Gone Fishin'

I'm off to Europe to present my latest research on masculinity and advertising, and I won't be blogging during the summer months. The blog will resume in September.

Living, playing, learning and working in virtual worlds

So you think that adults who participate in virtual worlds are silly, geeky, and more than a little weird. And those avatars…they look like cartoon characters. Who would want to do that, you ask? A Second Life is not something you seek – right? Well, think again. Your world is becoming more virtual by the day, and just because you don’t notice it or feel it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It is in this way that culture sneaks up on us. To put it another way: culture is something we take for granted. And, you need to recognize there is a generation coming up behind you that is already participating in immersive environments in play and in school. If you don’t get with the program, you’ll be left behind (out of this cultural shift), and you will become part of a generational rift. You know how your parents take issue with you regarding your media consumption? Well, this is potentially where you become the critic of the children of the next generation. Join them or be left out in the proverbial cold. Just to emphasize the point of the growing use of virtual reality in realms beyond play, The Wall Street Journal reported this week on the use of virtual reality in training nurses to deal with disasters. The article describes a scenario that might be too costly to simulate in authentic reality, but one that can in a more cost effective manner be created in virtual reality. I’m talking about medical training in Second Life.
 
What about the hi-tech company where half the employees who may live in different parts of the world don’t come to work, but meet in a virtual environment, or administrative meetings among the deans from nine campuses at a southern university that take place in a virtual world, because of the cost savings derived from not having to travel long distances. While virtual worlds may look like something that should be relegated to the world of play, play in fact is one of the ways in which we learn. So whether it is training for a potential disaster or collaborating with colleagues, virtual worlds have potential beyond the world of entertainment, although there’s nothing wrong with that. When you think about the future of virtual worlds, think 3-D or perhaps holography, as this will bring new meaning to the word “immersive” which characterizes the experiences we have in virtual worlds. Instead of thinking about how cartoonish those avatars look, think about a realistic replication of your self. And, think about not having to create an avatar for each virtual world you inhabit, but a single avatar that travels through several if not many virtual worlds. Think about whether this is silly, geeky, and more than a little weird, or whether we are in the early stages of experiencing a major cultural and technological shift.

Behavior Placement: TV tells us what to do and what to buy

We’ve recently been discussing the power of celebrity, in particular the imaginary relationships we form and maintain with media figures. Sometimes those relationships provide the motivation to use a particular product or cut your hair in a way that emulates the celebrity, among many other possibilities. NBC television appears to understand the potential influence of television characters and the stars that portray them as they enter into a Faustian bargain with marketers by including politically and socially correct messages in programming, something they call “behavior placement.”  Behavior placement, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, is not unlike something we’ve talked about – product placement. The idea is that by including politically or socially correct ideas, like going green, within storylines the network wants to kill two proverbial birds with one stone: they want to influence behavior, and they want to use these ideological positions to sell advertising. The article describes one scenario where a hybrid vehicle is featured in a particular dramatic context. Including something that subtle may be appealing to hybrid automakers that may, on that very basis, choose to buy advertising time during the program. The network has announced they will include within regularly scheduled programs features on healthy eating and exercise. Again, scenarios are being written into scripts in order to create a symbiotic relationship between what the viewer should do (exercise regularly) and what the advertiser wants the consumer to do (purchase Healthy Choice meals). This sounds a lot like propaganda to me. NBC, I guess, can feel good that they are touting ideas about health and the environment, but their motives simply are not pure. I’m curious to see if I can pick up any of these idea “placements.” But I guess that means I’ll have to actually pay close attention to what’s on the scene; something I really don’t like to do.

Living in a post-television world

I was pondering what a post-television world would look like with video delivered over broadband on various big and small screens, when I came upon a Time magazine article that pointed out that much of the world is still pre-television. That's something that I never thought about. Surely everyone must have TV? The article states that only 60% of people from the developing world have access to television. Contrast that to the fact that there are more TVs than people in the United States. The implications for the growth of television in the developing world are significant, as research in India "found that when cable TV reached villages, women were more likely to go to the market without their husbands' permission and less likely to want a boy rather than a girl. They were more likely to make decisions over child health care and less likely to think that men had the right to beat their wives." In a post-television society, like ours, it might be interesting to consider how the medium has transformed our lives, and whether or not new media will have similar impact in the future. The Time article provides a link to the most popular television shows overseas. Enjoy.

