#n8326410

[kcb206group12]

Netflix: The power of data

In the convergence era, we’re theoretically able to have great control over how and when we consume content. But with the big data trail we leave behind thanks to new media, are we becoming more of a herd than ever before? As Siegel (2013) noted, prediction is power, and this power offers a competitive advantage to online platforms that have strongly defined audiences. Netflix is an excellent example of a company harnessing the power of data mining: for creating new shows, acquiring and pricing shows aired by other providers and suiting these shows to user tastes, here's a short insight into their work.

  Leonard (2013), argues that data mining turns viewers into mindless puppets, since Netflix uses it’s database of 29 million subscribers to find out who is watching, when they pause, when they stop and what kind of device they watch on. Instead of relying on pilot episodes like most television studios, Netflix made a $100 million gamble on House of Cards through data mining, reducing the risk through predictive analysis (Siegel 2013), which saw Netflix analyse user data on Kevin Spacey movies, political dramas, the original British series of House of Cards as well as producer David Fincher (Leonard 2013). An official competition run by Netflix also awarded $1 million to a team of scientists who improved their recommendation system (Siegel 2013. It’s an interesting comparison between these investments considering how incredibly important this overhaul of the recommendation system was to Netflix, and can further arguments about exploitations through crowdsourcing. This is important to Netflix’s business model before they run on thin margins at only $8 per month, so to continue developing, the subscriber base needs to grow. For this subscriber base to grow, people have to get value out of the package. To get this value, they need recommendations that suit them, so they continue their subscription. This is a complex form of association learning (Furnas 2012).

In a way, despite the fact that broadcasters now offer viewers more ways to catch-up on TV, the user input very much limited due to the strength of recommendations available from data mining. But it also raises questions for the future of television. Will it become a series of cheap thrills, where data makes viewing habits so open and available for exploitation that television finds a way to become even more formulaic? 

The Netflix example also offers interesting perspectives on the engagement between television and social media. In an era where live-engagement with ‘event’ television, can be seen as a prerequisite for a full viewing experience (Harrington 2013), Netflix focuses on wider buzz through its delivery strategy.

Set your clocks and put the coffee on. House of Cards goes live at 12.01 AM PST tonight. pic.twitter.com/7LmeuoSBwE

— House of Cards (@HouseofCards)

February 14, 2014

Season 2 of House of Cards went live at 12.01am American Time on Valentines Day, and despite this, still gained incredible buzz around the world. 

This creates a unique scenario where customers are happy at getting valid recommendations due to their tastes, while Netflix benefits from the data consumers (somewhat unknowingly) share. 

Reference List

Furnas, Alexander. 2012. "Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask." Accessed May 9, 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-data-mining-but-were-afraid-to-ask/255388/. 

Harrington, Stephen. (2013). “Chapter 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. 

Leonard, Andrew. 2013. "How Netflix is Turning Viewers Into Puppets." Accessed May 9, 2013. http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/how_netflix_is_turning_viewers_into_puppets/. 

Siegel, Eric. 2013. "Introduction - The Prediction Effect." Predictive Analytics, 1-16. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

[kcb206group12]

#CancelColbert : The limits of 140 characters and social norms online

In the past decade we’ve seen massive changes in how we communicate. From having small networks limited by time and space, we’re now able to communicate as easily with friends (or strangers) overseas as we can our neighbour. But naturally our reliance on the internet has led to people reducing the argument down to whether it is good or bad, not considering it could just be different. 

