#benmulheran

This week’s lecture and readings focused on the idea of new media as a tool for political communication and engagement. Particularly, we looked at the power relationships that exist in society and whether new media has challenged these or even made them obsolete.

Two areas that I found particularly interesting from this week are the increased activism and mobilisation that new media has afforded and whether or not this has actually changed the people’s influence and political engagement.

Social media has created many new spaces for the public to access and share information free of censorship. This has allowed for the media to actually serve its purpose of informing and educating citizens on significant facts and events, creating platforms for debate and serving as a channel for advocacy without the political bias that underpins most major media outlets. (McNair 2011) Basically, the role of the citizen has been expanded, they are no longer just passive consumers of political information, rather they are active players, monitoring what governments and politicians are doing and sharing self generated news. (Shirky 2011) This Youtube video explains these ideas in greater detail. This circumvention of the mass media through networked communication structures is an example of a challenge to the established power relationship between politicians, the media and the public. Essentially, as Gladwell states “the new tools of social media have reinvented social activism… making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate and give voice to their concerns.” (Gladwell 2010)

The 2001 Manilla demonstrations are a prime example of this increased activism and mobilisation. After evidence against the corrupt President, Joseph Estrada was set aside, thousands of Filipinos gathered on a major intersection in Manila choking the city for several days. The message was spread by forwarding a text message saying “Go 2 EDSA, Wear blk.” Consequently, Estrada was retried , found guilty and served a prison sentence.  Without new media it would have been near impossible to organise a reaction of such magnitude in such a short time frame.

Although social media has allowed for “more opportunities to engage in public speech and an enhanced ability to undertake collective action,” it is possible that new media has not had as great an impact on politics as otherwise thought. New media platforms have “made it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.“ (Gladwell 2010) This creates an attitude of “slacktivism.” In essence, this is people expressing their views or spreading an idea, creating a sense of smugness for lack of a better word, and then taking no real action to instigate change. The ‘Kony 2012’ campaign is a perfect example of this. By sharing an image across Facebook people raised awareness of the African rebel leader. However, this slacktivism did nothing more than make a company rich and create a sense of self-satisfaction for everyone who shared it. Real action and rallying still needs to be utilized if real change will be affected.

 Social media has created many new opportunities for political engagement, however, this has not inherently had much of an effect on the public's political influence. It is how the media is used that determines whether it will instigate change. Although new media often leads to slacktivism, just because “barely committed actors cannot click their way to a better world does not mean that committed activists can’t use social media effectively.” (Shirky 2011)

  Reference List

  Shirky, Clay. 2011 “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change.”In Foreign Affairs 90:1. Available at:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media

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

Sauter, Theresa L. 2014 “KCB206 Internet, Self & Beyond; Week 8 Lecture Notes Accessed April 28, 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_5232450_1

Anon, 2013. “Media and the Internet as a ‘Public Sphere’“Accessed 28 April 2014 http://npstatham.com/tag/slacktivism/

The development of new media platforms and mediated communication has facilitated an ever growing number of avenues to “communicate information across time and space.” (Sauter, 2014) Anyone with a computer or smart phone is now able to engage in creative new ways of communicating with the world, each other and themselves. However, a question constantly looming over these technologies, and one that I often debate is whether these affordances have enriched or impoverished traditional communication. Although, in my opinion the obvious answer seems to be that it’s impoverishing communication, this week’s content caused me to challenge this.

One result of mediated communication is what could be seen as the dumbing down of language into a more limited and less expressive style. This is what Crystal refers to as “Netspeak.” (Crystal 2006) In a reference to “Newspeak” from George Orwell’s 1984, Netspeak could be seen as limiting language to a narrow and inarticulate means of communication, to the point where a message’s true intention often can’t be conveyed. Consequently, communication is impoverished. It becomes shallow, interactions can become inadequate and identities and relationships are compromised. (Baym 2010, 51) Essentially, it hinders the “crucial parts of interpersonal relationships.” (Sauter, 2014) Moreover, it becomes fragmented. New media platforms like Twitter, where character number is limited, can cause a fragmentation and dilution of an intended message. If an entire message can’t be conveyed it becomes simplified often resulting in the fragmentation and loss of the intended message. Therefore, it can be seen that the dumbing down, fragmentation and often limiting nature of new media communication has served to impoverish traditional communication.

However, this week caused me to realise that the question is not as simple as whether or not new media communication has been detrimental or not to traditional communication. There are many factors that can be relevant to deciding if communication has been impoverished or enriched such the users familiarity with technology or the type and strength of offline relationships. (Sauter, 2014) However, what I believe to be the most significant determining factor is the context in which the online communication is occurring. As context is “an essential component of communicative possibilities and constraints,“ (Baym 2010, 50) I feel it’s the most important factor for determining if communication has been impoverished or enriched. For example, in the context of people living on the other side of the world from each other who can’t have a face to face relationship, new media communication is incredible enriching. Whereas, for people who can have a traditional relationship, but favour new media communication, the relationship may suffer from fragmentation and limits imposed on expression and meaning.

While the limits that can be placed on new media communication, may easily lead to the conclusion that it has been impoverished, it is a far broader question requiring many considerations. I believe that it’s wholly based on the context in which the communication takes place and without considering this it’s impossible to determine if it has has been impoverished or enriched.

  Reference List

  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. 

Crystal, David, (2006). Chapter 2 : The Medium of Netspeak. In Crystal, David, Language and the internet, (pp.26 - 65). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

  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. 

