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What’s Trending Now: Left Shark

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Superbowl XLIX MVP – LEFT SHARK

Viewers of Sunday’s Superbowl are going crazy over the rhythmically-challeneged “Left Shark” backup dancer from Katy Perry’s halftime show.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjzOoSAuJYk[/youtube]

 

Instantaneously memes have arisen all over the internet starring everybody’s favorite sea creature:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/02/super-bowl-shark-memes-katy-perry-halftime  

Sites like BuzzFeed have eaten it up:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/hail-left-shark#.dfNZkjGdV

http://www.buzzfeed.com/spenceralthouse/i-think-i-left-the-oven-on#.air43YyqK

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Same buddy, same.

McLuhan and the Message of Transmedia Adaptations

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Marshall McLuhan’s writing in Understanding Media came off extremely dense and complex for me to comprehend, other than the obvious: “the medium is the message.” I mean, I understood that it was revolutionary, but I couldn’t quite grasp what McLuhan was getting at. But then, I though about mediums that I use and what messages they might be trying to convey. And then it clicked: as someone who has followed several transmedia productions, McLuhan’s concepts seemed all the more pressing. Which makes me wonder: what would McLuhan think of our media (and the way we understand it) today?

[youtube]http://youtu.be/KisuGP2lcPs[/youtube]

For example, what would McLuhan think of Pemberley Digital’s The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (hereafter referred to as LBD), which portrayed Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet as a 21st-century grad student moving back home to figure out her future? Instead of just the printed word, LBD used a number of mediums and accounts to tell the story – namely Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube. Viewers could pick and choose which mediums to follow the narrative on (though YouTube was the most popular choice.) To interact with the story, viewers could migrate from platform or medium, from character to character. LBD is not the only transmedia production entertaining the idea of an immersive and interactive experience for an audience (literary vlogseries are all the rage now) but it was the first to attract attention for doing so. (It won an Emmy in 2013 for “Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media-Original Interactive Program.”)

Whether intended by the creators or not, McLuhan’s idea of “the medium is the message” here is central to the experience of watching LBD. Viewers were encouraged to interact with the characters as people, to be a part of this fictional world turned reality. The transmedia production requires an investment on the viewer’s part to stay involved, making the fictional a part of their everyday life. And by using these mediums – platforms designed for personal use – fans could connect with the characters in a way I believe  McLuhan would probably find fascinating.

In his 1977 lecture for the Monday Conference that we watched for class, McLuhan talked about the hologram being the ultimate medium, because it would envelop the viewer’s physical presence. But McLuhan lived and studied an age before the advent of new media; his world didn’t have the smartphone or the apps we use on a daily (or if you’re like me, hourly) basis. While a hologram consumes the physical environment, transmedia productions manipulate and dominate the digital one. Lizzie’s Twitter feed reads much like our own, and so we experience her story in a similar way. Her Tumblr reblogged and shared posts from other users. Her YouTube videos broke the fourth wall because there isn’t a fourth wall anymore.

It’s a whole new media landscape we’re inhabiting here – and transmedia productions take advantage of that to play out these literary classics. McLuhan would be thrilled to see how pervasive today’s mediums are with their messages. But perhaps it’s this layering effect will display the greatest medium message of all. The more we interact with new media, the more the lines between reality and fiction become blurry.

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My Digital Reflection

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In the reflection I wrote on my experience of YouTube at the beginning of the semester, I described it as ‘a platform whose very purpose is to democratize the exchange of ideas and give voice to the otherwise average citizen.’  In light of what I have learned during the course, I can identify aspects of this evaluation which can be problematised.  While earlier I viewed YouTube as an example of the power of new media to redistribute power more fairly than traditional media, I am now more aware of ways in which race and gender permeate this seemingly new and neutral institution called “New Media.”

I have learned through the readings, our class discussions, and through my own research in my group’s project on web series that YouTube’s “democracy” does not always equal meritocracy; that the government of YouTube by the consent of the governed is results in many of the same problems found in traditional media.  YouTube is like the company of which it is now a part, Google, in that promoted the most popular content, which is consequently viewed far more often than most unusual or transgressive content.  It gives people what they want (or what they think they want).  I learned that this type of popular consumerism is a major concern for the creators of webseries (not just on YouTube but on all platforms), whose content often deals with persons of colour, women and LGBT people.  The need to hold the attention of the masses means that those who want to create challenging material are taking a risk, and may ultimately fall prey to homogenising effect of mainstream culture which tends to either remove nonconformity by natural selection or simply absorb and compromise it.

