Henry Jenkins's Blog, page 23

Aca-Fandom and Beyond: Rhianon Bury and Matt Yockey (Part Two)

Matt Yockey:

Rhiannon, I very much enjoyed reading your thoughtful post, especially since you come to this topic from a very different background than I do. You say that earlier in your academic career you identified as a feminist but also say that you don't consider yourself an acafan because you resist labels. Assuming that you still identify as a feminist, this suggests that in academia we remain very much invested in labels that carry a certain cache, diminishing the potential value of other labels.

Yes, any label will to some degree homogenize but they remain a necessary mode of understanding ourselves and engaging with the world (and certainly "feminism" as a label has had a long history of homogenizing and excluding). And this is not pick on feminism, as I identify as a feminist. I don't see this identification as allowing me a certain privileged position with women, any more than being queer-friendly allows me to fully affectively understand the experience of being queer. But both labels define who I am, both inside and outside of academia. So the label is important to me as a means of overcoming the schisms produced by the public/private divide

Love the Shatner SNL reference. I remember laughing hysterically with my Trekkie friend Mike in college when that first aired. It allowed some easy disavowal but also identification. For me, since then, I've grown increasingly invested in making meaning out of and between the things that move me, which have always been good ideas, whether they come in the form of a smart science fiction film or a really good cultural theory book.

All the various labels indicate the composite nature of my larger understanding of self, which is always in conversation with a larger public sphere. That hybridity of self is very important to acknowledge, I think, because it helps us engage with the complexities and contradictions of other individuals and the public sphere.

Rhiannon Bury:
Good on you Matt for calling me out on my own contradictory use of labels, specifically my troubling of 'acafan' just after my seemingly straightforward embrace of 'feminist'. Of course the latter has been questioned, challenged and critiqued since the early 1990s by anti-racist and postmodern and postcolonial scholars for privileging the issues and experiences of white, western, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied women. And yet while I recognize the importance of an intersectional analysis and the incommensurable differences among women, the identification of feminist' is still meaningful and necessary to me at a time when women's rights are being continuously eroded by neoliberal and globalization agendas.

I found compelling your honest discussion of academic work and affect. (I am a Buffy fan but fear not; I do not hold your dislike of the series against you!) Affect is a dirty word in the academy, with pressure continuing to be exerted on those who study popular texts and fans regardless of whether they label themselves acafans or not. I recall one (former) colleague's facial expression change from puzzlement to relief when I answered his inquiry about whether I wrote fan fiction in the negative. Yet to be a writer in an English Department is a creative pursuit that is highly valued.

If I am totally honest, I distance myself, in part, with the acafan identification because of my desire to be taken seriously not only by my direct colleagues but by the feminist scholarly community where the study of female fan communities seems rather trivial when measured up against the more "pressing" issues of violence against women or other oppressions and resistances.

Matt Yockey:

I agree that in many circles within academia, the kinds of study scholars such as you and I engage is placed at the margins, making for a oftentimes uncomfortable sense of our own value as academics. I too have sometimes felt the need to somehow gloss over what exactly it is that I study. I have taken this up as a challenge to more explicitly engage with the political capacity of fandom in my work (for example,

considering the progressive interventions made by fans via their fan object - a recent piece I did looks at fans' use of Wonder Woman as a vehicle for supporting womens' shelters and for promoting gay rights). Perhaps the old saw, 'the personal is the political' is ultimately what I'm on about here but I think the notion has real value in considering why I am affectively and professionally invested in fandom.

Rhiannon Bury:
It is interesting how we adjust our rationales depending on the discipline. With colleagues in English, it is a matter of demonstrating that we have not lost our "objectivity" and our ability to distinguish "quality" texts from "popular" texts. In feminist, Marxist and/or or queer scholarly communities we justify our work, consciously or not, by emphasizing its political relevance-- in your case the progressiveness of Wonder Woman fans and in one of mine, the heterosexism and homophobia of Six Feet Under fans.

Matt Yockey:
The essential liminality of the acafan label works for me because of this need (and desire) to exercise mobile identity formations. But those moments in which the aca and the fan more directly intersect (as at the recent conference where I presented my work on Wonder Woman) are the most affectively satisfying. I only wish I had those moments when I am engaged with a non-academic fan community. In those situations I often feel that underlying suspicion and hostility that others have commented on here. I suppose that utopia I was speaking of would be characterized strongly by a real dissolution of that wall between academics and non-academics.

Rhiannon Bury:

You draw an interesting connection between your fandom and utopian ideals. I have never thought of fan spaces in this way as a fan and/ or as a scholar. In Cyberspaces of Their Own, I conceptualized female fan spaces as potentially heterotopic. Foucault specifically states that the heterotopia is not a utopia but a space of inversion or reversal of normative spaces.

Matt Yockey:
Foucault's notion of the heterotopia works for me but really as a means of thinking about the processes of utopian desire, as opposed to utopian plans. I think that this desire is instrumental to the affect of a lot of fandom, the process of becoming someone better while acknowledging that such a project can never be completed and is suffused with contradiction. In this way I certainly see the value of considering fan spaces and fan subjectivity as, at their best, working out the meaning of and working toward a notion of the utopian. It is this which gives me a sense of home, in that it is a space that allows me the freedoms to be a fully contradictory, ever-striving person.

Rhiannon Bury:
Interesting. When I think about it, I did feel "at home" with members of the David Duchovny Estrogen Brigades who joined the listserv I set up for my first ethnographic case study. As one of the participants noted, it was like "hanging around someone's kitchen shooting the breeze." So this home was a very much a domestic, gendered space.

I would like to go back to the earlier comment you made about the parallels between academic communities and fan communities. I'd go a step further and say that scholarly communities are the ultimate fan communities, with deep emotional investments in their particular objects of study that are hidden under the veneer of objectivity. While I do not study the fan practices that surround every text that I am a fan of, it is unlikely that I would study those surrounding texts in which I have no interest or actively dislike. For instance, I think the study of reality tv is important on an intellectual level in terms of the representations and performances of race, class and gender as well as the pleasures it produces. When I was in a Communications Department, I would never dream of not including a discussion of it in a television or media class. But like you said Matt, my heart is really not in it enough to pursue anything further.

Matt Yockey:
I couldn't agree more regarding scholarly communities as fan communities. I find it difficult to understand the desire to study a text if one does not already have some degree of appreciation for it. I do think we get too hung up in academia being apologetic about actually having an emotional investment in what we study. For me it simply carries over into my affective investment in teaching and when I teach I'm not really being objective at all - I think the media texts that we study in my classes all matter because representation matters and we should care about their consequences.

Rhiannon Bury is an Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Athabasca University, Canada's Open University. Her book, Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online was published by Peter Lang in 2005. She is currently analyzing survey and interview data collected for her current research project, Television 2.0: Shifting Patterns of Audience Reception and Participatory Culture. Updates coming soon via www.twitter.com/television2pt0.

Matt Yockey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Toledo. He has published articles in Transformative Works and Cultures, The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, CineAction, and The Velvet Light Trap. His book on the Batman TV series is forthcoming from Wayne State University Press.

Aca-Fandom and Beyond: Rhianon Bury and Matt Yockey (Part One)

Rhiannon Bury:

It has been a bit of a challenge putting together this "provocation" in the final weeks of the Acafan and Beyond debate. I hope I have succeeded in responding to the original set of questions without covering too much of the same ground as earlier posts. Let me start by saying that I really am an accidental fan studies scholar. As late as 1995, when I was doing my PhD in Education with a focus on Cultural Studies, I was still heavily invested in the high/low culture binary. I whole heartedly agreed with William Shatner's "get a life" cri de coeur to fans. I identified strongly as a feminist so my "discovery" of the three David Duchovny Estrogen Brigades (DDEBs) while surfing the web for X-Files information and subsequent engagement with some of the members forced me to interrogate and reevaluate my elitist attitudes. Sixteen years later and an academic career made possible by the kindness and generosity of participatory fans, I do not consider myself an acafan or even a fan-scholar (overlapping but not interchangeable terms).

My reservation is in part a discontent with labels and their effects. As others have already remarked, they serve to homogenize the heterogenous, to constrain and erase difference and to draw boundaries that mark out who is an insider and who is an outsider. To be fair, "acafan" gestures openly to its hybridity and instability as a category but as the discussion over the weeks has made clear, it has historical linkages to a particular set of fan practices that involves the production of secondary texts such as fanfic or vids. Despite fannish interests in a number of primary texts and a number of professional and personal relationships with fanfic writers and vidders, my highest level of non-academic participatory engagement has been reading and posting a few comments on Television Without Pity for Battlestar Galactica (reimagined) and Dexter. As much as I like the idea of making a vid, I just don't have the creative commitment to follow through.

Drawing on queer studies and activist discourses while recognizing the dangers in doing so, I am mulling over another term that might be a better fit for me and perhaps others: fan-ally and, by extension, an acafan-ally. As previous contributions to the debate have indicated, being an acafan may be a fraught, complicated, even contradictory identification but its legibility and legitimacy must ultimately be determined by those who articulate it. I suspect a good number of those who identify as acafans are also on the margins of academia-- as women, as students, and/or as contingent, independent or untenured scholars. "Objective" criticisms and dismissals from those who do not identify as acafans but hold positions of authority can have a silencing effect, even if unintentional.

The other issue I wish to touch on is the issue of self-defined acafans "sitting too close" (Jenkins, 1993). I agree to a point with Nancy Baym's statement that the inability of acafans to distance themselves critically "is a failure of their academic training, not of their being fans." Part of this "failure" may be attributable to graduate degrees in the humanites not the social sciences. I had an MA in CompLit and was fortunate to have had a linguistic anthropologist on my thesis committee in addition to taking a qualitative methods course as part of my doctoral coursework.

Working out of a critical paradigm, I strongly believe that the location of the researcher, not just training, affects knowledge production. Being an insider both enables and disables certain forms of knowledge production. The same is true for the outsider. Researchers who put themselves in the frame of the research are not being subjective; they are being responsible knowledge producers.

Matt Yockey:

Responding to these provocations has proven much more challenging than I originally anticipated, perhaps in large part because it requires the kind of candor and reflexivity I've tried to dodge in my own work on texts of which I am a fan. The problem for me is my own struggle with identifying as a fan, as if this some sort of monolithic construct. For similar reasons I've often resisted the label of academic. The acafan label limits my identity as an academic (I do more than study texts of which I would consider myself a fan) and as a fan (I don't perform academic analyses of many objects of my fandom, such as the Red Sox, Robyn Hitchcock, or The Rockford Files). Curiously, however, the designation acafan has both emphasized my ambivalence regarding such labels and reconciled some of the problems I've had with them.

