Dave Studies Media

My Cause

2008-04-03T23:32:00.000-07:00

So, I was planning on doing some more posts eventually leading up to an epic finish, but things didn't really turn out that way, so I'll just say this.

I've taken a lot away from this course that I'm really grateful for, like a much clearer idea of where I'm headed, new friends, and a heaping spoonful of street cred. (I really like that phrase. Might have to use it again later.) Whether I end up pursuing higher education in media studies, or getting involved in (that is, employed by) the industry somehow after I graduate, I know that this is my passion and that I'm going to follow it in some capacity. Right now what I have a strong desire to do in the future is to be able to teach people (in person, through writing, whatever) about the resources/technologies that are available to them, to help them live more productive, organized, and convenient (although this one can get a little iffy) lives. I'm interested in the development/design side of things too, but I find that when it comes down to it I often prefer, or at least am content to just talk about everything that I see going on. I don't know what the future holds, (just like I'm not sure why this paragraph contains an alarming number of parentheses) but I'm feeling excited and optimistic. So thanks to everyone who was involved and helped make this class what it was. And don't stop being involved, in the greater sense. You know what I mean.

As for the future of this blog...behold:

http://onculture.wordpress.com/

I'm moving all the content from this blog over to the new location, which I'm going to keep as an archive of research notes - primarily for my own use, but since it's public, it's possible it will turn into a conversation hub as well. That would be neat. The current title is "On Culture", which I settled on in a creative lapse, and justified as interesting by thinking of it as "a modernization of the old essay title standard" - you know, because there are so many old papers and stuff titled simply "On blah blah blah". So here I was blending the old with the relatively new. But, I'm going to change it to something better, once I settle on an idea, although the location will stay the same. Until I decide to buy my own domain that is, in which case those of you following along will be well aware.

As always, thanks for reading and all the best to everyone.

The Retooling of Garfield

2008-04-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

My friend showed me this great project today (I guess you'd classify it as a webcomic) where this guy takes the Garfield comics and makes some specific changes. He decided Garfield would be a more enjoyable comic without Garfield in it at all. The result is Garfield Minus Garfield, in which all traces of the lasagna loving cat are photoshopped out. It actually took this change for me to realize what a depressing person Jon is, although, I'm sure I'd have noticed if I were actually reading the comics on a regular basis as an older person. And it's that exaggerated hopelessness that actually makes these bizarre mutations work as comedy, at least from my perspective. I actually find many of these hilarious.

This struck me as interesting because it's an original way to remediate - if you can even call it that - where you merely take away from the original using new(ish) technology, instead of expanding on it. But by taking something away, the comic has been taken to new heights. It's now about a Jon Arbuckle who is apparently schizophrenic, bi-polar, and so on. And maybe he always has been, but now it's even more pronounced, because there isn't that smug-looking orange tabby to distract us from this incredibly unstable human being.

You can get to the archive, (which isn't very big so far) by clicking the link above. Here are a couple of my favourites:

The Cool Cycle

2008-03-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was half-watching CNN while "doing work" on my laptop, when an ad that came on made me stop and look up. I recognized the song "In the Morning" by Junior Boys, a small group from my hometown of Hamilton. It was an ad, (part of a new campaign as I found out after a quick search) for the Marriott hotel chain.

Searching YouTube, I've been unable to dig up the exact ad I saw on TV, but the point of the new commercials is how well-equipped Marriott's rooms are now. Presumably they're referring to decent WiFi access and, well, who knows what else exactly. The ads show people enjoying a variety of different media like high-quality music and big or multiple visualizations on screens. Of course, the media are depicted through animation instead of actual footage, so the specific perks Marriott's rooms have to offer remain ambiguous.

I noticed that in the commercial featuring "In the Morning", the girl appears to be holding an iPod. If it's not an iPod, it's a very iPod-like device. This got me thinking about using already-successful products to boost your own image. We're all familiar with product placement in films, and pundits on CNN sit around at large desks armed with laptops clearly brandishing the Apple logo. However, I can't think of any examples of companies trying to cash in on the success of unrelated products. I imagine it happens though.

In any case, I thought it was ironic considering our recent observation of Apple's own advertising efforts. As Lauren pointed out recently, the old commercial employed popular ideas, a sort of pathos argument appealing to widespread reverence of certain figures like Einstein and Gandhi. The commercial reminded viewers that Apple is cool because they're edgy and rebellious. Now the cycle continues with everyone and their mother using Apple's image to hopefully sell the idea that they're as cool as Muhammad Ali.

Airing on the Optimistic Side

2008-03-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

In one of my first posts on this blog I talked about Apple's MacBook Air which had just been released.

Well, today I enjoyed this review of the MBA written by Paul Stamatiou. (For reference, Paul is a 21 year old student of Computational Media at Georgia Technical Institute. His blog is a popular destination for tech reviews, tips, and How-Tos. I've been reading it for nearly 2 years and highly recommend it. No, he did not pay me to say this.)

On the whole, he's happy with his MBA, (he gives it a 9/10) even though it's a technical downgrade from his old MacBook Pro. I think it's interesting that someone with such an investment in computers would sacrifice functionality for convenience. Granted, convenience is supposed to be what laptops are all about, and Paul doesn't seem to feel the loss in performance is enough to worry about. Still, this makes me wonder if we'll see Apple's "think[ing] different" start a trend where fun factors start taking precedence (for general consumers, at least) over practicality. I got my video iPod for Christmas, 2005, and less than a year later I had people saying to me, "Oh, you've got one of those big ones.." Because, by that time, the popularity of the Nano and the Shuffle had taken hold - even though mine holds 30g of data. I still use that iPod daily, and I still prefer it for its carrying capacity over its light-weight, more gym-friendly cousins.

