Remix Project and Reading Response #6

1. For my remix project, I have turned movie posters from some of my favorite films of last year into the now infamous “doge” memes. I chose this combination because I am a big film fan and enjoyed these films endlessly so poking fun at them becomes even funnier than it would otherwise be. I also enjoy the doge memes and see them in a light that many do not. Doge memes feature Shiba Inu dogs with some kind of sassy expression (the most popular of them use the same face from the picture that started this meme series) combined with short and comically incorrect phrases that represent an internal monologue of the dog (or “doge”). While these memes are meant to simplistically satirize the situation they are depicting, another layer that only those with firsthand experience recognize is the personality of the Shiba Inu. As an owner of a Shiba Inu, it did not take me long to realize the breed is known for being strong-willed and cat-like in nature; they will try their best to run their house and are convinced that they should get what they want when they want it. In that way, the doge meme is given a whole new comedic element in the eyes of Shiba Inu owners: the sassiness of the expression and the short incorrectly written internal monologue match the breed’s steadfast personality and thus create a hilariously bratty and blunt depiction of a situation that you almost feel could very well be going on inside your own Shiba Inu daily.

2. Consistent with doge memes, each poster in my project takes the overarching message or point of the film and comically depicts it in the most simplistic light possible. For example, my poster for the film “12 Years a Slave” (titled “12 Years a Doge” in my version) has a quotation mimicking the short excerpts from reviews of films put on posters to entice the viewer that reads “Much injustice… wow.” The “wow” and “much” are common terms in the doge meme series and the message is simply that this movie was about the historically shocking injustice of slavery. Many people were very enthusiastic about the historic relevance of the topic without much critique of the film’s cinematic elements (which in my opinion were flawless regardless), but overwhelming politically-correct response from critics that culminated in an Academy Award win for Best Picture (which is normally not given to such a dark film) is nonetheless comical. Its satirization mostly comes in the sarcastic “wow” of the dog(e).

3. One of the major harms of copyright laws that Lawrence Lessig discusses in chapter 12 of his book “Free Culture” is the element of sharing and the effect it has on constraining innovation in media. Lessig notes that the capturing and sharing of information has always been important to our culture, but that in the new age of technology, digital creation and sharing “will enable a broad range of citizens to use technology and criticize and contribute to culture all around” (Lessig 184). When copyright laws prevent us from being able to create and share content without a steep price, the creating and sharing will inevitably stop or at least become severely impacted. Consequentially, the discussion and contributions to our culture that result from the sharing of content end and we become a much more segmented and less informed society.

4. I participate in “unlawful” use of media in about everyway possible. Some of the more innocent uses come when I post a picture I do not have the rights to on Instagram or Facebook; that has become such common place on social networks that we hardly even notice it. However, I also participate in more outright “unlawful” use of media such as ripping of mp3 files off of YouTube and downloading torrents of movies and television shows. While this is more notably “unlawful,” it is of the same principles as using a photograph you do not own: you are taking the work of an artist without his or her consent (or without compensating them). Despite this, I do not consider myself a criminal in anyway. The new age of media is so sharing-heavy that copyright laws are no longer a possibility in a traditional sense. The internet would not be what it is without sharing of such content, lawfully or not, and as a result, the artists responsible for creating the content would not receive anything near the amount of attention or recognition without it. “Unlawful” use of media is a part of what is helping media evolve with the times and without it, media itself would suffer greatly; what was once “criminal” is now “contribution.”

Reading Response #5

1. Going by Sandra Gaudenzi’s description of interactive documentary, Out My Window encompasses the “fluid, layered and changeable” nature of the medium that leads to a possibly infinite amount of forms through “a dialogue between the user and the possibilities that the interactive documentary system offers” (Gaudenzi 2). Through a series of algorithms, the user can pick and chose their way through the virtual world of Out My Window ensuring each who participates in the interface their own, unique experience of it.

2. The first mode of documentary that Bill Nichols describes in “What Kind of Documentaries Are There?” is the Poetic Mode, which seeks to explore connections of “temporal rhythms and spatial juxtapositions” rather than conventional here-and-now conventions driven by continuity editing (Nichols 102). This mode focuses more on mood and tone of the piece rather than the direct transfer of information to the audience. 

