1. AUDIENCE, AUTHORSHIP, AND ARTIFACT: THE EMERGENT SEMIOTICS OF WEB 2.0

The second-generation Web has amplified and extended new ways of online communication. Millions of people now interact through blogs, collaborate through wikis, play multiplayer games, publish podcasts and video, build relationships through social network sites, and evaluate all the above forms of communication through feedback and ranking mechanisms. This article analyzes the emergent semiotics of what has been called Web 2.0 by focusing on three critical elements of language use and communication: audience, authorship, and artifact. Drawing on recent theoretical and empirical work, this article considers the significance of transformations in these three areas for both research and teaching. In the 1980s and 1990s, many scholars were noting the revolutionary potential of new information and communication technologies for transforming human communication and production of knowledge (see, e.g., Harnad, 1991). However, even by the late 1990s, the Internet was not yet accessed by the majority of the population in any country (National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 1999; United Nations Development Programme, 1999). Fewer people still were able to publish online, as that required specialized software and/or skills that were not widespread at that time (see discussion in Warschauer, 2003). The Web was thus developing more as a tool for accessing information created by small numbers of people, rather than for creativity and collaboration on content contributed by the broad public (e.g., see the critique by Berners-Lee, 1999, who is widely credited with having invented the Web.) Less than a decade later, the situation has changed dramatically. Today, 50% or more of the population has access to the Internet in 35 countries (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2007). Equally important, barriers to online publishing, collaboration, and creative production have fallen dramatically. Widely available software and sites allow computer users of all types to interact through blogs