I wonder if popular computers will eventually experience as much of a divide as we see with something like cars. Perhaps the MacBook Air is the first Lambo of computers. (Lamborghini doesn't look so different from Apple - at least, their site is pretentious enough. Enjoy the background music.) As for the other end of the spectrum..."Built Panasonic Tough?"

What does that make Nicholas Negroponte's XO? A smartcar?

The Onion: Wii Blamed for Rise in Effeminate Violence

2008-03-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

This article from The Onion really tickled my funny bone.

"Three years ago, our children were not prancing after their peers and brutally flicking each other on the playground," Roberts said. "They were well-behaved wimps who spent their recess periods hiding from bullies. What are these terrible games doing to our country's sallies?"

I don't really have much to say about this. Just sharing. Enjoy.

Update: After reading the article a second time, the satire of it really hit home. The kinds of stories they think up, like the classroom brawl ending in stretched sweaters and stubbed fingers, sounds like such a typical news report about some instance of juvenile delinquency that's "connected" to video games. The writer did a great job of spoofing the things certain people say by way of argument as well. Well done, sir/madam.

The Psychology of Viral Marketing?

2008-03-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

I've been watching something very interesting transpire on Facebook. At some point this afternoon I noticed an invitation to a Facebook group called "Psychology of Marketing Project - I need your help!!!"

The group's description is as follows:

I'm doing a paper in my Human Behaviors - The Psychology of Marketing class. The paper is about the marketing world and the changes that have taken place in the last 5 years. One of the main points that I'm trying to make is how influential viral marketing can be. One individual with an average facebook account can reach 100,000+ people in less than a week just by making a group and inviting people. There have been other experiments where this worked, my paper talks about the likelihood that it can be duplicated.

What you need to do to help me is:

1. Join this group.

2. Click on "Invite People to Join" from the menu on the right.

3. Select all your friends (for this to work you must do this).

4. Click on "Send invitation"

5. Add me as a friend! (only if you want!!:))

The experiment begins now!!(Friday March 14th 4:45 PM EST). The paper is due when I get back from spring break on March 31st!!

Thank you to everyone in advance!!!

The experiment is being conducted by Monica Rockle from Los Angeles. What's amazing about this experiment is how well it's working, assuming the goal is to amass many members in a short amount of time. As of this moment, the group has 74 583 members, but that's probably changed in the few seconds it took me to switch tabs and write this sentence. You can sit there refreshing the page and watch the member count jump by 5 or 10 people each time.

On the group's discussion boards, a few conversations have sprung up about the legitimacy of this "project". There are a few reasons to doubt it, such as the mysterious link to a collection of t-shirts at cafepress. The picture of this "Monica" is also a high-quality image, and looks somewhat professional, like something from the cover of Macleans when they do the annual university review. In response to one of the discussion threads, Monica writes,

Actually I am real! This is a real assignment! The link is part of the assignment. Remember it is a psychology paper. If you know anything about Psychology experiments you use dummy stories. The link is related to the MARKETING portion of the experiment. Just to clear things up!

Regardless of the legitimacy of the group, it still effectively demonstrates what an overwhelmingly powerful tool something like Facebook is for reaching a large audience very quickly. And, on the psychological side of things, it's pretty interesting that what's powering this group's explosive popularity is people's willingness to contribute to the endless barrage of information we're all subject to, by inviting everyone on their friends list to join the group. I thought about this for a couple minutes before I did it, and then commenced checking off every individual box to add each and every one of my acquaintances to the lab rat list. I don't think I've clicked that fast since back in the days when I actually played games. I somehow felt compelled to do this, though, because I believed it was for a good cause. An interesting cause. I imagine it's those nuances of motivation and compliance that Miss Rockle will be exploring in her paper.

...Just imagine Facebook's potential to facilitate some culture jamming! The possibilities are...intriguing.

About 20 minutes after posting that first figure...
Current member count: 77 290

Term Paper Thoughts

2008-03-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

This is an outline of what I'm thinking about for my term paper:

Topic: "The Politics of Remediation in Gaming"

I took to heart the statement about the assignment that it should demonstrate a thorough understanding of remediation. The main issue I have right now is whether or not the example I'm thinking of constitutes remediation or not.

There are two games available online that were developed by amateurs, and stirred up a lot of controversy because they dealt with school shootings. (I think it's worth mentioning that these aren't like modern mainstream titles in any sense - that is, completely unrealistic and cartoony, etc.) The first, "Super Columbine Massacre Role-Playing Game" (SCMRPG) puts players in the shoes of Eric and Dylan, the boys behind the infamous Columbine High school massacre. The second, which I know exists but haven't tracked down yet, is the same sort of thing featuring the school shooting at Virginia Tech. I have mixed feelings about the legitimacy of these creations. On the one hand, I don't think they have anything valuable to offer by being played. There's also the obvious point that it's insensitive. However, their existence provides an opportunity to discuss what are and aren't acceptable topics to be explored by the medium of games. (Not to mention a potentially important part of my own term paper!) I would also note that we were all able to laugh about Columbine when it's referenced in a playful way in this video we saw in class. Those are just some tangential thoughts, however that debate isn't what my term paper would be about.

The paper would cite references containing statements from the creators of these games that admit they were always meant to stir up controversy. From the get-go, that was the point. I remember the creator of the Virginia Tech massacre game being asked why he made it, and his response was, "to piss people off."

