Taking inspiration

I've been thinking about the things I hate about Powerpoint presentations and I've decided that, although minimalism can be attractive in some contexts, just having a lot of black text on a white background doesn't always help me take in a message.  Too often I find myself being turned off by what a speaker is saying if their presentation fails to show they've really thought about how they are going to convey their message.  This might be an irrational point of view to adopt, and I'm sure I've been guilty of doing this myself in the past, especially when under pressure to produce new content each week...

So, as I had a few spare hours (at least in theory) yesterday, I thought I'd try and spruce up a set of slides I presented to my Level 3 students on a New Media & Society module, taking inspiration from a few User Experience designers I admire from the world of video game design (especially this guy). You can find the results below.  The finished article took me way longer than I thought and I'm not convinced that all the extra effort (ie eye candy) was worth it.  Let me know what you think...

Mac309 viral media and gamification

View more presentations from Rob Jewitt

EDIT: For some strange reason, the embedded slides are showing some of the old template (slides 2 and 3!) instead of the new revised slides.  Click through to Slideshare and only the revised content is there. Weird. I guess this may be a caching issue on the site itself as I replaced the older slides from yesterday with these ones from today.


/Annoyed

"Young turn to piracy to watch pay TV for free"?

In a Guardian article which should be filed under stating the bleeding obvious, it suggested that young people are using the internet to access television content ahead of broadcast.  The article went on to talk about the new Sky Atlantic channel which is looking to position itself as the UK version of HBO, as most of the content is pulled from their archives.

None of this is particularly noteworthy in and of itself, other than a rather bemusing claim that was removed stating that a "fresh wave" of piracy would ensure as people would look to get the channels content (most of the material consists of repeats that have no doubt been pirated or streamed already). Another claim about DVD sales being likely to slump seems to mirror an already established trend.

What was worth drawing attention to was the comment by dj1917 which I've reposted below:

People download television from the interweb, you say? With something you call a "stream" or "torrent"? Further research tells me that films, musical recordings and football matches are also freely available! I must say, Good Sirs, that young people today disgust me! As a gentleman on the cusp of my fourth decade, I was not previously aware of this heinous trend in technological thievery only known of by the young, with their funny haircuts and their eye-pods. I must praise you, Mr. Guardian, for bringing it to my attention. In future editions of your fine organ could you take some time to explain, in terms as if to an audience of elderly simpletons, as otherwise I may not understand, who these "Beatles" are, and what's all this I hear about horseless carriages?

That certainly ticked me.

The cost of free? Not this again.

(image courtesy of Gisela Giardorno, 2006, Flickr, CC)

Over on the Guardian's PDA blog professional songwriter and musician Helienne Lindvall (who previously published for BMG) has written a post in which she seems to find it "ironic" that authors like Cory Doctorow and Chris Anderson charge upwards of $25,000 for professional speaking appearances when they are proponents of "giving away content for free as a business model".  Lindvall points to a number of speakers who seem to be advocates of this approach, such as Seth Godin, Peter Sunde and Gerd Leonhard, who all seem to offer advice on what the music industry needs to do in order to adapt to the digitally distributed economy of bits and bytes.

Somewhat strangely, she bundles the Stanford law professer Lawrence Lessig in with these speakers, despite his interests being more aligned with reforming the punitive restrictions brought about by blanket copyright that prevents material that is no longer commercially viable from entering into the public domain.  After all, he, Hal Alberson and Eric Eldred established the non-profit Creative Commons sets of licences to accommodate this problem.

I've blogged on these topics before (for my MAC309 students) and it's worth watching the short video below if you aren't familiar with the 'free' thesis




I responded to Lindvall's original post highlighting the problem with the "irony" that only she seems to see.  Is it ironic that Doctorow and Anderson charge what Lindvall seems to think are disproportionate fees for live (or video-linked) appearances? No, not really given the arguments put forwards by these writers.

One of the core arguments around the 'free' thesis and its derivatives is that value traditionally associated with content that used to make money in a physical format (ie books, CDs, film, etc) is that content producers have to be more dynamic in how and where they solicit their economic recompense. If that means charging for their expertise and presence then so be it. This also seems to ignore recent data that suggests the creative industries are alive and kicking in Norway and the UK at least.

There seems to be a parallel with the live versus recorded experience with regards to musical performance. It's one of the reasons why the TED conferences are so expensive - if you want to be in the presence of 'celebrity' you pay a premium. Presence is what pays and what people seem to currently value.

Anderson's argument may have its flaws but one thing rings true, the enemy of the creative artist is obscurity. Artists can survive in a digital economy with the right foundations - they need to be able to justify their output is worth paying for and leverage the relationships and opportunities presented by the internet. They need to (re)connect with their fans and give them a reason to buy. This is why you'll find Doctorow making limited edition bespoke editions of his novels that retail at over $300 whilst Amazon bulk sell his hardbacks at a discounted rate (this was one of the themes of his novel, Makers).

Note: I'm not claiming that piracy is a legitimate way for consumers to interact with artists and their content, but I'd be disingenuous to claim that it doesn't take place.   If Doctorow and others can incentivise people to pay for their content in the guise of appearance fees then so be it. They are most likely leveraging the current economic climate and their present celebrity cache to their advantage.

In some respects these speakers are making the new economic conditions work for them.  Several of the commentators on the original blog piece have made the clumsy parallel that these appearance fees are the equivalent to the live music performance.  However, this isn't quite an easy equivalent to make, especially for a band where the fees are spilt.  It might work for solo artists...  It has been suggest that these authors are writing the books with the intention being they will make the real money by touring.

