Showing papers in "Convergence in 2008"
TL;DR: An introduction to crowdsourcing is provided, both its theoretical grounding and exemplar cases, taking care to distinguish crowdsourcing from open source production.
Abstract: Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem-solving and production model that has emerged in recent years. Notable examples of the model include Threadless, iStockphoto, InnoCentive, the Goldcorp Challenge, and user-generated advertising contests. This article provides an introduction to crowdsourcing, both its theoretical grounding and exemplar cases, taking care to distinguish crowdsourcing from open source production. This article also explores the possibilities for the model, its potential to exploit a crowd of innovators, and its potential for use beyond forprofit sectors. Finally, this article proposes an agenda for research into crowdsourcing.
2,019 citations
TL;DR: This essay examines the privacy concerns voiced following the September 2006 launch of the `News Feeds' feature and concludes that the `privacy trainwreck' that people experienced was the cost of social convergence.
Abstract: Not all Facebook users appreciated the September 2006 launch of the `News Feeds' feature. Concerned about privacy implications, thousands of users vocalized their discontent through the site itself, forcing the company to implement privacy tools. This essay examines the privacy concerns voiced following these events. Because the data made easily visible were already accessible with effort, what disturbed people was primarily the sense of exposure and invasion. In essence, the `privacy trainwreck' that people experienced was the cost of social convergence.
464 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors demonstrate how the notion of "phatic communion" has become an increasingly significant part of digital media culture alongside the rise of online networking practices, arguing that the social contexts of individualization and network sociality, alongside the technological developments associated with pervasive communication and connected presence, has led to an online media culture increasingly dominated by phatic communications.
Abstract: This article will demonstrate how the notion of 'phatic communion' has become an increasingly significant part of digital media culture alongside the rise of online networking practices. Through a consideration of the new media objects of blogs, social networking profiles and microblogs, along with their associated practices, I will argue, that the social contexts of 'individualization' and 'network sociality', alongside the technological developments associated with pervasive communication and 'connected presence' has led to an online media culture increasingly dominated by phatic communications. That is, communications which have purely social (networking) and not informational or dialogic intents. I conclude with a discussion of the potential nihilistic consequences of such a culture.
364 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that as a hybrid and emergent social network market these relationships introduce a form of creative destruction to labour relations in the context of the creative industries and argue that consumer co-creation contributes to the precarious conditions of professional creative workers.
Abstract: Co-creative relations among professional media producers and consumers indicate a profound shift in which our frameworks and categories of analysis (such as the traditional labour theory of value) that worked well in the context of an industrial media economy are perhaps less helpful than before. Can this phenomenon just be explained as the exploitative extraction of surplus value from the work of users, or is something else, potentially more profound and challenging, playing out here? Does consumer co-creation contribute to the precarious conditions of professional creative workers? This article draws from ethnographic research undertaken from 2000 to 2005 with Auran games (a game development company based in Brisbane, Australia) to engage with debates about the status of user co-creation as labour. The article argues that as a hybrid and emergent social network market these relationships introduce a form of creative destruction to labour relations in the context of the creative industries.
212 citations
168 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors deal with the work of journalists in newsrooms that produce content for multiple media: print, radio, television, the internet and others, and build on the relevant literature about t...
Abstract: This article deals with the work of journalists in newsrooms that produce content for multiple media: print, radio, television, the internet and others. It builds on the relevant literature about t...
132 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated how the communicative relationship between public broadcasters and their audiences is being cultivated through new possibilities for participation offered by new technology and examined the strategic functions of multi-platform participation for public service broadcasting.
Abstract: This article investigates how the communicative relationship between public broadcasters and their audiences is being cultivated through new possibilities for participation offered by new technology. The aim, in the first part of the article, is to examine the strategic functions of multi-platform participation for public service broadcasting ( PSB). In order to analyse how programming that has strong associations with the commercial sector is constructed within the context of PSB, the second part presents a case study of the multi-platform format Test the Nation. The article engages with current debates on the role of PSB in a changing technological environment and explores the dilemma faced by public service broadcasters caught between attracting large audiences while also representing an alternative to the commercial channels. The article draws on analysis of institutional documents from the British BBC, the Swedish SVT, the Norwegian NRK and the US PBS. The documents range from official policy documen...
115 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an emerging form of participatory culture, one that is not a modification or elaboration of a primary producer's content, is introduced, and how the artifacts are created and used.
Abstract: This article introduces an emerging form of participatory culture, one that is not a modification or elaboration of a primary producer's content. Instead, this article details how the artifacts cre...
100 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the conflicts and compromises between modders and their supporters, and the owners of the copyrighted works they appropriate, and argue that the current copyright ownership in cultural products interferes with the way creative industries can benefit from convergence.