Who wants to be famous?

There’s a business in Great Britain that sells interesting experiences via the web, like driving a Ferrari for a day. I read an article about a study conducted by the company after they noticed that teens were buying their Superstar Singer experience and dance lessons. The study, which included over 1000 sixteen year olds, found that “more than half want to be famous when they are older.” I don’t know if that’s a startling finding or not as at the age of 16, most youngsters are still dreaming of their future, and of course dreaming would likely include fantasies of stardom. For those teens surveyed celebrity is not about talent, but about fame for fame’s sake (and the riches they think go along with it). In other words, the route to fame might as well be an appearance on a reality show. The survey indicated that among the top five celebs teens aspire to be like are: Kate Moss, Wayne Rooney, Lady Gaga, Nicola T and Richard Branson. Do you think teens eventually grow out of the "I want to be a star" mode, or do you think it has become a permanent part of the culture? So, who do you aspire to be like?

Co-producing Meaning With Pop Culture

There have been many research studies I have co-authored, and I have co-edited book chapters for colleagues, but I’ve not until recently co-produced, at least not in the post-modern sense of the term. Oh, I know most if not many theatrical movies you see are co-produced, but the producers are professionals; producing movies is their trade. But there is another kind of co-production that we see more and more of that involves amateurs who either mimic or mash up what professionals are producing. All one has to do is look at the parodies of popular songs on YouTube to exemplify what I mean. The example I’ve provided below is for a song by Lily Allen in which consumer generated video is mixed in with her own video of the song Fear.


The idea of co-production is important because this is one of the ways in which we make (produce) meaning through our own interactions with popular culture. We used to talk about the songs that singers give us; now that’s only the first stop in the production stream. What’s also important is what we do with those songs or movies or whatever. What we do is make, unmake, or remake meaning through our own production; hence, we become co-producers in the popular culture process. I’m sure you can think of other examples of co-production to add.

The Grammys and Participatory Culture: It's Exhausting!

I watched the Grammys last night, and while I really liked most of the performances, I am not writing a review of the program. I am, however, interested in highlighting the participatory nature of this program – the producers took engagement further than I have ever seen. Engagement is the buzzword in media circles these days and it refers to the ways in which consumers engage deeply and in a sustained manner with products, media included. Simple examples include fan groups on Facebook and Twitter sites. This year’s Grammys had these and much more. For example, you could vote right up to the time Jennifer Nettles announced live the winning song that Bon Jovi would sing. Viewers were also able to submit videos of themselves as they danced to a Black Eyed Peas song; those selected were viewed on a wall behind the actual performance. You could also download a pdf file with all the nominees and their categories in order to fill out your ballot and measure your ability to guess the winners against the actual selections. Then there was the dedicated Grammys.com website that, among other features, had a live feed of the Grammy awards given prior to the evening’s program. The producers pulled out every trick in the book on this one. On the one hand, I think engagement is a good thing, especially when it allows--that is empowers--consumers to co-produce content. But I wonder if at some point we won’t tire of this process. After all, entertainment was about relaxation – whatever happened to good old vegging out? If it becomes a requirement of viewing that I participate in the event through consumer generated content, voting, uploading videos of myself, Tweeting, Facebooking, and on and on and on…It’s exhausting. Makes me yearn to be a couch potato. All I want to do is watch and enjoy. Media producers, pundits and scholars will be using all of these ancillary activities in order to create sophisticated measures of engagement, and to use those measures to determine the success or failure of a program. The need to measure physical behavior, whether it is the way consumers click-through websites we visit or physically connect by voting or generating content or by some other means, engagement is the rule of the day. I think engagement can take place deep inside us as we veg-out in front of the TV, getting lost in our thoughts and daydreams. It’s certainly more difficult to measure our internal musings, but the kind of engagement that takes place inside us is a valuable part of our meaning making system. As we process media content, I believe we are making sense of the world in which we live. All the other means of measuring engagement are based on what’s out there and measurable, like click-through rates or Twitter posts and the like. These are experiences, but they may not be meaningful. And, that leads me to think that media consumption is becoming a series of experiences without much meaning. From a critical view point that suggests we are living in an increasingly shallow world that beckons us to have more and more experiences, when what we yearn for is meaning in our lives.

