Aside from being the harbinger of doom and albeit sounding like an old man watching a young man's game from the sidelines... I still think that New Media Technologies will ultimately have great power and influence even beyond what we see today and the possibilities for good use are limitless. Unfortunately, the price of freedom is vigilance, and we are anything but vigilant about our new media's creation and the ways in which it's used by average citizens.
The major problems facing the development of new media technologies are the same problems that all new communications technologies have faced but now it's instantaneous problems with zero response time and exponentially dangerous influences. On the other side of the coin, Twitter is now the most effective way for Chinese dissidents to meet at town hall style meetings to protest government oppression, with the latest and most notorious, a couple being put to one year hard labor for making tweets that could be taken as inciting revolution when seen out of context. They were jokingly saying that it would be a good idea to violently attack Japanese students. Maybe it would be good to use more than 140 characters when expressing an idea like... "OK, you're going to have to shoot him in the face after you storm the embassy because the guards will see you and be able to identify you later when we..."[ end of tweet ]"...go get ice cream LOL"
When we look to the future of new media and refuse to apply lessons of the past, we will be forced to confront the same problems we've always had but these problems will exhibit themselves in magnifying cross cultural ways that could be catastrophic, or possibly could lead to deeper commitments from groups who want to change things for the better. Individuals will increasingly have access to technologies that will allow for example, broadcasting from Tehran in real time, or Tweeting information from a destabilized Eastern European nation, or an Asian superpower to the rest of the world. Let's not forget however that all of these pieces of information will be unconfirmed sound bytes that ultimately must be held under the same scrutiny that coded messages sent during wartime would be. If information is power, and the most powerful groups have access and control over all the processing centers for this information, sooner or later that information becomes controlled in ways so as to paint portraits of individuals based on the use of information that was never intended to be exposed publicly.
The new technologies that we are being exposed to will be merely the stepping stones to a newer generation of increasingly powerful tools that will usher in a whole new epoch of technological advancement and multicultural societal convergences. It's going to be incredible. And when I say "incredible" I mean that it will looking back seem impossible to believe that we were all wasting our time with Facebook, Twitter, Second Life, and not building massive broadcasting satellites to speak with aliens and our friends in the future... LOL.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Privacy and Confidentiality
With essentially the dissolution of any and all journalistic ethics and the advent of such wonderful creations as "gossip sites", I think it's important to look at the factors that are now contributing to what really should be viewed as the virtual bill of rights being written in our time. The right to some semblance of privacy is inherently gambled every time we type something that we hope would not be read by any and everyone. Sites like Facebook, Google, MySpace have been collecting every shred of information for marketing purposes for years. But so has every other site that you've ever visited in your lifetime. And guess what, they share all that information with each other as agreed to in terms and services agreements. The invention and ultimately the acceptance of cookies and preferences, that have for years now been collected in order to manipulate consumer behaviors, has led to the consensus of most to just give up their privacy in order to have convenience and cheaper goods available to them. Those preferences have been collected for much larger and darker goals that the average citizen is completely unaware of and therefore vulnerable ultimately to the powers that are collecting this information. Information ultimately is power.
Look for example at the Supreme Court decision in favor of Citizens United. An obscure non-profit entity that was looking for an excuse to include corporate donation of campaign finance money, produced a film about Hillary Clinton that they did not care about releasing, and they knew would be impossible to release because of libel. They only wanted to get before the Supreme Court in order to rattle the first amendment saber to then slide campaign finance money in through the back door. They used political thinktanks that did extensive polling to come to the conclusion that the American people were more opposed to a woman who might have a scandal attached to her past and would side with the first amendment concerning the "censorship" than they were afraid to succumb to a complete and all encompassing oligarchical fascist state dominated by corporations.
In order to manipulate political behavior in perpetuity, old school corporate powerhouses used new media resources to research, understand, and ultimately hoodwink longtime foes and gain control over all governing bodies in America with the passage of some ridiculous law concerning "corporations rights" as individual citizens. This would have been impossible without gathering the kinds of information about technology and political savvy citizens in order to manipulate behaviors effectively.
