#jade wirth

Week 9 Review

  This week’s readings collectively discussed telemetrics and the idea of “big data”. Whilst this topic is known to be a little dry, I think Stephen Harrington’s work about the way Twitter is shaping the television industry from the book “Tweeting in Society” was quite insightful. Stephen talks about how television is such an ingrained part of our culture nowadays, but rather than dying out or becoming “displaced” at the inclusion of newer medias such as the internet a type of ‘symbiotic relationship’ has been formed.

  It’s referred to as a ‘virtual lounge room’. The combination of tweeting about a television show in real time as it happens (Harrington, 2013). Being social creatures when something important happens in our lives, we flock to social media to ‘share’ the news with our ‘friends’. Like when we finally found out Emily’s shooter in Revenge. When Tim beat Jade in Big Brother. When Sherlock died and everyone had a conspiracy theory as to how he survived and you desperately had to share yours with everyone because if you’re right it could potentially be the most satisfying event to ever happen in your life… you get the idea. A perfect example about how these kinds of situations come about is the televised movie “Sharknado”. Two hours prior to Sharknado, almost no one had even heard of the program, never lone knew that it was premiering. Through the power of Twitter the program gained traction and suddenly the movie had over a million views and more than 400,000 tweets that night (Rubin Report, 2013) (Jones, 2013).

  Now while we may have been using our ‘virtual lounge rooms’ for quite some time now there has never before been a way for marketers to use this generated information for informative purposes. Introducing the hashtag. The hashtag allows companies and television networks to see whether people are watching their program and what sort of conversational noise they are generating. Is it a discussion about the characters, or did the editors of the program miss something subtle that happened in the background of an episode. Television stations are now able to conduct simple quantitative market research that was never possible before (Harrington, 2013).

    Harrington talks quite extensively about this topic in the reading commenting that when a focus group or interview is conducted on people’s television habits they subconsciously act unnaturally. “In order to achieve the ‘ethnographic’ goal and understand the ‘everyday’ affective practices through which [television] is experienced” then we need systems that allow us to understand the meaning-making processes that the audiences engage in, even while they are not necessarily conscious of their being ‘observed’ by a researcher” (Harrington, 2013). A basic example of this comes from the Marketing Research Company Nielsen who last year reported that people were watching on average 4.5 hours of TV a week, compared to the measly 2 that other competing companies had reported (Whestphal, 2014). However Nielsen was in fact correct having set up timers and hidden cameras to accurately record their findings, while opposing companies simply asked consumers in a questionnaire.

  The use of the hashtag on Twitter eliminates this inconsistency, now there’s no stopping businesses completing accurate secondary marketing and audience research. And once they’ve analysed the Twitter findings, if they still wish to conduct more research at least they have a solid foundation from which to ask knowledgeable questions that they know are relevant.

  Finally, Harrington acknowledges that indeed there is still a long way to go in the acceptance of Twitter collected trends as accurate audience research material but once that convergence happens I believe then we may truly benefit from our virtual lounge room.

    Reference List

Harrington, Stephen. 2013. “Ch 18 Tweeting about the Telly: Live TV, Audiences, and Social Media.” In Twitter and Society edited by Katrin Weller, Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess, Merja Mahrt & Cornelius Puschmann, 237-248. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Rubin Report. 2013. “Twitter Buzz Boosts TV Ratings.” Youtube video posted August 8. Accessed May 6, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxTdaK1r8Bc.

Jones, Allie. 2013. “Not Many People Watched Sharknado after All”. The Wire, July 12. Accessed May 5, 2014. http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2013/07/sharknado-ratings-are-and-all-twitter-just-smidge-television/67115/

It is very widely believed by many Australians that we, as America does, have a right to the freedom of speech. However there is actually nothing in our Constitution that is the equivalent of the First Amendment (Thomson Routers Australia Ltd, 2014). Well, at least in a legal sense. But thanks to the wonderful invention of the World Wide Web we now have a freedom that is unparalleled to anything we’ve experienced before. Whilst Australia does have some internet censorship laws they are quite weak and mostly voluntary. In 1999 the Howard government made a big push to have the BSA amended to include that any R18+ rated material become prohibited if hosted on an Australian persons server, and recorded on a blacklist if on an overseas server (Jacobs, 2010). The silver lining for those of you currently deleting your Internet history is that for the websites on the blacklist to become ‘banned’ Australians must voluntarily elect to have it removed from their computers.

  Whilst some of you may be understandably outraged at this news you must first think about the benefits this censorship could bring. What if it prevented and eliminated access to child pornography sharing in Australia? Or websites that detail ‘instruction to crime’? Think about stalking, racial bullying, death threats, people posting nude photos of others without permission or the names of Australian immigrants fleeing from their evil dictators. Don’t these people deserve to be protected? It is very hard for even the firmest supporter of public liberties to argue these points without facing some problematic repercussions.

