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and geographical boundaries are being recreated online despite the community-
generated ethos of collective intelligence endeavors.
Moreover, much online collective intelligence is not directed toward chal-
lenging the political or economic status quo, but in actively participating within
consumer culture. Fan sites that seek to collectively decipher spoilers about
their favorite media franchises or to map the complex continuity of comic book
superheroes—though often critical of how fans or popular properties are being
addressed/exploited by corporate ownership—rarely make the leap to demand-
ing revolution. Still, such communities do require a reimagining of the historic
relationship between producers and consumers where the latter are no longer
passive recipients of cultural product but active participants in shaping the out-
comes. As a result, many creators now see the cultivation of fan communities
through online play (hinting at future directions) and conversation (usually
through “informal” chats) and a demonstrated willingness to acknowledge fan
desires and frustrations and occasionally act on them as strategic viral branding
strategies for ensuring consumer loyalty.
Skeptics dismiss collective intelligence as producing inaccurate—even occa-
sionally purposely misleading—information and lacking an organizational in-
frastructure that can properly guard against misinformation (hence the often
dismissive stance taken by academics when students cite Wikipedia as a source).
Greater concern, however, might be directed toward the ways online informa-
tion is often passively consumed rather than collectively generated. Collective
intelligence is premised on the notion of an active community that not only
pools its resources, but works together to self-correct information. The extent
to which visitors to Wikipedia (or even to fan spoiler sites) enter prepared to
actively participate by questioning and debating the information provided or by
bringing their own knowledge bases into conversation with what the site already
provides is unclear.

see also Blogosphere; Digital Divide; Google Book Search; Internet and Its
Radical Potential; Online Digital Film and Television; Piracy and Intellec-
tual Property; Surveillance and Privacy; User-Created Content and Audience
Participation.
Further reading: Cohen, Noam. “African Languages Grow as a Wikipedia Presence.” New
York Times, August 26, 2006; Hafner, Katie. “Growing Wikipedia Revises ‘Anyone Can
Edit’ Policy.” New York Times, June 17, 2006; Hartley, John. “Laughs and Legends, or the
Furniture that Glows? Television as History.” Flow: A Critical Forum on Television and
Media Culture 3, no. 5. http://jot.communication.utexas.edu/flow/?jot=view&id=1214;
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York:
New York University Press, 2006; Johnson, George. “The Nitpicking of the Masses vs.
the Authority of the Experts.” New York Times, January 3, 2006; Mitchell, Dan. “Insider
Editing at Wikipedia.” New York Times, January 24, 2005; Motoko, Rich. “Digital Pub-
lishing Scrambles the Rules.” New York Times, June 5, 2006; Schrag, Robert. “Hegemony
on a Hard Drive.” Flow: A Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture 2, no. 1. http://
jot.communication.utexas.edu/flow/?jot=view&id = 652.
Avi Santo