Nardi, Part 1

WOW...ANTHROPOLOGY


In this first part of her book, My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft, Bonnie A. Nardi gives a general overview of World of Warcraft as well as laying out her anthropological procedure for studying and observing the game world and its players. She tells us how she initially knew absolutely nothing about World of Warcraft and that it was thanks to her son Christopher (who was home from college for the Christmas holiday) that she eventually found her footing in this game. She recounts how she started to find World of Warcraft truly interesting. One day while she was playing, she notice two small icons appear on the upper right portion of her monitor. Her son explained to her that these were buffs, temporary spells that boosted her character’s attributes. She says of the moment, “In that moment I became aware of other players. I was not alone int eh Night Elves’ Garden of Eden but surrounded by real human players who would interact with me. I was touched that another player had given me something for free, without my asking or even having a way to thank him.” (5).



Nardi says how, once she got over her initial disorientation, she felt as if she woke up inside a fairytale where she wasn’t just an onlooker, but a participant, and not just any participant, but the star of the production. I’ve played World of Warcraft very briefly before, as well as many other video games, and I can relate to Nardi sense of wonderment. Wold of Warcraft does a wonderful job of making you feel like you are integrated into its world, immersing you in a deep story that rivals any mythology you may have read before. Part of this integration is due to the activity of raiding. Raids are a very important factor of World of Warcraft, especially considering it is an MMORPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Nardi recounts the moments leading up to her first raid with the kind of giddy excitement that one expects of a young child about to go on a much anticipated field trip with her fellow classmates. Her excitement is palpable. She details how her raid “wipes”  (gets wiped out) while fighting “trash mobs” (guards that must be defeated in order to access bosses).  They eventually reach the boss, the Lurker, who causes them to wipe two more times before they finally figure out the strategy needed to defeat him. This, of course, is another component that makes World of Warcraft so addictive--the teamwork and critical thinking that is crucial to success. This game is designed to bring people together.



The fact that World of Warcraft brings together so many people is often overlooked by those that have the common stereotypical view of the game. Nardi addresses this stereotype, that the people who play World of Warcraft are overweight, pimply, socially awkward, insecure grown men who live in their mothers’ basements. Some World of Warcraft players fit this description, to be sure (I know at least two...they only deviate from the stereotype in that they don’t live in their mothers’ basements. The water table in South Carolina is so high that basements are a rare feature). However, Nardi does her part to dismiss this stereotype and points out that World of Warcraft Players are a varied group of individuals made up of students, professionals, men, women, parents, and even grandparents. This is not unlike the same effort by Celia Pearce in her book, Communities of Play. In fact, I found myself having a weird bit of deja-vu as I read Nardi because it was all so very similar to what Pearce did. Such is the case, of course, with anthropological studies of games. The difference in the two is that Pearce relied too heavily on citations at times, and I never really believed that she was as into the game world that she was studying as she would have us believe. Nardi, by contrast, has a very relaxed and accessible approach to her writing. So far, I don't doubt at all that she enjoys World of Warcraft as much as she seems to in this first portion of the book. Further reading shall reveal if this holds true for the rest of her book.


questions:


1) Would you be willing to let an anthropologist become a member of your gaming community in order to study you or would you feel threatened by their observation?


2) Why do you think negative stereotypes about WOW players persist so much?

HIGH TECH, LOW TOUCH: Turkle, Part 2

COMPLETE YOURSELF WITH TECHNOLOGY!


In chapter 8 of Alone Together, Turkle focuses on the phenomenon of being constantly connected to our technology. She opens the chapter by telling us of seven research students at MIT who went to some particularly noticeable effort to remain constantly connected to the Internet. Utilizing radio transmitters, digital displays attached to their glasses, and with keyboards and computers in their backpacks, these students were very literally trying to become the cyborgs that they referred to themselves as. Regardless of the spectacles that they were making of themselves, and regardless of the physical burden and scars their technology inflicted on them, these "cyborgs" learned to cope and become indifferent to these problems because they felt strongly in their vision of merging with, and becoming one with their technology. What I found amazing about this segment is that these students, back in 1996, were already living in a wireless world, where they had instant access to the internet. It's sometimes easy to forget that the technology that we think of as being relatively new to the scene actually probably existed many years before it hit the mainstream, albeit in a less refined form (as in this case). 

