Digital Rhetoric
James P. Zappen
Media Remix and Convergence
A. Principles of New Media
1. Numerical Representation: "All new media objects, whether created
from scratch on computers or converted from analog media sources, are
composed of digital code; they are numerical representations. This fact
has two key consequences:
1. A new media object can be described formally
(mathematically). For instance, an image or a shape can be described
using a mathematical function.
2. A new media object is subject to algorithmic manipulation.
For instance, by applying appropriate algorithms, we can automatically
remove 'noise' from a photograph, improve its contrast, locate the edges
of the shapes, or change its proportions. In short, media becomes
programmable." (27)
2. Modularity: "This principle can be called 'the fractal structure of
new media.' Just as a fractal has the same structure on different scales,
a new media object has the same modular structure throughout. Media
elements, be they images, sounds, shapes, or behaviors, are represented
as collections of discrete samples (pixels, polygons, voxels, characters,
scripts). These elements are assembled into larger-scale objects but
continue to maintain their separate identities. The objects themselves
can be combined into even larger objects—again, without losing
their independence." (30)
3. Automation: "The numerical coding of media (principle 1) and the module
structure of a media object (principle 2) allow for the automation of
many operations involved in media creation, manipulation, and access.
Thus human intentionality can be removed from the creative process,
at least in part." (32)
4. Variability: "A new media object is not something fixed once and for
all, but something that can exist in different, potentially infinite
versions. This is another consequence of numerical coding of media
(principle 1) and the modular structure of a media object (principle 2)."
(36)
5. Transcoding: "The fifth and last principle of cultural transcoding
aims to describe what in my view is the most substantial consequence
of the computerization of media. As I have suggested, computerization
turns media into data. While from one point of view, computerized
media still displays structural organization that makes sense to human
users . . . from another point of view, its structure
now follows the established conventions of the computer's organization of
data . . . different data structures such as lists,
records, and arrays; the already-mentioned substitution of all constants
by variables; the separation between algorithms and data structures;
and modularity." (45)
6. "To understand the logic of new media, we need to turn to computer
science. It is there that we may expect to find the new terms,
categories and operations that characterize media that became
programmable. From media studies, we move to something that can be
called 'software studies'—from media theory to software
theory." (48)
7. The Myth of the Digital. "This idea acts as an umbrella for three
unrelated concepts—analog-to-digital conversion (digitization), a
common representational code, and numerical representation. Whenever we
claim that some quality of new media is due to its digital status, we
need to specify which of these three concepts is at
work . . . . [However,] numerical representation is
the only really crucial concept of the three. Numerical representation
turns media into computer data, thus making it programmable. And this
indeed radically changes the nature of media." (52)
8. The Myth of Interactivity. "In relation to computer-based media, the
concept of interactivity is a tautology . . . .
Once an object is represented in a computer, it automatically becomes
interactive. Therefore, to call computer media "interactive" is
meaningless—it simply means stating the most basic fact about
computers." (55)
9. "When we use the concept of 'interactive media' exclusively in
relation to computer-based media, there is the danger that we will
interpret 'interaction' literally, equating it with physical
interaction between a user and a media object (pressing a button,
choosing a link, moving the body), at the expense of psychological
interaction. The psychological processes of filling-in, hypothesis
formation, recall, and identification, which are required for us to
comprehend any text or image at all, are mistakenly identified with an
objectively existing structure of interactive links." (57)
10. "Before we could look at an image and mentally follow our own
private associations to other images. Now interactive computer media
asks us instead to click on an image in order to go to another image.
Before, we could read a sentence of a story or a line of a poem and
think of other lines, images, memories. Now interactive media asks us
to click on a highlighted sentence to go to another
sentence . . . . If the cinema viewer, male and
female, lusted after and tried to emulate the body of the movie star,
the computer user is asked to follow the mental trajectory of the new
media designer." (61)
Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Leonardo (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 2001), 27, 30, 32, 36, 45, 48, 52, 55, 57, 61.
11. "Reading this statement [see 6 above] today, I feel some
adjustments are in order. It positions computer science as a kind of
absolute truth, a given which can explain to us how culture works in
software society. But computer science is itself part of culture.