Now, in the mainstream we have Rockstar, the company that produces the ever-head-turning Grand Theft Auto franchise. They also produced State of Emergency, as mentioned in the sidebar of the John Frank reading from last week. One of their more recent titles is Bully, the sandbox game where the player controls a young student and must make decisions involved in balancing social and school life. As implied by the title, there are ample opportunities for players to choose violent options, be they a necessary means to a greater good or not.

I think that, whether Rockstar admits it or not, it's fairly obvious that dealing in controversial subjects is part of their marketing ploy, if not some greater social message as well. The name of the company seems to imply this, (rock stars being the archetypal figures of rebellion and controversy.) In this way, they're doing the same things as the amateur creators of the school shooting games, only less extreme. I see the school shooting games as almost a parody of video games, as if they're saying, "they can make games about WWII, so look what we decided to do." Some people are still alarmed by the idea of virtualized killing, even when the violence doesn't hit home the way a school-shooting sim does. (I'm using the term "sim" very liberally.) Of course, for people who play games, the idea of "shooting people" while playing doesn't feel shocking for very long. I think the creators of the school-shooting sims wanted to bring back that shocking feeling, like, "Oh, we're being bad."

To that end, one could argue that a new genre is developing wherein certain video games parody their own industry. It's as if they're poking fun at the fact that they have the technical capability, and the artistic freedom to create whatever content they want.

So where does remediation come in? I find it easier to explain by comparing this whole movement to the phenomenon of fake news. In many ways, examples like The Daily Show and The Onion are a parody of traditional news. They use the same technologies and customs as traditional news outlets to produce something new: comedy. In my mind, this could be called an example of remediation. (Although, perhaps I'm expanding too much on one part of the definition.)

If we can accept that fake news is remediation of "real" news, then I think we can say the same thing about the game situation. Both examples involve a new, controversial "genre" that is a parody of itself - or its "mother genre", at least.

Why is this important?

I think that, if I'm right, it's important for concerned parents, and concerned people in general, to recognize the satirical nature of these creations. Gamers who are old enough to purchase these games, (like Bully,) in the first place will be mature and intelligent enough to recognize their content as satirical. They won't take it to heart, as there's a chance a younger child might. (Update: Thinking about such games in terms of parody again, it's also worth noting that older, more experienced gamers will have acquired the cultural capitol to appreciate the humor. Like we discussed tonight in class, the art of parody runs the risk of not being fully recognized by the audience. Controversial games encounter this same danger.)

In the actual paper I'd elaborate a little more on this but I've already gone on way longer than I intended to. Sorry this turned into such a rant! Feedback is appreciated though, as always. Does this sound workable, or am I wandering too far off the beaten path again?

Unexpected Remediation

2008-03-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

I ran across this cool video today. It's a song composed "entirely" of gun shots from Call of Duty 4, or so the description claims. I'm skeptical about the bass line, but either way, this is pretty creative. It's also a fun example of remediation that the game developers probably didn't expect. I don't know if there's any lucrative future for this genre, but it's interesting to see people creating things like this nonetheless.

Song Made From Call Of Duty 4 Gun Shots - Watch more free videos

As it Turns Out, Everything Awesome is Awesome

2008-03-06T13:43:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack in posting lately. I'm behind in my commentary on the assigned readings because I haven't worked out my thoughts on them yet, and my head is packed with all the culture I've been consuming lately. For a few days it felt like I was being barraged with things I wanted to read, and felt I should read right away. The same thing goes for writing. So I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the consuming and processing I've been doing.

The absolute highlight of this information feast has been reading a book Ian suggested for my term paper. It's called Everything Bad is Good for You: Why Popular Culture is actually Making Us Smarter. Written by Wired columnist Steven Johnson, this is seriously one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read. I bought it in paperback over Reading Week, went home and read it in one sitting. (Yes, I noticed the irony of being so enthusiastic on the most inaccurately named week of the year. It was just that good.) Johnson's writing is intelligent and thought-provoking, but marvelously easy to read. I especially enjoyed the first part which focussed on video games. If you've been reading this blog for any stretch of time, that statement probably didn't send you reeling in shock. You might've even rolled your eyes just a bit.

But that's just the thing that's so great about Johnson's work: he argues, very convincingly, that video games are no eye-rolling matter. I mean, so far I've talked about the trends we see in games and elsewhere in popular culture having implications for our future, (the whole bit about VirtuSphere and other immersive media.) And, in my previous post I talked about the MSM unfairly targeting the gaming industry and potentially hindering its development as an art form. But let's face it: art is only important to a point. By "no eye-rolling matter", I'm talking about the notion that consuming popular culture like video games and current TV shows is just as healthy, if not more healthy in some ways than say, reading.

Doubt it? I don't want to spoil any part of the book, so I'll just suggest/insist that everyone go check it out. However, if you want to know more about what you're getting into, this video I found features a few guys being interviewed by Charlie Rose. It's 56 minutes long so I don't suggest watching the whole thing. The Steven Johnson segment starts at around 41 minutes in and is pretty interesting. When I watched this the audio track was ahead of the video track by several seconds, so it looks pretty weird, but hopefully it's enjoyable anyway.

More thoughts on class readings coming soon.

Pants on Fire

2008-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

A while ago in class we talked about all the problems that arise when a news station starts putting out misinformation. I would have always just thought of this as bad reporting, a sign of a poor news source, and that's about it. Now I'm of the much less naive view that publicizing falsehoods is an attack on democracy itself.

