The Colbert Report – What News elements are Satirized

‘The Colbert Report’ is an Award Winning American comedy television program that airs in the United States of America and the United Kingdom and stars political humorist Stephen Colbert, a former correspondent for The Daily Show. ‘The Colbert Report’ is a spin-off of ‘The Daily Show’ and just like ‘The Daily Show’ it analysis’s politics and the media. It satirizes personality-driven political pundit programs, particularly Fox News‘ The O’Reilly Factor. The show focuses on Stephen Colbert, a fictional anchorman and is described as a “well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot“, is a caricature of televised political specialist. The Colbert Report was nominated for four Emmys each in 2006, 2007 and 2008, two Television Critics Association Awards, and two Satellite Awards. It received a Special Recognition award at the 2007 GLAAD Media Awards. It has been presented as non-satirical journalism in several instances, by the Tom DeLay Legal Defense Trust, and following Robert Wexler’s interview on the program. The Report has had cultural influence in a number of ways. In 2006, after Colbert encouraged viewers to vote online to name a Hungarian bridge after him, he won the first round of voting with 17,231,724 votes. The Ambassador of the Republic of Hungary presented Mr. Colbert with a declaration certifying him as the winner of the second and final round of voting, though it was later announced that the bridge would be named the Megyeri Bridge.

Much of the programme focuses of ridiculing the current news and it does this through a series of methods. The programme has a very distinctive opening sequence where each episode opens with riddle regarding the show’s topics and guest, followed by a verbal metaphor that promotes the show. Colbert also, acts in a similar way to the opening of a genuine News Report although he takes the actions to the extreme and consequently makes fun of them for example: he points directly to the camera and often when he looks to a different camera he will swing his entire body to face to over, just to over emphasize to joke about following different cameras and more often than not he tends to shout, which is again away of mimicking the real news. The show’s opening title sequence begins with images of an eagle (imitating the sense of patriotism) along with dramatic music it shows shots of him waving a massive stars and stripes flag, secondly he striking poses with words flying past the screen. Originally, the last word was grippy, but it has changed to ‘megamerican’, ‘Lincolnish’, ‘superstantial’, ‘freem’, ‘eneagled’, ‘flagaphile’, ‘good’, ‘gutly’, ‘warrior-poet’, ‘Rock On’, and ‘Multi-grain’ (as of July 21, 2008). The sequence ends with another computer-generated eagle shrieking toward the foreground, which opens the set of the show.

Following the opening sequence, Colbert runs through the day’s headlines, similar to that of ‘The Daily Show’ but with a pretend-right-wing spin. The program propter then begins with Colbert addressing a specific topic. Many of Colbert’s actions are similar and typical of a newsreader, for instance little actions like straightening papers clicking pens and speaking with a constant change in tone. The set for ‘The Colbert Report’ is called “The Eagle’s Nest” and reflects and facilitates Colbert’s arrogant style. The set has two main areas: the desk, where Colbert hosts most of the show and the guest interview area to the right. On one wall, above an artificial fireplace, is a portrait of Colbert, on the show’s first anniversary, the portrait was replaced by one of Colbert standing in front of the mantel with the first portrait above it; the original was auctioned off at a charity event. Colbert stated that the portrait will be changed every year to add another level of depth. On October 17, 2007, the portrait was removed and replaced with a new one that followed an identical pattern, but changed Colbert’s placement at the front.

Stephen Colbert’s character and ‘The Colbert Report’ generally parodies the Bill O’Reilly and ‘The O’Reilly Factor’. The broadcasters have even moved new episodes of The Colbert Report so that they are scheduled in the same time slot as rebroadcasts of The O’Reilly Factor, while Colbert rebroadcasts are scheduled during new O’Reilly shows. Furthermore ‘The Colbert Report’ features a remarks section called “The Word”, similar to O’Reilly’s “Talking Points Memo”. Like the “Memo”, it features an announcer stating a political point of view with a graphic text animation next to him. The purpose of O’Reilly’s text is to emphasize his points whereas Colbert’s text generally serves as an ironic counterpoint to his character’s position. Additionally, Colbert parodies O’Reilly’s references to his program as the “no spin zone” by inviting viewers of his show to “take a spin in the no fact zone.

