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"By collecting millions of peoples' immediate thoughts, Twitter is building the Web's best database of "real time" information, these people argue. And that collection might be very valuable—when people want to know what's going on in the world right now, they'll increasingly check Twitter, not Google."
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"Nearly everything you see, hear and read that isn't from a friend — whether on TV, the radio, or even on the Web — comes from a for-profit gatekeeper. "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one," as they say, and these corporations own most of the 21st-century presses in America."
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"What do all of these media projects have in common? They leverage participatory media technologies to allow people from a variety of perspectives to work together to tackle a topic or problem—to share stories and facts, to ask hard questions, and then shape a judgment on which they can act.
People come in as participants in a media project and leave recognizing themselves as members of a public—a group of people commonly affected by an issue. They have found each other and exchanged information on an issue in which they all see themselves as having a stake. In some cases, they take action based on this transformative act of communication."
"This is the kind of media that political philosophers have longed for. … They all saw ordinary people talking to each other about what matters as what holds the power of corporations and government in a society accountable."
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"Put differently, people who are members of online social networks are not so much 'networking' as they are 'broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,' says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever."