the cult of indie – mdia1001 presentation.

mdia1001 slides 

 

“Music can save people, but it can`t in the commercial way it`s being used. It`s just too much. It`s pollution.”

 

 

“Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks. Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don’t let them take you ALIVE.”

 

 

“I’d rather be dead than cool.”

 

Dylan, Vicious, Cobain… all of them began as a part of some kind of underground movement, intent on overturning the status quo and putting something real into the increasingly synthetic world of mass media. Now, almost every person in this room recognizes their face as a celebrity, a symbol of an era that has been pigeon-holed and co-opted into what “popular culture” thinks it should be.

Ever since mass entertainment began to skyrocket in the 1950s and ‘60s, independent musicians like these guys have been locked in a constant struggle against the number one arch-enemy: MAINSTREAM. Major record labels held such sheer power that the independents were invariably lost somewhere in the shadows of the top 40 charts, or otherwise preyed upon by major labels: dooming them to 1% profits and an image dictated by the status quo.

Such is the dilemma that faces underground musicians: without mass media you are nothing but background noise, but with it you become an emblem of whatever the masses construe your values to be. Though the specifics did vary, these guys all had a message that was fundamentally about being real, being individual, and standing up for the outcasts in popular culture.

These days, that message sounds a little tired and overused to the point of satire – we’re keeping it real, man, it’s all about the music – and that seems to the inevitable result of allowing the media to help you voice your cause. This is not to say that these guys weren’t in any way revolutionary, or failed in their attempts to change the way society thought. What it comes down to is the idea of the “sell-out”, the shameless promotion and commercialization of ideas that begun as a grassroots philosophy but ended up as synthetic media nostalgia.

So can there only be two options for artists: to remain fledgling independent acts restricted to small local scenes, or to sell out and go mainstream, forfeiting their values for a major record release?

Maybe in the 70s, but the digital generation is launching yet another offensive against the mainstream: a DIY revolution that is creating huge waves in the previously calm, controlled waters of the record industry. Armed with little more than an internet connection, artists are able to record, upload, share and promote their music online – entirely free, entirely independent. Download GarageBand to record your song, upload it to your Myspace Music page, film your own gigs in your bedroom and upload them to YouTube, and spam thousands of Facebook groups, Twitter followers and music blogsites… bam, an international audience is at your feet. The internet has been dynamite for the indie music scene – but is this the ‘real deal’ that dedicated musos have been fighting for for generations? Or are we in fact facing another dilemma, what Tim Walker at The Independent refers to as “the globalisation of hip”?

The independent “indie” music scene has indeed become synonymous with musical elitism and a cooler-than-thou attitude. The growing indie crowd are developing an identity based on avoiding ‘mainstream’ like the plague, regardless of musical talent. To quote the infallible Urban Dictionary: “Indie kids get off on listening to music that nobody has heard of. (Often times, it is some random crap they found on myspace) If they tell you their favorite band, and you have heard of it, they have failed as an indie kid…. Avoid them, unless you’re ready to be ripped to mental shreds for liking Beyonce.”

But like it or not, a cultural revolution has begun. What the user-generated mediasphere will do for the fate of independent music remains to be seen. Will the internet emancipate true musical talent from the historical suppression of major record labels? Or are we merely allowing some strange form of vertigo to blinker us from what good music really is? Has this allergy to mainstream, cultivated by so many inspiring non-conformists like Dylan and Cobain, actually taken us further from the pursuit of real, unadulterated music? Like Lester Bangs tells young William in Almost Famous, it’s an industry of cool. The times they are a changing… but, be it Britney Spears, Bright Eyes, or your brother’s best rendition of ‘Wonderwall’, there is still music being made, shared and appreciated around the globe.
And according to Jack Kerouac, the only truth is music. (awww.)

 

LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT:

“DIY and Indie: record labels, options, benefits and disadvantages”

 Recording Industry vs. The People (blog) 

Indie Music – Cracked.com

How to be an Indie without Knowing Independent Music
 

FINDING INDEPENDENT MUSIC ONLINE:

The Hype Machine (links to hundreds of music blogs)

Triple J Unearthed 

Myspace Music 

AltSounds: Independent Music Journalism

Drum Media (free publication from most big music retailers)

Whitley at OAF: all is whole.

