One person's view of the future, told as a history looking back from the mid-century.
Which parts of it, if any, would you agree with?
Sunday 12 December 2010
Monday 22 November 2010
Creation of INewspaper by Rupert Murdoch
The world's first "newspaper" designed exclusively for new tablet-style computers such as Apple's iPad, with a launch planned for early next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/21/ipad-newspaper-steve-jobs-rupert-murdoch
Thursday 14 October 2010
The Social Network
A David Fincher film about the rise of facebook.
Watch the trailer
The directors commentary
Watch the trailer
The directors commentary
Monday 11 October 2010
The Future of TV?
Google TV.
Google have made a video about how they intend to revolutionise TV.
http://www.youtube.com/googletv Watch the video - What is google TV
What do you think? Is this a step too far? Will it take off? Are TV sets becoming a thing of the past? What do you imagine our future looks like?
Google have made a video about how they intend to revolutionise TV.
http://www.youtube.com/googletv Watch the video - What is google TV
What do you think? Is this a step too far? Will it take off? Are TV sets becoming a thing of the past? What do you imagine our future looks like?
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Thursday 26 August 2010
Are "physical" books dead??
Just as the newspaper industry is suffering or should i say adapting to the rise of the internet. A professor argues that the physical book is dying and being replaced by the digital book.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/06/physical-book-dead/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
What do you think? What impact could this have on both audiences and institutions?
Leave your thoughts below....
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/06/physical-book-dead/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
What do you think? What impact could this have on both audiences and institutions?
Leave your thoughts below....
Monday 16 August 2010
techradar.com
This website throws up some good articles and tweets regarding the changing face of technology in contemporary society. Well worth a regular visit. Remember you should think about why companies are interested in expanding or merging and what impact this will have on the institution / industry in question as well as the audience and more general public.
A particularly interesting article that throws up a lots of questions is below;
Thursday 1 July 2010
Charles Leadbeater
This is really useful. You shoulduse this site to make detailed notes to support your classwork.
http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/home.aspx
Monday 28 June 2010
Friday 25 June 2010
Friday 18 June 2010
A Case Study from Pete Fraser: Fans
I shall suggest ways in which the work of Henry Jenkins writing particularly in 'Convergence Culture' (2006) could be useful in the exam using fan videos as a case study.The conventional image of the fan, as portrayed in fictional representations, is of a deranged fanatic, endangering the life of the fan's hero. Examples would be Robert De Niro as Rupert Pupkin in King of Comedy (1982) or Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990).
Henry Jenkins' work on fan fiction challenges this view as simplistic; in Convergence Culture he looks at a number of case studies to suggest that fans are engaged in quite a range of cultural activity. His chapters consider:Survivor and ‘spoilers’- the ways in which fan groups online collaborate to find out about upcoming episodes and circulate information about them or 'spoilers'; American Idol and ‘democracy’- the first US programme to use mass text voting, a way in which some would suggest that the audience participate in a form of limited democracy to choose their winner. The Matrix and ‘transmedia’ looks at the ways in which a text can be produced in a number of different forms- the films, animations, comic books, each of which adds a different element to the jigsaw of the story and which cannot be fully understood on their own. Star Wars and fan film production- of which there are many thousands on the net, some of massive technical prowess and Harry Potter- kids as writers and activists, where Jenkins looks at the ways in which young Potter fans have become involved in political movements based upon how they have interpreted the stories applying to real life issues.
Jenkins argues that the web has created ‘knowledge communities’ where fans meet together online to share interests and discuss them in depth. He sees fansites as having a sort of 'collective thinking' and sets of rules and credentials, where some things can and some things can't be said and where individuals can gain kudos for their knowledge as expert contributors in the same way as they would in the academic world- for example site admins or the most regular posters often have special status in fan groups and forums compared to newbies.Jenkins' definition of convergence is wider than the generally used definition around technology and the digitalisation of media content, as he looks also at the ways in which the integration of media industries into conglomerates represents an economic convergence but perhaps most importantly how the online age creates a social and cultural convergence too- with audiences coming together socially online from all over the globe and start to make things which they share online.This cultural production by fans of fiction that extends beyond the original text has been around since long before the web, but the distribution of it has become significantly easier since the online age began. If you want to use fan production as a case study in the exam, here are some starting points. have a look at the videos and click on the youtube link so you can see the user comments and also the videos to which they relate- other fan production. Some are examples of what I would call 'acting out', some involve extending the story, one is a celebration of other fan art to explore the relationship between characters in a story, some involve re-mixing and mashing them up, but all involve distribution of fan production and sharing amongst an online audience, often starting with a 'knowledge community'.
Tuesday 8 June 2010
Some of Nicola's thoughts and useful quotes
"Thanks to web 2.0, companies are beginning to conceive, design, develop, and distribute products and services in profoundly new ways.............companies can increasingly source ideas, innovations, and uniquely qualified minds from a vast global pool of talent". Taken from Wikinomics - Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams (2006). This idea can be applied to many media areas for instance the film industry - students making their own films and uploading them to Youtube, people making mash-ups and putting them online - the same goes for music videos. MP3 has enabled unsigned artists/bands to record and upload their music to social networking sites such as Myspace.
Music Video: Unsigned Band
Mash Up
Dan Gilmor outlines in his book We Media how anyone can be a journalist because converging technology means that events can be filmed and uploaded to Youtube, social networking sites - think about the first footage of 9/11 or the woman whose car was pushed down the motorway by a lorry (filmed by a civilian in a passing car). What about how advterising is personally directed to us following the information we have about ourselves on our facebook page or how personal recommendations are emailed to you from amazon after you've purchased a product.
Andrew Keen discusses a darker side of web 2.0 and he suggests that the new form of "online collectivism" is threatening our culture and our economy. He argues that authentic talent is disappearing as amateur media is banded all over the Internet. He refers to the death of the newspaper (readerships declining) whilst Youtube videos of skateboarding capture the nations eyeballs. Michael Moore supports this notion when he discusses the dumbing down of western society by multinational capitalist conglomerates.
Would a Marxist think that mass collaboration on the Internet is good? Anyone can be a media producer and have their work viewed by millions of people (hence limiting the profits of large capitalist organisations - think about musicians leaving major labels and setting up on their own - simplyred.com). However, some critics argue that online collaboration and sharing is promoting a "free economy" where unpaid volunteers are exploited by corporations. Taken from Wikinomics - Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams (2006);
I really like some of the ideas of Charles Leadbitter in his book "We Think" (2009). He outlines two counter arguments "Will the web promote democratic collaboration and creativity? Or will it be a malign influence, rendering us collectively stupid by our reliance on what google and wikipedia tell us being true, or, worse, promoting bigotry, thoughtlessness, criminality and terror?" He goes on to discuss how the emergence of web 2.0 has allowed us to express ourselves and as charles Chenung would state self-represent. Leadbitter acknowledges the active nature of the audience and states that the web is not just for producing but it also encourages surveillance, "not just by the state and corporations , but also by our peers and friends". Think about Facebook for instance and how people constantly view and comment on peoples status - or even how companies have used status updates and wall posts in disciplinary cases. Leadbitter states that any move we make on the web can be tracked and ultimately come back and haunt us.
Furthermore, he offers that economically the web destroys just as much as it creates - think about the music industry and how illegal downloading is costing the industry billions of dollars. What about the death of newspapers? The death of TV advertising and how potentially advertising will go all together as TV viewers move online or watch on demand (sky plus). Will it be replaced with product placement instead? That way brands names will still be associated with and aimed at certain audiences but consumed whenever the media text is? I have the book in the classroom if you want to pursue his ideas in more depth.
Music Video: Unsigned Band
Mash Up
Dan Gilmor outlines in his book We Media how anyone can be a journalist because converging technology means that events can be filmed and uploaded to Youtube, social networking sites - think about the first footage of 9/11 or the woman whose car was pushed down the motorway by a lorry (filmed by a civilian in a passing car). What about how advterising is personally directed to us following the information we have about ourselves on our facebook page or how personal recommendations are emailed to you from amazon after you've purchased a product.
Andrew Keen discusses a darker side of web 2.0 and he suggests that the new form of "online collectivism" is threatening our culture and our economy. He argues that authentic talent is disappearing as amateur media is banded all over the Internet. He refers to the death of the newspaper (readerships declining) whilst Youtube videos of skateboarding capture the nations eyeballs. Michael Moore supports this notion when he discusses the dumbing down of western society by multinational capitalist conglomerates.
Would a Marxist think that mass collaboration on the Internet is good? Anyone can be a media producer and have their work viewed by millions of people (hence limiting the profits of large capitalist organisations - think about musicians leaving major labels and setting up on their own - simplyred.com). However, some critics argue that online collaboration and sharing is promoting a "free economy" where unpaid volunteers are exploited by corporations. Taken from Wikinomics - Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams (2006);
I really like some of the ideas of Charles Leadbitter in his book "We Think" (2009). He outlines two counter arguments "Will the web promote democratic collaboration and creativity? Or will it be a malign influence, rendering us collectively stupid by our reliance on what google and wikipedia tell us being true, or, worse, promoting bigotry, thoughtlessness, criminality and terror?" He goes on to discuss how the emergence of web 2.0 has allowed us to express ourselves and as charles Chenung would state self-represent. Leadbitter acknowledges the active nature of the audience and states that the web is not just for producing but it also encourages surveillance, "not just by the state and corporations , but also by our peers and friends". Think about Facebook for instance and how people constantly view and comment on peoples status - or even how companies have used status updates and wall posts in disciplinary cases. Leadbitter states that any move we make on the web can be tracked and ultimately come back and haunt us.
Furthermore, he offers that economically the web destroys just as much as it creates - think about the music industry and how illegal downloading is costing the industry billions of dollars. What about the death of newspapers? The death of TV advertising and how potentially advertising will go all together as TV viewers move online or watch on demand (sky plus). Will it be replaced with product placement instead? That way brands names will still be associated with and aimed at certain audiences but consumed whenever the media text is? I have the book in the classroom if you want to pursue his ideas in more depth.
Revision Blog
Here's a link to a revision blog written by a teacher from another college. It's recommended by the chief examiner but it's a social networking site so you'll have to access it from home.
http://musicindustry.posterous.com/ - This is useful for any AS music industry resit and media in the online age.
http://musicindustry.posterous.com/ - This is useful for any AS music industry resit and media in the online age.
Feedback on section A and tips on improving
REFER TO THE MEDIA STUDIES BLOG FOR A DETAILED ESSAY PLAN BY THE CHIEF EXAMINER FOR SECTION A.
After reading your mock exams I have the following points for you to consider and incorporate into your work;
For question 1a.
1. DO NOT just describe how your skills have developed. You need to say how these, developed, skills have benefit ted your production. For the mock - how did it make your product more creative? Did you challenge anything? Did you push boundaries? Did you create and incorporate something unique (your own style?)
2. How did you develop the skills? What benefit did you get from online tutorials? Using blogspot? Using Youtube to watch clips and gain inspiration?
3. Did the nature of the brief allow you to develop your skills? e.g. the prelim was very prescriptive hence you couldn't exercise a great deal of creativity........the A2 brief was much broader allowing for more creative scope.
This question must be about reflecting on your skills and how these skills have developed and ultimately improved the products you've made. Be specific and provide specific examples from your work.
For question 1b.
You needed to oultline in you introduction that you know what narrative theory is - what do theorists say? (look at alisonmedia.net, text books - go to the library and find some quotes from media theorists) Think about what Roland Barthes wrote about narrative, Todorov, Propp, Strauss and other structuralists. Top grade students would research structuralism in their own time to provide added depth to their work.
Then you need to discuss how you product is sturtcured - how is your product usually structured? why? what's it's purpose? does it depart from Todorov's structure? Why? What story is your product telling? How is that apparent to the viewer? Are their narrative expectations confirmed? Do you use typical narrative set pieces? Is your text built around the expected binary opposition (strauss)? Or does it challenge this? Have you used archetypal characters? Do they fit Propps theory of character types?
How does the audience make sense of your narrative - look up Roland Barthes (on the narrative powerpoint). Think about how media texts are ploysemic (Stuart Hall) and can be interpreted in a variety of ways (as according to him audiences are not passive). Does your text rely on a point of cultural reference? (Barthes).
In short....you must answer the question directly it was asking about how you used narrative and how would your audience make sense of it.
After reading your mock exams I have the following points for you to consider and incorporate into your work;
For question 1a.
1. DO NOT just describe how your skills have developed. You need to say how these, developed, skills have benefit ted your production. For the mock - how did it make your product more creative? Did you challenge anything? Did you push boundaries? Did you create and incorporate something unique (your own style?)
2. How did you develop the skills? What benefit did you get from online tutorials? Using blogspot? Using Youtube to watch clips and gain inspiration?
3. Did the nature of the brief allow you to develop your skills? e.g. the prelim was very prescriptive hence you couldn't exercise a great deal of creativity........the A2 brief was much broader allowing for more creative scope.
This question must be about reflecting on your skills and how these skills have developed and ultimately improved the products you've made. Be specific and provide specific examples from your work.
For question 1b.
You needed to oultline in you introduction that you know what narrative theory is - what do theorists say? (look at alisonmedia.net, text books - go to the library and find some quotes from media theorists) Think about what Roland Barthes wrote about narrative, Todorov, Propp, Strauss and other structuralists. Top grade students would research structuralism in their own time to provide added depth to their work.
Then you need to discuss how you product is sturtcured - how is your product usually structured? why? what's it's purpose? does it depart from Todorov's structure? Why? What story is your product telling? How is that apparent to the viewer? Are their narrative expectations confirmed? Do you use typical narrative set pieces? Is your text built around the expected binary opposition (strauss)? Or does it challenge this? Have you used archetypal characters? Do they fit Propps theory of character types?
How does the audience make sense of your narrative - look up Roland Barthes (on the narrative powerpoint). Think about how media texts are ploysemic (Stuart Hall) and can be interpreted in a variety of ways (as according to him audiences are not passive). Does your text rely on a point of cultural reference? (Barthes).
In short....you must answer the question directly it was asking about how you used narrative and how would your audience make sense of it.
Answering the exam question
Plan written by Pete Fraser (Chief examiner) and expanded on by myself.
At the top of the paper, for all topics, there is an instruction that you need to refer to the past, contemporary media and future possibilities and that you should use case study examples to support your arguments. You also need to have some reference to media theory and to refer to examples from at least two media areas. Since 20 of the marks are for explanation, argument and analysis (EAA), twenty are for use of examples (EG) and 10 are for use of terminology (T), you can see that this is not an easy task.
In this post, I am going to try to show how you can make the most of your material to do a good answer.So how would we go about answering these questions?
Step 1: Identify what the question is about. Exam questions are often written to a bit of a formula- 'to what extent...' 'how far...' '...discuss' - you'll see these a lot in G325. what they are all doing is asking you to consider a debate and to look at both sides of something, not just to prove a point. So when Q.8 asks for a discussion of whether the impact of the Internet is revolutionary, it is not setting it as a statement of fact, but asking 'how far' this is true. Similarly, q.9, which refers to distribution and consumption, is asking whether the Internet has made these things very different. So there are similarities between the two questions, though the second one gives you more to tie your answer to, where the first one is quite open. In both cases, though, what you use for case studies is really open to your choice!
Step 2: decide which of the two questions to do
Step 3: note down a plan, with the main points you want to cover and the examples you want to use. Break this down so you cover all the areas needed
At the top of the paper, for all topics, there is an instruction that you need to refer to the past, contemporary media and future possibilities and that you should use case study examples to support your arguments. You also need to have some reference to media theory and to refer to examples from at least two media areas. Since 20 of the marks are for explanation, argument and analysis (EAA), twenty are for use of examples (EG) and 10 are for use of terminology (T), you can see that this is not an easy task.
In this post, I am going to try to show how you can make the most of your material to do a good answer.So how would we go about answering these questions?
Step 1: Identify what the question is about. Exam questions are often written to a bit of a formula- 'to what extent...' 'how far...' '...discuss' - you'll see these a lot in G325. what they are all doing is asking you to consider a debate and to look at both sides of something, not just to prove a point. So when Q.8 asks for a discussion of whether the impact of the Internet is revolutionary, it is not setting it as a statement of fact, but asking 'how far' this is true. Similarly, q.9, which refers to distribution and consumption, is asking whether the Internet has made these things very different. So there are similarities between the two questions, though the second one gives you more to tie your answer to, where the first one is quite open. In both cases, though, what you use for case studies is really open to your choice!
Highlight and annotate the questions what are they asking you to do.....what examples could you use. Identify the key words.
Step 2: decide which of the two questions to do
Step 3: note down a plan, with the main points you want to cover and the examples you want to use. Break this down so you cover all the areas needed
Examples
Media areas x2 or more
Which theory/critics to reference- it just means whose ideas do you want to mention
Main arguments
Past?
Present?
Future?
terminology
If you run out of time, the examiner can at least give you credit for where you would have gone.
remember, you could answer this section before you do 1a and 1b if you want.
Step 4 Write an Intro - keep it short and simple. Ensure you reword the question to show the examiner that you understand what is being asked of you. for example;
'In this essay I shall consider how far web microcosies and Internet memes demonstrate the changing nature of distribution and consumption of the media' -
This intro already uses two bits of terminology (microseries and memes) and shows you are going to address the question (distribution and consumption).
If you know that you are going to use the ideas of contemporary critics, you could go on to say
'I shall refer to the ideas of David Gauntlett to consider whether the arguments he makes about Web 2.0 really do suggest that the media has changed dramatically.'
Step 5 get on with it:
case study 1 - this is where you discuss your first example- Draw upon theory to support or challenge any of the points that you make. Ensure you discuss the past, present and future of this study. e.g. where did we used to get our news from - any issues with this ie. newspapers are instantly out of date as soon as they've been printed. Then discuss how online media has revolutionised the news e.g. Dan Gilmor and citizen Journalism (but argue the case just because you take a picture, upload it and leave a comment are you a journalist? What would Michale Moore say about this?) - then lead this discussion of web 2.0 and converging technologies into a discussion/ debate about social networking and David Gautnlett (collaboration) - twitter vs. Jan Moir and Internet memes(outline the good and bad). Murdoch now wanting to charge online subscription fee. Michale Moore offers alternative view that it's capitalist greed that's caused the death of the newspaper as they've dumbed down the nation (this could bring in uses and gratification and why people use the news and how - how has online media made it easier for people to dip in and out of the news?). Then what do you think will happen in the future - where will the news go next?
Step 6 case study 2 - your second example- Define any terms, outline some examples and bring in any relevant theory to support or challenge any of the points that you make. Again Ensure you discuss the past, present and future of this study. For instance if you were going to talk about the music industry you could discuss how music used to be produced (signed to a major label and recording in a large studio - CD's made and sold - issues can only buy albums or buy singles for a lot of money and usually can only buy mainstream in high street stores (was that limiting?)). With the rise of MP3 (smaller file sizes although worse quality) people can record in their own room and upload to social networking sites and offer downloads - (leaving majors - setting up online indie labels). What about file sharing and peer to peer sites? Issues both for and against? Major reaction to illegal downloads? Apples solution - rise of Itunes (can purchase singles) - Chris Anderson's theory of the 'long Tail' selling more niche products as Internet has endless supply (self space in high street stores). Technological convergence means that we can now have our entire music collection in the Palm of our hands.
What about anybody being able to be a music producer? Think about uses and gratifications. Mash-up's? unsigned acts? David Guantlett - creativity and happiness - take a look at Don Tapscott and his book wikinomics - he states that mass collaboration is revolutionising the way people and business operate. He offers that because of web 2.0 meida companies are beginning to conceive, design, develop and distribute products and services in profoundly new ways - youtube, spotify, podcasts etc. However, Andrew Keen suggests that there is a dark side to web 2.0 and that the rise of amateur creativity on the web will drown out authentic talent. He states that "if you democratise media then you democratise talent". - kind of the same argument that Michael Moore has regarding the dumbing down of the nation by multinational capitalist conglomerates.
Step 7 pull your ideas together, preparing for conclusions... an attempt to ensure that you explicitly address past, present and future and that you argue with the critics rather than just accepting their view. (Relating to January's question) - Make some points about the audience changing - we spend more time online, informal distribution of media is growing via social networks and e-mail, maybe some of us make stuff ourselves to distribute (as Gauntlett suggests). Maybe speculate that this could grow even further in the future. But... the sting in the tail is that Tv is still going strong, these online communities we belong to are still owned by big companies and much of what is being consumed is actually just transferred from one medium to another; Wesch argues that it is all getting more democratic, but is contributing to memes really democracy in action or just a form of play with no wider significance? Gauntlett's 'the media were like Gods..' - has that really changed? were audiences ever as passive as his model characterises them? Are they really that much more active now? isn't it just a tiny percentage who actually make stuff to put online?
This is just one essay model . You could take a totally different approach, using other posts as a starting point- for example talking about collaborative texts as a new role for audiences or about the changes to the music industry illustrated. Or you could answer the question about revolutionary change by reference to technology and consider whether it makes any difference at all. Remember- your choice of case studies is up to you. What you know about them and how you are able to relate them to ideas is where the marks come in!
Here are January's questions;
Thursday 27 May 2010
Internet Meme
This is something interesting that you can link in with a discussion about the Internet and the news. An Internet meme is something that spreads quickly from person to person via blogs, social networking etc. Think about how people respond quickly to news items or generate rumours about celebrities etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme
Monday 17 May 2010
Points from the examiners
I have summed up the examiners report for the entire critical perspectives unit below:
General Comments;
The level of expectation from the examiners is high. Across all 3 questions you need to sustain a high level of theoretcial discussion. You need to theorise your own production processes, analyse your own outcomes using key media concepts and discuss a contemporary media issue with the use of a range of theoretical arguments.
Section A;
1a ) Stronger answers will offer a range of examples. You need to reflect on processes, logistics and the mechanics of production. You need to discuss more and less successful decisions you made as this will allow for more deatiled critical reflection.
1b) You must demonstrate a high level of understanding regarding the theorectial concept you're dealing with. Is it straightforward or more complex? You must evidence wider reading and theorectial research you've undertaken on the area in question in realtion to specific areas of your production. You must demonstrate a familiarity with the concept in question and the theorists incolved with it. You should only refer to one production.
General Comments;
The level of expectation from the examiners is high. Across all 3 questions you need to sustain a high level of theoretcial discussion. You need to theorise your own production processes, analyse your own outcomes using key media concepts and discuss a contemporary media issue with the use of a range of theoretical arguments.
Section A;
1a ) Stronger answers will offer a range of examples. You need to reflect on processes, logistics and the mechanics of production. You need to discuss more and less successful decisions you made as this will allow for more deatiled critical reflection.
1b) You must demonstrate a high level of understanding regarding the theorectial concept you're dealing with. Is it straightforward or more complex? You must evidence wider reading and theorectial research you've undertaken on the area in question in realtion to specific areas of your production. You must demonstrate a familiarity with the concept in question and the theorists incolved with it. You should only refer to one production.
Tuesday 11 May 2010
Exemplar Answer from January 2010
Here is an exemplar answer from January 2010. It scored 32/50 (level 3) so there is still a lot of room for improvement. The examiner said: Fluent and clear, lacks some more specific theories around web 2.0 and 'long tail' becomes repetitive and range is limited.
‘The impact of the internet on the media ‘is revolutionary". This is a statement that I definitely agree with, the advancement in all areas of the media since the internet is massive, weather it be for positive or negative reasons, it has still had massive affect.
To start of, the internet used to be a place for browsing, there was media online, news, videos, articles, lots of information that the viewer could take in, this in itself was a massive advancement, that’s when web 2.0 was introduced.
Web 2.0 is what has allows us, as consumers to interact and be part of things online. Before, you could only read, only watch, whereas now, we can publish things online, we can have our works comment on, and we can comment on others. The internet in terms of media has bought people together, sites like youtube are revolutionising in themselves.