I don't explicitly identify as an acafan but the term is important to my sense of self; I keep it as a reminder of my own (perceived) liminality. Yet it also allows me access to certain communities when I choose to, or need to, use it for such a purpose. This was brought home to me by a recent trip to Australia. My trip was purely academic in purpose: I researched a comic book archive at the National Library and presented a paper on Wonder Woman fandom at a conference on the female superhero at a university in Melbourne. In the first instance I found a perfect commingling of my academic and fan selves, as I not only found valuable research information but quickly bonded as a fan with some of the staff members who enthusiastically brought out box after box of comic books and volunteered their own fannish interests to me.

I found a similar rapport at times with my fellow attendees of the conference, where the term "acafan" was never spoken but was certainly realized on every panel about Xena, Buffy, the Powerpuff Girls, etc. As with any conference, I found that my level of engagement with the presentations waxed and waned according to whether the paper was intellectually engaging and/or the topic was of general interest to me. For example, when panelists presented papers on Buffy, I listened attentively (and even took notes and asked questions), but my heart wasn't really in it because I actively dislike that show (and by admitting this, I know I've now alienated 75% of the academics reading this).

The trip confirmed for me why I am both an academic and a fan: because in academia and fandom I can engage with a community that confirms my own sense of self and legitimates my own utopian desires. I suppose the academic side of equation simply intellectualizes the affective fan side of it, for I'm compelled to turn to theorists to explain myself. Cornel Sandvoss, in particular, comes to mind when he writes in Fans: The Mirror of Consumption: "Fandom best compares to the emotional significance of the places we have grown to call 'home', to the form of physical, emotional and ideological space that is best described as Heimat" (64).

Sandvoss argues that the fan sense of Heimat as fluid is different from the traditional understanding of home as a stable signifier. I would argue that what attracts me to academia is its potential (much less often realized than in fandom) to confirm a sense of Heimat through an individual, affective response to a text (in the case of the academic, an object of study and/or the theory applied to an analysis of such an object).

I say less often realized because in the "acafan" equation, the academic side is the one that I most frequently find wanting. Academia is as suffused with its own coded jargon, internal hierarchies, and privileged texts as the most pathologized fan community. In fact, I use my fandom to more comfortably take on the role of academic. And I am an acafan because I believe that, at its best, my affiliation with an academic community offers as much potential for utopian transcendence as the fan communities with which I identify.

The (ideally) perpetual intellectual pursuits of academia mirror the ongoing, transformative engagements fans make with texts. Both are motivated (at least for me) by the utopian pursuit of Heimat, an affirmation of my identity through a group affiliation. And Heimat is mobile because I am always searching for the utopian ideal away from home and only by separating myself from home can I then re-imagine home as potentially utopian. It's my own fort/da game with self located within the fluid structures of academia and fandom. The term acafan has allowed me to bridge the gaps produced within this dynamic and be more comfortable in my own skin(s).

Rhiannon Bury is an Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Athabasca University, Canada's Open University. Her book, Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online was published by Peter Lang in 2005. She is currently analyzing survey and interview data collected for her current research project, Television 2.0: Shifting Patterns of Audience Reception and Participatory Culture. Updates coming soon via www.twitter.com/television2pt0.

Matt Yockey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Toledo. He has published articles in Transformative Works and Cultures, The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, CineAction, and The Velvet Light Trap. His book on the Batman TV series is forthcoming from Wayne State University Press.

How Can We Understand Code as a "Critical Artifact"?: USC's Mark Marino on Critical Code Studies (Part Two)


What do you see as the relationship between critical code studies and platform studies as approaches to understanding digital artifacts?

These approaches are tightly intertwined. On the one hand, you can talk about code independent of platform. That happens in computer science classes all the time. However, if you take the example of a forthcoming book project, you will see how platform plays a key role or rather how the code can point to an understanding of the platform. Over the past year, I have been working on a book under contract with MIT to analyze a single line of code, 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 1. This line of code generates an image that resembles a maze. I should say, rather, that the code generates this image when executed on a Commodore 64 because in addition to using BASIC, which came installed on C64s, it also uses a custom set of ASCII code called PETSCII, which included two characters (2 diagonal lines), to create this image. Our exploration of this code, then, has led us to discuss the platform and its context. So to talk about the code is not to exclude a discussion of the platform, hardware, or larger systems, but rather to use the code as the central axis.



Currently, the various approaches to digital objects are associated with specific critics, projects, and publishing series. As a result, "Software Studies" and "Platform Studies" will be defined by the kinds of things these critics publish, the kinds of readings they perform, and their own theoretical predilections. Comparing these first readings could skew the way the approaches are perceived. Taking the long view, I believe these terms will eventually become abstracted from the readings of those particular critics and will become part of rich assemblages of approaches to digital objects that look at the software, at the platform, at the hardware, and, of course, at the code.


What has been the response of programmers to the kinds of work you are doing?

Many of the people who do CCS readings are programmers, so I would say on the whole it has been very positive. You know, there are a lot of misconceptions about what humanities people do, particularly regarding interpretation. When I first began suggesting this idea to professional programmers some voiced skepticism because they thought I was advocating treating their code like poetry. They doubted such a study would yield very much. Once I explained that I was interested in, for example, why programmers chose one programming paradigm over another, their process of writing the code, or even why they were laughing when I would show them some code written by someone else, what was the joke - they started to get more of a sense of what I was after. Once we reach that understanding, they typically offer their own critical observations, reflections they've formulated but haven't had an opportunity to discuss.


You've written, "The distance between the Haiku and the can of Coca Cola as texts marks the shift between the study of artistry and the broader study of signification." So, what does it mean to study code as a kind of "signification"?

Code is a medium of communication, and like other communication substrates, its meaning is not restricted to what its author intended. The way someone writes a line of code, the language they choose, the programming architecture and paradigm, the code they borrow, the libraries they use - all these factors produce meaning in code. That is when code is taken as a sign system with its own material conditions.

At the 2011 CCS Symposium, UCLA Computer Science professor Todd Millstein explained that computer scientists already see code as an aspect of a program that is meant primarily for human readers. It is not, then, heresy to say that code is written for other people to read. By extension, once it is circulated, its meaning expands and changes depending on who is doing the readings. Jeremy Douglass gave a terrific demonstration of this in the second week of the Critical Code Studies Working Group (http://www.electronicbookreview.com/t...), when he showed how two opposing sides of the Climate debate used the source code associated with Climategate to support conflicting points of view.

Code is a semiotic medium. It has rhetoric, style, art. It is a sign of a process and is in-process in terms of its own development. It circulates within discourse realms. It also bears marks of its authorship, signs of communal affiliation, remnants of its history, and notes and stubs for future development. Code has a special relation to the computational system in which it circulates. To make a legitimate utterance with code, one must comply with and conform to many restrictions that do not exist in, say, spoken language. Moreover, code is typically part of a chain of command, a layer of information represented in a form more easy for humans to read than machine language and binary (though my electrical engineering wife does tell binary jokes). Yet, as Wendy Chun has observed, source code is not the same as the executed code.

To explore the significance of code, though, as you suggested, is not merely to look at what it says but to delve deeply into what it does and how it does it. While the signs themselves can produce meaning, for example in their relationship to natural language constructs (Print, function, if, then, void) as well as in comments and variable names, by constituting the algorithms of the program, the code also represents the logic of the program. Here too lies significance in a way analogous to but not exactly like other sign systems. Discovering the particularities of how code signifies is one of the chief challenges of CCS.

What kinds of work do you see your center contributing to the growth of Critical Code Studies?

The HaCCS Lab has two chief goals: to develop and promote the methodologies of Critical Code Studies and to foster dialogue between computer science and humanities scholars. This summer we hosted our first conference and have several events planned for the coming academic year geared toward bringing a diverse array of scholars together. Also, in the Spring, we plan to host another online forum, the third in three years. More importantly, the lab will serve as a hub for scholars interested in working on CCS, a source for news on the latest publications, and perhaps even a venue for provocations in the current debates surrounding code. We are currently investigating publication venues and are examining opportunities to create new courses and to offer workshops for those interested in joining our broader research community.

Mark Marino is the Director of the newly launched Humanities and Critical Code Studies (HaCCS) Lab at USC, named for a field he initiated in 2006. He is the Director of Communication for the Electronic Literature Organization (http://eliterature.org), as well as a writer and critic of experimental interactive forms, including "a show of hands" (http://hands.literatronica.net) and the LA Flood Project. He blogs at Writer Response Theory and is Editor of Bunk Magazine, an online humor zine. He currently teaches for the Writing Program at USC. He is currently working on two collaborative book projects using CCS methodologies. His portfolio can be found here.

How Can We Understand Code as a "Critical Artifact"?: USC's Mark Marino on Critical Code Studies (Part One)

The Humanities and Critical Code Studies (HaCCS) Lab opened this summer at the University of Southern California with the specific goal of developing the field and fostering discussion between the Humanities and Computer Science. Current members include USC faculty and students and a host of affiliated scholars from other institutions, including and international advisory board. The HaCCS Lab sponsored its first conference this summer and will be sponsoring other get togethers both on campus and online. Central to its mission is to develop common vocabularies, methodologies, and case-studies of CCS, while promoting publications in the field.

Mark Marino, who teaches in the USC Writing Program, is the Director of the new center. He was nice enough to agree to an interview during which he explains what he means by Critical Code Studies, how it relates to other humanistic approaches to studying digital culture, and what he thinks it contributes to our understanding of Code as a cultural practice and as a critical artifact.


What do you mean by critical code studies?

 

The working definition for Critical Code Studies (CCS) is "the application of humanities style hermeneutics to the interpretation of computer source code."  However, lately, I have found it more useful to explain the field to people as the analysis of technoculture (culture as imbricated with technology) through the entry point of the source code of a particular digital object. The code is not the ends of the analyses, but the beginning.

Critical Code Studies finds code meaningful not as text but "as a text," an artifact of a digital moment, full of hooks for discussing digital culture and programming communities. I should note that Critical Code Studies also looks at code separated from functioning software as in the case of some codework poetry, such as Mez's work or Zach Blas' trasnCoder anti-programming language. To that extent, Critical Code Studies is also interested in the culture of code, the art of code, and code in culture more broadly.

