I have one main problem with both "Better Luck Tomorrow" and "Crash," which is that they both go to extremes. They use extreme violence, extreme language, and extreme situations ostensibly in the service of examining and deconstructing stereotypes. In BLT, the thriller/action/comedy stylings of the film help relate it to its target audience, young men, and as such expose certain viewers to ideas they may not have previously considered; however, although this extremism can be effective with certain audiences, but I think it alienates more viewers than it speaks to; I'm thinking in particular of the scene in BLT where the main characters kill Steve. To me, the visceral reaction produced by the characters' rejection of redemption (when they discover Steve is still alive after the beating) in favor of a violent "solution" to their problem overshadows the critique that is going on in that scene. Divorcing myself from the graphic nature of the scene, I can tease out the idea that social pressure and stereotyping has contributed to the characters' sense of invincibility, but that it has also in some way motivated their violence; they hate Steve because he's fulfilling the ideal they've bought into even better than they are. He's rich, he's popular, and he possesses what is constructed in dominant discourses as the ultimate achievement for people of color: a white girlfriend. Ben in particular wants to take out his anger on Steve because he can't have what Steve takes for granted (Stephanie's affection). While I find the violence of this film deeply disturbing, and there are a multitude of problematics relating to the portrayal of women and sexuality, this film does have something valuable to say, if audiences can see past the extreme situations. I personally believe that the idea of Justin Lin, an Asian American director who can make films with Asian American actors that talk about the Asian American experience, will prove to be more influential than the particular content of his films. I really hope that soon we will see more films created by and about people of color that can discuss race and racism in a more subtle and nuanced manner without being relegated to obscurity. For that matter, I would also like to see more attempts at the socially conscious action movie; I think Justin Lin has the right kind of ideas in play, but lacks essential critiques on gender and sexuality stereotyping, as well as falling into a mode of privileging the visual elements over the underlying themes.
"Crash," on the other hand, represents to me the shallowest kind of discussion of racial tensions. It employs the politically correct, oft-used idea that, to quote a popular musical, "everyone's a little bit racist." It has potential in that it shows the differences in power between the characters, but I feel it stops short of examining the logical conclusion: although all the characters have certain failings and prejudices, the white police and homeowners can go home at the end of the day with their careers and families mostly intact, while the people of color cannot divorce themselves from racism and "race issues." I find the juxtaposition of the scenes in which Matt Dillon's character assaults Thandie Newton's and the scenes in which he cares for his ailing father most disturbing, as though his personal struggles somehow justify his racist, misogynist behavior. This story comes to a deeply troubling end when he rescues the woman he previously assaulted from a car crash. She learns to trust those who have previously abused her; what does he learn? What about the privileging of the "Americanized," accentless daughter of the Iranian shopkeeper, who is more temperate and understanding than her one-track-mind immigrant father? There's also the complete lack of Asian American agency; Asian Americans are either nameless, cruel human traffickers or nameless, helpless victims. Certainly, there is a climatic "crash" in which all of the characters are forced to confront their prejudices and learn from one another, but there are still winners and losers: the young, idealistic white police officer may be shocked and appalled by his own actions, but the young black man is dead, simply for having been a particular race and gender in a particular setting.
While "Better Luck Tomorrow" may lack nuance, "Crash," to me, lacks any kind of substantive exploration of race issues because it tries to do way too much in one film, and thus explores none of the issues in the depth required to produce something that is thought-provoking, rather than heavy-handed and didactic. Thus it becomes that phrase I railed against so much in my comments on Trinh, "universalized." When I watch this film, I feel like I am being lectured to about racism, rather than provoked to consider my own subjectivity. The next question then, is who is lecturing me? Paul Haggis, a prominent mainstream director, and popular Hollywood actors and producers. It may be cynical, but to me this film seems like an excuse for mainstream cinema to pat itself on the back for talking about race issues without actually having to think too critically about its own role in reflecting and reinforcing stereotypes. "Crash" is both too extreme (racism is rarely as blatant as the film depicts, especially in a "liberal" bastion like L.A.) and too convenient in the way its plots intersect and are resolved, and the more times I view it, the more disappointed I become.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Trinh
Trinh T. Minh-Ha "The World as a Foreign Land"
The first part of Trinh's piece deals with "otherness," and the meanings and representations of the racial and sexual "other." According to Trinh, the attention now given to the study and theory of "otherness" is both exciting and worrisome, because it is being "reappropriated as a fighting ground by the named 'others,' and as a site of pilgrimage by the Master and his heirs." She goes on the describe the ways in which "otherness" can be co-opted and re-relegated to subordination by the dominant, explaining that "even when an other is being priviledged [sic], she is constantly, subtly reminded of the favor she enjoys." In this way, the dominant inscribes the other as forever subaltern, enjoying represenation only due to the generosity of the dominant. Trinh theorizes strategies of representation that can be employed by the "other." One possible strategy is repetition, the rehashing of stereotypes in order to criticize and de-naturalize them. Another is autobiography, the representation of the "other"'s own self, which invokes the subjectivity of the plural-I; the representation does not claim to speak for each and every othered individual, but bears witness to facets of the collective experience of the "other." Trinh also theorizes the anti-anti-limit text, a "text that acknowledges its experience of limits without being subjected to normalized limitations" as a strategy for representing the struggles and marginalization of the other without itself reproducing the subordination and re-relegating the othered subjects to a marginalized space. Trinh ends this section by stressing the importance of distinguishing between user-oriented and creator-oriented media, critically understanding the relationship between the "media-maker, media viewer, and media/image/word/sound," and understanding both media content and the features of media production when critically analyzing a media product.
"The Other Censorship"
The second part of Trinh's piece introduces the idea of the "other censorship," the erasure/ignorance of women/queer/people of color productions by the mainstream media. She begins by aruging that we must break down the artificial binary between artists and critics, in order to produce art that "upset[s] rooted ideologies, invalidating the established canon of artistic works and modifying the borderlines between theoretical and non-theoretical discourse," dissolving the division between critics and the works they criticize, experts and non-experts, art and non-art, and dominant and "other." Trinh criticizes theories that tend toward universalism and privileging "accessibility" as forms of intolerance, as they privilege the experiences and knowledges of members of the dominant culture, and erase markers of ethnicity/racel, gender, or non-normative sexuality. She also argues against separating issues of censorship, racism, sexism, and heterosexism, explaining that treated these as unrelated plays into "the colonialist creed of Divide and Conquer," and keeps marginalized subjects in subordination by diverting attention away from the interconnectedness of various struggles against censorship. She encourages utilizing the theory of the "third term": the alternative space that is neither the dominant discourse nor a direct reaction to it, but rather represents the vitality and creativity of othered individuals. If this alternative space is not cultivated, marginalized people will suffer from the "Other Poverty," a spiritual/cultural void caused by the Other Censorship.
