#kcb206

By n9462716

Social Media can often be a double-edged sword. It has incredible potential to be used to market a product or service, to build a community and a loyal fanbase that can be directly interacted on a personal level that was simply not possible two decades ago. Followers on social media can then be turned into consumers and even be convinced to invite their friends. On the other hand, companies are often under far more scrutiny and even a poorly worded tweet can have disastrous effects on their reputation.

This case study will be focusing on a blunder made by Digital Homicide. For those not familiar, Digital Homicide is an Indie Video Game Developer/Publisher (also previously known as Imminent Uprising), and once had many released games on Steam, a popular PC game distribution platform. When popular youtuber, Jim Sterling, uploaded a video criticising their game, The Slaughtering Grounds, Digital Homicide were none too pleased and decided to strike back. In his video, Sterling criticised the quality of the game, claiming it had poorly implemented mechanics, confusing controls, and a lack of coherent art direction, whilst gameplay footage provided evidence for his points. He expressed his outrage that a game could be sold in such a state, and called it a ‘total failure’ (Sterling, 2014). Digital Homicide followed up this with a review of his ‘review’, which was simply Sterling’s video, but with text overlayed on top of it, written in the first person pretending to speak as him, and making many disparaging comments and even insulting his person, calling him a “f*cking idiot”, and blaming him for not playing the game correctly. The developer also changed the name of their steam account to “JimFnSterlingSon”. Sterling responded by reviewing their review of his video, and going through and addressing the comments they made (Sterling, 2014). Digital Homicide followed that up by reuploading Sterling’s review of their review of his ‘review’, this time just as text with the audio of his voice, and this time claimed that Sterling and other reviewers are leeches, and contribute nothing to the community. Both of Digital Homicide’s videos have since been deleted, but the second has been reuploaded by Sterling on his youtube (Digital Homicide, 2014).

Fig1. The video that started it all (Sterling, 2014)

Eventually Digital Homicide decided to simply issue a DMCA takedown notice on Sterling’s original video, to have it removed from youtube. They defended the move in a Steam post that has now been deleted, but has been archived here (Mannion, 2014). Sterling managed to get his video reinstated after two weeks.

The back-and-forth continued for some time, until eventually Digital Homicide filed a civil lawsuit against Sterling, claiming ten counts of libel (Cosimano, 2016). From here the story becomes even more convoluted, as they also attempted to sue 100 anonymous steam users for leaving negative comments on their games and forums, and threatened Valve, the creators of Steam, after they removed Digital Homicide and all their games from their platform in response (Good, 2016).  

Fig2. This video by Sterling explains all the events that led up to and including the lawsuit against him (Sterling, 2017)

Now while this is all horrible, today we’re just going to focus on their earlier transgressions, and outline where they really went wrong. Video games, like any other works of art, are often subjected to harsh critique. Sterling’s was only a 10 minute, first impressions video and no true critique, as he stated multiple times, yet Digital Homicide still claimed his ‘review’ was an unfair attack. There have been many cases where other developers have been called out for releasing games that have been flawed, and in some cases in a broken state, and when those problems aren’t legitimately addressed, developers generally have more sense than to defend and argue for them. In the case of Mass Effect Andromeda which released with numerous bugs and animation glitches, Bioware released a blogpost outlining how they would fix the game and what changes players could expect in the future (Flynn, 2017). Digital Homicide decided instead to lash out at the offending party, throwing childish insults and sarcastic comments. Not only that but they did so very publicly, changing their public steam name to mock Sterling and admitting on that page that they were behind the original response video.

Fig3. Bioware’s response after they received for Mass Effect Andromeda (Flynn, 2017)

Crisis Management is a very important concept that many fledgling companies seem to struggle with, but Digital Homicide failed spectacularly at this. When dealing with a crisis or aggressive users (which it is important to note, was not quite the case here), the basic steps that should be followed are: Acknowledge the problem; Respond to concerns in a way that is transparent and specific; Apologise and never argue back; avoid referral to offline channels; Outline any steps that will be taken in the future, and create a crisis FAQ (Cassidy, 2017).

Digital Homicide failed each of these. Never once did they acknowledge the problem, insisting that Sterling was at fault. They responded to concerns, but did so in a way to further the conflict and not settle it. They refused to apologise, and indeed demanded they be apologised to in court should they win the lawsuit. And as they never truly intended to ‘manage’ this crisis, they never reached the final two steps. Worse still was their insistence on pushing their view. By showing the community that they were steadfast in their stance, and refusing to back down, accept their mistake, and take responsibility for their game or their actions afterwards, they completely botched the first three steps of crisis management, and cemented themselves in pop-culture. Countless popular youtubers all covered the topic, especially as the lawsuit broke out, seeing it as a case that could potentially change the entire YouTube landscape for better or worse depending on the outcome. Eventually it was discovered by some that the game used copyrighted assets in the logo, and that the blood textures that covered the screen in game to signify low health, were ripped straight from Google Images and poorly edited to remove the white background (Jones, 2014).

Fig4. The image from Google Images (left) and the blood textures from in game (right)

This built up distrust and dislike within the community, and turned many against Digital Homicide when before they would simply not have cared, and drew much negative attention towards them. By stepping into the public sphere and creating this less than savoury image for themselves, and allowing the virality of a ‘Developer gone mad’ to take hold of the community, Digital Homicide did far more damage to themselves than Sterling ever did.

But let’s quickly talk why the brothers at Digital Homicide may have acted the way they did. It's entirely possible the company being family run might have had something to do with their reaction. Both brothers attacked Sterling personally, and seemed to take any criticisms personally in turn. Presence Bleed is a concept that affects many workers, and is due to a blurring between a person’s personal and professional life, resulting in them being unable to separate the two, and sometimes becoming overly attached to aspects of their professional life in a personal way. Melissa Gregg stats that Presence Bleed occurs when “firm boundaries between personal and professional identities no longer apply” (Gregg, 2013). Maintaining a strict work/life balance is integral to maintaining a functioning professional career, and both brothers in this case seemed to fail to follow such a balance, thus potentially resulting in their professional life bleeding into their private life, and causing them to view their game through rose-tinted glasses.

