What is the attraction of alternate realities like Second life?

In the words of Godin Second life lets players “find their tribe”(TED2009 2009) be it vampires, sports fanatics or single people looking for dates, all kinds of groups exist in second life and players can communicate and form relationships within the virtual reality game. Unlike real life people in second life represent themselves through self-constructed avatars enabling then to project the image they wish people to see.

Second life has its own currency which can be exchanged for real money (Linden 2011) therefore people can get real paying jobs, buy clothes, houses, attend events, learn, invent, create etc through the virtual environment. Therefore it is possible to make money from second life to support your real life.

Therefore it could be said that alternate realities like second life allow people to transcend their physical location and embodiment and in order to live in an virtual world, although as Malpas points out this doesn’t “release from the limitations of embodiment” (Malpas 2009) in the real world. In order to contribute to this online society users still need to operate a form of ICT of some description, therefore second life doesn’t replace real life it just an alternative way for people to connect and to contribute to their tribe.

 Linden, R. 2011. How to sell Linden dollars. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-sell-Linden-dollars/ta-p/1018151 (accessed 16/11/11).

Malpas, J. 2009. On the Non-Autonomy of the Virtual. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 15 (2): 135-139. http://con.sagepub.com (accessed

TED2009. 2009. Seth Godin on the tribes we lead. TED Ideas worth Spreading.

3.3: Are you worried about surveillance on or through Facebook? Why? Why not?

“Teens today grow up in a state of constant surveillance where there is no privacy. So they can’t really have an idea of it being lost. The risk of the government or a corporation coming in and looking at their MySpace site is beyond their consideration” (Westlake 2009 p. 32 quoting Berton 2006:A1).

My days of being a teenager are long gone, but I am also not worried about Facebook surveillance. I am aware that Facebook is in many ways a public place and, as with any public place, I understand that I do not have full control over what happens in it. I can only control what I submit to the site.

I could be filmed on CCTV when walking down the street, or be filmed on security cameras when entering a shop. I assume someone, somewhere is keeping a record of my credit card transactions, phone calls, TV shows I watch through pay TV,  tax returns, when I pay my rent, travel overseas, get a parking fine or visit the doctors. Be it they are different government departments and different businesses monitoring all these things that make up daily life but they are still monitored. Facebook to me just feels like an inevitable extension of this. I am not sure if its right, but it is reality.

 I am fine with Facebook collecting my data, as I am with other businesses and government departments doing the same thing, but in the same regard I don't want it used for immoral, unethical or illegal purposes. Facebook surveillance seems to me to be a big issue when put into the context of surveillance in every day life.

Westlake, E. J. 2008. Friend Me if You Facebook Generation Y and Performative Surveillance. Project Muse 52 (4): 21-40. https://auth.lis.curtin.edu.au/cgi-bin/auth-ng/walkin.cgi?url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_drama_review/v052/52.4.westlake.pdf (accessed 14/11/11).

3.3 What is a 'participatory reading'?

Westlake refers to participatory readings as when:

"An internet reader contributes to the text in several ways, not only by connecting pages and text through links and Hypertext, but often by amending or editing content." (Westlake 2008 p. 26)

Therefore adding content to Wikipedia is a part of participatory reading, as is using hyperlinks to direct your reading. I also think participatory reading is when you collect hyperlinks and add comments ( in Facebook, or a blog for example) in order to keep a record of what you have read, or to gather information.

Westlake, E. J. 2008. Friend Me if You Facebook Generation Y and Performative Surveillance. Project Muse 52 (4): 21-40. https://auth.lis.curtin.edu.au/cgi-bin/auth-ng/walkin.cgi?url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_drama_review/v052/52.4.westlake.pdf (accessed 14/11/11).

3.3 How do you use Facebook? Do you chat? Update? Link? Share? Poke? Create fake profiles?

I'm on Facebook. I update my status occasionally, chat with friends and upload photos. I've created a group around the production of a short film my husband was involved in making as a way of keeping in touch with all our new contacts and I have also created a fake profile for an art unit I studied last year. The unit was called Art and Creativity and the assignment was to think of  "100 things to do with a bucket" - my bucket gained a persona and joined Facebook.

I found it interesting to read about Facebook as a performance (Westlake 2008) as I find that I tend to "perform" or alter my personality more to suit the face to face interactions of a work environment than I do on my Facebook profile.

Office jobs require professionalism that in turn, I feel, requires you to keep parts of your personality under wraps. For example - in work life you should ignore the rude comments of a customer and tolerate the nasty witch you sit next to in order to maintain and air of professionalism, keep the peace and get the job done.

While on Facebook you can unfriend people you don't like, or hide their comments, and choose the things about yourself that you want to let people know. Facebook is a social performance while professionalism could be explained as a corporate one. Or maybe this is more reflective of my desire to avoid confrontation which according to Westlake is a typical attribute of Generation Y. (Westlake 2008 p 37)

Westlake, E. J. 2008. Friend Me if You Facebook Generation Y and Performative Surveillance. Project Muse 52 (4): 21-40. https://auth.lis.curtin.edu.au/cgi-bin/auth-ng/walkin.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmuse.jhu.edu%2Fjournals%2Fthe_drama_review%2Fv052%2F52.4.westlake.pdf (accessed 14/11/11).

3.2 - Notes on Networks or Information

In the ilecture this week Dr Tama Leaver discussed the evolution of blogs, stemming from the creation of blogging software (such as the one I’m using Blogger.com) that made publishing on the net accessible to the average web surfer. In terms of news, Leaver states that the amalgamation of media companies in the past means that the majority news corporations are owned by a small few, and as such the content they publish is viewed by the general public with a sense of skepticism (Leaver 2011). Therefore news blogs have become a popular part of today’s media landscape, as a way for people to seek differing points of view, or to read or add opinions about news items. As discussed in the readings for this week, Blogs too have issues with credibility.

Reading 1: Blogs of War by Melissa Wall gave an overview of the history of Journalism including those who create news-based weblogs. War believes that blogs offer society a new form of Journalism that is forms a symbiotic relationship with traditional media sources. As Wall states “news blogs typically don’t generate original content but rely on other sources for their links as inspiration for commentary”(Wall 2005 p. 156) meaning that blogs rarely uncover new news items but do critique, comment on, offer opinion and new information to news items  from existing sources such as a traditional newspapers. Wall states that while although bloggers are not journalists in the traditional meaning of the word, they do gain credibility by providing links to their sources of information, and through their more personalised, opinionated writing style.

Reading 2: The Mobile Phone and the Public Sphere by Janey Gordon looked at how mobile phones are used to report news and circulate information focusing on the relationship between citizen journalists and the gatekeepers of information. Gordon's research into the reporting of the SARs epidemic in China found that despite the general public having access to the technology to broadcast news to the world , the exchange of information can be controlled by governments via laws and firewalls the prevent information getting through. Her  research into the London bombings found that citizen journalism by victims and witnesses supported the traditional news institutions by operating as an source of information and images that they then used as a part of their coverage (Gordon 2007).

A ted talk on the creation of wikipedia by Jimmy Wales discussed the virtues of collective intelligence through his creation of a free encyclopedia of which content is added to entirely by volunteers. Wales has managed to harness the peoples desire to participate in the way history his told. His talk revealed that there are gatekeepers within wikipedia, volunteers who vote, administrators that hold more wight than voters and himself, the “monarch” who makes the rules. Although Wall states the information on wikipedia is a credible and reliable source he encourages people to test it for Quality assurance.

