Technology is changing media.  Media is changing culture.   These seem to be the core points that Marshall is making.  OK, I won’t disagree.  But for each statement, there is something missing.  No-one denies that new technology has had a profound effect on TV and film.  However, media consumption depends on a certain element of entertainment.  While technology can enhance or provide new forms of entertainment, it cannot provide the subject.  Good writing and imagination will always be needed to sustain audience engagement.  You many catch their attention with a new trick, but to hold the audience attention requires more than just impressive effects.  Just ask George Lucas.

With the second assertion that media is changing culture, there is an understanding that media also reflects culture.  New media seems to have the potential to better reflect culture than traditional media.  I think this is important because as we examine the shift in media and the shift in culture, we should be aware that these shifts are related but not one-to one shifts.  There seems little reflection on how the monolithic nature of traditional media failed to accurately reflect or cater to society in the wider sense.  Vast segments of modern society were never represented nor targeted as audiences.  As such, part of the discussion must be to what extent new media is reflecting a changing culture or simply reflecting previously ignored aspect of culture which have been here the whole time.

As for the other readings, I enjoyed Lessig, although he is a little more communist than I am.  Each of the readings from TSMR and ANS highlight issues and opinions about copyright.  A big part of the problem is that technology is changing faster than the old farts in Congress can move.  Although it looks bleak for the freedom fighters of the digital age, I have faith.  We don’t have a good policy on copyright, but we are having a good discussion, and that alone is enough to keep hope alive.

FYI: Being the last post of the class, I tried to come up with some blacksmithing reference or relevant cat video, but I got nuthin’. Sorry to disappoint.

I’ve just been waiting for a change to bring blacksmithing back into the class discussion.  Thanks Banks and Humphreys for the opportunity.  When I began doing ornamental iron work professionally, I did it because I liked the work (which I was doing as an unpaid hobby) and I found people willing to pay me to do what I liked.  When the customer gave me some creative license and flexibility, I seldom charged for all the hours I would put into a project.  Was their exploitation involved?  If so, who exploited whom?  I got paid (even if below market value) to do what I would do for free.

Generally, I am not much of a pc game player, but I did play Oblivion in a few of its incarnations (Morrowind, Elder Scrolls, Skyrim).  The game had a large community of followers, so for the last version, Skyrim, the producers included instructions and platform for mod building where players could change the game, design elements, user interface and other things.  Not surprisingly, the first mods were to revamp female characters to be more attractive and less clothed, but whatever.  Many of these mods were practical and improved game play, some were just really funny.  Before too long, the producers were even recommending certain mods.  The game’s “mod-ability” became a selling point and was touted by reviews in gaming magazines.  The company certainly benefited from user created content.  Some of the mods achieve usage rate of 90% of gamers, but even with millions of people using mods created and distributed for free, I don’t think the creators felt exploited.

There is a very interesting book called Drive by Daniel Pink about motivation.  It looks at projects like Wikipedia vs. Encarta to show how personal interest and investment can be more powerful than material reward.  His argument undermines the capitalist/Marxist perspective on social and cultural construction. Absolutely worth a read: http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353002980&sr=1-1&keywords=drive

I appreciated the perspective provided by Banks and Humphreys and agree with their statement, “Such stark oppositions are not all that helpful when mapping these relationships” (403).  Binary modes of thinking in terms of corporate/consumer frames does little to increase understanding of changing media usage and forcing explanations into such frames may ultimately blind researchers to the broader implications.

Similarly, I though Jenkins highlights a salient point.  While corporations may have more legal power, the consumers ultimately have the economic power.  Pissing off your fans is never good business sense.   Media companies that remain relevant and profitable are those that will effectively negotiate a balance between their commercial interests and the fan’s creative interests by finding means of mutual benefit.

On the other hand, Adrejevic (a very communist name) presents a very different argument.  I would like to point out that an article of the same title Social Network Exploitation could be written about the hard working men and women who create, invest in, and maintain social networks sites.  These sites are provided at no direct cost to the use and clearly have some value to more than a billion people, yet their creators are criticized for making money off of their efforts.  How dare they?  Adrejevic envisions a social network platform created and maintained by happy elven magic and powered by clean burning unicorn farts.  Let me know how that works out.

http://now.msn.com/skydiving-cats-star-in-commercial-for-swedish-insurance-company-folksam

More than gaining any insight from the readings, I was most surprised by the range of affect that each article provided.  There is a faint sense of dread in the Marshall chapters.  I don’t think you can quote Foucault without infecting whatever you are writing with small bit of existential doom.  Shirky, on the other hand was refreshing.  His article on the creative and productive potential of new media did not have the wide-eyed naivete that make many pro-media writings seem trite.

After reading the Anderson article, I had to wonder if participation by algorithm is fundamentally different than direct participation since it is user participation that generates the results of the algorithms in the first place.  Ultimately, Anderson, like Marshall leads me to ask, what’s the big deal?  What do they seem so afraid of?

Blank and Reisdorf seemed to have a skewed perspective.  While briefly acknowledging that maybe some people just don’t need Web 2.0, they were much more instant that people who did not use Web 2.0 are some kind of luddites.  But I also thought their claim to do what other authors have failed to do was a bit pretentious, not to mention disappointing when I actually read their definition of Web 2.0.

Clark Kent quits Daily Planet to become a blogger:

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/10/23/superman-clark-kent-leaves-daily-planet/#/0

And because you love cat videos:

http://now.msn.com/cats-chasing-laser-pointer

(David, this is documentary just waiting to be made.)

