to increase productivity and speed of innovation in companies.
Therefore, support to find experts and in a broader sense support to human social networks is becoming more and more important in companies.
The technological and technical developments of the last years make it possible to digitally reproduce human social networks. Thanks to this technical support users can establish and maintain contact to persons with whom contact would be difficult due to regional and social barriers. Users with alike interests and subject areas can now find each other and can stay connected in communities (of practice) and networks. In the context of the often-quoted Web 2.0 a new form of software to support collaborative work has evolved to cover this: Social Networking Services (SNS).
Social Networking Services (SNS) are application systems that offer users functionalities for identity management (1) (i.e. the representation of the own person
1

e.g. in form of a profile) and enable furthermore to keep in touch (2) with other users (and thus the administration of own contacts)1. In this context one can distinguish between open SNS that are available to use for everyone in the WWW and closed SNS that are used by a rather closed user group, e.g. within the intranet of an organization.
Apart from private use, open SNS as well as closed SNS are also used for supporting the exchange of implicit knowledge within and between enterprises. As a result, SNS replace or extend the “yellow pages” which have so far been used in enterprises as a sort of tools for finding expertise.
The latter were originally implemented as Intranet-based directories, supplemented with additional information on the users’ expert knowledge and skills (see e.g. [1], [2] and [14]). In contrast to traditional expertise finding tools, SNS provide a wider range of functions (sometimes even including communication functions like forums and chat). Besides, they stress the idea of user participation. Hence, SNS offer users the possibility of updating their personal contacts and expert's assessment data themselves. Even more important: Each user can manage his or her personal network, i.e. a list of contacts. As a “side effect” and major advantage the personal social networks become visible for other users. Thus, the initiation of relationships is simplified, and the advantages resulting from Granovetter’s theory of the "strength of weak ties" [8] can be better utilized.
Due to the importance of SNS for companies, IS and CSCW research should try to provide practitioners with some insights into success factors of SNS introduction and usage. However, until now not much work has been published in this direction. Therefore, we have defined as one goal of our research to identify success factors for and barriers / limiting factors of the employment of SNS in the enterprise and their reciprocal relations.
In the context of this work we identified a possible reason for the research gap concerning SNS: SNS are a mix of different functions supporting matchmaking, direct and indirect communication. When different people are talking about SNS they are usually implicitly addressing different aspects of this – and therefore often misunderstand each other. This makes it especially hard to start a scientific discourse on SNS. Thus, it is important to have a clear map to address what one is focusing at. There is a need to categorize the different functions of a SNS.
To address this need we propose six basic functionalities of SNS. We have identified these by extracting potential functionalities from reviewing existing internal and external SNS. Furthermore, we matched these basic functionalities with the process description of IT supported social networking. The results are presented in Section 2. Building on this categorization we have conducted an online survey to support the categorization and to find out how Germans are using the different functions of open SNS. We present the first results of this survey and its implications (Section 3) and conclude with the limitations of the study and with an outlook on further research and possible further developments of SNS (Section 4).
1 Cf. [9]. See also the similar definition by Boyd and Ellison [3] who define SNS as „web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.”

2 Functionalities of SNS
To address the need to structure and to identify the basic functionalities of SNS theoretically we start by the two categories ‘keeping in touch’ (1) and ‘identity management’ (2) which are the two main characteristics of (the definition of) SNS.
(1) Keeping in touch can be split in direct communication (direct exchange with someone) and indirect communication (via artifacts2) according to communication theories (e.g. the person-artifact framework by Dix et al. [5]). In the context of indirect communication there is a need for contact management – i.e. for defining filters of who will be able to get information about one’s activities (access control), and from whom one wants to see information. There is a lot of research on these types of filters in CSCW on the communication of awareness – one prominent example of using indirect communication (e.g. [6], [11]).
(2) The field of identity management can be further specified regarding reasons for presenting oneself: to be found, to (enable others) building a common context (more quickly) and to generate information for indirect communication. This can also be seen from the other side: to find someone, to build a common context (see if one has something in common with the other), or to stay informed about the other (via indirect communication).
2.1 The Six Basic Functionalities of SNS
In addition to this theoretical approach from communication theories we have analyzed several open and closed SNS to identify common functionalities. From this analysis a list of common components was extracted and finally mapped to the tasks identified from theory.
As a result we propose a list of six basic functionalities of SNS:

