CULTURE: CASE STUDIES IN NETWORKED PUBLICS
Adrienne Russell, Mimi Ito, Todd Richmond, and Marc Tuters
The convergence between old and new media is tied to broad-based changes in how power and information are distributed across society, geography, and technology. The trend toward highly pervasive digital networks manifests in public culture as increased visibility and mobilization of those actors traditionally associated with cultural consumption. These network characteristics, combined with low-cost digital authoring tools, have lowered the threshold for producing, publishing, and disseminating knowledge and culture. As a result, the boundaries between producer and consumer and between public and private are blurring. Through the Internet, casual communication, personal stories and opinion, homegrown news and amateur cultural works can be made easily available to large audiences. In other words, cultural artifacts associated with “personal” culture (like home movies, snapshots, diaries, and scrapbooks) have now entered the arena of “public” culture (like newspapers, commercial music , cinema, and television).
In this chapter, we look at how cultural production and consumption are changing in this digitally networked era. More specifically, we identify four domains that have flourished with the turn toward networked public culture—amateur and non-market production, networked collectivities for producing and sharing culture, niche and special-interest groups, and aesthetics of parody, remix, and appropriation—and trace them through four case studies—amateur and remix music, anime fandoms, viral marketing, and news blogs.
With the modern growth of professional and commercial media in the 19th and 20th centuries, amateur cultural production was ghettoized. Domains such as amateur musical performance, personal correspondence, diaries, local newsletters, and everyday talk have always been among the most productive dimensions of cultural life, but in recent history they have been overshadowed by commercial and professional cultural forms. The advent of mass commercial media created a translocal, star-studded and spectacular arena of shared public culture and imagination that transcended these local cultural forms. But even in the heyday of television as mass medium, the means for the production of culture and knowledge have never been taken away from even those individuals most strongly associated with "consumption" (women, children, and mass media audiences). Amateur, local and niche cultures which have persisted in the shadow of mass media are now gaining greater visibility and translocal reach due to the advent of digitally networked public culture. Blogs, online chat, auction sites, web forums, peer-to-peer filesharing, streaming online video, and social network services are platforms for longstanding amateur cultural production, fandoms, and everyday communication to flourish in new ways online.
Today, as Yochai Benkler has theorized, we are at the beginning of a shift away from commercial media and centrally organized knowledge production towards “non-market” and distributed production. Amateur and remixed music distributed over the Internet, fans producing derivative works of fiction and art, marketers appropriating the idioms of viral amateur culture, and bloggers debating the latest news—these are all examples of, in the words of John Hagel and John Seely Brown, “the edge becoming the core.” Marginal and viral consumers and publics of commercial culture are creating their own cultural content and knowledge that both draws from and threatens the core of commercial culture. And instead of replacing the existing commercial industry ideology with another structure of authority Geert Lovink suggests that these network publics follow a nihilist impulse against moral absolutes and objective truths, which in media terms translates into a growing distrust for commercial news organizations and their product. He writes, “Questioning the message is no longer a subversive act of engaged citizens but the a priori attitude, even before the TV or PC has been switched on.”
Unlike commercial cultural production, which relies on professionalized, institutionalized, and capitalized systems, amateur and non-market production often utilizes more disorganized and socially distributed mechanisms for creating knowledge and culture. Benkler writes of how the processing power of many personal computers, distributed in “dollops” among individuals, if coordinated through smart networks, can be a source of considerable power. He considers the example of SETI@Home, a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, as a model for this kind of distributed processing and knowledge production. Henry Jenkins describes an even more socially distributed intelligence in the activities of spoiler groups for the reality TV show Survivor. By gathering information from all over the world and communicating and debating over the Internet, networked fan groups collectively produce knowledge that far exceeds what local fan groups could muster. Similarly amateur subtitling groups for Japanese television series rely on a globally networked team to produce and distribute their work. Blogs have also been touted as a kind of collective intelligence, where the fact-finding capabilities of individuals are pooled to gather knowledge that can challenge the authority of the professional press.
Chris Anderson describes how networked distributors like Amazon.com increasingly make profits not from the “short head”—a small number of bestsellers—but from the “long tail”—a wide variety of niche products with small circulation. Combined with the ability of digital communication to directly connect special-interest groups, these new distribution channels have enabled small producers and small audiences to find one another. The intimate dynamics of local communities can now extend to transnational interest networks. Unlike local communities, which are centered on place-based affiliation, contemporary networks support specialization and associations based on esoteric knowledge communities and niche cultural affiliations. The case of anime (Japanese animation) fandoms is particularly pertinent in this respect. Post-Internet, overseas audiences for anime have exploded in quantity and diversity, aided by alternative distribution ranging from commercial sites like Amazon.com, Netflix, RentAnime, as well as various peer-to-peer alternatives. Similar dynamics are at work with the rise of micro-fandoms for alternative and amateur music as well as within the blogosphere.
In addition to the changes in the structures and networks of cultural production, networked public culture has also been associated with particular genres and styles. In this new-media ecology, works that can be produced quickly, at low cost, and appropriate the products of commercial culture have a new kind of cultural salience. The informal banter about the latest news, music, or television show is now being published on blogs and being expressed through cultural forms like amateur music and video production. These modes of production fit particularly well with parody and remix because they rely on a combination of informal and amateur domains of culture with formal and professional ones. The products of mainstream and commercial culture still retain a certain pride of place in the global imagination; they are the polished and mass-distributed commercial forms that make up what fans call “the canon” or what critics call “corporate media.” By mashing up, remixing, playing out alternative narratives, and providing snarky commentary on commercial culture, niche publics can create new cultural forms that draw from both local and translocal referents. Viral political mashup videos, remixed music, anime music videos, and much of the blogosphere exemplify these aesthetics and discursive styles.
Taken together these new ways of making and sharing culture have broad ramifications for the fundamental relations between production and consumption and on the traditional sources of authority for culture and knowledge. By reshaping long-established standards or production and consumption, amateurs, file-sharers, and bloggers are beginning to challenge existing institutional and professional authority. Today we see the what are just the first glimmerings of what a fully networked public culture might look like. Persistent predictions of imminent doom for established content industries, and conversely, of the squelching of common culture by corporate litigation and monopolistic forces, are both indicators that the future of public culture is still very much up for grabs. Our goal in this chapter therefore is not to declare the forms of networked culture we describe as fait accompli, as inevitable forms of culture and media. Rather, we specifically selected four cases studies—music file-sharing, anime fandoms, viral marketing, and news blogs—that serve as sites of contestation between the forces of government regulation, technological engineering, corporate maneuvering, and networked, viral, and laterally organized Internet groups.
Our goal in this essay is not to produce a general survey of how digital networks are changing cultural production. Rather, we are focusing on specific cases that offer alternative models with which to frame thinking about evolving relations between production and consumption. We could have chosen from many other cases including other fandoms, machinima, online encyclopedias, scholarly publications, fashion, or design. But we feel that the cases we present exemplify an illuminating range of dynamics in emergent networked public culture. Our first case of music file-sharing is the most well-known example of the present tensions in network culture, but it represents an older form of antagonism that is currently being supplanted by new kinds of coalitions and business models based on different relationships between producers and consumers, businesses and customers, publishers and audiences. The problems that the music industry encountered in cracking down on consumer activism provided lessons for other industries such as marketing and television that are experimenting with new ways to reach out to fans and remixers. While new models of these relationships diffuse some of the antagonisms visible in the case of music, they also raise new questions and controversies about the role of secondary markets, the validity of knowledge, and the breakdown of common culture.
Amateur Music and Remix
The battle between the recording industry and file-sharing music fans is one crucial example of how production and consumption of cultural products is changing in the era of networked publics, and illustrates some of the underlying issues associated with these shifts. The music industry has been revolutionized in a number of ways including; networked technologies, most notably by peer-to-peer network applications that allow users to download and share digital music files; the advent of cheaper and easy-to-use digital audio workstations and software allowing people to easily and cheaply create CD-quality music; and social software and social network platforms that have created communities of shared practice, knowledge, and expertise outside of traditional music marketing channels.
That this is a revolution for the music industry is by no means an exaggeration. From 2000 to 2006, the music industry’s revenues have plunged from $14.32 billion to $9.65 billion and sales of CDs have declined from 942 million to 614 million. Although sales of digital tracks in venues such as Apple’s iTunes have risen from virtually zero to $1.85 billion during that time, the industry is clearly in transition (best case) or crisis (worst case).
At the outset, we have to see these changes in their context. Although digital technology and the Internet have given both musicians and consumers the tools to have a massive impact on the music industry, ”the biz” was/is far from beloved. The consolidation of record labels, the proliferation of consultant-driven radio programming, the resulting homogenization of available commercial music, the absorption and subsequent domestication of “alternative music” by the industry and a widespread perception among the public and artists alike that the industry did not benefit musicians made both consumers and amateur musicians eager to reject it, or at least pursue alternatives.
Peer–to-peer file-sharing (P2P) hit the mainstream in 1999 with the appearance of Napster, followed by LimeWire, Kazaa, and others. P2P applications make files stored on a single personal computer available to other users for download over the Internet and smaller networks. Around this time the industry “Big Four (Universal, Sony-BMG, EMI and Warner Brothers) accounted for approximately 80 percent of all music sales globally. The emergence of P2P was an obvious threat to corporations that perceived file sharing as theft of their intellectual property and they acted swiftly against it. Too confidently, one industry insider declared, “we are going to strangle this baby at birth.” The Big Four mounted a four-fold strategy to battle P2P: extending intellectual property rights, litigating against both P2P platform providers and users, developing digital rights management restrictions, and creating a public relations campaign. In a highly publicized court case, Napster was sued by the record industry and lost, leading to its demise in 2001. Other file sharing services such as Gnutella, Limewire and Bittorrent sprang up to take its place, employing more decentralized servers that would be more difficult to shut down and networks that, following the model of the Internet, could heal themselves against damage. Despite the threat of litigation, P2P is still thriving.
