Transcultural Confusion

In James Brown’s, Evil Bert Laden: ViRaL Texts, Community, and Collision, he explained how globalized web technologies welcomed great “transcultural confusion.” “Transcultural confusion” is a symptom of the web that has created “a new and heightened level of interaction between cultures” (Poster), and has “radically altered the old limits on the size sophistication, and scope of unsupervised effort” (Shirky). With the unsupervised environment surrounding the web, it is easy to understand why different cultures would be offended by certain content. Brown used the Bert Laden image and the Spice Girl concert as an example of “transcultural confusion,” by explaining that Asadullah and other Muslims felt the encroachment of Western popular culture on their Muslim values. Muslims want their “cultures, traditions and religious, and societal standards to be respected” (Brown), but how do we (by we I mean everyone on Earth) go about respecting every culture when the web openly displays everything and anything in an unsupervised environment?

Everyday, I encounter numerous political cartoons, fail blogs, and other seemingly comedic web articles, and realized that they are meant to be edgy and funny. However, I am sure there is a community (as discussed in Brown’s article) that would take offense to those. For example, the Bert Laden image was considered to be a joke by Dennis Pozniak’s standards, but to the Sesame Street producers, the image was “unfortunate” and “distasteful.” According to Brown, “The producers of Sesame Street made an immediate attempt to control their intellectual property.” Ultimately, with a free-for-all unsupervised web environment, and a lack of international intellectual property laws, the web will continue to cause “transcultural confusion.”

…..Unless you live in China, Iran, UAE, Morocco, Thailand, Turkey, Iraq, Brazil, Victoria in Australia, and India (http://mashable.com/2007/05/30/youtube-bans/). Brown stated, “The degree of autonomy of each culture to significantly reduce as a consequence of the global information network.” However, many countries like the ones I listed above, have taken government efforts to control the unsupervised and culturally offensive web technologies. For example, Morocco banned youtube because of videos that mocked the Moroccan king as well as some pro-Western Sahara clips. China has also banned facebook and twitter since 2009 (http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/cer/2011_02/Open_book.html). And in addition to those bans, China’s government banned microblogging on Sina Weibo because people were comparing Cairo’s Tahrir Square to Tiananmen Square (http://www.hindustantimes.com/Cairo-protests-make-Chinese-censors-nervous/Article1-657400.aspx). Even if you tried searching for “Egypt” on a google search engine in China, you would find this statement “according to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown” (Patil).

Does government censorship of web technologies help the “transcultural confusion?”

Again we see the tensions from Convergence Culture take shape through Brown’s article. The web created an unsupervised environment, so the tension lies between a community that has learned how to rhetorically deal with web technologies (including offensive material), and a community that works against the new web media (censorship).

SR 1: "Convergence Culture" by Henry Jenkins

Henry Jenkin’s Convergence Culture Where Old and New Media Collide documented the cultural transition where old and new media interlock, as prosumers are urged to seek new knowledge, and make connections across an array of media platforms. Jenkins designates us as part of a convergence and participatory culture. Convergence is “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want” (2). Participatory culture “contrasts with older notions of passive media spectatorship…who interact with each other according to a new set of rules that none of us fully understand” (3). Jenkins described the potential for our convergence culture through Pierre Lévy’s “achievable utopia,” where “people from fundamentally different perspectives see a value in talking and listening to one another, and such deliberations form the basis for mutual respect and trust” (246). Ultimately, Lévy suggests that when everyone has greater access to information and new media platforms, companies alter the way companies market their products. Jenkins expresses this evolving nature and changing roles of communication through the Survivor case study where an emotional relationship was fostered between the brand and the consumer. Jenkins explained how this evolvement in communication spills into politics when he stated, “As we saw in looking at Campaign 2004, what we learn through spoiling Survivor…may quickly get applied to political activism or education in the workplace” (257). Jenkins shows that through each project of transmedia storytelling, a “distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole” is offered in return. Through this evolvement in communication which stimulates new ideas and new knowledge, Jenkins is hopeful that these new social structures will further create more “democratic citizenship

