I found it very interesting to read the examination of the student friend of the author writing essays with quotes from established writers. This openly adopted form of literary remix with attribution had never been put into copyright context for me before. It presents an interesting notion of how cultural norms and processes are learned and applied. Why is it that literary remix is acceptable yet Girl Talk is challenged by law in their adaptation of remix with music and video? Do we hold music and video to a higher standard or value than literature? Or has the exponential growth in the last couple decades of new medias and the tools to create, publish and share content outpaced the moral adjustments of our society? I mean, let's face it the written word has been around a few thousand years. We have had plenty of time to adjust the uses of literary works.
Yet, new technologies have already begun to alter the literary landscape even today. It was announced the last few days that a Creative Commons license has been created for Twitter (yes, I have an affliction with the platform and am seeking professional assistance). You can even look at the recent brouhaha over Facebook changing the Terms of Service. The change brought into question several aspects of copyright of not just images and video but text comments and information. But after a groundswell of anger derived from a short blog posting and discourse between the company and its users, reverted to the original ToS. The heavy coverage of the issue by mainstream media also forced the quick discussion. But the issue of copyright still wasn't solved, only a continued delay in the need to address the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of the room frothing at the mouth.
There are communities in some of these mediums that embrace remix as part of their culture though. Take the electronic genre of music for example including Trance, House, Techno, Drum & Bass just to narrow it down a little. Many of the these artists including upper echelon producers create tracks that they openly allow to be remixed and altered, as long as there is credit back to the original artist. All while being done in the land of commerce for profits. For example look at Armin Van Buuren's "The Sound of Goodbye" track. One song was remixed nearly 20 times and then compiled onto an album. Each of the remixers will also be using and selling their versions of the track. But that is not counting the live remixing at performances or concerts by other artists even of the remixed versions. Most electronica shows are all about live remixing. The artists spread each other's work in order to expose more audiences to the music. Electronica tracks have typically been DRM free, save for some listed on iTunes based on the record label, in order to enable the opportunity of remix, including productions of podcasts and streaming music channels on the Internet.
While reading about the implementation of DRM to media, I reflected back to the topic we have talked about several times in class with regard to China and limiting the tools, not necessarily the content. The limitations of the DRM were an attempt to re-harness the limitations of analog content by taking away one of digital media's finest asset: exact duplication. But in limiting the tools the users of the tools, the creators, are in the end handcuffed in progressing the form and function of content. The notion of being an apprentice under the guidance of an established creator, such as the greats of art history or music, has been hamstrung for the almighty dollar. But in many instances the dollars don't even make their way to the originating artist. The mega-corporations managing all that content end up retaining the majority of it all.
In the end, until the notion of copyright and ownership are clearly defined, the legal threats and battles will continue. The copyright law has become overly restrictive and the notion of "fair use" has only gotten fuzzier. Creative Commons allows for some creators to open their works up to new futures, but many do not know of its existence. (One more hurdle of media literacy.) Or we can just wait a another decade or so for the boomers to lose their grip on control and old belief systems and re-institute the RW culture of societies past. Only, that waiting perpetuates the restraint of potential learning and exploration of a remix culture.
Showing posts with label Discussion Posts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Discussion Posts. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Delicate Balance - Group Lead by Josh
Consider your favorite movies or television shows or even novels for a moment. What is the common thread in them all that elevates them to be worthy of ranking on your personal list? Is it the style? Is it the medium? Or is it the arc of the characters and their involvement with the storyline?
The over arching sense from chapters 10, 11 and 12 –in my interpretation– was that in order to gain traction with an audience and effectively spread a message, be it a tactical media, a blog, established media or an aggregator of several forms of media the audience must be able to engage in the storyline and information. The ability to capture not only the mind but also the emotions of a person that will then also engage in the resulting dialogue is key to instill the potential of democracy in media and the expanded potential of digital media.
Traditionally media has been based on the notion that one entity creates content while another consumes said content. This notion is even apparent in Gans’ two-tier model of a central media and a secondary level of media reinterpreting and reanalyzing the first tier despite its goal of multiperpspectival coverage. This new content is still just re-digested and presented to be consumed all over again.