As Baym (2010) suggests, fears about the communicative value of new media come from a perceived lack of social cues and personal communication. We can see scenarios of this play out in media when satire is taken out of context, as we saw with fictional conservative talk show host Stephen Colbert last month. After an official Comedy Central (his television network) account tweeted a quote from the show to introduce a “Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever” it blew up into a Twitter storm with the hashtag #cancelcolbert. The context, not included in the tweet made it clear Colbert was mocking Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, who rubbished claims to change their 'offensive' team name, instead starting a foundation providing limited support to Native Americans (Poniewozik 2014). In explaining the joke Colbert said after the initial episode, the show reran four times on Thursday without complaint and was also posted to Facebook, but only when it was tweeted without context did it cause problems. This is one of the inherent problems in both online communication, and specifically Twitter itself, where nonverbal cues and contexts can lead to misinterpretation. An ad hoc public formed around #CancelColbert (Bruns and Moe 2013), which was likely driven by people who did not see the context or watch the show, rapidly forming and rallying. You can find the full explanation below. 

New media is often criticised for being lacking the implicit norms we see in social contexts, supposedly leading more negatively loaded communication (Baym 2010). From Godwin’s Law, a theory that as online discussion grows, the probability of someone being compared to Hitler reaches one (Godwin 1994) to outcry about Twitter “trolls”, the mass conversation online has always been negatively perceived. This can in part be linked to fear being a natural response to new technology (Baron 2008). New media has not only changed how we communication, it’s also revolutionalised how we create and consume content, breaking down considerable barriers of entry in the creative industries. And while I believe some social norms can be broken online, these remain a small minority, which is hardly unexpected with the power given back to users in the past two decades.

Many fears about new media communication seem to link back to the future for today's children, and their safety and education levels. And while there are limitations in fully understanding the contexts of online communication, as Colbert example shows - we’ve seen a considerable redistribution of power to which people are still becoming used to. But the internet isn’t something to be feared, as Boyd (2014) points out, the key to navigate digital life for teenagers isn’t more restrictions, it’s a combination of freedom and information. 

References

Baron, Naomi. 2008. "Chapter 1 : Email to Your Brain : Language in an Online and Mobile World". In Baron, Naomi, Always on : language in an online and mobile world, (pp.3 - 10). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Baym, Nancy K. 2010. "Chapter 3 : Communication in Digital Spaces". In Baym, Nancy K, Personal connections in the digital age, (pp.50 - 71). Cambridge: Polity Press. 

Boyd, Danah. 2013. "Let Kids Run Wild Online." Accessed April 4, 2014. http://time.com/23031/danah-boyd-let-kids-run-wild-online/

Bruns, Axel and Moe, Hallvard. 2013. "Chapter 2 : Structural Layers of Communication on Twitter". In Weller, Katrin et al (eds),Twitter and society, (pp. 15 - 28). New York: Peter Lang.

Godwin, Mike. 1994. "Wired 2.10: Meme, counter-meme." Accessed April 12, 2014. http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if.html. 

Poniewozik, James. 2014. "#Cancel Your Outrage: Stephen Colbert Is Not A Racist." Accessed April 1, 2014. http://time.com/42017/cancelcolbert-stephen-colbert-not-racist/

[kcb206group12]

The power of the passion : Participatory fandom or consumer activists?

I found this quote from the readings to be particularly true regarding fandom. “The internet is a venue that epitomises the political struggle between utopian visions of participatory democracy and prevailing hierarchies of economic power” (Shefrin 2004, 277). I’ve normally taken a liberal perspective regarding fandom, thinking audiences are incredibly powerful in the new media landscape, but the last couple of weeks have made me rethink this perspective. 

I believe that Jenkins (1992) term “participatory fandom” does have its problems. The fandom I’m most aware of is cult comedy Arrested Development, which was one of the success stories in fandom after Netflix revived the show in 2013. While there is fan art, elements of a remix culture and empowered fans, most of the Tumblr tag is simply sharing the work of others, such as gifs, screenshots or quotes from the show.