"Cyborg, One with Technology"

What I found disturbing about this part of the chapter was the final sentence on page 151, "The brain needed help." I know there are those that might think I'm taking this statement out of context, or that I'm missing the point, but it bothers me profoundly. I don't think it's an exaggeration when I say that some people use technology as a crutch. I commend the MIT student in his mid-twenties whom Turkle described as painfully shy and suffering from an anxiety-limited memory; he was able to harness technology in such a way that he overcame his personal shortcomings. Yay for technology! What troubled me, though, was that he said he had literally "become" his device. He only felt viable as a human once he completed this merging with his technology. Technology is a tool. It makes our lives easier, it helps us work more efficiently, it helps us accomplish things that we might not otherwise be able to do...but it is not us. It is not us. And some of us--like the MIT students referenced--desperately want it to be us. Cyborgs--Cyber-organisms--a melding of technology  and our organic bodies to somehow become "complete," or what we were always meant to be. Let me make this clear: I LOVE TECHNOLOGY. I try to imagine a world where I didn’t have all my creature comforts and gadgets and I usually feel two ways. First, I feel that a life without all of my modern day technology wouldn’t be much of a life at all. But at the same time, I also feel a little silly (and a little ashamed) that I’ve become so married to technology that I think my life would be less of one without it.


TETHERED = ADDICTED?

"CrackBerry"

"Tethered"

But the point of chapter 8 was more the fact that we are always "plugged in" to our social technology. "We are all cyborgs now," Turkle says on page 152. Connectivity isn't a bad thing, of course. Referencing Erik Erikson and his concept of the moratorium, Turkle says, "This is a time, relatively consequence free, for doing what adolescents need to do: fall in and out of love with people and ideas. Real life does not always provide this kind of space, but the Internet does." (152). This is idea of taking chances without fear of harsh consequences harkens back to James Paul Gee and his 6th learning principle, the psychosocial moratorium principle. Being able to explore different identities and ideas without fear of severe consequence is, indeed, enticing; who wouldn't want to partake of a world like that all the time? But when is too much too much? Quite often, people are so consumed with being connected that it seems very much like an addiction. From the 16 year old Sanjay who felt horrible for missing over a hundred texts during the course of his one hour interview with Turkle, to the 18 year old Roman in chapter 9 who admitted to texting while driving (with no intentions of stopping), people feel compelled to answer every single text message, every single notification that there's a new message on Facebook, every single call that comes through to their cell phones. Teenagers today have been "tethered" to technology like this for most of their lives, but that doesn't mean they necessarily love it all the time. As the young people in chapter 9 expressed, there is a profound amount of anxiety that comes with constantly being tethered to social media. Things that really aren't important in the real world are suddenly important within the semiotic domain of a social website like Facebook and it can be a lot of unnecessary pressure to keep up with the social mores of a site like that. At some point, there needs to be time to untether.


WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST CALL ME?


I have two best friends, Jessica and Matt. We met each other in undergrad as graphic design students in the Visual Arts department of Francis Marion University. We've spent countless hours together both in and out of the academic setting. I'm more comfortable around them than just about anybody else on this planet, and vice versa. So why is it that Jessica is the only one I regularly talk to on the phone? Matt and I very rarely have phone conversations, even though we regularly text each other. Ironically enough, even though we call each other once in a blue-moon, we've both recently gotten into the habit of communicating with each other via an app called HeyTell, which is basically a means to send someone a short voice message but without the attention and time investment inherent in a phone call. On pages 190-191, Turkle is talking to Audrey, who says that she prefers to communicate via a text message as opposed to a phone call because a, ". . . phone call, she explains, requires the skill to end a conversation 'when you have no real reason to leave. . . It's not like there is a reason. You just want to. I don't know how to do that. I don't want to learn.'" Even older, more mature individuals have a problem with this and it's something that causes me no shortage of irritation these days. On more than a few recent occasions, I've missed important messages or information from someone because they sent me an e-mail and I'm notoriously bad at keeping up with my inbox. I always end up asking, "If it was so important, why didn't you just call me?"




questions:


1) Do you think that we've become so dependent on our technology that we've forgotten how capable we are in the first place?


