Now showing: (1 to 10 of 76) of all notes tagged with media-participation | show yours
Sort options:
newest first |
oldest first |
group by author
Recent tags:
egrich.com
egrich
game
online
gold
news
store
shopping
shop
source
open
ecommerce
kids
men
for
frontals
custom
extensions
hair
front
Book Review - Henry Jenkins's Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers
I found the book pretty fascinating, I like how the book is divided into three broad topics – ‘Inside Fandom’, ‘Going Digital’, and ‘Columbine and Beyond’. It’s interesting how the internet has changed and how fan communities emerge, grow and interact.
The first section ‘Inside Fandom’ Jenkins emphasis on active participation by focusing on his research in Star Trek fan cultures, the first part was Jenkins getting interviewed by Matt Hills which I found quite boring maybe because I wanted to focus on the next section. But before I move on, he mentions how gay Star Trek fans had their own communities and tried convincing the show to add realistically gay characters.
Onto the next section ‘Going Digital’ it concentrates on the succession of online communities created by fans and bloggers and analysing the revolution of technology. There are three essays in this section which I found them filled with rich ideas. I enjoyed the essay by Mark Dery where he describes interactive audiences are no longer culture jammers.
In ‘Columbine and Beyond’ there are articles about violence and video games especially after the Columbine incident. Jenkins stated out the important facts about the perception of violence and the fact that the amount of teenagers that play video games are often overlooked in comparing them to those that actually commit violence. The notorious Grand Theft Auto 3 is mentioned as well.
My favourite pieces were those on the relationship between video games and culture, with lots of thoughtful perspectives on Columbine and its aftermath Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers is an entertaining and insightful read.
Tags: media-participation
We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People Review
Dan Gilmour approach to the book is somewhat broad, however this is done to achieve breadth on multiple subjects that he tackles such as ethics corporatisation and copyrighting, rather than trying to delve to deep into a particular subject. In some ways this is good, because he covers several topics regarding User Generated Content, however in my opinion certain topics could have been covered more thoroughly. A topic I would have liked more depth on is Chinas free speech advocacy vs. the very authoritative Chinese Government. However I think the reason for this is because he sparked an interest with me from his chapter on it, however other people may feel other areas would need to be covered in more depth. However it has defiantly enlightened me enough to continue to research this subject area. Also, because it’s concentrating on technology, with the ever-changing factors involved with this the book has become a little out of date, due to the fact it was published in 2007, but most of the key arguments based around UGC are still very valid. He covers each subject area well and I feel he has written a well balanced argument covering this key movement in history, web 2.0.Something which does impress me is the fact that Gilmour has also released the book under a Creative Commons licence which means readers are able to download the book for free as long as they don’t sell it on.
Overall, I feel Gilmour has produced a very thorough piece surrounding the implications of Web 2.0 and global connectivity and I feel this book is a must for anyone who wants to learn about this technical revolution, even more so as its freely available to download, just don’t sell it on!!!
Tags: media-participation
What i got out of reading Digital Gameplay
Being a scriptwriting student I’ve very rarely read books dedicated specifically to game theory and new media only mostly from passing references from the usual film/television studies books. However I found that Digital Gameplay: Essays on the nexus of game and gamer to be welcoming book for newcomers into the debates on going in videogame theory. The book hold a collection of essays on many of these debates discussing aspects and issues such as feminism, controversy, spectatorship in videogames all in a easy to pick up and read manner. However the chaptering of the book is at times confusing as it’s broken up into the essay titles not detailing a great deal on subject matter involved. Though the book remains a great example for people working on essays in games and new media. With no real basis to judge, apart from my exprience of it, i'll give it a 4 out of 5 :)
Tags: media-participation
Review
Jenkins is a self-proclaimed Aca/fan (Academic and Fan combined). This gives him an interesting standpoint compared to traditional theorists because he has an unashamed passion for his research and is not afraid to talk about his personal experience with the source material. The Aca/fen have grown in numbers considerably in recent years, but Jenkins was one of the first to openly admit that he is a member of the communities that he writes about, which was seen as controversial at the time. This made Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers an interesting and enjoyable read that, especially in the final section, cut the intricate, flamboyant language that most academics use.
The Book is a selection of essays split into 3 sections: “Inside Fandom”; consisting of essays that deal with the fan communities that Jenkins has been involved in such as fan communities of star trek, “Going Digital”; consisting of how new media technologies have impacted on fan culture; and “Columbine and Beyond”, which discuses the Columbine High school massacre and specifically in relation to video game violence.
In the first section Jenkins talks about fan communities and how passionate and active they are as audiences. As one of the fan communities (Star Trek), he talks about issues such as homosexuality and how the producer of such an influential show resisted featuring an openly gay character.
In the “Going Digital” section of the book, Jenkins explores how fan communities and new media have affected each other. How advances in technology have allowed the audiences to produce media, for example, game modding communities.
For the final section Jenkins has adapted his writing style, from writing his essays specifically for circulation among the academic community to writing that addresses a larger and more varied audience. This is evident in the essay “Coming Up Next”, where he takes a comic writing style as he explains how he panicked under pressure on a t.v chat show. I Found this chapter enjoyable because Jenkins takes pro-video games stance. Even though the show was clearly bias and he was set-up to look a fool, Jenkins' account of his experience puts forward his arguments.