(8 January, 2009)

The Oxford Art Factory is a haven for the dedicated indie scene. Underground in every sense of the word, the atmosphere is raw, intimate and honest. The simple couches and tall wooden bar stools are permanently decorated with the twenty-something art crowd, absorbing the energy of an eager young band a few metres away in the ‘Art after Dark’ Bar. Through the doorway is the aptly-named Live Art Space: here the stage is elevated out of mere necessity for the crowd, once the music starts there is no distance between audience and performer. This is the kind of venue where you find yourself sinking into that place in the back of your mind where everything is suddenly exactly where it’s meant to be. All this makes for a perfect location for a solo show by Whitley, a 22-year old from Melbourne who’s recent album, The Submarine, has caused ripples throughout the Australian music scene. While a number of songs on The Submarine were recorded with a full band, some in the intimate spaces of bedrooms and bathrooms in the singer’s own home, this tour is just the man and his guitar. The album includes electronic influences and occasionally complex layers of harmonies, so to strip some of the tracks down to almost a capella is an intriguing plan.

Support acts are a delicate thing, but Whitley has managed to pull together an amazing spread. The opening act is Washington, a solo female singer-songwriter with thick-rimmed glasses and a strong voice behind them. Winner of this year’s Triple J Unearthed competition to play Melbourne’s Big Day Out, her melodies are bold and her presence builds and builds throughout the set. The single, Clementine, is well-received by a fair portion of dedicated young fans, with the simple keyboard line and clever lyrics lifting the mood of the small basement, uniting the crowd in anticipation of what treats are to come.

In line with the night’s solo theme, Lisa Mitchell takes the stage: the young girl who some remember from Australian Idol, but prefer to embrace as a home-grown, independent songstress. Her presence is strikingly modest, and it takes about half a song before every young male in the crowd is on his knees for her. Armed with an acoustic guitar and an honest, occasionally eerie vocal style reminiscent of Julia Stone, Mitchell has the crowd under a spell for the entire set… each silently wondering how this pretty little creature survived the clutches of Idol mania to be here at OAF.

Straight from the understated Albury sweetheart, Whitley cracks through the dreamy crowd with his surprising larrikin charisma. A strange contradiction to the emotional depth of his music, between songs he behaves like he’s entertaining mates at the pub, chiding the audience with off-beat jokes and cracks about the footy. But then the finger-picking begins again with rolling guitar melodies, and the laughter dissolves into a breathlessness that irks at every single person in the room. Nobody takes their eyes off him, through the strange push-and-pull that he creates with this apparent schizophrenia. If the atmosphere was raw walking down the stairs, by now it is so natural that the audience are no longer near the noise and rush of Oxford Street, its no longer a Thursday night pushing toward one more weekday to get through. The room is simply taken over by the show: one man and his guitar. This is real Australian independent music in its most honest and satisfying form.

The finale couldn’t be more fitting: an encore request from a kid in the second row, the romantic opener from The Submarine, ‘Cheap Clothes’. Whitley is short of a capo, but the request can’t go unrewarded: within 10 seconds he has a ‘human capo’ at his disposal, plucked from the crowd. Any absurdity is lost on the audience now, everyone is so drunk on the energy and passion that Whitley espouses. The song goes off like a local pub night, somehow everyone knows each other and the guys on stage are old friends. When it’s over, the mood spills out of the Oxford Street basement and fills the rest of the night with the ghosts of strange acoustics and small-town Aussie charm. It is a rare thrill to go to a gig with such consistent talent and real musical spirit… kudos for the indie kids at Oxford Art. 

And, to reminisce through shaky hands and terrible quality camera-phones…

the visual and the verbiage

I have spent the last 20 minutes perusing the websites of the Daily Telegraph, SMH and the Australian. Familiar faces star across the three. From my scanning, I now know that Kylie Labouchardiere’s killer, a heartless and cold-blooded prick, has remained silent over the sweet, smiling girl’s murder. Sonny Bill Williams is back and he wants to say sorry – you can see it in his eyes – he’s still a doggy at heart. Clare Werbeloff is a true bogan legend who’s gone from witness to web star. They just went, chk chk, BOOM.

I am procrastinating. I read the headlines, take in the photo, and move on… occasionally glancing at the clock as it creeps closer to 4pm. This is what these websites are designed for – news.com.au wants me to get sucked in by the pretty pictures and flashy captions. And if, in my procrastination, that’s as far as I’m going to read, then the interplay between the image and the text is crucial to my understanding of these stories.