The task this week was to note the blogs I visit and what attracts me to them, I read a lot of trade blogs but no news blogs so decided instead to take a look at one news items across multiple platforms – blogs owned by newspapers, a weblog about news and wikipedia to see which one I found more credible. The news item I chose was the News of the World Phone Hacking Scandal which I found interesting as it questions the ethical collection of information by large media corporations in order to sell news as a commodity.

The Daily Telegraph:

Searches on this site brought denied access to articles with headlines that looked to have the potential to shine the Murdoch's in a poor light such as Murdoch accused of false blame shifting. The first news article I could actually access was entitled James Murdoch denies knowledge of hacking . While the author does acknowledge that the article was written for a paper that is owned by the same parent company involved in the scandal, to me it is not a credible news source. A news company embroiled in legal scandal over ethical reporting is not the one I turn to for the facts.

 

ABC NEWS:

This is a source I feel I can trust, mainly because it is government owned although I am now a questioning my judgment as isn't the role of journalists to report on the running of government? How does this work when it is owned by government? Anyway in regards to the phone hacking scandal, the ABC uploaded a short clip from a news bulletin called “A quick guide to thephone hackingscandal”. This clip reminds me of educational lectures from university which is perhaps why I trust it and proves Walls theory of credibility through the style in which information is presented. I feel as I have been educated after watching this, not as if I have had the wool pulled over my eyes.

 

LSE Blog:

Well I think Ive just found a blog to read that discusses news topics. LSE is the The London School of Economics and Political Science and I think proves that not all blogs are uneducated one sided drivel. The post entitled Phone-hacking and press reforms: British journalism needs anew sense of ethics but politicians should not be allowed to move the goalposts stands back from the sensationalist headlines and places the phone hacking scandal in the context of politics and law to reveal more sides to the story. I like the wider angle view point and the idea that the information presented is not done so as part of a mud slinging match between news corporation and news corporation. Hyperlinks is what gives this story credibility as I can access the writers (Charlie Beckett) biography, other blogs, books etc which brings as sense of trust due to his willingness to be accountable for the information presented, and not posting anonymously.

 

Wikipedia:

There is a lot of information in the wiki post called News International Phone Hacking Scandal, and to be honest too much to read. I tend to follow up on information presented on Wikipedia, it could be credible but as there is no one person accountable, I find it good to check the facts they present. For this news story alone it is a great resource to find articles about the phone hacking scandal (there are 288 references at this point in time) and it is great having links to all people involved, but in my mind is not credible information on its own.

 

Gordon, J. 2007. The Mobile Phone and the Public Sphere. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 13 (3): 307-319. http://cvg.sagepub.com (accessed 9/11/11).

Leaver, D. T. 2011. Networks of Information: Blogging, citizen Journalism & collective intelligence. Curtin University of Technology.

Wall, M. 2005. Blogs of war: Weblogs as news. Journalism 6 (2): 153 - 172. http://jou.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/6/2/153.full.pdf+html (accessed 8/11/11).

ASSMT 1: 3.1 Notes on News Media

The ilecture this week by Mingnon Hardlow really opened my eyes to the role news media plays in a democracy. Hardlow states that the four estates that make up a democracy are the Judiciary, the Government, the Executive Government and Free Press who plays a watchdog function and keeps the general public informed (Harlow 2011).

With such an important role in society, I started to wonder about the credibility of news sources. It has long been known that magazines pay people for interviews and report gossip and rumor - often referred to as tabloids but does this cross over into the world of news? Especially online news, where anyone with an internet connection can become a reporter, quickly and easily uploading video, photos, sounds and text at any given time.  Who controls it? Who reads it? And does anyone believe it?

The power and control of traditional news sources was discussed by Harper in his article Journalism in the digital age where he notes that “many online publications depend on major brand names as the primary sources of information” (Harper 2003) inferring that while we may be able access news in more places than ever, it is likely that what we are reading online comes from the traditional media sources. This certainly rings true for me. I tend to read the smh online rather than blog posts and if news is ever reported by friend on facebook I will usually go to traditional news sites to validate it or seek further information.

