At a time when new technologies, promising ideas, concepts, and emerging online projects seem to pop up from every direction, a time when it seems that you cannot possibly be too networked or informed, Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide seems like an appropriate read for understanding the new space we’ve each come to occupy in producing and consuming media. In a way, Jenkins’ book is a time capsule of sorts, managing to encompass the advantages, issues, and overall essence of the transitional state in which media currently exists. Emphasizing the two-sided nature of the Internet—particularly social media—and advanced cell phone technologies, which opened the opportunity for virtually unlimited and immediate self-expression, Jenkins points out that when people take media into their own hands, the results can be wonderfully creative, but they can also be bad for all involved. The new challenges presented to television advertisers, the issues surrounding the element of interactive television, and shifting new modes of storytelling are just some of the fascinating topics that Jenkins brings up in his book.

Convergence Culture serves as an excellent toolbox of notions that can help early technology adopters tap into the still hidden potentials of the media outlets that are available, be it for monetary gains generated through effective marketing or to increase the audience for one’s own creative work. Jenkins’ book provides relevant real world examples of how cross-media strategies can be implemented to promote a product effectively without resorting to old marketing schemes that are no longer realistic. When it comes to television, the American viewing public is becoming increasingly harder to impress, creating a challenge for the television industry and advertisers, who are anxiously working to readjust their focus in order to retain audiences. Jenkins explains how Coca-Cola found a new niche to market its brand alongside the very successful reality show American Idol by branding key series elements:

Contestants wait in the “red room” before going on stage; judges sip from Coca-Cola cups; highlights get featured on the official program Web site surrounded by a Coca-Cola logo; soft drink promotions reward tickets to the finales; Coca-Cola sends Idol performers to NASCAR races and other sporting events that it sponsors; and Coca-Cola’s sponsorship figures prominently at the American Idol finalist’s national concert tour. (71).

In his detailed discussion of the American Idol phenomenon, Jenkins also explains how the show’s interactive aspect, which encourages users to use SMS messaging to vote for their favourite contestants each week, helped popularize SMS messaging in America. And while one could argue that the media and communication corporations, in this case, continues to shape its audiences and consumers by pushing them towards adopting a new means of expression, as we come to see, the reverse is also true. In other words, individuals, in turn, can also control the medium with noticeable effects.  Once the collective audience fully grasps the consequences and rewards of this new interactivity factor—the ability to control the outcome of a show and significantly affect their viewer experience—they may begin to experiment with the technology and, in the case of American Idol, their votes, too. Jenkins illustrates this idea in his discussion of the fan backlash that began to grow after several seasons of American Idol, giving rise to the Vote for the Worst group. The Vote for the Worst was a web campaign launched to encourage participating audiences to vote for the worst contestants to keep them on the show for as long as possible. It shows how audiences can grasp control of their viewer experience by attempting to mould the show into a humorous production of bad performances instead of one that supposedly attempts to discover and promote true talent. Such actions on the part of the collective audience, be they well-intended or a form of trolling, can pose a threat to show producers and television broadcast companies, but that is the essence of convergence culture that Jenkins is talking about.

The book also poses a very interesting discussion of the appropriation of texts into new media and shifting forms of creative expression and storytelling that now have an easy outlet thanks to the Internet. Jenkins writes that ‘storytellers now think about storytelling in terms of creating openings for consumer participation. At the same time, consumers are using new media technologies to engage with old media content, seeing the Internet as a vehicle for collective problem solving, public deliberation, and grassroots activity.’ Because of these trends, texts that were previously consumed in a single or only a few mediums, such as books and movies, are now also taking on other forms of media, such as games, fan fiction, virtual realities, and communities of fans on Web forums, just to name a few. Jenkins illustrates how this puts into question the way corporations, such as entertainment production studios, claim ownership over texts and try to stifle harmless fan participation.