Questionnaire

1.       Are you Male or Female?                                           M                F 

2.       What Age are you?                                         0-15                       16-25                     26-40                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   41-60                       60+

3.       What is your job?                                             ………………………………………………………………..

4.       What is your annual income?                      £0-£20K                                £20K-£30K                                                                                                           £30K-£50K                           £50K-£100K

5.       What is your social class?                              Working Class

Middle Class

Upper Middle Class

County

6.       How do you access the news?                   Terrestrial TV                  State which Channel………….

Satellite TV                      State which Channel………….

Internet

Radio

Newspaper                      State which Type……………….

7.       Why is it your preferred way of getting the news?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

8.       How often do you watch the news?                        Once Everyday

More than three times a Week

Every Weekday

Weekday/Weekend

Occasionally

Once a Month

Once a Year

Technical Analysis of ‘FOX NEWS’

The ‘Fox News Channel’ was created by Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdock and launched on October 7^th 1996 and currently broadcasts to over 85 million homes within the United States. At present ‘Fox News Channel’ is rated as the cable news network with the largest number of regular viewers in America and perhaps the reasons for its promised success is due to the technical features on the shows and how they, together, cleverly draw in the viewers. It’s clear that the producers have developed methods of technical effect to attract an audience, to the programme, through a series of attractive camera angles, captions, logos and scroll bars, constantly feeding the viewers with vital information.

One of the most obvious features to the set-up is the on-screen bars; repeatedly rising headlines and information concerning other stories and on-screen reports. For instance a central bar across the screen features the headlines of the story being read by the presenters, a stock bar showing the rise and falls in vital stocks, a caption bar which reminds the viewer of what they are watching and a ‘bizz’ (busy) bar which scrolls from one side of the screen to the other – explaining stories not being covered at the time or reports to come up later. This bar, like the others, is a way of keeping viewers at it draws their attention from one report to another and as they might see one story, just briefly, they will then stay with the channel until that story comes back round on the scroll again.

‘Fox News Channel’ also focuses heavily on the use of logos. At no point will there not be a logo on screen, and this persistently pumps a message into the views mind – ‘what channel they are watching.’ Within the lower section of the screen, amongst the bars and captions, the ‘Fox News’ logo continuously rotates featuring under titles, such as ‘.com’, the time and date. The movement of this animation immediately draws the viewer’s attention to the logo and this advertisement reminds the public that they are watching Fox. Furthermore, whenever there is a live report, like most News channels they produce a small caption in the top left corner of the screen, confirming the live report ‘LIVE’ yet Fox go one step further and this message flips to say ‘FOX’ nearly every 3 seconds and again it draws the viewers eye from the reporter on screen.

Resembling many British News channels the studio has a very similar set design. For example, much akin to the BBC News 24 Channel, the background of the studio shows a semi-transparent view of offices revealing many members of the company hard at work, giving the impression that the station is hard at work to deliver up to date information as it arrives as well as showing a degree of professionalism. In addition the presenter’s appearance comes across as rather formal, which can be identified by their proper attire (suits, clean shaven, well groomed). Also the presenters have an obvious attractive quality to them, as most of them appear good-looking. This works as a solid way of attracting audiences as they are drawn to the sex appeal of the presenters and can be seen as a pleasing sight for the views as they watch the programme. However its noticeable they the presenters do not always ensure that what they are saying is clear. For instance they tend to stumble over words and the precision of their speech is rather poor, whereas they tend to focus on the speed of their dialogue. This ensures that they can dispatch as much information as possible in the short given time.

