Module 2.3: Entertaining the world: Using media across cultural boundaries

Image courtesy of Vancouver125 via Flickr.

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This week's topic is about media across cultural boundaries. In the iLecture by Dr Thomas Jayaprakesh he  uses Arjun Appadurai's definition of Globalisation as 5 inter-related dimensions:

1. Ethnoscape - flow of immigrants
2. Technoscape - rapid movement of technology
3. Financescape - rapid flow of money via markets
4. Mediascape - flow of images and information
5. Ideoscape - images of democracy, freedom, welfare and rights.

There are 3 kinds of geographical audiences. They are:

1. local - the audience who consumes only local popular culture text
2. diasporic audience - a culture of people living away from their homeland consuming media from their homeland
3. Those who consume transnational culture text like foreign films and TV.

Dr Jayaprakesh quotes Henry Jenkins "media convergence has no end point. It's ongoing, occurring at various intersections between media technologies, industries, content and audience". (Jenkins, 2006).

Youth listen to similar music, TV and wear similar clothes meaning the new media landscape has captured the image of western youth, however Asian youth are more complex than superficial and are quite conservative. Youth are generally attracted to commercially based entertainment programs broadcast by global channels. Bollywood films have sold more tickets in the UK than English language films (Jayaprakash, 2011).

The reader by Henry Jenkins 'Pop Cosmopolitanism: Mapping Cultural Flows in an Age of Media Convergence' defines pop cosmopolitan as someone whose embrace of global popular media represents an escape route out of the parochialism of their local community. (Jenkins, 2006). He states globalisation has profoundly altered the nature of American popular culture and that a growing number of popular culture that Americans consume comes from elsewhere, especially Asia. Media convergence is more than simply a technological shift; it alters the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres and audiences. This results in surges of lurches and panic.

The media imperialism argument blurs the distinction between at least four forms of power: economic (the ability to produce and distribute cultural goods), cultural (the ability to produce and circulate forms and meanings), political (the ability to impose ideologies), and psychological (the ability to shape desire, fantasy and identity). Within this formulation, Western economic dominance over global entertainment both expresses and extends American's status as a superpower national the flow of cultural goods shapes the beliefs and the fantasies of worldwide consumers, reshaping local cultures in accordance with US economic and political interests. (Jenkins, 2006).

Americans can't get enough of Asian media so the American entertainment industry believes that if you can't beat them, join them! There have been a number of large companies producing films in Chinese, German, Italian and Japanese. Many cartoons shown in American now are actually made in Asia. The Power Rangers, which was created in Japan, was remade for western distribution, re-cast with multi American characters and the dialogue altered for Americans. Pokemon was the first Japanese product successfully received world wide and the first to challenge western dominance in the global production of cultural goods. It made $1 billion in product sales within 1 year. Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! are now unavoidable aspects of children's culture. (Jenkins, 2006)

Pop cosmopolitans are increasingly being drawn to Indian fashion and culture. Madonna used henna and an Indian religious iconography in her 'Ray of Light' Tour.

Image courtesy of Henna by Heather via Flickr.com.

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The reader by Ramesh Srinivasan "Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media" defines the term 'digital divide' as the gap between people who have access to technology and those who don't, or have very little. Putnam finds a decline in civic, religious and political participation across American society. (Putnam,2000). Could this be because everyone is online? In virtual communities, social networking instead of face to face? There are benefits of recording videos to get community and political backing. Take a look at the Kayapo tribe of Central Brazil. When they were given video recorders they began recording their history, visits to other communities and documenting issues that affected them. It resulted in international exposure and acquisition of sustainable land. Indigenous communities have also appropriated new media to activate their own cultural, political, economic and other causes. A wide variety of indigenous websites are now in existence (Srinivasan, 2006). He notes that physical distance has no consequence as communication is instant via media technologies. It is obvious the Internet provides small communities and indigenous people a means of self representation. Srinivasan concludes eventually varriers between cultural difference and information/media technology will continue to erode and media research will uncover new empowering potential uses of technology. (Srinivasan, 2006).

Discussion 1:

What is the digital divide? What are its consequences, and how can it be overcome?
Digital divide refers to the gap between people who have access to technology and those who do not. For example third world countries, those of low socio economic demographic, or unemployed, those in remote areas with no Internet access, people over 50yrs old and those with disabilities. I found an interesting paper by the NTIA (the National Telecommunications and Information Administration) who states: "We are
approaching the point where not having access to these tools is likely to put an individual at a competitive disadvantage and in a position of being a less-than-full participant in the digital economy. Most groups, regardless of income, education, race or ethnicity, location, age, or gender are making dramatic gains." (Mineta, 2000).

Despite this report being 11 years old, it clearly shows the steps the U.S has made to connect people. And that is happening here in Australia with the NBN too. Over time I feel there will be no remote areas without internet access.

