ABSTRACTS AND PAPERS
| [Arranged alphabetically by author(s). In some cases, the corresponding author is listed first. Use the find function on your browser to search page. Abstract titles linked to full papers when available.] |
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The Curious Case of The Radia Community, Ricardo Amaral
Within sociology, the majority of research on small world networks has seldom focused on natively digital objects or environments dedicated to cultural artifacts. In this paper I analyse the effects of small world networks on Radia, a network of 23 radio stations created to promote the self-determination of radio art, from 2005 to 2010. Using the descriptions uploaded by the artists, which constitute the narrative of the artistic praxis of the community (including techniques used, key words and genres), and digital tools - such as the Issuecrawler and the Googlescraper (aka Lippmanian Device) – to identify and map the specificity of the language. I find that small world networks can indeed help in defining the boundaries of an artistic genre, through the pooling of ideas, resources and the promotion of particular modes of participation. My findings also seem to suggest that small world networks, in addition to a history of strong media regulation, may play an important part in the occurrence of a certain homogeneity in the production of radio artworks.
A Case Study of Manga Distribution in the United States, Kristin Anderson-Terpstra, Casey Brienza
This paper examines the reasons for book publishing’s transition from a print to a digital media platform and the consequent implications for practices of media consumption, using the US manga industry’s relationship to the distributors of its content, both legal (retailers) and illegal (digital pirates, a.k.a. “scanslators”). The word “manga” in this context refers to comic books originating in Japan and licensed for publication in English. The successful US commercial establishment of manga in the early 2000s, we argue, is due in part to the well-established networks of distribution developed in and around the book trade. The frantic move towards electronic formats and distribution, both by the manga industry and the book publishing industry as a whole in the past year, we argue, is a frank bid for survival which, if successful, will accomplish far more than merely keeping companies financially solvent. This transition, we argue, also has the potential to increase the control of the publishing industries over reader consumption practices. Where previously it was only possible to police intellectual property rights after an act of reproduction or piracy had occurred—copyright protection enforced only the prohibition of unauthorized reproduction—e-books make it possible for publishers to control how, when, and where a book is consumed before it is even purchased. Clearly, the extent of the industry’s success in this period of transition will determine not only what sorts of media we consume in the future but also how, precisely, we are allowed to consume them.
This paper examines the reasons for book publishing’s transition from a print to a digital media platform and the consequent implications for practices of media consumption, using the US manga industry’s relationship to the distributors of its content, both legal (retailers) and illegal (digital pirates, a.k.a. “scanslators”). The word “manga” in this context refers to comic books originating in Japan and licensed for publication in English. The successful US commercial establishment of manga in the early 2000s, we argue, is due in part to the well-established networks of distribution developed in and around the book trade. The frantic move towards electronic formats and distribution, both by the manga industry and the book publishing industry as a whole in the past year, we argue, is a frank bid for survival which, if successful, will accomplish far more than merely keeping companies financially solvent. This transition, we argue, also has the potential to increase the control of the publishing industries over reader consumption practices. Where previously it was only possible to police intellectual property rights after an act of reproduction or piracy had occurred—copyright protection enforced only the prohibition of unauthorized reproduction—e-books make it possible for publishers to control how, when, and where a book is consumed before it is even purchased. Clearly, the extent of the industry’s success in this period of transition will determine not only what sorts of media we consume in the future but also how, precisely, we are allowed to consume them.
Consoles and Culture, Ben Aslinger
The development and launch of the Ebox in China and the Zeebo in Brazil force scholars to rethink the global flows of video game hardware and software. Given the wide presence of censor and classification boards and the levying of import or excise taxes on game software and hardware, game consoles and software titles often inhabit murky terrain in the global economy. Drawing on trade press materials, blog posts, social media traces, online video, and promotional materials, I examine how the console might mean something different to developed and developing economies and to different classes and categories of players in various localities. I examine why the circulation of consoles and software are important to players, industries, and local entrepreneurs even as PC gaming often remains a more viable alternative for players, venture capitalists, and established firms.
The development and launch of the Ebox in China and the Zeebo in Brazil force scholars to rethink the global flows of video game hardware and software. Given the wide presence of censor and classification boards and the levying of import or excise taxes on game software and hardware, game consoles and software titles often inhabit murky terrain in the global economy. Drawing on trade press materials, blog posts, social media traces, online video, and promotional materials, I examine how the console might mean something different to developed and developing economies and to different classes and categories of players in various localities. I examine why the circulation of consoles and software are important to players, industries, and local entrepreneurs even as PC gaming often remains a more viable alternative for players, venture capitalists, and established firms.
Tradition, Power, and Dialogue: A Study of Youth Media in Palestine/ Israel, Sanjay Asthana
A primary purpose of the essay is to demonstrate how young people living in refugee camps in Palestine, and as minority Palestinians in Israel, appropriate and reconfigure old and new media in the process of creating personal and social narratives. Palestinian youth share common legacies of socio-economic inequities, ongoing conflict, and the clash of religious and secular ontologies. However, their imagination is shaped not by despair, but to borrow Raymond Williams’s felicitous phrase, by “resources of hope.” Focusing on Palestinian identity and selfhood, and the Palestinian-Israeli youth collaborations, I explore how and in what specific ways, children and young people engage with media forms to express their ideas of politics, citizenship, and democratic participation.
Kindles and Nooks and Droids, Oh My!: Analog Reading Habits Help Us Adapt Better to Digital Contexts, Wendy Austin
In this age of Kindles, Nooks, e-Readers, and Droids, the size of our reading space gets smaller and smaller. With analog reading, college students in particular can get a better sense of the context of their source, while the new media reading tools tend to confuse the origins, motives, effects, and contextual cues of reading events. The college writing classroom (which inevitably includes reading) is an excellent place to clarify for students the pleasures and difficulties of sustained analog reading, while comparing it to new media reading tools that filter ads, convey other forms of media simultaneous with the reading event, and (may) include interactivity. Joshua Quittner’s “The Future of Reading” (Fortune magazine) lays out excellent groundwork for the elements of the debate, and the means for achieving success with analog reading, while maintaining interests in new media literacies. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows describes why giving up analog reading would be detrimental to the next generation of web citizens, but a wide array of new media fans explain why we need to help students do both: learn to love to read the long way, while embracing the tools that convey the new media literacies. Cynthia Selfe’s The Importance of Paying Attention provides a guide for how we can incorporate both types of literacies without losing too much by the wayside.
In this age of Kindles, Nooks, e-Readers, and Droids, the size of our reading space gets smaller and smaller. With analog reading, college students in particular can get a better sense of the context of their source, while the new media reading tools tend to confuse the origins, motives, effects, and contextual cues of reading events. The college writing classroom (which inevitably includes reading) is an excellent place to clarify for students the pleasures and difficulties of sustained analog reading, while comparing it to new media reading tools that filter ads, convey other forms of media simultaneous with the reading event, and (may) include interactivity. Joshua Quittner’s “The Future of Reading” (Fortune magazine) lays out excellent groundwork for the elements of the debate, and the means for achieving success with analog reading, while maintaining interests in new media literacies. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows describes why giving up analog reading would be detrimental to the next generation of web citizens, but a wide array of new media fans explain why we need to help students do both: learn to love to read the long way, while embracing the tools that convey the new media literacies. Cynthia Selfe’s The Importance of Paying Attention provides a guide for how we can incorporate both types of literacies without losing too much by the wayside.
Operation Payback (…is a Bitch):Hacktivism at the dawn of Copyright Controversies
Burcu S. Bakioglu
In her 2010 white paper, “Piracy is the Future of Television,” Abigail De Kosnik claims that of the options available to media users, illegal downloading is the most usable option that bears the potential for pioneering new modes of audience engagement as well as revenue streams. Hacktivism combines the transgressive politics of civil disobedience with the technologies and techniques of computer hackers. It is, as defined by hacktivists themselves, the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends (Samuel 2001). Consider, for example, Operation Payback launched in October 2010 by the 4Chan-related group, Anonymous, against the media giants RIAA and MPAA. These companies, specifically the lawyers and programming companies that they hired, were using (il)legal strategies to take down The Pirate Bay (the popular peer-to-peer file sharing website) by way of launching Denial of Service attacks (DDoS) and were extorting money from the alleged copyright infringers. This paper will examine the role of hacktivism in mainstreaming the activities of piracy cultures which play a prominent role in manipulating the production, transaction, and exchange of cultural goods.
Burcu S. Bakioglu
In her 2010 white paper, “Piracy is the Future of Television,” Abigail De Kosnik claims that of the options available to media users, illegal downloading is the most usable option that bears the potential for pioneering new modes of audience engagement as well as revenue streams. Hacktivism combines the transgressive politics of civil disobedience with the technologies and techniques of computer hackers. It is, as defined by hacktivists themselves, the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends (Samuel 2001). Consider, for example, Operation Payback launched in October 2010 by the 4Chan-related group, Anonymous, against the media giants RIAA and MPAA. These companies, specifically the lawyers and programming companies that they hired, were using (il)legal strategies to take down The Pirate Bay (the popular peer-to-peer file sharing website) by way of launching Denial of Service attacks (DDoS) and were extorting money from the alleged copyright infringers. This paper will examine the role of hacktivism in mainstreaming the activities of piracy cultures which play a prominent role in manipulating the production, transaction, and exchange of cultural goods.
Informal Media Economies – What Can We Learn from the Pirates of Yesteryear?, Bodo Balazs
A longer historical lens suggests that the current crisis of copyright, piracy, and enforcement has much in common with earlier periods of conflict among the different participants of the cultural ecosystem. From the early days of the book trade in the 16th century, cultural markets were shaped by several, competing forces: the Crown’s and the Church’s will to control the flow of ideas, publishers’ need to limit competition among themselves, the authors’ need for financial and political independence and the public’s want for cheap and easily accessible print materials. Several, often overlapping formal and informal arrangements have existed between these stakeholders to regulate the cultural field. One of the informal forces that shape cultural markets is what we call piracy. Piracy is the informal network of producers, distributors and sellers that operate beyond the formally regulated economy. The term piracy suggests illegality, but we stress on the informality of these networks, which include a wide variety of practices from the plainly illegal to those that are consciously opt not to rely on the formal regulatory structures to organize themselves. Informal economies are indeed alternatives to formally organized economies, and this alternativity is usually seen as a threat. I, however, would like to argue, that informal networks, piracy included, are not simply threats, but also offer opportunities to improve on formalized structures. This article argues that 300 years after the first formal copyright regulation, formal instruments regulating the production and flow of intellectual properties are still only one, out of many more-or-less formal arrangements that shape cultural markets.
A longer historical lens suggests that the current crisis of copyright, piracy, and enforcement has much in common with earlier periods of conflict among the different participants of the cultural ecosystem. From the early days of the book trade in the 16th century, cultural markets were shaped by several, competing forces: the Crown’s and the Church’s will to control the flow of ideas, publishers’ need to limit competition among themselves, the authors’ need for financial and political independence and the public’s want for cheap and easily accessible print materials. Several, often overlapping formal and informal arrangements have existed between these stakeholders to regulate the cultural field. One of the informal forces that shape cultural markets is what we call piracy. Piracy is the informal network of producers, distributors and sellers that operate beyond the formally regulated economy. The term piracy suggests illegality, but we stress on the informality of these networks, which include a wide variety of practices from the plainly illegal to those that are consciously opt not to rely on the formal regulatory structures to organize themselves. Informal economies are indeed alternatives to formally organized economies, and this alternativity is usually seen as a threat. I, however, would like to argue, that informal networks, piracy included, are not simply threats, but also offer opportunities to improve on formalized structures. This article argues that 300 years after the first formal copyright regulation, formal instruments regulating the production and flow of intellectual properties are still only one, out of many more-or-less formal arrangements that shape cultural markets.
, Anat Ben-David
This study traces the emergence of the Palestinian Web, which gradually transformed from Websites hosted under generic domains (.org, .net, .edu), via symbolic hosting of official Websites under the .int domain, and finally to the official delegation of the national .ps domain. The creation of the Palestinian digital space, with its defined sovereign borders, stands in contrast to the current unsettled borders of the Palestinian Territory. While prevalent accounts of the ‘nationalization’ of the Palestinian Web-space are ethnographic in nature, this paper traces the history of the Palestinian Web-space and the shaping of its digital borders by turning to the Web itself. It maps the emergence of a national digital space into already existing national and international Web-spaces by using digital methods that reconstruct and visualize archived Web data and their evolution over time. Such digital history-telling aims at revealing the unique characteristics of the Web in shaping digital borders, as well as the resonance of digital borders with physical territories, and their related political and diplomatic processes.
This study traces the emergence of the Palestinian Web, which gradually transformed from Websites hosted under generic domains (.org, .net, .edu), via symbolic hosting of official Websites under the .int domain, and finally to the official delegation of the national .ps domain. The creation of the Palestinian digital space, with its defined sovereign borders, stands in contrast to the current unsettled borders of the Palestinian Territory. While prevalent accounts of the ‘nationalization’ of the Palestinian Web-space are ethnographic in nature, this paper traces the history of the Palestinian Web-space and the shaping of its digital borders by turning to the Web itself. It maps the emergence of a national digital space into already existing national and international Web-spaces by using digital methods that reconstruct and visualize archived Web data and their evolution over time. Such digital history-telling aims at revealing the unique characteristics of the Web in shaping digital borders, as well as the resonance of digital borders with physical territories, and their related political and diplomatic processes.
