Author Archives: Meagan Fertig

Nov
23
2012

Films, Fair Use, and Prohibition

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To say that I love films would be an understatement. I have used movies and television the way others have used comfort foods (although I’ve indulged in that as well). In the last year I have come to understand that I have been privileged to be part of cinemas audience in its first century as an art form. As Marshall states, I also agree that the status of us, as the audience, is in transition (2004, p.75). As a member of this audience, I’ve become more satisfied as a fan and a viewer as the film industry has utilized new mediums to interact with me. Director’s cuts, interviews with the cast members, interactive web sites, and other types of merchandise are all things that I have bought into as a fan. This generation of product on their end, and consumption on mine has been beneficial to both sides. As a fan, I am more immersed in the story and this leads to better profits for the industry. However, with file sharing and connectivity provided by the internet, tinsel town has now come to see the internet as liability in their control module.

I also agree with Marshall that  the remote control for television, channel surfing and the broadening of options through cable and satellite were something of a precursor to modern web surfing (2004, p.90). As products and services such as video on demand hit the market, it became easier for my relationship with television to transition from passive receiver to interactive. By interactive, I mean that I told the DVR what to record, and it made recommendations based on my pre-selected options. Services like Netflix have obviously taken this algorithm to the next level, increasing interactivity.  For films and television, I envision the merger between television, cinema and internet to become more salient. I already know individuals that watch television and movies solely on their computers through services like Netflix and Hulu, which clearly hadn’t reached their current saturation when Marshall wrote New Media Cultures.

As far as fair use is concerned, I have to admit that I’ve come a long way this semester. A bit brainwashed by my education in the music industry, I had come to think of copyright as something of a security system, ensuring that one’s own work would provide for oneself. However, after readings this semester, and particularly this week, my views on fair use have softened. I’ve never been of the variety that thought that precious Micky Mouse should be protected from the public domain at all cost, but I did have some conservative views on ownership. I can now see how current bullying in tort law is distorting the ownership on work to exaggerated levels to ensure a bottom line. Aufderheide’s issue of “transformativeness” is something I had studied in contract law and publishing classes (2011, p.278). Outside of my understanding of the law and case litigation, I hadn’t considered how the “prohibition” brought on by the over extension of copyright law could damage our culture (Lessig, 2012). I don’t know what the answer is to these legal questions for the benefit of our culture, but I am grateful to have broadened my own perspective on the subject. I’m sure it increases my value as an audience member.

 

Nov
14
2012

Leia as the new Disney Princess?

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We couldn’t have planned a more timely reading of Jenkins’s article on grassroots versus Lucasfilm. Now that Princess Leia is the newest Disney Princess, I can now buy my bun earmuffs and my Tinkerbell wings together at the Disney store. What makes the Star Wars franchise so successful, other than its complete understanding and implementation of merchandising (see attached clip from Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs), is its ability to inspire fans. This inspiration has spurred fans to create extensions of Lucas’s world, and not always to Lucas’s liking. The internet, for its part, has brought forth these creations into the light. What once existed under the radar for only a few friends and family members can now be distributed to a mass audience by uploading your creation. As Jenkins points out, our modern system of industrial arts requires the financial support of a wider audience, but from my view, we must learn to balance this with the large number of artists and creators that exist outside of those being bankrolled by the industry (Jenkins, 2012). It is those artists that aren’t being bankrolled that are bringing this full circle. From their Star Wars inspired works, they are the folk culture re-emerging.

Then comes the inevitable discussion of labor and economics. Oh why couldn’t we just continue reading about culture? Because someone has to pay the bills. So the internet has changed labor and production. Shock! I’m glad that Banks and Humphreys are not going overboard in the way that Marxists look at voluntarily produced work as exploitive. I appreciate that they are attempting to look at this type of user production in economic terms. While encouraging us to think of user feedback and production as more than “a refined form of focus-group testing”, the authors give us the applicable example of a group of users currently providing constructive criticism and content to the market, gamers (Banks and Humphreys, 2008). Since the advent of the Atari brought gaming into the homes of middle class families, gaming has become a staple of home entertainment for many. By providing constructive feedback to game companies and engaging in content creation, the gamer is also getting something for their labor, a better gaming experience. This is not to say that those contributions are not worthy of monetary reward, but it does merit pointing out that there is already value returned to the consumer. Even the authors point out that gamers are aware that their contributions have value, and that perhaps they are willing participants in their unpaid contributions. I also appreciate that the authors recognize that companies must find a balance is their use of paid versus unpaid labor, quoting from Fox, “without making non-money feel like a sucker” (Fox, 2007:33).