Before web 2.0 and youtube people would only watch professional videos, that’s because the professionals were the only people that had access to different forms of showing their work. If someone were to invite you to watch an amateur video of someone singing a song really badly for example, you wouldn’t have seen the appeal. But now with the introduction of the internet and web 2.0 amateurs can post there own videos online and people love to watch it. People watch and comment and get feedback, it has changed the market for media completely.
Nowadays any amateur any amateur can make a video and publish it online, as easily as any professional, this means there is a lot more content out there for media consumers. Why for example, would a consumer choose to watch a professional video over an amateur one? They might not anymore as the market has changed drastically since the internet.
Nowadays you can people called "Prosumers" these are producers/consumers, they watch other peoples work, but also produce things and share it themselves, this has only become able to do it since internet, so again another revolution. The internet has also had a massive impact on distrobution and consumption.
Distrobution wise, the internet allows for free advertising which means money is saved. It also allows for online shops, this means no more selling CDS OR DVDs in shops as they can quite as easily be sold online.
This being able to sell online has introduced a new theory called ‘the long tail;, this is much more in common within the music industry at the moment than it is with film, mainly because of how long films take to download and how they are not stored digitally online. The long tail allows unheard of artists, like ‘Shearng’ to make a living, not byt selling millions of albums in one go, but by selling small amounts over a constant, if you to make a graph of show an example it would be vey drawn out and long, hence the name, the long tail. This is definitely a revolution as it allows people who would not have been previously able to make a career, be able to now, and all thanks to the internet.
The internet has also changed how we listen to and buy music. Music is now hosted online in pay sites such as ‘iTunes store’ this allows people to buy straight offline, why go to the shop and buy a whole album when you can get the specific song you want from the internet in an instant. The internet has revolutionised how we listen to music.
People use to buy albums and listen to the whole thing, now there is no need to buy albums it has changed this, with people listening to maybe one or two songs from an album and that is all.
The main way, in my opinion, in which the internet has revolutionised the media is through interaction.
Say a news reporter were to post a report on something, every day people could then comment, giving there views, or maybe even update the report, in some ways we are very much taking it into our own hands.
Wikipedia for example, an online inventory with information about pretty much everything, and all built by contribitions from everyday people. Before web 2.0 a team of people would be required to create such a thihng, gathering knowledge offline and putting it online. Now web 2.0 is introduced, the information people know, they want to share and they do out of free will, definately another revolution that the internet has caused.
The internet also revolutionised the way we play games, with online gaming now a massing thing. People interact with each other through games over the internet. This has become so popular that people believe that is may start becoming a threat to other media such as the film industry. Why just sit and watch when you can interact and others can interact with you, interactivity with media sees to be what people whant and the internet is what has made this easily accessable.
Every form of media is also now hosted online, films, music, news, games, everything is on the internet, and every single one, consumers can have an input with weather this will be putting their own media online, their own videos, their own music etc, or it be commentating, receiving comments, it is all part of one massive revolution.
As I said before, before youtube amateur videos were unheard of. Now people can be more famous than professionals because of the media they have created, and others have been able to see because of the internet. Before people would have been unheard of, but distrobution has been made so easy that pretty much anyone noe can make them selves heard of if they post the right content in the right places.
The internet is definately a massive revolution, affecting all aspects of the media, and I believe in years to come the media will become more and more reliant on the internet and it will become a much bigger part than it already is.
‘The impact of the internet on the media ‘is revolutionary". This is a statement that I definitely agree with, the advancement in all areas of the media since the internet is massive, weather it be for positive or negative reasons, it has still had massive affect.
To start of, the internet used to be a place for browsing, there was media online, news, videos, articles, lots of information that the viewer could take in, this in itself was a massive advancement, that’s when web 2.0 was introduced.
Web 2.0 is what has allows us, as consumers to interact and be part of things online. Before, you could only read, only watch, whereas now, we can publish things online, we can have our works comment on, and we can comment on others. The internet in terms of media has bought people together, sites like youtube are revolutionising in themselves.
Before web 2.0 and youtube people would only watch professional videos, that’s because the professionals were the only people that had access to different forms of showing their work. If someone were to invite you to watch an amateur video of someone singing a song really badly for example, you wouldn’t have seen the appeal. But now with the introduction of the internet and web 2.0 amateurs can post there own videos online and people love to watch it. People watch and comment and get feedback, it has changed the market for media completely.
Nowadays any amateur any amateur can make a video and publish it online, as easily as any professional, this means there is a lot more content out there for media consumers. Why for example, would a consumer choose to watch a professional video over an amateur one? They might not anymore as the market has changed drastically since the internet.
Nowadays you can people called "Prosumers" these are producers/consumers, they watch other peoples work, but also produce things and share it themselves, this has only become able to do it since internet, so again another revolution. The internet has also had a massive impact on distrobution and consumption.
Distrobution wise, the internet allows for free advertising which means money is saved. It also allows for online shops, this means no more selling CDS OR DVDs in shops as they can quite as easily be sold online.
This being able to sell online has introduced a new theory called ‘the long tail;, this is much more in common within the music industry at the moment than it is with film, mainly because of how long films take to download and how they are not stored digitally online. The long tail allows unheard of artists, like ‘Shearng’ to make a living, not byt selling millions of albums in one go, but by selling small amounts over a constant, if you to make a graph of show an example it would be vey drawn out and long, hence the name, the long tail. This is definitely a revolution as it allows people who would not have been previously able to make a career, be able to now, and all thanks to the internet.
The internet has also changed how we listen to and buy music. Music is now hosted online in pay sites such as ‘iTunes store’ this allows people to buy straight offline, why go to the shop and buy a whole album when you can get the specific song you want from the internet in an instant. The internet has revolutionised how we listen to music.
People use to buy albums and listen to the whole thing, now there is no need to buy albums it has changed this, with people listening to maybe one or two songs from an album and that is all.
The main way, in my opinion, in which the internet has revolutionised the media is through interaction.
Say a news reporter were to post a report on something, every day people could then comment, giving there views, or maybe even update the report, in some ways we are very much taking it into our own hands.
Wikipedia for example, an online inventory with information about pretty much everything, and all built by contribitions from everyday people. Before web 2.0 a team of people would be required to create such a thihng, gathering knowledge offline and putting it online. Now web 2.0 is introduced, the information people know, they want to share and they do out of free will, definately another revolution that the internet has caused.
The internet also revolutionised the way we play games, with online gaming now a massing thing. People interact with each other through games over the internet. This has become so popular that people believe that is may start becoming a threat to other media such as the film industry. Why just sit and watch when you can interact and others can interact with you, interactivity with media sees to be what people whant and the internet is what has made this easily accessable.
Every form of media is also now hosted online, films, music, news, games, everything is on the internet, and every single one, consumers can have an input with weather this will be putting their own media online, their own videos, their own music etc, or it be commentating, receiving comments, it is all part of one massive revolution.
As I said before, before youtube amateur videos were unheard of. Now people can be more famous than professionals because of the media they have created, and others have been able to see because of the internet. Before people would have been unheard of, but distrobution has been made so easy that pretty much anyone noe can make them selves heard of if they post the right content in the right places.
The internet is definately a massive revolution, affecting all aspects of the media, and I believe in years to come the media will become more and more reliant on the internet and it will become a much bigger part than it already is.
Friday 7 May 2010
MediaMe Newspapers
I have copies (going fast) of the MediaMe Newspaper. It's a paper written specifically for the critical perspectives unit - with intense focus on media in the online age. If you'd like one they're 50p each. If there is enough demand I'll take orders (I can only order batches of 20).
Wednesday 5 May 2010
The Googlization of everything
I have put a link to this blog on because I found it quite an interesting read.
http://www.googlizationofeverything.com/
http://www.googlizationofeverything.com/
Tuesday 4 May 2010
We Media + Dan Gillmor
title on Prezi
This link below is to a talk called We the Media, delivered by Dan Gillmor in 2004 to an IT conference.
http://cdn.conversationsnetwork.org/ITC.AC2004-DanGillmor-2004.11.06.mp3
See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Gillmor
This link below is to a talk called We the Media, delivered by Dan Gillmor in 2004 to an IT conference.
http://cdn.conversationsnetwork.org/ITC.AC2004-DanGillmor-2004.11.06.mp3
See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Gillmor
Sunday 2 May 2010
Media Guardian
Make sure you keep reading the media guardian: technology. There's a link on this blog to it. There is an excellent feature on the history of the internet and how it's changed our culture for ever. I would think this is very useful for supplementing your discussion of "history" in your exam response.
Incase you find it difficult locating the link (or simply can't be bothered so scroll the page) here it is:
Dan Gilmor
Here is the link to Dan Gimor's blog. There is some really interesting posts about google, the death of newspapers, the impact of online media etc. This should be a good follow on from the case study we did, in class, on the News.
http://dangillmor.typepad.com/dan_gillmor_on_grassroots/2005/05/hyperlocal_and_.html
I will, also, photocopy some relevant chapters from his book "We Media".
http://dangillmor.typepad.com/dan_gillmor_on_grassroots/2005/05/hyperlocal_and_.html
I will, also, photocopy some relevant chapters from his book "We Media".
Monday 26 April 2010
A Look into the future: augmented reality?
What will happen in the future if in the last decade we've seen the developement of the internet, convergence of technology so we have a camera, video camera, mobile phone, computer, mobile music device etc. in the palm of our hand?
Charles Arthur investigates how the ways in which we watch sport, read magazines and do business with each other could change for ever
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/21/augmented-reality-iphone-advertising
Here is a link to a video about how augmented reality works
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/video/2009/dec/10/augmented-reality-travel-apps
What do you think? Will face to face communication become a thing of the past? Will we become a faceless society? or will, like David Gauntlett suggests, we become happier and more content as online media enables us to be more collaborative and creative? Furthermore, will we become much more rounded and cultured individuals as the technology of web 2.0 allows us to explore multiple-versions of our personality? Is Judith Butler right, is our identity interchangeable as we perform and self represent ourselves or a version of ourselves in cyber space?
The debate is endless. The key to success in this topic area is your ability to integrate theory and suggest how different theories support or challenge contemporary debates.
Charles Arthur investigates how the ways in which we watch sport, read magazines and do business with each other could change for ever
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/21/augmented-reality-iphone-advertisingHere is a link to a video about how augmented reality works
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/video/2009/dec/10/augmented-reality-travel-apps
What do you think? Will face to face communication become a thing of the past? Will we become a faceless society? or will, like David Gauntlett suggests, we become happier and more content as online media enables us to be more collaborative and creative? Furthermore, will we become much more rounded and cultured individuals as the technology of web 2.0 allows us to explore multiple-versions of our personality? Is Judith Butler right, is our identity interchangeable as we perform and self represent ourselves or a version of ourselves in cyber space?
The debate is endless. The key to success in this topic area is your ability to integrate theory and suggest how different theories support or challenge contemporary debates.
Friday 23 April 2010
Future of online media
This is a interesting article on the future of you tube and it's current impact on society
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/23/youtube-five-years-on
Facebook and Microsoft are collaborating in ways that benefit both companies, and should help them to compete with Google, but ultimately, both have bigger ambitions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/apr/22/facebook-docs-microsoft-office
Think about how this could change your experience (in education for instance)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/23/youtube-five-years-on
Facebook and Microsoft are collaborating in ways that benefit both companies, and should help them to compete with Google, but ultimately, both have bigger ambitions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/apr/22/facebook-docs-microsoft-office
Think about how this could change your experience (in education for instance)
Thursday 22 April 2010
remedial thoughts
Here is a link to a blog (remedial thoughts) that's written by Rob Jewitt (lecturer in media and cultural studies). Remedial Thoughts touches on current developments within media and cultural studies, including journalism, digital media and web studies.
http://www.remedialthoughts.com/2010/03/whistlestop-tour-through-audiences-and.html
http://www.remedialthoughts.com/2010/03/whistlestop-tour-through-audiences-and.html
Thursday 25 March 2010
Tuesday 23 March 2010
Monday 22 March 2010
Uses and Gratifications
During the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming texts. Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways. In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:
surveillance
correlation
entertainment
cultural transmission
Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (ie uses and gratifications):
Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life
Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts
Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains
Since then, the list of Uses and Gratifications has been extended, particularly as new media forms have come along (eg video games, the internet)
So in short approach focuses on why people use particular media rather than on content. In contrast to the concern of the 'media effects' tradition with 'what media do to people' (which assumes a homogeneous mass audience and a 'hypodermic' view of media).
Uses and Gratifications can be seen as part of a broader trend amongst media researchers which is more concerned with 'what people do with media', allowing for a variety of responses and interpretations.
Media consumption then can be broken down into the following categories according to Denis McQuail (1987);
Information
finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world
seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices
satisfying curiosity and general interest
learning; self-education
gaining a sense of security through knowledge
Personal Identity
finding reinforcement for personal values
finding models of behaviour
identifying with valued other (in the media)
gaining insight into one's self
Integration and Social Interaction
gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy
identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
having a substitute for real-life companionship
helping to carry out social roles
enabling one to connect with family, friends and society
Entertainment
escaping, or being diverted, from problems
relaxing
getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
filling time
emotional release
sexual arousal
surveillance
correlation
entertainment
cultural transmission
Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (ie uses and gratifications):
Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life
Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts
Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains
Since then, the list of Uses and Gratifications has been extended, particularly as new media forms have come along (eg video games, the internet)
So in short approach focuses on why people use particular media rather than on content. In contrast to the concern of the 'media effects' tradition with 'what media do to people' (which assumes a homogeneous mass audience and a 'hypodermic' view of media).
Uses and Gratifications can be seen as part of a broader trend amongst media researchers which is more concerned with 'what people do with media', allowing for a variety of responses and interpretations.
Media consumption then can be broken down into the following categories according to Denis McQuail (1987);
Information
finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world
seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices
satisfying curiosity and general interest
learning; self-education
gaining a sense of security through knowledge
Personal Identity
finding reinforcement for personal values
finding models of behaviour
identifying with valued other (in the media)
gaining insight into one's self
Integration and Social Interaction
gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy
identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
having a substitute for real-life companionship
helping to carry out social roles
enabling one to connect with family, friends and society
Entertainment
escaping, or being diverted, from problems
relaxing
getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
filling time
emotional release
sexual arousal
Really cool resource
If you want to see how online media has developed then use the following resource to view old versions of any website.
http://www.archive.org/
http://www.archive.org/
Using the way back machine type in the name of a website that you want to search
For instance http://www.qeliz.ac.uk/ > take me back
It will then show you versions of the website so you can explore how the website has changed as new media technology has developed.
Morgan Stanley Report
Below is a link to the Morgan Stanley report which focuses on how teenagers consume the media. What is interesting is that teenagers don't twitter and don't want to pay for online content.
Morgan Stanley Report
After reading the report think about the following: To what extent does your own media consumption confirm or challenge the trends identified by Morgan Stanley?
Moreover, conduct a small audit amongst a small representative sample of teenagers and compare your findings to those of the Morgan Stanley report.
Morgan Stanley Report
After reading the report think about the following: To what extent does your own media consumption confirm or challenge the trends identified by Morgan Stanley?
Moreover, conduct a small audit amongst a small representative sample of teenagers and compare your findings to those of the Morgan Stanley report.
David Buckingham
After the Death of Childhood
"David Buckingham's book is a useful theoretical underpinning for media in an online age. It raises and forefronts debate surrounding the medias role in the death of childhood and how restricting children's access to media involves excluding children from citizenship, commerce and morality. The boundaries around this debate are blurred providing you with scope to discuss your thoughts on the topic area. On the one hand there is the belief that children need protecting from adult domains but also there are adults who ask young people for answers as their expertise in new media forms gives them access to new forms of culture and communications. "(book review from amazon)
Does online media and access to endless information shorten childhood? Or is it a good thing that children are subjected to, once seemingly, adult content as it makes them more aware of the world around them?