Archive, Cache, Database: Digital Literature in Transition, Paul Benzon
Much of the discourse to date regarding digital literature has focused primarily on
questions of representation and narrative. This critical approach exemplifies what Nick
Montfort has critiqued as the “screen essentialism” of media studies, in which visual,
screen-based information is understood as constituting the totality of mediated
experience. A critical development beyond screen essentialism, then, requires attention to the ways in which electronic textuality resides, transforms, and circulates behind or beyond the threshold of the screen. In this paper, I offer one model of such a critical approach through a study of Dakota, a black-and-white, text-only Flash animation by the electronic literature collective Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries (YHCHI). Beyond the immediately visible version that most commonly circulates on the Web, Dakota exists in a number of different forms and contexts online, from the inexact, syncopated transcriptions of its text found in Google’s cache to online Flash animation communities that parse the work as a series of individual frames and numerical values. Tracing Dakota across these different forms and locations, I suggest that if we take this multiplicity of informational form into account, it becomes possible to see the historicity of electronic textuality as neither inaccessible nor stable, but rather as defined by its existence in motion, complexly distributed over the global archive of the Internet.
Much of the discourse to date regarding digital literature has focused primarily on
questions of representation and narrative. This critical approach exemplifies what Nick
Montfort has critiqued as the “screen essentialism” of media studies, in which visual,
screen-based information is understood as constituting the totality of mediated
experience. A critical development beyond screen essentialism, then, requires attention to the ways in which electronic textuality resides, transforms, and circulates behind or beyond the threshold of the screen. In this paper, I offer one model of such a critical approach through a study of Dakota, a black-and-white, text-only Flash animation by the electronic literature collective Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries (YHCHI). Beyond the immediately visible version that most commonly circulates on the Web, Dakota exists in a number of different forms and contexts online, from the inexact, syncopated transcriptions of its text found in Google’s cache to online Flash animation communities that parse the work as a series of individual frames and numerical values. Tracing Dakota across these different forms and locations, I suggest that if we take this multiplicity of informational form into account, it becomes possible to see the historicity of electronic textuality as neither inaccessible nor stable, but rather as defined by its existence in motion, complexly distributed over the global archive of the Internet.
Dreaming of Cronkite 2.0: How Twitter’s Encoded Media Ideologies Are Changing Reportage Around Breaking Events, Matt Bernius
My paper explores one particular moment within an unfolding professional discussion as to the role that the micro-blogging platform Twitter plays/ should play in the production and dissemination of “good” reporting. Working from ethnographic observations and interviews collected on and around Twitter in the wake of the January 11 shooting of US Representative Gabrielle Giffords, I discuss how ideological assumptions built into Twitter’s software alter the (re)production of reportage. In particular, drawing on Erving Goffman’s writings, I unpack how the repeated invocations of “Walter Cronkite” that occur in those articles can be read as attempts to both legitimize new modes of reportage and recapture a specific type of authority which was intimately tied to a mode of professionalized news production based upon clearly demarcated front-and backstage areas and well-defined and stable roles for all actors.
My paper explores one particular moment within an unfolding professional discussion as to the role that the micro-blogging platform Twitter plays/ should play in the production and dissemination of “good” reporting. Working from ethnographic observations and interviews collected on and around Twitter in the wake of the January 11 shooting of US Representative Gabrielle Giffords, I discuss how ideological assumptions built into Twitter’s software alter the (re)production of reportage. In particular, drawing on Erving Goffman’s writings, I unpack how the repeated invocations of “Walter Cronkite” that occur in those articles can be read as attempts to both legitimize new modes of reportage and recapture a specific type of authority which was intimately tied to a mode of professionalized news production based upon clearly demarcated front-and backstage areas and well-defined and stable roles for all actors.
Transformation Matters: The Processes of Transforming Print into Digital in Text Corpora, Hanno Biber, Evelyn Breiteneder
The transformation of a text from print into digital form fundamentally changes the properties of its textuality. This transformation process can be regarded as a process of translating from one medium to another. In order to understand what is gained by translating and transforming a printed text into a digital text, it is necessary to understand what can and what cannot be translated into the new language and what can and what cannot be transformed into the new medium. These processes of transformation can be regarded as instruments of critique. Text corpora of retrodigitized print publications of various kinds are excellent examples for an exploration of these considerations. Numerous examples from the AAC-Austrian Academy Corpus operated by the Institute for Corpus Linguistics and Text Technology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences will be given. One example, the AAC-FACKEL, a scholarly digital edition of a satirical journal will function as a model edition and possible answer to the research questions, whereby the characteristics of this journal had to be translated into a new form that allows the reader to access the original print matter in its new digital format.
The transformation of a text from print into digital form fundamentally changes the properties of its textuality. This transformation process can be regarded as a process of translating from one medium to another. In order to understand what is gained by translating and transforming a printed text into a digital text, it is necessary to understand what can and what cannot be translated into the new language and what can and what cannot be transformed into the new medium. These processes of transformation can be regarded as instruments of critique. Text corpora of retrodigitized print publications of various kinds are excellent examples for an exploration of these considerations. Numerous examples from the AAC-Austrian Academy Corpus operated by the Institute for Corpus Linguistics and Text Technology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences will be given. One example, the AAC-FACKEL, a scholarly digital edition of a satirical journal will function as a model edition and possible answer to the research questions, whereby the characteristics of this journal had to be translated into a new form that allows the reader to access the original print matter in its new digital format.
How Shakespeare, Hollywood, and Napoleon Shaped Cold-War Corporate Communication, Mats Bjorkin
This paper is based on an analysis of how US, British, German, Dutch and Scandinavian companies during the 1950s developed new knowledge of media. This new knowledge was partly the result of deliberate theorising in the crossroads between modern advertising, information theory, pedagogical and informational uses of film and other media, and management theory and practice. However, most theorising activities concerning media in companies were developed without any reference to such theories. Uses of new media were often the work of individual enthusiasts, whose relation to media more resembled the knowledge of media fans, rather than the ad man or communication specialist. Bringing research on fandom into historical studies of corporate culture helps us understand creative processes and the irrational aspects of corporate decision-making. It also helps us understand certain mechanisms of development and innovation in times of media transition. The notion of transmedia as we understand it today may be a new phenomenon, but research in media history during the past decades show how our uses of media always have been multifaceted and reaching across different media.
This paper is based on an analysis of how US, British, German, Dutch and Scandinavian companies during the 1950s developed new knowledge of media. This new knowledge was partly the result of deliberate theorising in the crossroads between modern advertising, information theory, pedagogical and informational uses of film and other media, and management theory and practice. However, most theorising activities concerning media in companies were developed without any reference to such theories. Uses of new media were often the work of individual enthusiasts, whose relation to media more resembled the knowledge of media fans, rather than the ad man or communication specialist. Bringing research on fandom into historical studies of corporate culture helps us understand creative processes and the irrational aspects of corporate decision-making. It also helps us understand certain mechanisms of development and innovation in times of media transition. The notion of transmedia as we understand it today may be a new phenomenon, but research in media history during the past decades show how our uses of media always have been multifaceted and reaching across different media.
The Duality of Platforms: The Two Active Audiences in Media Theory, Goran Bolin
The ‘active audience’ has theoretically been conceptualised from two perspectives in media theory: in political economy, from Dallas Smythe and onwards is suggested that television audiences work for the networks while watching, thus contributing to the valorisation process of the television/media industry. Although contested it has survived among television scholars, also feeding into the discussion on web surveillance techniques (cf. Andrejevic). In reception theory, media ethnography and fan studies, the interpretive work of audiences is also seen as productive, although this productivity result in identities, taste cultures and social difference. This paper relates these two perspectives on audience activity by considering media users as involved in two production-consumptions circuits: [1] the viewer activities produces social difference (identities, cultural meaning) in a social and cultural economy, which is then [2] made the object of productive consumption as part of the activities of the media industry, the end product being economic profit. This is especially significant for technological platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, and other search and social networking platforms who build on user activity and user generated content, and in the paper will be discussed the dual function of these platforms.
The ‘active audience’ has theoretically been conceptualised from two perspectives in media theory: in political economy, from Dallas Smythe and onwards is suggested that television audiences work for the networks while watching, thus contributing to the valorisation process of the television/media industry. Although contested it has survived among television scholars, also feeding into the discussion on web surveillance techniques (cf. Andrejevic). In reception theory, media ethnography and fan studies, the interpretive work of audiences is also seen as productive, although this productivity result in identities, taste cultures and social difference. This paper relates these two perspectives on audience activity by considering media users as involved in two production-consumptions circuits: [1] the viewer activities produces social difference (identities, cultural meaning) in a social and cultural economy, which is then [2] made the object of productive consumption as part of the activities of the media industry, the end product being economic profit. This is especially significant for technological platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, and other search and social networking platforms who build on user activity and user generated content, and in the paper will be discussed the dual function of these platforms.
The Social Media Protest Environment: Constructing the Collective Now, Erik Borra and Thomas Poell
Social media allow alternative political actors to establish their own media environments. The question is: how do these environments function in the media landscape at large? Some authors argue that they serve as a critical check on, and increasingly also as important sources for, mainstream reporting (Bruns 2008; Castells 2009; Shirky 2008). Others see few meaningful connections with the mainstream press (Fenton 2010; Lester & Hutchinson 2009; Sunstein 2008). While social media environments have clearly been examined from a mainstream press perspective, little research has yet been done on how these environments function in the broader media landscape. This paper provides such research. It examines the social media reporting efforts of the Toronto Community Mobilization Network (TCMN), which coordinated and facilitated the protests against the G-20 summit in Toronto (25-26 June 2010). TCMN urged activists to report about the protests on Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr, tagging their contributions #g20report. In addition, it set up a Facebook group and blog. For this research, all of these activist reports have been harvested for ten days around the summit, and their in- and outlinks collected. Our analysis indicates that the activists' social media reports hardly functioned as a critical check on, or source of, mainstream reporting. Yet, neither was the activist account articulated in isolation from the mainstream press, as the top in- and outlinks connected to both social media reports and mainstream sources. The most striking characteristic of this social media protest environment is how overwhelming it was focused on the ‘now’. The context of the G-20 protests, as well as the larger issues at stake in these protests, hardly received any attention in this environment.
Social media allow alternative political actors to establish their own media environments. The question is: how do these environments function in the media landscape at large? Some authors argue that they serve as a critical check on, and increasingly also as important sources for, mainstream reporting (Bruns 2008; Castells 2009; Shirky 2008). Others see few meaningful connections with the mainstream press (Fenton 2010; Lester & Hutchinson 2009; Sunstein 2008). While social media environments have clearly been examined from a mainstream press perspective, little research has yet been done on how these environments function in the broader media landscape. This paper provides such research. It examines the social media reporting efforts of the Toronto Community Mobilization Network (TCMN), which coordinated and facilitated the protests against the G-20 summit in Toronto (25-26 June 2010). TCMN urged activists to report about the protests on Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr, tagging their contributions #g20report. In addition, it set up a Facebook group and blog. For this research, all of these activist reports have been harvested for ten days around the summit, and their in- and outlinks collected. Our analysis indicates that the activists' social media reports hardly functioned as a critical check on, or source of, mainstream reporting. Yet, neither was the activist account articulated in isolation from the mainstream press, as the top in- and outlinks connected to both social media reports and mainstream sources. The most striking characteristic of this social media protest environment is how overwhelming it was focused on the ‘now’. The context of the G-20 protests, as well as the larger issues at stake in these protests, hardly received any attention in this environment.
, Liliana Bounegru
This paper examines how the issue of abortion is represented on the Romanian Web sphere as demarcated by the local Google domain, as way to make claims about both the natively digital device and simultaneously about cultural change and societal conditions as seen with the Web. What does the overwhelming dominance of pro-life sources in the top results for the query abortion, as well as the fact that an additional “pro-choice” query resulted in more pro-life results say about the status of the issue in the national information culture and about the way Google organizes information on the Web? Could it be considered a manipulation or hijacking of Google results by means of search engine optimization techniques perhaps? Or is the dominance of pro-life sources due to the absence of pro-choice actors on the Romanian web? Whereas placement at the top of Google results typically indicates the sources’ popularity and large audience share, the findings of this case study appear to suggest that failing to organize a public as well as failing to organize opposition to the framing of an issue, is an indication of marginality and not popularity or dominance of an issue framing, as generally assumed about top ranked Google results.
This paper examines how the issue of abortion is represented on the Romanian Web sphere as demarcated by the local Google domain, as way to make claims about both the natively digital device and simultaneously about cultural change and societal conditions as seen with the Web. What does the overwhelming dominance of pro-life sources in the top results for the query abortion, as well as the fact that an additional “pro-choice” query resulted in more pro-life results say about the status of the issue in the national information culture and about the way Google organizes information on the Web? Could it be considered a manipulation or hijacking of Google results by means of search engine optimization techniques perhaps? Or is the dominance of pro-life sources due to the absence of pro-choice actors on the Romanian web? Whereas placement at the top of Google results typically indicates the sources’ popularity and large audience share, the findings of this case study appear to suggest that failing to organize a public as well as failing to organize opposition to the framing of an issue, is an indication of marginality and not popularity or dominance of an issue framing, as generally assumed about top ranked Google results.