So, is it really that ironic?

[EDIT] It seems like Cory Doctorow has actually responded to the blog post pointing out that he seldom charges for public appearance at all. He does them mostly for, you guessed it, free.

Hands up if you still love vinyl, photos, CD, DVD, etc

Just over a week ago I tweeted a link to an article on www.telegraph.co.uk in which they reported that the majority of Britons are still quite firmly in love with physical media, despite the prevalence of iPods and other digital personal audio solutions.

The majority of Britons are still 'wedded to CDs, DVDs and books' - at http://bit.ly/9Z6Q7Dless than a minute ago via APIrob jewitt
rob_jewitt

The article was drawing on a survey conducted by Hewlett Packard (entitled 'Evolution of Digital Media') - a report I have not been able to track down.  If you find it please link me up as I'm a bit skeptical about the questions asked and they way the results are framed.  The survey of 1000 Brits (aged 16-60) seems to be part of a promotional strategy for HP's most recent media streaming server solution, but it did produce some interesting stats/facts which I'll list below.

86% - people access some form of digital media
95% - people who prefer physical books over ebooks
75% - people who prefer physical media for films (DVD, Blu-ray) over digital files (iTunes)
68% - people who prefer physical printed photographs over digital files
64% - people who prefer physical music (CD, vinyl) over digital files

The report claims people currently attach 'little monetary or emotional value to the digital content that they own' - a problem for digital content producers, but perhaps not one for service providers?  For instance, I think music streaming services like Spotify and We7 are pretty good (but not amazing; they still lack about 70% of what I typically search for) but the music is the driver of the business and the product itself is pretty ephemeral.  It seems people are fond of the tangible, although the survey suggests that this is a generational issue.

The 16-24 and 25-34  year old groups were the most enthusiastic consumers of digital services, but 39% of them are still buying physical media.

73% - people who can't see digital service replacing physical media
71% - people who have never lost their digital library and don't care about backups
27% - people who value their digital files at under £50

It looks like the switch to files may not be quite as dramatic as many people may have thought, although it's dangerous to speculate on the basis of such a small sample (and an opaque methodology copies are available on request from  020 3047 2000 or psguk@edelman.com).  We could argue that CDs are digital and not quite as distinct from other music formats, but let's ignore that slight gripe.

Do you still buy physical media?

MAC309: The cost of 'free'

This week's MAC309 session looked at the ideas presented by Chris Anderson in his recent book, Free. You can find the slides below. We also looked at the various costs attached to free services like webmail and search, such as our attention and our privacy



You can also hear Chris Anderson talking about his ideas here (and even download the podcast as an mp3) and watch a video here:



You can find a critique of Anderson's argument here by Cory Doctorow

Next week we will look at another kind of free, when we consider the ideas of Matt Mason and The Pirates Dilemma

"When is ‘disconnection’ not disconnection? When it is ‘account suspension’, of course."

A day or two ago, the news that campaigners against the Digital Economy Bill (or at the very least, Clause 17) wanted to hear was announced. Or so it would seem. The Guardian technology pages led with somewhat optimistic headline: "Plans to cut off internet connections of illegal filesharers dumped"

Background

First, a little context may be useful. This is drawn on what has commonly been referred to as the "3 strikes" rule, whereby people accused of copyright infringement via the internet will be given three warnings before disconnection (like the unpopular HADOPI law in France, which seems like the inspiration for Clause 17 of the Digital Economy Bill). The role of peer-to-peer technology is central to this argument.

The Guardian story came off the back of a relatively small petition on the Number 1 website which highlighted the problems of the phrasing in the Bill, a point that will be picked up on again later in this post. The petition states:

The use of P2P is neither illegal nor exclusive to copyright theft. Many free software providers use this form of distribution, as does the BBC’s iPlayer. If citizens are innocent until proven guilty, ISP’s would be forced to monitor internet usage to ensure that no copyrighted material is being transferred. This flagrant disregard for privacy is comparable to forcing the Post Office to search through parcels for photocopied documents or mixtape cassettes. Such requirements would place enormous strain on ISP’s whilst failing to prevent the distribution of copyrighted material through hidden IP’s, http or ftp.”

Previous concerns have stated that the Internet is increasingly central to everyday life and that the act of identifying who was actually guilty of using peer-to-peer software to infringe copyright was difficult and ill-conceived, especially in shared households or on public 'cloud' based services. This is a point that is also addressed later in the same petition.

All of this is with the aim of cutting illegal peer-to-peer filesharing by 70% - something the Government, led by Lord Mandleson, is determined to do in order to appease the copyright industries. The Digital Economy Bill proposed a series of 'technical measures' including traffic shaping and disconnection for those the offending IP addresses the copyright industry identifies as being guilty of a crime. The major concern here is, of course, the lack of judicial process or the ability for the accused to defend themselves. The onus will be on the accused to prove they are innocent - people who may not have the technical knowledge or skills required to sift through router logs to be able to prove they were not responsible for the 'crime' they may be accused of.

What's changed (if anything)?

With the context established, let's consider the Number 10 response to the petition which got The Guardian and critics of the Bill excited (if somewhat momentarily):

[T]he Bill provides a reserve power obliging an ISP to apply ‘technical measures’ to a customer’s internet account to restrict or prevent illegal sharing. Technical measures might be a band width restriction, a daily downloading limit or, as a last resort, temporary account suspension. A proper independent appeal would be available against application of technical measures.