I just about jumped out of my seat when Ian talked about the story of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, the 1975 German film about a woman slandered by the media. In the story, an average, respectable woman finds herself in a romantic relationship with a man she has just met. It comes to light that the man is a terrorist, but the woman still admits to having feelings for him, since she didn't know his affiliations when they met. For this, a species of treason in the eyes of the public, she is mercilessly attacked in the press and other media. When she tries to clear her name and set things straight, her story is twisted into heinous lies that say the opposite of what she meant. Desperate for a way out, and also probably for revenge, the woman ends up shooting and killing the journalist who was behind most of the scathing publicity.

So why was I so excited about this? Because, in the week proceeding the class when we heard about this, I was closely following a news debacle that took place on Rupert Murdoch's notorious Fox News, or "Faux News" as the clever web community likes to call them. I was following the story as reported by one of my most-read blogs: GamePolitics, a site owned by the ECA that reports on how the gaming industry is currently affecting political issues, and vice versa. This particular story happens to mirror that of Katharina Bluth perfectly. "What's the story," you ask?

Faux news picked up on some mostly web-based controversy around BioWare's Mass Effect, a roleplaying adventure game for the Xbox 360. The concerns were all coming from the fact that, for one of the first times in the history of video games, there is an undisguised, somewhat customizable sex scene featured at one point in the story. Whoahbigdeal. I should mention that Mass Effect is rated M for Mature, meaning that stores agree not to sell it and similarly rated titles to people under 17. Meanwhile, this "sex scene" is so tame compared to what you can find in any given episode of HBO's Rome, that it's even featured on YouTube if you go looking for it. Still, I say, even if Mass Effect's sex scene were explicit enough to give you flashbacks from The Dreamers - so what? Why is there a double standard on what's ok to put in a video game and what's ok to put in a movie?

Mostly, it's because of the not-yet-obsolete idea that video games are for kids. This is the angle Fox News took when they decided to slander Mass Effect. Here are some of the lies, (not exaggerations - outright fallacies) they publicized:
-the sex scene contains full nudity for an extended period of time, and the player is in full control
-the game is marketed to young adolescents
-the incident, and the game in general, is boorish and objective of women
-Etc.

Fox's guest expert for the debate, a pop psychologist named Cooper Lawrence who had never actually played Mass Effect or viewed the sex scene they were talking about, earned the wrath of gamers when she went on the air and made every mistake she could have. Not only did she support Fox's outrageous statements without knowing anything about it, but was also condescending to the gamer representative she was there to debate against. Since there is little a sub-culture of irate gamers can do to retaliate against a media giant like Fox, they went after Lawrence. Her book, featured on Amazon.com, suddenly received an overflow of the lowest ratings possible, making it the least-reputable book on the site. "The Internet hath no fury like a gamer scorned."

Eventually, Amazon undid the damage to Lawrence's book, and Cooper herself issued a statement recanting what she'd said on TV. Of course, many gamers are still angry since the damage has been done - likely the only people who read Cooper Lawrence's amending statement were the gamers who knew better in the first place.

Anyway, I thought this was a really interesting parallel - in this real-life incident, we have Mass Effect, (and in a larger sense, the gaming industry/community,) as Katharina Blum: a party unfairly targeted for slander by the insuppressible media. And then comes Katharina's retaliation - in the movie, she shoots a prominent journalist. In this case, we observe this book-attack on Cooper Lawrence, and recognize that it is the most devastating retaliation gamers could think of and carry out.

-----------------------------------------------
All of this got me thinking: what could gamers have done, or indeed, any sub-culture do to retaliate against MSM forces when they catch them doing wrong? The reason I ask is this: just like Katharina Blum's shooting of the journalist is tragic, and ironic since it will condemn her to the image she was trying to avoid, the sacking of Lawrence's book does little good for gamers either. However, it's very difficult to come up with constructive alternatives. I asked Ian why we don't see more cases of news outlets blowing the whistle on one another, and he pointed out that doing so is usually not in the MSM's best interest. Still, I think this idea merits more thought. How could a bunch of random people discredit - to the masses, not just savvy media students - a powerhouse like Fox News?

Personally, I like the ideas put forward by some GamePolitics readers. Being of the opinion that the amazon attack was in poor taste, a poster called Sparky112 writes:

The best recourse is organization. Hell, the vast majority of people reading this blog are probably angry about the incident. Someone (the ECA?) needs to organize a letter-writing campaign to major newspapers decrying the incident in question, so that all those angry people can do something productive that’s going to last beyond the twenty seconds it takes some Amazon employee to delete all the negative postings unrelated to the book (which, as many people noted, was already failing quite well on its own without the help of angry gamers … so, wasted effort).

Plenty of people read the editorial sections of newspapers, and while it’s not Fox News, who really wants to be on Fox News anyway? Seriously, though, if we spend all our time saying, “boo hoo, we don’t have any power,” then that’s going to continue to be true. And it just makes us look worse if we resort to extra-legal tactics to get our point across. If instead we respond through letter-writing and pestering video game companies (who DO have power) to make public responses to video game slights, then we’ll slowly but surely gain momentum.

Look at the success of MoveOn.org. They are an advocacy group which grew out of a single incident (the Clinton dalliances) into a vibrant organization. Now, they’re not exactly making any politicians tremble in their shoes for fear of offending them, but they receive media attention and organize meaningful campaigns for issues which are important to a certain segment of Americans. It’s not impossible for people to organize and move forward under a banner of common interest. There just needs to be an effort of this kind for gamers.

