Week 6 - Transglobal Entertainment and Media Convergence

Am midway through the Mark Deuze reading on 'Convergence culture in the creative industries' and I really like the way that he explains things.  He's an Assistant Professor at Leiden University, Indiana and he explains things, that I'm sensing are quite complex, in a way that even I can kind of start to understand, he must be truly amazing, although I'm sure that much of what he's discussing is still washing over me (Deuze 2007, pp245-250).

From what I can gather, he's talking about 'convergence culture' (converging meaning to join or merge) discourse as being a system about the naturalisation and manufacture of merging structuralism and post-structuralism as being a liberating thing.  I think he's suggesting that in the current media dominated society, the notion of post (after) Modernism is a discourse to seduce the public into believing that they can exercise their agency by turning their backs on 'tradition'.  Within this process media conglomerates are convincing the public of options only available within media dominated areas and systems.  The actual 'social system' is being reduced from a 'twin' system to a 'singular' system.  Over time, the public has been locked into this single media dominated system and other avenues of 'agency' have become invisible, just as media power has also become invisible (Deuze 2007, pp245-250).  I think digc202 is trying to expand this system again and 'release' us from this media-dominated area.  Deuze states that the idea of liberation through 'merging' systems of structure and agency (in a single-system sense) is nothing more than post-modern/media dominated discourse.  That true agency lies in a 'separation' of the two systems along with an 'expansion' of the system to reveal the second system which has become 'hidden' (Deuze 2007, pp245-250).  The 'whole' system seems to be in need of a split or fissure and a re-grouping of culture/power/ecology (Snapper 1999, pp128-135).

Deuze discussed the conflation of 'creativity' and 'agency' in post-modern culture.  The two are very different, but media culture seeks to placate us with the notion that creativity is agency.  Creativity is 'innovation' whereby in a closed system culture settles to the 'bottom', creativity is recombinating already existing entities and bringing 'forgotten' ideas again to the fore and in new combinations (Deuze 2007, p250).  Zigmunt Bauman (Bauman 1999, ppv-xvi) discusses this idea in terms of patterns as does Pierre Bourdeau (Van Krieken et al. 2006, pp144-145) in terms of habit/habitus, a similar concept can be evidenced with the Google page rank system (Google 2009), I always like to bomb the 999,999th entry on any search.  But agency is at the level 'above'/'below' this where we ask what is it that drives us to recombinate these patterns and entities?  This is the question that media seeks to hide and extinct.  This kind of follows on from last week's discussion on how copyright eats and extincts not only our ability but also our desire to recombinate, it's like a downward spiraling generally of the public's awareness and internal 'desire' over time (Lessig 2004).  The discourse is a reduction in mass and elite dualism, but exactly the opposite is happening.  Those who are pulling the strings are becoming more powerful, the knowledge gap is widening and we have become blind to this process.  Very tricky!

I wonder then how Sociology, as a discipline, deals with all of this?  Sociology has been developed only in the last 120 years, post industrial revolution and amidst social media hegemony.  Is Sociology unwittingly complicit in this entire process?  Is this what Gabriel Tarde was referring to (Matei Candea 2011)  Has Sociology in fact enabled or reproduced a culture ripe for media hegemony, or even just reproduced the discourse itself at an ontological/ecological level throughout the 20th century?  As a tool, how then can we use Sociology to our advantage, if at all?  Or in doing so, are we only reproducing media power?

References

Bauman, Z 1999, Culture as Praxis, SAGE Publications Ltd, London

Deuze, M 2007, 'Convergence culture in the creative industries', International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 10, Iss. 2, pp243-263

Google 2009, Google, accessed 26/10/2009, http://www.google.com.au/

Lessig, L 2004, Free Culture, accessed 15/8/2011, http://authorama.com/free-culture-4.html

Matei Candea, 2011, Gabriel Tarde, the road not taken, accessed 27/8/2011, http://www.candea.net/Gabriel_Tarde.html

Snapper, J W 1999, 'On the Web, plagiarism matters more than copyright piracy', Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 1, pp127-136

