#imedia530

Upon entering the iMedia program, I was alerted right away that one of the primary works of scholarly nature I would be required to produce was a research paper. More specifically; a literature review.  And while I pondered how I was going to muster together an interesting summary of already-instated research, I quickly decided on my topic to be Internet Television with a focus on how this new media has risen in popularity with Millennials and Internet power users. I gravitated to this subject from early in the semester, being that I already had my capstone ideas ready for lift-off, and had made plans to incorporate these findings into my capstone project. From an expert standpoint, I believed I knew much of what was needed to know in order to apply the contexts of Internet television to real-world projects. However, in order to accurately inform others about the phenomenon of Internet television, I first had to define what “Internet television” was, and then list the principles, arguments, and even concerns that surrounded the media. Through my findings I have learned that Internet television was merely an enhanced means of television program viewing, even described as the 3rd wave of broadcast communication, that didn’t require an air connection or a cable connection, but simply an Internet connection.

The definition given by researchers for Internet television to date is video and audio components streamed over the web. However, more specifically than that, Internet television refers to Internet delivered through a television set that allows the viewer to watch programs that are traditionally aired on cable television online rather than just through broadcasts. Internet television is effective at doing this because it possesses the ability for viewers to stream videos and audio simultaneously. This new convergence of media had resulted in a new platform for people everywhere to view their favorite cable shows and movies on the TV through their Internet connection. There were several corporations including Google and Apple who quickly jumped on the Internet TV bandwagon. These companies to date have released hundreds of thousands of cable shows, movies and short films on their websites to people who exclusively have and use Internet TV. Both Google and Apple made their Internet TV platforms easily accessible to all Internet users and additionally interactive, which gave viewers the option to stream the content, rewind and even have the option of recording it for later.  After more content distributors began to create hubs for Internet TV, the media quickly became synonymous with “interactive TV”.  This notion of interactive TV is what helped to spur my interest in pursuing this topic and examining how viewers perceived it. I was intrigued to learn whether viewers on a general level would use Internet TV, what feelings they would have towards it, and if it could encourage them to form relationships with other viewers.

Glancing over my findings, I realized that there was a significant amount of evidence that supported a higher level of audience engagement in Internet television viewing than in simple cable television viewing.  One of the primary reasons for this was the level of customization that Internet TV allowed a viewer to have. This in particular referred to the general enjoyment that viewers had in being able to choose when and where to view their favorite programs as opposed to simply watching them broadcast over cable. With Internet TV, there is additionally a sense of empowerment restored to the viewer, so that they can be selective in what content their viewing. In regards to content selection over Internet TV versus traditional cable television, viewers are exposed to a larger variety of content, much of which is not controlled by proprietary cable corporations. Instead, viewers can actively seek shows that are exclusively broadcasted over the Internet, which includes a great deal of shows, films, documentaries and other programs created by independent filmmakers and entrepreneurs as well. It was also interesting to note how Internet TV became a facilitator of social networking and cooperation. With its application, several researchers outlined that Internet TV increased contact with friends and relatives that lived near by. It also provided a new tool in order for people to navigate and create identities in “complex and fragmented, networked societies.”

Still in the collection process of my research and data gathering, I kept experiencing the urge to divulge to the world my acquired knowledge of this media and the potential behind it.  At the least, my intention is to incorporate my research progress into my capstone project and use it as a guide for my personal content creation. Internet TV, while an innovative medium, it is still considered fairly new, and still slightly novice. As it stands, there are theories about whether or not Internet TV will replace traditional cable television and whether or not Internet TV will become a revolutionary measure for cable network providers to interact with viewers, provide valued content and increase their profit margins. There are still critical debates over whether Internet TV will be adapted into future television sets and become a fixture in living rooms all across America. However, I believe it will be most interesting to observe how Internet TV evolves to meet the demands of the public while still satisfying the market requirements of American cable conglomerates. 

