Metaphors of the Web 2.0: With Special Emphasis on Social Networks and Folksonomies 450

This study is an attempt to semantically decompose the most popular metaphorical expressions associated with two particular Web 2.0 practices: social networks and folksonomies. What is a friend on a social networking Web site like MySpace and StudiVZ? Is it polite to poke strangers on Facebook and give them fives on hi5? How can we subscribe to RSS feeds, if we don’t pay subscription fees? Do we really broadcast ourselves on our YouTube channels ? These and other similar questions are dealt with from the perspective of the referential and the conceptual approaches to meaning, i.e., what these words stand for (referential/extensional approach) and which concepts they signify (conceptual/intensional approach). Thus, from the referential point of view, a friend on MySpace is only a hyperlink directing to a profile page of another MySpace user. But from the intensional point of view, a friend is a subscriber to the content generated by the profile owner. pages V-VII_Table of Contents......Page 1 pages VIII-IX_Abbreviations......Page 4 pages X_Screenshots......Page 6 pages 1-4_Introduction......Page 7 pages 5_Part 1......Page 11 pages 6-26_Chapter 2......Page 12 pages 27_Part 2......Page 33 pages 28-33_Chapter 3......Page 34 pages 34-51_Chapter 4......Page 40 pages 52-65_Chapter 5......Page 58 pages 66-84_Chapter 6......Page 72 pages 85_Part 3......Page 91 pages 86-95_Chapter 7......Page 92 pages 96-110_Chapter 8......Page 102 pages 111-129_Chapter 9......Page 117 pages 130-131_Concluding Remarks......Page 136 pages 132-140_References......Page 138