Thursday, January 27, 2011
Cybersubculture project
I plan to investigate and compare OkCupid (with a focus on the sub-dating website, CrazyBlindDate) with dating on the more open section on Craigslist. I will be strictly examining the dating components of Craigslist and avoiding the 'hook-up' section.
I don't own a television. I live among a hundred people, and there are probably only 3 televisions in common areas. In one way I am decidedly off the grid. I miss out on certain types of advertisements, especially movie ads. I really don't like to be leashed to a show, and series that necessitate sequential watching don't appeal to me (i.e Lost).
My distaste for attaching myself to media contributes to the reason I dislike transmedia storytelling. I am not dedicated enough to one plot to invest my time. It seems trite and ignorant for me to discuss television shows in a social atmosphere, similar to discussing facebook. I simply don't buy that "viewers get even more out of the experience if they compare notes and share resources than if they try to go it alone" (97). I engage in conversation with the people I saw a movie with, immediately after the showing, but I don't understand the drive to research a movie.
I once got sucked into the hype of Cloverfield, and waited hours in line to be the first to see it. I was supremely disappointed. I don't think that the multimedia experience is meant to provide a greater scope for the movie, and feel that it is intended to serve the purpose of marketing. It is tragic to me as a viewer that "cult has become the normal way of enjoying movies" (100), because I would prefer to enjoy a self-contained masterpiece. I think Casablanca did it better than the Matrix, and as an avid movie consumer I detest sequels. I do not play video games, so yet another aspect of the Matrix movie experience is lost on me as a viewer. Simply, I believe that writers draw out a storyline too far, and in doing so lose some of the quality.
My distaste for attaching myself to media contributes to the reason I dislike transmedia storytelling. I am not dedicated enough to one plot to invest my time. It seems trite and ignorant for me to discuss television shows in a social atmosphere, similar to discussing facebook. I simply don't buy that "viewers get even more out of the experience if they compare notes and share resources than if they try to go it alone" (97). I engage in conversation with the people I saw a movie with, immediately after the showing, but I don't understand the drive to research a movie.
I once got sucked into the hype of Cloverfield, and waited hours in line to be the first to see it. I was supremely disappointed. I don't think that the multimedia experience is meant to provide a greater scope for the movie, and feel that it is intended to serve the purpose of marketing. It is tragic to me as a viewer that "cult has become the normal way of enjoying movies" (100), because I would prefer to enjoy a self-contained masterpiece. I think Casablanca did it better than the Matrix, and as an avid movie consumer I detest sequels. I do not play video games, so yet another aspect of the Matrix movie experience is lost on me as a viewer. Simply, I believe that writers draw out a storyline too far, and in doing so lose some of the quality.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Collective learning and sharing
One of the initial advantages seen from the creation of the internet was the capacity to share information and expand our learning from the input of our peers. What fascinates me about this intent is the strange deviation it has taken, and the priorities people have made for learning everything there is to know about celebrities and television shows. The internet has a vast array of interactive gossip magazines.
Advertising is taking a new approach to creating hype, and talk among consumers is becoming the new frontier for ad placement. The negative side of this new medium is a scrutinizing review audience that can destroy the reputation of a poor product. I imagine that children from the future will not be buying the x-ray specs featured in their favorite comics, and they will probably even be accessing them online.
One issue I take with the reliance on the knowledge we get from sharing is subtle and unexpected. Certain groups dedicate a lot of effort to modifying the wording of Wikipedia articles and book reviews to distort the information presented. Dr. Roberts-Miller proved Neo-Nazis did a lot of re-writing to manipulate information on both aforementioned websites by showing offensive, bigoted texts that had only good reviews on Amazon.com. In Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins he illustrates the innumerable amount of lies on the internet by referring to the show Survivor, he says that a website could "tell you who the winner is right now and you wouldn't know whether to believe me or not" (46).
The most overwhelming advantage I see in the information age is the creation of a scrutinizing audience. Generations are only becoming more aware, and less likely to fall victim to something like a radio performance of "War of the Worlds." On the first day of class my professors emphasize that they do not accept Wikipedia as an accurate source of information, but I wonder what misinformation is leaking into our understanding of a topic when we use it as a first, comprehensive source.
Advertising is taking a new approach to creating hype, and talk among consumers is becoming the new frontier for ad placement. The negative side of this new medium is a scrutinizing review audience that can destroy the reputation of a poor product. I imagine that children from the future will not be buying the x-ray specs featured in their favorite comics, and they will probably even be accessing them online.
One issue I take with the reliance on the knowledge we get from sharing is subtle and unexpected. Certain groups dedicate a lot of effort to modifying the wording of Wikipedia articles and book reviews to distort the information presented. Dr. Roberts-Miller proved Neo-Nazis did a lot of re-writing to manipulate information on both aforementioned websites by showing offensive, bigoted texts that had only good reviews on Amazon.com. In Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins he illustrates the innumerable amount of lies on the internet by referring to the show Survivor, he says that a website could "tell you who the winner is right now and you wouldn't know whether to believe me or not" (46).
The most overwhelming advantage I see in the information age is the creation of a scrutinizing audience. Generations are only becoming more aware, and less likely to fall victim to something like a radio performance of "War of the Worlds." On the first day of class my professors emphasize that they do not accept Wikipedia as an accurate source of information, but I wonder what misinformation is leaking into our understanding of a topic when we use it as a first, comprehensive source.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
My first blog
This post is my first experience with blogging, and it is for a class. I find it somewhat ironic that I will be blogging about the cultural and rhetorical significance of blogs.
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