Oh baby ready or not…express yourself!

Week 9:

Burgess and Green argue that: ordinary people who become celebrities through their own creative efforts “remain within the system of celebrity native to, and controlled by, the mass media” (Reader, page 269).

YouTube’s slogan is ‘Broadcast Yourself’ and by God do people take that statement to the extreme. Everything from people having a running commentary on a film, to a goat who sounds like a man, is posted on YouTube as a way for society to have a creative outlet.

Sometimes, you strike gold and there is a serious talent on YouTube; be it comedic talent, musical talent or otherwise.

You have to have been hiding under a rock for the past 5 years or so not have have heard of at least one celebrity who has not been made famous by their YouTube or MySpace and become a celebrity mogul.

Whether it is THE BEIBS, Susan Boyle, The Lonely Island or Darren Criss- everyone knows of one!

Darren Criss shot to fame for his role in A Very Potter Musical performed by the theatre troupe Team StarKid from The University of Michigan. When videos of the performances were circulated on YouTube, Criss started getting recognized for his acting and singing abilities.

The exposure that came from his stint in the play uncovered his talent for all of the internet and general society to view.

This led to Criss being picked up by Glee producers in 2010 to play Blaine Anderson, the lead singer of The Warblers.

On a slight tangent, the opposite can also occur, where a pre-established celebrity can have their personal life (and incident like a crew member walking into your line of sight while you’re saying your line), plastered all over the internet and have it reproduced and mocked to the nth degree on YouTube. Like Christian Bale. In this case, a celebrity’s reputation is tarnished because the scope of YouTube is so wide. While Christian Bale may have used more creative words, than creative efforts, his celebrity status was solidified by how much exposure the YouTube videos garnered.

Back on topic, as Burgess and Green stated, even though a person may become famous thanks to their creative talents, they “remain within the system of celebrity native to, and controlled by, the mass media” (Burgess and Green, 23). This is because YouTube does have limits when promoting talent. To a certain extent they foster creativity on the world wide web, however the mass media does ultimately have control over what is accepted in mainstream society as genuine talent.

As stated by Burgess and Greene, ultimately the “marker of success for these new forms [of talent], paradoxically, is measured not only by their online popularity but by their subsequent ability to pass through the gate-keeping mechanisms of old media- the recording contract, the film festival, the television pilot, the advertising deal (Burgess and Green, 24)”.

As seen by Darren Criss, his popularity was certainly marked by the ‘views’, ‘likes’ and ‘rates’ on his YouTube videos but his celebrity status and his passage into the system of celebrity and his remaining status in this institution is only solidified by the mass media. That is, his television contract with Glee and subsequent benefits such as advertising deals, interviews etc.

Without the mass media, thousands upon thousands of internet sensations who may have worthwhile talent fall to the wayside because they don’t have the structuring to support them that the mainstream media provides. YouTube and other internet sites that work to foster creativity are a “monumental marketing platform (Giuffo)” for molding ordinary people into inhabitants of the mass media.

A lot of internet sensations have had fleeting success whereby their popularity has diminished as soon as the next speaking goat video pops up. The propensity of an internet celebrity to become a ‘real life’ celebrity ultimately comes down to where society’s attention span leads them. If they heavily star in people’s social networking arena and gain a wider following with higher ratings, and appear in the ‘suggestion’ box then they may have a chance of lasting in the public eye and gaining a mainstream following.

References

Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, ‘YouTube and The Mainstream Media’ in YouTube: Online and Participatory Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009, pp.15-37

John Giuffo, ‘Ten Videos That Made YouTube Famous’, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/30/youtube-videos-hits-ent-cx_jg_07networks_0430tube.html, accessed 9 May 2011, dated 30 April 2007

Metaphorically speaking…

Week 8:
Alan Lui discusses the use of visual metaphors from older media in Webdesign and argues that such metaphors “naturalize the limitations of the new medium by disguising them within those of older media” (Reader, page 228). Discuss while giving an example of a website.

A visual metaphor on the internet means that a website is representing a new system through the visual attributes that relate to an older system. These attributes would be familiar to the user.

An example of a visual metaphor from older media in web design being used in new media is the Apple logo.

The Apple logo changed from a rainbow coloured apple to a smooth and continuous black filled apple. This change is in keeping with some of the aims of graphic design: asymmetry, informational clarity and overall unity. It still maintains a key feature of the old website (the basic apple) but by filling it in with black colouring allows it to take on a more flawless look. This enables the new website and its limitations to be disguised within the older media.

The font used within many websites is another key metaphor is relation to disguising new media. The font Comic Sans is a casual script designed by Vincent Connare (Lialina 2009, 4) and has been supplied with the Windows platform since Windows 95. This font typeface is a key indicator of not only amateur web designers but also of the designers who are in keeping with old media functions and functionality.

The fact that it is so easily accessible means that the limitations of new media are disguised within the older media. As web designers persist in using this font it naturalizes the bridge between the old and the new.

It is these exact reasons why many now possess a strong hatred towards this typeface. The website ‘Ban Comic Sans’ is evidence of this.

By designing web pages with influences from old media the limitations of the web page can be explained or covered.

In the words of Cher…’If I could turn back tiiiiiime’….I would have posted this in Week 3

Week 3:
While discussing YouTube, José van Dijck argues that the site’s interface influences the popularity of videos through ranking tactics that promote popular favourites (Reader, page 94). How do ranking tactics impact on the formation online ‘communities’?

Ahhh, YouTube. A blessing and a curse. I love trolling the website and finding hidden treasures like the girl who thought she was a unicorn after getting her wisdom teeth out and still under the effects of Morphine.

But it’s also a curse. I wouldn’t like to be one of the unfortunate people who had my clumsy moments spilled all over the internet (I won’t insert a video of this, because I can sympathise with all of those people given my general ungraceful nature).

On a serious note, van Djik’s discussion about YouTube leads to a questioning of the term ‘participation’ within this particular interface. Participation is a key aspect of Web 2.0 and means that users now have a greater level of control and contribution to the sites they visit.

There are various ranking systems on YouTube’s interface- most viewed, most discussed, most liked etc. These systems mean that these same videos are being watched over, and over again. While fresh material is being uploaded to YouTube at an alarming speed, not everything is being viewed. The popularity of videos means that when you search for something, you can put the most popular video first depending on views and other features.

This not only takes away from perhaps fabulous, yet unheard of videos it also means that the role of the user in a community is diminished. By allowing ranking and advertising to occur on YouTube, they are taking away the ‘community’ aspect of the interface and replacing it with a more corporate feel.

YouTube has a bar on the right hand side of every video labeled ‘Suggestions’. The videos under this tab are more often than not placed there because of advertisements or promotions. ‘Vevo’ for example, is a branch of YouTube which exclusively features artists who they have agreements within their suggestions tab. This means that not only are you not seeing any other clips you are being bombarded, in a sense, by what one company wants you to see.

The same goes for once you’ve stopped watching a video. A ‘what to watch next’ or ‘up next’ window appears where your video was giving you more suggestions as to what they want you to watch. These are often either related videos or videos posted by the same member.

A lot of the time, videos from Vevo or other corporations with large accounts on YouTube, split their videos up into ‘parts’ to that you have to keep clicking on the different parts to get the whole clip. This not only boosts the view to each video, but also to the member’s profile.

Therefore, it can be argued that users become “inactive (van Djick, 46)” members of the community.

The users and members of YouTube have a degree of control over certain aspects of YouTube with the view counts, most discussed, top favourites and top rated, which can be influenced by the individual at home. Although not much else with YouTube is able to be changed or influenced by an individual.