As advances in digital media and the Internet have grown exponentially, so too have challenges for effective use of media. Does the platform or type of media change the impact on a particular social group or community?
As we have already discussed in class, the notion of objectivity –despite being actually buried beneath bureaucracy and cronyism in many instances– and be “fair and balanced” permeates most established journalism outlets. There is also an unfounded principal of needed conflict that generates useless shouting and finger pointing on display in forms like CNN’s Crossfire or even the long standing NBC’s Meet the Press. This tension of two dominant opposites is broadcast under the flag of unprejudiced coverage, yet neglects the remaining 358 degrees of a particular issue.
Meanwhile, bloggers lose sight of accomplishment goals by injecting self-righteousness and catharsis leading the failed re-hashing of particular issues that do not advance dialogue. These new forms of sharing and discussing topics at times becomes more of a celebration of technology and less about the ability Ohmynews.com to get people to become participants in the evolution of our society. This can even be said about social networking sites.
Bruns highlights the unique blend of professional journalists co-oping with citizen journalists on the South Korean website . This evolution from a tactical media to a possible “renaissance” journalism model is no doubt intriguing. But is the social environment of South Korea too dissimilar to the United States? Or are the essential foundations of a new and more effective journalism model present to carry into the complex ream of the world’s original democracy?
The ability of people to gatecrash and gatewatch in the digital era has opened up several possibilities to make journalism more successful. Alternative media sources have been able to employ the concept of gatecrashing by force, producing as much content as possible in the DIY media realm in hopes that eventually some of that content will bubble up to the top and be accepted by traditional media sources. Is this attempt to get messages out in mass volume, knowing there will be attrition, reasonable in the process of expanding the scope of what is disseminated by the established media sources? Or will the heart of the message be lost by constantly putting the establishment under siege?
With the expansion of Web2.0 and other social networking tools opening up avenues to spread information, and more importantly engaging storylines, the difficulty is once again not losing sight of the goal, social improvement and discourse, for the allure of technofetishism.
As Twitter, Facebook and new citizen journalism sites like Spot.us begin to take shape, it will be their ability to become stable in the constant digital seas of change and innovation. (Read the Tweet Congress post.) Another aspect will be the ability of established journalism outlets to harness the potential power of these sties to combine the efforts of professional journalism with those of citizen-powered journalism. It was only recently that mainstream media websites allowed reader commenting. A long-standing aspect of the now common blog that incited discussion, if at times also devolved the conversation. This begs the question, can constructive deliberation happen on these platforms or is merely having the option available the bigger concern?
That debate is of serious consequence as the commenting tools on mainstream media outlets are still limited to some extent for fear of rogue commenters and freight of libel in addition to the lack of resources to “police” the playground. If these traditional outlets are eventually able to overcome the “adoption lag” there may be something that resembles the power of Ohmynews. But coming from the industry of dead trees and deep-rooted institutionalized journalism, there will be very few able to bridge the gap and evolve. These new iterations of news outlets will act more as a filter to all the perspectives in content being generated, running the risk of once again quashing the potential of democratic media. This reinforces the potential power of these tactical media becoming more than owners to a specific action.
An example of the potential power was illustrated in the Memogate example, if also held up as an anomaly at the same time. The influence of bloggers, though also powerful and connected to establishments, to call into question and reverse the reportage of established media source is of serious note. Even more so when taking into account that shortly after the debunking of the falsified documents only 38 percent of Internet users knew what a blog was. This relatively new media was able to take on and alter the course of a well-established industry.
The ability to have a mediated public sphere will require that moderation of both narrative elements and emotional elements together be enacted in media in order to preserve the evolution of the creators, who are also the characters of these storylines.
The over arching sense from chapters 10, 11 and 12 –in my interpretation– was that in order to gain traction with an audience and effectively spread a message, be it a tactical media, a blog, established media or an aggregator of several forms of media the audience must be able to engage in the storyline and information. The ability to capture not only the mind but also the emotions of a person that will then also engage in the resulting dialogue is key to instill the potential of democracy in media and the expanded potential of digital media.