At this nascent stage, I also find it useful to point out the plurality and variability of the methodologies that have been already used to analyze code whether in the Critical Code Studies Working Group, at our two conferences, in the HASTAC Scholars Forum, at MLA, and elsewhere. These preliminary readings demonstrate that Critical Code Studies is not an approach but a wide range of approaches that use code as a starting point for a larger discussion. Scholars seem eager to talk about code and are experimenting with ways to unpack it.

Critical Code Studies answers a call from N. Katherine Hayles and others for media specific analysis by taking up for analysis an aspect of digital objects that is unique to the computational realm. Back in 2005 and 2006 when I first began talking to people about code, there weren't many examples of critics, working then under the title "new media," who discussed code, which struck me as unusual since it's such a rich semiotic realm. There just weren't enough critical readings that demonstrated for how to talk about that component of the work. At the time, I was working on my dissertation and was trying to produce readings of conversation agents, or chatbots. That led me to write that initial essay in electronic book review.

For my work, the "critical" component is also crucial because it evokes "critical theory." I don't want to limit the types of theory or philosophy that can be applied to code, but I do want to push for critiques that challenge, that remain sensitive to the socio-historic contexts of the code, the institutional investments, the ideologies and ontologies of code. Code is already studied in the contexts of computer science, while the humanities have something unique to offer in the form of critical analysis and explication or, if you will, exegesis.


Your published definition of the field stresses the "extra-functional significance" of code. Why separate out meaning from effect? Why not study the relationship between significance and function?

 

The "extra" in "extra-functional" does not mean "outside of" or "beyond" but rather "growing out from."  Function is certainly an important component of the way code signifies, but it is important to distinguish CCS from the study of code that concentrates primarily on function.  Perhaps more important to this moment of CCS is to discuss the difference between an interpretive approach that seeks implications and meaning rather than a utilitarian approach that is primarily concerned with making code function. Again, while I agree with you that the two aspects are inseparable, the search for meaning goes beyond denotation into the connotations, resonance, implication, evocation, et cetera.

 
How much technical skill and knowledge is required to look at code critically?  Is this a potential space for collaboration between the humanities and the technical fields?

It is the contention of CCS and the newly formed Humanities and Critical Code Studies lab that everyone should have at least some literacy in how code works, whether at a base-level understanding of algorithms, some basic knowledge of programming principals, and/or a basic ability to parse code in whatever language.  That said, the HaCCS lab is working to foster dialogue and collaboration between the Humanities and Computer Science scholars because more engaged critical readings come from the fullest understanding of the culture out of which that code emanates.  Without that dialogue, CCS could become a kind of imperialist project, subject to the same kinds of over-writing, misinterpretation, and misreading that such relationships engender.

In my own readings, I tend to engage in lengthy discussions with programmers, including the authors of the code, so that I can get a more nuanced understanding of how they perceive the code. Again, part of what I'm after are the layers of meaning that code has as it circulates through different discourse communities in different contexts. I look forward to courses in Critical Code Studies co-taught by Humanities and Computer Science faculty to students from across the university looking at code together using the lenses from all their disciplines.

At the same time, CCS tends to attract the programmer-scholar, the hacker-theorist, critics who build things. Being versant in both programming and critical theory helps these critics to apply the theoretical approaches without doing violence or overwriting the ways in which coding conventions are understood within programming circles.

 

Is the goal to develop an "aesthetics" of "good code"? Is critical code studies a kind of formalism?

 

No, Critical Code Studies is not primarily focused on "good code," although the discussions of the aesthetics of code or Don Knuth's formulation of  "beautiful code" offer an opening for a conversation that will be familiar to Humanities scholars, namely who defines the aesthetics of beautiful code, why have they chosen this criteria, and what alternatives have been surpassed.  Such discussions often turn to programming anomalies such as the obfuscated code contests. Nonetheless, the discussion of aesthetics makes a fundamental notion of CCS clear: code is not a pure, inevitable formulation.  As Knuth said in his Turing Award lecture, programming is an art. 

 

As to the second question, Critical Code Studies is not formalist, but instead requires a deeply contextualized reading.  On one of the earliest pages we published on CriticalCodeStudies.com, you will find a list of ways to read code that includes reading code against the factors of its creation, it funding source, its composer's work, its implementation and circulation in cultural as well as material contexts such as the platforms on which it operated, and the other code with which it interacts.    Critical Code Studies focuses on examining the code in its historical moment to better understand the culture out of which it developed. 

Bio:

Mark Marino is the Director of the newly launched Humanities and Critical Code Studies (HaCCS) Lab at USC, named for a field he initiated in 2006. He is the Director of Communication for the Electronic Literature Organization (http://eliterature.org), as well as a writer and critic of experimental interactive forms, including "a show of hands" (http://hands.literatronica.net) and the LA Flood Project. He blogs at Writer Response Theory and is Editor of Bunk Magazine, an online humor zine. He currently teaches for the Writing Program at USC. He is currently working on two collaborative book projects using CCS methodologies. His portfolio can be found here.

Announcing Futures of Entertainment 5 Conference

Registration Open for Futures of Entertainment 5

By Sam Ford

We're excited to announce that registration has officially opened for our fifth Futures of Entertainment conference, which will begin on 11/11/11. The conference--which will run Nov. 11-12--will be held at the Kirsch Auditorium on the first floor of the Frank Gehry-designed Ray and Maria Stata Center on the campus of MIT in Cambridge, MA.

Full details on the line-up as it stands is below. Registration is available here. Please keep in mind that seats are limited, so--if you plan to attend--register soon.

The Futures of Entertainment conference brings together professionals from academia and the marketing and media industries to discuss how communication between media producers/brands and audiences are changing, and how the nature of storytelling is shifting in a digital era.

On Friday, we will tackle some of the pressing questions and new innovations on the media horizon: new models of media creation and distribution--and challenges/questions related to participation--in a "spreadable media" landscape; new models aimed at representing fan interests in media production; innovations in crowdsourcing for content creation, funding, and distribution; the impact of location-based technologies and services; and privacy concerns raised by these developments. On Saturday, we will look at particular media industries to how these innovations are evolving: serialized storytelling; children's media; nonfiction storytelling; and music.

The conference will run from 8:30 a.m. until 6:45 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with a reception scheduled for Friday evening.

On Thursday evening, Nov. 10th, from 5-7, MIT will be hosting an "eve of FoE" Communications Forum event on "The Cities of the Futures of Entertainment."

Cities and the Futures of Entertainment. Today, new entertainment production cultures are arising around key cities like Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro. What do these changes mean for the international flow of media content? And how does the nature of these cities help shape the entertainment industries they are fostering? At the same time, new means of media production and circulation allow people to produce content from suburban or rural areas. How do these trends co-exist? And what does it mean for the futures of entertainment?

Moderator: Maurício Mota (The Alchemists)

Panelists: Parmesh Shahani (Godrej Industries, India)

Ernie Wilson (University of Southern California)

Eduardo Paes (Mayor of Rio de Janeiro)

FRIDAY:

Introduction:



William Uricchio (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Ilya Vedrashko (Hill Holliday)

Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Society. How are the shifting relations between media producers and their audiences transforming the concept of meaningful participation? And how do alternative systems for the circulation of media texts pave the way for new production modes, alternative genres of content, and new relationships between producers and audiences? Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green--co-authors of the forthcoming book Spreadable Media--share recent experiments from independent filmmakers, video game designers, comic book creators, and artists and discuss the promises and challenges of models for deeper audience participation with the media industries, setting the stage for the issues covered by the conference.

Speakers:



Henry Jenkins (University of Southern California)

Sam Ford (Peppercom Strategic Communications)

Joshua Green (Undercurrent)

Collaboration? Emerging Models for Audiences to Participate in Entertainment Decision-Making. In an era where fans are lobbying advertisers to keep their favorite shows from being cancelled, advertisers are shunning networks to protest on the fans' behalf and content creators are launching web ventures in conversation with their audiences, there appears to be more opportunity than ever for closer collaboration between content creators and their most ardent fans. What models are being attempted as a way forward, and what can we learn from them? And what challenges exist in pursuing that participation for fans and for creators alike?

Moderator: Sheila Seles (Advertising Research Foundation)
Panelists: C. Lee Harrington (Miami University)
Seung Bak (Dramafever)
Jamin Warren (Kill Screen)


Creating with the Crowd: Crowdsourcing for Funding, Producing and Circulating Media Content. Beyond the buzzword and gimmicks using the concept, crowdsourcing is emerging as a new way in which creators are funding media production, inviting audiences into the creation process and exploring new and innovative means of circulating media content. What are some of the innovative projects forging new paths forward, and what can be learned from them? How are attempts at crowdsourcing creating richer media content and greater ownership for fans? And what are the barriers and risks ahead for making these models more prevalent?

Moderator: Ana Domb (Almabrands, Chile)
Panelists: Mirko Schafer (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
Bruno Natal (Queremos, Brazil)
Timo Vuorensola (Wreckamovie, Finland)
Caitlin Boyle (Film Sprout)

Here We Are Now (Entertain Us): Location, Mobile, and How Data Tells Stories. Location-based services and context-aware technologies are altering the way we encounter our environments and producing enormous volumes of data about where we go, what we do, and how we live and interact. How are these changes transforming the ways we engage with our physical world, and with each other? What kind of stories does the data produce, and what do they tell us about our culture and social behaviors? What opportunities and perils does this information have for businesses and individuals? What are the implications for brands, audiences, content producers, and media companies?





Moderator: Xiaochang Li (New York University)

Panelists: Germaine Halegoua (University of Kansas)

(other two panelists still being confirmed)





At What Cost?: The Privacy Issues that Must Be Considered in a Digital World. The vast range of new experiments to facilitated greater audience participation and more personalized media content bring are often accomplished through much deeper uses of audience data and platforms whose business models are built on the collection and use of data. What privacy issues must be considered beneath the enthusiasm for these new innovations? What are the fault lines beneath the surface of digital entertainment and marketing, and what is the appropriate balance between new modes of communication and communication privacy?

Participants: Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard University)
Helen Nissenbaum (New York University)

Saturday:

Introduction:



Grant McCracken (author of Chief Culture Officer; Culturematic)

The Futures of Serialized Storytelling. New means of digital circulation, audience engagement and fan activism have brought with it a variety of experiments with serialized video storytelling. What can we learn from some of the most compelling emerging ways to tell ongoing stories through online video, cross-platform features and applications and real world engagement? What models for content creation are emerging, and what are the stakes for content creators and audiences alike?



Moderator: Laurie Baird (Georgia Tech)

Panelists: Matt Locke (Storythings, UK)

Steve Coulson (Campfire)

Lynn Liccardo (soap opera critic)

Denise Mann (University of California-Los Angeles)

The Futures of Children's Media. Children's media has long been an innovator in creating new ways of storytelling. In a digital era, what emerging practices are changing the ways in which stories are being told to children, and what are the challenges unique to children's properties in an online communication environment?