Harper also outlined the power of editors in the news world who act as gatekeepers – determining which stories are newsworthy enough for publish, and therefore controlling the issues that are thought about and discussed by the general public. Prior to the internet there were not many alternative ways to find out about news stories not presented in the press and although online news is still dominated by traditional media there are alternatives. For example twitter allows people to follow multiple new sites, celebrities and friends from all over the world – a news item published in one country can circulate via social media and become public knowledge before publishing by traditional sources as was the case of the Occupy Wall Street protests (Gruen Planet: Episode 6  2011).

Then comes the issue of money. As much as free press is good for a Democracy it is also a business so who pays for online newspapers? Harlow advised that traditionally classified advertising paid for newspapers. Upon flicking through the October 28 edition of the Daily telegraph I found nothing more that 5 pages of classifieds - 3 of which were dedicated to jobs, cars, real estate and obituaries and the other 2 solely decided to "personals" (Classifieds  2011) . Classifieds in newspapers it seems are no longer popular, and with the benefits of online sites such as my career and eBay its not hard to see why,  although there were also sections that mixed journalism with commercial products such as the card guide. 


Harlow also stated that some online news sites are part of larger conglomerates that also own online classified sections with the online newspaper works as branding for their other products (Harlow 2011). This is certainly the case with the new site for The West Australian who belongs to a group of companies owned by 7 west media. 7 west media also own channel 7 and Yahoo 7 (The West Australian  2011)and their products, services and media entertainment area advertised heavily on the site. A look at three other news sites found:

·      Crikey.com uses a pay wall model to make money from their news content. While some stories are published on the site viewers need to subscribe to unlock access to even better ones (so they say) at a cost of $185 per year. Subscribers then get the extra privilege of providing content if they wish. (Subscriber Help  2011).

·      Perth Indi Media wholly operates on citizen journalism but stories added to these site still go through a gatekeeper who monitors them against the sites criteria. This site runs off donations and covers local community issues (About Indymedia Australia  2011).

·      Finally the Huffington Post website is owned by a big corporation AOL and gets its content from anywhere its free – liking to the blog sites of others and combining the days blogs into one new site. This site also involves readers by having them comment and rate stories. This site is huge and has multiple strands not just in news but also entertainment and sport etc. AOL sells adverting on the Huffington post site. (The Huffington Post  2011)

SO the main points to remember this week are that:

·      Online news media raises challenges the profitability of news and new ways to raise revenue are being trialed

·      Online news sites are often another branch traditional news media companies which are trusted by many users

·      Online news sites can target niche markets and source news for free from citizen journalists and bloggers

·      Online news allows Journalists to link their reports to other news reports and source documents

·      Online news allows people to research news reports therefore ethical journalism is important

·      Gatekeepers still exist in the online environment (see gatekeepers blog entry for further info) controlling and monitoring the stories and comments uploaded

 About Indymedia Australia. 2011. http://www.indymedia.org.au/about (accessed 7/11/11).

Classifieds. 2011. The Daily Telegraph, 119 - 124  (accessed 7/11/11)
Gruen Planet: Episode 6. 2011. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruenplanet/pages/s3354190.htm (accessed 8/11/11).

Harlow, M. 2011. Inform me! News Media. Week 8. http://dbs.ilectures.curtin.edu.au/lectopia/lectopia.lasso?-MaxRecords=50&-SkipRecords=0&-Op=bw&ut=2908&CallbackID=928d2167f0cc56656c84409b4f366e45&usr=15055147 (accessed 8/11/11).

Harper, C. 2003. Journalism in a Digital Age. Democracy and new media: 271-280. lms.curtin.edu.au/@@59FE5910C5E0F0C6A9542F9A2E4F0BF9/courses/1/312160-Vice-Chancello-935083018/db/_2975043_1/embedded/Christopher%20Harper.pdf (accessed 7/11/11).

