NML Week 6

Jenkins (2006a) Ch. 6

Consumers of media are not passive, but rather active participants that can discuss as well as manipulate the media. The digital revolution has broken down barriers between individuals to a tremendous degree that expansive communities have opened to any and everyone. Fan communities have taken the greatest use of this fact. What once was done by letters, conventions and print zines, can now be done at amazing speeds on the web. A collective intelligence is created by pooling in all of the knowledge of the fans. No one fan can know everything, only pieces that together form a mass knowledge accessible to everyone. Although this was happening before hand, now it is happening at greater and greater speeds. The digital revolution has also allowed the fans to move from simply be consumers to also being producers to a much wider audience.

These speeds can be used for consumer activism. Fans voice their opinions about the shows they love and hate in an attempt to try to alter the decisions of executives. Sometimes these opinions can erupt into flame wars between other fans. At times, it can cause other conflicts relating to the rules of the fan community. These conflicts can run the risk of alienating new fans.

A reciprocity between the media producers and the fan consumers eventually develops. This relationship can influence one another in the material they produce or the activities they engage in. However, a conflict arises over intellectual property. Companies take legal action against those who use their property without permission. However, such action can be seen as premature as these communities provide an untapped source of promotion and loyalty. Strengthening the fan loyalty requires broadening consumer participation, not narrowing it.

Jenkins VPodcast "Welcome to Convergence Culture: Consumer Participation and Branded Entertainment"

Convergence is defined as the flow of stories, communities, brands, etc. across media platforms. The convergence culture goes to two extremes, everything put into a black box as Jenkins calls it, or a collection of many black boxes. Convergence is seen in two ways, either as media consolidation or the bottom up, grass roots power of the internet. In order to think of convergence, one must think of these two in relations to each other and not separate. Convergence can occur in the black box as well as in our heads as can be seen in multi-tasking. Media becomes even more complex, so much that it cannot be concentrated into one media, instead people and media contain certain pieces that go together. Consumers pull their knowledge together, expanding knowledge capacity. Levy argues this is a emerging structure of power that can change the way capitalism works. Adhocracy principle best exemplified by Wikipedia. There's no leader, no central structure, but information emerges.

Convergence culture is not talking about the digital revolution in which new media replaces old media. Predictions made about mass media crumbling within the decade, but that's not occurring but rather convergence is an interplay between the old media and the new media. There are new relations with mass media rather than trying to replace it. Interactivity is a property of technologies while participation is a property of cultures. Any new technology taken into a participatory culture will take on new uses. The old consumer stayed when told, were predictable, isolated, silent, invisible, compliant while the new consumers are migratory, showing a declining loyalty to networks or media, and more socially connected, noisy and public, resistant, taking media into their own hands. Pop cosmopolitan, thinking outside of our locality and in this context taking the content that they want from another culture and bringing it into their own market.

Companies react either with prohibitionist or collaborationist logic. There are incentives to collaborationist logic as can build loyalty to the brand, the company. Contradictory message as give message of collaboration while at the same time taking legal actions against people. With some video games, have found that collaborationist logic to be much more profitable as self-expression creates better communities and more commitment to the product. Battle over intellectual property is really determines what participation includes, but the rules keep changing by the commercial company.

Comments (Due to the similarities in points, this comments section is for both selections):
The conflict between the fans and the companies is an interesting one that may never be resolved in my opinion. The reason for this is that I feel that the fans who do devote the time and energy to a certain property often makes a niche market that is substantial for maintaining that property, but may not be enough to actually garner profit. Fans voice also does not always match the actual amount of support that exists for a property. I use the show Firefly as an example. When the show was having falling ratings, many campaigns appeared across medias in order to try to keep the show on the air and eventually to bring it back after it was canceled. Eventually the fan response was great enough that the show was revived as a big budget motion picture. Everything seemed successful except for the amount of revenue the film actually took in. I'm sure someone asked, "Where are the fans?"

