Main Blog Post 5: Week 11 Question B

Medosch argues that: “piracy, despite being an entirely commercially motivated activity carried out in black or grey markets, fulfills culturally important functions” (Reader, page 318), give an example online.

I agree with Medosch’s argument that the word ‘piracy’ is not all the time stand for bad morality, sometimes, and especially for those people who live in the third world, ‘piracy’ means the only way to access to other cultures, or in Medosch words, “fulfills culturally important functions” (2008:81).

Medosch argues that historically, piracy has developed in South East Asia when “colonial powers created a monopoly or oligopoly which robbed people of their livelihoods and left them no other chance” (2008:80), and Medosch further explains that contemporary principle of piracy is quite similar with the old sense, since “large media corporations stifle local cultural productions by completely taking over marketing and distribution channels”, therefore, for local media business, it’s very hard to survive under the pressure of large media monopoly the market, as a result, there are less local goods and cultural diverse produced (Medosch 2008:80), as we can see in today’s film market, there are full of Hollywood production, no matter in which region, except America, there are lack of local movie produced.

Anyways, back to piracy, Medosch found that in the East, “every major city has its pirate market” (2008:80), and as a citizen of Republic of China, I have to admit that Medosch’s statement is true. From my own experience, once I planned to buy some piracy DVDs in Beijing’s pirate market, I found that those piracy DVDs are all mystical disappeared, but after I asked the seller where I can purchase them, he took me to the back of his store, and told me that since the police always raid on them, they have to hide them appropriately, and waiting for customer enquire. There are definitely people who with “mortality” will criticize the person like me who support the piracy market, Medosch has argued for us that “piracy fulfils an important role by giving access to cultural goods which otherwise would be completely unavailable to the vast majority of people” (2008:81).  

The film which is directed by He JianJun supported Medosch’s argument effectively. Art movie is prohibited by Chinese government since they considered it relates to pornography and not appropriate for under age people to watch, the scene the seller argued with the policeman whether the movie In the Realm of the Senses is pornography or not demonstrates people desire to access other cultures freely rather than the law allow them to access.  Another example Medosch addresses in his article is in Brazil’s favelas, the only way for slum-dwellers to access to modern communication technologies is to go to “LAN houses”, use black market computers and pirated software to achieve their “civil rights and get better chance on the labor market” (2008:82).

Overall, there is not all bad aspects of piracy, despite n there are people use it to make commercial profits, and make thousands of people lose their jobs, but there are still aspects we can consider it is “good”, especially when “it gives people access to information and cultural goods they had otherwise no chance of obtaining” (Medosch 2008:81).   

 

Bibliography:

Armin Medosch, ‘Paid in Full: Copyright, Piracy and the Real Currency of Cultural Production’, in Deptforth. TV Diaries II: Pirate Strategies, London: Deptforth TV, 2008, pp.73-97.

Henry, “Pirated Copy by He Jianjun” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuNsMzSZVE4  accessed 30 May 2011, dated 14 Mar 2010.

Main Blog Post 4: Week 9 Question A

Burgess and Green argue that: ordinary people who become celebrities through their own creative efforts “remain within the system of celebrity native to, and controlled by, the mass media”, give an example of a YouTube video.

Burgess and Green have argued that the emergence of YouTube represents a disruption to existing media business models, and a new media power is emerging with it (2009:14). YouTube launches a platform for many amateur videos, while there are many ‘stars’ emerging with their talent and creative videos. As a result, many analysts compare these YouTube ‘stars’ to celebrities, but Burgess and Green still argue that “ordinary people who become celebrities through their own creative efforts remain controlled by the mass media” (2009:23). I agree with Burgess and Green’s argument since these citizen celebrities still unable to “pass through the gate-keeping mechanisms of old media” (Burgess & Green, 2009:24).

Celebrities are often famous for famous. They attract the public media attention basically through the mass media, in the form of TV, radio, and the coverage of newspaper, even in this computerization era, celebrities owns their own blogs to self-promote their selves, in this way, celebrities are inevitable controlled by the mainstream media. According to Nick Couldry (2003:37), in the mainstream media, for ordinary people, there is inequality to “gain access to the modes of representation of the mass media”, although the “ordinary world” are disguise and reproduce the “media world”, to pursue the same attention that celebrities get. Grossman explains the meaning of amateur video as “a common assumption underlying the most celebratory accounts of the democratization of cultural production is that raw talent combined with digital distribution can convert directly to legitimate success and media fame” (2006a,2006b). However, in Burgess and Green’s view, they see these potential celebrities represent as ‘demoticization’ rather than ‘democratization’ (2009:23), which means that ‘ordinary celebrities’ just relies on the existing structures of celebrities in media culture, in another words, they can’t be ‘famous’ in an alternative way, they are produced and captured by the mainstream media, just like celebrities native to play to mass market interests (Burgess & Green, 2009: 23).