Therefore, I think that Software Studies has to investigate both the
role of software in forming contemporary culture, and cultural, social,
and economic forces that are shaping development of software itself."
12. "In other words, our contemporary society can be characterized as a
software society and our culture can be justifiably called a
software culture—because today software plays a central
role in shaping both the material elements and many of the immaterial
structures which together make up 'culture.' As just one example of how
the use of software reshapes even most basic social and cultural
practices and makes us rethink the concepts and theories we developed
to describe them, consider the 'atom' of cultural creation,
transmission, and memory: a 'document' (or a 'work'), i.e. some content
stored in some media. In a software culture, we no longer deal with
'documents,' 'works,' 'messages' or 'media' in a 20th century terms.
Instead of fixed documents whose contents and meaning could be full
determined by examining their structure (which is what the majority of
twentieth century theories of culture were doing) we now interact with
dynamic 'software performances.' I use the word 'performance' because
what we are experiencing is constructed by software in real time. So
whether we are browsing a web site, use Gmail, play a video game, or
use a GPS-enabled mobile phone to locate particular places or friends
nearby, we are engaging not with pre-defined static documents but with
the dynamic outputs of a real-time computation. Computer programs can
use a variety of components to create these 'outputs': design
templates, files stored on a local machine, media pulled out from the
databases on the network server, the input from a mouse, touch screen,
or another interface component, and other sources. Thus, although some
static documents may be involved, the final media experience
constructed by software cant be reduced to any single document stored
in some media. In other words, in contrast to paintings, works of
literature, music scores, films, or buildings, a critic can't simply
consult a single 'file' containing all of work's content."
Lev Manovich, Software Takes Command, http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html.
B. Media Remix
1. Consumers versus Producers of Culture. "John Philip Sousa was
obviously not offering a prediction about the evolution of the human
voice box. He was describing how a [recording and distribution]
technology—'these infernal machines'—would change our
relationship to culture. These 'machines,' Sousa feared, would lead us
away from what elsewhere he praised as 'amateur' culture. We would
become just consumers of culture, not also producers. We would become
practiced in selecting what we wanted to hear, but not practiced in
producing stuff for others to hear." (25)
2. RO versus RW Culture. "In the language of today's computer geeks, we
could call the culture that Sousa celebrated a 'Read/Write' ('RW')
culture; in Sousa's world (a world he'd insist included all of humanity
from the beginning of human civilization), ordinary citizens 'read'
their culture by listening to it or by reading representations of it
(e.g., musical scores). This reading, however, is not enough. Instead,
they (or at least the 'young people of the day') add to the culture
they read by creating and re-creating the culture around them. They do
this re-creating using the same tools the professional uses—the
'pianos, violins, guitars, mandolins, and banjos'—as well as
tools given to them by nature—'vocal
cords'" . . . .
Sousa's fear was that this RW culture would
disappear, be displaced by—to continue the geek-speak
metaphor—an increasingly 'Read/Only' ('RO') culture: a culture
less practiced in performance, or amateur creativity, and more
comfortable (think: couch) with simple consumption." (28)
3. Remix Culture. "Remix is an essential act of RW creativity. It is
the expression of a freedom to take 'the songs of the day or the old
songs' and create with them. In Sousa's time, the creativity was
performance. The selection and arrangement expressed the creative
ability of the singers. In our time, the creativity reaches far beyond
performance alone. But in both contexts, the critical point to
recognize is that the RW creativity does not compete with or weaken the
market for the creative work that gets remixed. These markets are
complementary, not competitive." (56)
4. Remixed Text. "These three layers [blogs and comments, tagging
systems, ranking systems], then, work together. There would be nothing
without the content. But there would be too much to be useful were
there only the content. So, in addition to content, content about
content—tags, and recommendations—combined with tools to
measure the influence of content. The whole becomes an ecosystem of
reputation." (61)
5. Remixed Media. "These RW media [images, music,
video] . . . remix, or quote, a wide range of
'texts' to produce something new. These quotes, however, happen at
different layers. Unlike text, where the quotes follow in a single
line—such as here, where the sentence explains, 'and then a quote
gets added'—remixed media may quote sounds over images, or video
over text, or text over sounds. The quotes thus get mixed together.
