Geert and Ned talked about the governance in media and said that“The horizontal and vertical axes of communication are not separate or opposed but mutually constitutive” and in the field of media network, the common style is trial and error. In November 25, 2011, The State of Administration of Radio Film and Television of China posted their new policy for the market of Television and Advertising. “From January1, 2012, no commercial is allowed to put in sitcoms and soap operas”. For most of Tv Station, the commercial revenue takes more than 60% of their income. What should they do under this new policy? The debate of whether it’s “right” for the government to this is still ongoing. What is the effect of this “trial”? Could they achieve their goal to improve people’s experience in watching TV? Or make it worse? Just a few days after the policy is publicize, people on the Internet talked about the possible ending of this story. One possible impact is that from the next year, all commercials and advertisement are planted into the sitcoms and soap operas. Or the commercials will find a small window floating on the screen in the corner. According to the survey for people’s response, over 80% people support this new policy. But, will this be a happy ending for both audiences and decision makers? Calm down, we are still in the process of trial and error.
–Hongyuan Jiang
Lovink, G., & Rossitter, N. (2011). Urgent Aphorisms; Notes on Organized Networks for the Connected Multitudes. In M. Dueze (Ed.), Managing Media Work (pp. 279-290). Thousand Oaks, California, United States of America: SAGE Publications Inc http://life.caixun.com/content/20111129/CX01ueri.html
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“Who do you collaborate with?”1 That is the question. One of the major jobs of any director is casting (hiring) his or her cast and crew and the success or failure of any given production hinges on this process. One might say that a director needs to be well versed in people skills and able to read personalities so that they are able to quell any conflicts before they become a major issue. It is however, inevitable that there will be conflict as “Collaboration is always accompanied by conflict and struggle…”1 and it is “…Better to work out an approach to deal with this; otherwise you’ll find your projects go kaput!”1
My personal approach to this has been established through trial and error and the best policy that I have come up with is one of listening and understanding. Artists have egos and the majority of them wish to be praised for their work and so it becomes a balancing act of proper praises to motivate them. Mind, the reverse is offering them too much praise because then it goes to their head and the complication of this is that they may begin to feel that they do not need your input and that they are better than you. You always need to push back and push them to push beyond their comfort zone and know when to pull back if they begin to feel strained but these are skills that I do not feel can be taught, I feel you may only learn this balance through experiencing it.
“There is no escape from struggle and the tensions that accompany collaborative relations. This is the territory of the political – a space of antagonism that in our view is much more complicated than just a friend-enemy distinction.”2 In regard to the political nature of a production process, there is no escaping that as well. “…bringing together the work of others in a meaningful and creative way…(is)…not just a valuable but…(a)…crucial skill.”3 Performance art is by its very nature is political because it is a social art form.
Thus the director must navigate the minefield of political differences. Sometimes your crew or actors are professional enough to work past any ideological differences but again it is better for a director to know the personalities and ideals of the cast and crew to bring together a compatible blend of collaborative challenge through their unique views and differences. That isn’t always possible and if you ever hire in a personality type that is poisoning a process, you cannot be afraid to prune them from the process; otherwise, you will have bigger problems to contend with in the production.
My final thought is taken from the forty year collaboration of Steven Spielberg and John Williams: “…collaboration and trust…(are) a major element in making any movie…”4 How you find that trust is as complicated as any romantic relations but it takes a blend of patience, listening, and a portion of firm but fair tough love.
Russell McGee
1M. Deuze, Managing MediaWork, (SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, 2011), pp. 289.
2M. Deuze, Managing MediaWork, (SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, 2011), pp. 287.
3M. Deuze, Managing MediaWork, (SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, 2011), pp. 8.
4 T. Wells, ‘AFI’s Master Class The Art of Collaboration,’ premiering on TCM, WWW Document, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700197935/AFIs-Master-Class-The-Art-of-Collaboration-premiering-on-TCM.html?pg=1
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As we wrap up the semester and discuss the different levels of media management, I found an interesting article that I feel relates in a different way. Even though it is not directly media management, it is more so the effects of media on management. The Wall Street Journal posted an article about a new concept that is present in a few large firms, called ‘reverse mentoring’. It has actually been around for about ten years and started at General Electric Co. when top senior executives were asked to reach out to their fellow 20 something employees to learn how to use the internet. Today, they are getting advice on how to use Facebook and Twitter, and how to make their posts or tweets more interesting.