The next mode Nichols discusses is the Expository Mode, which takes historical bits and from them forms an argument and a specific perspective. This mode relies heavily on the spoken word. 

The Observational Mode of documentary throws meditated construction out the window, instead focusing strictly on what happens in front of the camera and nothing more. Through this, we see life at the pace we live it, leaving the viewer to form opinions of the matter at hand simply through their observations. 

The Participatory Mode requires the filmmaker to actually be with and participate in the lives and/or cultures of his subjects in order to gain a first hand understanding of what he is filming. As a result, the viewer is given a feel of what this experience was like for the filmmaker and in turn, they can form their opinion on the matter. 

In the Reflexive Mode of documentary, the viewer is tasked with not simply seeing through the world of the documentary, but seeing the documentary as the constructed piece that it is. This relies on the viewer looking at the events shown as needing interpretation rather than the film itself. Needless to say, reflexive documentaries rely heavily on content. 

Finally, the Performative Mode of documentary highlights the subjective nature of each individual’s understanding of the world and uses it as gateway to general understanding. Actual facts and the imagined are often intertwined in this mode. 

3. Since Nichols descriptions in “What Kind of Documentaries Are There?,” the main changes in the format have largely been those described by Gaudenzi in her description of interactive documentary. The many types of documentary Nichols describes are all what Gaudenzi describes as the linear form and cut of documentary, which though still relevant, now have competition in the form of fluid, interactive documentaries that let the viewer pick-and-choose their experience rather than it being forced upon them in the form of a concrete piece.  

4. Out My Window is very much a representation of the world as we neglect to see it. We become so caught up in our own private lives that we rarely look beyond into the lives of those around us as well as simply what is going on around us. Out My Window lets the viewer explore the world as though they were a fly on the wall in any room or space of their choosing (although with the ability to pick-and-choose what information they take in and experience).

Video Reading Response

Reading Response #4

1. Since the 1980’s, the news media has changed not only its mediums, but also its entire model. For instance, the television news new to the ‘80s that Neil Postman described as “fragmented news…without context, without consequences, without value, and therefore, without essential seriousness” has been replaced by the even more immediate news outlet of the Internet (Postman 100). Now, not only have the traditional professionalism and news values of auditory and visual news been corrupted and condensed, but even the written word has been reduced to barebones in order to keep the ever shortening attention span of the reader. Needless to say, Postman would be endlessly cynical about the current day as he was about his own era; what he recognized about the transformation of television news in his own day was only a very small-scale version of what the Internet brings to the table. Television, he said, consists of fragmented news that “will shortly be followed by a series of commercials that will, in an instant, defuse the import of the news, in fact render it largely banal” (Postman 104). Imagine what he would make of the many ads and distractions that plague the Internet, especially considering the fact that the viewer can simply click away with their attention span.

2. Citizen journalism’s advantages lie mostly in its expansion of journalism as a whole. For example, in the past, journalism relied entirely on a staff of editors deciding what limited number of stories would be brought to the public’s attention. It also relied on the journalists themselves being able to get a hold of certain information and/or media. Now, the public has access to an unlimited amount of stories, all of which they can view from a vast variety of different points of view and angles covered by different people. They also have access to facts and/or photos or other media that citizens affiliated in some way with a story were able to capture that no one else has. There will always be a gap in quality between the two; lots of citizen journalism is poorly written, features enough bull-headed opinion to drive readers away, and is, overall, sloppy in its delivery and because of this, professional journalism will always exist and have a home. It is simply evolving to rely more on give-and-take between the professionals and the general public. As Clay Shirky states in Here Comes Everybody, “the primary distinction between the two groups is gone. What once was a chasm has now become a mere slope” (Shirky 77).

3. While “Journey to the End of the Coal” is not top-level professional journalism in a traditional since, largely because it does not feature eyewitness accounts and quotes from real life people and relies on a fictionally structured maze to hammer home its point, it is on par with the New York Times article “Graft in China Covers Up Toll of Coal Mines” about the same topic in that by engaging the reader in making the decisions to solve the case it presents, “Journey to the End of the Coal” offers a much more interactive inside look at the issue at hand. It is the citizen journalism that Clay Shirky describes in Here Comes Everybody to the New York Times’s professional journalism because it pulls in the lesser attention spans of today’s media consumer more effectively than traditional print media and implants its message just as effectively.