Abstract: This article investigates an instance in convergence culture: the conflicts and compromises between modders (fans of a video game who actually make changes to the game) and their supporters, and the owners of the copyrighted works they appropriate. I suggest that current copyright ownership in cultural products interferes with the way creative industries can benefit from convergence; that modders (and fans generally) develop a specific rationale and set of norms rooted in Jenkins' concept of a `moral economy' (Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 2006) to justify their appropriations; and that mutually beneficial relationships can be teased out of the apparently contradictory positions of modders and copyright owners. This article focuses on two case studies that illustrate the ways modders reuse cultural products and incorporate them into their video game modifications to achieve a sense of creative ownership and meaning over their entertainment experience.
86 citations
TL;DR: The British science fiction series Doctor Who embraces convergence culture on an unprecedented scale, with the BBC currently using the series to trial a plethora of new technologies, including: mini-episodes on mobile phones, podcast commentaries, interactive red-button adventures, video blogs, companion programming, and ''fake' metatextual websites as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The British science fiction series Doctor Who embraces convergence culture on an unprecedented scale, with the BBC currently using the series to trial a plethora of new technologies, including: mini-episodes on mobile phones, podcast commentaries, interactive red-button adventures, video blogs, companion programming, and `fake' metatextual websites. In 2006 the BBC launched two spin-off series, Torchwood (aimed at an exclusively adult audience) and The Sarah Jane Smith Adventures (for 11—15-year-olds), and what was once regarded as an embarrassment to the Corporation now spans the media landscape as a multi-format colossus. This article critically explores many of the transmedia strategies the BBC has employed in relaunching this property. Has it resulted in a richer and more entertaining experience, or is it merely an economic exercise in merchandising and branding? Can these media really work together to create a coherent and satisfying whole?
78 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used qualitative interviews with senior editors and managers from a selection of the UK's national online news providers to describe and analyse their current experimentation with multimedia and video storytelling.
Abstract: This article uses qualitative interviews with senior editors and managers from a selection of the UK's national online news providers to describe and analyse their current experimentation with multimedia and video storytelling. The results show that, in a period of declining newspaper readership and TV news viewing, editors are keen to embrace new technologies, which are seen as being part of the future of news. At the same time, text is still reported to be the cornerstone for news websites, leading to changes in the grammar and function of news video when used online. The economic rationale for convergence is examined and the article investigates the partnerships sites have entered into in order to be able to serve their audience with video content. In-house video is complementing syndicated content, and the authors examine the resulting developments in newsroom training and recruitment practices. The article provides journalism and interactive media scholars with case studies on the changes taking place in newsrooms as a result of the shift towards multimedia, multiplatform news consumption.
TL;DR: In this article, a previously unconsidered factor is that of cross-gender competition in game play, which has been suggested for the lack of female participation in technologically complex digital game play.
Abstract: Many reasons have been suggested for the lack of female participation in technologically complex digital game play. A previously unconsidered factor is that of cross-gender competition. Rigid gende...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the impact of the European Commission's state aid policy on the public service remit of public broadcasting organizations in the digital age and give an overview of the policy and legal context in which state aid control of public service broadcasting evolves.
Abstract: In this article the authors assess the impact of the European Commission's state aid policy on the public service remit of public broadcasting organizations in the digital age. The article consists of two parts. In the first part the authors give an overview of the policy and legal context in which state aid control of public service broadcasting evolves. Second, recent state aid cases that touch upon the issue of digitization and public service broadcasting are analysed. Whereas Member States fear too much Commission intervention, the European Commission, on the contrary, fears that Member States abuse the margins of the European Treaty in order to expand the digital public service remit in unauthorized ways, such as financing commercial digital activities. Whether the Commission is right to fear a `mission creep' on behalf of the public service broadcasters due to vague and overambitious digitilization plans, remains to be seen however.
TL;DR: Public service media are no longer limited to radio and television as new media genres emerge as discussed by the authors, and the question arises, whether such competition in the online field results in more diversity and higher output quality, serving the public interest better.
Abstract: Public service media are no longer limited to radio and television as new media genres emerge. Among others, the online medium has supplemented radio, television and the press since the mid-1990s and has become a medium in its own right. Moreover, online media have become essential elements of media consumption patterns. Public service media compete not only with private radio and television broadcasters but also with the press. The question arises, whether such competition in the online field results in more diversity and higher output quality, serving the public interest better. In Europe, there are at least two different schools of thought. One line of argument accepts the public service expansion into online media and regards online media as a necessary and important field for public service activities. Another line of argument suggests limiting the public service remit strictly to radio and broadcasting and considers online media as an emerging market subject to competition among private companies on...