Reverse mentoring has not only benefited the mentees in this context, but it allows young employees to get a chance to connect with the people they would typically not have a chance to work with. One executive said he “believes the program has also helped boost morale and retention at the firm, with many young mentors saying they feel their voices are now being heard (WSJ).” The mentors are also getting the opportunity to ask for advice from these top executives, and in turn the top executives are learning a lot more than just about using media. They are seeing how and why young people work differently than senior employees. Andrew Graff, CEO of Allen & Gerritsen, a Watertown, Mass., ad agency says the most important lesson he has learned is how to be flexible, including allowing employees to work unconventional hours and to check in from home or a coffee shop (WSJ).”
In chapter one of Managing Media Work it mentions the “plethora of technological innovations being developed and incorporated into society on a daily basis serve to supplement and undermine pervious technologies (Deuze, p.4),” which means people are constantly adapting to these new technologies and getting rid of the old. I think this shows that, just as society leans on media professionals to help them manage these changes in their everyday lives, senior executives realize they must lean on younger employees to help them manage the implications of technological changes in their workplace; the young employees acting as the media professionals in this case.
Surely it will only be the open-minded organizations that are truly willing to learn who will adopt practices like reverse mentoring, and many older organizations will continue to rely on old ways of working and making decisions.
~ Stephanie S.
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The term “polymath” might seem largely confined to science-fiction geeks. At least that’s where I first encountered the word – reading John Brunner’s 1974 novel by the same name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath_%28novel%29. Yet for those who are unfamiliar, it refers to someone who possesses considerable knowledge and expertise in multiple specialties.
We’re not talking Cliff Claven here – the fictional know-it-all postal carrier of “Cheers” fame. More like Aristotle. Archimedes. da Vinci. Galileo. Ben Franklin. Issac Asimov. Folks who not only knew a lot – they did a lot as well. At least those are some the famous ones. You may personally know a few who are less noted – at least on a historical scale – and odds are you may find a few in places such as Indiana University.
But they may be an endangered species. At least that’s what the The Economist’s Edward Carr argues. And he blames some of it on the increasingly digital age in which we live. The full article is here http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/edward-carr/last-days-polymath, but below are some of the operative passages. Remember, it is The Economist we’re talking about here, so the passage is slightly lengthy and in places, even redundant. Yet eventually, the point is made:
“Today the planet teems with 6.7 billion minds. Never have so many been taught to read and write and think, and then been free to choose what they would do with their lives. The electronic age has broken the shackles of knowledge. Never has it been easier to find something out, or to get someone to explain it to you. Yet as human learning has flowered, the man or woman who does great things in many fields has become a rare species.
“In an age of specialists, does it matter that generalists no longer thrive? The world is hardly short of knowledge. Countless books are written, canvases painted and songs recorded. A torrent of research is pouring out. A new orthodoxy, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell, sees obsessive focus as the key that unlocks genius.
“Just knowing about a lot of things has never been easier. Never before have dabblers been so free to paddle along the shore and dip into the first rock pool that catches the eye. If you have an urge to take off your shoes and test the water, countless specialists are ready to hold your hand.
“And yet you will never get very deep. Depth is for monomaths—which is why experts so often seem to miss what really matters. Specialisation has made the study of English so sterile that students lose much of the joy in reading great literature for its own sake. A generation of mathematically inclined economists neglected many of Keynes’s insights about the Depression because he put them into words. For decades economists sweated over fiendish mathematical equations, only to be brought down to earth by the credit crunch: Keynes’s well-turned phrases had come back to life …
“Polymaths were the product of a particular time, when great learning was a mark of distinction and few people had money and leisure. Their moment has passed, like great houses or the horse-drawn carriage. The world may well be a better place for the specialisation that has come along instead. The pity is that progress has to come at a price. Civilisation has put up fences that people can no longer leap across; a certain type of mind is worth less. The choices modern life imposes are duller, more cramped.
“The question is whether their loss has affected the course of human thought.”
So is Carr correct? Do modern-day “polymaths” still exist? Did Steve Jobs count as one – a digital age permutation of an old-guard polymath? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs. Does Elon Musk? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk. What of the late Hedy Lamarr, actor and co-inventor of what became spread-spectrum technology and the basis of certain types of secured military and cell-phone communication? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr.
Once again, The Economist offers a few for consideration http://moreintelligentlife.com/blog/ed-cumming/hunting-modern-polymaths – but some these names don’t carry quite the panache of the “old masters.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_been_called_%22polymaths%22. Who are some nominees you would put out there for consideration?