Much like the studio they tend to glamorise the programme with visual camera effects and short animations, such as the ‘Hurricane Gustav’ video what they use over dramatic footage of the report with music and distressing images. This is of course to relate to the American culture whereby giving the story a Action Film vibe the views will immediately relate the picture to Hollywood, and so in some cases It could end up looking fictional. Moreover many of the camera angles used in the studio have a film sense to them, with dramatic sweeping and tracking shots, panning over head as aerial shots to reveal the presenters. Overall it just feels like an action film and yet its purpose is to give the audience an overview of the studio to make it seem more familiar. Also by creating a fluent running order of information they can make the viewers feel more relaxed about what they are watching, without over stressing them with a busy screen.

A spate of stabbing incidents have dominated the headlines in recent weeks. But what are the facts behind knife crime and which young people are in greatest danger?

“Tackling knife culture, especially among young people, is paramount to the safety of our communities, and I am determined to reduce the devastation caused by knife crime,” then Home Secretary Charles Clarke said in the spring of 2006.

Since then there has been a knife amnesty, numerous government initiatives and photo opportunities, with ministers slamming home the same message – that knives will not be tolerated.

But still the deaths caused by knives go on.

According to the British Crime Survey (BCS), overall violent crime has decreased by 41% since a peak in 1995.

Knives are used in about 8% of violent incidents, according to the BCS, a level that has largely remained the same during the past decade.

But the BCS figures do not include under-16s, something which the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced this month would change.

Criminologist Kevin Stenson, from Middlesex University’s Crime and Conflict Research Centre, said the politicians needed to do more to address the problems of those aged under 16 and added: “They are the people who fear being attacked with knives, they carry them because they are scared and for respect. It is about macho status.”

But Ife Igunnubole, a youth worker in Hackney, London, said knives and guns brought a sense of power to youths who felt powerlessness.

He said: “There is a level of desperation on the streets, brought about by poverty, which is creating a culture of fear.”

Mr Igunnubole, who runs mentoring and leadership projects, said tougher sentences and stop-and-search powers were all very well in the short term, but ultimately they were “just scratching the surface” and in the long term there was a need to address issues of poverty and materialism.

Richard Garside, the director of the Centre of Crime and Justice Studies at Kings College London, said: “If you look at the figures for the last 10 years the number of knife victims has remained relatively stable – although there have been spikes – at 200 to 220 a year.

“But there is some evidence the demographic has changed. The average age of homicide victims overall has been going down, with younger and younger victims.”

The falling age of victims is something that has been found with both knife and gun crime.

Mr Garside said: “Those living in poorer parts of town are inevitably most at risk. For many years the murder capital for knife crime has been Glasgow, but now we are seeing it as a major problem in Manchester and London and other cities.”

One Scottish police officer told BBC News: “If you think you’ve got it bad down in London, you should take a look at Glasgow.”

Scotland, and Glasgow in particular, has some frightening statistics when it comes to knife crime.

·  Last year there were 73 murders in the Strathclyde Police force area, 40 of which involved knives

·  Knife crime levels in Scotland are 3.5 times higher than in England or Wales

·  Scotland has a homicide rate of 5.3 per 100,000 in the 10-to-29 age group, which compares with one per 100,000 in England and Wales

Karyn McCluskey, head of Strathclyde’s Violence Reduction Unit, said knife crime was endemic and dated back to the “razor gangs” of the 1920s.

She said: “People give all sorts of reasons why they carry knives, including protecting themselves. But a knife is not a weapon of defence, it’s a weapon of offence.”

Ms McCluskey said: “Much of it is to do with bravado. Machismo is a huge issue up here and the lack of role models too. We often get knives being used by grandfathers, fathers and sons.

“Part of the problem is that they don’t have the skills to walk away. If they’re in a taxi queue and it’s raining and they’ve been drinking, if someone looks at them in a funny way there will be a fight. It’s as simple as that.”

She said some offenders mistakenly thought they could stab a rival in the buttocks without harm, but she added: “You can bleed to death if you hit a femoral artery. There is no safe place to stab anybody.”

In the past few years politicians both north and south of the border have steadily increased the penalty for carrying knives, but Richard Garside said there was no evidence tougher sentences act as a deterrent.

“Many of these youths say they are carrying a knife for their own protection, but if they are calculating to commit a serious offence they will not think about the prospect of getting caught,” he said.