The mix produces the new creative work—the 'remix.'" (69)
6. Cultural Reference. "But why, as I'm asked over and over again,
can't the remixer simply make his [or her] own content? Why is it
important to select a drumbeat from a certain Beatles recording? Or a
Warhol image? Why not simply record your own drumbeat? Or paint your
own painting?
The answer to these questions is not hard if we focus
again upon why these tokens have meaning. Their meaning comes not from
the content of what they say; it comes from the reference, which is
expressible only if it is the original that gets
used . . . . And it is this 'cultural
reference' . . . that 'has emotional meaning to
people.'" (74-75)
7. Significance. "There are two goods that remix creates, at least for
us, or for our kids, at least now. One is the good of community. The
other is education." (76-77)
Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid
Economy (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 25, 28, 56, 61, 69, 74-77.
C. Media Convergence
1. Convergence. "By convergence, I mean 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. Convergence is a word that manages to describe
technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes depending on
who's speaking and what they think they are talking
about . . . .
In the world of media convergence, every important
story gets told, every brand gets sold, and every consumer gets courted
across multiple media platforms." (2-3)
2. Participation. "This circulation of media content—across
different media systems, competing media economies, and national
borders—depends heavily on consumers' active
participation . . . .
The term participatory culture contrasts with
older notions of passive media spectatorship. Rather than talking about
media producers and consumers as occupying separate roles, we might now
see them as participants who interact with each other according to a
new set of rules that none of us fully understands." (3)
3. Collective Intelligence. "Convergence does not occur through media
appliances, however sophisticated they may become. Convergence occurs
within the brains of individual consumers and through their social
interactions with others . . . .
None of us can know everything; each of us knows
something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources
and combine our skills. Collective intelligence can be seen as an
alternative source of media power." (3-4)
4. An Illustration. "Call me old-fashioned. The other week I wanted to
buy a cell phone—you know, to make phone calls. I didn't want a
video camera, a still camera, a Web access device, an MP3 player, or a
game system. I also wasn't interested in something that could show me
movie previews, would have customizable ring tones, or would allow me
to read novels. I didn't want the electronic equivalent of a Swiss army
knife. When the phone rings, I don't want to have to figure out which
button to push. I just wanted a phone. The sales clerks sneered at me;
they laughed at me behind my back. I was told by company after mobile
company that they don't make single-function phones anymore. Nobody
wants them. This was a powerful demonstration of how central mobiles
have become to the process of media convergence." (4-5)
5. Convergence and the Forces of Stability and Change. "Much writing
about the so-called digital revolution presumed that the outcome of
technological change was more or less inevitable. [Ithiel de Sola]
Pool, on the other hand, predicted a period of prolonged transition,
during which the various media systems competed and collaborated,
searching for the stability that would always elude them: 'Convergence
does not mean ultimate stability or unity. It operates as a constant
force for unification but always in dynamic tension with
change . . . . There is no immutable law of growing
convergence; the process of change is more complicated than that.'
[Compare Bakhtin's centripetal and centrifugal forces of language.]
As Pool predicted, we are in an age of media
transition, one marked by tactical decisions and unintended
consequences, mixed signals and competing interests, and most of all,
unclear directions and unpredictable outcomes." (11)
6. Media as Technology and as Cultural Practice. "To define media,
let's turn to historian Lisa Gitelman, who offers a model of media that
works on two levels: on the first, a medium is a technology that
enables communication; on the second, a medium is a set of associated
'protocols' or social and cultural practices that have grown up around
that technology. Delivery systems are simply and only technologies;
media are also cultural systems. Delivery technologies come and go all
the time, but media persist as layers within an ever more complicated
information and entertainment stratum." (13-14)
7. The Black Box Fallacy. "Sooner or later, the argument goes, all
media content is going to flow through a single black box into our
living rooms (or, in the mobile scenario, through black boxes we carry
around with us everywhere we go) . . . . Part of
what makes the black box concept a fallacy is that it reduces media
change to technological change and strips aside the cultural levels we
are considering here . . . .
Keep this in mind: convergence refers to a process,
not an endpoint. There will be no single black box that controls the
flow of media into our homes. Thanks to the proliferation of channels
and the portability of new computing and telecommunications
technologies, we are entering an era when media will be everywhere."