Nov
08
2012

The Librarian and the Pirate

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The consumer of Web 2.0 content was dissected from several vantage points in this week’s readings. For the key issues explored by our class over the semester, Anderson’s From Indymedia to Demand Media’s exploration of algorithmic journalism stood out as exemplary of both a function and problem created by Web 2.0. The mystical audience lies just on the other side of the screen, determining our own future content exposure with every click. Our preferences and interests are being cataloged and indexed for reference in future content production. While the other types of journalism explored in this article were useful for gaining a better understanding of audience issues within reporting, the tracking of audience interest, preference, and consumption done using algorithmic journalism could mean that in the future, we will have no one but ourselves to blame if content does not have quality.

Blank and Reisdorf’s article, The Participatory Web, confirmed several theories we’ve already discussed in class about the internet’s audience: that those in a higher economic class are more likely to use the internet, those in retirement are not, and those with “willingness to learn new aspects of a technology” will utilize it more (2012). It also closed with that all important question, what will happen to those on the other side of the digital divide?

 

Correa and Jeong did provide fresh information with their piece on minorities on the web. Information was presented that showed that minority groups are more likely to supply online content. The connectedness that the internet can provide to reach out to other niche groups could be a driving factor. However, it was surprising that this wasn’t necessarily true for those of Asian descent. As presented in the article, they are more likely to use the internet as a form of “personal record” than connecting or exposition of their work than other groups (Correa and Jeong, 2010)

 

Chapter 2 of Marshall’s New Media Cultures, summarized and confirmed my own theory of what new media actually is in conjunction with their explanation of interactivity. According to Marshall, “Interactivity thus expressed the breakdown of the broadcast model of the delivery of information” (2004). He describes how interactivity has created a back and forth exchange between the broadcaster as opposed to the indirect interaction that used to take place between the listener and the radio or television. Chapter 4 goes on to describe new media, paraphrasing Chesher, “new media invokes you to respond, while older media forms attempt to evoke sentiments” (1996). I particularly enjoyed chapter’s fours section on “The complex role of capital” of the internet. It recounts the internet’s long inability to profit from the “library patrons and pirates” of the internet. Documenting the bust of the dot com era, the article lead me to reflect on Facebook’s recent decision to force “pay to promote” on all of us. This could be potentially crippling for higher ed. and small businesses. If those entities pull out of Facebook because it no longer serves a marketing function for them, will that have an effect on Facebook’s usage by its average subscriber? Will Facebook alienate a sub-set of its own audience and send the rest packing as a result?

 

Nov
01
2012

what is political is not always civil

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In this week’s readings, Castells writes about world powers changing as they are challenged by globalization, deregulation, and today’s “crisis of political legitimacy” (2007). Certainly the access to information provided by the internet, and more recently the influence of mobile internet access, has changed some societies. While the internet can neither be blamed nor praised for the fall of dictators as of late, it can certainly be lauded for its part. Tufekci and Wilson explore this future in their piece on the protests in Tahrir Square during the political upheaval in Egypt in 2011. As an American who has never known anything other than freedom of speech, it really hit me that “for many people, the online sphere might have been the only context in which they encountered dissident content” (2012). While they did find that traditional face-to-face exchange was effective in spreading the word about protests, the information presented about the behavior of those present as citizen journalists was intriguing. Digital media and mobile phones were allowing citizens, potentially participating in political protest for the first time, to post real time documentation of the events. Although not mentioned in their article, I would like to read some research on empowerment of individuals who have cameras connected directly to the internet. Does having the ability to share what is happening around them embolden them to take actions they wouldn’t otherwise?