While Jenkins’ discussion precedes the age of Twitter by a couple of years, the notions are remarkably applicable here, too, since Twitter attracts such a wide array to contributors and observers. More than just a way to keep your friends or fans up to date, giving them a play by play of your activities, Twitter is an environment that fosters an astonishing amount of creative self-expression that virtually anyone with access to Internet can take part in. Justin Halpern’s Sh*t My Dad Says Twitter-account-turned-book is an example of a cross-media text that originated as a Twitter account, gained 1,557,075 followers (and counting), and recently got published as a book, currently ranking eighth on the Chapters Indigo bestselling top 50 list. CBS has recently picked up the script and will begin airing a sitcom inspired by the Twitter-based profane-yet-funny utterings of Justin Halpern’s 73-year-old dad.

With such a wide variety of individuals to follow and a true opportunity of unlimited interactivity, it’s not surprising how Twitter became so popular. Encompassing the element of reality television shows, it allows individuals to become active participants in storylines and discussions. Another great example of storytelling to originate on Twitter is shhdontellsteve, a one young man’s reporting of what his roommate, Steve, does at all times. Combining the elements of relatable and humorous reality in an interactive 140-character form is an appealing mode of storytelling, and it would not be surprising to see a television broadcasting company try to pick it up sometime soon as well.

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In an attempt to bring all of what Lanier had said in his manifesto to a single, graspable idea, the one notion that lingers in my mind is lock in; everything else that he mentions seems to stem from it either directly or indirectly. Although Lanier references the internet in his discussion on juvenilia (chapter 14), I’d like to extend the idea to what has been happening to the smartphone industry over the past couple of years: particularly, the widespread introduction of touch screen technology.

Could it be that technological infantilism neoteny that’s ingrained in the human species would have anything to do with the fact that the entire smartphone manufacturing business had suddenly turned to producing a technology that, in my opinion, is not yet at a stage ready to be introduced to consumers? Moving past the cool factor—which I also believe to be the sole factor to drive sales in this case—there is not much merit in touch technology at the state it is in now. The minimization of the learning curve should be the top priority of designers, yet instead, learning how to type using touch technology is introduced as an extra step that end-users need to undertake in order to use these new devices.

The idea of innovating and adopting the QWERTY keyboard into touch technology, in itself, is the epitome of lock-in. The QWERTY keyboard arrangement first appeared in typewriters in the second half of the 1800s and was designed to minimize typebar clashes. While seeing the full QWERTY keyboard crammed into the tiny surface of a smartphone is impressive at first, I wonder if the same level of ease still stands when typing, considering the technique changes dramatically compared to the computer keyboard. If the the saying ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ might apply to regular keyboards, is QWERTY still the best method when we only have the benefit of our opposable thumbs when typing?

Instead of seeing crafty marketing schemes that try to persuade me to buy toys and that a touch keyboard is actually good for me, I’ll be more curious to observe how an introduction of a new redesigned keyboard would affect the future of how we interact with smartphones and other similar technologies in ways that are more innate to us by being in tune with the way we are designed to function.

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In chapter 12, ‘I am a contrarian loop,’ Lanier continues to stress the looming danger of human annihilation from the evolving technology which, according to him, is at risk of developing in really, really bad ways. Lanier is saying that the whole point of technology is to change the human situation, so it is absurd for humans to aspire to be inconsequential. Assuming that I understand what he is saying, which after reading 14 chapters, I still can’t be certain of—I disagree. It’s easy to follow Lanier’s argument and believe it entirely if we take all of what he’s saying for granted, but I have a feeling that the problems he presents are often self-created. Lanier points out that if we hope for technology to be designed to serve people, we must have at least a rough idea of what a person is and is not. I am not a computer program designer or anything of the sort, but as long as a computer program or any kind of technology, for that matter, is created by humans, isn’t it safe to assume that the knowledge of what a person is  is intuitively brought to the table? Of course, this is not to say that we don’t fall victim to cases of poor, unintuitive, cumbersome design now and then when it comes to technology. There is certainly a time and a place for the points that Lanier is making about lock-in, as well as the notion of the importance of creating technology which serves us instead of moulding us. However, in my humble opinion (and I say ‘humble’ because I realize I might not be the intended audience here, and so my rambling is a moot point), Lanier over-stresses his argument to the point where his concerns dwell on the brink of science fiction.