The example I choose from YouTube video is “Leave Britney Alone”, this video achieve a huge success in YouTube which gains nearly forty million hits by now. Burgess and Green argue that there are YouTube celebrities who are famous for being “notorious, obnoxious, or annoying” (2009:24), the creator Chris Crocker is certainly one of them. Throughout his video, I hear nothing important except his annoying crying voices, and I couldn’t recognize his gender when I first watch the video, and I also found there are many people asking about his gender in their comments. If Chris Crocker would be considered as a ‘celebrity’, he will only achieved by ongoing status keep participating in YouTube. As a result, YouTubers who own ‘celebrities dream’ like Chris will hardly to achieve, since the mainstream media won’t recognize such unvalued person. Chris Croker will only be mentioned by the public when they need funny materials.

Bibliography:

1. Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, ‘YouTube and The Mainstream Media’ in YouTube: Online and Participatory Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009, pp.15-37
2. 2.      Nick Couldry and James Curran Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World, Rowman & Littlefield Publish, 2003, pp. 37.
3. Grossman, L. (2006a, Times best inventions. [Electronic version]. Times Magazine, Retrieved November 21, 2007.
4. Grossman, L. (2006b). Time’s person of the year: You. Times Magazine, (December 13, 2006) Retrieved November 21, 2007.
5. Chris Crocker, “Leave Britney Alone”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc  accessed 30 May 2011, dated 10 September 2007.

Main Blog Post 3: Week 8 Question

Alan Lui discusses the use of visual metaphors from older media in web design and argues that such metaphors “naturalize the limitations of the new medium by disguising them within those of older media” (Reader, page 228).

 

Alan Lui argued in his article ‘Information Is Style’ that metaphor from new media is disguising those within the older media (2004:228), and Lui also claims the standard of really cool pages are: “those that understand the disturbance inherent in the medium so well that they do not attempt to accommodate them with a fiction of elegant harmony but instead make disturbance their medium” (2004:228). The reason that we enjoy to surf online is we do not limited by the condition of spatial and temporal which the old media has. However, there are still websites pursuing the harmony with the old media, and can’t design a really cool web pages.

Herald Sun Online (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/) is an example of such use of visual metaphor in new media, as the online version of one of the Australia famous newspaper, and it is basically mimic the daily newspaper itself. As we opening its ‘homepage’, the sections divide is basically upon its daily newspaper, for instance “Sport”, “Entertainment”, “Business”, “Travel”, “Lifestyle” and so on. These sections are settled by ‘older media’ newspaper since the limitation of space. Printed newspaper divided so many volumes just like the “shatters of glass”, the clever online version should make it looks “transparent notion of clarity” (Lui, 2004:227). In addition, readers are able to see the overview features of daily news on the website as the printed newspaper do, but we still unable to read the whole content of them in one page. Lui suggested rather than “lock content into fixed width designs”, the website like Herald Sun Online should make it as “a liquid page” which means that make the web page appears “equally attractive on narrow and wide screens”, easily expanding and contracting the unitary page, and make the content and the form looks “naturally converge” (2004:227).

The websites like Herald Sun Online should avoid “naturalized” through its daily newspaper’s structural restriction, otherwise the relationship between Herald Sun Online and it’s  hard copy newspapers will like “a TV with channel controls, and a jukebox with selections that light as the cursor clicks on the buttons” (Lui, 2004: 228), it does convenience us by scrolling the mouse rather than turn pages physically, but it does not really change the intrinsic of the older media’s limitation, and it is really not COOL in this context.

Bibliography:

Alan Lui, ‘Information is Style’, in Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, pp. 195-230

Main Blog Post 2: Week 7 Question B

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

Lovink (2007) has strongly criticized the web blogging in his article ‘Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse’, he argued that ‘blogs lead to decay’ (2007, p5), and he sees most anonymous blogs merely self-promotion, they are lack of an ability to do enough research and investigative journalism (2007, p38). I agree with him in some aspects that Lovink has suggested in his article. I have to admit that citizen bloggers often interested in rumors and news scoops, and what most bloggers do is repeat the content in op-eds and letters, and post them in their personal blogs. There are rarely bloggers will do a depth research and claim personal opinions of it and have a thorough conversation with their readers.  