References:
Jayaprakash, T. (2011). 2.3 Entertaining the World [iLecture]. Retrieved from http://dbs.ilectures.curtin.edu.au/lectopia/casterframe.lasso?fid=599174&cnt=true&usr=15477071&name=not-indicated

Jenkins, J (2006). Pop Cosmopolitanism: Mapping Cultural Flows in an age of Media Convergence. In H. Jenkins, Fans, bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture (pp 152 - 172). New York: New York University Press.

Mineta, N. (2000). Falling Through The Net: Toward Digital Inclusion. Retrieved from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/fttn00.pdf

Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York S. Schuster (Ed.)

Srinivasan, R. (2006). Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 9(4), 497-518. Retrieved from  doi: 10.1177/136787790606989

Module 1.2: The media is the message. When the media converge.

Image courtesy of Asthma Helper via Flickr.com

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This week our Learning Portfolios were clarified and it was made clear to me I need not to only summarise my weekly enrties, but to expand on the main topics, include Discussion Board posts, notes about tasks and readers and also my own research with references. So here goes:

• Participatory Culture can be defined by stating we are both consumer AND producers or in other words 'prosumers'
• Media Convergence is when the old and new media merges. We now have the technology to consume, produce and distribute our own content
• Transmedia can be defined as telling stories across multiple platforms
• Remediation is taking one representation of one medium and putting it to another, ie. taking stories, characters, plots from one medium to another, like from book to movie
• Re-mixing means reformulation, retelling, recirculation of stories.

The Video by Henry Jenkins called 'Participatory Culture' states that spectoral culture is being replaced with participatory culture where the audience can participate. He also says reality has already crossed platforms. Reality is complex enough for us to have many different characters or many different stories on many different platforms. (Jenkins, 2009). He goes on to say everyone can now have a say on mediums which weren't available to them before, ie blogs and social networks. Different groups gain representation. Different groups challenge dominant media images that have been constructed for their lives. (Jenkins, 2009). Our goal is to ensure the right tools are given to the oppressed people to get their stories out - to take entertainment out of the hands of the media moguls and movie makers so they can tell the stories that haven't been depicted so far. (Jenkins, 2009).

The Reader by Lawrence Lessig called 'Four Puzzles From Cyberspace' raises the questions a)How does cyberspace differ from everyday life? and b) How should we go about regulating that space? It consisted of 4 stories on cyberspace. The first story 'Borders' is about how coding limits game playing in MMOG's. The second story 'Governors' is about a US state making gambling illegal to all residents. When an off-shore online gambling organisation entices those residents in - they are no longer covered by the Governor's laws so are not punishable. The third story 'Jake's communities' is about a quiet, unassuming student who online is a sex-story author. He is arrested for his behaviour, however the charges are quashed because there was no evidence of any crime. The final story is called 'Worm' and is about a worm created by the FBI which can infiltrate itself into computers searching for particular stolen documents which are of a national security nature.

Lessig raises the issue of regulability - the capacity of a government to regulate behaviour within its proper reach, ie. to regulate the behaviour of citizens while on the Internet. To regulate well you need to know a) who someone is; b) where they are; and c) what they are doing. (Lessig, 2009). In a way the government already know this. They know who we are from census, council, telephone and electricity records. They know where we are and where we are going by the above records, plus speed cameras, red light cameras, toll cameras and location services in our smart phones. They also know what we are doing from the camera's mentioned above, Facebook and Twitter updates, blogs and internet searches.

The iLecture by Dr Helen Merrick tells the story of remediation through the many media formats of Star Trek. Star Trek was the most popular sci-fi TV show which gathered fans very quickly. From the original TV series came books, arcade and board games, role playing computer games, movies then fan movies.

Discussion 1
What are some of the ways cyberspace differs from our every day life?

The points that stand out for me were:

a) Online you can be a different character without consequences. Here I refer to the story of Jake the sexual deviant who is a quiet unnoticed student in real life, but an explicit sex-story author in cyberspace;

b) Lessig states in real life there are man-made laws and social norms to adhere to. That norms constrain us;

c) He states in real space we don't have much control over code (laws) but in MMOG's we do;

d) In reference to the illegal gambling story Lessig says that the internet made the gamblers free from punishment. This was because the law in real life only confined the residents of the state of Boral from gambling, but online gambling was completely anonymous and therefore uncontrolled;

e) Not everyone has a voice in real space, in relation to media. But in cyberspace everyone with internet access can be heard. Everybody can voice their concerns. As Henry Jenkins says in his video on Participatory Culture "Minority groups get a say".