The Trinh piece relates heavily to theorists I am reading/have read in Chicana/o Studies classes, most clearly Gloria Anzaldua, Chela Sandoval, and Emma Perez. Like Trinh, they all draw attention to the inevitable failure of revolutionary positions that position themselves as the "opposite" of the hegemonic institutions they struggle against, because they adopt the same power hierarchies as the entities they are fighting. Rather, we must acknowledge the multiple subjectivities of marginalized populations and incorporate all struggles against oppression, as they are inextricably linked. I really appreciate that Trinh draws in art specifically as a revolutionary practice, as art is often subordinated to theory in discussions of anti-oppression work. It's really important to me as a scholar, fan, and sometimes author of cultural productions that the critical and even revolutionary potential of all kinds of fields and practices be theorized and validated. I also appreciate that Trinh moves beyond theory to possible modes of practice in the first part of the piece; theory is only useful when we can apply it to our daily lives.
Trinh's condemnation of universalizing impulses is particularly heartening to me; I've become quite unpopular in several classes here at Stanford for suggesting that not all theorizes or pieces of art are directly addressing all audiences. I sincerely believe that there are certain productions which are meant for a particular audience and best engage that audience's knowledge and experiences, and that insisting upon generalizing productions to apply to all audiences necessarily devalues the specific experiences and struggles out of which the works arise. I could go on for a long time about this issue, but I feel it's not productive to express the full extent of my frustration in this blog.
The first part of Trinh's piece deals with "otherness," and the meanings and representations of the racial and sexual "other." According to Trinh, the attention now given to the study and theory of "otherness" is both exciting and worrisome, because it is being "reappropriated as a fighting ground by the named 'others,' and as a site of pilgrimage by the Master and his heirs." She goes on the describe the ways in which "otherness" can be co-opted and re-relegated to subordination by the dominant, explaining that "even when an other is being priviledged [sic], she is constantly, subtly reminded of the favor she enjoys." In this way, the dominant inscribes the other as forever subaltern, enjoying represenation only due to the generosity of the dominant. Trinh theorizes strategies of representation that can be employed by the "other." One possible strategy is repetition, the rehashing of stereotypes in order to criticize and de-naturalize them. Another is autobiography, the representation of the "other"'s own self, which invokes the subjectivity of the plural-I; the representation does not claim to speak for each and every othered individual, but bears witness to facets of the collective experience of the "other." Trinh also theorizes the anti-anti-limit text, a "text that acknowledges its experience of limits without being subjected to normalized limitations" as a strategy for representing the struggles and marginalization of the other without itself reproducing the subordination and re-relegating the othered subjects to a marginalized space. Trinh ends this section by stressing the importance of distinguishing between user-oriented and creator-oriented media, critically understanding the relationship between the "media-maker, media viewer, and media/image/word/sound," and understanding both media content and the features of media production when critically analyzing a media product.
"The Other Censorship"
The second part of Trinh's piece introduces the idea of the "other censorship," the erasure/ignorance of women/queer/people of color productions by the mainstream media. She begins by aruging that we must break down the artificial binary between artists and critics, in order to produce art that "upset[s] rooted ideologies, invalidating the established canon of artistic works and modifying the borderlines between theoretical and non-theoretical discourse," dissolving the division between critics and the works they criticize, experts and non-experts, art and non-art, and dominant and "other." Trinh criticizes theories that tend toward universalism and privileging "accessibility" as forms of intolerance, as they privilege the experiences and knowledges of members of the dominant culture, and erase markers of ethnicity/racel, gender, or non-normative sexuality. She also argues against separating issues of censorship, racism, sexism, and heterosexism, explaining that treated these as unrelated plays into "the colonialist creed of Divide and Conquer," and keeps marginalized subjects in subordination by diverting attention away from the interconnectedness of various struggles against censorship. She encourages utilizing the theory of the "third term": the alternative space that is neither the dominant discourse nor a direct reaction to it, but rather represents the vitality and creativity of othered individuals. If this alternative space is not cultivated, marginalized people will suffer from the "Other Poverty," a spiritual/cultural void caused by the Other Censorship.
The Trinh piece relates heavily to theorists I am reading/have read in Chicana/o Studies classes, most clearly Gloria Anzaldua, Chela Sandoval, and Emma Perez. Like Trinh, they all draw attention to the inevitable failure of revolutionary positions that position themselves as the "opposite" of the hegemonic institutions they struggle against, because they adopt the same power hierarchies as the entities they are fighting. Rather, we must acknowledge the multiple subjectivities of marginalized populations and incorporate all struggles against oppression, as they are inextricably linked. I really appreciate that Trinh draws in art specifically as a revolutionary practice, as art is often subordinated to theory in discussions of anti-oppression work. It's really important to me as a scholar, fan, and sometimes author of cultural productions that the critical and even revolutionary potential of all kinds of fields and practices be theorized and validated. I also appreciate that Trinh moves beyond theory to possible modes of practice in the first part of the piece; theory is only useful when we can apply it to our daily lives.
Trinh's condemnation of universalizing impulses is particularly heartening to me; I've become quite unpopular in several classes here at Stanford for suggesting that not all theorizes or pieces of art are directly addressing all audiences. I sincerely believe that there are certain productions which are meant for a particular audience and best engage that audience's knowledge and experiences, and that insisting upon generalizing productions to apply to all audiences necessarily devalues the specific experiences and struggles out of which the works arise. I could go on for a long time about this issue, but I feel it's not productive to express the full extent of my frustration in this blog.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Super Special Awesome related materials
I'm working through all the stuff I have to say about this week's articles, which is a tremendous amount. In the meantime, I thought I'd share something I've been enjoying over the past year that's somewhat related to what we read. "Yugioh: The Abridged Series" is a fan-made parody of the Yugioh series that's entirely edited, written and voiced by one British man. I'd never actually seen Yugioh before a friend showed me the parody, but it's a fairly generic series, so it's easy enough to catch on to what's he's making fun of. There are also a ton of amusing pop culture references, and the fact that one guy does all the voice acting (quite well, I might add) is extra humorous. It's also really quotable; I'm pretty sure I don't talk to some of my friends anymore, but rather just quote this series at each other.
Anyway, if you need a study break, I'd recommend you check it out for some laughs: www.yugiohtheabridgedseries.com. It's also an interesting study in copyright issues, as the creator's videos were pulled from Youtube many times by the company that produced the English-language dub of the series.
Ito's article on Yugioh also mentioned doujinshi, or fan comics produced by adult fans who are amateur artists, or sometimes even professionals working under pseudonyms; the content ranges from G-rated parodies to extremely explicit. It's an interesting industry in that's a legal gray area that's become a staple of fan culture and is generally accepted by companies in Japan; it's also an industry that is largely populated by female fans and artists. Here's an example of the kind of product Ito is talking about that I found on a website that sells doujinshi.
Anyway, if you need a study break, I'd recommend you check it out for some laughs: www.yugiohtheabridgedseries.com. It's also an interesting study in copyright issues, as the creator's videos were pulled from Youtube many times by the company that produced the English-language dub of the series.