Henry Jenkins introduced Pierre Lévy’s idea of an “achievable utopia.” Everyday we strive to reach Lévy’s “achievable utopia” by communicating more freely and becoming more democratic. Although Jenkins and Lévy do not state if we will reach this utopia, I think that we specifically aim for this utopia through politics. For instance, the knowledge communities of Survivor Sucks, could be paralleled to the political knowledge communities of Wikileaks. WikiLeaks, like “Survivor Sucks,” has their own knowledge community, but instead of Survivor fans, WikiLeak’s knowledge community consists of 800 worldwide anonymous news sources and high-powered people. Wikileaks also stated that that their goal is to “break down the divisions and suspicions that currently shape international relations” (29). Thus, the goal of Wikileaks can be seen as a tactic to reach the utopia by allowing for free communication and being more “democratic” (in their eyes). In another instance, we are using Facebook videos instead of traditional media platforms (CNN, Fox, etc.) to get our news about the revolt in Egypt from young revolutionaries in “Cairo’s Facebook Flat” (http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/02/08/world/middleeast/1248069622796/cairos-facebook-flat.html). This is yet another example of how our convergence culture is using the skills acquired in entertainment environments such as Survivor Sucks, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, among others, for political purposes. Ultimately, we have not reached Lévy’s utopia, but we are in an “apprenticeship phase” where “we are learning what it is like to operate within a knowledge culture…[and] we are still debating and resolving core principles that will define our interactions with each other” (249). Our active knowledge communities will continue to play a role through media platforms to reach the utopia by exposing all knowledge and democratizing.

Achievable Utopia

In Chapter 6, Pierre Lévy optimistically reiterated the idea of how an “achievable utopia” would allow knowledge communities to communicate freely to the point that we become more democratic. Jenkins stated, “In Lévy’s world, people from fundamentally different perspectives see a value in talking and listening to one another, and such deliberations form the basis for mutual respect and trust” (246). Ultimately, Lévy is suggesting that when everyone has the same access to info, distrust will evolve.

Although we have not reached the “achievable utopia,” we are in an “apprenticeship” phase. In explaining the “apprenticeship” phase, Jenkins described, “We are still learning what it is like to operate within a knowledge culture. We are still debating and resolving core principles that will define our interactions with each other” (249).

I can agree that we are in an apprenticeship phase, but I still wonder what constitutes an “achievable utopia? Lévy’s “achievable utopia” is too vague and abstract because it could mean so many things. Where do we start in order to communicate freely with each other? As more and more information accumulates through our apprenticeship phase, we will become overwhelmed. For example, I have to read 3 different newspapers a day (Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wallstreet Journal) just to get the proper facts of a news story. 

Transmedia Storytelling

Transmedia storytelling is the way in which a story is told through multiple media platforms (video games, websites, books, etc.), and each element contributes to a fan’s immersion into the story. Transmedia storytelling can also be viewed as “New Hollywood’s” active marketing technique that has created media franchises.

Convergence Culture uses The Blair Witch Project as the paradigm for transmedia storytelling that began in 1999. Dan Myrick—the producer and director—explained, “To think of The Blair Witch Project as a film was to miss the bigger picture” (103). The book further explained this idea of transmedia storytelling through T.B.W.P as an occurrence in media platforms both before and after the film hit the theatres.

Before T.B.W.P was screened in theatres, it hit several media platforms such as the web and the Sci Fi Channel. These two platforms set the preliminary information needed to understand the concept of the “Witch.” For instance, the website—created a year before the film—explained the Burkittsville witch and the disappearance of the movie crew. Dan Myrick also stated, “The site provided documentation of numerous witch sightings over the past centuries…[which] forms the backdrop for its action” (104). The Sci Fi Channel also set the backdrop of T.B.W.P by investigating the witch in the movie. Ultimately, these two media platforms served as “the part for whole” of the transmedia story as they lured the audience into T.B.W.P before it even hit theatres.

After T.B.W.P hit theatres, the witch phenomenon continued to grow through other media platforms such as a comic book, soundtrack, and another website. For instance, Ed Sanchez—a crew member of T.B.W.P—wanted to continue with the Blair Witch phenomenon by creating a website that was framed in such a way to make it seem as though people were investigating the witch as though the witch really existed. Ed Sanchez stated, “We started fabricating artifacts, paintings, carvings, old books, and I would scan them in…What we learned from Blair Witch is that if you give people enough stuff to explore, they will explore” (105). Thus, T.B.W.P is not only a movie, but a transmedia story that unfolded through several layers of different media outlets.  