If I expected to receive a clear call for action after reading this manifesto, I am still waiting.

We live in an age where we expect information to be immediately available, but at the same time, our expectations as to the quality of this information are a whole different question. Less than ten seconds after the earthquake that shook the eastern Ontario region two weeks ago took place, I was on the Internet trying to figure out what just happened. There was nothing. Even five to ten minutes after, my constant refreshing of the Google News page still yielded zero results. About 20 minutes into the quest, I found my first search result—a Wikipedia page confirming the event. Tweets also began popping up from all around the twitterverse, ranging from recapping of personal experiences to witty political commentary (“That wasn’t an earthquake, that was Quebec separating.”). So I didn’t just imagine it—there really was an earthquake.

Having found the information I needed, I was still on the lookout for an actual news article. Eventually I was able to learn more when news stories began appearing on my news feed within the first hour, but even then, I found that many of them referenced Twitter and even Wikipedia to back up their story.

In chapter 11 of his manifesto, Lanier calls out Wikipedia. “There seems to be no limit to Wikipedia adoration,” he writes. “For example, a ghastly news story—such as one covering a terrorist event—might focus on how magically the corresponding Wikipedia entry came together, as if that were the situation’s silver lining” (142).
Of course, the earthquake situation in Ontario was somewhat damaging, but by no means tragic. Yet it’s still interesting to see how preferences in sources are beginning to change, even for reputable news reporters, who may now turn to sources like Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia to gather bits of information.

The Vancouver Sun states:

The quake was also immortalized on Wikipedia within half an hour of the tremors. Initially, the “2010 Central Canada earthquake” page contained only the sketchiest details and links to a couple of news articles, but the creator also threw in a few dramatic flourishes: “A Canadian dodo, located in Ontario, texted his friends in case they were worried about him,” the page read. “They were not.” That part of the entry was swiftly deleted.

I’m curious to see how the trend to establish a credibility for Wikipedia, Twitter, and the like will affect the way we gather critical information, particularly when it comes to delivering trustworthy news.

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A while back my friend had shared an interesting experience with me that resurfaced in my mind again after reading Lanier’s chapter 10 concerning digital creativity. Several weekends ago, she went to a Toronto showing of a documentary titled Babies by the French director Thomas Balmès. The film follows four infants from birth throughout the first year of their lives. The babies featured in the film are two from rural areas: Ponijao from Opuwo, Namibia, and Bayar from Bayanchandmani, Mongolia, as well as two from urban areas: Mari from Tokyo, Japan, and Hattie from San Francisco, USA. The film is virtually wordless and uses the collage approach, simply showing what babies do: crawl, drool, feed, cry, sleep, and repeat the process. What reminded me of this story now was this: the director was present for a question and answer period at the end of the screening, and surely, the question of meaning came up rather quickly.

“Do you think that the film serves as a commentary on parenting practices?” an audience member had asked.

Balmès’ answer was neither yes or no, but rather went along the lines of saying that it was not the intended purpose of the movie and he therefore did not wish to discuss the question at all. While I haven’t yet seen the film myself, I’m sure that it presents enough information for sociologists, psychologists, and other interested parties to draw from to answer the above question—so why did Balmès refuse to shed some light on this topic?

The answer lies in the ongoing debate about who actually owns the meaning of any given form of expression. While authors, artists, filmmakers, song writers, etc., usually have a meaning in mind when creating their work, the meaning of the said work is no longer under their control once released to the public. This, of course, was true always—it’s not unique to the digital age—and is the reason as to why one can encounter say, a feminist analysis of practically anything nowadays. Meaning is something that is engrained in the work, but is also largely assigned by the audience. If artistic creation is meant to inspire thought, isn’t it silly to expect such thought and reflection to be constrained and in line with the artist’s initial intention?

Lanier writes that every artist tries to foresee or even nudge the context in which expression is to be perceived so that the art will make sense. It is not necessarily a matter of overarching ego, or manipulative promotion, but a simple desire for meaning (137).

