In this reading, Jenkins reviews the concepts of convergence culture, from past to the present. He discusses old media vs. new media and the old passive consumers vs. new active consumers and what all this means for the producers of both old and new media. This is essentially a discussion of the major shifts we’re seeing in our culture when it comes to media consumption. It also discusses how the power of media production now lays in the hands of masses, whereby individuals can now create their own YouTube music videos and Vlogs as well as blog about their lives on the internet. Thus, in today’s context consumers are now more active and they have a louder voice in expressing their opinions on media platforms.
Dionne Cheah
I feel Jenkin’s reading on convergence culture is something we can identify strongly with today. Most of the technological gadgets we have in possession today are no longer limited to singular function, but instead they offer us multiple media functions. Hence, even when one device breaks down, we can easily replace it temporarily with another. Cloud-based services like Dropbox and Google Docs for instance, allow us to backup and store work on their servers. Let’s say even if our laptop has crashed, as long as the files have been backed up on the external servers, we would be able to access them with another device such as a smartphone. While the phone used to function solely as a communication device, it now has multiple functions (hence the label of ‘smartphone’) – it allows us to capture photos, edit documents, enjoy entertainment on the go and more.
The digitization of information has brought us convenience, and this has also transformed how we use media. No longer is media usage limited to just indoors, but with portable media devices we can engage in work or leisure activities anytime and anywhere. However, media convergence has also led to people’s dependence on media. We tend to feel a sense of disconnected-ness if we lose access to our gadgets and for some, it has become difficult to function properly without them. In light of this, I feel it is necessary for people to learn how to control their personal media usage rather than allow media to overtake their lives.
Averie Lim
Hypermediacy can be exemplified through 3-D cinematography. When watching a movie we are aware that the 3-D effects are mediating with our minds and senses, yet there is this notion of immediacy that creates a natural representation of the scenes and the illusions of space where our senses are submerged in the scenes in the movie through 3-D effects as well as the surround-sound system of the cinema. The motion effects in 4-D cinematography propagate this idea of hypermediacy in today’s society.
Tan Zhuan Liang
Reading Jenkins’ article is very meaningful as it makes sense and reflective of reality. He talked about a convergence culture where old and new media collide. Old media such as television or radio and new media like the internet will constantly interact in complex manner. It is myopic to assume that old media will be losing its grip on its presence as new media ‘consumes’ the features of old media. For example, one can listen to the radio and watch television sitcoms on his phone based on today’s technology. The screen pertaining to old television box is replicated onto let’s say a webpage in the form of a media player. However, while this may affect the sales of a physical television set, people still purchase the latest television set as there are still firms producing and researching new developments to improve the television experience (think 3D, HDMI). There may be a convergence where the new media ‘sucks’ up the old media’s features but the research and development of old media like television has prevented the loss of old media. Besides, the new media may have the basic features of old media like a screen but it’s still struggling to adapt to the latest development of television. For example it may take several years before we can view 3D shows on our mobile, but first let’s all put on our bulky 3D glasses which only made essential for our 3D television.
Gareth Nah
Jenkins conceives the idea of convergence as “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences…” He privileges this convergence paradigm over the digital revolution paradigm, which was only recently in vogue. However, the latter has come to be discredited, as many scholars are increasingly sceptical of its claims that old media is doomed to be displaced and rendered obsolete by new media. In contrast, the convergence paradigm acknowledges the importance of old media, while maintaining that new media would react to these old media and build upon them to create new social logics and meanings.
This conception of the convergence paradigm may be observed in the evolution of the mobile phone. Indeed, this now-ubiquitous device has undergone numerous changes in form and function over the course of its history. While it was first conceived as a means of remote verbal communication, it has since evolved to incorporate a multitude of other functions such as photography, music playback, and internet access. It is noteworthy that despite these added roles of the mobile phone, its “core” or original function of facilitating voice communication over distances did not disappear or diminish in importance. In fact, we now observe third-party applications such as Skype that redefine the practice of remote voice communications, illustrating the remediation of old media as discussed by Bolter and Grusin. Indeed, new media is observed not to supplant old media, instead responding to and reforming old media.
