Archive for the ‘Digital Media’ Category









Generative platforms













“John Stuart Mill would have been outraged…”



“The Power of Transmedia.”



“The rise of the Nerds!”








I love convergence! How can I not, I mean, convergence is bringing so many new and exciting opportunities to the world. According to Henry Jenkins, convergence changes the use of technology, influences our cultural and global interactions and understandings, shapes new ways for industries and potential economies and even changes the way we act socially! Convergence enhances hybridity and globalization, and a participatory culture which looks like it can be the closest we have ever been to democracy.

It sounds very promising. But is it all good? There are many issues one could choose to discuss for this question, and today I have chosen to write about social convergence and citizen journalism. At this very moment I am writing a post in my very own blog, the blog is public and there are no filters or code of ethics which controls what I choose to publicize. If I have something to add to the news today, I can, and if someone wants to read it, they can. Social convergence is making multitasking very easy and gives us the opportunity to get information and news from several places almost at the same time.

Back in the days Walter Cronkite used to finish his news with his own signature-line: “That’s the way it is”. Being a highly trusted broadcast-journalist this was his way of telling his audience that “this is what the news is today”, and it probably was. But as time has gone by, I believe that we have been met with several incidents that have made us not trust mainstream media as much as before. Politicians being corrupt, ownership of media giving us unbalanced and biased packages of news, I think these things made us embrace social convergence even more. Instead of putting our trust in mainstream media, we now put our trust in collective intelligence.

The negative side of us being able to produce news and share it to the public without being actual journalists is of course that there appears a lot of information on the web which are not true; it is hard to filter what is correct and what is not. There are no code of ethics, like journalists strive to write by and I believe that we need this code of ethic. Henry Jenkins talks about “civic media” instead of “citizen journalism”. He says:


The use of any medium which fosters civic engagement. That means us, as well as mainstream media, and talk-shows, and TV-shows, and politicians and everything that spreads information. Instead of “being at war” with mainstream media, thinking that it controls all information, we should seeze the opportunity and cooperate. Citizen journalism might give us an opportunity to express ourselves, but what are the chances for us reaching a world-wide audience? Cooperation might lobby our stories more than we can do ourselves. Marcus O’Donnell, subject coordinator of journalism at the University of Wollongong, suggested that having news being told to us, as well as being given a space to participate, might be as democratic as it can be. I would have to say that I agree.


O’Donnell, M 2012, Citizen Journalism, audio recording of lecture, BCM112 Convergent Media Practices, University of Wollongong, delivered 30 April.

Kirby Ferguson suggests in his blog that “Everything is a Remix“. Collecting material, combining it and transforming it are the same skills or methods that are used even if it is the first, second or fifth time it is produced. When I come to think about it there are really not much originality left in new movies, songs or games that we are introduced to us today. Take for example Michael Jackson’s “Wanna be startin’ something*, have we not heard his phrase in a number of songs now? Akon, Rihanna and Glee have all used it to create either a new remix of the song or created content for a musical. This is not illegal, it is just to demonstrate that remixes are produced all the time and that not much is original anymore. What is worse is when material is produced and claimed to be original when it is not, which I have just learned that Led Zeppelin might be responsible for with a lot of their songs.

There is also the music genre; breakcore, or breakbeat hardcore, which is quite unique when it comes to copying and creativity. Breakcore tends to take use of rearranged breakbeats to create new music. The history of breakcore goes back 40 years and roots in gospel, funk, hip-hop, rave, jungle and d’n’b (Whelan 2012).

A breakbeat is a certain part of a song, often a very popular or exceptionally cool part of a song, which is taken out of its original song and used repeatedly and excessively in another. The song *Amen Brother* by Jester Hairstone (1963) has the most used drum sample in the world (Whelan 2012).

At the same time as breakcore broke out, in the late 90’s, filesharing and mp3’s also spurred and the three of them together made a cooperative team! Between 2002 and 2008 filesharing were responsible for 40-60% of all usage bandwith (Whelan 2012). This is of course a huge problem coming to copyrights. I actually find the whole music genre of breakcore a bit infringing! It is weird that there can be a whole music culture out there, producing music based on other artists music, while other people are being asked to remove their content from for example YouTube because a song is being played in the background, unintentionally. Maybe it is a matter of fair use, but I still find the rules a bit blurry and variable. Another thing I thought of, is if Kirby Furguson is right, that everything is a remix, we really ought to rethink our copyright rules.


Whelan, A 2012, Rip/Mix/Burn, lecture, BCM112, Convergent Media Practices, University of Wollongong, delivered 23 April.

Are geeks becoming chic? Or are they just experiencing their 15 minutes of fame? It seems to me that during the last years being nerdy is a style that has been adopted by not only the regular man in the street, but also by musicians, politicians, actors, TV represents and more. What I wonder is; has “nerdom” really come to stay or is it just the latest fashion?

I must admit that when I think of a nerd I picture the stereotyped geek from movies or TV shows, like this guy:

Napoleon is my ultimate geek “look-wise”, but he is not really smart enough to qualify is he (he doesn’t have any computer-hacking-skills!) But if he is not good enough, Steve Urkel is!

So are these guys chic? Are they what we all want to be? Suddenly everyone is confessing to be nerds! I agree that “nerdom” is taking a huge part of the entertainment-market these days, but I am not sure it means that it is “cool to be geeky”. Fashion is a funny phenomenon and has yet again transformed something epic into something trendy. It is not the first time this happens, not long ago we all wanted to be hippies. We all had “old” clothes, braided long hair with hair bands!

Fashion is also a lot of things, it is not only clothing! Fashion goes hand in hand with what is trending, and today technology is definitely trending! I think that this is the answer to the rise of the nerds. The rapid developments within technology have signed us all up to “nerdshipness”.

What used to be the geeks’ playground of games, comics, hardware and software has now become the world’s biggest playground of smart-phones, pads, tabs and apps! It is no longer just geeks who like to fiddle with their brand new technology, now we all spend a lot of time figuring out our last new toy; what ringtone do I want? Any cool new apps? Have I got all my facebook, twitter and social media accounts synched into my phone? Oh! I need live wallpaper!

As some things become popular, other industries tries the same coolness, it is like the snowball-effect. Seeing that everyone today are becoming technical geniuses the fashion industry follows it up and makes us look like nerds as well. Like they did with Justin Timerlake.

It is not only clothing, but also the movie industry, gaming industry, musicians, they all follow up and guides us into an era of “nerdification”.

But I would say that there is a divide between Steve Urkel and Justin Timberlake. There is a clear difference to what is geeky and what is fashionable-geeky. The fashion industry’s way of adapting to “nerdom” is by using accessories like glasses, bow-ties, and t-shirts saying “nerd”, but they cannot change the personalities of people. Even if I suddenly wear glasses, I do not change into a total geek with a PhD in technology.

I think the judgmental attitude towards geeks has eased. We do not see much of the “Can’t buy me love”-scenarios anymore where it is the popular versus the geek, but I believe that there is a gap between actual nerds and wannabe-nerds. Today the culture of “nerdom” is cool, but the ideology or assumption of a typical nerd is not.