Glenn Reynolds has stated that ‘a good blog is a personal voice and a rapid response time’ (2007, p59). However, there is a common sense among bloggers that they wish their blogs can be as ‘hot’ as possible, and there can be as much as ‘hits’ as possible, as a result, the blog website become a platform to show off the bloggers their self, but not much substance message contain in it. For example, Lovink has addressed a quote in his article: ‘Hi, I’m a reader. I’ve recently started a blog of my own at blogspot.com, and I wonder if you’d consider adding a link to me” (2007, p28). People ask for payback as a reader of your blog, and it becomes a trend in worldwide blogs now. The second point that Reynolds has mentioned is ‘a rapid response time’ (2007, p59), but it seems like it is too hard to achieve for most amateur bloggers, because people have to ‘spend a great deal time policing the posts, and seeding out spam and trolls’ (Lovink 2007, p28), and if you leave the comments section open, you have to answer the endless technical question form the registrants as well. Therefore, we can see now many blogs choose to switch off their ‘comment’ section, and do not have any interactivity with their readers. This would make the intention of starting a blog meaningless since there is no conversation between the writer and the reader (Kline 2005, p130).

Even though I agree with most of the bad aspects of blogging as Lovink suggested, but I still support amateur bloggers just like you and me should keep blogging, not only for ‘manage the self’, but also to share life experiences and happiness to others. Because when sometimes if I see new born baby’s picture that my friend posted in her blog, I will feel very warm and optimistic, especially when I was upset. Therefore, if people record something that is health and positive in their personal blogs, I think it should be encouraged, but back to words, if people spread the fake messages and just for show off in their blogs, I agree with Lovink that there is no necessarily to blog any more.

Bibliography:

1. Lovink, Geert. (2007). ‘Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse’, in Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture. Routledge: London.
2. Reynolds G. An Army of Davids: ‘How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths’. Nashville, Tenn.: Nelson Current; 2006.
3. David Kline, Dan Burstein, Blog!, New York: CDS Books 2005, 130

Main Blog Post 1: week 4 Question

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

Traditionally, the public was usually informed by traditional news media, which is symbolized by print media, TV and radio. However, with the increasing opportunities for amateur cultural production, blogs become a platform to provide anonymous offer contesting points of view and alternative opinions. In Russell’s article ‘Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Participation’ (2008), he argued that ‘traditional news media practices and digital communication tools are resulting in paradox and contradiction’ (2008, p66). Generally I do not think bloggers more effectively inform the public than traditional news media at the most of time since there are definitely exceptions for this in our society today.

The mass media was acted as a ‘watchdog’ traditionally since it kept politicians in check, each coverage need to consider government censorship and it limited the flow of information and opinions (Russell, 2008, p69). With the DIY media getting more and more popular among the public, this new type of media is celebrated by scholars such as Benkler, he suggests that the network, with its “variation and diversity of knowledge, time, availability, insight and experience as well as vast communication and information” (2006, p ix). As Russell claims, with the complexities of the networked environment, audience simply divided the media into two spheres: new and old media, and the circumstance is becoming that the two spheres are often trying to against each other (2008, p66). As a result, there is contradiction occur just as I mentioned in the beginning.  

 The reason that I don’t think bloggers can inform the public better because of the following reasons: first of all, many of blogs are lack of research and deep exploration. Russell has mentioned a case study in his article that during the France riots, people use sophisticated ways to tell the story in personal blogs (2008, p69). It will affected people’s judgment about the truth, since the Web can’t distinguish the real and fake news story, it is very easy to misleading the public of the facts. Secondly, many reporters’ blogs are “giving voice to the already-voiced” (Stewart, 2005). There are a lot traditional news media use the internet as a new distribution channel, and successful newspaper blogs acted as an extension of their op-ed pages, however, unsuccessful reporters’ blogs are same as what is has been published, since they are lack of heighten engagement to the readers, these blogs rarely make readers to leave comments, and there are even comments replied hostilely (Russell, 2008, p68).

Thirdly, people can blog only when it is accessible. It is result inequality of express people’s own opinion through the internet, therefore, even the internet let more people get a chance to express their ideas, there are still a number of people don’t have the chance to say.

 Overall, I am not deny that blogs bring the public more information and sources, and it provides a platform to make all voices can be heard when it is accessible. However, there are still weaknesses of blogging to inform the public at this stage, limitation and regulation action of those spreading illegal and fake messages’ blogs need to be taken in the future in order to better inform the public.

 Bibliography:

 Adrienne Russell, Mizuko Ito, Todd Richmond and Marc Tuters, ‘Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Culture’, in Kazys Varenlis (ed.) Networked Publics Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008, pp. 43-76.

Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)

 Media Guerrilla, ‘Jon Stewart/Daily Show on Watching The Watchers,” Media Gorilla blog, http://www.mguerrilla.com/media_guerrilla/2005/05/jon_stewartdail.html.