As a New Media major, I must say that the lecture we heard last week in the Neuberger was an interesting and informative one but it was not really anything I had not heard before. It was however better than many of the other lectures I have been subjected to. Our lecturer (whose name I have forgotten though I don’t think she ever introduced herself) gave a good fair and balanced look at what New Media is. Oftentimes people will focus on only a single aspect of New Media such as video or sound applications. New Media is a multifaceted monster that is ever changing and growing. In the 1950s, it was electronic music, today it is mainly considered web applications, tomorrow it could be cybernetic implants that make you hallucinate you are talking to historical figures. One thing I did enjoy was that our speaker acknowledged that many New Media works or “objects” are pieces of political activism. In many of our other New Media classes, that distinction is lost. We are told that it is art when many do not consider it “art” or “Art”, including myself. New Media has lost (or perhaps it never had) its title of art. I think this is because of its blending of art ideals, design and science. In her lecture, our speaker talked about circuit bending, repurposing old analog equipment to do something else. Electronic music alone required a completely new set of equipment to be invented. In a way, this lack of formal art in New Media is what helped bring it to the masses. I will get into this in more detail later on. This creation of new equipment and processes is in part what probably lead to such a blurred field of what New Media is because so much was happening at once. If you do a Google search for “New Media”, you will get 167,000,000 returns. Many of those sites have some definition of New Media on them and sometimes they are widely different other times they are similar. Let me give you are few examples:
UrbanDictionary.com: New media usually refers to a group of relatively recent mass media based on new information technology. Most frequently, the label would be understood to include the Internet and World Wide Web, video games and interactive media, CD-ROM and other forms of multimedia popular from the 1990s on. The phrase came to prominence in the 1990s, and is often used by technology writers like those at Wired magazine and by scholars in media studies.
Dictionary.com: developing usually electronic forms of media regarded as being experimental.
Wikipedia: New media is the marriage of mediated communications technologies with digital computers.
Oxford University Press: a general term covering non-traditional ways of delivering advertising or promotion messages, anything from text messaging to the Internet.
As you can see four similar yet slightly different definitions from four popular and somewhat reliable sources.
To try to expand on what I have been saying I will briefly relate New Media to some of the topics we have discussed recently in class. Please feel free to comment and add your own opinions and ideas.
New Media & Convergence:
New Media has everything to do with convergence. New Media itself is often and example of convergence. Take YouTube for example. There is video on a website that you can sit at your computer and watch and listen to it. Moreover, sometimes within the video there is text combining “old media” with the “new media”. Anyways the various technologies that make up New Media are often used to share and spread ideas. Let us use the Star Wars example from class. You can find online and “offline” Star Wars videos, music, games, hangouts, and a whole host of other products. Star Wars is an industry by itself. Games for example take different forms depending upon if they are on or offline. An online game could be a simple Flash shooter game or something more complex like Star Wars Galaxies, a MMORG. Offline they are a little simpler like “Star Wars: Battleship” or “Star Wars Trivia”. In the Star Wars Universe New Media has helped to combine two worlds.
New Media & Power:
New Media is becoming a tool of power. Let us go back to YouTube again for this example. For the 2008 Presidential Race you can find videos of each of the candidates and why they should be elected. If you surf around a bit, you will start to see flash banners and ads for candidates such as Giuliani, Clinton, and Dennis Kucinich. These all serve to remind us who is in charge and that they are the ones in control. Facebook even has new applications and groups that will let you proclaim your support for a candidate. This only serves to further their power and recognition. New Media is being used by those in power to spread messages and ideals that they want you to believe in. Then ordinary citizens are picking up these ideas and on their own using the power of New Media to keep spreading them.
New Media & Protest:
When New Media became a tool of power it dually become a tool of protest. Besides the candidate’s videos on YouTube there are videos from people that oppose those candidates online posting videos and why they should not be elected. Other forms of New Media such as text messaging is being used to coordinate protests and flash mobs. There are blogs online exposing perceived media and government lies. There are underground radio networks seeking to spread their own messages of equality and freedom. Every form of New Media can be and has been wield as a tool or either power or protest. This is where I decided that most New Media objects, (that’s right the proper term now is “objects” not “works” anymore) are not art. They seek to spread some kind of political message. The ease of use for a lot of New Media technologies has also allowed it populated among the common untrained masses, which explains its popularity and all the crap you see out there. New Media has allowed everyone to not only have a voice but to get in your face and scream.