Jenkins further expounds on his argument that old media do not fade away by proposing that it is the tools used to access media that are replaced and fade over time, not the media themselves. In doing so, he distinguishes between media themselves and these tools, known as delivery technologies. A prime and highly relatable example of this would be the consumption of music tracks, which are the media. Over a short span of time, I have transited from cassettes, to CDs, to MP3 players as the technology of choice to deliver these media. This has unfortunately resulted in my accumulation of piles of cassettes and CDs left practically untouched in this digital age.
Virtual Reality devices, such as the upcoming ‘Oculus Rift’ (touted as a Virtual Reality Headset), is probably a pronounced example of Immediacy that modern technology has to offer. It is also interesting to see how this concept has evolved from the linear perspective paintings that we have seen in lecture yesterday. Both old and traditional media forms strive to mimic certain aspects of our visual world. When successful, there is an ‘immersion’ effect on the user, allowing him/her to temporarily forget the medium (the fact that they are using a headset, or seeing a painting) and focus on the content instead.
Hypermediacy:
Hypermediacy is apparent the structure of many websites. Unlike Immediacy, what is obvious is the combination of images, videos, and text. As such, ‘immersion’ is not the effect achieved here, but rather the awareness of the interface. We can contrast this between watching a movie and watching a clip on Youtube. In a movie setting, you tend to be ‘immersed’. Your surroundings are dark, you are supposed to remain silent and switch off your mobile phone, the screen is the point of focus. However, watching a Youtube clip is very different. Already, you can see controls allowing you to fast forward to another point in the clip, or skip to another video. You can like or dislike a clip. You can see the statistics with regards to the clip and you can comment on the clip, or reply to other comments about the clip.
James Ang
“Remediation” by Bolter, David and Grusin, considers immediacy as a medium that audiences can immerse themselves into, till the extent that they become unaware of the medium they are consuming. To them, virtual reality and computer games are such forms of immediacy. Yet gaming, to date, has never achieved immediacy fully. To a certain extent, gamers still have to use the controller and mouse to control their movements.
Sony, however, has developed a new gaming technology that could achieve immediacy fully. Termed Project Morpheus, it is a virtual reality headset that seeks to give gamers a full immersive virtual reality experience. This game thus seeks to create a world that feels real and sounds real.
I would like to draw on the topic of remediation suggested by Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin in a context of Nintendo’s creation of Wii Fit. According to the writers, the concept of remediation basically comprises of the logic of immediacy and hypermediacy, where the virtual reality desires to eradicate the form of its user interface (logic of immediacy), and yet constantly brings the user back into the interface due to the multiplying of media (logic of hypermediacy) where the presence of the media is continually made apparent. The two concepts are never in a state of purity, but are simultaneously relied upon to enhance the user’s experience.
What I found interesting about Wii Fit was that it embodies both concepts and logic of immediacy and hypermediacy perfectly. The gameplay of Wii Fit requires the use of the Wii Balance Board, that the player stands upon during play. Games like yoga, aerobics, and balance games are served to the user. Wii Fit seeks to rerepresent reality of exercising into a mediated form, and much like the liner perspective, the user views the virtual world, and aligns it to the reality he/she is living in. This is the part which holds the logic of immediacy, to erase the interface and to subject it as a new mediated form of reality. As such, these seem to associate with one of the principles of remediation, in that, remediation serves as an in-separation of media and reality, where the media is themselves real, and its representations form reality. The presence of the board however, always draws the person back to the interface, i.e. the hypermediacy.
Further, it is intriguing to find that the mediated reality to keep fit has been adopted by various healthcare and physiotherapy rehabilitation centres. It was used as a form of treatment for balance problems for the elderly, and even adopted by military personnels in Finland to encourage their soldiers to exercise more in their free time (see http://gonintendo.com/?p=95014).