Mobile internet has produced something of a third eye for all of us. We can now access in a moment what we used to either have to memorize or look up later. With a mobile phone, nothing has to be out of sight, out of mind. However, what is on our mind is influenced by “old media”. The 24 hour news machine still influences what is on our collective minds. Sandy is the obvious example this week, and we’ve even been caught up in fake Instagrams of Sandy’s destruction. http://mashable.com/2012/10/29/fake-hurricane-sandy-photos/. Castells reiterates this point again citing, “What does not exist in the media does not exist in the public mind” (2007). However, with these faked images of Sandy, and other internet entities going viral, aren’t we taking part in this creation of what is on the collective societal mind?

At the heart of our readings these past two weeks has been one main question, does the internet affect our engagement in the civil/political process? We may have lowered the cost of accessing political information, but it still seems that those who are utilizing the internet for political knowledge or participation are those that would have sought it out regardless. Wilson confirms this by quoting Coleman, “Political participation is to a large extent driven by affective motives” (2004). Even those who do have genuine interest in the political process and seek to engage in political interaction online tend to lose their civility in the process. In their piece, Loveland and Popescu concluded that, “Online interaction is thus less prone to be polite, which could also explain the lack of positive reinforcement” (2011). Is it any wonder that those of us who aren’t particularly interested in politics are driven further away from the polls as we are exposed to callous exchanges both on TV and the internet by those that are engaged in the process?

Oct
23
2012

SNS and civil/political engagement

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From this week’s readings on political and civil engagement as related to new media seemed to solidify my own expanding theory that social networking sites do not change our opinions, but they do give us an opportunity to turn up the volume on our projected thoughts. Also not shocking were the facts as they relate to age of those taking advantage of new media to seek out information on politics, with those under 30 taking the most advantage of online video use (Smith, 2009). Shocking, right? What was a little surprising to me was the statistic listed in United We Stand, also quoted from Smith, that four in ten of those over 65 watched political videos online (2009). My best guess is that those individuals are taking more advantage of technology and political involvement because they are more than likely no longer in the work force and have the time to devote to seeking out that type of information in an election year. However, I did still find it eye opening because, admittedly, I assumed that more of those individuals would be on the other side of the digital divide. I think it would be worth more study to see if those 50 and over increase or decrease their SNS use and skills when they retire.

So is it simply that the low cost of information finding on the internet is getting us more engaged in politics and community? Although I do believe that we possess more information about our community and politics as a result of low cost information finding, that doesn’t seem to be the deciding factor in the translation of information exposure to engagement. Most notably, the suggestion made by Campbell & Kwak that personalization of content is “leading to increased trust in others and civic mindedness” is significant because it proposes that as we tweak what content we want streamed to our devices, the more engaged we will become(2010). I don’t think this will lead to a significant increase in voting or volunteerism, but it is significant that as we weed out content we do not wish to be exposed to, we become more entrenched in our ideology and more engaged in supporting those causes. 

Oct
17
2012

weak ties seems to be a misleading monkier for such a useful device

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The opportunity to connect with a broad audience with minimal cost has a sizable return on investment for individuals with a large network of weak ties.  Those who utilize social networking sites do so for many different reasons. For some, social capital comes in the form of validation. These individuals get their benefit by the number of comments and likes on their content. For others, their social capital may be the opportunity to ask questions and receive almost immediate responses from a diverse group of people within their online network. Weak ties within one’s network can be utilized to provide an individual with more varied information. As Vitak and Eliison state, people may even prefer asking questions via status update over using a search engine as it provides an additional opportunity to interact with the responses to their query (2012).

 There may be additional benefits to those who have difficulty socializing in person. As Ellison, Lampe, Steinfield and Vitak found in their study With a Little Help From My Friend,” those lower in self-esteem reported greater benefit in terms of bridging social capital from their Facebook use than those with higher self-esteem.”(2011). Several reasons for this are explored from better control over self-presentation to lack of non-verbal cues found in traditional in-person interaction (Burke, Kraut, Marlow, 2011). Additionally, there was evidence that online interaction produced some side effects that were surprising to me. In particular the evidence from Hampton, Sessions and Her (2009) as presented in Social Capital on Facebook: Differentiating Uses and Users that there may be less racial and political prejudice in those that post and share regularly online (2012). I don’t think this is saying that the internet is curing social awkwardness or prejudice, but it is opening up opportunities for people to communicate in new ways and removing barriers to what were once taboo topics.