Although P2P sharing of music is decried by the RIAA and other industry entities that seek to protect—and expand—intellectual property laws against copyright infringement, copyleft activists argue that present intellectual laws are outdated, that they stifle innovation by privileging individual and corporate financial interests over the interests of the collective. Media historian Siva Vaidhyanathan exemplifies this position when he argues that “the copyright holder is very rarely the artist herself.” Others have suggested that the peer-to-peer file sharing is nothing less than an act of mass civil disobedience against a corrupt industry that exploits artists. That being said, there is the very real problem of artists being able to make a living through their music. While it can be argued that existing copyright law is not longer viable, there should be some alternative models and strategies devised. Perhaps the market will solve the problem, as creative solutions rise and can spread quickly in the new landscape. But given the legacy intellectual property and financial stakes, it is a tough nut to crack.
Although the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has blamed the year-over-year collapse of CD sales on P2P, some research indicates otherwise, suggesting that the impact on the music sales is low and that while users avoid purchasing music due to file sharing, others may use it to sample tracks that they may later buy. From this viewpoint, the music industry’s troubles are somewhat self-inflicted, its decline the result of a lack of compelling new product rather than an assault by technology. Even if the jury is still out on this issue, there can be no question that the industry is in troubled times and undergoing massive changes.
Ultimately, however, the real threat to the established music industry is legitimate distribution via file-sharing applications or web sites. These create alternatives to established distribution models, putting some level of control back into the hands of the music creators. One estimate suggests that as of 2004 the ratio of legal to “illegal” song downloads was 250 to 1 and billions of music files are exchanged every week. File-sharing greatly increases the amount of available music and our ability to access it and, as a result, musicians no longer need a record label to distribute their music while fans are no longer limited to the tastes of music industry executives and retail owners. Even the industry’s vast experience has been replicated and in some cases surpassed by blogs, forums and other sites that provide content producers a place to find listeners, as well as locate possible collaborators. The fifth edition of The Indie Bible lists over 400 Web sites where independent musicians can distribute their music.
Apart from new means of distribution, digital technology has made it possible for musicians to produce higher quality, more sophisticated recordings, again short-circuiting the need for aid from the music industry but also changing the way that songs can be produced and giving rise to new genres. While sampling (using short recorded bits of music from other sources) was used prior to the advent of digital technologies, the new tools have greatly facilitated the process to the point of being trivial from a technical standpoint. Similarly, “quoting” musical phrases has a rich history, perhaps most notably seen with post-WWII jazz artists and soloista like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, who would play variations on phrases and motifs from other material within their work. The new tools and practices move sampling and quoting to the forefront, allowing for new genres/approaches such as remix and mashup. Remix, where small portions of one song are “remixed” into a new derivative work, is an extension and expansion of sampling and quoting. Mashup, which usually involves taking two or more songs and juxtaposing them, is a variation of the remix theme. Hip-hop predated the digital technology shift, relying on “old school” analog sampling techniques, but it could be argued that part of the reason for the increase in popularity and penetration in society is due to the digital transform providing lower barriers for the use of samples to create new music.
Until the advent of modern digital recording technology, music had to be recorded in studios. Studio time was expensive, tape was expensive, and editing was a chore, so most musicians—apart from the wealthy and already successful—needed to have their music substantially complete before entering the studio to lay down their tracks.
In 1987 a program called “Sound Tools” was released as the first tapeless recording studio. Later renamed “Pro Tools,” this software and hardware combination created the first digital audio workstation (DAW), enabling musicians to record multiple tracks entirely on a computer and subsequently edit and play back their work. While the sonic quality and stability of the early systems were issues, the ability to easily and non-destructively create, edit, and apply effects changed not only the workflow in the studio but also the creative process for the artists. By working digitally, musicians and engineers could record in a manner fitting the schedule and temperament of the artist while editing could become a larger part of the music composition.
As computers and other digital technologies improved, studios could produce music that was digital end-to-end, and independent pressing and burning of compact discs became cheaper and easier, mostly due to the availability of production houses via the Internet. For musicians with access to “legitimate” studio time, the boundary between the professional studio and the home studio blurred: tracks could be recorded at home or in a semi-pro project studio, and then taken to a larger facility for further work. Or conversely, tracks could be recorded in a professional studio (often with higher quality microphones and better sounding rooms), and then taken home for post-production or further tracking of instruments not requiring precise room dynamics (e.g. electronic keyboards, etc.). The ability to swap files and project sessions with ease, either over the network or using optical media, allows musicians to move song creation and production forward without being in the same studio at the same time or even in the same time zone.
Just as P2P file-sharing has undone traditional channels of distribution, the rise of the digital studio has led to the demise of many professional recording studios. In the winter of 2005 three major studios closed: Cello Studios in Los Angeles, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, and the Hit Factory in New York City. Nor have things improved much lately for the studios: in 2007, Sony Studios in New York shut its doors. All were based on the traditional model of recording where labels paid huge sums of money for studio time. While the production technology changed, the industry did not. As Tape Op magazine editor Larry Crane states, “The business model of ‘we have the technology needed to make records – you don’t’ is gone.” Nor is knowledge of how to run a studio exclusive anymore. Online bulletin boards and forums focused on particular software and hardware products provide users the ability to ask questions, learn new techniques and solve problems.
Beyond the economic impact on the traditional studio, home recording and mixing equipment has become employed as a medium for the process and production of music as well. In particular, loop-based music production software such as ACID Pro (now owned by Sony) has had a profound effect on many genres and production capabilities. Such applications allow the user to take music loops, add other sounds, and change tempos and pitch through the use of time stretching algorithms. Since loops are digital files, users can purchase pre-packaged loops on CD, download loops from Web sites or trade loops online via P2P. As the software improved and computing horsepower increased, time/tempo algorithms became more transparent, and making remix, or the bringing together of sounds from disparate recordings, not only possible, but easy to accomplish. Moreover, digital music files can be easily sampled for loops and remixed to create new innovative music, for example DJ Dangermouse’s the Grey Album, or the collectively produced Deconstructing Beck. Today music is being created with no “new” content, but the results are clearly original. This ability to produce music with no knowledge of how to play a musical instrument blurs the boundaries between “real” musician and amateur. But again, it brings issues of intellectual property to the fore, raising the question of how much sampling and remix is really legal. Both the Grey Album and Deconstructing Beck are technically considered illegal and online hosting of the music files results in cease and desist letters from industry lawyers. The combination of DAW software, loop manipulation software, and the network led to many more routes for creating remixes. Some artists would not only create a “finished” version of a song, but also make available individual instrument tracks, loops, and other sonic bits with the express goal of having people use their material in remixes.
Just as music distribution and production have been reshaped by digital technology and networking, social software tools and social networking platforms have allowed individuals to act as taste-making gatekeepers for themselves and their peers. Instead of having music label A&R (artist and repertoire) determine who gets signed and subsequently heard, social networks spread the new and the unknown artists to their friends and their friend’s friends. Independent artists such as M.I.A., previously relegated to local notoriety at best, have found broad audiences through word-of-mouth and promotion on niche web sites. Blogs and wikis give musicians and audiences venues to distribute songs and other content, as well as provide insight into the bands and artists. MySpace has evolved as a de facto home for musicians and bands. This qualitative change in the public’s role in the music industry reflects emerging changes in other sectors of the culture industry. The ability of music consumers to exert increased control over what music they have access to and what they do with “their” music signals a broader shift in trends of cultural resistance, from jamming (where cultural products and their presumed hegemonic force are interrupted) to poaching (where cultural products are taken up and refashioned to convey individualized tastes and messages). Or as Aram Sinnreich describes, mashup and remix can be thought of as an aesthetic resistance movement that came about as a response to the consolidation of popular music styles. And perhaps most interesting is the rise of social and cultural capital in these environments. In the new markets, artist, critic, and consumer are often seen swapping roles and creating, curating, and commenting for the “online glory” rather than monetary reward. Nevertheless, the majority of online music is sold through large online aggregators such as iTunes and, until recently, almost always encoded with digital rights management software keys so as to prevent sharing between users. It may well be that we are exchanging one music industry for another, although the recent shift by Apple to make available DRM-free music could indicate otherwise.
Music is a special case. It was the first culture industry to be threatened by the combination of low-cost digital production tools combined with online file-sharing and social networks. Music has always been a domain of robust amateur production, making it particularly amenable to more bottom-up forms of production and distribution in the digital ecology, and ripe for the disintermediation of labels and licensors. The fact that widespread music file-sharing happened relatively early also meant that the existing music industry was poorly equipped to deal with the new online ecology, taking a reactive stance rather than anticipating new practices and potential business solutions. Although the story of digital music is far from over, already it reads as a cautionary tale of the current fragility of business models built on earlier media infrastructures. P2P is a cultural economy, and as anthropologist Alfred Gell wrote, “consumption is part of a process that includes production and exchange, all three being distinct only as phases of the cyclical process of social reproduction, in which consumption is never terminal.”
The biggest change of all, however, may be the reconfiguration of the status of amateur and professional. As late as 2001 the prevailing wisdom among musicians was that amateur status was “something to get beyond.” In other words, the end game for the artist was still “getting signed” and following the traditional industry model. However as lines between amateur and professional blur, remix becomes embedded into culture—even beyond music—and technological changes continue to occur, “getting beyond” amateur status may no longer be the goal.
Transnational Anime Fandom
Fans are the lifeblood of commercial media, and yet they have often had an uneasy relationship with media industries. As enthusiasts of particular artists or series, fandoms—subcultures composed of fans with a common interest—can serve as the source of P2P promotional buzz as well as the base of the consumer market. But when fans cross the line into producing and trafficking in their own cultural products derived from commercial content, they create their own unique cultural forms that circulate in alternative and P2P networks under the radar of commodity capitalism. Fan fiction, art, music, videos and comics are forms of long tail media largely invisible to the mainstream but that have always existed in the shadow of commercial mass media. Now these forms of cultural production are being energized through their uptake of digital production tools and networks. Much as musical mash-ups have both celebrated and challenged the products of commercial culture, fan art, comics, and fiction have disrupted the singular authorial voice of popular novels, movies, and television.
