THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION?THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION?Dr Bex Lewis Research Fellow in Social Media & Online Learning, CODEC, Durham UniversityDr Tim Hutchings William Leech Research Fellow, CODEC, Durham University@drbexl

@tim_hutchings

#MediaLit14

Image Credit: Stockfresh

Session Overview

•Bex: • The Twitterfall• Change Happens… • Old Media and the Digital Age

•Tim: • Authority • Privacy • Is it a revolution?

THE TWITTERFALLDr Bex Lewis

Let’s Talk About The Twitterfall: #MediaLit14

Tweeting in Church?

• Good Thing?• Bad Thing?• Why might/might not people tweet in church?

• What might encourage more ‘engagement’?

Image Credit: Stockfresh

Change Happens…Dr Bex Lewis

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT? An incredible new technology enables the transmission of text on a worldwide base. It rapidly reduces production and distribution costs and for the first time allows large numbers of people to access text and pictures in their own homes.

Gutenberg Printing Press, 1439

Image Credit: Wikipedia

https://twitter.com/hanelly/status/405754162555944960/photo/1

https://twitter.com/LeistCatalano/status/473076349394255872/photo/1

A moral panic may be defined as an episode, often triggered by alarming media stories and reinforced by reactive laws and public policy, of exaggerated or misdirected public concern, anxiety, fear, or anger over a perceived threat to social order. http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Ashgate-Research-Companion-to-Moral-Panics-Intro.pdf

Image Credit: Stockfresh

Right back to Socrates…

This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves…you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing. (Phaedrus, Benjamin Jowett trans.)

http://bigthink.com/learning-from-the-past/socrates-wouldnt-trust-the-web-should-we-trust-him

Image Credit: Wikipedia

http://youtu.be/pQHX-SjgQvQ

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's

technology drives the development of its social

structure and cultural values.

Wikipedia

Core Ideas:

• The development of technology itself follows a predictable, traceable, inevitable path largely beyond cultural or political influence, a continual journey of progress

• Technology in turn has inherent "effects" on societies, rather than socially conditioned or produced by society, where it has organised itself to support and further develop a new technology

The Medium is the Message (McLuhan)"the printing press, the computer, and television are not therefore simply machines which convey information. They are metaphors through which we conceptualize reality in one way or another. They will classify the world for us, sequence it, frame it, enlarge it, reduce it, argue a case for what it is like. Through these media metaphors, we do not see the world as it is. We see it as our coding systems are. Such is the power of the form of information.” Neil Postman, Teaching as a Conserving Activity (1979), p. 39

Neil Postman

Pew Report, 2012quoting Jeff Jarvis, Journalist

“Before the press … information was passed mouth-to-ear, scribe-to-scribe; it was changed in the process; there was little sense of ownership and authorship. In the five-century-long Gutenberg era, text did set how we see our world: serially with a neat beginning and a defined end; permanent; authored. Now, we are passing out of this textual era and that may well affect how we look at our world. That may appear to change how we think. But it won't change our wires.”

Even though in practice, face-to-face communication can, of course, be angry, negligent, resistant, deceitful and inflexible, somehow it remains the ideal against which mediated communication is judged as flawed.

Prof Sonia Livingstone, Children and the Internet: Great Expectations and Challenging Realities. 2009, p26

DISCUSS

All technologies offer AFFORDANCES, CONSTRAINTS and change SOCIAL PRACTICES

e.g. What has been made possible with the introduction of mobile phones?How have mobile phones limited our activities?How have our social practices/habits, etc. changed since mobile phones?

Image Credit: The Worship Cloud

“Old” Media & the Digital AgeDr Bex Lewis

Broadcasting

At its inception, first as a company, in 1922, the BBC broadcast only on radio. Twenty years later, a television channel was added. Today, it provides 8 distinct TV services, 10 national and dozens of local radio stations and operates in a world of hundreds of channels with thousands of content providers. It runs one of the most visited websites in the world; the BBC’s international news websites now record over 230 million page impressions a month. The BBC World Service continues to maintain its position as the world’s leading broadcaster, transmitting programmes in English and 42 other languages to 146 million listeners per week. Digital TV has reached more than two-thirds of homes, and by 2012 the whole country will be receiving television in this way. And for millions, the convergence of media is already a reality.