Look for example at the Supreme Court decision in favor of Citizens United. An obscure non-profit entity that was looking for an excuse to include corporate donation of campaign finance money, produced a film about Hillary Clinton that they did not care about releasing, and they knew would be impossible to release because of libel. They only wanted to get before the Supreme Court in order to rattle the first amendment saber to then slide campaign finance money in through the back door. They used political thinktanks that did extensive polling to come to the conclusion that the American people were more opposed to a woman who might have a scandal attached to her past and would side with the first amendment concerning the "censorship" than they were afraid to succumb to a complete and all encompassing oligarchical fascist state dominated by corporations.
In order to manipulate political behavior in perpetuity, old school corporate powerhouses used new media resources to research, understand, and ultimately hoodwink longtime foes and gain control over all governing bodies in America with the passage of some ridiculous law concerning "corporations rights" as individual citizens. This would have been impossible without gathering the kinds of information about technology and political savvy citizens in order to manipulate behaviors effectively.
The Next New Thing
I would suggest a website specifically designed to link music and video producers together. Artists can post profiles and for a monthly fee, they would have access to other profiles of artists that would be interested in collaboration. Along with profiles, they would be able to have skype-like meetings over the website and find out if they have any chemistry rather than having to perpetually rent space to rehearse and re-rehearse every goon on the planet who has gotten their name added to or contributed in some way to a creative endeavour. The reason that I would recommend this be a pay for use site is to qualify prospective artists who want to meet other professionals and professional caliber talent for collaborative efforts rather than having to swim through an ocean of crappy profiles, and craigslist ads/responses. The site could be non-profit, and funding could ultimately be used to hire several techs to maintain the site, as well as pooled for competition prize money to help fund some of these collaborations. This would add some critical insight to music and video production that has been lacking for some time.
Advice to Brooklyn College
My advice to Brooklyn College would be not to employ any new media technologies whatsoever for students because they are physically incapable of maintaining and working with their already existing technologies which if it had been any other site on the planet, their would have been major networking changes years ago. This has created the illusion for incoming students that Brooklyn College actual has the capability of providing these technologies, instead of just being realistic about the limitations of the facilities. My only guess would be that the contract Brooklyn College signed as a city institution with its networking provider for example has been so corruptly agreed to as to agree to ignore the heinous dysfunction that exists. My further advice to Brooklyn College would be to expect more from their employees who are not performing their duties with any consideration or fire them instead of carrying dead weight. It is a terrible shame for the co-workers they are bringing down, because there are many hard working and talented members of the Brooklyn College family that seem to be continually overshadowed by the incompetence of a few in key positions.
I would however recommend that Brooklyn College allow those employees who are so committed to providing services to the campus, to have a broader range of access to any and all media technologies available on site to be employed for more effective time management and better delegation of duties. There could even be an effective training program that was provided for faculty and staff so that the inability to provide services could be bridged to a point of just being less than ideal rather than less than adequate.
It is virtually impossible to use Brooklyn College's facilities to do simple tasks like uploading online video, or depending on internet for any streaming capabilities.
I would however recommend that Brooklyn College allow those employees who are so committed to providing services to the campus, to have a broader range of access to any and all media technologies available on site to be employed for more effective time management and better delegation of duties. There could even be an effective training program that was provided for faculty and staff so that the inability to provide services could be bridged to a point of just being less than ideal rather than less than adequate.
It is virtually impossible to use Brooklyn College's facilities to do simple tasks like uploading online video, or depending on internet for any streaming capabilities.
Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds
This sounds as creepy as it is. I happen to have been alive for the release of the film "The Lawnmower Man", and I remember thinking that it was not so far away. Just like "Blade Runner", where present day Japanese ethnocentrism(racism to the rest of the world) drives robot production in the caregiving world, "Second Life" provides a detached and sanitized version of life much like that of "The Lawnmower Man". We've created a second life already through the television media in order to avoid social reaction to things like war. There is no more reporting on wars, just graphics that show K.I.A.'s and I.M.D.'s and W.M.D. sites etc. If I'm getting too close to a nerve, good, someone should be touching your nerves at some point in your life, because we live in an increasingly numb world devoid of values and compassionate responses(no you can't tweet those). I would be really excited to know that people spent as much time on developing their actual character, rather than "developing a character". In the NY Times article about seeing a band at Cake Shop, the author explains how watching the band from home on with a virtual version of the club's atmosphere is now her preferred method for seeing live music and interacting with the club scene. That's terrifying. when I was coming up, the Lower East Side was to be braved and those that braved it were invited to a dark gritty rendering of life in an urban setting that exposed the truth about Manhattan and New York, the social disparities and the lives being lived, abused, taken, and re-used. I am ecstatic to know that Dick Manitoba can recognize the dissolution of a neighborhood that once thrived in making some minor impact on the social order of a city that was driven purely by greed, racial tension, and abuses of power. “The Second Avenue Deli’s a bank, the Fillmore East is a bank, and you’ve got to pass by 12 restaurants and coffee shops just to get to the couple of places that still have character.”. All good things must pass, but don't give a pass to commercializing every New York scene like an episode of "Friends". This city used to be about neighborhoods, and now it's a sprawling mass of texting, Facebooking, Tweeting, bourgeoisie who don't care about anyone or anything in their path.
With all that said, I think that Second Life is a godsend to people with developmental and physical disabilities who cannot participate in the same experiences that so deeply enrich our lives. It would be great to see the technology used to its fullest and not just be exploited towards further laziness. If I don't like something about my appearance, my station in life, or my surroundings, there are actual tools in an actual world that I can use to change those circumstances rather than relying on living inside my new television.
With all that said, I think that Second Life is a godsend to people with developmental and physical disabilities who cannot participate in the same experiences that so deeply enrich our lives. It would be great to see the technology used to its fullest and not just be exploited towards further laziness. If I don't like something about my appearance, my station in life, or my surroundings, there are actual tools in an actual world that I can use to change those circumstances rather than relying on living inside my new television.
Twitter Discussion
It actually turned out to be confusing for most people I think to follow all the instructions about tweeting, RT'ing, and CISC3333 so I only found one other classmate and we messaged back and forth and I retweeted on my profile that messaging privately is not exactly tweeting...
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Social Networking
Social Networking sites have many corporate applications and are as the previous post shows, going to be strictly corporate entities from now on that look to use the free ad space to control the marketplace. As for real world application of Social Networking sites as corporate networking sites, it might be interesting to look at the rise of Linkedin as an example of a site that promotes and encourages users to make corporate connections and reccomendations.
In an ever changing global marketplace, employees have come to rely on very few things that remain constant, and being forced to change their mindset, schedule, work habits, etc. are all factors that come into play when corporate policy changes with management. Social Networking sites are a fantastic idea to allow executives to express their opinions in a forum that may not be so rigid and controlling. It actually lets employees drop their guard and participate in brainstorming sessions that do not require perfect adherance to policy or Roberts' rules, etc.
When Mr. Ghosn took over Nissan, as reported in Business Week, October 30, 2007 by Kenji Hall, there were understandably very mixed reactions, and in order to avoid the types of bureaucratic gridlock that can occur in such situations, Mr. Ghosn searched for ideas to build consenus and use the team he had to move forward. After his visit to IBM, he incorporated a simple strategy that IBM had been using for quite some time to avoid time wasting and to glean the best possible ideas from his team in the least time.