  The Huffington Post. 2011. http://advertising.aol.com/brands/huffington-post (accessed 8/11/11).

  Subscriber Help. 2011. http://www.crikey.com.au/about/subscriber-help/#nuts1 (accessed 8/11/11).

  The West Australian. 2011. http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/ (accessed 7/11/11).

Topic 2.5 What is an alternate reality game? Have you played one?

I haven’t played and alternate reality game but Örnebring defines one as an “internet-based

mystery game in which participants are immersed in a fictional world and engage in collective problem-solving” (Örnebring 2007 p.445). The games are created by media companies (usually for marketing purposes) or by fans in order to further explore and interact with their favorite media text.

ARG’s link to particular media texts such as movies, songs, books or TV shows but this link is not always something that is made clear to participants. Örnebring demonstrated this with his example of the ARG created for the movie AI: Artificial Intelligence - called the Beast. This ARG created a buzz surrounding issues covered in the movie yet did not directly reference the movie, its storyline or its characters (Örnebring 2007 p.446). Other ARGs require participants to collect clues from the originating text and use the collective intelligence of the group in order to progress through the game.

Regardless of its form, the purpose if an ARG is to allow the consumer to actively participate in a fictional word that intertwines with reality – participants must suspend belief in order to interact with the game and the media text as if it were a real.

Örnebring, H. 2007. Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10: 445 - 462. Sage Publications. http://ics.sagepub.com/content/10/4/445 (accessed 20/10/11).

Topic 2.4 Notes on play, games and media

In the ilecture Woods stated when speaking about the history of games “TV killed gaming innovation because the companies that produced games … started remaking them with a new image on the box… this hasn’t really changed much” (Woods 2011). While this is true of board games (a quick Google search will find loads of different versions of monopoly including “make your own Opoly” where you can customize the board game to suit your own interests) I am not sure that it applies to video games in the same way.

While the reason for buying the Star Wars version of Monopoly, hopefully is because you are a fan of Star wars – playing the game of monopoly is not something overly representative of the movies themes or storyline. Video games on the other offer a greater flexibility in representing the initial text - be it in graphics, storyline or characters voice and appearance. In fact the media companies that creates the movie also create the game ensuring a harmonious branding across all platforms. For example Sony – a company that makes televisions and electronic equipment is actually a group of companies. One branch of the group is Sony Pictures who make movies and television shows. Another branch of the Sony group make the Sony PlayStation and PlayStation games (Sony Global - Sony Global Headquarters  2011). Therefore when Sony pictures make a blockbuster movie with a lot of graphics and special effects, a game can also be produced at the same time using the same graphic styles and is instantly recognizable to consumers.

Games are popular and in an article about the future of video games Mawer suggests a few reasons why this is the case. His first reason once again, is in the production value – he states that games have “story lines that are gripping, full of suspense, action and adventure which are supported by some stunning visuals, amazing sound effects and a stirring soundtrack to accompany the hero” (Mawer 2011) and his second reason in purely financial “but the movie is over within a few hours while the video game plays for a whopping 50 hours” (Mawer 2011). So the games have all the story line and production value of a movie, but offer better entertainment value by allowing the consumers to extend the time they spend interacting with their favorite media texts.

Professor Thomas De Zengotita’s theories on the effects of media evolution could give further insight into the popularity of games. In an interview about fame and celebrity he speaks about something he calls an act of “fundamental robbery” that has been created by a fame driven media system. The fundamental human need is acknowledgment and he believes that our media society takes this away from the average person stating “the evolution of media of all kinds, in large scale societies (should be seen) as taking the fame or acknowledgement that used to be everybody’s and some how reassigning it to only a few people” (Genier 2011) . With this in mind video games could be seen as way of placating this need to be acknowledged as in the game the player becomes the central focus, their existence within the game is acknowledged and their actions instantly rewarded.

