*Girls Consuming Music at Home: Gender and the Exchange of Music through New Media –
A. Werner
*TED Talk
Sheryl Sandberg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18uDutylDa4 (sorry, blogger is not letting upload videos or pictures!)
Sheryl Sandberg is one of Facebook’s COO, and even though she’s not talking about women and media, I felt it was relevant for this week’s readings, considering she works in a major media company and made it to the top. What Sandberg is trying to communicate in this talk, is that the barriers that present to women in various aspects of their lives, are not always the fault of men and society, but often a product of their own minds. “Women systematically underestimate their own ability”, she says, and that’s why they let themselves be dominated by man and their success. This kind of behaviour affects them in every aspect of their lives, and media is just one of these. The way media is directed to women is just a response to what women think of themselves and of what they think they need. In Werner’s article, girls let their brothers own and run the best technologies in the house just because they were men and were supposed to know how to use them better; even though sometimes it wasn’t the case. “Women attribute it (their success) to another factors”.Some of these girls actually knew more of media and technology, but let their brothers in charge of it. If the brother couldn’t download music, it was just because he couldn’t find it, and the girl was lucky… not because she had more skills for media technology than him. This not only represents a loss of power, but also a loss of opportunities; “all the girls with brothers in the study were limited in their access to media technology in ways that affected their listening to music”, and that’s only one of the limitations. These girls are missing out on developing skills that may be useful in the future and that may change how the world and media see women.
“Moreover, the girl’s positions within social power dynamics interacted with the media system and music use”.
Media is not to blame for the world’s vision of women. Maybe no one is. Is just an accumulation of dynamics held in their households and within their friends that trains them to be “less” and not to aim so high in every aspect of their lives? Why should media be the exception?
If you relate this to the situation on Gaydar and how gay people relate in different ways in the public sphere and in private websites, you can also conclude that this behavior has nothing to do with them as people, but is the result of decades (or centuries) of gay people being judged and discriminated (like women being pushed over). This discrimination led them to feel more comfortable in a more private atmosphere, where they can feel safe and empowered (even though the whole profile picture issue can lead to discrimination within the website as well, but because of the same reason of safety and empowerment). Media responded to this feeling and provided a all-gay dating website, where they don’t have to expose their true orientation to the rest of the world, just the ones that may be OK with it. Once again, like in women, we see this protective attitude towards themselves, always expecting the worse. The gender issue in media exists because people feel comfortable with it, and are not ready to leave that comfort zone.
From Cyber to Hybrid – Mobile Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces
Adriana de Souza e Silva
An interfaced is not conceived as one, but becomes one when it’s embedded in day-to-day social practices. These are the ones that shape interfaces and reconceptualise them, making them be in constant adaptation to human behaviours. This is why mobile internet is born; internet and social networks have left the computer screens and started to adapt to daily lives, following the people outside and creating a digital-physical interface; a Hybrid Space. For this to happen, mobile pones have become micro-computers in order to serve their user in every aspect of their lives and in both private and public spaces; that means that technologies also have learnt to adapt depending of the cultural and socioeconomic factors as well.
“Hybrid spaces merge the physical and the digital in a social environment created by the mobility of users connected via mobile technology devices.”
One of the most important concerns to date of the digital media is the antisocial nature of it, decreasing the amounts of interactions a person is meant to have while living their lives. The feeling of entering this “digital reality” decreases when using the internet in a social and physical environment, not like computer screens. People are still being dominated by technology, but no longer feel that, because now they are surrounded by people and moving from one place to the other. They stopped conceiving virtual surfaces as a separate interface. Now they include the digital reality in their everyday activities. “Therefor, the borders between digital and physical spaces, which were apparently clear with the fixed Internet, become blurred and no longer clearly distinguishable”… a person can be judged when spending most of his/her day in front of a computer… but when someone tweets 20 times a day, is constantly connected to Facebook, BBM, Whatsapp and a bunch of different blogs that must be read 5 times a day; but still goes outside to do all those things… then it’s socially acceptable.
The most important thing to achieve this “mixed reality” is mobility. That’s one thing that manages to blur the borders between virtual and real. The other important factor (which is born from mobility but has become quite strong by itself) is augmented spaces. The feeling of technology surrounding us makes us feel more comfortable with the fact of always being connected. Mobile technologies become social devices that everyone has access to. This has led to a global and constant connection, which allows people to organize quickly through mobile phones or other platforms, multiplying the number of interactions per person in one minute, therefor making the city grow in terms of activity and productivity - “Socialize with peers who are nearby, sharing the same physical space, even if they are not at eye-contact distance.” – you can be talking to one person while texting someone else and sharing the same social network with someone else.
