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Enhanced Connectivity of the Television

Industries have had to adapt to interactive audiences in a way that accommodates them to have a sense of connectedness over the text they are engaging with. In order to have economic power, industries need to be prepared to share cultural power. Due to the affordances of the Internet over the past 10-15 years we are now at a point where the ubiquity of highly networked audiences on technological devices are creating a mode of production where the once passive information receivers are now engaged information producers (Sullivan 2013). ‘Produser’ is now a term used to describe the audience who produces and consumes media (Turnball 2010).

Audience members of television shows no longer have to watch the show at a set time, alone or with only household members. Consider the Biggest Loser, where audience members can watch the show on free-to-air, DVR’s, downloading or from box sets (Sullivan 2013). Complementing this Channel Tens’ Biggest Loser website has previously aired episodes and a range of other resources available. In addition to being able to access the show when and where the audience likes, the show also has social media accounts that facilitate the ability of the audience to receive instantaneous feedback from producers and other audience members (Sullivan 2013). The Biggest Loser Twitter account has 17. 9K followers where fans of the show join in on conversations with people all over Australia who have interest in the show.   

The Biggest Loser is an example that unveils how a commercial television show can remain relevant and powerful in a highly connected environment. This interaction of commercial producers and audiences has increased the social and cultural power of the audience and at the same time increasing economic value for the producers. Take for example the Biggest Loser Club on the website, an online weight loss program for the audience that empowers them to lose 6 kilos in 6 weeks from a personalised program (The Biggest Loser 2014).  This program is purchased online, increasing revenue for producers, and consumed by audience members, increasing their social and cultural power over the show- where they can be a ‘biggest loser’ without being on the television show. Instead they can talk about their experiences, opinions etc it on social media sites, such as Twitter

 Producers need to utilise social media and user-generated content to maintain visibility and encourage participation, to maintain a degree of power in a media environment were audiences now have more power to contribute to and change media texts (Burgess & Banks 2010).  Sullivan (2010) explains have more social and cultural power over the media they consume. Audience members of the Biggest Loser can now engage with the show in their own time and way. For example some might only engage with the series to watch contestants journey of loosing weight and others might use the resources on the website and social media sites to facilitate their own weight loss journey.

 All of the different options to engage with shows that encourage mass conversation, forces producers and industries of these ‘traditional television shows’ to appreciate and encourage a complex symbiotic relationship between the two forms of new and old media (Harrington 2013). The biggest loser and all the new media options that come with it, a proof that television can be a highly social medium that can bring family members or even total strangers together around a shared point of interest in a highly connected, flexible and complex way (Harrington 2013).

  Burgess, J., & Banks, J. (2010). User-created content and online social networks. In S. Cunningham & G. Turner (Eds.), The media and communications in Australia (3 ed., pp. 295-306). Crows Nest Allen and Unwin.

Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media audiences: effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE. http://qut.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwY2BQsDQ1TkxOTUozNE9JSUw0sjRJMkk1M0xOSzQFVn-piakog21IpbmbEANTap4og4yba4izh25haUk8dAwjPsnYFFivmwKrPzEGFmC_OBUAA1oZCg.

Harrington, S. (2013). “Ch 18 Tweeting about the Telly: Live TV, Audiences, and Social Media.” In Twitter and Society edited by Katrin Weller, Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess, Merja Mahrt & Cornelius Puschmann, 237-248. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

 Turnbull, S. (2010). Imagining the audience The media and communications in australia (pp. 65-78). Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

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Cultural Chaos

Affordances of new media technologies, in particular social media has offered the reinvention of social activism (Gladwell 2010).  This blog will explore Julian Assange’s speech from the Ecuadorian Embassy as an example of a video protesting regulatory bodies. Not many people were physically present at this speech but the video went viral on social media. This is an example of how the relationship between political authority and popular will has been ‘upended’, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate and voice their concerns (Gladwell 2010).

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCpliVO5Mo8

“What is emerging is a greatly expanded notion of the role of citizen not just as a passive consumer of political information and occasional voter, but as an active player, monitoring what government and politicians are doing, demanding a seat at the table and a view of the proceedings, sharing self-generated news of what is important, and participating in problem solving.” (Sifry 2011). Wikileaks is an excellent example of enhanced importance of public opinion. There are now tremendous amounts of audience participation in the globalised public sphere. Publics participatory commentary on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook were quite different to what ‘traditional’ news outlets were saying about Assange’s speech from the balcony.

 Previously before the digital age liberal democracies have had relatively high levels of political consensus and control of information. This has been embedded by media systems and regulations. Information was generally centralised, conservative and ideologically predisposed towards elites and authorities. Wikileaks exposed an unprecedented and unwelcome degree of transparency on global elites. This has led to contrasting opinions coming from the public and governments about how much secrecy and how much transparency should surround the conduct of governments as they pursue interests of public matter.