In this reading, Jenkins reviews the concepts of convergence culture, from past to the present. He discusses old media vs. new media and the old passive consumers vs. new active consumers and what all this means for the producers of both old and new media. This is essentially a discussion of the major shifts we’re seeing in our culture when it comes to media consumption. It also discusses how the power of media production now lays in the hands of masses, whereby individuals can now create their own YouTube music videos and Vlogs as well as blog about their lives on the internet. Thus, in today’s context consumers are now more active and they have a louder voice in expressing their opinions on media platforms.
I feel Jenkin’s reading on convergence culture is something we can identify strongly with today. Most of the technological gadgets we have in possession today are no longer limited to singular function, but instead they offer us multiple media functions. Hence, even when one device breaks down, we can easily replace it temporarily with another. Cloud-based services like Dropbox and Google Docs for instance, allow us to backup and store work on their servers. Let’s say even if our laptop has crashed, as long as the files have been backed up on the external servers, we would be able to access them with another device such as a smartphone. While the phone used to function solely as a communication device, it now has multiple functions (hence the label of ‘smartphone’) – it allows us to capture photos, edit documents, enjoy entertainment on the go and more.
The digitization of information has brought us convenience, and this has also transformed how we use media. No longer is media usage limited to just indoors, but with portable media devices we can engage in work or leisure activities anytime and anywhere. However, media convergence has also led to people’s dependence on media. We tend to feel a sense of disconnected-ness if we lose access to our gadgets and for some, it has become difficult to function properly without them. In light of this, I feel it is necessary for people to learn how to control their personal media usage rather than allow media to overtake their lives.
Hypermediacy can be exemplified through 3-D cinematography. When watching a movie we are aware that the 3-D effects are mediating with our minds and senses, yet there is this notion of immediacy that creates a natural representation of the scenes and the illusions of space where our senses are submerged in the scenes in the movie through 3-D effects as well as the surround-sound system of the cinema. The motion effects in 4-D cinematography propagate this idea of hypermediacy in today’s society.
Reading Jenkins’ article is very meaningful as it makes sense and reflective of reality. He talked about a convergence culture where old and new media collide. Old media such as television or radio and new media like the internet will constantly interact in complex manner. It is myopic to assume that old media will be losing its grip on its presence as new media ‘consumes’ the features of old media. For example, one can listen to the radio and watch television sitcoms on his phone based on today’s technology. The screen pertaining to old television box is replicated onto let’s say a webpage in the form of a media player. However, while this may affect the sales of a physical television set, people still purchase the latest television set as there are still firms producing and researching new developments to improve the television experience (think 3D, HDMI). There may be a convergence where the new media ‘sucks’ up the old media’s features but the research and development of old media like television has prevented the loss of old media. Besides, the new media may have the basic features of old media like a screen but it’s still struggling to adapt to the latest development of television. For example it may take several years before we can view 3D shows on our mobile, but first let’s all put on our bulky 3D glasses which only made essential for our 3D television.
Jenkins conceives the idea of convergence as “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences…” He privileges this convergence paradigm over the digital revolution paradigm, which was only recently in vogue. However, the latter has come to be discredited, as many scholars are increasingly sceptical of its claims that old media is doomed to be displaced and rendered obsolete by new media. In contrast, the convergence paradigm acknowledges the importance of old media, while maintaining that new media would react to these old media and build upon them to create new social logics and meanings.
This conception of the convergence paradigm may be observed in the evolution of the mobile phone. Indeed, this now-ubiquitous device has undergone numerous changes in form and function over the course of its history. While it was first conceived as a means of remote verbal communication, it has since evolved to incorporate a multitude of other functions such as photography, music playback, and internet access. It is noteworthy that despite these added roles of the mobile phone, its “core” or original function of facilitating voice communication over distances did not disappear or diminish in importance. In fact, we now observe third-party applications such as Skype that redefine the practice of remote voice communications, illustrating the remediation of old media as discussed by Bolter and Grusin. Indeed, new media is observed not to supplant old media, instead responding to and reforming old media.