I would disagree. In my mind, art is a way to think, reflect, and relate as opposed to necessarily align our thoughts with those the author was intending. When beginning this blog entry, I had somewhat of a different vision of what I was going to say here, but it had instead evolved and turned out into something I wasn’t anticipating. As a writer, I know that this is not a unique occurrence, but rather a trend. Any form of creative expression is a journey that lacks a clear beginning or a clear ending. That’s probably the reason why many artists are never happy when they have to let go of perfecting their work. While the digital age certainly made the appropriation of creative content easier, allowing individuals to easily assign their own meanings and contexts to others’ work, I do not believe it to usually be a bad thing. Meaning is not static or one-dimensional, and it would be a shame try to make it such by trying to stifle creativity and restrain discussion.

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In chapter 8, Lanier continues the discussion about reinstating the monetary value of cultural expression and the potential strategic tactics that can be used to achieve that. What I found particularly interesting is his mention of songles, which he describes as ‘a dongle for a song.’ A dongle creates ‘an artificial scarcity for [the product].’ As an example, Lanier suggests that you might wear a special necklace songle to a party, and music enabled by the necklace would come on automatically after you arrived. The necklace communicates with the entertainment system, and so the musical mix at an event might be determined by the sum of the songles worn by everyone who shows up. Now there’s a neat idea!

As I personally see it, the novelty and level of the cool factor will override the fact that there are easier, virtually free ways of obtaining music over the internet. I can anticipate songle parties, if that becomes the case.  In my head, I’m beginning to picture crowds wearing layers upon layers of tacky Mardi Gras songle beads, but maybe that’s just me.

It’s a phenomenon similar to iTunes’ distribution of free music singles, either through the iTunes store or Starbucks Pick of the Week giveaway cards with unique codes on the back. This code, too, is a kind of dongle, creating a sense of scarcity and value. While I appreciate the work musicians do and believe they should be paid for it, I’m guilty of not always following this dogma. Having become so accustomed to being able to just listen to music, I find it quite amazing (in all sorts of good ways) that Apple has been able to reverse that trend. How, after giving people the knowledge they can have something for free, do you convince them to pay for it?

What is it about Apple that just makes me want to pay them instead of just continuing to…err, share? Sophistication and the cool factor of Apple products certainly gives it an edge on the market. Perhaps, too, it’s the way that Apple presents products on the iTunes storefront—buying a CD or a movie from iTunes feels almost as genuine an experience as going to a store, and having a credit card preregistered in the system makes it very easy to spend money before you get a second thought. The fact that it eliminates the risk of infecting your computer with a pesky Trojan virus is also always a plus.

The unparalleled advantages of Amazon—and recently Apple has entered this arena, too—is that they have risen to control online book sales in a way that no publisher or even bookstore chain could. To add to the anxiety brought on by the increasing profits in e-book sales, Amazon believes that the digital world may not need any publishers at all.

While unfortunate for those in the publishing house business, not all of what is happening in this process is entirely bad for those who own the original content—the authors—or the publishers. Getting past the idea that publishers, as we understand their role, become wiped out due to declining need for hard copies, more opportunities may well be created for the authors and publishers alike (this, of course, assuming that short and long-term incentives are set correctly). According to editor and published Jason Epstein, Publishers will be selling digital books directly to the iPad. They are using the iPad as a kind of universal warehouse. By doing so, they create opportunities to cut payroll and overhead costs, thus restructuring their business models to operate more efficiently and profitably at a time when everything is becoming converted into digital media.

In December, the author Stephen Covey sold Amazon the exclusive digital rights to two of his best-sellers, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “Principle-Centered Leadership.” The books were sold on Amazon by RosettaBooks, and Covey got more than half the net proceeds.

The book publication business is moving into new dimensions, which is not necessarily something that publishers like to see. And as much as they try to say that Amazon somehow cheats the authors out of receiving any significant profits, if we eliminate the publisher from the equation, these profits in fact become more, as in Stephen Covey’s case.