(www.tumblr.com/tagged/arrested-development)

This limits the notion of fans appropriating and transforming corporate texts with artistic expressions (Shefrin 2004). And when I think of my own investment in the show, it’s mainly focused on active engagement in communities, such as Twitter and Tumblr followers more than creating my works extending on the show. This also creates the question for the future about whether Tumblr will follow Youtube’s trajectory in creating friction with entertainment industries about copyright infringement (Burgess and Green 2002), with both simultaneously being a business and a user-led cultural resource. This demonstrates the copyright struggle, continuing to create friction between new and old media. So while I do think fandom undoubtedly creates communities online, I think the “consumer activist” term is far more suited to consumer input in film and television. This still understands the emotional investment of consumers, as Jenkins (1992) argues active fans have a sense of ownership in their fandoms. We’ve seen this when fans pride themselves in bringing back Arrested Development or Veronica Mars, as well as when cult shows like Community or Hannibal are renewed. We are constantly on the alert for updates and engagement with our favourite shows (Shefrin 2004), but this mainly has to do with our ease of access rather than revolutionary changes in fan-producer engagement. It’s much easier to be a fan in the convergence era, with downloads, catch-up services and DVRs, the notion of watching your favourite show at a specific time each week becomes dated. We’ve also seen fandoms democratised, where they’re no longer assumed to be the social outcasts, which was assumed of Trekkies in the 1980s.

It’s easy to get carried away with the amount of input fans have in the creative process. While it has expanded, it is still highly restricted. It more closely aligns with fan choices being limited to acceptance or rejection, rather than free choice (Shefrin, 2004). With blogging and social networks, we see communities created where fandoms thrive. But I think we still fall short of participatory fandom, since the individual expression on social networks for shows like Arrested Development remains limited.  

Reference list

Burgess, Jean and Green, Joshua. 2009. “Chapter Two: Youtube and the Mainstream Media.” In Youtube : Online Video and Partipatory culture, by Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, 15-37. Cambridge: Polity Press. https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/cmd_common_p.show_item?p_item_id=162250. 

Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York, Routledge. 

Shefrin, Elana. 2004. “Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars and Participatory Fandom : Mapping new congruencies between the Internet and media entertainment culture.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21 (3): 261-281. Accessed March 28, 2014. https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/cmd_common_p.show_item?p_item_id=212865. 

[kcb206group12]

Cloud Labor and Crowdfunding: Our exploited online life

The notion of cloud labour is something I hadn’t really thought much about. After the lecture it made me think from a different perspective. The fact that we’re so fascinated with sharing our personal lives online leads to us freely do a marketers job, aligning with the thought the Internet is predominantly capitalist in nature (Fuchs 2014, 102). We check in at concerts, bars and clubs. We tweet using their hashtags. We “like” enterprises on Facebook. We complete their surveys, when we know there’s a minimal chance of reward. We may write reviews for their products online. And why? Amazing procrastination material comes to mind, but it’s really become a part of our subconscious. We don’t see ourselves as working, we become blinded by our power online that we don’t even consider it. Our timelines have become littered with advertisements and word of mouth recommendations for capitalist products.

Crowdfunding has really started to develop over the past few years as well. In the past few months we’ve seen big campaigns from The Veronica Mars Movie and Neil Young’s “Pono” music player. It’s interesting to see the subconscious lines that people create in deciding whether these campaigners are exploitative. Zach Braff used Kickstarter to fund his movie Wish I Was Here in 2013. Contributors funded $3.1 million, well over its $2 million request. But Braff was heavily criticized online, with The AV Club mocking the scenario as “It’s family. And that’s all family really is: A group of people that gave you millions of dollars so you can make a movie, then don’t ask you to share the profits” (O'Neal, 2013). I've only contributed to one crowdfunding campaign, effectively preordering a CD by Jae Laffer three months in advance, which ended up turning into eleven months. The "independent" album was now funded by a record label, so this was corporate exploitation at work with the label enjoying the surplus value (Fuchs 2014) from the crowdfunding campaign. This opens up vast opportunities for exploitation from producers and companies, with crowdfunding limiting the scrutiny based on projects as well as limiting producer investments without influencing their profits.  