Traditionally media has been based on the notion that one entity creates content while another consumes said content. This notion is even apparent in Gans’ two-tier model of a central media and a secondary level of media reinterpreting and reanalyzing the first tier despite its goal of multiperpspectival coverage. This new content is still just re-digested and presented to be consumed all over again.
As advances in digital media and the Internet have grown exponentially, so too have challenges for effective use of media. Does the platform or type of media change the impact on a particular social group or community?
As we have already discussed in class, the notion of objectivity –despite being actually buried beneath bureaucracy and cronyism in many instances– and be “fair and balanced” permeates most established journalism outlets. There is also an unfounded principal of needed conflict that generates useless shouting and finger pointing on display in forms like CNN’s Crossfire or even the long standing NBC’s Meet the Press. This tension of two dominant opposites is broadcast under the flag of unprejudiced coverage, yet neglects the remaining 358 degrees of a particular issue.
Watch Jon Stewart's famous plea for the senseless debate to stop. "You're hurting America," he states.
Meanwhile, bloggers lose sight of accomplishment goals by injecting self-righteousness and catharsis leading the failed re-hashing of particular issues that do not advance dialogue. These new forms of sharing and discussing topics at times becomes more of a celebration of technology and less about the ability Ohmynews.com to get people to become participants in the evolution of our society. This can even be said about social networking sites.
Bruns highlights the unique blend of professional journalists co-oping with citizen journalists on the South Korean website . This evolution from a tactical media to a possible “renaissance” journalism model is no doubt intriguing. But is the social environment of South Korea too dissimilar to the United States? Or are the essential foundations of a new and more effective journalism model present to carry into the complex ream of the world’s original democracy?
Bruns asks: “How can new forms of journalism grow beyond their beginnings as tactical media linked to specific causes and temporary actions, and move to establish themselves as a permanent fixture in the news mediascape?”
The ability of people to gatecrash and gatewatch in the digital era has opened up several possibilities to make journalism more successful. Alternative media sources have been able to employ the concept of gatecrashing by force, producing as much content as possible in the DIY media realm in hopes that eventually some of that content will bubble up to the top and be accepted by traditional media sources. Is this attempt to get messages out in mass volume, knowing there will be attrition, reasonable in the process of expanding the scope of what is disseminated by the established media sources? Or will the heart of the message be lost by constantly putting the establishment under siege?
With the expansion of Web2.0 and other social networking tools opening up avenues to spread information, and more importantly engaging storylines, the difficulty is once again not losing sight of the goal, social improvement and discourse, for the allure of technofetishism.
As Twitter, Facebook and new citizen journalism sites like Spot.us begin to take shape, it will be their ability to become stable in the constant digital seas of change and innovation. (Read the Tweet Congress post.) Another aspect will be the ability of established journalism outlets to harness the potential power of these sties to combine the efforts of professional journalism with those of citizen-powered journalism. It was only recently that mainstream media websites allowed reader commenting. A long-standing aspect of the now common blog that incited discussion, if at times also devolved the conversation. This begs the question, can constructive deliberation happen on these platforms or is merely having the option available the bigger concern?
That debate is of serious consequence as the commenting tools on mainstream media outlets are still limited to some extent for fear of rogue commenters and freight of libel in addition to the lack of resources to “police” the playground. If these traditional outlets are eventually able to overcome the “adoption lag” there may be something that resembles the power of Ohmynews. But coming from the industry of dead trees and deep-rooted institutionalized journalism, there will be very few able to bridge the gap and evolve. These new iterations of news outlets will act more as a filter to all the perspectives in content being generated, running the risk of once again quashing the potential of democratic media. This reinforces the potential power of these tactical media becoming more than owners to a specific action.
An example of the potential power was illustrated in the Memogate example, if also held up as an anomaly at the same time. The influence of bloggers, though also powerful and connected to establishments, to call into question and reverse the reportage of established media source is of serious note. Even more so when taking into account that shortly after the debunking of the falsified documents only 38 percent of Internet users knew what a blog was. This relatively new media was able to take on and alter the course of a well-established industry.
The ability to have a mediated public sphere will require that moderation of both narrative elements and emotional elements together be enacted in media in order to preserve the evolution of the creators, who are also the characters of these storylines.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Group Discussion Blog Post | The revitalization of the public sphere?