No doubt 18-year-old Beatriz Martins-Paes was not thinking about tough sentences when she went out one night in April 2005 armed with a 4in (12cm) kitchen knife.

She is now two years into a life sentence.

The teenager plunged the knife into the chest of 15-year-old Charlotte Polius at a party in Ilford, east London, after over-reacting to a perceived slight.

It is a shame courts are not televised, because the evidence of a Home Office pathologist would have been extremely educational viewing in schools.

Charlotte’s mother wept quietly as Dr Vesna Djurovic described how the blade entered the heart and cut through two major blood vessels, causing huge blood loss.

When asked if the teenager could have been saved by paramedics, she said: “No, I don’t think she had any chance of survival.”

But perhaps even more powerful for a class full of inner-city and streetwise youngsters would have been to witness Martins-Paes when she gave evidence.

“I cannot explain it. It was all unreal. I did not believe it happened. It was just, like, shocking,” she said.

The weapon she used was a simple kitchen knife and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, said on Tuesday: “The knives we are seeing are not nearly as often home-made constructed weapons, as weapons you would take from the kitchen drawer.

“Parents have a duty now to be asking their teenagers: ‘Are you involved in this knife carrying?’”

It may be that the recent spate of knife deaths is simply a spike on a graph – a statistical quirk – but there is no doubt the carrying of knives and guns has not gone out of fashion.

The fatal stabbing of a man yesterday in one of London’s busiest shopping streets in broad daylight has again thrown up headlines about knife crime in Britain.

Boris Johnson, in accepting the office of London mayor, pledged to rid the capital of the “scourge” of knife crime.

Just hours beforehand, 15-year-old Lylle Tulloch had been stabbed to death in stairwell in Southwark, the 12th teenage fatality in London this year. Since then, 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen was murdered in south-east London, and yesterday a young man in his twenties was knifed outside a McDonalds in Oxford Street.

Incidents such as these have fuelled the public perception that knife crime is out of control, yet this is not borne out by the statistics.

According to the British Crime Survey, knife-enabled crime (any crime involving a knife) over the past decade has remained stable at around 6-7% of all crime, comprising 30% of all homicides.

In fact, the most recent crime survey by the Metropolitan police showed that knife crime has actually dropped by 15.7% over the past two years, from 12,122 to 10,220 incidents.

Nevertheless, that still amounts to a knife-related incident every 52 minutes. Knife crimes were also four times more prevalent than gun crimes; and the risk of serious injury was more than double than that for gun crime – statistics that will give the London mayor and his newly appointed knife tsar, Ray Lewis, pause for thought.

Concern over stabbings is not limited to the capital, however. The prevalence of knives on the streets has increased in recent years, according to the Police Federation of England and Wales which will be discussing knife crime and gang violence at the organisation’s annual conference next week.

Knife crime affects young people disproportionately. Statistics show that teenagers in London, particularly those between the ages of 17 and 20, are the most likely to be victims of knife crime, according to the Metropolitan police.

Also notable is the increase in violent crimes committed by 15 and 16-year-olds. According a survey compiled by the Youth Justice Board (YJB), violent offences committed by 16-year-olds rose from 17% in 2004, to 25% in 2005, while those perpetrated by 15-year-olds climbed from 20% in 2004, to 26% in 2005.

Related to this is the increased number of young people arming themselves with knives. The YJB survey reported a 12% increase in the number of teenagers carrying knives since 2002, with the proportion of girls carrying knives rising sharply in recent years, from 15% in 2004 to 21% in 2005.

One in five of those convicted for possessing a knife were aged between 10 and 17 in 2006, according to Home Office statistics.

In their report, the YJB asserted that the increase in children carrying knives was primarily out of fear of bullying or attack, the perception that all their peers carry knives, or to gain “street cred”.

“There is an overlap between teenagers who carry weapons and those who have been victims of knife crime,” Enver Solomon, deputy director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies told the Guardian.