Transparency in government conduct, for better or worse has made the management of the political environment much more difficult for those in power. Where once there was control, now there is information turbulence, volatility and unpredictability, leading to the decline of elite capacity for abuse of power. Brian McNair (2006) describes this as “Cultural Chaos”. Authoritarian regimes all over the world are visibly buckling under the pressure of public scrutiny, and the capacity of the globalised public sphere to communicate that they don’t always agree with the behaviour of these Authoritarian regimes, even if it is apparently in their best interest. WikiLeaks has been a major contributor to this agent of change called Cultural Chaos. 

  Gladwell, Malcom. 2010. “Small Change: Why the Revolution will not be Tweeted.” The New Yorker, October 4. Available at:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

Sifry, Micah. 2011. “WikiLeaks, Assange, and Why There's No Turning Back (Exclusive Excerpt)”. The Huffington Post, November 2. Available at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/micah-sifry/wikileaks-assange-micah-sifry_b_820671.html

McNair, Brian. 2006. "Cultural chaos: journalism, news and power in a globalised world". New York: Routledge. Available at: http://qut.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwY2BQSDQ3TrRMMjdJS041TrVIMk41NE1LSTKxMEkxMU82BO_gRwy2IZXmbkIMTKl5ogwybq4hzh66haUl8dAxjPgkYF_b0tQU2F0RY2AB9otTAd4MGI4.

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New media users : Warriors or Worriers

This week’s content covered how entertainment industries seek to remain relevant in the new media environment and how fundamental changes and adaptability are vital to keeping relevant and audiences engaged. Do new models of entertainment making with new media encourage:

 Interaction, co-production, participation, democratization and convergence?

Or

Exploitation, commodification, access restrictions and reinforcement of hierarchies? (Sauter 2014)

  This post does not seek to approve or disprove the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of new media models for entertainment, but rather acknowledge them and use one example that highlight both. Some of the 10 propositions (Sauter 2014) will be used to explore this example further.

 Cyber Celebrity and Wellness Warrior, Jess Ainscough is a blogger for all things health and leading an organic lifestyle. Her success and exposure has been maintained through her adaptability with new media. You can follow her blog, webinars, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and weekly or daily emails. Alternatively you can stay engaged with her via old media sources, including purchasing her book or attending her live seminars. Ironically she made a name for herself with new media and has since added old media to her array of engaging audiences.  This shows there is still room and relevancy for old media. This convergence, discussed in this weeks lecture (Sauter 2014) as one of the propositions of new media entertainment is vital. Cross media explains how the same content is pushed, but from different platforms in specialised forms (Sauter 2014). For example, Jess might post a picture on Instagram, of a recipe that you can find on her blog. Or pose a question on her blog that will later me explored on her webinars. Her weekly/daily emails keep you informed about her seminars and book releases and signings. All of this keeps her audience engaged and build bridges from one medium to the next (Sauter 2014). Considering she has a lot of free advice in her emails, blogs and webinars, this is not a form of commercial capital, rather symbolic cultural capital (Sauter 2014). Jess is building rapport with her audience by sharing information, however this may lead to commercial capital, because if you really liked her approach to leading a healthy lifestyle and all her tips you may be inclined to purchase her online transformation guide (for $579). 

Jess’s relationship with her audience has not always been smooth sailing. Last year there was a massive backlash when she named and shamed an ‘organic’ café in Byron Bay after she ate their food and found out it was not organic (she follows a strict organic diet).  She had a legion of loyal followers that supported her rant, however she was considered rather foolish by some for naming this non for profit café fraudulent after they had stated nothing on the menu indicated that the particular meal she had was 100% organic. This led to her making a public apology and re addressing what the context of that particular blog was referring to- that all people should be completely aware of and in control of what they eat. “Interactions in social media contexts may enable self-promotion strategies that result in social or economic gain” (Marwick 2010). However, there is definitely a need for an educated and rationale approach on new and old media when you have created such a loyal following based upon your experiences. As one mistake is visible to such a large audience base when you are connect to so many different platforms. New media users need to understand and appreciate online presentations as an art to professional self-promotion (van Dijck, 2013). 

 http://vimeo.com/78053832 

Marwick, Alice. 2010. Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity and Branding in the Digital Age, 1-19. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press

Sauter, Theresa. 2014. “KCB206 internet self and beyond: Week 5 lecture notes.” Accessed April 1, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232446_1

van Dijck, Jose. 2013. “’You Have One Identity’: Performing the Self on Facebook and LinkedIn.” Media, Culture & Society, 35 (2): 199-215

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New Media Enterprises: not all doom and gloom

Crowdsourcing refers to “the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call” (Sullivan 2013). Also it can be explained as harnessing collective resources (knowledge, money, creativity and time) to solve problems and/or produce things (Sauter 2014). Characteristics of new media labour are the very essence of new media technology, including: interactive, 24/7 connectivity, mobile, global, instantaneous, social, participatory and collaborative (Sauter 2014). Yet, new media enterprises have gained large scale skepticism and criticism due to its potentially exploitive nature (Sauter 2014). When there is market for everything, eventually nothing will be free. Participants and information will become commodities. In some cases this has already been the case, for example Bitcoins.