In her paper, Mary Macken-Horarik (God bless double-barrel last names) calls for more sophisticated analysis of this relation between the verbiage and the visual. She refers specifically to reports on asylum-seekers and the implications of the ‘Children Overboard’ affair. Recognising the increasingly ‘multimodal’ nature of modern news, she studies the ways that text and image create meaning – independently and interdependently.

Macken-Horarik uses 3 categories to analyse representations in news texts. The first is genericisation-specification: whether the main actors are referred to as identifiable individuals or members of generalised groups. In terms of verbiage (definitely word of the week), generalisations are constructed through the use of plural and collective nouns. These tend to symbolically remove the actor from our sheltered little worlds, allowing them to be more easily demonised or dehumanised. The visual can back this up by using an image to typify a certain group, rather than focussing on the individual. Take a look at the NRL stories of late. You’ll most likely find the most damning articles come with a picture of the burly players practising scrums mid-training, with a headline pertaining to “NRL players” or “league boys” as a generic group. Those trying to resuscitate Matthew Johns’ career feature close-up shots of him looking sheepish and sorry, referring to “Matty” like he’s our big brother.

Categorisation is M-H’s next tool: looking at what societal groups the actors are pigeon-holed into. Defining someone in terms of their occupation or role – functionalisation, as van Leeuwen calls it – can help build a perception of that person’s morality and values. I could refer to my dad as a lawyer, a public servant, an amateur cricketer, or simply my dad. Each one carries its own implicit values, according to the audience’s view of these different roles. News images often use ‘cultural categorisation’ to construct these stereotypes -  police uniforms and rugby jerseys carry implicit meanings about the wearer without needing to say a word. However, the interplay between these images and the accompanying verbiage can drastically alter or enhance the meaning of the whole text – so, as Macken-Horarik presses, it’s important to study both in conjunction.

Lastly, M-H looks at role allocation – whether a story’s participants are ‘agents’, doing the doing, or ‘patients’, to whom the doing is being done. What side of the doing line you stand on can change your percieved role dramatically: “representations can reallocate roles, rearrange the social relations between the partipants” (van Leeuwen, cited in Macken-Horarik p11). Reports on sexual assault allegations are a clear example. A woman can be portrayed as a victim or a provocateur, a man can be a monster, a mental case, or a victim himself. Images again play a part in constructing this role – Paris Hilton is always a perfect picture of class and glamour during Fashion Week, but when the DUIs come out she’s suddenly falling out of limos with her skirt up to her waist.

Flicking back to the Daily Telgraph site, I have just found that for some unfathomable reason, poor Kylie Labouchardiere just got replaced by the derriere of George Clooney’s new squeeze. News changes fast in this modern media world. I give in to the urge to rewatch chk chk Clare one last time… wondering what complex analysis will we soon need to apply to stories that utilise video, audio, visual AND my much-loved verbiage?

Kidding, I just want to watch her say OI BRO, you slept with ma cousin aye…

Reference:
Macken-Horarik, M. “The children overboard affair” Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 26.2 (2003) pg 1-16.

Shaving off the stereotypes

To beard or not to beard: it’s all a matter of respect. Beth Dalgleish reports.

“THE male beard communicates an heroic image of the independent, sturdy and resourceful pioneer, ready, willing and able to do manly things.” Psychologist, Robert J. Pellegrini, made this observation in 1973; and in our modern material world, not much has changed. Harry Domanski can certainly vouch for that. The eighteen-year-old Elanora resident has spent the last four years on the receiving end of humanity’s mysterious infatuation with facial hair. His impressive, thick blonde growth has attracted a cult-like following: it’s iconic masculinity achieving a level of respect usually reserved for men far beyond his years.

However, the bravado associated with the beard is startlingly incongruent with the man behind it. A self-confessed introvert, Harry always met flattery with a reserved humility that often bewildered admirers as much as the beard itself. The respect attracted by his impressive exterior was always quickly sidelined by a deeper respect for his down-to-earth personality. Evidently, Harry’s fondest memory of the beard is not one of power or triumph: “It’s a toss-up between putting as many cicada shells in it as we could find, and putting as many pens in it as we could find. (Ending up with 15 pens and a highlighter.)”
Recently, however, friends and fans alike were shocked by Harry’s sudden decision to ditch the infamous beard. He explains the act as a kind of “social experiment… more or less to see if it would make that much of a difference to how people treated and respected me.” It is, undoubtedly, a shallow world: integrity can be measured by the hair on a man’s chin. Having lived with the status of the ‘big man with the beard’ for 4 years, Harry’s moral fibres called out for a change. Admitting he will miss the instant status his beard demanded on first impression, Harry says he disagrees with the “principle vanity” behind it.