  Nonetheless while the situation for Australian Internet censorship can often look quite dire there are other countries facing far more tight reigns than we are. In Russia a new amendment to an anti-terrorism bill now categorizes blogs as media entities and “will allow Russian bloggers to be prosecuted for publishing content that is deemed a threat to national security” (The Moscow Times, 2014). Essentially this means that any time a blogger posts anything they must be able to back it up with facts and stats. Any posts seen as extremist or that contradict the rulings of the state could be fined anywhere from 10,000-50,000 rubles. In China bloggers have been causing such a stir with their comments on political corruption, pollution and other issues that last September the government instated new laws leading to the arrest of hundred of bloggers. Under these new regulations “Chinese internet users may face three years in prison for writing defamatory messages that are reposted 500 times. Web users may also be jailed if offending posts are viewed more than 5,000 times” (France-Presse, 2014).

  So where do we draw the line? Whilst it would be wonderful for their to be no internet repression on the views of users AND to have the ability to catch the ’villians’ of the internet it is difficult to a definitive line in the sand as to what is and isn’t considered ‘bad practice’. As Clay Shirky puts it in this weeks reading “It would be nice to have a flexible set of short-term digital tactics that could be used against different regimes at different times. But the requirements of real-world statecraft mean that what is desirable may not be likely” (Shirky, 2011). So what do you think? Let me know your views on internet censorship in the comments.

References:

France-Presse, Agence. 2014. Chinese Blogger Jailed Under Crackdown on ‘Internet Rumours’. The Guardian, April 17. Accessed May 2, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/chinese-blogger-jailed-crackdown-internet-rumours-qin-zhihui

Jacobs, Colin. 2010. “The Future of Internet Censorship.” Electronic Frontiers Australia, September 21.Accessed May 2, 2014. https://www.efa.org.au/2010/09/21/the-future-of-censorship/

Porter, Sergei. 2014. “State Duma Approves Bill Classifying Bloggers as Mass Media”. The Moscow Times, April 18. Accessed May 2, 2014. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/state-duma-approves-bill-classifying-bloggers-as-mass-media/498415.html

Shirky, Clay. 2010. "The Political Power of Social Media." Foreign Affairs, 20 Dec. 2010. Accessed May 1, 2014. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media

There once was a time in every day society, where if I had spent copious hours grueling over a technical computer program (muttering curse words aimed at the inventor of pixels) to then have a company use my work for their own profitability and not show me any form of reward, I would be more than a little disgruntled. And yet in 2011, Coca-Cola did just exactly that. Coca-Cola issued a challenge to the extended creative Internet community, calling for them too express the ‘Energizing Refreshment’ of Coke in a series of short films, with the winner receiving a cash reward (Coca-Cola, 2012). The competition received around 3,600 entries from across the world. Leonardo O’Grady, regional director for Coke’s sparkling & activation platforms states “(We were) blown away by the quality of the submissions and to be honest some of the film quality was better than we get from our global agency partners” (Vision Critical, 2014). So why were people so happy to spend such copious amounts of time when they know that only one of them would win the grand prize?

In traditional forms of production the growth and brainstorming of ideas and knowledge has a long and thorough history. However this new type of free, ideas generation termed ‘crowdsourcing’ “operate in an entirely different dimension as regards quantity of contributions, the uncontrolled nature of the input, and the often anonymous and voluntary nature of the sources” (Ferguson, 2011). The term crowdsourcing was first coined by Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired magazine article and is essentially defined as an open call to a group of people, or ‘the crowd’ to perform a specific task that would previously have been assigned to a single person (Harris and Srinivasan, 2013). It is essentially a way for businesses to gain access to a more diverse quantity of resources, ideas and creativity for a fraction of the traditional cost. “Smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labour isn't always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees” (Mitch, 2008).

  However not everyone is happy about this new, harnessing of collective resources. Many people believe that crowdsourcing is actually a form of exploitation, as there is often no physical, monetary reward for the worker’s labour. “Even if single individuals receive symbolic prize money, most of the work time employed by users and consumers is fully unpaid, which allows companies to outsource paid labour time to consumers or fans that work for free” (Fuchs, 2013). Ethically is this okay? For businesses to use another’s work for their own gain? This is where it gets complicated. If consumers are happy to work for essentially nothing, are businesses being immoral by continuing to use their skills? On the one hand the business is making a large profit for something someone else has produced. But at the same time, the labour was given willingly and the consumer is not disgruntled. It is very difficult to draw a line in the sand and stand on one side or the other. Personally I believe that if the labour was given willingly then there is no issue of exploitation. What about you? Do you believe that crowdsourcing is ethically immoral? Let me know in the comments!

  Coca-Cola Energizing Refreshment Campaign  (http://www.coca-cola.com/energizingrefreshment/)

  Bibliography:

  Coca-Cola. 2011. “Energizing Refreshment” Accessed March 29, 2014. http://www.coca-cola.com/energizingrefreshment/

  Vision Critical. 2014. “Standing Out in a World of Advertising Blindness.” Vision Critical Blog, March 26, 2014. Accessed March 29, 2014. http://www.visioncritical.com/blog/winning-advertisements?utm_content=bufferbee4f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

  Ferguson, Sherry D. 2011. Strategic Planning for Communication of Innovation: Crowdsourcing as Social Capital. Ottawa: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

  Harris, Christopher, G. & Srinivasan, Padmini. 2013. Security and Privacy in Social Networks. New York: Springer Science + Business Media.