Corporate Media, Democracy and The State of the Public Sphere
The state of the public sphere is a hotly contested topic, which is intrinsically related to the corruption of corporate media and the flow of information. Signs of the time include both malicious journalistic practices, empowered by governmental subsidies, but also, members of the social web working to intervene and reform corrupt praxis. Some believe optimistically that the communities set up by social networking technologies will revitalize the public sphere by providing space for informed discourse, assemblage of truth and a revolutionary shift away from commodity centered industries. While others hypothesize more modestly that the social network and Web 2.0 will grant individuals a platform to mobilize and speak out towards reform and modification of existing policy. One thing is for sure, the public sphere and democracy are in jeopardy, but the part digital media and the social web will play in the struggle is largely unfinished.
The State of the Media
How many media sources do you remember releasing apologies for their assistance in the propagating of false information on the existence of WMD?
In America after 9/11, the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, it seems clear that the myth of journalistic integrity and non-biased coverage can be used to ground actions as extreme as war. Simultaneously, the corporate media mechanism silences, manipulates or makes mockery of dissenting opinions, maintaining its position of power. (Boler 2008, 1-3) McChesney’s recollection of his magazine industry days makes clear how the need for monitory solvency shapes the form and content of information presented. (Ibid. 56)
As a result the state of the public sphere is poor. There is no room for intelligent discourse when corporate media squelches voices besides the partisan approach it is endlessly repeats. However, there is a glimmer of hope, never before has the public had the access or the aggregation of resources, which translates to reforming power.
Media and Power
In the Introduction to Digital Media and Democracy Megan Boler raises two challenges about media and power. One, how do we approach/reshape the forces of domination so that those with little power or influence can enter the discourse. Two, how do we begin to imagine media with the ability intervene at the levels of public awareness and fight the malicious manipulation of information by the mainstream. (Ibid. 11) There seems to be at least three possibilities. The first, social networks are the medium, which will grant resourceless publics the power and voice they need. The second, the media event is as Wark discusses, a primitive, which cannot be dissected into puzzle pieces that form a truth. Instead of wasting resources in the attempt, a better attempt is to apply theory/criticism in a way that it “accompanies” the event, but without pretense of fully understanding it. (Ibid. 13) Finally, there is a combination of the two that functions as McChesney’s Free Press Project. That is, as an open community and continuing discourse on media reform, which moves to accompany/improve the modern media environment without relying solely on the advent of the social net for the salvation of the public sphere.
Check Out The Free Project. Think about the ways this project addresses Bolers challenges.
Free Press Project
Beginners Guide to Media Reform
Fernandes states that we should label media based on who owns them. (Ibid. 37) The public owns public media. Corporations own corporate media. Free Press has a section discussing media ownership, which helps to visualize centralization:
Guide to Ownership Concentration
Segue to Media Convergence and Collective Intelligence
While many individuals (i.e. McChesney, Dean or Lovink) active in the consideration of the public sphere and social networks are pessimistic about the ability of online social networks to revolutionize the public’s interaction with media and government, Henry Jenkins writes about the simultaneous processes of convergence and divergence. As media/technologies are dispersed and decentralized, they empower users to combine, remix and otherwise reassemble them for their own message. Conversely, as corporate entities condense and become protected by government, divergent periphery cultures emerge, like fan communities, spoiler groups and other beneficiaries of the “long-tail”. (Jenkins 2006, 11) Along the way volumes of technologies, momentary delivery mechanisms, evolve, become obsolete and are discarded. Cluttering the transmission with new and frequently unnecessary functionality. (Ibid. 13) But these ever changing tools are the driving force behind convergence, accessibility and social networking.
When we consider the dedication, intelligence and problem solving ability of the Survivor spoiler community (Ibid. 32-38). It is not hard to see how great collective intelligences like this can spawn hope for application in other areas, which is not to trivialize the autonomy and power socially networked fan communities grant.
At the same time corporate media is working hard to find new ways to capitalize on these communities. More so than ever, they are accommodating their fan’s loyalty and desire to participate, based on the strong connections this type of social phenomena creates generating “affective economy”. (Ibid. 20) This has both positive and negative effects. Fans get the interactive experience they enjoy, but is it at the cost of co-opting their grass roots initiatives?