• Identity management
  
• Expert finding
  
• Context awareness
  
• Contact management
  
• Network awareness
  
• Exchange
  Identity Management
  Goffman [7] views social interaction as human performance, which he compares to the performance in a theater, and which is shaped by the audience and the environment. Because people are constantly analyzed by others they construct consciously a social identity which they present to their counterpart. In SNS the profile people construct is this staging of oneself - for a particular audience, for a particular task to be achieved. Thus, in our context identity management means
  2 This means sending a message to a public board or manipulating a public artifact without knowing exactly who will receive the message or notice the manipulation.
  

managing the availability of identity information – i.e. filling in information and setting access rights (who is allowed to see what). Access rights can be direct or role based – e.g. allowing access for all users in the personal network. This form of self presentation satisfies several human needs, as a study by the SNS MySpace has shown [13]. Examples for functions enabling identity management in SNS are: (user) profile, group memberships.
Expert Search
CSCW research has already dealt extensively with the use of the expert search as a possibility to identify implicit knowledge (cf. e.g. [1]). In this context one has to distinguish between the possibility to search the network according to different criteria (e.g. name, interests, company) and the possibility to pro-actively receive recommendations of interesting contacts by the SNS. Examples for functions enabling expert search in SNS are: search boxes.
Context Awareness
Context Awareness is the awareness of a common context with other people. This can be information about common contacts, about common interests, about the same university one has visited or the same company one has worked at. Context Awareness contributes a lot to creating common trust among the users, which is essential for a successful collaboration (cf. e.g. [10]). Moreover, according to Soonhee and Hyangsoo [16] “knowledge sharing requires the dissemination of individual employees’ work-related experiences and collaboration between and among individuals, [...] and organizations”. Examples for functions enabling context awareness in SNS are: “How you’re connected to ...”-box.
Contact Management
Contact management combines all functionalities that enable the maintenance of the (digital) personal network. Examples for functions enabling contact management in SNS are: tagging people, access restrictions to profile.
Network Awareness
The awareness of the activities (and/or the current status and changes of the latter) of the contacts in the personal network is supported by functionalities, too. These functionalities enable indirect communication via awareness. Examples for functions enabling network awareness in SNS are: News Feeds, “Birthdays”-box.
Exchange
Exchange combines all possibilities to exchange information directly (e.g. messages) or indirectly (e.g. photos or messages via bulletin boards). Morone and Tayler [12] found e.g. that the reduction of communication barriers is essential for successful knowledge sharing. Examples for functions enabling exchange in SNS are: Messages, photo albums.

2.2 The Process of IT Supported Social Networking
When the above mentioned basic functionalities are mirrored back to the initial goal of SNS (i.e. to support building, maintenance and usage of social networks), one can identify different possible sequences in the utilization of the single functionalities.
As one result of this categorization of SNS functionalities a process description of IT supported social networking has been developed (see Figure 1 and [15] for further information). Note that the two basic functionalities direct and indirect exchange of views in exchange and network awareness are integrated in one process step.

Figure 1: process of IT supported social networking
The process illustrates the typical succession of several steps in the individual usage of SNS (which are all more or less supported by current SNS implementations). It also shows that there are different successions thinkable. The process is not strictly chronological or repetitive, i.e. starting steps and successions can differ.
3 Online Survey: Private Usage of SNS in Germany
In order to validate the results of the systematized organization of basic functionalities a comparative user survey has been conducted. The overall goal of the survey was to obtain an overview of private usage of SNS in Germany.
3.1 Realization and Questionnaire
The quantitative research took place from December 5, 2007 to January 31, 2008 and consisted of an online survey directed towards all German users of every sort of open (public) SNS. The study population was approached in three different ways: (1) Five well-know German bloggers linked the online survey in their blogs. The readers of the blogs are mainly IT-interested and already in working age. (2) An invitation email was sent to all students and employees (n≈4000) of the Bundeswehr University