New Media & Pleasure:
See YouTube
See comments on Star Wars
No seriously, New Media has created completely new forms of entertainment. There are games you can play online to amuse yourself like Tanks or World of Warcraft. There are funny videos you can watch to amuse yourself instead of watching TV. You can go to chat rooms or forums to meet new people and discuss topics of similar tastes like Star Wars or Buffy slash. New Media has created a new frontier or entertainment and new generation of lazy people.
New Media & Machinima:
Machinima I know is considered by some to be an emerging New Media practice. It has become simpler and easier to do and all the tools you need are in most American homes these days. With an Xbox, Halo, and a video recording device anyone can become a movie director with little effort. Machinima videos are also spread by other New Media example like posting the videos on YouTube or having a blog that hosts and comments on these videos. How long until Machinima is used for power and protest? Or will it always be entertainment?
New Media & Queer Culture:
I had to think a little harder on this one but I think that New Media has provided a safe haven online for people to be who they are. For example in our social worlding unit we briefly discussed that in Second Life there is a place where gays can hang out and meet other people. There are forums online where gays can talk to other gays about issues or topics that concern them. There are even now dating services for gays online. They are also free to create their own power and protest tools and use them spread their ideals instead of more mainstream beliefs.
I hope I have provided you with enough food for thought. Please excuse any spelling or grammatical mistakes. Remember the opinions represented in this commentary are my own and not necessarily endorsed by Dr. Shaka McGlotten or Purchase College or the State of New York. If you feel there are any mistakes please let me know and I will attempt to rectify them.
Since it is the end of the semester here are some good videos about New Media to watch:
About New Media makers
About New Media Projects
A more serious one about Second Life
Comment away!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Kazys Varnelis Reading
I will start by agreeing with the statement that fashion can be both democratic and elitist. Let us begin by taking the author’s example of King Louis XIV of France. The King was inarguably an elitist. He was wealthy, upper-class and of course the ruler of a country. HE set the guiding idea of what fashion was. In a sense, he was the first Joan Crawford. However, how does fashion become democratic? King Louis’ fashion sense becomes democratic because others choose to emulate him. Nobles dressed like the king to try to say that they were good friends with the king or to demonstrate that they were among France’s best. Would the lower classes have dressed like he king if they could have afforded to? I believe that they would have in order to prove that they had style and were better then what you had thought of them originally.
Let us jump forward to a more modern example of fashion elitist, The New York Times Style Magazine. The whole magazine serves as a showcase for ideas and designs in part set by the elitists, the rich and famous of the fashion world. A similar thing happens in King Louis court. The lesser classes choose to emulate the elitist designs. They are often not as extreme a ridiculous as the original fashion but they are indeed often similar or at least influenced by.
You are now probably wondering what this has to do with Power, Protest, and Pleasure. Let us begin fist with Power. The elitist of course has power; they have to power to decide what fashion will be in this season. If elitist decided that short shorts or dressing, as a 1950s housewife is the fashion of the season then that is what the fashion becomes. However, the non-elitist or Average Joe has power. The non-elitist has the power to decide if they will emulate or go along with the elitist ideas or if they will reject them in part or entirely. This is where we begin to get into protest and pleasure. The elitist gets their pleasure from being the trendsetter. The non-elitist gets pleasure being in fashion or from being able to say, “I have Style” and to show off how “cool” they are and what good “taste” they have. The non-elitist can also get pleasure from protest. Protest is essentially a form of masochism as we learned from ”The Hack”. Here protest is often the rejection in part or the whole of the elitist ideals of fashion. Pleasure comes from the act of rejecting the elitist beliefs and choosing an alterative that the protestor thinks best fits or represents them. This again demonstrates the democratic values of fashion. There is the option to protest if you so chooses, the option to decide what you wear. That is an option or choice not available in all aspects of life, which is perhaps why so many people express themselves though clothing.
By now you are have probably noticed that I have covered fashion but not architecture. Architecture is remarkable similar to fashion which is why the author wanted to take that class so long ago. Architecture is the fashion of buildings. It is also so by a group of elitists who deicide what the new “look” will be. Once the “look” is set, it is then often copied throughout the world. It is the same system as with fashion. A “look” or “design” is set and then emulated or rejected by the others. Take for example the modern architecture of Purchase. When the College was built the "modern” look as in style. It was what the elitists said was style. Purchase was in fact built by an elitist our esteemed and perhaps best ever Governor Nelson D. Rockefeller. How is architecture emulated by the non-elitist? For this example, lets look at some of the Projects. Many built by the Housing Authority are in the “modern” style. Why? So, they could paint a happier picture of the world and to try to say that the Projects were good places to live. Using modern architecture probably helped to cut down on cost, too. The style was also rejected, some people choose to build buildings using glass instead of brick. If you really want to see rejection just look at the student body here. Fashion and architecture are similar, you can reread what I previously wrote and replace “fashion” with “architecture” and it will still make sense because they both operate under the same system. In fact I would argue that almost anything could fit into the description I gave.