Check out some interesting fan communities, with strong senses of autonomy and collective intelligence. The first, Lost-pedia is a fan wiki centered around the popular TV show Lost. This group provided a space to discus canon, express thoughts in a communal fashion and helped to find clues/solve plot based questions during the Lost Experience, an alternate reality game lasting several months in 2006, leading up to the start of the season.
Lost Pedia
The second, is Survivor Sucks the original Survivor Spoiler Community Henry Jenkins talks about. Think about how this community empowers its users to hurt the corporate outlet, but also how these communities could be applied to reforming the public sphere.
Survivor Sucks
The Commodification of Communication
In the United States there is a tremendous disparity between politics “circulating as content and official politics” (Boler 2008, 102). That is, the voice of alternative media is simply not heard. Instead the many thick layers of information networks give corporate media heads an escape from the duty to respond. They counter with their own contributions to the flow, writing off opposing views. (Ibid. 102) Dean suggests that the advent of social networking technologies has not created a venue for public expression, but instead has prompted the formation of “…post political formation of communicative capitalism”. (Ibid. 102) Through the commodification of communication (that which unites us as a nation-state) democracy and capitalism have been merged. (Ibid. 104) In such a state there is a dichotomy between singularity of dissent, which treats political concern as person ailment and plurality of mindset that promotes the false image of a unifying ideology. (Ibid. 106) She discounts the notions of abundance and participation as masks to the fact that our messages lose value in circulation or when they become fetishized contributions. Thus actions, such as dissenting through the social net, just add to the data pool, detracting from the message and conversely assisting corporate media in the long run. (Ibid. 106-115)
How can purported political acts (though really techno-fetisthment/the desire to contribute) cause condensation or displacement? The Barbie Liberation Organization (B.L.O.) was a fairly well publicized political action in 1993, where members of a group (many of which would later become the Yes Men) swapped the voice boxes of Barbie dolls and GI Joe’s. This act was meant to protest gender stereotyping in children’s toys. How could acts like this be co-opted by corporate media and result in devaluation of true political reform?
B.L.O.
Documentation Video
Social Media and Democracy
McChesney suggests that democracy is impossible without a mainstream press. (Ibid. 65) However, it is questionable if the ideal press, for which government subsidies were originally made ever existed. Such a press would exemplify public discourse, non-partisan approach and political awareness. He established The Free Press Project to help reform the reform movement. He states media reform has four components. The first and most important is policy reform. Second, is participating in independent media. Third, is providing media education and critique. Fourth, is movement among media producers to take a larger role in the entire media process. (Ibid. 60) McChesney doesn’t think social web media forms are the answer to the contemporary media problem, but that they play an essential role in media reform. (Ibid. 66)
Discussion Questions:
Does our love of farce/satire really speak to fundamental problems in the mediascape?
Is thinking about media by who owns them a good way to categorize media? If so, what constitutes the mainstream?
Is the contemporary movement to decentralize media having a greater effect/more likely to succeed than the 1930’s movement (Boler 2008, 57)? If so what does this mean for the public sphere?
Has the advent of social web changed the way advertising/the need for capital shapes content?
Can viral communications circumvent/subvert ideologies of commodity and spectacle despite what Dean says about the myth of abundance and participation?
How do messages get converted into contributions? Do contributions circling in the data pool lose meaning, agency or urgency of response?
How has techno-fetishment affected online communities? Facebook vs Wikipedia? Instances of condensation? Displacement?
Which, if not both are true?
Web 2.0/social net creates a plurality of truths some from the mainstream others from critique or assemblage. Is this new method of collecting and coalescing media detritus, a vision of reformed media?
Web 2.0/social net is one of many tools for reforming the contemporary mediascape and public sphere?
And the obligatory question, how have Web 2.0/social net practices affected the public sphere? Which if not all is most viable, Convergence Culture and communities as the hope for revitalization, a tool for political reform or the realization that we live in a Communicative Capitalist state.
With great power comes great responsibility. If as Amy Goodman says, media is power (Boler 2008, 11), what responsibilities does it demand?