Munich. (3) Two German SNS (www.spin.de, feierabend.de) approached all their users directly, bringing their attention to the survey. Respondents entering the survey site (www.sns-umfrage.de) received an introduction with the definition of SNS (mentioned above) and examples so that every participant was well informed.
The questionnaire contained 24 questions that aimed towards the kinds of private use of different SNS by German web users. It consisted of four parts:

1. socio-demographic questions (age, gender, usage of the Internet etc.; 6 questions in
   total),
   
2. questions that allowed for the clustering of the different user types based on their
   SNS usage (“how often do you use SNS?”, “how many contacts do you have”; 4
   questions in total, including filter questions on the respondents’ specific SNS),
   
3. questions concerning the functions of SNS (“how often do you use the following functions...”, “how important do you consider the following functions...”; 11
   questions in total) and
   
4. questions concerning online advertising and targeting (“how bothersome do you
   consider the following forms of online advertising...”; 3 questions in total).
   At the end of the questionnaire a link to a wiki provided the possibilities to give
   

additional open feedback concerning personal SNS usage in general and the survey in particular. More than 30 people wrote commentaries, some of them were very helpful for understanding some individual user behavior better.
In the eight weeks under review about 5500 people visited the survey website, 2650 of them completed the full questionnaire and were included in the analysis. The sample is representative as far as education is concerned, whereas gender (62% men) and age (58% are younger than 26 years, only 18.2% are older than 35 years) are unequally distributed. The data was collected by the questionnaire tool UniPark (http://www.unipark.de) and analyzed using SPSS 15 statistical software.
3.2 Important Results of the Study
The study had several aims – one of them was the validation of the basic functionalities presented in Section 2. In the following we present some of the results for validating the categorization of the functionalities3.
In the questionnaire we asked the respondents three times in three different ways questions about functionalities in SNS. In Question 5 we wanted to know how often the population uses different functions, in Question 7 we asked because of which function the users do not want to renounce on the SNS and in questions 13 till 18 we interrogated the importance of our basic functionalities. We considered it to be a difference if one uses a function (often or seldom) or if he considers a function so important that he doesn’t want to leave the SNS because of the function.
The functionalities interrogated in questions 5 and 7 were: “to keep contact”, to share information”, “to get to know people”, “to share pictures”, “contact management”, “to present myself”, “expert/person search”, “Dating”, “to find
3 We therefore concentrate on presenting frequency distributions. Much more information about the results can be found on our website www.kooperationssysteme.de/tag/umfrage.

business partners”. From the first sight it is obvious that these are not really basic functionalities. Those are rather “success factors of SNS” i.e. reasons for people to use SNS4. As can be seen in figures 2 and 3 the frequency of use and the opinion on the importance of the proposed features were quite similar. Respondents mentioned they used features “to keep contact” most often (87.1%) and don’t want to renounce on these (78.5%).
Figure 2: Question 5: “How often do you use ...” (answers: often-sometimes; multiple choices possible)
Figure 3: Question 7:”On which function don’t you want to renounce?” (multiple choices possible, answers sorted in the same order as Figure 2)
Second popular was “sharing information” (frequency of use: 80.2%; importance: 50.7%). Features “to get to know people” are only used half the frequency (46.6%) of the first group, and are esteemed only half so important (35.7%).
4 We call them features in the following.

These results reveal a lot about the intentions of the respondents to use a SNS: First of all, the users want to keep contact with friends or colleagues they already know. Secondly they want to share information with these people they already know. Getting to know people in general, dating (frequency: 17%, importance: 11.2%) and finding new business partners (17%, 9.9%) is less important and the features are less used. Further functions like expert search (frequency: 49.8%, importance: 14.8%), self presentation (44.6%) and contact management (67.3%, 32.3%) range in the midfield.
In the following we distinguish two user groups:
1. users of the German business SNS Xing (http://www.xing.de)
2. users of the German student SNS StudiVZ (http://www.studivz.de)
The importance of the features differs according to the predominant use intention of the SNS (cf. Figure 4). Xing is primarily used because it has features for contact management (58.3%), to keep contact (55.3%) and to find business partners (52.3%), whereas StudiVZ is primarily used for its features to keep contact (94.3%), to share information (53,3%) and to share pictures (52.3%).

Figure 4: Question 7:”On which function don’t you want to renounce?” (multiple choices possible, answers sorted in the same order as figures 2 and 3)
Remarkably: Only 7.1% of StudiVZ users wouldn’t leave the SNS because of its potential for dating and only 47.7% of Xing users wouldn’t leave the SNS because of its potential for expert finding (which is one of Xing’s declared goals). In both cases (for business and for private use), “to keep contact” was a very important reason for the respondents to use the SNS.
In a group of five questions we asked the respondents how important they considered five of the six functions we have identified (identity management, expert finding, contact management, network awareness, and exchange). We couldn’t consider context awareness, because functions like the “How you’re connected to ...”-path are only mostly used “passively” i.e. they are displayed only.

Altogether the respondents considered all functionalities of SNS mentioned above as important. Functions that support exchange (81.3%) and awareness (74.6%) were valued as most important, whereas the functions that enable identity management where valued as less important (54.5%) (cf. Figure 5).
Figure 5: Questions 13-18: “How important is the following function to you?” (m.c. possible)
If we now compare these results with the answers to questions 5 and 7 one can say that, again, keeping contact (awareness about the own contacts, exchange with them) was esteemed most important by the users.
In a further question we interrogated whether the users attached importance to the occasional introduction of new functions: 70% of them did, 12% did not, and the rest was undecided.
Figure 6: Which are the reasons to leave a SNS (m.c. possible)
Besides the features which are so important for the users that they do not want to leave a SNS, we also interrogated for which reasons users are willing to leave a

platform (cf. Figure 6). We gave seven different reasons to leave the SNS: “the number of members declines”, “I have other SNS with same content”, “I’m nerved by the ads of the SNS”, “I’m afraid of data abuse”, “the service is charged”, “I’m no longer interested in the SNS” and “My friends are no more using the SNS”.
36.7% of he respondents would leave their SNS if a majority of their contacts would. Only 27.1% would leave if the service was charged and 25% would leave if they were afraid of data abuse.
A declining number of friends was the first reason for StudiVZ users to opt out (43.5%; with “no more interested” on the second place: 32.2%) and the second reason for Xing users (33.4%; with “no more interested” on the first place: 40.8%).
In both cases (StudiVZ: 6.4%; Xing: 5.2%) the least reason for the users to leave a SNS was a diminishing number of members.
This completes the picture of the other results: If a great part of friends are no longer in the SNS there is no possibility to keep contact to them. The users are neither impressed by millions of people in a SNS whom they could possibly contact, nor concerned by a small number of members. Most important to them are the people they already know and with whom they want to keep in touch.
3.3 Implications of the Study
Main finding of our study (concerning the basic functionalities of SNS) is that the key intention for the usage of a SNS is to keep contact with friends or colleagues. Functionalities to enable this key intention are used most frequently.
That reflects also the main difference of SNS and their predecessors, the yellow pages, and the new potential of SNS: There is often no more need to look up someone, people already know each other and know what the other one is doing, since they are connected in SNS.
Another finding sets up on this: To be able to keep contact it is essential to be aware of one’s contacts and to exchange with them. Of our identified functions, ‘awareness’ and ‘exchange’ were found to be considered as most important by the users. Moreover, SNS allow not only staying in contact; they enable the sharing of information. This was both, by frequency of use and by importance the second answer. Again, sharing information means to use the basic functionalities for ‘exchange’ (e.g. to send messages).
The third group of functionalities (“to get to know people”) is only used half the frequency of the first group (46.6%), and esteemed only half so important (35.7%). To get to know people in general, dating and finding new business partners is not very important and not much used. This emphasizes that it is much more important for users to keep contact than to get to know new people.
Our findings imply that open SNS should concentrate on the development of functions that facilitate users to keep contact. They should further enhance basic functionalities that particularly support (network) awareness and exchange.
These theoretical findings can be mirrored also by corporate practice: Further strengthening our results, Facebook, the worldwide (innovation) leader of open SNS, has simultaneously further integrated two major functionalities in the first two weeks