I also noticed some similarities between cyberspace and real space:

a) In reference to the game Second Life, hundreds of hours are spent on creating things and communities. This also happens in real life (Lessig, 2009);

b) Problems can be programmed into the story and then coded away. (Lessig, 2009). This also happens in real life. Problems present themselves to us which are out of our control, but can be solved by ourselves;

c) Cyberspace and real space are both confined to laws. (Lessig, 2009). Laws in real life are enforced by the police and judicial system, laws (or codes) in cyberspace, like MMOG's are written by the programmers;

d) Lessig states we we build our lives in places with limits. Well this too is true in real life.

And, how should we go about regulating that space?

In a way this has already happened in relation to netiquette and social acceptance while on line. Some websites have very strict rules for membership and those that don't adhere are thrown out. There is a social norm online too and barriers which shouldn't be crossed. This isn't regulation, but education. If you've been thrown out of a website/forum/guild enough times, you're going to start to conform! It will only take time, but eventually players will get the message as to what's accepted and what isn't.

As for regulation - I use Lessig's idea in the story about the FBI worm - maybe a worm could be sent to everyone's computer searching for specific illegal activity. Here is another article by Lessig. This one is about how the internet could possibly be regulated.

Lessig, L. (2006). Four Puzzles From Cyberspace. Retrieved from: https://www.socialtext.net/codev2/four_puzzles_from_cyberspace_ 

Jenkins, H. (2009). Participatory Culture and How the Media is Changing. Retrieved from: http://cinematech.blogspot.com/2009/05/great-video-w-henry-jenkins-on.html

Discussion 2

What is your favourite media text? Young and the Restless: I've been watching this soap opera since I was a teenager in the 1980's when I would watch it in the school holidays with my Nan. I have many favourite TV shows, but because this is the longest running, I will focus on this one.

Why is this my favourite? I love how you can miss an entire month's viewing but still be able to catch up. It's been the number one daytime serial for 20 consecutive years (CBS n.d). I love the themes - romance, crime, suspense and a little humour all rolled into one show. All the actors are beautiful, clean, straight-teethed, immaculately dressed and made up and speak eloquently. I lose myself in this show. I imagine myself as one of them - wealthy and glamorous.

Who participated in the production of the text? It was created by William J Bell and Philip Bell for CBS channel. It is produced by CPT Holdings . The head writer is Maria Arena Bell who is also the Executive Producer - it's a family production. There are many other writers and it's a Sony Pictures Television presentation in association with Bell Dramatic Serial Company and Corday Productions, Inc. (CBS n.d).

How is it distributed? It airs daily in America on CBS channel and Monday to Friday on W channel through Foxtel and Austar here in Australia. If you miss those episodes, you can view the entire week on a Saturday morning. It's also available in HD. It used to air on Channel 9 in Australia for many years, but switched to W in 2004. There was a huge uproar when Channel 9 stopped airing the show. When W channel began airing it here, it had jumped 4 years. We Australian viewers had lost 4 years of events. Some characters had died, grown to adulthood and were married to different characters!

Do consumers participate in the production and consumption of the text? No, but the show has an interactive website and you can post comments on their message board and contact the executives via post and email. Fans can follow the show on Twitter and join their Facebook page. You can view old episodes online and buy paraphernalia from the site. There is a large fan community.

Young and The Restless (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://www.cbs.com/shows/the_young_and_the_restless/

Discussion 3

How do views about recent developments in the media differ between students and friends/family/older generations/different cultures? Why?

They differ greatly and I don't think it's simply generational and culture related. I think it may also be demographic and socio-economic.

I believe the difference between students and friends is simply related to technology. Students these days are very tech savvy and would definitely have a computer, internet and would more likely access their media via the internet. My friends however, even though they have the internet, use it for Facebook alone so their media use is fairly traditional - newspapers and TV. They are not so tech savvy.

Friends, family AND students differ to the older generation in a big way. The majority of the older generation still buy the newspaper, magazines and watch TV and more often than not - don't have the internet. So there is a generational gap there.

The cultural gap I am referring to is the internet filtering policies in China. I found a Harvard study on this here. It states that during 2002 the authors tracked 19,032 web sites that were inaccessible from China on multiple occasions while remaining accessible from the United States. Such sites contained information about news, politics, health, commerce, and entertainment. (Edelman & Zittrain, 2003).

Now demographically - think about the low income families who can't afford a computer, let alone have internet access. These people would be disadvantaged in regards to how they get their media, stay connected and social networking.

References
Edelman, B., & Zittrain, J. (2003). Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China. Retrieved from: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/

Jenkins, H. (2009). Participatory Culture and How the Media is Changing. Retrieved from: http://cinematech.blogspot.com/2009/05/great-video-w-henry-jenkins-on.html

Lessig, L. (2006). Four Puzzles From Cyberspace. Retrieved from: https://www.socialtext.net/codev2/four_puzzles_from_cyberspace_