As for myself, as a result of “context collapse”, I do censor myself a great deal on Facebook in particular. Now that it seems everyone is on it, I’m not as willing to share information or opinions through that medium as I once was in the .edu era. Only the most sanitized of content seems to be appropriate to share to everyone. Yes, Facebook has given me the option to sort people into sub-groups to give me better control over who I share with, but honestly, I’m far too lazy to utilize that feature. It would take forever to sort my “friends” into sub-categories and it is simply too much work for the pay off.  As Ellison and Vitak cite from Hogan (2010), “when disclosures cannot be selectively distributed to different audiences, users may choose to self-censor posts so that only the most banal content is shared with their network” (2012). I imagine that a lot of people, aside from the 10% of super users, are self-censoring the same way I do. So despite the usefulness of my large network of weak ties, I’m under utilizing them as a result of context collapse.

Oct
12
2012

My Abstract: Exploration of New Media in College Recruitment, A look at current usage and future potential

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In today’s society, colleges and universities are utilizing the digital world to send out their message. As many platforms of social media come without financial cost on the institution and have easily quantifiable results in reach, it makes fiscal sense for institutions to take advantage of these platforms. In doing so they not only push out information about themselves to a wider audience, but also to have an increasingly interactive exchange with students researching options for continuing education. This is significant because 68% of college bound students are using social media as a resource for information about higher education institutions (Inigrals & Zinch, 2012).

 In “Social Media in Higher Education: A literature review and research directions”, the authors give a comprehensive review of student and institutional usage of social media technology within higher education. Interestingly, the authors point out that today’s traditional age college bound students, born in the mid nineteen nineties, have never known a world in which they did not have access to high speed internet at home or school (Nyangau& Bado, 2012, 6). It would never occur to these millennials to research their options in any other way than through the internet first. In addition to being internet natives, this age group expects a communicative interaction online, not simply a display of information as has previously been provided on university websites. It becomes important then for those in higher education to understand the attitudes of this group of potential students towards new media platforms and online interaction.These can lead institutions to ask relevant questions about their audience and how to address the needs of that audience online.

 By understanding how this group of students is using new media, institutions can develop the type of online presence that is attractive to this population of prospects and fills their needs. As Alexandra Tilsley reports in her piece for Inside Higher Ed., “the way to get a high return on investment is to focus on engagement”(2012). Her article includes results of a survey titled “2012 Social Admissions Report” which surveyed more than 7000 students. A look at how students are using the social media in their college search, the survey provides concrete evidence that needs vary from one demographic group to another (Inigral & Zinch, 2012). Through application of this audience awareness, these institutions can increase not only their enrollment figures but can even capitalize on the specific demographic groups their institutions have missed reaching in their prior recruitment initiatives.

 One of the largest influences in today’s digital world has been brought on by mobility. Mobility has brought with it the ultimate facilitator of convenient interaction, those that can happen at any moment the student chooses. Smartphones have brought internet usage to a new level, and prospect to institute interaction is no exception. “Mobile 101 for Higher Ed”, another study by Inigral, Inc., looks at the current mobile market and how higher education is adapting (2012). It goes as far as to provide a “cheat sheet” for how institutions can be successful with a mobile plan (Inigral, 2012). Using this type of mobile plan, institutions can be at the fingertips of its desired audience at any time they or the student chooses.