Ito's article on Yugioh also mentioned doujinshi, or fan comics produced by adult fans who are amateur artists, or sometimes even professionals working under pseudonyms; the content ranges from G-rated parodies to extremely explicit. It's an interesting industry in that's a legal gray area that's become a staple of fan culture and is generally accepted by companies in Japan; it's also an industry that is largely populated by female fans and artists. Here's an example of the kind of product Ito is talking about that I found on a website that sells doujinshi.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Ito Readings
I've decided to tackle Trinh and Ito in separate postings, since my responses are quite lengthy.
Ito
- "Mobiles and the appropriation of place"
Ito discusses the impact that cell phones and other wireless technologies are having on Japanese youth. She argues that these technologies are changing the terms of co-presence, "augmenting the experiences and properties of physically co-located encounters rather than simply detracting from them." In contrast with pre-wireless generations, youth today rarely set fixed times or places for face-to-face meetings, but rather call or text each other shortly beforehand. This allows for quick changes of venue, and for people to run errands, check email, or do other tasks while they are waiting for their friends. Wireless technologies also shift the terms of inclusion and exclusion; people who are not present at the face-to-face encounter can be included by calling or texting them for their input, while people who are physically present can be excluded, such as students texting each other about a teacher during class. Ito postulates that "young people are in social contact even when alone," and that these technologies, rather than being isolating as some might fear, help youth to "personalize" their environment in an age of increasing co-optation of public spaces by corporations in the forms of advertisements and sponsorships.
- "Intimate Visual Co-Presence"
Ito examines the usage of photo-sharing via handheld devices, primarily cell phones, and the ways in which images are being integrated into social encounters. Ito notes that while camera phone users tend to take a large amount of pictures, they send only the "interesting" or "newsworthy" photos to their contacts; sending photos is somehow seen as more intrusive than texting, as many users text mundane messages (such as "I'm tired") to their friends, a practice that Ito calls "ambient virtual co-presence." Photo uploading sites such as photobucket allow users to upload their photos without seeming intrusive; friends can browse their photos at their convenience, which Ito describes "ambient monitoring of the visual stream of others." In a study conducted with young Japanese couples, Ito found that couples were much more likely than friends or acquaintances to participate in ambient visual virtual co-presence, sending each other more "mundane" photos; however, like in the case of photo uploading sites, they tended to send the messages at a time when they expected their partners to be unavailable, so that they could peruse the photos when they returned. They also sent photos to establish contact and make their partners feels as though they were together when they were not physically co-present.
It may be unusual for someone my age, but I don't use cellphones very much. The majority of my cellphone usage is calling friends to find out where to meet them; I fully agree with Ito in that wireless technology has changed the terms of physical co-presence by including non-physically-present members (I often phone absent friends during meetings to get their input on an event or next meeting time) and allowing for meetings to be organized quickly. The largest example I can think of is organizing the sit-in last year by creating a text-tree, which culminated in a 50-person rally being convened in less than ten minutes through the use of text trees, in which each person on the tree was designated to text or call several others, allowing communication to occur extremely rapidly. I can't comment much on the other article, having never sent a photograph with my camera phone, but it seems natural to me that couples would share more mundane aspects of their life, including photos, than others. Having had a roommate who spent hours upon hours with a long-distance boyfriend chatting on the phone about how she needed to vacuum and other such topics, and being guilty of equally inane conversations with significant others in the past, the desire to establish ambient virtual co-presence among couples seems to stem naturally from the broadening of the boundaries of co-presence.
"Technologies of the Childhood Imagination"
Ito discusses the children's media phenomenon Yugioh, which includes a card game, video games, television program, clothing, and other media. She describes its "multiple sites of consumption" as a "media mix," encouraging consumers to integrate various forms of media in their consumption experience, and providing interactive ways to customize participation in the series. She cites Arjun Appadurai in conceptualizing these phenomena as "collective social facts," which engage the imagination of consumers and bring them together in "imagined communities," such as fan communities. She also differentiates Yugioh from other similar children's media phenomena, such as Pokemon and Digimon, explaining that children relate to it in a different way because Yugi and his friends live in a reality that parallel viewers' own; like viewers, they purchase the cards and play the game with one another, rather than battling with monsters that are real in the series' own universe. Ito argues that media mixes like Yugioh encourage hypersociality rather than alienation, as children gather together to play the game, trade cards, and participate in other aspects of the series. She also discusses the various forms of "remix and revaluation" that occur in the series' fandom. Children remix the series through customizing their card decks and video game characters, choosing from hundreds of possible monsters to build a "team" that suits their playing style. Adult fans have also remixed the series through avenues such as BL (boys' love) doujinshi produced by mainly female amateur artists that depict the characters in romantic relationships, or male adult fans' obsession with collecting rare cards for the thrill of searching them out and purchasing them, rather than playing the card game.
I find it interesting that Ito makes a note that most anime media mix phenomena are geared toward boys and filter over to girls. It seems that lately this focus has been changing; I recently read several articles and interviews with manga authors from the "Shounen Jump" magazine, the most popular boys' manga magazine, that indicates that authors are catering more and more to female fanbases, especially fujoshi, or female fans of boys' love. A large percentage of doujinshi are based on series aimed at younger male audiences (often because they have large, mostly male casts of characters), but recently authors have been conceding that they include certain scenes in order to build subtexts that these female fans will enjoy. It will be interesting to see if this trend becomes large enough to shift the terms these series to the point where they are largely influenced by female fans and "trickle down" to male audiences.
Ito
- "Mobiles and the appropriation of place"
Ito discusses the impact that cell phones and other wireless technologies are having on Japanese youth. She argues that these technologies are changing the terms of co-presence, "augmenting the experiences and properties of physically co-located encounters rather than simply detracting from them." In contrast with pre-wireless generations, youth today rarely set fixed times or places for face-to-face meetings, but rather call or text each other shortly beforehand. This allows for quick changes of venue, and for people to run errands, check email, or do other tasks while they are waiting for their friends. Wireless technologies also shift the terms of inclusion and exclusion; people who are not present at the face-to-face encounter can be included by calling or texting them for their input, while people who are physically present can be excluded, such as students texting each other about a teacher during class. Ito postulates that "young people are in social contact even when alone," and that these technologies, rather than being isolating as some might fear, help youth to "personalize" their environment in an age of increasing co-optation of public spaces by corporations in the forms of advertisements and sponsorships.
- "Intimate Visual Co-Presence"
Ito examines the usage of photo-sharing via handheld devices, primarily cell phones, and the ways in which images are being integrated into social encounters. Ito notes that while camera phone users tend to take a large amount of pictures, they send only the "interesting" or "newsworthy" photos to their contacts; sending photos is somehow seen as more intrusive than texting, as many users text mundane messages (such as "I'm tired") to their friends, a practice that Ito calls "ambient virtual co-presence." Photo uploading sites such as photobucket allow users to upload their photos without seeming intrusive; friends can browse their photos at their convenience, which Ito describes "ambient monitoring of the visual stream of others." In a study conducted with young Japanese couples, Ito found that couples were much more likely than friends or acquaintances to participate in ambient visual virtual co-presence, sending each other more "mundane" photos; however, like in the case of photo uploading sites, they tended to send the messages at a time when they expected their partners to be unavailable, so that they could peruse the photos when they returned. They also sent photos to establish contact and make their partners feels as though they were together when they were not physically co-present.