The End
Let us jump forward to a more modern example of fashion elitist, The New York Times Style Magazine. The whole magazine serves as a showcase for ideas and designs in part set by the elitists, the rich and famous of the fashion world. A similar thing happens in King Louis court. The lesser classes choose to emulate the elitist designs. They are often not as extreme a ridiculous as the original fashion but they are indeed often similar or at least influenced by.
You are now probably wondering what this has to do with Power, Protest, and Pleasure. Let us begin fist with Power. The elitist of course has power; they have to power to decide what fashion will be in this season. If elitist decided that short shorts or dressing, as a 1950s housewife is the fashion of the season then that is what the fashion becomes. However, the non-elitist or Average Joe has power. The non-elitist has the power to decide if they will emulate or go along with the elitist ideas or if they will reject them in part or entirely. This is where we begin to get into protest and pleasure. The elitist gets their pleasure from being the trendsetter. The non-elitist gets pleasure being in fashion or from being able to say, “I have Style” and to show off how “cool” they are and what good “taste” they have. The non-elitist can also get pleasure from protest. Protest is essentially a form of masochism as we learned from ”The Hack”. Here protest is often the rejection in part or the whole of the elitist ideals of fashion. Pleasure comes from the act of rejecting the elitist beliefs and choosing an alterative that the protestor thinks best fits or represents them. This again demonstrates the democratic values of fashion. There is the option to protest if you so chooses, the option to decide what you wear. That is an option or choice not available in all aspects of life, which is perhaps why so many people express themselves though clothing.
By now you are have probably noticed that I have covered fashion but not architecture. Architecture is remarkable similar to fashion which is why the author wanted to take that class so long ago. Architecture is the fashion of buildings. It is also so by a group of elitists who deicide what the new “look” will be. Once the “look” is set, it is then often copied throughout the world. It is the same system as with fashion. A “look” or “design” is set and then emulated or rejected by the others. Take for example the modern architecture of Purchase. When the College was built the "modern” look as in style. It was what the elitists said was style. Purchase was in fact built by an elitist our esteemed and perhaps best ever Governor Nelson D. Rockefeller. How is architecture emulated by the non-elitist? For this example, lets look at some of the Projects. Many built by the Housing Authority are in the “modern” style. Why? So, they could paint a happier picture of the world and to try to say that the Projects were good places to live. Using modern architecture probably helped to cut down on cost, too. The style was also rejected, some people choose to build buildings using glass instead of brick. If you really want to see rejection just look at the student body here. Fashion and architecture are similar, you can reread what I previously wrote and replace “fashion” with “architecture” and it will still make sense because they both operate under the same system. In fact I would argue that almost anything could fit into the description I gave.
The End
Sunday, October 14, 2007
"Encoding, Decoding"
To start off I think that we need to review our notes on Adorno. In our guided notes from last class we learned that Adorno view mass culture as: “more nefarious, enslaved to market forces, and as automating the reactions of audiences, producing consumers as passive sheep enslaved to authoritarian systems of control.” In “Encoding, decoding” Stuart Hall talks extensively about television one of the tools used to create mass culture. Early on in his essay, Hall introduces his idea of a four-stage cycle of communication in contrast to the more traditional linear idea of sender/message/receiver. Hall proposes the four-stage theory of production, circulation, distribution/consumption and reproduction.
Let us compare the two to the creation of a weekly television episode. In the traditional sender/message/receiver method, we just see a general overview of the process. A studio films a TV show, its broadcast and the viewer at home watches it. However, with Hall’s four-stage method of looking at communication we start to see the meat of the process. A studio creates a television show, and does the actual filming this is the production phase. Then the show is edited and is sent to the televisions stations that are going to air it, this is the circulation phase. Then the show is broadcast into millions of home where millions pf people watch, this is the distribution and consumption part of the cycle. Then we of course come to the reproduction phase. I see this happening in two different ways. The first one is that the studio creates another episode similar to the one that airs because it was a success and it is what the audience expects to see. For example on Law & Order it is the same thing every week a murder, some conflict, the detectives solve the case and then a trial. The second way I can see reproduction happening is on the creation of a similar series but the premise is still the same. Just look at any crime show from the last thirty years. They all follow the format of a crime is committed, detectives solve it, bad guys go to jail. The shows might vary a bit series from series but at the basic level, they are all the same.