So while everyone loves to get online and give their opinion on the latest released film clip by Lady Gaga, ‘rate’ a song or subscribe to users, this is about all the control we have.

I’ve got to confess though, as a member of YouTube and an active member of various online communities, I’ve only ever used YouTube for its video watching function. I’ve never really paid attention to the suggestions because whenever I watch a video, it’s because I’ve either been linked to it from a friend or I’ve actively searched for it in the search bar.

I guess it’s another example of how the large corporations have influenced what was meant to be a user controlled interface.

References:
Jose van Djick, ‘Users Like You? Theorizing Agency in User-Generated Content’, Media, Culture and Society 31 (2009): 41-58

Let’s back-track a little…to week 4…

Week 4:
Russell (et al.) compares elite media and institutions with bloggers and ponders the following question: “Do bloggers, with their editorial independence, collaborative structure and merit-based popularity more effectively inform the public?” (Reader, page 136). Do you agree? Use examples to illustrate your point of view.

As stated by Russell (et al.), “The balance of power between news providers and news consumers has shifted (67)”. This is the most important thing to note. The internet has changed, and with this the way in which individuals consume news has shifted as well.

The more traditional forms of receiving news stories and bulletins are from sources such as the nightly news, newspapers and radio news updates. However, these forms of media are to an extent influenced by their means of production. This is explained by the political economy theory of media. This theory states that; “the media are determined by a combination of economic, social and political factors, particularly ownership of the media (O’Shaugnessy & Stadler, 2008, p. 21)”.

Rupert Murdoch, of Fox News Corporation, is a prime example of this occurring.

Some rights reserved by DonkeyHotey.

Murdoch’s empire is so wide that “his satellites deliver TV programs in five continents, all but dominating Britain, Italy, and wide swaths of Asia and the Middle East. He publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country…His cable channels include fast-growing Fox News, and 19 regional sports channels. In all, as many as one in five American homes at any given time will be tuned into a show News Corp. either produced or delivered (Centre for American Progress, 2004).”

That’s a lot of control….and a bit of a

Source: http://effyeahfriends.tumblr.com

for news consumers. To have your news so heavily influenced by an individual’s political ideology means you’re not really getting the cold, hard facts, are you? It’s always going to have a degree of political leanings on the information that you’re viewing.

Blogs on the other hand, are in no ways similar to elite media institutions. Many of them do not have a team of editors and publishers to go through with a fine tooth comb to make sure every single word is perfect. They are often blunt assessments of the news or so fresh off the press that they have not been edited whatsoever.

This form of citizen journalism is a new and challenging prospect to the traditional elite forms of media. They are so completely different to the methods that they utilize. They challenge every notion that the traditional media has become accustomed to.

For example, the video of an Iranian woman dying after fighting for democracy in her country was shot by an anonymous person on their mobile. This video was circulated and blogged all over the internet to highlight the turmoil in Iran.

This video won the George Polk award for video-graphy and was labeled “iconic (The Guardian)”. This award and the fact that the video was blogged and re-blogged so many times shows the power an anonymous citizen journalist holds in the palm of their hands, in part thanks to the freedom present in Web 2.0, but also due to the activism and initiative that individuals now have to blog what they believe to be news worthy. This video was only one example of the Iranian uprising, but there are several other images and bits of footage available on blogs. This shows uncensored material and footage of a world event that hasn’t been tampered with or manipulated. It is something which may have been hidden in the ‘World News’ section of a newspaper or glossed over in a news website. It is a powerful tool to bring news to the people.

It’s an exciting thought that people are now becoming more engaged with society and more open to the lines of democracy. The baby in the picture below certainly seems excited by the prospect.

Source: Neverlandslostgirl Photobucket

On the other spectrum of citizen journalism are the more trivial issues in society. Oh No They Didn’t (ONTD) shows the principles of collaborative structure and merit-based popularity.

