Internet
Book Review: Internet and Asian Cultural Studies
Cho-Han Hae-Joang et al, Seoul, Korea: Yonsei University Press, 2007
I visited Korea recently. Since it was a short stay, I did not have much chance to update myself with busy observations on ever-changing technosphere in Korea as I would usually do. Yet I managed to meet a young cultural studies researcher, Kim Hee-Won who has been keeping a sharp eye on the Internet world and its young inhabitants, thanks to Larissa Hjorth’s kind introduction. Chatting with/interviewing Hee-Won in the midst of my jet lag stupor was more than refreshing, and we simply could not agree more about the dearth (and urgency) of serious research on new media practices and cultures in Korea in the shadow of the hyped image of wired Korea.
One of interesting points from our conversation that grabbed me was Hee-Won’s view on the generational identity of young Koreans in their 20s with regards to their new media practices. Hee-Won reads their intensive attachment to such new media services as Minihompy, messenger, and SMS and their often obsessive attempt to be constantly connected as a form of performing a reciprocal “check-up of (their) survival for another day.” It is generally true that these new social media intensify the sense of ‘constant on’ for users across generations. Yet as Hee-Won suggests, this practice may reflect the desire for the emotional comfort from assuring one’s presence within the network. In particular, this interpretation makes quite appealing sense when it comes to Korean youth in 20s whose insecure social status, resulted from increasing unemployment rate since 1997 economic crisis, has become a widely acknowledged social issue. In other words, Internet has provided the major playground and outlet for this frustrated generation.
Our speculation on this specific group of youth got me rethinking and reassured about the simple principle of our study on digital media and youth: the importance of considering historical and cultural specificity of diverse groups of young people under the umbrella of the term ‘youth’ as well as recording the transformative and transient nature of media practices. Certainly, Internet would not be the same space for Korean teenager who is born into it with many other available options of digital media and the twenty something whose primal new media experience began with the burgeoning Internet.
Moreover, I am glad to find my question is not wasted yet more profoundly addressed in Internet and Asian Cultural Studies, an anthology Hee-Won kindly gave me. Written in Korean by renowned as well as young cultural studies researchers who are mostly rooted in Yonsei University’s Graduate Program in Culture and Gender Studies, this book provides a great historical standpoint to what they call, “holding back” moment of Internet culture in Korea. Declaring the end of the first stage of Internet fever, it attempts to surmise the legacy of wired Korea in early 2000s and record the transition of the Internet from the wild new space for various voluntary and civil experiments to the striated space for tired/accustomed patterns overrun by the commercial logic, at the threshold of institutionalized “networked era.”
Each article based primarily on ethnographical field research presents so many interesting findings and rich details of what have constructed newly emerging alternative space for Korean and Korean youth. Yet, an anthology format always makes it hard to dwell on each argument. To briefly introduce the gamut of researches, the book includes Cho-Han Hye-Joang’s thought-provoking review of the history of Korean Internet culture with focus on specific ‘agencies’ and ‘sites’; Kim-Cheong Hee-Won’s comprehensive analysis on Cyworld community; Hwang Sang-Min’s, an author of the Dehanminkook Cyber Sinillyu (Korean Cyber New Generation), qualitative study on online community, Gaming(Maple Story), and the role of play for learning and identity formation in cyberspace; Park Geon-Ha on Progamers’ world; Yun Te-Jin on the transnational consumption of popular cultural products, especially reception of foreign television drama content across Asia; Kim Hak-Sil and Lee Chung-Han on active consumption and re-appropriation of Japanese entertainment content by young Korean fans; Kim Hyun-Mi on the lagged establishment of accompanying laws and policies and shifting cultural values in Internet space.
In spite of limited space here, I would like to highlight Cho-Han Hye-Joang’s works as her article presents overarching themes of the book. Cho-Han is a renowned cultural anthropologist who has been delving into the issues of gender and youth culture in modern Korea for the last 30 years. She is one of few anthropologists who not only keep critical eyes but also act out pronouncedly on the emerging cultures and changes of Korean society along with Internet and new media technologies. For example, Seoul Youth Factory for Alternative Culture (Haja Center), where Cho-Han is the founding director, is one of exemplary institutional projects that run alternative and innovative learning programs for young people.
In her article, she raises two questions: how has Korea established the infrastructure of the Internet network so fast and where are the Internet venture companies and online netizens who built and grew out of this environment now? While there have been various academic and journalistic attempts to unearth the secret behind the success of IT-power house Korea, Cho-Hans’s answer to the first question resonates to those views that pinpoint the operating discourse of techno-nationalism underlying rapid technological developments, which I also see as the central drive behind the development of mobile technology in Korea. It is no doubt that the nationalistic and collective (state-leading yet with active engagement of market and citizens) model, which had once worked well for the rapid industrialization of Korea, did the same trick for the informatization during the 1990s. What Cho-Han adds, based on her rich experience as an educator and early adopter of the Internet at every stage, is her reflective examination of the role of the ‘civil’ sector - the vigorous civil and voluntary experiments in online space of early days (1998-2002)- which she characterizes as the process of establishing “condensed modernization,” “cyber democracy,” temporary self-regulated space,” and “alternative public space.”
In spite of many strong points, however, this book bears one noticeable weakness: the limited attention to the ‘Asian’ aspect of given issue. Betraying what the title promises, it mostly focuses on Korean phenomena. When the Asian and transnational perspective comes into play, it only tackles Japan-Korea cultural exchange. Nevertheless, this anthology expresses its commitment to connecting Korea with other Asian contexts by providing the substantial analysis of Korean case that could potentially illuminate similar social changes undergoing in other Asian countries. Yes, it is true that what we learn from early examples could light up the following discussions yet it would only be the beginning step of what we expect from future comparative researches.
New Media Practices in China, Part 4: The Internet
As mentioned in my introductory blog post on new media practices in China, the diffusion of the Internet in China has been extremely rapid, with the nation now having the largest number of Internet users on the planet, many of them with broadband access. According to CNNIC, as of June 2008 the top ten Internet activities in China were: listening to or downloading music, reading news, instant messaging, watching videos, using a search engine, emailing, gaming, using a blog or personal space, participating in a BBS or forum, and shopping (http://www.cinnic.com). Though Chinese use the Internet to read news, according to Guo (2007), much of this news is “infotainment” (e.g., about celebrities) and thus, as mentioned earlier, Chinese cyberspace is mainly perceived as an entertainment medium. Because of the rapid growth of the Internet in China and the particular socio-cultural-political context in which it has emerged, much has been written on the topic in both Chinese and English. A focus that seems to be more prevalent in the Chinese literature is gender differences in Internet usage (Bu, 2002; Yang, Wang, Chen & Wang, 2004; Zhou, 2005). In what follows I will not attempt an exhaustive overview of the Chinese Internet but instead will highlight practices that are especially interesting within the Chinese context. These include the use of blogs, BBS (online forums), and, increasingly, social networking sites. All of these virtual spaces provide an arena where ordinary citizens are able not only to enjoy themselves, but also to express opinions (particularly those that might not be sanctioned in real life), vent frustrations, engage in fantasy, and mobilize for collective action (within limits).
The first blog went online in China in 2002, and since then the number of bloggers has increased dramatically every year. In 2006, there were 33 million blog spaces in China and in 2007 this number had risen to 40 million. By June 2008 the figure had increased to 107 million, with more than 42 percent of those online in China stating that they had their own blog (http://www.cinnic.com). According to CNNIC’s latest report, by the end of 2008 China had 162 million bloggers (http://www.cnnic.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/1/13/92458.pdf). Popular blog hosting sites in China include Sina.com, Sohu.com, Bokee, Blogbus, and MSN Spaces. Of course, not all of China’s millions of blogs are active, nor are they political. Like their western counterparts, most are personal narratives written by young people, usually college students, about their daily lives (MacKinnon, 2008a). Still, one analysis of global blog-posting over a 24-hour period found the activity of Chinese netizens on MSN Spaces to be three times that of any other country (Hurst, cited in MacKinnon, 2008b).
Though the Chinese blogosphere has become an important source of information outside official (state) media channels for many of China’s netizens, the most popular blogs in China are those written by celebrities, including movie stars, authors, athletes, and successful entrepreneurs (Nie & Li, 2006). During one point in 2006, the blog of Chinese actress Xu Jinglei even displaced Boing Boing as the number one visited blog in the world, according to Technorati. As elsewhere, celebrities in China capture the public’s attention because of their larger than life personas and the fantasies projected by their lifestyles. What first catapulted blogging into popular consciousness in China, however, was the sex diary of Mu Zimei (real name Li Li), a young woman in Guangzhou (in southern China) who stirred up controversy in 2003 when she began blogging about her active sex life (often quite explicitly), her multiple sex partners (some of whom she publicly named), and her rejection of conventional notions of romantic love. For example, she told one western reporter, “I do not oppose love, but I oppose loyalty. If love has to be based on loyalty, I will not choose love” (Yardley, 2003). As James Farrer (2007) notes, the “Mu Zimei phenomenon” brought the issue of sexual politics into the Internet age in China. After a notorious post about a one-night stand with a Chinese rock star, Mu Zimei’s blog became the number one blog in China for a time, gained substantial attention from numerous media outlets, and invoked admiration as well as scorn from journalists and netizens alike who wrote articles and posted comments in online forums. Although her blog was eventually shut down, she was fired from her job, and her book was banned, she continues to make headlines through, for example, uploading podcasts of her sexual encounters. She has also gained the admiration of many young Chinese women and has inspired numerous imitators, the most famous being Furong Jiejie (Sister Hibiscus) and Liumang Yan (Hooligan Yan). Archived versions of her blog are available online (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.wenxue.com/T3/?q=blog/353), and she even has her own entry in Wikipedia’s English version (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzi_Mei).
Of course, China does have its share of bloggers who focus on social or political issues rather than pleasure and entertainment. The degree of freedom they have to address sensitive political topics (anything from corruption to individual rights) seems to ebb and flow with the political winds of Beijing. While many noticed a somewhat relaxed atmosphere in the period leading up to and during the Olympics, the current crackdown on websites deemed vulgar or pornographic seems motivated as much by a desire to limit social and political commentary as it does to clean up “harmful” sexual content. This seems particularly true in the wake of Charter 08 – a document posted on the Internet in December of last year calling for greater democratic and legal reforms, and thus far carrying over 8,000 signatures (for a link to a translation and articles about Charter 08 see http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/12/china-detains-prominent-dissident-ahead-of-human-rights-day/). This situation has led to a long-term debate about the potential of the Chinese Internet (the blogosphere as well as online forums, discussed below) to serve as a public sphere in China (Damm & Thomas, 2006; Esarey & Xiao, 2008Giese, 2006).
Although blogs are a relatively new addition to China’s Internet environment, online forums and “bulletin board systems” (or BBS) have been popular in China since the late 90s, and they continue to be a virtual space where people feel comparatively free to post news and opinions. This is largely due to the fact that their “free-for-all structure” allows for more anonymity even though many are more closely regulated now than they were in the past (MacKinnon, 2008b). Another reason is that there seem to be as many online forums as there are available topics. Online forums have given rise to various forms of mobilization related to everything from environmental protests to exposing government lies about tainted products. They have also been the arena for what many regard as distasteful forms of “Chinese cyber nationalism” (Xu, 2007). For example, China’s “angry youth” (fenqing) have used BBS and online forums to voice outrage, some of it quite violent, at what are perceived as affronts to China’s national sovereignty or dignity, as evidenced in the anti-Japan protests of 2005 (Liu, 2006) and most recently during the controversies surrounding the March 2008 uprising in Tibet and the 2008 Olympic Torch relay.