A Public Service for All: the BBC in the digital age (2006)

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/272256/6763.pdf

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/communications-society/programs-topic/digital-broadcasting-public-interest/broadcasting-

Citizenship and Community

The market, being by definition the mere aggregation of individual decisions, takes no account of community and of the complex relations between citizenship, culture, and community. In particular, the fragmentation of audiences that pure market-driven broadcasting may produce could undermine both communities and cultures by limiting our shared experiences.

The Price of Plurality (Report, 2008)This in itself may appear strange as the internet ushers in a world of choice and diversity such that the world of analogue television could never have imagined. Even so, as communities become more disconnected, the debate over what makes a shared culture amidst diversity of individual choice has become closely linked to the issue of how public values will be reflected in broadcasting in the future. As a result, plurality has become the meeting point for a number of arguments about the future of our broadcasting institutions – the BBC licence fee, the public status of Channel 4, and the PSB status of ITV and Five.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/reviews-investigations/psb-review/psbplurality.pdf

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/bbc-news-stop-this-media-blackout-of-the-green-party/?state=sign

https://www.facebook.com/124563204315456/photos/a.124695450968898.19183.124563204315456/542937682478004/?type=1&theater

Second-Screening

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/technology-research/2014/Second_Screens_Final_report.pdf

http://apps.channel4.com/app/the-million-pound-drop/

Potential Drivers• user desire/need for shared rather than isolated TV

experiences • a sense of connection with others/community • social comparisons (validation) • curiosity in seeking out others’ views • getting more information • getting access to content at a convenient time and place • to influence/interact with content • sense of acknowledgement from others • interest in debate/discussion (social inclusion, fun,

information).

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/technology-research/2014/Second_Screens_Final_report.pdf

24/7 News Culture• Local TV newsrooms moved into the 24/7 mindset thirty years

ago, when videotape, microwave and satellite technology made it possible to broadcast live or just-recorded video reports anytime, and from just about any place. Technology changed the culture and the content of TV news. Reporters could now “go live” from a legislative debate or a police chase; they could alert communities to a dangerous chemical spill or break news of a fatal car crash even before the next-of-kin knew it had happened.

• Overnight ratings and viewer research told stations which stories and coverage attracted viewers, and drove more “live, local and late-breaking” reports. a diet of accidents, fires and crime; of too many events and too few issues.Media critics at newspapers lamented the resulting TV news menu:

http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/leadership-management/what-great-bosses-know/80865/247-culture-tips-from-the-best-and-worst-of-tv/

Newspapers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23969887

http://positivenews.org.uk/

Music

The conventional argument:

http://elitedaily.com/music/how-one-generation-was-able-to-kill-the-music-industry/593411/

Industry Voices (2013)

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2160237384001/digital-age-changing-the-music-industry-for-good/#sp=show-clips

http://youtu.be/EUmNDKvSPMo

Cinema

http://youtu.be/IP_f4LHi1hc

Sure Fire Blockbusters?

Those days are all but gone. It was while on the press tour for The Lone Ranger (budget: $200m+) that director Gore Verbinski lamented the fact that the current Hollywood system supports small movies (courtesy of studios' marquee labels, such as Sony Classics) and massive blockbusters. To warrant  a wide release of anything in between - a film that isn't a comedy - is increasingly tricky. After all, to pay for distribution and sufficient marketing to a get a film noticed is a heavy burden for a studio. Marketing strategies thus tend to be big, broad and wide, or slow builders. And where are you supposed to position a mid-budget feature in the midst of that?

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/blockbusters/27405/10-big-problems-with-modern-day-blockbuster-cinema-needs-intro#ixzz34FaCgQbI

http://youtu.be/BtVeUIy0GyA

http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamdavis/3d-movies-are-the-literal-worst-for-people-with-glasses

The Aesthetics of CinemaDoes the digital era spell the death of cinema as we know it? Or is it merely heralding its rebirth? Are we witnessing the emergence of something entirely new? Cinema in the Digital Age examines the fate of cinema in this new era, paying special attention to the technologies that are reshaping film and their cultural impact. Examining Festen (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Timecode (2000), Russian Ark (2002), The Ring (2002), among others, this volume explores how these films are haunted by their analogue past and suggests that their signature element are their deliberate imperfections, whether those take the form of blurry or pixilated images, shakey camera work, or other elements reminding viewers of the human hand guiding the camera. Weaving together a rich variety of sources, Cinema in the Digital Age provides a deeply humanistic look at the meaning of cinematic images in the era of digital perfection.