of April 2008: “Social Stream” (to further support awareness) and a chat (for exchange).
4 Conclusion
In this paper we proposed the categorization of six basic functionalities of SNS which will facilitate the modularization and integration of different social network applications.
To strengthen our categorization of the functionalities and to get an overview of the private usage of SNS in Germany, an online survey has been conducted. The results of questions concerning the usage of functionalities have been presented as well as their implications.
As far as the WWW is concerned our study gives some insights in the development of the so called Web2.0 applications, too. Right now there is a big hype in the Web 2.0-community about an application called Twitter (http://www.twitter.com). Twitter is a micro-blogging service that is used to send "updates" (no longer than 140 characters) to the personal (Twitter) network via web or e.g. a cell phone. Since users send up to ten “tweets” (messages) on average per day, Twitter contributes to create considerable awareness amongst its users. Thus, the success of Twitter can be explained by the fact that it is most important to user to stay in contact. They want to be held up to date and be aware of their network. This is completely confirmed by our study. The task of SNS will be to fully integrate applications like twitter -which Facebook has already began when opening the platform API in May 2007.
The study has some limitations, too: It has not been conducted international, it is no longitudinal study and finally it is in question whether the results can be applied on closed SNS.
To answer the last question is one of our next research goals: we aim to gain further insights of success factors of open SNS which could be (partly) adapted or transferred to the use of closed SNS. Additional questions will be whether factors like age or experience have major influence on the use of SNS.
Thus, further research is necessary to focus and sharpen both success factors and barriers of the deployment of SNS in private as well as corporate usage patterns.
References
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[2] Becks, A.; Reichling, T.; Wulf, V.: Expertise Finding: Approaches to Foster Social Capital. In: Huysman, M.; Wulf, V. (eds.): Social Capital and Information Technology. pp. 333--354 MIT Press, Cambridge (2004)
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[5] Dix, A.J.; Finley, J.; Abowd, G.D.; Beale, R.: Human-Computer Interaction. Prentice Hall, New York (1993)
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Cyberculture

Not to be confused with Cyber subculture.

Cyberculture or computer culture is the culture that has emerged, or is emerging, from the use of computer net- works for communication, entertainment, and business. Internet culture is also the study of various social phe- nomena associated with the Internet and other new forms of the network communication, such as online commu- nities, online multi-player gaming, wearable computing, social gaming, social media, mobile apps, augmented re- ality, and texting,[1] and includes issues related to identity, privacy, and network formation. 

Since the boundaries of cyberculture are difficult to de- fine, the term is used flexibly, and its application to specific circumstances can be controversial. It gener- ally refers at least to the cultures of virtual communi- ties, but extends to a wide range of cultural issues re- lating to "cyber-topics”, e.g. cybernetics, and the per- ceived or predicted cyborgization of the human body and human society itself. It can also embrace associated in- tellectual and cultural movements, such as cyborg theory and cyberpunk. The term often incorporates an implicit anticipation of the future.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists the earliest usage of the term “cyberculture” in 1963, when A.M. Hilton wrote the following, “In the era of cyberculture, all the plows pull themselves and the fried chickens fly right onto our plates.”[3] This example, and all others, up through 1995 are used to support the definition of cyberculture as “the social conditions brought about by automation and computerization.”[3] The American Heritage Dictio- nary broadens the sense in which “cyberculture” is used by defining it as, “The culture arising from the use of com- puter networks, as for communication, entertainment, work, and business”.[4] However, what both the OED and the American Heritage Dictionary miss is that cybercul- ture is the culture within and among users of computer networks. This cyberculture may be purely an online cul- ture or it may span both virtual and physical worlds. This is to say, that cyberculture is a culture endemic to online communities; it is not just the culture that results from computer use, but culture that is directly mediated by the computer. Another way to envision cyberculture is as the electronically enabled linkage of like-minded, but poten- tially geographically disparate (or physically disabled and hence less mobile) persons.