Jenkins further expounds on his argument that old media do not fade away by proposing that it is the tools used to access media that are replaced and fade over time, not the media themselves. In doing so, he distinguishes between media themselves and these tools, known as delivery technologies. A prime and highly relatable example of this would be the consumption of music tracks, which are the media. Over a short span of time, I have transited from cassettes, to CDs, to MP3 players as the technology of choice to deliver these media. This has unfortunately resulted in my accumulation of piles of cassettes and CDs left practically untouched in this digital age.
Immediacy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhcOMOWRMnA
Virtual Reality devices, such as the upcoming ‘Oculus Rift’ (touted as a Virtual Reality Headset), is probably a pronounced example of Immediacy that modern technology has to offer. It is also interesting to see how this concept has evolved from the linear perspective paintings that we have seen in lecture yesterday. Both old and traditional media forms strive to mimic certain aspects of our visual world. When successful, there is an ‘immersion’ effect on the user, allowing him/her to temporarily forget the medium (the fact that they are using a headset, or seeing a painting) and focus on the content instead.
Hypermediacy:
Hypermediacy is apparent the structure of many websites. Unlike Immediacy, what is obvious is the combination of images, videos, and text. As such, ‘immersion’ is not the effect achieved here, but rather the awareness of the interface. We can contrast this between watching a movie and watching a clip on Youtube. In a movie setting, you tend to be ‘immersed’. Your surroundings are dark, you are supposed to remain silent and switch off your mobile phone, the screen is the point of focus. However, watching a Youtube clip is very different. Already, you can see controls allowing you to fast forward to another point in the clip, or skip to another video. You can like or dislike a clip. You can see the statistics with regards to the clip and you can comment on the clip, or reply to other comments about the clip.
“Remediation” by Bolter, David and Grusin, considers immediacy as a medium that audiences can immerse themselves into, till the extent that they become unaware of the medium they are consuming. To them, virtual reality and computer games are such forms of immediacy. Yet gaming, to date, has never achieved immediacy fully. To a certain extent, gamers still have to use the controller and mouse to control their movements.
Sony, however, has developed a new gaming technology that could achieve immediacy fully. Termed Project Morpheus, it is a virtual reality headset that seeks to give gamers a full immersive virtual reality experience. This game thus seeks to create a world that feels real and sounds real.
More details of Project Morpheus can be seen in these two links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGtUNAhU3rg
http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/03/19/sony-gets-into-virtual-reality-game-with-ps4-compatible-project-morpheus-headset
I would like to draw on the topic of remediation suggested by Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin in a context of Nintendo’s creation of Wii Fit. According to the writers, the concept of remediation basically comprises of the logic of immediacy and hypermediacy, where the virtual reality desires to eradicate the form of its user interface (logic of immediacy), and yet constantly brings the user back into the interface due to the multiplying of media (logic of hypermediacy) where the presence of the media is continually made apparent. The two concepts are never in a state of purity, but are simultaneously relied upon to enhance the user’s experience.
What I found interesting about Wii Fit was that it embodies both concepts and logic of immediacy and hypermediacy perfectly. The gameplay of Wii Fit requires the use of the Wii Balance Board, that the player stands upon during play. Games like yoga, aerobics, and balance games are served to the user. Wii Fit seeks to rerepresent reality of exercising into a mediated form, and much like the liner perspective, the user views the virtual world, and aligns it to the reality he/she is living in. This is the part which holds the logic of immediacy, to erase the interface and to subject it as a new mediated form of reality. As such, these seem to associate with one of the principles of remediation, in that, remediation serves as an in-separation of media and reality, where the media is themselves real, and its representations form reality. The presence of the board however, always draws the person back to the interface, i.e. the hypermediacy.
Further, it is intriguing to find that the mediated reality to keep fit has been adopted by various healthcare and physiotherapy rehabilitation centres. It was used as a form of treatment for balance problems for the elderly, and even adopted by military personnels in Finland to encourage their soldiers to exercise more in their free time (see http://gonintendo.com/?p=95014).