In class on Monday, we read from
Poster and Jenkins “Postmodern Virtues” and “Commentary Supplants Authority.” Poster
talked about the history of communication and how the world has been changed
from these new forms of sharing information every time they come about. Jenkins
talked about how the more current achievement’s in media and communication such
as the internet have made and will make a huge impact on humanity over the
coming years. Jenkins essay was from 1995, and today in 2018, we see how right
he was.
The “superhighway” that the
internet has become has changed the world. Almost everything we do has been affected
by the internet. It has opened up so much opportunity in all industries and
given people access to resources that they never could have dreamed of before
the internet was invented. It has also changed the way everything is done and
thought about.
One of the main things that I found
interesting was when Jenkins talked about how this effected America. Clinton realized
the power in the is tech and knew that he had to get it in the hands of all
Americans as soon as possible. It was almost as if he felt that it would be a
threat to national security if he did not. And in a way he was right. Imagine
if America did not have access to the internet. It would almost seem like we would
be sent back to the stone age. If anyone has ever tried to stay off the
internet in one way or the other for even just a couple of days, they will
realize how drastically different their life would be without it. We have
become so reliant on it because it does so many good things for us, yet some criticize
how reliant on it we’ve become.
With new advancements almost every
day, people are becoming more and more worried about how largely the internet
is taking over our lives. People are able to do nearly everything they need to
do in life from their home. It has made life simpler, but it has also taken
away reason for people to get out of the house and experience the world and
everything it has to offer. Hopefully we are never so disconnected from the
world that people don’t even leave their house, but the trend that we are
seeing lately is giving people more and more reasons not to.
Jenkins certainly stresses how entwined our lives have become with the internet. Another interesting point that Jenkins makes is that beyond the impact that the media has on us, we now have a significant influence on the media.
ReplyDelete“In such a world, fan works can no longer be understood as simply derivative of mainstream materials but must be understood as themselves open to appropriation and reworking by the media industries” p 468
Media usage may appear passive on the surface--quite often we just sit in our beds and consume hours upon hours of media--but, in reality, the media is anything but passive. An interesting phenomenon that has developed within society is that fans have become a part of creating media. Fans not only consume media now, they are also able to interact with it and make it their own, taking a portion of a story and rewriting it or completely fabricating a whole new scenario into the story. These new stories are called "fanfictions". They create media of their own based on the media that they consume. This is fascinating because not only do other fans interact with the fanfictions but the writers and producers of the original shows or movies have begun to take into account what stories the fans have created and they cater the shows or movies to what the fans would like to see. This is a great example of the concept of participatory culture, in which we as consumers of media are no longer simply spectators; we also participate in the creation of media in numerous ways. This newfound interactivity with media gives fans a sense of agency; it makes them feel important and as if they have some power in dictating what writers and producers do. As an effect of this, the media becomes even more all-consuming because it begins to truly feel like reality. Jenkins makes a fascinating point about the role that media has come to play in our lives as well as the role that we have come to play in the creation of media.