This week's topic for class was a lot more up my ally; talking about users of media, audiences and the way media actually works in the world. Being re-acquainted with the old Chris Anderson Long Tail article was good. Anderson presents a compelling and solid argument, saying that the future of the market will be less focused on mass assumptions of popular tastes and more on niche markets. He says this is mostly due to the emergence of the Internet and the world Wide Web as a highly dispersed, fragmented and collaborative marketplace. Henry (yes I'm going to bring him up every post, deal with it) Jenkins has drawn on Anderson's ideas in his book Convergence Culture to extrapolate on his arguments about consumers becoming more active: "The Long Tail model assumes an increasingly savvy media consumer..." While one could argue that there has still been a push but media producers to sell big, mass-focused, one-size-fits all brands (I'm thinking Apple, Harry Potter, Marvel) I think even conceding this one would have to agree that niche marketing is used to sell even these products. Apple likes to promote there being a version of its brand for everyone, and you can enjoy Harry Potter as a book, movie, audio-book, video game, website, lunch-box, etc. The other reading I was struck by (unfortunately not as positively) was the excerpt from The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. Where do I start? I have to say I noticed a similarity between Friedman and Richard Dawkins: in that they both have arguments I agree with in general, but I wince when confronted with the ideas because they sound like one of those crazy people with placards on the corner of Bourke Street. Coincidentally: Happy Birthday Mr Dawkins for yesterday. Anyway. Basically, Friedman loves the Internet. He wrote a love letter to it and its many founding fathers from about page 59 onwards in his book. That's great, I love the Internet too, and I believe (perhaps too ideally) that it has great democratising power. However, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Internet is a predominately Western, developed-world phenomenon, and that perhaps the idea of it bringing EVERYONE IN THE WORLD together might be a bit unrealistic. I mean, when you think about world poverty statistics, it puts things into perspective. So Friedman is not only a little off the mark when talking about a world shift in economics due to the Internet connecting us all, but its also a little bit offensively insular. Pankaj Ghemawat also wrote much more succinctly and intelligently than me about how Friedman is overstating the transformation occurring, pointing out: "just a fraction of what we consider globalization actually exists."
I would argue that there are many new media scholars (off the top of my head, looking to my bookshelf) like Jenkins, Lev Manovich, and Terry Flew, who all acknowledge the enormous cultural, political and economic power the Internet has as well as recognising the facts of an inequality to Internet access.
I'd be really interested in your ideas on this topic.
PS. I love Last.fm