"David Buckingham's book is a useful theoretical underpinning for media in an online age. It raises and forefronts debate surrounding the medias role in the death of childhood and how restricting children's access to media involves excluding children from citizenship, commerce and morality. The boundaries around this debate are blurred providing you with scope to discuss your thoughts on the topic area. On the one hand there is the belief that children need protecting from adult domains but also there are adults who ask young people for answers as their expertise in new media forms gives them access to new forms of culture and communications. "(book review from amazon)
Does online media and access to endless information shorten childhood? Or is it a good thing that children are subjected to, once seemingly, adult content as it makes them more aware of the world around them?
How has online media changed US?
This is a really cool video about how web 2.0 affects out identity and how media has developed over the years.
Consider your own media use and how it has changed so that you can inform your exam answer with personal response. Think about websites you used to visit compared with ones that you visit now and what you use them for.
You could even have a go at creating your own video response.
Furthermore, this is also an excellent link with media and collective identity for a discussion of how representation and identity can be affected in the future.
Consider your own media use and how it has changed so that you can inform your exam answer with personal response. Think about websites you used to visit compared with ones that you visit now and what you use them for.
You could even have a go at creating your own video response.
Furthermore, this is also an excellent link with media and collective identity for a discussion of how representation and identity can be affected in the future.
Thursday 18 March 2010
Monday 15 March 2010
Media Guardian
You should be reading, on a regular basis, the media guardian. I've supplied direct links to useful and really interesting sections.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/web20
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology
Make sure you make notes on the articles you've read and attempted to relate some relevant theory, covered in lessons, to them.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/web20
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology
Make sure you make notes on the articles you've read and attempted to relate some relevant theory, covered in lessons, to them.
Wednesday 3 March 2010
We live in public
http://www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com/
Director Ondi Timoner, for over a decade, documents the life of the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of, artist, futurist and visionary Josh Harris. A riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives.
View the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XSTwfdFwIY
View the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XSTwfdFwIY
Moral Maze
This is an interesting debate about the impact Twitter is having on public life following the #JanMoir article on Stephen Gately. Thought you might like to listen to it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qk11
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qk11
Monday 1 March 2010
Web 2.0 according to Professor Julian McDougall
Media Studies 2.0
Has the digital revolution changed the way we use the media? Can we still talk about ‘New Media’ – or, in an era of converging technologies, is this a redundant concept? Is there such a thing as Web 2.0? And what does it really mean for Media Studies? Dr Julian McDougall offers a wide-ranging overview of the implications of what’s rapidly shaping up to be Media Studies 2.0.
The view of the internet and new digital media as an ‘optional extra’ is replaced with recognition that they have fundamentally changed the ways in which we engage with all media.
Do you ‘watch television’ in the traditional sense any more? Can videogames be ‘taught’? Are there any distinct ‘media institutions’ in the era of convergence? If you can share music on Facebook with your ‘friends’ and they can purchase it (or take it for nowt) online and access the video within a few clicks on YouTube, what does this do to the ‘music industry’ as we know it? And most importantly, is there such a thing as ‘audience’ in this postmodern ‘we media’ age? Blimey!
There will always be a need to learn about media power, influence, access and issues of representation – these are tremendously important aspects of contemporary citizenship. But the way in which these cultural practices are circulated and disseminated is fundamentally changing. Your Media teachers are likely to be thinking about this stuff at the moment, and somewhere down the line that should make a difference to you. Here’s how.
Recently the University of Westminster announced that it would no longer be offering degrees in Media Studies. This is a big deal because Westminster was one of the first places to do so. A bunch of academics who have always derided the subject missed the point – at last they have seen sense and put an end to this easy option – that kind of thing. Why did this miss the point? Because the University will still offer degrees in Media but they will be more specialist. The decision is a response to the idea – put forward by academic theorist David Gauntlett who, coincidentally or not, works at Westminster – that the media is no longer a stable entity that can be taught about or studied coherently in such a broad way. It is too big, too fluid, too complex – too different. What has been the transformative phenomenon? Broadband internet, spawning a host of user-generated material via software and hosted sites – YouTube, MySpace, Facebook – which have been labelled ‘Web 2.0’.
More people, less media
Gauntlett, who coined the ‘Media 2.0’ response (see www.theory.org.uk for the detail), argues that people don’t just get represented by the media any more. Instead, they use Web 2.0 platforms to make their own media, share it with the world and thus represent themselves. So Media Studies needs to engage now with the ways in which people make sense of their identities and then creatively, through the media, express this. This means that Media students need to move away from the ‘Media 1.0’ way of doing things by ‘questioning the traditional approach to people who ‘produce’ media and people who ‘use’ media’ and by ‘exploring people’s contemporary media experiences by encouraging creative responses’ (quotes from Gauntlett: Creative Explorations, 2007).
Media 2.0, then, will be more about people and less about ‘the media’.
Another version of this theme comes from Dan Gillmor’s book, We the Media. Looking specifically at ‘citizen journalism’ in the form of blogs, Gillmor offers a similar assertion to Gauntlett, arguing that Web 2.0 enables ordinary people to participate in politics and news by producing their own accounts of real events and commenting immediately (and loudly) on ‘official’ journalism. Another media academic, John Hartley (2007), describes the shift from a demand-led market of creative industries to a social network market. Describing the ‘long tail’ of media distribution, he suggests that the liberating potential of Web 2.0 might not only be equal to the emergence of ‘mass literacy’ but beyond that be an equivalent to the introduction of mass public schooling! Audience and media research, then, will need to answer questions about what will be enabled by ‘universal digital literacy’ and the ‘we media’ phenomenon – ‘one minute you’re a fan, the next you’re signing autographs’.
Networks not institutions?
Taking these ideas together, we end up thinking of the media more as a range of networks via which the public can decide to participate (or not) in creative, communicative, collaborative and democratic activities, and less as a group of powerful organizations influencing us. Actually we are probably halfway between these two states – or at least the developed world is (don’t forget less than 5% of the world have a broadband connection – a somewhat sobering downside to what is frequently referred to as the ‘global village’). The most popular Web 2.0 sites are owned by huge companies; and so every moment of democratic ’We Media’ social networking makes money for the big corporations – the same ones that were making billions from Web 1.0, in fact. Hitwise (2007) report that 0.16% of YouTube visitors upload video, 0.2% of Flickr visitors upload photos and Wikipedia, gets edited or expanded by 4.59% of users. And so most of us are using the Web 2.0 sites to read, watch, play and listen – but not to create and upload – which is how we were using ’old media’ (whatever ‘using the media’ might mean). For these reasons we might be more sensible to think of where we are now as Web 1.5?
But in ten years time?
Where does this leave you, then, if you are studying A Level Media Studies? Well, you’re in a great position to shape the future of the subject, believe it or not. The new A Level specifications (which will be taught from September this year) all bear witness to convergence and Web 2.0 to some extent (OCR more than the others, it is fair to say); but the ‘old’ specifications all include units where you can debate critical issues and perspectives on the media in society. And here is the important bit – your examiners will be aware of the ‘Media 2.0’ debate and will richly reward students who engage with it in their coursework and exams.
Let’s consider some real life examples of these changes (a paradigm shift, to use the theoretical term).
Playback
Some recent research by Martinez in schools in Barcelona found that playback on YouTube was up there for Catalan students with physical attractions, fashion, sporting prowess and being in a band as a route to high level social capital in school. The research identified three desires on the part of YouTube uploaders in these schools:
• the wish to post for family and friends
• a vague and naive ambition to reach a broader audience
• a fixation on playback, including being actively engaged in seeking specific audiences and tagging with the goal of competing with other students for playback volume and critical comments. Now that YouTube is to pay the providers of popular uploads a percentage of the advertising revenue, this desire for playback will become more mercenary and strategic.
Britney 2.0
The recent plight of Britney Spears offers us another way of thinking about all this. A fairly ‘traditional’ approach for Media Studies at A Level might be for you to evaluate the claim made by Alistair Campbell (previously Tony Blair’s press officer and ‘spin doctor’) that Britney has ceased to be considered a human being by the public and now is understood primarily as a ‘news commodity’. Taking the ‘Media 2.0’ idea further to explore this, how might we distinguish ‘old’ and ‘new’ approaches to this question? Like this, I suggest:
Britney 1.0
News values
Infotainment
Celebrity culture
Gender
Ideology
Media regulation
Deregulation
News agendas
Britney 2.0
Online news
Rolling news
Blogs
YouTube
Lack of regulation
Notions of truth
People responding
People creating
I am not suggesting here that the Britney 1.0 list is replaced by Britney 2.0. Instead, the right-hand list is added to the first column. But it isn’t an optional extra – you cannot make sense of what Alistair Campbell is saying about the ‘fallen icon’ without debating how far her commodification is amplified and accelerated by the online dispersal of her as a ‘sign’.