If so, what does their future bode in an age of “remix” and “convergence culture?” It is a confusing era. On one hand, “individuals can no longer afford to concentrate on their own silo” [MMW, p. 8] – suggesting they become more diverse [or “polymath-like”] in their knowledge. Yet on the other, the ability to bring “together the work of others in a meaningful and creative way seems not just a valuable, but an increasingly crucial skill” [p. 8] – which seems to fly in the face of the polymath’s individualistic legend.
Does this seemingly innate conflict spell “doom” for polymaths as we have known them? Or are they simply being redefined – as so many other aspects of human thought, culture, industry, and life – by the tools with which they now have the luxury to work?
– Bill W. Hornaday
P.S: As this is our last website posting, some departing tunes:
Don Meredith: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtGxusvUT3k
Willie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsTAUs_h_uY&feature=related
And the classic “operatic” closing [well, sorta]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIVfbylUU-M
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The discussion in chapter 24 has clear links to the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This two groups apparently emerged from recesses of the United States to form loosely governed groups. They occupy a particularly unique political “non-state public sphere” (Dueze, p. 283). They have no distinct leadership or real headquarters. Some have tried to emerge as leaders but have been brought down by members of the movement because they were not representative of the whole. But, who is?
Online information networks allow for great horizontal communication between members of this group that is free from vertical downward dictate. These seem to be two reasons why many in mainstream political actors have only noticed this group for its lack of cohesion.
Ironically, this movement is flourishing in the same environment that they are so ardently fighting against (International Workforce, precarious employment). It is a weightless group, they are very casual with such unstructured encampments marches, they seem to foist their individuality on any passerby, and the group formed around an idea rather than some big piece of infrastructure. It seems like they’d be great workers in our new economy.
Citing:
Lovink, Gert, and Ned Rossiter. “Urgent Aphorisms.” Managing Media Work. By Mark Deuze. London: SAGE, 2010. 283. Print.
-Charles Palys
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Until this point in my life, I don’t think I have ever read the first and last chapters of a book before back to back, but that was our T505 Media Organizations reading assignment for this week… While reading there were a few points that stood out to me and related in particular to a performing arts story that has been circulating since rehearsals began in the summer of 2010 (Citation): Spiderman the Musical, entitled Spiderman Turn Off the Dark. Not only is this the most expensive Broadway musical of all time, it has had a myriad of problems throughout its production. For example, originally, it was set to begin preview performances on Sunday, November 14, 2010 and open on December 21st (Citation). In reality, the show opened on June 14, 2011 after a record-breaking 185 preview performances (Citation).
The show’s anniversary is actually today, as it began its previews on November 28, 2010 (Citation). It also was just announced by the producers that “that SPIDER-MAN Turn Off The Dark has set an all-time box office record for the Foxwoods Theatre – grossing a whopping $2,070,195.60 for the week ending yesterday” (Citation). This is not that great since the show “runs $1 million a week in operating costs” (60 Minutes). In June of 2011 the show had spent $75 million on the show’s production (NY Times).
This show is a perfect example of the disconnect between management and the creative side (2), the “general shift in power away from professional content creators” (3), “those who professionally create content are left more or less powerless” (3), the “overall precarity in media work” (3), how the “delivery of content” is more important than the “raw content itself” (7), and more. The stories behind Spiderman also illustrate how collaboration can be a major struggle, filled with tension (287). ”Collaboration is always accompanied by conflict and struggle” (289).
Originally, Spiderman Turn Off the Dark was a collaboration between Bono and The Edge (of U2) and Julie Taymor as director (the mastermind of the puppets of The Lion King musical, Across the Universe, and more.) Taymor also wrote the book (aka script) of the musical. The first signs of tension came in Feb. of 2011, when a new book writer was hired (Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa) (Citation). This change came after the show was dragged through the mud by reviewers from The NY Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg News, USA Today, Variety, NY Daily News, the UK’s Telegraph, the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Toronto Star, and many more…
Read review excerpts here: http://broadwayworld.com/article/Review_Roundup_SPIDERMAN_on_Broadway_All_the_Reviews_20110207_page1#). Richard Ouzounian of the Toronto Star wrote, ”Let’s cut to the chase. The only truly amazing thing about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, is how unequivocally awful it is.”
And those were just the beginnings… On March 9, 2011 Taymor was ousted (Citation), and “director Philip William McKinley, writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, and choreographer Chase Brock were brought onto the creative team by lead producers Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris to help implement new staging, book rewrites, and additional choreography, respectively” (Citation). March of 2011 brought on an entirely new script and new concept with new songs, new script, new choreography, and new contracts with the cast and crew (Citation).