Van Krieken, R Habibis, D Smith, P Hutchins, B Haralambos, M Hoborn, M 2006, Sociology Themes and Perspectives, 3^rd Edition, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest

Week 5 - Against the Law: Intellectual Property and Content Control

The central themes in the readings seem to outline the necessity of having both resistance and control and that rather than perceiving the two as working in opposition, they can actually create greater opportunity for all when working together.  Lawrence Lessig gave the example of Walt Disney's 'borrowings' for Steamboat Willie.  There are two issues here.  Firstly, that Steamboat Bill was shown immediately prior to Steamboat Willie and that the second was a parody of the first.  The two worked together and as such struck a chord with audiences that neither could achieve independently.  The second issue, as Lessig discusses, is the greater creative freedom that Disney had in 1928 as a result of the few patents and copyrights that had been enacted at that time, along with the fact that patents and copyrights were also much shorter at the beginning of the 20th century, around 20 years.  This is significant because as patent and copyright restrictions increased over this century, along with their duration (to around 70 years in the 1960's and 1970's), creative freedom and expression became incredibly restrained.  Further, because the duration of these patents and copyrights became extended to 'a lifetime' rather than a few generations, ideas slowly began to lose their 'natural creative momentum' becoming a kind of 'creative dead-end' or as having a creative lack of continuity (Lessig 2004).  For example, many engineers and inventors waited for Watts' patent to expire on the steam engine in order to implement their own  improvements, however, over a 70 year period this would be unlikely and although it is suggested that because of Watts' patent the industrial revolution was perhaps delayed by a few decades, it nonetheless still eventuated (Boldrin & Levine 2007).  This is an example of the interests of the individual patent owner far outweighing the collective good, and a need for greater balance in this respect.

Lessig also discusses Japanese comics known as manga and the rip-off copies/derivatives known as doujinshi (About.com 2011).  Technically, the latter are illegal in Japan, however, the crime is not enforced and manga distributors believe that doujinshi rip-offs in fact create greater demand for manga.  When consulted, Japanese lawyers attest that the reason the copyright breaches are not policed is because quite simply there are not 'enough lawyers' (Lessig 2004).  The democratic consensus seems to have already escaped the practical necessity or collective desire for this law.  Where in the past these laws have created a fissure and separation between the two perspectives, popular culture seems to have initiated a fusion between the two.

Similar conceptions can be paralleled to society which it would seem moves in cycles and patterns over larger periods of history synchronised with the human lifespan.  The Kondratieff Cycle for example is an economic cycle that indicates subcultural activity occurring in reaction to economic hardship at regular intervals throughout history over the last few hundred years (Angelfire 2000).  Perhaps this very conception or question is part of the cycle and occurs at this stage of each cycle.  Is it possible however, that through social scientific research, our awareness of this cycle has enabled us to alter it irreversibly in an unprecedented fashion?  And if so, can this amendment be managed and built into or annexed to the existing cycle somehow?  Do we necessarily have to return to this 'narrative' now that its patent has seemingly expired?  If we do, is it possible to make the changes now that we have been long anticipating but have been unable to implement because of untenable restriction?  The John W. Snapper reading perhaps provides a possible solution (Snapper 1999).

References

About.com, 2011, Doujinshi, accessed 20/8/2011, http://manga.about.com/od/glossary/g/doujinshi.htm

Angelfire, 2000, Kondratieff Wave, accessed 20/8/2011, http://www.angelfire.com/or/truthfinder/index22.html

Boldrin, M and Levine, D K, 2007, Introduction in Against Intellectual Monopoly, accessed 15/8/2011, http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/anew01.pdf

Lessig, L 2004, Free Culture, accessed 15/8/2011, http://authorama.com/free-culture-4.html

Snapper, J W 1999, 'On the Web, plagiarism matters more than copyright piracy', Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 1, pp127-136

Week 4 - Global Media Businesses and Immaterial Production

The transformation from industrial society to network society in one respect seems quite adhoc, but I wonder what longer term cultural forces have been at work to produce these changes.