Negotiating Noise as a Condition of Urbanization, Alex Braidwood
Early recording and playback systems, such as the Victor Victrola Phonograph, transitioned music from something that was generally experienced as a communal, performative event to one that could be played in the privacy of one’s home. With the development and rapid expansion in popularity of headphones and portable audio devices, an inverted listening experience emerged where private listening suddenly took place in public. The latest manifestation of this transition is from an object intended primarily for listening to sound to a device that contains audio playback as just one of its many features. These highly connected and relatively powerful devices have become a staple of the expanding urban landscape. With increased urbanization comes an increase in levels of noise. These noises are primarily the result of resources and services that make our current way of life in these areas possible. Considering the necessity of certain noises in order to orient oneself and navigate within a space, complete cancelation or elimination is not a viable option. A great deal of research is being done by biologists and sociologists into the affects of noise on behavior, activity, health and communication. Informed by this type of research, this paper presents a series of design proposals that are not concerned with the cancelation or elimination of noise. Instead, the proposals focus on the filtration, transformation and integration of noise within various aspects of an urban environment. By suggesting methods for combining ideas of instrument and playback, these proposals question the relationship between people and noise in ways that are relevant to both a personal and collective experience.
Early recording and playback systems, such as the Victor Victrola Phonograph, transitioned music from something that was generally experienced as a communal, performative event to one that could be played in the privacy of one’s home. With the development and rapid expansion in popularity of headphones and portable audio devices, an inverted listening experience emerged where private listening suddenly took place in public. The latest manifestation of this transition is from an object intended primarily for listening to sound to a device that contains audio playback as just one of its many features. These highly connected and relatively powerful devices have become a staple of the expanding urban landscape. With increased urbanization comes an increase in levels of noise. These noises are primarily the result of resources and services that make our current way of life in these areas possible. Considering the necessity of certain noises in order to orient oneself and navigate within a space, complete cancelation or elimination is not a viable option. A great deal of research is being done by biologists and sociologists into the affects of noise on behavior, activity, health and communication. Informed by this type of research, this paper presents a series of design proposals that are not concerned with the cancelation or elimination of noise. Instead, the proposals focus on the filtration, transformation and integration of noise within various aspects of an urban environment. By suggesting methods for combining ideas of instrument and playback, these proposals question the relationship between people and noise in ways that are relevant to both a personal and collective experience.
Designing for Instability: Internet Architecture and Constant Change
Sandra Braman
Those responsible for technical design of what we now call the Internet initially believed that the protocols (technical standards) they were designing would remain unchanged once put in place, but quickly realized that the crux of their design problem was establishing technological structures that not only tolerated but would actually facilitate change. This paper will examine the various techniques developed by network designers to deal with this problem as discussed in the first 40 years (1969-2009) of the technical document series that records the design conversation, the Internet Requests for Comments (RFCs). The paper will open with examining the ways in which change and stability themselves were conceptualized by Internet designers. Because the Internet RFCs has become a model of decision-making for other types of large-scale socio-technical infrastructures, research on design of the Internet for instability provides insight not only into the Internet itself, but also into socio-technical relations with other information and communication technologies. This research is part of a larger NSF-funded project involving a comprehensive inductive reading of the entire RFC corpus through 2009 for ways in which those responsible for technical design of the Internet understood and engaged with legal and policy issues.
Sandra Braman
Those responsible for technical design of what we now call the Internet initially believed that the protocols (technical standards) they were designing would remain unchanged once put in place, but quickly realized that the crux of their design problem was establishing technological structures that not only tolerated but would actually facilitate change. This paper will examine the various techniques developed by network designers to deal with this problem as discussed in the first 40 years (1969-2009) of the technical document series that records the design conversation, the Internet Requests for Comments (RFCs). The paper will open with examining the ways in which change and stability themselves were conceptualized by Internet designers. Because the Internet RFCs has become a model of decision-making for other types of large-scale socio-technical infrastructures, research on design of the Internet for instability provides insight not only into the Internet itself, but also into socio-technical relations with other information and communication technologies. This research is part of a larger NSF-funded project involving a comprehensive inductive reading of the entire RFC corpus through 2009 for ways in which those responsible for technical design of the Internet understood and engaged with legal and policy issues.
Global Transitions in the Framing of Fan Activities: Exploring the Cross-Border Practices of a Canadian Fan, Jennifer Brayton
We live in a shifting world where global corporate media interests are in transition, and the perceived role of the fan and their activities are changing. An ongoing issue for fans is the imperative towards corporate copyright and intellectual property ownership, where fans are often positioned as being threats to cultural owners. Examples of this include cease and desist letters, the removal of fan content from YouTube, and online sites of fan creativity changing their Terms of Service in response to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States. Fans thus live in a state of uncertainty about the status of their cultural creations. For this workshop, I outline some of the shifts in cultural thinking about media ownership, copyright and intellectual property as pertaining to fan practices, shaped in part by two experiences I have had as a Canadian utilizing cultural content from the United States for my fan activities. Within these encounters, my fan experiences with content owners and creators was positive in nature, though with certain contextual limitations based on the prioritizing of corporate interests. These positive encounters serve as the starting point for a larger discussion in the workshop about perceptions of not only the fan, but of copyright holders to cultural products and how they intersect.
We live in a shifting world where global corporate media interests are in transition, and the perceived role of the fan and their activities are changing. An ongoing issue for fans is the imperative towards corporate copyright and intellectual property ownership, where fans are often positioned as being threats to cultural owners. Examples of this include cease and desist letters, the removal of fan content from YouTube, and online sites of fan creativity changing their Terms of Service in response to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States. Fans thus live in a state of uncertainty about the status of their cultural creations. For this workshop, I outline some of the shifts in cultural thinking about media ownership, copyright and intellectual property as pertaining to fan practices, shaped in part by two experiences I have had as a Canadian utilizing cultural content from the United States for my fan activities. Within these encounters, my fan experiences with content owners and creators was positive in nature, though with certain contextual limitations based on the prioritizing of corporate interests. These positive encounters serve as the starting point for a larger discussion in the workshop about perceptions of not only the fan, but of copyright holders to cultural products and how they intersect.
, Pat Brereton
The term 'smart cinema' acquired popular currency in academic circles in the late 1990s. The most coherent explanation has been put forward by Jeffrey Sconce’s essay (Screen 2002), which argues that smart films reflect the presence of a growing 'culture of irony' and parody. Its intended audience is the disillusioned yet highly educated new generation who display a form of ironic contempt and emotional distancing from their surroundings and socio-cultural existence. This paper will use a number of case studies to demonstrate the importance of smart cinema for new generations and, drawing on the special issue on DVD add-ons for Convergence (2007), which I edited, focus on how add-ons can strengthen the overall appeal of this consumer fan-driven medium and at the same time incorporate significant re-educational applications.
Big Science/ Big Media: The Space Race and Mass Communication, Cira Brown
The media frenzy surrounding the Space Race was not merely an exercise in grandiose heroification, nor a manifestation of the Military-Industrial complexities of the Cold War environment; it was also a transformative process that created new paradigms of large-scale science and technological communication to the masses. As the American public was confronted with (and persuaded to sponsor) the lofty endeavor of landing on the moon, the crafts of using mass media to blend entertainment with news, sustain a sense of urgency, and promote a highly risky agenda – facets of the news that we are very familiar with today – were being sharpened. By drawing on James L. Kauffman’s Selling Outer Space: Kennedy, the Media, and Funding for Project Apollo, 1961-1963 and media archives from the era, this case study examines the formation of seminal strategies in Big Science publicization, conveying immediacy and a collective national call to action, and the vagueness of shared notions of security and insecurity.
Something Wii-cked This Way Comes: Casual Gaming, Technological “Inadequacy,” and the Politics of Exclusion,Konrad Budziszewski
This paper examines the backlash against motion control interface (the Wii remote and, more recently, the PlayStation Move and Kinect for Xbox 360), aiming to illuminate the role of the discursive and affective construction of technology in the process of boundary-policing that accompanies electronic gaming’s ongoing transition into the cultural mainstream. Specifically, it focuses on the rhetoric emerging from the so-called “hardcore” gaming community, which frames motion-based casual gaming as a pursuit suitable only for seniors and soccer moms, while simultaneously claiming that the booming casual sector does not so much co-exist with the hardcore culture as encroach upon it. I look at game technology—the game controller in particular—as a site of conflict between and negotiation of competing forms of technocultural identity: one integrationist and open, the other exclusive, structured by values such as skill, dedication, and technological affluence. Within this space, the “mom” and the “granny” operate as convenient ideological constructs, encapsulating all the qualities perceived as antithetical to “true” gaming. The discursive reaffirmation of the hardcore ethos and ceremonial denunciation of the gendered and aged “undesirables” can therefore be seen as a form of borderwork, aimed at protecting the essential “integrity” (read: exclusivity) of play experience in an increasingly open gaming culture.
This paper examines the backlash against motion control interface (the Wii remote and, more recently, the PlayStation Move and Kinect for Xbox 360), aiming to illuminate the role of the discursive and affective construction of technology in the process of boundary-policing that accompanies electronic gaming’s ongoing transition into the cultural mainstream. Specifically, it focuses on the rhetoric emerging from the so-called “hardcore” gaming community, which frames motion-based casual gaming as a pursuit suitable only for seniors and soccer moms, while simultaneously claiming that the booming casual sector does not so much co-exist with the hardcore culture as encroach upon it. I look at game technology—the game controller in particular—as a site of conflict between and negotiation of competing forms of technocultural identity: one integrationist and open, the other exclusive, structured by values such as skill, dedication, and technological affluence. Within this space, the “mom” and the “granny” operate as convenient ideological constructs, encapsulating all the qualities perceived as antithetical to “true” gaming. The discursive reaffirmation of the hardcore ethos and ceremonial denunciation of the gendered and aged “undesirables” can therefore be seen as a form of borderwork, aimed at protecting the essential “integrity” (read: exclusivity) of play experience in an increasingly open gaming culture.
Be the Brand: Required Involvement in Social Media, Keidra Chaney and Raizel Liebler
There has been much written about the professional risk of social media use for individuals and for employers; in media reports as well as a recent National Labor Relations Board decision regarding employees use of Facebook to complain about a supervisor. But what happens when employees are encouraged (or required by the terms of employment) to publicly represent a company or brand through personal use of social media? Several years ago, many companies were skittish about employee use of blogs and other social networking tools. More recently, however, some brands are increasingly creating “official” company social media profiles as well as establishing social media policies to encourage employees to unofficially represent a company via social media during the work day and off-hours, with the understanding that transparency and personal contact are widely seen as important to success in social media communication and marketing. We will discuss issues involving intellectual property, privacy, and the bounds of employment within personal and professional social media use.
There has been much written about the professional risk of social media use for individuals and for employers; in media reports as well as a recent National Labor Relations Board decision regarding employees use of Facebook to complain about a supervisor. But what happens when employees are encouraged (or required by the terms of employment) to publicly represent a company or brand through personal use of social media? Several years ago, many companies were skittish about employee use of blogs and other social networking tools. More recently, however, some brands are increasingly creating “official” company social media profiles as well as establishing social media policies to encourage employees to unofficially represent a company via social media during the work day and off-hours, with the understanding that transparency and personal contact are widely seen as important to success in social media communication and marketing. We will discuss issues involving intellectual property, privacy, and the bounds of employment within personal and professional social media use.
The Digitization of Memory at the National Film Board of Canada,
Morgan Charles
Despite several budget cuts and considerable adjustments to their mandate, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has weathered many changes in its 71 years. These developments have led to an intensification of their distribution strategies, and the NFB has been quick to seize on the opportunities offered by new media; most notably, offering over a thousand of their films through streaming video online, as well as launching an iPhone application to view them. There is an understanding of the NFB film archive as a receptacle for Canadian national memory, the content of which is simply made more accessible by digitization and the internet. It is this retrospective claim on a particular national narrative, and the untroubled assumption that the internet functions as a passive conduit for these images of Canadian identity, that this paper seeks to problematize. Focusing on the prioritization of digitization efforts and how films are chosen to be made available online, and the way in which the Board's historic division into French and English sectors is reconciled in this unifying narrative of a digital solution, I seek to understand how the seemingly neutral work of preservation affects our understanding of the NFB and its films.
Morgan Charles
Despite several budget cuts and considerable adjustments to their mandate, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has weathered many changes in its 71 years. These developments have led to an intensification of their distribution strategies, and the NFB has been quick to seize on the opportunities offered by new media; most notably, offering over a thousand of their films through streaming video online, as well as launching an iPhone application to view them. There is an understanding of the NFB film archive as a receptacle for Canadian national memory, the content of which is simply made more accessible by digitization and the internet. It is this retrospective claim on a particular national narrative, and the untroubled assumption that the internet functions as a passive conduit for these images of Canadian identity, that this paper seeks to problematize. Focusing on the prioritization of digitization efforts and how films are chosen to be made available online, and the way in which the Board's historic division into French and English sectors is reconciled in this unifying narrative of a digital solution, I seek to understand how the seemingly neutral work of preservation affects our understanding of the NFB and its films.