Source: The Gazebo

This blog has grown to be the largest blogging community on LiveJournal. Its focus is primarily celebrity news and pop culture. It occasionally ventures into current affairs, but rarely. I am a proud member of ONTD.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cheeeeks.jpg

While it may seem that the issues they cover are often trivial (and admittedly, they mostly are) they occasionally venture into societal issues like gender studies. More often than not, it’s tracking the pop culture icons of today.

In these cases, it can be seen that the collaborative structure of ONTD is a powerful tool to possess in becoming a wide-reaching discussion arena. ONTD’s large audience (over 100,000 members) and comments enabled posts means that it is one huge blog. It also means that it’s collaborative structure between the moderators and the members ensure that the public is effectively informed. ONTD is updated many, many times a day, and while it may seem to be petty news, the its collaborative efforts from all mean that the public is very effectively informed (even if it is just of Lindsay Lohan’s jail sentence).

In summary, I do agree with Russell’s sentiments that all of the characteristics of the blogger lead to a better informed public. For hard-fact issues, blogs provide a different spectrum in which your news can be viewed, they allow for more raw material and for individuals to gain a greater perspective than often biased newspaper would allow for.

Reference List:
Russell et al. (2008) ‘Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Culture’ in Kazys Varnelis (ed.) Networked Publics, MA: MIT Press, pp.43-76

Centre for American Progress, ‘Who is Rupert Murdoch?’ http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/07/b122948.html, dated: July 16, 2004

O’Shaughnessy, M. & Stadler, J. (2008), Media & Society, 4th edition, Melbourne: Oxford

The Guardian, ‘Anonymous video of Neda Aghan-Soltan’s death wins Polk Award’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/feb/16/george-polk-awards, not dated, accessed April 23, 2011

The amazingness that is PostSecret

Lovink (Reader, page 222) also argues that: “No matter how much talk there is of community and mobs, the fact remains that blogs are primarily used as a tool to manage the self”.

The emergence of blogs brought with it millions of people who felt it was prudent to share their everyday thoughts and feelings and their deepest desires and secrets with the rest of the free world. In a way, this helped to manage and form the self. This can be achieved through regular blog posts in which a blogger can discuss how they feel about certain topics.

While the premise of a blog is typically, to be a part of a community with regular postings, it is the blogs that are managed and run by a single user that allow a purpose and sense of self to be built. This is through the ability of the single user to manage their blog by choosing what exactly they post and how they post it; be it there political beliefs, cultural values, ideas morals or even insights into their daily life. It is the “sharing of thoughts and opinions of the blogger (Lovink, 222)”. Blogs are typically seen to be a way for the blogger as an individual to be promoted. However, there are blogs on the web that allow for not only the blogger to manage the self, but also allows the viewer to manage their self through the content that is posted.

The blog ‘PostSecret’ is one of the prime examples which highlight Lovink’s argument that blogs are a way in which the self is managed but also contests it. PostSecret is a blog in which it can be seen that the community aspect of a blog and the ability to manage the self are moderated through the blogs content and layout.

Some rights reserved by violinha

PostSecret was started by Frank Warren as an ongoing community mail art project. The premise was that people write their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. Frank then posts a selection of the week’s secrets on the blog. PostSecret is the largest advertisement-free blog in the world. The only rules involved with submitting a secret is that it must be the absolute truth and you must never have spoken the secret out loud. This project began as an experiment and grew into a phenomenon. The secrets range from the wacky…..

Some rights reserved by tortillamask

…to the thoughtful….

Some rights reserved by Foxtongue

In accordance with Lovink’s statement, PostSecret does have “exhibitionist insights (Lovink, 222)” as the posts are the innermost thoughts and feelings from anonymous people all around the world, and these exact thoughts are being published for the entire free world to view.