There will be an enormous number of applications that can be seen from the Mars Bar marketing attempt seen in "Analysis: Real Facebook shop in virtual world breathes life into Mars", Marketing
Week. Feb 21, 2008 that spawned a number of competitors and imitators to follow suit. Unfortunately, mass marketers have now been using Facebook as an ad platform for everything from oil changes to non-profit charities for quite some time. As a result, Facebook become a commodity rather than just a "place for friends".
Unfortunately for users of Facebook, this corporate transition has been the ultimate in privacy concerns and all of users' information was put up on the block privately through many different companies whose sole goal is information collection for marketing manipulation
in the long term. In the short term it means a voluntary dissolution of privacy rights that will lead to an erosion of civil rights as far as cyberspace is concerned.
There is no doubt in my mind, that this erosion of "virtual rights" in an already extraordinarily apathetic culture that has become over the last ten years a pure and unadulterated oligarchy, we have already and will continue to see the effects of civil rights degeneration for generations to come. the New Citizens Supreme Court decision in January 2010 to allow corporations the rights of private citizens is one factor that has led to these social networking sites losing any ability to remain democratic platforms. Quite simply, people are addicted to the access they gain from these sites, and will give up their rights of ownership to their own personal content and mold their preferences to this medium in a similar way that they have relinquished their time and attention to television, the "opiate" of the masses.
In an ever changing global marketplace, employees have come to rely on very few things that remain constant, and being forced to change their mindset, schedule, work habits, etc. are all factors that come into play when corporate policy changes with management. Social Networking sites are a fantastic idea to allow executives to express their opinions in a forum that may not be so rigid and controlling. It actually lets employees drop their guard and participate in brainstorming sessions that do not require perfect adherance to policy or Roberts' rules, etc.
When Mr. Ghosn took over Nissan, as reported in Business Week, October 30, 2007 by Kenji Hall, there were understandably very mixed reactions, and in order to avoid the types of bureaucratic gridlock that can occur in such situations, Mr. Ghosn searched for ideas to build consenus and use the team he had to move forward. After his visit to IBM, he incorporated a simple strategy that IBM had been using for quite some time to avoid time wasting and to glean the best possible ideas from his team in the least time.
There will be an enormous number of applications that can be seen from the Mars Bar marketing attempt seen in "Analysis: Real Facebook shop in virtual world breathes life into Mars", Marketing
Week. Feb 21, 2008 that spawned a number of competitors and imitators to follow suit. Unfortunately, mass marketers have now been using Facebook as an ad platform for everything from oil changes to non-profit charities for quite some time. As a result, Facebook become a commodity rather than just a "place for friends".
Unfortunately for users of Facebook, this corporate transition has been the ultimate in privacy concerns and all of users' information was put up on the block privately through many different companies whose sole goal is information collection for marketing manipulation
in the long term. In the short term it means a voluntary dissolution of privacy rights that will lead to an erosion of civil rights as far as cyberspace is concerned.
There is no doubt in my mind, that this erosion of "virtual rights" in an already extraordinarily apathetic culture that has become over the last ten years a pure and unadulterated oligarchy, we have already and will continue to see the effects of civil rights degeneration for generations to come. the New Citizens Supreme Court decision in January 2010 to allow corporations the rights of private citizens is one factor that has led to these social networking sites losing any ability to remain democratic platforms. Quite simply, people are addicted to the access they gain from these sites, and will give up their rights of ownership to their own personal content and mold their preferences to this medium in a similar way that they have relinquished their time and attention to television, the "opiate" of the masses.
Check out Social Networking Sites
Facebook bought MySpace today giving it the license and power to control all entertainment and media on social networking sites, and signaling the end of an era and a war of attrition for Newscorp, and mego-maniacal Rupert Murdoch's company. In regards to Social Networking sites, MySpace and Facebook are obviously the two most popular sites with Facebook having far surpassed MySpace quite some time ago number of users, and social relevance. Facebook has become the premier social network site while MySpace is the site for independent users to market their own user generated content.
