Tag Archives: New Media

Platforms; Essential and Horrifying

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Platforms exist in a fantastic way in our society. As a way of being an essential form in our society, but terrifyingly influential in the way our country works. Through the readings I came across several questions for how platforms work, and mainly my curiosity was struck with the idea that platforms could cause controversy with how powerful they are. The big four platforms especially having so much control of the market,

 

While platforms provide essential services to us in terms of how practical and simple they are to use. Imagining my life without Google docs or Gmail at this point is a simply horrifying idea. I can’t imagine going back to the days of AOL and AIM, they we’re simply too complicated and bulky compared to the streamlined and unified subsets of Google. Google has such power over our current society, as it is such a unified construct, which allows more people to collaborate and work together on various projects. This simple factor of having a completely unified system that is accessible anywhere there’s Internet access.

 

The main focus of my interest however lied within the idea of Amazon. The discussions on Amazon in class, as well as the various examples of Amazon during our readings raised questions about how useful. I came to the conclusion that Amazon, as a platform in our culture is crucial at this point. For various reasons it’s so important, including the fact that it offers cheap access to content, with quick and affordable shipping. Especially with Amazon Prime, as by offering a cheaper alternative for students with the aspect of Amazon Prime they offer students an alternative and altogether cheaper way to get textbooks, entertainment, even food! At cheaper prices, and with free shipping, to be honest my experience with it has been stellar. It has saved me money and has made my life so much easier in terms of finances. Knowing the pluses of the platform first hands lends my opinions to lean towards the fact that platforms are an important aspect of our evolving society.

 

With Google’s simplistic, welcoming and unified system the ability for us to collaborate and integrate more people through a virtual space is a critically important aspect to today’s online presence. While Amazon offers access to cheap, and accessible products, especially with Amazon Student, offering cheaper access to textbooks, textbook rentals, and entertainment, all with fast shipping. Platforms have been involved with multiple scandals, however they always seem to be problems with them trying to make more content available to consumers. For example Amazon’s Kindle service provided books at a cheaper price compared to their print counterparts. While this puts the publishing industry in danger there is no downside to us as consumers, as it provides the same exact content for a much cheaper price. Platforms can be problematic, especially with the danger they present as being incredibly close to being monopolies. These facts considered, the benefits of platform far outweigh the negatives, and while they should be monitored, they are an integral part of our society, as they make our lives easier.

 

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Also Amazon Drones.

Youtube Playlist – Laughs, Scares and Grooves

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I have been using Youtube regularly since I was 15, a freshmen in high school. I think it all started when I was trying to find new music to download, via a YouTube to MP3 site. I was particularly into an artist that goes by the stage name “Flying Lotus”. He has dozens of tracks that are not on albums or eps that you obtain through iTunes, if not hundreds. But, for some reason, they get uploaded to YouTube. I always enjoyed that about this website. Not only is it primarily user driven, it also allows for artists (or “leakers”) to release music in a different area than the regulated sites of iTunes and record label websites. It also is a great way to discover how an audience of dedicated fans will respond to your new material.

Flying-Lotus

 

Most casual listeners will not go beyond the standard methods of obtaining music. I think that, generally speaking, the die-hard fans are the ones who are ready to scour the depths of vinyl stacks and bootleg websites so that they might find that unknown gem of the artist’s library. It is a great method for artists to either test out new tracks on the fans that really matter, or to release old tracks that they enjoyed making and listening to, the ones that didn’t make it on to the ep or album due to the professional process. They can check the number of views and read the comments to gauge its popularity or lack thereof, and if it’s a hit, suddenly they have a new popular track that could go viral and increase their renown. Basically, YouTube is the new “B-Sides” album of every modern artist that is willing to provide their music for free. I say this because it extends far beyond Flying Lotus. I have found countless tracks from many artists that aren’t on iTunes, BitTorrent, or vinyl. It seems to be most popular amongst electronic musicians to use this internet based release form, but it also extends to other genres, especially if someone has a recording of a song that the said band only plays live, or something of the like. Digging through YouTube has yielded many treasures in my time exploring.

