Filed under: crowds, ethics, new media, seesmic | Tags: ethics, new media, seesmic
As a final project, one of the options was to lead a class discussion, and another was to create our own project that posed an ethical dilemma. I merged the two, and posed a real-life ethical dilemma to some users for the video message board site Seesmic. The participants were self-selecting, and although the sample is small in number and broad in geographical location, it is interesting to see where they tended to agree. Surely Seesmic appeals to a specific demographic, so some of these agreements are not all too surprising. However, it is still interesting to see normal people considering a broad and contentious ethical topic in public.
Today’s media landscape, for its privacy concerns, shallow analysis, and sensationalist journalism also allows for the crowd to find its own wisdom. In that search, there almost always noise, tangents, pointless banter, and whatever else anyone might be able to think of. To stay true to this, I did not moderate these video responses at all. This includes, as you will find, one instance where a woman goes completely off topic to talk about a different issue all together. I think this is valuable to the conversation, as it speaks to the nature of human interaction and the challenges of finding solutions to ethical dilemmas. On the one hand, many people want many conflicting solutions. On the other, many people are completely apathetic. As is the case with voting in the US, the challenge to change people’s minds is often the challenge to make them care in the first place.
Seesmic is an odd venue for such a conversation because while it is widely public, it is fleeting in the public thread, later only traceable by a search. In that way, it bears similarity to any news site. However, the difference is that the more people who respond to a topic, the longer the topic stays alive. On top of that, I believe there is value in bringing these issues to light out of the context of the 24 hour news cycle. These users’ participation is a little bit of proof that some people are willing to consider important ethical dilemmas outside of soundbites and lead stories. This kind of conversation is indicative of a healthy society, striving towards an ethical existence. That in and of itself is reason to listen.
Here are the videos:
NOTE: One of the conversation participants has since erased his Seesmic account, and Seesmic erased all of his videos. His name is Billy, and my responses to him are posted anyway to give some sense of what his opinion was.
Here’s a little background from the BBC
Billy – Removed by Seesmic
Seesmic is a free service. I encourage anybody and everybody to open an account and join this conversation!
My user name is ashahbaz.