Fan culture
Matt Hills (2006) analyses fandom as a form of cultural expression. Whilst many of his examples have nothing to do with ‘Web 2.0’ – Trekkies and Elvis impersonators, for example – it is clear that broadband internet can accelerate fan interpretations and re-imaginings of media products – check out the enormous range of ‘mash up’ and ‘sweded’ video material on YouTube. From Harry Potter fans sharing fan literature online to the many commentary edits of the Sopranos finale you can find online, media producers now have to accept that fans can, and will, upload their own versions of material within hours of the official broadcast.
Tardisodes
Partly as a response to the proliferation of Dr Who fan material on the internet, the BBC now offers ‘in between’ narratives in the form of Tardisodes which, like vodcasts, can be accessed through subscription and viewed on a mobile device. Hills describes how these extras are cleverly designed to add to the narrative experience without interrupting the scheduled flow by becoming mandatory. This extended textual experience – where a Dr Who fan can watch the scheduled episode, read magazines, share material on fan sites, download Tardisodes and ‘be’ the Dr on a DS screen – creates a state of ‘hyperdiegesis’ – a great example of postmodern media, if ever you need one!
Club Penguin
A bit like Second Life for kids, Club Penguin is a free-to-join online world where you get to create and then live life as a penguin avatar. Then you can network with other penguins, get a job, take part in a variety of activities, buy things and customize your penguin being. How do we analyse this – as a media text, as a game, as an experience? Do we need new theories to analyse such a media product which observes none of the traditional textual boundaries? Or should Media Studies ignore it and see it only as a piece of software? These are early days for these questions and we hope that you will help us provide some answers!
Recently I have spent some time working on text books, developing a new Media course and writing content for the new OCR A Level and Diploma. What has struck me more than anything along the way is the omnipotence of the internet in every topic, every theme, every bit of the subject. So you realize that you are constantly writing about ‘the impact of convergence and digital technology’ but still doing so as though this is an optional aspect of what is to be learned, or researched – when the sum of all these elements is clearly the realization that this ought to be central, even the starting, point.
But what does it all mean?
Now of course this doesn’t mean that Media students like you don’t still need to look at how texts make meaning – a film or range of films, a TV drama, a magazine or a radio programme. But as more and more people stop using the media in this way, we are likely to see Media Studies shift away from the study of media texts and towards the sociological study of people and their mediated culture. If you go on to study Media at university, this is what you will encounter.
Each of the examples discussed here undermines the Media1.0 approach, and none of them are obscure or untypical. This is the media: fragmented, circular, hyper-diegetic, yet to many people (in the old days known as ‘the audience’), it is an everyday experience, nothing special, the zeitgeist. But how will history judge it? How big a deal will it seem when people look back? Will it have been a phase, where a few of us got over-excited – like the Millennium Bug?!
So what difference does it make? See John Fitzgerald’s piece on The Smiths in MM23 to get this intertextual reference, which is, of course, an example of postmodernism for which you could refer to Richard Smith’s article on the postmodernism of The Mighty Boosh, which itself will lead you to other material. This is actually how postmodernism works in its simplest form – every text links to another until you lose any sense of reality outside of its representation in culture. Anyway, back to the point – how can you become a Media 2.0 student?
Gauntlett argues that the media play a role in the construction of identity, but not that big a role in relation to other aspects of social experience. It is this finding that leads him to suggest that Media Studies has up until now been too interested in ‘The Media’, especially the notion of the self-contained media text, and insufficiently attentive to people and how they give meaning to culture. But we must tread carefully. Taking the Britney analysis as a template, you need to approach media products in an academic way (when looking at existing media) and creative way (when making your own) that combines tried-and-tested concepts like representation with an understanding of how people make sense of media in the online age. Your teachers will help you with this. They might agree with the premise, and show you ways of studying culture and identity in this way – or they might resist Gauntlett’s ideas and tell you that the conceptual framework we already have is robust enough to adapt to these changes, or that the changes aren’t as radical as the Media 2.0 advocates would have us believe. The fact that we can’t predict here what your teachers will say is not a problem. It doesn’t mean the quality of the subject is undermined by a lack of consensus. It actually makes things more interesting. Life is complex; so is culture, and so is Media Studies, or whatever we decide to call it in the future.
Has the digital revolution changed the way we use the media? Can we still talk about ‘New Media’ – or, in an era of converging technologies, is this a redundant concept? Is there such a thing as Web 2.0? And what does it really mean for Media Studies? Dr Julian McDougall offers a wide-ranging overview of the implications of what’s rapidly shaping up to be Media Studies 2.0.
The view of the internet and new digital media as an ‘optional extra’ is replaced with recognition that they have fundamentally changed the ways in which we engage with all media.
Do you ‘watch television’ in the traditional sense any more? Can videogames be ‘taught’? Are there any distinct ‘media institutions’ in the era of convergence? If you can share music on Facebook with your ‘friends’ and they can purchase it (or take it for nowt) online and access the video within a few clicks on YouTube, what does this do to the ‘music industry’ as we know it? And most importantly, is there such a thing as ‘audience’ in this postmodern ‘we media’ age? Blimey!
There will always be a need to learn about media power, influence, access and issues of representation – these are tremendously important aspects of contemporary citizenship. But the way in which these cultural practices are circulated and disseminated is fundamentally changing. Your Media teachers are likely to be thinking about this stuff at the moment, and somewhere down the line that should make a difference to you. Here’s how.
Recently the University of Westminster announced that it would no longer be offering degrees in Media Studies. This is a big deal because Westminster was one of the first places to do so. A bunch of academics who have always derided the subject missed the point – at last they have seen sense and put an end to this easy option – that kind of thing. Why did this miss the point? Because the University will still offer degrees in Media but they will be more specialist. The decision is a response to the idea – put forward by academic theorist David Gauntlett who, coincidentally or not, works at Westminster – that the media is no longer a stable entity that can be taught about or studied coherently in such a broad way. It is too big, too fluid, too complex – too different. What has been the transformative phenomenon? Broadband internet, spawning a host of user-generated material via software and hosted sites – YouTube, MySpace, Facebook – which have been labelled ‘Web 2.0’.
More people, less media
Gauntlett, who coined the ‘Media 2.0’ response (see www.theory.org.uk for the detail), argues that people don’t just get represented by the media any more. Instead, they use Web 2.0 platforms to make their own media, share it with the world and thus represent themselves. So Media Studies needs to engage now with the ways in which people make sense of their identities and then creatively, through the media, express this. This means that Media students need to move away from the ‘Media 1.0’ way of doing things by ‘questioning the traditional approach to people who ‘produce’ media and people who ‘use’ media’ and by ‘exploring people’s contemporary media experiences by encouraging creative responses’ (quotes from Gauntlett: Creative Explorations, 2007).
Media 2.0, then, will be more about people and less about ‘the media’.
Another version of this theme comes from Dan Gillmor’s book, We the Media. Looking specifically at ‘citizen journalism’ in the form of blogs, Gillmor offers a similar assertion to Gauntlett, arguing that Web 2.0 enables ordinary people to participate in politics and news by producing their own accounts of real events and commenting immediately (and loudly) on ‘official’ journalism. Another media academic, John Hartley (2007), describes the shift from a demand-led market of creative industries to a social network market. Describing the ‘long tail’ of media distribution, he suggests that the liberating potential of Web 2.0 might not only be equal to the emergence of ‘mass literacy’ but beyond that be an equivalent to the introduction of mass public schooling! Audience and media research, then, will need to answer questions about what will be enabled by ‘universal digital literacy’ and the ‘we media’ phenomenon – ‘one minute you’re a fan, the next you’re signing autographs’.
Networks not institutions?