As transmedia storytelling is implemented as a marketing strategy, I see a clash between old Hollywood and new Hollywood. Jenkins explained, “The old Hollywood depended on redundancy to ensure that viewers could follow the plot at all times…The new Hollywood demands that we keep our eyes on the road at all times, and that we do research before we arrive at the theater.” Although the new Hollywood has turned us onto transmedia stories where we become active audience members who “do research before we arrive at the theatre,” I still miss old Hollywood. Yes, the futuristic and thought provoking films like The Matrix are fascinating, but I miss the “redundancy” used in old Hollywood films like Gone With the Wind and Casablanca.

Now the question is, what will define a movie as a “classic” according to new Hollywood? Will a “classic” be the movie that engaged the audience the most through different media platforms?

Is the redundancy of old Hollywood so bad?

Another question that comes to mind is how can transmedia storytelling be used to be a money making tool? I can think of one example of the top of my head—Entourage. HBO could have made more money off of Entourage by using transmedia storytelling. For example, HBO could have made “Aqua Man” into an actual movie played by Vince, or Median could have been based on a novel. Just think of all the possibilities! What other shows or movies would work with transmedia storytelling?

Cybersubculture Culture Topics

For my cybersubculture comparison, I would like to compare Qwiki and Wikipedia.

Qwiki like Wikipedia is a site that has improved the way people experience information. They emphasize storytelling rather than "searching" when you want to find out about a restaurant, person, place, etc. Unlike Wikipedia's textual online articles that explain information about a topic, Qwiki allows people to learn about topics through an interactive video that tells a story about that specific topic.

Other interesting info:
Qwiki is a new site as of last October, and was founded by Facebook's co-founder Ewardo Saverin (the nice guy from the "Social Network" who was duped by Mark Zuckerberg). The team that continually modifies and runs Qwiki are a diverse group who are from all over the world.

The Knowledge Community of "Survivor Sucks" Applied to the Knowledge Community of WikiLeaks

In reading Chapter 1, “Spoiling Survivor—The Anatomy of a Knowledge Community,” of Henry Jenkin’s Convergence Culture, I realized that on a profound level we can parallel the knowledge communities that follow Survivor to the knowledge communities that follow our government.

As we live in a culture that infuses technology in our day to day lives, it is easy to discover everything about a person, place, or in my example our government. Recently, WikiLeaks can be seen as the epitome of this example. WikiLeaks—the non-profit organization that publishes secrets and classified information—is parallel to the way in which “Survivor Sucks” worked. WikiLeaks like “Survivor Sucks,” has their own knowledge community, but instead of Survivor fans, WikiLeak’s knowledge community consists of 800 worldwide anonymous news sources and high-powered people. Another similar aspect that WikiLeaks shares with “Survivor Sucks” are the five “braintrusts” who work to verify whether the secretive information given from the knowledge community is valid. (We could even go to the extent of labeling Julian Assange as Chillone from “Survivor Sucks.”)

Now the question that Jenkins addresses, is why would we want to create knowledge communities to expose all aspects of democracy and government? In response to this question, Jenkins explicates (through Pierre Lévy’s perspective), “Such knowledge communities are central to the task of restoring democratic citizenship….The sharing of knowledge around the world is the best way of breaking down the divisions and suspicions that currently shape international relations” (29). In addition to Jenkins, WikiLeaks further explains that its purpose is to expose oppressive regimes and to reveal unethical behavior of governments and corporations (http://mirror.wikileaks.info/). With this in mind, another question comes to mind. Is it beneficial for WikiLeak’s knowledge community to expose our governmental flaws worldwide? That is the question that has caused much debate, and has caused a love-hate relationship with WikiLeaks.

When our government was exposed through WikiLeaks, Obama and other government administrators had a taste of what is to come with the advent of our powerful convergence culture, knowledge communities, and technology. WikiLeaks undermined certain aspects of our government by exposing our flaws and even gave away our future foreign policy plans for North Korea. Thus, we see why the knowledge community can be a great device for revealing corruption. However, it could be a bad thing if the knowledge community is exposing our foreign policy plans worldwide when our government is trying to be secretive with these plans so that the United States can continue to be a “Super power.”

Ultimately, we cannot escape our convergence culture, knowledge communities, or technology. In preparing for the future, Jenkins highlights that, “We are in a period of “apprenticeship” through which we innovate and explore the structures that will support political and economic life in the future” (29). We will find more knowledge communities and more braintrusts that will continue to restore democracy, and may even operate as a form of governance. 

Hello World

Hello World