4 ms·

Can you give a bit more detail on the term "Averagisation", couldn't find much about it from a quick google. What you describe sounds more like polarization.

mrtksn 8y ago
I just coined that word, but you are right that it is polarisation in a sense that it's either too light or too heavy. However, what I mean by "Averagisation" is that all the content begins to look like the previous one and as the trend is to drift either to the most monetizable or most politically extremist. I wouldn't call this polarisation because these are not polar opposites. The "nice, advertisers friendly" content is not polar opposite to the extremist content, they co-exist without any conflict. So, the content becomes more from the same, just they are in two categories.
- catamorphismic 8y ago
  "Uniformization" sounds like a better fit, if we are searching for a more conventional word.
  - mrtksn 8y ago
    Maybe. I just don't want to use a well-established word to tag a new phenomenon because people can start judging the situation by the wider meaning of the word "Uniformization" or maybe different people will understand something different. Instead, I coin a word and proceed to explain it. I find that using words with precise technical definitions or words that are jargons is dangerous in an informal context.
  - lmm 8y ago
    Sounds analogous to Stross' concept of a "beige dictatorship" in politics.
  - gr33nman 8y ago
    Or “Homogenization”
    - bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
      I think this is the more established term.
  - prepend 8y ago
    Is it related to “regression to the mean?”
- ctraynor 8y ago
  What you're describing seems to be pretty much exactly polarization. You get one set of creators who want monetary gain and so their content fits within certain limits. Over time this will create more similar content as they watch what works for other people. The other set of creators have different goals and don't care about monetary gain. The popular parts of this content will also tend to local maximum based on the level of extremism that's popular.
  - mrtksn 8y ago
    An iPhone unboxing video is not a polar opposite of a video complaining about feminists. I wouldn't call this polarisation even if it can be described as the polarisation of income models because my concern is about the content of the videos. I find it disturbing to see comments on HN completely disregarding the content and context and default to monetary optimisation. I believe that people and their creations are what matters and the business models around those are incidental, despite the fact the business is influencing the content. People always sing songs but the way they profit from this keeps changing over time. Selling tickets, selling recording, selling streaming, selling right - all change as the technology and society changes. Therefore, I think that the polarisation is not the right word here as there is no polarisation of the content of ad-friendly and controversial content. They might be polarised among themselves tho, like iPhone vs Samsung and MAGA vs Antifa.
    - ctraynor 8y ago
      The content of two videos don't need to disagree with each other for the general effect to be called polarization. The polarization isn't about income models, it's about the different kinds of content (light hearted safe content that aligns with advertisers vs extreme content that doesn't). I may have confused things by mentioning gain. The different goals of the creators was just my basic explanation as to why similar content continues being created because the effect is already in place. I find it disturbing that you disregard the effect of capital. Advertisers are 100% focused on monetary optimization, and they're very good at driving creators to what will work best for them. Of course content and context is important. But, money drives the content creation. Even when it isn't used to pay for the original content. Advertisers want impressions and clicks. Content creators want more viewers. The type of content aligns with advertisers goals -> money becomes involved -> more similar content. And other creators see this and want part of it.
- ableal 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law (Why ice-cream stands on a beach bunch together in the middle instead of being conveniently - for customers - distributed.)
michaelt 8y ago
You might find more results if you look up "self-censorship" [1] although averagisation might be more subtle than that. There are certainly examples of things like UK newspapers downplaying reports of crime by their advertisers [2], newspapers with advertorial "the real russia" supplements being less critical of russia, local newspapers that rely on ads from estate agents not reporting on crime by local estate agents, and suchlike. There's not much reporting of this stuff online (who'd report it, after all?) but if you can get a paper copy of Private Eye, there are regular reports of this sort of thing. And of course, you can easily imagine Youtube video creators not wanting their videos demonetised - while demonetising seems pretty inscrutable, "don't offend advertisers" seems to be the name of the game. There's also a subtler process at work than reports just not getting run; it's that journalists know they won't find it profitable to focus their career on scrutinising big businesses, and youtubers know channels that talk about sexual health and prescription drug costs tend to not do well - so they focus their careers/channels in different areas. In this case, there's no spiked report or tagged video serving as a smoking gun - just a "lack of interest" as interested people focus their energy elsewhere. [1] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=self-censorship+advertising https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=self-censorship+advertisin... [2] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-media-telegraph-idUKKBN0LO28920150220 https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-media-telegraph-id...
bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
Conforming, consciously or subconsciously, due to the ubiquitous presence of surveillance. Averagization is a great euphemism for the beginning of the slippery slope to censorship.
chiph 8y ago
Just the opposite. The content becomes more bland and inoffensive over time, as advertisers don't want to take the risk of offending even a very small subset of viewers.