Thiw is a perfect example of old media executives getting it wrong with new media. when "Tom" sold MySpace to Ruport Murdoch, and Newscorp. he was making a very smart move to leave what he saw as an ever changing marketplace with extremely high maintenance demands. When Newscorp. bought MySpace in 2006 with the idea of profiting from all the entertainers who had music/comedy/acting profiles, Murdoch and his cronies had absolutely no idea what they were doing in the marketplace and so they made astonishing errors in recoding things like mp3 players that did not work for months.
As for Friendster whose relevance does not even compute in the United States, I did make a little profile and connect with an old friend in the Phillipines and a filmmaker I know working in Vietnam, because in Southeast Asia, Friendster is a very popular site.
Flickr I have to admit is quite an engrossing experience to peer into other people's "private" lives as in Picassa for the same reason. I am hesitant to post anything on Picassa based on google's new requirements to give a phone number to recover e-mail accounts which is an obvious information collection service ploy.
Goodreads has the most inoccuous and interesting set up as the worlds largest private library of user rated materials that isn't a private corporation like Amazon.
Thiw is a perfect example of old media executives getting it wrong with new media. when "Tom" sold MySpace to Ruport Murdoch, and Newscorp. he was making a very smart move to leave what he saw as an ever changing marketplace with extremely high maintenance demands. When Newscorp. bought MySpace in 2006 with the idea of profiting from all the entertainers who had music/comedy/acting profiles, Murdoch and his cronies had absolutely no idea what they were doing in the marketplace and so they made astonishing errors in recoding things like mp3 players that did not work for months.
As for Friendster whose relevance does not even compute in the United States, I did make a little profile and connect with an old friend in the Phillipines and a filmmaker I know working in Vietnam, because in Southeast Asia, Friendster is a very popular site.
Flickr I have to admit is quite an engrossing experience to peer into other people's "private" lives as in Picassa for the same reason. I am hesitant to post anything on Picassa based on google's new requirements to give a phone number to recover e-mail accounts which is an obvious information collection service ploy.
Goodreads has the most inoccuous and interesting set up as the worlds largest private library of user rated materials that isn't a private corporation like Amazon.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Blogs Vs. Wikis
Blogs and Wikis have been criticized for having under researched and less than credible content since their beginnings and for good reason. In the internet driven information gathering frenzy that is today's web based research, and living in a world with a 24 hour a day news cycle, no one has the time to check the facts 100% nor do they care to it seems. In comparing blogs and wikis, wikis do to their credit state that the information has not been necessarily checked by any outside source and that citations are necessary to complete the postings. Blogs, on the other hand are generally just independent op-ed pages, advertising tools, or rants to be taken at face value and accepted as a forum for agreeing or disagreeing on information with varying degrees of accuracy, ignorance, pride and prejudice. A great example of an innovation in blogging that captures all three elements would indeed be 'Checkout.com', the Wal-Mart blog written by actual buyers and novice bloggers that has impacted many retail manufactures drastically as described by the New York Times online March 3, 2008. Is it truly reasonable however, to base purchases on the opinions of various consumers with little or no experience with some of the more important and significant features that consumer electronics may have. One example of this would be the elimination of several features on a pro-sumer DV camera, that was impacted directly by the user driven blogging of highly inexperienced camera operators/filmmakers and consequently eliminated the cinematic capacity of said camera for someone like myself who is dependent now on searching out the in some ways inferior predecessor to my current camera. With that, I think that I've ranted enough to have lost any objectivity about the subject matter. If indeed, Panasonic had been using a company wide wiki to discuss strategy planning in developing a new camera based on previous experiences however, these features may well have stayed in the new unit. This is an example of how Jimmy Wales would recommend Panasonic move forward in his interview with Harvard Business Review.org in April, 2008. "Pretty much any sort of knowledge sharing that is enhanced by open, flexible, rapid collaboration, particularly in contexts where people are separated geographically and relationship-building is important. Wikis are great tools for helping people to come to consensus quickly, whether about what to put on a meeting agenda or how best to meet customers’ needs."
