Humping The (new) Media Landscape

What she said!

Technology is not neutral. We're inside of what we make, and it's inside of us. We're living in a world of connections - and it matters which ones get made and unmade.

-Donna Haraway

The Myth of Viral Media

I just returned from a weekend of convergence culture convening at MIT's Future's of Entertainment Conference. I am still reeling from all the amazing people and potent conversations. Although a relatively small group attends this event, the variety and level of engagement is remarkable. Just sifting through the pile of business cards I collected over the weekend, from experienced thinkers and do-ers, producers and PHDs alike, I am reminded the importance of this very rare, much needed, opportunity for exchange.

The conference started on a pitch perfect note when Henry Jenkins called out the Myth of Viral media, which got a hearty Amen! from those gathered before him. The point is, we know that the injection theory, is just not true. Consumers are not simply impregnated with ideas, people have agency and contexts as well, are dynamic, and especially so in todays media environment. 'Viral' is clearly the wrong metaphor to rely on, if we really want to understand the complicated things that the internet is teaching us about media and how people (have always) connected to each other through it. Avoiding use of the word became an excellent test for all the panelists, keeping everyone on their feet and avoiding falling back on BS industry terminology.

This conscientiousness with language is one of the important aspects of this conference. Having a dialog about the industry that takes place in an academic context forces more specific articulation, guiding the discussion to the real issue by not overly simplifying with some non-dairy whipped topping buzzwords.

Last year, the overall sentiment that moved me the most was a sincere desire we all shared to make (promote, distribute etc.) meaningful experiences for people through entertainment.  The this year I would say, the word empathy struck me as a defining theme. In the closing panel Maurício Mota of New Content (Brazil), created a nice bookend when he so passionately advocated for empathizing with audiences - seems so obvious but is the first the to get lost in the frenzy over new technologies and money making schemes around media.

Entertainment which is attempting to broadcast with generic broad stroke demographic information is no longer working (and I think many would agree, has always sucked.) The key is to remember that an audience is still made up of individuals with varying interests and changing needs from moment to moment.

I'll be posting more specific thoughts from various panels in the next few days. I noticed Mike Arauz is also thinking about audiences and fans in particular and I am sure he'll be posting more from FOE3 as are many others. The official Convergence Culture Consortium blog has lots of conference notes posted, as well.

(image credit - Factoryjoe )

What he said!

Please don't look to me for information because sometimes, I lie!

-Stephen Colbert

Reading: Everything Bad is Good For You

Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.
Stephen Johnson

Johnson's book is an argument against a common assumption that contemporary popular culture makes its consumers dumber over time. He advocates for a new set of standards to assess the value of the popular media culture object based on what types of neurological functions video game or television program is allows it’s audience to exercise rather than the moralistic view of what the content of a storyline teaches. "looking at media as a kind of cognitive workout, not a series of life lessons" (p.14)

Through a formal analysis of the narrative structures of television shows, films and video games he quoting such diverse sources as mathematicians, game theory scholars and screenplay writers. Although he includes a personal narrative and perspective to make it more rateable, Johnson primarily takes a systematic approach to investigating the subject. He culls data from many sciences including specific Sociological studies and citing Neuroscience research into how the brain works. He points to several specific studies on game theory and supports his statements with a variety of texts from the established Media Studies and Cultural Theory cannon.

Johnson coins the term Sleeper Curve for thesis that mass culture is altering the cognitive development of young people in a positive rather than negative manner. Because today's popular cultural objects are more complex in narrative structure and form than that of preceding eras the cognitive skills developed by playing a video game or watching The Simpsons, are as valuable as those developed by reading classic literature or other older forms of popular media. He identifies two forms of intellectual labor which occur when playing modern video games: Probing – essentially learning the scientific method via exploring and poking around to builds knowledge with which to make educated guesses about how something works.  Telescoping –  prioritizing and managing sets of tasks that are nested one within the next, building up complete the larger task at hand. These are important skills in today's world that are quite difficult to teach in a linear way. Similarly, modern TV also develops certain skills set in our brains for example, the prominence of nonlinear narratives and multi-character storylines which require viewers to keep track of many ideas at once and do not allow for neatly packaged conclusions.

Thus:

Audiences expectations are changing and so is the type of media they are consuming. We should not underestimate the "work" that the brain is doing when engaged with these films/tv shows/video games. Being merely a spectator in modern culture is becoming the less dominant experience. What seems passive is actually focus.

Yes, there is a lot of junk out there but in comparison to the junk 20 years ago today's junk ain't so bad and the good stuff now is really quite good.

This book admittedly does not have sufficient data to support its precepts properly in a scientific environment and Johnson hopes that the book will actually inspire more empirical research in this area. Regardless, it is a helpful starting point for thinking about what is unique to today's popular media and how to assess its value in a practical way, for example, to serve as a guide for concerned parents. Ultimately, a well informed and open minded  exploration, I really enjoyed it  - will post more personal thoughts when I have time.

What she said!

I hope I can inspire other people to do things even though they don’t see anybody else doing it.

-Margaret Cho

Attack of Futures of Entertainment aka FOE3

Isn't the 3rd one is always called "attack of" followed by "bride of" and then, I guess, "son of" ???

Whatever you call it, I am looking forward to this year's Future's of Entertainment conference.

This annual event is organized by the MIT comparative media studies and Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture Consortium which brings academics and practitioners together to address some of the most pressing subjects related to  convergence in popular entertainment.

This was by far the most useful and stimulating conferences I attended last year. It was definitely the only one where I was with others engaged as deeply as I am in this area and thus facing similar questions and issues as myself. The panelists and attendees are all immersed in new media entertainment development, production, distribution, marketing and analysis creating a unique environment where critical thinking media makers and pragmatic media theorists converge. In addition, there are only a few panels each day forcing topics to move way beyond buzz words and basics.

This years topics include issues around global distribution, audience engagement, franchiesing, comics, the intersection of academia and industry and more.