These sites have also become the location for a peculiar form of cyber vigilantism known as the “human flesh search engine” (ren rou sou suo), basically an Internet mob that tracks down real individuals for alleged crimes, posts their private information online, and heaps verbal abuse upon them (Liu, 2008). The most notorious case involved a woman, who, after posting the details of her husband’s extra-marital affair online, jumped from a window to her death. After her “death-blog” spread online, netizens took it upon themselves to find the “cheating husband,” (named Wang Fei) provide his personal information for all to see, and then harass him in real life. Other targets have been a woman who smashed a kitten’s head with her high-heeled pumps and a Chinese student at Duke University who had tried to mediate between pro-Tibet and pro-Chinese protestors during the Olympic Torch relay. Many attribute this form of mob behavior to Mao-era customs of “people’s war” and “struggle” or to a “herd mentality” (http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=964203448cbf700c9640912bf9012e05). A recent survey conducted by the China Youth Daily online found that 80 percent of those polled agreed that human flesh search engines should be regulated in some manner (http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/ 2008-06/30/content_8462156.htm). Most recently, Wang Fei (the harassed husband) won a law suit against the web site that posted his deceased wife’s blog (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/18/content_10525436.htm).
The practice of the human flesh search engine originated through an entertainment website called mop.com in 2001 with a game where participants were supposed to gather trivia about films, songs, and books and post clues on the website’s “human flesh search engine” area in order to win “mop money.” Mop.com is now a sort of Chinese MySpace and it represents the growing popularity of social networking sites in China. Because most of these sites are relatively new, like many of the practices discussed in this section, there is very little academic research on Chinese SNS. However, although online forums and blogging continue to be extremely popular (for example, the Fourth Chinese Bloggers Conference was held in Guangzhou from November 15-16, 2008), social networking has begun taking off in China. This has caused some such as blogger Maitian to suggest that blogging has run its course in China, particularly since QQ (an online chat platform) and social networking sites are more interactive (http://maitian.blog.techweb.com.cn/archives/233). China now has its own version of Facebook, called Xiaonei (see the image above), with 30 million users, and 51.com, another social networking site, has 100 million (Yu, Zhang, & Li, 2008). As these gain popularity and as more SNS emerge, they are becoming fertile ground for research on digital youth in China.
A final Internet practice worth mentioning involves the techniques that more politically-minded, savvy netizens use to get around Internet censorship. Not surprisingly, a whole body of western-based scholarship and media accounts are concerned with examining the government’s protracted efforts at controlling the Internet and censoring information through methods that are both technological (the “Great Firewall”) and human (“little sister is watching you”) (French, 2003; Zhang, 2006; Zittrain & Edelman, 2003). Despite the actual reality of censorship in China, the majority of Internet users do not seem to be as concerned about this. However, users who do want to express views the government might frown upon (or worse) have invented extremely creative methods to get their messages out, as the graphic below demonstrates.
References
Bu, W. (2002). Shehui xingbie shijiaozhong de chuanbo xinjishu yu nuxing (New communication technology and women in the gender light). Funu Yanjiu Luncong (Collection of Women’s Studies), 45(2), 37-42.
China Ministry of Information Industry, 2007 National Communications Industry Development Statistical Report (in Chinese).
Damm, J., & Thomas, S. (2006). Chinese cyberspaces: Technological changes and political effects. London: Routledge.
Esarey, A., & Xiao, Q. (2008). Political expression in the Chinese blogosphere. Asian Survey, 48(5), 752-772.
Farrer, J. (2007). China’s women sex bloggers and dialogic sexual politics on the Chinese Internet. China Aktuell: A Journal of Contemporary China, 36(4), 10-44.
French, H. (2006, May 9). “As Chinese students go online, Little Sister is watching.” New York Times. Retrieved May 10, 2006, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/world/asia/09internet.html
Giese, K. (2006, January). Challenging party hegemony: Identity work in China’s emerging virreal places. Hamburg: German Overseas Institute.
Goldkorn, J. (2005). Chinese online celebrities: From doggy style to hibiscus hag. Retrieved February 3, 2006, from http://www.danwei.org/media_and_advertising/chinese_online_celebrities_fro.php.
Guo, L. (November 2007). Surveying Internet Usage and its Impact in Seven Chinese Cities (The CASS China Internet Project Survey Report 2007): Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Liu, A. X. (2008, November 2). Human flesh search engines? Niu! [Electronic Version]. The Guardian from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/02/chinathemedia-blogging.
Liu, S.-D. (2006). China’s popular nationalism on the Internet. Report on the 2005 anti-Japan network struggles. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 7(1), 144-155.
MacKinnon, R. (2008a). Blogs and China correspondence: Lessons about global information Flows. Chinese Journal of Communication, 1(2), 242-257.
MacKinnon, R. (2008b). Flatter world and thicker walls? Blogs, censorship and civic discourse in China. Public Choice, 134(1), 31-46.
Meng, W. (2004). Wangluo hudong (Internet Interaction). Beijing: Economy and Management Publishing House.
Nie, M., & Li, J. (2006). Mingren boke de chuanbo tezheng fenxi (The communication characteristics of celebrity blogs). The Social Science Journal of South Central University 12(6), 746-751.
Xu, W. (2007). Chinese cyber nationalism: Evolution, characteristics, and implications. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Yang, Y., Wang, G., Chen, W., & Wang, J. (2004). Xingbie rentong yu jiangou de xinli kongjian (The psychological space of gender identity and structure). In X. Meng (Ed.), Zhuanxing shehuizhong de zhongguo funu (Chinese women in a changing society). Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Publishing House.
Yardley, J. (2003). Internet sex Column thrills, and inflames, China. New York Times.
Yu, H., Zhang, Z., & Li, L. Brand experience on SNS: Personal + experiential + interactive = Enhanced emotive connection between brands and youth.” http//: chinayouthology.com/blog
Zhang, L. (2006). Behind the ‘Great Firewall’.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 12(3). 271-91.
Zhou, Y. (2005). Nuxing yu hulianwang yanjiu xianzhuang huigu (A review of studies of the female sex and the Internet). Funu Yanjiu Luncong (Collection of Women’s Studies), 64(2), 71-76.
Zittrain, J., and Edelman, B. (2003). Empirical analysis of Internet filtering in China. Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School.
New Media Practices in Korea: Part 1. The Internet
In 1997, the first major portal Daum began its free email service and subsequently opened Internet cafes (public forums) two years later. Since its early days, online space in Korea was rarely considered as purely cyber or virtual space occupied by techno-geek. Instead, the strong connectivity between online and offline reality defines Internet as an inextricable part of techno-culture in Korea. While the excessive commercialism of internet culture often becomes the target of cultural critique, its potential as an alternative public space that can harbor diverse voices free from the regulations of authorities and can nourish new ways of civil democracy attracts the attention of both Korean and foreign scholars. The early buzz about Ohmynews is a typical example of celebrating the new form of ‘citizen journalism’ (Rheingold, 2002). Cho (2007) assesses that these vigorous civil and voluntary experiments characterize early days of Internet in Korea (1998-2002) as “temporary self-regulated space,” until it was eventually governed by commercial networks.
In this context, it is not surprising that ‘online community’ is at the center of the discussion. Since early 2000s, online community, housed in several major portals such as Daum and Naver, has become the main site for online activities. These domestic portal sites yield the enormous power of structuring Korean Internet culture in unique ways. For example, among general Korean Internet users, Naver is the most popular search engine with its famous Jishiin, one of the early crowd sourcing search system if not the first to incorporate the ‘collective wisdom.’ Although Naver’s search engine mostly provides information within its own network, Korean users prefer its easy and quick access to useful information garnered from its huge database of individual blogs, public forums, news and multimedia content. Naver and Daum occupy 88.3 percent of domestic search engine market while Google falls short with 2.1 percent share (NIA, 2008). At the same time, numerous online communities and public forms in these sites, spread across diverse categories such as tastes, ages, and vocations, tend to be more influential than individual power bloggers in shaping public opinion (i.e. Daum Agora Café). When the controversial social issues arise, they easily turn into the sites for public debate that often accompanies new forms of political actions such as online petition, cyber protest, and the relay of banners. In 2008, Daum alone had around 7.3 million cafes running and the average of 3000 – 4000 new cafes opened daily (www.daum.net).
Young people are main residents of this online space. Their activities in various online communities have become the central focus of the discourse on cyber youth culture. In conversation with the overall changes of Korean society in political and cultural sphere since the 1990s, Bae (2003) and Yoon (2001) define the ‘Net’ generation as a new social group growing out of online community. In the same vein, Choi (2005) argues Net generation embodies a new form of identity that blends newly emerged individualistic lifestyle and anonymous networking in online space, which is distinguished from the existing social behaviors of older generations. This socio-psychological approach constructs the image of Korean youth who easily accept the cyber space as an extension of the real world and enjoy exploring diverse new media tools for self-expression (Hwang, 2000; Soh, 2002).
In particular, interest-driven online communities are major playgrounds for Korean youth. They are the center for active knowledge building and informal learning that is motivated by diverse leisure activities. According to Cho (2006), in 2003, 99.1 percent of Korean adolescents who used computers daily, logged in to the Internet and 89.1 percent of them has a membership in more than one online community: Each person had an average of 13.7 communities. The overpowering presence of the youth in online community is increasing each year. In 2003, 77.7 percent of the Daum café user is in their teens and twenties and they also make the majority of the café managers (Kang, 2003). Young people join online community activities primarily “to share with same interest and taste” (62.9%) and continue engaging with them “in order to attain information or knowledge”(39.9%) (Hwang, 2003). Fan communities are full of these shared learning activities, often about other cultures. For example, it is common for young people to teach each other basic level Japanese in a typical portable game fan community (Cho, 2006). The popularity of online community-based activities is often attributed to its function as the emotional outlet for youth in Korea, where alternative play culture and the democratic communication structure across generations tend to be repressed in real life. In that sense, youth targeted online communities such as Sayclub (Kang, 2003) and Damoim (Kim, 2003) meet their desire to hang out and carve out their own space outside of adult supervision and social pressures.
On the other side, blogging is another prevalent online practice. In fact, Korea “boasts the second largest number of bloggers in the world, surpassed only by the Unites States of America” (Choi, 2006). However, it is interesting that blogging in Korea is closely linked with the adoption of social network sites (SNS). While blogs are considered to be the private space compared to the more public-oriented online communities, young people use blog primarily “to build and maintain social relationship” rather than to engage “journalistic or participatory activities” (Kim, 2006; Choi, 2006). Cyworld, one of the first SNS service in the world that was introduced in 1999, represents this culturally specific tendency in Korean blogsphere. Over 90 percent of Korean Internet users in their twenties are members of Cyworld (http://times.hankooki.com). Its phenomenal popularity and social impact generated cultural syndrome across generations, ages, and genders as its membership equates approximately to one quarter of the nation’s entire population. Referring to the obsessive use of Cyworld, new jargons such as Cying (doing Cyworld)’ and Cy-pein (Cy fanatic/geeks) have become popular additions to everyday conversation. In this context, it is not surprising that most Korean/English studies of SNS and blogsphere in Korea focus on Cyworld.