2) I argue in the first part of this blog that we are not our technology and that our technology is not us. However, it could be argued that we are, indeed, our technology, since that's what sets us apart from other organisms--our ability to create and use tools. What are your thoughts on this?


3) Imagine an alternate reality where there the social media and technology that we have now didn't exist and all communications had to be done either in person on via telephone. How well do you think you'd perform in such a world and how long would it take you to adjust?




photos:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/cyborg+/megdays/Really%20Cool%20Stuff/kate-moss.jpg
http://www.antseyeview.com/blog/building-community/technology-friend-or-foe-for-worklife-balance/
http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/

Turkle, Part 1

Janelle Monae as Android 57821, aka Cindy Mayweather

Sherry Turkle says two very interesting and profound things in the introduction to her book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (at least I think they are profound). The first is, “Technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies. These days, it suggests substitutions that put the real on the run.” What really struck me about these two lines is that they immediately personify technology. In a book that is ostensibly about our increasing tendency to substitute our personal interactions with machines and technology for our personal interactions with living, breathing beings, it speaks volumes about the phenomenon of subconsciously granting preference to inanimate things. Turkle expounds upon this by mentioning the advertising for Second Life, “Finally, a place to love your body, love your friends, and love your life.” It is really sad and disturbing to me that this is more than just a slogan; it is something that many people believe. It is only through an artificially created world and avatar that some people can enjoy the basics of life (friends, self, life).

I remember my experience with Second Life over the summer, and while I did not personally have any kind of affinity for that game world, I interacted with a number of people who told me they prefer their Second Life to their First Life. This leads me to the second Turkle quote that I found profound, “Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities.” (1). When you factor in the vulnerabilities and insecurities of those that play Second Life, I guess it is not hard to imagine why any of them would ever prefer it to real life. In Second Life, you can look the way you want to look (almost always tall, young, and thin, as Turkle also noticed), you be whoever you want to be, and you can live a fantastic virtual life that easily makes your real life pale in comparison. When you think about it, this is not much different from the reason many people, including myself, play video games; they allow you to experience the kind of adventure and excitement that is not likely to happen in your regular everyday life. Turkle also references Zhu Zhu Pets, toy robot hamsters that are promoted as being better than real pets because they are “lovable and responsive, don’t require cleanup, and will never die.” (1). Again, it’s no surprise that so many people gravitate toward this artificial life; it supposedly offers all the benefits of a real pet without any of the negative drawbacks. I’d certainly love to have a pet that never needs to be cleaned up after.

Pygmalion and Galatea

The next few chapters of Alone Together deal primarily with love, affection, and communion with robots and other forms of technology. In the chapter Nearest Neighbors, Turkle touches on the phenomenon of sex bots. The $7,000 talking sex robot, Roxxxy, is celebrated by its creators as the most sophisticated sex robot in the world. This reminded me of a movie I recall watching as a child, Cherry 2000. In this movie, a man has a sex bot named Cherry 2000. While making love to Cherry on a wet floor, she short-circuits. Distraught, the man seeks a replacement unit but is told that it would be almost impossible to replace Cherry since she was a very limited edition. The man soon enlists the help of a female tracker to help him find a replacement Cherry 2000. Having sex with robots and being in a relationship with androids are both very popular features in sci-fi literature and culture, particularly cyberpunk and steampunk. One of my favorite musical artists, Janelle Monae, recently released a concept album about an android named Android 57821, or Cindy Mayweather. Cindy falls in love with a human, Anthony Greendown, and they develop a relationship that ends in Cindy being hunted by head hunters so that she can be decommissioned. 