Autoethnography

https://googledrive.com/host/0Bylt4RxgmEpMY3dBdjdJaUhCSkk/

Reading Response #3

1. In “the Watchdog and the Thief,” Nicolas Carr thoroughly discusses Marshall McLuhan, an author who first came into relevance 50 years prior, because McLuhan’s arguments about technology’s effect on the human condition have proved to be true time and again ever since. “When people start debating (as they always do) whether the medium’s effects are good or bad,” Carr writes, the base of their argument is the medium’s larger impact on their lives, just as McLuhan argues is true in his saying: “the medium is the message” (Carr 2). As Carr’s book is about the internet, this argument is ever relevant as the internet is currently taking up a large part of its users’ lives.

2. Sherry Turkle’s “the Flight From Conversation” explicitly argues that the constant connection of internet communication we are becoming accustomed to is destroying the fabric of conversation itself. In real conversation, she argues, we “tend to one another,” or that is, we learn to truly understand one another for more than surface qualities in a slow burning way (Turkle 1). Through things like Facebook or texting, we speed that process up to the bare minimum and thus, eliminate the deep understanding we can gain from real conversation. We become more concerned with keeping people at the perfect distance, “not too close, not too far, just right” as well as perfecting and presenting the self we want to be (Turkle 1). I find this argument to be extremely accurate. For me, it’s as simple as Turkle’s argument about posting statuses on Facebook; if you refrain from posting something on there that you might have come to reveal in a private conversation, then you’ve lost out on connection. 

Carr, meanwhile, focuses on the effect this new media is having on our minds and the way we think in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He argues that the instant gratification of the internet is causing our minds to work in a way almost akin to those with ADHD. He states, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles,” and it is hard to argue with him on that, as I have experienced this as well. As a journalism major, I am constantly surfing the web for stories ideas and writing inspiration in addition to the huge amount of junk I mindlessly scan through in my spare time. Though it is not instantaneous, I too have experienced a slow decreasing in my ability to concentrate. Sitting still and just relaxing has become more difficult; I have a constant urge to take out my phone and surf. Whether or not this is damaging remains to be seen, but the correlation is there, nonetheless. 

3. While the possibilities of Shelley Jackson’s “My Body: a Wunderkammer” are not infinite, they are certainly vast. In this way, Lev Manovich’s variability principle functions in the project. As Manovich defines it, variability means media can exist and be experienced in numerous different versions as a result of coding (Manovich 56). This can be seen in Jackson’s project as through clicking different parts of the body and different hypertext within that, each user can have a different, unique experience of it. Through its hypertext, the reader is able to experience themes of the piece in a more abstract and experimental way. “My Body: a Wunderkammer” certainly can be classified as literature because it features extensive content through writing; it may just be the literature of the future. 

Reading Response #2

1. By “the medium is the message,” Marshall McLuhan means that new technology molds how and how much human interaction takes place. He defines “medium” as any technology as well as “any extension of ourselves” and “message” as the effects that any medium has on human affairs (McLuhan 1).  As a result, the “medium” becomes a transmitter of a “message” only when it in some way, shape or form impacts the way the humans using it live their lives, or as he puts it, “it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action” (2).

2. Jason Rohrer’s “Passage” embodies all of Lev Manovich’s principles of new media in some way. It embodies the principle of “Numerical Representation,” or that “an image or shape can be described using a mathematical function” in that the game itself was undoubtedly created from digital code, as is the case with all new media (Manovich 49). It embodies the principle of “Modularity” in that the game’s media elements, largely shapes and sounds, are “collections of discreet samples (pixels, polygons, voxels, characters, scripts)” (51). It embodies the principle of “Automation” in that the user modifies the media object using templates, or in this case, using simple keys to navigate a created world template. It embodies the principle of “Variability” in that the game can exist in the countless amount of ways that you play it, or as Manovich puts it, new media “can exist in different, potentially infinite, versions” (56). Finally, “Passage” embodies the principle of “Transcoding” in that the game’s structure follows the “computer’s organization of data,” which in part can be found in the accompanying folders of the game’s download which contain numerous graphic and music lists (63).