Fig5. The Romine Brother’s very clearly became very attached to their work

Now let’s consider how Digital Homicide should have approached this situation. Some might argue that simply remaining silent would have been the better solution, and indeed compared to the actions they had taken, it would be. But coming infront of the situation would give them the ability to turn negative publicity into positive publicity. By following the rules of Crisis Management as detailed by Cassidy, the first step would be for acknowledge the problem and respond transparently with specifics. A blog post, a post on the steam forums, or even a youtube video would work well for this. A blog post would be easier to get through and share, but a video could show increased dedication, especially if you unveil the person working behind the games. The post would be apologetic in nature, would address and acknowledge the problem, and would outline steps that would be taken to rectify some, if not all, key issues. By being honest and upfront in this manner, the public perception would be changed from a company that makes bad games, to a company that cares about its products and its consumers, which could greatly impact future sales and reception. Of course this would have to be followed by legitimate efforts to fix the game and make it better, which Digital Homicide seemed unwilling to do, but without it, any words would eventually fall on deaf ears as consumers realised that they just words, with no action behind them.

This has been a deep insight into Digital Homicide, but it’s clear that the entire situation was made far worse than it had to be, due to blunders made by the studio in how they tackled criticism, and their unwillingness to see things differently. Had they approached the criticism openly and addressed their problems, the result might have been far different for them.

References

Sterling, J. (2014). SLAUGHTERING GROUNDS - New 'Worst Game Of 2014' Contender. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfI7pAaOH9c

Sterling, J. (2014). SLAUGHTERING GROUNDS DEVELOPER MELTDOWN INCEPTION SPECIAL. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0GSPxf0vw

Digital Homicide. (2014). Digital Homicide's second response to Jim Sterling. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXcPiy9g4UQ

Mannion, G. (2014). Game developer issues take down notice against Jim Sterling. Critical Hit. Retrieved 29 May 2017, from http://www.criticalhit.net/gaming/game-developer-issues-take-down-notice-against-jim-sterling/

Cosimano, M. (2016). Indie developer Digital Homicide sues Jim Sterling. Destructoid. Retrieved 28 May 2017, from https://www.destructoid.com/indie-developer-digital-homicide-sues-jim-sterling-349283.phtml

Good, O. (2016). Steam removes games of developer seeking subpoena for users' information (Correction). Polygon. Retrieved 28 May 2017, from https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/17/12951756/digital-homicide-lawsuit-jim-sterling-steam-users-valve

Sterling, J. (2017). When Jim Sterling Was Sued For $10 Million By Digital Homicide (The Jimquisition). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS-LXvhy1Do

Cassidy, E. (2017). KCB206 Social Media, Self and Society: Lecture 8 [Slides]. Retrieved from https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_133419_1&content_id=_6696662_1

Unless you’ve been living under a rock this past decade you know how Facebook works. Another form of social media is Instagram. For that 0.5% of readers who aren’t sure what they just read, Instagram,  it’s entirely photo/video based allowing people to share images of their lunch since 2010 #throwback.

(Reference: www.memecenter.com)

Photography. No I don’t mean selfies of you and your dog #dogsofinstagram but more so photography in the professional field. The photographers who actually make a living out of what they snap. These most common fields are wedding and event, and portrait photography. Isn’t it funny how the word ‘photography’ has almost developed a new definition throughout this last decade. Now when I think of photography other words that instantly come to mind are ‘Instagram’ and #filters. I’m not saying this is a bad nor a good thing, but just that its interesting how things change due to certain influences in todays society, notably new media.

The introduction of social media and other social sharing apps have created a whole new culture for photography, the main two standouts being Facebook and Instagram. Some more technical terms that I’ve researched and am going to use to help explain this particular shift are: the Digital Divide, the use of Convergence, Spreadability and Networked Publics.

Digital Divide -

First point of discussion is the ‘Digital Divide’. What is it exactly? From what i understand after reading through DiMaggio and Hargittai’s ‘From the ‘Digital Divide’ to 'Digital Inequality’: Studying Internet Use as Penetration Increases’ article, it’s basically the gap between people who have access to the internet and those who do not. The ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. I found it funny to read that years ago ‘Digital Divide’ described people with /without access to telephones. I even now find it weird to read studies relating to internet access to be honest. Obviously there are still third world countries without internet access but you don’t exactly stop to think about it. I think because for most countries the internet has become the norm and part of our everyday lives. I personally couldn’t imagine going an hour without the internet let alone a lifetime.

(Source: www.memecenter.com) #nointernet

Researchers' are now catching on to these ideas and are starting to compare ‘Digital Divide’ studies with how people use the internet, their skills online and the general scope of online users rather than just the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

For professional photographers ‘Digital Divide’ studies could be used to determine the demographic market for their service. According to the Pew Research Centre’s ‘Internet Project’, a survey showing the percentage of online users performed in January 2014 with 74% of adults (18+) using social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram. Of this group, 89% of adults were aged between 18-29, compared to 49% being aged 65+ years. So its safe to say the demographic market majority for photography services should be aimed at the younger generation, also because this age group would be more likely to need a photography service either for a wedding, engagement, social function or portrait shoot. I find it hard to imagine someone aged 65 or older scoping Facebook to find a photographer, rather than just looking through a business directory or asking a younger family member for advice.

(Source: www.memegenerator.net)

#StruggleIsReal

Convergence - 

The next topic contributing to the change in professional photography work over the years is ‘convergence’. Henry Jenkins describes media convergence as an ongoing process that should not be viewed as a displacement of the old media, but rather as interaction between different media forms and platforms (Jenkins, 2006).

So basically an example of convergence in this case would be how social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are used together to advertise users’ material to the public. These two social medias forms are also both available on multiple platforms including computer, mobile phone, and even gaming consoles. When you go to upload a photo to Instagram it gives you the option of also posting it to your Facebook page in one hit, probably because Facebook now owns Instagram. This use of convergence allows for an easier experience and encourages both platforms to be used together to increase visibility from fans or followers.

Although when you think about it most people running a photography business, or any design business for that matter, where displaying your work is a vital part of gaining new customers, have multiple social media accounts. So having the option to directly post images to both Facebook and Instagram saves times and encourages ease of use for designers which will make them want to post again and again.

I’ve included a link to a website that explains media convergence in more detail for those interested: https://mconvergence.wordpress.com/about/ 

Spreadability - 

Before social media and the internet were introduced professional photographers had to heavily rely on ‘word of mouth’ to generate business. Getting a job shooting a wedding for example, would help advertise yourself to others that attended on the day who might also be in need of a photographer. So in this case you would rely on your name spreading between clients. Advertising yourself in the newspaper as a professional photographer, the ‘yellow pages’ business directory, television, wedding expo’s and bridal shops would’ve been the other main types of advertisement to find work in the field. Now in this tech savvy day and age with wonderful things such as ‘social media’, its much easier to spread the word. Its almost too easy now to advertise a business online through social media. Also the ability enabling customers to rate a business on Facebook and provide reviews/feedback for each is also a huge advancement allowing potential consumers to make their decisions based on previous customers’ experience.