Of course, this obsession with loving inanimate objects is something that has been with humans for thousands of years. There is a Greek myth involving a sculptor named Pygmalion. Pygmalion sculpted an ivory statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. So perfect was his sculpture (which he named Galatea) that Pygmalion fell madly in love with it, so much so that his health started to fail him because he couldn’t bear to be out of his creations presence. Eventually, Aphrodite takes pity on him and brings his sculpture to life. This seemingly species-long love affair that mankind has with his inanimate robots/technology is taken to the extreme in Japan, where even needles are buried with ceremony (146). Robots and sex dolls are even buried at certain shrines in Japan. This may seem a bit extreme to those of us in America, but it reminds me of a habit I noticed in my mom when I was a child: she always named her favorite household appliance “Betsy,” because that name, she said, was indicative of an old, reliable hard worker. We’re inclined to grant our machinery souls.

questions:

1) Do you think it’s unhealthy for people to form relationships with inanimate objects?

2) If it’s okay for a child to form a bond with a favorite toy, why are we so opposed to it in adults?

3) Do you think it’s a good idea for us to keep pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence?

Jenkins Part 4

In this last part of Convergence Culture, Jenkins focuses on how democracy/politics interacts with convergence. Politicos have always used the media to further their agendas and win elections. Whether that media was in print form in the earlier years of the country’s history, or over the radio waves and on television stations in more recent generations, politicians have always seen the benefits of reaching out to the masses via media forms. With the ever changing and evolving face of the media, and along with the advent of instant communication capabilities via mobile devices and computers that access satellite transmission and the internet, politicians find themselves having to adapt to their prospective voters’ new method of media consumption and distribution. Over the summer we learned of how President Obama did just that; while he was running for candidacy, he had the clever idea to place campaign advertisements in a popular racing game that was released during his race to the presidency. This was a move unprecidented in the political sphere. It made him more visible to a very important voting demographic, young men. Along with his strong online presence via campaign websites and online “town hall” meetings, it can not be denied that Obama’s eager and savvy embrace of convergence culture benefited his presidential run. The important thing to note here is not just that Obama embraced the internet and new media to get his message out to more people, but that there was also a blending of media involved in the processes he utilized.

In the opening to chapter 6, Photoshop for Democracy, Jenkins mentions a spring 2004 political video created by Ben Cohen’s True Majority orginization. The short video was an amalgamation of scenes from Donald Trump’s popular reality show, The Apprentice, and images of the incumbent president George. W. Bush. The video creatively uses the angst and discontent that many people in America had against Dubya (as he’s called for his middle initial) and his GOP administration, with a narrator saying in a dramatic tone, “George W. Bush is assigned the task of being president. He drives the economy into the ground, uses lies to justify war, spends way over budget, and almost gets away with it until the Donald finds out.”(217). Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the premise of The Apprentice could appreciate the rhetoric of this smart video clip. Images of Trump in his board room with a disapproving look on his face were juxstaposed with images of Bush looking dejected and ashamed.

I recall all too well the general feeling of negativity toward Bush and his administration; I personally held nothing but contempt for him and his vice president, Dick Cheney (and pretty much any Republican). I remember this video clip and it definitely spoke to me. I passed it along to as many people as I possibly could although it clearly didn’t matter in the end; Bush won his re-election. However, the point that Jenkins was making here was that the ability for different and seemingly unrelated media to come together to create something new or bigger than the individual components has come into full realization in our current convergence culture more than ever before. Later in the chapter, Jenkins highlights the way the cybercommunity turned on Howard Dean after his ridiculously emphatic concession speech following the Iowa caucuses. Here is a case where democracy isn’t necessarily for the benefit of the political sphere. This type of democracy was more toward the right to express the opinion that Howard Dean was a bit of a weirdo who arguably shot himself in the foot with his overly-emotional celebration.