Old Media Vs. New
When thinking about old media and the distinguishing characteristics, it is important to look back at the origins of media production and publishing with the inventions of the printing press, typewriter, word processor, as Andrew Savikas does in Forbes.com's Feb. 19, 2009 article "Media: Don't Fear New Technologies". What we see now as "new media" is merely a magnification of these technological innovations due mainly to Moore's Law, a booming economy, and new, less expensive ways to produce content of all sorts, from self publishing books, to streaming video and audio content, to blogs, wikis, and the like. New Media has simply flooded the marketplace with free content that the old media resources were formerly relied on to produce. Despite the lack of editorial support, and well mastered production skills in some cases, new media has flourished due to its low overhead and high demand. Another factor that is often overlooked, is the "democratization of information" that we hear about so often as a supporting argument for free content, is no longer being vetted, edited, and marketed in such a way as to produce reliably researched/sourced, high quality content. As a result, old media sources such as newspapers for example who have been slow to respond to changes in the market landscape have suffered in many cases unrecoverable losses. The New York Times' owners for example have been for years forced to take losses on the paper in order to ensure high quality reporting and editorial content because of trusts established ironically in order to secure the paper's long term survival. New Media's have changed the market so significantly and permanently as to make that type of organizational model obsolete. Looking at video streaming websites, or audio download sites, as a result of rushing to fill demand in the marketplace, no business models for distribution were ever planned or laid out, it all just happened with the consumer driving taste, marketing, and trends. Traditionally, these industries have always controlled their own destiny through manipulating consumer's tastes and ideas about content and innovation. As the authors describe 'Tapping into a world of talent' section of McKinseysQuarterly.com article "Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch", in December, 2007, new media content is more and more being produced and provided by free agents and outsourced talent making the market incredibly competitive without any real means to an end in long term strategy. That's always been a problem with technological improvements in information delivery systems and in the most recent cases has led to piracy, mediocre content, and collapse of many traditional media outlets that have been forced to compete with completely unregulated internet based businesses.
Describe New Media
New Media can be seen as the revolution in mainly internet based technologies that have spawned such mediums as podcasting, video sharing on sites like YouTube, enhanced social networking through such sites as Facebook, online magazines/newspapers such as "The Huffington Post, and data gathering technologies being innovated and implemented by financial service companies as well as on-line research available as pay content through publications like Crain's. We distinguish new and old media in several ways, but the lines are blurred at times as well. New Media tends to be comprised of user/consumer generated highly dynamic amateur content that varies in quality, technique, and level of mastery or spit and polish. Old Media tends to be seen as labor intensive, highly specialized, static in its content and marketing, and sometimes outdated and unresponsive to new market trends as a result. One very interesting example of a new media being co-opted by an old media to form a new product, is bloggers being recruited for penny saver type free publications as described in "Publisher Re-Thinks the Daily" by Claire Cain Miller.
What is New Media?
New Media is the intermingling and cohabitation of existing mediums for artists, journalists, information gatherers, and businesses to create new and innovative platforms for media production. Because of the advent of new technologies, primarily the internet and Web 2.0, new media has an unparalleled audience surpassing even that of television, newspapers, and union/guild associations. People are grouping together organically to create new user content globally in a way that has never been seen. Through the use of streaming video, audio, cheaper cameras, audio interfaces, production, and editing softwares, and access to people's personal preferences from online activity, the marketplace for new media is growing exponentially with no end in sight. New medias would have almost no audience today without quantum leaps in computing technologies and internet adaptations over the last 15 years. The internet allows for musicians, video producers, and businesses to reach a broader audience with almost no overhead whatsoever. In this regard, those people who make associations and partnerships that are mutually beneficial towards marketing and capitalizing on this new content will be the beneficiaries of the new technology revolution. Similarly, those companies already established that use bloggers, social networking, preference gathering technologies, and internet based marketing strategies will grow stronger and continue to thrive within an ever changing and uniquely dynamic era in technological advancements in new media production. Andrew Savikas makes it clear in his article for Forbes.com Magazine "Media: Don't Fear New Technologies", that there are plenty of examples for us to look at as technological innovation driving changes in the organization of industry and profiteers. The old 'New York Times' motto was "don't get it fast, get it right". Unfortunately, in a 24/7 news cycle, that changed to "get it fast and get it right" which has led to among other things, U.S. governmental manipulation of a very trusted news source for propaganda purposes based on uncorroborated information. Savikas gives a simple example in his article.