In ‘Chapter 5: Spreadable Media’ of ‘The handbook of media audiences’ Henry Jenkins and Joshua Green describe Spreadability as seeking ‘to motivate and facilitate the efforts of fans and enthusiasts to “spread” the word.’ (2011) If I was looking for a wedding photographer right now the first step for me would be to log into Facebook and type ‘wedding photography’ into the search bar at the top of the page. This search would show the results in order of proximity and immediately allow me to view potential photographers’ sample images and the amount of likes they’ve gained, which demonstrates their credibility. It allows me to contact them directly and show which of my ‘friends’ have also ‘liked’ the page.

(Source: www.imgur.com)

A friend of mine recently tied the knot last month and they released their wedding photos on their profile page just recently with the wedding photography company they hired ‘tagged’ in the post. I imagine this would’ve been discussed with the company so that others interested could get straight to the company’s page with just one ‘click’. It’s basically free advertising, its genius!

So referring to the above quote on spreadability, this particular wedding photos post would motivate and encourage other family members and friends to ‘share’ this post to others online, which would in-turn generate more business for this photography company.

Networked Publics - 

The final term to be explained are the use of ‘networked publics’ and their contribution to the re-shaping of photography in the professional field. ‘Networked Publics are publics that are restructured by networked technologies.’ (Boyd, D and Marwick, A 2011)

Networked Publics are simultaneously (1) the space constructed through networked technologies and (2) the imagined community that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice. Facebook, for example, serves both as a networked public itself and as a site upon which networked publics gather. (Boyd, D and Marwick, A 2011)

Do we shape networked publics or do they shape us? I’d like to say we shape them but I don’t think this is the case. Twitter for example has a 140 character word limit when sharing information with one another. This would be an example of an ‘affordance’ which is a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action. (Boyd, D 2011)

Having this character limit shapes the kind of information we produce, encouraging quick and on-the-spot posts rather than well thought-out posts containing paragraphs of information. I think this would encourage a higher quantity of posts and increased traffic within the social media site.

(Source: www.memegenerator.net)

Networked publics in terms of professional photography would be those who ‘like’ or ‘follow’ a photography page. Those who invisibly come together to view, like, comment and share interesting content. Maybe ask a question or two relating to a particular photo that was posted and being answered by another like-minded fan on the page. Like for example when I find a cool photo on a photography page that i’ve ‘liked’ and I comment to find out what camera or lens was used for the shot, another person would soon follow with a response.

So social media, in particular Facebook, allows these fans to come together through the use of their business page options which create these niche networked publics and encourages social interaction.

Summary - 

There is no doubt the use of new media has changed businesses considerably, in particular the photography profession. These four discussed terms have each played a vital role in contributing to this shift and continue to re-shape the online (and offline) community. Nowadays it seems detrimental not having related social media pages for your business. As technology continues to change and develop it’s important for business owners to keep up with the pack. 

Thanks for reading and I look forward to answering your questions!

Trent Szmolnik

n9395253

References: Boyd, D, Marwick, A, 2011. Social Privacy in Networked Publics: Teens’ Attitudes, Practices, and Strategies. United States: A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society, September 2011. 

Di Maggio, P, Hargittai, E, 2001. From the 'Digital Divide’ to 'Digital Inequality’: Studying Internet Use as Penetration Increases. 1st ed. United States: Russell Sage Foundation.

Green, J, and Jenkins, H, 2011. Spreadable Media: How Audiences Create Value and Meaning in a Networked Economy, in The Handbook of Media Audiences. ed V. Nightingale, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

Imgur. 2015. Imgur. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.imgur.com. [Accessed 14 April 2015]. 

Jenkins, H, 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. 1st ed. New York: New York University Press. 

Meme Center - Largest Creative Humor Community. 2015. Meme Center - Largest Creative Humor Community. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.memecenter.com. [Accessed 13 April 2015]. 

Meme Generator. 2015. Meme Generator. [ONLINE] Available at: http://memegenerator.net. [Accessed 17 April 2015].    

Introduction

Social media has become such an integral part of society, that even sports teams and athletes use social media to connect to other forms of media and fans. The All Blacks are one of the most successful rugby teams, not only are the official team social media channels prolific but also the players individual accounts that are used to promote and connect the All Blacks brand with fans and other media. For players social media would have become a part of the job, being able to find the balance between their private and public online lives is a challenge, but some players do it quite well, and manage to share just enough of their private lives to keep fans interested in them as not only players but people. With a brand that spans across continents, it is important for the brand to keep fans in the loop and use social media in order for the fans to feel included in the team- this is called being part of a participatory culture or fandom. It is said that home crowds become an extra player, so its important for the fans to be a virtual player when following the All Blacks on social media. With the developments in new media technologies sports teams and athletes have almost become dependant on them for marketing and brand awareness purposes, as it is an easy and fast way to get their message straight from them to the fans without having to go through traditional media channels.

Athletes and Privacy

Nearly every single All Black player has a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter account, or all of them, however with this comes the blurring of their public and private lives. ‘Social Networking Sites not only account for a great portion of our online activities’ (Albrechtslund 2008 in Papacharissi and Gibson, 2011), ‘but the technologies that enable them converge online and offline aspects of our identity’ (Schneider and Zimmer 2006, in Papacharissi and Gibson, 2011). For players the merging of their public or online lives of using social media to promote brands such as Adidas, AIG and Air New Zealand, all major sponsors of the All Blacks, and then their private or offline lives when sharing bits and pieces of their personal lives. This makes it nearly impossible to actually have a private life while in the public eye, and ensures that players have to picka and chose what part of their private lives they wish to share .The tricky part would be balancing when to make something public and when do keep it private .‘In order to stay social, but also manage private and public information fluently, individuals must make critical decisions about how to share information in networked environments that thrive on sharing’ (Papacharissi and Gibson, 2011). When sharing on social media it is important to pick and chose what to share from your private life. One of the All Blacks who does this the best, is Daniel Carter, who boasts more than 400,000 followers on twitter, has found the balance of what to share from his personal life in order to keep fans feeling like they know him, but also keeping some things private. While also doing his fair share of endorsements for brands and sponsors. From tweets ranging from giveaways, photoshoot images for endorsements, and videos for Adidas and other sponsors, to more private millstones like wishing one of his sons a happy birthday and announcing the birth of his second child (See images and videos below for examples of this). With more private events, like for example when Carter and his wife Honor announced the births of both of their children on Twitter, they did so through an image of the childs foot, and writing the childs name and day they were born in the tweet, so while they shared this event with over 400,000 people, they did so a few days after each of the births, while also keeping a bit of privacy by not sharing a full image of the child. ‘In modern societies, this distance between public and private continues to dwindle, as contemporary media further blur the lines separating private from public. Social media in particular enable individuals to connect with multiple audiences on online social planes that are neither conventionally public nor entirely private’ ( Papacharissi and Gibson, 2011). Daniel Carter is the perfect example of a person in the public eye who uses social media actively and has found the balance of sharing the public and private life on social media while the boundaries continue to blur.