My other favorite aspect of YouTube are the “Web Series”. These are usually short, episodic videos that are uploaded by either individuals or corporations, whether they are previously popular or not. The first web series I really got into was “MarbleHornets”, when I was a sophomore in college. For those of you who don’t know, MarbleHornets was originally created by a couple of film school students with a 500$ budget, which they used to shoot the first 26 episodes. I thought I knew what it was like to be scared watching a movie from my experience with “The Shining” and “The Grudge”, to give some perspective. But I have realized that I, in fact, did not know shit. Marble Hornets would release, each week, a video simply titled “Entry #..” with the appropriate number following it. These videos, usually no more than nine minutes, would scare the living hell out of me, especially alone in my dorm room with a bowl of far too hot ramen ready to spill on my lap. They essentially did the same thing as “The Blair Witch Project”, with their “recovered footage” sort of premise, which makes it feel all too real. But they also use methods of both sound and film manipulation to accentuate the horror. Every time “The Operator” (notoriously known as Slenderman from the Something Awful forums), we see a brief image of the horrifying figure, followed by the camera going haywire and emitting awful high pitched frequencies, only to snap back to normal footage once the being had left the frame. Scary stuff, let me tell you.

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So I guess what YouTube means to me is that it can provide for a very intimate experience, almost person to person, or perhaps even more importantly, stranger to stranger. When I download that hidden track, I feel closer to the artist. When I share it, I feel like I’m letting someone in on a wonderful secret. When I watch a webseries episode, especially one made from a KickerStarter fund or with a very small budget, I feel like I’m seeing a truly personal and artistic creation that hasn’t yet been contaminated by media. Yes, there are ads, but these support the uploaders. I’m a huge fan of YouTube, and I think it allows for a new and excellent means of connecting people across the globe, who otherwise would never know that the other existed.

Here are my top 15 (beware, the first five are Marble Hornets!):

Fifth Estate

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The Fifth Estate refers to a nonphysical entity composed of  bloggers, journalists, and media outlets that operate outside the mainstream media. Operating outside of what is referred to as the Fourth Estate which is the mainstream media, most commonly referring to the news media (especially print journalism). The Fifth Estate may also include political groups, corporations, or other groups outside of the mainstream in their views and function in society.

The platforms that the Fifth Estate is built on are based around algorithms that are typically unseen by the greater fraction of users, unless said user has a background in I.T. or computers. This calls into question how much we as users really know about the technology we’re using.

The Fifth Estate however is also very liberating, as users through social media we have a collective ability to share information, create communities, and to organize social movements.

Walking Outside the Walls

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(of Google and other New Media Paradigms in Race, Gender and New Media)

The irony of this class for me is that I signed up with the narrow-minded goal of developing career-oriented technological skills. I expected these to include audio and video-editing, and the production and presentation of online content. Broader, more humanistic goals like developing digital literacy also occurred to me, but were simply items on a list, the kind of which you might find (and which I actually did plan to include) on a resume. The irony, of course, is that my original mode of thinking is what digital literacy seeks to problematize and expose to critical debate. Therefore, this class became, not a covetous, last-chance-before-I-graduate dip into a vocational skills bag, but rather a reflection on my relationship to technology, education, race, and gender.

Speaking of which, my most important takeaway has been a realization of my own privileged relationship to technology, and an awareness of how people with less privilege relate to technology in their lives. Essentially, by virtue of my race, class, and gender privilege, as well as my privileged access to education, I experience most of technology’s good side while being spared most of the bad. For instance, while I still have cause to be concerned about companies like Google tracking my data, for the present I am more likely to feel the effects of that practice in the form of more personalized and convenient web-searches, than in the form of data-packet discrimination based on perceived purchasing power. In general, I now have a much more concrete sense of how exploitation occurs in technology-mediated spaces–the gist being that traditional inequalities and prejudices are perpetuated.

This last point has had a major affect on how I’ve come to view New Media and the rhetoric surrounding it. Public conversation is saturated with uncritical and fawning messages about how “revolutionary” technology has become. Of course, they mean “revolutionary” in the PR sense of the word, in which the implied change is really only a new facade for old relationships of power–like new forms of consumerism, for instance. Basically, new media technologies (and the cultures growing around them) have so far been a disruptive force, but they have not been revolutionary. They do hint at the potential for big changes, and positive ones too, but those won’t just come about by themselves. The technologies of the internet, like automobiles and airplanes before them, are neither inherently good or bad, so they don’t only create either good or bad changes; they just make change. Right now we have an opportunity to direct the transformative power of New Media with a little more foresight and productivity than, say, we did with automobiles, and we should take advantage of it.