Traditionally, commercial media make their money off the one-to-many circulation of content to mass audiences, not in the sharing of content between audiences. Activist fan groups disrupt the logic of mainstream narratives and copyright regimes, going against the grain of what Lawrence Lessig has called “permission culture—the regime of copyright restrictions that insists that all uses of copyrighted works need to be explicitly leased.” In the case of television, movies, and novels, the relation between fan-produced culture and commercial culture has often been a site of ongoing tension and negotiation. For example, there have been high-profile legal battles between the industry and fans of Star Wars and Harry Potter. By contrast, at least two cultural domains—anime and machinima—have been characterized by a more synergistic relationship between fan cultural production and commercial production. Here we discuss the case of anime fandoms outside of Japan, a unique but illuminating example of how fans and industry have reached some compromises in dealing with fan-produced digital media and online distribution.
Unlike music, where the means of production are relatively ready at hand, most of us do not grow up creating animated television shows as an everyday cultural practice. Even now, in an era of relatively low-cost digital animation and game production tools, the level of production required for both of these domains is well out of the reach of amateurs. In this sense, the equation is similar to that of any form of dynamicvisual media, particularly those forms that require sustained narrative production over long periods of time (games, anime series, soap operas, etc.). Television and filmic fan production is often a form of what Jenkins has dubbed “poaching” or what lawyers call “derivative works”: using the narrative, characters, and images from commercial media to produce other media. What makes the relation between anime producers and overseas fans unique is that the commercial industries for the most part tolerate and exploit amateur cultural production, rather than ignoring it or trying to shut it down. The industries have recognized that activist and productive fans can create rather than detract from their business, and help to circulate their collective (commercial) imaginations.
Historically, Japanese manga (comics) and anime industries have taken a relatively tolerant view of fan-produced cultural content. The doujinshi (amateur comic) scene in Japan is enormous and has thrived since the seventies. The largest convention in the country, bringing together up to 300,000 fans, is the bi-annual Comic Market devoted to the sale of doujinshi. While these fan productions have been largely scorned by the mainstream, industry has largely let it be rather than cracked down on it, demonstrating that, given a looser copyright regime, fan-produced derivative works can rival the mainstream commercial market in scale. As cultural and human traffic between Japan, the U.S. and Europe grew in the eighties and nineties, the small audience for Japanese media overseas slowly began to grow. Until recently, in the English-speaking world, anime was a marginal form of cult media, restricted to relatively extreme fandoms that crossed over somewhat with the science fiction and fantasy world.
In these early years, leaders in the fandom had some degree of communication between the Japanese industry and the U.S. licensors, and saw their role as evangelists for anime overseas. Anime were distributed at convention, local clubs, and via mail; and non-commercial fansubbing (fan subtitling) emerged, as this was the only way that English-language fans could gain access to localized versions of anime. It was during this period that anime fans began developing what Sean Leonard calls a “proselytizing commons,” the free non-market sharing of content for the purposes of promoting and creating a new commercial market. It was also during this period that fans began to develop certain social norms about media sharing. Committed to keeping their work in the non-market sector, fansubbers agreed not to profit from their ventures. They also saw themselves as supporters of the anime industry, so would stop circulating their wares when a commercial English-language release was announced. This work of fans and some committed overseas distributors of anime is credited with opening up the market for anime in the U.S, but it is increasingly controversial as to whether fansubbing continues to benefit the industry in the U.S. market where anime is now well-established.
With the advent of P2P video distribution over the Internet, the circulation of anime overseas has reached a new order of magnitude. Now, most popular anime series released in Japan will eventually be released with fansubs and distributed via BitTorrent or on streaming video sites to millions of fans around the world. For the most popular series, a group might even turn around a title within a day of its release in Japan. Thousands of fans watch the torrent listings or lurk on the fansub IRCs waiting for the group to give word that this week’s fansub is out. As a result of this attention, the niche cult media of anime is becoming more and more visible to the mainstream, at least among youth, taking over slots on popular cable channels like Cartoon Network and becoming a mainstay of the DVD sales and rental industry. According to a recent article in Fortune, the output of the top U. S. DVD distributor of anime in the US is more than the combined DVD distribution of Warner Brothers and Paramount, the two top U. S. television show distributors.
In contrast to the music industry, overseas anime distribution is a case of the long tail of distribution wagging the head successfully. Rather than cracking down on fansubbers and Net distribution, the anime industry has continued to take a relatively accommodating stance, which in turn has kept organized fan groups toeing the party line. As one popular fansub group, Anime-Empire, states “We wish only to help expand the Japanese animation market to North America, without harming or impeding the business in any way. Therefore, once a title has been licensed in North America, we wish for fans to discontinue distribution of said title, and encourage others to purchase the newly released DVDs and mangas in their local anime/manga dealers.”
Fansubs are not the only example of fan-level non-market production by anime groups. Although doujinshi have been slower to take off outside Japan because of the craftwork involved, fan art, fan fiction, and remixed anime music videos thrive in the contemporary network ecology. While fan fiction and fan art are forms of fan production that have a counterpart in Japan, anime music videos are a post-digital phenomenon that currently exist only in overseas anime fandoms that rely on digital distribution. Fans will take commercial anime footage, strip out the soundtrack, extract short clips, and edit them to conform to a song or another soundtrack (eg., a movie trailer or advertisement) of their choosing. Often these creations are parodies of the commercial narrative or illustrate latent themes or backstories. Video remix is prevalent in native fan cultures as well; U.S. fans remix U.S. media and Japanese fans remix Japanese media. AMVs, however, are also cultural mash-ups, localizing Japanese- visual media for the different sensibilities and cultural referents of overseas fans. Anime footage edited to European or American popular music is a new cultural form arising from the experiences of cross-cultural fandom. Although these are “derivative works” that don’t depend on the craftwork of drawing and animating, even a cursory review of these productions reveals often stunning new forms of visual literacy unique to the digitally networked age. Esoteric cultural referents to anime characters and narratives are embedded in visual cues edited to conform to the audio track through lipsync, rapid-fire cuts, and often-sophisticated labor-intensive digital effects.
Although there are a handful of cases where anime music video creators have been asked to take their wares off the Net by corporations, these moves have rarely been initiated by the Japanese anime companies. Rather, it has been the U. S. licensors or record labels that own the soundtracks used in the mash-up videos that have been sending the cease and desist letters.
Although the situation with of anime fandoms and studios seems less hostile than the tension between the music industry and P2P file sharers, it is difficult to know whether we are witnessing a momentary and fragile peace or the dawn of a golden era for overseas anime fandoms where both fan and commercial distribution will continue to flourish. As the market for anime overseas becomes increasingly established, anime industries may fall victim to the hubris of success and break from their historical tolerance of fan production and distribution. Larger audiences and fandoms also mean a less disciplined and tight-knit community. While the case of the transnational circulation and remix of anime provides hints as to some possible futures for networked publics in which amateur remix and derivative works will be tolerated, whether this model survives what seems to be an inevitable scaling up and scrutiny by mainstream media remains to be seen.
Viral Marketing
Marketing, perhaps more willingly than music or anime, is making way for network publics in attempt to harness the power and influence of what was once known as consumers. The era of demographics-driven campaigns is widely considered to be over, now that emerging technologies have splintered audiences into micro-niches. In this fragmented media landscape, marketers are ever more dependent on fans to spread the word. Viral marketing assumes consumers, not firms, have the most influence in the creation of brands. Marketers increasingly attempt to tap into fan culture in order to co-opt their creativity for relatively inexpensive grassroots marketing campaigns. Here, fans become empowered, from the point of view of marketers, as “brand evangelists” who become essential partners in negotiating a products meaning in the constant conversation that is native to the networked public.
According to Henry Jenkins, ever since Napster popularized file-sharing, the approach to new-media fandom has split along two general lines. The film, television, and recording industries have predominantly attempted to regulate fan engagement with their products, while Internet and games companies have been more willing to experiment, adopting an approach that enlists fans in the work of content production and brand promotion. Jenkins refers to these two models as prohibitionist and collaborationist. According to Jenkins, the former, will fail to accommodate network demand for participation, one of the key products of the new media market, and thus lose fans to more tolerant forms of media. If the relationship with fans is becoming increasingly significant in the networked era, the role of marketing in mediating between producers and consumers may also expand. How then do marketers adapt this collaborationist approach to creating campaigns in a deeply fragmented media landscape?
A variety of disruptive technologies, as they are often characterized in the industry, allow consumers to customize their media by choosing more selectively from a wider array of sources and time-shifting their consumption patterns. Traditional marketing practices are threatened by technologies that allow consumers to cut out ads, from podcasting to set-top boxes and video on demand. These disruptive technologies are bringing about a transformation in the media landscape, moving it from a push to a pull ecology, where consumers begin to set the terms of their engagement. Rather than spending their entire marketing budget on thirty-second spots that dwindling audiences passively receive, marketers are increasingly interested in producing experience-driven campaigns, a phenomenon of convergence in which New York advertising meets Hollywood entertainment, an intersection Advertising Age editor Scott Donaton refers to as “Madison and Vine.”
