In this week’s reading Simon During discusses what factors go into in shaping a person’s identity in his article “Debating Identity“. An identity, according to During, is a collection of traits that help differentiate people within society. Traits are used to define the physical features of an individual in relation to his or her height, weight, gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. Since “individuals have little power to choose what features will be used to identify them” they are “determined socially from the outside”. These quotes from the reading entail that individuals and identities are dependent on the relationship with society for it to exist. Society intuitively places individuals into categories based on their traits.  Through an array of different features and characteristics, an identity is linked strongly with an individual’s personality – although it is not the same thing. Although they may be grouped, each individual is unique in some sort of way.

The term hybridity illustrates that “groups and individuals do not have a single identity but several”. Sometimes (although a lot more in the past) society discriminately labels these groups of people based on their status and power through unjust assumptions. According to During, this is where identity politics falls into place – in which political action, attitudes and positions are taken into consideration to help these oppressed groups. The flaw within this is that it places people under stereotypes. I believe people shouldn’t be carelessly labelled and thrown into clusters, because every individual is one of a kind through an assortment of exterior and interior factors. Take me for example, I’m half-Australian, half-Indonesian and because I’ve been living as an expatriate my entire life and went to international schools, I have an American accent. So, what does that make me? Even though I’ve held an Australian passport my entire life, I’m considered a tourist here – but because I barely know the Indonesian language I’m considered a foreigner there! These labels society puts on individuals (such as myself) really depend on the context of when and where in the world they are subjected to.

References:

During, Simon. “Debating Identity” In Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction, Routledge: London, 2005, 145-152

http://www.btween.co.uk/files/imagecache/display_528xAny/files/blog/conscious/Identity_opener2.jpg

Week 6 – Convergence

In this chapter entitled “Buying into American Idol: How we are being Sold on Reality Television”, Henry Jenkins dissects the concept of convergence by looking at examples of advertising and reality television.  Since the dawning of the new centaury, reality television has plagued television channels all over the world. Creating different varieties of the same crap (excluding Discovery shows such as Mythbusters and Miami Ink J), reality television has produced shows ranging from contests such as Survivor, to docusoaps like The Hills. A concept that has emerged from the rest is interactive reality television – televised contests in which the audience chooses who they want to win. Because of its high involvement with the audience, shows like American Idol attract more than 20 million viewers per episode. Through the use of telephone calls and text messaging, millions of people vote on who they think is the best contestant. Because it is encouraged to vote and lines only open after the show, they can make more money by the increase in phone usage.

Although the majority of the viewers and voters are unaware of how much of a commercial goliath American Idol really is, they help it get higher Nielsen Rating. A Nielsen Rating is an audience measuring system which can be recorded in “sweeps week”. A competition on its own, television shows battle it out on who has the most viewers and the best ratings. Through advertisements and product placement (didn’t you find it odd that the judges are always drinking through Coca-Cola cups?) reality shows become highly profitable entities. Advertisers use shows like Idol to promote their product in various different ways. Since Idol reaches to the mass audience, a larger market for their product becomes apparent. McDonalds and Coca-Cola maintains a relationship with idol by advertising each other through the use of advertising and product placement. McDonalds have American Idol related Happy meals where Idol shows brief sponsorship ads within the show. This relationship is stated to be a convergence in which companies intertwine with one another to produce maximum commercial success. With technology such as Foxtel IQ and TiVo, audiences are learning to skip these commercials forcing advertisers to promote themselves within the show.

References

Jenkins, Henry. “Buying into American Idol: How we are being Sold on Reality Television” In Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NYU Press, 2006, 59-92.

Week 5 – Mobility

Just within the past decade, mobile media has changed the world we live in by condensing both notions of space and time. It has become one of the highly used tools for communication and connectivity especially with teens. In his article “Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the replacement of Social Contact”, Mizuko Ito focuses on how mobile technology is used to break the social boundaries of teens in Japan. Through the use mobile media, Japanese youth are beginning to stray away from traditional values that their parents impose. To measure this theory, Ito devised a research analysis of mobile phone use within the Japanese Youth. His research subjects mainly contained high school and college students among the city district of Tokyo. The research is separated into different social environments such as the home, school and public space, to ultimately measure the difference in mobile phone usage. What he found was that many of the Japanese youth used mobile media as an escape from their physical space into a personal virtual space.  This is evident not only in Japan but with the rest of the world. Students use this form of media as an escape from some lectures (although definitely not in Media and Everyday Life though!), to avoid the awkwardness of public transport and to retreat from family matters. Ito refers to mobile phones to “provide a way of overcoming the spatial boundary of the home, for teens to talk with each other late at night and to shut out their parents and siblings”.

