Social Network and Genre Emergence in Amateur Flash Multimedia

Research on digital media tends to characterize the emergence of new genres without reference to social networks, even though "community" and "social interaction" are invoked. In this paper, we examine Flash animations posted to newgrounds.com, a major Web portal for amateur Flash, from a social network perspective. Results indicate that participants\´ social network positions are strongly associated with the genres of Flash they produce. We argue from these findings that the social networks of Flash authors contribute to the establishment of genre norms, and that a social network approach can be crucial to understanding genre emergence