Category: Tara MacDaniels

As an Interactive Media student, its been drilled into my head that traditional media is dying. The State of the Media website definitely gives some eye opening facts about the drastic decrease in old media, but are we really headed to a completely digital world? Can tradition media (such as newspapers, magazines and books) really be completely replaced by digital media? Will people really go this idea? Or can we commit to some kind of medium? If so, what do you think this balance of old and new would entail?

The other week I saw a commercial for a television that has the capabilities for social media. Yes, that means that you can go on Facebook on your TV. I thought this was seriously crazy! If we aren’t already completely addicted to Facebook, now you have the opportunity to never get away from it. I can’t help but think that eventually our televisions will just be big computer screens that allow you to do everything that a computer would do with the addition of a TV. The questions I purposed early this week had to do with if our world will eventually be completely digital and if people will actually go for a completely digital world. Frankly, I can’t see it happening. I could see all newspapers being online and even on our televisions, but I think that once people see this completely digital world, we are going to crave the old times, where you could actually sit down, read the paper, turn the pages. But when considering magazines and books, I do not think that our world will come to a completely digital medium. I think that people will always want to read real books and frankly, it would be sad to see real books go completely to kindles and I-pads. My last question was about committing to some kind of balance between traditional and new medias. In the State of the Media website, one section discusses how the future of the new and old media are more tied together than we may actually think.

The State of the Media says “in the end new and old media face the same dilemma and may be much more aligned in their search for revenue than many have thought”. This section definitely reassured my hopes for a balance between old and new media, for some cases.

1. As an Interactive Media student, its been drilled into my head that traditional media is dying. The State of the Media website definitely gives some eye opening facts about the drastic decrease in old media, but are we really headed to a completely digital world? Can tradition media (such as newspapers, magazines and books) really be completely replaced by digital media? Will people really go this idea? Or can we commit to some kind of medium? If so, what do you think this balance of old and new would entail?

I enjoyed reading Anderson’s Free this week. It was interesting to learn about a concept I have always accepted but never questioned. From the get-go, Anderson explains that the concept of free isn’t new. Anderson describes plenty of examples of different forms of free and how the concept has been used for hundred of years now. Anderson believes that free models fall under four main categories: Direct Cross-Subsides, the Three-Party Market, Freemium, and Nonmonetary markets.
To relate back to my framing post, my first question on was about the freemium model. “What is the ‘freemium’ model? And how is it effectively used in today’s society?” Freemium is a business model that is becoming really popular with web-based services, where the basic service is free but users are charged for the premium service. Pandora, Flickr, LinkedIn and Skype are all examples of this business model. The model takes on the 5-percent rule: 5 percent of users support all the rest. Anderson says, “In the freemium model, that means for every user who pays for the premium version of the site, nineteen others get the basic free version. The reason this works is that the cost of serving the nineteen is close enough to zero to call it nothing” (27).
Another question I purposed was: how is 21st century “free” different from older generations of “free”? Discuss Anderson’s idea of the atoms economy vs. the bits economy. One example of the old kind of free is the story about the Gillette family. Gillette figured out that they cold make more money selling the blades than the razor itself, so the basically gave the razor away and made a profitable market for selling the blades. Now, in the digital world, there is no paying later. Anderson discusses the atoms economy vs. the bits economy. Anderson explains it best:
“The twentieth century was primarily an atoms economy. The twenty first century will be equally a bits economy. Anything free in the atoms economy must be paid for by something else, which is why so much traditional free feels like bait and switch—it’s you paying, one way or another. But free in the bits economy can be really free, with money often taken out of the equation altogether” (12).
This idea explains why in the atoms economy, supplies get more expensive over time with demand, while in the bits economy (the online world), things get cheaper. “The atoms economy is inflationary, while the bits economy is deflationary,” Anderson explained (12).

What is “freemium” model? And how is it effectively used in today’s society?

How has the fundamental rule of our economy, supply and demand, changed due to the freeconomics?

How is 21^st century “free” different from older generations of “free”? Discuss Anderson’s idea of the atoms economy vs. the bits economy.

1. What are the copyright wars? And how does Lessig believe it can be resolved?
2. How does this remixing of our culture change or affect our fair use laws? How can we create a constant standard for generations to come, especially with the outrageous popularity and ever-growing information and resources available on the Internet?
3. What does Lessig mean by the ‘ecosystem of reputation’ ( 61)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the post-RO culture? Especially thinking about the use of blogs as a valid source of information?

Although, I could definitely write about a few of the questions from my earlier post this week, I was really influenced by the documentary we watched in class, today.  I can honestly say that throughout the day specific parts of the film would pop into my head. Thus, the reason I have decided to blog about it for my response post for week 5.

“Good Copy Bad Copy: A documentary about the current state of copyright and culture” was directed by Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke. The film discusses the clash between copyrighted music and laws verse the technological advances that allow anybody with a computer to download, mash-up, and sample copyrighted music.  The music scene is changing; it’s moving towards a user-generated scene where “computer kids” are becoming famous DJs, such as GirlTalk and DeadMau5, for mashing up and creating music on Garageband (and other more high-tech software’s). Not only are these “computer kids” becoming famous DJs, but also YouTube celebrities, and amateur filmmakers.

I found the portion on economics and business in underprivileged countries such as Nigeria and Brazil to be very interesting. This aspect of the film brought about a unique opinion on copyright and sampling. In Brazil, mash-up music is an artistic genre of it’s own. It’s treated as a small business and distributed over loud speakers as advertisement for large block parties generating revenues. If the burnt CDs are sold, they are not sold in the traditional context by any means. Some street vendors may sell copies of the mastered mixed CD for small fees.

