Grant Tabler
Alison Bruce
MDST 1010 – 01
December 7th 2009
Squandering a Medium
Our media immersed culture thrives on our ability to quickly attain information. This ability is enhanced by online video hosting. YouTube and the National Film Board of Canada, have sites that allow the public free access to information. However these sites have different ideas when it comes to what should be posted and by whom.
On The National Film Board’s website you can watch films produced by the National Film board of Canada. The viewers are not allowed to submit their own videos to the site. On YouTube the audience has the ability to create and submit their own videos and display them to the world.
The content in the videos put on YouTube is, when compared to the National Film Board, essentially unmitigated. Though as the freedom for the public to proliferate ideas and information increases, the quality of the submitted material has a tendency to decrease.
The National Film Board was described in one of their films as, “a unique institution where filmmakers are given the freedom to: condemn injustice, to promote social awareness, to initiate change, innovation, and hope.” (Pouliot) YouTube, although capable of this usage, is most often not used for such a purpose.
Often it seems that many YouTube users are squandering their medium. YouTube users could be dedicating their time to creating videos that attempt to initiate change and promote social awareness. However for the vast majority of the videos created are something like: “THE BEST CAT VIDEO YOU'LL EVER SEE” (797 Productions), which has 17 million views to its credit.
Can’t Stop the Rock
File sharing has become a relatively normal thing in our society. Most of my generation has become accustomed to using peer-to-peer services to get much of their entertainment. From music, to movies, to video games, the average person can easily acquire any media they can think of, by using the right programs and websites.
This has become a mostly accepted practice; people are rarely criticized by their peers for downloading music without paying for it. This public acceptance means that individuals have began to develop a need for this kind of media acquisition method. Although the sharing of these copyrighted products and services is illegal, it is increasingly difficult to stop.
One of the Pioneers of this file sharing necessity we now posses is Napster. Napster was one of the original file sharing programs that allowed users to download music from others free of charge. Though the service was eventually shut down due to its illegal nature, the idea that people could have free access to music, movies, and other such culture became an accepted one.
In the wake of Napster’s shutdown other programs began to spring up in its place. From Kazaa to Limewire, free access to entertainment media became a primary programming endeavour. It is extremely difficult to stop all of these services because there are always more being created. Whenever a file sharing site is shutdown several more pop up and take their place.
Copyright lawsuits cannot even shut down most of the programs that allow file sharing, such as BitTorrent. Torrent downloading programs still have non-illegal uses for file sharing, like downloading patches or updates for many computer games. So this war for culture and copyright continues, with no end in sight. One thing is certain however, using the current methods; the copyright industry stands no chance of stopping the file sharing industry.
New Uses for Social Media
Our society has always thrived from communication and the transference of information. As our culture has evolved so too have our methods of disseminating such information. However, recently we have seen a shift in the way media affect information transfer, particularly social media. Social media now constitute more and more of our society’s intake of information. Clay Shirky, an American writer and adjunct professor, lectures on the idea that social media are changing the media landscape in which we live in. He also believes that we will have to make use of this change if we want to disseminate information efficiently into the future.
In his lecture, ‘How social media can make history,’ Shirky makes several assertions. One such assertion is that technology is used in its most inventive and interesting ways only after that technology has become a commonplace tool. Also, the internet has become a medium for all other media. Now other media like television or radio are available on, if not sent through the internet. The audience is now not only consuming this media, but also producing it. These points, along with the new technologies now available, have led to a many-to-many pattern of new social media. In that, instead of one person sending the same information to all, or many people sending information to one person, now the audience can talk to the disseminator and they can also talk to the other audience members. These assertions are some of the implications of social media, though there are other trends which are impacted by social media, many of which are somewhat more negative than Shirky’s points.
One of the most obvious and ubiquitous of these social trends is also a somewhat obnoxious one. We have gained an inflated sense of self worth from social media. We believe that we are special, that somehow what we think and who we are matters to everyone else. This is exemplified by things like Facebook, Blogging, and Twitter. Our society has become a trifle conceited, in that we think that the rest of the world actually cares about our opinions. What pop culture satirist Chuck Klosterman referred to as “America’s insipid Oprah culture—the pervasive belief system that insists everyone’s perspective is valid”. (Klosterman 227) This trend, based impact of social media, illustrates Shirky’s idea that the former consumers in our society are now also becoming producers. In that, since these people now have the ability to transmit their ideas to the world, they have begun to believe that their information is important and even necessary. Although Shirky’s point is illustrating one of the larger benefits of social media, it’s impacts can often have downsides, like an audience that becomes conceited.
Another major trend social media has steered us toward is that the more connected digitally we are to people the less connected we can be emotionally. What the instant communication of social media has allowed us to do is communicate without getting real feedback to our opinions. New social forms of communication have taken the personality out of personal interaction. We are able to post opinions, ideas, or just send messages to others without inflection, body language, or any of the subtle non-verbal nuances of communication. As the media theorist Friedrich Kittler put it, “Writing can store only writing, no more, no less.” (Kittler, 7)
It has also become much easier to be deceitful for these same reasons. The feedback aspect of these new communication media is non-existent because, although we can instantly send out messages, the conversation is always one way. The other person is never within sight range; you can never see how the message’s recipient feels, nor do you get a true response. For, because there is no physical manifestation, the person is able to edit or filter themselves and their thoughts before responding. There are great masses of people sending out opinions, ideas, and thoughts, yet their conversations are just a series of monologues. This is reflective of Shirky’s many-to-many pattern because our culture has become one of social connection without physical manifestation. We are constantly sending information to everyone we can, and each of them sends their own information to others. So, although the amount of information being sent, and the locations and destinations of this information are increasing, at the same time there is a loss of personal and emotional connection that one gains from an individual conversation.
Social media are changing the way we attain our information, as well as the way we send it out. There are benefits and there are downsides to the impacts of social media, however, the positives far outweigh the negatives. For those who wish to disseminate information in the coming year, a change in strategy is in order. As Clay Shirky put it, “The question we all face now is: how can we make best use of this medium, even though it means changing the way we’ve always done it?”(Shirky)
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Works Cited
797 Productions, dir. THE BEST CAT VIDEO YOU'LL EVER SEE. YouTube, 2007. Film.
Kittler, Friedrich. “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter”. Stanford University Press, 1999. Print.
Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.
Pouliot , Jean-François, dir. NFB 70 Years. National Film Board of Canada, 2009. Film.
Shirky, Clay. “How social media can make history”. TED Conferences, LLC. June 2009. Guest Lecture.
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