Networks and movie distributors often dislike taking risks, but they do so because you never know what might be the next big thing. However, they often go by the mantra of if it isn't broke, don't fix it. This often makes them rely on formulas, archetypes, ideas etc. that have worked in the past and rehashing them, at times, downright stealing them. The mainstream wants and needs take dominance, and often the mainstream wants what is familiar and comfortable. This just be my personal opinion, but look at the state of the music industry today, in which bands and musicians that are picked up often sound remarkably alike. There is a fear for something new that makes them crowd to the established forms, often at the expense of creativity. I can see the massive appeal of mainstream to the teeny boppers and pre-teens who have yet to develop a sense of taste, but as individuals become older, preferences become more refined, often appealing for one of those niche markets. At times, those niche markets can even become a part of the mainstream with enough support.

The fight over intellectual property is, as I see it, a struggle between the established forms and the desire to breath new life into something familiar by taking into an unfamiliar realm. It is a struggle between profits and creativity.

Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke

The primary theme of the film is not lost in contemporary times. The battle between nature and the industrial world of man is one that is forever waged. The film places the two side by side in the presentation of Irontown and the forest surrounding it where the Forest Spirit resides. There is an untouched natural beauty of the forest compared to the dark, cloudy industrial town. The color palettes used for the two are in sharp contrast to each other with Irontown seeming dirty. The move of industrialization, of progress is tainting the forest. Representative of this is the ominous shape the boar god Nago takes in the beginning of the film. Twisted by hate and rage, he becomes a monster.

The representation of the two sides of the conflict are Lady Eboshi and San. Lady Eboshi is completely representative of the industrial world. She is similar to the tycoons of the industrial revolution. Lady Eboshi is driven by the greed and arrogance at her own powers. She even goes so far as to believe that she can challenge the gods, most representative when she takes the head of the Forest Spirit. The power of technology as well as the wealth that can be derived from it at the expense of nature is intoxicating. San, on the other hand is completely rejected humanity as seen in the end of the film when she leaves Ashitaka and returns to the forest. Raised by the wolf goddess Moro, she considers herself a wolf. San is comfortable with living with, or rather in nature undisturbed.

However, the conflict is not as black and white in its portrayal. While the industrial world is polluting nature, it is providing opportunities for the people within Irontown. Lady Eboshi may be your traditional industrialist, but she is not completely without a heart. She takes in the dregs of society such as lepers and prostitutes and gives them opportunities to have worth in their lives when the rest of society has abandoned them. Just as industry in the real world provides jobs for people and makes life more convenient for everyone, but also comes at a cost to nature as we constantly have to destroy lands, or pollute them in order to build our skyscrapers and factories. Ashitaka seems to serve as a middle road.

Although he tends to side more with nature, Ashitaka does not abandon humanity. In the end, taking the path opposite of San, he returns to Irontown, to people. He respects nature but he also wants to protect humanity, not destroy or take revenge on them like San. He brings awareness of the conflict, able to see both sides and attempt to mediate the two. Ashitaka's stance is one that people should take as it provides a perspective often lost especially in today's discussion between conservation and industrialization for the benefit of the people in countires around the world.

NML Week 5

Freire & Macedo (1987) "The Importance of the Act of Reading"

A part of the importance is its inseparability from the real world. As the author puts it, we begin by reading the world. The perceptual experience of the world had its own meanings and interpretations. From these experiences, one develops their initial vocabulary and ideas concerning the world. As one's understanding of the world grows, initial fears and terrors can diminish. Reading words is no different from reading the world. We are in effect reading the word-world. As such, understanding the written text is something that should occur naturally rather than through mechanical practices. An approach of quality over quantity is taken to reading. It is a quality that stresses the same critical perception from reading the world combined with the ability to eventually interpret the reading and rewrite it.

Comments:
I agree that the reading of written text is not different from reading the world. The initial thing we see, whether it be a word, action or image, means nothing unless we ascribe meaning to it. We perceive the world and place meanings and interpretations to everything. The skills needed to understand text is not all that different from the skills needed to interpret the physical around us. In both instances, our subjective experiences colors our understandings of the material being presented to us. With this understanding, we have the power act on the world or text before us.