Over the past ten years, mobile phones have evolved from its basic function of calling, to feature relatively new tools such as GPS, 3G internet and third-party applications. Teens like myself view mobile phones as a necessity instead of a luxury. It builds structure for my day, for I use it to tell time as well as organizes my daily activities. I got my first cell phone at the age of 13, much later than when kids get their first phones today (as early as 8!). One of the sole reasons children get phones at such an early age, is to primarily be used for emergency contact. Mobile phone companies are now introducing a newer market for younger children, focusing on features such as gaming. It almost is seen as a rite of passage for the transition to teen-hood and the creation of a social identity. Mobile media is depicted as freedom from parental control -  having a personal line, rather than sharing a home phone, represents independence. Mobile media has forever changed social customs and family values, which provides a higher degree of freedom in the present day youth.

References;

Ito, Mizuko. “Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the replacement of Social Contact” In Ling, Rich and Pedersen, Per, Eds. Mobile Communications: Re- Negotiation of the Social Sphere. London: Springer- Verlag, 2005, 131-148.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Nokia_3310.png/150px-Nokia_3310.png
http://www.cdfreaks.com/userimages/apple-iphone-in-hand-thumb(1).jpg

Week 4 – Mediation: Space

Having a close relationship with last week’s investigation of time, the second part of our in-depth study of mediation involves the concept of space. In an article written by Shaun Moore, “The Doubling of Space” illustrates how digital media creates a different sense of space, by “doubling” the space that we already hold. The article sheds light on how we can defy this idea of space, by being in more than one place at the same time. We can categorize our online activities from our offline activities, although they sometimes intertwine with one another. This sense of virtual space can act as a “double reality” within our lives. It affects how we perceive space as a distance of separation, for virtual space shortens the perceptions of distance two individuals might have, where ever they are in the world. Devices such as Skype can carry out conversations regardless of spatial constrictions. Through online communities such as Facebook and Myspace we create a sense of space for ourselves and for our peers as well as an online identity.

This concept of digital space is fairly new, for it promotes yet demotes communication at the same time. We are so digitally connected with society and our peers that we disconnect ourselves from real life, social transactions. We live in a world where we rather write a ‘wallpost’ instead of than having an actual face to face conversation. Moore refers to Scannell’s idea of time, for he states that they are individual concepts that feed off of one another. This idea of doubling of place is enforced as we multitask. An example of this is that I could be talking on my phone while playing Xbox Live, resulting in me being in more than one space. This ease of communication encourages us to converse with random people that we encounter on the internet, promoting the idea of ‘Media 2.0’. Moore examines how the doubling of space controls how we experience everyday life in respect to time.

References:

Scannell, P. “Dailiness” In Radio, Television and Modern Life. Blackwell,London 1996, 144-178

https://academictech.doit.wisc.edu/ORFI/otr/creating/internet.png

Week 3 – Mediation: Time

In Scannell’s article “Dailiness”, a thorough analysis of broadcasting is carried out, particularly focusing on television and radio, in relation to the concept of everyday life. Due to my minor dyslexia, I mistakenly thought the article was entitled “Dali-ness”, which put me on a mental journey to find how Salvador Dali’s obsession with clocks and time could possibly relate to media. Although I quickly realized my error, I couldn’t help but think how media transcends our concept of time. Through email, mobile telephones, instant messaging and VOIP (skype) we can connect with people from all over the world, almost instantly. In comparison to just 10 years ago where people communicated through hand written mail, time was definitely a factor in how they perceived everyday life.

Scannell argues that broadcasting is an underlying factor in how we make sense of time. He analyses how daily routines are shaped through forms of broadcasting. In an example within my own life, I tried think of ways broadcasting affected how and in what ways I tend do things. One instance is when I was in elementary school, I used to come home just in time to catch Pokemon every single weekday. This became a habit for I correlated this routine so I would eat during the show and do any homework I had, right after. Without me knowing, I created a subconscious routine in how did things. This, according to Scannell, is defined to be a “media ritual”. Through the broadcast of television and radio, these schedules coincided with how people live their lives, for it establishes some sort of structure for what we perceive as a normal ‘day’. He also introduces this notion of ‘publicness’ which investigates how people carry out certain daily activities with particular broadcasts of media. It brings people together for it encourages people to do the same activity at the same time, creating some sense of expectancy in the lives of certain individuals. Examples of this is how people have dinner as they watch the evening news, or listen to the morning news on the radio as they wake up. People are inclined to watch television shows that embrace the community, such as sport events and reality shows that require voting. Through the use of the broadcast of television and radio, the media can mould when and how we carry out our daily activities.