This could explain why adult gamers feel they need to rationalize their game playing to others. Research conducted by Helen Thornham discovered that while many adults play games, many still feel there is a social stigma attached to it and therefore tend to rationalize their game playing as a logical pastime – such as socializing. Those who admitted to playing games regularly and by themselves were often ridiculed, seen as geeky, and their sexual orientation questioned.  Thornham put this reaction down to a cultural issue in the structured adult life that mimics “working lives where every hour has meaning or purpose” (Thornham 2009). Gaming offers a form of escape from the everyday that is seen purely as entertainment, it is therefore unproductive (in the work life sense) resulting in gamers defending their actions through rationalizations.

Finally Jenkins offers further insight into the role of gaming in society. He notes the roles that moral panics have played in the multiple stigmas attached to video gaming – such as violent games producing violent people. He counters this argument by advising that gamers have the ability to distinguish the real from the virtual stating that people “tend to dismiss anything they encounter in fantasy or entertainment that is not consistent with what they believe to be true about the real world”(Jenkins 2006). Unlike Thornton who sees games purely as escapist and fun, Jenkins sees games as a meaningful way to spend time. He sees games as a place for learning about society, a way for people to escape and blow off steam, a way to generate new thought and a way of improving social ties and bonds. All meaningful if not conducive to the production of a commercial goods.

Teenage Paparazzo. 2011. SBS FIlm,  http://www.sbs.com.au/films/movie/10426/Teenage-Paparazzo (accessed 23/10/11).

Jenkins, H. 2006. The War Between Effects and Meaning: Rethinking the Video Game Violence Debate. In Digital generations, ed D. Buckingham. Massachusetts. http://edocs.library.curtin.edu.au/eres_display.cgi?url=dc60263484.pdf (accessed 19/10/11).

 Mawer, K. 2011. Video games - the media of the future. http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/uncategorized/video-games-the-media-of-the-future (accessed 25/10/11).

  Sony Global - Sony Global Headquarters. 2011. http://www.sony.net/ (accessed 25/10/11).

Thornham, H. 2009. Claiming a Stake in the Videogame : What Grown-Ups Say to Rationalize and Normalize Gaming. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies: 445-462. http://con.sagepub.com/content/15/2/141 (accessed 19/10/11).

Woods, S. 2011. Play with Me. In MCCA104-Engaging Media. Perth. Curtin University of Technology.

2.3 Activity 2: How can digital media offer disempowered communities control over their own images and stories? Provide some examples if you can.

Srinivasan’s article touches on the possibilities new media can bring to disempowered communities when the technology is appropriated to meet their own “cultural, political and social visions” (Srinivasan 2006 p. 497). He demonstrates the role social media can play in preserving “cultural histories”  through the sharing of “native languages, songs and rituals” (Srinivasan 2006 p. 507) through social media environment. His example Tribal PEACE is described as a bottoms-up project where members of 19 geographically dispersed Native American Reservations control the content submitted to an online space specifically designed for the purpose of teaching and preserving cultural heritage. The content submitted is chosen by a committee made up of reservation members and access to it controlled through a password protected website (Tribal PEACE an Inter-tribal Educational Initiative).

This example shows how new media can empower communities to keep their cultural identity alive through a controlled purpose built learning environment that operates outside that of educational institutions. It does not however mean that these cultural stories and images are in some way protected from use by others. The cultural stories of the Native Americans can still be told through movies – and altered and changed to suit the largest possible audience in a cross-cultural mingling that Jenkins refers to as “corporate hybridity”(Jenkins 2006 p.167). It does not stop stereotypical representations by other forms of media; it does however provide a space where members of disempowered communities can share cultural information without restriction or influence.

 Jenkins, H. 2006. Pop Cosmopolitanism: Mapping Cultural Flows in an Age of Media Convergence, Fans bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture: New York University Press.

Srinivasan, R. 2006. Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9: 497. http://ics.sagepub.com/content/9/4/497 (accessed 15/10/11).

