Resumen de Public Curation and Private Collection: : The Production of Knowledge on Pinterest.com
Social curation is the process through which the general public, rather than web publishers themselves, tag, organize, and share content with others. In this paper, I focus on the case of Pinterest, an image-based social curation site. I specifically highlight how the individual acts of collection on the site contribute to a new kind of public construction of knowledge online. This is specific to Pinterest, I argue, because the way that the site is set up—both in terms of its technological and business structure. My goals for the paper are as follows. First, I question how Pinterest’s notion of curation compares with traditional or already existing notions of professional curation and personal collection. Then, I offer an analysis of the activity on Pinterest; whereas users believe they are participating in personal acts of collection and reflexive identity building, I counteract this with an examination of the entire business “ecosystem” of the site, showing how these personal activities can also be understood as public acts of knowledge production. Finally, I question notions of agency and power within the context of this public/private divide on Pinterest and what implications this might have for social media at large.