“I’m still trialling it to see if people I meet regard me in any different way than they would with the beard. Respect is a very powerful thing, but is easily cheapened when you, yourself are getting it so cheaply… [respect] should be a thing earned, and not judged off the most whimsical of glances.”

So what has been the result of the Domanski social experiment? “With people that know me, even in the slightest… personal interaction and general treatment has remained much the same.. whereas strangers seem to fear me much less. I’m guessing that implies a more approachable person. Seems a little shallow, but it’s all a part of initial perception.”

Pellegrini postulated that, “inside every clean-shaven man there is a beard screaming to be let out”. In Harry’s case, however, it is the man behind the beard that is seeking triumph over the one-dimensional stereotype that confined him. The man of substance is fighting back – but will he hold his own in the material world of goatees and sideburns? Only time will tell…

the science of signs

In 2004, I went to New Caledonia as part of my school’s relatively fruitless attempts to teach me to parlez francais. My friend and I stayed with a couple whose English was roughly as good as our French, which was entertaining, if not occasionally frustrating. (After thinking I’d successfully explained that seafood was the only thing I didn’t eat, we had a vat of fresh prawns for dinner. Score.) However, the greatest instance of misunderstanding we encountered was when I decided to buy a Che Guevara tshirt. One could easily argue against the merit of such a purchase itself - I know it has created a cult of walking oxymorons, but I’m okay with this, I find it kind of personally amusing. (Like this song.)
Anyway.. the tshirt.
Beneath the mass produced screen-print of Korda Diaz’s infamous portrait of Che are the letters KNKY. My friend and I just thought the stall owners were a bit kinky in picking a brand name. Alas! When we showed off our purchases to our homestay couple, they were evidently unimpressed, in rapid, passionate French. After 15 minutes of ‘mais, c’est le Che… er… je ne comprende pas..’ we started to piece together what all the fuss was about. KNKY = not kinky. KNKY = underground protest group advocating the guerilla-style Kanak revolution in New Caledonia: ie. kicking out the white settlers and returning to traditional Melanesian islander way of life. Pretty much, my tshirt represented colossal racial tension and an omniprescent history of violence. I sheepishly placed it in the bottom of my suitcase. Whoops.

So! Where on earth am I going with this long-winded and seemingly irrelevant anecdote??

..Signs.
Not the Mel Gibson alien movie, but Saussure’s linguistic study of semiology: the science of signs and their role in creating meaning in everyday culture. As an example, Saussure would have analysed my tshirt by dividing it into signifier (the physical tshirt with its screen-printed image), signified (the concept evoked by the tshirt) and sign (the combination of the two). Evidently, what it signified by a signifier is heavily dependant on the context of the sign. Worn in my local coffee shop, my tshirt signifies a popular – to the point of obscene overuse – image of an heroic historical figure. Worn in the streets of Noumea, it signifies dedication to a violent racial revolution. These differences are explored in the chapter by Schirato & Yell. They explain that the reading and interpretation of such signs is an ideological process; usually entailing negotiation, disagreement or conflict en route to establishing a certain ‘meaning’.

Saussure believed that meaning is relational, thus it depends upon the way ’signifiers’ are understood in different socio-cultural contexts. He argued that languages, as ’semiotic systems’, are abstract entities to themselves, defined by a methodical set of rules and logics. Russian linguist, Volosinov, disagrees (in true Marxist fashion). Volosinov believed that language is a messy social construct in a state of constant change and renegotiation – rather than Saussure’s idyllic meaning-making machine. The contextual relevance of words as signs means that “there are as many meanings of a word as there are contexts of its usage” (Volosinov 1986, quoted in Schirato & Yell pg 26).

[For example, my friends have adopted the verb, 'fang', and subsequently stretched its meaning to disturbing degrees. Very few care that it's initial meaning referred to the speed of Fangio the F1 driver - because 'fang it' no longer just means put the pedal to the floor. Can you fang me a glass, let's fang a coffee, I'm gonna fang it home... it's even developed a past-tense form, 'fung'. It's terribly bogan and I apologise to anyone who encounters a poor Northern Beaches soul who's been sucked into the craze.]

