Building a 2.0 Canon

 No, not a Cannon...a Canon.
Here are 2 definitions that I like:

1: a rule or especially body of rules or principles generally  established as valid and fundamental in a field or art  or philosophy;

2. The collection of books received as genuine Holy Scriptures, called the {sacred canon}, or general rule of moral and religious duty, given by inspiration;

History has a canon. Anthropology has a canon. Most fields have those works which are considered indispensable or "must reads." Up until now, the 2.0 world has largely had a canon of definitions but Venkatesh Rao has blogged a post which starts to establish the case for a 2.0 canon of books. I know, seems a bit ironic to be proposing something as decidedly 1.0 as books as essential reference points for understanding 2.0 but there ya go. 

Over there on the right is Rao's visualization of this 2.0 canon - again with the irony of creating a visualization of text-based works. I think its a good start....can you hear the "BUT" coming?

Of course there are holes - the great pleasure is in finding the holes and proposing the works that will fill them. Here is my start [I'd love to hear/see your additions] (fair warning - I also include magazine articles):

The Wealth of Networks
As We May Think
The New Age of the Book
The Black Swan
Everything is Miscellaneous
The Social Life of Information

...now those are just the quick ones of the top of my head...help me with the rest......or is it just an exercise in futility to compile a list of static books that seek to describe such a dynamic phenom? Should we also have a canon for videos like The Machine is Us/Using Us, Did You Know? and anything from Common Craft? What about a canon of del.icio.us feeds or people to follow on Twitter - or does the definition of a canon reject such ephemera?

Comments

[Venkat]

My original list was just a rough-and-ready reading guide and, frankly, an anchor point for my own reviews of many of the books. I had an unreconstructed definition of canonicity in mind.

But since you brought it up, the issue of canonicity is an interesting one that I am dealing with in other drafts.

A reconstructed notion of canonicity for the 2.0 era must clearly derive from the main archetype, Wikipedia, which models a contentious, evolving Babel-like folk/crowd canon. The opposite is something like Bloom's 'The Western Canon.'

I agree 'We are smarter than me' belongs (for form, if not content). Curiously though, ALL of Stephen Downes points I would disagree with:

1. "...if expressed by books, is essentially a publisher's interpretation of it." There are no priests in 2.0. Publishers and bloggers belong on the same level playing field.

2. "a set of soft, populist, unscientific works. From observers, and not practitioners." Academic cathedrals are practically the bastions of 1.0 style canonicity with a degreed scholarly elite legitmizing some works over others. The pop science vs. 'peer reviewed primary' soft/hard distinction is 1.0 priestliness at its most evolved. I utterly disagree. There is good stuff in the journals but that is the LAST place I'd look to legitimize canonicity. If anything, journal articles must aspire to canonical status by being blogged about or something. Having lived/published/practiced in both worlds, I can personally say, the non-academic, so-called-soft world is where the real action and creativity is.

3. "The quintessential act of web 2.0 is online publication - that, and nowhere else, is where to find the canon." Again, 'priestly' is the word that comes to mind. For an ironic 2.0 canon, nobody gets to draw an absolute in/out perimeter for everybody. You get a fuzzy set created by the contending perimeters drawn by all observers. On a more prosaic level, it is beyond silly to exclude something simply because it does not exist online. An ironic canon 2.0 must, paradoxically, find ways to include its own periphery and background of offline stuff.

[jay cross]

Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody

[mark oehlert]

Stephen,

Couple 'o things:

1. I understand the irony of a canon of 2.0 books BUT are there not underlying dynamics at work here that could be valid subjects for books?

2. I certainly can see your point WRT to the nature of some of the works listed but wouldn't apply that "soft" label to something like "The Wealth of Networks"

3. Where then would you point us to for hard, scientific looks at the dynamics of 2.0?

4. Thx for the comments!

[Stephen Downes]

I wouldn't include books at all.

The putative 'canon' of web 2.0, if expressed by books, is essentially a publisher's interpretation of it.

That means we get - as we can see from the list - a set of soft, populist, unscientific works. From observers, and not practitioners.

The quintessential act of web 2.0 is online publication - that, and nowhere else, is where to find the canon.

It's not like there is a shortage of material.

[Eric Wilbanks]

I personally would add "The Back of the Napkin" even though it is about visual thinking.

And I think no such list is complete without including "We Are Smarter," the crowdsourced book from the Mzinga community.