Rome Wasn't Built in a Day but a Reputation Can Be

In Worship at the Alter of Convergence Henry Jenkins focus on the changing manner of media circulation.  In the new world, media goes through several different outlets; big media must now interact with the noble amateur to maximize exposure and profits.  He also comments on participatory culture.  Participatory culture is only possible if users make creative changes to already established big media products.  The example Jenkins uses is that of Bert is Evil, which involves a photo-shopped version of Bert from Sesame Street with Osama Bin Laden.  This image was eventually used in a protest and from there the Bert is Evil concept went viral.  Convergence is everywhere but the most prominent example is large broadcasting companies having YouTube channels (NBA & CNN).  This allows persons without televisions to access their content.

A fantastic example of this is the Rome Wasn’t Built in One Day (The Decision Remix) by dj steve porter.  This video chronicles a tumultuous 2010-2011 season for Lebron James.  It features several different press conferences, highlights, and events that encapsulate the narcissism he displayed throughout the season.  It gives the viewer a musical summary of that year for Lebron personally along with the Miami Heat’s “Big Three”.  This video quickly went viral and ESPN actually aired it on SportsCenter.  After airing the video ESPN hired dj steve porter; he now does a “month in review” video every month along with doing special videos for athletes, sporting events and sports commentators like Randy Moss, Skip Bayless and the NFL Draft to name a few.

This is a prime example of convergence.  All of these Lebron James moments were scattered through the year.  Dj steve porter brought them all together to paint a narcissist picture of LBJ.  This video has changed the way people look at Lebron all together.  While Lebron supports upwards of 10 charities and donates the most money in the NBA to charity, dj steve porter’s video demonized him to the point that charitable acts cannot change his image.  Lebron did not make the best public relation decisions in 2010, however it would not have been as condemning without Rome Wasn’t Built in One Day (The Decision Remix).  Also, this is a great example of participatory culture.  Dj steve porter went from a consumer to a producer with this hit.  Also, ESPN now hosts video remix contests among their viewers regularly.

Anonymity: Where Civility Goes to Die

              Sherry Turkle worries about how the technological world we live in is redefining how we experience life and she discusses these issues in her book, Alone Together. One of the most concerning aspects of being tethered to the internet, as she says, is that we experience less face to face communication with other people. Texting, for example, has replaced phone calls for many people – especially teenagers. For the uncomfortable, awkward teenage years, texting is ideal because it can be used as “a place to hide” from social humiliation, a place to think about and revise a thought before it is sent (187). Facebook also creates a place to hide, in a sense, because as Turkle mentions it is all about creating an identity. It is an environment where people can express other versions of themselves that they don’t feel like they can be in the real world. Turkle describes the effects of the network on today’s young people as paradoxical. While it is easier to play with identity, it is harder to leave the past behind. While the network facilitates separation, it also inhibits it because anyone can be reached at any time (169). Children and adults are falling victim to technology’s grasp on sociability. Parents claim not being able to escape work; younger people spend more time texting than talking. Turkle warns that in order to grow, we need to learn how to be disconnected or “untethered”, how to socialize in a way that demands face to face communication.

      A short blog on Word Press by Matt Hames delves into the problem of anonymity vs. identity on the internet. In simple terms, he argues that people are more likely to be socially unacceptable or uncivil when they are posting on sites such as 4chan or YouTube, where anonymity is an option. He claims that “when there is no cost to someone’s profile, there is no requirement to be civil.” On the other hand, places that require an identity, such as Facebook, forces users to be more socially responsible. Hames states that “sharing with people [he knows] creates social currency.” There is a direct purpose or goal: being liked, increasing sociability.

                Turkle mentions that “the internet is forever” (169). Hames also reminds his readers that any lack of civility that is next to a person’s name is just a Google search away. This being true, having a true identity on the internet will inhibit people from displaying or saying anything that will make them less popular or socially acceptable. Being anonymous on the internet gives people a sense of power. It makes them feel like they have no rules or limits to what they can say or do because there will be no social repercussions. If anonymity were an option on every site, civility would be dead. It only brings us further and further away from the face to face connections we need in order to untether ourselves from technology.