(14-16)
8. Consumer Participation versus Corporate Control. "Convergence, as we
can see, is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up
consumer-driven process. Corporate convergence coexists with grassroots
convergence. Media companies are learning how to accelerate the flow of
media content across delivery channels to expand revenue opportunities,
broaden markets, and reinforce viewer commitments. Consumers are
learning how to use these different media technologies to bring the
flow of media more fully under their control and to interact with other
consumers . . . . Sometimes, corporate and
grassroots convergence reinforce each other, creating closer, more
rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes,
these two forces are at war, and those struggles will redefine the face
of American popular culture." (18)
9. Entrenched Institutions versus Collective Intelligence. "Entrenched
institutions are taking their models from grassroots fan communities,
and reinventing themselves for an era of media convergence and
collective intelligence . . . . The advertising
industry has been forced to reconsider consumers' relations to brands,
the military is using multiplayer games to rebuild communications
between civilians and service members, the legal profession has
struggled to understand what 'fair use' means in an era when many more
people are becoming authors, educators are reassessing the value of
informal education, and at least some conservative Christians are
making their peace with newer forms of popular culture. In each of
these cases, powerful institutions are trying to build stronger
connections with their constituencies and consumers are applying skills
learned as fans and gamers to work, education, and politics." (22)
10. Beyond Popular Culture. "Convergence culture represents a shift in
the ways we think about our relations to media, that we are making that
shift first through our relations with popular culture, but that the
skills we acquire through play may have implications for how we learn,
work, participate in the political process, and connect with other
people around the world." (22-23)
Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media
Collide (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 2-5, 11,
13-16, 18, 22-23.
11. Digitization and Convergence. "Where it was once assumed that
digitisation and convergence would result in a mono-media world it is
now recognised that digitisation has instead resulted in a dramatic
expansion and diversification of media platforms, devices and
activities. Digitisation and the media convergence process it produces
are changing the shape and contours of contemporary mediascapes, but
far from the media world becoming simplified as a result, it has become
increasingly complex. Rather than concentrating media in one device,
the current expression of convergence addresses multiple devices,
wireless access and continuous connectivity to individually preferred
networks of personal and work contacts, and leisure and entertainment
resources." (20)
12. Deconstruction. "The dismantling and reformulation of traditional
business structures" [e.g., newspapers]. (23)
13. Disintermediation. A "total transformation" of business that occurs
"when technology allows for the richness/reach curve to be displaced,
allowing new players to offer greater reach and richness simultaneously
[e.g., advertising]." (23)
13. Internetization and Mediatization. A process of convergence whereby
"the Internet is mediatising itself, and the traditional media are
internetising." (24)
14. User-Generated Content and Copyright. "An abundance of
user-generated content indicates a vibrant and active online site
membership. The problem is that Internet users are disinclined to pay
for content they can access for free, and that they enjoy repurposing
copyright material. So the possibility that user-generated content
might infringe copyright or censorship law or other national or
international content regulation is emerging as an area of concern for
those who develop and manage file-sharing sites. There is ongoing
tension between traditional (or 'old') media and the emerging
entrepreneurial culture of the World Wide Web." (27)
15. User-Generated Content and Corporate Control. "The content problem
challenging convergence therefore reflects the lack of fit between the
free-flowing digital environment where users feel free to create,
access and recycle amateur content, the tightening of industry control
over copyright and professionally produced media content, and the
repercussion of the commoditisation of user-generated content. As the
mediatisation of the Internet continues, however, it is becoming
obvious that traditional media approaches to audience segmentation are
creeping into the online environment." (31)
Virginia Nightingale, "New Media Worlds? Challenges for Convergence,"
in New Media Worlds: Challenges for Convergence, ed. Virginia
Nightingale and Tim Dwyer, 19-36 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press,
2007), 20, 23-24, 27, 31.
D. Links
Larry Lessig A Fair(y) Use Tale: http://www.youtube.com/ (Search Larry Lessig A Fair(y) Use Tale.)
Everything is a Remix: http://www.everythingisaremix.info/
World's Most Important 6-Sec Drum Loop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
Augmented Reality GPS Tour Beyond Tomorrow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JZLWMHrenY
Latest Update: 2011-09-24