TL;DR: Convergence has become part of burgeoning mobile media and whether we like it or not, the mobile phone has become a vehicle for multimedia par excellence as discussed by the authors, which is the case for all mobile devices.
Abstract: Convergence has become part of burgeoning mobile media. Whether we like it or not the mobile phone has become a vehicle for multimedia par excellence. Epitomising contemporary convergence by way of...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the dominant and alternative paradigms that feed contemporary discussions regarding the possible and legitimate role(s) of PSB in a globalizing and digital interactive cross- and multimedia environment.
Abstract: Taking the renewal of the management contract (2007—11) of Flemish PSB as a case in point, this article — by means of a policy analysis model — intends to contribute to a better understanding of the role of the technological argument of digitization in policy making and to the ongoing discussion in public and academic forums about the role and position of PSB in the 21st century. Theoretically, the article concentrates on the dominant and alternative paradigms that feed contemporary discussions regarding the possible and `legitimate' role(s) of PSB in a globalizing and digital interactive cross- and multimedia environment. Special attention is paid to the positions of technology and culture in the discourses on what constitutes a `legitimate' future for PSB, as these two aspects seem to have (re)gained momentum in the renewed debates regarding the raison d'etre and accountability of PSB. This article focuses on the policy process leading up to the new management contract of Flemish PSB. In particular, it ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the evolution of the trailer from the cinema screen to the iPod screen and how audience participation with these texts has influenced both trailer production and distribution techniques.
Abstract: At a time of uncertainty over film and television texts being transferred online and on to portable media players, this article examines one of the few visual texts that exist comfortably on multiple screen technologies: the trailer. Adopted as an early cross-media text, the trailer now sits across cinema, television, home video, the internet, games consoles, mobile phones and iPods. Exploring the aesthetic and structural changes the trailer has undergone in its journey from the cinema to the iPod screen, the article focuses on the new mobility of these trailers, the shrinking screen size, and how audience participation with these texts has influenced both trailer production and distribution techniques. Exploring these texts, and their technological display, reveals how modern distribution techniques have created a shifting and interactive relationship between film studio and audience.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors suggest that the discursive formation of interactive television is not simply one of the now familiar stories of a new technology's movement 'from the spectacular and astonishing to the convenient and unremarkable' (Gunning, 2004).
Abstract: Interactive television (iTV) has enjoyed increasing penetration within the UK's emerging digital television market. As with many new media technologies, its initial marketing positioned iTV as a spectacular new form of television. This has since given way to representations and applications that rely increasingly on a positioning of iTV as `everyday'. Drawing on the work of Tom Gunning, William Boddy and Lyn Spigel, I suggest that the discursive formation of iTV is not simply one of the now familiar stories of a new technology's movement `from the spectacular and astonishing to the convenient and unremarkable' (Gunning, 2004). Rather, this movement is one that is facilitated by the prominence of `window-on-the-world' discourses that not only relate television's digitalization to the initial inception of television into everyday life, but are also illustrative of the particular institutional backdrop of the UK's television landscape and, in turn, suggestive of particular gendered assumptions and positionings.
TL;DR: The conclusion outlines how this case study might help us understand a `remediation' of public service broadcasting's role in the digital age, suggesting that the BBC's 2004 commemorative programming was particularly successful in articulating this role.
Abstract: This article engages with prominent arguments about the role of public service broadcasting in the digital age and suggests that the BBC's role as a national universalist provider is one that can b...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors make a case for the convergence between technologies as a basis for public access to digital cultural heritage in an age where citizens increasingly seek alternative sources of information and have the power to choose, compare, and publish opinions of their own online.
Abstract: his contribution makes a case for the convergence between technologies as a basis for public access to digital cultural heritage in an age where citizens increasingly seek alternative sources of information and have the power to choose, compare, and publish opinions of their own online. The stage on which European public broadcasters perform nowadays is being thoroughly transformed, and although the preconditions for multimedia strategies seem to be much more advantageous than just a few years ago, public broadcasters will need to decide to extend their portfolio of platforms and channels if they want to reach out to all generations, including the young ones. The Dutch public broadcaster seems to adopt an active strategy in the digital domain, however, this strategy is still expressed in technological and economical terms and takes insufficient account of the viewers' present and future media use. This touches on another angle from which to view the link between public broadcasting and ICT: the necessity for PSB to capture new user groups with innovative content, consistently clustered, and in line with the public service mandate.
TL;DR: The authors examines the phenomenon of blogging as a way to create a cybernetic space that is defined by the digital/virtual space of the blog discourse and the real space where the blogger is loc...