A Disconnect of the Law and Ethics in Estonia

Copyright and piracy debates rage this week in the small Baltic country of Estonia.  In the article, Estonia calls BSA's IP enforcement report a 'modern protection racket', writer Cyrus Farivar reports on the tense relations between the Estonia, its users, and BSA and the International Intellectual Property Alliance.  According to Farivar, the BSA and International Intellectual Property Alliance listed Estonia as a “special mention” in its annual report released in February.  In a country where illegal software downloading is a widespread occurrence amongst its 1.3 million citizens, the BSA decries what it describes as lax Copyright enforcement in the country.  In their report, the BSA complains that criminal enforcement of IP laws was too weak: “(1) it is a low priority of the government; (2) [there] is a lack of resources; and (3) [there is] a lack of proper training of and competency by law enforcement authorities.” On the other hand, Elver Loho—the deputy head of nonprofit Estonian Internet Community—claims that the strict IP enforcement desired by BSA, “is a modern protection racket.”  He claims that many Estonians turn to piracy since many licensed and copyrighted material cannot be acquired through any legal means.  Citing the countries small size and excessive copyright protection, Loho says that service providers are hindered from successfully negotiating for licenses that include Estonia.
         
 The debate surrounding internet piracy and copyright protection is a widespread and complicated issue, but the unfortunate situation in Estonia described in Farivar’s article brings to mind some specific cases from the chapter “Piracy,” from Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture.  In this chapter, Lessig delves into the idea of internet piracy, what its roots are and what exactly we mean when we say it.  In an attempt to be more precise, Lessig divides the umbrella term of “piracy” into several different categories.  In category A, “are [people] who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing content.” In category B, “are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing it.” In category C, “are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content that is no longer sold.” Finally in category D, “are many who use sharing networks to get access to content that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away.”  The interesting part is the situation of the Estonian users does not comfortably fit into any of these categories.  The closest approximation that one could fit the alleged pirates of Estonian into would be category C.  While the material that they are trying to access is still being sold, content is not legally accessible.  According to Lessig and the law, only type D is actually legal.  On the other hand, Lessig states that only type A pirates are clearly unethical.  It is easy to see that we find ourselves in a similar situating in Estonia.  By the letter of the law, the citizens are committing an illegal act.  Unfortunately considering their situation, these same users have nowhere legal to go to get the content they desire, and thus prosecuting them and enacting stricter IP enforcement is clearly unethical.  Although Lessig offers no definite solutions to the disconnect between law and ethic such as these, it seems pretty clear that more restriction and enforcement of copyright laws is not the human direction to take for the small country of Estonia.

iPhone Connection Craziness

In her book Alone Together and in the chapter titled “growing up tethered,” author Sherry Turkle talks about the changes that the connected world has brought about.  The title “growing up tethered” refers to the pervasiveness of this new technology in everyone’s lives, especially young people, and how it is reshaping interactions and the way people function in society.  One of the main focuses of this chapter is the effects of the ubiquity of smart phones and texting, which is providing a new way for people to interact and is in some cases, taking over the way these people interact.  She talks about how young people who are growing up with these fantastic new devices in their hands are becoming inseparably attached—or tethered—to their phones, shrinking away from the thought of a life without constant connection.  These cell phones have become their worlds, as they send tens to hundreds of texts a day to friends and family, immediately sending off any thought or idea in a whirl of clicks and Bytes.  Many can no longer divorce the idea of themselves from the idea of them with their phone.  Use of cell phones has become almost an addiction, where messages and updates are being check in every conceivable location, from the dinner table to the car.

In the Huffington Post opinion article Call Me Crazy: Crazy for My iPhone by Melinda Wetzel, Wetzel admits to the exact same craze that Turkle describes.  Announcing that initially, Wetzel herself was a skeptic of the phone—or in this case smartphone—craze, she has since admitted to becoming a fanatic.  Claiming to once have secretly laughed at those “people who routinely careen into oak trees and ill-fated produce towers while attempting to walk and text at the same time,” she now checks her  messages and updates religiously.  This situation is a common one for Wetzel: “ In the dark of predawn, I abandon the warmth of my bed and stumble across the room, drawn to the soft glow of my beloved phone -- a moth to flame.”  Drawn in by the news and inane Twitter updates, she describes how, “patently delirious I was when I first discovered Instagram.”  She knows that it is a “crippling obsession” but does not see herself stopping any time soon.

Melinda Wetzel displays nearly identical behavior to that of the young adults that Turkle interviews for her book.  Constantly checking updates, finishing her sentences, playing word games all cross the divide from Turkle’s subjects to this suburban mom.  The near perfect mirror between Turkle’s studies and Wetzel’s own actions show that Turkle’s findings have done nothing to change as time progressed, and if anything have spread to more and more people.