The key phrase here is 'temporary account suspension' as opposed to disconnection. It sounds much less punitive and more temporary than permanent. Jim Killock, the Executive Director of non-profit human rights group ORG, was quick to point out to several people via Twitter (myself included) that the phrasing was misleading 'government-speak'. To the Guardian's credit, they updated their news story with reference to Killock and the ORG's blog.

It's worth citing some of the blog post at length:

When is ‘disconnection’ not disconnection? When it is ‘account suspension’, of course.

The government therefore felt justified in a response to a petition on Friday in claiming that they were not intending to ‘disconnect’ families from the net after accusations of copyright infringement. If you think they mean that their internet cabling will still be plugged in at the wall, then that’s true.

If you think they mean that these families will be able to connect to the internet, well, no they won’t. Their connection will be switched off.

Please do not be confused by the government’s semantics. BIS and DCMS decided in the summer that they would not refer to ‘disconnecting’ users, because that sounds harsh and over the top. ‘Temporary account suspension’ sounds much more reasonable.

Language matters. What journalist is going to run a story on ‘temporary account suspension’ (yawn)? This is why the government has chosen these disingenuous terms: it‘s just more spin.

What we still don’t know is how long a family’s internet might be disconnected for.

A month? Three? A year? There is nothing in the Bill or any of the notes that we are aware of that might give us a clue.

‘Temporary account suspensions’ sound like the government would to suspend accounts for a few hours, or at most a day, to fit most people’s idea of ‘temporary’ and ‘suspension’. We doubt ‘suspensions’ would be so brief. We can assume what the government means to you and me is ‘disconnection’.

The issue here is what Killock referred to as 'government speak'. The phrasing of the response by the Number 10 website seems to hint at a compromise when the Open Rights Group suggest this semantic distinction is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. A classic case of New Labour spin.

What is more alarming is that the power to determine the length of the suspension will be granted to the Secretary of State, based on recommendations from Ofcom (something I blogged about late last year). This is highlighted in a subsequent story in the Guardian yesterday when a Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) spokesperson was quoted as saying:

"If government decides to use technical measures the Secretary of State would be required to consider an independent report from Ofcom on whether they should be imposed, and on the most effective and proportionate measures."

Mandelson would then decide the upper limit for a "temporary" suspension – which the DBIS indicated would be at least a few days. Parliament needs to be consulted in order to establish the duration of any suspensions towards the upper limit of the punishment scale. The worrying issue here is laid bare in the article:

"an Order cannot be amended by parliament; it can only be accepted or rejected. Any government with a working majority will be able to get an order passed – and so would be able to implement a "temporary" suspension of indeterminate length without any legislative review."

The Government has all the balls in its court with this one, and on the current form, seem determined to push through their plans despite opposition. Only time will tell if they are able to do so before the General Election is called in May.

Take Action

The ORG are encouraging people concerned by this Bill to take action. If you are encouraged to resist this problematic Bill then write to your MP and write to your local newspaper demanding that they get your local MPs to reveal their support for these proposals. You can find convenient templates over on their wiki page here. Get involved

The Digital Economy Bill, Clause 17

About a week or so ago the Digital Economy Bill made it's second pass through the House of Lords. Lord Lucas has been one of the most vocal critics of the Bill, especially the controversial Clause 17 which gives the First Secretary of State (currently Lord Mandleson) the power to enforce sweeping copyright reforms without public consultation in the face of future technological developments. Briefly, this section of the Bill would grant the government the power to make changes it sees appropriate to help enforce the copyright held by the content industries (eg the music industry). These powers are so broad they can be applied to adapt any future changes in technology without consultation (emphasis needed!). The Bill also proposes to disconnect illegal filesharers from the Internet after three warnings - commonly referred to as the "3 strikes" ruling. If you want a quick overview of how serious this is, check out the video below:



Back in December '09 PC Pro reported on how Lord Lucas expressed some doubts as to whether the Government's plans to disconnect users, claiming that the entertainment industry hadn't done enough to encourage people to pursue legal methods:

"We need to bear in mind that the problems now facing the industry are, to quite a large extent, of their own creation ... The industry has been extremely slow to listen to the demands of its customers, and has had something of an abusive relationship with them, seeking to punish them before thinking of how to serve them better."

"It has taken a decade for the industry to produce sensible alternatives to illegal file-sharing, and the fact that a generation of people have become used to an illegality comes down to the industry’s sluggishness. It is still slow."

He also raised some concerns that the methods being proposed to pinpoint who was actually responsible for downloading illegal content was inaccurate - the harvesting of an IP address doesn't always guarantee that the person responsible for paying the bill is the person engaging in filesharing activity, especially in households where several people have shared access. The same could be said of the hospitality sector in which hoteliers, bars, cafes and conference venues offer free wireless access to patrons.

Educators have complained that the bill also endangers their businesses and internet provision to the general public (via city-wide cloud-based services) is also under threat because of the insistence that organisations providing net access should be liable for the actions of their customers. The British Library with its public Wi-Fi access would be in jeopardy.

In January 2010 Lord Lucas suggested a number of amendments to the Bill including adding a remedy to help prevent false claims from being made against the innocent by giving them legal recourse to pursue counter actions against the accuser. He also tried to add an amendment that would require copyright holders to detail actual damages done by file sharing in their reports to ISPs notifying them of infringement. There were a total of 299 amendments suggested by the House of Lords. Lords Razzall and Clement Jones proposed one amendment (no. 34) to Clause 4 that stands out, mainly due to its evocation of the Human Rights Act:

Compliance with fundamental rights

In drafting or amending any code, laying any statutory instrument, or taking any other action under sections 124A to 124L of the Communications Act 2003 or under section 302A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the Secretary of State must demonstrate before such action is implemented that he has considered whether such action—

• a) is necessary and proportionate to the goal of protecting and enforcing copyright, and
• b) appropriately balances the interest of rights holders and the interests of the public in due process, privacy, freedom of expression and other fundamental human rights guaranteed by inter alia the European Convention of Human Rights and the EC Charter of Rights."

