In Henry Jenkins’ words, convergence culture relates to a change in the “ways media circulates.” To elaborate, the word “circulate” is meant as a blanket term for the way media is created, changed over time, perceived, and put out to the public. The word “media” is also a blanket term, referring to the obvious media platforms (old media like print and tv and radio, new media like the web) as well as products themselves and information (about products and opinions of products).
Essentially, "convergence" is when things come together and combine. In convergence culture, consumers are no longer mere passive viewers- they are active participators and they are able to give their feedback and therefore contribute to the current and future media.
Convergence culture can describe many different situations. The examples provided in Jenkins’ book include the phenomenon of fans trying to figure out the ending of the show Survivor. This is only one example, and nowadays the concept of convergence culture is stronger than ever. I keep thinking about the example from that movie we watched earlier in the semester, in which the fan girl was obsessed with the Hunger Games and was a huge contributor to their advertising simply by sharing her obsession over social media and participating in contests. Social media especially is one way that participators, or consumers, are able to discuss and share information and opinions about the past, present, and future of a product or piece of media.
Participators can literally influence how a show will end, or how a product will be changed, or how a website will be edited. Our opinions matter more in more in this new convergence culture, because we are the viewers/audience and we are now able to easily reach out and provide our feedback. I think that creative engagement is when a consumer is able to give their creative input (you can find some unique and creative feedback on comments and reviews!)
We are engaging by forming communities online- communities especially can prove that something deserves a change because whole online communities may end up agreeing on a creative idea or suggestion. We are engaging by social media, just as I said above. Social media involves comments and free-willed opinions.
Sometimes we are even straight up asked to contribute, either when companies or media ask for feedback (especially on websites) or when consumers are encouraged to participate in a contest or a use a hashtag.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Sunday, November 16, 2014
3 Ideas for Cutting Down on Illegal Downloading of Media
While we were talking in class about the topic of illegal downloading of music/movies/media, I really began to think about how none of us felt “guilty” for committing these “crimes.” Why is that? Like we said, the only thing that may stop us from downloading music for free is the risk of getting a computer virus. Not one of us felt that we were negatively influencing artists or the music industry, etc.
I truly think the only thing that would change our minds would be to flat out show us how someone out there would be negatively impacted.
Maybe the government, or the music industry or the film industry could create advertisements warning against illegal downloading. These ads would not be vague, like “pirating is not a victimless crime”: it would be specific. Perhaps these ads could be “documentary” style, following a small artist who simply cannot make money off of his/her passion due to illegal sharing/downloading. We may be surprised by the influence that our activities have on a personal life, rather than assuming that concert sales, etc. will “make up” for our wrongdoings.
Another idea that may help eliminate illegal downloading would be to put the situation in a metaphor. When I think of intellectual property, I think about any work that I create (art, papers for school), NOT work that a music artist or film producer makes. Ads could say: “How would you feel if you wrote a paper for a scholarship, and then hundreds of other students were able to download your paper and use it for the same scholarship?” This makes you realize that the concept of intellectual property applies to everyone, even people in the music and film industries.
One last idea that I’ve come up with involves the big names themselves. People like Taylor Swift are assumed to be sitting on so much money, that it feels stupid to worry about the $10 she will lose out on an album when we illegally download it. But I am sure that it affects her too: maybe less so money-wise, and more so intellectual-property-wise. A big name like Taylor Swift could be interviewed, and explain in humble terms that her work is just as important to her (creatively & emotionally) as it was when she first started out. She could talk about how it still takes her just as much time to come up with lyrics as it did when she was a teenager. This type of talk would put an emotional value on the music, rather than a monetary value. When we buy an album, we will see it as a way of respecting an artist’s work that they put love, effort, and creativity into.
I truly think the only thing that would change our minds would be to flat out show us how someone out there would be negatively impacted.
Maybe the government, or the music industry or the film industry could create advertisements warning against illegal downloading. These ads would not be vague, like “pirating is not a victimless crime”: it would be specific. Perhaps these ads could be “documentary” style, following a small artist who simply cannot make money off of his/her passion due to illegal sharing/downloading. We may be surprised by the influence that our activities have on a personal life, rather than assuming that concert sales, etc. will “make up” for our wrongdoings.