“Good Copy Bad Copy” also focused on the aspect of peer-to-peer file sharing. Okay SHHH, don’t tell on me, or sue me, but I definitely partake in the file-sharing and downloading music for free scene. Honestly though, I really don’t feel bad because the bands I’m downloading for free, I’m spending a fair amount of money on their live shows. For example,  I couldn’t tell you how many Phish songs and shows I’ve ripped off the internet, but I also can’t count the amount of money I’ve spent on tickets and t-shirts (and beers) for their concerts.

One part of the documentary that vividly sticks out in my memory was about how creativity is on the line. Will future generations of music and movies just be remakes of originals? How many Friday the 13ths or James Bonds can we have? I have thought this about movies for a long time. But music seemed different before this week. I believed there was always new music and already created music could be so well manipulated that it sounded new.

Both Lanier’s “I am not a Gadget” and “Bad Copy Good Copy” get at the premise that creativity is lost. Lanier believes that since the amateurization of music (through file-sharing and mash-up technology) nothing original has been created. Both the documentary and Lanier’s novel question where we draw the line or make the balance between protecting intellectually property and the future of creation through these technological software’s.

In conclusion, (for now) before this week I never really looked at this problem from this point of view. I only viewed it from the listener’s point of view (SWEET! Free music! AWESOME! Jay-Z and The Beatles mashed up together!) But will our world of music eventually turn into a chaotic, mess of a world of amateur music streamed through the Internet, as these discussed mediums suggest?

In Jason Lanier’s, “You Are Not a Gadget,” he discusses how the Internet we know today was built on the first web designers programming and software decisions. What initial decisions have had the biggest impacts on our modern Internet? What has provided problems and what has given us success in our World Wide Web?

In Lanier’s opening paragraph, he says: “most of the ideas that have been locked in so far are not so bad, but some of the so-called web 2.0 ideas are stinkers, so we ought to reject them while we still can” (3). What are these so-called stinkers? Twitter? Foursquare? How can we analyze which social networks are stinkers and which are not?

Lanier says, “technologies are extensions of ourselves” (4). I really like this quote and the whole idea of technology affecting our behaviors and experiences. I would like to spend some time in my response blog talking more about Lanier’s ideas on this concept.

3. How has the Internet (especially social networking sites) impacted our cultural freedoms?

For my response, I am going to focus on my third question. I believe is addresses a concept Benkler brings up throughout the assigned chapters. The growing evolution of technology, specifically through the Internet has changed our cultural freedoms both positively and negatively. The Internet allows people to be the publishers and not just the readers. Everyone, including the whackos of our world, can make a website and voice their opinions on the web. This concept has obviously impacted our culture and the freedoms that go along with it.  This production power has created democratic user participation, lower production costs and a whole new perspective on our culture, in general. When comparing the Internet to older mass communication technologies (newspapers, books, telegraphs) the variety and scope of information through the Internet could be considered almost infinite.  Benkler describes information as nonrivalous and circular. By this he means that information can be used by a vast amount of people at one time and information can now be both an input and an output of production (through the internet).

So, going back to my question, how have social networking sites impacted our culture freedoms…Well, overall the same affects of the Internet in general can be applied to the social networking sites. But I believe the motivations and information could differ on a social networking site, such as Facebook. No one is making money by posting information of Facebook, users are simply posting things to get feedback from their friends on a topic of interest. The popularity aspect of Facebook could be considered a motivation too. How many people will comment on or like my status? How many people will share information on my wall? Compared to other websites such as news, research or health websites, the motivations to share information are quite different. Some producers get paid to share information, while others are similarly sharing information for the mere aspect of interest (such as Wikipedia).

Questions from The Wealth of Networks reading

1. How do the different productions and exchanges of knowledge and culture affect our understanding of the world around us?

2. What does Benkler mean by the “on the shoulders of giants” effects? Explain and research this concept more.

3. How has the Internet (especially social media sites) impacted our cultural freedoms?

2. In reference to the part about mass communication being a one-way communication flow mediated and enhanced by technology. R & V said that mass communication used to give little opportunity for immediate feedback from the audience, but new media technologies are changing this. Will these new and evolving media technologies change the way we think about mass communication and lead us into a new paradigm shift?

When thinking about the definition of what a paradigm shift is (a new way of thinking replacing an older one), I definitely believe we are on the cusp of one in relation to the one-way flow of mass communication. Traditional mass-communication may still be a one-way flow with little feedback from audience, but with the growing popularity of interactivity on the Internet, audience opinion has become a very important part of mass communication. This new age, this evolution of media is definitely changing the way mass-communication is accessed. But will this shift our paradigm? Or add a new paradigm for interactive mass-communication?

Think about online newspaper articles, most every story gives readers the opportunity to comment and voice their opinion. Very heated topics such as the idiot Pastor who wanted to burn the Quran on September 11^th, those news articles had thousands of comments from readers. This aspect of engagement with mass communication may be creating a new paradigm. The dictionary definition of interactive is: (of a computer or other electronic device) allowing a two-way flow of information between it and a user, responding to the user’s input.

Although this new age of interactivity is heightening and reducing the use of traditional media, I still know people who read newspapers daily, rather than going to the Internet for their news. I also do not think books will ever be outdated by kindles, or e-books. So, I believe that this interactive mass-communication with create a new paradigm.

Another interesting part of the reading while still on the topic of paradigms was about the direct effects paradigm and the bullet-hypodermic theory. The theory is about injecting audiences with a message that immediately, powerfully and directly causes them to adopt a new opinion or idea. The example given in the book was the War of the Worlds radio show, which is just crazy to think that people actually believed aliens were taking over. I know this theory has been disproven but I can think of a few examples where our society has been completely affected by a message form the mass media. Y2k and Anthrax are two examples that come to mind. Can you guys think of any others?