References

Scannell, P. “Dailiness” in Radio, Television and Modern Life. Blackwell, London, 1996, 144-178

http://uofugeron.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/dali-persistence-of-time.jpg

Week 1 – Media and Everyday Life 

In David Gauntlett’s article “Media Studies 2.0”, he expresses his thoughts on this fairly new concept of “Web 2.0”. He argues that as society shifts towards Web 2.0, the way we look at media and how we study it, changes as well – he refers to this as Media Studies 2.0. Gauntlet structures his ideas by outlining the distinguishing features of web 1.0 from web 2.0, as well as how it adds to the development of a media-oriented society. Although he doesn’t fully disregard web 1.0, he stresses that its successor is far more superior and is the foundation, for an internet revolution.

First of all, Gauntlett establishes the differences by stating that web 1.0 leans more towards media production from powerful companies, rather than from online communities. With this emergence of peer to peer (p2p) networks, overriding the client-server relationship, society is more integrated with one another than ever before. Blogs from the everyday person are being read more, instead of articles from qualified journalists. We create as well as watch personal videos from people all over the world, seeing it as alternative to watching television. Participation among individuals is encouraged, for everyone is given a chance to speak their mind. An example of this would be Wikipedia, an encyclopedia created through a collection of knowledge, uploaded by millions of individuals. Although the information might not always be right, it shows how we have evolved into a culture that has taken passive readers and turned them into active writers. We are encouraged to regulate the information, acting as a community as a whole, to separate facts from opinions. Another example is Flickr, an online photo sharing community. Unlike Facebook, Flickr asks its users to share their photos for the public to see, instead of restricting it to a group of friends. Instead of perceiving the world solely through the eyes of the media, one can view the experiences of individuals through the use of tags. This is just a couple of the many examples of how we have considerably altered media studies to suit needs of present-day society.

References: 

Gauntlett, David. “Media Studies 2.0″
http://www.theory.org.uk/mediastudies2.htm

www.mikestopforth.com/2006/08/05/what-is-web-20/

In this Chapter of “Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature” Mike Michael evaluates this idea of the ‘Couch Potato’ and how it has changed over time with the introduction of technologies such as the remote control. The chapter revolves around what ramifications this has on us, as well as how it affects society and the world around us. Michael claims that this idea of embodiment and disembodiment, in particularly referring to the remote control and the couch potato, act as co(a)gents.

With the introduction of the first wireless remote control: the ‘Flashmatic’ in 1955, could this have spawned a new lifestyle of ‘Couch Potatoness’ which plagues millions of people today? I, myself have recently come down with a severe case of CPS (couch potato syndrome) in my gap year between high school and university. Almost making being a couch potato into an art form, I spent day in and day out switching from cable television, to my X-box 360, and to my DVD player without even getting up from my already moulded place within the couch. I was a prime example of a bad couch potato. I managed to do this by delegating all these functions to my handy-dandy remote controls, which were always by my side. Michael addresses that the remote control is essential for the survival of the couch potato for it abolishes the need to get up and walk a couple meters to press a button. This might not seem much at the first glance but by eliminating that factor of actually getting up to change a channel actually tends to increase the amount of television a person consumes. Many people, including myself, can spend hours on end sitting in front of the TV which ultimately results to my disconnection from my involvement in social activities and perhaps makes me disembodied from society.

Television companies today are realizing this fact and are starting to produce more TVs without any buttons on its interface and which can only be operated through a remote control. Could they be adapting to the needs of the everyday couch potato? Or are they just exploiting the vulnerable laziness of the 21^st century man? It is apparent that perhaps a ‘couch potato market’ may have been created by the producers of these products. New inventions will always be created to benefit the everyday lazy person and will always stunt the productivity of the couch potato. This chapter made me rethink about getting a universal remote control; a remote control that controls pretty much any electronic device with an infrared receiver. Is that too much power in the hands of a fellow couch potato?

Resources
Michael, Mike. “Disciplined and Disciplining co(a)gents: The Remote Control and the Couch Potato” from the book Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature.

Name: Andrew fenwick
Student Number: z3294956
Class Slot: H16B