Losing the Leash and Embracing the Tether - By Greta Dohl

In the chapter "Growing up Tethered" from her book Alone Together, Sherry Turkle discusses how tied, and even dependent, teenagers are on their favorite technological device - their cellphone. Under the heading "Degrees of Separation", Turkle discusses the contract parents pair with the 'gift' of a phone to teens; "the gift typically comes with a contract: children are expected to answer their parent's calls." It is a way for the parents to maintain some control while setting their kids loose in the big-wide-world. But, this is not always followed by teens. In fact, some teens ignoring the contract (not answering their parents calls) is seen as a way to show independence.

In "Teens rule mobile Web, parents play catch-up", Katie Humphrey looks at a different aspect of the cellphone, more specifically smartphone, invasion - privacy. Humphrey outlines how parents are struggling to find a balance to both keep their teens connected (to them and the outside world) but also keep a leash on their time and where teens are going on the internet. For teens the smartphone is a catch-all for all their tech needs. Using their smartphone a teen "texts, talks, posts to Instagram and Facebook, plays word games, even tracks practical stuff like schedules." But for parents it is a screen they can't see and time they can't monitor and that makes them uncomfortable. “It can be a great tool and it can also be a really scary thing for a parent,” Postuma said. “We are learning and figuring this out as we go.” Postuma is a parent who recognizes the usefulness and practical application but struggles to fit it into her parenting schema.

The article shows another aspect of the parent-teen phone contract that is still in the draft stage. While the answering aspect from Turkle most likely still stands, parents are struggling how to incorporate this next issue into their contract. Will parents let go of the leash and learn to embrace the tether? Moving forward, parents and teens alike will be watching, waiting and negotiating to see how this new element gets inked in the contract. 

Maintaining Virtual Communities Through Diversity

               In Daily Life in Cyberspace, Howard Rheingold discusses his own personal experiences relating to the growth and success of the WELL virtual community.  In this text, Rheingold emphasizes that WELL is an extremely diverse community, giving the reader examples of assorted users’ biographies, ranging from college students to writers to military captains.  While he acknowledges that a divergent community is inherently prone to conflict, Rheingold also makes a strong case for the value of diversity in terms of gift economies.  With a varied group of individuals comes a greater assortment of knowledge, and the reciprocity of knowledge presentation in a virtual community can lead to both the expansion of one’s personal knowledge base and the development of trusting, altruistic relationships with other users.   I definitely believe that the exchange of information among users strongly contributes to the “simple, corny, all-powerful love” that, according to Rheingold, is what allows a diverse virtual community to survive.

                I have had the good fortune to experience the benefits of diverse online communities in a variety of locations throughout my youth, but the thing has stuck with me the most is my time spent on Zetapets.  In middle school, I joined this small virtual pet website as a means of communicating online with my younger cousin, and I soon became acquainted with a diverse assortment of users, among them a grandmother raising her special needs grandson, a middle-aged gay rights activist, a talented cartoon artist the same age as I was, and a 10-year-old looking for a safe place to talk about friend trouble.  Before long, I was an active participant in their forum conversations, offering advice on topics that I felt knowledgeable about.  I found myself giving training tips to a user with a new puppy, critiquing photographs taken by other budding artists, and eventually even contributing some of my artwork to the site itself.  When I was in need of advice, I would simply post about my issue, and another user would quickly appear to offer their thoughts and support.  Because I had offered my knowledge to members of the community in the past, these same community members were more than happy to help me with minor health issues, coding problems, and other gaps in my own knowledge base.   Over time, this led to the development of trusting, strong relationships between Zetapets users.

                While WELL and Zetapets are obviously quite different in terms of surface goals, I quickly found that the Zetapets community was much more concerned with the exchange of ideas and information than with the virtual pet aspect of the site.  I can easily relate to Rheingold’s experience of getting to know individual users on a deeply personal level, as I have continued to keep in touch with these individuals to this day; several of us communicate regularly on more recent sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.  Much like the users Rheingold encountered on WELL, we continue to offer our varied knowledge to each other, and we continue to receive the knowledge that we’re lacking in return for the help we give others.  I definitely agree that this diversity can cause conflict, and Zetapets has certainly had forum arguments much like any other diverse online community, but ultimately there is a strong sense of trust and respect among users that always leads to a resolution.  At one point, the site had to be shut down due to issues with the owners, and even despite this, the members of the community found each other through a different site and came together to rebuild our site under a different name.  I see my experience with Zetapets as strong support for Rheingold’s assertions.  In order for a diverse virtual community to succeed, information must be exchanged, relationships must be built, and the users involved must have a strong belief in maintaining their community, even in the face of conflict.