This was a growing and sobering realisation for me over the course of the semester.  I, who had always thought of myself as critical of consumer culture, began to point my attention more towards new media, which I had thought of as the haven and weapon of the kinds of people who would not reduce racial minorities to offensive stereotypes, who would not reduce women to mere sexual objects and who wish for a more fair and inclusive system for distributing opportunities and protections.  Over the course of the semester I was forced to think about how technology has affected my life and influenced my decisions.  I confronted the fact that I have allowed Google to wield so much power over me since I was old enough to consider myself “computer literate” that I now picture the face of George Orwell’s Big Brother whenever I think about this seemingly harmless, benevolent organisation.  This Sunday when I sit down to watch my favourite network television show, Game Of Thrones, I will be more troubled than ever by the fact that all of the major characters seem to be white, heterosexual and conventionally attractive.  I wonder what it would take for the stories being told in web series about the less visible people in our society so reach such a large and rabid audience.  Ultimately, I understand that as a society and as individuals we can choose to use and interact with new media in ways that dismantle the power of homogeny in our society, or we can allow the resistance to be crushed by the heavy hand of consumer culture.

My Fight Against Digital Iliteracy

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When I was choosing classes for this semester I was as always trying to fit them into my work schedule, making sure they are somehow related to what I am supposed to take as class and always last but shouldn’t be least I tried to choose classes that are exciting and interesting. The class description sounded alright and gave me hope that I might actually enjoy the class and learn something in the process, although I had a completely wrong expectation to what this class would be like.

As I said all three requirements were fulfilled by this class but I cannot believe how much the last part came to be true. First of all, I had no clue what a tbo class is and didn’t even pay any attention to the abbreviation. But I came to love the team part of this class so much. In being forced to work together, we all at the same time learned so much from each other. Having to discuss concepts of new media, writing blogs and key terms and doing it all as a group really made me want to learn more.

And I learned so much in this class. From being a person who never used YouTube to its full extent or even knew how to use it ‘properly’ if I even wanted to, I now have a channel (I am not uploading videos though) and discovered all these niches that I never even thought of being on YouTube. Through my project I learned so much about YouTube in general, which I never even really considered as a part of the class when choosing the course that I can definitely say I learned the most about YouTube in comparison to the other topics.

But the other topics opened my eyes and taught me that there are so many aspects to new media. Memes for example wasn’t even a word that I knew before (most likely due to language barriers) and it is the same with web series; I simply didn’t know of their existence. And even if I had known them I most certainly would not have thought about their purpose and intent so intensely as in this class. As for the web series I never looked at video games with a ‘race and gender filter’.  I never even thought about video games being possibly offensive, racist or sexist as I simply don’t interact with them in my daily life. But it made me aware that I should use this filter more often in life especially later as an educator I have to be more aware in this regard.

All in all I am really glad that I took this class and that I believed in a possible team love. It literally opened my horizon and changed me from an illiterate and ignorant digital being to an almost literate digital person that is going to work hard to get from hesitant spelling to solid reading, while still trying to be aware of gender and race at the same time.

ENG 302 – Race, Gender, and New Media Final Reflection

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Before this class, I didn’t know it was possible to analyze the thing that we refer to as “new media” in any kind of academic setting.  It has undoubtedly opened my eyes to the fact that everything and anything that we experience in our every day lives is important, and affects us greatly.  When I say this, I mean every time that I log onto Facebook or Twitter and click on a link, I see a meme.  Instead of just laughing at its ridiculousness and mindlessly closing the page, I think about what it actually means.  This class has taught me that our means of storing and exchanging information is evolving rapidly, and must be acknowledged.  The new ways in which people can make money, become famous, or create viral content that is so culturally impactful and relevant is astounding.  I never would have taken the time on my own to learn about how powerful of a company Google is in terms of its social ubiquity and corporate control.  Even YouTube (also being controlled by Google), being a cultural necessity by means of its monopolizing video platform, was something that I had taken for granted as a simple accessory of the Internet every single day of my life.