It may be unusual for someone my age, but I don't use cellphones very much. The majority of my cellphone usage is calling friends to find out where to meet them; I fully agree with Ito in that wireless technology has changed the terms of physical co-presence by including non-physically-present members (I often phone absent friends during meetings to get their input on an event or next meeting time) and allowing for meetings to be organized quickly. The largest example I can think of is organizing the sit-in last year by creating a text-tree, which culminated in a 50-person rally being convened in less than ten minutes through the use of text trees, in which each person on the tree was designated to text or call several others, allowing communication to occur extremely rapidly. I can't comment much on the other article, having never sent a photograph with my camera phone, but it seems natural to me that couples would share more mundane aspects of their life, including photos, than others. Having had a roommate who spent hours upon hours with a long-distance boyfriend chatting on the phone about how she needed to vacuum and other such topics, and being guilty of equally inane conversations with significant others in the past, the desire to establish ambient virtual co-presence among couples seems to stem naturally from the broadening of the boundaries of co-presence.
"Technologies of the Childhood Imagination"
Ito discusses the children's media phenomenon Yugioh, which includes a card game, video games, television program, clothing, and other media. She describes its "multiple sites of consumption" as a "media mix," encouraging consumers to integrate various forms of media in their consumption experience, and providing interactive ways to customize participation in the series. She cites Arjun Appadurai in conceptualizing these phenomena as "collective social facts," which engage the imagination of consumers and bring them together in "imagined communities," such as fan communities. She also differentiates Yugioh from other similar children's media phenomena, such as Pokemon and Digimon, explaining that children relate to it in a different way because Yugi and his friends live in a reality that parallel viewers' own; like viewers, they purchase the cards and play the game with one another, rather than battling with monsters that are real in the series' own universe. Ito argues that media mixes like Yugioh encourage hypersociality rather than alienation, as children gather together to play the game, trade cards, and participate in other aspects of the series. She also discusses the various forms of "remix and revaluation" that occur in the series' fandom. Children remix the series through customizing their card decks and video game characters, choosing from hundreds of possible monsters to build a "team" that suits their playing style. Adult fans have also remixed the series through avenues such as BL (boys' love) doujinshi produced by mainly female amateur artists that depict the characters in romantic relationships, or male adult fans' obsession with collecting rare cards for the thrill of searching them out and purchasing them, rather than playing the card game.
I find it interesting that Ito makes a note that most anime media mix phenomena are geared toward boys and filter over to girls. It seems that lately this focus has been changing; I recently read several articles and interviews with manga authors from the "Shounen Jump" magazine, the most popular boys' manga magazine, that indicates that authors are catering more and more to female fanbases, especially fujoshi, or female fans of boys' love. A large percentage of doujinshi are based on series aimed at younger male audiences (often because they have large, mostly male casts of characters), but recently authors have been conceding that they include certain scenes in order to build subtexts that these female fans will enjoy. It will be interesting to see if this trend becomes large enough to shift the terms these series to the point where they are largely influenced by female fans and "trickle down" to male audiences.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Hobbs and Luke
Hobbs, Renee. "Multiple Visions of Multimedia Literacy: Emerging Areas of Synthesis."
- Students' use of media is continually expanding
- Students need to learn to use symbol systems as well as language
- Various conceptions of expanding literacy studies: visual literacy, media literacy, critical literacy, information literacy, technology literacy
- Using multimedia and popular culture texts as tools for K-12 learners
- Visual literacy: aesthetic dimensions of images and how they shape viewer response; subjectivity of images
- Information literacy: locating information from a variety of sources (research); skills-based -- criticism that it doesn't "emphasizes the ways in which meaning is constructed through interpretation" (limited to fact-finding)
- Critical literacy: analyzing social context, effects of media; exploring themes of "power, identity, pleasure, and transgression"
- Possible synthesis of diverse forms of multimedia literacy
- Categories of multimedia literacy:
- Studying media literacies improves students' reading comprehension, writing skills, critical reading, critical listening, critical viewing, knowledge of media production, history, economics, and terminology
- Central objective for media education: "the ability to apply knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to the world of everyday life"
- Recognizing the difficulty teachers have implementing media literacies curricula: schools are often underfunded and/or resistant to changing their curricula; as standardized tests become the measure of schools' performance, there is less time for the existing curriculum, let alone something new
Luke, Carmen. "What Next? Toddler Netizens, Playstation Thumb, Techno-literacies."
- The information revolution and early childhood
- Reactions to and fears about any new media development (the written word, books, movies, television, now IT): parents and educators have been wary of every new development in media
- New concepts of youth and childhood now emerge in tandem with new technologies, rather than taking years to become incorporated into academic and popular thinking
- Early literacy and development are shaped by media usage/exposure
- Hypertext environments = parallel cognitive demands, rather than linear, serial processing (Jenkins' example of Pokemon); having to follow multiple storylines
- Software quality: problems with gender, racial normativity, intellectual stimulation and interactivity vs. yes/no, point-and-click responses
- Need for critical analysis of media in other forms besides print/film
- Access: IT and analytic skills must be taught to all students in school
- IT-mediated learning and socialization: importance of parents and educators paying attention to children's media consumption
Both Hobbs and Luke engage the questions of how to mediate the influence that new media technologies are having on youth. Hobbs' suggestion is that in order to successfully teach children how to use and how to be critical consumers of new media, we must integrate the various approaches to media literacies that have developed into a more comprehensive whole, and that it would be optimal to teach children media literacy in school. However, she recognizes the difficulty that instructors would have in implementing new media curricula. I'll bring up for I think the third time the issue of standardized testing, and how its predominance as a marker of academic success leaves little room for teaching anything that isn't explicitly covered.
Luke delves further into the issue of exactly how new media are affecting children; like Jenkins, she suggests that new media are not inherently harmful, but rather simply different than the old in that they require more parallel rather than linear processing, and tend to be more interactive and demanding of consumers. However, she is less celebratory than Jenkins in acknowledging the possibilities for reinforcing existing power hierarchies and noting the prevalence of facile interaction in even "educational" children's media. I would also note the stronger potential for overuse that new media have; Luke briefly mentions "Playstation thumb," but I would like to see a stronger emphasis on overuse injuries. Freshman year of college, I developed carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands to the extent that I was ordered by doctors not to type for three months or risk needing surgery. I still use wrist braces for long periods of typing (I'm wearing them as I type this) or writing, and I can no longer hold heavy objects (like grocery bags) for more than a few minutes. More than the psychological damage parents usually worry about (which Luke indicates tend to fade as soon as the next technology emerges), I think physical consequences are a big concern. Luke also addresses the problem of access, arguing that new media literacy must be taught in all schools in order to improve access for children who might not have the newest technologies at home. However, neither Hobbs nor Luke provide much insight into how schools could go about implementing media literacy curricula. Not knowing a whole lot about public education or education policies, I must say I can't really provide any suggestions beyond scaling back the emphasis on standardized testing. Any ideas?
