This is my favorite Youtube video. The reason it is my favorite is because it portrays such a deep message in a way that is not too over bearing. This video works because it appeals to an audience that is very broad. The man is speaking simple words over music in a poetic manner that makes it easy to listen to and it pulls you in because it is not boring. It is not a lecture.
This is a video that teaches me something. It comes with a message important in today’s society. It takes an approach that is very radical but i see it as very effective. The ONLY critique I have about it is that because the approach is very head on, it is unattractive to some viewers. Not everyone can get over 5 year olds saying the “f word” even if it is for a good cause!
This video is a problematic video. This is a curation of the song “Know Yourself” by Drake. It is problematic because it is slowed down and the voice is altered. Although it still says “by Drake”, the person who altered the orginial music did not have the copyright to do so. This video has a lot of ads around it to, making viewing uneasy.
Howard Rheingold talks about “crap detection” in this blog post which is ” sorting the accurate bits from the misinfo, disinfo, spam, scams, urban legends, and hoaxes.” Rheingold finds this technique vital to the rise of new media and internet usage. ANYONE can use the internet. That is what is great about the rise of technology. With the internet being so easily accessible it also leaves a huge door open for people to create fake websites, tweet false things, doctor photos as well. Rheingold stresses the ability to “detect crap”.
Becoming acquainted with the fundamentals of web credibility testing is easier than learning the multiplication tables. The hard part, as always, is the exercise of flabby think-for-yourself muscles.
I find this part most valuable because it is not hard to determine what is real and what is fake but at times it is hard to differentiate between your views and someone else’s views. If a website or tweet is fake and yet every one around you believes it, although you may be a great “Crap Detector” you may go with the pack instead of investigating yourself.
Rheingold goes into how to “detect crap” with the first step being to ask yourself, “Who is the author?”. This point is most valuable to me as a college student who constantly has to do online work to research. A site crap detection has to be used on alot is Wikipedia. Although at times it is useful, ANYONE can be an author of a wikipedia site. It is open to the public. Between determining the author and twitter journalism to verify the authenticity of a tweet, crap detection is incredibly useful in our new age of digital media. I believe with the use of crap detection people will begin to grow and be able to determine what is real and fake on their own.
The main focus for my YouTube curation project is how celebrities help increase participatory culture especially when it’s pertaining to a social issue. Social issues are ALL over new media now a days, everyone voicing an opinion or there views. When celebrities get involved, the amount people participate in discussion especially over new media such as Twitter or Facebook, sky rockets.
To help me develop my argument I am bringing in experts such as Jenkins and Rheingold. I am using Jenkins blog Post about participitory culture. Jenkins says a participitory culture is a group in which similiar interests are shared. The example I am using is music.
When musicians get together and decide to take a stand on an issue, the audience they are reaching is huge. The chances of them impacting that audience is large because it is almost a form of peer pressure. The audience “looks up” to the artist in a sense.
This brings me to Howard Rheingold and “Crap Detection”. Celebrities are more likely to have impacts on an audience because they are considered “credible sources”. It’s a monkey see, monkey do situation. If the celebrity is a credible source and taking a stance on an issue, so will the audience.
This subject matters to me because I feel as if celebrities have had impacts on the participation of my generations in huge social issues. All it takes is one tweet about Ferguson from Kanye West and all of the sudden everyone wants to discuss the social injustice. New media has made this all possible. It’s bridged the gap between the famous and the average and has opened the discussion and has shined a light on that celebrities personal beliefs. I believe new media has helped this cause. Celebrities enlarge our participatory culture by being that role model.
What I’ve noticed most within New Media is how a participatory culture is vital to the success of new media as a whole, Henry Jenkins has stated
“A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.”
As an avid user of new media, it is evident that celebrities have a strong impact on the participatory culture. Whether it be appealing to an audience for fun, or appealing to the audience on a deeper level. Celebrities create whole new level of participation:
(stop at 41 seconds)
Here in this video you see Jimmy Fallon creating a scenario where people can hashtag in this case “Oh hell snow” and within 10 minutes it became the most trending topic on twitter in the world. If I tried to start a hashtag, I may get 6 retweets, on a good day.
(2:18-3:45)
At this Ted Talk, Sinan Aral, decides to use Ashton Kutcher as the “poster boy” for influence. With Ashton Kutcher’s amount of followers, he becomes the “it” boy for what to do. He appeals to his audience in a way that leaves impacts on the people who look up to him.
