Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0

The March 2008 edition of First Monday is a special issue: “Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0.” For the theorist in (any of) you, this really is some amazing stuff to read. I personally recommend “Interactivity is Evil! A critical investigation of Web 2.0” by Kylie Jarrett. It basically applies and (re)interprets Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power in the context of Web 2.0’s creative and participatory culture, but with some very interesting conclusions.

I’ve only (so far) skimmed a couple of the other articles, but they appear to cover a nice gamut of ideas: privacy, social networking, and economic theory, among other things.

Seriously, amazing stuff — it’s about time somebody was willing to offer up solid criticism on the 2.0 front. Pretty much any dogma is worth dismantling, if only so that we can see how it works.

Discovered via Meredith.