- Students' use of media is continually expanding
- Students need to learn to use symbol systems as well as language
- Various conceptions of expanding literacy studies: visual literacy, media literacy, critical literacy, information literacy, technology literacy
- Using multimedia and popular culture texts as tools for K-12 learners
- Visual literacy: aesthetic dimensions of images and how they shape viewer response; subjectivity of images
- Information literacy: locating information from a variety of sources (research); skills-based -- criticism that it doesn't "emphasizes the ways in which meaning is constructed through interpretation" (limited to fact-finding)
- attempts to expand: digital literacy; synthesizing ideas and facts rather than just finding them
- Critical literacy: analyzing social context, effects of media; exploring themes of "power, identity, pleasure, and transgression"
- Possible synthesis of diverse forms of multimedia literacy
- Categories of multimedia literacy:
- AA: authors and audiences
- MM: messages and meanings
- RR: representations and reality
- Studying media literacies improves students' reading comprehension, writing skills, critical reading, critical listening, critical viewing, knowledge of media production, history, economics, and terminology
- Central objective for media education: "the ability to apply knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to the world of everyday life"
- Recognizing the difficulty teachers have implementing media literacies curricula: schools are often underfunded and/or resistant to changing their curricula; as standardized tests become the measure of schools' performance, there is less time for the existing curriculum, let alone something new
Luke, Carmen. "What Next? Toddler Netizens, Playstation Thumb, Techno-literacies."
- The information revolution and early childhood
- concepts of development
- media and information technology literacy
- critical criteria for software selection
- issues of equity and access
- Reactions to and fears about any new media development (the written word, books, movies, television, now IT): parents and educators have been wary of every new development in media
- New concepts of youth and childhood now emerge in tandem with new technologies, rather than taking years to become incorporated into academic and popular thinking
- Early literacy and development are shaped by media usage/exposure
- Hypertext environments = parallel cognitive demands, rather than linear, serial processing (Jenkins' example of Pokemon); having to follow multiple storylines
- Software quality: problems with gender, racial normativity, intellectual stimulation and interactivity vs. yes/no, point-and-click responses
- Need for critical analysis of media in other forms besides print/film
- Access: IT and analytic skills must be taught to all students in school
- IT-mediated learning and socialization: importance of parents and educators paying attention to children's media consumption
Both Hobbs and Luke engage the questions of how to mediate the influence that new media technologies are having on youth. Hobbs' suggestion is that in order to successfully teach children how to use and how to be critical consumers of new media, we must integrate the various approaches to media literacies that have developed into a more comprehensive whole, and that it would be optimal to teach children media literacy in school. However, she recognizes the difficulty that instructors would have in implementing new media curricula. I'll bring up for I think the third time the issue of standardized testing, and how its predominance as a marker of academic success leaves little room for teaching anything that isn't explicitly covered.
Luke delves further into the issue of exactly how new media are affecting children; like Jenkins, she suggests that new media are not inherently harmful, but rather simply different than the old in that they require more parallel rather than linear processing, and tend to be more interactive and demanding of consumers. However, she is less celebratory than Jenkins in acknowledging the possibilities for reinforcing existing power hierarchies and noting the prevalence of facile interaction in even "educational" children's media. I would also note the stronger potential for overuse that new media have; Luke briefly mentions "Playstation thumb," but I would like to see a stronger emphasis on overuse injuries. Freshman year of college, I developed carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands to the extent that I was ordered by doctors not to type for three months or risk needing surgery. I still use wrist braces for long periods of typing (I'm wearing them as I type this) or writing, and I can no longer hold heavy objects (like grocery bags) for more than a few minutes. More than the psychological damage parents usually worry about (which Luke indicates tend to fade as soon as the next technology emerges), I think physical consequences are a big concern. Luke also addresses the problem of access, arguing that new media literacy must be taught in all schools in order to improve access for children who might not have the newest technologies at home. However, neither Hobbs nor Luke provide much insight into how schools could go about implementing media literacy curricula. Not knowing a whole lot about public education or education policies, I must say I can't really provide any suggestions beyond scaling back the emphasis on standardized testing. Any ideas?
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Lister and Kellner
I'd like to apologize for the strange formatting of the summaries. For some reason, Blogspot decided to erase all my formatting when I published this post, so I tried to fix it as best I could, but to me it looks a bit distracting.
Kellner:
- Culture wars: conservatism vs. "political correctness"
- new technologies: possibility for isolation, social control
- production for profit and articulation of conflicting social positions to appeal to diff. demographics
- media culture is the dominant culture
- "new modes of experience and subjectivity"
- work declining in importance as pleasure is derived from consumption, not labor
- dominant conservative (Reagan) discourse
- "Culture has never been more important and never before have we had such a need for serious scrutiny of contemporary culture"
- 1950s on: various forms of post-structuralist theory
- postmodern nihilism vs. postmodernism of resistance
- critical social theory, practice-oriented social theory, dialectics
- cultural studies: text and context, transdisciplinary approaches
- Frankfurt School and culture industries
- US cultural studies often omits political economy and social context, focusing exclusively on text-audience relationship
-Problematics: unproblematized celebration of oppositional readings/resistance and fetishism of struggle, resistance, audience pleasure
- making visible the processes by which culture becomes dominant
- not letting cultural studies become "celebratory" and "uncritical"
- postmodern as a buzzword, undetheorized: the "postmodern sandwich" and other throwaway uses of the term
- Hebdige and neo-Gramscian theories: non-teological, no "grand plan of emancipation," but hopeful for emergence of new solidarities and radical change
Lister, pp. 219-279
New Media in Everyday Life
- not cyberspace vs. everyday life; new media permeates everyday life
- "for some observers, new media offer new creativities and possibilities; for others they reinforce and extend exisitng social constraints and power relationships"
- Emphasizing everyday life in the study of media technologies and their uses foregrounds the following key issues:
- "smart homes," ubiquitous technology, and consumerism: the home is still the privileged site of consumption
- black box theory and convergence
Theories of new media's relationship to everyday life
- Cyberculture: newness and emancipatory possibilities of consumption of digital media
- "Business as Usual": new media reinforce and extend existing power hierarchies; repressive potential of new media technologies
- Populists and postmodernists: consumer culture = only culture; no sense of technologies as "material or instrumental"
- Cultural and media studies: new media not "fundamentally distinct" from old media; not privileging consumption or production
- media technologies are not deterministic, but do invite or facilitate certain uses
- Ethnography of home computers (Mackay)
- Edutainment: clashes of "low culture" and educational materials; tension between those who argue that entertainment value "dumbs down" educational aspects and those who believe adding entertainment more effectively engages learners
- "Knowledge stock" vs. capital and intellectual property: ideas taking primacy over money and the commodification of knowledge
- Instrumental progressivism: new philosophy/methods of education and training that acknowledge "broader relations of power" in relation to technology usage
- Global networks: subjects are not autonomous, but "embroiled in networks, in intimate relationships with machines and media"
- The impact of video games
Both the Kellner and Lister readings were full of so many theories and ideas that I found it hard to keep track of everything they were discussing, so I used brief bullet point notes out of necessity; trying to summarize all their main points in sentence form seemed a rather daunting task. Despite its density, I appreciated that the Kellner article provided a historical context for the development of cultural studies, and emphasized cultural studies as a critical discipline; I've seen it too often dismissed as a flight of fancy or the pet project of a small group of intellectuals rather than an essential field for understanding societal development. I was unaware of the various strains of cultural and communications studies that have evolved into the discipline used today, which seems like a loose version of British cultural studies. My personal experience with cultural studies has been something like the neo-Gramscian model Kellner describes himself as belonging to; to me, it's very important to maintain possibilities for social change while at the same time rejecting the teleological, often deterministic view of history that I see as one of the biggest problems with Marx.