Even if it is not through the direct use of social media, when celebrities get together to speak out on a specific issue, it sparks up the conversation that at times is sometimes sensitive. In our generation, we lack face to face communication. We are always so involved in our new media, whether it be through twitter, or blogging. But when famous people come together, we take a break from the normal topics that do not matter and focus on things that do.
(2:00-3:11)
After this performance, with the use of the hashtag “Grammys2015” and “Glory”, the song reached number 2, on the Billboard top 100, and “Top Twitter Tracks”. This song was a huge success during this time with all that has been going on in Ferguson. Ferguson was an event that took over twitter, and on this night again #Ferguson was one of the top trending tweets in the world. Famous people have such an impact on our generation because they bridge the gap between “us and them” allowing the person to feel as if they share the same idea as a person with higher socio-economic standing.
“A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another. Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement.”
Jenkins uses participatory culture as the back bone for the success of new media. It is indeed the way to connect famous and ordinary. But with famous people dominating the new media world, it makes the crap detection aspect that Howard Rheingold finds most valuable, hard for the viewer. Celebrities are “credible sources” to our generation. We follow what they do, we want to be like them whether we try consciously or not.
“Newstrust is trying to crowd source the filter for mainstream as well as alternative news sources by growing a bipartisan virtual community of critical news filterers who use the same set of criteria for evaluating whether a news story exhibits bias, makes factual claims that can or cannot be verified, presents more than one interpretation of events.”
“Again, it’s up to the consumer of the information to decide which images, videos, tweets are authentic. As always happens when there is a high demand for separating signal from noise, people began to put together filters for doing that – and human tools for sorting the more trustworthy information.”
Crap Detection is important with the rise of new media because it becomes easy for fake things to be spread very easily. One instance I feel is most important this year was the Brian Williams scandal. In which he made false accusations. Because he is “famous”, not one person questioned him until almost 10 years later.
Celebrities affect participatory culture by creating a subculture that is easily accessible and free of discrimination. Any one can join the conversation especially if the person who is famous displays the same views the person on the other end of social media has.
“Social media is viewed both as a way to foster genuine connection while also fueling feelings of alienation, a way of amplifying communication and narcissism. Since the advent of social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — few of which existed when today’s young movie audience was born — the duality of social media has bedeviled academics, artists and everyday people alike, as long-held social norms established in an analog world have rapidly given way to a new age of selfies, likes and status updates.”
A quote by Josh Rottinberg from the Los Angeles times continues, “Stars are now routinely asked whether they’re on Twitter and Facebook, with the assumption being that the answer reveals something essential about their character or even their level of stardom”
New Media has played such a role in the way stars become who they are. That has taken a step further in to how fans and stars interact. The Participatory Culture that is discussed every day, that allows new media develop is effected by the people with the most power in our nation. It is seen almost everyday, and it is become apart of who we are as a nation who uses the power of new media in every day life.
Communication, such as email or instant message, that is sent personally to one or more individuals as opposed to being sent to a public conferencing forum. Back channel is rarely documented, but is a major component in online interactions.
After looking up what Back Channel is the group and i have found a good source as to what back channeling is “Although backchannel communication began—and often remains—in the purview of students or audience members, individual instructors across the college and university spectrum have adapted the tools of social networking or collaborative editing to set up accounts for class backchannel participation in the courses they teach.” People need back channeling in social media because it has to do with audience when you have present something you want people to be able to understand what it is and why it is needed. When back channeling is used people often find it easier to understand things because they will use emails and other communication to figure out what something means. https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7057.pdf
Feed:
Also known as web feeds or blog feeds, a feed is a document that contains content items, often summaries of stories or blog posts, that include web links to longer versions. Feeds are subscribed to directly by users with aggregators or feed readers (see definition above) that combine the contents of multiple web feeds for display on a single screen or series of screens
After looking up what Feed is i have found some things to show you what feed really does and how it works here is an example/ explanation of it also feed can be called RSS. “Feeds are a way for websites large and small to distribute their content well beyond just visitors using browsers. Feeds permit subscription to regular updates, delivered automatically via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email. Feeds also make it possible for site content to be packaged into “widgets,” “gadgets,” mobile devices, and other bite-sized technologies that make it possible to display blogs, podcasts, and major news/sports/weather/whatever headlines just about anywhere.” Feeds are everywhere the internet would’t really be the internet without them. The news uses it to stream things on the internet, Blogs use it, Facebook, twitter and ect. in order to have any social media sight you have to have a feed or as some people call it a “timeline” without this social media isn’t really social media without seeing what other people have to say and if you don’t have a feed you don’t know whats going on in the world or whats going on with other people. https://support.google.com/feedburner/answer/79408?hl=en
Audience, the assembled spectators or listeners at a public event, such as a play, movie, concert, or meeting. Throughout New Media, the way the audience participates and comprehends content has become a culture within itself. Through new media, audience has changed and developed into a wide variety of people. Audience and perception play a vital role in the progression of new media and participatory culture.