Dan Carter announcing the birth of his second child, on April 5. One of the more private parts of his life he has shared on social media.   (https://twitter.com/dancarter, 2015)

Part of media duties for Air New Zealand, Carter shared a behind the scenes photo from the shoot ( https://twitter.com/dancarter, 2015). 

The All Blacks and the Participatory Culture 

The All Blacks fans who connect with the All Blacks through social media are part of Participatory culture. Jenkins describes a participatory fandom as ‘the most passionately engaged audiences and the social and cultural practises they produce’ (Jenkins, 1992). Anyone who comments, likes, follows, or subscribes to a social media page or channel are part of a participatory culture, for some fans their participation in the culture of the brand creates a ‘sense of ownership that includes an investment in the creative development of the universe’ (Shefrin, 2007). When it comes to sports teams, the fans are the ones who show up to the game and give the team that extra lift when they need it so it is important to include the fans as much as possible and social media is the easiest and fastest way to do so. The fans are very important to the success of social media for not only the All Blacks themselves, but also their sponsors who are endorsed by the All Blacks, the All Blacks have 3 million likes on their Facebook page (All Blacks Facebook, 2015). This can mean when the All Blacks share anything to do with them as a team or even to do with sponsors, it can reach up to 3 million people who can then comment, like and share this information with even more people, this can be seen as fans being involved in a participatory culture. The fans also participate in the online culture of the All Blacks by requesting videos for the players to be featured in, which can be anything from Question and Answer videos to even seeing what happens during a gym session while the ABs are on tour. The participatory culture of the All Blacks stems so deep that on occasion the fans have been feature in some videos as well. Videos can quite often be a one-way, although they can make the fans feel involved it is also important to physically get the fans involved and meeting some of the team, its also important for the team to see who the fans are that back the All Blacks. So, the All Blacks sometimes run competitions for fans to win an experience with a few of the All Blacks, one fan won a chance to go swimming with the sharks at a local aquarium with 3 All Blacks, all because they engaged with the All Blacks brand over social media. By engaging with the fans through social media, the fans are able to feel like they are part of the team and part of the culture that has developed over the years. The participatory culture that has been developed is vital to the success of the All Blacks social media channels. The engagement that the team has with its fans whether through Facebook or Twitter allows the fans and the players to have better relationship rather than just fans admiring from afar, now they can engage, ask questions and talk to a player as if they know them.

All Blacks and winners of an online competition swim with the sharks, something that would not be possible without the participatory culture the All Blacks have developed. (All Blacks Youtube, 2015) 

Conclusion

Social media is so important when it comes to the representation of athletes and sports team and how they want to be seen by their fans, other media and even other teams. Social media gives the control back to the brand, social media give brands a ‘greater control over the conditions of both production and consumption of their own representations’ (Koskela in Burgess and Green, 2009). The way the All Blacks and their athletes engage in social media and converse with fans allows them to gain control over their image and not just leave it to their management team. However it is with this control that the lines between what is private and what is public are blurred and knowing what to share and when is a tricky balancing act for most athletes. With the amount of fans the All Blacks have on social media, it was inevitable that a participatory culture would develop, with fans becoming even more engaged with the team and players through social media. Social media has allowed the fans into places where they have never been before like going inside gym sessions and even into the player hotel rooms and what they do when they have time off. These insights make the fans feel less like fans and more like a part of the team, its important to give back to the fans that have supported a team and through social media it has become easier to do so.

References 

All Blacks. (2015). All Blacks Facebook Page. https://www.facebook.com/AllBlacks?fref=ts (accessed 31st March 2015)

All Blacks. (2014). All Blacks Youtube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9izByy4M0Y (accessed 17th April 2015)

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.

Carter, D. (2015). Dan Carter Twitter Account https://twitter.com/dancarter (accessed 16th April, 2015)

Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. New York: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall.

Papacharissi, Zizi and Gibson, Paige L, (2011). Chapter 7 : Fifteen Minutes of Privacy : Privacy, Sociality, and Publicity on Social Network Sites. In Trepte, Sabine and Reinecke, Leonard, Privacy online : perspectives on privacy and self-disclosure in the social web [SpringerLink version], (pp.75 - 89). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag

In the ever changing sphere of business and the increasingly important role that technology and new media play, the consumer is now more involved in the creative process and has even more impact on the final product. Now not only do consumer have an impact on the final product but they can also help fund it. Crowdfunding is fast emerging as a way to get small business off the ground and is also an indicator of how much interest there is for certain products. The need for venture capital is no longer as high because of the option to crowdfund projects and ideas to gain the necessary funds to begin.

Crowdfunding is defined as “the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large amount of people who each donate a small amount” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2015). There are many platforms for crowdfunding that are commonly used such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. While every project on these sites is different the presentation is pretty standard across the board, the project creators make a profile for their product containing a short video describing their product and a list of rewards for donations (Prive, 2012a). Most crowdfunding projects also use other new media to build a following and spread awareness of the campaign through social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. 

For most projects to successfully reach their funding goal it requires not just a good idea for a product but also a great social media campaign alongside their idea (Prive, 2012a). This lends itself to the hope that by creating a great social media campaign around their idea that the project will go viral and they will easily achieve their goal. This works within the spreadability of a product and its campaign as the further it is spread the more value people will attach to it and the more the final product will be worth (Cassidy, 2015).

Crowdfunding is becoming more popular for starting businesses or projects and is changing the future of how business get off the ground. The idea of crowdfunding is great as it means that people are so passionate and interested in a product that they’re willing to give their money towards it in the hopes that it will succeed. The idea of a large number of people each giving small amounts of money may not be a new idea but with the new technology available the idea has been revolutionised and is now a popular choice for many small businesses and projects (Prive, 2012b). It also is more popular in this time as the line between producers and consumers is becoming increasingly blurred through the nature of the internet and the interactive nature of many of these sites (Cassidy, 2015). People giving their money to these projects aren’t just consuming the final product, they’re also helping to produce it, maybe not in the traditional sense but without their contributions the project might not ever be able to be produced.