Moderator: Sarah Banet-Weiser (University of Southern California)
Panelists: Melissa Anneli (The Leaky Cauldron)
Michael Levine (Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Sesame Workshop)
(third panelist still being confirmed)

The Futures of Nonfiction Storytelling. Digital communication has arguably impacted the lives of journalists more than any other media practitioner. But new platforms and ways of circulating content are providing vast new opportunities for journalists and documentarians. How have--and might--nonfiction storytellers incorporate many of the emerging strategies of transmedia storytelling and audience participation from marketing and entertainment, and what experiments are currently underway that are showing the potential paths forward?

Moderator: Ellen McGirt (Fast Company)
Panelists: Molly Bingham (photojournalist; founder of ORB)
Chris O'Brien (San Jose Mercury News)
Patricia Zimmermann (Ithaca College)
Lenny Altschuler (Televisa)


The Futures of Music. The music industry is often cited as the horror story that all other entertainment genres might learn from: how the digital era has laid waste to a traditional business model. But what new models for musicians and for the music industry exist in the wake of this paradigm shift, and what can other media industries learn from emerging models of content creation and circulation?

Moderator: Nancy Baym (Kansas University)
Panelists: Mike King (Berklee College of Music)
João Brasil (Brazilian artist)
Chuck Fromm (Worship Leader Media)
Erin McKeown (musical artist and fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Univeristy)
Brian Whitman (The Echo Nest)

On Skepticism, News Literacy, and Transparency: An Interview with Dan Gillmor (Part Two)

Some have argued that the criteria for evaluating news has shifted from

impartiality to transparency. How would you rank mainstream news and citizen

media in terms of their embrace of transparency as a civic virtue?

An effort to be impartial - or "objective," to use the word most journalists revere - is not a bad thing. The problem is that it's impossible to achieve in the real world. We all come to our jobs with life histories, world views, and sometimes outright biases.

That said, transparency is a definite virtue. It's one of several principles - though not enough by itself - that information providers of all kinds should embrace. Add transparency to thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and independent thinking, and we're getting somewhere.

I would rank traditional media organizations low on the transparency scale. They're still among the most opaque institutions around. But there are glimmers of openness, here and there, that give me some hope that journalists are beginning to understand why they need to do this. Bloggers and others we might put in the "citizen journalism" sphere vary in their openness, too, though I'd say bloggers tend to be somewhat more transparent than professional journalists.

It's about trust in the end. For people who are honorable in the way they work, transparency inspires greater trust.

What role should the news media itself play in fostering basic civic skills,

including those of critical reading and thinking? For example, how should

the news media be responding to persistent rumors about Obama, such as those

promoted by so-called Birthers? Is this a "teachable moment," as one would

say in the Education Schools, and if so, how should teaching taking place

via the news media?

I wish the news media had made this a core mission a long time ago. They didn't, and still haven't. That's a real shame; it would have helped not just their audiences but themselves - because audiences would have gotten a better idea what it takes to do quality journalism and had more respect for it.

If I ran a news organization and learned that a sizeable percentage of people in my community believed something that was false - birtherism, for example - I would make it part of my mission to help them learn the truth. That sounds easier than it would be, because people who believe lies are invested in those beliefs, but teachable moments abound in today's world.

You also advocate in the book that in an era where many of us are playing

more active roles as citizen journalists, that the status of journalism

classes in colleges and universities shifts from training professionals to

training all citizens. Should journalism now be a required subject as part

of a newly configured liberal arts education?

The principles and skills of journalism map extremely well to every other endeavor, when you think about it. They're part of being an engaged citizen in a variety of ways.

So, yes, I would make some kind of 21st Century media literacy - call it journalism or whatever - a part of the core curriculum. At several schools, "news literacy" is becoming a required course, though in the ones I've seen the emphasis (for practical reasons) is on consumption of news. The emphasis should be on critical thinking as consumers , but we are not literate unless we are also creators.

Many argue that the key difference between citizen and professional

journalism is the role of fact checking. Yet, your book describes many

different mechanisms on the grassroots level which are designed to check

facts and otherwise insure the integrity of information, while, for many

reasons, the place of fact checking in professional journalism is declining.

So, how long can we frame this as a meaningful distinction? And if this is

not the best way to think of the differences between amateur and

professional journalism, what would be productive ways of understanding

their relationship?

I don't agree that the key difference between citizen and pro journalism is fact-checking. It can be a difference, but as you note, sloppiness is growing in traditional media and lots of bloggers are doing work that I trust a great deal.

The real issue is that we all have to take more responsibility for what we know, and what we say. Certainly we have to trust some sources more than others, but we have to be skeptical in varying degrees of everything, and the more important something is to us the more we need to look deeper. I don't buy a car based on an advertisement, and if I see a story about some alleged medical breakthrough - especially if I am personally a candidate for that treatment - I'll check further.

I'm trying to blur the distinctions between "pro" and "amateur" in the information world rather than highlight them, by improving the practices of both and encouraging audiences to take more responsibility.

Your book maintains a healthy faith that the current shifts in journalism

are going to not only maintain but expand diversity. As you know, many would

disagree with this claim, suggesting that core news organizations are

eroding amidst waves of consolidation of ownership and that this is going to

result in a much narrower range of information and opinion. What would you

say to those critics and skeptics of the current news ecosystem?

There's no question that traditional journalism is in trouble as a business, and that some parts - vital parts - of what these organizations have done will go missing for a time. Consolidation of the traditional media into an ever-smaller number of corporate hands is also a reality.

At the same time, there's never been more quality information about all kinds of things in some profitable niches, such as politics, technology, fashion, sports and a host of other things. Meanwhile, in a host of unprofitable (as media companies) niches, domain experts are telling us what matters. And new techniques for providing information, using APIs and databases among other tools, are leading to an explosion of social news gathering and dissemination.

We're also starting to see some genuine innovation in business models, That's key to what needs to happen.

Are we where we need to be? Not even close. But I have to stress that we're very early in this transition. If it's a baseball game we're in the bottom of the second inning or top of the third.

What practices might emerge around citizen journalism which would increase

its accuracy and reliability?

The main one would be a recognition on the part of the information provider that it's better to be trusted than distrusted - and that following some basic principles (the ones outlines above) are the road map to be trusted.

I stress principles because they don't change much, if at all. The rest is simply tactics, which do change, but if tactics have principles as a foundation, we'll be fine.

Dan Gillmor is founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. The project aims to help students understand the startup culture, and ultimately to help them invent their own jobs.

Dan's latest book, Mediactive, aims to encourage a better media supply in part by creating better demand -- to spur people to become active media users, as consumers and participants. His last book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People was the first to explain the rise of citizen media and why it matters. Dan also writes an online column for the Guardian and blogs regularly at Mediactive.com.

Dan has been a co-founder, investor and advisor in a number of media ventures in the for-profit and non-profit worlds. From 1994 until early 2005 he was a columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper, and wrote a weblog for SiliconValley.com. He joined the Mercury News after six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, he was with the Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont.

More about Dan at http://dangillmor.com/about

On Skepticism, News Literacy, and Transparency: An Interview with Dan Gillmor (Part One)

"We're in an age of information overload, and too much of what we watch, hear and read is mistaken, deceitful and dangerous. Yet you and I can take control and make media serve us -- all of us -- by being active consumers and participants."

This language appears at the top of the website Dan Gillmor, long time advocate for citizen journalism, has constructed around his most recent project, Mediactive, and beautifully captures his particular contribution to the media literacy movement. Gillmor's approach acknowledges the challenges and opportunities the new media landscape presents us in a way which is at once pragmatic and empowering. He certainly knows the risks to democracy posed by waves of misinformation and disinformation being spread across an array of media channels and the challenges of a context where we do not always know who created the media we are consuming. He also recognizes the value of expanding who has access to the channels of communication and thus the democratization which occurs when a broader range of citizens are producing and sharing media with each other. What he demands is that we each take ownership over the information we consume and share with each other, and taking ownership for him starts with skepticism.

Gillmor's book provides a solid foundation for anyone wanting to work with young people or adults about news literacy, one which is as invested in new forms of civic media and citizen journalism as it is concerned about the future of professional news. In this interview, we get a glimpse into Gillmor's current thinking about what it means to be a discerning citizen in the digital age and what the obligations of journalists are to help foster core civic skills and competencies.

Your new book, Mediactive, seeks to encourage "skepticism" about news and information. What do you see as the core virtues of skepticism and how does it differ from cynicism, which some would argue is wide spread in the

current context?

Skepticism is an essential part of being well-informed. It starts us off in the right place: assuming nothing but learning to trust some sources of information more than others.

Skepticism differs from cynicism in one key way: A cynic has essentially given up any hope that an information provider can do a good enough job to ever earn trust. A skeptic recognizes that there will be flaws, but also believes that trust can be earned.

Throughout the book, you use the concept of a media or news "ecosystem." Can

you explain this concept and suggest ways that the ecosystem we inhabit

today is different from the one which other generations confronted?

Let's look at agriculture as an analogy for a second. American factory farming is an ecosystem, but highly non-diverse - nearly a "monoculture" in many crops where a single variety overwhelmingly dominates the market.

The news ecosystem has been something of a monoculture in recent years, at least in the newspaper business in most U.S. communities that support daily papers, where typically there's a single surviving one. Broadcast is close to that - just a few entities with government-granted airwaves that no one else can use.

We've come to understand the danger of monocultures. They're inherently unstable, because when they fail they do so with catastrophic results. (Remember Wall Street in 2008.)

A diverse ecosystem, by contrast, isn't as threatened by individual failures, because the parts of the ecosystem are less dominant. If the dominant food variety fails, we can end up with a serious food shortage, or worse. If a few big banks can kill the global economy when they fail, similar forces are at work.

In a diverse and vibrant agricultural system or capitalist economy, the failure of a specific crop varietal or business is tragic mostly for the farmers who planted it or that business. It doesn't cause a wider catastrophe.

That's the kind of news/information ecosystem we need, and which is coming. It's why I'm optimistic.

You have historically been a key advocate of citizen journalism, but here,

you are also offering some important cautions, calling for citizens (as

readers and news producers) to take greater responsibility over the

information they are exchanging. Is this a shift in position or a shift in

emphasis?