Luke & Freebody (1997) "Shaping the Social Practices of Reading"

The primary argument of Luke and Freebody is that reading is a social practice that is done everyday in private and public spaces and is tied to politics and power relations. Going into this, there is an emphasis of a change in Western cultures of textbook learning from skills, morality and citizenship to now invoking meaning to the readers. A "progressivist" view has taken root. However, despite change in focus, the purpose of reading models have not changed, which they view as finding how a literate person should fit into the social order. The education of reading can be painted by the majority ideology of society. This can be either through the text itself or through the teacher. It ignores the cultural and societal differences that children bring to the classroom. Luke and Freebody are calling for another shift, from a psychological approach of reading to a social that is aware of the implications that ideologies of society and/or the instructor can influence a student's learning. Their model of education involves:

• An emphasis on critical literacy: The texts needed to looked at in a more analytical sense, comparing different viewpoints as well as understanding the purpose of the text itself.
• A shift from a psychological model to a social model of reading: Recognition must be paid to the differences that students bring to the classroom based upon their differences in culture and discourses. We should capitalize on these differences rather than subverting them to a dominant one.
• Integration of new media: The idea of being literate has changed that these new forms of text and information must be taken into account.
• Focus on instruction on how the context of everyday discourses work linguistically and politically

Comments:
I agree that reading is a social practice, but I disagree with the portrayal of the student/reader as passive recipient of information. Yes, in the early years, children take in information quite willingly and without question, but as they become older, people begin to question the text. Rather than passive sponges absorbing information, they are active participants in their own education, choosing what they deem important and doing their own interpretations. Except in situations of stifling rigidity and conformity that the feeding of dominant ideologies become problematic. In other situations, many would question these dominant ideologies, especially those from different cultural and societal backgrounds as the dominant ideology can be detrimental to or seek to erase those backgrounds. Unrest and uncomfortable feelings can well up when this dominant ideology is taught. People resist it and seek to change it.

Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's Sin City

A gory, visceral and self-indulgent work is the best way to characterize Sin City, and yet we just can't look away. The film takes things to extremes especially in the visuals to create a film that strikes at the senses. The sound is accentuated by the deep voice of a self-narration given by the main characters. It entices with a interesting story and then grabs you by overwhelming you with the thoughts and feelings of the characters. The senses of touch, taste and smell cannot be directly felt, but are imagined. The film does not hold back in its violent scenes. Although it is not happening directly to you, you can't help but wince a couple times the first time seeing it because your imagination can go wild, and you wonder what it would feel like happening to you. Taste and smell are connected with the film's locale. The film takes place in a dark, crime-ridden city. There is difficulty in imagining something that doesn't taste or smell repugnant. The scene with the cannibal and the dog eating him doesn't help either. These three senses are connected to vision. The fact that a response can be aroused by these senses, speaks to the power of the visuals.

The film heavily relies on CG. Beyond the actors, very little of the film is real. This allows the director to create a world that really stands out. The choice of black and white places sharp contrasts in the images, allowing for certain things to really stand out and catch your eye. This is further enhanced by the few objects in color. The shades of black and white makes the city even more ominous. By having almost everything CG, scenes and images that would be impossible by normal cameras become possible. This is another reason why the film just stands out. It looks and feels different.

NML Week 4

Kress (2000) "Multimodality"

Kress argues that communication incorporates many of our senses, that it cannot simply be considered monomodal, but multimodal. The human body itself is designed to allow us to engage the world in many different ways and rarely does one operate in isolation. Thus the written language, which has often been considered monomodal is actually multimodal as we can see the words and hear the sound they make either from someone else or within our own mind. Everyday language can have different meanings that require more than one sense in order to pick up. Through multimodality, images and objects can deliver message almost as complex as the accepted written form.

However, as Kress sees it, forms of communication that dissent from the norm are placed in a separate category of aesthetic expression. This effectively removes them from being examined in the academic world in the general theory of communication.

Comments:
Everything in life is truly multimodal because as Kress put it, rarely do we ever experience one sense in isolation from all of the others. Even if we do not physically touch, smell or taste something very often, upon hearing or seeing a word that invokes one of these senses, we can imagine it and simulate it in our minds. Our mind is always so active that sometimes it is difficult to separate the description of a cool refreshing drink after a long hot day with the imagined sensation. Without willing thinking about it, we bring it to mind.