In response, NecroSen writes:

@ sparky112

I stand by what I said earlier about this situation. I believe the Amazon trashing was an equal and righteous action, simply because it gave a voice to the people that so many assume will just sit on their asses and do nothing.

You say we should all band together and find a more morally sound medium to carry our voice, and I agree: every one of us should show the responsibility to take this mentality to a political scale, to get the word out that we will not be marginalized and blamed for the ills of society.

All I’m saying is that you may not agree with the method of trashing someone’s book on Amazon, but see where it took us in the past few days. It gives outsiders such as Cooper Lawrence and the Fox News people that misled her a real perspective of our situation (though I doubt Fox News will get the point). It gives many of us jaded gamers a shining example of what we are really capable of if we band together. And, hopefully, it gives people a better understanding of the idiocy and utter uselessness of Fox News as a network.

Now, let me just state that I would also prefer we took action that had more moral justification, but I am willing to accept this as a victory to be learned from. Let’s all take this as a lesson not of what kinds of guerrilla attacks we can use in the future, but what we can effectively do as a collective group. Write to your Congressman, voice your opinion openly to friends and family, engage in intelligent debate with people who don’t agree with you, actively seek information about related issues in the media, and generally be an active citizen and a real human being, not a slave to the whims of talking heads.

…Especially those on Fox.

------------------------------------

Additional stuff:

Click here to see the original Fox News report that started all the fuss.

Below are some of the articles from GamePolitics that followed this story as it happened:

Fox News Smears Mass Effect

Cooper Lawrence: "I Misspoke" About Mass Effect

ECA's Hal Halpin Calls on Fox News to Retract Mass Effect Story

Is it Time for Gamers to Forgive Cooper Lawrence?
a particularly good discussion of the whole issue transpired in the comments to this post...note it is from here that the above excerpts are taken.

MSM Shoots Self in Foot with Sensationalized Game Coverage

The Power of Humor and Truth

2008-02-18T10:31:00.000-08:00

There's this clip I really like of Jerry Seinfeld doing stand up in New York. He mentions how difficult it can be to use an unfamiliar shower - how much difference will a tiny twist of the dial make? The best is the hair on-the-wall part, but have a look for yourself:

This is so funny to me because of how true it is. I have definitely been in that situation with the hair, and done the exact same things to rid myself of it, in the same order. It's funny because it's not something I've ever heard discussed anywhere else, (so I'm not expecting to hear it), but I recognize it as being valid.

In the same way, a lot of comedy is funny because we recognize the truth in it. There's another part I like in a Robin Williams stand up routine, in which he alludes to the uselessness of certain products sold on TV infomercials. He does a good job of outlining how ridiculous the premise of it is, and makes a joke out of a concealed but strong suggestion that people start thinking more carefully about the things they buy.

If comedy thrives on truth, then I wouldn't be quick to dismiss "fake news" as having no real potential. As it exists right now, in forms such as The Daily Show, it's certainly important to understand the issues before you watch. But perhaps one day we'll find a way, (likely one that embraces the "also/and" model [I believe that's what we called it?]) to integrate this sort of familiar humor into our main channels through which we get our information.

And Now, the Moment You've All been Waiting for...

2008-02-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

Holy crumbs.

It's here.

I want one, and I am pretty much lost for any more words to say about this. I'll agree to research what the implications of these things becoming household items might be, just as soon as I procure one for myself to keep in my basement. For purely academic reasons.

What would Bolter and Grusin say about this?

Edit: I thought I'd add to this entry for the sake of at least saying a little of what I think. I sometimes forget that what I think is obvious about something like this might not be so obvious to everyone else.

I responded to a post on Lauren's blog, that is itself a response to this post. I'll just copy and paste my comment since it's the same as what I would have said here.

Yeah, the implications for this are really huge, and I think I'm going to look into it more for my term paper.

Though I can tell you right now that it's more complex than what you're saying here. Imagine how much this technology can contribute to training simulations, (everything from police+military, to things like sales or presentation). I think the biggest improvement for this technology will be when you can incorporate other people into the illusion, and then be able to take whole tour groups in museums back to important historical moments, re-created digitally for you to witness firsthand. Wow.

Of course, VirtuSphere used purely in an entertainment/video game setting is Escapism at its finest, but we already know that more primitive things like immersive computer games have a mix of positive and negative outcomes.

Anyway, there's a lot more to be explored and I'm pretty excited to see VirtuSphere and products like it make their way into the market.

Internet in Crisis

2008-02-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

Since that email got sent around about the Net Neutrality issue, I thought I'd take a few minutes to share my thoughts on it.

I've been following the issue for well over a year now, although I didn't understand the scope and importance of it at first. It's a complex issue, but in a nut shell, this is what it is for those unfamiliar:

The internet's always been a level playing field for everyone involved. The fact that anyone can use the internet for anything they want, without any kind of discrimination makes it an incredibly democratic tool. Whether your internet usage is limited to managing email, or you're a power user downloading 100 gigabytes of data per month, you pay the same, universal fee to do it. That's what "net neutrality" is. But now ISPs in the US and Canada are proposing that they be given permission to impose a tiered model. The best comparison is with TV packages. Just like there are multiple tiers to choose from with TV, (from cheap basic packages to expensive deluxe ones,) the telecommunications companies would like to charge consumers more to have certain privileges.