The Melissa Gregg reading discussed the shortfall in 'communication processing' labour whereby the immaterial labour of checking and processing emails for example, became an additional and unpaid task willingly taken on by workers.  Gregg states that communication processing was taken on in 'addition' to the usual material tasks and that the material tasks didn't reduce in any way.  Further, this 'additional' work 'eats' into leisure time.  Gregg states that there are no 'official' guidelines on how the deluge of additional information processing is to be handled by the workplace or the economy.  Nothing has been set in place by Law, Government, Corporation owners or Managers to address this issue and for the time being workers are absorbing the shortfall by taking on extra work by playing the role of available, willing and flexible team player (Gregg 2009).

This is interesting that the economy is apparently demanding increased levels of voluntary labour in the network society.  In the recent past, women were seen as exercising a form of voluntary labour by raising and supporting home and family (Van Krieken et al. 2006, p312).  Effectively, with the development of new media we are working longer hours but it is framed as autonomy and choice rather than being systemically imposed upon us (Gregg 2009).  Traditionally, responsibility and autonomy seemed to work together in white collar work environments, but it seems that with the emergence of new media we are taking on more responsibility while systematically losing our ability to experience the accompanying freedom because in many instances rather we become enslaved to the affordances that the technology enables.  The 'feedback loop' discussed in lecture also can be seen to 'sell' local input and 'produser' activity as autonomy, but again, a function or purpose is served and for what ends and for whom does it benefit?

It depends though on how you define freedom.  The French have two definitions of freedom; Gratis and Libre.  Are there any other types of freedom I wonder, perhaps a combination of both political freedom and individual freedom???  Or perhaps there are two types of political freedom, one surrounding traditional notions of democracy as collectivity, and one which focuses more on liberty.  Is it possible that the latter is a type of democracy that we haven't witnessed in a long time?  It seems that somehow with the invention of the telegraph and subsequent split of mind and body (although Philosophers trace this back to Descartes) that, as a civilisation, we have drifted into some kind of 'altered reality'.  Is neo-liberalism an intended and political reflexive action to bring us back to political centre, but rather in a liberty form?  A seemingly extreme action required to counter how out of balance and off-centre we had become?  Socrates and Plato anticipated our instinct for survival and knew of our drive to undermine our civility, and hence our own freedom.  They understood that we would willingly trade Gratis for Libre.  Was neo-liberalism strategically devised?  Was it intended for the long term common good?  Was post-modernism a device to draw people out of this 'altered reality'?  Or were there unintended and unanticipated consequences?  Have we somehow broken the mechanism of the political system or is this just business as usual?  Have we now moved out of politics and into economy???  So many questions!!!

References

M Gregg, 2009, Function Creep: Communication technologies and anticipator labour in the information workplace, accessed 13/8/2011, http://homecookedtheory.com/wp-content/uploads/functioncreepnms.doc

Van Krieken, R Habibis, D Smith, P Hutchins, B Haralambos, M Hoborn, M 2006, Sociology Themes and Perspectives, 3^rd Edition, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest

Week 3 - The Network Society: Narratives of Global Communication

The invention of the telegraph definitely represented a new 'concept' in communication, perhaps a whole new 'concept' generally.  We had never before perceived communicating with someone without being in the same physical proximity as the recipient.  It's kind of amazing how we 'invented' technology to serve a particular purpose without foreseeing it's social and cultural implications, it's like technology and science fulfill an imperative which is independent somehow of the social or cultural domain.  Yet it is from this very domain that the process of development and invention evolves.  We are kind of in control of our destiny and kind of not at the same time.  We build systems for a particular purpose then the system spits back data at us that we didn't expect or that we didn't control!  This is not technological determinism but kind of like the 'scripting' embedded in objects or technology that Latour and ANT discusses.  We embed the scripts and we read the scripts and we use objects like a tool, but this kind of becomes much more complex when we involve computers and electronics, we seem to be losing more control of these objects.  They assist us and take away burdens but they also challenge our authority as we become less able to understand their capabilities and functions and less able to conceptualise and predict their social outcomes, thus becoming ever more dependent on them (van Oenen 2011).