Also dipping into psych a little, experiencing one sense in the absence of another normally associated it with it can mess with you a little. Although most of us cannot read lips, unconsciously we can recognize sound patterns created by our lips. If we hear something that is the opposite from what we expect from the observation, we sometimes fuse the sound actually heard with the sound we expected. In blind children, the sense of touch from reading braille can become sensitive enough that the brain rewires so that the vision center of the occipital lobe activates when they read braille. The senses' interactions with each other are so common that it is difficult to separate them from our brain's structure.

Wong Kar Wai's As Tears Go By

My first impression of the film was that it was a very industrial film. From the backdrop of Hong Kong to the filming style, a gritty urban realism is created. Hong Kong is a heavily industrialized city, giving the settings a very mechanical and dark atmosphere. Natural light is often subdued in favor of artificial light such as neon signs. The city is not a bright, welcoming place, but rather a rough place where individuals have fall into crime or dirty jobs in order to get by. There is a lack of background music for scenes in the city, so the audience is not removed the situation. The cinematography rarely goes for extravagant angles, but is rather right there in the midst of everything.

The urban realism is further strengthened by the juxtaposition of the time spent on the island of Lantau. Those scenes are filled with natural light and background music does occur, separating the audience, by creating a sense of surrealism. This is especially apparent in the extended "Take My Breath Away" scene. The realism is lost to fantasy and romance. Compared with the scenes in the city, the scenes in the countryside are like a dream.

NML Week 3

Lister et al. (pg. 72-92)

The views of Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams concerning the whether or not media technology has the power to transform a culture and society. Even though McLuhan and his technological determinism has essentially lost this debate, it is still important to look at both of their theories.

McLuhan

• 4 cultures determined by media forms: 'Primitive' Oral/Aural Culture, Culture of Literacy, Print Culture (seen as the villain as the sensory experience was fragmented with vision dominating) and Electronic Culture
• Medium is "any extension of ourselves"
  
• No distinction between the medium and technology
• All new media remediate the content of previous media
• The "medium is the message," or that the significance of media is not its content but the way in which its existence changes our perception of the world as well as our relations.

Williams

• Technology is created by human agency to aid in known and foreseen human activities
• Plural possibilities and uses of a technology
• A concept of technology that includes the knowledge and skills to operate machines and tools
• The medium is not the message but a piece to a greater whole

As a whole, I must agree with Williams. Although technology does have the ability to completely change our world, with our social relations and perception along with it, there is often a human driving force behind it. Honestly, without human need and ingenuity, technology would never even occur. To neglect the content of a medium is also a mistake on McLuhan's part that I believe cannot be rectified. Media is subjected to an individual's purposes that can cause social and cultural change. As Williams, stated there exists a plural possibilities and uses of technology and medium. What might be a tool of creativity and expression for one vision, can be a tool of oppression and censorship by another. McLuhan's new age way of thinking about technology is akin to the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, except the answer is known. Humans came before technology. People shape culture and society through technology and a medium rather than technology on its own basis shaping culture and society.

Goodman (2003) "Introduction"

Goodman explores the importance of a curriculum centering around "critical literacy." For Goodman, "critical literacy" centers around the "ability to analyze, evaluate, and produce print, aural and visual forms of communication" (3). In a culture of mass media consumption, it is important for youths to critical examine the messages and intents behind the media presented to them. This is especially important for children and teenagers from low-income neighborhoods as it can be used to as a tool for looking at the issues and problems surrounding them and using it as a tool for change. "Critical literacy" allows for the change because the voices and opinions of individuals can be expressed to a wide audience through mastery of dominant media, which in this case is the image in Goodman's opinion.

The inability for a curriculum to be integrated into the classroom is made difficult by a factory, conveyor belt system of education. However, some attempts have been made on 3 aspects:

• technology integration: Even though there existed a lot of initial excitement, the use of technology within the classroom became stagnant either through limited or no access to it, or failures at finding means to incorporate it into the lesson.
• media literacy: As a form of study, media literacy has been only growing slowly due to a lack of support by many professional educational associations.
• community media arts: Many of the programs have been taken out of the classroom due to a lack of funding.

Goodman's organization reminds of a film I watched last year, AKA Don Bonus. In the documentary, an inner city Cambodian youth films his life and experiences for several months. For audiences, the film presented a voyeuristic look at his life and the problems that surround it such as a poor education system, crime and family separation. The film brought awareness of the issues that urban youth face to a national audience. His story would probably not have as much power in the form of written text. It had to be told through medium of film in order for it to have full impact. The film has the power to create change through inspiring others to act. Sokly "Don Bonus" Ny does not explicitly call for action in the film but merely documents his everyday life, and yet there is a depressing air that invokes sympathy in the audience. There is innate desire for something to be done.