Gemeration M(2): Multitasking with Multiple Media

The Kaiser Family Foundation, which has for a long time been studying the media habits of the younger generation, this past week released their latest study that indicates that children 8-18 are spending 7.5 hours a day using media; that figure is compounded when you consider that teens are using multiple media at the same time. Multitasking with multiple media is a theme that will resonate throughout this course as we consider media centered rituals, that from a critical perspective lead to greater alienation. Think about your texting behavior – that’s a ritual. You’d rather text someone than actually converse with them. It gives you control. But the more control you gain, the ability to actually communicate is lost.

We simply fall out of practice directly communicating with one another. Moreover, we have to learn a new set of media centric rituals regarding civility, among other social issues that confront our society. In other words, in a "texting society" what is the appropriate tone, or language to use? So, I don’t think the problem is merely the amount of time we spend with technology; it’s what we give up in order to do so - each other. Does what I described above fit with your own experience?

Watching TV Together Alone: A Postmodern Paradox

During the heyday of radio—I know this is hard to imagine—the typical middle class family would gather around the “box” to listen to a drama or variety show. Everyone would be staring at the radio as if they could see who was performing. It was as if the radio was the hearth in the home where members of a family would gather to seek their warmth as they basked in its glow. This common experience transferred to television, as families, neighbors and friends again gathered together to watch their favorite drama, sitcom, or variety program. Members of the family would talk about the programs and perhaps the next day at work or school talk about the programs with others. In this way media consumption became a “cultural forum.” I think this process of groups of people gathering in front of a TV screen discussing what they are watching and carrying that discussion forward into their next day is on the wane. You may still invite friends over to watch Project Runway, The Jersey Shore, or Grey’s Anatomy, but the idea of a forum is giving way to a more private experience, I think. For example, when you gather together in the manner described above, my guess is some of your friends will bring their laptops to either surf the Net or perhaps watch other programming. Yes, you may be sitting together, but you are likely to be doing other things. Or your friends may come over to your place or you to theirs, but instead of gathering in front of the proverbial hearth, people peel off and go into other rooms in order to watch something else, play a video game, etc.

The TV screen is no longer the only screen or the central screen, as we carry “screens” with us so we can do other things while the main group has gathered with the intention of doing one thing. This is the new forum, but its hardly a forum, is it? And, so the idea of a cultural forum in which we create a shared experience becomes a kind of individual experience where we are left alone in the company of others in order to process what is before our eyes. This is an interesting form of alienation that sociologists refer to as anomie. But I think the idea of being together and being alone at the same time puts a new twist on this old concept.

Gender and Late Night Jokes

I was reading an article in The Wall Street Journal by TV critic Nancy de Wolf Smith about the late-night TV problems at NBC. The article took a different tack than I have read in the past, because it developed a critique of masculinity that referred to the “Animal House” effect of late night TV where “boys can make a girl feel like she’s been anointed in some way” because of some of the sophomoric references on these programs, which include Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, along with Letterman, Conan O’Brian, Jimmy Kimmel, George Lopez and Leno. All of them, according to deWolf Smith are juvenile, which is code for “overwhelmingly masculine.” What deWolf doesn’t bring up is the Wanda Sykes Show on Fox or Mo Nique’s show on BET, not to mention the day-time talk shows hosted by women. What deWolf Smith is doing is called in psychoanalytic circles splitting: defining masculinity as that which is not feminine. Splitting refers to the either/or construct and it is a simplistic way of organizing gender identity. But it’s not accurate. In other words, splitting doesn’t reflect the nature of gender identity in contemporary American society where identity can be multifarious and quite fluid. I think this is an important discussion for those interested in popular culture as we receive our gender cues from the media. In other words, we learn what it means to be male or female or something else through viewing portrayals in the media. I am not suggesting there is a cause and effect relationship. So, to make the late-night TV issue at NBC a gender issue gives us opportunity to pause and reflect not just on TV ratings or juvenile “guy” jokes, but on the way gender is presented in the media. After all, is Leno a macho-man? Or does he sometimes express emotion through his softer side. Personally, I can’t imagine Conan (even though he’s named after a barbarian – just joking) in a cage fight. He’s too thoughtful and way too intelligent. So, what it means to be a man in contemporary society doesn’t equate with the masculinity of yore e.g. the Marlboro Man. And, the same goes for women. Women today have more agency (another term for power) in our society than perhaps any other time in history. While American society remains patriarchal, it is less so. Even within its patriarchy, gender roles and gender identity have greatly shifted: stay at home dads and female CEOs present two extremes.