The safety and privacy of the general public must not be disregarded in lieu of the demands of the content industry.

Earlier this month the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights also claimed that sections of the Digital Economy Bill needed clarification. The technical measures and the powers that are to be given to government were not "sufficiently specified". The fear here is that they might result in sweeping powers which restrict the freedom of expression and the privacy of individual users. Andrew Dismore MP and chair of the Commitee stated:

"The concern we have with this Bill is that it lacks detail ... It has been difficult, even in the narrow area we have focussed on, to get a clear picture of the scope and impact of the provisions."

One of the real concerns is with the lack of "due judicial process" to people accused of illicit filesharing. There is a real fear that the burden of proof will lie at the feet of Internet users who may be unable to prove they are innocent as they may not have the knowledge or skills to do so, nor the space to react to accusations accordingly.

Get involved and find out more by clicking the banner below:

MAC309 New Media, The Web, Society - Module Overview

I've just put what I think are the finishing touches to the module guide for the Level 3 module MAC309: New Media, The Web, Society. There may be some cosmetic changes to this guide in the future (everything is subject to change!) but it will be broadly similar to how the following extracts read. In case you are one of the MAC309 students taking the module, I thought you'd appreciate a little preview ahead of next week's sessions. There's also a Facebook study group setup here.

TITLE: MEDIA STUDIES SPECIAL TOPIC
CODE: MAC309
LEVEL: 3
CREDITS: 10
FACULTY: Arts, Design & Media
MODULE BOARD: Media and Cultural Studies
PRE-REQUISITES: MAC201 or MAC202
CO-REQUISITES: MAC301or 302
LEARNING HOURS: 100 hours (the exact nature of which is specified in the module guide).

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
Upon successful completion of this module students will have demonstrated:
Skills:

1. advanced skills in research and the development of an argument;
2. advanced written presentation skills

Knowledge:

1. knowledge and understanding of contemporary media theories relevant to an analysis of a particular topic
2. ability to apply this knowledge and understanding to an analysis of the media and to communicate effectively.

CONTENT SYNOPSIS:
This is variable from year to year. The module aims to develop students’ knowledge of an aspect of the media. It will be based upon theoretical approaches appropriate for final- year work, and will be compatible with staff research expertise.

LEARNING AND TEACHING METHODS:
Teaching will adopt a lecture/seminar approach, in which the former will normally be devoted to the exploration of theoretical issues, and the seminar to detailed analysis of a specific topic in the light of the ideas explored.

ASSESSMENT METHODS:
The module will be assessed by:
End of module essay (2,500 words) (assesses S 1 & 2; K 1 & 2) 100%

Module overview:

Today’s society is a complex one in which a pervasive media culture dominates social life to the point where it is frequently difficult to comprehend the myriad relationships between the media, society and everyday life. The emergence of the web and the Internet adds a further level of complexity to this.

What we see, hear and read is the product of a number of forces (political, economic, cultural, legislative, etc) and they shape or understanding of ourselves, our community, and our world. Currently, our media culture is undergoing a series of transformations - as new forms of entertainment, new venues for political debate, and new models of journalism emerge online, and as the established producers of media struggle to adapt to the various challenges posed by a read/write model of the Web. Cultural practices are changing, as are our understandings of what they might mean.

This module will explore how the cultural landscape has changed in relation to media and information technologies, how broadcast media and traditional publishing are converging with networked computing, and what implications these changes may have for society, politics, and culture more generally. The current era of the Internet ahs been referred to as Web 2.0 – a term which warrants detailed investigation. It will focus on cases drawn from new, information-based media: online news, blogs, Wikipedia, YouTube, mash-ups, social networking applications, peer-to-peer networks, video gaming, virtual communities, etc - but will examine them so as to understand the underlying relationship between media and society.

One key aspect of the module will involve a focus on the ideas put forward by contemporary technologists and business leaders looking to shape the future of new media businesses. Critical debates about the role the Internet plays in society will be considered. Some sessions will look at the architecture of the Internet and the role it plays in facilitating democracy, and what the future of the Internet might look like. Some sessions will consider the emergence of user-generated content and the ease and accessibility of free tools for self-publicising. The persuasive role of online rhetoric and branding will also feature.

Week by week outline

Week 1: Module overview and predicting the future
3rd Feb 2010
This session will provide students with a framework for engaging with the module. It was also introduce students to some of the ways they can engage with the module and its content using online services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious, etc. It will also touch on the role(s) played by technology when describing the future.

Week 2: New Media Monopolies: “What Would Google Do?”
10th Feb 2010
This session will drawn on ideas and themes raised by ideas associated with globalization, in particular how it pertains to global media ownership trends. It will also consider the emergence of the search giant, Google, and attempt to contextualize the shifting balance of power between ‘old’ and ‘new’ media

Week 3: The Network Effect
17th Feb 2010
Networks of data permeate our lives almost invisibly. How this data flows around the global network that is the Web is coming under increasing scrutiny in numerous circles concerned with copyright human rights, cyber warfare and e-commerce. This session will consider current arguments around the regulation of data and the neutrality of the Internet.