NML Week 2

Lankshear and Knobel (2003) "From the 'Reading' to the 'New Literacy Studies'

Lankshear and Knobel examine the changes that have occurred to the meaning of "literacy" and the reasons behind it. Prior to the 1970s, the term "literacy" focused on reading and writing, but in a non-formal setting, as in not as a part of general education. Literacy was considered a "means for learning, not an end" (4). The change that occurred post-1970s can be contributed to 3 factors:

• Paulo Freire's work with peasant groups in Brazil and Chile: Freire took literacy to go beyond reading and writing, and to act as a tool to become aware of how societal and cultural systems function, particularly when they cause oppression and injustice. Awareness would lead to action for change.
• 'Literacy crisis' in postindustrialized nations: The postindustrialized era created major structural changes in several areas which subsequently led to failures in schools to educate individuals to standards required to live 'effectively' in this new era.
• The increase in the popularity and development of a sociocultural perspective in the studies of language and social studies: The research challenged the current instiutions to change their methods of teaching.

A greater focus was placed on literacy as a core part of education and research. Literacy itself expanded to meaning not only how use the 'right' language in the 'right' way but also to understand their values within society. Literacy has also become a synonym for competency.

Comments: Looking at society today, the idea and meaning of literacy has certainly exploded. The term "literacy" can be found in many different aspects of life beyond the original focus and reading and writing. Even within the original focus, the study has indeed become more complex. It is no longer the isolated case of someone being literate enough to understand text on a page and be able to produce text themselves. There is a focus on the societal and cultural context in which literacy occurs. Language is complicated by this variable as additional meanings, presuppositions, etc. become intrinsic learning that is not necessarily picked up by the student or the teacher. It is ingrained in the way we move through and interact with our environment. The understanding of literacy has grown beyond the original conventions of reading and writing into a tool of that acts upon and of which we can act upon ourselves to create change.

Lister et al. (pg. 9-37)

What are new media? This is the question explored in this reading. Some of the defining concepts of new media are digitality, interactivity, hypertexuality dispersal and virtuality.

• digitality: New media are digitized. That is, they exist as data that has been assigned numerical values that can exist apart from their physical forms, greatly compressed, accessed at high speeds non-linearly, and more fluid.
• interactivity: Individuals can intervene and manipulate data. The individual no longer becomes just simply a viewer, but a user. In comparison with 'old' media, there is control over what individuals want to see and in shaping the media.
• hypertexuality: Works that have multiple pathways to other works are considered hypertext. This feeds into the other two characteristics of new media as hypertext allows fast retrieval of information possible through digitality and interactivity as individuals can choose their own pathways to the information.
• dispersal: Media is not centralized, standardized or produced by industries. Rather it is characterized by the emergence of prosumers, those who not only consume the media created by technology, but also uses it to produce some product.
• virtuality: Virtuality can take on two forms, either the immersion into a digitized, computer generated world, or a virtual space for talking and social networks.
  

One important note behind all this is that it is not specifically novelty but rather differences that separate them from 'old' media, as in some cases, new media cannot exist without 'old' media.

Comments: I do mostly agree with the characteristics used to define new media, however I think there is too much of an emphasis on technological advancements. I believe that new media also encompasses innovation in expression. While often times this does take place in the digital world, it can still occur within the physical world. A new way of expressing a story through written text or images can very well be considered new media. The defining characteristic given to new media seems more reflective of industrialized societies in which there is an emphasis on speed and short attention spans. These societies seem to demand more stimulation quicker and quicker in order to not get bored, which new digital media is able to provide. It also has the ability for individuals to completely shun out points of disagreements with oneself, so that an individual can become sheltered within a digital world that only pleases and satisfy themselves with the exception of others. One other point of disagreement I'll bring up is on the middle ground between the two terms of VR. Such a middle ground has actually existed since the '90s. This is online video games, particularly massive multiplayer online role playing games. It immerses people into a virtual world while at the same time creating a space for social interactions.