It's much more a shift of emphasis. I was cautious about quality in my last book, which some folks misconstrued as an uncritical celebration of citizen media. I continue to celebrate the fact that so many more people are creating media, but while the quantity is surging, it would be crazy to declare victory when it comes to quality.

In the book, you advocate what you call "slow news." Can you explain this

concept and why you think the speed of current journalism is partially to

blame for the circulation and perpetuation of myths, rumors, and other

inadequacies?

I've been a fan of the "slow food" movement for some time (even if I don't adhere as well as I should to its ideas). Slow news, a term that was coined in this context by Ethan Zuckerman, is the notion that we should not hurry to assume we know what's actually happening, certainly not when we're getting news at the rapid pace we hear and see it today.

When you combine the amount of information pouring over us with its high velocity, the need to take things a little more slowly - as information providers but especially as info consumers - becomes obvious. And it's not just random blog posts and tweets that can lead us astray.

We need only look to last January's horrific shootings in Tuscon, Arizona, for evidence. NPR and a number of other news outlets (most relying on NPR as a source) reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died in the supermarket parking lot. She had not died, as we learned fairly quickly.

My own approach is to force myself to consider how sensational a report is along with how soon it comes after the alleged event. And the closer it is to the event, the more I put it in a category of "interesting if true" - with emphasis on "if".

I recognize that this goes against human nature to some degree. But if we can persuade ourselves to keep in the back of our minds that sliver of skepticism, we'll be fooled less, at a time when the consequences of being fooled are growing.

Dan Gillmor is founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. The project aims to help students understand the startup culture, and ultimately to help them invent their own jobs.

Dan's latest book, Mediactive, aims to encourage a better media supply in part by creating better demand -- to spur people to become active media users, as consumers and participants. His last book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People was the first to explain the rise of citizen media and why it matters. Dan also writes an online column for the Guardian and blogs regularly at Mediactive.com.

Dan has been a co-founder, investor and advisor in a number of media ventures in the for-profit and non-profit worlds. From 1994 until early 2005 he was a columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper, and wrote a weblog for SiliconValley.com. He joined the Mercury News after six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, he was with the Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont.

More about Dan at http://dangillmor.com/about

On Skepticism, News Literacy, and Transparency: An Interview with Dan Gilmor (Part One)

"We're in an age of information overload, and too much of what we watch, hear and read is mistaken, deceitful and dangerous. Yet you and I can take control and make media serve us -- all of us -- by being active consumers and participants."

This language appears at the top of the website Dan Gilmor, long time advocate for citizen journalism, has constructed around his most recent project, MediaActive, and beautifully captures his particular contribution to the media literacy movement. Gilmor's approach acknowledges the challenges and opportunities the new media landscape presents us in a way which is at once pragmatic and empowering. He certainly knows the risks to democracy posed by waves of misinformation and disinformation being spread across an array of media channels and the challenges of a context where we do not always know who created the media we are consuming. He also recognizes the value of expanding who has access to the channels of communication and thus the democratization which occurs when a broader range of citizens are producing and sharing media with each other. What he demands is that we each take ownership over the information we consume and share with each other, and taking ownership for him starts with skepticism.

Gilmor's book provides a solid foundation for anyone wanting to work with young people or adults about news literacy, one which is as invested in new forms of civic media and citizen journalism as it is concerned about the future of professional news. In this interview, we get a glimpse into Gilmor's current thinking about what it means to be a discerning citizen in the digital age and what the obligations of journalists are to help foster core civic skills and competencies.

Your new book, Media Active, seeks to encourage "skepticism" about news and information. What do you see as the core virtues of skepticism and how does it differ from cynicism, which some would argue is wide spread in the

current context?

Skepticism is an essential part of being well-informed. It starts us off in the right place: assuming nothing but learning to trust some sources of information more than others.

Skepticism differs from cynicism in one key way: A cynic has essentially given up any hope that an information provider can do a good enough job to ever earn trust. A skeptic recognizes that there will be flaws, but also believes that trust can be earned.

Throughout the book, you use the concept of a media or news "ecosystem." Can

you explain this concept and suggest ways that the ecosystem we inhabit

today is different from the one which other generations confronted?

Let's look at agriculture as an analogy for a second. American factory farming is an ecosystem, but highly non-diverse - nearly a "monoculture" in many crops where a single variety overwhelmingly dominates the market.

The news ecosystem has been something of a monoculture in recent years, at least in the newspaper business in most U.S. communities that support daily papers, where typically there's a single surviving one. Broadcast is close to that - just a few entities with government-granted airwaves that no one else can use.

We've come to understand the danger of monocultures. They're inherently unstable, because when they fail they do so with catastrophic results. (Remember Wall Street in 2008.)

A diverse ecosystem, by contrast, isn't as threatened by individual failures, because the parts of the ecosystem are less dominant. If the dominant food variety fails, we can end up with a serious food shortage, or worse. If a few big banks can kill the global economy when they fail, similar forces are at work.

In a diverse and vibrant agricultural system or capitalist economy, the failure of a specific crop varietal or business is tragic mostly for the farmers who planted it or that business. It doesn't cause a wider catastrophe.

That's the kind of news/information ecosystem we need, and which is coming. It's why I'm optimistic.

You have historically been a key advocate of citizen journalism, but here,

you are also offering some important cautions, calling for citizens (as

readers and news producers) to take greater responsibility over the

information they are exchanging. Is this a shift in position or a shift in

emphasis?

It's much more a shift of emphasis. I was cautious about quality in my last book, which some folks misconstrued as an uncritical celebration of citizen media. I continue to celebrate the fact that so many more people are creating media, but while the quantity is surging, it would be crazy to declare victory when it comes to quality.

In the book, you advocate what you call "slow news." Can you explain this

concept and why you think the speed of current journalism is partially to

blame for the circulation and perpetuation of myths, rumors, and other

inadequacies?

I've been a fan of the "slow food" movement for some time (even if I don't adhere as well as I should to its ideas). Slow news, a term that was coined in this context by Ethan Zuckerman, is the notion that we should not hurry to assume we know what's actually happening, certainly not when we're getting news at the rapid pace we hear and see it today.

When you combine the amount of information pouring over us with its high velocity, the need to take things a little more slowly - as information providers but especially as info consumers - becomes obvious. And it's not just random blog posts and tweets that can lead us astray.

We need only look to last January's horrific shootings in Tuscon, Arizona, for evidence. NPR and a number of other news outlets (most relying on NPR as a source) reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died in the supermarket parking lot. She had not died, as we learned fairly quickly.

My own approach is to force myself to consider how sensational a report is along with how soon it comes after the alleged event. And the closer it is to the event, the more I put it in a category of "interesting if true" - with emphasis on "if".

I recognize that this goes against human nature to some degree. But if we can persuade ourselves to keep in the back of our minds that sliver of skepticism, we'll be fooled less, at a time when the consequences of being fooled are growing.

Dan Gillmor is founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. The project aims to help students understand the startup culture, and ultimately to help them invent their own jobs.

Dan's latest book, Mediactive, aims to encourage a better media supply in part by creating better demand -- to spur people to become active media users, as consumers and participants. His last book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People was the first to explain the rise of citizen media and why it matters. Dan also writes an online column for the Guardian and blogs regularly at Mediactive.com.

Dan has been a co-founder, investor and advisor in a number of media ventures in the for-profit and non-profit worlds. From 1994 until early 2005 he was a columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper, and wrote a weblog for SiliconValley.com. He joined the Mercury News after six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, he was with the Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont.

More about Dan at http://dangillmor.com/about

Back to School Special 2: Syllabus for my Transmedia Entertainment Class

One of the challenges of teaching cutting edge subject matter is that you need to totally revamp your syllabus each time you teach a class. The following is the updated syllabus for the class on Transmedia Entertainment I am offering this term through the USC Cinema School. Our long-range hope is that a significant number of the students studying film production at USC will end up with a basic conceptual vocabulary in transmedia storytelling and will thus enter the industry already able to collaborate across media platforms in a meaningful way. Indeed, I would argue that the "movie brats" who have long been poster-children for the Cinema School, the guys whose names are on the buildings -- Spielberg, Lucas, Zemeckis, were never "pure filmmakers" in the classical sense but had always worked across media platforms and indeed, paved the way for contemporary transmedia practice. So, USC is the appropriate place to be developing such a subject.

As you will see, the class relies heavily on guest speakers from across the media industry and it also relies on a simulation activity in which our students develop transmedia proposals (including Bibles) and pitch their approach to a panel of industry experts. I am not a designer and so can not teach the design and production aspects of transmedia fully, but I try to tap the full range of creative talent in the class to see how far we can push their thinking, using a model I developed at MIT where I taught an interactive design class from the late and much missed Sande Scordos from Sony Imageworks.

Transmedia Entertainment

CTSC 482

Tuesdays 10:00 am-1:50 pm

We now live in a moment where every story, image, brand, relationship plays itself out across the maximum number of media platforms, shaped top down by decisions made in corporate boardrooms and bottom up by decisions made in teenager's bedrooms. The concentrated ownership of media conglomerates increases the desirability of properties that can exploit "synergies" between different parts of the medium system and "maximize touch-points" with different niches of consumers. The result has been the push towards franchise-building in general and transmedia entertainment in particular.



A transmedia story represents the integration of entertainment experiences across a range of different media platforms. A story like Heroes or Lost might spread from television into comics, the web, computer or alternate reality games, toys and other commodities, and so forth, picking up new consumers as it goes and allowing the most dedicated fans to drill deeper. The fans, in turn, may translate their interests in the franchise into concordances and Wikipedia entries, fan fiction, vids, fan films, cosplay, game mods, and a range of other participatory practices that further extend the story world in new directions. Both the commercial and grassroots expansion of narrative universes contribute to a new mode of storytelling, one which is based on an encyclopedic expanse of information which gets put together differently by each individual consumer as well as processed collectively by social networks and online knowledge communities.



Each class session will introduce a concept central to our understanding of transmedia entertainment that we will explore through a combination of lectures, screenings, and conversations with industry insiders who are applying these concepts through their own creative practices. The readings for this class are organized into required readings, which every student should read in order for us to have a shared basis for discussion, and recommended readings, which are intended to be resources for the group project as they dig deeper into the course concepts. My recommendation is that the members of the group divide these readings between them and make sure that the core concepts be in the shared pool of knowledge for each team.



In this course, we will be exploring the phenomenon of transmedia storytelling through:



Critically examining commercial and grassroots texts that contribute to larger media franchises (mobisodes and webisodes, comics, games).

Developing a theoretical framework for understanding how storytelling works in this new environment with a particular emphasis upon issues of world building, cultural attractors, and cultural activators.