Cyberculture is a wide social and cultural movement closely linked to advanced information science and information technology, their emergence, development and rise to social and cultural prominence between the 1960s and the 1990s. Cyberculture was influenced at its genesis by those early users of the internet, frequently in- cluding the architects of the original project. These indi- viduals were often guided in their actions by the hacker ethic. While early cyberculture was based on a small cul- tural sample, and its ideals, the modern cyberculture is a much more diverse group of users and the ideals that they espouse.

Numerous specific concepts of cyberculture have been formulated by such authors as Lev Manovich,[5][6] Arturo Escobar and Fred Forest.[7] However, most of these concepts concentrate only on certain aspects, and they do not cover these in great detail. Some authors aim to achieve a more comprehensive understanding distin- guished between early and contemporary cyberculture (Jakub Macek),[7] or between cyberculture as the cul- tural context of information technology and cyberculture (more specifically cyberculture studies) as “a particular approach to the study of the 'culture + technology' com- plex” (David Lister et al.).[8]

2 Manifestations of cyberculture
Manifestations of Cyberculture include various human interactions mediated by computer networks. They can be activities, pursuits, games, places and metaphors, and include a diverse base of applications. Some are sup- ported by specialized software and others work on com- monly accepted web protocols. Examples include but are not limited to:
3 Qualities of cyberculture

First and foremost, cyberculture derives from traditional notions of culture, as the roots of the word imply. In non- cyberculture, it would be odd to speak of a single, mono- lithic culture. In cyberculture, by extension, searching for a single thing that is cyberculture would likely be prob- lematic. The notion that there is a single, definable cy- berculture is likely the complete dominance of early cyber territory by affluent North Americans. Writing by early

proponents of cyberspace tends to reflect this assumption
(see Howard Rheingold).[9]
The ethnography of cyberspace is an important aspect of cyberculture that does not reflect a single unified culture. It “is not a monolithic or placeless 'cyberspace'; rather, it is numerous new technologies and capabilities, used by diverse people, in diverse real-world locations.” It is malleable, perishable, and can be shaped by the vagaries of external forces on its users. For example, the laws of physical world governments, social norms, the architec- ture of cyberspace, and market forces shape the way cy- bercultures form and evolve. As with physical world cul- tures, cybercultures lend themselves to identification and study.
There are several qualities that cybercultures share that make them warrant the prefix “cyber-“. Some of those qualities are that cyberculture:

• Is a community mediated by ICTs.
  
• Is culture “mediated by computer screens.”[10]
  
• Relies heavily on the notion of information and knowledge exchange.
  
• Depends on the ability to manipulate tools to a de- gree not present in other forms of culture (even ar- tisan culture, e.g., a glass-blowing culture).
  
• Allowsvastlyexpandedweaktiesandhasbeencriti- cized for overly emphasizing the same (see Bowling Alone and other works).
  
• Multiplies the number of eyeballs on a given prob- lem, beyond that which would be possible using tra- ditional means, given physical, geographic, and tem- poral constraints.
  
• Is a “cognitive and social culture, not a geographic one.”[11]
  
• Is “the product of like-minded people finding a com- mon ‘place’ to interact.”[12]
  
• Is inherently more “fragile” than traditional forms of community and culture (John C. Dvorak).
  Thus, cyberculture can be generally defined as the set of technologies (material and intellectual), practices, atti- tudes, modes of thought, and values that developed with cyberspace.[13]
  
  
  4 Identity - “Architectures of cred- ibility”
  Cyberculture, like culture in general, relies on establish- ing identity and credibility. However, in the absence of
  