Citizen Housewife: Female Bloggers and Constructions of Domesticity as a Political Act, Katarzyna Chmielewska
Discourses of public sphere, civic engagement and citizenry are key factors influencing gender roles in Poland, as well as the form and social function of blogs. This paper draws on the Internet studies and feminist scholarship about gender and domesticity that challenge the distinction between the public and private spheres. However, in my analysis I also demonstrate a crucial difference in perception of femininity and domesticity at the intersections of the public and private. While focusing on the personal, Polish blogs do not necessarily stand as a testament to fluid identities, individual agency, and reclamation of domesticity as an empowering act. Rather, they become a social—or civic—project: a public forum for raising topics other women can easily recognize as matters of the individual as well as of the publics and the state (childcare, healthcare, home budgeting, managing of housework, employment, state support for working mothers, etc). They convey revisionist perspectives on the processes of construction of femininity and the distinction between the private and public spheres, thus challenging historical narratives, politicizing the everyday, and situating domesticity within a premise of the public sphere.
Discourses of public sphere, civic engagement and citizenry are key factors influencing gender roles in Poland, as well as the form and social function of blogs. This paper draws on the Internet studies and feminist scholarship about gender and domesticity that challenge the distinction between the public and private spheres. However, in my analysis I also demonstrate a crucial difference in perception of femininity and domesticity at the intersections of the public and private. While focusing on the personal, Polish blogs do not necessarily stand as a testament to fluid identities, individual agency, and reclamation of domesticity as an empowering act. Rather, they become a social—or civic—project: a public forum for raising topics other women can easily recognize as matters of the individual as well as of the publics and the state (childcare, healthcare, home budgeting, managing of housework, employment, state support for working mothers, etc). They convey revisionist perspectives on the processes of construction of femininity and the distinction between the private and public spheres, thus challenging historical narratives, politicizing the everyday, and situating domesticity within a premise of the public sphere.
, Aymar Jean Christian
From the early years of film when Adolph Zukor challenged the Motion Pictures Patent Company to the amateur radio operators of the same period, American media industries have always benefitted from outsiders. Yet, the story of 20th-century media is often told as one of never-changing, ever-powerful entrenched corporations and media forms, but once again an industry shake-up is creating the possibility for new structures. Nowhere is this change more acute than in the market for web series, which has grown from a YouTube stunt (lonelygirl15) to a legitimate form capable of generating ad dollars and transitioning to traditional television. Even as it seeks acceptance from advertisers and networks, web series disrupt what we think of as “television,” “film,” even “amateur video.” Producers push forms, but also improvise ways to make money in a nascent marketplace.
Contemporary Film and Media Cultures in Bahrain: Emergence/ Convergence in a State of Emergency, Anne Ciecko
The recent (and as of this writing, ongoing) protests and declaration of a state of emergency in the Kingdom of Bahrain, following from revolutionary events in Tunisia and Egypt, have put the small island nation on the world media map. However, a close examination of Bahrain’s nascent film industry and film-cultural landscape reveals decades of seemingly proleptic discourse of national unity and representational challenges by and for specific constituencies, with and without state support. This presentation will address the emergence of feature filmmaking and digital possibilities in the countries of Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. I argue that Gulf cinema since its inception had deconstructed the region’s cultural heritage—as well as state ideology and global capital-constructed modern mythologies. A transnational cinema/television/digital media-scape links Bahrain with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as with Egypt, the United States, and India. Bahraini filmmakers in particular have employed family melodrama as a vehicle to reflexively and retrospectively explore crises of national identity in relation to pan-Arabism/Arab nationalism, the Arab-Israeli War, the Persian Gulf Wars, and other local, regional, and global catalytic/cataclysmic events. These films attempt to identify when and how issues of difference and sectarianism have historically come to the fore in Bahrain, and when and how they have been strategically used for specific ends. In this presentation, I will focus primarily on film and media production but will also contextualize my discussion in relation to the multiplex scene, Bahrain’s diverse film clubs, transmedia platforms, and other modes of exhibition and circulation. In addition to homegrown feature films, I will explore web-based and mobile forums to solicit, make, and share iconographic Bahraini hashtags/ memes and short video texts at this very critical cultural moment.
Antipathy and Social Games, Mia Consalvo
The game development industry is broadening in ways it could not have imagined a decade ago. While console and high-end PC games are still popular, mobile, casual, indie and online games have increasingly eroded their market share. In particular, social games have caught the attention of the wider media, and many senior game designers now work on games found on Facebook. Yet, at the 2010 Game Developers Conference, a palpable antipathy towards Zynga and Facebook underscored much of the talk of social games. Critics have argued that such games are little more than skinner boxes, designed to replicate gambling systems and efficiently separate players from their money. Yet, how is social game design different from more traditional game design? This talk explores the ambivalence surrounding social games, both in the popular media and in the broader game development community. Overall, this talk addresses the shifting landscape of the game industry, and how developers themselves are positioning themselves in relation to that shift, and how they ultimately are re-defining what videogames are—and should be—in the process.
The game development industry is broadening in ways it could not have imagined a decade ago. While console and high-end PC games are still popular, mobile, casual, indie and online games have increasingly eroded their market share. In particular, social games have caught the attention of the wider media, and many senior game designers now work on games found on Facebook. Yet, at the 2010 Game Developers Conference, a palpable antipathy towards Zynga and Facebook underscored much of the talk of social games. Critics have argued that such games are little more than skinner boxes, designed to replicate gambling systems and efficiently separate players from their money. Yet, how is social game design different from more traditional game design? This talk explores the ambivalence surrounding social games, both in the popular media and in the broader game development community. Overall, this talk addresses the shifting landscape of the game industry, and how developers themselves are positioning themselves in relation to that shift, and how they ultimately are re-defining what videogames are—and should be—in the process.
Social Media for Social Justice: Awareness and Activism by and for Young People
Giuliana Cucinelli
In order to harness the educational value of social networking in young peoples’ lives, educators must understand how it is potentially effective as a means of empowerment and a contributing factor to the development of young people’s social awareness. Those who have resisted the influence and increasingly pervasive presence of social media activities in the lives of young people are concerned with its affect on young people’s lack of education and knowledge base. Furthermore, there is a general concern and assumption that young people’s social media practices are frivolous and dangerous. The aim of this paper and presentation is to present research work that develops and situates young people’s social media practices within the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy, social justice education and cultural studies to fully explore social media as a means of empowerment and education for marginalized urban youth: Digital Youth Praxis. This framework suggests ways of developing critical lifeworld competencies through the digital social media practices of marginalized urban youth. In brief, Digital Youth Praxis is a set of social justice, equity and diversity life competencies that youth and educators develop through their digital social media practices.
Giuliana Cucinelli
In order to harness the educational value of social networking in young peoples’ lives, educators must understand how it is potentially effective as a means of empowerment and a contributing factor to the development of young people’s social awareness. Those who have resisted the influence and increasingly pervasive presence of social media activities in the lives of young people are concerned with its affect on young people’s lack of education and knowledge base. Furthermore, there is a general concern and assumption that young people’s social media practices are frivolous and dangerous. The aim of this paper and presentation is to present research work that develops and situates young people’s social media practices within the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy, social justice education and cultural studies to fully explore social media as a means of empowerment and education for marginalized urban youth: Digital Youth Praxis. This framework suggests ways of developing critical lifeworld competencies through the digital social media practices of marginalized urban youth. In brief, Digital Youth Praxis is a set of social justice, equity and diversity life competencies that youth and educators develop through their digital social media practices.
“Walking” narrative: the possibilities of the Locast platform, Magda Rodrigues da Cunha
This paper analyses the results of the research developed by a partnership between the School of Social Communication at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and the MIT/ MobileLab, with the participation of RBS Communication Group. This investigation brings into light categories of analysis, such as narrative criteria, mobile (“walking”) narrative, narratives on cities and places, participatory journalism, as well as the appropriation of new narrative platforms created by the subjects involved. There is a perspective that implies the lack of narrative criteria or of an agenda that introduces the following question: what do people choose to narrate when they do not count on a specific instruction? It is worth mentioning that in this “mediatized” society, narrators, whether professionals or not, submit narrative contents that are common to several groups and which have been historically constructed within the culture, as a result of the coexistence with the traditional communication means and the way they organize news and contents. Based on the observation of narrative actions proposed by the Locast project, we have come to understand that forms of expression and appropriations regarding narrative technologies dialogue in the same context and emerge simultaneously.
This paper analyses the results of the research developed by a partnership between the School of Social Communication at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and the MIT/ MobileLab, with the participation of RBS Communication Group. This investigation brings into light categories of analysis, such as narrative criteria, mobile (“walking”) narrative, narratives on cities and places, participatory journalism, as well as the appropriation of new narrative platforms created by the subjects involved. There is a perspective that implies the lack of narrative criteria or of an agenda that introduces the following question: what do people choose to narrate when they do not count on a specific instruction? It is worth mentioning that in this “mediatized” society, narrators, whether professionals or not, submit narrative contents that are common to several groups and which have been historically constructed within the culture, as a result of the coexistence with the traditional communication means and the way they organize news and contents. Based on the observation of narrative actions proposed by the Locast project, we have come to understand that forms of expression and appropriations regarding narrative technologies dialogue in the same context and emerge simultaneously.
Texts and Texting: TV and the Internet, June Deery
Reality TV presents a particularly rich example of an interactive, multiplatform use which opens up the media text beyond its broadcast and offers a complex model of viewership. Reality viewers are encouraged go online to extend the programming (video streams) or to engage with broadcast material through blogs, forums, quizzes or more overt commercial transactions. One interesting dynamic arises when TV participants read online viewer comments and undergo pain, humiliation and other reactions in a way that does not apply to those who perform fictional roles (e.g. The Real Housewives franchise). This ongoing viewer feedback perturbs future broadcast material. TV cast members may also use the same online space to manage their real-life/on-screen personae, as when their blogs attempt damage control and present an orthodox interpretation of their TV role. This paper will detail the shifting ontological and commercial aspects of this hybrid process and consider the ethical implications of the resultant destabilization of identity and authenticity.
Reality TV presents a particularly rich example of an interactive, multiplatform use which opens up the media text beyond its broadcast and offers a complex model of viewership. Reality viewers are encouraged go online to extend the programming (video streams) or to engage with broadcast material through blogs, forums, quizzes or more overt commercial transactions. One interesting dynamic arises when TV participants read online viewer comments and undergo pain, humiliation and other reactions in a way that does not apply to those who perform fictional roles (e.g. The Real Housewives franchise). This ongoing viewer feedback perturbs future broadcast material. TV cast members may also use the same online space to manage their real-life/on-screen personae, as when their blogs attempt damage control and present an orthodox interpretation of their TV role. This paper will detail the shifting ontological and commercial aspects of this hybrid process and consider the ethical implications of the resultant destabilization of identity and authenticity.
, Donna DeGennaro
The literature on the engagement of underrepresented youth in creating media productions is often framed as a way to appreciate an alternative definition of dominant norm and/or conceptualization of “other.' This discourse largely relies on a definition of difference that should not be construed as difference per se, but as another equally valued way of being in the world. This paper explores the construction and deconstruction of marginalized youth media creations. More often than not, youth are asked to create digital artifacts in order to spotlight how individual and collective participation is mediated by and situated within historical, social, and cultural contexts. Examples of such engagements that work toward this vision include the creation of digital stories to foster agency in youths’ social lives (Hull, 2007), or the use of radio journalism where young people develop and produce the stories that are relevant to their communities and their lives (Chavez & Soep, 2005). These youth engagements aim to celebrate and incorporate differences to both empower youth and foster a cosmopolitan worldview (Appiah, 2006). While the intention is to privilege and equalize “difference”, such activity is at times interpreted as “damage centered” (Tuck, 2009) research. Drawing upon theoretical frames of cultural studies (Hammer & Kellner, 2009; Hall, 1996) and critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), we examine whether these categories liberate social constructions of difference or serve to reify conceptualization of it.
The literature on the engagement of underrepresented youth in creating media productions is often framed as a way to appreciate an alternative definition of dominant norm and/or conceptualization of “other.' This discourse largely relies on a definition of difference that should not be construed as difference per se, but as another equally valued way of being in the world. This paper explores the construction and deconstruction of marginalized youth media creations. More often than not, youth are asked to create digital artifacts in order to spotlight how individual and collective participation is mediated by and situated within historical, social, and cultural contexts. Examples of such engagements that work toward this vision include the creation of digital stories to foster agency in youths’ social lives (Hull, 2007), or the use of radio journalism where young people develop and produce the stories that are relevant to their communities and their lives (Chavez & Soep, 2005). These youth engagements aim to celebrate and incorporate differences to both empower youth and foster a cosmopolitan worldview (Appiah, 2006). While the intention is to privilege and equalize “difference”, such activity is at times interpreted as “damage centered” (Tuck, 2009) research. Drawing upon theoretical frames of cultural studies (Hammer & Kellner, 2009; Hall, 1996) and critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), we examine whether these categories liberate social constructions of difference or serve to reify conceptualization of it.
Revisiting Bill Gates’ 'Open Letter to Hobbyists,” Kevin Driscoll
Frustrated to discover that unauthorized copies of his company's only product were in circulation, Bill Gates penned an 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' in 1975 urging readers to consider the economics of software development. Although the letter sparked a rich dialogue in the pages of contemporary hobbyist publications, the actual text fell out of circulation until the late-1990s when it began to circulate on USENET newsgroups dedicated to computing folklore. Advocates of free and open-source software seized upon Gates' 'Open Letter' to position Microsoft as an opponent to sharing, personal computing's implied natural state. This paper attends to reception of Gates' letter across an uneven archive of hobbyist ephemera: microcomputer club newsletters, hobby electronics magazines, mail-order catalogs, and do-it-yourself handbooks. Returning to the discourse of early microcomputer hobbyists reveals that, in addition to their pioneering technical achievements, they also struggled to envision economic arrangements that would respect and value their creative labor.
Frustrated to discover that unauthorized copies of his company's only product were in circulation, Bill Gates penned an 'Open Letter to Hobbyists' in 1975 urging readers to consider the economics of software development. Although the letter sparked a rich dialogue in the pages of contemporary hobbyist publications, the actual text fell out of circulation until the late-1990s when it began to circulate on USENET newsgroups dedicated to computing folklore. Advocates of free and open-source software seized upon Gates' 'Open Letter' to position Microsoft as an opponent to sharing, personal computing's implied natural state. This paper attends to reception of Gates' letter across an uneven archive of hobbyist ephemera: microcomputer club newsletters, hobby electronics magazines, mail-order catalogs, and do-it-yourself handbooks. Returning to the discourse of early microcomputer hobbyists reveals that, in addition to their pioneering technical achievements, they also struggled to envision economic arrangements that would respect and value their creative labor.
How New Media Change Our Experience of Stories,Teun Dubbelman
This paper explores how our experience of narrative has changed with the emergence of new forms of narrative media, particularly with the medium of computer games. It explicates the distinctive character of this novel experience, and investigates how it differs from the narrative experiences created in older media such as the 19th century novel or the classical Hollywood film. The paper argues that in order to understand the experiential differences between these media, it is necessary to critically review the representational concept of narrative as developed once in structuralist narratology, and to develop an additional presentational conceptualization, applicable to both the marginal narrative practices of the past as well as the mainstream practices of the present. Drawing on recent theories on the distinction between representation and presentation from the fields of media studies and the arts, this paper explains the limits of a structuralist approach, and proposes a conceptual alternative.
This paper explores how our experience of narrative has changed with the emergence of new forms of narrative media, particularly with the medium of computer games. It explicates the distinctive character of this novel experience, and investigates how it differs from the narrative experiences created in older media such as the 19th century novel or the classical Hollywood film. The paper argues that in order to understand the experiential differences between these media, it is necessary to critically review the representational concept of narrative as developed once in structuralist narratology, and to develop an additional presentational conceptualization, applicable to both the marginal narrative practices of the past as well as the mainstream practices of the present. Drawing on recent theories on the distinction between representation and presentation from the fields of media studies and the arts, this paper explains the limits of a structuralist approach, and proposes a conceptual alternative.
The Influence of Hacking: Hacking Under the Influence, Ryan Ehmke
Although hackers reside on the periphery of mainstream culture, they occupy the center and leading edge of a culture’s determination of acceptable uses for a technology. That is to say, ethics are discussed and negotiated by the operators on the forefront of a technology well before they are addressed by institutions that reside at the center of cultural power. In addition, the negotiation of ethics for a new technology often occurs through re-mediation and technologies already present at the time of innovation. This paper examines hacking as a counterculture in both the contemporary and Victorian eras through literature like Sam Johnson: The Experience and Observations of a Railroad Telegraph Operator, Lightning Flashes and Electric Dashes, and a hacker conference I attended in the summer of 2008 called “The Last HOPE.” In discussing how ethics of technological operation are negotiated, I will suggest a model for studying the history of technology that locates the focal point of influence on the periphery via hackers and everyday operators of technology.
Although hackers reside on the periphery of mainstream culture, they occupy the center and leading edge of a culture’s determination of acceptable uses for a technology. That is to say, ethics are discussed and negotiated by the operators on the forefront of a technology well before they are addressed by institutions that reside at the center of cultural power. In addition, the negotiation of ethics for a new technology often occurs through re-mediation and technologies already present at the time of innovation. This paper examines hacking as a counterculture in both the contemporary and Victorian eras through literature like Sam Johnson: The Experience and Observations of a Railroad Telegraph Operator, Lightning Flashes and Electric Dashes, and a hacker conference I attended in the summer of 2008 called “The Last HOPE.” In discussing how ethics of technological operation are negotiated, I will suggest a model for studying the history of technology that locates the focal point of influence on the periphery via hackers and everyday operators of technology.
Film, Video, Metadata: Time-Axis Manipulation After the Linear Medium, Daniel Faltesek
The digital has a special meaning for media producers. No more cutting and splicing film strips. No more waiting for dailies. And perhaps most important for the corporate producer: no more inefficiency. The move to non-linear editing is a central technological innovation in the development of reality television, intense sports programming, and the latest battlefield systems. In this paper, I read the rise of digital non-linear editing systems as an analog to the rise of the typewriter in the work of Friedrich Kittler. The dream of digital editing is the accomplishment of herculean tasks with the greatest of ease. The curse of digital editing is that the difficult, thoughtful, special effects of a generation ago are now expected, and even required. For Kittler, the typewriter held the promise of the Real. In the twenty-first century, the non-linear editor is both a typewriter of images and the source of the symbolic grammar of the editing timeline. In the nineteenth century we penned letters, now we edit mashups. Does non-linear editing entail the democratization of access to editing technology and the active engagement of the audience with an online communal life? Or, does non-linear editing stabilize and sterilize the symbolic and the imaginary?
The digital has a special meaning for media producers. No more cutting and splicing film strips. No more waiting for dailies. And perhaps most important for the corporate producer: no more inefficiency. The move to non-linear editing is a central technological innovation in the development of reality television, intense sports programming, and the latest battlefield systems. In this paper, I read the rise of digital non-linear editing systems as an analog to the rise of the typewriter in the work of Friedrich Kittler. The dream of digital editing is the accomplishment of herculean tasks with the greatest of ease. The curse of digital editing is that the difficult, thoughtful, special effects of a generation ago are now expected, and even required. For Kittler, the typewriter held the promise of the Real. In the twenty-first century, the non-linear editor is both a typewriter of images and the source of the symbolic grammar of the editing timeline. In the nineteenth century we penned letters, now we edit mashups. Does non-linear editing entail the democratization of access to editing technology and the active engagement of the audience with an online communal life? Or, does non-linear editing stabilize and sterilize the symbolic and the imaginary?
, Andrew Feldstein
Fundamental to the understanding of a transition is not just knowing what you are
transitioning to, but understanding what you are transitioning from. In the Fall of 2010,
after the school of business at Virginia State University implemented a digital delivery
system for course content via Flat World Knowledge in nine of the core business
courses, a representative of one of the traditional publishers challenged the move by
asking “how do you know the students are reading the digital textbooks?” The comment and the retort “how do we know they were reading your textbooks?” highlight one of the primary dilemmas in the transition between traditional textbooks and digital content. We still don't know whether students are reading course content but online behaviors leave a trail that is easy to follow and a significant amount of data just waiting to be crunched. We know when a student registers for their digital textbook, when they download digital content and what digital content that they are downloading.
Engaging Neighborhoods with a Sense of History – Civic Media in Evolving Urban Settings, Kurt Fendt, Audobon Dougherty, Melissa Edoh
Urban neighborhoods, especially in large cities are undergoing constant changes: new residents with different cultural backgrounds are moving in, longtime residents are pushed out through processes of gentrification, urban (re)development impacts both small businesses and the quality of life in these areas. How can civic engagement deal with such unstable conditions? How can neighborhoods develop an identity that connects the past with the present? What is the role of civic media in this process? How can citizens organize successful urban civic action with smart and flexible uses of digital technologies? This presentation will explore the role of civic engagement in urban neighborhoods and how memory and local identities have shaped successful, long-term urban activism. Taking the activist groups of a Berlin - Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood as an example, the presenters will discuss the historical context, the conditions, and the actions that have created a recognized model of civic engagement. Collaborating closely with the local citizen group 'Bürgerinitiative Oderberger Straße,' the Engaging Neighborhoods Project is currently developing a flexible online civic media platform that supports local communities in the collection, organization, and sharing of information for political action. The project is focusing initially on documenting the process of transforming a public city space into a livable, “green” urban space. By engaging local citizens and a wider public, such a project is able to document, trace, and further develop a historically sensitive civic identity through the integration of digital media.
Fundamental to the understanding of a transition is not just knowing what you are
transitioning to, but understanding what you are transitioning from. In the Fall of 2010,
after the school of business at Virginia State University implemented a digital delivery
system for course content via Flat World Knowledge in nine of the core business
courses, a representative of one of the traditional publishers challenged the move by
asking “how do you know the students are reading the digital textbooks?” The comment and the retort “how do we know they were reading your textbooks?” highlight one of the primary dilemmas in the transition between traditional textbooks and digital content. We still don't know whether students are reading course content but online behaviors leave a trail that is easy to follow and a significant amount of data just waiting to be crunched. We know when a student registers for their digital textbook, when they download digital content and what digital content that they are downloading.
Engaging Neighborhoods with a Sense of History – Civic Media in Evolving Urban Settings, Kurt Fendt, Audobon Dougherty, Melissa Edoh
Urban neighborhoods, especially in large cities are undergoing constant changes: new residents with different cultural backgrounds are moving in, longtime residents are pushed out through processes of gentrification, urban (re)development impacts both small businesses and the quality of life in these areas. How can civic engagement deal with such unstable conditions? How can neighborhoods develop an identity that connects the past with the present? What is the role of civic media in this process? How can citizens organize successful urban civic action with smart and flexible uses of digital technologies? This presentation will explore the role of civic engagement in urban neighborhoods and how memory and local identities have shaped successful, long-term urban activism. Taking the activist groups of a Berlin - Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood as an example, the presenters will discuss the historical context, the conditions, and the actions that have created a recognized model of civic engagement. Collaborating closely with the local citizen group 'Bürgerinitiative Oderberger Straße,' the Engaging Neighborhoods Project is currently developing a flexible online civic media platform that supports local communities in the collection, organization, and sharing of information for political action. The project is focusing initially on documenting the process of transforming a public city space into a livable, “green” urban space. By engaging local citizens and a wider public, such a project is able to document, trace, and further develop a historically sensitive civic identity through the integration of digital media.
Emulation as a Tool to Study Videogame History, Clara Fernandez-Vara
Computer game technologies and operating systems improve and change over time, so that platforms become obsolete after a few years (at times, even within a few months) of their release. This process becomes an obstacle when for game researchers and teachers, who may need to play older games. Emulators, virtual machines that can be run within an operating system, are one of the most valuable tools to be able to play older games in current computing platforms. It has also become a option for game publishers to redistribute games whose rights they own but cannot commercialize any more, making them available again for new audiences. On the other hand, emulation also has its drawbacks and limitations, particularly in the cases where special hardware was needed to play the games. There are questions that need to be addressed in order to understand the role of emulation as a tool to study and teach videogames. What is a faithful emulation? How does emulation change the original platform? What can we gain by using emulators to play older games? What are the limitations of emulation?
Computer game technologies and operating systems improve and change over time, so that platforms become obsolete after a few years (at times, even within a few months) of their release. This process becomes an obstacle when for game researchers and teachers, who may need to play older games. Emulators, virtual machines that can be run within an operating system, are one of the most valuable tools to be able to play older games in current computing platforms. It has also become a option for game publishers to redistribute games whose rights they own but cannot commercialize any more, making them available again for new audiences. On the other hand, emulation also has its drawbacks and limitations, particularly in the cases where special hardware was needed to play the games. There are questions that need to be addressed in order to understand the role of emulation as a tool to study and teach videogames. What is a faithful emulation? How does emulation change the original platform? What can we gain by using emulators to play older games? What are the limitations of emulation?
Publishing: It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), Kathleen Fitzpatrick
As digital formats and platforms have come to dominate media consumption, many media industries have faced the perils of transition, with varying degrees of success. We've watched a cycle of panic, retrenchment, and somewhat begrudging innovation in the music and film industries; the newspaper industry has begun to implode under its inability to create a viable new business model; there are hints in the air that cable providers may be next, as more and more customers move to streaming or downloading their television from the internet. The book publishing industry, however, continues to experience a kind of schadenfreude in watching what's going on around them. The result has been a determination on the part of the publishing industry to find the correct combination of devices and DRM that will sustain their existing business model, rather than rethinking the function of publishing in the digital era. However, it's clear that some serious obstacles lie ahead for the industry: tools for de-DRMing ebooks are surfacing, ebook filesharing is on the rise, and conflicts between the business models of content providers and those who control the platforms (see Amazon and Apple) are producing questions about the sustainability of existing sales structures. Most importantly, however, many authors are recognizing that ebooks allow them to go around the publishing industry to reach their audience directly. All of these reasons begin to suggest that we may be witnessing the late age of publishing, or at least the late age of trade publishing, as a strange new post-publishing landscape begins to take shape around us. This paper will explore some of the possibilities that this post-publishing landscape presents for authors, and some of the perils that it presents for the entrenched business model within the publishing industry, looking both at what authors, publishers, and readers alike might value in this transition, and what we might have cause to regret.