This change in the way of relating to people, has led to a change in the conception of spaces, which are no longer limited infrastructures, but are conformed by a net of mobile technologies, shaping a new space minute by minute. The sum of this spaces makes the whole city acquires a new meaning, transforming into an unknown environment that is in constant change and where anything might happen.
*On the Urbanism of Locative Media
Malcolm McCullough
“Even if the Internet does connect much of the world instantaneously, the word “cyberspace” now sounds dated.”
A few years ago, most of the online media activity, stayed in the cyberspace where it belonged, but today, all of the information that we upload is constantly being used by others and shaping the way we behave towards others and in our city.
Places have lost their infrastructure as people get more connected through the “cyberspace”. By the act of tagging, sharing, posting, etc.; brands and local businesses need to transcend their places of origin and become more of an interactive service that people should be able to carry with them in order to be remembered and shared. This metamorphosis happens not by appending from others brands and businesses, but by getting more connected with them. The more interfaces a brand is able to penetrate (by posts, tags, tweets, etc.), the more feedback (therefor, income) it is likely to get.
“If you can do anything, anytime, anyplace, then in a sense you are nowhere.”
The amount of information we receive in a limited space of time is immense comparing to our ability to process it. We are continuously bombarded by music, images, updates, etc. When our brain is trying to concentrate in getting something done, we have at least a dozen of distractions (or obligations) at the same time that prevents us from giving our 100% in one single task. By choosing to be connected all the time, we are sharing our time and space with hundreds of other people who demand constant information of our every move. But, as much as we try to fight this, it is this same constant connection that allow us to web searches, event site selection, on-board navigation, in-flight entertainment, environmental forecasting, freight logistics, a corn-maze craze, security lockdowns, flash-mob disobediences, tracking the family dog, etc.; so we are likely to continue making use of it. What used to be cyberspace has now become part of our context, that is our way of engaging with different situations. Without it, we are missing out on things and people around us, because all we have left is our five human senses.
*Example: FOURSQUARE
Foursquare, is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users "check-in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby. Location is based on GPShardware in the mobile device or network location provided by the application. Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes "badges".
Foursquare awards you for visiting the biggest amount of places that you can in seven days. When people go to a coffee shop, or a restaurant, or a supermarket; their main concern is to do their check-in on foursquare to get it on their daily feed, maybe win a badge and let people know that they are there; not at home, and not alone. Foursquare puts pressure on their users to leading a more exciting social life, because everyone knows the places a user visits during the day, and can catalogue those places as cool or uncool. You can leave feedbacks and rate the places you visit, so that other people that uses the social interface have access to the information and decide whether to visit it or not.
If you check-in at a venue where other foursquare users are, the network will let you know, so that you both know that you are there. Sometimes you will know that person and will be glad to see the notification in your mobile’s screen… even though you could see the person if you just lifted your head; sometimes you won’t know who the person is, but still be glad that you have some company.
A few oligopolistic companies control the media business, leaving no room for competition and the development of smaller companies.
In the early days, when journalism was the most important media platform, they were all very opinionated, which made the companies look untrustworthy. Therefor, journalism became non-opinionated, but in a way, it still volleyed between opinion and neutrality, mastering the ability to manipulate information not by giving opinions, but in how they presented “neutral” facts. Apparently, this new way of reporting the news didn’t sell as much as the older one did, so journalism had to become more commercial and audience-focused, in order to compete with the rest of the media businesses in terms of profit. It has become even more difficult with the birth of the Internet. Internet journalism doesn’t have resources or institutional support, so it’s impossible to compete against the media giants. These companies are granted everyday with more rights and support. Governments and big industries seek to have them on their right side because of their huge influence over the people. This is referred as the Global Media System, and it controls cultures and societies all over the world.
The solution to the Global Media System, is to democratise a sector of the media business, so that governments and industries cannot manipulate the information given to us no longer. This would also allow small businesses to compete in the market with actual chances of financial developing.
The Myths of encroaching global media ownership, by Benjamin Compaine
The statement made in the last reading, although very appealing, is based on a series of assumptions with no solid base, which makes me wonder its veracity. In the following text, Benjamin Compaine can seem as a very capitalist personality, but he does provide substantial arguments by the use of examples and references on how there are no such things as Media Giants. There are lots of small media companies that don’t make headlines, but are growing everyday. Books-a-Million, Amazon, etc., were completely unknown a few years ago and now are considered one of this “media giants”. If that's the case, any of the small companies existing today, may be considered evil in a not very distant future.