An example of the impact that crowdfunding is having on professional industries, especially film, is the Veronica Mars Movie. 

The movie is based on a much beloved television show that ran for three seasons before being cancelled. The fans of the show weren’t satisfied with the shows ending and so when the creator and director Rob Thomas launched a Kickstarter campaign for making a movie extension of the show, the fans were able to raise over $5.7 million (Thomas, 2013). The Veronica Mars movie project broke multiple records in crowdfunding projects as it was the fastest project to reach $1 million then $2 million, it’s raised the most money of any project in the film category and it’s the third highest funded project in Kickstarter history (Thomas, 2013).  

Between the television show ending in 2007 and the Kickstarter campaign launching there were a couple of attempts to get Warner Bros. to greenlight a movie adaption of the series but they turned it down citing that there wasn’t enough fan interest in the project. When Rob Thomas went to Warner Bros. with the Kickstarter funded movie idea in 2013, Warner Bros. agreed to allow them to launch a Kickstarter campaign and said that if there was enough fan support behind the idea then they would be on board with the movie (Thomas, 2013).

Before the launch of the Veronica Mars movie project, there had never been an attempt to try to crowdfund a studio movie. There had been multiple campaigns for small independent productions but nothing as large or ambitious as the Veronica Mars movie which would be a large scale feature film studio production (Thomas, 2013). Consumers now have real power amongst the film industry as they can now help fund projects that they are passionate about and want to see come to fruition. The Veronica Mars project was ground breaking in many ways and has opened the door for other smaller productions to follow in its path and use crowdfunding to begin their projects.

Another ongoing example of crowdfunding helping small productions is that of the Almost Adults movie. This project was launched earlier this year by the creators of The Gay Women Channel on Youtube. They also plan to produce a feature film but on a smaller scale than the Veronica Mars project. While not having as large a fanbase as Veronica Mars, The Gay Women Channel used their Youtube channel as well as their Twitter and Tumblr to build a following and spread the news of their project throughout their audience (Unsolicited Project, 2015). 

While the original goal was $40,000 it was the bare minimum required to create their project and so they set ‘stretch goals’ which also had exclusive backstage content as rewards when they were achieved (The Gay Women Channel, 2015). By offering not just individual rewards for donations but being able to ‘unlock’ content through achieving the ‘stretch goals’, the project was shared further amongst Twitter and Tumblr along with urgings to donate to the project. 

This strategy seemed to pay off for The Gay Women Channel as they achieved not only their original goal but all of their ‘stretch goals’ with a final funding of $122,057 (The Gay Women Channel, 2015). Crowdfunding doesn’t just get projects off the ground it also enables future generation of professionals to gain crucial experience. In 2013 the documentary Innocente won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject and 25 of the films aired at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival were made through crowdfunding (Weiss, 2014). For independent filmmakers, being able to use crowdfunding for their projects is sometimes crucial to getting the project off the ground and into production.

Crowdfunding is shaping the future of the film industry by cutting out the need for studio approval and funding for productions to get off the ground. Crowdfunding is especially useful for independent filmmakers who rather than getting corporate sponsors can use crowdfunding sites to fund their projects and maintain full artistic control (Kickstarter, 2015). Crowdfunding isn’t just changing the film industry though, it is also changing other professions such as journalism. The declining interest in newspapers has resulted in many job cuts and company size downs leaving newsrooms now 30% smaller than they were in 2000 (Jian and Usher, 2013). The journalism business is now much harder to break in to but crowdfunding is a new way for journalists to publish their work and create a portfolio of their work.

One crowdfunding site tailored for journalism is Spot.us, a site that has a similar setup to Kickstarter in that there will be an idea pitch and a funding goal. Spot.us allows donations towards individual stories which after they’re funded come with a creative commons license and are able to be published in any other publication (Jian and Usher, 2013). Similar to crowdfunding films, the consumers now have more power to choose what they want to see or read about. Consumers and donors can now pick and choose the topics that are relevant to them and that they are interested in knowing more about which adds a level of interaction that hadn’t been seen so much in traditional journalism.

The possibilities available with crowdfunding are endless as there is no limit on what can and cannot be crowdfunded. Beginning businesses are now seeing the benefits of crowdfunding and are watching it develop more and more as a viable way to start a business. Crowdfunding is a great financial tool that has proved itself invaluable to many young professionals who have used it as a way to gather the funds to begin their projects. In the future crowdfunding is going to continue to develop and gain popularity as a finance tool for start-up business and projects.

  Reference List

Cassidy, E. 2015. ‘KCB206 – Week 2 – New Media and… Society’, Internet, Self & Beyond. Date Viewed: 7 April, 2015. https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_118638_1&content_id=_5693116_1

Jian, L and Usher, N. 2013. ‘Crowd-Funded Journalism’, Journal of Computer- Mediated Communication. Date Viewed: 7 April, 2015. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12051/pdf

Kickstarter. 2015. ‘What is Kickstarter’, About Us. Date Viewed: 6 April, 2015. https://www.kickstarter.com/hello?ref=footer

MOVIECLIPS Trailers. 2013. “Veronica Mars Official Kickstarter Viral Video (2013)”. Youtube video, posted March 13, 2013. Date Viewed: 7 April, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DTZ-fXU4iE

Oxford Dictionaries. 2015. ‘Crowdfunding’, British & World English. Date Viewed: 2 April, 2015. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/crowdfunding

Prive, T. 2012a. ‘What is Crowdfunding And How Does It Benefit the Economy’, Entrepreneurs. Date Viewed: 6 April, 2015. http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/11/27/what-is-crowdfunding-and-how-does-it-benefit-the-economy/

Prive, T. 2012b. ‘Inside the JOBS Act: Equity Crowdfunding’, Entrepreneurs. Date Viewed: 6 April, 2015. http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/11/06/inside-the-jobs-act-equity-crowdfunding-2/

The Gay Women Channel. 2015. ‘Almost Adults Feature’, Kickstarter. Date Viewed: 2 April, 2015. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/220469991/almost-adults-feature/description

Unsolicited Project. 2015. “We’re Making a Movie!”. Youtube video, posted March 4, 2015. Date Viewed: 2 April, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47lS_BSp2Gg

Thomas, R. 2013. ‘The Veronica Mars Movie Project’, Kickstarter. Date Viewed: 2 April, 2015. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project/description

Luke Savvakis Student Number:N9099671 Word count: 1430

Introduction:

New media is being used by people from all walks of life as a way of connecting and reaching out to people that didn’t seem possible years before. This case study will aim to demonstrate the roles that social media is playing on shaping the way two major internet identity’s are perceived. It will prove how these companies utilized the rise of the Internet age as a way of expanding and multiplying their business. Crowdsourcing is a way businesses harness a collective resource to solve problems and/or produce things, which they deem beneficial to their company. (Cassidy, 2014) There are five different types of crowdsourcing Cloud labor, Crowd creativity, distributed knowledge, open innovation and crowd funding. (Cassidy, 2014) However, The two business examples I am using for this case study, reCAPTCHA and Amazon , fall into two of the five crowdsourcing types, cloud labor and distributed knowledge.