 So this week’s lecture really made me think about how much we exploited online. Whether its by simple surveys, viewing those five seconds of ads waiting for a Youtube “skip” button to load or contributing to crowdfunding campaigns, we always seem have a dollar sign over our heads in the new media system where we’re meant to be in power. The opportunities to exploit are also expanding. Even Zittrain’s (2009) use of online collaboration in designing his book cover means that one person is left being paid for their work, and the rest completed unpaid work for him. An equally hilarious and depressing catalogue of producers asking people in creative projects to work unpaid is seen on the Twitter account, For Exposure.

Source: https://twitter.com/forexposure_txt/status/449667314145701888. 

While these tweets don't necessarily come from capitalist enterprises, they demonstrate that online communities have cheapened the value of creativity with expectations that people will work without pay.

References:

Fuchs, Christian. 2014. "Chapter 5: The Power and Political Economy of Social Media." In Social Media: A Critical Introduction by Christian Fuchs, 97-125. London: Sage. https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/cmd_common_p.show_item?p_item_id=212871. 

O'Neal, Sean. 2013. "Zach Braff hopes you'll change his life by giving him $2 million to make a movie". Accessed March 23, 2014. http://www.avclub.com/article/zach-braff-hopes-youll-change-his-life-by-giving-h-96921. 

Zittrain, Jonathon. 2009. "Minds for Sale." Harvard video, posted November 18. Accessed March 20, 2014. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2009/11/berkwest. 

[kcb206group12]

Are audiences the new content curators?

One of the big impacts of new media has been fragmenting audiences. We can choose when and where we access media, and who we get our information from. With work and uni commitments, I'm not home most nights. But this has zero effect on my consumption as I can record these shows, or watch them online through catch-up services. I've also replaced radio, with the convergence of having podcasts available to download and music on my phone being much more suited to my consumption. I think the best example of fragmentation though, is Netflix. American audiences have the power to choose what they want to watch and when in a vast library of TV and movies. Netflix now has 30 million subscribers, now more than HBO (Lawler 2013). Their advertisement shows that users can consume on-the-go, with phone, tablet and web applications.

 This example links to uses and gratifications theory, where audiences can seek out the media content they want, and when they want it to meet their needs (Sauter 2014).

The next concept I wanted to explore was ‘spreadability’, which is the idea that the movement of messages between people and communities increases their effectiveness over time (Green and Jenkins 2011). In the lecture and readings, the rise of Susan Boyle demonstrated the power of the new audience. The example that immediately came to my mind was the "Twerking fail" video which went viral on Youtube. Nine million people viewed the video within days, only for talk show host Jimmy Kimmel to reveal that he was behind the video. 

Kimmel revealed the video wasn't sent to any news websites or tweeted by anyone involved, showing how audiences sharing content can lead to it being seen around the world. Green and Jenkins (2011, 118) believe that spreadability “assumes compelling content will circulate through all potential channels, moving us toward active engagement”. While traditional media did pick up the video, this was only after distribution by online networks where users “appropriate, interpret and pass on” the video (Sauter 2014).

While users have an unprecedented power as distributors, our online lives are increasingly available for tracking. Green and Jenkins (2011, 111) argue, “every mouse click or video view is logged and even these inactive lurkers are ultimately generating data”. I’ve found this prevalent on social networks, where I’ve noticed many ‘sponsored stories’ are for products I've recently viewed. Netflix was able to mine data from its user ratings to determine which programs would succeed (Carr 2013). The British version of House of Cards, director David Fincher and actor Kevin Spacey were rated highly, meaning an American version combining them would likely succeed. So while audience members can be using content at their disposal as Green and Jenkins (2011) suggest, we can still be controlled through algorithms and search-engine optimisation.