Here is a link to my Op Ed in Sunday’s Commercial Appeal: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/nov/04/kevin-gallagher-the-case-for-obama/

It’s worth a look, if only to see what kind (not) things people have said about me.

Also of interest:

Psychologist Sherry Turkle was on Fresh Air talking about how mobile technology is suppressing the healthy emotional development of today’s youth.

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/18/163098594/in-constant-digital-contact-we-feel-alone-together

And:

On The Media discusses Hurricane hoaxes and reporting in the Twitter age.

http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/nov/02/hurricane-hoaxes-and-confused-reporting/

In just a few days America will hold one of the largest and freest expressions of democracy in the history of the world.  An event whose validity and sanctity hinges on anonymity and the absolute prohibition of deliberation.  You go into the polling place, make your statement by voting, then leave.  No discussion, no debate, no responding to other people’s votes and no one observing how you vote.  For all its potential problems, there are few, if any exercises in democracy that will have as many participants engage in the process with a minimum of corruption, coercion, or intimidation.

The tone of and findings of the Tufekci and Wilson article seem to fit more with the readings of last week (acknowledging that this is week two of civic engagement and new media). What I mean is that the underlying conclusion is that new communication technology is a facilitating tool rather than an instigating tool.  It enables participation or lowered resistance to participation to those that were excluded or discouraged previously (like women), and made communication and dissemination easier for those already engaged in the process.

The Loveland and Popescu was irritating in its overt ideology and naive assumptions.  “…to foster liberty without allowing it to become license” is a trite platitude but does not inform the discussion of democracy or media theory.  Not only do the authors fail to acknowledge the realities of democracy in practice, they assume that not deliberating publicly is somehow not fulfilling your civic obligation.  “Rule and patterns of behavior need to be reinforced…”  So, what you are really saying is if we don’t do it your way, we aren’t doing it right.  Perhaps most disturbing of all is the clinging to and preponderance of the myth of power of deliberation.  While deliberation has been shown to have a moderating effect on group outcomes (meaning neither too bad nor too good), there is little evidence to support the idea that deliberation generally improves the quality of those outcome.  A deliberated policy is no more likely to succeed than one derived unilaterally.  It is only less likely to be a catastrophic failure, or a spectacular success.  Ok, I’m just griping now.  I’m going to take my opinion and go home.

But before I go, two more things: Gerodimos findings about youth and online civic participation seem to mirror the finding of other studies about youth and civic participation off line and generally.  And, I don’t think Castells is describing a new phenomenon such much as increase in scope and awareness of a the phenomenon.

Facebook was the main topic for On the Media this past weekend.  Here is the link for the show page:

http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/oct/26/

They discusses several aspects of FB.  The whole show is worth listening to.  You can download the podcast from the link.

When I was looking at Communication programs for my PhD, there was a small part of me that wanted to go to UPenn to study with Kathleen Hall Jamison, one of the best known authors and researchers of Political Communication.  This was not because I wanted to bask in the glow if her intellect.  No, I really just wanted an opportunity to tell her how wrong she was about so many things.

Perhaps because I am coming from a political background to Communication studies rather than from Communication to look at politics as the authors of this week’s articles, the research seems a bit backwards.  In other words, the questions that normally occur to me are how politically minded and involved people use communication rather than how communication use shapes political attitudes and involvement. From my point of view, some of the issues that confound or surprise the researchers are perfectly understandable to me.  Most of the studies noted that SNS, Youtube, and mobile communication use is higher generally among younger people.  They also noted that uses of this technology correlates to political and civic engagement, generally. However, what the studies fail to discuss is that political engagement increases with age.  While civically engaged, young people are the lease likely to vote.  To understand the significance of these seemingly contradictory trends, one has to consider findings of articles read earlier in the semester, specifically, the understanding that SNS and the like are most often facilitating factors in communication rather than initiating or instigating factors.  Social engagement offline generally correlates to social engagement online because the technology is a tool which increases the ease at which a person can do what they are already inclined to do.  Likewise, the technology increases the ease at which a person can engage politically in a way they were already inclined to do, so it is adopted by those wishing to engage.  Since the uses of this technology is not limited to political activity, young people who are highly motivated to engage socially, and thus use the SNS as a tool for doing so, aren’t necessarily going to increase their political participation just because the same technology facilitates it.  Likewise, large, heterogeneous network participation offline correlates to increased political participation, which is reflected online.  Conversely, people who generally have a limited homogeneous social network offline are less likely to be politically engaged.  This is also reflected online.  Campbell & Kwak argue that technology comfort levels predict political engagement.  I argue this is because politically engaged people become more comfortable with the technology because it is a useful tool of self-efficacy and education.  As such, addressing the digital divide may have only limited impact on political engagement.  Interest drives use rather than use driving interest.

I also suspect that if Kaye had been more familiar with day to day party politics, she would not be confounded by the findings that party affiliation was tied to SNS and blog use but ideology was not.  While ideology is significant to party id, it is not a determining factor.  In Tennessee and across the South, there are many Democrats who are Democrats because Republicans started the War of Northern Aggression.   For many people, they identify themselves with the party they do for the same reasons they are Baptists or Catholics or Cubs fans, which may have nothing to do with ideology.  They were just raised with that label and they don’t question it.  Also, people with strongly held ideological beliefs may feel ignored or dismissed by mainstream parties.  People who feel disenfranchised have low political participation.