Most of all, it is the unique formal aspects of Cyworld that distinguish it from common blog applications and thus show how technology is culturally shaped and appropriated into a specific emotional technology. Cyworld provides a personal space called Mini-hompy, which MySpace adopted in a similar way, and Il-chon (literally, the first degree kinship) system, a tool to network with other Cyworld users (an equivalent to ‘neighbors’ in MySpace). In essence, by providing cute layouts, avatars, images, virtual goods, and hip multimedia content, Cyworld represents the cute aesthetics - the unique operating principle of popular culture in Korea as well as in Japan. This culturally friendly system (cute aesthetics, Il-chon) and easy application tools allow the user to express his/her identity through the customization of Mini-hompy and encourage migratory practice across interconnected digital media sphere (Hjorth & Kim, 2005).
Cultural factors are often accredited for the success of Cyworld since long-term human network maintenance is regarded as highly important in the collectivistic and interdependent Korean society. The adoption of blogging as a tool to reaffirm offline social relation is a pervasive phenomenon that is not limited to Cyworld: Relation-oriented blogs are generally more popular in Korea (Na et al, 2007). Korean youth also primarily engage with Cyworld to micromanage their social relationship (Kim & Yun, 2008). In fact, according to Jang & Nam (2006), the most frequented type of sites for Korean youth is Mini-hompy/blog. Café board ranks the second and Internet game site follows. Na et al (2007)’s comparative ethnographic study of blog-type young Internet users and game-type users reveal that blog-type interest users tend to valorize relation-oriented activity. However, young people adopt the careful ‘social’ filtering system by utilizing screening tools embedded in Cyworld (Choi, 2006). In this sense, Mini-hompy functions as a closed or controlled open space. Recently, the closed usage of Cyworld for securing personal space is increasing significantly as 30 percent of Cyworld users identify themselves as solely diary recorders (Hwang et al, 2008).
Overall, as in many other national contexts, youth Internet culture in Korea has met with ambivalent responses in public and academic discourse. Blogging is generally received as a positive activity since it motivates young Koreans to blog to build ‘self-respect’ and ‘self-identity’ (Kim, 2006). On the contrary, young people’s fun-oriented consumption/reappropriation of multimedia content in online space is more vulnerable to securitizing eyes. In fact, Internet has already replaced old media as the preferred mode of media consumption: Creating and sharing multimedia content has become common practice among Korean youth. Before Youtube grabbed the heart of global viewers, Korean online space was already flooded with busy file transmissions as soon as domestic media production softwares and commercial P2P sites and UCC sites (notably, Pandora TV and GomTV) opened their channels. In a broader context, this play culture that messes around with media content forms part of young people’s widespread practice of new media production, which I will dwell on in a following blog post.
Lastly, what is particularly interesting about Korean youth Internet culture is the increasing mobilization of young people for civic engagement through the use of diverse new media technologies. Recent ‘Candlelight Protests’ organized against American beef import in 2008 was a watershed moment because teenagers emerged as the new political agents (especially, teenage girls). Active and organized teenagers’ participation set off and sustained the event. On the first day of candlelight protest in May 2nd 2008, teenagers comprised 60-70 percent of attendees and the image of ‘Candlelight Girls’ immediately became the icon of this civil movement (Lee & Jung, 2008). Although the main cause for the protest was the resumed import of American beef with insufficient measures to screen mad cow disease that might affect their well-beings in the future, many argues that it was Korean teenagers’ ongoing dissatisfaction with the repressive educational system and fear for intensifying competition driven by new government’s educational policies (such as ‘Immersive English Teaching Program’) that triggered teenagers’ voluntary collective action.
However, ‘e-politics’ of Korean youth is not a sudden phenomenon. Candlelight girls have their predecessors. Social issues that mobilized Korean youth to participate in real action are diverse in their scope and scale, from more direct political events such as the 2002 presidential election (Kim, 2004) and the anti-American protest around the middle school girls accidental death by GI (Bhuiyan, 2004) to micro-level problems of educational systems. In particular, Lee et al (2007) traces preceding incidents that “digital natives” have collectively voiced out through online communities: ‘No Cut’ campaign (against rigid hairstyle controls in the secondary schools) in 2000, the protest against reformed university entrance selection system (2004), and the campaign of the ‘National Network for the Protection of Student Human Rights’ in 2005. Significantly, No-cut campaign is recorded as one of the first successful e-political movements of Korean youth that led to the revision of official policy.
Youth also brought new mode of political communication. Korean youth demonstrated savvy use of diverse communication channels in delivering their voices, which is clearly distinguished from the monolithic and centralized mode of dominant media. While online space provides the main channel to obtain and share information as well as to form the public opinion, mobile phone plays a key role in mobilizing and coordinating actions on the spot as well as recording/live broadcasting the progress of the event. These multiple forms of news get spread across diverse media channels including their own Mini-hompy/blog, SMS, and portal sites. At the same time, Lee (2007) highlights young people’s changed attitude toward political engagement, which has become more ‘fun’ oriented. In other words, young people tend to combine participation in social and political affairs with play, parody, humor, wit and caricature to express their feelings and opinions rather than direct criticism. Memorable scenes from the candlelight protest are inundated with creative picket signs of diverse causes and witty performances in a free speech podium. (i.e. skit, dancing, and singing). These displays of playful demonstration resonate with the comparatively unrestrained participatory culture of young people in Internet space. However, the significance and implication of these recent incidents and the e-politics of Korean youth are still under discussion and require more thorough analysis. As Park (2002) criticizes, while Internet provides the alternative public forum for young people to voice out easily, it does not automatically guarantee the actual attendance of young voters.
References
English Sources
Bae, I. (2003). Cyber Influences on the Youth and Related Policies in South Korea: Focused on Internet. Journal of Youth Studies-Hong Kong, 6(1), 144-157.
Bhuiyan, S. I. (2004). Use of Internet in Political Participation in South Korea. Asia Pacific Media Educator, (15), 115-130.
Choi, J. (2006). Living in Cyworld: Contextualizing Cy-ties in South Korea. In Uses of Blogs (pp. 173-186). New York: Peter Lang.
Hjorth, L., & Kim, H. (2005). Being There and Being Here: Gendered Customizing of 3G Mobile Practices – Through a Case Study in Seoul. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 11, 49-55.
Kim, H. H. (2004). Broadband Penetration and Participatory Politics: South Korea Case. In Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Hawaii, USA. Retrieved July 30, 2008, from http://csdl2.computer.org/persagen/DLAbsToc.jsp?resourcePath=/dl/proceedings/&toc=comp/proceedings/hicss/2004/2056/05/2056toc.xml&DOI=10.1109/HICSS.2004.1265301.
Kim, K., & Yun, H. (2007). Cying for Me, Cying for Us: Relational Dialectics in a Korean Social Network Site. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1). Retrieved July 31, 2008, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/kim.yun.html.
Kim, K. (2006). Internet addiction in Korean Adolescents and Its relation to Depression and Suicidal Ideation: A questionnaire Survey. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 43(2), 185-192.
Lee, H., Han, G., Oh, S., & Phillips, R. (2007). Participation, Young people and the Internet: Digital Natives in Korea. In Generational Change and New Policy Changes: Australia and South Korea, Sydney, Australia: Sydney University Press. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2123/2084.
Park, L. (2002). Artisanship, Political Interest and Voting Behavior Influenced by Information Technology: Cyber-Life versus Real-Life of Young Generation. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Boston, USA.
Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Yoon, S. (2001). Internet Discourse and the Habitus of Korea’s New Generation. In Culture, Technology, Communication. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Korean literature
Cho, H. (2006). Jisikjeongbosahweowa Cheongsonyeunmunhwa Jegochal: Cheongsonyeuneui Online Community Chamyeowa Jisik, Jeongbo Seupdeukleul Jungsimeuro (Rethinking Youth Culture in Information Society: Youth Participation in On-line Community and Acquisition of Knowledge and Information). Educational Anthropology Study, 9(2), 141-166.
Cho, H. J. (2007). Internetsideui Munhwayeongu: Juche, Hyeonjang, georigo Seroun “Sahyoi”e dehayeo (Cultural Studies in Internet Age: Subject, Sites, and New “Society”). In H. J. Cho et al, (Eds.), Internet and Asian Cultural Studies. Seoul, Korea: Yonsei University Press.
Choi, W. (2005). Cheongsonyeungwa Cybermunhwa (Youth and Cyberculture). In Cheongsonyeun Munhwaron (Youth Culture Studies). Seoul, Korea: National Youth Policy Institute.
Hwang, J. (2003). Cheonsonyeunui Cybercommunity Chamyei mit Yiyongsilte Yeongu (A Study of Adolescents’ Participation in Cyber community). Seoul, Korea: National Youth Policy Institute.
Hwang, S. (2000). Sinsedae(N sede)ui Jagipyohyeungwa Cyber gongganeseoui Sanghojakyong: Sagowa Hengdong Yangsikui Byeunhwareul Jungsimeoro (Adolescents` Self - Expression and Their Interaction Patterns in Cyberspace ; Exploration of Behavior patterns and Thoughts). Korean Journal of Psychology, 13(3), 9-19.
Hwang, S., Kim, J., & Cho, H. (2008). Cybergonggansokeui Gwangye Mecgi: Cyworld Yiyonghendonge Natanan Social Network Hwaldong Yangsande Dehan Tamsek (Self and Community Experience in Cyberspace: Social Networking in Cyworld). Korean Journal of Consumer and Advertising Psychology, 9(2), 285-303.
Jang, K., & Nam, J. (2006). Cheongsonyeon Jeongbohwa Hyeunhwanggwa Deeungbangan II ( Adolescents’ Informatization and Measures) . Seoul, Korea: National Youth Policy Institute.
Kang, M. (2003). Sayclubeui Cheongsonyeun Community ( Youth Community in Sayclub). In A Study of Youth Participation and Use of Cyber Community (pp. 175-183). Seoul, Korea: Korea Institute for Youth Development.
Kim, J. (2003). Damoimeui Cheongsonyeun Community (Youth Community in Damoim). In A Study of Youth Participation and Use of Cyber Community (pp. 184-197). Seoul, Korea: Korea Institute for Youth Development.
Kim, Y. (2001). Cheongsonyeon Deangongganeuroseoui Cyberspace Hwalyong Siltewa Uimi (Adolescents’ Use of Cyberspace as Alternative Space). Korean Youth Studies, 33, 157-180.
Kim, Y. (2006). Blogui Mediajeok Gineunggwa Hange: Blog Yiyongjaui Blog Yiyong Hengtewa Pyeonggareul Jungsimeuro (A Study on the Blog as a Media: Focused on Media Functions and the Problems of the Blog). Korea Journalism & Communication Studies, 50(3), 59-91.
Lee, C., & Jung, E. (2008). Chotbulmunhwajee natanan Cheongsonyeuneui Sahyeuichamyeo Teukseounge dehan Yeongu (A Study of the Characteristics of Youth Participation through the Candle Culture Festivals against the Import of U.S. Beef). Communication Science Studies, 8(3), 457-491.