I am open to suggestions and may add one or two more.
The state of the public sphere is a hotly contested topic, which is intrinsically related to the corruption of corporate media and the flow of information. Signs of the time include both malicious journalistic practices, empowered by governmental subsidies, but also, members of the social web working to intervene and reform corrupt praxis. Some believe optimistically that the communities set up by social networking technologies will revitalize the public sphere by providing space for informed discourse, assemblage of truth and a revolutionary shift away from commodity centered industries. While others hypothesize more modestly that the social network and Web 2.0 will grant individuals a platform to mobilize and speak out towards reform and modification of existing policy. One thing is for sure, the public sphere and democracy are in jeopardy, but the part digital media and the social web will play in the struggle is largely unfinished.
The State of the Media
How many media sources do you remember releasing apologies for their assistance in the propagating of false information on the existence of WMD?
In America after 9/11, the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, it seems clear that the myth of journalistic integrity and non-biased coverage can be used to ground actions as extreme as war. Simultaneously, the corporate media mechanism silences, manipulates or makes mockery of dissenting opinions, maintaining its position of power. (Boler 2008, 1-3) McChesney’s recollection of his magazine industry days makes clear how the need for monitory solvency shapes the form and content of information presented. (Ibid. 56)
As a result the state of the public sphere is poor. There is no room for intelligent discourse when corporate media squelches voices besides the partisan approach it is endlessly repeats. However, there is a glimmer of hope, never before has the public had the access or the aggregation of resources, which translates to reforming power.
Media and Power
In the Introduction to Digital Media and Democracy Megan Boler raises two challenges about media and power. One, how do we approach/reshape the forces of domination so that those with little power or influence can enter the discourse. Two, how do we begin to imagine media with the ability intervene at the levels of public awareness and fight the malicious manipulation of information by the mainstream. (Ibid. 11) There seems to be at least three possibilities. The first, social networks are the medium, which will grant resourceless publics the power and voice they need. The second, the media event is as Wark discusses, a primitive, which cannot be dissected into puzzle pieces that form a truth. Instead of wasting resources in the attempt, a better attempt is to apply theory/criticism in a way that it “accompanies” the event, but without pretense of fully understanding it. (Ibid. 13) Finally, there is a combination of the two that functions as McChesney’s Free Press Project. That is, as an open community and continuing discourse on media reform, which moves to accompany/improve the modern media environment without relying solely on the advent of the social net for the salvation of the public sphere.
Check Out The Free Project. Think about the ways this project addresses Bolers challenges.
Free Press Project
Beginners Guide to Media Reform
Fernandes states that we should label media based on who owns them. (Ibid. 37) The public owns public media. Corporations own corporate media. Free Press has a section discussing media ownership, which helps to visualize centralization:
Guide to Ownership Concentration
Segue to Media Convergence and Collective Intelligence
While many individuals (i.e. McChesney, Dean or Lovink) active in the consideration of the public sphere and social networks are pessimistic about the ability of online social networks to revolutionize the public’s interaction with media and government, Henry Jenkins writes about the simultaneous processes of convergence and divergence. As media/technologies are dispersed and decentralized, they empower users to combine, remix and otherwise reassemble them for their own message. Conversely, as corporate entities condense and become protected by government, divergent periphery cultures emerge, like fan communities, spoiler groups and other beneficiaries of the “long-tail”. (Jenkins 2006, 11) Along the way volumes of technologies, momentary delivery mechanisms, evolve, become obsolete and are discarded. Cluttering the transmission with new and frequently unnecessary functionality. (Ibid. 13) But these ever changing tools are the driving force behind convergence, accessibility and social networking.
When we consider the dedication, intelligence and problem solving ability of the Survivor spoiler community (Ibid. 32-38). It is not hard to see how great collective intelligences like this can spawn hope for application in other areas, which is not to trivialize the autonomy and power socially networked fan communities grant.
At the same time corporate media is working hard to find new ways to capitalize on these communities. More so than ever, they are accommodating their fan’s loyalty and desire to participate, based on the strong connections this type of social phenomena creates generating “affective economy”. (Ibid. 20) This has both positive and negative effects. Fans get the interactive experience they enjoy, but is it at the cost of co-opting their grass roots initiatives?