  4 IDENTITY - “ARCHITECTURES OF CREDIBILITY”
  direct physical interaction, it could be argued that the pro- cess for such establishment is more difficult.
  How does cyberculture rely on and establish identity and credibility? This relationship is two way, with identity and credibility being both used to define the community in cyberspace and to be created within and by online com- munities.
  In some senses, online credibility is established in much the same way that it is established in the offline world; however, since these are two separate worlds, it is not sur- prising that there are differences in their mechanisms and interactions of the markers found in each.
  Following the model put forth by Lawrence Lessig in Code: Version 2.0,[14] the architecture of a given online community may be the single most important factor regu- lating the establishment of credibility within online com- munities. Some factors may be:
  

  • Anonymous versus Known
    
  • Linked to Physical Identity versus Internet-based
    Identity Only
    
  • Unrated Commentary System versus Rated Com- mentary System
    
  • Positive Feedback-oriented versus Mixed Feedback (positive and negative) oriented
    
  • Moderated versus Unmoderated
    

  4.1 Anonymous versus known
  See also: Anonymous post
  
  Many sites allow anonymous commentary, where the user-id attached to the comment is something like “guest” or “anonymous user”. In an architecture that allows anonymous posting about other works, the credibility be- ing impacted is only that of the product for sale, the original opinion expressed, the code written, the video, or other entity about which comments are made (e.g., a Slashdot post). Sites that require “known” postings can vary widely from simply requiring some kind of name to be associated with the comment to requiring registration, wherein the identity of the registrant is visible to other readers of the comment. These “known” identities al- low and even require commentators to be aware of their own credibility, based on the fact that other users will as- sociate particular content and styles with their identity. By definition, then, all blog postings are “known” in that the blog exists in a consistently defined virtual location, which helps to establish an identity, around which cred- ibility can gather. Conversely, anonymous postings are inherently incredible. Note that a “known” identity need have nothing to do with a given identity in the physical world.
  
  
  Linked to physical identity versus internet-based identity only
  Architectures can require that physical identity be asso- ciated with commentary, as in Lessig’s example of Coun- sel Connect.[15] However, to require linkage to physi- cal identity, many more steps must be taken (collecting and storing sensitive information about a user) and safe- guards for that collected information must be established- the users must have more trust of the sites collecting the information (yet another form of credibility). Irrespec- tive of safeguards, as with Counsel Connect,[15] using physical identities links credibility across the frames of the internet and real space, influencing the behaviors of those who contribute in those spaces. However, even purely internet-based identities have credibility. Just as Lessig describes linkage to a character or a particular on- line gaming environment, nothing inherently links a per- son or group to their internet-based persona, but cred- ibility (similar to “characters”) is “earned rather than bought, and because this takes time and (credibility is) not fungible, it becomes increasingly hard” to create a new persona.[16]
  4.3 Unrated commentary system versus rated commentary system
  In some architectures those who review or offer com- ments can, in turn, be rated by other users. This tech- nique offers the ability to regulate the credibility of given authors by subjecting their comments to direct “quantifi- able” approval ratings.
  4.4 Positive feedback-oriented versus mixed feedback (positive and nega- tive) oriented
  Architectures can be oriented around positive feedback or a mix of both positive and negative feedback. While a particular user may be able to equate fewer stars with a “negative” rating, the semantic difference is potentially important. The ability to actively rate an entity negatively may violate laws or norms that are important in the juris- diction in which the internet property is important. The more public a site, the more important this concern may be, as noted by Goldsmith & Wu regarding eBay.[17]
  4.5 Moderated versus unmoderated
  Architectures can also be oriented to give editorial con- trol to a group or individual. Many email lists are worked in this fashion (e.g., Freecycle). In these situations, the architecture usually allows, but does not require that con- tributions be moderated. Further, moderation may take two different forms: reactive or proactive. In the reactive
  

  mode, an editor removes posts, reviews, or content that is deemed offensive after it has been placed on the site or list. In the proactive mode, an editor must review all contributions before they are made public.
  In a moderated setting, credibility is often given to the moderator. However, that credibility can be damaged by appearing to edit in a heavy-handed way, whether reac- tive or proactive (as experienced by digg.com). In an un- moderated setting, credibility lies with the contributors alone. It should be noted that the very existence of an architecture allowing moderation may lend credibility to the forum being used (as in Howard Rheingold’s exam- ples from the WELL),[9] or it may take away credibility (as in corporate web sites that post feedback, but edit it highly).
  