What constitutes a privilege? Pretty well anything you can think of. Downloading any media, accessing certain servers; even instant messaging could become like texting - pay for each one sent, or get a monthly plan. It certainly eliminates the potential for startup web companies, who would be muscled aside by the big kids who can afford to pay to stay on top. Discrimination is already being implemented in some private institutions. My good friend in the Computational Art program at Concordia University reports that the school throttles most downloading and uploading from/to the web, as well as video hosting sites like YouTube. This angers Media students since a lot of course material (multimedia) is only available through those channels.

In my mind this is an even more pressing issue in Canada than in the states. Rogers and Bell, and Cogeco to a lesser extent, basically have an oligopoly going on Canada's internet access. What other Canadian ISPs can you think of? They exist, but most Canadians are limited to one or two of the big three. The corporations argue that they have the consumers' best interests at heart, with the substantial increase in profit they'd be pulling in giving them the means to better serve paying customers. My little rebuttal to this is that the current capabilities of the internet are good enough for most people, and most do not take advantage of the full potential anyway. Others believe it won't matter if Net Neutrality is abolished, because startup competitors would likely start springing up to offer un-tiered access. Still, I'm not convinced that a few little startup ISPs would put much of a dent in the Rogers/Bell empire.

This is an important issue for me because, I admit it, my life is pretty heavily mediated - especially by internet access and everything that goes along with that. The forced lifestyle change I'm afraid is at hand here is so dramatic that I'd consider moving, likely out of the country, if I saw my concerns starting to become reality.

To show your support for keeping Net Neutrality in Canada, you can follow the link in my sidebar, (the neutrality banner under "Soapbox") and add your name to the petition. If you like, you can also choose a banner to stick on your blog to help spread the word.

Update:
This video is a little old now, but still relevant. Professor Andrew Clement does a good job explaining the range of negative effects that could be expected from a discriminating system.

No Touchie - The Next Step

2008-02-09T01:52:00.000-08:00

Think that TED Talks video we all received about the multi-touch tech was amazing? Well, so did I. Then my friend pointed me to this. While it's not as well-developed, and currently not as useful as the multi-touch devices such as Microsoft's Surface, this new development from Elliptic Labs may be the next step in computer interfacing. Forget touch-screen. This is a screen you don't touch at all, and as the Gizmodo article explains, doesn't require you to wear any sensors. Here's the brief video demo:

The Age of Microcelebrity - Death of Privacy?

2008-02-05T18:45:00.000-08:00

Hearkening back to the lecture we had a couple weeks ago about the privacy issues around Facebook, I was immediately reminded of this great article I read in one of my older issues of WIRED magazine. Columnist and blogger Clive Thompson discusses how the mass availability of information, in particular personal data, has created a culture of info-junkies. And the fix is so easy to get. Thanks to our social nature, (the need to gain knowledge about others to help shape ourselves,) we're up to our eyeballs in tools that enable us to check up on one another constantly. And so, we do.

Thompson explains that this concept of "Microcelebrity" comes from the emergence of a class of people who are recognized with the same enthusiasm as Brad and Angelina, but within a much smaller group of people. While everyone who reads this post will know who Tom Hanks is, much fewer will be familiar with names like Dave Hurley or Steve "the Woz" Wozniak. (They are the co-founder of YouTube and the co-founder of Apple, respectively.) These men are mega-stars in the eyes of a sub-culture, and more people like them are emerging every day. At the beginning of his writeup, Thompson gives one such example:

"Whenever Peter Hirshberg is at a party, someone eventually pulls out a camera and takes a snapshot with him in it. Hirshberg — chair of the executive committee at the blog-search company Technorati — performs a quick mental calculation: Does the photographer look like one of those people who will immediately dash home and post all their candids to Flickr? "If I think it's going to end up on the Web, I straighten up more, try to smile the right way," Hirshberg says. "Because if it goes online, people I know will probably see it." (Thompson, "The Age of Microcelebrity". WIRED)

Indeed, the constant coverage of folks like Hirshberg is similar to paparazzi-like obsession.

So, all right, we have a bunch of mini-celebrities running around. The most interesting part for me, though, is what comes next. Thompson points out that young people are already adapting to lifestyles under surveillance and scrutiny, like a generation of micro-microcelebrities, if you will.

"If you really want to see the future, check out teenagers and twentysomethings. When they go to a party, they make sure they're dressed for their close-up — because there will be photos, and those photos will end up online. In managing their Web presence, they understand the impact of logos, images, and fonts. And they're increasingly careful to use pseudonyms or private accounts when they want to wall off the more intimate details of their lives." (Thompson, "The Age of Microcelebrity". WIRED)

I find this statement about my age group to be pretty accurate. While many people may not think of their behaviour at parties as a function in maintaining Web identity, they certainly know that the implications for ignoring or disregarding their own web presence would be severe. Thompson ends with another point I like, observing how this era of hyper-exposure is not such a big stretch from traditional means of broadcasting social messages:

"You could regard this as a sad development — the whole Brand Called You meme brought to its grim apotheosis. But haven't our lives always been a little bit public and stage-managed? Small-town living is a hotbed of bloglike gossip. Every time we get dressed — in power suits, nerdy casual wear, or goth-chick piercings — we're broadcasting a message about ourselves. Microcelebrity simply makes the social engineering we've always done a little more overt — and maybe a little more honest." (Thompson, "The Age of Microcelebrity". WIRED)

One noteworthy aspect of such a trend is that it follows in the footsteps of modern business models. Back in April '07, Scott Brown, also of WIRED, wrote a story about how the fictitious company in The Office practices "Radical Transparency" to beat out its competitors. Similar, real-world approaches to business are commonplace nowadays; (a prominent example being Google, which puts huge emphasis on being attuned to their users, and their users being attuned to them.) While it might seem alarming that individuals are becoming more like corporations, I think it is more accurate to say that corporations are becoming like individuals. More importantly, who's to say all this practice we get at being under surveillance on Facebook won't translate well to those of us going into business, since the two sectors are becoming so alike?