Another idea that may help eliminate illegal downloading would be to put the situation in a metaphor. When I think of intellectual property, I think about any work that I create (art, papers for school), NOT work that a music artist or film producer makes. Ads could say: “How would you feel if you wrote a paper for a scholarship, and then hundreds of other students were able to download your paper and use it for the same scholarship?” This makes you realize that the concept of intellectual property applies to everyone, even people in the music and film industries.
One last idea that I’ve come up with involves the big names themselves. People like Taylor Swift are assumed to be sitting on so much money, that it feels stupid to worry about the $10 she will lose out on an album when we illegally download it. But I am sure that it affects her too: maybe less so money-wise, and more so intellectual-property-wise. A big name like Taylor Swift could be interviewed, and explain in humble terms that her work is just as important to her (creatively & emotionally) as it was when she first started out. She could talk about how it still takes her just as much time to come up with lyrics as it did when she was a teenager. This type of talk would put an emotional value on the music, rather than a monetary value. When we buy an album, we will see it as a way of respecting an artist’s work that they put love, effort, and creativity into.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Privacy vs Personalization
We don’t tend to think of the words “privacy” and “personalization” to be opposites. But in the article, “Privacy-Enhanced Personalization”, the author Alred Kobsa, proves that these concepts can but heads, so to speak. In other words, their argument is that personalization on the Internet can sacrifice privacy. The article begins by explaining how “personalization” (an example: product suggestions on websites as you shop online) is a win-win: consumers value it (easier shopping experience, you feel special, etc.), and businesses profit from it (it may influence us to buy more products). But there is a catch: privacy is also a huge concern for consumers. However, the level of concern for privacy differs among different types of people. People have been grouped into 3 groups based on their degree of concern for privacy: the Privacy Fundamentalists (those who are extremely concerned about privacy), the Privacy Unconcerned (those who do not have much concern at all for privacy), and those in the middle, the Privacy Pragmatists. More people fall into the Privacy Pragmatists group than the other two (the ratio of people in these groups is reported in the article as 1:1:2).
Different factors affect people’s perception of a website. They are more willing to trust a website (and therefore feel less like personalization poses a privacy issue) due to factors like:
-personality
-culture (According to the article, people in the US are more concerned about online privacy than people in India)
-trust in the website (factors like positive past experience, website design, reputation, privacy statement and/or seal)
-they are only willing to disclose some information (demographic info but not Social Security number or contact info)
The end of the article was a description of ways to make privacy and personalization meet in the middle. The solutions proposed included Privacy Laws, the Principles of Fair Information Practices, client-side personalization instead of server-side, and even the simple technique of users having pseudonyms instead of using or disclosing their real names/identities.
After reading this article, I have one question to pose regarding privacy: Is our generation at more of a risk of losing our online privacy than older generations? It’s not that we don’t care about privacy or other important safety factors online, but are we at more of a risk, even due to our increased time spent online? We use nearly all the social media sites, we spend hours online daily. All of the sites we use give us extremely lengthy Terms of Agreement, which we simply accept in order to get on with our lives. Is this going to bite us in the long run? What do you think?
Different factors affect people’s perception of a website. They are more willing to trust a website (and therefore feel less like personalization poses a privacy issue) due to factors like:
-personality
-culture (According to the article, people in the US are more concerned about online privacy than people in India)
-trust in the website (factors like positive past experience, website design, reputation, privacy statement and/or seal)
-they are only willing to disclose some information (demographic info but not Social Security number or contact info)
The end of the article was a description of ways to make privacy and personalization meet in the middle. The solutions proposed included Privacy Laws, the Principles of Fair Information Practices, client-side personalization instead of server-side, and even the simple technique of users having pseudonyms instead of using or disclosing their real names/identities.
After reading this article, I have one question to pose regarding privacy: Is our generation at more of a risk of losing our online privacy than older generations? It’s not that we don’t care about privacy or other important safety factors online, but are we at more of a risk, even due to our increased time spent online? We use nearly all the social media sites, we spend hours online daily. All of the sites we use give us extremely lengthy Terms of Agreement, which we simply accept in order to get on with our lives. Is this going to bite us in the long run? What do you think?