Check out some interesting fan communities, with strong senses of autonomy and collective intelligence. The first, Lost-pedia is a fan wiki centered around the popular TV show Lost. This group provided a space to discus canon, express thoughts in a communal fashion and helped to find clues/solve plot based questions during the Lost Experience, an alternate reality game lasting several months in 2006, leading up to the start of the season.
Lost Pedia
The second, is Survivor Sucks the original Survivor Spoiler Community Henry Jenkins talks about. Think about how this community empowers its users to hurt the corporate outlet, but also how these communities could be applied to reforming the public sphere.
Survivor Sucks
The Commodification of Communication
In the United States there is a tremendous disparity between politics “circulating as content and official politics” (Boler 2008, 102). That is, the voice of alternative media is simply not heard. Instead the many thick layers of information networks give corporate media heads an escape from the duty to respond. They counter with their own contributions to the flow, writing off opposing views. (Ibid. 102) Dean suggests that the advent of social networking technologies has not created a venue for public expression, but instead has prompted the formation of “…post political formation of communicative capitalism”. (Ibid. 102) Through the commodification of communication (that which unites us as a nation-state) democracy and capitalism have been merged. (Ibid. 104) In such a state there is a dichotomy between singularity of dissent, which treats political concern as person ailment and plurality of mindset that promotes the false image of a unifying ideology. (Ibid. 106) She discounts the notions of abundance and participation as masks to the fact that our messages lose value in circulation or when they become fetishized contributions. Thus actions, such as dissenting through the social net, just add to the data pool, detracting from the message and conversely assisting corporate media in the long run. (Ibid. 106-115)
How can purported political acts (though really techno-fetisthment/the desire to contribute) cause condensation or displacement? The Barbie Liberation Organization (B.L.O.) was a fairly well publicized political action in 1993, where members of a group (many of which would later become the Yes Men) swapped the voice boxes of Barbie dolls and GI Joe’s. This act was meant to protest gender stereotyping in children’s toys. How could acts like this be co-opted by corporate media and result in devaluation of true political reform?
B.L.O.
Documentation Video
Social Media and Democracy
McChesney suggests that democracy is impossible without a mainstream press. (Ibid. 65) However, it is questionable if the ideal press, for which government subsidies were originally made ever existed. Such a press would exemplify public discourse, non-partisan approach and political awareness. He established The Free Press Project to help reform the reform movement. He states media reform has four components. The first and most important is policy reform. Second, is participating in independent media. Third, is providing media education and critique. Fourth, is movement among media producers to take a larger role in the entire media process. (Ibid. 60) McChesney doesn’t think social web media forms are the answer to the contemporary media problem, but that they play an essential role in media reform. (Ibid. 66)
Discussion Questions:
Does our love of farce/satire really speak to fundamental problems in the mediascape?
Is thinking about media by who owns them a good way to categorize media? If so, what constitutes the mainstream?
Is the contemporary movement to decentralize media having a greater effect/more likely to succeed than the 1930’s movement (Boler 2008, 57)? If so what does this mean for the public sphere?
Has the advent of social web changed the way advertising/the need for capital shapes content?
Can viral communications circumvent/subvert ideologies of commodity and spectacle despite what Dean says about the myth of abundance and participation?
How do messages get converted into contributions? Do contributions circling in the data pool lose meaning, agency or urgency of response?
How has techno-fetishment affected online communities? Facebook vs Wikipedia? Instances of condensation? Displacement?
Which, if not both are true?
Web 2.0/social net creates a plurality of truths some from the mainstream others from critique or assemblage. Is this new method of collecting and coalescing media detritus, a vision of reformed media?
Web 2.0/social net is one of many tools for reforming the contemporary mediascape and public sphere?
And the obligatory question, how have Web 2.0/social net practices affected the public sphere? Which if not all is most viable, Convergence Culture and communities as the hope for revitalization, a tool for political reform or the realization that we live in a Communicative Capitalist state.
With great power comes great responsibility. If as Amy Goodman says, media is power (Boler 2008, 11), what responsibilities does it demand?
I am open to suggestions and may add one or two more.
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