In the conclusion to Convergence Culture, Jenkins focuses on the way consumer participation in media has taken hold and is destined to change media forever. Former vice president Al Gore helped to launch a new cable news network in 2005, Current. The purpose of Current was to encourage young people in the age range of 18 to 34 to become citizen journalists, to make news more of a democratic process, so to speak (251). Of course, due to the nature of network television (the economics that are often so inevitably intertwined with political agendas) it was predicted that Current was doomed to failure. Any news station that was to be truly democratic had to come from the grassroots movement outside of corporate television. And really, that’s the way all media is heading, anyway. We are increasingly participating in and independently creating our media. The corporations are often so clueless as to what their viewers actually want, consumers have decided to take on the responsibility of creating the content that they want. In fact, Jenkins says on page 267, “Fans reject the idea of a definitive version produced, authorized, and regulated by some media conglomerate. Instead, fans envision a world where all of us can participate in the creation and circulation of central cultural myths.” Jenkins predicts this new world of convergence culture is coming in the future, but I say it’s already here.


questions:

1) Do you mind politicians “invading” your personal forms of media in order to get their message out?

2) Is user-generated entertainment a viable competition to corporate productions? Which do you primarily watch now? Do you see that changing in the future?

3) What was the first piece of user-generated media that you personally created or helped create?

Who Owns All This Stuff, Anyway?

WHO OWNS ALL THIS STUFF, ANYWAY?

Media corporations can come across as greedy dragons
on their hoards.

Chapter 4 of Convergence Culture deals with how grassroot culture and media industries have spawned modern day popular culture and convergence. Once upon a time, 'in the good ol' days', the two--grassroot culture and media industry--were exclusive of each other; what the grassrooters did and created didn't affect or infringe on what the media industries were doing. Eventually, the media industries realized the benefit of courting the grassrooters; they could reach a larger number of consumers if they blurred the lines between the media they created and controlled and the media that the grassroot singers, artists, and writers created. Of course, the media industries eventually displaced the grassrooters in the production of entertainment and media that most people Americans consumed. 


This chapter, however, is about something much bigger than convergence. It's about ownership, infringement, and greed. Media producers love their consumers, especially their most avid fans, as long as they can control them. This control is sometimes legitimate. I am not against companies protecting their intellectual properties. I am, however, against strong arm tactics, hypocrisy, and greed. I particularly liked the quote from Lawrence Lessig on pages 141-142 where he says that copyright laws have been rewritten so that “on one can do to the Disney Corporation what Walt Disney did to the Brothers Grimm.” It makes me lose all compassion for media corporations when they use their size and deep pockets to persecute and intimidate fans from appropriating their properties on a small scale. Perhaps I'm also biased because I have a personal experience with this.




My sophomore year as an undergraduate I lived in on-campus housing. One day I returned from class to discover that my internet had been disconnected by the campus. I was summoned to a meeting with the director of campus IT. He informed me that my internet had been disconnected because he'd received a letter from the RIAA requesting my name so that they could prosecute me. You see, a week prior to that meeting I used the file-sharing program, Limewire, to download a video clip from a television show. Anyone that's familiar with Limewire and its spiritual clone, Frostwire, knows that in order to achieve good download speeds you have to also upload content. I thought I was smart by uploading only images and video clips and not music. However, the video clip that I uploaded contained music in the background. Because of this, the RIAA wanted to prosecute me. Thankfully, the director of campus IT refused to divulge my information to RIAA and warned me not to make the same mistake again before finally reconnecting my internet access. I was grateful for his leniency but it made me hate the RIAA. They were after me for thousands of dollars for a 2 minute video clip. Was I in the wrong? Yes. Did that warrant an attempt from them to sue me? I didn't think so. I downloaded a video clip and, upon its download completion, it was automatically uploaded to 24 other people. The RIAA would have you believe that I was some massive media pirate who was infringing on their intellectual property. In a word, BULLSHIT.

There is a popular notion in academia that once a text is written and made public, it no longer belongs to the author, but to the audience. In chapter 5 we read about Heather Lawver, a fan of the massively popular Harry Potter novels who started a fan website when she was thirteen. This website became a place for other fans of the series to participate in the fictional world they so loved. These fan-fictions are, in my opinion, absolutely no threat to the original story. They are, instead, a celebration of the story that J.K. Rowling created. And, as James Paul Gee points out on page 186, by being a part of and participating in these affinity spaces, powerful opportunities for learning arise. How can a practice (fan-fiction) that teaches and encourages students to engage texts in a way that traditional learning fails to do possibly be a bad thing?

questions:


1) Do you think that media companies have the right claim ownership of intellectual properties indefinitely?