The aspect of the Lister reading that I found most interesting was the application of theories of identity formation and consumption to video games. My parents subscribed (and still subscribe) to the idea that video games are fundamentally non-educational, vapid entertainment, and never allowed me to own a game console when I was younger. As a force of habit, I still don't own one, nor do I frequently play video games. I instead channeled my desire to intervene in and control virtual situations (which Lister situates as one of the main pleasures of video games) into participating in online fan communities, a major component of which is taking characters and situations from existing "old-media" productions such as comic books and television shows (which you cannot change the content of once it has been produced) and rewriting them in a manner that satisfies the viewer (which may be an individual or the collective fan community). I'm also wondering whether this desire for control-centered play and identification with a kind of omniscient/omnipotent position stems from new media developments which enable individuals to do so, or whether it is something more instinctual. Did we want so much control over media products before we knew we could have it? Is that desire a product of increased consumerism and valuation of individual consumptive power, or is it more related to the desire to transgress the boundaries of one's own social situation and identity? This question in particular reminds me why it's so important to, as Kellner suggests, maintain a critical lens on audience participation and not simply valorize every kind of popular usage of new media technologies.
Kellner:
- Culture wars: conservatism vs. "political correctness"
- new technologies: possibility for isolation, social control
- production for profit and articulation of conflicting social positions to appeal to diff. demographics
- media culture is the dominant culture
- "new modes of experience and subjectivity"
- work declining in importance as pleasure is derived from consumption, not labor
- dominant conservative (Reagan) discourse
- "Culture has never been more important and never before have we had such a need for serious scrutiny of contemporary culture"
- 1950s on: various forms of post-structuralist theory
- postmodern nihilism vs. postmodernism of resistance
- critical social theory, practice-oriented social theory, dialectics
- cultural studies: text and context, transdisciplinary approaches
- Frankfurt School and culture industries
- - shortcomings: no analysis of political economy of culture, high/low culture binary, mass culture = pacification of audience (dulling down, brainwashing)
- - materialist
- - subverts high/low culture distinction (but tends to erase high culture)
- US cultural studies often omits political economy and social context, focusing exclusively on text-audience relationship
-Problematics: unproblematized celebration of oppositional readings/resistance and fetishism of struggle, resistance, audience pleasure
- - need for critical analysis of what kinds of opposition, struggle, pleasure are occurring
- making visible the processes by which culture becomes dominant
- not letting cultural studies become "celebratory" and "uncritical"
- postmodern as a buzzword, undetheorized: the "postmodern sandwich" and other throwaway uses of the term
- Hebdige and neo-Gramscian theories: non-teological, no "grand plan of emancipation," but hopeful for emergence of new solidarities and radical change
Lister, pp. 219-279
New Media in Everyday Life
- not cyberspace vs. everyday life; new media permeates everyday life
- "for some observers, new media offer new creativities and possibilities; for others they reinforce and extend exisitng social constraints and power relationships"
- Emphasizing everyday life in the study of media technologies and their uses foregrounds the following key issues:
- Media are the products of already existing social and economic structures and forces (Williams)
- Meanings and uses of new media are negotiated by various social agents, not fixed
- New media technologies have to find their place within more stable and established social structures often characterized by existing media
- Practices of consumption are integral to the commercial success and methods of use of new media
- "smart homes," ubiquitous technology, and consumerism: the home is still the privileged site of consumption
- black box theory and convergence
Theories of new media's relationship to everyday life
- Cyberculture: newness and emancipatory possibilities of consumption of digital media
- "Business as Usual": new media reinforce and extend existing power hierarchies; repressive potential of new media technologies
- Populists and postmodernists: consumer culture = only culture; no sense of technologies as "material or instrumental"
- Cultural and media studies: new media not "fundamentally distinct" from old media; not privileging consumption or production
- media technologies are not deterministic, but do invite or facilitate certain uses
- Ethnography of home computers (Mackay)
- the significance of consumption of ICTs for domestic lives and relationships
- how ICTs are implicated in shifting individual and family identities
- the relationship between household members' public and private worlds
- how technology (as well as the household) is transformed in processes of domestication and incorporation
- Edutainment: clashes of "low culture" and educational materials; tension between those who argue that entertainment value "dumbs down" educational aspects and those who believe adding entertainment more effectively engages learners
- "Knowledge stock" vs. capital and intellectual property: ideas taking primacy over money and the commodification of knowledge
- Instrumental progressivism: new philosophy/methods of education and training that acknowledge "broader relations of power" in relation to technology usage
- Global networks: subjects are not autonomous, but "embroiled in networks, in intimate relationships with machines and media"
- - consumption choices and identity formation
- - communication: many to many, vs. one to one (telephone) or one to many (broadcast media)
- - Personal webpages: identity construction, bricolage
- - New media is fundamentally changing identity: we are being "Borged" (so entangled with technology that we are becoming cyborgs)
- - different theories indicate various degrees of new media influence on individual and group identity
- - theory of the "virtual age": everyday life, corporeality in opposition to identity as constructed through virtual means (declining significance of the physical body as center of identity)
- - postmodernist cyberculture theory: McLuhan-influenced; "overthrow of passive consumption by interactive communication and creativity" -- technological progress as positive
- - postmodernist politics of identity theory: media as one site of constructing and contesting identity (Stuart Hall)
- - postmodernity as crisis: hyperreality and erasing of the physical, "real" world; we lose direct access to the "real world"
- - subjective change in relation to history and specific trends and eras
- - Mediated experience and or vs. lived experience
- - Case studies: cyborgs and cyberfeminism -- "Woman is a virtual reality"
- - MUDs and explorations of "ambiguity and androgyny" (but whiteness, youth, and attractiveness are still normative); performed identities not free-floating, but consciously constructed
- The impact of video games
- - "othering" of video games: anxities about impact of violence on youth; video games as encouraging antisocial behavior
- - video games presented as a problem to be solved, contrasted with educational potential of Internet, CD-ROMs
- - Instrumental vs. exploratory play and hacking as consumption
- - Huizinga: Play integral to everyday life; play = "stepping out of 'real' life into a temporary sphere of activitiy with a disposition all its own"
- - Caillois' fundamental types of play: competitive play, play involving chance, role-play, play involving shock and disorientation
- - underlying axis of adherence to strict rules vs. creative play
- - playing with video games as interactive consumption; simulations rather than representations
- - pleasure derived from intervening in/controlling the game's action
- - learning: decoding the game's controls and conventions
- - identification: identifying with the computer itself in games like SimCity, awareness of one's subjectivity as the player of a game
Both the Kellner and Lister readings were full of so many theories and ideas that I found it hard to keep track of everything they were discussing, so I used brief bullet point notes out of necessity; trying to summarize all their main points in sentence form seemed a rather daunting task. Despite its density, I appreciated that the Kellner article provided a historical context for the development of cultural studies, and emphasized cultural studies as a critical discipline; I've seen it too often dismissed as a flight of fancy or the pet project of a small group of intellectuals rather than an essential field for understanding societal development. I was unaware of the various strains of cultural and communications studies that have evolved into the discipline used today, which seems like a loose version of British cultural studies. My personal experience with cultural studies has been something like the neo-Gramscian model Kellner describes himself as belonging to; to me, it's very important to maintain possibilities for social change while at the same time rejecting the teleological, often deterministic view of history that I see as one of the biggest problems with Marx.