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.

Developing My Digital Literacy

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When I signed up for this class I had no idea what to expect. I decided to enroll because I wanted to take an English class that was not literature-based. Although I did think that the class would require us to interact more with technology, I enjoyed learning about new media and the impacts of technology from an academic standpoint.

In the beginning of the semester we discussed our broad opinions about new media. I remember referring to new media, specifically the internet, as a faceless equal playing field where race and gender do not matter. Throughout the course of the semester, I realized that I was misguided in my original interpretation of new media.

Contrary to my initial view, we learned that often new media perpetuates racism and the objectification and degradation of women. In class we discussed racist memes which, due to the ease with which they can be copied, rapidly spread and thus widely and quickly promote their racist message.

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We also discussed how video games degrade women through hypersexualization while also over-representing white men by almost exclusively portraying white males as heroes. While in these two instances new media popularizes negative stereotypes and creates new negative stereotypes about women and about different races, new media also offers a place for misrepresented and underrepresented groups to express themselves. We learned about how web series offer a place for these misrepresented and underrepresented groups to create shows that focus on the specific problems that their groups face unrestrained by the tenants of traditional network television.

In addition to learning about race and gender in new media, we also discussed how Google and Youtube dictate our searches and thus dictate both our knowledge and who grows popular on the internet. I used to view YouTube and Google as places where anyone could have their blog discovered or could post a video and grow famous. Now I realize that YouTube and Google are, at their core, businesses, and, that advertisers rather than users exist as YouTube’s and Google’s customers. Because advertisers are Google’s and YouTube’s customers – YouTube promotes videos and Google promotes websites based on which websites or videos receive the most views, or based on who pays for promotion. While I appreciate the existence of Google and Youtube as free services, I recognize that the validity of information or the quality of content is not Youtube’s or Google’s first concern when yielding search results.

Overall, this course taught me to recognize the importance of digital literacy and to develop my own digital literacy. While the internet does offer a place for anyone to have a voice, the business-minded nature of websites that control our searches, namely Google and YouTube, makes some content difficult to discover. In addition, I learned that it is important to recognize that while the internet gives misrepresented and underrepresented groups a place to express themselves, it also promotes racism and degradation and objectification of women by idolizing white men and by perpetuating negative race and gender stereotypes.

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Here’s a trailer for the film “Miss Representation” which outlines many of the themes we discussed this semester:

 

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UZZV3xU6Q[/youtube]

 

 

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.

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.

Final Reflection

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Over the course of this class I have realized that I have been mostly concerned with the future of new media. Although it has been interesting to study specific elements of new media such as terms, memes and how the YouTube partner program works…I can never stop myself from thinking about future possibilities and consequences. I have adopted a cynical view of society ever since I first became exposed to classes that analyzed technology and new media. This class however, helped me to focus my attention on the present use of new media, even if just for a moment.

My favorite topic of the semester was Google because I learned a shocking amount of information. It is sad that I was previously unaware Google owned YouTube. I still remember the point that has resonated with me the most over the semester as it of course pertained to the future of Google. We, as a society, need to openly discuss new media in a critical space. When I interviewed Sut Jhally for our project, one thing he said was, “People think there is entertainment/media and reality. The two are separate things. However, there is no way to actually separate the two as the shape and create each other.”

If anything this class merely supported theories and ideas that I have been thinking over since I stepped on to this campus. Now that I am about to graduate, I am hoping I will keep a critical eye on the media, the internet and that damn Google Giant! I will be a socially conscious producer AND consumer of the internets. I will question the media I interact with, and I will probably discover a few important key terms on my own.

In conclusion, I am glad that I had the opportunity of meeting in a collective space and talking about relevant issues that seem to escape public airways. Hopefully, academia will keep on this path and increase new media and technological studies as the internet has become a shared global nation. The information provided by this class in combination with the Media Justice lecture I attended, pushed me to realizes that stopping unfair Net Neutrality laws and getting people to understand that the Time Warner/Comcast merger CANNOT HAPPEN is what is truly important to me.