Social-networking technologies from email to MySpace have given consumers the power to transform brands. Eager to channel this participation, while still wary of brand detractors, marketers are attempting to create fan-driven experiences adapted to a wide variety of media. “Viral marketing” assumes consumers, not firms, have the most influence in creating brands. Using social networks to “spread the word,” viral media grew as an epiphenomenon of e-mail forwarding, which according to Dan Brooks (who became famous for his spoof Volkswagen-suicide bomber advertisement) echoes a tacit understanding in the age-old practice of telling jokes: “If you repeat it, you own it. ” The problem for corporations is that activist brand detractors can also get into the game. Take the instance of the Nike sweatshop e-mails initiated by Jonah Peretti. After Nike responded over email that he could not customize his shoes with the personal ID “sweatshop” the e-mail correspondence, forwarded to friends and subsequently spread virally, became an Internet phenomenon, eventually landing Peretti a spot on the Today Show.
Jim Banister provides a useful theoretical frame for viral social networking with his concept of the “enginet.” In studying sites such as eBay and Friendster, Banister describes the enginet as an algorithmic structure that combines code, form, and function, to create community-driven experiences, in which the users themselves have found innovative, often unanticipated, ways to connect with one another. According to Banister, the successful enginet pulls visitors seamlessly through a variety of states, from producer to distributor to marketer to vendor to consumer. While Banister locates the antecedent of the enginet in the value-chain marketing schemes of Avon and Mary Kay, he claims that frictionless nature of networked media has exponentially scaled them into entire ecosystems.
Enginets use shared-judgment systems to create reputation-based “value nets,” which Banister says leverage a complex combination of community impulse, egocentrism, and individual superego, with its desire to judge. The tension of these traits has produced the bizarre category of Internet fame, often shamelessly lowbrow, where for example a popular thirteen-year-old video blogger named “Bowiegirl,” whose fame appears to be as much the result of mockery as admiration, becomes the unintentional spokesperson for Logitech after having featured one of their Webcams in a late-night bedroom confessional.
Although brand enthusiasts and detractors seem to be growing more and more empowered, marketers are ill at ease letting their reputations be determined by amateurs. It has become commonplace, however, for marketers to work from within the viral space, by creating campaigns cleverly dressed down in the aesthetics of amateur cultural production. The FX channel for example has used MySpace to great effect by creating a profile for a fictional character from their television program Nip and Tuck as a way to promote the show. The pioneers of the fictive technique have been video game marketers and they continue to push forward, using fake blogs to seed elaborate online hoaxes. Working with the marketing firm Wieden + Kennedy, the game developer Sega, for example, created a viral campaign for the release of their game ESPN NFL Football 2K4, which passed itself off as a legitimate amateur homepage by a game tester named Beta-7. The imaginary tester claimed the game made him blackout and fly into uncontrollable fits of rage. The phony site featured “leaked” confidential memos of a cover-up by Sega, which supposedly had knowledge of the health hazards of the game. In the world of the enginet, it seems that marketers are increasingly coming to resemble political spin doctors, carefully leaking disinformation to the press in order to advance an agenda, thwart detractors, and manipulate public opinion.
Media theorist Holly Willis proposes two categories for viral media: those that are “simply unseemly and outrageous,” such as Brooks’ Volkswagen ad, and those that “leave you very unsure about what you're viewing.” The majority of successful viral video clips conform to the former category, the most successful being Crispin Porter & Bogusky’s Subservient Chicken Web site developed as a satire of online Webcam pornography and featuring a database of video clips of a man in a chicken costume. Developed for Burger King, Subservient Chicken became responsible for driving one in six visitors to Burger King’s main site. Falling more clearly into the latter category is the emerging genre of alternative reality gaming (ARG). ARGs create entire self-contained worlds on the Web, often comprising a vast array of assets—logos, photos, scripts, movies, audio recordings, corporate blurbage, graphic treatments, flash movies—embedded within a network of (untraceable) Web sites. Involving a variety of complex puzzles, marketing experiences such as “the Beast,” developed to promote the Spielberg film AI, take several weeks or months to solve and are far too complex to be solved by a single player. Audiences must work together to process more story information than previously imagined, building a more collaborative relationship with each other and with the brand. This technique was used with great success to market the film The Blair Witch Project (a tiny budget film, which set a record for the largest per-screen gross in motion-picture history), and is increasingly being used to market video games.
When describing the medium of ARGs, fans often note that the best-designed experiences explicitly blur the lines of reality. Though an undeniably powerful new medium, uniquely adapted to the multimedia context of the Web, developing ARG’s as hype-machines could also potentially prove somewhat treacherous territory for marketers, as the online consumer is increasingly sensitive to being manipulated and increasingly adept at exposing deceptive practices. Cillit Bang, for example, a UK cleaning product brand, was forced to publicly apologize for conducting a deceptive viral marketing campaign in which members of its marketing team posed as fictional characters on the Web to place thinly disguised ads. The campaign unraveled when the marketers were exposed by bloggers.
As the forces of media disruption proliferate and audiences are increasingly lured away from official distribution channels, marketers are challenged to either adapt to the networked environment and redefine their relationship with consumers, or become irrelevant. When describing the medium, ARG fans will often invoke the ideal of TINAG (This Is Not A Game), as the best of these experiences are explicitly intended to blur the lines of reality. Such developments will not be lost on marketers. They will have to adopt a view of the entire field of cultural production in order to successfully invite people to participate in constructing compelling marketing “experiences.” As the relationship evolves between production and consumption, Jenkins maintains there must be detente between political economy and audience research. According to Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO of the Kaplan Thaler Group, new-media cultural workers “need to work more by chaos theory than by linear thinking.” Perhaps we will find that, as in nature, mutualism and parasitism are, in fact, often not discrete categories but should rather be perceived as a continuum of interaction. By creating a public arena shared by both non-market amateurs and commercial professionals, the Internet makes the engagements between these different parties necessarily more intimate.
Online News
In the case of online news, the relationship between the commercial industry and DIY producers is less contentious than it is in some of the other cases surveyed here. With increasing opportunities for amateur cultural production, it is clear people are actively resisting the content and practices of mainstream news partly by using it as a launching pad to offer contesting points of view and alternative practices. Evolving digital communication tools and practices are clashing with those of traditional news media, resulting in paradox and contradiction. Stories filed by so-called embedded reporters in Iraq, for example, are being trumped by soldiers' personal emails and photos; western-trained journalists in Middle Eastern countries are criticized for lacking professionalism while western audiences surf to Arab outlets to get news absent from western reports; bloggers work out tacit ethical codes for themselves while editorial opinions leak as a form of branding into all aspects of mainstream news publishing and programming.
Echoing these contradictions is the fact that one of the central assumptions about the news—its tie to democracy—grows more complex each day. On the one hand, scholars such as Robert McChesney, Edward Herman , and Cass Sunstein, see civic culture as deteriorating, the flow of information and opinions limited by media consolidation, various forms of self and government censorship, and the fragmentation of audiences. On the other hand, scholars such as Benkler and Jenkins celebrate do-it-yourself media for expanding the ranks of informed citizenry and facilitating the development of an engaged and participatory transnational culture. Benkler argues, for example, that what he calls “production modalities” of network information are being applied now to create and distribute politically relevant information, suggesting a vital transition from newspapers and TV, which suddenly seem but elements of the larger essential source file. He adds that the network, with its “variation and diversity of knowledge, time, availability, insight, and experience as well as vast communications and information resources,” has taken over the watchdog function of the press, a function that has become irretrievably a peer-to-peer activity. Although many analysts faced with the complexities of the networked news environment have simply divided the landscape into two spheres, in effect pitting them against each other, it is increasingly evident that the landscape grows more fully integrated every day, a point that news industry professionals are acting on reluctantly but that media users-turned-producers have recognized instinctively for some time.
The balance of power between news providers and news consumers has shifted. Web publishing tools and powerful mobile devices combined with an increasing skepticism toward mainstream media has prompted readers to become active participants in the creation and dissemination of news. Video- and text- bloggers, do-it-yourself media activists, and professional journalists are struggling over the right to define the truth and to determine what form and practice of news production yields more credible product. Is credibility the domain of elite media institutions that abide by professional codes or do bloggers, with their editorial independence, collaborative structure, and merit-based popularity more effectively inform the public? The “truth” as the exclusive domain of authorities and the journalists who use them as sources is receding, making way for communication created by the public based on peer-produced and -distributed information, storytelling, and exchange. With this shift come anxieties. The news industry focuses on the viability of its business model and the sustainability of its products. Analysts of civic culture question how the public will get the information it needs to participate as citizens, concerned that the individualized new-media environment will serve less to weave society together than to break it apart.
An era marked by millions of specifically tailored informational pods is viewed both as a democratic liberation and as a horror of narcissistic isolation. New-media networks may well provide a platform where all voices can be heard, but not all voices attract equal amounts of attention. A small set of so-called A-list bloggers garner the majority of blogosphere traffic. Clay Shirky in his essay “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality,” argues that these inequalities are not a failure of the system but rather an inevitable side effect of freedom of choice. “In any systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome.” For some, this star system is evidence that digital networks merely reflect offline power dynamics, while for Shirky the merit-based process by which bloggers achieve star-status is an improvement over the status quo.
Despite millions of dollars spent on high-profile online editions, mainstream news outlets have been reluctant to fully embrace the possibilities of digital technologies. Most traditional news organizations offer only the illusion of online interactivity, participation, and collaboration. In the spring of 2006, for example, the New York Times debuted the first remodeling of its Web site in more than five years. The new site emphasized personalization and something the editor of the site Len Apcar called “lean-in” design, which aimed to get readers “to read and click and keep clicking and dig deeper into the site.” Coaxing readers to “lean-in” and to click more deeply into the New York Times news product, however, is very different than getting the reader involved in the news production—encouraging comments and analysis, fostering contributions of reporting and fact-checking, asking readers to weigh in on and help shape the news agenda, for example—which is what truly interactive news Web sites are designed to do, sites like those run by Current TV, Digg, and NewsTrust.
The distance maintained between the Times and its audience is not always beneficial to their business interests. In the same years interactive news sites were developing across the Web, for example, Judith Miller's controversial and inaccurate reporting on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq spurred strong responses from readers that mostly never reached Miller or her editors. Messages that got through were likely never read, were never printed, and failed entirely to influence editorial policy toward Miller and her writing. She remained a "loose cannon" in the newsroom, her stories an exposed agenda-setting debacle of insiderism and isolation that tarnished the Times brand.