As digital formats and platforms have come to dominate media consumption, many media industries have faced the perils of transition, with varying degrees of success. We've watched a cycle of panic, retrenchment, and somewhat begrudging innovation in the music and film industries; the newspaper industry has begun to implode under its inability to create a viable new business model; there are hints in the air that cable providers may be next, as more and more customers move to streaming or downloading their television from the internet. The book publishing industry, however, continues to experience a kind of schadenfreude in watching what's going on around them. The result has been a determination on the part of the publishing industry to find the correct combination of devices and DRM that will sustain their existing business model, rather than rethinking the function of publishing in the digital era. However, it's clear that some serious obstacles lie ahead for the industry: tools for de-DRMing ebooks are surfacing, ebook filesharing is on the rise, and conflicts between the business models of content providers and those who control the platforms (see Amazon and Apple) are producing questions about the sustainability of existing sales structures. Most importantly, however, many authors are recognizing that ebooks allow them to go around the publishing industry to reach their audience directly. All of these reasons begin to suggest that we may be witnessing the late age of publishing, or at least the late age of trade publishing, as a strange new post-publishing landscape begins to take shape around us. This paper will explore some of the possibilities that this post-publishing landscape presents for authors, and some of the perils that it presents for the entrenched business model within the publishing industry, looking both at what authors, publishers, and readers alike might value in this transition, and what we might have cause to regret.
The Ideology of Piracy and the Public Spheres of Modernity, Martin Fredriksson
Over the last decade, the global media industry has been grappling with the growing threat of piracy. While representatives of media companies and copyright organizations discard piracy as pure theft, others regard it as a new and perfectly legitimate form of cultural consumption and (re)production. As the fight against piracy has given rise to stricter copyright laws and harsher implementations it has also provoked a resistance from various activists and organizations who regard this kind of copyright expansionism as an unfair restriction of the public domain and the consumer’s rights. This paper will look at the ideologization of piracy in relation to recent changes in copyright law. But it will also take the contemporary pirate organizations as a starting point to discuss the practice and ideology of piracy against a historical backdrop. Eventually it aims to show how the tension between copyright and piracy has reflected some crucial aspects of modern society in the past, such as the construction of private property and the creation of a public sphere, and how this reverberates in the copyright debates of today.
Over the last decade, the global media industry has been grappling with the growing threat of piracy. While representatives of media companies and copyright organizations discard piracy as pure theft, others regard it as a new and perfectly legitimate form of cultural consumption and (re)production. As the fight against piracy has given rise to stricter copyright laws and harsher implementations it has also provoked a resistance from various activists and organizations who regard this kind of copyright expansionism as an unfair restriction of the public domain and the consumer’s rights. This paper will look at the ideologization of piracy in relation to recent changes in copyright law. But it will also take the contemporary pirate organizations as a starting point to discuss the practice and ideology of piracy against a historical backdrop. Eventually it aims to show how the tension between copyright and piracy has reflected some crucial aspects of modern society in the past, such as the construction of private property and the creation of a public sphere, and how this reverberates in the copyright debates of today.
, Norm Friesen and Shannon Lowe
In the age of Facebook and pervasive and often voluntary surveillance, the meanings of what has previously been described as the modern body have been changing and mutating. By looking specifically at how the bodies and identities of Facebook users are configured in their profile information –and how this information can be used by Facebook and its advertisers—this paper shows how conflicting strategies and priorities are negotiated in this social networking service. Such an examination indicates the options for agency and resistance afforded by such a network to be limited in important ways - specifically by the “social” nature of its architecture. It is designed to encourage convergence, conviviality and consent while actively discouraging disagreement, disapproval and dissent –to say nothing of its panoptic tracking abilities. But when brought into relation with bodies on-line, in conflict, and their possibilities for acting in concert, as the basis of civil society, the convergence and coordination enabled by these social media can sometimes open up new possibilities and forms for action and resistance.
In the age of Facebook and pervasive and often voluntary surveillance, the meanings of what has previously been described as the modern body have been changing and mutating. By looking specifically at how the bodies and identities of Facebook users are configured in their profile information –and how this information can be used by Facebook and its advertisers—this paper shows how conflicting strategies and priorities are negotiated in this social networking service. Such an examination indicates the options for agency and resistance afforded by such a network to be limited in important ways - specifically by the “social” nature of its architecture. It is designed to encourage convergence, conviviality and consent while actively discouraging disagreement, disapproval and dissent –to say nothing of its panoptic tracking abilities. But when brought into relation with bodies on-line, in conflict, and their possibilities for acting in concert, as the basis of civil society, the convergence and coordination enabled by these social media can sometimes open up new possibilities and forms for action and resistance.
, Alberto Frigo
Defining the future of television continues to be the subject of intense interest. In theory, the convergence of television with the internet makes an increasing amount of content available to viewers, when they want it – any program, any time, on any device – and can make television a participatory experience. Attempts to realize this goal involve design research that focuses on balancing multiple forms of engagement, ranging from so-called passive consumption to intensely social experiences, against the growing need to simplify the discovery of content itself. Through analysis that explores the “journey” of content, this study considers how emerging forms of curation and annotation are shaping the television experience. These forms of annotation take place on the technical level, through sophisticated tagging and filtering engines, as well as through social mechanisms that enrich the cultural relevance of specific content. This study will examine how such annotation impacts the production and consumption of large-scale news events such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. For example, how was the live video link of the gushing oil leak tagged across different platforms and narrative formats, and how did the subsequent spreadability of this media [content + annotations] through social network ethnographies in turn shape the narrative of this event? This study also considers the gap between the “seamlessness” promoted by companies battling to control how television should be consumed in the future and what it might suggest for interface designs that anticipate the social experience of the next-generation of television.
Defining the future of television continues to be the subject of intense interest. In theory, the convergence of television with the internet makes an increasing amount of content available to viewers, when they want it – any program, any time, on any device – and can make television a participatory experience. Attempts to realize this goal involve design research that focuses on balancing multiple forms of engagement, ranging from so-called passive consumption to intensely social experiences, against the growing need to simplify the discovery of content itself. Through analysis that explores the “journey” of content, this study considers how emerging forms of curation and annotation are shaping the television experience. These forms of annotation take place on the technical level, through sophisticated tagging and filtering engines, as well as through social mechanisms that enrich the cultural relevance of specific content. This study will examine how such annotation impacts the production and consumption of large-scale news events such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. For example, how was the live video link of the gushing oil leak tagged across different platforms and narrative formats, and how did the subsequent spreadability of this media [content + annotations] through social network ethnographies in turn shape the narrative of this event? This study also considers the gap between the “seamlessness” promoted by companies battling to control how television should be consumed in the future and what it might suggest for interface designs that anticipate the social experience of the next-generation of television.
, Verena Fuchsberger
Using the term Generational Divides implicitly contains the idea that the generational divide is exclusively or at least mainly disadvantageous for the older generations. Regarding western societies, they do not keep up with the younger ones in terms of new media, i.e. the Internet, social media etc, still less in an environment of manifold and rapid technological transitions. However, when considering traditional forms of media, e.g. newspapers or books, there might be a reverse generational divide. Do younger ones unlearn how to read books and newspapers? The aim of this paper is to describe the generational divide as a crisis, which is driving changes positively or negatively. According to Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory and its explanation for adopting a change, a divide illustrates a crisis, which leads to action. As soon as any prescription is perceived, actors will act (according to Latour, those can be humans or non-humans, e.g. technology or media). This paper tries to figure out how the generational divide might be described in terms of Latour and his understanding of the process of change.
Using the term Generational Divides implicitly contains the idea that the generational divide is exclusively or at least mainly disadvantageous for the older generations. Regarding western societies, they do not keep up with the younger ones in terms of new media, i.e. the Internet, social media etc, still less in an environment of manifold and rapid technological transitions. However, when considering traditional forms of media, e.g. newspapers or books, there might be a reverse generational divide. Do younger ones unlearn how to read books and newspapers? The aim of this paper is to describe the generational divide as a crisis, which is driving changes positively or negatively. According to Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory and its explanation for adopting a change, a divide illustrates a crisis, which leads to action. As soon as any prescription is perceived, actors will act (according to Latour, those can be humans or non-humans, e.g. technology or media). This paper tries to figure out how the generational divide might be described in terms of Latour and his understanding of the process of change.
Making Selves/Making Citizens in the Age of YouTube, Megan Fulwiler and Kim Middleton
In only six years, YouTube has generated a surprising amount of scholarly discourse documenting its effects, implications, and potential. Books by Burgess and Green, Strangelove, Snickars and Vondreau, as well as Alexandra Juhasz’s upcoming Learning from YouTube, join a burgeoning array of articles, videos, and blog posts that describe this platform for cultural production/distribution. Noting the importance of user-created content and dissemination, Henry Jenkins lauds YouTube as a model with significant potential for future civic participation. Similarly, Howard Rheingold suggests that as young media makers become “active co-creators” of culture “educators have an opportunity... to exercise active citizenship.” Our presentation takes up Rheingold’s invitation to educators. However, rather than advocating a move away from the personal and toward a specific civic or political topic, we seek to re-activate the historical relationship between the personal and the civic in order to help students become engaged digital citizens who use participatory media to create, revise, and re-imagine the relationship between the self and the world in ways that matter to an audience.
In only six years, YouTube has generated a surprising amount of scholarly discourse documenting its effects, implications, and potential. Books by Burgess and Green, Strangelove, Snickars and Vondreau, as well as Alexandra Juhasz’s upcoming Learning from YouTube, join a burgeoning array of articles, videos, and blog posts that describe this platform for cultural production/distribution. Noting the importance of user-created content and dissemination, Henry Jenkins lauds YouTube as a model with significant potential for future civic participation. Similarly, Howard Rheingold suggests that as young media makers become “active co-creators” of culture “educators have an opportunity... to exercise active citizenship.” Our presentation takes up Rheingold’s invitation to educators. However, rather than advocating a move away from the personal and toward a specific civic or political topic, we seek to re-activate the historical relationship between the personal and the civic in order to help students become engaged digital citizens who use participatory media to create, revise, and re-imagine the relationship between the self and the world in ways that matter to an audience.
, Robert Furze
It is possible to perceive the existence of digital technology in film as a means of creating a sense of seamlessness between virtual and analog images. Certainly, as North (2008) notes, science fiction films such as Avatar are able to offer an aesthetic in which landscapes and the bodies of actors are able to be transformed through digital technology, but even non-spectacular films such as Panic Room are able to benefit from such enhancements. As Cubitt (2004) suggests, the melding of analog and digital images in such films offers a glimpse into a possible, utopian future.
But in this new media environment, video games suggest that this synthesis of analog and virtual realities is far from complete. As agency is passed from producer to player, the mediated text is transformed. Either by design or by accident, the player can discover the ruptures in verisimilitude that the designers (according to Wolf, 2003) attempt to hide. This paper looks at examples from video games (in particular, the short horror game The Path) to discover how the visual language of certain new media texts indicate affinities with the pre-digital – and imperfect – special effects of genre films such as Videodrome.
It is possible to perceive the existence of digital technology in film as a means of creating a sense of seamlessness between virtual and analog images. Certainly, as North (2008) notes, science fiction films such as Avatar are able to offer an aesthetic in which landscapes and the bodies of actors are able to be transformed through digital technology, but even non-spectacular films such as Panic Room are able to benefit from such enhancements. As Cubitt (2004) suggests, the melding of analog and digital images in such films offers a glimpse into a possible, utopian future.
But in this new media environment, video games suggest that this synthesis of analog and virtual realities is far from complete. As agency is passed from producer to player, the mediated text is transformed. Either by design or by accident, the player can discover the ruptures in verisimilitude that the designers (according to Wolf, 2003) attempt to hide. This paper looks at examples from video games (in particular, the short horror game The Path) to discover how the visual language of certain new media texts indicate affinities with the pre-digital – and imperfect – special effects of genre films such as Videodrome.
An Israeli Perspective
Yair Galily, Ilan Tamir
To a large extent, most of the theoretical research on blogs and blogging relates to uses and gratifications. Many scholars have applied Goffman’s rituals of social interaction and self presentation to help explain why people blog. The aim of this current research was to determine to what extant blogs are serving as a public arena, wherein discourse conditions of equality, mutuality, and symmetry are amplified. Research questions were tested through a convenience sample from audience members (N=103) of the most popular sporting blog in Israel, and involved both online surveys and in-depth interviews. Findings illustrate the process of forming a social community (virtual settlement/ virtual community) through discussion and engagement to a large extent similar to the ideal speech situations presented by Habermas (1991). Indeed it seems as everyone is entitled to converse and engage in discourse; everyone has the right to raise questions, question any claims made in the discourse (criticism), and make any claim that comes to mind. At the same time, however, findings indicate that specific topics get disproportionate coverage and debate often leading to overlapping collection of conversations and not a single discussion.
Yair Galily, Ilan Tamir
To a large extent, most of the theoretical research on blogs and blogging relates to uses and gratifications. Many scholars have applied Goffman’s rituals of social interaction and self presentation to help explain why people blog. The aim of this current research was to determine to what extant blogs are serving as a public arena, wherein discourse conditions of equality, mutuality, and symmetry are amplified. Research questions were tested through a convenience sample from audience members (N=103) of the most popular sporting blog in Israel, and involved both online surveys and in-depth interviews. Findings illustrate the process of forming a social community (virtual settlement/ virtual community) through discussion and engagement to a large extent similar to the ideal speech situations presented by Habermas (1991). Indeed it seems as everyone is entitled to converse and engage in discourse; everyone has the right to raise questions, question any claims made in the discourse (criticism), and make any claim that comes to mind. At the same time, however, findings indicate that specific topics get disproportionate coverage and debate often leading to overlapping collection of conversations and not a single discussion.
, Sean Galvin
As part of a two-year Teagle Foundation “Big Questions” grant the American Folklore Society has engaged eleven faculty members from across the United States to take on the challenge of delineating the lay-expert continuum in undergraduate education. I am one of those eleven members. I am examining these parameters in an urban community college setting with particular emphasis on the effect Web 2.0 technology has made on how this population transitions from high school to college, and from a two-year to a four-year college. In order to best address the Teagle issue I ask: “how can we develop and challenge novice learners to adopt and adapt their learning styles to distinguish between formal and informal knowledge, or between academic and experiential anthropological knowledge using a combination of new media technology and inquiry-based research.” The transition from high school to college is fraught with peril. Where our faculty find that students have great facility with FaceBook, Twitter, del.icio.us, and YouTube, they have difficulty with simple file management, handling e-mail, and posting to BlackBoard. This fundamental disconnect is frustrating to “digital natives” who think their skills are more than adequate for both college and the job market. It is our task not only to inform them how woefully unprepared they are but it is also incumbent upon us to make the necessary corrections to their learning so they will indeed be ready for the twenty-first century work place.
As part of a two-year Teagle Foundation “Big Questions” grant the American Folklore Society has engaged eleven faculty members from across the United States to take on the challenge of delineating the lay-expert continuum in undergraduate education. I am one of those eleven members. I am examining these parameters in an urban community college setting with particular emphasis on the effect Web 2.0 technology has made on how this population transitions from high school to college, and from a two-year to a four-year college. In order to best address the Teagle issue I ask: “how can we develop and challenge novice learners to adopt and adapt their learning styles to distinguish between formal and informal knowledge, or between academic and experiential anthropological knowledge using a combination of new media technology and inquiry-based research.” The transition from high school to college is fraught with peril. Where our faculty find that students have great facility with FaceBook, Twitter, del.icio.us, and YouTube, they have difficulty with simple file management, handling e-mail, and posting to BlackBoard. This fundamental disconnect is frustrating to “digital natives” who think their skills are more than adequate for both college and the job market. It is our task not only to inform them how woefully unprepared they are but it is also incumbent upon us to make the necessary corrections to their learning so they will indeed be ready for the twenty-first century work place.
, Gayle Gatchalian
There is an emerging trend the BBC has called “21st century minimalism,” a lifestyle best embodied by CultofLess.com. Here, individuals divest themselves of much of their personal possessions, to the extent of selling their home and living out of a laptop, external hard drive, and an Internet connection. In this paper, I consider the evolving materiality of media—from the immateriality of speech to the materiality of books, CDs etc. to the current “liminal” materiality of digital media—and how it has destabilized the “thingness” of media, evidenced by the rancorous digital copyright debate. I then argue that digital minimalism ultimately contradicts itself for in terms of ownership of discrete media artifacts, the individual ends up owning more because of the ability to store files to scale (even if there is less “clutter”) and that the back-up requirement of storage actually multiplies the “amount” of the artifact. I also discuss some implications of the ability to store data “forever” and ultimately argue for the value of the purge—forgetting and, most importantly, deleting.
There is an emerging trend the BBC has called “21st century minimalism,” a lifestyle best embodied by CultofLess.com. Here, individuals divest themselves of much of their personal possessions, to the extent of selling their home and living out of a laptop, external hard drive, and an Internet connection. In this paper, I consider the evolving materiality of media—from the immateriality of speech to the materiality of books, CDs etc. to the current “liminal” materiality of digital media—and how it has destabilized the “thingness” of media, evidenced by the rancorous digital copyright debate. I then argue that digital minimalism ultimately contradicts itself for in terms of ownership of discrete media artifacts, the individual ends up owning more because of the ability to store files to scale (even if there is less “clutter”) and that the back-up requirement of storage actually multiplies the “amount” of the artifact. I also discuss some implications of the ability to store data “forever” and ultimately argue for the value of the purge—forgetting and, most importantly, deleting.
From Dots and Dashes to Bits and Bytes: What the Telegraph Can Teach us About 21st Century Change and Transition, Heidi Gautschi
In 1837, the first American telegraph line was built between Baltimore and Washington DC. Within fifty years, telegraph wires crisscrossed continents and oceans establishing the first global communication network. The telegraph ushered in a period of deep and expansive change. Societies worldwide had to fundamentally alter their concepts of communication by renegotiating who could communicate with whom and under what circumstances. The telegraph was the first network to transmit messages using electricity, thus signaling a new age of disembodied communication that modified the spatial and temporal dimensions of human interaction. The telegraph also induced changes in such institutions as financial markets, diplomacy and war, journalism, and social relations; and it helped transform information into a commodity. In this paper, I will illustrate how the age of the telegraph is relevant to the convulsive change associated with media today. I will provide insights into key debates and negotiations that occurred in the popular press and popular fiction of the telegraph period to demonstrate the continuities and discontinuities that exist between the past and present.
In 1837, the first American telegraph line was built between Baltimore and Washington DC. Within fifty years, telegraph wires crisscrossed continents and oceans establishing the first global communication network. The telegraph ushered in a period of deep and expansive change. Societies worldwide had to fundamentally alter their concepts of communication by renegotiating who could communicate with whom and under what circumstances. The telegraph was the first network to transmit messages using electricity, thus signaling a new age of disembodied communication that modified the spatial and temporal dimensions of human interaction. The telegraph also induced changes in such institutions as financial markets, diplomacy and war, journalism, and social relations; and it helped transform information into a commodity. In this paper, I will illustrate how the age of the telegraph is relevant to the convulsive change associated with media today. I will provide insights into key debates and negotiations that occurred in the popular press and popular fiction of the telegraph period to demonstrate the continuities and discontinuities that exist between the past and present.
User-Generated Platforms in Wikipedian Governance; or Users Are Developers, Too! , Stuart Geiger
Much research and commentary has examined how Wikipedia, the self-described “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” operates such that ‘it’ reinforces certain kinds of power relations and undermines others. Like with many other technologically mediated organizations, this monolithic understanding of ‘the Wikipedia’ collapses a complex web of humans and software into a single entity. Yet instead of demanding a return to clean dichotomies between social structures and technical infrastructures, I argue that this incoherence stems from an overdetermined notion of software platforms as server-side codebases. The relationship between the Wikipedia community and the MediaWiki software upon which it runs provides an excellent case for problematizing this understanding of software platforms.As I show in several case studies, Wikipedia’s software platform has been tweaked, hacked, customized, and extended by not only official developers, but also unofficial users to such an extent that it bears only a cosmetic resemblance to ‘stock’ MediaWiki. I elaborate the concept of “user-generated platforms” to describe how users and developers co-construct mediated environments.
Much research and commentary has examined how Wikipedia, the self-described “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” operates such that ‘it’ reinforces certain kinds of power relations and undermines others. Like with many other technologically mediated organizations, this monolithic understanding of ‘the Wikipedia’ collapses a complex web of humans and software into a single entity. Yet instead of demanding a return to clean dichotomies between social structures and technical infrastructures, I argue that this incoherence stems from an overdetermined notion of software platforms as server-side codebases. The relationship between the Wikipedia community and the MediaWiki software upon which it runs provides an excellent case for problematizing this understanding of software platforms.As I show in several case studies, Wikipedia’s software platform has been tweaked, hacked, customized, and extended by not only official developers, but also unofficial users to such an extent that it bears only a cosmetic resemblance to ‘stock’ MediaWiki. I elaborate the concept of “user-generated platforms” to describe how users and developers co-construct mediated environments.
, Leandro Gejfinbein, Rejane Spitz
n the master's research we have been conducting for the last two years, we
have proposed a set of guidelines that might lead to the conception of a new
media platform that could support world-famous Brazilian soap operas. Along the
way, however, an episode of significant social impact in Brazil has come out in
Rio de Janeiro, reaching international repercussion: state police forces
reconquered a slum territory called “Alemão” complex, historically considered the
largest drug trafficking bunker in the city. The episode – which included several
violent actions in different points of the city – took place in December 2010 and
lasted for 5 days, directly affecting the lives of thousands of local residents, and
mobilizing the entire city. We examined this episode in light of the research
debates and theories developed by authors such as Jenkins, Murray and
Manovich, among others, and we raised several important issues about media
arrangements and mediation practices, specifically the dynamics through
television, Twitter, major media coverage and amateur content producers. It was a
sample of a real and tangible way of how cyber-culture is changing the media
ecology, and also useful as foundation of some research assumptions, such as
those concerning the role of the author, narrative forms, participatory culture, and
user behavior on social networks. Therefore, the paper reports those findings,
describing what that episode was about, what conclusions were reached upon its
analysis and how worth it was in terms of creating a new model of Brazilian soap
opera.
n the master's research we have been conducting for the last two years, we
have proposed a set of guidelines that might lead to the conception of a new
media platform that could support world-famous Brazilian soap operas. Along the
way, however, an episode of significant social impact in Brazil has come out in
Rio de Janeiro, reaching international repercussion: state police forces
reconquered a slum territory called “Alemão” complex, historically considered the
largest drug trafficking bunker in the city. The episode – which included several
violent actions in different points of the city – took place in December 2010 and
lasted for 5 days, directly affecting the lives of thousands of local residents, and
mobilizing the entire city. We examined this episode in light of the research
debates and theories developed by authors such as Jenkins, Murray and
Manovich, among others, and we raised several important issues about media
arrangements and mediation practices, specifically the dynamics through
television, Twitter, major media coverage and amateur content producers. It was a
sample of a real and tangible way of how cyber-culture is changing the media
ecology, and also useful as foundation of some research assumptions, such as
those concerning the role of the author, narrative forms, participatory culture, and
user behavior on social networks. Therefore, the paper reports those findings,
describing what that episode was about, what conclusions were reached upon its
analysis and how worth it was in terms of creating a new model of Brazilian soap
opera.
, Chris Gerben
This paper will describe the process of piloting the use of e-textbooks in an advanced writing course at the University of Michigan. The library-initiated pilot sought to gauge student interest in reading textbooks via our campus CMS (Sakai’s CTools.) Of the five courses chosen for the pilot, mine was the only Humanities-based one, and also the only writing-intensive class. This paper will examine how these unique attributes allowed students to engage with the e-textbooks by reading them, but also writing back to them by proposing changes to the format, design, and implementation of future e-textbook programs. Practically, the e-textbooks provided source material for students writing about and proposing new learning platforms. Throughout the pilot, students analyzed, critiqued, and offered suggestions for ways to implement the program in different ways. It is interesting to note that none of the students approved of the e-textbook platform as it currently exists. Often the students could not access the books, could not save or print their notes, and needed to be online in order to do their work. As a result, students’ suggestions for improvement will round out this paper.
This paper will describe the process of piloting the use of e-textbooks in an advanced writing course at the University of Michigan. The library-initiated pilot sought to gauge student interest in reading textbooks via our campus CMS (Sakai’s CTools.) Of the five courses chosen for the pilot, mine was the only Humanities-based one, and also the only writing-intensive class. This paper will examine how these unique attributes allowed students to engage with the e-textbooks by reading them, but also writing back to them by proposing changes to the format, design, and implementation of future e-textbook programs. Practically, the e-textbooks provided source material for students writing about and proposing new learning platforms. Throughout the pilot, students analyzed, critiqued, and offered suggestions for ways to implement the program in different ways. It is interesting to note that none of the students approved of the e-textbook platform as it currently exists. Often the students could not access the books, could not save or print their notes, and needed to be online in order to do their work. As a result, students’ suggestions for improvement will round out this paper.
The Like Economy: The Social Web in Transition, Carolin Gerlitz and Anne Helmond
Recently, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed that the social will be the future organizing principle of economies. This paper will examine how platforms increasingly
connect economic value and the social by focusing on the role of social buttons. Drawing on digital methods, we explore the growing implementation of social buttons and counters. Special attention is paid to Facebook and its Open Graph which allows the platform to connect to the entire web through the Like Button. Linking Facebook’s efforts to a historical perspective on the hit and link economy, we claim that what might be in the making is not only a social web, but a re-centralized, data intensive fabric - the Like economy. This Like economy can be understood as part of emerging free economies which offer services for free and generate profits via their by-products - in Facebook’s case social activities such as liking, sharing and commenting.
Recently, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed that the social will be the future organizing principle of economies. This paper will examine how platforms increasingly
connect economic value and the social by focusing on the role of social buttons. Drawing on digital methods, we explore the growing implementation of social buttons and counters. Special attention is paid to Facebook and its Open Graph which allows the platform to connect to the entire web through the Like Button. Linking Facebook’s efforts to a historical perspective on the hit and link economy, we claim that what might be in the making is not only a social web, but a re-centralized, data intensive fabric - the Like economy. This Like economy can be understood as part of emerging free economies which offer services for free and generate profits via their by-products - in Facebook’s case social activities such as liking, sharing and commenting.
Cybernetics, the Music of John Cage and New Media, Ananya Ghoshal
“Cybernetics” is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems and has been more famously defined by Norbert Wiener, as the science of “control and communication, in the animal and in the machine ” (1948). Many noted artists and musicians have derived inspiration from this concept and its on-going importance in new media, and the arts can hardly be overstated. In my paper, I would like to argue for the importance of situating cybernetics within a larger cultural context of the arts; especially music, to identify its social, political, and aesthetic impact on human identity. For the discussion, I will take the musical examples of John Cage, the prominent American experimental composer who worked in minimalist and process-generated music, following cybernetic principles. Roy Ascott, in his famous work Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision (1964) has talked about the cybernetic vision in the arts that began with the premise that interactive art must free itself from the modernist ideal of the “perfect object” and he has developed on Cage’s premise, suggesting that the “spirit of cybernetics” offers the most effective means for achieving a mutual exchange between the artwork and its audience. Fundamentally, the question to ask is- where do today’s artists stand in relation to these radical changes in information systems? And, what are the ways they can shape and develop a vision in art by understanding its underlying cybernetic characteristics?
“Cybernetics” is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems and has been more famously defined by Norbert Wiener, as the science of “control and communication, in the animal and in the machine ” (1948). Many noted artists and musicians have derived inspiration from this concept and its on-going importance in new media, and the arts can hardly be overstated. In my paper, I would like to argue for the importance of situating cybernetics within a larger cultural context of the arts; especially music, to identify its social, political, and aesthetic impact on human identity. For the discussion, I will take the musical examples of John Cage, the prominent American experimental composer who worked in minimalist and process-generated music, following cybernetic principles. Roy Ascott, in his famous work Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision (1964) has talked about the cybernetic vision in the arts that began with the premise that interactive art must free itself from the modernist ideal of the “perfect object” and he has developed on Cage’s premise, suggesting that the “spirit of cybernetics” offers the most effective means for achieving a mutual exchange between the artwork and its audience. Fundamentally, the question to ask is- where do today’s artists stand in relation to these radical changes in information systems? And, what are the ways they can shape and develop a vision in art by understanding its underlying cybernetic characteristics?
Sync in Progress: Disney/ABC Transmedia Marketing and Audience Address, Jennifer Gillan
The “are you ready to change the way you watch television?” promotion for the ABC Grey’s Anatomy sync app for iPad implies that the Walt Disney Company and its corporate partners are responding to the current and the future changes in the way “viewsers” watch and interact with television content. A focus on producer-sponsored, viewser-generated content and social networking allows for a consideration of how media conglomerates like Disney circulate their desired self-representations; enlist viewsers to reinforce that representation by contributing and sharing content; and repackage viewser contributions as part of the larger brand stories circulated among on-air and online platforms. Within this context, an analysis of Disney Channel initiatives is particularly intriguing given the company’s stated interest in the blurred lines between traditional toys and youth electronics and its development of the “first line of consumer electronics especially designed exclusively for children” in recognition of the extension of “play patterns” into “online virtual worlds.”
The “are you ready to change the way you watch television?” promotion for the ABC Grey’s Anatomy sync app for iPad implies that the Walt Disney Company and its corporate partners are responding to the current and the future changes in the way “viewsers” watch and interact with television content. A focus on producer-sponsored, viewser-generated content and social networking allows for a consideration of how media conglomerates like Disney circulate their desired self-representations; enlist viewsers to reinforce that representation by contributing and sharing content; and repackage viewser contributions as part of the larger brand stories circulated among on-air and online platforms. Within this context, an analysis of Disney Channel initiatives is particularly intriguing given the company’s stated interest in the blurred lines between traditional toys and youth electronics and its development of the “first line of consumer electronics especially designed exclusively for children” in recognition of the extension of “play patterns” into “online virtual worlds.”
, Boris Goesl
In its history, the modern planetarium increasingly was subject to radical changes. In the early years (1923-1950) a planetarium’s artificial horizon was shaped as recognizable skyline. The handcrafted silhouettes with increasing frequency had been supplemented, and later replaced by projected panoramas. Not only visual mismatch of fixed skyscrapers in front of projected (e.g. lunar-)panoramas―a ‘(con-)fusion of horizons’―rendered handmade skylines disturbing, but also those no longer corresponding with the present true constantly changing city-skylines, constituted incongruity. Even the horizon’s horizontality was lost, since―due to the fusion of IMAX-dome-cinema and planetarium (first consolidated in San Diego, 1973)―the dome was tilted, entailing a tilt of the auditorium level: a truly unstable platform. A transition from concentric to unidirectional seating correlated with that to ascending seating. The cinema-planetarium-fusion then initiated a profound transition towards new program diversity far beyond astronomy. Boston’s Planetarium reopened as digital multimedia theater in 2011. With a video-full-dome-system complementing the new Zeiss star-projector, it is a ‘melting pot’ of disparate media technologies. Formerly labeled ‘cultural dinosaurs’ confronting media competition, planetariums, more recently having turned from astronomical lecture halls into hybrid multimedia arenas, have overcome their former antiquatedness.
In its history, the modern planetarium increasingly was subject to radical changes. In the early years (1923-1950) a planetarium’s artificial horizon was shaped as recognizable skyline. The handcrafted silhouettes with increasing frequency had been supplemented, and later replaced by projected panoramas. Not only visual mismatch of fixed skyscrapers in front of projected (e.g. lunar-)panoramas―a ‘(con-)fusion of horizons’―rendered handmade skylines disturbing, but also those no longer corresponding with the present true constantly changing city-skylines, constituted incongruity. Even the horizon’s horizontality was lost, since―due to the fusion of IMAX-dome-cinema and planetarium (first consolidated in San Diego, 1973)―the dome was tilted, entailing a tilt of the auditorium level: a truly unstable platform. A transition from concentric to unidirectional seating correlated with that to ascending seating. The cinema-planetarium-fusion then initiated a profound transition towards new program diversity far beyond astronomy. Boston’s Planetarium reopened as digital multimedia theater in 2011. With a video-full-dome-system complementing the new Zeiss star-projector, it is a ‘melting pot’ of disparate media technologies. Formerly labeled ‘cultural dinosaurs’ confronting media competition, planetariums, more recently having turned from astronomical lecture halls into hybrid multimedia arenas, have overcome their former antiquatedness.
, Michael Z. Goldberg
Since the boom years of the 1990s, the economic importance of capital flows has superseded that of flows of trade in goods and services. Digital technology has bred the hyper-mobilization of money and a dematerialized financial market. The same technology has facilitated the real-time transmission of images from the public domain, and thus the democratization of news and social media; but it has also fuelled unbridled financial speculation and the volatility of capitalism’s boom and bust cycles. In considering this dichotomy, my paper will look at the virtual environments of 24-hour financial markets and online computer games, comparing traders’ immersion in the electronic ‘flow world’ of financial data with computer game players’ projection of their senses into what they consider believable teletopographical scenarios. My paper will discuss electronic financial markets, online computer games, and real-time news transmission in processual terms, locating their epicentres not in the electronic infrastructure, the conduit through which their data flows, but embedded rather in what Baudrillard described as “a sort of umbilical relation” – the fluid immersive pull and reality of the computer screen itself.
Since the boom years of the 1990s, the economic importance of capital flows has superseded that of flows of trade in goods and services. Digital technology has bred the hyper-mobilization of money and a dematerialized financial market. The same technology has facilitated the real-time transmission of images from the public domain, and thus the democratization of news and social media; but it has also fuelled unbridled financial speculation and the volatility of capitalism’s boom and bust cycles. In considering this dichotomy, my paper will look at the virtual environments of 24-hour financial markets and online computer games, comparing traders’ immersion in the electronic ‘flow world’ of financial data with computer game players’ projection of their senses into what they consider believable teletopographical scenarios. My paper will discuss electronic financial markets, online computer games, and real-time news transmission in processual terms, locating their epicentres not in the electronic infrastructure, the conduit through which their data flows, but embedded rather in what Baudrillard described as “a sort of umbilical relation” – the fluid immersive pull and reality of the computer screen itself.
, Bob Hanke
Digital media and their networks have become necessary to the everyday functioning of the university, scholarly communication, circuits of knowledge, and the faculty’s worldly engagement. Technological change within the university has not produced one homogenous mediatized academic world. Rather, university-based media are a mix of dominant, residual or emergent technologies. The milieu of the university is both bounded in space-time and deterritorialized by assemblages of screens-users-applications, the logic of connectivity, and crossflows of information. This paper will focus on the experience of this transition from two sides. On one side is the classroom and how it has been upgraded within a wireless university so that interface time supercedes classroom and face-to-face time. Along with a new cultural metaform of academic work, live diffusion of cyberpedagogy has become normal. However, the disjuncture between the classroom and the mediatized world has narrowed in some ways – course website and content management systems are common–and widened in other ways – Facebook and ‘smart’ mobile phones are the ‘new’ media. On the other side is the managerial role played by chief information officers and IT professionals as intermediaries between the university and the IT and software industry. At York University, for example, the institutional adoption and implementation of ICTs has been accompanied by a campus building boom and student population explosion. IT strategy and planning has entailed adapting to external technological drivers, building information infrastructure, and adjusting internal inputs and outputs of information. My research suggests that the network and its platforms are metastable and the academic milieu is marked by increasing levels of entropy.
Digital media and their networks have become necessary to the everyday functioning of the university, scholarly communication, circuits of knowledge, and the faculty’s worldly engagement. Technological change within the university has not produced one homogenous mediatized academic world. Rather, university-based media are a mix of dominant, residual or emergent technologies. The milieu of the university is both bounded in space-time and deterritorialized by assemblages of screens-users-applications, the logic of connectivity, and crossflows of information. This paper will focus on the experience of this transition from two sides. On one side is the classroom and how it has been upgraded within a wireless university so that interface time supercedes classroom and face-to-face time. Along with a new cultural metaform of academic work, live diffusion of cyberpedagogy has become normal. However, the disjuncture between the classroom and the mediatized world has narrowed in some ways – course website and content management systems are common–and widened in other ways – Facebook and ‘smart’ mobile phones are the ‘new’ media. On the other side is the managerial role played by chief information officers and IT professionals as intermediaries between the university and the IT and software industry. At York University, for example, the institutional adoption and implementation of ICTs has been accompanied by a campus building boom and student population explosion. IT strategy and planning has entailed adapting to external technological drivers, building information infrastructure, and adjusting internal inputs and outputs of information. My research suggests that the network and its platforms are metastable and the academic milieu is marked by increasing levels of entropy.
, Dianne M. Garyantes, Christopher Harper
The presentation will describe and evaluate Philadelphia Neighborhoods, a project that was established six years ago to better tell stories in the undercovered and underserved neighborhoods of Philadelphia. The reporting can be seen at www.philadelphianeighborhoods.com . Through this nationally recognized program, Philadelphia Neighborhoods provides a form of coverage missing from many urban communities: journalism street by street. Currently, 30 neighborhoods are served by this program through stories in print, the web, and TV broadcasts. The presentation also will evaluate the experiences of the reporters in the neighborhoods and the response of the neighborhood members to the coverage.
Buttons and Fingers: Our Digital Condition, Till A. Heilmann
In the so-called digital age, a large part of everyday life revolves around push buttons (e.g. on kitchen appliances, elevators, vending machines, automated tellers etc.). Indeed, perception and knowledge are nowadays mediated more and more through the manipulation of buttons (e.g. on mobile phones, computer keyboards, cameras etc.). An examination of the button’s significance in the technical and cultural framework of post-industrial society thus promises a better understanding of our “digital condition.” Against the backdrop of the button’s seemingly imminent displacement by the touch screen, the paper outlines the research plan for a historical and theoretical media analysis of the push button. Characterizing the button as a pivotal element of today’s media technology and a powerful manifestation of digitality, it proposes a concept of digitality that goes beyond common definitions (i.e. being composed of discrete and numerically represented elements) and entails the role of the human hand or, more precisely, its digits. The paper argues that the so-called digital age can be described as resulting from the ‘revolution of the button’ and that the ‘digital gesture’ of pushing buttons is the fundamental cultural technique of our time.
, Karen Hellekson
The transition of scholarly discourse online is proving a bumpy one. Although some radical new modes of content vetting and delivery are emerging and 'digital humanities' has become a buzzword, scholarly work online in the humanities and social sciences is not accorded the same prestige compared to journals that use a print-only or dual print-online model, despite the obvious advantages of access and use of embedded (multi)media. Yet these fears also reveal sites of possible renegotiation of the academic model in a way that will help scholars and scholarly discourse. Publishing in the humanities and the social sciences needs to follow the lead of the sciences, which were early adopters of moving and organizing content online: physics pioneered the online preprint; ClinicalTrials.gov registers trials and provides instructions for investigators; and journals in many disciplines publish online-only supplemental materials, such as data sets and online videos. Further, Creative Commons copyright and open access models have much to offer. All these ideas may be usefully co-opted by the digital humanities.
, Margaret Heller, Nell Taylor
Chicago Underground Library (CUL) has developed a unique cataloging and discovery system using Drupal that we eventually hope to provide as a both a technical and theoretical template that organizations can implement in their own cities. This replicable project uses the lens of an archive to examine the creative, political and intellectual interdependencies of a region, tracing how people have worked together, who influenced whom, where ideas first developed, and how they spread from one publication to another through individuals, creating a highly visible network of primary sources. This paper will discuss the process for designing our keyword-based, community-driven cataloging system and the catalog itself. Catalogers use non-hierarchical combinations of subjects and keywords, allowing data that provides hyperlocal or alternative perspectives to compete alongside dominant historical records and reflecting the changing way that users seek information. Users may also contribute contextual comments and corrections from which our catalogers will filter relevant, verifiable information to add to each entry. Discussions remain on each record and changes to the entry itself will be tracked in the interest of transparency and conversation.