Some rights reserved by tortillamask

Upon creation of the blog, comments were enabled, but in 2007 became disabled when many felt that it affected the ‘non-judgemental’ aspect of the blog. While there are now no comments in PostSecret, Frank does provide a forum in which each of the secrets can be discussed as a part of a thread. This aspect of the blog further illustrates how PostSecret is a perfect example for a blog which provides community aspects whilst also allowing one to use the blog as a tool to manage the self.

A blog can essentially be seen as a diary, and diaries are commonly used as a method of managing the self. PostSecret exemplifies that not only do blogs allow for the blog manager to do this, but it also allows for the blog viewer to compartmentalize their inner most feelings and emotions. PostSecret provides an arena for pariticpants of Web 2.0 to find an identity and associate with others from around the world; “Users create associations…in which they can regonize themselves (Lovink, 220)”. PostSecret promotes “the need to structure one’s life, clear up the mess, to master the immense flow of information (Lovink 222)”.

It’s one of the largest blogs in the world and anyone that has visited the website can agree that its premise is inspiring and to an extent life-altering, in terms of the effects on the self and one’s sense of community. It empowers both the viewer of the blog and the blogger through being able to relate to other’s secrets, hopes, dreams and fears. It provides an escape in which you can connect to other people from all around the world anonymously about issues you would not normally share.

Refereces:
Frank Warren, Postsecret, http://www.postsecret.com, not dated, accessed 15/04/2011
Geert Lovink, ‘Blogging, The Nihilist Impulse’, in Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture, London: Routledge, pp.1-38

Tutorial Exercise Week 6

WordPress “masks the database and creates a continuous blogging experience within the browser” (Helmond in Reader, p. 180), yet the database is rigidly defined and categorised.
Discuss how this shapes the way we interact with the World Wide Web through blogging and how it affects user agency.

The features of WordPress allow for the database to not only be easily hidden, but be masked completely to the user. It is this intricate feature of WordPress which makes its usage appear seamless and effortless. WordPress provides a facade- that is the ideal that through one’s WordPress blog we are free to control our page in whatever way we choose or please. This is not in fact correct. Each and everytime one makes a post on WordPress, every detail or special function that we attach to that post collaborates it with the greater interface; “WordPress is essentially the construction of an interface to the database (Helmond, 53)”. It is this interface which “[masks] the complexity of the database (Helmond, 53).”

There are several ways in which the database of WordPress is either purposefully or not, controlling the ways in which the user enjoys their browser experience. Some of the features which lend to this debate are follows:

Categories and Tags
In every post made by a WordPress blog user, they are able to customize it so that each blog entry they make has its own category or tag. A tag in a blog post relates to key features or key concepts in the blog that not only organize posts but make them easier to navigate. The use of categories and tags provide information that defines the users experience on WordPress in a rigid manner. They guide how a “search [engine] trawle (Helmond, 74)” navigates through a blog and to give a preview to the content available on said blog.

Themes
WordPress has several different themes available for the blog user to employ to personalise their space. Whether they are free or completely customizable themes (which unfortunately cost money) WordPress bloggers are able to change their space to suit their needs. However, in choosing a theme a user is altering the way in which their blog is accessible by search engines. Every change that is made makes a change to the way in which “search engine spiders and crawlers (Helmond, 80)” come across a blog.

Widgets
There are many widgets available to a WordPress user that gives the impression that the blogging experience is an uninterrupted one. They are simple, easy to use and very simply applied to a blog. Widgets highlight the “close interaction between the (open source) WordPress community and the WordPress developers (Helmond, 77)”. Some widgets enable a wider and more thorough connection between the blog user and search engines. For example, there is a widget which allows Google to index your blog and not only make Google services easier to use in the blog but also allow Google to have greater control over ones blog through configuration.

And lastly, by adding data of any sort to our personal blogs we are feeding information to search engines which enables software to establish “relationships with the engines by using the underlying protocols of the blog’s core features (Helmond, 44)”.

“When we are posting a blog spot we are actually communicating with the database by feeding the database fields. Nearly every field in the WordPress Write interface corresponds with fields in the database. WordPress is essentially the construction of an interface to the database (Helmond, 53).”