“If someone has been a victim of crime, they might carry a weapon because they feel unsafe. They don’t inherently want to stab someone; it’s just that the knife in the pocket makes them feel secure. The majority of children are carrying pen-knives, not machetes,” he said.

Simply clamping down on the supply of knives – such as the installation of metal detectors at schools or equipping police with mobile metal detectors, as Mayor Johnson recently suggested – is not sufficient to address the problem, he added.

Instead, the mayor should focus on the social conditions in a cluster of boroughs that have generated a disproportionate number of the capital’s knife crimes. Quoting Metropolitan police studies, Solomon said 2% of London wards have been responsible for 10% of all violent crimes involving teenagers.

“If you examine the conditions in these wards, these are areas of high social deprivation, social exclusion and lack of opportunities for young people,” he explained. “The focus should not be on enforcement, but rather on opportunities for kids, through youth support services, peer mentoring schemes and employment opportunities for school-leavers.”

Home Office measures to tackle knife crime have included an amnesty in 2006, which resulted in almost 100,000 knives being handed in, the doubling of the maximum penalty for possession of a knife from two to four years’ imprisonment, giving teachers new powers to search students for weapons, raising the minimum age for knife ownership to 18 and, most recently, imposing a ban on samurai swords.

But focusing on deterrence is inadequate, said Solomon, adding that the key to reducing knife crime was creating a safer environment for youngsters as well as increasing opportunities for young school leavers.

“You have to look at the social drivers. Why do young boys slip into the illegal drugs economy? It’s not a positive choice, but for some of them it seems to be the only choice. You have to use a range of policy levers to tackle this problem.”

Media obsession risks normalising knife crime

The hysteria about knife crime could cause real damage before it fades away, says Frank Furedi

The current media frenzy about a knife-crime epidemic in London, and Gordon Brown’s declaration that 110,000 problem families will be targeted as part of a new crackdown on feral teenagers, signals the arrival of this summer’s high-profile crime.

Public anguish about the flavour-of-the-month crime is a short-lived enthusiasm. Not so long ago it was the epidemic of gun crime that excited the public’s imagination. Before that our attention was absorbed by ‘happy-slapping’, ‘date-rape drug’ and ‘car-jacking’.

In almost every case the attention devoted to the latest crime epidemic was determined by its media publicity value.

Although far too many young people carry weapons and kill and maim one another, nationwide the number of knife victims has been stable for the past decade. The good news is that, compared to most places in the world, youth homicide in Britain is still fairly

rare. The bad news is that the massive publicity devoted to raising awareness of knife crime has the perverse effect of normalising it.

Stories that communicate the idea that, for teenagers, carrying knives has become a fashion statement, can have the effect of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unlike guns or other exotic items, knives are relatively easy to access. The often repeated assertion that many young people do not feel safe unless they carry a weapon may inadvertently give kids the wrong idea. Especially young, easily impressionable pre-teens.

It has certainly encouraged the Government to embrace the really stupid idea of targeting the 110,000 ‘worst’ families in the land.

Knife crime, it seems, is a perfect opportunity for a Government that has far too much free time on its hands. That is why when it is not issuing new parenting orders it will be escorting young thugs to the hospital beds of knife crime victims. Though given the ridicule Gordon Brown has suffered for that idea, it might never see the light of day. 

How does the public Access the News

The news is a form of the media which updates the public on new stories to do with current issues, events, crises – local and international. More often than not the stories that most broadcasters report are local news, in that they concern the public and the country, yet they do also report on events happening elsewhere on the globe. Any news story which appears in a type media is selected by the producer/chief-editor/director and the selected material is usually chosen due to possibility of bringing in the most viewers. For example a popular news programme (BBC News) will not report on stories like village fates as they would be of no interest to the rest of the country, however if they were to tell of an event, like an American election, that would pull in more viewers and as a result increase the ratings. Personally, I feel that the majority of stories they report on are mostly negative – and I believe that this is due to the fact that a negative story will likely entice viewers to watch the entire story because without the entire story they can’t gather all the details of the event, whereas a more positive story can be summed up rather quickly and consequently it would lose the audiences interest. 