This past week, I was given the task to read and reflect on two scholarly journals surrounding the significance of citizen journalism, and the over-arching perception of how it can sustain political efficacy. The first article, Social news, citizen journalism and democracy written by Luke Goode, attested crucial points in the functionality of citizen journalism to create a digital entity that can influence broadcast media in ways that can be detrimental or exponentially beneficial to the success of American capitalism and even democracy.  The second article discussed in class, which was Interactivity and Branding, Public Political Communication as a Marketing Tool assessed the same perspectives bulleted in Goode’s article and applied the findings of aggregated social news sites, and the influence of citizen journalism in a social context to political parties, campaigns and legal strategies.

One of the core components of citizen journalism is that is it inherently Internet based and allows users to assimilate the roles of reporters, journalists and even editors. One of the primary examples that were discussed in Goode’s article were Digg and Reddit.com. A characteristic of these websites was that users could essentially give a thumbs up to news stories that most appealed to personal interests/insights. With this type of journalism, there has also been a gradual increase in the amount of entertainment news, music news and “popular” news that is given more time in the limelight. When I last examined Digg, the news article dibbed highest in relevancy, (according to the majority vote on Digg.com) was a feature story on Korean viral sensation PSY (the man that debuted to the world the song “Gangnam style”, and the increase in the amount of stock that PSY’s father received, which was believed to have occurred due to the spontaneous fame of his son as opposed to actual product value and appeal. Not varying to far from the perspective of “audience chosen news telling” is the notion of self-acclaimed journalists on the Internet that strive to provide news-based content and opinion based on expert experience and individual testimony. A common example of this includes articles and reads that can be found on “The Examiner”. The Examiner, to a variable extent, is regarded as a scholarly website, more faceted than Wikipedia in which individuals can read and gain notable insight into contemporary views of political and economic affairs. The Examiner functions in many ways similar to “WikiLeaks” , in which everyday individuals shed light on discrepancies in world and national news, organizations and democratic America.  These users do it to an extent that they even receive compensation, and advertising for the traffic they develop and the amount of subscribers they receive.

This instant of popular vote and the Internet fandom associated with multimedia journalism has spilled into the broadcast industries, as the activities of self-acclaimed online journalists continuously influence the type of stories that are headlined in news and the general amount of exposure it receives. CNN’s iReporter is one such aspect of CNN’s cable news network that allows citizen journalists to divulge to CNN their stories and insightful opinion. Moving forward from that, are broadcast stations like WSB News, and Fox News, which on their websites have political forums detailing the option to choose the news that wants to be heard.

Internet gratification has no doubt supplemented our innate desires to be creators, aggregators and essentially content owners. It can be easily argued that two decades ago placed us in the 1990’s, and before this booming phenomenon of cyber-sharing, the open exchange of creative content was limited to word of mouth, books, tapes, VHS’s and CDs. Fast forward to a culture with high-flying graphic vectors, editing software for synthesized music creation and online galleries dedicated to the peer distribution of movies, music and more. Considering the vast amount of Internet potential and additive software that are now available at user disposal, it is simply incredible to me how a nation of diverse people can collectively render everyday symbols and icons in our society and alter them using editing programs to create something unconventional, perplex or even wildly unimaginable than its original form. This area of industry had come under fire up until the early 2000's from content-producing overlords who aspire to tax and incriminate any such person who created alterations of already-made and nationally distributed content. However, we quickly see that the situation the national corporation control over such an industry is shifting to the congregated and manipulated content of everyday users. 

In his reading, Lawrence Lessig describes today’s Internet and social culture as being ““hybrid economy” — one where commercial entities leverage value from sharing economies.” This entails a necessary piggybacking and remapping of already available content to create new visual and audial entities. These entities subserviently appeal to a new population of people that can commonly identified as Generation Y and The Millennial, populations that interpret the Internet and their exposure to these societal symbols and use editing software to their disposal to re-express or re-introduce the same construct in a new way.