 It is important not to jump on the ‘panic wagon’ and assume all people with power are trying to exploit the rich and take advantage of the poor (Sauter 2014). Power is neither positive nor negative and circulates in networks (Sauter 2014). This is essential to organise relations and increase productivity. Take for example Samasource, an alternative crowdsourcing business plan, a non-for profit organisation that connects poor women and youth to training and employment in the digital economy. As a premier provider of digital services, they deliver a steady flow of work to people around the world. “Just as microfinance demonstrated that poor people are trustworthy borrowers, impact sourcing is demonstrating that people from villages and urban slums are reliable knowledge workers” (David Bornstein in New York Times). This very idea, completely challenges the notion and hype of crowd sourcing as something that is exploitative and taking advantage of people. It is in fact affording increased quality of life for those in lower income countries. So far the organisation has paid more than $2.5 million US to over 3,000 workers across nine countries (Samasource 2014). So how then is this reconfiguration of a labour market in a new media landscape going to remain economically valuable, when it is moving towards empowering those disadvantaged?

 Studies have shown that traditional crowdsourcing solutions have delivered an average quality score of 76% compared with Samasources 95% quality rating (Samasource 2014). This has not gone unrecognised with companies including ebay, Google and LinkedIn creating partnerships with Samasource (Samasource 2014). Perhaps crowdsourcing and all its evolved models aren’t going to be the Grim Reaper of new media enterprises. With the right motives and intentions new media enterprises have the ability to work in the advantaged as well as the disadvantaged’s favour.

http://youtu.be/keLEiKB7UO8

  Sullivan, J. L. 2013. Media audiences: effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE. http://qut.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwY2BQsDQ1TkxOTUozNE9JSUw0sjRJMkk1M0xOSzQFVn-piakog21IpbmbEANTap4og4yba4izh25haUk8dAwjPsnYFFivmwKrPzEGFmC_OBUAA1oZCg.

Samasource. 2014. “Our Mission.” Last accessed March 26, 2014. http://samasource.org/mission/home/.  

Sauter, M. 2014. “KCB206 internet self and beyond: Week 4 lecture notes.” Accessed March 27, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232446_1

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Free vs Mediated

How much of our lives are we freely choosing to share to our ‘networked publics’ and how much choice do we have to mediate this? “Networked publics” is a term used to describe publics that are “restructured by networked technologies; they are simultaneously a space and collection of people” (Boyd 2011, 41). What effect are ‘networked publics’ having on our ability to freely mediate our public and private life on social media? Deuze poses the question: “If we live our lives in media and we choose to take responsibility for it, what are our options to constitute each other and ourselves? How can we be free yet mediated at the same time?” (Deuze 2011, 144) New media has a dynamic infrastructure (Hartley,Burgess and Bruns 2013), users are constantly having to succumb their lives to a virtual platform with an audience, sometimes of an unknown scale. Consequently debates involving individuals’ private lives are constantly arising. Below is a personal experience that exemplifies the above question. A group of my friends were attending an event that involved getting dressed up and having pre-drinks before hand. When everyone was at pre-drinks, indulging in pre-drink activities, including selfies and group shots one friend had told everyone that she had called in sick to work. It was stressed that it was of the utmost importance she did not have a presence at this event on social media. This was because we all had ‘mutual friends’ on Facebook and similar ‘followers’ on Instagram- similar ‘networked publics’ if you like. This instantly became an issue, considering a lot of people really loved the group shots that had been captured. Group members felt upset they were unable to share their own photos with friends and followers on social media due to one friend wishing not to be seen at this event. There is no denying that our lives are now lived in a physical realm as well as a virtual realm. Questions regarding the positives and negatives of this become apparent when at events or places that are significant to us we want to share our experiences on social media sites. And if that option is taken away from us due to someone wanting to not ‘exist’ at an event online we feel upset and entitled to be able to share our experiences. Yet on the other hand, if we wanted to remain ‘invisible’ online at an event we would want to feel that this was in our control to mediate. Who is choosing what constitutes our presence on social media platforms? Of course we feel to a certain extent, control of what we post and share on social media. However, what about our friends that are involved in similar networked publics to our own? References Boyd, Danah. 2011. “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics – Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications.” In A Networked Self – Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites edited by Zizi Papacharissi, 39-58. New York: Routledge. Deuze, Mark. 2011 “Media Life.” Media, Culture & Society 33 (1): 137 - 148. Hartley, J., J. Burgess and A. Bruns. 2013. A companion to new media dynamics. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. http://qut.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwY2BQsLQ0MjBOTUo2SwU2h00sDNOSzNKAfaFEI0MTINM4GWWwDak0dxNiYErNE2WQcXMNcfbQLSwtiYeOYcQnGZsaA5sS5haGYgwswH5xKgCk9hf2.

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trial

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