In total there are five most watched News programmes in the UK on television. On the terrestrial channels: BBC News, ITV News, Channel 4 and 5 News and on Satellite News (Sky, CNN, FOX, etc). Yet there are several newspapers in the UK which also report on the news all aimed towards different audiences – Broadsheet papers are mostly aimed at a literate audience due to the educated content and the style of vocabulary – Tabloid papers are mostly aimed towards a less educated audience as the style of stories are mostly gossip and subjective. Although to some degree nearly all papers are subjective in some respects, for instance mostly all the papers have a select political audience like the Daily Mail which is strongly right wing, unlike the Guardian which focuses on mostly left wing reports. Furthermore any News posted on the internet is usually posted on a specific company’s site like the BBC site, which is constantly updated with new stories.

After a series of research I drew some conclusions as to how the news (in general) focuses on different reports. For example I looked at how different ages are represented in the news (youth and elderly), how minorities are portrayed and how celebrities are reported. All of my conclusions have been drawn from recent news stories, for instance a large number of reports on the youth of Britain have had a rather negative focus – sex attacks, pensioner rape, three arrests in group attack, assault on taxi driver, these are just a few of the stories and a counted zero positive bulletins. So, clearly there is a pattern that the news often chooses to include stories related to troubled children, and it’s no wonder that in today’s society the youth have such a bad reputation. The elderly, on the other hand, seem to have a rather opposite type of story. For example a few of the stories I encountered depicted the elderly to be vulnerable – most of the reports were related to the current financial crisis and how most of the aged weren’t entitled to pensions and thus made it seem as though they were going to struggle more than anyone else. Also I found that any story related to a celebrity, they primarily focused on their personal problems like relationships and physical appearances. In my opinion any news to do with a celebrity, mainly from broadsheet papers, it isn’t news, its gossip. 

To continue my research I also carried out a survey to find how people I know access the news. I created a survey with eight questions, a few personal and a few related to how they access the news. I felt that to gather information on their personal life I could incorporate this into my conclusions of how they receive the news. For instance finding out their social background and their class could tell me instantly a lot about how and what they take in from the news. I also wanted to see how often the accessed the news, to tell me whether they are kept updated with the news. All questions were multiple-choice, this way the survey feels less threatening and less imposing on the personal life and also it seems more private (all the questionnaires were anonymous). All be it two were written answers as they were personal answers and couldn’t be categorized.

Straight away I could see that the most popular way people preferred to access the news was through newspapers. They did also say that they get the news from the television and the internet, but newspapers were the favoured choice. There was a mixture of responses as to why it was the preferred choice, but overall I can see that people favoured newspapers because they can select which stories to read, its accessible anytime and they can read at their own pace. The last point is perhaps the most important as it says a lot about news programmes. Perhaps they run stories to quickly or maybe certain areas of the story is rushed and so parts of the information are missed. Which proves my idea that the public like to get a complete overview of all the information, but perhaps the news programmes don’t always deliver. Furthermore reports on the television are often interrupter and consequently the narrative of the story can be lost and as a result people could lose interest. 

Moreover the majority of people I surveyed were at a similar age, most were either seventeen or eighteen, although a few adults were included, which does balance out the survey. This is rather an interesting find, I would have predicted that a large number of students aged seventeen would access the news through the TV as it’s a popular activity for teenagers (to watch TV) although they most get the news from papers. This could be related to their social class – for instance most of the people ticked the ‘middle-class’ box indicating that they come from a middle class family, and of course many middle class people are well education so ultimately their literacy ability is much higher than those of working class (stereotypically) and thus they enjoy using newspapers as a way of reading the news.

Finally I found that a numerous count of people access the news on a regular basis, if not everyday then at least three times a week. Although a reason wasn’t stated in the questionnaire I can guess that most of them take in the news to keep up to date with current affairs, for the own interest. And also my own knowledge of school can say that in many areas of the school staff encourage students to read newspapers as it improves reading ability and also the head of year tests students on their knowledge of the news, so in way student may feel under pressure to read.