Thursday, October 23, 2014
New Media and Technology
The article- A Unified Version of London 2012: New-Media Coverage of Gender, Nationality, and Sport for Olympic Consumers in Six Countries (from the Journal of Sport Management, found in the AppState Library database) is about the influence that new media has had on the coverage of The Olympics. Even though I am not a huge fan of sports, I am obviously in the minority as everyone else I know loves sports and watches the Olympics every year. This topic is a really good example to use when talking about the influence that media has on our culture, because sports and the Olympics are a large and important part of our culture.
The article begins by describing the importance of media coverage on the Olympics (most people are not able to actually attend the event, so they rely on media coverage). This aspect relates to the importance of media in general, but especially new media because now we are not bound by transportation/geography to receive current, real-time information.
Then the article describes the way that traditional media (defined in this article as print-magazine and newspaper- and broadcast-TV- media) has chosen what sports are covered and in what light (as we know in the Communications field as 'agenda-setting theory'). The example they provide is how women's sports were not given much coverage, therefore deeming them not as important as male sports.
Now, with new media (defined in the article as internet coverage), all sports are covered and in a more equal light. Now there are less issues with equality regarding what sports are covered, how gender is portrayed, and how nationalities are portrayed.
In my opinion, this article strongly relates to the idea that new media is able to reorganize culture. People no longer simply "consume" the information they are fed from the TV/newspaper. Surely people are able to give feedback/comments on online news sources. That is my personal explanation for why online news has changed the content of Olympics coverage. That would explain how interactivity in new media can influence the messages we receive. As Marshall McLuhan said, "The Media is the Message".
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Network Laws and Information in 5 Years
In class we learned about a few network “laws” or in other words, concepts about the value of a network.
We can all agree that generally, a larger network with more users will be more valuable (in regards to advertising dollars- something that I want to focus on as an Advertising major). So a wide-area network will probably have more value to advertisers than a local area network.
Not only does a network gain value when a user is connected to it, but there is also value when a user connects with other users. However, I do not think that this value is exponential. Therefore, I disagree with Reed’s Law. On the other side of the spectrum, Sarnoff’s Law doesn’t even consider the value of users connecting to one another, so this law is lacking as well.
Overall, even though there are flaws, I do think that Metcalfe’s Law is probably the best one. This law considers all potential connections/relationships on a network. What I like about this law is that it shows how many connections could be made possible. But if someone was using Metcalfe’s Law to analyze a network’s value, they should strongly consider the fact that not all connections will occur.
Right now, people gain information through several sources, including wirelessly. It is very hard to say how people will get information 5 years from now. Maybe a new technology will replace the Internet in the next five years! 5 years ago I did not expect that I would ever have a smartphone, even when iphones had just been put on the market. I viewed smartphones as something with many flaws (touchscreens seemed so finicky, why have all that on your phone when you can have several devices that do specialized tasks, like a nice digital camera). I have learned not to be surprised by new technologies. When my dad was in college, he studied graphic design. His degree was almost immediately made obsolete when he graduated because shortly after the new computer programs for graphic designing were invented. Huge technological changes can occur very quickly!
If I use my imagination to dream up our future in 5 years, I would say that maybe people didn’t use small cellphones at all anymore and phones gradually became about the size of an ipad/tablet. For some reason, the larger screen sizes seem to be the biggest trend lately for smartphones. Maybe talking on the phone will be more of a separate entity, like a similar idea to bluetooths.
We can all agree that generally, a larger network with more users will be more valuable (in regards to advertising dollars- something that I want to focus on as an Advertising major). So a wide-area network will probably have more value to advertisers than a local area network.
Not only does a network gain value when a user is connected to it, but there is also value when a user connects with other users. However, I do not think that this value is exponential. Therefore, I disagree with Reed’s Law. On the other side of the spectrum, Sarnoff’s Law doesn’t even consider the value of users connecting to one another, so this law is lacking as well.
Overall, even though there are flaws, I do think that Metcalfe’s Law is probably the best one. This law considers all potential connections/relationships on a network. What I like about this law is that it shows how many connections could be made possible. But if someone was using Metcalfe’s Law to analyze a network’s value, they should strongly consider the fact that not all connections will occur.