  Fuchs, Christian. 2013. Social Media: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage Publications.

“Web 2.0 is the network as platform… delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it” (Fuchs, 2011). This platform that is created thrives on this level of user participation that allows content to be consumed on a more horizontal level, in contrast to the more traditional ‘top-down’, vertical approach of Web 1.0. (Chandler and Munday, 2011). This emergence of the hybrid beast known colloquially to those in the media orientated world as the ‘prosumer’ are the propositioned patrons of the future, and the down fall of conventional media as we know it. “[Prosumers] engage in a form of ‘consumption as ensemble activity’. That is to say that they participate in the production of what is consumed” (Beer and Burrows, 2010). Essentially, audiences are no longer waiting to be addressed. They are in control of what they create, consume, discuss and distribute.

And yet, does this emergence of the prosumer and their newly established level of authority mean the unmitigated inhalation of traditional media and the conventional way it is received and distributed? Certainly “the days of the passive consumer are behind us forever” (Salzman, 2000) but that does not inevitably mean that we have all suddenly altered into competent producers of media either. Whilst it is certainly easier for people now to create, distribute, and share their opinions with an audience that literally encompasses millions that each and every one of them necessarily are. “We believe that there are still people who are "listening" and "watching" the media produced by others, but… we argue that they listen and watch differently in a world where they know they have the potential to contribute than in a world where they are locked out of active meaningful participation.” (Green and Jenkins, 2011).

Take popular social media website YouTube for example. Theoretically, as I have access to a video camera, basic media editing software, stable internet access and a YouTube account there is nothing barring me from creating a video and uploading it to this website, exposing it to an audience of “more than 1 billion unique users… each month” (YouTube, 2014). By the same token, were I to have viewed this newly ‘prosumed’ media and decided that perhaps I prefer all of the actresses scenes to be replaced with voice overs from the popular movie Shrek, I, as a prosumer, am able to make these alterations and then upload this new hybrid video, back to YouTube. I am now an audience member, consuming prosumed content, remixing and then re-prosuming media content for other audience members to consume.

However do I choose to use all of my newfound prosumer power to become the next PewDiePie, Jenna Marbles, Tyler Oakley (links below) YouTube sensation? No. I use it to watch and send other people’s videos of pug dogs during the immorally, inappropriate hours of the wee morning. My prosumption activity exists at the most basic, fundamental level where I, as the audience, am exposed to the prosumed content of others and who may then potentially pass this content through my connective links to other audiences members. Whilst it is true that all audience members are now partial prosumers in their own rights, this does not mean that they are now all proficient creators, commentators, critics and capitalists ready to storm and overthrow the media industry. There are different levels that subsist in the prosumer sphere and audience members travel and exchange through them habitually and without constraint.

So whilst the age of the prosumer is certainly upon us we must maintain perspective on the notion as whole. My name is Jade and I am a prosumer. Today I am a prosumer of ‘Babies trying lemons for the first time’. How about you?

http://img.uthinkido.com.s3-external-3.amazonaws.com/what-i-do-when-i-am-on-the-internet-69cfee95c50be71662beb4be9cd22b.jpg

References:

·       Beer, David and Burrows, Roger. 2010. “Consumption, Prosumption and Participatory Web Cultures” Journal of Consumer Culture 10 (3): 3-12. Accessed March 21, 2014. doi: 10.1177/1469540509354009

·       Chandler, Daniel and Munday, Rod. 2011. “Downward Communication (top-down communication)” A Dictionary of Media and Communication. Accessed March 21, 2014 http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/view/10.1093/acref/9780199568758.001.0001/acref-9780199568758-e-0773?rskey=euJ459&result=1

·       Fuchs, Christine. 2011. “Web 2.0, Prosumption, and Surveillance.” Surveillance and Society 8 (3): 288-389. Accessed March 21, 2014. http://gateway.library.qut.edu.au/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/docview/856445651?accountid=13380

·       Green, Joshua and Jenkins, Henry. 2011. “Chapter 5: Spreadable Media How Audiences Create Value and Meaning in a Networked Economy” The Handbook of Media Audiences. 109-127.

·       Salzman, Marian. 2000. “Rise of the Prosumer” Print 54 (6): 141-153. Accessed March 21 2014. http://gateway.library.qut.edu.au/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/docview/231027805?accountid=13380

·       Youtube, 2014 “Statistics” Youtube Press. Accessed March 21, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html

Links to Popular Youtube Channels Referenced:

·       Jenna Marbles - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9gFih9rw0zNCK3ZtoKQQyA

·       PewDiePie - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-lHJZR3Gqxm24_Vd_AJ5Yw

·       Tyler Oakley - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvVuqRzGVqRlmZYlTf99M_w

Links to Other Youtube Videos Reference throughout:

·       Babies eat lemons for the first time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YBheuHma8I