 Unfortunately, simply providing more interaction online and stopping the practice of providing hard copies of materials does not mean that institutions have reached their audience. The article “Social Media and Marketing of Higher Education: A Review of the Literature” reviews sources looking at the usage of social media by higher education institutions for recruitment, and if students are using social media in their college research. Evidence showed that college bound students were still using traditional sources such as university printed material and college visits before they were consulting online interaction(Canche, Davis, Charles, Deil-Amen, Rios-Aguilar, 2012). Additionally, the article cites the need for institutions to have a plan in place for using social media, which they don’t always have (Canche et al., 2012). In an article on return of investment through social media in higher education, 78% of the institutions it surveyed said that social media had changed the way it recruited but 29% had no social media plan (Barnes & Lescault, 2012). The message taken from this is to develop a strategy, not simply a social media presence.

 As previously mentioned, many of these new media platforms can provide actual reporting on an institution’s reach through that specific outlet. For example, when using Facebook pages or Twitter’s Tweet Deck, administrators receive back data on exactly how much exposure was created as a result of a posting. These features take the guess work out of what is and is not working as a result of online presence utilizing those platforms. Using this data, institutions can tailor the version of themselves to present on each platform that will garner them the most beneficial interaction and exposure to prospective students. Without understanding how to utilize the voice that these forms of new media facilitate, institutions run the risk of being silent and invisible to their prospects.

 

Barnes, Nora Ganim. & Lescault, Ava M. (2012) Higher Ed Documents Social Media ROI: New Communications Tools Are a Game Changer. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. Retrieved from http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/socialmedia/socialmediagamechanger/

 Canche, Manuel Sacramento Gonzalez., Davis III, Charles H.F., Deil-Amen, Regina., Rios-Aguilar, Cecilia.(2012).Social Media in Higher Education: A literature review and research directions. The center for the Study of Higher Education at The University of Arizona and Claremont Graduate University. Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hfdavis

 Inigral, Inc. (2012) Mobile 101 for Higher Ed. Inigral Insights. Retrieved from http://www.inigral.com/research/mobile-101-for-higher-ed/

 Inigral, Inc. & Zinch, Inc. (2012). 2012 Social Admissions Report. Slide Share. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/inigral

 Nyangau, Josiah. & Bado, Niamboue. (2012). Social Media and Marketing of Higher Education: A Review of the Literature. Journal of The Research Center for Educational Technology. Volume 8, Number 1. Pages 38-51. Retrieved from http://rcetj.org/index.php/rcetj/article/view/180/264

 Tilsley, Alexandra. (2012). Social Networks and College Choices. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/24/survey-examines-how-prospective-students-use-social-media-research-colleges

Oct
11
2012

a life in photos and logging off

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I’ve been waiting to read more about what our classmate Kevin so eloquently described as “collapse of context” in our social media identities. I think for the majority of us that joined Facebook in the .edu era, this is especially true. There were already two or three years’ worth of college photos of us on our Facebook profiles when we entered the job market and worse, our mothers joined the network. Gilpin hits the nail on the head in the first two pages when she describes us having to construct an identity on these sites that is appropriate for a variety of groups (2012). I’m an integrated (work me, school me, family me, professional me) personification of myself online that has evolved over time into less of a true representation of myself than any real interaction with me in person. However, that is not to say that anything I put up is insincere. Just as those who participated in the Twitter study from this article, the social media content I produce is not “wholly representative” of me (Gilpin, 2012).

Interestingly enough, the photos of me on Facebook could tell a fairly accurate chronological story of the highlights of my life over the last six to seven years. I’ve always been someone that keeps a lot of pictures, but the widespread acquisition of point and shoot photos via the mobile phone have taken it to a new level. As Mendelson and Papcharissi bring up in their article, taking pictures of an event has been integrated in the experience of the actual event (2012). They also state via Barthes and Jacobs (1981) that photos provide proof of an experience (Mendelson and Papcharissi , 2012). I wonder if this will have a long term effect on the way millennials and the generations after recall memories. Will they be able to recall events as clearly as older generations without the cue of photos? The other element mentioned in the article that really struck me was the “moving map” concept. Our lives are somewhat documented through these public and shared photos so for ourselves and for others it become an ever growing representation of chronological events of our lives. Mine only moves forward from age 20 or so. What ramifications, if any, will this have for those that have been logged in since adolescence? Or worse, those whose parents have been posting pictures online of them since birth. Will their bosses eventually have access to middle school dance photographs due to the magic of “tagging”? Talk about collapse of context.