The mere fact that this class exists and was successful in terms of our analysis is a testament to its subject matter’s newfound importance in today’s society.  One cannot simply disconnect from technological services such as Google, YouTube, or Facebook without the consequences of being ignorant of current events or culturally relevant information that can be applied to everyday life.  For that matter alone, it is necessary for us to begin analyzing our collective societal behavior when dealing with this online content.  I feel that it is a new concept that may take some getting used to for some, considering sites such as these, and other forms of social media, are not generally applied and observed in an academic setting.  Though, without such research, it will be difficult for us to study social behavior as it is now evolving into this new digital era.

I feel that the group-based work, as well as the classroom setting to accommodate it, was conducive to my own understanding of the material.  It has taught me the ways in which other people utilize this new media, and that there are many more uses for these tools that I would not have been cognizant of otherwise.  The classroom itself made me feel as if I were immersed in this new media setting, as it would have been impossible to conduct our research without actually using forms of new media to do so.  My skills for working and communicating with others have been refined in addition to this, while having to stay connected to my group members, as well as interviewing people I have never spoken to before in order to gather the information necessary to participate in the class.  All in all, this was one unique class that has had a large impact on my perspective of what we refer to as “new media”; I will no longer consider sites such as Facebook or Twitter to be simple cures for boredom or just for fun, but as outlets that also document our society’s developing behavior and use of new media.

The Lack of a Webtopia

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When the internet was just beginning to experience wide use, it was heralded as a new ground for total inequality.  Surely without the actual body of the person speaking in front of listeners, ideas would be judged for their own value and not for any characteristics of their originators.  Words do not have race or gender or sexuality or religion, so it was briefly believed to be possible that an online community could function without regard to these things.  The obvious problem with this ideal is that people do not simply shuck off their cherished identities—or their prejudices—just because they have entered a new space.  The space may be neutral for a moment, but as soon as it is filled with people, those people will inevitably color it with their own selves.

Prejudices did not disappear.  People continued to be the same people they had always been, whether they expressed themselves with their voices or with their fingers on a keyboard.  No one made an effort to less obviously belong to any group in order that their words might be accepted at face value.  People continued to hate and discriminate against others for the groups to which they belonged.

As a response to the maintenance of offline power structures, many people approach the internet like the Pilgrims approached Massachusetts—they’re not really interested in equality or freedom of expression, they just want to be the group in power instead of the oppressed.  Likewise, they are frequently eager to try their hands at becoming the oppressors for a change, which they feel balances the universe of intolerance.  They replace slurs against minorities with slurs against majorities, and when anyone confronts them about their own hatred, they either take a firm “eye for an eye” stance or claim that without power in society, they cannot possibly cause real pain to other groups and therefore have the right to fire whatever shots they please.  The bullying incites even more scorn and hatred from the majority groups, who are then less inclined to respect the minority groups both online and off.  The imaginary webtopia is quickly poisoned, until absolutely no one is safe from attack.

Digital Reflection

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During the first class, I felt extremely out of place because I had never thought about new media. The first readings intimidated me, and the idea of working on a huge group project was stressing me out before it even began. However, as the snow days and discussions continued, I became increasingly interested in the topics and found them to be relevant to my life.

The most intriguing aspect of the course for me was the YouTube video by the male professor who discussed a project he did with his class. It opened my eyes to the social world within the Internet, and the following is a quote I wrote from one of the rebuttals: “The way I think about digital culture has been challenged in the YouTube regiment of the course. Specifically the video we watched.  I was really moved by the idea that while we long for connection within the digital world, we also still push for real, face-to-face connections which has led to the creation of two societies”. As we continue to move forward in the world, I believe the distinction between these two societies, the digital and the physical, will become very clear while also altering the physical world around us.

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In regards to the group project, I was intrigued by the concept of about half of my grade being based on my group work. But to be quite honest, I had never thought about web series before this class. When we were choosing our group topics, I was drawn to the idea of concentrating on web series because I thought it was going to be interesting to contact producers, directors, actors and actresses. I am also a television fanatic, and I was interested in studying a different form of visual entertainment. While I had no luck receiving contact with anyone from the world of web series that wanted to interview with us, I enjoyed interviewing those who did want to participate in our project via Skype. It opened my eyes to the subject as a whole, and their desire to create content that means something inspired me as a student. Originally, I was expecting us to only concentrate on the content that they were presenting that specifically related to race and gender, but I found it interesting to learn about their funding process, their view towards YouTube, and their opinion on mainstream media and what it provides to society.