In terms of the media, the importance of semiotics comes with the construction of ‘politicised meanings’. As the chapter points out, there is an important relationship between a sign – be it a word, an image, a label – and the way that the subject is treated in its surrounding culture. This raises the issue of power: who controls the dominant interpretation of a sign? Of course in our modern world where media seeps from our pores, everything is a construction and everyone is fighting to get their own “real” meanings across. By discrediting and disassociating themselves from any alternatives and ‘naturalising’ the interpretation they present, media producers convince our subconscious minds that they are ‘correct’. Depending on where you are, the dominant reading of a sign might be completely different… KNKY sure ain’t kinky in New Cal.

Reference:
Schirato, T. and Yell, S. “Signs and Meaning.” Communication and Cultural Literacy: An Introduction. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2000, 18-33

all the world’s a stage…

Ladies and gentlemen of the worldwide web.. welcome to the show. It’s wonderful to be here, it’s certainly a thrill.. you’re such a lovely audience, we’d love to take you home with us…

Okayyy so, I’m not the Beatles. But I’m an ordinary member of the contemporary audience, meaning that I hold, by design, an inherent desire to perform and become involved in creation as well as consumption. Which brings me here, to the magical realm of blogs, where I can – to the most minor degree – become a ‘performer’ in the media world by publishing my thoughts. (It’s definitely not because I’m trying to pass a university Arts course.)

This is what Couldry percieves as the major shift that has taken place in audience behaviour in recent years: the line between performers and audiences is becoming increasingly hazy. With the proliferation of new media platforms that utilise digital technologies, audience members are now almost permanently connected to some form of media. This creates a ‘diffused audience’ (Abercrombie and Fitch, wait no. Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998). Rather than a ‘mass audience’ that relies on centralised media institutions, the diffused audience is highly mobile and individualised; and hell-bent on playing an interactive role in their media consumption. Thus, Couldry recommends a rethinking of traditional approaches to audience studies: to look beyond mere reception and response, and focus on the broader ‘media culture’ and the various roles within it. It is no longer enough to know that someone watches ‘So You Think You Can Dance’. It is now a question of whether they watch it live on free-to-air, or on pirate-streamed broadcasts on the internet, or podcasts from Channel 10’s website – downloaded and watched on an iPod on the bus… Audience dispersion requires a re-evaluation of spatial and temporal boundaries.

The changing nature of audiences has also called for a shift in power relations: in a media-drenched society, we have become around-the-clock audiences that absorb media texts almost subconsciously. This constant engagement with media has brought us closer to its production, as we are so familiar with watching performances and observing how they are constructed. The blurry line between producers and consumers poses a challenge to the ’symbolic power’ of media institutions: its ‘capacity to intervene in the course of events, to influence the actions of others and indeed to create events, by means of the production and transmission of symbolic forms’ (Thompson 1995 – quoted in Couldry pg195). Couldry, however, postulates that institutional power may actually have been strengthened, rather than reduced:  the more deeply involved we become with media, the more important it may be to differentiate between ‘media performers’ and mere ‘audience members’.

Reality TV is an obvious example of the ease with which the ordinary person can break the boundary to ‘celebrity’. It is now quite plausible for your obese neighbour to be a well-known persona on the other side of Australia, or for your cousin’s backyard makeover to be the hot topic of conversation in a cafe. Thankyou Biggest Loser and Backyard Blitz. However, even with the rise of audience participation, we still distance ourselves from the ‘extraordinary’ worlds constructed by the media: exemplified by Couldry with the desire to visit TV sets as though they were tourist locations. I’ll admit to getting excited when my local beach makes an occasional appearance on Home and Away. You never know, I could be walking past with a coffee in the background… unknowingly trespassing on the magical pastures of Summer Bay…

Essentially, Couldry urges a re-evaluation of audience studies in adjustment with the new media world: no long a mass construct but a patchwork of individuals engaging with different media on different levels. End transmission… cue the red curtain.

Reference:
Couldry, Nick. “The Extended Audience” from Gillespie, M. (ed) Media Audiences, Open Uni Press, 2005, pg 184-196 & 210-220.

The subtle art of the modern playlister.

“The making of a good compilation is a very subtle art… many do’s and don’ts. First of all, you’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so you’ve gotta coooool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules…”

Nick Hornby, High Fidelity. If you haven’t read it or seen the movie… well, just do it.