In our class discussion on privacy issues, the concern was brought up that our lifestyle of disclosure could reach a point where our perception of privacy is beaten to a pulp by Facebook and its descendants. That is, we would be so used to disclosing personal information that we'd be selling, or just giving it, left and right, to government, corporations, and more. These notions of privacy-deterioration are further discussed in Jon's post here. The second video is particularly interesting - check it out to see how Facebook is connected to major forces in data mining and high-up US federal departments such as the CIA.

Now, this may be very naïve of me, but I invite you to step in with your own opinions and questions, especially if you disagree. I'm a firm believer in keeping close and strict tabs on your own content. Facebook cannot force you to give it any information, so only give it what you feel is appropriate. As Clive Thompson said, the younger generation is already skilled at moderating and appropriately organizing, (and securing) our own content.

I cannot see the gradual destruction of privacy being such a problematic issue so long as everyone is prudent and mindful. For the same reason, while I understand and respect their motives for doing so, I don't agree with those who decide to delete their Facebook profile, or simply never create one on the grounds that Facebook is some kind of evil.

You decide what you put on the internet.

Spore

2008-01-29T13:59:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting talk given by Will Wright (creator of the Sims games) on his upcoming project called Spore. This is one of the most innovative ideas for a game I've seen and I think he has some fascinating ideas about the potential for games and other entertainment media to change the way we think.

The TED Talks invite some of the world's most renowned thinkers and doers to give little presentations about things that are important to them. I recommend visiting the site and checking out more of the lectures; a lot of them are super-interesting.

The Road to VR

2008-01-25T07:36:00.000-08:00

In my seminar on Monday the 21st, I focused on how the ideas in Remediation apply to contemporary texts such as video games and other software, as well as various hardware. I'm especially interested in the way these contemporary texts seem to be moving toward a state of Virtual Reality, (VR) such as the experiences created by "The Wire" in Strange Days and the concept in The Matrix. Imagine being able to enter an unreal experience of your choosing, where you are fully submerged in the environment and a medium is nowhere to be seen. In my mind, a Matrix-like situation would be the ultimate video game, assuming a certain amount of control is present. This is my major interest, and what I'll be focusing on. I'll also discuss how other video game media, and also some things outside the realm of gaming are all evolving toward this concept of total immersion, albeit in various ways.

Part I - Mass Immersion: the MMO

In the last decade a new genre has been making some major waves in the video game industry. Massively Multiplayer Online Games, (MMOGs, or just MMOs) are unique in that they offer a more social experience in a world that keeps on turning indefinitely, whether you're playing or not. Events in an MMO take place in real time, and servers, (copies of an expansive virtual world) support hundreds of players at a time.

The example I'm going to use is World of Warcraft, (WoW herein) because I have played it myself, and it is currently the leading MMO in North America with its subscriber-base having recently breached the 10 million mark. Players in WoW inhabit a huge fantasy world called Azeroth. At the start they create a customized character where they make important decisions such as what faction they will play for, and what class they will play as. These decisions effect who they will play with and what playing the game is like for them. As characters progress through the game, they become stronger and acquire better treasure. Progress is indicated in terms of levels, so higher level characters are stronger than low level characters, and can attempt more difficult challenges. As they progress, players will interact with many other players constantly. They will have to work cooperatively and strategically to face difficult enemies, and negotiate the distribution of rewards. They will also compete against one another in player versus player combat and, through their actions, develop a reputation with the community.

Bearing these things in mind, perhaps it is beginning to become understandable how games like WoW are an important stepping stone on the road to VR, because they are exceedingly easy to accept as legitimate environments. In The Matrix, Cypher famously remarks that "Ignorance is bliss." In addition to stimulating countless discussions in Grade 12 Philosophy, this broad statement applies to immersive media like WoW. Just like it was easier for Cypher to live in a comfortable but fake "Matrix", it is very inviting to team up with your friends assuming powerful and heroic alter-egos, to do something adventurous like slaying a dragon - instead of attending to the growing pile of paperwork on your desk.

In addition to this explanation, I'd like to present some additional examples that act as immersive qualities in more ways than one. First, I should note that Bolter and Grusin cite the concept of Hypermediacy as a tool that helps achieve immersion. Modern video games, especially MMOs, are wrought with different kinds of media. WoW is recognized for its superbly well-fitted musical soundtrack, for example. On the Macintosh version, WoW even allows the user remote access to iTunes, and thus the opportunity to remediate (and hypermediate) their environment, from right inside the game.

To demonstrate some of the things I'm talking about, I recorded this 2 minute clip of a character I made just for this demonstration, simply running down a road. (Just for fun, I named the character Trombone. I think I saw a picture of one while coming up with a name.) At the beginning of the video, a view of the map shows the starting position of the character; then at the end, the map is shown again, and you can see how far the character has traveled. I also tried to give a sense of the detailed 3D environments and the atmospheric music that makes this game so playable.

If you can wait a few minutes for it to buffer, a higher resolution, much-easier-on-the-eyes version is here! (I highly recommend this, the low-res version embedded below makes the details difficult to make out.)

If you pause the video at around 2:00, you can see the entire zone - the "browned out" areas represent so-far undiscovered territory. Hopefully this gives a sense of how large this particular zone is. Currently, there are 49 other zones like it in the game, as well as other explorable areas that vary in size.