Week 4: User Generated Content: “The Cult of the Amateur”?
24th Feb 2010
This week’s session will consider the emergence and roles played by participatory culture and user-generated content (UGC). In particular, the session will focus on the argument put forward by journalist, Andrew Keen, that social media is potentially damaging to cultural activity by virtue of its escalation of the role of amateur to the role of expert.

Week 5: The Cost of Free
3rd Mar 2010
The Web has brought with it many innovations that have transformed how business takes place. This week’s session will look at the impact that “free” information is having by considering examples taken from popular culture including free news, free music, free email, and free software amongst others. It will also consider the arguments of Wired editor, Chris Anderson, that “free” is the price of the future

Week 6: Competing With Piracy: “The Pirate’s Dilemma”
10th Mar 2010
Building on the arguments put forward in previous weeks, this session will consider the impact of peer-to-peer piracy on the cultural industries. It will consider some of the rhetorical and legal strategies advocated by proponents of the various media industries (eg., MPAA, RIAA, IFPI, BPI, BREIN, etc) and it will position them against the backdrop of changes in the practices and habits of media consumers.

Week 7: Tag, You’re It! Playing Games With Digital Photography
17th Mar 2010
With image technology now cheaper and more accessible than ever before we can capture, upload and distribute our photographs globally, within seconds. However new applications and inbuilt GPS allow users to do other interesting things with their camera. This session will review the different roles of photography online, as well as look at the ways that this technology is encouraging various interactions with users and their everyday space.

Week 8: Viral Media: Forward/Retweet/Embed/Share Link
24th Mar 2010
Social media is redundant without the capacity to share material with like-minded people. Many recent success stories like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr take advantage of the capacity to share content in such a way that it spreads rapidly, like a virus. The session will consider the implications of viral media across a number of examples including news, politics, advertising and celebrity culture.

=====SPRING BREAK=====

Week 9: Reliability & Reputation: Who Can You Trust?
21st Apr 2010
The Internet has provided a vast platform for information dissemination. Whereas the modernity brought with it reputations that were often cemented in the authority of powerful institutions, the contemporary era is one in which reputation is contingent. The power of the crowd and peer-based contributions via services like Wikipedia are forcing raising questions about the extent to which trust is managed. This session will attempt to engage with those difficult questions

Week 10: The Cult of Mac
28th Apr 2010
The last decade has seen the Apple brand grow in stature off the back of loyal support from a diehard legion of acolytes often referred to as a cult. This session will consider the success and failings of several Apple marketing campaigns, as well as an exploration of the contribution made by the Apple fanbase to the company’s success.

Week 11: Virtual Sex
5th May 2010
The Internet has enabled a diverse range of sexual activity to flourish online. Using the popular virtual world Second Life as an example, this session will consider the representation of sexual practices and preferences in digital spaces.

Week 12: Concluding Statements: Where Do We Go From Here?
12th May 2010
This session will attempt to tie together the various themes and issues that have been raised on the module. It will consider recent online trends and attempt to contextualise them against the background of shifting policies and regulations that will impact on Internet-users in Britain and Europe. Time will also be allotted for discussion of the imminent assessment task.

Screenings
There will also be a number of screenings scheduled on the module. They will NOT take place every week. The screening dates are as follows:

• 19th Feb 2010
• Us Now (2007, US, Ivo Gormley)
• Watch online: http://watch.usnowfilm.com/

• 5th Mar 2010
• Good Copy, Bad Copy (2007, Denmark, d. Andreas Johnsen)
• Watch online: http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/
  

• 23rd Apr 2010
• The Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999, US, Martyn Burke)
  

• 30th Apr 2010
• Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace (2008, UK, Fergus O’Brien)

Hope that's alright....

Children of the net..

I was recently reading a blog post by Ethan Zuckerman, a research fellow at the Berkmen Centre for Internet and Society, which got me thinking. I normally like what Ethan has to say and I encourage you to check out his site which touches on his thoughts about 'Africa, international development and hacking the media'. In the blog post he talks a conference he attended in which Don Tapscott (co-author) of Wikinomics fame presented.

Essentially, the blog post summarises Tapscott's major argument in the book, something I've touched on in the course of teaching my Cyberculture (MAC281) and New Media & Society (MAC309) modules. I've mentioned him a couple of times on this blog. For those of you unfamiliar with the thrust of the main argument it goes something like this...

Tapscott watched his kids grow up in the 1990s and was amazed by the effortless way in which they used technology. The demographic born between 1977 and 1996 was the first to 'grow up in a digital age ... bathed in bits' (2008: 47), which Tapscott refers to as the Net Generation. This generation is distinct from previous ones due to the myriad ways in which they not only consume media, but scrutinise it, and re-purpose it. In Zuckerman's blog recounting Tapscott's presentation, the latter claims that the kids of this generation are more interested in reading web content rather than reading books (he cites Rhodes scholar, Joe O'Shea, as an example) or watching television.

We might conclude this is a problem, or we might embrace this. “If you spend 24 hours a week being a passive participant, consuming tv – as Baby Boomers did – you get a certain sort of brain.” If you spend those hours searching, researching and building connections, you get a very different brain

I feel Tapscott sets up a bit of a false argument here, which Zuckerman reiterates (nb: I'm not trying to suggest that Zukerman thinks this - he is recounting Tapscott). He claims these are not passive consumers but rather, are driven by a desire 'for choice, convenience, customization and control by designing, producing and distributing products themselves' (ibid: 52). There seems to be a dubious binary set up which equates:

old media vs new media
television vs internet
passivity vs activity

There is a wealth of ethnographic research from European Media/Cultural Studies scholars which disputes such a simplistic understanding of audience engagement - something we cover here on our Media Studies modules (MAC201). Qualitative research in this area paints a varied and complex set of cultural negotiations and competences from, say, a television audience. The work of David Buckingham, David Gauntlett, David Morley, Charlotte Brundson, Ien Ang, Janice Radway, Dorothy Hobson, etc all point to this being the case.

