Media
From New Media Embed Program - Fall09
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[[Online Identity#Homophily | Homophily]]<br> | [[Online Identity#Homophily | Homophily]]<br> | ||
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==Mashups== | ==Mashups== | ||
Current revision as of 06:36, 2 February 2010
Contents |
Blogs vs. Journalism
Blogs vs. Journalism is dead! Find another war.
But for those who are still fighting, the argument basically boils down to concerns about homophily and journalistic integrity. On one hand, blogging opens the public sphere to new voices and allows for new freedom of choice in news consumption. On the other hand, as Cass Sunstein writes, too many voices in the media may lead people to select only the information and views they agree with, creating an increasingly divided citizenry.
Additionally, some people are concerned that blogging diminishes the quality of news. Since bloggers do not have the accountability or the resources of traditional journalists, the news produced lacks fact-checking. And since bloggers don't cost as much as as traditional journalists, many newspapers are going out of business because the competition is too steep, leaving citizens with less rigorously tested news.
Related topics
Homophily
Blogging: Best Practices
Mashups
Mashups are a form of cultural production that take a variety of existing content and repurpose them to create a new cultural product. Mashup culture is nothing new as it dates back to the late 60's when DJ's would take records and mix and match the beats to create new songs. What makes this topic so relevant today is the relatively free access to tools and content that allow anyone with an internet connection to participate in mashup production.
Below are some examples of common forms of mashup culture:
- Mashup Software/API's
- Mashup Music and Video
- Mashup Maps
Mashup Video Tour
A Mashup about Mashups featuring Yochai Benkler, Lawrence Lessig, Dangermouse, Girl Talk, and others.
Accessing the Mashup
A mashup video about the tools and skills needed to participate in the world of making mashups.
Mashup Maps
The highly controversial "8 Maps" used google maps and publicly available information about people who donated to support prop 8. While this is a great example of mashup culture supporting the movement towards transparency of political information, this map called into question the use of these tools as it posed a safety risk to those featured in this map.
Media Literacy
Media literacy is the process of both creating and evaluating messages in a wide variety of media forms, e.g., newspapers, broadcast television or blogs.
Media literacy enables people to be skilled creators of media messages, via an understanding of the benefits and limitations of each medium.
Media literacy also involves critiquing and questioning one's media sources, to be aware of the potential for misinformation or manipulation, e.g., propaganda, censorship or bias. Media literacy also suggests an awareness of how media's organizational and ownership structures affect the way information is presented.
Use this class as a class in which to increase YOUR own media literacy. Through rich media and picking cutting edge topics, you can increase your own media literacy and feel more equipped in dealing with the successes and pitfalls of the Internet.
Participatory Media vs. Broadcast
Hot and Cold media
A pair of concepts introduced in 1964 Marshall McLuhan’s book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, are hot and cool media.
Lectures and films are considered hot media because they require very limited involvement from the audience to understand the meaning of a powerful text that usually involves one or limited number of stimuli. They are less engaging than cool media like books, which require the consumer to do more work to understand meaning. They are very engaging to the senses and the audience does relatively little work to understand the message. Similarly, online content can be considered a cool medium because it is textual, interactive, or allowed to be taken into several different contexts. One of the dangers that McLuhan observed is that when hot media overtake cool media, there is a tendency for the culture to fragment.
Bloggers vs Journalists
There has been a "media war" over the uses of Blogs vs. Journalism, emphasizing the democratic nature of the internet on the blogger side, and the journalistic integrity and variety of opinions on journalism's side.
Links
The Official Site of Marshall McLuhan
The Music Industry
The modern music industry failed to adapt to digitization of music that allowed for easy sharing of copyrighted materials. With the advent of the MP3 in the 1990s and the growth of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, the industry as a whole (in conjunction with other entertainment content producers) attempted to protect their business model through legal action. Proving relatively ineffective, new business models are being attempted to monetize popular music.
RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a group that works on behalf of the Radio industry that's most notable function is to protect the industries intellectual property rights. In the 2000s, the group began to fight against P2P networks by bringing copyright infringement suits against individuals sharing audio files on the networks - often times going after college students. Since 2008 the group has changed its focus to go after ISPs and not individual litigants.
Live Nation
Live Nation is a company that represents a new business model for the music industry based on capitalizing on the profitability of live events. The company owns venues throughout the United States. The company has begun to sign artists to exclusive deals with big name artists like Madonna and Jay-Z.
The are set to merge in January with Ticketmaster, the world's largest ticket distribution company. The vote is still with the shareholders, as there have been congressional inquiries as to whether or not this would create a monopoly. If it goes through, Live Nation and Ticketmaster will basically be a vertically integrated company, from booking the shows at venues owned by Live Nation, ticketing, merchandising, and in some cases will even have artists from Live Nation's label's roster.
In this model the music produced is considered much more of a promotional item that fosters a desire for an experience and possibly merchandise. It is in some sorts the way that the music industry has of being able to still make money with record sales plummeting, the artist and his image becoming the commodity.