Tracing the historical context from which modern transmedia practices emerged, including consideration of the contributions of such key figures as P.T. Barnum, L. Frank Baum, Feuillade, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Cordwainer Smith, Walt Disney, George Lucas, DC and Marvel Comics, and Joss Whedon.

Exploring what transmedia approaches contribute to such key genres as science fiction, fantasy, horror, superhero, suspense, soap opera, teen and reality television.

Listening to cutting-edge thinkers from the media industry talk about the challenges and opportunities that transmedia entertainment offers, walking through cases of contemporary projects that have deployed cross-platform strategies.

Putting these ideas into action through working with a team of fellow students to develop and pitch transmedia strategies around an existing media property.

Required Book:

Frank Rose, The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and How We Tell Stories (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011)

Recommended Book:

Matt Madden, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style (New York: Chamberlain Brothers, 2005)

All additional readings will be provided through the Blackboard site for the class.



Grading and Assignments:

Commercial Extension Paper 20 percent

Grassroots Extension Paper 20 percent

Final Project - Franchise Development Project 40 percent

Class Forums 20 percent



In order to fully understand how transmedia entertainment works, students will be expected to immerse themselves into at least one major media franchise for the duration of the term. You should consume as many different instantiations (official and unofficial) of this franchise as you can and try to get an understanding of what each part contributes to the series as a whole.



COMMERCIAL EXTENSION PAPER: For the first paper, you will be asked to write a 5-7 page essay examining one commercially produced media extension (comic, website, game, mobisode, amusement park attraction, etc.). You should try to address such issues as its relationship to the story world, its strategies for expanding the narrative, its deployment of the distinctive properties of its platform, its targeted audience, and its cultural attractors/activators. The paper will be evaluated on its demonstrated grasp of core concepts from the class, its original research, and its analysis of how the artifact relates to specific trends impacting the entertainment industry. Where possible, link your analysis to the course materials, including readings, lecture notes, and speaker comments. Please email a short paragraph describing your project to Prof. Jenkins and Shawna by September 27th. (Due Oct. 4) (20 Percent)



GRASSROOTS EXTENSION PAPER: For the second paper, you will be asked to write a 5-7 page essay examining a fan-made extension (fan fiction, discussion list, video, etc.) and try to understand where the audience has sought to attach themselves to the franchise, what they add to the story world, how they respond to or route around the invitational strategies of the series, and how they reshape our understanding of the characters, plot or world of the original franchise. The paper will be evaluated on its demonstrated grasp of core concepts from the class, its original research, and its analysis of how the artifact relates to specific trends impacting the entertainment industry. Where possible, link your analysis to the course materials, including readings, lecture notes, and speaker comments. Please email a short paragraph describing your project to Prof. Jenkins and Shawna by October 25th. (Due Nov. 1) (20 Percent)



FINAL PROJECT - FRANCHISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT: Students will be organized into teams, which for the purpose of this exercise will function as transmedia companies. You should select a media property (a film, television series, comic book, novel, etc.) that you feel has the potential to become a successful transmedia franchise. In most cases, you will be looking for a property that has not yet added media extensions, though you could also look at a property that you feel has been mishandled in the past. You should have identified and agreed on a property no later than Sept. 13th. By the end of the term, your team will be "pitching" this property. The pitch should include a briefing book that describes:

1) the core defining properties of the media property

2) a description of the intended audience(s) and what we know of its potential interests

3) a discussion of the specific plans for each media platform you are going to deploy

4) an overall description for how you will seek to integrate the different media platforms to create a coherent world

5) parallel examples of other properties which have deployed the strategies being described

For a potential model for what such a book might look like, see the transmedia bible template from Screen Australia, available here: http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/filmmaking/digital_resources.aspx. Or visit: http://zenfilms.typepad.com/zen_films/2010/06/transmedia-workflow.html. If you use either as a model, include only those segments of their Bible templates which make sense for your particular property and approach.



The pitch itself will be a group presentation, followed by questions from our panel of judges, who will be drawn from across the entertainment industry. The length and format of the presentation will be announced as the term progresses to reflect the number of students actually involved in the process and thus the number of participating teams. The presentation should give us a "taste" of what the property is like as well as to lay out some of the key elements that are identified in the briefing book. Each team will need to determine what are the most salient features to cover in their pitches as well as what information they want to hold in reserve to address the judge's questions. Each member of the team will be expected to develop expertise around a specific media platform as well as to contribute to the over-all strategies for spreading the property across media systems. The group will select its own team leader who will be responsible for contacts with the instructor and will coordinate the presentation. The team leader will be asked to provide feedback on what each team member contributed to the effort, while team members will be asked to provide an evaluation of how the team leader performed. Team Members will check in on Week Ten and Week Fourteen to review their progress on the assignment. The instructor may request short written updates throughout the term to insure that the team is moving in the right direction. (40 percent)



CLASS FORUM/PARTICIPATION: For each class session, students will be asked to contribute a substantive question or comment via the class forum on BlackBoard. Comments should reflect an understanding of the readings for that day as well as an attempt to formulate an issue that we can explore with the visiting speakers. Students will also be evaluated based on regular attendance and class participation. (20 Percent)



TUESDAY, AUGUST 23rd

Transmedia Storytelling 101

Required Readings:

● Henry Jenkins, "Transmedia Storytelling 101," Confessions of an Aca-Fan, March 22, 2007

● Henry Jenkins, "Searching for the Origami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling," Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New York University Press, 2006), pp. 93-130.

● Nick DeMartino, "Why Transmedia Is Catching On Now," Future of Film Blog, Parts 1, 2, 3.



Recommended Readings:

● Geoffrey Long, Transmedia Storytelling: Business, Aesthetics and Production at the Jim Henson Company, Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007

● P. David Marshall, "The New Intertextual Commodity" in Dan Harries (ed.) The New Media Book (London: BFI, 2002), pp. 69-81.



Speaker: Jeff Gomez, Starlight Runner Entertainment

Jeff Gomez is the world's leading producer of transmedia entertainment properties. He is an expert at incubating new entertainment franchises, strategic planning and production for cross-platform implementation. As CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Jeff leverages intellectual properties into global franchises that successfully navigate an array of media channels. Jeff has worked on such blockbuster universes as Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, Microsoft's Halo and James Cameron's Avatar. He sits on the board of the Producers Guild of America East, as well as on the PGA New Media Council. A Latino, raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Jeff earned degrees in Film Studies and Communication Arts & Sciences at Queens College, CUNY.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30th

A Brief History of Transmedia

Required Reading:

● J.P. Telotte, Disney TV (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), pp. 61 - 79.

● Frank Rose, "How to Build a World That Doesn't Fall Apart," Art of Immersion, pp. 289- 320.

Recommended Readings:

● Neil Harris, "The Operational Aesthetic," Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 61-89.

● Carolyn Handler Miller, "Using a Transmedia Approach," Digital Storytelling: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment (Amsterdam: Focal Press, 2006), pp. 149-164.

Speaker: Alexander Seropian, Disney Interactive

Alexander Seropian is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Core Games for Disney Interactive Media Group. He is responsible for building interactive franchises with major brands such as Mickey Mouse, Pixar and Marvel. Prior to his position at Disney, Alex founded Wideload Games, an independent game developer that utilized an external development model similar to film production. Wideload Games produced award-winning titles such as Stubbs the Zombie. In 2009, the studio was acquired by Disney Interactive Media Group. Alex began his career in videogames in 1991 as the founder of Bungie Studios. Under his guidance, Bungie created some of the most celebrated game franchises in the industry, including Marathon, Myth, Oni, and Halo. Alex also serves as the Game Designer in Residence for DePaul University's College of Digital Media.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6th

High Concept and the Franchise System



Required Reading:

● Justin Wyatt, "Critical Redefinition: The Concept of High Concept" High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1994), pp. 1-22.

● Jonathan Gray, "Learning to Use the Force: Star Wars Toys and Their Films," Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts (New York: NYU Press, 2010), pp. 177-187.

● Christy Dena, "Chapter 2: Art, Commerce, Media and Environments in Transmedia Practice," from Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environment, pp. 26-55.

● Frank Rose, "Deeper," The Art of Immersion, pp.47-76.

Recommended Readings:

● Derek Johnson, "Learning to Share: The Relational Logics of Media Franchising" a White Paper

● Aaron Smith, "The Era of Convergence," from Transmedia Stories in Television 2.0

Student Team Meetings

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13th

The Logic of Engagement

Required Reading:

● Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green, "Chapter Four," Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (New York: NYU Press, forthcoming)

● Frank Rose, "The Dyslexic Storyteller" and "Television: The Game," The Art of Immersion, pp. 9-30, 169-198.

● Christy Dena, Selection from "Chapter 4: Narrative, Game and Interactivity in Transmedia Projects" from Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments, pp. 223- 259



Recommended Reading:

● Ivan Askwith, "The Expanded Television Text", "Five Logics of Engagement," "Lost at Televisions' Crossroads," Television 2.0: Reconceptualizing TV as an Engagement Medium, Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007, pp. 51-150.

● Kim Moses and Ian Sander, selections from Ghost Whisperer: The Spirit Guide (New York: Titan Books, 2008).



Speaker: Kim Moses, Sandermoses Production

A principal in Sander/Moses Productions, she has both developed and served as an executive producer on over 500 hours of prime-time television programming. Kim has co-created (with Ian Sander) the "Total Engagement Experience", a new business and creative model for television, which uses the television show as a component of a broader multi-platform entertainment experience that includes the internet, publishing, music, mobile, DVD's, video games and more, establishing an infinity loop driving ratings and increasing revenue streams. Moses was Executive Producer and Director of the hit CBS drama Ghost Whisperer, and she has co-authored the show's companion book, Ghost Whisperer: Spirit Guide. She has also co-created and written the award winning Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side webseries.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20th

Media Mix and Multimodality

Required Reading:

● Frank Rose, "Fear of Fiction," The Art of Immersion, pp. 31-46.

● Christy Dena, Chapter Two, Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments, pp. 55-95.

Recommended Reading:

● Anne Allison, "Pokemon: Getting Monsters and Communicating Capitalism," Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 192-233.

● Mizuko Ito, "Gender Dynamics of the Japanese Media Mix," Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), pp. 97-110.