[T]he system of communication introduced by print was so large, so fast, so powerful, and ultimately such a source of wealth that the defects of the system could be remedied as far as need be. Proofreading was labor-intensive and wasteful in manuscript scriptorium, but quite cost-effective in a print shop; and if the print shop is busy preparing stock prospectuses where tens of millions of dollars are at stake, proofreading of a madly obsessive-compulsive nature is both cheap and sane in view of the possible losses from error.
This is a great example of organic groupings then funneled through a mechanical group to create the best end result as Lopez Pumarejo describes in chapter 1 of "New Media and Business".
[T]he system of communication introduced by print was so large, so fast, so powerful, and ultimately such a source of wealth that the defects of the system could be remedied as far as need be. Proofreading was labor-intensive and wasteful in manuscript scriptorium, but quite cost-effective in a print shop; and if the print shop is busy preparing stock prospectuses where tens of millions of dollars are at stake, proofreading of a madly obsessive-compulsive nature is both cheap and sane in view of the possible losses from error.
This is a great example of organic groupings then funneled through a mechanical group to create the best end result as Lopez Pumarejo describes in chapter 1 of "New Media and Business".
Harvesting Innovation
The difference between old and new medias, is that it used to be common to create news stories, music demos, camera reels, short films, business models, etc. with the express purpose of enlisting experienced operators to help implement the new and innovative ideas into a pre-existing market place with some measure of editorial experience guiding new talent. There of course were pros and cons to that model including thievery/taking advantage of the artist, homogeneity of content as well as lack of innovation, but expertise was the benefit. Don't get me wrong, I don't love corporate America's uniquely fascist brand of crappy/creepy bureaucracy as much as the next guy, and when attempting to reap the benefits of an independent creative person's sweat and labor as referred to in McKinseyQuarterly.com 12/07 as "new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside of corporate boundaries", I think I'm done with that meeting. It's a slippery slope creating new market places without models for generating income for the artist/journalist as we've seen with massive amounts of piracy in entertainment, and undocumented rumor being passed off as news content.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Cult of Mediocrity
This is the opening statement from the site "mashupciti.com" and the link is teaching people how to make a "mashup". How lazy and rationalizing can we become when we have to justify the amateurish and lazy practice in the opening notes of the instructions. This is like a cult that says "you can have your own ideas as long as you agree unconditionally with ours and support our mediocrity". Sad.
Mashups, remixes, subs, and online parodies are new and refreshing online phenomena, but they partake of an ancient tradition: the recycling of old culture to make new. In spite of our romantic cliches about the anguished lone creator, the entire history of cultural production from Aeschylus through Shakespeare to Clueless has shown that all creators stand, as Isaac Newton (and so many others) put it, “on the shoulders of giants.”From Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Videos by Peter Jaszi
Word to the wise... when someone describes art as refreshing, offer them a glass of sparkling punch in the face.
The Cult of the Amateur
I have to wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of Andrew Keen, that the availability of information and technologies as well as the ability to build social networks or groups around amateur industry such as mashup music for example have contributed greatly to declines in technical expertise as well as cultivation of talent. Download sites have not only taken the ability to make a living from the artist through massive copyright infringement and piracy, but the demand for such a mediocre product has poisoned the well and put the audience in charge of the direction that art takes. It's almost as if the music industry has become some kind of crappy choose your own adventure story rather than a theater of expression.
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