Traditional news media are using the Internet as a new distribution channel and experimenting in so-called conversational digital features, but they are not reconfiguring their fundamental stance toward journalistic authority and authoring conventions. Reporter weblogs are now a staple among newspaper and broadcast networks looking to heighten the engagement of their readers. The Houston Chronicle online and British newspaper the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” section, for example, have been lauded for the quality of their design, content and innovation. According to Lisa Stone of BlogHer.com “Newspaper blogs that work are carefully planned, openly executed exercises in public conversation about news and information. These blogs allow comments and turn into 24/7 town hall meetings about everything from the headlines to how well the paper is doing to deliver and discuss the news.” To her, successful newspaper blogs are an extension of their op-ed pages. And those that don’t blog well, according to Bob Cauthorn of CityTools.net are “simply spilling more of the same voices onto the public streets.” He argues that even the best staff-written blogs do not diversify the news content because they rarely elicit reader comments and when those few comments turn hostile even the most committed organizations turn them off. Satirical newsman Jon Stewart echoed this sentiment when he described mainstream media blogs as “giving voice to the already voiced.”
Resistance to the full participatory potential of new-media is defended by the industry on the grounds that, first, effective investigation, particularly on an international scale, requires resources and a certain amount of organizational and political clout. Second, industry defenders maintain that only corporate media have the financial resources to stand up to government and other corporate organizations in upholding the public interest. Advocates of emerging forms of journalism, however, argue that collaboration is a resource more valuable than institutional backing in both cases. Benkler refers to the network reportage that exposed the inadequacy and corruptability of Diebold Election Systems voting machines. The peer-to-peer Diebold investigation is a compelling example of the potential of networked journalism. The voting system was partly decertified in California, and voting machine policy was altered as a result in several states.
The terms of debate, however, lag behind the experience of news information as it is created and received. During the 2005 riots in France, for example, people involved in the story used new media in sophisticated ways and the lines between participants, reporters, and audiences grew dim, elastic, and porous. The Web was by far the most dynamic source of information of every kind, a flood of images, stories, podcasts, video, critiques, corrections, and meta-narratives. During the riots, mainstream outlets rushing to keep up mimicked participatory formats on their sites. Reporters and editors grazed the Web as a way of generating content and adapting new technologies. The French daily Liberation and the Swiss weekly L'Hebdo, among other professional media outlets, used blogs as an essential aspect of their coverage. Liberation promoted its blog as an up-to-the-minute wire-style stream of information, whereas L’Hebdo used its blog to post in-depth analyses by reporters sent to act as participant-observers on a rotating basis to Bondy, one of the northern Paris suburbs close to where the rioting began. The public was encouraged to comment; excerpts of which were published in its printed news weekly. The L'Hebdo editors later passed the keys of the blog on to the inhabitants of Bondy by sending aspiring youth from the suburb to Lausanne for a week-long training.
In announcing the program, L'Hebdo acknowledged the irony of what it referred to as the "Bondy Blog Academy," a thinly veiled effort to diversify the news while exploiting Bondy youth for "bloggy" content—that is, content prized for seeming to be diverse and unfiltered. The Bondy bloggers had no journalism training other than the extemporized L'Hebdo "academy" but gained immediate access to major news audiences.
Network discourse about the riots was equally influenced by the mainstream agenda. Bloggers responded to questions raised in the newspapers and on TV and commented on mainstream coverage or politician responses to the unrest. Banlieue-- dweller and gamer Alex Chan made a machinima film on the riots he titled “The French Democracy.” It features pre-rendered New York City sets and characters and English-language subtitles, an example of the kind of cultural mash-up that characterizes the current transnational media ecology. Distinctions between new and established media were also used to convey the story. Activists hacked the official Web site of Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots originated, for example and posted a fake article reporting the resignation of the mayor, a protest technique increasingly used by the anti-globalization movement and other activist groups, which likewise create ersatz news broadcasts, mock PR and phony corporate Web sites. While listservs and blogs have long used mainstream media as a springboard for critique and discussion, now we see media activists mixing political critique with the tools and idioms of entertainment media, mobilizing hybrid cultural genres that challenge dominant cultural norms and mainstream media coverage and agenda setting.
Text-based Web sites and blogs have proliferated rapidly in part because text is easily produced. It is also the case that the widespread emergence of do-it-yourself journalism, which often depends on direct poaching of mainstream news products, has not been met with the same contestation over intellectual property that is occurring in music and other creative industry sectors. Rather than trying to shut down online news, mainstream outlets are making attempts to adopt a more collaborative and viral model in part by poaching do-it-yourself products, practices and, at times, values. In embracing key characteristics of network communication, however, especially interactivity, journalists will have to partly surrender authority, what media scholar Mark Deuze calls the "we write, you read" dogma of modern journalism.
To many in the industry positioning traditional news practices and products in the new-media environment is a rabbit hole. If mainstream outlets are neither first on the scene with breaking news nor have the authority to deem what is news and what is truth, what do they have to sell? Much as music fans and game hackers are reconfiguring corporate entertainment media, do-it-yourself online news, by depending upon critiques the “news from the core,” is supplementing and altering contemporary news as product, information, and experience.
CONCLUSIONS
The future of networked public culture is contested. The only thing we can be sure of is that the forms it will take will be highly variable. Even if you accept our argument that there is a general trend towards more outspoken, unruly, and mobilized publics, the specificities of how networked culture plays out in particular arenas is highly dependent on media type, industry make up, infrastructures, geopolitics, and cultures of consumption and production. Battle lines were drawn early in the showdown between P2P and commercial distributors of music, and are just now beginning to soften along some boundaries surrounding amateur music. An industry that tried to maintain the status quo wound up facing double-digit declines in revenue year after year. Anime provides a counter-case of historical synergies between consumers and producers, and an industry that is just now starting to flex its muscles in the global arena. Similarly, marketing and advertising, so responsive to each shifting tide in public behavior and whim, sniffs out trends and mimics styles from the counterculture even as it seeks to reign in and channel these viral energies in ways that consolidate the corporate bottom line. The flexibility of marketing media contrast with the limits of professional news media. Where the former prizes innovations in form and content almost by definition, the latter seeks legitimacy through standardization and consistency. Although news organizations are attempting to update their products and practices, they are tied to structures of authority and professionalism and to commitments as arbiters of the public sphere. Despite the turn towards news as entertainment, there are resilient and principled investments in maintaining the separation between journalism and opinion, newspapers and blogs, that go to the heart of the norms we continue to use to assess authority, fact, and credibility.
Networked cultural production assails traditional structures of authority and disrupts the received logic of consumption by breaking down barriers between consumers and producers. In the cultural genres outlined above, the public, formerly seen as an audience is now integral to the process of production and distribution, regardless of the extent to which their power to shape the process has been accepted and integrated by existing authorities. Although networked music fans met fierce resistance from the recording industry, they have profoundly influenced music itself, reordering production and distribution in ways that have expanded understandings across genres. Definitions of the most basic terms—song, songwriter, musician, performance—have changed. Likewise, anime fans, who enjoy a mostly synergistic relationship with commercial producers, add layers of meaning and popularity to industry products by remixing, adapting, and localizing them. And where the advertising industry is embracing what some of its leaders view as the connective chaos of the network by using individual consumers or agency-created consumer avatars to push products into the depths of digital social networks, the news industry seems to be entrenching itself into a smaller but still bounded domain, reluctant to let its audience in, even as the definitions of journalism fade on all sides and the news environment expands over cultural, national, and genre borders to every corner of the blogosphere and beyond.
Although our voice throughout this essay is mostly a celebratory one, cheering on the emergent energies of what were previously a mostly invisible public, dangers remain. We are still at the beginning of the trajectory towards lateral networking of public culture. The change will be more additive or accommodating than a coup d’etat. Each industry, each medium, and each fandom will need to find its own point of longer term stability, which is likely to include a somewhat chastened though still powerful commercial media apparatus. The standards of authorial voice, professional artistic vision, and journalistic integrity are cultural values that we are not likely to abandon entirely, even though we may welcome a louder voice of critique and remix from diverse publics.
More significant, however, than the compromises of the culture industries are the shifts in cultural referents and creative form that are on the horizon. Convergence culture is not only a matter of industry and technology but also more importantly a matter of norms, common culture, and the artistry of everyday life. Professional commercial media brought us a slick common culture that has become a fact of life, the language of current events, shared cultural reference, and visual recognitions that lubricate our everyday interactions with one another. Commercial media provide much of the source material for our modern language of communication. The current moment is perhaps less about overthrow of this established modality of common culture, but about adding a new set of communicative and expressive modes to the mix.. At best, this is about folk, amateur, niche and non-market communities of cultural production mobilizing, critiquing, remixing commercial media to creatively produce new cultural forms. At worst, this is about the fragmenting of common culture or the decay of shared standards of quality, professionalism, and accountability.
The history of networked public culture has opened with a narrative of convergence and participatory culture; we lie at the crossroads of multiple unfolding trajectories.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
better late than never : survey responses
Andrew: 26
Education
Sault Ste. Marie, MI
Grew up with parents and siblings
Dad went to college for Law, mom went to college for Education
11 y/o when first introduced to an actual PC.
Started using on a regular basis in Middle School.
Online now is mainly for myspace/facebook/email. Sometimes reading and shopping but to a minor degree.
Online use has changed slightly over the years, only with more social/recreational use instead of educational use.
Parents only attitude towards online use was making sure computer time was split fairly between siblings.
Their attitudes did not influence ability to do what was desired online.
Current attitudes of parents are unknown as all siblings no longer live at home.
Carrie: 24
Sociology/Art
Pleasant Hill, CA
Grew up first with just mom, then aunt and uncle and two cousins.