In the same token, the technology of the computer for data processing and the technology of telephone communication developed in two independent streams.  It was the development of the modem that joined the two and made communication between computers and networking in this sense possible.  Similarly, the internet was developed by military and government for security purposes but it was the innovation of a few individuals and eventually more and more people that utilised this logic for mass communication purposes challenging the hegemony of the mass media.  It's the recombining of seemingly disparate technologies and innovative use of technologies that shows our agency in this instance.

What is interesting is the apparent lure of the cyberworld and its seeming promise of freedom and escape.  We imagine that online we can 'be' inside our Mind and escape our physical bodies.  Yet we try to emulate this apparent freedom in the offline world.  The emergence of postmodern society seems to represent an attempt to emulate cyberculture in the physical world.  Perhaps cyberculture has taught popular culture how to thwart authority and government at its very root.  By taking away centralised power we can all be powerful!  But what are the long term political implications of such a society?  Can we be democratic without democracy?  For how long can we live in peace without any overarching or external governance or authority hypothetically?  William Gibson likens such a notion to hallucination.  What of ethics and those who want to extend the boundaries of decency infinitely?  How will this effect culture and society over time?

References:

van Oenen, G 2011, 'Interpassive Agency, Engaging Actor-Network-Theory's View on the Agency of Objects', Theory and Event, Vol. 14, Iss. 2

Week 2a - Actor Network Theory (Objective/Subjective & Agency of Objects)

Have been reading a few journal articles on Actor Network Theory (ANT).  The journals are mainly by or about Bruno Latour.  What I have understood, in a really broad sense, is the incredulity of ANT to objectivism and its associated separation with subjectivism and vice versa.  I've always thought that the pursuit of the 'objective' was problematic and a highly constructed endeavour, but I've never really thought of (inverting?) that logic ie. if that for everything we try to perceive as objective instantly becomes subjective because we are addressing it, then logically what we don't address or try to rationalise must be the very thing that is authentic or real or natural. There is a sense that there does exist things in our everyday lives that are authentic, but the moment we try to capture or articulate these things they instantly cease to exist as 'natural'.  The 'objective' seems to be determined by the very thing that isn't objective.  'Culture' seems to try to convince us that subjective and objective are transposed somehow and that distinction between the two even exists.  I'm getting deja vu of Jacques Derrida 'Under Erasure' somehow at this point but not sure as yet why.  Is Under Erasure fission and ANT fusion??

Further, Latour discusses the notion of the agency of objects and how objects signify and carry meaning that kind of talks back to us by the way that we perceive them via scripts.  What I found interesting was Gijs Van Oenen's critique of Latour and ANT regarding the agency of objects (van Oenen 2011).  I think what he's saying is that Latour kind of tries to redefine 'act' or 'actor' by reducing 'act' to 'actant' to include objects as possessing agency and thereby reducing humans to objects.  Latour seems to be defining human beings like any other life form in the universe, it is only humans that elevate their status above all else.  'Act' becomes any kind of random 'doing' regardless of intent or reason, which challenges Modern/Philosophical notions.  Meanwhile, van Oenen states that 'act' must include both an end and an intention, objects cannot escape culture by becoming a 'snapshot' of a singular moment escaping time and meaning as Latour suggests, objects are a part of the 'flow' of culture.  van Oenen is accusing Latour of only further becoming enmeshed  in objectivity by trying to escape it in this way.  van Oenen states that it is only through the restoration of agency to all things and by immersing ourselves in subjectivity can we continue to pursue 'objectivity'.  In this sense, van Oenen is elevating objects instead rather to the status of humans and maintaining Modern notions (van Oenen 2011).  This kind of reminds me of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn as the gateway out of Modernism to Postmodernism through critique of Science (epistemology) but Latour and van Oenen seem to represent the gateway from Postmodernism back into Modernism through Philosophy (ontology).  Latour defines everything as objects in the Postmodern world where van Oenen defines everything as human within Modernity (van Oenen 2011).  Latour seems to pull us even further toward the 'edge' while van Oenen seems to pull us back to 'centre'.  Is it the dialogue or tension between these two perspectives that is important or the truth that we pursue??  Is Latour still 'seeking' and van Oenen has 'settled'?  Or has Latour 'settled' and van Oenen is still 'seeking'?

