Gabriel/Wagmister & Barbook/Schultz

Gabriel and Wagmister collaborated on this piece while working at UCLA. Gabriel, was born in Ethiopia and moved immigrated to the United States in his mid-twenties. He used his experiences growing up in a “third world” country to become an expert in the academic community on third world cinema. Wagmister is also part of UCLA’s academic community. Born in Argentina, his place of birth has greatly influenced his area of study as well. His work is film focused as well, with a focus in Latin American Culture and Art.

The piece we read focuses on less developed countries and how technology relates to that. To do so, they compared technology to weaving, a craft that many people in these developing countries are familiar with. At the same time, it simplifies technological terms and interfaces for people like me who have grown up with all of this technology but have not necessarily known it on a deeper level. We know how to use the internet, but only on a superficial level. I really liked the comparison of Photoshop to the actual physical process of developing and editing images. When you think of the tools and terminology used in both in relation to the physical processes they were modeled after it is a lot easier to obtain a broader understanding of the technology and also how to educated people in less developed countries about technology.

Barbrook and Schultz are both European scholars. Barbook has a doctorate degree in political science, and supplements media studies into his work. He is currently working and researching at the University of Westminster. Schultz on the other hand is German. He studied political science as well at the University of Amsterdam and earned a PhD from the University of Melbourne. He took an interest in media studies as well, and has lectured throughout eastern and central Europe. He seems to be big on community building and open-source information.

The Manifesto Barbrook and Schultz collaborated on has three sections, each focusing on a main idea. The first stresses the importance of creative labor in the creation and maintenance of the internet. The second analyzes the current media environment, leading up the creation of the European Digital Artists Network or EDAN for short. EDAN stresses collaboration and activism within the digital creative community. They hope to provide citizens with the tools and education needed to participate in a thriving digital community, including government installed broadband internet for all.

Class Photoshop Work

Here's the progress I made on a Photoshop tutorial I found here: http://www.pixelonomics.com/how-to-design-a-geometric-poster-in-photoshop/

Jenkins- Part 2

A major topic throughout Chapter 6 of Jenkins’s book is a shift in the way people get their political information. It is moving away from the mainstream broadcast and adopting a more narrowcast, grassroots approach. This phenomenon is mainly seen in the younger generations. A great way to think about it is push vs. pull. The old way, push media, releases information to a large audience. They information is therefore created for a broad range of opinions and not very specific. A pull medium puts the information out there, but does not assume it will reach a large audience. Those who are interested will seek out the information and “pull” it for their use. Broadcast news would therefore be a push medium, while the Internet is a pull medium.

Interestingly though, Facebook and Twitter have so many users that they can almost function as a broadcast medium. In the past couple of days, the KONY 2012 video has gone viral. Over 32, 000,000 (and counting) have viewed the 30-minute video since it was uploaded Monday. Most of them are young people who don’t normally keep up with world news, a lot of them are not even old enough to vote. Jenkins quotes another author, David Buckingham, who wrote a book called The Making of Citizens, who said,“children and youth feel powerless in their everyday lives and, as a consequence, have difficulty imagining how they might power in a politically meaningful fashion”. These people are donating money, signing a petition, and organizing events- all via social media. They are learning that their social networks can be a lot more powerful than they realized. I have participated in their campaign, reposting the video and encouraging my networks to watch it. But I think it is important to question it as well. I am giving the whole issue critical thought, researching and forming my own beliefs.

I anticipate a lot of political content on Facebook and Twitter as the election draws closer. I agree that it is a great way to reach the young people, but I hope that my generation doesn’t just vote just because everyone is telling them to, without educating themselves.

From reading these chapters, I have come to find convergence culture a bit complicated. But I can see that its main strength is that it is a participatory culture. We are no longer just talked at via television; anyone can now take part in the conversation. I think digital craft and DIY are very much a part of convergence culture- they are a creative way to join the conversation.

Jenkins- Part 1

Henry Jenkins is currently the Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. Before that he created and directed the Comparative Media Studies graduate program at MIT. He describes himself as “prolific as hell.” He has a very active mind, which shows in his lengthy and frequent blog posts as well as his list of published work.

When reading his introduction, I had to keep reminding myself what class I was reading for. It is extremely similar in topic and theme to what I have been reading for my Writing for Social Media class. Towards the end of the introduction, when he explained what he would discuss in the chapters to come, it became clearer how this relates to DIY culture. The chapter we read focuses on the amateur filmmaker culture surrounding the Star Wars phenomenon- they are certainly a sub-culture or DIY culture.

One idea I find important is folk culture, which developed through sharing and interpreting. Ownership was not a concern, most folk songs for example cannot be traced to single songwriter. Our modern mass media was built on borrowings from folk culture and in turn this new convergence culture Jenkins is discussing will be built on material from the media conglomerates who have controlled the mass media in recent years. Of course, this will be difficult as these conglomerates are more about making money than developing a culture. As we have read in the chapter, they are not ready and willing to give up the rights to their intellectual property and on the rare occasion that they do so, it is on their own strict terms.

As for my project, I have finished up most of the prep work I needed to do. I have all my materials- a blank scrapbook, decorative paper, tape, markers, pens and of course photos. I have a general idea of how I plan to organize the content, so my next step is to fill in the details. In the next few days I plan to finalize the photos I will be using and work on my hand-drawn type. I want to assign each group of photos a page as well, I will probably paper clip the photos and decorative paper to the pages to help me organize it. Then finally I can get to the fun part- experimenting with layouts and gluing everything in place.

Fasenfest and Berry

FASENFEST:

I am not at all surprised that Harriet Fasenfest lives in Portland, Oregon. From what she reveals about herself and her beliefs in the reading, she definitely fits the Portland stereotype. That being environmentally conscious, with a desire for self-sustainability (in a personal and local context) and distaste for consumer culture.

Like the reading by Greer from last class, Fasenfest focuses on her introduction into the subculture she is discussing. She goes back and reviews the events in her life that have brought her to this change in lifestyle. By explaining how she got here, she makes herself more relatable to her readers. These readers are obviously interested in her lifestyle, but most likely beginners. This book seems to be a how-to guide to the householding lifestyle that she leads. She makes a few historical time references, the shop she owned in the 1980’s and how by the turn of the century consumer culture had been taken to a whole new level which she was not comfortable with.

BERRY:

Wikipedia lists Wendell Berry’s occupation(s) as farmer, writer, and academic. He is 77 years old and was born in Kentucky. Most people born on a farm tend to farm for life, but he took a different path earning a bachelor’s and master’s in English from the University of Kentucky, completing a creative writing program at Stanford University, teaching at New York University before finally returning to his alma mater to teach creative writing.

Berry takes a much more economic approach to agriculture, and writes about the industry and market as a whole instead of his personal experiences with it. The audience for this piece is not primarily for farmers, but for people in agribusiness. He is writing to explain to them that they think they know how to regulate this industry, but in reality are making some grave mistakes. As with the Fasenfest reading, the rise of consumer culture and big business is a pivotal historical event affecting the farming industry.

CRAFT?

I can definitely see farming as a craft. It takes a certain set of skills, patience and passion. From this comes something tangible, food. Fasenfest’s backyard garden could definitely be seen as craftivism as well. Like many craftivists, one of the major reasons Fasenfest gardens is to detach herself from consumer culture. She is crafting in a nostalgic way, going back to a time when a family grew all the food they needed to survive. Only after feeding themselves would the sell their surplus. Although the act of backyard subsistence farming alone can be seen as activism, she takes it further by publishing a book instructing other interested gardeners to do the same as well as teaching classes at a householding education center called Preserve in Portland.