Compilation tapes, mix cds, iTunes playlists.. an evolution fuelled by technology’s advances, while remaining rooted in the core human desire for personalisation. The concept of the ‘playlist’ has existed in different forms for decades, expanding its programming capabilities into different media platforms. Playlists are now in the hands of the masses, no longer tied to broadcast schedules and regimented timetables. Rizzo (“look at me I’m Sanda Dee, lousy with virginity…” ahem.) looks at the implications this shift in power has for television, through case studies of Personal Digital Recorders (PDRs), YouTube and the iPod. She explores this through the concept of ‘flow’. No longer restricted to the one-way transmission of content through broadcast media, Deleuze and Guattari perceive flow as the connections between ‘machines’ – bodies, institutions and discourses. Interruptions and breaks in connection are essential for the functionality of any ‘flow’, defined by its own unique combination of connections and processes.

PDRs produce a spatial, rather than temporal, mode of viewing, where channels become places to visit at a time suitable to the individual. They allow users to create personal playlists of the shows they are interested in, effectively giving consumers power which was previously owned by television broadcast schedulers. In this way, viewers are said to behave less like pure ‘viewers’, and more like computer users – actively engaging in the structuring of their entertainment desires. The centrality of broadcast television, tied to the concept of passive consumption, is thus being challenged: viewers can select and organise shows into their own personal channels, to be played at their own convenience – and we can fast-forward through the ads! The “‘bargain’ whereby viewers watch commercials as well as programming” (Matt Carlson, pg111) is suddenly irrelevant. I can record the footy on Friday night, and re-schedule the kickoff to 8:30 so that I can have dinner first. I can fast-forward through the half-time ad-fest and dressing room pep talks, and by the time I’m halfway through the second game… I’ve caught up with live broadcast. Sweetness.

YouTube also breaks with the temporal viewing structure of broadcast television: allowing users to establish their own ‘DIY channel’, fine-tuned to their specific tastes. This exemplifies the shift in audience attitudes, as we now demand media democratisation and ‘co-participation in scheduling, timing, controlling, viewing and engaging with media and entertainment” (pg114). YouTube encourages users to become producers and sharers, creating an online social interface for connecting with others with similar tastes and interests. Unlike passive engagement with broadcast television, YouTube users must actively search, select, download and program their choices in order to create their own ‘flow’.

The iPod, with its codependent iTunes in tow, could be the modern-day compilation tape. However, in saying this, I’d like to make something clear here… I don’t have an iPod. I’ve never had one. I have a slightly lame tendency to become stubbornly non-conformist when it comes to anything with such mass-hype. I am religiously anti-Apple – it’s always going to be the Beatles label in my mind – I am the conformist non-conformist, for sure. I’ve gone through about 5 different mp3 players (I’m also really good at breaking things. And apparently water – from a plastic bottle or the ocean – does not mix with electronics) and in formatting my current one, I use Windows Media Player. So take that iTunes devotees. I am a bit of playlist geek, there’s probably about 50 on my WMP… ranging from “hibernation for the winter” to “songs about alcoholism”, “if i had a cafe..” to merely ”f*** you”. Trust me, its a good way to procrastinate.
Rizzo explains that this interface between iTunes and the iPod (or respective alternatives!) allows the user to create and direct a number of personalised “flows”. What the iPod represents is more than a music playback device. It is mobility, freedom, the chance to dance like a lunatic silouhette against a fluorescent background. Podcasts and online TV can be downloaded and stored, ready to whipped out in any situation. Screaming child next to you on the bus? Extremely boring university lecture? iPod to the rescue: these things can be blocked out and replaced with your own hand-picked library of audio and visual delights. Television, in these situations, is useless. You can’t lug a plasma onto the L90.

Essentially, Rizzo explains that the expanded role of the playlist as a composer of diverse, personal ‘flows’ is challenging the hegemonic, one-way ’flow’ of broadcast television. New technologies and media platforms have responded to audiences’ desire for control and personalisation.
I never have to stay home on a Friday night again. 

Reference:
Rizzo, Teresa. “Programming Your Own Channel: An Archaeology of the Playlist”. In Kenyon, Andrew, Ed. TV Futures: Digitial Television Policy in Australia. Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 2007, p108-134.

Converrrrrgence.

