Digital Media and Copyrights

Briefly discussed in my previous post on the evolution of the internet, the new digital world and Mike Wesch's YouTube response to this term 'Web 2.0'. Web 2.0 is a term coined by Tim O'Reilly to describe "the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users", according to Wikipedia. "These technologies change how we interact with (digital) cultural objects", says Kathy Gill, Professor of Digital Media at the Univeristy of Washington, "We are no longer merely consumers; we are also producers." Interested? See Kathy's Blog

Linking Capitalism and Culture:
"[N]on-commercial cultural production and unconstrained expression within the Internet undermines capitalism's production of meaning." page 135, Michael Strangelove'sThe Empire of Mind: Digital Piracy and the Anti-Capitalist Movement (University of Toronto Press, 2005)

Cultural Industries Affected by Web 2.0:
-News Media: losing readers
-Advertising industry: how do you reach customers? With Tivo and AppleTV allowing you to fast forward through commercials and BitTorrent ripping them out completely, how do you make money?
-Television and Movies: because there are more/other things to do with our time, will we be spending less time watching?
-Music: the industry that has changed the most because of new technologies; leading the attack against digitalization
-Fashion
-Books: e-Text is faster to find, easier to use, more search-able, more portable, and in some cases, cheaper than hardcopy.

They're terrified that this is a zero-sum game: either I win, or I lose; there is no in between. Just as radio was supposed to replace newspapers, and television was supposed to replace radio (which clearly did not happen), we simply adapated (both ourselves and the media) to these new technologies.

Technological Determinism: a social theory that society's technology shapes its values, history and culture, and we are helpless to change this.

Capitalism, Culture & Copyright:

A Fair(y) Use Tale: An Explanation of Copyright Law
(a short film by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University)




Copyright protects "creative and expressive works"; it's automatic in that you don't have to file or register (for the full scope: US Copyright Office), does not extend to ideas or facts. But now, copyrights are a commercial entity: they are (ab)used to, instead of protecting the owner of the media, to for the owner of the media, or the

Copyright Length:
-1709: copyright lasted 14 years
-Pre-1923: almost all content was part of the public domain (probably)
-Post-1978: the life of the author + 70 years OR work-for-hire (ie created for a company) 95 years from creation OR 125 years from creation
-Want to use material created between 1923 and 1978? Ask a lawyer!

Copyright Infringement:
- "Copyright Infringement" means exercising one of the copyright holder's exclusive rights without permission.
- Should a copyright holder sue on grounds of infringement, the defendant may argue that the use was "fair use"
- The fair use doctrine allows copyrighted works to be used in some circumstances, such as commentary, criticism, news reporting or educational use

Digital Rights Management: lock and key system used to control digital technologies/media (music, movies, etc.); used by iTunes and Amazon Unbox.

Creative Commons: Making it possible to easily explain how we want others to use our works
-Attribution
-Non-Commercial
-No Derivative Works
-Share-Alike: if you use my work, you must use these same terms

Digital technologies enable a "tinkering culture [. . . a] read write rip burn culture"

Public Scholarship & the Academic Lexicon

First, I would like to verbalize my absolute excitement about my enrollment in Professor David Domke's class fall quarter - I was unsure what to make of him as, prior to reading this article, I had no previous connection to him; now, I am stoked beyond belief. Talk about a passionate professor!

Publication Methods:
-Digital Media (YouTube, this blog [or another dedicated to research])
-Print (Submitting an article to an academic journal, but more likely, to a 'lay publication' like Architectural Digest, or more importantly, writing a book designated for the general population; a publication of this nature will reach a much broader audience than a simple academic essay/article/book) This is public scholarship, it should be accessible to everyone from third graders (although I doubt they'd be interested) to doctoral students to your grandma.

In terms of presentation, it's important to be mindful of jargon; when you are so familiar with a subject and its associated terminology, you often forget what is jargon and what is not. It is important to keep the audience in mind (even at a scholastic conference).

Armed with this knowledge, I hope that when it comes time to present my findings at some point in the distant future, I'll be able to assemble a presentation that is engaging, informative and humanistic. The Academic Paradox: you may have just had the most brilliant and mind-blowing idea in the history of mankind; but if you cannot effectively communicate your thoughts to others, it is as if the idea never existed.

FOaM

Fashion, Objectivity and Mythology.


Roland Barthes was born in Cherbough, Manche, Lower Normandy, France
He is a semiotician
He studies semiotics
Semiotics is the studies of signs and their interpretation
Signs are a combination of the signifier and the signified
He died in Paris in 1980
He was run over by a milk truck.


Language is the grander structure; a tool of human communication. Speech is individual; it is written, spoken, screamed, etc.

Signs, as I mentioned, are the relationship between the signifier (Sr) and the signified (Sd):
Sr / Sd

I look at myself in the mirror, and I describe my appearance based on how I would describe someone else, but I can only describe anyone, anything, anywhere, the world at large, in one way: as I see it. And I see it from my own unique perspective on the world, based on my worldview, my past and present experiences, thoughts, observations. Even in describing something as simple as an outfit, can anyone be objective? Get outside themselves and speak? I don't think so. Because if you are not speaking as yourself, not thinking as yourself, not describing acting feeling as yourself, who are you? Who are you impersonating if none of us can get escape ourselves? I experience through the lens of my worldview; so do you, so does your mother, your brother, your sister, your friend, your boss and your gardener. So if I am attempting to be objective and get away from myself, to view the world without bias or pretension, exactly whose worldview am I assuming?