2) Does Robot Chicken cross the line of allowable appropriation of other's intellectual property?


3) Assume that you are an author of a massively popular book. Would you promote or hinder fan-fiction based on your novel?


photos:


http://dpcrandall.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/c-s-lewis-on-senator-arlen-spector-et-al/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/07/new-riaa-lawsui/
http://j-walkblog.com/old/2003/09/16/index.html

Convergence Culture part 2

AMERICAN IDOL-WORSHIP

The contestants of American Idol's first season.

While reading this section of Jenkins' book, I couldn't shake this persistent feeling that he seems a bit outdated. His earlier reference of Survivor and then his initial focus on American Idol in chapter 2 left me thinking that perhaps it was time for him to come out with an updated and/or revised edition to Convergence Culture. Despite that sentiment, I still enjoyed the reading even if I disagreed with some of his points. For instance, I immediately balked when he made the claim that American Idol is what finally made Americans as proficient and prolific at texting as our Asian and Northern European counterparts. As I recall from personal experience, poorly designed phones were the major hindrance to our adoption of texting; Asia and Europe has historically received newer cell phone technology before America. I think it's just coincidence that our texting boom coincided with the first season of American Idol. However, the main point that Jenkins was making about American Idol isn't that it made us more text-savy, but that it was the first major instance of media convergence in America. When American Idol viewers called/texted in each week to vote for their favorite contestants, there was a new feeling of participation brought to reality television. This participatory aspect of AI hooked audiences and kept them coming back week after week. Fox broadcast network was delighted. Their viewership went through the roof. The viewers were also happy because they were taking a part in their television program. Finally, the advertisers were also beside themselves because there was an unprecedented number of potential customers for their products. Coca-Cola, for example, took full advantage of this massive viewer turn-out by actually insinuating itself into the show via "the red room."


Not everyone was delighted with the massive popularity of AI, however. Thompson points to Karla Peterson, a television critic for the San Diego Union-Tribune, who wrote a scathing rant against AI. Peterson saw the show as a "conniving multimedia monster" that relied on, among other things, "shameless product placement" to hook viewers. The interesting thing is that she's right in her assessment of the show. Everything about AI is contrived, and purposefully so. Consumers are loyal to shows that seem to cater to them. As Thompson points out, however, this forms an interesting paradox wherein the consumer must become a commodity in order to be catered to. This is how networks keep a grasp on their viewers. Unfortunately for the networks, however, their viewers are becoming increasingly hard to hold on to. We are so accustomed to having our media our way now that we have precious little patience for anyone who doesn't cater to our whims and catch our fancy. 


IMPRESS ME
On page 65 of the text, there is an image that is meant to represent the new youth consumer that advertisers have to contend with. This representation of the new consumer challenges the advertisers to "impress" him, a challenge that the advertisers are scrambling to rise to. The problem is that with more and more types of media vying for our time, we are no longer as likely to sit through commercials or programs that we find boring. We are much more capable of and savy at finding the media that will satisfy our needs than previous generations of media consumers.  If you're like me, a large portion of the television programs you watch are actually DVRed and whenever the annoying long commercial breaks come up, you fast forward through them. In fact, Jenkins states that, "current users of digital video recorders scan through commercials about 59 percent of the time." (66-7). As an interesting aside, television advertisements account for upwards of 30% of one hour of television programming. Another problem with television advertisement (besides how annoying it is) is that it isn't particularly effective in the first place. When advertisers want statistics on the efficacy of commercials, all they're really able to come up with is the number of potential consumers watching a channel at the time that an advertisement is run; they aren't actually able to tell what percentage of viewers actually go out and purchase the products being pitched to them. For the advertisers, it's enough just to know how many eyeballs were on the ad once it aired. The same, according to Jenkins, is also true for other forms of advertisement such as billboards and web ads. 


Apparently the solution the advertisers have found is "expression." With expression, the consumer takes the media he consumes and shares it, either by blogging about it, organizing events around it, wearing it on clothing, etc. The media becomes personal, and so, makes much more of an impact on people. In this way, the advertisers are almost have us, the consumers, do their job for them.


photos:
http://991.com/buy/productinformation.aspx?StockNumber=487524

Jenkins, Part 1

HIVE MIND

The hive-mind spell from card-based RPG, Magic.