The Gaganator meets Ke$hing

What do you think Stefani Germanotta would say if she met Kesha Rose Sebert? What would they talk about? What do they have in common? What values, if any, do they share? I’m sure you immediately figured out that Stefani is really Lady Gaga and Kesha is really, well, Ke$ha. While Lady Gaga’s visual antics represent a homage to pop singers from the past, Madonna in particular, Ke$ha has been described as “garbage chic” whatever that is. I bring both of them up in the same blog post, because I think they express interesting and similar ideologies in their music and in their public manner. Ann Powers of the LA Times wrote about both of these pop singers, and I take my cue from her articles. What these pop stars have in common, I think, is the curious way they express post-feminist ideals. For example, Ke$ha has been quoted regarding her “frustration at the double standard for the objectification of women in songs.” That’s a pretty sophisticated philosophical stance for someone who sings about using a bottle of Jack as mouthwash. Similarly, Lady Gaga has been quoted as saying, “I find that men get away with saying a lot in this business, and that women get away with saying very little.” So, both women stake a claim to ideological territory that is somewhat obscured in their videos and the songs they write and sing. This obfuscation is important to those of us who study popular culture, because all pop culture is imbued with ideology; however, most casual consumers don’t notice. That’s the way culture works – we generally take it for granted.

But there is something in their excessiveness—a hallmark of contemporary popular culture—that draws attention to Lady Gaga and Ke$ha: they are representatives of a youthful generation of pop artists who take their gender identity seriously, sometimes turning it on its head in order to make a point. Oh, I know they are not the first; Madonna was a master of shape shifting identity as she toyed with masculine and feminine portrayals of herself throughout her career. But to suggest that both Lady Gaga and Ke$ha are merely reacting to issues of objectification is too simplistic a read of these artists. Lady Gaga, in particular, is quite complex in the ways in which she presents herself (herselves?). She is multiple and multifarious. Ke$sha, at least in the Tic Tok video, takes a skankier route by using herself to demonstrate what she ideologically opposes. Such a contradiction is an inherent part of pop culture. Both "Just Dance" and "Tic Tok" in some ways are similar on the surface, but I think what lurks below the surface is a read on feminist ideology that reflects, through their excessiveness, a particular understanding of women’s roles in a society that increasingly approaches gender identity through vagueness and ambiguity.

Who controls what you get to see and hear?

For my first blog post of the new semester I was thinking about whether or not to wade into the shallow water and write about Lady Gaga as post feminist icon, or dive into the deep end of the pool and write about "net neutrality," a topic that you may not know much about and one that I recognize isn’t nearly as interesting. But here goes…There is something a foot in world of content delivery that I think warrants greater awareness and understanding, and because it relates to a term like “net neutrality” that may be difficult to understand, consumers tend to avoid issues related to online gatekeepers - those companies that get to control what you see or hear. I think what peaked my interest in the subject was when Comcast, which has a vested interest in non-neutrality, purchased a 51% share of the NBC television network. This is an important development, because Comcast is pretty much a utility; a delivery system in which signals are sent from originating systems to your home or mobile device. NBC, in addition to its role in “over-the-airwaves” broadcasting, is a content developer. The current issue regards the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to impose “net neutrality” on Comcast, the nation’s largest cable TV and Internet operator. Who are the other players on the other side of the field? They include Google and Skype to name just two. If net neutrality is imposed on Comcast, then Google will have the ability to deliver content across what has been referred to as the “last mile,” which is the euphemistic term for the cable that pumps content through your town and the trunk that goes to your home. Without “net neutrality” Comcast and similar providers become the sole gatekeeper of what you get to see and hear in your home, including over the Internet. This issue isn’t going to go away too soon, as it will be tied up in the courts for a long time. What strikes me as interesting, however, in the reasons I think Comcast purchased NBC. Personally, I don’t think they care about the broadcast channel; they’re concerned about the content that NBC can provide their ever growing control over cable TV and the Internet. I don’t think broadcast TV is going to go away anytime soon, as it is still a great venue for “cultural” events like the Super Bowl. But the future is clear and it isn’t over the airwaves. The question remains, however, regarding who gets to control over the pipeline that delivers content to our homes and the content itself.