In discussing research: how does ones provide objective (or authentic/impartial) data? If authenticity is allowing that which you are speaking about, to speak for itself as much as possible; it grants integrity. How does authenticity (objectivity) apply to the interpretation/inference of data? If viewing authenticity as an extension or component and integrity, which implies ethics, then it can be, at the very least, suggested. However, if you try and remove integrity, ethics and morality, you are left with two seemingly separate worlds; authentic and impartial data collection may imply but does not propose or create authentic or impartial results. This is the nature of interpretation.

Technological Revolutions

The Information Revolution: The Origins of the Personal Computer and the Internet
The history of computers (and later, the internet) is unique; from the room sized over-grown calculators of the 1950s and the Cold War era, complete with punchcards; the feared tool of military-industrial complex in the 1960s; the development of the mouse, icons and drop-down menus by Xerox at Palo Alto in the early 1970s (and of course, a laser printer), this technology however, was not as profitable to Xerox as they had intended and they chose to sell it to a team of researchers in Silicon Valley. In 1977, these researchers (Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs) produced the Apple II computer, followed by the Macintosh which utilized these technologies that Xerox had discarded, also including a floppy disk drive and Apple's signature streamlined design. In 1983, IBM introduced the first Personal Computer with spreadsheet and word processing software, earning it the prestigious title of Machine of the Year from Time magazine. IBM used a new technology created by William Gates called MS-DOS, marking the trailhead of the careers of both Bill Gates and his Microsoft Corporation. It was at this point that the U.S Department of Defense funded the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to create an intercommunication/interconnection system that could survive a nuclear holocaust called ARPANET. In 1971, ARPANET became so central to computer use, the core of interconnectivity even and was renamed the Internet. As they say, well, the rest is history.

From military technology designed to survive a nuclear war to user-based, user-defined webpages: the Internet has had a remarkable journey.

The Digital Revolution: Web 2.0
In his short webvideo, now all over YouTube, Mike Wesch, Professor of Digital Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University concisely and effectively explains Web 2.0, that is, how text and hypertext have evolved; how the very construction of web pages has transitioned from HTML to XML, creating a user-defined, user-operated digital world that puts millions of bites of information at our fingertips. I was absolutely captivated by this short, and could not picture the presentation in any other way. Had this been presented in text (hard copy, digital, &c) it would not have been nearly so effective. Not only was video extremely interesting and much less difficult to traverse than black and white, but by using the media (the internet) he was describing as the method of presentation, it truly demonstrated and exemplified what Professor Wesch's point: The Machine Is Us/ing US

Michael Wesch's webvideo:


A response to Web 2.0



The Genetic Revolution: Round I (1870-1920)
Philip Thurtle, professor of Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) at the University of Washington, has introduced his latest book The Emergence of Genetic Rationality: Space, Time, and Information in American Biological Science, 1870-1920. While I have not had the opportunity to read this text, I cannot help but feel that it will be captivating (as much as Professor Thurtle's lectures) and offer a unique, insightful, thorough look into the history of genetics. While I have been in the audience for several of Thurtle's digital presentations and, while they were effective and educational and I was for the most part engaged, I cannot help but feel that Thurtle is perhaps more comfortable with text, and further, that the material he is presenting is in fact much more suited to text. I cannot give any specific reason why I feel this way, and I really have no evidence either.

Happy Birthday, Karl Marx

[...and a rollickin' 'Viva Cinco de Mayo!' to all the rest of you. There is this common misconception that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day (Grito de Dolores), it's not. (Grito de Dolores is actually 16 September, and the most important patriotic holiday in Mexico) Cinco de Mayo in fact celebrates the initial Mexican victory, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, over French forces in 1862 at the Battle of Puebla.]

In any case, the Frankfurt School: Marx and Freud contributed to this gestalt of the Frankfurt School, leading to a focus on both [alternatives to] capitalism and fantasy, as a means to understand culture. Why do I? Walter Benjamin studied here, and he is our lovely subject of discussion (read, lecture) today.

"There is something quintessentially modern," said Professor Jessica Burstein, "about Paris." Introducing the concept of the Flaneur: acting as a man of the crowd - not readily extinguishable; acting in a public urban space to observe the world as culture. The Flaneur is not immersed in the environment which he is observing, he does not participate. The Flaneur does not have a destination; he is an idler. "He consumes the city, visually," JB noted, "You have no connection to society. Flaneurs don't have families. Where they get their clothes? Doesn't come up." "The crowd is his domain," says Baudelaire, "...his passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd." There is still detachment: he is 'of' the crowd, but not 'in' it.

How is a metropolis different from a large town? What is the 'urban experience'? Crowds, street life."You are experiencing things at every level of the body sensorium," (JB) Textual fragments, unexpected juxtapositions: the important commentary provided by Benjamin. "The [visual] fragmentation of the text," explained JB, "is a metaphorical rhyme... These textual fragments rhyme with the fragmentation of the [Parisian] arcades."