Overall, Tapscott's desire to challenge the assumption that the Internet is making kids dumb by focussing on the ability of young people to forge new connections, engage in distributable editing, scour and research a topic using online tools results in their being an overemphasis being placed on the power of the Internet.

I can see why he wants to embrace the optimism of the Internet especially when online behaviour seems to be coming under attack from neuroscientists like Baroness Susan Greenfield and Gary Small, as well as cultural critics and authors like Andrew Keen and Nicolas Carr (you can watch some footage of Carr below, taken from a forthcoming BBC Digital Revolution project). We can add to this the concerns of educationalists who fear that student use of the Internet is fostering an uncritical and superficial sense of engagement with information.



Implicit in this camp is the assumption that there are some potentially problematic changes occurring - the Internet has encouraged a new form of informational engagement - one which sacrifices depth for sporadic leaps from section to section or site to site. Carr fears we have sacrificed our contemplative approach to thinking. This sounds like the passivity mentioned by Tapscott in relation to TV in another guise.

I'd like to think that is a middle road here, what sociologist John Thompson refers to as an 'interaction mix' - that consumption of media is nebulous and works across platforms. Creating artificial divides between media use is misleading at best. What are we to take from Tapscott's argument: that television is a passive activity or that the reading of books is inferior to Internet-use? What do we take from the opposing camp: that new media habits are potentially changing how we make sense of information? It seems to me that this divide between old and new media is a straw man argument - one sets up the other to create a false argument that serves the best interests of those starting the posturing.

All new media forms will require new literacies - the argument over whether one is better or worse than another is misleading when taken in isolation.

Google's behaviour based advertising and how to avoid it

In the past week Google announced that it was going to make 'ads more interesting' by launching a behavioural advertising programme that will monitor browsing patterns and deliver personalised and tailored adverts to surfers. It sees this as a much better way of making advertising more relevant to consumers, and it will certainly be more advantageous to advertisers in that their messages will hopefully compete for the right eyeballs.

However, not everyone is happy with this. The CDD (Centre for Digital Democracy) raised flags at the partnership between Google and DoubleClick which preceded this current action back in January. The real sticking point is that Google has decided to make this an 'opt-out' rather than an opt-in policy. Some have seen this service as a little intrusive and feel like it encroaches on their anonymity (a somewhat problematic concept given how browsers actually function but never mind), and have been keen to opt out. Follow this link to opt out.

You might want to think of this change of direction as having a little in common with the Phorm debacle that raised it's ugly head about a year ago. Phorm were proposing much the same thing as Google, but they were planning on working at the server side for companies like BT and Virgin Media until public feeling turned a little hostile. This was also initially an opt-out service.

If you would rather not have personalised adverts targeted at you Google has provided a solution - one which is far from ideal. In order to block the service you can download a cookie from Google. Of course, this is less than ideal if you regularly run anti-spyware/malware software which regularly cleans cookies from your browser. You'd have to reinstall the cookie each time you run the software or create a software dependent exception.

If you want to download the cookie then follow this link. It works on all RC versions of Firefox from 1.5+. I'm not sure if it works on the Mozilla Flock browser which is essentially a reskinned Firefox, but I can't see why it wouldn't. Mac user running Mozilla's Camino might want to try the same link. Google have created a version of the browser cookie for Safari users, but they do advise that Safari comes prefigured to block most cookies by default anyway - far from ideal.

Of course, many long term users of browsers like Firefox (this also works for Flock), Camino and Opera can bypass the problems associated with Google's privacy creep by installing Ad Block Plus or using the inbuilt 'content blocker' found in the settings. The use of Adblock has the added advantage of enabling web-pages to render a little quicker and saves battery life on laptops if you regularly visit sites with Flash animation embedded.

This is just another example of Google gathering more and more personal data on its users...

EDIT

I noticed an improved Firefox extension was being discussed in The Register this week. They claim that 'privacy crusader Christopher Soghoian is offering a single Firefox plug-in that maintains your opt-out on 27 separate behavioral ad networks' and that you can get that from here. There are implications to using this plug-in so be sure to read the author's blog.

An era of mass collaboration?

This week's MAC281 Cyberculture lecture raised the subject of 'wikinomics' (Tapscott & Wiliams, 2006; 2008) or crowdsourcing (Howe, 2006; 2008) - the the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. Different people have called it different things. At one point folksonomy - the social tagging of data that helps large groups of people classify material (eg Furl, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, etc) - was pretty popular.

The general claim was that this form of collaborative production is one which will be come to dominate 21st century organisations, and move us away from what Clay Shirky (2008) identifies as the legacy of the 20th century: large scale projects driven by the efforts of the state or by businesses competing in the marketplace. The slides I used in the session are below:

Mac281 Wikinomics And Colloborative Production

View more presentations from Rob Jewitt. (tags: wikinomics collaboration)

Several writers have clamoured to talk about this type of behaviour as having the potential to affect change, often for the better. Businesses can harness the power of the crowd and their collective intelligence in order to innovate; culture will benefit from a democratic sense of inclusiveness whereby everyone who has something to contribute to a topic can do so.

Advantages?