Mom and uncle went to college for a BA in Art (MA in Projet Mgmt) and a BS in
Accounting respectively.
First used a computer at the age of 10/11 for gaming and word processing.
First started using computer on a regular basis in 8th grade.
Primary use now is for research, school work, communication and networking.
Computer use used to be simply for work/school but has since changed into a tool for work and definitely more for leisure entertainment and pleasure. Uses chat programs now and didn’t before so she can keep up with friends and expand her social network.
Parents original attitude was that internet/computer use was fine, parents and guardians never had any problem with it.
Their attitude never limited, though never directly encouraged computer internet use.
Their attitude has changed over time to represent a more encouraging stance toward computer and internet use, often looking to the subject for information on how to do things, and using the subject as a resource for information on technology.
Chris: 24
Communications/Journalism
Herndon, VA
Grew up with mom, dad, two brothers and a sister.
Father got a BA in Philosophy, Mom got a BS in Math
First used a computer at age 5.
Started using a computer on a regular basis in high school.
Computer now used primarily for email/communication and writing news stories for work.
Use online has changed over time from entertainment and leisure to being used as a tool for work.
Parents were very encouraging from the outset at the adoption of a new form of technology.
Their attitude only helped more things to be done online and more computer use, it was not limiting in any way.
Current attitude has not differed, they remain encouraging and early adopters of all forms of technology.
Jordan: 19
Political Science
Pueblo, CO
Grew up with father.
Went to a technical school in FL for electrical engineering.
First used a computer at the age of 5 for light gaming.
Started using computers and internet around the age of 13.
Bulk of computer use now is for social communication, email and chatting, as well as homework – both research and word processing.
Previous use included only limited game playing, parents only allowed a half hour per day. Use now is all day continuous connectivity with chatting, working, entertainment, research, etc all simultaneously occurring.
Mom initially had the idea that computer use was very bad, assumed the worst (strangers, kidnapping by pedophiles, etc.) Father enjoyed internet and encouraged expanding use.
“My mom’s attitude has changed a lot. She likes the internet, and is a lot more literate with a computer. She can get online and play Pop-it all by herself now.”
Father’s job requires him to be on a computer all the time so he has remained positive towards the internet.
Education
Sault Ste. Marie, MI
Grew up with parents and siblings
Dad went to college for Law, mom went to college for Education
11 y/o when first introduced to an actual PC.
Started using on a regular basis in Middle School.
Online now is mainly for myspace/facebook/email. Sometimes reading and shopping but to a minor degree.
Online use has changed slightly over the years, only with more social/recreational use instead of educational use.
Parents only attitude towards online use was making sure computer time was split fairly between siblings.
Their attitudes did not influence ability to do what was desired online.
Current attitudes of parents are unknown as all siblings no longer live at home.
Carrie: 24
Sociology/Art
Pleasant Hill, CA
Grew up first with just mom, then aunt and uncle and two cousins.
Mom and uncle went to college for a BA in Art (MA in Projet Mgmt) and a BS in
Accounting respectively.
First used a computer at the age of 10/11 for gaming and word processing.
First started using computer on a regular basis in 8th grade.
Primary use now is for research, school work, communication and networking.
Computer use used to be simply for work/school but has since changed into a tool for work and definitely more for leisure entertainment and pleasure. Uses chat programs now and didn’t before so she can keep up with friends and expand her social network.
Parents original attitude was that internet/computer use was fine, parents and guardians never had any problem with it.
Their attitude never limited, though never directly encouraged computer internet use.
Their attitude has changed over time to represent a more encouraging stance toward computer and internet use, often looking to the subject for information on how to do things, and using the subject as a resource for information on technology.
Chris: 24
Communications/Journalism
Herndon, VA
Grew up with mom, dad, two brothers and a sister.
Father got a BA in Philosophy, Mom got a BS in Math
First used a computer at age 5.
Started using a computer on a regular basis in high school.
Computer now used primarily for email/communication and writing news stories for work.
Use online has changed over time from entertainment and leisure to being used as a tool for work.
Parents were very encouraging from the outset at the adoption of a new form of technology.
Their attitude only helped more things to be done online and more computer use, it was not limiting in any way.
Current attitude has not differed, they remain encouraging and early adopters of all forms of technology.
Jordan: 19
Political Science
Pueblo, CO
Grew up with father.
Went to a technical school in FL for electrical engineering.
First used a computer at the age of 5 for light gaming.
Started using computers and internet around the age of 13.
Bulk of computer use now is for social communication, email and chatting, as well as homework – both research and word processing.
Previous use included only limited game playing, parents only allowed a half hour per day. Use now is all day continuous connectivity with chatting, working, entertainment, research, etc all simultaneously occurring.
Mom initially had the idea that computer use was very bad, assumed the worst (strangers, kidnapping by pedophiles, etc.) Father enjoyed internet and encouraged expanding use.
“My mom’s attitude has changed a lot. She likes the internet, and is a lot more literate with a computer. She can get online and play Pop-it all by herself now.”
Father’s job requires him to be on a computer all the time so he has remained positive towards the internet.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The ECA
Greetings all. I just wanted to point out a new organization (it was created last year) that is a great example of politics in new media. The Entertainment Consumers Association is a non-profit organization "established to serve the needs of those who play computer and video games." The main way that they do this is by trashing the stereotype of apathetic, apolitical gamers - the members of the ECA fight hard to keep other gamers abreast of political issues related to gaming and to combat any legislation that infringes on gamers' rights. ECA also provides ways for gamers to connect and socialize - again breaking stereotypes. The ECA also runs a website called Game Politics which offers reports on all the latest news items which involve gaming and politics. Game Politics is one of my favorite news sites as a game developer - check it out.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Interview Responses
I can't say that I received the longest, most articulate responses, but there is info there to analyze. Sorry for the text mix-up in the one entry, I have no idea why Blogger is doing that but I can't fix it. Here they are, in no particular order:
Name: Shannon
Age: 18
Where did you grow up? Golden, Colorado
Who did you grow up with (mother, father, grandparents...)? mother and father
Did your parents/guardians go to college? yes
If so what did they study? business, accounting, computer science
How old were you when you were first introduced to a computer (including games)? around 9 years old
When did you start using computers on a regular basis? when i started highschool
What do you do online? check email, myspace, research
Has what you do online changed over time? yes
What was your parents or guardians' attitude toward your computer use? Please explain. They were cautious and they controlled it as much as possible by allowing no internet access and only allowing us an hour a day to play games
How did their attitude come into effect or influence your ability to do what you want online? it put a limit on it
Have their attitudes changed today? they are still very cautious, but not as extreme. They give us a little more freedom. We can use the internet, but they use parental control programs for the internet
Why or why not? I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we are growing up so we are trusted with more
Name: Samantha
Age: 19
Where did you grow up? Littleton, COWho did you grow up with (mother, father, grandparents...)? Parents - father and mother (mostly mother)
Did your parents/guardians go to college? Father, not mother.
If so what did they study? Engineering
How old were you when you were first introduced to a computer (including games)? 3rd grade
When did you start using computers on a regular basis? Middle school
What do you do online? Myspace, Facebook, email, AIM, music
Has what you do online changed over time? No Myspace and Facebook until recently.
What was your parents or guardians' attitude toward your computer use? Please explain. They appreciated it when it was for school, but when I interacted with others online they were concerned with who I was associating with.
How did their attitude come into effect or influence your ability to do what you want online? It did not influence online activity. I talked to whoever I wanted to.
Have their attitudes changed today? They are still concerned but know that I can take care of myself and make wise choices without their intervention.Why or why not? Because I have grown older.
Name: Jonathan
Age 14
Where did you grow up? Littleton, CO
Who did you grow up with (mother, father, grandparents...)? Parents, mother and father
Did your parents/guardians go to college? My dad did
If so what did they study? Accounting, Computers
How old were you when you were first introduced to a computer (including games). 5
When did you start using computers on a regular basis? 6
What do you do online? MMORPG's and homework
Has what you do online changed over time? Not really
What was your parents or guardians' attitude toward your computer use? They weren't pleased How did their attitude come into effect or influence your ability to do what you want online? I don't play online as often
Have their attitudes changed today? no
Why or why not? because they are concerned over my grades.
Name Brian
Age 19
Major Marketing
Where did you grow up? arvada colorado
Who did you grow up with (mother, father, grandparents...)? mother father and brother
Did your parents/guardians go to college? yes
If so what did they study? accounting
How old were you when you were first introduced to a computer (including games)? 12 years old
When did you start using computers on a regular basis? when i was 15
What do you do online? talk to people online and check email and homework
Has what you do online changed over time?yeah
What was your parents or guardians' attitude toward your computer use? they were fine with me using it. they basically trusted me and thought i would do the right thing.
How did their attitude come into effect or influence your ability to do what you want online? since they trusted me i didnt feel the need to do dumb things online.
Have their attitudes changed today? nope because they still trust me and feel the same way.
Name: Shannon
Age: 18
Where did you grow up? Golden, Colorado
Who did you grow up with (mother, father, grandparents...)? mother and father
Did your parents/guardians go to college? yes
If so what did they study? business, accounting, computer science
How old were you when you were first introduced to a computer (including games)? around 9 years old
When did you start using computers on a regular basis? when i started highschool
What do you do online? check email, myspace, research
Has what you do online changed over time? yes
What was your parents or guardians' attitude toward your computer use? Please explain. They were cautious and they controlled it as much as possible by allowing no internet access and only allowing us an hour a day to play games
How did their attitude come into effect or influence your ability to do what you want online? it put a limit on it
Have their attitudes changed today? they are still very cautious, but not as extreme. They give us a little more freedom. We can use the internet, but they use parental control programs for the internet
Why or why not? I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we are growing up so we are trusted with more
Name: Samantha
Age: 19
Where did you grow up? Littleton, COWho did you grow up with (mother, father, grandparents...)? Parents - father and mother (mostly mother)
Did your parents/guardians go to college? Father, not mother.