A peek (video montage) of the current ‘Spiderman’ concept, which is very comic-book-ish and kid/ family friendly: http://broadwayworld.com/videoembed.php?colid=246210
And 2 more videos:
A peek at Julie Taymor’s original concept, which is more mature and considered more ‘artistic’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1fLZ-P0ZOo&feature=player_embedded
And here [This one is better...]: http://broadwayworld.com/videoembed.php?colid=200779
As you can see, the two concepts are VERY different! Taymor was pretty quiet about the changes in the show, but later was quoted in a June NY Times article saying, [“When you’re trying to create new work and you’re trying to break new ground and experiment, which seems an incredibly crazy thing to do in a Broadway environment, the immediate answers that audiences give are never going to be good,” Ms. Taymor said. “It’s just in the nature of things that when you’re doing something very new, audiences don’t know how necessarily to talk about it immediately,” she continued. “Which in my world, and in your world, is a good thing. You want people to absorb, they should be entertained, they should have a great time, but they should also be stimulated enough that when they go home or talk to their kids, they are actually digesting, thinking, talking about it.” As for the current version of “Spider-Man,” which she saw for the first time at the opening on Tuesday, her only comment was, “The production today has become much simpler.”] (Citation)
And things are far from over as Taymor is suing to get $500,000 in royalties (Citation) and the show is still adding and cutting scenes! (Citation). Though Taymor was the producer’s and Bono and The Edge’s first choice, she still lost power and creative control. In the end, the producers thought a simpler, family-friendly concept would be better, and the collaboration fell through…
Questions to consider: When if ever is a creator secure in their power and in their position/ authority? Taymor had an amazing reputation going into this project, and it did not make much of a difference… She would have not been able to mount such a production alone- is giving up some control worth being able to produce a finished product? -Even if the finished product is not your original vision? Are collaborations doomed as the book seems to think? What can leaders/ managers do to help encourage effective and successful collaboration??
-Emmalyn Helge
Deuze, Mark & Brian Steward. “Managing Media Work.” Managing Media Work. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, 2011: 1-10.
Lovink, Geert & Ned Rossiter. “Urgent Aphorisms.” Managing Media Work. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, 2011: 279-289.
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Much to my surprise, the frontpage story on Yahoo featured a new theater that will allow cell phone use during performances. An amped up version of the tweet seats we have been talking about all semester, the Tateuchi Center opening in Washingtonwill not only allow cell phone usage, but is installing Wifi throughout the theater to aid in people using their phones. The ploy is largely to attract young, hip Microsoft workers to attend the shows, as the Microsoft headquarters is located nearby.
None of this is new.What is interesting is the comment section. Few things fire me up like reading comments from Yahoo users. Normally derogatory, racist, and overly-conservative Yahoo users were unsurprisingly pissed off about the whole ordeal, some even calling for boycotts of the theater. While it is easy to assume that Yahoo Users are all old crotchety curmudgeons , my Facebook news feed suggests otherwise, as many of my friends are reading Yahoo stories as well. All of this suggests that while audiences are no longer behaving like audiences, they still think of themselves as an audience. Their media use has become so invisible, that when media managers (like those who made the call on cell phones at the theater) seek to compensate for their non-audience tendencies they complain because not acting like an audience is rude.
While I applaud the Tateuchi center for their progressive approach regarding media, I’m a bit perplexed by the reaction of Yahoo users. As media managers, how do you give the audience what they really want, without upsetting the social order?
-Mike Lang
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Years ago, journalists, were forced to listen to the radio, colleagues, the police, and other sources of information in order to find out news and content for their articles. Today, with the massive use of social networks and news media, it is often the news that finds the journalist. In fact, “a growing group of people actively sharing, co-creating, and up and downloading content online… is perceived as proactively co-creating media” (Deuze, pp. 4). Most of the time this is not a “problem” but when a professional soccer player is constantly sharing his thoughts on Twitter, he instantly becomes a dream come true for all the journalists that have what we can call “free content” produced by the consumer himself.
Eljero Elia is a Dutch soccer player, currently playing for the Italian team Juventus. He is well known for being a heavy social network user on both Twitter and Facebook. About two months ago he, in a very “angry way, commented on a terrible challenge made by Inter-milan defender Lucio against his friend Stekelenburg (Dutch goalkeeper).
For one week Italian media was all over this news and basically what happened was what Deuze suggests at the bottom of page 4 “media managers and workers [were forced] to rethink their processes and practices when media making content and designing user experiences”.