  Something that the convergence of traditional media roles has afforded is a rise in the space of vernacular creativity. This has allowed for appreciation of a creative scope within innate, everyday activities (Sauter, 2014) and in my opinion made the Internet a far better place. From the obvious examples such as Youtube to the glorious, Brown Cardigan, a site which collates some of the best user generated content on the internet, new spaces of display and appreciation for vernacular creativity are always being created. Rather than being dismissed, as they would have been in a top down model of media distribution, examples of vernacular creativity are now respected as a genuine force of creativity and being incorporated into an everyday model of content production. (Sauter, 2014)

  One of the most influential and powerful movements to come from convergence and vernacular creativity is the citizen journalism movement. Thanks largely to the realisation that everyday exploits can have creative value,  “public citizens can play an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information.” (Sauter, 2014) However, whether or not this is detrimental to news reporting is a contentious issue. Although the blurring of journalism has often created “adversarial relationships between professional journalists and their would-be challengers” (Bruns, 2012. 97) and sometimes resulted in poorer news and reporting, citizen journalism is also a powerful tool of media distribution allowing people to distribute content via websites such as Spot.us. This website takes “some of the power of decision making away from the hands of journalists and places it in the hands of ordinary people. (Jian & Usher, 2013. 161) They have also created a movement towards “stories that provide them with practical guidelines for daily living…[not] stories from which they gain a general awareness of the world. (Jian & Usher, 2013 161) The result, a more rounded, all encompassing and arguably democratic journalism. Despite, the debatable trivialisation of journalistic standards, citizen journalism has, in my opinion, allowed for a more inclusive and participatory method of content delivery and one that can often supersede traditional journalism.

Reference List

1. Burgess, Jean and Green, Joshua, (2009). Chapter Two : YouTube and the Mainstream Media. In Burgess, Jean and Green, Joshua, Youtube : online video and participatory culture, (pp.15 - 37). Cambridge UK: Polity Press. 

2. Bruns, Axel (2012). Journalists and Twitter : how Australian news organisations adapt to a new medium., Media International Australia Incorporating Culture & Policy 144 (144) pp.97-107. 

3. Jian, Lian and Usher, Nikki (2013). Crowd‐Funded journalism., Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 19 (2) pp.155-170. 

Web 2.0 has dramatically shifted the way that media content is now produced, consumed and distributed particularly the role and purpose of the audience. The traditional, and now archaic model of top down media communication has been replaced by a far more lateral and participatory means of production. According to Green and Jenkins, “powerful new production tools and distribution channels are enabling the mute to speak and the invisible to be seen” by exploiting the “technologies of freedom. Consequently,  “the people formerly known as the audience” (Rosen, 2006) now have agency. They are able to actively seek out and distribute content that appeals to them and their peers. Thus it could also be seen that audiences are now empowered, able to produce, distribute and consume content as they please rather than being told what, how and when to consume.

However, there is also a valid claim that Web 2.0 merely gives the illusion that audiences have been empowered. According to Van Dijck and Nieborg 52% of users that make up the media landscape are ‘inactive,’ meaning they do not share, or distribute content, they simply consume it. If this is the case, surely the freedom web 2.0 has created is “by and large, consumptive behaviour by a different name.” I know that I would consider myself largely inactive on new media. I don’t post Facebook statuses, I don’t use Instagram or Snapchat and before this unit I’d never written a blog, and if I didn’t have to it’s likely it would have stayed that way. However, Green and Jenkins say there has been a change in “how we understand what audiences do, and how they fit into the networks of... the current media landscape.” There aren’t two distinct categories of producers and consumers anymore, rather everyone appraises and distributes content among their networks. This model, unlike the more rigid producer/consumer is one that I do participate in along with almost everyone who engages in social media. My friends and I often share music and videos amongst one another, taking on the role of appraisers and distributors within our own network, hence, contributing to creation process.

 This video demonstrates this shifting relationship between the audience, the distributors and the producers of content.

With this more lateral network obviously the spreadability of content also increases. The two way flow of media demonstrates how “the collective choices of audiences make content meaningful, and economically viable.” (Green and Jenkins) This can be seen in every piece of media that has gone viral over the internet. One such example is Rebecca Black’s viral hit Friday. This was a piece of media created in a top down format, however, social media allowed the audience to act as appraisers and distributors causing the video to receive millions of hits overnight and spread all over the world. Through this sharing on new media, the company behind the song, Ark Music Factory, generated millions in profit. It also facilitated the production of content in the form of numerous memes and gifs which were also distributed across the internet.

This is a perfect example of modern media production and  how top down media production was taken and distributed across a modern two way participatory platform of creation and distribution. 

Reference List

Lessig, Lawrence, (2008). Chapter 7: Hybrid Economies. In Lessig, Lawrence, Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy, (pp.177 - 224). New York: Penguin. 

Green, Joshua and Jenkins, Henry, (2011). Chapter 5 : Spreadable Media : How Audiences Create Value and Meaning in a Networked Economy. In Nightingale, Virginia, The handbook of media audiences, (pp.109 - 127). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Gwilliam, Mike. 2011. Rebecca Black’s Friday Explained

Available: http://www.forgetthebox.net/rebecca-black/

Accessed: 22/3/14

4. Anon, 2012 Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning In a Networked Society

Available: http://video.mit.edu/watch/spreadable-media-creating-value-and-meaning-in-a-networked-society-8705/