This daily line of habit has in essence become responsible for a growing portion of our artistic culture, allowing artworks, music, dance and even literature to undertake various forms. Driving to and from class daily, my ears are flooded with various music compilations from my selective radio stations. Transitioning to more eclectic, “new school” music stations, like Power 107.5 in particular, I am compelled to listen to the auto-enhanced rap songs by a new front of rap-artists, often times possessing audio elements completely enhanced with auto-tune capabilities for the rappers verse and a hook and melody for the track that has been sampled in a manner commonly known as “chopped and screwed.” In this arena, figures like Lil Wayne, Drake, Two Chains and Rick Ross serve as celebrity umpires that have essentially rifted together musical components from other artists to produce and redistribute to the public.  However, one of the most discursive points that Lessig makes in his readings and movies alike is the tendency of production institutions of the past to place parameters on current content sharing market to combat re-distribution and personalization of any music, art and material for national distribution. This ordeal is a controversial point of appeal for Lessig, as he illustrates how national production and content corporations are applying 19th century legislation to 21st century economy. Status: Irrelevant and Outdated!

The idea that Lessig explores is an economy in which manipulated alterations of art, music and literature are permissible and creatively additive to e-commerce. And in recent constructs, these works of distribution must fall into the context of fair use, entailing a number of factors such as "educational and parodical purposes", but most of all, non-commercialization of the content and no evidence of commercial gain that can financially hinder the original producing content organization. There have been many incidents of content originators defending their creations and personally rebutting and even terrorizing any such person that tries to access the creation and alter it to produce new material. One such modern example, which is among a plethora in this in a musical sense, is lawsuit that surfaced between a local coalition of farmers which publicly distributed a jingle titled “We Are Farmers” and a musician named Diplo who decided to incorporate the jingle into his song and then nationally distribute the song for commercial entertainment.  But the question at hand is “who is making the most of this “content remixing interface”, who are the main game players, and who and what are the tragedies of this remake network?

In a society where Internet perusing is the new norm, and there is a collective cyber-culture for every interest under the sun,  it becomes more and more easy to blur the lines between what we aspire to be and what we actually are. At the early part of last week, I read in an interesting novel written by a rambunctious woman named Shelley Jackson titled "Stitch Bitch", that in this life, we are not going where we think we are headed, we don't think what we think we think and that we are not who we think we are. In referencing Lanier's findings, theories and ideologies, its apparent to me that those statements yield many unconventional truths. And if anything, is divinely emphasized when considering the casual exploitation of cyberspace for individual interests. 

Throughout the text, Lanier discusses "cyberspace totalism" and ideals pertaining to limited democracies, down-sized intellectual economy and the rebuttal of creative thought, which are all themes that continuously resurface. Traditional creative markets, relating to music industries, art and design institutions according to Lanier's "You Are Not A Gadget" text are being broken in a society where such content can be massively consumed on a global level with little need for focus on validity, originality, authority or financial hierarchy. Wheeling back around to the concept of "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" and more often then not, the repute to such a question is "why should we?" Better yet, "why should I pull through the agony of branding myself when I can just piggyback off of someone else's?" This discussion of diminishing creative aspirations and entrepreneurship from Lanier's perspective calls forth reflection for many other discussion points as well. One of the most compelling is the limber of what I titled "the Internet identity crisis". 

One of the fundamental arguments that Lanier relays in text is the alter-ego that every-day individuals develop online, and essentially an Internet persona that can be either be an alternate manifestation of self (avatar) or an extension of a live personality that a person feels more comfortable with revealing in cyber-space than in reality. While specifically focusing on corruption, Lanier poses the dogma that criminally-inclined persons are more likely to commit crimes using the Internet as a crutch, because they possess the notion that the cyber-space haven is not real, but simply a digitized rendition and therefore doesn't similar employ the same negative reinforcements as the real world.  In the latter chapters of the book, Lanier delves into the notion that the Internet world is an entity lacking the proper segways, and appropriate action to protect intellectual property rights, "originality" and ownership, as "entitlement has achieved its singularity and has become infinite" (Lanier, Chapter 6) and has thus translated into a sphere cluttered with copycat philosophy and products birthed from peer-sharing and not the individual constructs of ingenuity. His conclusive arguments sync with the "Wisdom of Crowds" mythology in which the "online majority" (as Lanier refers to, "The Big N") tacitly governs the rate at which innovative content is accessed and dispersed and essentially stifles creativity at the individual to a verge of worthlessness.