Description:

Amazon has developed ‘Mechanical Turking’ which basically asks’ people at home to do medial tasks to do for real money. Task’s that computers would find hard to achieve or would take longer to do, This is also better known as artificial, artificial intelligence. (Zittrain, 2009) Amazon’s mechanical Turking would fall under the cloud labor type of crowd sourcing; cloud labor is when a scalable workforce is used to perform a variety of tasks (Cassidy, 2014). This is beneficial for both parties because the companies using this are getting information they desire for a faction of the price. But on the other hand, the consumers using this are getting money for every task they complete, no matter how small.

reCAPTCHA is the other company that will be mentioned in this case study, reCAPTCHA a piece of technology that aids to stop the use of computers generating accounts, the way reCAPTCHA does this is by showing words on an image that the user then has to type in to progress into the next step of creating the account, these words however are not picked at random. The words are scanned out of books that are not yet digitized, by typing in these words the users are filling in the words that the computer is not able to pick up, thus providing more digitized books for the online community. reCAPTCHA falls into the distributed knowledge type of crowdsourcing. reCAPTCHA is using the community to collect and organize information that cannot be sorted by computing power (Cassidy, 2014).

By using these two examples, this case study will prove how crowd sourcing can be both beneficial, yet destructive, to both the consumer and producer.

Discussion:

Leveraging of a distributed virtual labour pool, available on-demand to fulfill a range of tasks from simple to complex. Crowdsourcing is used to connect labour demand and supply. Virtual workers perform activities that range from simple to specialized tasks. (Crowsourcing.org, 2010) Many Internet consumers are using cloud labour as extra ways of income; Amazon being such a major online presence has jumped on the opportunity to benefit from this trending way for business’ to grow.

However there are some concerns that arise for both the ‘participants’ and for the ‘systemic’ aspect of cloud labour. Zittrain (2009) suggests that having this system with no formidable laws in place, all pre existing laws relating to; maximum work hours per week, minimum wage and child labor type situations become invalid.

“No one really knows how much user-generated content is out there, but we do know that it commands an increasingly significant share of the audience’s attention. It’s also clear that big corporations are becoming increasingly savvy about making money off it. User-generated content is the raw material from which companies such as Google (which owns YouTube) and News Corp (which owns MySpace) fashion their product. It’s a straightforward business strategy: give people the tools to make stuff, host it on your site, and capture a slice of the growing market for online advertising.” (Howe, 2008) Although Amazon clearly states to the users what their activity is doing by helping the online community it doesn’t exactly state who you are helping.

Some of the actions Amazon gets the consumer to do, are made in such a way it tricks the user to believe they are playing a game, this is known as gamification or playbour. Gamification is the application of game elements and digital game design techniques to non-game problems. (University of Pennsylvania , 2013). This notion of playbour then brings up Zittrains (2009) second concern, which is the ‘systemic’ aspect. The gamification of these actions become so unnoticeable by the consumer, there isn’t much stopping companies from utilizing the uneducated mind of a child for the benefit of their business. The only thing that we know is that Amazon will pay the user for assisting them in finding out whatever they needed to know, this is with the full intention that the user knows exactly what he/she is doing.

reCAPTCHA on the other hand is part of distributed knowledge. There is no money involved in distributed knowledge and the reward is a lot less great than that of cloud labour. Although sites such as reCAPTCHA still use the notion of playbour or gamification, its done without many website users being aware they’re even doing anything more than benefitting themselves by progressing to the next step to making an account online. Little do they know they are actually professionally consuming (or prosumption). Prosumption is used for outsourcing work to users and consumers, who work without payment. Thereby corporations reduce their investment costs and labour costs, jobs are destroyed, and consumers who work for free are extremely exploited. They produce surplus value that is appropriated and turned into profit by corporations without paying wages. (Fuchs, 2013)

Because there is no payment involved with tasks such as REcapture, this dishonesty of playbour that distributed knowledge provides, is questioned to whether it is morally correct to use consumers as a tool to benefit their business unwillingly. This is contrary to cloud labour, which informs users that what they are doing is helping these businesses to grow and develop. Cloud labour is also about rewarding the user. Every human intelligence task (HIT) they perform, they gain more points (or $). These users are only rewarded if there answer is unique or required more than other users. Because reCAPTCHA is done by the greater community, the answers they get in return can be varied and inconsistent, this blurs the line to what answers where actually helpful, and which are seen as useless.

Fuch (2013) describes this blurring of, helpful and unhelpful, consumer and producer as. “The difference between the audience commodity on traditional mass media and on the Internet is that in the latter case the users are also content producers, there is user-generated content, the users engage in permanent creative activity, communication, community building and content-production. The fact that the users are more active on the Internet than in the reception of TV or radio content is due to the decentralized structure of the Internet.” Fuchs is describing how this power shift is second nature to the Internet, power that hasn’t been seen before in the eyes of traditional ‘mass media’.

There are many other companies out there that harness the rapid growth of the internet that wouldn’t fall into the categories of Cloud labour and distributed knowledge. They generally would fall into; Crowd creativity, which is when the community is main source of the creative side of the business (doodle4google). Or Open innovation, which is when a public request is sent out to anyone that can solve an issue the company is having, this normally results in a higher paying reward (innocentive). Or the last type of crowd sourcing, Crowd funding, this is when a small group or individual will post a project or plan and request a small investment. In return the investors get to follow the project as it triumphs or fails, and also have the chance to gain interest on the small-invested amount (kikstarter). (Cassidy, 2014)

Summary

In summary this case study has proven how companies or professional identity’s exploited the up rise of not only the Internet, but social media in particular to grow economically. These new ways are proven in this case study to not only benefit the companies but in some cases the user too. Cloud labour has been proven to give the user a reward for their troubles (no matter how little it may be) and distributed knowledge, although it doesn’t directly reward the user it benefits the whole community which may actually become beneficial to the user sometime in the future.  