Speaker: Brian Clarke, GMD Studios

Brian is an award-winning New York City-based experience designer, the a founder and former publisher of independent film news daily indieWIRE.com, and the CEO of the 16-year-old media innovation lab GMD Studios (www.gmdstudios.com). His integrated experience clients have included advertisers (including Audi, SEGA, Microsoft, Ford), broadcasters (IFC, Fox Television, PBS, Showtime), publishers (New York Times, Scholastic) and film studios.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27th

Continuity and Multiplicity

Reading:

● William Uricchio and Roberta E. Pearson, "I'm Not Fooled by That Cheap Disguise," in Roberta E. Pearson (ed.), The Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to A Superhero and His Media (New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 182-213.

● Sam Ford and Henry Jenkins, "Managing Multiplicity in Superhero Comics," in Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin (eds.), Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), pp. 303-313.

● Christy Dena, "The Who of Transmedia Practice" and "Continuity Documentation," Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments, pp.124-147.

Recommended Reading:

● Alec Austin, "Hybrid Expectations," Expectations Across Entertainment Media, Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007, pp. 97-127

● Jason Bainbridge, "Worlds within Worlds: The Role of Superheroes in the Marvel and DC Universe," in Angela Ndalianis (ed.), The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 64-85.

● Matt Madden, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style (New York: Chamberlain Brothers, 2005)



Speaker: Dan Didio, DC Comics

Dan DiDio was named Co-Publisher of DC Comics alongside Jim Lee in February 2010. Previously to being named Co-Publisher, DiDio served as Senior Vice President and Executive Editor, overseeing the editorial department for the DC Universe line of comic book titles, and charting the ongoing adventures of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash and scores of heroes and villains; he also worked to develop new titles with the industry's premier writers and artists. Before joining DC in January 2002, DiDio was with the computer animation company Mainframe Entertainment where he served as freelance story editor and scriptwriter for the television series Reboot and War Planets. Later he became its Senior Vice President, Creative Affairs, overseeing the development, distribution, marketing, and promotion as well as merchandising and licensing of all Mainframe's television properties. Among the television projects he developed were Weird-Ohs, Beast Machines, Black Bull's Gatecrasher and Jill Thompson's Scary Godmother. He began his television career in 1981 at CBS, where he worked at a variety of positions before moving to Capital Cities/ABC in 1985. At ABC, DiDio served as Public Relations Manager for the three New York-based daytime dramas, then moved to Los Angeles to become Executive Director of Children's Programming. In this post, he was responsible for Saturday morning programs and After School Specials and served as Program Executive on such series as Tales from the Cryptkeeper, Hypernauts, Madeline, Dumb and Dumber, and Reboot.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4th

Immersion and Extractability

Paper One: Commercial Extension Due

Reading:

● Jeff Gomez, "Creating Blockbuster Worlds" (unpublished).

● Henry Jenkins, "He-Man and Masters of Transmedia, " Confessions of an Aca-Fan, May 21, 2010

● Christy Dena, Selection from "Chapter 5 Dramatic Unity, Versimilitude, and the Actual World in Transmedia Practice, " Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments, pp. 277-316

Speaker: Geoffrey Long, Microsoft

Geoffrey Long is a media analyst, scholar, and author exploring transmedia experiences and emerging entertainment platforms as a Transmedia Producer and Program Manager in the Narrative Design Team at Microsoft Studios. He is an alumni researcher with the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT, a co-editor of the Playful Thinking book series from the MIT Press, and an executive board member of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. His personal site can be found at geoffreylong.com.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11th

World Building

Reading:

● Derek Johnson, "Intelligent Design or Godless Universe? The Creative Challenges of World Building and Franchise Development," Franchising Media Worlds: Content Networks and The Collaborative Production of Culture, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009. pp. 170-279.

● Frank Rose, "Open Worlds," The Art of Immersion, pp. 121-144.

Recommended Reading:

● Walter Jon Williams, "In What Universe?" in Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin (eds.), Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), pp. 25-32.

● Henry Jenkins, "The Pleasure of Pirates And What It Tells Us About World Building in Branded Entertainment", Confessions of an Aca-Fan, June 13, 2007

● Christy Dena, "Chapter Five Dramatic Unity, Verisimitude, and the Actual World in Transmedia Practice", Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments, pp. 260 -277.



Speaker: Alex McDowell

McDowell trained as a painter in London in the Seventies, and opened a graphic design firm where he built his reputation designing album covers for seminal groups in the London punk scene. Since moving to Los Angeles from London in 1986, he has designed film productions for directors as diverse as Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, David Fincher, Zack Snyder and Steven Spielberg. It was on Minority Report that McDowell built the first fully digital art department, and developed a prototyping process that has evolved into a new narrative design methodology. Currently McDowell is working on a new Warner Brothers franchise project with director Zack Snyder, and he has recently completed design of a dystopian future for In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol. He continues to work as visual development consultant for projects, both live action and virtual. With many awards for his film design, McDowell was named Royal Designer for Industry by the UK's most prestigious design society, the Royal Society of Arts, in 2006. McDowell serves on several Advisory Boards for design and technology groups and institutions. He currently serves on the AMPAS Science and Technology Council. He is adjunct professor at the School of Cinematic Arts, USC and is a Visiting Artist at MIT's Media Lab, where he has worked for several years with Tod Machover's Opera of the Future Lab. McDowell is co-founder and creative director of the immersive design conference 5D | The Future of Immersive Design, a global series of distributed events and a knowledgebase for an expanding community of thought leaders across all narrative media.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18th

Seriality

Reading:

● Jason Mittell, "All in the Game: The Wire, Serial Storytelling, and Procedural Logic," in Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin (eds.), Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), pp. 429-438.

● Neil Perryman, "Doctor Who and the Convergence of Media: A Case Study in Transmedia Storytelling," Convergence, February 2008, pp. 21-40.

● Frank Rose, "Forking Paths," The Art of Immersion, pp. 103-120.

Recommended Reading:

● Jennifer Haywood, "Mutual Friends: The Development of the Mass Serial" Consuming Pleasures: Active Audiences and Serial Fictions from Dickens to Soap Opera (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1997), pp. 21-51.

Speaker: TBD, Campfire

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25th

Subjectivity

Paper Two: Fan Extension Due

Reading:

● The 9th Wonders, Chapters 1-9

● Henry Jenkins, "'We Had So Many Stories to Tell': The Heroes Comics as Transmedia Storytelling," Confessions of an Aca-Fan, Dec. 3, 2007.

Speaker: Mark Warshaw, The Alchemists

Mark is a transmedia storytelling writer/producer/director. Before co-founding The Alchemists Transmedia Storytelling Co., Warshaw developed and produced the transmedia experience for the TV series Heroes. During his tenure, Heroes 360 became a financial and critical success. Forester Research has estimated the value of the initiative at $50,000,000 and it won an Emmy for Excellence in Interactive Programming. Before joining Heroes, Warshaw spent six seasons on the TV series Smallville where he produced all the show's transmedia content and integrated advertiser initiatives. The Smallville websites and projects won various awards, helped build a large fan community, and became a major source of revenue for the property. Warshaw has created and produced on projects with Volkswagen, Ford, Sprint, Toyota, Verizon Wireless, Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, TRESemmé, Coca-Cola, Nokia and Nissan. He has written for television and comic books and produced and directed webisode series for Warner Bros, The CW, NBC, Elle Magazine and the NFL. He was born and bred in Los Angeles, California with a stopover at the University of Georgia for a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1st

Drillability and Spreadability

Readings:

● Bob Rehak, "That Which Survives: Star Trek's Design Network in Fandom and Franchise," (unpublished), pp. 2-79.

● Suzanne Scott, "Who's Steering the Mothership?: The Role of the Fanboy Auteur in Transmedia Storytelling" (forthcoming).

● Frank Rose, "The Hive Mind and the Mystery Box," The Art of Immersion, pp. 145-168.



Recommended Reading:

● Kristin Thompson, "Not Your Father's Tolkien," The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), pp. 53-74.

● C.S. Lewis, "On Stories," Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (New York: Harvest, 2002), pp. 3-21.

● Aaron Smith, Chapter 4-5 in Transmedia Stories in Television 2.0



Speaker: Tim Kring

76 million Heroes fans around the world know the name Tim Kring, and tuned in weekly across broadcast TV, cable, online and mobile to follow plotlines about ordinary people who discovered they possessed extraordinary abilities. As part of the most watched television program in the history of television, Heroes Evolutions set the bar high for multiplatform storytelling when it won the Primetime Emmy® for Interactive Television in 2008. In April, 2010, Kring received the Pioneer Prize at the International Digital Emmy® Awards in Cannes in recognition of his industry-leading creativity in multi-screen storytelling. During the summer of 2010, Kring teamed with Nokia to launch the Conspiracy For Good, a global movement that allows the audience to become part of the story to create positive real world change. The pilot engaged an audience online, through Alternative Reality Gaming elements, Nokia mobile apps, and on the streets of London while incorporating charitable and social benefits with Room to Read and the Pearson Foundation. Through this unique blend of entertainment and philanthropy, Conspiracy For Good delivered funding to build five school libraries in Zambia, more than 10,000 books to stock the library shelves, and created 50 new scholarships for deserving schoolgirls. Kring's Conspiracy For Good is nominated for an International Digital Emmy® Award this April in Cannes. Later this year, Kring begins production on his latest TV pilot Touch for FBC and 20th Century Fox studios, with Kiefer Sutherland attached to star.

Tuesday, November 8th

Performance

Readings:

● Francesca Coppa, "Women, Star Trek, and the Early Development of Fannish Vidding," Transformative Works and Cultures 1, 2008, .

● Frank Rose, "Control," The Art of Immersion, pp. 77-102.

Recommended Readings

● Robert Kozinets, "Inno-Tribes: Star Trek as Wikimedia," in Bernard Cova, Robert Kozinets, and Avi Shankar (eds.), Consumer Tribes (London: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007), pp. 194-209.

Student Team Meetings

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15th

Independent Approaches

Reading:

● Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green, Chapter Seven, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (New York: NYU Press, forthcoming).

Student Team Meetings

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22nd

No Class

Work on Student Presentations

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29th

Student Presentations

Acafandom and Beyond: Jonathan Gray, Matt Hills, and Alisa Perren (Part Two)

Jonathan Gray:

Perhaps I could start with this issue of definition that all of us touched upon. I think it's interesting that, albeit in different ways, both Matt (from wholly within the realm of acafandom) and Alisa (feeling outside of it) note that the term may have calcified around a set group of people with a set group of interests. Matt suggests that's a "misreading," and that there are many types of acafans. But I guess my question is whether we need to rescue the term, or whether the ideas can run free of it.