Growing up, I remember as a little girl meandering through the patched white ice that a winter storm in New York City brought and raising my arms to catch snowflakes in my hand.  The snowflake, beautifully—incredibly and proportional in nature, possesses many intricate lines and patterns creating its identity.  Lines that I could only squint to see, and after-doing so was intrigued by their consistency and sturdiness. Flash-forwarding to Shirky’s snowflake, he goes into similar details about the snowflake’s visual features, although in highly more synchronized and focused context and purpose. The snowflake is essentially Shirky’s metaphor for a transnational integration of networks, ideas and cultures that from his own mouth is described as ad infinitum.

 Ad infinitum, as I can even begin to conceptualize it, is an entity that knows no bounds and has no limits. An exponential line in algebra or a tangent shape in trigonometry that has no defined value, to the point where we have to abbreviate it with decimals or attach a squiggly mark-up to the end of it because attempting to draw its end would be eternally exhausting.  But the snowflake, even more complex than the bounds of lines and curves, is a symbol for the bolstering rise of Internet network phenomenon and the exponential amount of change it has brought over the past decade. As digital organizations and virtual relationships continue to evolve online, it provokes individuals to be more active in their community and stems more interpersonal interactions between strangers that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.  Using Wikipedia as the batting stage, there have been monumental advents for individuals as power users to write, research, share, edit and proliferate exactly what they wish. And even in the concept of uses and gratification theory: social power and connections.

 Focuses on collaborative action (hence Wikipedia, i.e Flashmobs)

·      Wikipedia: the ability of the general public to self-allocate roles and duties to maintain the public platform

·      Reinforces the political boundaries of democracy within the U.S—not seen in other countries around the world (such as China)

·      Creating platforms for change: backpacks off of Benkler’s text, to illustrate the notion that through the Internet, and open-source networks, experimental ideas have an outlet for digital execution and the potential to start a movement.

   When it comes to internet media, and more importantly the exchange intellectual goods and services online: is the suggested action to stop the flow or to let it go? The answer is indeed to let it go--run through the blood and veins of the intangible being created as a by-product of information consumption, ever-growing and ever-evolving. As an objectionable lover of all things digital innovative and intellectually stimulating, I've played an active role in transitioning my focus to the latest digital capabilities, as I've swapped out my traditional mobile to a smartphone and my Acer laptop computer to a ritsy Google Nexus tablet. Subsequently, I along with a looming set of millennials have shifted our attention to the digital interfaces that allow us to support our interests of social communication and a continuous exchange of information and ideas. There is also a fascination that we have to re-share photos and music that we found to be interesting on already-posted websites.

Considering the role that the Internet plays in our perceptions of the institutions around us, it has delivered us a platform for well-rounded knowledge development in topics that range from economics to religion, from education to finance. Defining the constraints of the Internet, and type of communication that can occur within is an interesting origin of exploration. Yet understanding the multi-directional, social and intellectual components of it in this technologically-based society, as well as how it can be sanctioned by both political organizations and market corporations has been an exceptionally tedious concept to grasp for state governments and market economies.