When I hear the word ‘convergence’, I immediately visualise some kind of magnetic force, hauling surrounding objects into some epic gravitational centre. It’s a concept I find is most easily described in sweeping hand gestures involving outstretched arms and the merging and interlocking of fingers. Thankfully, Nightengale has managed to explore the convergence of modern media slightly more comprehensively, in terms of flow of content across constantly changing platforms.

Essentially, Nightengale reveals that the process of digitisation is forcing traditional media to change its fundamental structures through a process described as disintermediation. Although the emergence of new media platforms is threatening the ‘old media’ in terms of audience share and revenue, this is not necessarily resulting in the collapse of traditional structures: but rather their expansion and integration into a wider modern ‘mediascape’. For example, newspapers are branching into the world wide web with online ‘enhancements’: polls and interactive content aimed specifically at Internet audiences. This ‘internetisation‘ of traditional media is met by corresponding ‘mediatisation‘ of cyberspace (Fortunati 2005): where the Internet is adapting itself to the roles of exisiting media and continuously reinventing and expanding their services. Hence, convergence is seen as a process that unifies media (cue interlocking of fingers..) whilst also promoting diversification.

The article explores the way media content is now often treated as though it were a brand, a commercial product. The increasing range of media platforms can be seen as a new marketing opportunity, building on the idea of transmedia storytelling: where content is spread across different media platforms, which create their own ‘franchised’ experience of what is offered by the ’brand’ as a whole package.

Take the example of .. deep breath .. Harry Potter. 
He started as another daggy protagonist in a fantasy series: he lived in the world of the novel, a world which is defined by its unique engagement with readers’ imagination and perception. Then the kid with the scar got famous, he apparated to the world of cinema: again defined by its own unique way of engaging viewers. Some elitist ‘book people’ boycotted the movie, as it meddled with the imaginary nature of the original medium. Some lazy ‘movie people’ watched the film but wouldn’t read the book, because a picture’s worth a thousand words – so a moving picture says it all, right? And of course, some people did both: finding the new medium an enhancement of their experience overall, revelling in the prospect that Daniel Radcliffe just might age handsomely, demanding even more from the series… and suddenly the HP fanatic was born. These people (you’re sure to know at least one) are the reason for ’Mystery at Hogwarts’ Cluedo, HP video games, online Quidditch tournaments, and, perhaps the most blasphemous, Harry Potter fan-fiction.

The diversification of the Hogwarts crew across media platforms is unsurprising – as Nightengale notes, Disney have been doing it for decades. However, the concept of fan-fiction presents an interesting new twist on the idea of ‘transmedia‘. Content is no longer defined by its initial producers; audiences are no longer interested in mere blind consumption. We are becoming activists, we want involvement and agency. In the case of Potterheads, they want an engagement with the story beyond what novels, films and games can provide. Fan-fiction allows them to be the characters, change their relationships, interact with the fictional world they belong to. A product of online communities, forums and blogs, the popularity of this phenomena is a clear example of what Nightengale calls audience activism. Such ‘brands’ of content have the power to build cult-like fan bases, which become their own self-sufficient communities who provide a permanent market platform of their own.

Not all ‘brands’ of content can gain such a huge fanatical audience as Mr Potter. But Nightengale’s article does reveal the potential for multi-platform media to be used in this way, posing drastic changes to our engagement with content. Maybe the Sydney Morning Herald should start taking tips from JK Rowling… who knows, before long we could be voting for alternative endings on Home and Away during the ad breaks, and taking our dates to the YouTube home-page rather than Hoyts..

Reference:
Nightengale, Virginia – “New Media Worlds? Challenges for Convergence.”
In Nightengale and Dwyer, eds. New Media Worlds: Challenges for Convergence. South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press, 2007, p.19-36.

There are ‘theres’ out there..

I read ‘The Doubling of Place’ on the bus home from uni on Monday night. My attention was sporadic – my friend would interrupt with some comment about his day, a song would need skipping on my mp3 player, I’d instinctively raise my eyes to take in the sunset over the Spit bridge. I can’t help it: I’m a part of the generation of multi-taskers. And in terms of ‘doubling place’, I feel that this is essentially the focus of Moores’ analysis: the multi-tasking of place that is facilitated by modern media.

One of the examples Moores uses is an internet chatroom – where participants can create their own idealistic persona within a virtual world, regardless of who they may be in reality. Textual descriptions, images and layouts allow us to create our own personalised ’space’ on the internet, which may bare no resemblance to our physical circumstance. Effectively, we are actively engaged in two places at once.