No wonder they call it massive. All one has to do is hearken back to the old days of the first Zelda game on Nintendo 64 to realize how far third person 3D adventure games alone have come.

This interests me so much because of the amount of people who find games like this so consuming that it begins taking priority over their real lives. (And I admit to overindulging myself once in awhile.) One notion touched upon in Remediation is that we may one day
choose to spend a lot of time, (or maybe live permanently) inside such manufactured worlds. Gasp in horror though you may, if you can agree with the Cypher's "ignorance is bliss" principle for some situations, I think that opens up the floor to a lot more discussion and blurred lines on this topic than you might expect.

Part II - Hardware and You

The Nintendo Wii is, by a landslide, the most successful of the current-generation consoles. While it progresses toward the same end as heavy-software titles, it does so in a totally different way. It's no secret that the Wii's graphical capability is vastly inferior to that of its Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (PS3) contemporaries. Instead, Nintendo made a bold move in focusing on fun and revolutionary controls. The naysayers called it gimmicky and predicted failure, but quite the opposite happened. It's become the gateway console for non-gamers to get their start. Even the Queen of England thinks it's jolly good. ("Wii are amused!")

The concept of the Wii-mote is fairly well-known and understood, so I don't think I need to explain as much. The slick white controller's versatility makes an incredibly simplistic game like Warioware: Smooth Moves a lot of fun to play, especially as a replacement for Pictionary and the like at social gatherings. This versatility also lends itself to a very different game like Red Steel or the ultra-controversial Manhunt 2. The latter title received an AO (Adults Only) rating from the ESRB - the kiss of death in the gaming industry, since no consoles will support a game so-rated. There was an especially big uproar of concern around Manhunt 2's placement on the Wii, considering that its over-the-top violence combined with players' physical interaction with the game would have been a huge step in violence simulation for video games.

The dispute around Manhunt 2 is more than enough evidence of a general connection we make: the Wii makes games more real than we're used to.

The other honorable mention goes to the Guitar Hero series, whose immense popularity proves how effective an illusion can be. Like the Wii, Guitar Hero appeals to the mainstream using what's familiar: popular songs and a guitar-playing experience that, for non-guitar players, is often authentic enough. Also like the Wii, the beloved rhythm game has its innovative hardware to thank for its success. For those of you have played Guitar Hero, ask yourself if it would be fun to play using a typical controller, or even the wii-mote. The likely answer is No, which speaks volumes about the power and appeal of immersion.

image from Flickr. see photostream

Part III - Other Examples and The Big Picture

While my main focus for this project was video games, I'd like to take a moment to bring up some examples that fall outside the realm of gaming:

In my post about Apple's new MacBook Air, I explained and provided a video describing its multi-touch features. My theory is that if this trend continues we will likely see the phasing out of the interface in favor of methods of control that are more integrated with the user.

Even the general trends on the web, (the elusive "Web 2.0") favor interaction and a huge amount of personalization. The popularization of RSS and sites like Netvibes and Google IG make web browsing like a catering service. Also the social tools like Facebook and Twitter, which are very good at meandering into a critical role in our lives, carry a lot of responsibility for getting us more and more involved in the ridiculous amount of information that's out there.

For more about spaces, physical and virtual, see Jon's seminar post.

Those of you who made it this far: thanks for taking the time to plough through my obscenely long-winded post! I hope these ideas are tying together for the rest of you as clearly as they are in my own head. If you have questions or want to discuss/challenge anything I've said, that's what the comments are for!

Apple Anorexia

2008-01-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

Today at Macworld '08, Apple presented their new notebook, the MacBook Air. It's got bragging rights as the world's thinnest laptop. Although I have my doubts about how well they've balanced aesthetics and usability, I have to admit it looks very nice. Here's the guided tour:

And I thought my computer was snazzy.

In our reading of Bolter and Grusin we've become well-versed in the theory that all media are evolving toward a Strange Days-ian, "Wire"-esque state of total sense-engagement to the greatest extent that they can. (At least, that's my take on it.) Keeping that in mind, we can make some interesting observations about Apple's new baby.

"It is...a creed among interface designers," write Bolter and Grusin, "that interactivity increases the realism and effectiveness of a graphical user interface: the icons become more present to the user if she can reposition them or activate them with a click of the mouse." (pp 29-30.)

At 2:00 in the video, our good friend John begins explaining the capability of the MacBook Air's trackpad. He demonstrates how certain simple finger movements perform some common tasks such as zooming, manipulating graphics, and web browsing. Normally these tasks are performed via interface buttons or keyboard-shortcuts. If all electronic devices with some kind of interface eventually followed this trend, it would eliminate the need for many interface functions to exist and provide a more immediate experience.

At 4:52, John triumphantly proclaims that, "MacBook Air was built for the wireless world!" He goes on to explain the minimal need for wires and other cumbersome peripherals. For one thing, iTunes members now have the option of renting movies online, which saves them from having to lug around the external disc drive and going to the movie store to pick up the DVD du jour. Score. Plus, thanks to WiFi technology and features like Migration Assistant and Remote Disk, you do not have to physically connect the laptop to any additional media whatsoever if you want to copy data in any capacity.

All of this demonstrates how Bolter and Grusin's ideas about immediacy and immersive qualities have a strong presence in this particular breaking-edge medium.

Welcome

2008-01-07T21:44:00.000-08:00

This is my blog for Approaches to Media Studies. See "About This Blog" on the right sidebar for details of what to expect in the future.

More coming soon.