This could be applied to many other situations. For instance, people who become famous because of YouTube instead of the regular Television (where it is hard to appear in the first place). The first outbreak of Bin Laden assassination was shared by a twitter user who was Bin Laden’s neighbor in Pakistan and watched the events live as they were taking place. Shows such as “Big Brother” hold their auditions on social networks.
Media professionals are quickly adapting to this new “network world” where the consumer is the first creator of the content.
-Fabio Monticone
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/elia’s-own-goal-twitter
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Diablo III
“There is much political value in targeting not the state but the companies – especially those engaged in the Web 2.0 economy – and insisting on a distribution of income commensurate with the collective labour that defines the participation economy” (Lovink & Rossitter, 2011)
While talking about state intervention in an attempt to give a sense of security to workers this quote from Managing Media Work resonated with me as I had recently watched Extra Credits’ episode on the Diablo III marketplace. The episode discusses Blizzard’s decision to allow users of the game to trade in game items to other players in exchange for real world money. In essence, by participating in the game you have the opportunity to be remunerated in cold, hard cash.
What the episode brings to light is the opportunity for people to potentially make a “moderate living” by selling the items they discover, unlock or otherwise attain through playing the game dramatically changing the dynamic between the player and the game content for example the marketplace value of items could potentially have an influence over a player’s status within the community (or social network if you will) of the game.
Extra Credits also discuss one of Blizzard’s other big titles, World of Warcraft and how the illegal “gold farming” revenue estimates for China stands at an estimated $300 million. By incorporating this practice into Diablo III and by charging a fee for putting the item up for auction (whether it sells or not) as well as a cut when the item is sold in what is a truly “weightless” economy (the players are essentially only transferring data, a series of 1’s and 0’s), Blizzard stand to be able to essentially print their own money. Whenever interest starts to wane, all they will have to do is release some additional downloadable content (at a fee of course) to keep player interest, introduce new items into the game and stimulate the marketplace economy.
– Craig Harkness
Works Cited
Lovink, G., & Rossitter, N. (2011). Urgent Aphorisms; Notes on Organized Networks for the Connected Multitudes. In M. Dueze (Ed.), Managing Media Work (pp. 279-290). Thousand Oaks, California, United States of America: SAGE Publications Inc.
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“GOVERNANCE IS NOT A DIRTY WORD”
The word “governance” is not a word that usually sits well with media organizations. This has not changed much with the ever-growing presence of networked organizations. The biggest form of governmental intervention that media organizations want is that of intellectual property protection, which to these organizations does not feel like governance, in the colloquial use of the term. As new forms of communication continue to develop and our society forms more complex networks, “tension between horizontal modes of communication and vertical regimes of control” rises.[1] This tension is very evident in today’s network neutrality battle. After a phase of deregulation of communications, proponents of net neutrality regulations are being met with halting backlash. Opponents to net neutrality governance argue that the networks have developed the way they are today without or with minimal government intervention and should remain that way. What network organizations must realize is that “horizontal and vertical axes of communication are not separate or opposed but mutually constitutive.”[2] The more people that join these networks, either in the managing front or the user front, the higher the need for governance to guide the development as to best serve the public. We have seen this with the development of all communications technologies. Governance, in this sense, does not necessarily equal excessive control.
“More often than not, networks adopt a trial-and-error approach to governance.”[3] People who analyze network neutrality understand the fluidity in governance of network organizations as evidenced in Coleman Bazelon’s and Stuart Brotman’s article Network neutrality: Implementation Measured in the Details. In their article, Bazelon and Brotman emphasize the need for the government to define what it is doing upfront. Perhaps this will make network managers more comfortable. Bazelon and Brotman’s article hits the idea of trial-and-error in network governance right on the head with their idea that “recognizing the constantly and rapidly evolving nature of the Internet and its content, today’s rules may not be applicable five years from now. Therefore, regulators should limit this first phase of net neutrality regulation to an initial review period — two to five years — to assess the evidence of existing harm and potential for harm in the future.”[4]
Perhaps if the government presents net neutrality regulation in the way Bazelon and Brotman express, network organizations will realize “It is better to recognize that governance is not a dirty word but one that is internal to the logic and protocols of self-organization.”[5]
[1] Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter, Urgent Aphorisms, in Managing Media Work 279, 285 (2011).
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Coleman Bazelon and Stuart Brotman, Network neutrality: Implementation Measured in the Details, NetworkWorld, available at http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/111611-net-neutrality-253209.html.
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