I will say that my absolute favorite part of the course was creating our video project. I enjoyed our concept of playing major networks who wanted to learn more about the web series as a whole, and we had the funnest time filming it. I was so pleased that we had the ability to get creative with our video, as it made it that much more engaging. Janaye did a wonderful job pulling the video together, and I think the final product is great! Overall, I did enjoy this class and working with my group helped me learn that much more.

 

Final Reflection

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star-wars-darth-vader-sense

Coming into this class I had no idea what it was about but signed up for it because it fit into my schedule and fulfilled one of my major requirements. Since the first day of this class I have been so happy that I took that leap of faith. I love team based learning and found much of the course material interesting and surprising. As someone who is still living in the Dark Ages when it comes to technology, this class challenged me to learn more about new media and think critically about it. My team, The Bacon Party, showed me that working in a team doesn’t have to mean pulling other people’s weight on my own, but that if we all contribute and work together, we can accomplish so much more than we could on our own. I was also challenged to learn more about video games, which I don’t play and have trouble understanding. I really enjoyed watching Anita Sarkeesian’s critique of video games and I’ve been thinking a lot more about representation and it’s effects on society. Working on the video project also made me aware of the Digital Media Lab and everything that it offers. It actually inspired me to try to make a short video on my own, using the library’s resources. Overall, I enjoyed my time in this class and my the time I spent working with my group. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about topics that are very relevant to my life and to the future of new media.

Digital Media Reflection III: Liberation Revelation

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When this class began, I knew that new media was a frontier that had yet to be really explored. I hadn’t realized exactly how wild that ‘wild west’ was. New media is a platform for everyone. New media is in many ways an egalitarian form. Everyone gets the chance to become a star if they have the skills. If you’re funny then you can find fame on a youtube comedy channel. If you know a subject very well then you’ll find a captive audience in how-to videos. If you can play video games with skill, then twitch.tv is the place for you. And that’s great.

New media can counter monopolies and bring down corporations. But as we’ve seen, new media is a fertile ground for new companies and corporations, both of which could be just as bad, or worse, than their predecessors. Google is scary. At all times. It’s a bit like the supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park. We know that someday it will blow and change the world as we know it. We just don’t know when. It could be today. It could be tomorrow.

And youtube, being a subsidiary of Google, is under fire as well. Google plus integration, despite possibly fixing the dreaded Barrens youtube chat, is seen as an unnecessary feature. And youtube has become very much like Google – a platform so indispensable that it becomes difficult to find an alternative. If you have the power of popular web-series creators then you could host on your own site, free from the tyranny of youtube. If not then… There’s always Vimeo?

Video games are, and I truly mean this, my area of expertise. It’s exhilarating to discuss them with people and hear other people’s opinions on them, content or gameplay-wise. I acknowledge wholeheartedly that video games have a long way to go. Some are racist. Some are misogynistic. Some are homophobic. Some are both, all, none. It’s a rapidly growing art form (no matter what you say, Mr. Ebert). It’ll take time. But it’s important that people are taking up arms and talking about these issues. Awareness will bring acceptance, and video games have the potential to be wonderful narrative devices.

New media is here to stay. And that’s great. What we’ve talked about over the course of this class tells me that there is not only potential for great growth in this medium, but potential for a new phase of how we interact with, produce, consume, talk about, and study media and entertainment.

The Invisible College: A Digital Reflection

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On entering the course, my thoughts on the subjects in the course title (“Race, Gender and New Media? Woo!”) were fairly vague. “I like to deconstruct issues of race and the presence of institutional racism and white supremacy in all facets of our society!” I thought, “Issues related to gender are always pertinent to my existence as a queer person also! (And I use facebook a lot I guess…)”

Essentially, while I have often encountered an intersectional analysis of race and gender in and out of the classroom, I really had no idea how to really incorporate ‘new media’ (whatever that meant to me at the time) into that discourse. I knew that vitriolic racism and sexism was as present in cyberspace as anywhere else, but the specific analytic concerns that new media might require were lost on me. How to approach these fairly different areas of society in a way that made sense and would be useful to me? Where to start? Racist youtube comments?