Bibliography:

Cassidy, D. E. (2014, 3 17). New Media Enterprizes. Week 4 Lecture Slides QUT BlackBoard . Brisbane, QLD, Australia.

Crowsourcing.org. (2010). Cloudlabor. Retrieved 4 15, 2015, from Crowsourcing.org: http://www.crowdsourcing.org/community/cloud-labor/6

Fuchs, C. (2013). Social media: a critical introduction. In C. Fuchs, Chapter 5: The Power and Political Economy of Social Media (pp. 97-125). London, UK: Acessed 15/4/2015. Sage Publications. https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/cmd_common_p.show_item?p_item_id=212871.

Howe, J. (2008). Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. In Chapter 3 - Faster, Cheaper, Smarter, Easier: Democratizing the Means of Production: Sometimes a Small Fraction Equals a Large Number (p. 2).

http://library.books24x7.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/assetviewer.aspx?bookid=35677&chunkid=773637879&noteMenuToggle=0&leftMenuState=1.New York, USA: Three Rivers Press.

University of Pennsylvania . (2013). Gamification. Retrieved 4 15, 2015, from University of Pennsylvania : https://www.coursera.org/course/gamification

Chloe Martinelli (n9162739)

New media is a modern form of communication that is changing the way information can be passed between societies around the world. It is rapidly changing many industries worldwide with the introduction of alternative methods for once very traditional procedures (Bannerman. 2013, 10). Crowdfunding is a growing aspect of new media that is dramatically altering the way more and more things are getting done. The music industry in particular is being transformed in a huge way from the introduction of crowdfunding sites such as ‘PledgeMusic’ and ‘Kickstarter’. These sites are allowing more and more artists to produce and promote their music much more easily than if they were to use traditional channels, especially with the help of social media platforms. The cost associated with conventional methods means that there is limited access for those who cannot afford it so the emergence of these sites are making for a more diverse music industry.

How the Music Industry Works

Producing an album is a costly affair for independent musicians who have to pay for recording, distribution and promotion themselves if they are not signed by a record label. For an independent musician to release an album the average cost is roughly $10, 000 according to Colletti (2013). Colletti (2013) makes it clear that it definitely is possible to produce an album for cheaper but it will require a lot more work and planning. While some artists have to cover all the costs themselves, others are lucky enough to get signed with record labels that help with it. The benefits of having a recording contract is that the record label will pay huge amounts of money to sell the records but according to Masnick (2010) it’s not as good as it sounds. Whilst the band may have more support from a record label than if they were to work independently they have to sacrifice copyright to their music as well large percentages of the royalties (Masnick. 2010).

This is where crowdfunding enters the picture. Crowdfunding allows musicians to raise the funds to produce their music independently without breaking their bank accounts and the best part is they still have 100% ownership of their work (Kickstarter. 2015).

So What is Crowdfunding?  

Crowdfunding is a way for entrepreneurs or artists to raise money for a project by putting out an open call on the internet. The differentiating feature of crowdfunding compared to regular donations, is that the people who provide funds for the projects are offered rewards for their donations (Belleflamme, Lambert and Schweinbacher. 2014). According to Belleflamme, Lambert and Schweinbacher (2014) there are two different ways to crowdfund; one is to offer goods up for a pre-sale in order to raise funds and the other allows the fund providers a profit share once the project has succeeded. Websites like ‘Kickstarter’ use the former type primarily allowing their users to offer their funders different items for sale or specific rewards depending on the amount of the donation, typically these are exclusive goods that won’t be available to the general public (Kickstarter. 2015).

With the introduction of crowdfunding websites, such as ‘Kickstarter’ and ‘PledgeMusic’, independent musicians have been able to set up accounts that allow them to present a project and a funding goal to the public. If people like the artist’s project they can pledge money to receive exclusive rewards from the musician once the project has been completed (PledgeMusic. 2015). This new technology is changing the game for independent musicians around the world who are now able to produce work that otherwise would have been impossible. According to the Kickstarter Statistics page there have been 19, 550 successfully funded music projects, with over $143 million raised, making music projects the most successfully funded category on the site (Kickstarter. 2015).

The beauty of this type of set up is that it creates an environment where the consumers are able to feel like they are involved with production process. By giving consumers control over certain aspects of the media is an important part of crowdfunding and results in “a more democratic society” (Fuchs. 2013). By giving the consumers this control crowdfunding websites are taking power away from big businesses, or in this case big record labels, and giving it to the general public. This creates an active audience, “who doesn’t want to just sit there but to take part, debate, create, communicate, share” (Rosen. 2006). According to Bannerman (2013, 18) this concept leads to greater democratisation in funding by removing the elite layer and creating more of a classless system. This idea focusses on the philosophy of “the best person to do something is the person that most wants to do it” (Bannerman. 2013, 18).

While it may seem that crowdfunding is a ground breaking new idea that solves the problems of all underfunded musicians, there are still some reservations people have. What happens if the project doesn’t raise enough money and the people are not able to provide the rewards? Fortunately for the backers many crowdfunding websites have rules put in place to help with this. With most websites if a project does not reach its goal then all the money will be refunded to the backers and the project will be deemed unsuccessful (PledgeMusic. 2015) but sometimes even with all the money funded to get these projects up and running sometimes it just isn’t enough. ‘Reddit’ user CopiedTm (2013) provides a list of funded but unsuccessful projects that failed to deliver their promised rewards. Fortunately in comparison to the number of successful projects this list is very short. However, while there is most often a safety net for the backers of unsuccessful projects, there isn’t any support provided for the unsuccessful artists who have put time and effort into their campaigns. According to Bannerman (2013, 10) there is a huge risk of exploitation for artists relying on crowdfunding for their funds when they don’t get paid up front. Bannerman (2013, 13) also suggests that a major risk of crowdfunding is that it disconnects artists from “stable and predictable pools of funding and professional resources”.

Crowdfunding and Social Media

When paired with social media sites such as ‘Facebook’ or ‘Youtube’ crowdfunding can have an even higher chance of success. ‘Kickstarter has a social media friendly set up that allows people to share their projects via various social media platforms to boost their signal (Kickstarter. 2015). According to Apps Blogger the higher the number of Facebook friends the project is shared with the higher its chances of success are. There are also many examples of people promoting their projects on ‘Youtube’ to reach a wider audience thus increasing their success. One particularly good example of this is Bochan, a Cambodian/American singer, who wanted to release her new album ‘Hello Hi’ and a video clip. Bochan set up her Kickstarter campaign with a goal of $10, 650. She offered rewards ranging from a personalised postcard for $5 backers all the way up to playing a private event for $5000 backers (Kickstarter. 2015). With the help of the video she released on ‘Youtube’ she was able to not only reach her goal, but to surpass it by almost $4000.