The news is a clever way to keep the public knowledgeable of the current state of the globe and also it could be suggested that the news makes the public feels safe. As broadcasters report of crises and disasters it’s comforting to know that people and leaders are aware of the situation and that developments are being made.

Web 2.0 is a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies (the practice of catgorising content through tags). Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the internet. Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is an expression which was used for the first time in 2004 and referred to the second generation of Internet. The main characteristics of new era in Internet is connected with its constant development and delivering services tailored to the needs of each user. Due to the fact that individuals play central role in creating, using and sharing Internet resources Web 2.0 is often called “Internet with human face”.

Web 2.0 – Are You In The Wreck, Or Just Watching?

July 31st, 2007 — Blogging, Friends

Web 2.0 is a term that was created by O’Reilly Media back in 2003. Many people falsely think it’s some new technology. We’re so accustomed to seeing versions of our software escalate numerically – we may naturally think Web 2.0 must be the latest version of the world wide web. A version that supersedes Web 1.0. Nope. Not true.

Web 2.0 refers to the interactivity of today’s web. Blogs, YouTube and other sites and software incorporate the ability for dialog on the net. People can do much more than surf the net. They can contribute, download, interact with others, join groups, have many points of contact and conversation. In short, Web 2.0 is the social connectivity of the web – in all of its variations. From RSS to posting pictures on Flickr. From Xanga to Facebook. From Blogger to WordPress. From dooce.com to tompeters.com. It’s the ongoing conversation between people that best defines Web 2.0.

While all of us experience Web 2.0, not all of us contribute to it. Everybody who logs onto the Internet experiences Web 2.0. When they go to a blog, look at somebody’s Flickr pictures or read the comments made to a story in the New York Times – they’re experiencing Web 2.0. They may never download a thing. They may never post a comment. They may never create a website of their own. Their web experience may be 100% one-way. The life of a spectator – not a player. The world is full of them.

But there is another group, often characterized by the young (sometimes the very young), who post often, upload pictures of everything, write of every sacred detail of their life, and basically view the world wide web as their circle of “friends.” MySpace and other social networks use that moniker casually. Friends. Often people you’ll never meet. Strangers with something in common is more like it. “Oh, you like Maroon 5? Me, too!” Friends.

Web 2.0 isn’t restricted by age. I’m many years removed from being a teeny bopper, but I have a MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, Blogger and this site. I’m not a mere spectator. Others can judge the level of my contribution, but this much is sure – I manage to take up more than my share of web space. That’s Web 2.0.

But I’m mostly intrigued not by the interactivity of Web 2.0, but the content of that interactivity. I’m fascinated by the behavior of younger people who assume the world wide web is where their voice is heard – where it must be heard. It’s an obvious place where we all go for information or to reach people. We can contact large groups of people with broad interests, or minute groups with esoteric interests.

It does baffle me at times the private and seemingly discrete information that many of us – those who are older, or more reserved by nature – would never upload onto the web — versus those among us who openly discuss and reveal every detail of their life. Heather over at dooce has made a nice blogging career out of such things. And I confess that I’m as hooked as any on her entries. Why do I care? I don’t know. But I do. Do I understand? Of course not, but at least she’s earning a living as a professional blogger. Money makes it all good.

Boys talk about girls. Girls talk about boys. Couples discuss their arguments. And love. It’s all in the open. No discretion. No secrets. Who needs rumors? We’ve got true public confessions happening every nanosecond of every day by millions of Web 2.0 participants.

Like a car wreck, we rubber neck because we can’t look away. We fail to keep our eyes on the road because we might miss something. Is our life made better by seeing a car crash? Does it do something valuable for us? No, but still we stare – and crank our neck like a contortionist to see whatever we can see.

Web 2.0 might best be summed up this way. For some, they enjoy being the crash that everybody looks at. Like a speeder standing on the side of the road being written a ticket by the cop – they don’t mind that everybody is looking at them. For others, we don’t want that level of attention. It’s just how things are — and it’s the way we’re wired. 1.0 instead of full blown 2.0.