So what does this mean for our identity, both in reality and in our personal perceptions? Most of us are able to limit our absorption into ‘cyberspace’, drawing a strict line to ensure this world remains a sideshow to our real-life identity. However, there is potential here for a dangerous distortion of perceptions: what if our experience of ‘place’ becomes so abstracted that we can no longer distinguish between ‘theres’? … feeling a little schizophrenic yet?

The ’shrinking’ of global space is positive in many ways, with media technology allowing us to feel socially close to people, places and cultures that are physically distant. Moores’ example of a phone conversation (a private, communicative ‘place’) on a train (a ‘place’ of physical, public reality) leads him to question “why is it.. that people continue to feel the need for corporeal travel?”
In my opinion, the inherent human desire to be physically ‘with’ other humans is fundamental in maintaining our true identities when faced with this ‘doubling of place’. Although we can keep in contact via SMS and Facebook, these pragmatic forms can’t recreate the true nature of face-to-face human interaction. There’s no sharing smiles, no tones of sarcasm or excitement, no thoughtful silences, no lingering eye-contact… the language of reality and of virtual, communicative spaces is vastly different. You don’t break up with someone on the phone, or send a text saying someone close to you has died… and as long as these kinds of essentially human ‘unwritten laws’ exist, the value of “real life” communication can live on.

Beth Dalgleish
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Reference:
Moores, S. – “The Doubling of Place: Electronic Media, Time-Space Arrangements and Social Relationships“
In Couldry, N. and McCarthey, A. (Eds) – “MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age” London: Routledge, 2004, 21-37.

Dailiness-ness

Yesterday I woke up to the FIFA boys complaining about new drug tests. At work I found out the ‘truth’ behind Tom & Katie’s smiles. After dinner I watched the Rafters decide to hang the consequences and keep the baby. Thus is Wednesday in the media life of Beth.

It is Scannell’s belief that this kind of consumption pattern represents the dailiness of broadcast media, as it divides every-day life into mediated structures. This seems to be an inevitable result of life in a media-saturated modern world, and broadcasters have mastered the art: the demographics and behaviour of audiences have been carefully studied, and content appropriately tailored to their appeal. In this way, the media articulates the ‘care-structures’ of the public: the way we respond to issues, people and events in everyday life. According to Scannell, news aims to “routinize eventfulness.. thereby historicizing dailiness” (p160). The scholar’s ability to incorporate the suffixes ‘-ize’ and ‘-ness’ into every word imaginable is a feat in itself. However, I can’t help feeling that Scannell may have over-romanticised the media’s power to shape how we feel and respond to the world around us.

Sport is a good example of a ritualised media event. The Friday-night footy is an unmissable part of the winter season in my family. Here it is the game that dictates the care-structure, whilst the media facilitates my engagement with it: transforming spatial and temporal boundaries to bring it right into my living room. Yet Scannell looks beyond real-life events, analysing the care-structures created by fictional dramas and soap-operas. Temporality is more complex here, as ‘time in the fictional world runs parallel with time in the actual world’ (p157). These shows are designed to be highly relatable representations of the ‘real world’, and Scannell rightly observes that viewers come to ‘know’ fictional characters in the same way we can know people in reality. The way we respond to the goings-on of their world is dictated by our care-structures: developed both from experiences in reality and in other fiction.

So yet again, I’ll bring it back to ‘Underbelly’. (I can’t help that I only tune into 2 programs at the moment!) Gratuitous violence and graphic sex scenes are now the common expectation on Monday night TV. People get obliterated by cricket bats and lose their hands & feet to axes – we barely flinch. Sure, its based on real events, but we know its a fictional construction aiming to shock and entertain.

Then we see the headlines about ‘Real-life Underbelly’ in the streets of Sydney. Gang violence is erupting, bikies are beaten to death in domestic terminals, fathers are shot dead around the corner from their family’s restaurant. …it’s just like on ‘Underbelly’. So how do we respond to this? What do our trusty care-structures conjure within us? News and entertainment are becoming so closely intertwined that sometimes its hard to tell what follows what. Broadcasting may indeed have freed the world and salvaged the true meaningfulness of everyday life. But every superhero knows that great power comes with great responsibility, and the power to shape social perceptions is no exception!

Beth Dalgleish
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Reference:
Scannell, P. “Dailiness” in ‘Radio, Television and Modern Life’
Blackwell, London, 1966, 122-178