Tags: media-participation
Review
I was given ‘Fans, Bloggers and Gamers’ as a suggested reading for my Media & Participation lecture series.
Some parts of it were a bit boring to me, to be honest, as I could not relate to his passionate Star Trek fandom. I wasn’t too interested in reading the interview extracts, either. The part of the book that grabbed my attention the most was the one looking into violence and media, as this is another topic I’m studying as a part of my course, and the extent to which violence in games has a negative effect on children is something I have thought about and discussed many times.
I would recommend it to people studying media, also to anyone interested in participatory culture, studying violence in games, and of course, to Star Trek fans.
Tags: media-participation
Media & Participation Book Review
Overall Henry Jenkins offers an admirable unchallenging read into the world of 'fans'. Jenkins’ refers to himself throughout the book as a ‘fan’ and argues his point that ‘fans’ should be referred to as professionals. The book is split into three sections the first being primarily based on introducing you to fandom and also his early interests of science fiction such as star trek, I personally found this the most difficult section to understand as it refers to specific details of Star Trek which my knowledge is limited and is slightly outdated. A large part of the book that interested me was his research into media violence and the columbine shootings in this book he argues in defence of gamers after such tragedy. He finally describes how blogging is a major form of participation online and how such technologies are impacting conventional media. On the whole the book is an enjoyable read when studying media & participation as normally this book would not catch my attention I would however recommend this book to media academics and advise reading it for essay writing on participatory culture.
Tags: media-participation
Media, Gender and Identity Review
I chose to read the second edition of this book which was in fact revised and published in 2008, and due to this, I found the text much easier to relate to. Gauntlett has achieved something here that no previous media theorist has done before, and that is to actually engage me in an entire theory book, cover to cover. His writing style is charming and spoke to me as an audience, as well as his use of case studies throughout the book.For example, his references to popular culture television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ugly Betty and magazines such as Cosmopolitan.
Gauntlett states that "In this book I have sought to argue, and demonstrate, that popular media has a significant but not straightforward relationship with people's sense of gender and identity" (Gauntlett, D. p.288). Gauntlett does exactly this in his book, giving a fantastic overview of all relevant arguments and supporting each with a celebrated theorists, which I found helpful in expanding my knowledge of theory, and through this, it gives the reader the tools to also form their own opinions on each subjects. The variation of topics covered also raises a lot of the reader’s own questions in relation to identity (specifically), which is helpful when researching for an essay.
Overall, I thought that this book was a fantastic and modern beginning to the subject of media, gender and identity, and you will come away not only much more interested in and knowledgeable on the subject, but with a greater understanding of how your own identity is formed and affected by the media, your sexuality, race and gender. 5 stars :)
A one-sided collection of case studies.
At first glance, the purpose of this book is both commendable and quite an achievement. To talk about subject matter fraught with legality and theory in such an easy to understand and accessible way is no easy task.
However, this book is not without it's failings.
To give some sense of where I'm coming from you need to understand a little of what the book is about: Essentially it's supposed to be a debate of the merits and downfalls of copyright law with regards to both creativity and freedom of information, which I think most would agree is a debate with two very seperate sides.
However, far from being a coherant debate, weighing up ideas and evidence to come to some conclusion, it is obvious that the author has decided upon a conclusion before writing began(I suspect before even doing the research for the book).
What follows then, is a book which can be boiled down to "I think this: Copyright needs to be less strong. And here's a list of case studies I found that support my belief."
It's not that the case studies don't have merit, for they surely do, and this reviewer personally agrees with the basic underlying issues, especially where corperations rather than the creative themselves benefit exclusively from restrictive copyrighting. But it's hard to read this book without feeling like there needs to be some counter point to the tirade and rants of an author who clearly has a strict belief already in place.
Perhaps a second contributing author (Especially one from somewhere other than America, to give some worldwide perspective) would have helped elevate this book to the ranks of a must-read for any media academic. As it stands, it is merely an interesting and well translated selection of case studies for one viewpoint.
Michel de Certeau - The Practice of Everyday Life
This is an easy to read and informative take on the notion of the active audience. De Certeau draws some interesting comparisons between the way groups adopt and modify language to make it their own, and how cultures adopt and modify other cultures when forced to live within them, for example Soho or Little Italy. When a medium is imposed, groups make of it what they will and take something personal away. Of course there are limits to interpretation, however this particular essay really puts the notion in to context and makes its plausibility apparent.
my little report
Erving Goffman was the main theorist that I referred to in my essay. His theory of “life being a performance? stuck me as rather true of the online world. So it made sense for me to report on his book.
It seems as if we are in fact all “acting? on our Facebook and Twitter accounts, to either impress ourselves or somebody else, or just aiming to be socially acceptable by posting all the “cool? things we’re up to or have done – just like everybody else.
Also, as I was writing my essay, the “front and back personas? theory seemed to make ever more sense. This idea suited my ideas of Second Life rather well, as I view that site as a way for those who, whoever they are, rich, poor, married, widowed to seek out what they truly desire from the real world and let their guard down to be themselves.
I could actually see in myself that behind close doors, I can be entirely different to how other may view me, either at university, at work or with my family.
It really does seem that what we present to the world as “ourselves? perhaps isn’t actually the individual we are inside.