Within New Media, the audience is constantly changing. Our generation is fast pace and it has been up to new media to keep up with the times or it is easy for a site or app to fizzle out and become irrelevant. Audience is important to the growth of New Media. Participatory culture is one of the things that keep apps and websites running.
“The rise of digital networks is facilitating new forms of “collective intelligence” which are allowing groups of consumers to identify and pursue common interests”(Jenkins)
New Media has created a huge spectrum of who views what, and what people like. Audience varies from toddlers using ipads to Senior Citizens emailing back and forth. Like Jenkins said, “common interests” is a huge factor in the type of audience you will have. Take twitter for example, if your tweets do not “appeal” to your audience, you will not get favorites or retweets, which in some cases is the point of the app. A participatory culture is defined by Jenkins as one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another.
As an audience it is important to be active in determining what on the internet is real and what is fake. Rheingold has stated “The first thing we all need to know about information online is how to detect crap, a technical term I use for information tainted by ignorance, inept communication, or deliberate deception. Learning to be a critical consumer of Webinfo is not rocket science” . As an audience, crap detection is vital to the proper use of social media today. Audience is one of the key factors to successful new media.
Barack Obama has stated that “the internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and every day life.” and he could not be more right. In my generation alone I’ve seen the internet go from the dial up version where you could not use your land line if you wanted to use the computer, all the way to using the internet literally at your finger tips. The idea of “net neutrality” I believe is one of the simplest concepts that should remain the way it is. It is simple because it does not discriminate against who or what can view things. That is what makes the idea of the internet so accessible, because anyone can use it,
For the FCC to put a ban on certain websites, or to make the internet a “toll road on the internet super highway” would take away from the appeal of using media. Although social media and internet have become such a huge subculture in our world today, going along with Obama said, to put a price on it or to limit it almost ruins the fact that the internet is accessible to every america, to every person in the world no matter their background. I also believe that putting a ban on things is starting to take away from our basic rights, such as freedom of speech and the press. I don’t think this is a situation where there needs to be a force that is taking away from what is accessed.
“And as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considers new rules for how to safeguard competition and user choice, we cannot take that principle of net neutrality for granted. Ensuring a free and open Internet is the only way we can preserve the Internet’s power to connect our world. That’s why the President has laid out a plan to do it, and is asking the FCC to implement it.”
The idea of taking net neutrality for granted is important at this point. As a people we do not realize how much we are able to access and how easily the FCC could take it away from us. Although it is a huge debate, I think the internet is one place we have equality and I do not think it needs to be changed.
Although Jenkin’s blog contained many valuable and interesting facts, the one that stood out to me most was the section on our modern day video search engine, YouTube. I personally enjoy how Jenkins is taking something so common, so agreeable , and breaking it down to something that is now able to be analyzed. Youtube is unique because it’s not only a hub for funny videos of dogs dancing or Beyonce’s super bowl Performance. You can search anything and everything, whether it be how to graph a circle or how to perform CPR properly.
Spreadable Media is interesting because its so easily accessed, Take youtube for example. ANYONE can have a youtube account. And there will always be an audience for the specific account or video. There is no limitation to what is posted. Audience to me plays a huge role in how media is spread and perceived. Because there is no limitation to who the audience may be, there is no limitation to what is posted or viewed. Youtube does have “rules” but yet this website is one of the biggest media hubs today.
Youtube has become a business. People have become “youtube famous”. They get paid just to post a video of them being funny, or them supporting a brand name. One example I like to use is a Youtube star named Miranda. She wears red lipstick and talks funny and uses her eyebrows to gesture. On a behind the scenes MTV series, she states how people have fallen in love with her character Miranda. In which is just her with some lipstick on. And she goes on to tell the viewer how she makes 3.5 million dollars a year with this channel. Although it puts strain on her real life and relationships, if her video views drop below a certain percentage, she loses her money.
Jenkins bringing up Youtube and the spread ability of it, really resonates with me being a college student. I use YouTube frequently and its accessibility and wide range of topics makes it easy and appealing.
Meghan 