mrtksn 8y ago

I just coined that word, but you are right that it is polarisation in a sense that it's either too light or too heavy. However, what I mean by "Averagisation" is that all the content begins to look like the previous one and as the trend is to drift either to the most monetizable or most politically extremist. I wouldn't call this polarisation because these are not polar opposites. The "nice, advertisers friendly" content is not polar opposite to the extremist content, they co-exist without any conflict. So, the content becomes more from the same, just they are in two categories.

catamorphismic 8y ago
"Uniformization" sounds like a better fit, if we are searching for a more conventional word.
- mrtksn 8y ago
  Maybe. I just don't want to use a well-established word to tag a new phenomenon because people can start judging the situation by the wider meaning of the word "Uniformization" or maybe different people will understand something different. Instead, I coin a word and proceed to explain it. I find that using words with precise technical definitions or words that are jargons is dangerous in an informal context.
- lmm 8y ago
  Sounds analogous to Stross' concept of a "beige dictatorship" in politics.
- gr33nman 8y ago
  Or “Homogenization”
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
    I think this is the more established term.
- prepend 8y ago
  Is it related to “regression to the mean?”
ctraynor 8y ago
What you're describing seems to be pretty much exactly polarization. You get one set of creators who want monetary gain and so their content fits within certain limits. Over time this will create more similar content as they watch what works for other people. The other set of creators have different goals and don't care about monetary gain. The popular parts of this content will also tend to local maximum based on the level of extremism that's popular.
- mrtksn 8y ago
  An iPhone unboxing video is not a polar opposite of a video complaining about feminists. I wouldn't call this polarisation even if it can be described as the polarisation of income models because my concern is about the content of the videos. I find it disturbing to see comments on HN completely disregarding the content and context and default to monetary optimisation. I believe that people and their creations are what matters and the business models around those are incidental, despite the fact the business is influencing the content. People always sing songs but the way they profit from this keeps changing over time. Selling tickets, selling recording, selling streaming, selling right - all change as the technology and society changes. Therefore, I think that the polarisation is not the right word here as there is no polarisation of the content of ad-friendly and controversial content. They might be polarised among themselves tho, like iPhone vs Samsung and MAGA vs Antifa.
  - ctraynor 8y ago
    The content of two videos don't need to disagree with each other for the general effect to be called polarization. The polarization isn't about income models, it's about the different kinds of content (light hearted safe content that aligns with advertisers vs extreme content that doesn't). I may have confused things by mentioning gain. The different goals of the creators was just my basic explanation as to why similar content continues being created because the effect is already in place. I find it disturbing that you disregard the effect of capital. Advertisers are 100% focused on monetary optimization, and they're very good at driving creators to what will work best for them. Of course content and context is important. But, money drives the content creation. Even when it isn't used to pay for the original content. Advertisers want impressions and clicks. Content creators want more viewers. The type of content aligns with advertisers goals -> money becomes involved -> more similar content. And other creators see this and want part of it.
ableal 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law (Why ice-cream stands on a beach bunch together in the middle instead of being conveniently - for customers - distributed.)

michaelt 8y ago

You might find more results if you look up "self-censorship" [1] although averagisation might be more subtle than that. There are certainly examples of things like UK newspapers downplaying reports of crime by their advertisers [2], newspapers with advertorial "the real russia" supplements being less critical of russia, local newspapers that rely on ads from estate agents not reporting on crime by local estate agents, and suchlike. There's not much reporting of this stuff online (who'd report it, after all?) but if you can get a paper copy of Private Eye, there are regular reports of this sort of thing. And of course, you can easily imagine Youtube video creators not wanting their videos demonetised - while demonetising seems pretty inscrutable, "don't offend advertisers" seems to be the name of the game. There's also a subtler process at work than reports just not getting run; it's that journalists know they won't find it profitable to focus their career on scrutinising big businesses, and youtubers know channels that talk about sexual health and prescription drug costs tend to not do well - so they focus their careers/channels in different areas. In this case, there's no spiked report or tagged video serving as a smoking gun - just a "lack of interest" as interested people focus their energy elsewhere. [1] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=self-censorship+advertising https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=self-censorship+advertisin... [2] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-media-telegraph-idUKKBN0LO28920150220 https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-media-telegraph-id...

bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago

Conforming, consciously or subconsciously, due to the ubiquitous presence of surveillance. Averagization is a great euphemism for the beginning of the slippery slope to censorship.

chiph 8y ago

Just the opposite. The content becomes more bland and inoffensive over time, as advertisers don't want to take the risk of offending even a very small subset of viewers.