Abstract: This article examines the phenomenon of blogging as a way to create a cybernetic space that is defined by the digital/virtual space of the blog discourse and the real space where the blogger is loc...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the uses of online audio-visual media by contemporary swing dancers and the extents to which they might realize their resistant history of swing dance in African American communities.
Abstract: Since their revival in the 1980s, lindy hop and other swing dances have become increasingly popular with middle-class youth. There are hundreds of vibrant local swing-dance communities throughout the developed world, and in each, dancing is the most important form of social interaction. Yet despite this emphasis on embodied cultural practice, swing dancers make great use of digital online technology, from YouTube and the exchange of digital audio-visual clips to discussion boards, instant messaging and email. Despite the transgressive and subversive history of swing dances in African American communities, the extent to which these legacies are taken up by contemporary swing dancers is a matter of debate. This article considers the uses of online audio-visual media by contemporary swing dancers and the extents to which they might realize their resistant history.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the deployment of cell phones in two different contexts: the first is the use of mobile phones in a protest movement in the Philippines that resulted in the resignation of President Joseph Estrada in 2001.
Abstract: In this article I examine the deployment of cell phones in two different contexts. The first is the use of cell phones in a protest movement in the Philippines that resulted in the resignation of President Joseph Estrada in 2001. I then look at the marketing and consumption of cell phones in the (over)developed world, focusing on the USA. I argue that the Philippine protest movement, known as People Power II, indicates the medium's progressive potential, while the marketing of cell phones in the USA indicates the medium's reactionary potential, or, borrowing a term from Paul Virilio, the cell phone's potential as `technological nanny'. The comparison tries to steer between two orientations in cultural studies — which I characterize as the optimism of technoutopianism and the pessimism of techno-phobia — in order to appreciate the political potential of cell phones, in particular, and technology in general.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the need of global capitalism to sell its commodities in the market place is the fundamental force behind consumerism and that traditional adult education has to find a new way of counteracting the forces of consumerism.
Abstract: This paper assumes that contemporary Western society is a consumer society and argues that the need of global capitalism to sell its commodities in the market place is the fundamental force behind consumerism. A model of globalisation is discussed. In it, we see how the control of information technology means that producers have the power to educate, even indoctrinate, the general public about the need to continue purchasing commodities. The forces of global capitalism have infiltrated universities and have incorporated a great deal of adult education, so that it is necessary for traditional adult education to find a new way of counteracting the forces of consumerism.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors scrutinize dilemmas following the emerging EU competition law-inspired policy approach to public broadcasters' internet activities, and discuss the potential public service value of online communication.
Abstract: Across Western Europe, public broadcasters have built their internet presence into sprawling sites encompassing a multitude of services. This development illustrates the need for redefining the role of public service media in a digital era. The article scrutinizes dilemmas following the emerging EU competition law-inspired policy approach to public broadcasters' internet activities, and discusses the potential public service value of online communication. The article draws on three cases representing services seemingly far removed from redistribution of radio and television: an internet discussion forum (ZDF), a web-based game (NRK), and a virtual online world activity (BBC). These sometimes controversial experiments are well suited to challenge both accustomed perceptions of public service, and ideas about the potential contributions of online communication. By scrutinizing marginal parts the article explores the limits of public broadcasters' publicly funded activities. It thereby aims to revitalize the...
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The authors assesses the strategies of BBC News as it repositions itself for the digital future, explores how impartiality is being redefined, evaluates the impact of technology-led strat- egies on newsgathering and notes the tensions between rival forces inside the BBC.
Abstract: / This article assesses the strategies of BBC News as it repositions itself for the digital future, explores how impartiality is being redefined, evaluates the impact of technology-led strat- egies on newsgathering and notes the tensions between rival forces inside the BBC. The corpora- tion is engaged in an internal upheaval of seismic proportions, as technological change accelerates and the largest ever round of job losses threatens. There is a titanic struggle between the technol- ogists h– who have been rebranded as uber-divisional force Future Media and Technology – and the programme makers, who feel their role and resources have been cut to make way for the new platforms. In the FMT corner, its director Ashley Highfield is making apocalyptic announcements, characterized by BBC house newspaper Ariel as ‘Get web savvy or we die’, while programme exec- utives are saying that the BBC needs to recognize and protect its core strengths in content provision, not pretend it can compete with the cyber-cities of Google and co. It’s not future technology, it’s here and now, they say, but it should not be allowed to override the values and objectives of their public service remit. This article is based on research carried out for the ‘Spaces of the News’ research project, one of five strands of the Goldsmiths Media Research Programme, Spaces, Connectivity and Control, funded by theLeverhulme Trust, which is designed to evaluate the social impact of changes in communication technology.
Key Words / BBC News, digitalization, newsgathering, Ofcom, user generated content
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Journal Article•