  Tribal PEACE an Inter-tribal Educational Initiative. http://www.tribalpeace.org/ (accessed 17/10/11).

2.1: Identify a text you consider to be particularly interactive:

Ive been looking for a Gavin and Stacey inspired interactive text and Ive got to say that the best ones are the ones created by fans. The official websites and Apps just don't cut it.

http://www.gavinandstacey.com/ is an independent fan site for the show and is a place of media convergence. Here fans can access news articles regarding the shows actors, access YouTube videos of their favorite clips, access the fan clubs twitter account and have discussions with other fans on the forum and even buy Gavin and Stacey DVDs from a direct link to amazon. They can also read episode synopses and interviews with cast members and watch character spin offs that have been created for charity.

I think one of the things that has kept the popularity of Gavin and Stacey going, even after its ending is that the fans are still being catered for through the appearance of the characters at awards nights and charity comedy galas such as comic relief for red nose day. The characters are continuing to evolve despite the lack of TV episode of which they were first created.

As a website this particular media text is able to be viewed and interacted with anywhere you can log onto the internet so it is is easy for fans to keep up to date with, and prevents them from having to scour varies websites for the latest news. On this site fans can actively contribute or just read / watch or listen to the content provided by others.

  Gavin and Stacey: Independent fansite for BBC One's most romantic comedy. http://www.gavinandstacey.com/page/2/#.TovqFHHhUio (accessed 5/10/11).

 rednoseday. 2011. Smithy saves Red Nose Day 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdg7Tgv5lo0 (accessed 5/10/11).

2.1 Notes of Vidding

Vidding | Organization for Transformative Works

Click on this link and you will find a series of short films about vidding. Although the term is new to me - after watching a few of the films I realized that I have seen a great many "vids" on YouTube.

So what is vidding?

Well you know that part at the end of every chick-flick you have ever seen - where one lover dies and they cut to a montage depicting all fun the couple had together - the highs, the lows, the good times and the bad... all set to music designed to make you ball your eyes out and reach for the ice cream? Well I guess this could be described as the forefather of vidding.

A "vid" is short film created by fans that uses both the footage and the techniques of film and TV production companies to create their own montages based on the characters and events of their favorite media text. Just like movie montages they are set to music and good ones usually follow a theme that is based on the fans favorite TV shows or movies. Fans can use vids to create new narrative or to support the narrative of an existing storyline and create vids out of love for the characters, the plot or both. Or as one vidder puts it:  “it’s the three minutes I want to see set to really good music”  (Coppa 2008).

As Jenkins states in his blog - Vidding is not something that is all that new, having been around for the past 20 years  (Jenkins 2008) but as the technology to create and distribute vids has become more accessible, vidding has risen in popularity. Jenkins also states that although there are a great many vids out there in cyberspace many people are reluctant to claim ownership due to the possible consequences of infringing copyright (Jenkins 2008).

Having only really seen vids based on sci-fi shows I cant say I ever really liked them - but in the name of higher education I set out to find one based on my favorite media text Gavin and Stacey.

The below vid created by cyberwoman007 takes clips from various episodes of the TV show Gavin and Stacey and sets them Taylor Swifts Love Song. The result is a polished, professional film clip that tells love story of the two main characters that makes me think that maybe Ive been a little harsh on vidding. It seems that like with most fan based artwork you need to actually be a fan to get a full appreciation for it.

Now... wheres that ice cream?

cyberwoman007. 2010. Gavin & Stacey Love Story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liJk5NPWlxU (accessed 5/10/11). 

Jenkins, H. 2008. Fan Vidding: A Labor Of Love (Part Two). http://henryjenkins.org/2008/12/in_many_ways_the_emergence.html (accessed 14/9/11).

What is Vidding. 2008. Transformativeworks.org,  http://transformativeworks.org/node/579 (accessed 14/9/11).