Amateur culture is bad?

   

   As the Internet spread, a lot of media content and sites have been invented and they have made our life more convenient. One of them is Wikipedia, “the collaboratively created encyclopedia”(Shirky, 109). In Wikipedia, everyone has the right to edit pages equally. However, Keen criticizes Wikipedia in the cult of the amateur. This is because people who edit pages of Wikipedia are all amateurs. According to Keen, an amateur is a hobbyist (36), not an expert. In other words, he wants to say that Wikipedia’s editors don’t have enough knowledge to talk about technical knowledge. That is why he insists that Wikipedia lacks trust. In addition, he argues that only professionals, for example lawyers and musicians, have the right to make and state something, because they are educated (63). He even says that cultures and content made by amateurs threatens the world and are worthless (60).

   However, do amateurs really threaten the world of culture and is the content made by amateurs as worthless as Keen says? I don’t think so. I would like to take up an example, VOCALOID. In How Virtual Pop Star Hatsune Miku Blew Up in Japan, a lot of people are addicted to Hatsune Miku and hold live concerts even though she is a virtual character. Her songs are made using VOCALOID by amateurs. If people have VOCALOID, anyone can make a song. VOCALOID is really famous and has become a sort of music culture in Japan. Some people who make popular songs are known as “VOCALO P” (P means producer) and make a living by making VOCALOID songs.

   There are a lot of songs using VOCALOID that have spread through YouTube and other video hosting services. Therefore, I think VOCALOID has been established as a new culture and doesn’t threaten existing cultures. Furthermore, as you can see many people are addicted to VOCALOID, we cannot say it is a worthless culture. That is why I disagree with Keen’s opinion. I think the culture made by amateurs has a same value as other cultures.

Trouble with Twitter - by Greta Dohl

In the chapter Trouble Brewing in Cyberspace, Sternberg names spamming as one of the "triad of troublesome online behavior" (80). Most anyone who has spent time online has at some point experienced spam, it's like an annoying pest that won't go away and leave you in peace. Sternberg demonstrates that this has been an issue online since the beginning - giving examples of issues with advertising on inappropriate subsections of Usernet. Additionally, Sternberg also talks about how controlling spam has been dealt with outside the wires and virtual spaces. While user of the new web were trying to discover how to handle the issues of spamming years ago, today it proves to still be an issue that has emerged in the realm of social media.

Forbes recently published an article "Twitter's growing spam problem", in which journalist Tristan Louis looks at the issue of spamming via fake twitter accounts. Louis looks at the numbers reported by Twitter as to their user base, but he also analysis his own numbers on what kinda of users those really are. He focuses on the top 25 followed users (including accounts like Lady Gaga, Barack Obama and The Ellen Show). Using sites like Fake Follower Check, he finds that possibly 42.44% of the users following such big names are fake and that in the general user base of Twitter possibly 31.83% of accounts are fake. Louis believes this to be an issue because it is messing with the reliability and credibility of the audience and Twitter seems to be doing little to nothing to fix it; "But as it keeps delaying dealing with the issue, the problem will become larger and more ingrained, making it more difficult to deal with further down the line...Social spam, as it already exists on Twitter, will continue to grow and unless the company addresses the problem quickly, it may be the one thing that sinks it." With follower buying becoming increasingly common and important, 'user spamming' may prove to be a make-or-break scenario.

While the type of spamming has evolved from the instances demonstrated in Sternberg's chapter, it is still an instance where an online community and the more general public are struggling to find a way to handle an emerging issue. Both are taking advantage of an captive audience. In the cases Sternberg presents, the online community we looking for ways to mediate the issue and the large companies were seeking outside legal action. It seems the twin issues on Twitter are similarly searching for a solution. So, those of us who still wish to brave the web, will have to deal a little longer with swatting at that all-too-familiar pest.

--Greta Dohl, Digital Cultures with Professor Bakioglu, 4/7/13