A considerable problem with the term is best illustrated by some of Alisa's understanding of the calcification. Her concern, for instance, that the industry might co-opt acafans is far-fetched if applied to many of those who self-identify most clearly as aca-fans, given that a good number of this community engage in fan practices that the industry doesn't want to have much to do with, such as writing slash and/or long critiques of the racism or sexism within the text. But some of that community share Alisa's concern that another group of academic fans are too in love with user-generated content and with servicing The Man. And my sense is that in the media studies community at large, "aca-fan" has simply come to mean "an academic who is also a fan" (for sure, I don't mean to wag a finger at Alisa for getting the "wrong" definition of aca-fan, as I think her definition is commonly shared by those who don't call themselves aca-fans), and by this definition, aca-fans are all those with Buffy and Lost journals, yet another Something Popular With Upper Middle Class White Americans and Philosophy book, and squee aplenty, all of which should definitely make us worry about co-option.

This might seem to back up Matt's point that there are many acafandoms. But they're still being conflated by a wider community of media studies scholarship as a whole. Thus, we might need to realize that the term has grown up and is associating with a different crowd than we as its parents would prefer. Some of the behaviors and practice of those regarded as aca-fans, moreover, are directly in contrast to the critical mission of aca-fandom. If it originally had a referent assigned to it by Henry and co., then, it now has a whole bunch of other referents attached to it by those who aren't aca-fans. Hence my belief that the critical mission of aca-fandom could be much better taken up if the term itself is left behind. The term may have become too "polluted."

Let me turn that into a question, though, to Matt and Alisa, especially since they come from very different standpoints here. Has the term become polluted, and if so can or should it be rescued?

Matt Hills:

I find myself agreeing with much in Jonathan and Alisa's opening arguments, although all three of us are approaching acafandom from quite different perspectives. With Jonathan, I too would like to see a greater encouragement of reflexivity in all media studies, not just in something called acafan writing. And with Alisa, I absolutely share the concern that acafandom has led to a restricted set of textual objects becoming unhappily canonised in TV Studies, because those happen to be the shows that many academics enjoy watching and writing about. I think that acafandom does have a responsibility to cover shows that go beyond rather limited taste cultures and demographics, as well as covering a wider range of fan practices and activities (as I suggested in my own opening statement). As I said, I think we should be looking to encourage a wider-ranging, more diverse, and ever more critically reflexive acafandom, in relation to both 'aca' and 'fan' experiences.

Jonathan quite rightly raises one perennial question haunting acafandom - what does the 'fan' part actually refer to? If it means having a certain liking for something, then yes, perhaps all scholars are acafans, whether they are studying television or quantum mechanics. Scientists passionate about their specialism would be acafans, on this account. However, this seems like a curiously attenuated definition. Jonathan's argument seemingly defines acafandom into redundancy - using a massively inclusive definition that doesn't fully engage with the sociological and discursive history of (media) 'fandom'.

I do think that defining fandom only as community-oriented is problematic, but even lone media consumers who self-define as fans are still likely to engage with fandom as an imagined community, or a "constellated community" in Rick Altman's terms. So, for me, fandom retains a degree of social, communal and discursive specificity which means that not all academics would be acafans, as I understand the term.

In fact, if one leans towards at least minimally articulating fandom with community - whether this is inhabited in a participatory sense, or aligned with in an imaginative sense - I think there remains something distinctive about acafandom, since it involves the simultaneous engagement with two (differentiated) interpretive communities focused on the same textual object(s). A critical TV scholar writing about Doctor Who who had no fan affiliation or identity could still "like" and enjoy the TV show they were analysing, but they would have no awareness of the reading protocols, hierarchies, ways of understanding the show's history and characters etc, that fan culture would bring.

Acafandom is thus interpretatively distinctive, I would say, because it brings communally-shaped and communally-patterned systems of meaning-making into dialogue with similar systems of meaning-generation in the academy, as well as moving between and potentially destabilising the value systems at work in these terrains. If one defines acafandom purely as liking something and then studying it, then these hermeneutic and axiological questions fade away somewhat - rather prematurely, I feel.

Unlike Jonathan, then, I think acafandom remains useful for the ways in which it can identify, and draw on, and reflexively engage with, audience communities and their understandings of texts. My current work on Torchwood, for example, poses a number of challenges to academic textual analysis on the basis of fans' readings of narrative and character, as well as challenging fan readings which decode the show for textual coherence/continuity. If acafandom was 'just' about liking Torchwood then it would lack a focus on how we are likely to read the show as a TV Studies community versus how other communities would and have read the series.

Moving on, and responding to Alisa's point about possible complicity between acafandom and the TV industry - yes, I find this to be a worrying possibility and a worryng development. After all, I'm the author of a book called Triumph of a Time Lord! But the book works to critically theorise the show's production, and the ways in which its producers othered fan audiences - even describing them very negatively - while also drawing on specific fan discourses. It is not a celebration of the industry processes involved - it is very much a critical reading which could never have been written as an 'official' BBC book. But there are some arenas where 'acafandom' seems to increasingly lack critical reflexivity, and where the term seems to have become coterminous with the "Something Popular With Upper Middle Class White Americans and Philosophy" sort of book, as Jonathan says. I think all three of us, as writers working in different but not unconnected strands of TV Studies, are united in seeing this as a thorny issue.

'Acafandom' has certainly become multiple, as I've argued, but I'm not sure I'd want to use Jonathan's terminology: I wouldn't equate multiple acafandoms with a sense of the word having been somehow "polluted" or rendered toxic. The question of multiple acafandoms suggests instead, I think, that we need to argue more carefully and more precisely for what we want acafandom to do. And perhaps to work to make these definitions more available, and more visible, to those 'outside' the debate itself, so that wider notions of 'acafandom' may themselves become more nuanced.

As Alisa says - what does acafandom include and exclude? Or more than that: what would we like it to include and exclude? The concept - as I would want to use and defend it - needs to be about critical reflexivity in relation to fan and academic communities. That means being reflexive about the canonisation of limited texts, and the (relative) failure to engage with childhood fandoms and fan cultures, and the question of whether industry and production discourses are being reinforced in some acafan work. But it also means being reflexive about fans' moral economies - and where and how fandom remains inattentive to issues of gendered, classed or age-based forms of cultural power. Reflexivity needs to be embraced as something substantively informing our practices rather than something we write about in passing in forewords and footnotes - reflexive acafandom can be precisely about addressing all the sorts of concerns raised here. And very much not "a cost-effective source of market research for industry", as Alisa writes. In short, I view acafandom - as I have defined it here, asymptotically - not as the problem, or as something murky and/or conceptually exhausted to be let go of, but as an ongoing way of thinking through the problematics of studying media while being positioned within variant interpretive communities.

Reiterating my response to Jonathan's final question: I'd say the term has become dispersed but not necessarily polluted. And so perhaps acafandom needs to be re-defined (to re-emphasise its critical edge), rather than being "rescued" per se? Mind you, I wonder whether I'm writing this, in part, as a fan of acafandom: a fanacafan. At which point, and before logical regression takes hold, I'll hand over to Alisa with a question: if we agree that acafandom does have a responsibility to expand beyond the genre and "quality" texts that it has clustered around, then what (if any) other responsibilities might it also have?

Alisa Perren:



I find it fascinating that, although Matt, Jonathan and I all have similar issues with the current definition - and perception - of acafandom, we deliver very different responses on how to proceed. To put it somewhat crudely, Matt (fanacafan?) thinks we should salvage the term, Jonathan (anti-fanacafan?) wonders if it has outlived its usefulness. Meanwhile, I am more ambivalent. I do not feel comfortable arguing to either "dump it" or "save it," as I do not have the long-standing investment in researching and writing about it that either of you have. The most I can do is speak from the stance of a "casual observer," illustrating how the term might presently be perceived by those who are less aware of its layered history and meanings.

From this position of casual observer, I appreciate reading each of your explanations about how acafandom can mean - or at least, has previously meant - much more than "one who is an academic who is also a fan." And Matt does make a strong case for retaining the word, as long as it is deployed with sufficient clarity and reflexivity.

I guess the issue that remains for me is whether the nuances of the term can be made apparent to those who don't regularly engage with fan studies and conversations about acafandom. Is it a "responsibility" (returning to Matt's final question) of those writing about acafandom to expand their objects of analysis, but also to make this expanded scope more apparent to "outsiders"? Will a change in perception take place if there is more "outreach" on the part of acafans, a greater effort to illustrate that acafans can and do write about far more than Spock, Spike and Skate?

I want to return to one other point made by Jonathan, which connects to Matt's discussion of reflexivity. Jonathan notes that many acafans do not serve the interests of industry, but rather "engage in fan practices that the industry doesn't want to have much to do with." I certainly did not mean to imply that acafandom was monolithic, or that all acafans (want or try to) service industry desires and imperatives. But it seems to me that the industry gives a voice to those serving their interests, and makes the voices of certain acafans resonate more loudly. What's more, given the heightened pressure placed on scholars today to procure external funding, the limited funding of this type available to humanistically oriented scholars, and the receptiveness that industry has shown toward those acafans serving their promotional interests, I can't help but wonder whether these voices will continue to grow louder. To pose an even more cynical question, in an age in which it seems that "no publicity is bad publicity," aren't even those that take more critical stances ultimately serving the industry's larger promotional ends? (Suddenly I have seemed to wander into the land of Adorno and Horkheimer...I will try to step away from the computer now.)

I leave it to Matt and Jonathan (and others!) to chime in here with their own thoughts regarding the responsibilities of acafans - to other acafans, to scholars that don't self-identify as acafans, and maybe even in relationship to the media industries.

Jonathan Gray is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is author of Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality, Television Entertainment, Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts, and, with Amanda Lotz, the soon to be released Television Studies. He is also co-editor of Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era, Battleground: The Media, and Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture.



Matt Hills is Reader in Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, Wales. He is the author of Fan Cultures (Routledge, 2002), The Pleasures of Horror (Continuum, 2005), How To Do Things With Cultural Theory (Hodder-Arnold, 2005), Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the 21st Century (I.B. Tauris, 2010), and the forthcoming Cultographies: Blade Runner (Wallflower/Columbia University Press, 2011). Recent book chapters or journal articles include work on the Saw franchise, the TV series Sherlock, and television aesthetics. Matt is currently working on a study of Torchwood.

Alisa Perren is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She is co-editor of Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) and author of Indie, Inc.: Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s (University of Texas Press, forthcoming). Her work has appeared in a range of print and online publications, including Film Quarterly, Journal of Film and Video, Journal of Popular Film and Television and Flow. She also is Coordinating Editor of In Media Res, a MediaCommons project focused on experimenting with collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship.