Dan Gillmor - "We the media" - about the 'read-write' web

Here's a good summary of what he said. He was primarily interested in USER GENERATED CONTENT and how it affected journalism.

LINK HERE

Here's a podcast from him:

No more mouse?

For us, this is about changing technology - the convergent devices and cross-media integration. If there are to be more devices with no mouse (think iphone, ipad, tablet, consoles with 'gesture' control (Wii, Kinect)), how does that affect the industry and audience and the way media texts are constructed/presented for consumption/consumed/shared?

The mouse faces extinction as children rely on more sophisticated computer interaction technology

Digital Natives argument updated??

Good article here from the Independent 22/5/13

Are children naturally better with computers than their parents?

More convergent fun...Is it a music video? a viral ad? Would it be allowed on TV?

Check this out..

Fiat's YouTube hit shows adverts breaking down borders online

Arianna featuring Pitbull's Sexy People is perfect example of ad-promo hybrids that wouldn't be allowed on TV

Interesting videos - see how the 'regulation' aspects are now infringed - can you really say that? You certainly can't say it on TV but you can online. Check out the Motherhood one which is like a music video...

This is not only about convergence of texts but about how the online environment is changing texts and the rules for media industries and audiences. Some online below - more on the Guardian link and Youtube.

EXAMPLES

Original Ad - "Immigrants"



"Motherhood"

"Sexy People"
 

XBOX ONE revealed - most convergent device so far!

It's almost like science fiction but is a classic example of convergence and the online capabilites working together. Yep they needed the science and tech to do it, but they can't connect everyone and deliver the services without the internet. They also are planning to run from a cloud. It's all the stuff of your dream research..and it's up to date - it was just announced tonight 6pm UK time.

In addition to the tech being convergent and online, the announcement was also made online. It went live around the world. I was watching it on two different web pages and recording it (for you). People were interacting live with the video, posting live comments (like tweets) as elements came up and responding to each other too - it's worth watching. The uninterrupted feed is available to view online on demand for free here LINK

Ask yourself how the producers will have to change their games to allow for this new system? Will this affect how tv is made (as in alter the content/structure of tv texts)? It may well affect how it is delivered. How will audiences react and use the tech (online)?

The tech is convergent
The texts will be different
The audience will interact differently
They (Microsoft) want to make an 'online' watercooler of XBOX ONE (very interesting)
The mediums will converge (switch by gesture between live game play, live tv and saved content)
This is a global release message, going out live online - think about that streaming feat!

What will be that final box in your room?
Can TVs fight back?
What will Apple do next?
What about the PS4 - How is Sony going to respond?

the Guardian now have a story up - it took them 2 hours from the start of the hour long presentation, about one hour after the end of the broadcast to get the story online - how's that in the modern age? think it should be quicker? I can post quicker than that but what do The Guardian have to consider that I, as a random citizen blogger, don't?

and finally, yes - much "gnashing of teeth" as the Guardian predicts amongst gamers due to lack of videogame reveals - we only saw a few moments of some cut scenes from Call of Duty Ghosts....argh! Now we all wait for E3 - Microsoft are crafty beasties! :)

Flintoff "Thinking is so over' (looking at Keen (and mostly agreeing)) and some stuff on MARXISM

“The Internet - Thinking is so over” – Flintoff 23/7/07  and Marxism Notes

-       summarises Keen – but isn’t in total agreement. Talks about the ‘infinite monkeys with typewriters’ argument – eventually they will create a masterpiece – but Keen firmly believes that now the internet has for all intents and purposes created the infinite monkey scenario, he says “Today’s technology hooks all those monkeys up with all those typewriters” and those “millions of exuberant monkeys are creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels.” (here quoting Flintoff) – echoing Keen’s argument ‘cult of the amateur’

-       “...the supposed “democratisation” of the web has been a sham. “Despite its lofty idealisation it’s undermining truth, souring civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience and talent,” he says.” (Flintoff)

-       Flintoff points out that Wikipedia was (at the time of writing) the 17^th most trafficked site on the net and that Britannia (Encyclopaedia) was 5128^th. This has resulted in jobs losses at Britannia which he says is a problem because “we’ll be obliged to rely on the unreliable patchwork of information parcelled out on Wikipedia by people who often don’t even reveal their identity”

-       Do you agree with what Keen says – bearing in mind this is 2008 – he genuinely believed that Web 2.0 was already well on its way to killing the music industry and that is would not be long before the TV and Film studios would also face their own demise...so we’re here now 5 years later – Has web 2.0 killed the music industry? The film industry? Really they’ve just had to adapt (and you will be showing how in your exam answers, by and large)

MARXISM - very simplified

-       Flintoff and Keen belong to a group of academics/media professionals who fought hard to retain the elitism of their status and professionalism – they see the ‘democratisation’ offered by the web 2.0 developments as a serious threat to the status quo and in this sense this is where arguments stemming from Marxist models come in – Marx (and I’m over simplifying here) talked about how the elite controlled the ‘means of production’ and thus was able to control 'hearts and minds'. Althusser outlined how there are ideological state apparatuses such as schools, political parties, family, culture etc that the establishment (elite) uses to maintain control; this is done through repeated ideological messages embedded in texts (and in the case of schools taught as the way to think, behave etc) which become naturalised – we (allegedly) don’t even realise how we are encapsulated into the system (Foucault calls this being ‘intepellated[1]’ into our ‘place’ in the system). The idea of how we are conditioned to believe in a ‘universal truth’ is hard to see until you escape your culture as anyone who has been to the Orient, Russia or other ‘far flung' shores can attest; only when you find yourself wondering why the Russian Air Hostess is so 'rude' do you begin to realise it’s a cultural thing – they are being their version of polite, such as it is. This is where you can see the edges of your naturalised ideological conditioning: who says what is right/rude etc??...scary stuff peeps - we are conditioned into thinking ideas, behaviours and other such things are 'normal' and 'correct' - what hs been called 'universal truth' - when really they are only just the way 'we' do it/think - so not universal at all!

-       There’s a lot more to this argument but for your exam, all you need to worry about is that it is easy to argue that the established, ‘old’ media felt threatened by the developments of Web 2.0 because they no longer would have complete control over what people read/consumed and when; Keen's problem is that really those pesky monkeys were thinking for themselves!

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[1] Intepellated – to literally be ‘called’ into your place

The Cult of the Amateur’, Andrew Keen (summary)

'The Cult of the Amateur’, Andrew Keen (summary)

-       Web 2.0 (allowing the general public to publish online) destroys professionalism

-       It’s increasingly difficult (“impossible”) to find high quality materials amid the masses of User Generated Content.

-       Time Warner/Disney vs Google – Time Warner/Disney are creators of original content, Google is a ‘parasite’ (“it creates no content of its own”)

-       He blames the internet for loss of income to certain businesses and uses Craigslist as an example (site for classified ads – similar to Gumtree) – esp says Newspapers losing income for classified ads

-       Intellectuals lose the ability to create focus – i.e. you can’t hear the ‘experts’ for all the talk/chatter

-       Modern social culture has been regulated and analysed before it reaches the masses, he says this filtering by experts is circumvented by the UGC on the web

-       He thinks “cultural standards and moral values” are under threat from new media innovations (ask yourself whose standard and values?!)

-       He sees the internet as being the power of the crowd (rather like Brabazon’s ‘mob rule’) and says “history has proven that the crowd is not often very wise” (read as he doesn't approve of certain tastes as much as there are inherent problems with giving certain groups and points of view unfettered access to the web's audience which we might more readily all agree with (e.g. we might all agree that the internet could give racist organisations a voice and access to a bigger audience which we may more readily not find ideal/want)

-       He is concerned with “the blurring of the distinction between the qualified and informed professional and the uninformed and unqualified amateur.” (quoting A Trewavas in his book Trends in Biotechnology – sourced (ironically) from Wikipedia!)

“Review of ‘Here comes everybody’ Clay Shirky” - T Brabazon, Times Ed Supplement, 3/4/08

“Review of ‘Here comes everybody’ Clay Shirky” - T Brabazon, Times Ed Supplement, 3/4/08

-       She is generally unimpressed

-       Clay Shirky is Professor at New York University’s ‘Interactive Telecommunications Program (at time of her writing) and clearly she doesn’t feel academics should be writing about management and business culture.

-       She says the evidence and ideas he uses are unsound as he tends to use anecdotal evidence (stories and examples from people’s experiences) and then extrapolate them outwards (so they take what has happened to a few people and say this is characteristic for everyone). So lacks validity as evidence. And therefore the ideas are just that – unsubstantiated.

-       She equates ‘mob rule’ with ‘social networking’

-       KEY POINT – ‘Older citizens, the poor, the illiterate and the socially excluded are invisible in Shirky’s “everybody”

-       This whole paragraph is key – he avoids the problematic ways in which user ‘power’ might be utilised, such as in Pro Anorexia sites - by sweeping it under the carpet – ‘it’s not a revolution if nobody loses’ AND that therefore means NOT the ‘everybody’ he is talking about in the title.

-       There’s no mention of the excluded people who she says might not have the latest phone – may have no money/time/expertise or be busy in the real world fighting injustices already perpetrated on them (e.g. they’re poor and are too busy dealing with that to ‘collectively meet and chat online' let alone have the means to do so).

-       He assumes we can learn from technology without taking it in context – it makes a difference WHO is creating the content (i.e. if it is user generated content or ‘professional’) – she thinks this is a gaping hole in his argument

-       She says there’s limited validity where bloggers link to bloggers for their reference and she complains that his book is not referenced (no citations).

-       He confuses tools with knowledge

-       He confuses process with production

“Rethinking the Long Tail Theory:How to define ‘Hits’ and ‘Niches’ – ‘knowledge@Wharton’, 16/9/09 (University of Pennsylvania)

“Rethinking the Long Tail Theory:How to define ‘Hits’ and ‘Niches’ – ‘knowledge@Wharton’, 16/9/09 (University of Pennsylvania) (Netessine)

-       Undertook analysis, using data, of Anderson’s arguments.

-       summarises the theory of the long tail very well in paragraph 4 (“The long tail theory suggests...”)

-        if you factor in product variety (how much choice there is) and consumer demand (what people actually ‘ask for’) then Anderson's argument falls down

-       mass appeal products remain popular

-       few companies operate in a purely digital distribution system

-       the whole argument centres around the idea of whether you measure the figures by absolute figures or percentages and if you factor in how many choices are being offered – essentially they writer disputes the evidence that Anderson has used, saying if you look at it slightly differently and factor in other issues, the numbers don’t support what Anderson is saying.

-       Product variety is a key factor (i.e. how many titles/texts you offer) and without this the theory is lacking validity

-       They couldn’t replicate the outcomes with the same data

-       Netessine actually shows that demand for broad appeal products (blockbusters for example) actually increased (rather than interest moving to less popular titles ‘moving down the tail’ as Anderson’s model would suggest)

-       If you have to physically stock the product, Netessine argues that the long tail model just isn’t valid/useful

-       It takes time for product recommendation features to get audiences to consume more niche products. (this is Web 3.0 – at the time of this article, the semantic web was more of an idea than a functioning and effective actuality).

Hyper-reality and the digital Renaissance – Stephen Hill, MM30 December 2009

Hyper-reality and the digital Renaissance – Stephen Hill, MM30 December 2009

-       Web is not a world of ‘Hyper-real Utopia’ but one still plagued by “less pleasant characteristics: vanity, insularity and petty prejudice”. Harassment is “routinised and naturalised”.

-       “networks and friendship groups [on social media sites] are increasingly confined to parochial factions of college and workmates” So not a utopia after all – we take our prejudices with us.

-       He argues body image is also a problem on the web. Now users of social media are under the same kind of pressure (being in the public gaze) as previously only experienced by soap stars and such like.

-        Overall argument suggests generally a force for good – “it is the message not the medium that triumphs” and gives good examples of SKYPE.

Hacked Off – On reading here comes everybody by Clay Shirky and We-Think by Charles Leadbetter – Guardian, 22/3/08, Book reviews Stuart Jefferies

Hacked Off – On reading here comes everybody by Clay Shirky and We-Think by Charles Leadbeater – Guardian, 22/3/08, Book reviews Stuart Jefferies

-       professional status of journalists being destroyed by UGC/Citizen Journalism claimed by Shirky/Leadbeater is not happening in the way suggested. Old Model is changing – online allows constant revisions, old model required correct first time as limited ability to edit

-       journalists adhere to rules that ‘joe public’ doesn’t have to – grammatical accuracy, legally safe, interesting to read, not plagiarised: implication here is that public output onto the web generally isn’t

-       “Technology helps us to publish any old cobblers” and he goes on to complete with “then allows us to redraft it again and again”.

-       Whilst he admits that collaboration may work to further progress and discovery, he argues that Shirky/Leadbeater’s argument about creative collaboration in relation to the internet has little to do with “all the illiterate guff on blogs and those fatuous social networking sites”

-        Discusses the example of Black and White Maniacs on Flickr who tried to allow anyone to post, but at least 2 comments must be left on other photos to ‘thwart jokers’ but this ended up in a spiral of unusable and unworkable rules – so how does one get ‘extreme openness and decentralisation’ but simultaneously ‘discourag[e] the exercise of authority’ to work in practice?

-       He agrees with Shirky when he says only a few people account for a ‘wildly disproportionate amount of overall connectivity’ – so not here comes everybody

-       He argues that ‘connectors’ (people connecting/publishing online) could easily become other people’s bottleneck, gatekeeper, authority figure, onerous boss

-       He says they are both naive – all the tools available to the ‘mass’ to fight authority can equally be used by that same authority.

The Global Village Idiot (an amusing read) – Owen Davey, MM27, February 2009

The Global Village Idiot (an amusing read) – Owen Davey, MM27, February 2009

-       what if you’re not a ‘digital native’ – that is, familiar with all the technology and information?

-       What if the “language of your Mac, mobile phone or MP3 player is foreign to you?”

-       Not all young people are ‘digital natives’ – fallacy to assume so

-       Increased internet ‘activity’ leads to alienation and isolation – the breakdown of communities

Free culture – e-media comes of age – Sara Mills, MM28, April 2009

Free culture – e-media comes of age – Sara Mills, MM28, April 2009

-       Tim Berners-Lee – not his idea of interactivity – but we’re getting there

-       Wikipedia – subject to editing – people do like to change but it is peer-reviewed and fixed within a few hours – uses roll-back to previous editions

-       Wikipedia does promote it’s own fallacy – ironically making it more reliable: entries are supposed to be cross-referenced

-       Proximity and immediacy over skill and professionalism

-       Restricts ‘power’ and ‘agency’ for the audience to those with access to technology and the internet/fast connections – particularly Europe/US and parts of Asia

-       Wikipedia isn’t available in every language – neither is the internet

Counter Arguments overview on its way but here's Andrew Keen whilst you're waiting!

HERE - your challenge - to read it and NOT shout at the computer whilst doing so!