A letter to the editor, Hyde Park, graffiti on a wall or a garden? Whose technological and semantic space is co-created by the user-generated content in the Polish Internet?

Abstract

In order to understand the current tension between the freedom of expression and the responsibility for the online content, it is vital that the mechanism behind the creation of new kinds of online communication be clarified. The metaphors regarding content generated in the Internet by the users within the framework of the new genres of multimedia imply varying degrees of responsibility with reference to the physical, logical and thematic layers of the Internet. The understatements they include vary depending on the metaphors used in the current debate: a “letter to the editor”, “Speakers’ Corner at the Hyde Park”, “graffiti on a wall” or a “garden”. The metaphors apply both to extra- and intratextual factors. They describe both the level of the information medium itself and the meaning at the intratextual – semantic level.