The aspect of the Lister reading that I found most interesting was the application of theories of identity formation and consumption to video games. My parents subscribed (and still subscribe) to the idea that video games are fundamentally non-educational, vapid entertainment, and never allowed me to own a game console when I was younger. As a force of habit, I still don't own one, nor do I frequently play video games. I instead channeled my desire to intervene in and control virtual situations (which Lister situates as one of the main pleasures of video games) into participating in online fan communities, a major component of which is taking characters and situations from existing "old-media" productions such as comic books and television shows (which you cannot change the content of once it has been produced) and rewriting them in a manner that satisfies the viewer (which may be an individual or the collective fan community). I'm also wondering whether this desire for control-centered play and identification with a kind of omniscient/omnipotent position stems from new media developments which enable individuals to do so, or whether it is something more instinctual. Did we want so much control over media products before we knew we could have it? Is that desire a product of increased consumerism and valuation of individual consumptive power, or is it more related to the desire to transgress the boundaries of one's own social situation and identity? This question in particular reminds me why it's so important to, as Kellner suggests, maintain a critical lens on audience participation and not simply valorize every kind of popular usage of new media technologies.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Henry Jenkins
"Fans, Bloggers, Gamers, and Participatory Culture" and "Welcome to Convergence Culture"
Jenkins major ideas in both of these pieces revolve around convergence and commodity culture vs. participatory culture. Jenkins identifies one theory of convergence, "the black box theory," an example of which is the modern cellphone: it collapses a multitude of gadgets into one. However, he believes that it is unlikely that ALL media will converge into one device, as some theorists have suggested. He points out that despite having things like the multi-use cellphone, people today generally have more devices than ever before: televisions, dvd players, computers, cellphones, iPods, etc., all in use simultaneously. He thus suggests that the major point of interest in convergence is participatory culture vs. commodity culture: the top-down structure of corporate production and ever-increasing media ownership consolidation vs. the grassroots, mainly Internet based phenomenon of fan/"layperson" production. He states that convergence is the "the flow of stories, ideas, information, communities, brands, intellectual properties... across media platforms," including both commercial and fan-produced properties.
Jenkins theorizes online fan communities in terms of collective knowledge; "no one knows everything, but everyone knows something," and fans pool their knowledge and resources to create online databases of knowledge and productions. He gives the example of a film critic responding to The Matrix by asking, "Is Joe Popcorn supposed to carry a Matrix concordance in his head?" According to Jenkins, the moviegoer doesn't have to, because he can utilize the collective knowledge databases of online fan communities to remember and make predictions about the plot and characters. Examples of the ways this collective knowledge has been utilized is fans figured out the entire cast, settings, and results of Survivor before the show's airing, or fans becoming bored with Twin Peaks because they could predict plot developments too easily with all the available knowledge. Jenkins also emphasizes that the complexity of today's entertainment necessitates this collective knowledge and also requires more engagement by the viewer; he cites Pokemon, where kids must remember over 200 unique characters' names, appearances, and abilities. He supports the argument presented in Everything Bad is Good for You that this complexity creates a more active and thinking consumer, and goes on to suggest that it also leads to increased participation in fandom (a large portion of which is comprised of the pooling of collective knowledge into easily accessible online databases). He also cites a potential for increasing formal educational skills, such as reading and writing, giving the example of young people writing and "beta reading" (editing) each other's Harry Potter fanfiction, which he suggests helps develop reading and writing skills in a possibly more interesting way than classroom instruction.
He goes on to describe the influence of fan participation on commercial properties, and the tension between corporate ownership and different modes of fan participation. One example he gives is fan-subbing creating an American market for Japanese animation where one had not previously existed; he also mentions the Internet's role in promoted other foreign media, such as Bollywood films and Nigerian-produced videos, as well as petitions by fans to bring back or continue canceled shows exclusively online. However, consumers' apparent willingness to pay for niche market content has not yet been embraced by media corporations; rather, they threaten lawsuits against fans who share programs (including those which have not been picked up for television or licensed for the American market). Jenkins asserts that this stance is hypocritical, as media corporations promote certain forms of fan participation (such as Marvel comics putting pictures of people dressing as The Incredible Hulk on its website) while sanctioning others (suing the developers of the game "City of Heroes" for allowing players to create a character identical to The Hulk). He also suggests that companies have been "ripping off" the intellectual property of others for a long time, citing memos from Marvel to Jack Kirby to make The Hulk look like Universal's Frankenstein. While corporations deem it acceptable to co-opt ideas from one another, they penalize fans for doing the same.
Jenkins suggests that corporations need to embrace fan participation more fully, and not underestimate the desire of fans to generate their own content. He gives examples of successful ventures such as The Sims video game franchise, the Second Life computer game, and the "30-Second Bush" user-generated ad campaign of Move-On.org, all of which depend heavily on users producing new content to keep the game/website/etc. going. Jenkins suggests that the old paradigm of corporate-media-influenced passive consumers vs. "culture-jamming" anti-corporate and media-resistant producers is deficient because it fails to incorporate the idea of fan production and co-optation facilitated by the Internet and other new media technologies; fans seek to influence and shape the media they consume rather than simply accept it or throw it out all together.