If so what did they study? Engineering
How old were you when you were first introduced to a computer (including games)? 3rd grade
When did you start using computers on a regular basis? Middle school
What do you do online? Myspace, Facebook, email, AIM, music
Has what you do online changed over time? No Myspace and Facebook until recently.
What was your parents or guardians' attitude toward your computer use? Please explain. They appreciated it when it was for school, but when I interacted with others online they were concerned with who I was associating with.
How did their attitude come into effect or influence your ability to do what you want online? It did not influence online activity. I talked to whoever I wanted to.
Have their attitudes changed today? They are still concerned but know that I can take care of myself and make wise choices without their intervention.
Name: Jonathan
Age 14
Where did you grow up? Littleton, CO
Who did you grow up with (mother, father, grandparents...)? Parents, mother and father
Did your parents/guardians go to college? My dad did
If so what did they study? Accounting, Computers
How old were you when you were first introduced to a computer (including games). 5
When did you start using computers on a regular basis? 6
What do you do online? MMORPG's and homework
Has what you do online changed over time? Not really
What was your parents or guardians' attitude toward your computer use? They weren't pleased How did their attitude come into effect or influence your ability to do what you want online? I don't play online as often
Have their attitudes changed today? no
Why or why not? because they are concerned over my grades.
Name Brian
Age 19
Major Marketing
Where did you grow up? arvada colorado
Who did you grow up with (mother, father, grandparents...)? mother father and brother
Did your parents/guardians go to college? yes
If so what did they study? accounting
How old were you when you were first introduced to a computer (including games)? 12 years old
When did you start using computers on a regular basis? when i was 15
What do you do online? talk to people online and check email and homework
Has what you do online changed over time?yeah
What was your parents or guardians' attitude toward your computer use? they were fine with me using it. they basically trusted me and thought i would do the right thing.
How did their attitude come into effect or influence your ability to do what you want online? since they trusted me i didnt feel the need to do dumb things online.
Have their attitudes changed today? nope because they still trust me and feel the same way.
Interview Responses
Shannon
19
Psychology / Theater
Suburbs of Denver
Parents, Grandma
Father only
business
8
12
social networking, research, chat, entertainment (video), news (secondary)
yes, used to be only research/education, more for entertainment and socializing now
they mostly misunderstand, they don't mind and aren't concerned, never have been
n/a
slightly less ignorant, still check movie times in the paper
haven't changed because they don't have the need. old habits die hard
Adam
20
EMAD / DMS
Scottsdale, AZ
Parents
both
Matt Matteson
20
Math / Comp Sci
Littleton, CO
Parents
both
Father - Business/Finace / Mother - Education
3 or 4
7 (internet at 10)
email chat games at first. no more work, less games, lots of reading
parents monitored use
yes, cost because of Dial up was hourly with AOL, also prevented phone use
no, views haven't changed much
Justin Stewart
23
Ethics
Nashville, TN
Parents
Father - Political Science
11
15 mostly for educational games
email, facebook,and limited research
more communication, including sharing media
they used computers for information processing and limited networking. saw it as a tool
only restricted by time when using the Net
parents use it for email and news (mother) and heavy research (father)
still see Internet as tool
19
Psychology / Theater
Suburbs of Denver
Parents, Grandma
Father only
business
8
12
social networking, research, chat, entertainment (video), news (secondary)
yes, used to be only research/education, more for entertainment and socializing now
they mostly misunderstand, they don't mind and aren't concerned, never have been
n/a
slightly less ignorant, still check movie times in the paper
haven't changed because they don't have the need. old habits die hard
Adam
20
EMAD / DMS
Scottsdale, AZ
Parents
both
Matt Matteson
20
Math / Comp Sci
Littleton, CO
Parents
both
Father - Business/Finace / Mother - Education
3 or 4
7 (internet at 10)
email chat games at first. no more work, less games, lots of reading
parents monitored use
yes, cost because of Dial up was hourly with AOL, also prevented phone use
no, views haven't changed much
Justin Stewart
23
Ethics
Nashville, TN
Parents
Father - Political Science
11
15 mostly for educational games
email, facebook,and limited research
more communication, including sharing media
they used computers for information processing and limited networking. saw it as a tool
only restricted by time when using the Net
parents use it for email and news (mother) and heavy research (father)
still see Internet as tool
Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society
Here's a link to Manuel Castell's article incase you're having a hard time finding it.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Interview Responses
Dan Ritchie
26
Graduated in Business
1. Near Pittsburgh
2. Mother, father, brother
3. Yes
4. Mom—Music, Computers, IT, and Math. Dad—unknown
5. Early Elementary
6. 14—heavy graphics
7. He uses it for research at work, to make money at home->car communities, car parts, car sales; share knowledge; Craigslist; Professional profile
8. Definitely, when he started using it, it was a lot of aol chat and messenger. That was one of the only communities back in ’94. So back then he used it for socializing, now he uses it to his advantage—learning and business.
9. Both parents supported computers fully—his mom was great with them and his dad didn’t use them, but supported them.
10. His mom’s love for the computer probably influenced him to get a programming job, since he has never even done it. Her love for it probably rubs off on him a little.
11. No, their attitudes haven’t changed.
Stephanie Sadler
22
Graduated—International Studies
1. Hawaii, Santa Fe, England
2. Mother, Father, tons of siblings
3. Both Graduated
4. Mom—Animal Medicine and Accounting; Dad—Accounting
5. 8 years old—Minesweeper, games, paint, Word
6. 11—games, IM, chat, Word, Excel
7. Email, TextTwist (game), Online banking
8. Her use has always changed to her needs—if she traveled for a year, she used it for communication, now she uses it to bank, other times for school. She just doesn’t use it for much more than she needs.
9. Dad loves computers and tries to keep up; Mom thinks they’re only useful for banking. They thought computer use was good and didn’t restrict it.
10. The lack of restrictions allowed her to learn as much as she wanted.
11. Their attitudes as accountants have changed dramatically because 15 years ago, everything was paper and pencil and now it’s all computers, but they’ve always supported their children’s use of the internet, but have more of an indifferent attitude.
Mike Sasser
21
Digital Media Studies
1. Galveston, TX
2. Mother, father, brother, sister
3. Mom went
4. PHD in Biochemistry
5. 7 years old—Prince of Persia
6. 5th or 6th grade playing games like Carmen San Diego and MathBlaster
7. Facebook; social networks; email; YouTube—learning photography; research; shopping; music; instant messaging
8. A little bit, he switches through social networks, and at first he was only using it for games, now for more practical stuff.
9. Dad is a little scared of ID theft, but loves computers and is amazed at their capabilities and Mom hates talking online, but both support his computer use. When he was younger, he could do stuff on the computer 1 hour for every hour of reading or HW he did.
10. He was able to learn as much as possible with their support
11. Their attitudes are still the same.
Nick Hughes
21
Accounting
1. Colorado Springs
2. Mother, father, brother
3. Yes
4. Mom—Education, Dad—Unknown
5. Early Elementary School—playing games like pinball on his Dad’s computer.
6. Junior High—doing school work
7. Research, Facebook, email, instant messenger
8. Yes, before he tended to do a lot of chatting and playing games and now he uses it for work and networking.
9. He was allowed to use the computer as much as he needed for school, but wasn’t allowed to use it for other things, i.e. chat, games, etc.
10. He wasn’t able to do much online, but that doesn’t affect him now, and he was pretty impartial to it then.
11. Today, they think the same things and have the same rules for his little brother, but don’t care what he does.
26
Graduated in Business
1. Near Pittsburgh
2. Mother, father, brother
3. Yes
4. Mom—Music, Computers, IT, and Math. Dad—unknown
5. Early Elementary
6. 14—heavy graphics
7. He uses it for research at work, to make money at home->car communities, car parts, car sales; share knowledge; Craigslist; Professional profile
8. Definitely, when he started using it, it was a lot of aol chat and messenger. That was one of the only communities back in ’94. So back then he used it for socializing, now he uses it to his advantage—learning and business.
9. Both parents supported computers fully—his mom was great with them and his dad didn’t use them, but supported them.
10. His mom’s love for the computer probably influenced him to get a programming job, since he has never even done it. Her love for it probably rubs off on him a little.
11. No, their attitudes haven’t changed.
Stephanie Sadler
22
Graduated—International Studies
1. Hawaii, Santa Fe, England
2. Mother, Father, tons of siblings
3. Both Graduated
4. Mom—Animal Medicine and Accounting; Dad—Accounting
5. 8 years old—Minesweeper, games, paint, Word
6. 11—games, IM, chat, Word, Excel
7. Email, TextTwist (game), Online banking
8. Her use has always changed to her needs—if she traveled for a year, she used it for communication, now she uses it to bank, other times for school. She just doesn’t use it for much more than she needs.
9. Dad loves computers and tries to keep up; Mom thinks they’re only useful for banking. They thought computer use was good and didn’t restrict it.
10. The lack of restrictions allowed her to learn as much as she wanted.
11. Their attitudes as accountants have changed dramatically because 15 years ago, everything was paper and pencil and now it’s all computers, but they’ve always supported their children’s use of the internet, but have more of an indifferent attitude.
Mike Sasser
21
Digital Media Studies
1. Galveston, TX
2. Mother, father, brother, sister
3. Mom went
4. PHD in Biochemistry
5. 7 years old—Prince of Persia
6. 5th or 6th grade playing games like Carmen San Diego and MathBlaster
7. Facebook; social networks; email; YouTube—learning photography; research; shopping; music; instant messaging
8. A little bit, he switches through social networks, and at first he was only using it for games, now for more practical stuff.
9. Dad is a little scared of ID theft, but loves computers and is amazed at their capabilities and Mom hates talking online, but both support his computer use. When he was younger, he could do stuff on the computer 1 hour for every hour of reading or HW he did.