With his four-stage communication cycle, Hall manages to complicate Adorno’s ideas. For example, at what point did the stereotype enter the cycle and become the standard view that everyone takes? Was it in the production phase or was it in the reproduction phase? In addition, in what cycle did it happen, too? The first one or the hundredth? For now, though let us concentrate on the idea of mass culture as authoritarian. By breaking communication into four smaller stages, Hall creates an opportunity to control and regulate it at each phase. Not that this would always be bad. The government, a corporation, or any other authoritarian system can step in at any point in the cycle and either break it or modify whatever is happening at this phase. In the production phase the government could stop certain material from being used. At the end of the cycle in the reproduction phase, they, the authority, could stop any material from ever being used again. In the distribution/consumption, who views it, how they view it, and when the view it, would be under an authority’s control. In addition, under authoritarian control an increase in the sameness of content could be seen because of the limited number of permitted ideas.
Another thing that Hall discusses in his essay is semiotics. For Hall semiotics is how a form of communication disseminates information. It is learned form of different meanings behind different visuals and actions. However, the information that it is trying to convey can sometimes be misunderstood by the receiver. This happens when there is a “lack of equivalence” as Hall puts it. Simply put it means what you intend something to be is not the same for me, perhaps because of my background. For example, I think cats are cute and cuddly. You on the other hand may think that cats are evil and hang out with witches. This is just our difference of opinion or beliefs. Nevertheless, semiotics can still be useful for reaching a large and broad audience. Take for example “Triumph of Will”. We could argue that Leni Riefenstahl had awesome use of semiotics in the film because even in class without the proper soundtrack, we modern democracy loving Americans were able to understand that the film was saying that Nazis are awesome. I’m sure get into more detail in class so I’ll leave off here.
Let us compare the two to the creation of a weekly television episode. In the traditional sender/message/receiver method, we just see a general overview of the process. A studio films a TV show, its broadcast and the viewer at home watches it. However, with Hall’s four-stage method of looking at communication we start to see the meat of the process. A studio creates a television show, and does the actual filming this is the production phase. Then the show is edited and is sent to the televisions stations that are going to air it, this is the circulation phase. Then the show is broadcast into millions of home where millions pf people watch, this is the distribution and consumption part of the cycle. Then we of course come to the reproduction phase. I see this happening in two different ways. The first one is that the studio creates another episode similar to the one that airs because it was a success and it is what the audience expects to see. For example on Law & Order it is the same thing every week a murder, some conflict, the detectives solve the case and then a trial. The second way I can see reproduction happening is on the creation of a similar series but the premise is still the same. Just look at any crime show from the last thirty years. They all follow the format of a crime is committed, detectives solve it, bad guys go to jail. The shows might vary a bit series from series but at the basic level, they are all the same.
With his four-stage communication cycle, Hall manages to complicate Adorno’s ideas. For example, at what point did the stereotype enter the cycle and become the standard view that everyone takes? Was it in the production phase or was it in the reproduction phase? In addition, in what cycle did it happen, too? The first one or the hundredth? For now, though let us concentrate on the idea of mass culture as authoritarian. By breaking communication into four smaller stages, Hall creates an opportunity to control and regulate it at each phase. Not that this would always be bad. The government, a corporation, or any other authoritarian system can step in at any point in the cycle and either break it or modify whatever is happening at this phase. In the production phase the government could stop certain material from being used. At the end of the cycle in the reproduction phase, they, the authority, could stop any material from ever being used again. In the distribution/consumption, who views it, how they view it, and when the view it, would be under an authority’s control. In addition, under authoritarian control an increase in the sameness of content could be seen because of the limited number of permitted ideas.
Another thing that Hall discusses in his essay is semiotics. For Hall semiotics is how a form of communication disseminates information. It is learned form of different meanings behind different visuals and actions. However, the information that it is trying to convey can sometimes be misunderstood by the receiver. This happens when there is a “lack of equivalence” as Hall puts it. Simply put it means what you intend something to be is not the same for me, perhaps because of my background. For example, I think cats are cute and cuddly. You on the other hand may think that cats are evil and hang out with witches. This is just our difference of opinion or beliefs. Nevertheless, semiotics can still be useful for reaching a large and broad audience. Take for example “Triumph of Will”. We could argue that Leni Riefenstahl had awesome use of semiotics in the film because even in class without the proper soundtrack, we modern democracy loving Americans were able to understand that the film was saying that Nazis are awesome. I’m sure get into more detail in class so I’ll leave off here.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
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