I really think Danah Boyd and I could be friends, at least until we had argument that could only be settled by Wikipedia. In her article Participating in the Always-On Lifestyle, she often dismisses the assumptions of social media skeptics. She argues that those who take advantage of the platform of social media are not are not the exhibitionists that some assume them to be, but are in fact simply “taking advantage of the affordances of these technologies to connect with others in a way that they feel is appropriate” (Boyd, 2012). However, I do think that social media has given an outlet those who were either already predisposed for exhibition or has awaken a latent need in others. I would say that only about 10% of my online network take advantage of the share button more than once a month, but those 10% seem deafening at times. Admittedly, I have complete control over what I’m exposed to online, and I choose not to “un-follow” those who post more than I want to know or are posting opinions I don’t share. That says more about me than anything, and I suspect others currently using their Facebook account to watch more than post are the same. They may be sharing in a way “they feel is appropriate” as Boyd states, but not everyone is going to share that opinion (2012). However, those who disapprove are largely going to be those not in the millennial generation, and older generations thinking everything is going to you-know-where because of the kids is nothing new. Boyd is correct that we all need to find a balance in this new world of 24 hour connectedness, which is why I’m turning my phone off during dinner.

Oct
04
2012

Prosumption and Ethical Dilemmas

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In the internet age, it is easy to think of ourselves as living in a time when everything is new. Ritzer, Dean and Jurgenson give us a little perspective when they assert that we as humans have been prosuming since our earliest days (2012). Prosuming seems built in to our everyday lives. By simply going to the grocery store and then making a meal from what I have bought, I’ve played the role of both consumer and producer. However, I do think this term is a good one to use to frame our understanding of a time when so much of what we use digitally is interactive. Again, Wikipedia comes to the forefront as a perfect explanation of prosumption. Without constant and varied user input into the site, it would fail to be a real time touchstone for information on almost any topic.

From “Highly recommended!” The Content Characteristics and Perceived Usefulness of Online Consumer Reviews, I liked that the authors separated experience products from search products in their experiment. I did not expect that the negative reviews of experience products would be more useful than the positive ones, as attested by Willemsen, Neijens, Bronner and de Ridder (31). However, after some reflection, and even catching myself doing so while online shopping last weekend, I do gravitate toward the negative reviews of a product when it has those “intangible attributes that cannot be known until purchased” (23). Additionally, I did find it humorous that in contrast to last week’s reading, Peer or Expert, that the authors of this piece found a weak, but present correlation between the expert written reviews and usefulness (31).

Going forward in this week’s readings was a study in blogs and bloggers, how they see themselves and the ethical dilemmas that have arisen from their own actions and corporations trying to appropriate the platform as a sales tool. After reading through these three articles on the topic of blogs, it became painfully aware to me how short the distance is between a genuine (non-corporately created) blogger and their audience. Without the filter of editors and peer review that other writers have built in, these bloggers’ mistakes are made in real time. There is a sense that when a newspaper columnist publishes an article that then becomes criticized, the paper itself bears some of the reputational damage. A blogger has no such shield. As a relatively new medium, today’s bloggers are making the mistakes required to prompt a structure of regulation, such as the proposed FTC regulations discussed in Blogola, Sponsored Posts, and the Ethics of Blogging.

Some of the numbers listed in our readings were staggering. For example, in Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities, the authors quote from a 2007 survey that “50% of all internet users are regular blog readers” (73). Despite checking of 15-20 blogs a day myself, that is still a massive number that I would never have expected. It is no wonder they are being targeted by advertisers. I have followed several blogs from being part of the 99% of “lonely roads” that Chia references in Welcome to Me-Mart, to full blown “probloggers” able to take blogging from hobby to career on sponsorships from corporations using them for advertising.  That being said, for those blogs not generating a profit, I’m not sure that I agree with the view that blogs as user generated content are exploitive just because the user bares the cost of maintenance. I buy supplies for my hobbies all of the time and what I create from the supplies doesn’t generate funds enough for me to be profitable. But that is not the point of a hobby, is it?