While reading Benkler's "Wealth of Nations" text, there are several relevant arguments that can be attached with perceived notions of how Internet media facilitates our means of intellectual stimulation, which spills into our creation of new ideas, new intellectual endeavors and essentially our purchasing power as global consumers. One of the first arguments that Benkler proposes is that computers are necessary facilitators of intellectual goods and services and that it is a fundamental means of communication. Implied is the idea that individuals can form a political identity or adopt an affiliation as a result of exchanged information about the political and economical institutions that surround them. However, Benkler also alludes a contrasting argument that states that social structure remains unaffected by technology and the advent of technology will not in essence give birth to new political ideologies, such as democracy and socialism that weren't already existent. Through reading the article, and conceptualizing the desire for the government and large market corporation's wish to sanction internet media to protect unrelated interests and investments, there are several questions that I push to the forefront. What can Benkler's text predict about what the free multi-directional exchange of intellect will become? Is it doomed to a fate of increased government regulations and corporation manipulation? Will the lines of proprietary ownership of creative property continuously blur until no digital content is original? How likely is that to happen? 

After a long & extensively busy period of time, I return to the Tumblr world that I've missed so much to carry on my updates and creative & critical information, as well as some artsy & ritsy tidbits of interesting phenomenon around me. Moreover, this page branches off of my usually uncommon interests in underground subject matters to include commentary that is both intellectually stimulating and theoretically practical. While immersed in this blog, it is my hope that you will gain a better understanding of my creative thought process and arguments for various subject matters that we cover in Com 530. Cheers to a fantastic semester!!

During a lecture in my newly added Com 530: Theory & Audience Analysis course, I would be challenged to use theory as a means of using a practical problem solving method for many of the challenges observed in modern-day communication. As the byproduct of a required reading assignment, I embraced the world of interesting and entertaining theory, that would not only open my mind up to new perspectives and viewpoints but spawn corresponding questions. The reading to be covered was the New York Time's best seller by celebrity spokeswoman Jane McGonigal titled "Reality is Broken".  The text, which was primarily centered on the expanding empire of virtual gaming, proposed video-game interaction as a forerunner in changing the scope of human interaction and history as we know it. This argument is posed repeatedly throughout the book, and frames the text as a one of the highest-praised reads of video gamer pop-culture. In addition, one of the most innovative approaches to socio-cultural revival of our decade. 

In the age of Herodotus, McGonigal notes that games played were physically and mentally engaging in which the public would occupy their minds with the essence of competition and overall fitness drawing focus away from society's inability to meet basic needs. In the text, McGonigal describes video-games in a four-component format that metaphorically compares to a game of golf or the classic computer game called Tetris. These components also strike a chord with a well-structured society, which includes achievable goals, clearly-defined rules, voluntary participation and positive feedback. Through McGonigal's text, this suggested model provides all individuals with social, mental and interpersonal stimulation that is needed to uphold a egalitarian society that can resolve various dilemmas that compromise human rights. 

While I enjoyed reading the novel, my mind was constantly generating thoughts that supported some parts while also rejecting other sections throughout the book. Early in the text McGonigal's proposal suggests that the entire population of non-gamers become gamers for the purpose of fortifying global economies, social and physical infrastructure. Though a surge of game developers are attempting to incorporate video-game content that is socially, economically and aesthetically pleasing to the growing population of gamers, it can ironically be a catch 22, subtracting their connection to the real world, and subsequently making them immune to real-world dilemmas and human rights issues. As video-game use has been increasingly identified as a means of escape from a reality that is undernourishing and un-engaging, hard-core gamers might also have the characteristics of reality withdrawal with a diagnosis of absent-minded syndrome.

In terms of the "hard-core video gamers", McGonigal's text draws many valid points on reshaping the face of social and interpersonal relationship on some fronts. However, I feel that the solutions proposed can also be more multi-dimensional. While there is an effort to identify the types of individuals that make up the world's "active-gamer" population, there is no accurate measure of what the nationality, education level or social class of what the "video gamer prototype" is. There is also, more importantly, no accurate measure of how an increase in video game play will positively influence person to person communication outside the boundaries of the game. I believe that many of the world's controversial issues exist being that there are discerning differences between education and class" power and poverty.