Film Piracy

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/apr/02/film-piracy

Publishing

…with 15 percent to 25 percent of book sales shifting to digital format by 2015 the book industry is heading into wholly new territory…

Whatever the sector, the emergence of new reading devices suggests an interesting evolution in writing itself. Creating long-term value will not come from simply reformatting print content into digital words. Rather, the greatest opportunity lies in experimenting with such new formats as nonlinear, hybrid, interactive and social content, electronic modes that add motion, sound and direct reader interactions through technologies we will discuss below

http://www.bain.co.uk/bainweb/PDFs/cms/Public/BB_Publishing_in_the_digital_era.pdf

http://blog.youversion.com/2014/04/why-friendships-in-bible-app-5-are-different/

What is the future for publishers?

Polly Courtney (Self-published)

1. Fragmented readership – few books/sell big = doesn’t work

2. Risk-averse: publishers looking for sure-fire hits

3. Uses eBook sales data to adapt price re: demand

4. 3/1self-published/ published – who is undertaking quality control?

Richard Charkin (Bloomsbury)

1. Slim, but ever-present chance of success = exciting

2. Shift in kind of risk taken: more books being published than ever before.

3. Agreed, but thought the product itself being devalued.

4. Even positive review in New York Sunday Times = 200 sales. Word of mouth = key.

http://www.bytethebook.com/news/report-charkin-courtney

Discuss

• What is your ‘lived experience’ of how ‘traditional’ media has changed?

• Any other media you want to mention? • Are there consistent themes?• Which of those aspects could be seen to be negative?

• What do you see that is positive/offering new opportunities?

• How does this knowledge affect your ministry role?

AUTHORITYDr Tim Hutchings

Who do you listen to, online?

“Hierarchies and networks are two very different systems and the Internet was really developed for only one of them.”

- Chris Helland, 2005

But nothing is ever quite that simple…

“The fluidity and transience of online environments poses challenges to traditional authority structures, roles, and tools. The result has been that the internet is framed both as a threat to certain established roles and hierarchies and as a tool of empowerment by others.”

– Heidi Campbell 2012

New authorities…

“The internet serves as a spiritual hub, allowing practitioners to select from a vast array of resources and experience in order to assemble and personalize their religious behavior and belief. This encourages a convergent form of religious practice online, a process that allows and even encourages users to draw from traditional and new sources simultaneously.”

- Heidi Campbell 2012

The proliferation of web sites calling themselves Catholic creates a problem… it is confusing, to say the least, not to distinguish eccentric doctrinal interpretations, idiosyncratic devotional practices, and ideological advocacy bearing a ‘Catholic' label from the authentic positions of the Church… A system of voluntary certification at the local and national levels under the supervision of representatives of the Magisterium might be helpful in regard to material of a specifically doctrinal or catechetical nature. The idea is not to impose censorship but to offer Internet users a reliable guide to what expresses the authentic position of the Church.

- “The Church and Internet”, Vatican report, 2002

… and old authorities

But is authority really about people and institutions?

PRIVACYDr Tim Hutchings

What do these three have in common?

So should we put up with being someone else’s products?

IS IT A REVOLUTION?Dr Tim Hutchings

Event Publicity, 2010:

“There is a revolution sweeping across the globe, driven by the massive growth of the internet and internet related technologies. Known as the Digital Revolution it is on par with other great global shifts such as the Agrarian Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. And it is completely changing the landscape of how we communicate, how we influence, how we relate. This isn’t simply about coming to grips with a new technology to assist us in our work, but requires of us a fundamental shift in our processes, our structures and approaches. If we don’t respond then as Eric Hoffer states, we will find ourselves, ‘beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.’”

The electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind, and mute about its encounter with the Gutenberg technology, on and through which the American way of life was formed... Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the "content" of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.

Marshall McLuhan (again)

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@drbexl@tim_hutchings

http://www.slideshare.net/drbexl/