10. He was able to learn as much as possible with their support
11. Their attitudes are still the same.
Nick Hughes
21
Accounting
1. Colorado Springs
2. Mother, father, brother
3. Yes
4. Mom—Education, Dad—Unknown
5. Early Elementary School—playing games like pinball on his Dad’s computer.
6. Junior High—doing school work
7. Research, Facebook, email, instant messenger
8. Yes, before he tended to do a lot of chatting and playing games and now he uses it for work and networking.
9. He was allowed to use the computer as much as he needed for school, but wasn’t allowed to use it for other things, i.e. chat, games, etc.
10. He wasn’t able to do much online, but that doesn’t affect him now, and he was pretty impartial to it then.
11. Today, they think the same things and have the same rules for his little brother, but don’t care what he does.
Interview Responses
#1 - Carlie
Age: 24
Major: International Affairs
1. I grew up in Durango, CO
2. I grew up with both my parents, and a younger sister
3. Only my dad went to college
4. He studied sociology
5. My earliest memory of using a computer was in the 1st grade, but I may have been introduced to them earlier
6. I started using a computer regularly in 3rd grade
7. I do almost everything it is possible to do online. My main activities include shopping, staying connected with friends, finding roommates and apartments, doing research, downloading TV shows and movies, reading and keeping a blog.
8. My internet use has changed over time. In high school, I mostly chatted and played games. Now, I use the internet for many more practical things and spend less time just goofing around.
9. Both of my parents were involved in the computer industry, so they kept tabs on my use, but never restricted it except as punishment for bad grades or other times that I got in trouble.
10. Since they didn't restrict my use, I was always allowed to do what I wanted online, so their attitudes didn't influence my use at all.
11. Their attitudes haven't changed, they still don't restrict my access.
12. They no longer have any control over my internet usage because I am an adult.
#2 Elly
Age: 25
Major: Undergraduate - Italian/ Graduate - Architecture
1. I grew up in Durango, CO
2. I grew up with my parents, an older brother, and a younger brother
3. Yes, both my parents went to college
4. My mom studied liberal arts, and my dad studied economics
5. I was first introduced to a computer in 1st grade
6. I started using a computer regularly in 5th grade
7. I do almost everything it is possible to do online, but most of my time is spent shopping, doing research, reading webcomics, playing games, chatting, and running an online business
8. Yes, my internet use has changed. In high school, I spent most of my time chatting, emailing, and designing web pages. Now my interests have branched out and become more practical.
9. My parents thought I was a genius with computers, so they pretty much let me do whatever I liked, but they were very paranoid about releasing personal information online, so they always made sure I knew not to ever give out any personal information to anyone over the internet.
10. This attitude made me very paranoid about giving out any of my personal information, so it was many years before I even used my real name in any fashion online. I also never visited shopping websites or other sites that asked for any personal information.
11. As time has gone on, my parents became much less paranoid about the personal information angle.
12. They loosened up about it after seeing their children do many things online, go shopping, and meet people without ever having their information stolen or meeting anyone dangerous, which convinced them that it was not as big a deal as they had thought it was.
#3 Vinnie
Age: 23
Major: Clinical Psychology
1. I grew up in Ellsworth, Maine
2. I grew up with my mom, and a brother and sister
3. My dad went to college
4. He studied accounting and finance
5. I was first introduced to a computer at the age of 5 or 6
6. I started using a computer regularly when I was about 5 or 6
7. I do everything online, though my primary interests are email, RPGs, pictures, tv shows, and reading
8. I have always done as much as I possibly can online, but what I can do online has changed over time as the technology and the content of internet websites has changed. I have always tried to follow the advancing trends in internet usage
9. My whole family shared one computer, so our use was always visible to my mom, but we were only distantly monitored, with no hard and fast rules or restrictions.
10. The lack of restrictions gave us the freedom to explore, with no desire to do anything that would cause rules to be put in place. For example, one unspoken rule was no downloading porn, which we never did because it was something that we knew would be noticed and cause restrictions to be put in place.
11. My mom's attitude hasn't really changed because she was so open about it to begin with.
12. Her attitudes haven't changed because I never gave her any reason not to trust me, and I'm an adult now, so she doesn't control my access at all any more.
#4 Joe
Age: 25
Major: Computer Science
1. I grew up in Pueblo, CO
2. I grew up with my mom, dad, and younger brother
3. Yes, both my parents went to college
4. My mom studied nursing, and my dad studied English and automotive mechanics
5. I was first introduced to computers in elementary school, in 2nd or 3rd grade
6. I got my first home computer in 1992, when I was about 10
7. I use the internet for work, shopping, gaming, personal information management, reading, research, social bookmarking, banking, streaming music, downloading music and videos, among other things
8. Yes, what I do online has changed over time. I do more now because there is more to do - speeds are faster with broadband when I used to have dial-up. I started out on the original bulletin board system before the internet became what it is today, and I have changed my usage habits as it has changed
9. My parents pretty much let me have free reign over my computer use because they didn't know enough about the computer to make any specific rules regarding my use and habits
10. Since I had no restrictions, I always did pretty much what I wanted online
11. My parents know more about computers now, but their attitudes about use haven't changed
12. They haven't changed their attitudes because their computer knowledge grew as I matured and their trust of me grew as well, so they never saw any need to restrict me even as they learned more about what I did. Also, now that I am an adult, they have no say over my computer use.
Age: 24
Major: International Affairs
1. I grew up in Durango, CO
2. I grew up with both my parents, and a younger sister
3. Only my dad went to college
4. He studied sociology
5. My earliest memory of using a computer was in the 1st grade, but I may have been introduced to them earlier
6. I started using a computer regularly in 3rd grade
7. I do almost everything it is possible to do online. My main activities include shopping, staying connected with friends, finding roommates and apartments, doing research, downloading TV shows and movies, reading and keeping a blog.
8. My internet use has changed over time. In high school, I mostly chatted and played games. Now, I use the internet for many more practical things and spend less time just goofing around.
9. Both of my parents were involved in the computer industry, so they kept tabs on my use, but never restricted it except as punishment for bad grades or other times that I got in trouble.
10. Since they didn't restrict my use, I was always allowed to do what I wanted online, so their attitudes didn't influence my use at all.
11. Their attitudes haven't changed, they still don't restrict my access.
12. They no longer have any control over my internet usage because I am an adult.
#2 Elly
Age: 25
Major: Undergraduate - Italian/ Graduate - Architecture
1. I grew up in Durango, CO
2. I grew up with my parents, an older brother, and a younger brother
3. Yes, both my parents went to college
4. My mom studied liberal arts, and my dad studied economics
5. I was first introduced to a computer in 1st grade
6. I started using a computer regularly in 5th grade
7. I do almost everything it is possible to do online, but most of my time is spent shopping, doing research, reading webcomics, playing games, chatting, and running an online business
8. Yes, my internet use has changed. In high school, I spent most of my time chatting, emailing, and designing web pages. Now my interests have branched out and become more practical.
9. My parents thought I was a genius with computers, so they pretty much let me do whatever I liked, but they were very paranoid about releasing personal information online, so they always made sure I knew not to ever give out any personal information to anyone over the internet.
10. This attitude made me very paranoid about giving out any of my personal information, so it was many years before I even used my real name in any fashion online. I also never visited shopping websites or other sites that asked for any personal information.
11. As time has gone on, my parents became much less paranoid about the personal information angle.
12. They loosened up about it after seeing their children do many things online, go shopping, and meet people without ever having their information stolen or meeting anyone dangerous, which convinced them that it was not as big a deal as they had thought it was.
#3 Vinnie
Age: 23
Major: Clinical Psychology
1. I grew up in Ellsworth, Maine
2. I grew up with my mom, and a brother and sister
3. My dad went to college
4. He studied accounting and finance
5. I was first introduced to a computer at the age of 5 or 6
6. I started using a computer regularly when I was about 5 or 6
7. I do everything online, though my primary interests are email, RPGs, pictures, tv shows, and reading
8. I have always done as much as I possibly can online, but what I can do online has changed over time as the technology and the content of internet websites has changed. I have always tried to follow the advancing trends in internet usage
9. My whole family shared one computer, so our use was always visible to my mom, but we were only distantly monitored, with no hard and fast rules or restrictions.
10. The lack of restrictions gave us the freedom to explore, with no desire to do anything that would cause rules to be put in place. For example, one unspoken rule was no downloading porn, which we never did because it was something that we knew would be noticed and cause restrictions to be put in place.
11. My mom's attitude hasn't really changed because she was so open about it to begin with.
12. Her attitudes haven't changed because I never gave her any reason not to trust me, and I'm an adult now, so she doesn't control my access at all any more.
#4 Joe
Age: 25
Major: Computer Science
1. I grew up in Pueblo, CO
2. I grew up with my mom, dad, and younger brother
3. Yes, both my parents went to college
4. My mom studied nursing, and my dad studied English and automotive mechanics
5. I was first introduced to computers in elementary school, in 2nd or 3rd grade
6. I got my first home computer in 1992, when I was about 10
7. I use the internet for work, shopping, gaming, personal information management, reading, research, social bookmarking, banking, streaming music, downloading music and videos, among other things
8. Yes, what I do online has changed over time. I do more now because there is more to do - speeds are faster with broadband when I used to have dial-up. I started out on the original bulletin board system before the internet became what it is today, and I have changed my usage habits as it has changed
9. My parents pretty much let me have free reign over my computer use because they didn't know enough about the computer to make any specific rules regarding my use and habits
10. Since I had no restrictions, I always did pretty much what I wanted online
11. My parents know more about computers now, but their attitudes about use haven't changed
12. They haven't changed their attitudes because their computer knowledge grew as I matured and their trust of me grew as well, so they never saw any need to restrict me even as they learned more about what I did. Also, now that I am an adult, they have no say over my computer use.
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