The immense “growth” reached by the big media industries is only immense when considered by itself. The moment it’s compared to the growth of the media business in general, it’s easy to appreciate how the media business has multiplied, and not only in the same industries, but presents the people with hundreds of new choices.
“Nor should the Internet glibly be written off as a promise unfulfilled (…) today is an analogous in both maturity of content and format as was radio in roughly 1928, or television in about 1952. They evolved mightily in all dimensions and the Internet will as well.”
Internet should follow into the steps of radio and TV, which not only increased in amount, but also became transnational businesses. This is why sometimes we can get the wrong idea about media giants. These are also transnational businesses, and often they change their names from country to country in order to promote their films in a more specific way. They are not opening new companies in different countries, they’re just adapting to the different audience in different societies. This is how a media company should try to make profit. By fulfilling their audience expectations, not by sitting around waiting for someone to “support” them while they produce material nobody wants to read or watch. These companies that act like they know better than their audiences are referred to as “cultural elitists” and, as much as they may know what’s better for the people, it doesn’t always match with what people want. For example, when some European countries used to have a controlled “cultural programming”, most people owned a VCR to watch whatever they felt like.
*The Valorisation of Surveillance: Towards a Political Economy of Facebook
Nicole S. Cohen
Is Facebook the revolution of networking or just a platform for young people to share unlimited information? Maybe is a combination of both. Facebook got networking to a point where information travels so fast, that companies and personalities cannot longer dictate the trends in a generation, but is the people working together and sharing opinions, experiences and anecdotes what influences day-a-day decisions all over the world.
Mark Zuckerberg, describes his invention as “revolutionary”. But for something to be revolutionary, according to Douglas and Guback, it should create “a fundamental change in the structure of the political-economic-social order, and might well involve an up-heaval in the arrangement of classes”. Facebook is just providing the same existing coexistence, but in a more organized way. It’s providing more of the same.
The thoughts, relationships, likes and dislikes of the people that uses Facebook (almost everybody) doesn’t change the people they are, but provides bigger companies and governments a more accurate description of their audience and how to approach them. The market no longer manipulates the audience, but it is forced to re-invent itself according to the tendencies captured on Facebook. “Members add value to commodities via the production of a cultural or affective component of the commodity, which are online social relations.” The transfer of responsibilities from producer to consumer is called crowdsourcing. The content that the consumer uploads to the site is content that Facebook and its partners get without having top ay their employees to produce it. With this content, the sites are able to create massive databases, adding value to the site.
The Commodification of Information: Harnessing Collective Knowledge
But, where is the real money in Facebook? Facebook’s money comes from advertisement. And why is it more efficient than the rest of the social networking websites? Because Facebook creates connections between friends and friends of friends, being able to detect likes and dislikes of a common group and then introduce them the products they’re most likely to buy.
For Facebook to maintain this huge feedback, it has to be constantly re-inventing itself by adapting to its user’s needs and responding to their dislikes. Facebook does changes to the site hoping for people to react in someway (either good or bad) and then providing them with new tools to manage their Facebook Profile. The producers wait for the audience to figure out what’s wrong with the website and only then they change it. “By taking the understanding that all the individuals have and pooling that knowledge together, you get a better set of knowledge” (Mark Zuckerberg).
This could be referred to as exploitation, because Facebook does not pay its user for the labour produced for the company. That’s why when a person gets an account; he or she automatically grants a license for Facebook to use the information for economical purposes.
The Ambiguities of Web 2.0 Work and Its Rewards
Users do get something for generating information for Facebook, and that is the possibility of maintaining friendships and relationships with others no matter the geographical o economical conditions in which they encounter themselves. This information is not produced under some sort of pressure, in which case it could be consider a capitalist and manipulating model, but it comes from people’s own will and desire.
*SOPA AND PIPA
During the day of the 18th of January, one of the largest online protest took place when hundreds of websites manifested their discontent against the laws “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) y “Protect IP Act” (PIPA), which look to punish those who buy pirate content online.
Several internet-related companies, associated in the NetCoalition made their rejection towards the new legislation quite clear, and after three weeks of threatens, they “downloaded” their website’s content, to show the people and the government how would the online world be after SOPA.
Wikipedia was probably the most shocking scenario. The company replaced their English website with this message: Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge: For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.
The website was unavailable for users during 24 hours.
Google created a doodle that only showed in the United States, where they replaced the logo for a black square. The company also gave a link to a page where they informed about the situation and invited the users to sign a petition to the government.