Right now, people gain information through several sources, including wirelessly. It is very hard to say how people will get information 5 years from now. Maybe a new technology will replace the Internet in the next five years! 5 years ago I did not expect that I would ever have a smartphone, even when iphones had just been put on the market. I viewed smartphones as something with many flaws (touchscreens seemed so finicky, why have all that on your phone when you can have several devices that do specialized tasks, like a nice digital camera). I have learned not to be surprised by new technologies. When my dad was in college, he studied graphic design. His degree was almost immediately made obsolete when he graduated because shortly after the new computer programs for graphic designing were invented. Huge technological changes can occur very quickly!
If I use my imagination to dream up our future in 5 years, I would say that maybe people didn’t use small cellphones at all anymore and phones gradually became about the size of an ipad/tablet. For some reason, the larger screen sizes seem to be the biggest trend lately for smartphones. Maybe talking on the phone will be more of a separate entity, like a similar idea to bluetooths.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Why We Blog
“Why We Blog” is a report on a study conducted by Nardi, Shiano, Gumbrecht and Shwartz which investigates the reasons why people blog. Surprisingly, they were able to find many bloggers with varied motives for blogging around the Stanford University area. The researchers organized their findings into 5 reasons why people blog. These areas include documenting everyday life, making comments and opinions, expressing personal emotions, writing ideas, and keeping up with an online community. Each one of these 5 reasons was thoroughly explained, with several examples. They found that nearly all the bloggers had personally-set limits to what material they would share on their blog. They also found that one advantage to blogging is the lack of one specific audience member, as opposed to emailing. By writing to no one in particular, blogs are only read by choice (as Lara, one of the bloggers described in the report says, ‘no one is forced to pay attention’).
Considering that this report was published in 2004, it is interesting that so many people were blogging in that one area. The bloggers seemed to have very clear understandings of their blogs’ purposes. I am surprised by this clarity because blogging was a relatively new concept at the time (I think?).
The 5 reasons to blog seem to be the same today as they were then. My all-time favorite blog, A Cup of Jo, written by Joanna Goddard, may be classified under many of these reasons. A lot of her posts do document her daily activities, especially big life-steps with her two sons and her marriage. But I don’t necessarily think she documents her life for her family/friends to “keep up”- I think a lot of it has to do with her nation-wide audience’s interest in her life. Her readers, including me, are fascinated by her sons beautiful faces and their upbringing in NYC. We are excited to see glimpses of her apartment décor, etc. And Joanna doesn’t mind sharing these details with her readers. I adore her and I think I would treat her like a celebrity if I saw her in real life. But when I read her blog, I think of her as a friend, someone normal who is trying to figure things out (she asks us for advice on her apartment wall color and where to take her boys on mother-son dates). So clearly, her blog does document her life. But her blog does other things too: like I said, she does have an online community between her blog and her readers (but also between her blog and other blogs). She shares (noncontroversial and respectful) opinions of things like NY legalizing gay marriage.
Overall, my main observation is that the 5 reasons to blog, as described in the report, are still very accurate. Every blog has a purpose and I think every reason to blog is a good reason :)
Considering that this report was published in 2004, it is interesting that so many people were blogging in that one area. The bloggers seemed to have very clear understandings of their blogs’ purposes. I am surprised by this clarity because blogging was a relatively new concept at the time (I think?).
The 5 reasons to blog seem to be the same today as they were then. My all-time favorite blog, A Cup of Jo, written by Joanna Goddard, may be classified under many of these reasons. A lot of her posts do document her daily activities, especially big life-steps with her two sons and her marriage. But I don’t necessarily think she documents her life for her family/friends to “keep up”- I think a lot of it has to do with her nation-wide audience’s interest in her life. Her readers, including me, are fascinated by her sons beautiful faces and their upbringing in NYC. We are excited to see glimpses of her apartment décor, etc. And Joanna doesn’t mind sharing these details with her readers. I adore her and I think I would treat her like a celebrity if I saw her in real life. But when I read her blog, I think of her as a friend, someone normal who is trying to figure things out (she asks us for advice on her apartment wall color and where to take her boys on mother-son dates). So clearly, her blog does document her life. But her blog does other things too: like I said, she does have an online community between her blog and her readers (but also between her blog and other blogs). She shares (noncontroversial and respectful) opinions of things like NY legalizing gay marriage.
Overall, my main observation is that the 5 reasons to blog, as described in the report, are still very accurate. Every blog has a purpose and I think every reason to blog is a good reason :)
Thursday, September 11, 2014
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