All of the above features, and more, are able to be altered or changed by the user to some extent. These are only some examples of WordPress’ basic features that are available to a user that lend to the idea that the user receives a continuous blogging experience.
As Lev Manovich describes, the database is a “structured collection of data (Helmond, 49)” and no matter how much control we believe we possess over WordPress it is intrinsically linked to a larger database that is able to control how much freedom we have over our pages.

References:
Helmond, A. (2007) ‘Software-Engine Relations’, Blogging for Engines: Blogs Under the Influence of Software-Engine Relations, MA Thesis, Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, pp.44-80

Zuckerberg Talks Privacy

Week 5:
Analyse critically the following statement by Mark Zuckerberg while comparing it to privacy issues raised by online social networking collaborative practices

In reference to a video in a post a little while down, Mark Zuckerberg made a comment about sharing and social networking on his organisation Facebook.

“When people have control over what they share, they’re comfortable sharing more. When people share more, the world becomes more open and connected. And in a more open world, many of the biggest problems we face together will become easier to solve”

Zuckerberg goes on to explain core changes to facebook’s nature that allow for more sharing in what he views to be a positive nature. New elements such as master controls, basic directory information, application settings have been implemented to allow for both easier sharing and to also enable one to control the level of privacy relating to their information.

Social networking allows for global connections to be established; you could be having a real time conversation with someone in a completely different time zone to you. This back-and-forth conversation which now can take less than 10 minutes, may have taken months using the old snail-mail method.

The sharing of information through social networking also permits for the lines of democracy to be opened up to a greater degree. A CBS article recently explored how the ‘Facebook Effect’ Mobilizes the Youth Vote. It highlights that through showing youth information in this manner allows for a greater realm of discussion about world and domestic issues and hence, made American youth more likely to participate in the upcoming elections. This also leads to a wider sense of civilian journalism, once again adding to the notion of freedom of speech and democracy.

However, the sharing information is not without its faults. Privacy issues tends to be the number one concern in regards to the sharing of information on the internet. Various websites are dedicated to raising awareness of the risks people face when sharing their personal information on the internet.

Please Rob Me, for instance is an example of this. It highlights the dangers of the Facebook features ‘FourSquare’ and ‘Check In’s’ in which through a mobile device you are able to post to your social networking site your exact location. Please Rob Me’s main aim is to show that this information is basically begging for your home address to be robbed since it clearly shows that you are not, in fact, at home.

Glitches in the FaceBook system were well publicised and caused a public outcry. This is because ‘private’ information was being reported to other companies and was not kept to one’s profile and friends. Zuckerberg faced severe backlash as his mantra is usually to encourage the sharing of information. While Zuckerberg may encourage this behaviour to keep building his multi-billio dollar company, there are real people out there, especially young children and teens, who don’t understand quite how to control their privacy to the maximum degree. This is a concern that Zuckerberg needs to be taking a closer look at.

A further complication to the process of sharing information on the internet is the possibility of others stealing facets of your identity or maliciously using information you have shared.

Ultimately, it is up to the individual as to what they choose to post, how sees these posts and how they post it.

Facebook is not the Demi-God that many make it out to be. While Zuckerberg stated in the video, “find the settings that feel right for you”, many vulnerable people in society need protection from the practices of online social networking.

References

Sullivan, Michelle, ‘Facebook Effect Mobilizes Youth Vote’, CBS News, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/04/politics/uwire/main4568563.shtml, accessed 1 April 2011, dated 3 November 2008

Borsboom et al., ‘Please Rob Me’, http://www.pleaserobme.com, accessed 1 April 2010, dated 2010

Vascellaro, Jessica E., ‘Facebook Grapples with Privacy Issues’, The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704912004575252723109845974.html , accessed 1 April 2011, dated 19 May 2011