I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I have been a member of many online fan communities and continue to participate to some extent in fan communities to this day. As such, I can relate first hand to Jenkins' frustrations about media corporations resistance to certain modes of fan participation. In my opinion, if fan-produced works provide more publicity for a franchise, why would a company want to block them? I think Jenkins gets to the root of the problem, saying that it's a result of corporations applying old media paradigms to new media products. Jenkins' advocacy of fans shaping corporate content relates back to Freire, emphasizing a populist ideal of consumers (of literature, television, film, etc.) critically interpreting knowledge, rewriting it, and sending it back out into the discourse.
As I've mentioned in other blog postings, I'm also excited about Levy's idea of collective knowledge. I've never thought about how difficult it would be to follow certain programs or understand certain films without the Internet and pooled fan knowledge...I can't image trying to watch something like Heroes, which has multiple complicated plot lines, without being able to go online and catch details I missed or read others' theories about what certain scenes signify. For me, the next step in theorizing collective knowledge is how do we figure out who owns it? I'm definitely in favor of the idea of collective ownership. I was discussing this with my Economics major roommate, who agreed with me, but explained that collective ownership is inefficient because you would have to gain too many people's consent to use the image for profit. My thinking is that it's not necessary or even desirable to profit off of collective knowledge and collective productions, but perhaps that's too idealistic. I do think that removing the profit angle would encourage more experimentation and creativity when it comes to content generated by amateur artists (certainly professional artists need to be able to make a living off of their works). But with the line between professional and amateur increasingly blurred by new media technologies, what is the future of art?
Jenkins major ideas in both of these pieces revolve around convergence and commodity culture vs. participatory culture. Jenkins identifies one theory of convergence, "the black box theory," an example of which is the modern cellphone: it collapses a multitude of gadgets into one. However, he believes that it is unlikely that ALL media will converge into one device, as some theorists have suggested. He points out that despite having things like the multi-use cellphone, people today generally have more devices than ever before: televisions, dvd players, computers, cellphones, iPods, etc., all in use simultaneously. He thus suggests that the major point of interest in convergence is participatory culture vs. commodity culture: the top-down structure of corporate production and ever-increasing media ownership consolidation vs. the grassroots, mainly Internet based phenomenon of fan/"layperson" production. He states that convergence is the "the flow of stories, ideas, information, communities, brands, intellectual properties... across media platforms," including both commercial and fan-produced properties.
Jenkins theorizes online fan communities in terms of collective knowledge; "no one knows everything, but everyone knows something," and fans pool their knowledge and resources to create online databases of knowledge and productions. He gives the example of a film critic responding to The Matrix by asking, "Is Joe Popcorn supposed to carry a Matrix concordance in his head?" According to Jenkins, the moviegoer doesn't have to, because he can utilize the collective knowledge databases of online fan communities to remember and make predictions about the plot and characters. Examples of the ways this collective knowledge has been utilized is fans figured out the entire cast, settings, and results of Survivor before the show's airing, or fans becoming bored with Twin Peaks because they could predict plot developments too easily with all the available knowledge. Jenkins also emphasizes that the complexity of today's entertainment necessitates this collective knowledge and also requires more engagement by the viewer; he cites Pokemon, where kids must remember over 200 unique characters' names, appearances, and abilities. He supports the argument presented in Everything Bad is Good for You that this complexity creates a more active and thinking consumer, and goes on to suggest that it also leads to increased participation in fandom (a large portion of which is comprised of the pooling of collective knowledge into easily accessible online databases). He also cites a potential for increasing formal educational skills, such as reading and writing, giving the example of young people writing and "beta reading" (editing) each other's Harry Potter fanfiction, which he suggests helps develop reading and writing skills in a possibly more interesting way than classroom instruction.
He goes on to describe the influence of fan participation on commercial properties, and the tension between corporate ownership and different modes of fan participation. One example he gives is fan-subbing creating an American market for Japanese animation where one had not previously existed; he also mentions the Internet's role in promoted other foreign media, such as Bollywood films and Nigerian-produced videos, as well as petitions by fans to bring back or continue canceled shows exclusively online. However, consumers' apparent willingness to pay for niche market content has not yet been embraced by media corporations; rather, they threaten lawsuits against fans who share programs (including those which have not been picked up for television or licensed for the American market). Jenkins asserts that this stance is hypocritical, as media corporations promote certain forms of fan participation (such as Marvel comics putting pictures of people dressing as The Incredible Hulk on its website) while sanctioning others (suing the developers of the game "City of Heroes" for allowing players to create a character identical to The Hulk). He also suggests that companies have been "ripping off" the intellectual property of others for a long time, citing memos from Marvel to Jack Kirby to make The Hulk look like Universal's Frankenstein. While corporations deem it acceptable to co-opt ideas from one another, they penalize fans for doing the same.
Jenkins suggests that corporations need to embrace fan participation more fully, and not underestimate the desire of fans to generate their own content. He gives examples of successful ventures such as The Sims video game franchise, the Second Life computer game, and the "30-Second Bush" user-generated ad campaign of Move-On.org, all of which depend heavily on users producing new content to keep the game/website/etc. going. Jenkins suggests that the old paradigm of corporate-media-influenced passive consumers vs. "culture-jamming" anti-corporate and media-resistant producers is deficient because it fails to incorporate the idea of fan production and co-optation facilitated by the Internet and other new media technologies; fans seek to influence and shape the media they consume rather than simply accept it or throw it out all together.
I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I have been a member of many online fan communities and continue to participate to some extent in fan communities to this day. As such, I can relate first hand to Jenkins' frustrations about media corporations resistance to certain modes of fan participation. In my opinion, if fan-produced works provide more publicity for a franchise, why would a company want to block them? I think Jenkins gets to the root of the problem, saying that it's a result of corporations applying old media paradigms to new media products. Jenkins' advocacy of fans shaping corporate content relates back to Freire, emphasizing a populist ideal of consumers (of literature, television, film, etc.) critically interpreting knowledge, rewriting it, and sending it back out into the discourse.
As I've mentioned in other blog postings, I'm also excited about Levy's idea of collective knowledge. I've never thought about how difficult it would be to follow certain programs or understand certain films without the Internet and pooled fan knowledge...I can't image trying to watch something like Heroes, which has multiple complicated plot lines, without being able to go online and catch details I missed or read others' theories about what certain scenes signify. For me, the next step in theorizing collective knowledge is how do we figure out who owns it? I'm definitely in favor of the idea of collective ownership. I was discussing this with my Economics major roommate, who agreed with me, but explained that collective ownership is inefficient because you would have to gain too many people's consent to use the image for profit. My thinking is that it's not necessary or even desirable to profit off of collective knowledge and collective productions, but perhaps that's too idealistic. I do think that removing the profit angle would encourage more experimentation and creativity when it comes to content generated by amateur artists (certainly professional artists need to be able to make a living off of their works). But with the line between professional and amateur increasingly blurred by new media technologies, what is the future of art?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)