Upon the revealing of the iPad earlier this year, Steve Jobs had pointed out that Apple, through its iTunes and Apple stores, had access to a hundred and twenty-five million credit cards, which would make it easy for consumers to buy books on impulse. Indeed, having the convenience of accessing books that are only a click away without the need to provide credit card information each time makes the process so easy that it will likely generate more sales than hard-copies ever could, resulting in more profits for authors and perhaps even publishers, granted they find a smart way to adjust to the changes.


[This entry is in response to chapter 6 of Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget.]

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This week, I’m finding myself getting somewhat excited about Lanier’s manifesto. Not because I necessarily agree with it all, but because it is doubt and partial disagreement that makes the cogs in my head really start turning. Sparking this is Lanier’s argument that advertising is the only one product that can maintain its value as everything else is devalued in the technological revolution. Perhaps he’s right. 

Robots are starting to get better. 

The semiautonomous rovers on Mars have outperformed all expectations.

Roombas are sweeping our floors.

And, yes, you can buy a car that parks itself.

It’s about the worrisome coexistence of people and continuously-improving machines, where advertising will come to thrive on whatever it that’s being invented and consequently pulling the rug from under all else.

But, alas! What about human innovation, the very thing that brings the above into being? It feels strange to fear the technological revolution and personify it to such a degree where it feels as if humans have no hand in eliminating themselves making their lives easier with machines. Besides, it seems that with the technological advancements, new jobs are created as much as old ones become eliminated (to be fair, Lanier makes this point, too).

Really, it’s much like Douglas Adams’ notion of the Electric Monk:

“The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder… Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.”
— Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency)

While, presumably, we are capable of making a machine that believes and feels for us – although the very fact throws into question the essence of feeling and believing – we are yet to see one that can be really and truly capable of innovation, which in itself is the prerequisite for advertising anyways.

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I’ve finishing reading chapter 3 in Lanier’s manifesto, The Noosphere is Just Another Name for Everyone’s Inner Troll, and I’m pleased to say that this chapter poses many, many valid arguments. What spoke to me, particularly, was Lanier’s point about how social networking websites, for example, attempt and often succeed at fitting us into cookie cutter definitions of who we are as individuals; and it’s not so much the fact that our web self is very shallowly defined by these categories (Age, sex, relationship status, looking for, religious views, etc.), but that it’s pretty easy to buy into these categories and begin extending them into our everyday understanding of who we are.

Having been an active Facebook user for the past five years, I know it’s not a far cry from reality. At the same time, this over-simplification of the self is not inevitable, by any means. If you understand where Facebook’s bulk profits come from (advertising to you based on the information you provide), I think it becomes easier to break away from voluntarily organizing yourself into those cookie cutter categories just so that advertisers could get to you easier. Over the past few years, Facebook has changed or completely removed parts of its original functionality. In the past, you were able to find individuals based on profile keyboards, and it felt like a good way to network. It seems that now this option has been removed from the search functions, which hints at the fact that the information you provide is no longer there to create personal connections, but rather to construct demographic figures. Like Lanier says, the customers of social networks are not the members of those networks. The real customer is the advertiser of the future, but this creature has yet to appear in any significant way. The whole artifice, the whole idea of the fake friendship, is just bait laid by the lords of the clouds to lure hypothetical advertisers—we might call them messianic advertisers—who could someday show up (54). While the ultimate advertisers have not shown up just yet, the frequency of Facebook’s mention in the media – particularly concerning their disregard of the privacy policy – is proof that Facebook flourishes through the release of private member information to third-party advertisers.

Concerns over Facebook’s privacy policy have surfaced once again, causing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to release another statement saying that, “In the coming weeks, [Facebook] will add privacy controls that are much simpler.” [Wall Street Journal Blogs]. What this means, of course, is very much open to interpretation.

Should members be concerned in light of these frequent privacy violations? Probably, but it does not present grounds to overreact, but rather to become smarter about how you present yourself on the web. Keeping in mind that nothing on the Internet is truly private, maybe it’s time that members re-evaluated the importance of the information they put out there. In my humble opinion, less is more, and it helps keep some of the mystery alive.

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