Taking these ideas together, we end up thinking of the media more as a range of networks via which the public can decide to participate (or not) in creative, communicative, collaborative and democratic activities, and less as a group of powerful organizations influencing us. Actually we are probably halfway between these two states – or at least the developed world is (don’t forget less than 5% of the world have a broadband connection – a somewhat sobering downside to what is frequently referred to as the ‘global village’). The most popular Web 2.0 sites are owned by huge companies; and so every moment of democratic ’We Media’ social networking makes money for the big corporations – the same ones that were making billions from Web 1.0, in fact. Hitwise (2007) report that 0.16% of YouTube visitors upload video, 0.2% of Flickr visitors upload photos and Wikipedia, gets edited or expanded by 4.59% of users. And so most of us are using the Web 2.0 sites to read, watch, play and listen – but not to create and upload – which is how we were using ’old media’ (whatever ‘using the media’ might mean). For these reasons we might be more sensible to think of where we are now as Web 1.5?
But in ten years time?
Where does this leave you, then, if you are studying A Level Media Studies? Well, you’re in a great position to shape the future of the subject, believe it or not. The new A Level specifications (which will be taught from September this year) all bear witness to convergence and Web 2.0 to some extent (OCR more than the others, it is fair to say); but the ‘old’ specifications all include units where you can debate critical issues and perspectives on the media in society. And here is the important bit – your examiners will be aware of the ‘Media 2.0’ debate and will richly reward students who engage with it in their coursework and exams.
Let’s consider some real life examples of these changes (a paradigm shift, to use the theoretical term).
Playback
Some recent research by Martinez in schools in Barcelona found that playback on YouTube was up there for Catalan students with physical attractions, fashion, sporting prowess and being in a band as a route to high level social capital in school. The research identified three desires on the part of YouTube uploaders in these schools:
• the wish to post for family and friends
• a vague and naive ambition to reach a broader audience
• a fixation on playback, including being actively engaged in seeking specific audiences and tagging with the goal of competing with other students for playback volume and critical comments. Now that YouTube is to pay the providers of popular uploads a percentage of the advertising revenue, this desire for playback will become more mercenary and strategic.
Britney 2.0
The recent plight of Britney Spears offers us another way of thinking about all this. A fairly ‘traditional’ approach for Media Studies at A Level might be for you to evaluate the claim made by Alistair Campbell (previously Tony Blair’s press officer and ‘spin doctor’) that Britney has ceased to be considered a human being by the public and now is understood primarily as a ‘news commodity’. Taking the ‘Media 2.0’ idea further to explore this, how might we distinguish ‘old’ and ‘new’ approaches to this question? Like this, I suggest:
Britney 1.0
News values
Infotainment
Celebrity culture
Gender
Ideology
Media regulation
Deregulation
News agendas
Britney 2.0
Online news
Rolling news
Blogs
YouTube
Lack of regulation
Notions of truth
People responding
People creating
I am not suggesting here that the Britney 1.0 list is replaced by Britney 2.0. Instead, the right-hand list is added to the first column. But it isn’t an optional extra – you cannot make sense of what Alistair Campbell is saying about the ‘fallen icon’ without debating how far her commodification is amplified and accelerated by the online dispersal of her as a ‘sign’.
Fan culture
Matt Hills (2006) analyses fandom as a form of cultural expression. Whilst many of his examples have nothing to do with ‘Web 2.0’ – Trekkies and Elvis impersonators, for example – it is clear that broadband internet can accelerate fan interpretations and re-imaginings of media products – check out the enormous range of ‘mash up’ and ‘sweded’ video material on YouTube. From Harry Potter fans sharing fan literature online to the many commentary edits of the Sopranos finale you can find online, media producers now have to accept that fans can, and will, upload their own versions of material within hours of the official broadcast.
Tardisodes
Partly as a response to the proliferation of Dr Who fan material on the internet, the BBC now offers ‘in between’ narratives in the form of Tardisodes which, like vodcasts, can be accessed through subscription and viewed on a mobile device. Hills describes how these extras are cleverly designed to add to the narrative experience without interrupting the scheduled flow by becoming mandatory. This extended textual experience – where a Dr Who fan can watch the scheduled episode, read magazines, share material on fan sites, download Tardisodes and ‘be’ the Dr on a DS screen – creates a state of ‘hyperdiegesis’ – a great example of postmodern media, if ever you need one!
Club Penguin
A bit like Second Life for kids, Club Penguin is a free-to-join online world where you get to create and then live life as a penguin avatar. Then you can network with other penguins, get a job, take part in a variety of activities, buy things and customize your penguin being. How do we analyse this – as a media text, as a game, as an experience? Do we need new theories to analyse such a media product which observes none of the traditional textual boundaries? Or should Media Studies ignore it and see it only as a piece of software? These are early days for these questions and we hope that you will help us provide some answers!
Recently I have spent some time working on text books, developing a new Media course and writing content for the new OCR A Level and Diploma. What has struck me more than anything along the way is the omnipotence of the internet in every topic, every theme, every bit of the subject. So you realize that you are constantly writing about ‘the impact of convergence and digital technology’ but still doing so as though this is an optional aspect of what is to be learned, or researched – when the sum of all these elements is clearly the realization that this ought to be central, even the starting, point.
But what does it all mean?
Now of course this doesn’t mean that Media students like you don’t still need to look at how texts make meaning – a film or range of films, a TV drama, a magazine or a radio programme. But as more and more people stop using the media in this way, we are likely to see Media Studies shift away from the study of media texts and towards the sociological study of people and their mediated culture. If you go on to study Media at university, this is what you will encounter.
Each of the examples discussed here undermines the Media1.0 approach, and none of them are obscure or untypical. This is the media: fragmented, circular, hyper-diegetic, yet to many people (in the old days known as ‘the audience’), it is an everyday experience, nothing special, the zeitgeist. But how will history judge it? How big a deal will it seem when people look back? Will it have been a phase, where a few of us got over-excited – like the Millennium Bug?!
So what difference does it make? See John Fitzgerald’s piece on The Smiths in MM23 to get this intertextual reference, which is, of course, an example of postmodernism for which you could refer to Richard Smith’s article on the postmodernism of The Mighty Boosh, which itself will lead you to other material. This is actually how postmodernism works in its simplest form – every text links to another until you lose any sense of reality outside of its representation in culture. Anyway, back to the point – how can you become a Media 2.0 student?
Gauntlett argues that the media play a role in the construction of identity, but not that big a role in relation to other aspects of social experience. It is this finding that leads him to suggest that Media Studies has up until now been too interested in ‘The Media’, especially the notion of the self-contained media text, and insufficiently attentive to people and how they give meaning to culture. But we must tread carefully. Taking the Britney analysis as a template, you need to approach media products in an academic way (when looking at existing media) and creative way (when making your own) that combines tried-and-tested concepts like representation with an understanding of how people make sense of media in the online age. Your teachers will help you with this. They might agree with the premise, and show you ways of studying culture and identity in this way – or they might resist Gauntlett’s ideas and tell you that the conceptual framework we already have is robust enough to adapt to these changes, or that the changes aren’t as radical as the Media 2.0 advocates would have us believe. The fact that we can’t predict here what your teachers will say is not a problem. It doesn’t mean the quality of the subject is undermined by a lack of consensus. It actually makes things more interesting. Life is complex; so is culture, and so is Media Studies, or whatever we decide to call it in the future.
The difference between web 1.0 and web 2.0
The above image refers to the push and pull scenario. In 1996 a lot of information / media available on the web was dictated to us by conglomerate institutions (it was largely read only pushed on us). Whereas, presently, the majority of people use the internet to pull the content they want, when they want it. Moreover, a lot of information/ media available is user generated e.g. blogging, youtube (mash ups, home movies etc.), wikipedia. What is web 2.0
A useful starting point for some background reading
a href="http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html">http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
This is interetsing - it'll get you thinking about the impact of online media.
Monday 8 February 2010
David Gauntlett "Media and Everyday life"
David Gauntlett discusses the changing place of media in everyday life: traditional media consumption compared with the more creative and flexible uses of media which are becoming more common today. An overview and accesible definition of web 1.0 and web 2.0 is provided.
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