The answer was pretty simple: money. The internet, due to its nature as a self-replicating and collectively-produced organism can appear as a mess of content for which no one is really responsible or benefiting. But one of the first questions we asked in this course was: who’s making money on the internet? Who’s making the most money? How are they making that money? And, as a regular visitor to cyberspace, how are they making money off me and what does this mean?

These questions now haunts me whenever I use the internet and participate in new media culture. Knowing that through the seemingly innocuous act of clicking on a link or using a free (“free”) service, I am supporting vast and invisible systems that I may not want to support.

 

My Digital Reflection

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As I plan to reflect in our team paper, this class has greatly influenced the way I immerse myself in new media. I have not withdrawn myself from digital media nor altered any of my interactions with new media, but I am more aware of how the world is represented to me via media and, reversely, how I am represented to the world via media (social media in particular.)

The relationship between this class and new media reminds me of the quote: “Fish don’t know they’re in water until they’re taken out of water.” I didn’t realize how heavily skewed representations of gender and sexuality are in new media until I was granted access to the readings and discussions relevant to this course. Previous to this course, when I flicked through magazine advertisements I glanced at them without much thought (except perhaps, Wow I wish I looked like her or Wow I wish I could afford that purse.) Now, however, my perception of these advertisements (and other forms of advertising as well, this is not limited to just magazine/paper ads) has completely morphed. This course has equipped me with the tools necessary to analyze just how disturbing contemporary advertising in new media can be. For example, take the Dolce & Gabbana advertisement below:

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This SCREAMS of issues relating to gender and sexuality in new media that we’ve discussed throughout this semester. First of all, hello hypersexuality of both the male and female form. Do regular human beings walk around this scantily clad, fit, and dripping in oil? I wasn’t aware (sarcasm.) Second of all, to me this looks like a rape scene. One woman is being pinned to the ground by a man while a bunch of male onlookers stare admirably, perhaps waiting their own turns. Before taking this class, I would have just flicked by this ad without a care in the world. Now I analyze it for what it truly is: an artifact primarily relating to objectification of the female gender taking place in new media.

As I said before, this class has not only informed me of aspects of new media that I am more unfamiliar with (such as topics of gender and sexuality in video games, example: Assassin’s Creed Freedom Cry) but it has also gone beyond the series of the digital culture I once thought I knew but clearly do not. I now question my digital life, as demonstrated in my battle with the Dolce & Gabbana advertisement above. I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing…

The assignments in this class were never tedious nor boring nor uninformative. Literally every reading/in-class discussion we’ve done has informed how I think about digital culture. As I grew up with digital technology, (it advanced as I advanced and vice versa), I take it all for granted. Although I likely still take new media for granted as it is so deeply ingrained in my life (twitter addict!!), I am very confident that I am better equipped to analyze gender and sexuality misrepresentations and problems in new media because of this semester.

My New Relationship with Digital Media Technology

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One of the best things about this class is how it allowed me to break out of the “normal” class room strata. At the beginning of the class when we were choosing the group versus individual work, it was evident that most students were very hesitant to put more weight into group work. I feel that at start of the semester, none of us had the opportunity of team learning and teaching. Now, however, team learning has had such a tremendous impact on the functionality of this course. I feel like everything came back to team “love” and team discussions. Even the individual readings, for example, were not solely individual because we still had the opportunity to discuss them within our groups and collectively create discussion points made from each reading. The team learning was a major influence for how I absorbed and retained information for this course.

I was attracted to this course because it dealt with new digital media and new technologies. Previously, technology and I had a bumpy relationship. For example, I did not even know how to properly operate Microsoft Word (as I’ve always used Mac Pages). This class allowed me to dive into new technologies through learning and reading about them. I am very proud to have been able to take part in the computer aspect of my group’s final project. It was an amazing feat that I sat in the library and operated iMovie to help edit our project.

The content of this course, too, will be a really big help in my future as an educator. It has taught me more than I ever thought I could learn about Google, YouTube, and video games. I also really enjoyed the team based learning system and want to implement into my own classroom in the future.