Numerical Representation

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Numerical representation is one of Lev Manovich’s five features of New Media. The term refers to the fact that all new media objects are composed of digital code, like binary, which is the primary language that computers use. According to Lev Manovich, this numerical representation has two key consequences:

1) New media objects can be described formally, or mathematically.

2) New media objects can be manipulated using algorithms. In other words, they can be programmed.

Moreover, numerical representation is essentially a universal language that underlies all new media objects, whether they have been originally created on computers, or have been digitally converted from analog forms of media. As a “basic, ‘material’ principle of new media” (Manovich 63), numerical representation is the technological basis for other principles of new media: Modularity, Automation, and Variability. It is even relevant to the process of Cultural Transcoding, because of its role in the “computer layer” of new media, which interacts with the “cultural layer”.

Works Cited:

Manovich, Lev. “Principles of New Media.” The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2002. 63. Web.

Works Consulted:

Manovich, Lev. “Principles of New Media.” The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2002. Web.

My Life as Defined By YouTube

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My YouTube Playlist
Basically my entire existence summarized by 17 videos… I couldn’t limit myself to just 15.
My first memory of life on YouTube is of one of the most classic viral videos of all time, “Shoes” by Liam Kyle Sullivan. This video was uploaded 7 years ago and has accumulated a mind boggling 52,493,699 views (probably 100 of those coming from me alone.) Liam Sullivan actually went to my high school, King Philip, and even sports a KP Varsity Track jacket in the first scene of the video. But this alumni-themed reason alone is not why I was hooked on YouTube the second the catchy beats of the “Shoes” song entered my eardrums. It’s hilarious! It’s addictive! It’s only the beginning! After watching “Shoes” obsessively, I browsed the rest of the videos Liam had already uploaded at the time. This included the timelessly quotable “Muffins” video which I included in my playlist as well. From here, I traveled around the YouTube space via channels Liam subscribes to and that is where my journey into the world of YouTube comedy began (see also: “Ball Champions” by Kyle.)

Shoes
Muffins
Ball Champions

My exploration of YouTube via “Shoes” as a starting point emphasizes the unique community space that YouTube creates on the web. No other form of new media has been able to produce such a close-knit community of shared creativity, and that is why YouTube is so popular. If you find one video on the web that you enjoy, you can easily locate MILLIONS more of similar taste and theme via automated recommendations, similar channels, playlists, subscriptions, etc. — and thus, the YouTube community is born. One of the most special aspects of YouTube culture, in my opinion, is the way it digitizes ordinary aspects of life. In the pre-YouTube era (how horrific!), one could concoct a delicious cake recipe, serve it to friends, and provide a written transcription of the recipe to those who requested it. In contemporary times, that same recipe is now made accessible to billions of people instead of just close peers. Furthermore, not only is it available to billions, but it has been completely digitized. There could now be a step-by-step video SHOWING (instead of telling) you exactly how to follow the recipe to make that delicious cake. Without YouTube, this would not be possible. It’s crazy to think how simple life activities have been transformed into tangible information for people across the globe, connecting communities of people with shared interests that would never be able to engage or interact without this site. Amazing.


Clearly, I really recognize appreciate how YouTube has changed the web. I use it every single day, and my YouTube playlist basically summarizes my personality and life. I value humor as the top quality trait in a person, as displayed by my obsession for funny YouTube videos and channels. I love music of course, but I’m particularly fascinated by innovative covers and mashups such as DJ Earworm’s yearly mashup of Top 40 songs. I am an animal lover; I could watch videos of baby animals doing quirky things literally all day long — are you kidding me with Christian the Lion?! Most tearjerking video ever! Speaking of tearjerking videos, I’m a huge sucker for them. I love a good emotional cry via a cute viral video such as the military surprise compilation. And, I’m a novice cook just entering the culinary world. I basically have to resort to YouTube instructional videos every time I want to cook a meal. As you can see, YouTube has improved nearly every aspect of my life. It makes content of every kind from each corner of the globe accessible to me right at the click of my fingertips. I’d be lost without it. 

Christian the Lion
Military Surprise Compilation

“Variability”

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What is Variability?

Variability: A characterization of new media in which different versions of a new media objects are derived from the original visual/audio elements of said object, and used to create a new composition while still maintaining a sequential identity that is particular to the original.

 

Citation:

Lev Manovich, “What Is New Media?” from The Language of New Media p. 43-55.