In the area of research and development (R&D), the ability to bring in more ideas from a wider community of interested parties may seem attractive. Many companies still rely on internal R&D departments for innovation, which can become hindered or obscured by the bureaucratic processes of established institutional behaviour. Opening up to new ideas can breathe a lot of life into a company. Indeed, Tapscott & Williams (2008: 97-108) identify a number of examples whereby the creation of 'ideagoras' have had a positive impact on a business's growth.

Take Innocentive for example. Founded in 2001, they connect:

"companies, academic institutions, public sector and non-profit organizations, all hungry for breakthrough innovation, with a global network of more than 160,000 of the world's brightest minds on the world's first Open Innovation Marketplace™"

Using an established network of geographically dispersed 'thinkers; they are able to find innovative solutions to a variety of different problems

This kind of behaviour doesn't have to be restricted to the realm of business. A few weeks ago the BBC carried a story whereby the wisdom of crowds were being tapped to sort out data consisting of images of far off galaxies. The project is part of the Galaxy Zoo 2 project - dubbed 'citizen science' - where amateur astronomers can identify different physical features of heavenly bodies. The spacial recognition project is more effectively undertaken by humans than by computers.

This is not the first time humans have been a better alternative to machines - I recall reading how Charles Arthur blogged about humans being used to defeat anti-spam 'captcha' fields on websites back in 2006. Humans can solve visual tasks like this a lot quicker and more effectively than computers.
Many companies have integrated the open source operating system, Linux, into their business work flows. This has saved them money in the guise of expensive enterprise licences for things like Microsoft Vista, but also has the benefit of a huge collective pool of programmers and developers frequently eager to solve problems.

There are also suggestions that the ability to harness the wisdom of the crowd will bring about an era of mass innovation via information exchange, with a reciprocal pay off for democracy.



Disadvantages?

There may be some perils involved in this type of behaviour. Companies might see the benefits in crowdsourcing and choose to cut their expensive overheads (read: staff) in order to make a greater profit, especially in these economically testing times. Farming ideas or tasks out to the crowd can seem like a cost effective process especially when financial incentives for the crowd may be lower than established methods of getting things done.


Of course, there is a very famous phrase which has become an Internet meme in and of itself: 'Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups'. Theories surrounding public choice suggest that the majority are never as effectively organised as powerful minority interests (eg the RIAA or MPAA versus file-sharers). Some critics of the Web 2.0 revolution such as Andrew Keen are quick to suggest that large scale access to new social tools doesn't always guarantee an enriched cultural domain - how many videos of dogs on skateboards do we need to see?

Whether or not we are living in an era of mass collaboration is contentious. There may well be examples of peer production in many quarters - from the collaborative production of knowledge in the guise of Wikipedia; the creation of products for avatars in virtual worlds like Second Life; the efficient use of empty CPU cycles across distributed computing networks a la folding@home; etc - but to what extent is this truly symptomatic of a sea-change? How inclusive is this 'mass'? Wikipedia may be editable by anyone, but there are indications that a minority of users are regular contributors. This seems to be more like a self-selected hierachy than a 'flat' form of organisation.

In a different context Raymond Williams once claimed, 'There are in fact no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses'. Is there not a similar thing occurring here? Might there be a broader danger in assuming that what appears to be a mass is not already a form of collective intelligence based on a meritocratic principle? There is no doubt that the Internet has enabled for a variety of different voices to find an outlet for expression, but I have some reservations about group-think activity being a 'new' mode of organisation; might it not resemble other forms of collective behaviour? Groups have, on occassion, been swayed to think along conservative lines. I'm thinking here of focus group studies in audience research whereby certain characters and opinions might come to dominate and sway a session.

This may not seem to happen in contexts such as Linux development where code is written on a functional basis, however that doesn't mean that there aren't philosophical questions to be asked about the relative appropriateness of the decision making process which informed the construction of one aspect of software functionality over another. Form and function are not separate from each other and what works for one might not work for another.

File-sharers fight back?

The MAC281 Cyberculture lecture this week dealt mainly with the responses file-sharers have given in relation to years of music industry rhetoric which has sought to label them as criminals. I've included a link to the slides I used in the session below (best viewed in full screen due to small text on screen grabs):

Mac281 The Suits Vs The Scene 2008 9

View more presentations from Rob Jewitt. (tags: mac281 piracy)

One of the issues that tends to get brought up time and again by filesharers is the issue of copyright infringement in a digital age. In the book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything the authors, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams identify a demographic born between 1977 and 1996 as the first to 'grow up in a digital age ... bathed in bits' (2008: 47), which they refer to as the Net Generation or N-Geners. They claim that this generation is distinct from previous ones due to the myriad ways in which they not only consume media, but scrutinise it, and re-purpose it.

Tapscott and Williams go on to suggest that these N-Genres are not passive consumers but rather, are driven by a desire 'for choice, convenience, customization and control by designing, producing and distributing products themselves' (ibid: 52). They go on to highlight the creation of Napster in June 1999 by the then-student Shawn Fanning as an example whereby a young man with an idea was able to create a piece of software to share audio files amongst friends, which then went on to pose a serious threat to the established distribution model for the music industry.

A similar example can be found in the guise of Jesse Jordan who was a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, during 2002. Jordan developed an internal network search engine which enabled anyone on the institutes network to search the public folders hosted on the network, which just so happened to include music files. When the RIAA caught on to this side-effect of the network search tool, they branded Jesse a pirate and demanded he pay them $150,000 per infringement - a total of $15,000,000 (see Lawrence Lessig, 2004 for more details) - money he clearly didn't have.