We've certainly seen a redistribution of power with new media. We have more opportunities to create and we have more communities to which we can share. But I don't believe empowered audiences are less predictable, as Rosen (2006) suggests. While we have control on when we consume, outside forces can still have a big say on what we consume. 

References

Carr, David. 2013. "Giving viewers what they want". Accessed March 22, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-of-cards-using-big-data-to-guarantee-its-popularity.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Green, Joshua and Jenkins, Henry. 2011. "Chapter 5: How Audiences Create Value and Meaning in a Networked Economy. In The Handbook of Media Audiences, edited by Virginia Nightingale, 109-127. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Accessed March 15, 2014. https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/cmd_common_p.show_item?p_item_id=212870. 

Lawler, Richard. 2013. "Netflix tops 40 million customers total, more paid US subscribers than HBO". Accessed March 22, 2014. http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/21/netflix-q3-40-million-total/

Rosen, Jay. 2006. "The People Formerly Known as the Audience". Accessed march 15, 2014. http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html. 

Sauter, Theresa. 2014. "KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 3 lecture notes. Accessed March 14, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-5273479-dt-content-rid-2228834_1/xid-2228834_1. 

[kcb206group12]

The new news and our online footprint

In the past couple of weeks I've been surprised how much the media is part of my self-identity. I attempted to refrain from using the internet for twelve hours. I lasted 45 minutes before I completely forgot about it and had a quick Tumblr check. It also goes without saying that I did not attempt this a second time. 

I’ve noticed in PR lectures that in the first week of each semester a lecturer always asks to their horror “who read the paper today?” I these find notions of relying on one paper or watching the 6pm news to be quite dated. My media consumption comes in dozens of mini-doses each day, from an abundance of sources. Looking at my emails from Friday I have several updates from The New York Times and ABC news, Crikey, Mumbrella and The New Daily. There's also wonderful RSS apps like Flipboard. These show the notion of convergence where old and new media are easily accessible through a central medium. This amazing access to information is why I agree with the notion that the past twenty years have been the biggest transformation in media since the printing press, as discussed in Flew (2014). This is because “water cooler” talks can now happen instantly with people all over the world, with more of us having a voice online, and we can access news from anywhere in the world faster than we can go to the local newsagent and buy a copy of The Courier Mail.

We’re part of the first generation where digital technology expanded on just being a tool for entertainment. I found the video "A Magazine is an iPad That Does Not Work" video particularly interesting (Userexperienceworks 2011).

It implies Apple has coded the child's mind, and that'll remain the same for her life, which encapsulates technological determinism (Baym 2010). It’s a classic case of the third-person effect, where people expect media technologies have a greater impact on others than themselves. Baym (2010) makes an excellent example where what is happening on the medium is never addressed, in this case it's the learning capabilities available on the iPad are lost amongst another moral panic around new media and technologies by the Helen Lovejoy's of the world.  

There are of course drawbacks in new media, including our privacy online and how we cope with having our own voice to broadcast. I've found that over the past two years I've more carefully considered what I broadcast and where. However after the tutorial exercise, I think the notion of privacy being the "right to control information" (Papacharissi and Gibson 2011), may no longer be relevant in a digital world. While my Twitter account hasn't had my surname attached for years, it still comes up when my name was searched on Google. This won't affect my self-presentation online, but I think KCB206 will make me a bit more aware of what I share.

References:

Baym, Nancy K. 2010. Personal connections in the digital age. Cambridge: Polity Press

Flew, Terry. 2014. New Media. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press

Papacharissi, Zizi and Gibson, Paige L. 2011. "Fifteen Minutes of Privacy: Privacy, Sociality and Publicity on Social Network Sites." In Privacy online: Perspectives on privacy and self-disclosure in the social web, edited by Sabine Trepte and Leonard Reinecke, 75-89. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag

UserExperienceWorks. 2011. "A Magazine is an iPad That Doesn't Work." Youtube video, posted October 11. Accessed March 1, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk

[kcb206group12]

test

123