(Source)

The use of social media to publicise projects is vital to the project’s success, according to Hui, Greenberg and Gerber (2014) “The majority of failed project creators cited the inability to successfully leverage an online audience as a main reason for failing”. Promoting projects on social media can be done in many ways ranging from sharing it on platforms such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ and getting friends and family to share it as well to posting about it in niche communities such as ‘Subreddits’ (Hui, Greenberg and Gerber. 2014). As Colletti (2013) states successful projects come from artists having large social networks and lots of videos.

Conclusion

Overall crowdfunding works well to help independent musicians fund their projects. Despite the risk of exploitation there is evidence to suggest that crowdfunding works to create a much more democratic environment in the music industry and allowing more and more artists to establish themselves. With the additional help from social media platforms crowdfunding sites are successfully funding music projects every day that would not have been able to be completed using traditional methods of funding.

References

Appsblogger.com, (2012). The Untold Story Behind Kickstarter Stats. [online] Available at: http://www.appsblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Kickstarter-Infographic-750.png [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

Bannerman, S. (2013). Crowdfunding Culture. Wi: Journal of Mobile Culture, 7(1), pp.10-18.

Belleflamme, P., Lambert, T. and Schwienbacher, A. (2014). Crowdfunding: Tapping the right crowd. Journal of Business Venturing, [online] 29(5), pp.585-609. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883902613000694 [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].

Colletti, J. (2013). How Long Is This Gonna Take? The Time and Cost of Recording a Full-Length Album. [online] Trust Me I'm a Scientist. Available at: http://www.trustmeimascientist.com/2013/05/06/how-long-is-this-gonna-take-recording-an-album-in-the-21st-century/ [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

CopiedTm, (2013). Complete list of funded Kickstarter projects that have later been cancelled and never fulfilled? • /r/kickstarter. [online] reddit. Available at: http://www.reddit.com/r/kickstarter/comments/1j6ubm/complete_list_of_funded_kickstarter_projects_that/ [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

Fuchs, C. (2013). Social media: a critical introduction. London, UK: Sage Publications, p.98.

Grovo, (2012). What is Kickstarter?. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg5q_TPfJZY [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

Hui, J., Greenberg, M. and Gerber, E. (2014). Understanding the role of community in crowdfunding work. Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing - CSCW '14, [online] pp.67-68. Available at: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2531715 [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

Huy, B. (2013). Kickstarter Campaign for my new album 'Hello Hi'. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttGKjNJAGN8 [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

Kickstarter.com, (2015). Kickstarter. [online] Available at: https://www.kickstarter.com/?ref=nav [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

Masnick, M. (2010). RIAA Accounting: Why Even Major Label Musicians Rarely Make Money From Album Sales | Techdirt. [online] Techdirt. Available at: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

PledgeMusic, (2015). What is PledgeMusic?. [online] Available at: http://www.pledgemusic.com/learn/fans [Accessed 16 Apr. 2015].

New media has provided a multitude of engagement opportunities for fans and consumers of entertainment. Much of this can be owed to the affordances that technology allows both producers and consumers in making, distributing, accessing and engaging with content. These include the rise of participatory fandom (Shefrin, 2004) and the ability to use entertainment as self-formation (Burgess, 2009).

New media such as YouTube and Vine allow the audience to play a role as entertainers and take advantage of online methods of self-formation. Burgess (2009, 25) says there are increasingly “interpersonal, playful and identity-forming uses for information, communication technology.” Indeed, sites such as this have been used to platform many users to internet stardom. Jenna Marbles, Jamie Curry and Chris Crocker (of “Leave Britney Alone!” fame) have all enjoyed online success from their use of YouTube and have even been able to take advantage economically by gaining advertisement revenue from their high visitor count or even getting involved with offline promotional opportunities. Some scholars have correctly pointed out that this doesn’t always translate into true celebrity though and that YouTube could not be seen as a solid platform to achieving ongoing world-wide recognition. Indeed it is true that for the vast majority of people, bridging the gap is virtually impossible if you don’t have the support of pre-existing media outlets and organisations, such as Justin Bieber did when he was apparently discovered by Usher and marketing executive, Scooter Braun.

Burgess (2009) reminds us though that amateur videos are not necessarily aimed at achieving super stardom or even a fan base, they can be created social history and used to document lives. Indeed, participant uploads on sites such as Instagram, Vine and YouTube can even be described as a 21st century digital scrapbook of memories. The video sharing site Vine has recently gained more popularity as it showcases 6 second home made videos that can be broadcast to the world. Many of the uploaders will never achieve internet fame however that does not prevent millions from being uploaded everyday. Each video involve some level of planning, creativity and personal touch that combines to form the mix of “productive play, media consumption and cultural performance” that Burgess highlights as a semi-private space of cultural participation (2009: 18)

The abundance of creation methods that assist users to pre-produce, produce, circulate and consume makes the Big Brother formula of filming normal people go about daily activities seem old-hack. It is easy to see how new media affordances and the rise of online self-expression could have contributed to a waning interest in the Big Brother series. Video sharing sites allow users to have 100% control over their image and content production, and the level of exhibitionism or surveillance is controlled by participants themselves. The supposed ‘reality’ of the Big Brother set up is far surpassed by the seemingly endless supply of personal vlogs and content that can be accessed on YouTube or Vine at any given time.

Big Brother 2013 winner Tim in the diary room

YouTube user SHAYTARDS vlogs the birth of his baby

Online video outlets have provided a range of methods for self-expression. Whilst some have reached Internet stardom, it is still difficult to bridge the gap to fully-fledged celebrity. However many users upload regardless, so they can have an opportunity for meaningful identity building and creative online play, unlike the limited and inaccessible ‘broadcast reality’ of a show like Big Brother.

  References: 

Burgess, Jean and Joshua Green. 2009. “You Tube and the Mainstream Media.” In YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture edited by JeanBurgess, Joshua Green and Henry Jenkins, 15-37. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press  

Glenn Dyer. 2013. “Nine continues to tank, Big Brother beaten by thnews.” Crikey. August 7. Accessed April 1, 2014. http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/08/07/glenn-dyers-tv-ratings-nine-continues-to-tank-big-brother-beaten-by-the-news/

Sauter, Theresa, March 26, 2014. “Week 5 – New Media and Entertainment.” Accessed March 31, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/