  

Digital citizen

A digital citizen refers to a person utilizing information technology (IT) in order to engage in society, politics, and government participation. K. Mossberger, et al.^[1] define digital citizens as "those who use the Internet regularly and effectively".^[2][3] In qualifying as a digital citizen, a person generally must have extensive skills and knowledge in using the Internet through computers, mobile phones, and web-ready devices to interact with private and public organizations.

People characterizing themselves as digital citizens often use IT extensively, creating blogs, using social networks, and participating in online journalism.^[4]Although digital citizenship potentially begins when any child, teen, and/or adult signs up for an email address, posts pictures online, uses e-commerce to buy merchandise online, and/or participates in any electronic function that is B2C or B2B, the process of becoming a digital citizen goes beyond simple Internet activity. In the framework of T.H. Marshall's perspective on citizenship's three traditions (liberalism, republicanism, and ascriptive hierarchy), digital citizenry can occur alongside the promotion of equal economic opportunity, as well as increased political participation and civic duty.^[5] Digital technology can lower the barriers to entry for participation as a citizen within society.

Highly developed states possess the capacity to link their respective governments with digital sites. Such sites function in ways such as illuminating recent legislation, educating current and future policy objectives, lending agency toward political candidates, and allowing citizens to voice themselves in a political way. Likewise, the generation of these sites has been linked to increased voting advocacy.^[1] Lack of access toward becoming a digital citizen can be a serious drawback, since many elementary procedures such as tax reports filing, birth registration, and use of Web sites to support candidates in political campaigns (E-democracy) etc. have been transferred to only be available via the Internet. Furthermore, many cultural and commercial entities only publicize information on web pages. Non-digital citizens will not be able to retrieve this information and this may lead to social isolation or economic stagnation. The gap between digital citizens and non-digital citizens is often referred to as the digital divide. Currently, the digital divide is a subject of academic debate as access to the Internet has increased, but the place in which the Internet is accessed (work, home, public library, etc.) has a significant effect on how such access will be utilized, if even in a manner related to citizenry. Recent scholarship has correlated the desire to be technologically proficient with greater belief in computer access equity, and thus, digital citizenship (Shelley, et al.).

In developing countries digital citizens are sparser. They consist of the people in such countries who utilize technology to overcome their localized obstacles including development issues, corruption, and even military conflict.^[6] Examples of such citizens include users of Ushahidi during the 2007 disputed Kenyan election, and protesters in the Arab Spring movements who used media to document repression of protests.

Netocracy

Netocracy was a term invented by the editorial board of the American technology magazine Wired in the early 1990s. A portmanteau of Internet and aristocracy, netocracy refers to a perceived global upper-class that bases its power on a technological advantage and networking skills, in comparison to what is portrayed as a bourgeoisie of a gradually diminishing importance.

The concept was later picked up and redefined by the Swedish philosophers Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvistfor their book Netocracy — The New Power Elite and Life After Capitalism (originally published in Swedish in 2000 as Nätokraterna - boken om det elektroniska klassamhället, published in English by Reuters/Pearsall UK in 2002).

The netocracy concept has been compared with Richard Florida's concept of the creative class. Bard and Söderqvist have also defined an under-class in opposition to the netocracy, which they refer to as the consumtariat.

Netocracy can also refer to "Internet-enabled democracy" where issue-based politics will supersede party-based politics.

Other usage

The word netocracy is also used as a portmanteau of Internet and democracy, not of Internet and aristocracy:

• "In Seattle, organized labor ran interference for the ragtag groups assembled behind it, marshaling several thousand union members who feared that free trade might send their jobs abroad. In Washington, labor focused on lobbying Congress over the China-trade issue, leaving the IMF and the World Bank to the ad hoc Netocracy."^[1]
• "From his bungalow in Berkeley, he's spreading the word of grassroots netocracy to the Beltway. He formed an Internet political consulting firm with Jerome ..." ^[2]