Muti-tasking with multiple media: A way of life

The concept of multi-tasking isn't new. Just ask any homemaker and you'll learn a lot about juggling many tasks at once. And, multi-tasking with media, that is watching TV while eating, for example, isn't terribly new either. That's why in the 50s they called it the TV dinner! What is relatively new, however, is multi-tasking with multiple media. I did a study that you can access here on this topic in 2005 that concluded:

"..eating is the most common activity followed by socializing, doing chores and dressing. Although it is speculative, this may indicate a shift toward more individualized or private consumption of media. One can imagine, for example, an individual alone in their bedroom where the television and computer are likely to be located eating while engaged in multiple media-centered activities. This study found that males are significantly more likely than females to use multiple media and to play video or computer games. However, females are likely to engage in physical activities or write while the television is on. Although there are gender differences regarding particular activities, it may be that both males and females are moving toward more solitary uses of multiple media."

The kind of isolation we experience that I describe in the study was echoed during our class discussion in which several students noted they sit around their dorms with their roommates, each with a laptop and the TV going in the background (sometimes the foreground - my study also delves into the issue of shifting attention back and forth between media). More important, they described a lack of direct communication that takes place between them. In class we expressed a kind of sadness regarding this shift away from the social toward the solitary. Interesting, I think, is that while males and females may engage in different sorts of multi-tasking with multiple media, there is little difference when it comes to the solitary nature of their experience.

What has all this wrought? A review in The Wall Street Journal (1/30/09, p. A11) of a new book, Snark, by David Denby, defines snark as "low, mean, annoying, philistine, dreadful, coarse, lazy, second-rate and slightly unclean language." Remember the snarky dialogue in the movie Juno? Snark is, in my opinion, a kind of short-hand utilized by those within an increasing smaller circle who "get it." From a cultural perspective, you are either "in" or you are "out" of the culture. I raise the specter of possibility that it could become a circle of one. Do I really want to blame the coarseness of our language on multi-tasking with multiple media? Perhaps that's going too far. But does it play a role? Perhaps.

The implications of the social isolation we are experiencing are great. As we lose our ability to speak to one another, social convention and etiquette with regard to social interaction goes by the way-side. What happens to a society that no longer knows how to communicate with one another in a direct manner? As one student in the class noted, there has been a significant increase in multi-tasking with multiple media since she came to college three years ago. It's difficult to imagine where the trend will take us and at what point the system begins to break down, causing some to participate in a backlash in which people begin to actually talk directly to one another, with civility.

image courtesy of: http://www.wordle.net/.

Pre-gaming the Super Bowl Ads

You know what the term pre-gaming refers to, but that's not how I'm using it in this blog post, well, not exactly. I'm using the term pre-gaming in the sense that I believe advertisers are metaphorically trying to make you "drunk" with their ads before the ads air during the upcoming Super Bowl. How are they doing this? In recent years, advertisers have learned to become more efficient with their advertising expenditures. After all, does anyone really think $3 million for a 30 second ad is worth it? Perhaps if you calculate the value based on CPM it may constitute an effective "reach" if the audience is large enough. But exposure does not equal effectiveness, as consumers don't necessarily pay close attention to television advertising, even the Super Bowl ads. My favorite example of this phenomenon relates to the results of the day-after recall surveys that oftentimes indicate that consumers mistake a brand like Tostitos for Doritos, even though it is the latter that is paying the big bucks for the Super Bowl ad. So, how do advertisers defend against this? Extending the relationship beyond exposure to the 30 second TV commercial is one way of engaging the consumer in an experience that I'm calling pre-gaming. The pre-gaming to which I refer to involves multiple opportunities for consumers to deepen their experience with a brand, product or service. Doritos stands out for its consumer generated advertising (CGA) effort. But other corporations, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, are engaging in this tactic: Pedigree dog food, E*Trade, Cars.com, Pepsi's SoBe, and CareerBuilder.com, among others. Opportunities abound this year to engage with the brand on perhaps a deeper level and in a more sustained way.