In the introduction to Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins makes mention of three concepts that are the focus of the text: media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence. Media convergence is the phenomenon of multiple forms of media interacting and crossing. This includes the migration of media users across the multiple platforms. Jenkins points to the "Bert is Evil" images that American student Dino Ignacio posted to his homepage in the fall of 2001. Various medias and platforms converged around these images. Sesame Street, Photoshop, the internet, a print shop, and a news channel. Multiple people participated in the movement of these images. This brings in Jenkins' second concept, participatory culture.


Consumers used to approach media through "passive media spectatorship" (3), but that is no longer the case these days. Consumers are increasingly engaging and interacting with media. Blogs, video clips uploaded to the internet, live streaming video applications on smartphones--these are all examples of a new culture that creates some of the media that is then distributed and utilized by others. I frequently receive links from friends who post on my Facebook wall; many of these links are user-created images and videos that express varying amounts of knowledge and/or entertainment. These various forms of user-created media are most often purely for entertainment, but it is not uncommon for me to learn something previously unknown to me when I receive such links. This is where Jenkins' third concept, collective intelligence, comes into play.

An artist's rendition of Collective Intelligence

I'm very intrigued by the concept of collective intelligence. Take a number of people from various backgrounds and appropriate all of their individual experiences and knowledge...what do you end up with? A massive amount of intelligence. I'm no genius, but I'd like to think that I'm smarter than the average person. However, I am fully aware of the limits of my personal knowledge. Despite the finite amount of personal knowledge at my disposal, I know a number of people who could potentially provide me with any information that I personally lack. Even if I didn't know someone personally to provide me with whatever knowledge I needed, I could turn to the dispersed knowledge found in libraries or the World Wide Web. In a way, when we share our individual knowledge and access the knowledge of others, we are operating as a hive-mind. We can become aware of extraneous information within a very short period of time, sometimes as little as a few seconds.


THE BLACK BOX FALLACY


I remember when the Xbox 360 launched in November of 2005. It promised to be the center of your home entertainment needs. I could play high-end games with amazing visuals, connect to the internet and play games online with friends, and play DVDs. Almost exactly one year later in 2006, Sony made a similar promise with the launch of the Playstation 3. This device was even more powerful on paper than the Xbox 360 and it supported a media platform (Blu-ray discs) that the 360 did not. It even boasted a built in web browser. I clearly recall reading that the PS3 was, for all intents and purposes, a powerful computer with a game console form factor. Both the PS3 and the 360 fell short in their promise to be the end-all, be-all device for entertainment in my household. Jenkins quotes Cheskin Research who says that the main reason for the fallacy of the black box is that, depending on your location or your particular needs when accessing technology, you require a specific form factor. 

Just some of my various "black boxes."

I love my PS3 for gaming, but it absolutely under-performs as a viable means of accessing the Word Wide Web. The built in browser is surprisingly slow, and the default method of input--the PS3 controller--is not particularly efficient for putting in URLs or searches. When I need to access the internet and I'm in my house, I default to either my desktop or my notebook. However, whenever I need to play video games, I default to one of my two game consoles. They all have overlapping features, but they perform better at certain features than they do at others. And then there's my smartphone, a Samsung Captivate which runs on version 2.2 of the Android OS. It, too, purports to be a black box. I can make calls, send texts, watch and record videos, take pictures, upload to the internet, download various content, play games, plan my schedule, set memos, etc. Despite this, even it fails as the end-all, be-all device in my life. While media may be converging more and more, the devices through which we access our increasingly converging media are diverging more and more. 

QUESTIONS

1) How much desire do you personally have for the proverbial black-box?


2) Despite the many pros of our converging culture, do you see any cons?


3) In a world where we are increasingly hi-tech yet low-touch, do you think we will become so dependent on our technology that we will lose very basic abilities and skills?


photos:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ftl/45
http://www.collaborationideas.com/2011/03/collective-intelligence-and-collaboration/