digital media theory

In this brief post, I’d just like to go back a bit and revisit the discussion we had a few weeks ago regarding the importance of continued growth of the field of internet studies. We discussed in class the fundamental aspects of a discipline, but I didn’t really think about how important this field’s development is until I started digging into our final research proposal.

Its really hit me how LARGE this widespread cultural phenomenon really is. In the past 10 years, we’ve created an entirely new subsection of culture that both represents geographic culture, but also creates new ones. Of course, this has been the message of the class throughout the semester, but I’ve only recently started to comprehend the magnitude of the issue.

While reading the chapter that describes The Matrix franchise, I was transported back to my senior year in high school, right to the morning after the third movie, The Matrix Revolutions, came out in theaters. Being a fan at the time, I had of course gone to see the movie and couldn’t wait to discuss it with my friends at school. I remember being excited for awhile, and having long discussions with people about what they thought about the ending, and any secret clues they happened to find. The Architect’s discussion with Neo was a popular topic. After awhile though, I started to become more and more confused by the movies, until I eventually gave up trying to understand anything about them. I didn’t even think about wasting my time playing the games in order to gain more knowledge about the plot. It became too much to care about. Many of my friends also gave up, and I think we have avoided the movies ever since. I think the Wachowski brothers are brilliant and effectively made a profit off of different media types, but I also think they expect too much from the consumer. I just want to know everything once and for all!

I have never watched a single episode of Survivor (although I know the general plot), yet I found the 1st chapter of convergence culture very engaging and interesting. I have played part in fan communities trying to find out which direction a story is headed and I am a huge media consumer.

Many times I have been caught reading spoilers or hearing about spoilers because of the convergence culture of the media I consume. For example; I love Harry Potter and would buy and read the new books as soon as they were released. The story is engrossing and I love the plot. There was a big plot event at the end of the 6th book and as soon as it was discovered it was blasted to almost every forum and game that I participated in. I did not seek out this information, but it sought me out, and I was CRUSHED.

The convergence culture is great, it lets me discuss many parts of culture with many different groups. However, for big events, it seems impossible to remove myself from the possibility of receiving unwanted information but still remain connected to my communities.

I was reading this article at EFF and it reminded me about the discussion of interfaces we had in class… what do we mean when we say interface and how are we being trained with all the interfaces we use as a daily basis etc etc.

“…As Conti describes it, a good interface is meant to help users achieve their goals as easily as possible. But an “evil” interface is meant to trick users into doing things they don’t want to. Conti’s examples include aggressive pop-up ads, malware that masquerades as anti-virus software, and pre-checked checkboxes for unwanted “special offers”…”

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebooks-evil-interfaces