What is also interesting is the emergence of ARPANET, the internet and Web2.0 described as 'random' or as a result of a series of unpredictable events.  Unpredictable yes, unrelated, I don't think so.  I think 'random' is like 'objective'.  I think there is always an underlying pattern or grammar and that all events are tied into underlying patterns of culture that we can't escape.  It depends what level you are talking about.  Perhaps this is the difference between epistemology and ontology, two currents flowing concurrently through time but at two different levels.  I think Latour is talking about epistemology and van Oenen is talking about ontology which seems to be what culture is.  Latour is talking about specifics and van Oenen is speaking more broadly, kind of reminds me of the local and the global (van Oenen 2011).  So is this inverted epistemology in what Latour describes as the new 'non-modern' world what is referred to as 'glocal' I wonder??

References:

van Oenen, G 2011, 'Interpassive Agency, Engaging Actor-Network-Theory's View on the Agency of Objects', Theory and Event, Vol. 14, Iss. 2

Week 2 - Global Connections from the Telegraph to Cyberspace

Telegraph - Cyberspace.  They sound like a dichotomy, poles apart.  Telegraph sounds neanderthal like something from the dark ages and seems to represent something so grounded.  Yet cyberspace conjures notions of the future, an escape from our physical body signifying the potential of our imagination, or perhaps it convinces us that we can fly or leave earth.  Yet the reality between the two is cables.  Australia, for example, had three cables for the telegraph in the mid 19th century and today has also three cables for the internet and cyberspace.  Physically, nothing has changed yet socially and culturally we perceive enormous change over this period.  Why this disparity between the physical and the perceived?  What does it mean?  What does it represent over time?

In the lecture both the wires and cables, and the network pattern of the internet, were likened to a nervous system and a brain, like inside the human body.  Is there a connection between 'physical global space' and 'inside' our body, kind of like where the 'outside' meets the 'inside'?  Or where the global meets the local (glocal)?  Is this cybercultural embodiment?  Will have to think about all these things.

The readings seemed to question boundaries, borders and norms.  The Four Puzzles From Cyberspace (Lessig 2006) seemed to explore the boundaries of where cyberspace meets structural issues of law, physical place, ethics and privacy which are associated with autonomy and Socratic notions of knowledge and awareness.  These are the basis of democracy and I think meta-narrative, progress, Western enlightenment and Modernism.  The culture of the online 'actor network' seems to be challenging the very necessity of having a 'ground/base'.  This tension seems to be challenging traditional notions of hierarchy and Modern society.  The 'actor network' society though seems to demand the inclusion of groups traditionally excluded according to race, class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity, and in doing so broadens the norms, expands what is acceptable and changes what we perceive as centre.  Then why do philosophers, political scientists and sociologists remain sceptical about the democratising potential of postmodern culture.  Aren't these disciplines concerned with equality and freedom?  Or are they concerned about escalating media and corporate power, thus a loss of democratic power in the long term?  Perhaps these disciplines are tools which will become redundant in a re-centred society, leaving popular culture without any further recourse to power and at the mercy of capitalist imperatives.  It's like society at large has 'split' into two, like subcultures used to 'split' connotation and denotation of words and norms of society.  That subcultural logic has been applied to social theory itself.  I can see both sides but wonder what kind of society can embrace the best of both these worlds.  How can these seemingly incommensurate worlds become congruent, but they must, because we created them!

References:

Lessig, L 2006, Four puzzles from cyber space, accessed 27/7/2011, https://www.socialtext.net/codev2/four_puzzles_from_cyberspace