With some guesses putting the amount of web traffic now taken up by file-sharing as high as 50%, it would seem like these N-Geners are bringing about a philosophical rethink with regards to how we make sense of copyright and intellectual property in a digital age:

The ability to remix media, hack products, or otherwise tamper with consumer culture is their birthright, and they won't let outmoded intellectual property laws stand in their way (Tapscott & Williams, 2008: 52)

The emergence of Web 2.0 platforms and user generated content has further entrenched this type of activity. In a more recent book Lessig (2006: 196) recounts the example of digital creativity in the guide of Anime Music Videos (AMVs) whereby young people spend hours re-editing anime cartoons to perfectly match a piece of music before posting their creations to the Web. One company in particular, Wind-Up Records, didn't see this as an example of creativity but rather, as an example of copyright violation and ordered a take-down. Instead of seizing this as an opportunity to connect with fans or engage with customers they assumed a fairly traditional position.

It is this atypical type of industry reaction which irks the N-Geners and actually stands in the way of creativity and innovation, and helps contribute to a sense of 'net banditry' (Rojeck, 2005) amongst file-sharers. Less than a decade ago the mainstream music industry was dominated by a handful of global players - EMI, SONY/BMG, Universal, Time Warner - who had an established business model which had served them well for many years. Key to this was a firm grip on distribution outlets for their products. Music had to be written, recorded, produced, marketed and physically transported around the world - an expensive business. The creation of services like Napster and zero-cost search tools played a part in transforming that traditional relationship. The advent of digital audio compression techniques (e.g. MP3) also played a substantial part in that process. We shouldn't forget that these developments helped bring about an attitudinal shift.

To paraphrase the recent Creative Freedom Foundation campaign, the distinction between using and copying artefacts in a digital age has become blurred. The movement towards digitisation, rapid search and zero-cost distribution has enabled a remix or 'mash-up' culture that enables people to be creative in new and exciting ways. We need a legal system which reflects that. We need a copyright system which is fit for a digital age We need a legal system that reflects the behaviour of a multitude of people who breach current intellectual property laws on a daily basis.

We don't need what the New Zealand authorities have been proposing recently whereby ISPs will be forced to take down internet connections and websites of anyone accused (nb: not actually convicted) of copyright infringement. Section 92A assumed that people would be guilty upon accusation irrespective of the circumstances. There are all sorts of problems with this law which TorrentFreak cover here. A small reprieve came today when John Key announced that the implementation would be delayed until March 27th.

This might be a temporary reprieve however and more pressure needs to be applied, especially when the lobbying power of the world's copyright holders are in play. They are rich, powerful and organised. What happens in New Zealand could easily happen elsewhere if pressure is not applied. The Irish music industry (as represented by IRMA) has already succeeded in getting one of the biggest Irish ISPs to block access to file-sharing sites and it won't be long before others are forced to follow - this is despite the fact that sites like The Pirate Bay have not been deemed illegal in Ireland. An organisation with deep pockets has pressured an ISP into censoring the Internet on behalf of a commercially driven entity.

What does this tell us about censorship and network neutrality? It tells us we should be worried about the future of digital content.

Net neutrailty doomed in the UK?

I've just been ploughing through the UK's Digital Britain report and I was shocked to read the following from page 22:

The Government has yet to see a case for legislation in favour of net neutrality. In consequence, unless Ofcom find network operators or ISPs to have Significant Market Power and justify intervention on competition grounds, traffic management will not be prevented.

This is a pretty big indicator for the future from Stephen Carter who has a bit of a reputation as being pro-market. It seems to me like he is edging towards a pro-market position when it comes to the delivery and regulation of Internet bandwidth. By suggesting that it is in the best interest of the ISPs to traffic shape data, offering preferable rates to those organisations or customers who can afford to pay more for a guaranteed service, seems to fly in the face of the reports other grand claim in the report: to provide universal connectivity for all.

It seems like a contradiction in terms. Ditch net neutrality in favour of supporting big business and the market place, let the end user (ie us!) make do with a two-tiered, slower service. How does this sit with a universal service for all?  After all, the report only seeks to guarantee a connection speed of 2 Mbps  by 2012.  The current UK average is 3.6 Mbps according to Ofcom.

Welcome back to uni!

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to all our students who have been brave enough to face the inclement weather in Sunderland this week. Public transport links and public carriage ways haven't faired so well under the recent snow storms meaning that many students have been trapped in their beds, sorry, I mean homes! Attendance wasn't great yesterday - notably amongst the staff - so it seems we were all caught a little short. At least Sunderland was warmer than London for once. The capital seemed to grind to a halt due to the odd bit of the white stuff - softies ;-)

I'm running two modules this semester which are focussed around critical readings into new media and the web, plus I've also focussed half of another module around related issues:

• MAC281: Cyberculture
• MAC309: New Media, the Web and Society
• MAC301: Media Studies 2 ('Media & Modernity' strand)
  

I've already posted content on the VLE WebCT Vista for these modules but I just though I'd share a few useful web-based sources that might be useful for students wanting to do a little bit of background reading on their computers whilst they are 'snowed in'. You might find some interesting articles...

• New Media & Society (ATHENS access available to all University of Sunderland students)
• Convergence - the Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (dead tree copies available only!)
• First Monday
• Culture Machine
• Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (pre-Jan 2008)
• Fibreculture
• M/C Journal
• Game Studies

You might also be interested in the recent government green paper by Stephen Gowers: Digital Britain.

Hope you like them... See you next week