I attempt to do similar things in my courses: provide experiences that extend our learning community beyond the classroom. Think about the numerous ways we "engage" this semester on Netvibes the course aggregator, the Wetpaint Wiki, and the blog sites. I know students are often distracted during class, this is particularly so when we convene in a computer lab where, instead of focusing on the work at hand, students send email, text-message, and of course, check out their Facebook page. Did I mention day-dreaming? For me, utilizing social software is an attempt--my experiment--to engage students beyond the classroom (the classroom is s-o-o-o 20th Century). Learning through contextual experiences, and participating in simulations are alternative ways to create and maintain a learning community. You'll let me know how well this works in our class by the end of the semester.

The Super Bowl extravaganza takes place in a much shorter time frame, so the intensity and forcefulness of the engagement must be up to the task. I've got a little more time. Advertisers want you to engage with their brand, knowing that 30 seconds isn't enough time to do so. Water-cooler talk that takes place the day after the game (post-gaming) helpful in extending the experience of the brand, but interactive websites, games, contests and other on-line activities are more immersive. In this way education and advertising have something in common: we both want you to pay attention, engage deeply with our content, and learn something as a result of the experience. I hope what I'm doing appeals to a higher cause; marketers just want you to buy a six-pack.

Pre-gaming is a way for consumers to deeply engage with brands, products and services through their interactions on web sites and through social media. For those of you who are considering imbibing alcohol prior to the Super Bowl, I offer this alternative. Pre-game with the brands and all the engaging activities marketers have to offer. Fat chance.

The Intersection of Pop Culture and Economics: Lil' Wayne & AT&T

Often times we look at the economic function of pop culture, but fail to look at the cultural economy, which refers to the ways in which we circulate meanings. The latter is more of a symbolic function. It’s often difficult to separate the cultural from the economic as they have become increasingly intertwined in our postmodern society. For example, we tend to judge the success of a movie based on the revenue it garnered during a particular week or several week period. As such we avoid discussing aesthetics (associated meanings); rather, it’s all about the money. In a capitalist economy, we shouldn’t be surprised by such a close connection between the two: culture and finance. Having said that, aesthetics seems to take a back seat to the economics of pop culture. Perhaps in our contemporary culture it’s too difficult to judge something as good or bad; such concepts seem to have lost their meaning, especially when audiences are so fractured - good for whom and bad for whom? And so when it comes to pop music the connections between culture and commerce run deep. Last week I wrote about Bruce Springsteen’s massive effort to promote his new album. Tonight AT&T and Lil’ Wayne are teaming up to stream live material from his new album. Traditional means of promotion no longer exist (spectacle is the only way to get noticed), and when one company so dominates the radio airwaves, it’s difficult unless approved by the programming committee, for artists to break through the barriers. So pop music becomes integrated into other forms; what we might refer to in pop culture studies as “intertextuality”: a pop song becomes the "bed" in a product commercial.

At first, I thought AT&T and Lil’ Wayne made strange bedfellows, until I remembered that until 2001, AT&T was one of the largest distributors of pornography in the country (In 2001, under pressure, they sold that business to Comcast). Lil’ Wayne is incredibly popular: he’s everywhere it seems. But Lil’ Wayne’s music is coarse by any standards, and he continues a legacy of misogyny. I admit this is my two-generation removed assessment, and so I recognize it doesn’t hold much meaning or significance. I know that many listeners don’t pay attention to the lyrics, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t available for those who want to take a closer look. The song Lillipop, is a good example: rife with language that debases women. If most people don’t listen to the lyrics, does that mean there is no meaning? Perhaps not. I have argued for a while that meaning has given way to something else – experience. And, experience can be meaningful or not. So the question isn’t: is Lil’ Wayne’s music good or bad, but how do you experience that music? We’ve also learned that it isn’t the lyrics themselves that convey meaning, in the case of AT&T, a certain validation comes along with the live webcast of Lil’ Wayne’s new work (what we call "text in context"). One could argue that AT&T’s target audience is one that purchases a lot of wireless service, and so the connection is fitting. But in sponsoring the live streaming performance, the corporation is, again, displaying a certain hegemony over a culture that is rife with contradiction.