Na, E., Park, S., & Kim, E. (2007). Cheongsonyeuneui Internet Yiyong Yuhyeongbyeul Media Yiyong Yangsikgwa Jeokeung: Bloghyeonggwa Gamehyeongeul Jungsimeuro (Media Use and Adjustment of Adolescents according to the Types of Internet Use: Focusing on blog-Type and Game-Type). Korea Journalism Studies, 51(2), 392-524.
National Information Society Agency. (2008). Kukga Jeongbo Sahwoehwa Bekseo (National Informatization Whitepaper). Seoul, Korea.
Park, J. (2003). Hyudejeonhwa, Internet, Televisionui Media Sokseong Chaiwa Yiyong Donggi Yoin Yeongu (The Media Characteristics and Use Motives of Cellular Phone, Internet and Television In Korea). Korean Journalism Studies, 47(2), 221-251.
Soh, Y. (2002). Internet Communitywa Hanguksahoi (Internet Community and Korean Society. Seoul, Korea: Hanul Academy.
New Media Practices in Korea: Part 4. New Media Production
In 2001, a series of high school girls’ eccentric romance story, That Bastard was Cool (Geu Nomeun Meosisseosda), sparked teenage readers to flock into Daum Internet café. It was the beginning of Internet novel syndrome. The phenomenal success of this idiosyncratic and unconventional novel establishes its author, a sixteen-year-old high school girl whose Internet ID and penname were Gwiyoni (which literally means ‘Cute One’), as the icon of youth Internet culture. That Bastard was Cool scored 8 million views online, sold 500,000 copies when published as a print book later, and eventually was made into a movie in 2004. Its popularity even crossed the border to nearby Asian countries including Japan, China, Taiwan, and Thailand where the popularity of the Korean Wave was surging to its peak. Gwiyoni herself joined the so-called league of ‘Korean Wave Stars’ who enjoyed widespread fandom overseas. Following up That Bastard was Cool, Gwiyoni published five more Internet novels until 2006. Most of her novels have been adapted to movies that target the teenage girl market by starring popular young actors: Seduction of Wolf (Neukdaeui Yuhok; English movie title: Romance of Their Own) and That Bastard was Cool (English movie title: The Guy) in 2004, Doremipasolasido in 2008, and To You currently under production.
The popularity of Gwiyoni’s short, comical, lighthearted, episodic stories about everyday school life and teenage romance not only shook the professional literature community but also the popular media. In fact, Gwiyoni syndrome did not come out of the blue. Before WWW was introduced to Korea, several pre-internet novels, with similar styles and subjects, attracted young readers to a cyber space that was running on Telnet system (PC Tongsin in Korean) in the early 1990s. Gwiyoni syndrome brought out this underground youth subculture, particularly girls’ subculture, to the surface of public discourse (Kim & Kim, 2004).
Most of all, Gwiyoni’s novels were severely criticized and frowned upon by adults due to her constant usage of informal and colloquial languages, internet idioms, foul expression, and emoticons – all in violation of traditional language structure. However, Gwiyoni’s violation of the linguistic code was not new but familiar to young people. Gwiyoni Syndrome is significant in that it represents the migration/expansion of youth linguistic code that young people constantly create and share with their peers through SMS of mobile phone and Internet chats in their everyday life (Choi, 2003). This trend of sharing new linguistic codes within their intimate networks dates back to the popularity of Tongsin Eoneo (Internet Communication Idioms) in the times of beepers and early Internet community. While Gwiyoni’s informal use of language mostly consists of Tongsin Eoneo, there is also a popular trend of using more radical and broken form of language, which is called Oegyeeo (Alien Words). The creation of and the sharing of Oegyeeo tend to be exclusively limited to young people’s intimate networks (mostly, early teens) or special online communities such as ‘Teusumunja Manddang’ (Special Words Heaven, Daum), which has more than 1 million members. The level of deconstruction for Oegyeeo, which dissects and fabricates a grammatical system while mix-and-matches foreign words, is so radical that ordinary Koreans cannot understand or decipher their meaning (Yoo, 2003). In this sense, Choi argues that the Gwiyoni syndrome illustrates the broader changes in culture, from “Print literature based” to “Electronic literature based,” (Cho, 2007) and the advent of a new form of youth digital storytelling.
In a broader context, Internet novel syndrome signaled the expansion of girl’s participatory fandom culture in online space, which already existed before Internet in the form of fanzine (fan magazine) and/or fan art. Right before Gwiyoni syndrome, writing and sharing fanfics (fan fictions) about pop stars (mostly male idol stars) emerged highly visible activities across Internet fan cafes. Daum alone hosted around 9241 fanfic cafes and the largest one had over 300,000 members in 2003. Just like the Gwiyoni syndrome, girls’ fanfic writing also came under public scrutiny, but for a different reason. In 2000, the Ministry of Information and Telecommunication introduced new online content rating system for youth protection and fanfics, which often contain the story about homosexual relationship, were selected as harmful contents to censor. As fangirls organized online protests against contents censorship through Internet cafés, girls’ writing culture suddenly emerged as a hot topic in popular media (Jo & Kim, 2005). These examples demonstrate how Internet provides an alternative space and effective tools for Korean girls to create “communities of fantasy”; those in constant struggle with cultural authorities (Kim & Kim, 2004).
As image producing technologies - such as digital camera, mobile phone camera, and editing softwares/applications - became widely available, literary form of youth play was replaced by various multimedia productions. Creating and circulating fun content such as parody pictures, often with political satire, emerged as a representative of online play culture. Two notable examples are Yeopgi Syndrome and JJang syndrome. Originally, the term Yeopgi referred only to ‘weird, uncanny, pervert or frightening phenomena’, but the term now indicates all weirdly funny things and operates as a code of light humor among Korean youth since 2000. All sorts of media contents – pictures, video clips, and literatures – with the Yeopgi code populated online space, feeding young people’s insatiable appetite for unique fun: certain internet cafes such as ‘DC inside’ acquired new reputation for their famous Yeopgi contents. The other example is the Jjang (the best) syndrome, which involves online voting by netizens on uploaded self-photos, which often becomes a “gateway towards stardom”(Choi, 2006). Various types of jjangs, such as uljjang (person with the best face) and mom- jjang (person with the best physique), have become “catchphrases in society, entertainment business and other areas” in contemporary Korea (Choi, 2006: 180).
Recently, various forms of contents produced by netizens are touted in the name of UCC (User Created Contents). In most cases, UCC refers to shared video contents in online space. As major portals open special services for UCC, following on the successful models of UCC sites like Pandora TV, it became a hot item in current mediaspace in Korea. Initially, UCC fever is largely based on the prevalent and notorious P2P file sharing culture. In the past, free/illegal downloading and repurposing were adopted as alternative tactics to share commercially unavailable contents due to limited access to foreign media contents and/or inefficient distribution systems. While media industry is slowly shaping new business models to counteract this practice, the active reappropriation and consumption of popular cultural contents from overseas (particularly, Japanese pop music/TV drama/animation) in the form of UCC is still widespread. For example, young Korean fans’ various fandom activities around trans-Asian television drama contents form a significant part of UCC sites (Kim & Lee, 2005).
Researches show that women, especially female college students, are more active in producing and consuming UCC (Yim, 2008). It is noted that the central motivation to create and share UCC is ‘self-expression’ and ‘getting recognition from others’ (Sung & Lee, 2007). Still, 90 percent of UCC is repurposed works out of existing media contents. In this sense, the significance of UCC culture lies more in that it represents the decentralized mode of media distribution (Jeon, 2008). This aspect of UCC, as a potentially democratic media form, becomes more apparent when it serves a journalistic purpose. Indeed, the social implication of UCC, as an emerging form of journalism to monitor and engage both macro and micro-level social issues, is one of the widely discussed topics in Korea (Kim, 2008; Kang, 2007; Lee & Kim, 2007). During the 2006 presidential election campaign, UCC appeared as the preferred tool for expressing political views, especially among college students (Ban & Kim, 2007).
However, as the cultural influence of UCC is increasing, the debate over its legitimacy as a viable media form is also intensifying. Various issues, such as policies and regulations on UCC for youth protection and legal copyrights, are still unresolved. It has become a daily battle between the major portals who regularly monitor illegal ripping of media contents, media producers who seek for additional profits through ‘one-content-multi-use’ strategies, and bloggers who want to repurpose these media contents. In the end, although debates about whether these syndromes actually reflect young people’s productive use of new media technology still continue, these various forms of syndromes demonstrate that young peoples’ reappropriation of media contents with their newly acquired technological mastery have become a predominant practice in Korean online space.
References
English Sources
Choi, J. (2006). Living in Cyworld: Contextualizing Cy-ties in South Korea. In A. Bruns & J. Jacobs (Eds.), Uses of Blogs. (pp. 173-186). New York: Peter Lang.
Korean Sources
Ban, H., & Kim, S. J. (2007). Dongyongsang UCC yiyongwa Jeongchi Hengtee gwanhan Yeongu: Dehaksengdeuleui UCC yiyonggwa Jeongchi News Yiyongeul Jungsimeuro (A Study of Relationship between UCC Usage and Political Behavior: Focus on College Student Voters` Usage of UCC and Political News). Cyber Communication Studies, 22(0), 123-166.
Cho, H. (2007). Munja Munhakeseo Jeonja Munhakeuro (From Print Literature to Electronic Literature). Seoul, Korea: Hangil Publisher.
Choi, M. (2003). N-sedewa Internet soseuleui Nolli -Gwiyeonieui Soseuleul Jungsimeuro (N-Generation and the Logic of Internet Novels - Centering on Gwiyeoni’s Novels). Public Narrative Studies, 10, 34-63.
Jeon, G. (2008). Cybergongganeui Seroun Sotong, UCC: Dongyeongsang UCCeui Textjeok Teukjinggwa Munhwajeok Hameuieh gwanhan Yeongu (A Study on the Textuality and the Cultural Implications of Video UCC). Cyber Communication Studies, 25(2), 337-370.
Jo, H., & Kim, J. (2005). Cheongsonyeun Mania Munhwaeui Siltewa Jeongchekgwaje (Present of Youth Fandom Culture and Policy Issues). Korea: National Youth Policy Institute.
Kang, J. (2007). UCC Yeongsang Munhwaeui Hameuiwa Munjejeom Yeongu: Simcheung Interviewreul Yiyonghan Dehaksengui Insiksarereul Jungsimeuro (Study on Meanings and Issues Related to UCC Visual Culture: Cognition Case Study by depth Interview with University Students). Korean Broadcasting & Telecommunication Studies, 21(6), 9-43.
Kim, H., & Kim, M. (2004). Fapiceui Sengsangwa Sobireul Tonghe bon Sonyeodeuleui Seong Fantasywa Jeongchijeok Hameui (A Fantasy of Fanfic and the Politics). Korea Journalism Studies, 48(3), 330-478.
Kim, H., & Lee, C. (2007). Cyber J-Dorama: Internetsangui Ilbondrama Sobijuchewa Yutongui Mechanism (Cyber J-Dorama: Agencies and Mechanism of the Consumption and Distribution of Japanese Drama in Online Space). In Cho H.J. et al (Eds.), Internet and Asian Cultural Studies. Seoul, Korea: Yonsei University Press.
Kim, S. (2008). Cybergongganeui Seroun Sotong, UCC: UCC Journalismeui Yironjeok Gochal (Theoretical Analysis of the UCC Journalism). Cyber Communication Studies, 25(2), 221-262
Lee, K., & Kim, M. (2007). “Chamyeojeok Model"roseoui “Performance hak” sigakeuro bon UCC (A Cultural Study of UCC (User Created Contents) from the Perspective of Performance Studies As a “Participatory Model"). Korean Broadcasting & Telecommunication Studies, 21(4), 217-254.
Sung, M. H., & Lee, I. H. (2007). Dongyeongsang UCCeui Yiyong dongiwa Manjoke gwanhan Tamsekjeok Yeongu (Uses and Gratifications of User-Created Contents: Expressing Self with Self-Produced Video Clips). Korea Association for Communication and Information Studies Journal, 40(0), 45-80.
Yim, J. (2008). Yeoja Daehaksengeui UCC sobiwa Sengsangeul Tonghe bon Suyongja Neungdongseonge gwanhan Yeongu (Reconceptualizing Audience Activities: Female College Students` UGC Consumption and Production). Korean Broadcasting & Telecommunication Studies, 22(4), 320-354
Yoo, H. (2003 10). We don’t want to play with you. Hankyoreh 21,478.
New Media Practices in India, Part 4: The Internet
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 showed the pervasiveness of new media technologies in India, as Indians flocked to sites like twitter, flickr, utube and blogs to post eye witness and other accounts of the events. CNN argued that ‘social media appeared to come of age and signaled itself as a news-gathering force to be reckoned with’ (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/mumbai.twitter/), and the incident lends itself to examining to creation of an (alternative) public sphere with the help of new media technologies. In this post, I will focus on India’s social networking sites, the virtual spaces created by and around the Indian diaspora, as well as on the use of the internet for economic development purposes.
Social Networking Sites
According to a report released in February 2009, visits to social networking sites in India increased by 51 percent during 2008, to 19 million visitors in December 2008 (http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2728 ). Orkut is by far the most popular social networking site in the country, followed by Facebook. Still, academic studies of how young people use these sites are just beginning to emerge.
A comparative study of Indian and US university students showed many common communication patterns in their use of social networking sites (Marshall et al 2008). What was more interesting were the differences, however, as Indian students’ behavior seemed to be significantly more individualistic than that of US students. This was surprising to the researchers, since Americans are thought to live in a more individualistic society than Indians. Concretely, almost 70 percent of Indian students made their profile public/visible for anyone to see, versus only 28.6 percent for US students, who were more likely to make their profile visible to friends only. Indian students were also more likely to either engage a stranger contacting them, or to tell him/her to leave them alone, which was found to be in contrast with an (Indian) collectivist ethos that is supposed to be less trusting and more evasive of strangers. Indian students are also more likely to have online friends whom they have never met before, which shows that they use social networking sites to make and sustain friendships, something that is not the case in the US. In sum, Indian students seem less cautious about online privacy than their American counterparts, and are more forward with strangers they meet on the site (Marshall et al 2008).
Of particular importance in the Indian youth context is the use of new media technologies as a bridge between traditional and modern forms of social networking, such as can be found in dating and marriage sites. Adams and Ghose (2003) discuss the creation and use of ‘matrimonial sites’ wherein parents and (now) individuals themselves place want ads describing their particular attributes and desires for a marriage partner. While in North American contexts, sites like http://www.match.com and other dating websites make the transactional nature of relationships more apparent, sites like http://www.shaadi.com and others have extended and (in some cases) made easier the practices associated with arranged marriages in India. By allowing young people to place their own ads, such social networking sites are enabling them to navigate the tension between arranged and love marriages, providing a sense of choice for Indian youth operating within the constraints of Indian values surrounding education, status, caste, religion and complexion (Sharma 2008).
The internet is also offering a way to express otherwise suppressed issues and desires. Some studies have shown the growth of chat rooms in suburban areas, where they are frequented by predominantly 18 – 22 year-old males who assume an online identity in order to meet new people (Rangaswamy 2007a). There is also a convergence of social networking sites with mobile platforms; recently Virgin Mobile India announced a partnership with MySpace for making its social networking services available on Virgin Mobile WAP-enabled phones in India (http://www.campaignindia.in/feature/all_about_mobile_social_networking).
In regards to blogging, in July 2008, the Indian Ministry of Human Resources and Development issued a report recommending to make blogging, community radio, robotic kits and other technology devices part of public school curricula (http://southasia.oneworld.net/ictsfordevelopment/indian-schools-to-use-new-age-technologies ). The report states that “blogs are powerful tools to support creative writing that can be published and shared not only with the teacher but also with peers and the world, alike. Spreadsheets, databases, concept maps, and hypermedia authoring tools (Web development tools) to encourage critical thinking could also be encouraged.” Blogs are indeed a good way to express critical thinking; the aftermath of the Delhi Public School scandal, described in my mobile phone post last week, led to intense online activity of young people in blogs and discussion fora. While the blogs were more racy and packed with innuendoes against school administrators, the discussion fora raised issues of privacy, freedom, morality and responsibility among the users of the cell phones, the tenor being that new media technologies are an invincible force that are here to stay. Their advance into Indian society cannot be stopped by government bans, which also resonates with the quote that ended my game blog last Friday.
Blogs also played an important support role after the Mumbai attacks, as individuals set them up in order to provide vital information, for example about which hospitals needed blood donations, and to help family members search for each other. Twenty-nine-year-old blogger Harish Iyer published his mobile phone number and email address on a blog he set up soon after the attacks began (http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/). In the following 20 hours, he received around sixty phone calls and 100 emails from people desperate to find loved ones (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/bloggers.mumbai/index.html). It was flickr however that was the preferred medium of the ‘citizen journalists’ that provided instant and constant news feeds and updates about crisis. An article by CNN estimated that 80 tweets were being sent to Twitter.com via SMS every five seconds http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/mumbai.twitter/. However, the deluge of messages also revealed some of the shortcomings of the medium: on the one hand the lack of proper contextual information by most people sending the messages, and on the other the recycling of (sometimes incorrect) information. As blogger Tim Mallon put it, “I started to see an ugly side to Twitter, far from being a crowd-sourced version of the news it was actually an incoherent, rumour-fueled mob operating in a mad echo chamber of tweets, re-tweets and re-re-tweets.” This ability of new media technologies to spread rumors and support nationalistic and other discriminatory feelings has been commented on already in the China posts. While we have not seen the same extent in India, the BJP-Hindu Nationalist movement is starting to use the internet to spread its message (Chopra 2008).
On October 10, 2006, the Bombay High Court served a notice to Google for allowing a hate campaign against India, in reference to a community called ‘We Hate India’ created on Orkut, which initially carried a picture of an Indian flag being burned and some anti-India content (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2136970.cms). Even before the petition was filed, many Orkut users had noticed this community and were mailing or otherwise messaging their contacts on Orkut to report the community as bogus to Google, which eventually deleted the community has now been deleted, but not before it had spawned several ‘We hate those who hate India’ communities. In addition, prior to the 60th Independence Day of India, Orkut’s main page was revamped, with a stylized Orkut logo written in the Devanagiri script and colored in the Indian national colors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut). This shows the extent to which new media technologies in general, and social networking sites in particular, are embedded in the offline world of its users. Much more research needs to be done on this in the Indian context. One group of internet users on which academic research is well under way are Indian expatriates.
NRIs in Cyberspace
NRIs, or Non Resident Indians, is an official socio-legal category for Indians living outside of India. There are estimated to be about 25 millions of them, living mainly in neighboring countries, as well as the US, Malaysia and the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indiandiaspora.jpg). Given these numbers, it is not surprising that much of the research on Indian internet practices focuses upon the broader Indian diaspora and their use of the internet.
A recent edited volume by Gajjala and Gajjala (2008) examines the range of ways in which cyberspace helps to build bridges between India and the diaspora, which in turn builds on a 2006 special edition of the New Media and Society journal (Gajjala 2006). The various articles are focusing on the IT industry, entertainment, political movements as well as questions of belonging. What emerges from these studies is the importance of who defines and participates in internet practices in the context of an increasingly flexible global economy.
Mitra (2006) focuses on US South Asian immigrants’ use of “cybernetic safe spaces” to give voice to their Indian (immigrant) identity, which they are unable to express in other contexts. These online spaces are used to recreate cultural and religious practices of identity formation, as immigrants feel increasingly threatened by the sociopolitical and economic backlashes against them in a post-9/11 environment. Relatedly, cybershrines, virtual worship sites as well as cultural and heritage portals allow Indians abroad to access spirituality in a virtual way, and the majority of orders for products and services from these sites come from outside India (Barbar 2001). Mallapragada (2006) looks at the relationship between home, homeland and homepage in the 1990s and the creation of an Indian-American web that reflects the politics of belonging for NRIs. An important aspect of this is to access news from back home, via newspapers and other news sources, also of the ‘nationalist jingoist’ kind (Brosius 1999). On the other end of the political spectrum, Dalits and other low castes are using the internet as a means of organizing (Thirumal 2008, Chopra 2006). This suggests that the internet and other new media can provide the possibilities for establishing an alternative public sphere.
In this regard it is important to pay attention the possible reproduction of existing power dynamics, especially as access to the internet can be barred for already marginalized groups (Sreekumar 2006). Until more research on (local?) Indian participation on the internet occurs (cf. Tacchi 2006), we do not know the extent to which these discourses and practices are part and parcel of everyday Indian’s lives or the extent to which non-elites in India possess space and voice in these networked public cultures. This raises once again the question of the use of new media technologies for development purposes, which is always part of the Indian case.
Internet for Development
In the Indian context, the internet’s macroeconomic effects have been remarkable, with the rise of the country’s software and business processing industries, which have led to improved lives for a growing middle class. Acquiring computer skills are seen as crucial in joining this national destiny, and there are large numbers of private schools training youth in marketable and commercial computer skills (Biao 2007). Biao’s ethnography of bodyshops in Andhra Pradesh and Australia situates the IT business in a rich socio-cultural context, exemplary is his analysis of the increasing importance of dowry to pay the fees for IT schools.
Computers are also a compulsory subject in public schools, and as I stated in my first post, lead to increased computer and internet consumption in Indian homes. Here, e-mailing, chatting, browsing as well as computer game downloads are all subject to censorship and monitoring, especially as they are seen as distractions from learning (Rangaswamy 2007b). On the other hand, youth argue that general internet skills will help them in the work world, such as browsing for information about prospective schools, getting information for job interviews, and communicating with alumni.
Besides the campuses of the likes of Infosys and Wipro, it is call centers that have most forcefully captured the national economic imagination. Shome (2006) theorizes how the cultural politics of Indian call centers, and the global flows of information technology through them, manifest new and emerging frameworks of hybridity and diaspora. Such frameworks point to new relations of race, belonging, and colonialism and unsettle many of the prevailing assumptions through which diaspora and hybridity have been typically understood (Mitra 2008). McMillin (2008) and Mirchandani (2008) look at the ways in which working in call centers structures engagements with new media and technology, and how it affects the family and social life of middle class families.
In talking about the emergence of an (alternative) public or political sphere through the internet, it is also important to mention the many e-government initiatives that have been started in several Indian states in order to bring state and local governments closer to citizens (Sreekumar 2007, Schwittay 2008). As is often the case with the use of technology for development, high hopes and easy assumptions about the possibilities of especially marginalized groups to learn about, apply for and receive government assistance and other services online have given way to more realistic assessments. These show the ways in which new media technologies have to be embedded in people’s everyday lives, and in turn have to take political, socio-economic and cultural contexts into acccount in order to be truly meaningful and to realize their full potential.
References Cited:
Adams, P. and R. Ghose (2003) India.com: the construction of a space between. Progress in Human Geography, 27(4), 414–437.
Barbar, A. (2001). Diaspora, Cybershrines and the Woman’s question in media (review article). Gender, Technology and Development, 5, 289.
Biao, X. (2007). Global ‘Body Shopping:’ An Indian Labor System in the Global Technology Industry. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brosius, C. and M. Butcher. (1999) (Eds.) Image Journeys: Audio-visual media and cultural change in India. New Delhi: Sage.
Chopra, R. (2008). The Virtual State of the Nation: Online Hindu Nationalism in Global Capitalist Modernity. In R. Gajjala and V. Gajjala, Venkataramana (Eds.) South Asian Technospaces. Digital Formations, 36, New York: Peter Lang Verlag.
Chopra, R. (2006) Global primordialities: virtual identity politics in online Hindutva and online Dalit discourse. New Media & Society, 8, 187-206.
Gajjala, R. and V. Gajjala. (Eds.) (2008) South Asian Technospaces. Digital Formations, 36, New York: Peter Lang Verlag.
Gajjala, R. (2006). Editorial: Consuming/producing/inhabiting South-Asian digital diasporas. New Media and Society, 8, 179.
Mallapragada, M. (2006). Home, homeland, homepage: belonging and the Indian-American web. New Media & Society, 8, 207-227.
Marshall, K. et al. (2008) Social Networking Websites in India and the United States: A Cross-national Comparison of Online Privacy and Communication. Issues in Information Society, 9(2), 87 – 94.
McMillin, D. (2008). «Around Sourcing»: Peripheral Centers in the Global Office. In R. Gajjala and V. Gajjala, Venkataramana (Eds.) South Asian Technospaces. Digital Formations, 36, New York: Peter Lang Verlag.
Mirchandani, K. (2008) Practices of Global Capital: Gaps, Cracks, and Ironies in Transnational Call Centers in India. In R. Gajjala and V. Gajjala, Venkataramana (Eds.) South Asian Technospaces. Digital Formations, 36, New York: Peter Lang Verlag.
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Mitra, A. (2006). Towards finding a cybernetic safe place: illustrations from people of Indian origin. New Media & Society, 8, 251-268.
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New Media Practices in Brazil, Part II: The Internet
Boit Tatá, Carnaval 2009, Rio
Orkut Rio de Janeiro. Photo by URBefotos. http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbefotos/3303037834/ (see also Goes’ Global Voices Blog)
The growth in internet use in Brazil has been tremendous. Whereas in 2000 only 2.9 per cent of the Brazilian population could be considered internet users, by 2006 this number jumped to 67,510,400 Internet users in December 2008, or 35.2 per cent of the population (ITU 2008). A recent study of internet practices in Brazil by comScore suggests that 85 percent of Brazilians age 15 and older who accessed the internet from home or work computers in September 2008 visited a social networking site. This represented a 76 percent increase compared to September 2007 (comScore 2008). Today, I focus upon the Brazilian internet, exploring the growth in use and the influence of the social network sites, blogging and the internet broadly throughout Brazilian society.
The Brazilian Internet, A Brief History
In contrast to the United States where it often feels as if the possibilities of civic engagement and public participation are only beginning to be imagined, one of the unique features of the Brazilian internet is the extent to which it realized the possibilities of the internet for activism. Much of this framing can be attributed to the role of AlterNex, one of Brazil’s first internet providers. Created by an NGO and one of the key centers for research on contemporary social and political issues in Brazil (IBASE), AlterNex began exploring ways to link NGOs in Brazil with their international counterparts. To this end, AlterNex also played a fundamental role in hosting the proceedings and networking local and transnational activists involved in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the 1993 Human Rights Conference in Vienna, a Population and Development Conference hosted in Cairo in 1994 and other key events (Albernaz 2002, McCann 2008). A subset of AlterNex members (including Carlos Afonso) created the Network of Information for the Third Sector, or Rede de Informacoes para o Terceiro Setor (RITS), to expanded its work to the web in the late 1990s (McCann 2008; Venn 1999). As McCann notes, “many of the NGOs participating in RITS offered Web access to residents of poor communities before “digital inclusion” was a term of political currency” (136). As I will discuss in more detail in the blog post on New Media Production, such efforts to connect and encourage participation in civic issues has continued in the work of Brazil’s many telecenters as well as the community groups created through social network and blogging sites.
Orkut
If there is one word that is almost synonymous with the internet in Brazil, it’s Orkut (LINK). With over 40 million Brazilian account holders on the site (Fragoso 2006, McCann 2008), recent estimates suggest that more than three-quarters of those who use Orkut list Brazil as their country of residence; Portuguese is also the dominant language on the site (Red Orbit 2008). Indeed, when the Brazilian government threatened to initiate a legal suit against the company to grant the government access and monitor some of the less desirable community activities (e.g. sex tourism), Google resisted, but eventually came to an agreement in 2006 with the Brazilian authorities in an effort to stay embedded within the Brazilian market. While Google did not give the government access to its offsite servers, the company promised to enhance their efforts to monitor and control Orkut’s content (McCann 2008:133). In addition, August of 2008 California-based Google made the decision to establish an office in Belo Horizonte, Brazil solely devoted to the management of Orkut.
Launched in 2004 by Google (the name of the site comes from its creator, Turkish developer Orkut Büyükkökten), the site encourages members to post pictures of themselves, link to other users or websites, trade photos, audio and video files in their “scrapbook”. While Orkut’s initial uptake can be attributed to its early arrival in Brazil (Facebook and MySpace arrived later), part of Orkut’s appeal is its strong community facility that structures interaction and conversation (the site is organized into five categories: “Home”, “Profile”, “Scrapbook”, “Friends” and “Communities”) (Recuero 2005). Millions of communities exist and are as diverse as Brazilians themselves—local neighborhood groups and football teams, fan communities around football, music, films and notable people as well as more esoteric topics represent just a few of the communities Brazilians inhabit on Orkut. Recuero’s (2005) analysis of social capital in Orkut argues that the way Brazilians use the site to become popular and develop reputation typically undermines traditional hierarchies and methods of evaluation. Bryan McCann similarly contends that part of the success of Orkut revolves around Brazilian’s penchant for the creation of communities and networks which enable extensive discussions that, in content, often challenge the existing social and cultural structure of Brazilian society. Suely Fragoso (2006) suggests in her study of the site, for this reason Orkut has become an intercultural contact zone where Brazilians, Americans and other nationalities engage in extensive debate about current events and other topics. Through her exploration the ways in which Portuguese and English are selectively used in interactions on the site, Fragoso contends that the ways in which Brazilians use Orkut reflects a particularly Brazilian disposition to the practice (and salience) of sociality on the internet (see also Nafus, et. al. 2007).
The Brazilian Blogosphere
While Brazilians affinity for Orkut often dominates discussions of internet use in Brazil, blogging also is also popular. Data from ComScore report from December 2007, shows that Blogger.com alone was accessed by more than 6 million unique Brazilian visitors and Recuero (2008) notes that as of September 2007, over 9 million users (many of whom are youth) access and read blogs. This represents 46 per cent of Internet active users in Brazil.
Like the communities in Orkut, blogs are varied in topic in scope. With this said, participation in the Braziliian blogosphere often revolves around political and popular culture and blurs the line between social connection and information sharing. For example, O Globo, a newspaper in Brazil, developed a place where residents could anonymously report crimes, both petty and larger in scope. The site was so successful that the paper created a related crime map that enabled residents and officials to identify problem areas (McCann 2008). Citizen journalists are also incorporated in O Globo’s Eu-Reporter site http://oglobo.globo.com/participe/ where images and brief summaries of pollution and other trouble areas are featured (SIG-III 2007). Overmundo http://www.overmundo.com.br/home/, a site founded in 2006 to enable the circulation of information about Brazilian culture, also has become an important space for Brazilians due to its unique system of review and ranking, its desire to subvert existing practices of dissemination (e.g. press relations and advertising agencies) as well as its encouragement of culture (and popular culture) outside of the traditional centers of cultural production, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Noteably, Overmundo uses a Creative Commons license.
Whereas Overmundo and O Globo’s sites are more closely structured by an organization, more flexible open-ended sites are also being adapted in interesting ways. For example, Recuero’s (2005, 2008b) study of the appropriation of Fotolog, a photo-blogging site where people can upload and comment on digital photos to share with friends and others, looks at the intersection of information and communication in Brazilian’s engagement with a variety of internet practices. Based on two years of research, Recuero’s emphasizes the creation of carefully crafted digital identity, which includes a photoshopped image and a unique nickname, as well as the creation of groups for conversation. She further notes that for many Brazilians the purpose of participation revolves around the sociality posting photos enables . By contrast, Recuero and Zago’s (Forthcoming) study of the Twittersphere suggests “that Twitter is most used as an informational tool in Brazil, where values such as reputation, visibility, popularity, knowledge and information access are more important for users than social values such as social support.” In other words, whereas Brazilians subsume the informational dimensions of sharing (such as to inform others about crimes and social injustices) on sites such as Fotolog in the name of reinforcing social connections, participation on sites like Twitter (and even Overmundo) are driven by a desire to exchange information and the expansion of social networks (Recuero 2008a).
Conclusions
The internet in Brazil, particularly sites such as Orkut, Twitter, Overmundo and Fotolog, has clearly been transformative. It has expanded the way social capital is understood and practiced (Recuero (forthcoming, 2008a) as well as how Brazilians establish and maintain relationships. Bryan McCann (2008) makes the case in his recent book that that Brazilian’s use of the internet has resulted in the formation of the “Orkut Rule” wherein Brazilian’s develop “subcultural niches and crosscultural networks in ways that defy traditional hierarchies and the existing social canon” (McCann 2008:131). McCann further notes that transformative effects of the Orkut Rule and the subversion of traditional flows of information and communication are often mitigated by the ways in which the Brazilian government utilized key stakeholders known for their ability to shape public opinion rather than fund people directly (“The Petrobras Rule”, fn2) as well as the viral practice of making references wherein the people who become stars or famous become so via the “viral” recommendations of family and friends (“Virtual Pistolão Rule”). For McCann, the internet, and the emergence of the Orkut Rule, has helped to flatten social hierachies and, in turn, the ways in which culture is produced and reproduced in Brazil.
While these characteristics are clearly evident in the structure of sites like Overmundo and the use of social network sites like Orkut, it is also clear that we are only beginning to understand the everyday dimensions of internet usage in Brazil. As outlined in the introduction, there have been many efforts at the top-down level of the government as well as at the grassroots level to facilitate digital inclusion. Yet, it remains unclear whose internet we may be talking about as well as the extent to which such participation have truly transformed the well-entrenched hierarchies and inequalities in Brazil. Indeed, in their experimental class ethnography of Second Life in Brazil, Fragoso, et. al. (2008) note that the connection speed and other issues associated with access and the ‘digital divide’ negatively impacts many Brazilian’s ability to participate in such immersive environments. In the next blog post, I continue to explore these issues through a review of new media production activities and the digital inclusion movement.
Fn1: Recuero maintains her own blogging site in Portuguese: http://pontomidia.com.br/raquel/ on Social Media.
Fn2: Although I am unable to discuss this at length, McCann (2008) bases his concept of Petrobas rule on the dominance of Petrobras Holding in determining what is culturally valuable through its large investments in cultural programs. In 2006, Petrobras invested $100 million to cultural programs and sites like Overmundo were initiated through an initial grant from Petrobras.
References:
Albernaz, Ami. 2002 The Internet in Brazil: From Digital Divide to Democracy? New York University. http://www.aaplac.org/library/AlbernazAmi03.pdf, Accessed January 12, 2009.
comScore. 2008. Eighty Five Percent of Brazilian Internet Users Visited a Social Networking Site in September 2008. November 19, 2008. http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2592.
Fragoso, Suely, et. al. 2008. Learning to Research in Second Life: 3D MUVEs as meta-research fields. International Journal of Education and Development Using ICT 4(2)
Fragoso, Suely. 2006. WTF a Crazy Brazilian Invasion. In F. Sudweeks & H. Hrachovec (Eds.), Proceedings of CATaC 2006, pp. 255-274. Murdoch, Australia: Murdoch University.
Galperin, Hernán, and Judith Mariscal. 2006. Digital Poverty: Latin American and Caribbean Perspectives (REDIS-DIRSI, Lima, Peru)
content licensed under creative commons, available on-line in English at http://www.dirsi.net/espanol/files/DIRSI_BOOK-ENG.pdf, Accessed November 30, 2008.
Góes, Paula. 2008. The Greatest Street Party on Earth: The Brazilian Carnival Global Voices February 28, 2009, http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/02/28/the-greatest-street-party-on-earth-the-brazilian-carnival/, Accessed March 1, 2009
Martini, Paula. 2008. Social Network Platforms in Brazil: The Videolog Case. Apr 24th, 2008 http://icommons.org/articles/social-network-platforms-in-brazil-the-videolog-case, Accessed March 11, 2009.
Martini, Paula. 2008. Web 2.0 in Brazil: The Overmundo Case. December 20, 2007. http://icommons.org/articles/web-20-in-brazil-the-overmundo-case, Accessed March 11, 2009.
McCann, Bryan. 2008. The Throes of Democracy: Brazil Since 1989. London: Zed Books.
Nafus, Dawn, Rogerio Paula and Ken Anderson. 2007. Abstract 2.0 If We Are All Shouting, Is There Anyone Left To Listen? Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings Volume 2007. Issue 1. October 2007: 66 – 77.
Recuero, Raquel. 2005. O Capital Social e as Redes Sociais na Internet.
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Recuero, Raquel.2008a Information Flows and Social Capital in
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of Hypertext. http://pontomidia.com.br/raquel/ht08fp009recuerofinal.pdf, Accessed February 10, 2009.
Recuero, Raquel. 2008b Appropriations of Fotolog as Social Network
Site: a Brazilian Case Study. In: Internet Research Conference
9.0. Copenhagen. Proceedings of IR 9.0, 2008. http://pontomidia.com.br/raquel/aoir2007.pdf, Accessed February 10, 2009.
Recuero, Raquel. 2005. Um estudo do capital social gerado a partir das Redes Sociais no Orkut e nos Weblogs. Trabalho apresentado no GT de Tecnologias da Comunicacao e da Informacao da COMPOS 2005, em Niteroi/RJ.
Recuero, Raquel and Gabriela Zago Forthcoming. Who do you follow: Social Capital Appropriation in the Brazilian “Twittersphere”. [Preview copy graciously provided by author(s)]
Red Orbit. 2008. Brazil has become a trailblazer in computer use. http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/250691/brazil_has_become_a_trailblazer_in_computer_use/, Accessed December 15, 2008.
SIG-III. 2007. Social Media and the Internet in Brazil. September 19, 2007. http://www.neasist.org/icisc/blog/?p=36
United Nations. 2008. Brazil: Summary Statistics. http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crname=Brazil, Accessed December 2, 2008.
Venn, Karri Munn. 1999 Case Study: IBASE/AlterNex (Brazil). Commons Group Articles. http://www.commons.ca/articles/fulltext.shtml?x=430, Accessed January 28, 2009.
New Media Practices in Japan Part II: The Internet
The early history of Japan’s Internet adoption followed the US model in many ways. Beginning with early experiments in university and research settings on one hand, and geek-centered BBSs on the other, Japan eventually developed a commercial Internet in the mid nineties. Despite this early history, the Internet was slow to be taken up by the general population, lagging behind countries such as the US, many European countries, Australia, Singapore, and Korea (Aizu 1998, Gottlieb and McLelland 2003). During the nineties, outside of the geek core, Internet use was largely restricted to surfing home pages and exchanging email (Tsuji 1997).
Source: Kiko-Net. 2002. White Paper on the Internet in Japan
After the year 2000, Japanese Internet adoption increased dramatically, and usage patterns became more differentiated. Internet adoption increased from 37.1% of the population in 2000 to 73.8% in 2008 (Internet World Stats 2008). Tech savvy users began flocking to anonymous online forums such as Ayashii World (strangeworld) which grew out of earlier BBS and geek culture. Ayashii World is considered the origin of various online communication cultures, idioms, and ascii art such as the “giko-neko” that continue to characterize Japanese online geek culture.
Giko-Neko ascii art
During this period, companies such as eBay, Infoseek, Excite, and Yahoo! that were pioneering the US commercial Internet began establishing a presence in Japan, leading more mainstream forms of Internet adoption that centered on search and e-commerce. Yahoo! Japan was founded in 2002 and is the top search engine in Japan today. Although Yahoo!, Wikipedia, and other US-origin sites are successful, Japan has also developed local search and portal sites such as goo which rivals Google for second place (Ministry of Internal Affairs 2008). Rakuten, Japan’s largest online shopping site, was founded in 1997, and saw rapid growth through the early 2000s, becoming one of the largest Internet companies in the world. In addition to the geek-centered BBS culture of the early Japanese Internet, Japan also developed some unique Internet cultural forms in the more mainstream space, such as merumaga (mail magazines). Starting in the late nineties, net users started developing a practice of emailing personal zines to friends, and sites such as Magumagu emerged as clearinghouses. Politicians and celebrities started adopting the merumaga format as well, until eventually these were overshadowed by blogs and social network sites.
Growing out of this rich and varied history, today’s Japanese Internet use reflects Japan’s position in the international media and communications scene. While many of the popular online sites and uses have been adopted from the US model, Japan has also developed online communication patterns and sites that are distinctive to the Japanese “Galapagos effect.” The distinctiveness of Japanese Internet use is most evident in the mobile Internet, which will be the subject of a later post. In this post, we review research on two key categories of Japanese PC-centered Internet use: geek-centered forums and the more mainstream blogs and SNS sites.
Otaku Online
The early years of the Japanese Internet were, as in the US, dominated by academic and geek users, and there continues to be a geek, otaku-centered core that congregates online. Although Ayashii World was the first massive anonymous online geek forum, it was eventually overtaken by
Cultural theorist Akihiro Kitada (2005) suggests that it is not the topics of conversation that are important on the Internet, and on 2chan in particular, but rather that it provides a new site of social connection. Hiroki Azuma (2007), by contrast looks at the content of the narratives that are played out on 2chan, focusing specifically on the story of “Train Man” who turned to his 2chan community to support a budding romance. Another body of work around 2chan looks at 2chan festivals and meet-ups. Kensuke Suzuki (2002) has looked at 2chan events as a kind of festival. Masaaki Ito (2005, 2006) has studied events that 2channelers have organized that mix online and offline components. He has looked specifically at a case where 2channelers followed the activities of participants in a 24 hour marathon, conducting surveillance even when they were off the air. In another study, Ito (2005) examined how 2channelers staged an event where they were all show up at Yoshinoya and order the same thing at the same time. All of these events represent a layering of the realities of mass media, online media, and real life social action.
Another online site that grows out of 2Chan geek culture NicoNicoDouga (Smiley Smiley Video), a video sharing site that allows participants to annotate videos by adding comments that are layered on top of the video in real time. The site was founded by the same person that founded 2chan, and has a similar underground appeal (Katayama 2008). Satoshi Hamano (2008) has looked at the unique dymanics of Nicodou communication, where participants share an experience of watching and commenting on video together, as a kind of live viewing experience. Even though the video is not actually being viewed collectively in real time, the architecture of the site promotes a kind of “pseudo-realtime” experience, that can be replayed by anyone accessing the video.
Lisa Katayama describes NicoNico Douga for WIRED Magazine
Blogs and SNSs
The period from 2004 to 2006 saw a dramatic growth in Japanese adoption of blogs and social network sites. Prior to that time, online communication was dominated by online forums, journals, and merumaga. In the mid-2000s, however, a number various free blog sites became popular, software such as Movable Type was localized for Japan, and blogs sites were optimized for the mobile Internet. The Japanese social network sites, Gree and Mixi were both launched in 2004. This confluence of factors led to rapid adoption of these platforms, which have now become central features of the Japanese Internet. In March 2006, the number of blog users jumped to almost 8.7 million, from 4.7 million in September 2005. SNS users saw a similar jump in the same period to 7.2 million from 4 million. (Iwamoto 2006). In December 2008, GREE had 8 million users and Mixi was up to 16.3 million. The majority of users access these sites via mobile Internet. For example, in the case of Mixi, the numbers at the end of 2008 indicate that page views from a PC totaled 4.17 billion and from mobile the number was more than double that amount at over a trillion views (Narumi 2009).
In the span of the past five years, Japan has developed a vibrant and unique blogging and SNS culture. In the State of the Blogsphere 2006, David Sifry reports that Japanese takes the top spot among blogging languages worldwide, with 31% of posts, higher than the 25% spot occupied by English. In a report later that year, English gained a slight edge on Japanese, but Japanese continues to be one of the dominant blogging languages, and regained the top spot in 2007. One reason for the high number of Japanese posts has to do with Japanese blogging styles, which tend to have short frequent posts. This is particularly true of mobile blogging. In research on heavy Internet users, Shingo Dobashi (2006) describes how Japanese blog and social network use centers less on professional identities and more on collective social connections. He describes the shared approach for both blogs and SNSs as “tending toward fragmentary thoughts and feelings streamed on the web in the moment.” This approach to blogging has roots in the early practices of keeping web diaries (Miura and Yamashita 2004).
The primary social network site is Mixi, founded in the spring of 2004. Satoshi Hamano (2008) has analyzed Mixi as a unique sort of social network site that differs from sites like MySpace and Facebook in that it is grounded in an invitational format. He describes how Mixi emerged as an alternative to the more shady, anonymous and underground culture of 2chan by relying on invitations by known others, and technical features like “footprinting” that allowed people to see exactly who had looked at their profiles. In this way, Mixi has functioned as a kind of gated community of known other grounded in a sense of trust and familiarity. According to Yuta and Fujisawa (2005), Mixi users average 20.29 people in their circle of Mixi connections (known as “my-miku"). Of these, however approximately half of Mixi users have four our less people in their my-miku, and only 4.8% have over 41 people. In other words, the dominant use of Mixi is for very small-scale intimate communication. Looking at the more heavily networked Mixi users, scholars have studied the kinds of festivals and meetups that have been facilitated by Mixi. Kaname Tanimura (2008) has looked at how fans of the anime Suzumiya Haruhi organized a street dance performance through Mixi. The online network has facilitated connections between a specific fan-based interest group, as well as made their activities more visible to an undefined open audience.
References
Aizu, Izumi. 1998. “Internet in Japan in Asian Context.”
Hamano, Satoshi (濱野智史). 2008. アーキテクチャの生態系. NTT.
Azuma, Hiroki (東浩紀). 2007. ゲーム的リアリズムの誕生~動物化するポストモダン2. 講談社現代新書.
Dobashi, Shingo (土橋臣吾). 2006.「インターネットを使い倒す：集合体としてのユーザーとヘビーユースというふるまい」上野直樹・土橋臣吾編 科学技術実践のフィールドワーク：ハイブリッドのデザイン, pp212-231.
Gottlieb, Nanette and Mark McLelland. 2003. “The Internet in Japan.” In Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland Eds., Japanese Cybercultures. New York: Routledge, 1-16.
Ito, Masaaki (伊藤昌亮).2005.「ネットに媒介される儀礼的パフォーマンス―2ちゃんねる・吉野家 祭りをめぐるメディア人. 類学的研究」マス・コミュニケーション研究 66号.
Ito, Masaaki (伊藤昌亮).2006.「オンラインメディアイベントとマスメディア ―2ちゃんねる・24時間 マラソン監視オフの内容分析から―」社会情報学研究 10(2): 9-23 .
Iwamoto, Yuhei. 2006. 3月末のブロガー868万人、SNSユーザーは716万人. CNET Japan. April 13, 2006.
Katayama, Lisa. 2008. “Meet Hiroyuki Nishimura, the Bad Boy of the Japanese Internet.” Wired. May 19, 2008.
Kiko-Net. 2002. White Paper on the Internet in Japan.
Kitada, Akihiro (北田暁大). 2007. 嗤う日本のナショナリズム
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication. 2008. Information and Communications in Japan.
Miura, Asako and Kiyomi Yamashita (三浦麻子・山下清美). 2004. 人はなぜウェブ日記・ウェブログを書き続けるのか.
Narumi, Atsuyoshi (鳴海淳義). 2009. ミクシィ、第3四半期決算は増収増益--コスト削減で通期利益を上方修正.
Sifry, David. 2006a. State of the Blogosphere, April 2006, Part 2.
Sifry, David. 2006b. State of the Blogosphere, August 2006.
Sifry, David. 2007. State of the Live Web, April 2007.
Suzuki, Kensuke (鈴木謙介). 2002. カーニヴァル化する社会. 講談社現代新書
Tanimura, Kaname (谷村要). 2008.「インターネットを媒介とした集合行為によるメディア表現活動のメカニズム：「ハレ晴レユカイ」ダンス「祭り」の事例から」No.85, pp69-81
Tsuji, Daisuke (辻大介). 1997. 「”マスメディア”としてのインターネット」マスコミュニケーション研究, 50号, pp168-181.
Yuta, Kikuo and Yoshihisa Fujiwara (湯田聴夫•藤原義久). 2005. ＳＮＳにおける人のネットワーク構造.
New Media Practices in Ghana, Part III: The Internet
Inside BusyInternet cafe, by Aluetia
The high cost of personal computers and residential internet access puts private access out the reach of most Ghanaians. Thus, internet cafés are the primary means of access to the internet for most of the population. These shared access venues are also concentrated in urban areas. ITU statistics estimate that there were about 880,000 internet users (3.8% of the population) in Ghana by the end of 2008, but it’s not clear how over or underestimated this is considering the high use of shared access. In 2001, Southwood suggested that the then estimate of 1 million cyber-cafés was probably an exaggeration. Bruce, Engman & Yador (2004) believed that there were 20,000 private and corporate subscribers and as many as 1million internet users in 2004.
Notwithstanding the low access levels, media reports point to bustling business for internet café owners – evidenced in headlines such as “the cybercafe craze” (Daily Graphic, 2003). Access points range from small microentrepreneurial outfits with a handful of computers using dialup connections, to large enterprises equipped with up to 100 computers and high-speed internet access. The majority is located in the capital city, Accra, attracting anywhere from 10 to 1500 patrons a day (Daily Graphic, 2003).
While there are several tales, and some research, illustrating the application (or projects attempting application) of the internet to business and community development, indications are that for a significant proportion of users, the internet represents an “escape” mechanism (Slater & Kwami, 2005) both literally and metaphorically. This deduction is based mainly on observations of internet café users in Accra; there does not appear to be much research or even journalistic commentary, on the character of internet use at work or in the home by those who have such access. Nor has there been much examination of internet use outside the Greater Accra region. Sending emails, finding and communicating with “penpals”, applying to schools abroad, watching movies, listening to music, and playing games have been found to be primary acitivities at internet cafés (Alhassan, 2004; Burrell, 2009; Daily Graphic, 2003; Slater & Kwami, 2005). In particular, the aspiration to find avenues out of the local economy seems to drive internet-based activities. Alhassan (2004, p.197) states, “about three of every four students who surfed the web, explored avenues of leaving the country,” and Mark Davies, founder of the largest internet café in the country is quoted as saying of BusyInternet users, “four our of five are trying to find ways to get out of Ghana” (Zachary, 2002, p.72). Internet activity is thus infused with desires to connect to (often random) foreigners in the hope that the relationships developed online will provide a path to greener pastures abroad – invitations to visit, marriage proposals, visa assistance, physical cash etc (Alhassan, 2004; Burrell, 2009; Slater & Kwami, 2005; Zachary, 2002). Some do this through information-seeking (e.g., on educational opportunities); others focus on communication channels such as chatting, instant messaging, and social network sites. Furthermore, some of these endeavours are well-meant whilst others are elaborate scams designed to dupe gullible contacts (see section on cyber fraud below). In this sense, Slater and Kwami (2005) frame internet use in Ghana as a poverty reduction strategy aimed at the realization of idealized foreign relationships, while Burrell characterizes it as providing the ability to “migrate virtually” (2009). Likewise, Tettey (2006) describing cybersexual activity in Ghana concludes that female youth’s participation in the online sex trade, sometimes unwittingly, is often an economic redress, but also illustrates ingenuity in dealing with economic hardship. On the more positive side, Borzekowski, Fobil & Asante (2006) found that a significant proportion (53%) of respondents in their study of teenagers used the internet as a source of health information, amongst other things.
“Sakawa,” “419” (Cyber fraud)
Known locally as “sakawa” or “419,” cyber fraud is a particularly problematic phonomenon that now has Ghana ranked as number two in notoriety, and several North American merchants blocking e-commerce transactions from Ghana (Harvey, 2009; Kwablah, 2009; Nelson, 2009). Scams include making online purchases with stolen credit cards, online dating scams, inviting contacts to participate in mutually beneficial money transfers, etc. Internet dating scams have become so prevalent that user help sites such as the one illustrated below (DelphiFAQ.com) and eHarmony blog have emerged all over the internet. The US embassy in Ghana reportedly receives up to 15 calls a week from American victims of online dating scams (Seacoast Online, 2009).
http://www.delphifaq.com/faq/russian_marriage_scams/f1369.shtml?p=68
According to a report on Myjoyonline (2009), the perpetrators are usually young men between the ages of 7 and 30, typically known as “café boys.” Interestingly, in addition to noting the negative side of cyber crime, this report identifies a number of actual and potential benefits including development of computer skills, stabilization of the local currency as a result of remittances, fewer youth engaging in criminal activity on the streets, redistibution of wealth, and patronage of internet café and ISP services. Burrell (2009) explains that the social construction of the internet as a space for wealth acquisition perpetuates futile attempts by internet café users to tap into this source through internet scams. Rumors of the fortunes of successful scammers fuel other perpetrators who, while unsuccessful, and even with no direct knowledge of anyone who has been successful, continue to pursue and expend resources on this path.
Alexa.com (2009) data shows two local content sites amongst the top 10 websites visited in Ghana (Ghana Web, a news portal and My Joy Online, a local FM radio station).
1. Yahoo!
2. Google (Ghana version of search engine)
3. Facebook
4. Windows Live
5. YouTube
6. Ghana Web
7. Microsoft Network (MSN)
8. hi5
9. Wikipedia
10. My Joy Online
Google now offers a Ghana version of its search engine, although it is does not presently provide any unique capabilities for Ghanaian users (Ajao, 2008). The language barrier to broader use of the internet is also potentially being lowered by the introduction of vernacular translations of the same search engine.
Clearly, the field for research on new media practices in Ghana is wide open. The limited (published) work done in Accra paints a picture that even if accurate, may not represent user behavior across the country.
References
Ajao, O.D. (April 10, 2008). Announcing Google Ghana. Accessed May 9 2009 at http://www.davidajao.com/blog/2008/04/10/announcing-google-ghana/.
Alexa.com. (2009). Top 100 websites in Ghana. Accessed April 24, 2009 at http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/GH.
Borzekowski, D. L. G.; Fobil, J. N.; & Asante, K. O. (2006). Online access by adolescents in Accra: Ghanaian teens’ use of the internet for health information. Developmental Psychology, 42(3), 450-458.
Bruce, C., Engmann, P., & Yador, J. (2004). ICT infrastructure and research priorities of Ghanaian research institutions. CTN/Techgov. Accessed January 15, 2008 at http://www.ghanacybergroup.com/research/getres.asp?MC=RE&cat=4&id=15.
Burrell, J. (2009). User agency in the middle: Rumors and reinvention of the internet in Accra, Ghana. Unpublished draft. Cited with permission of author.
Daily Graphic. (February 26, 2003). The cybercafe craze. Available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=33323.
Harvey, F. (2009). Internet crime in Ghana. Accessed March 15 at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/281030/internet_crime_in_ghana.html?cat=17.
Kwablah, E. (February 17, 2009). Cyber crime: giving a bad name to Ghana. Business and Financial Times. Accessed May 4, 2009 at http://ghanabusinessnews.com/2009/02/17/cyber-crime-giving-a-bad-name-to-ghana/.
Myjoyonline. (March 3, 2009). Feature: Curbing cyber fraud: The way forward. Accessed March 19 at http://topics.myjoyonline.com/features/200903/27001.asp.
Nelson, N. B. (January 14, 2009). Ghana internet faud on the increase in Accra. Accessed May 4 at http://allafrica.com/stories/200901140783.html.
Seacoast Online. (April 5, 2009). Online dating scams on the rise in the U.S. Accessed April 5, 2009 at http://archive.seacoastonline.com/news/11052006/nhnews-05SUN-net-theft.html.
Southwood, R. (2001). Black star rising? – Special report direct from Ghana. Balancing Act, 82. Available at http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/back/balancing-act_82.html.
Tettey, W. (2006). Globalization, the economy of desire, and cybersexual activity among Ghanaian youth. Studies in Political Economy, 77, 33-55.
Zachary, P. (2002). Ghana’s digital dilemma. Technology Review, 105, 66-73.
Museum Collections: Digitization → Dissemination → Dialogue
Museum. A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. – International Council of Museums, 2007 Statute, article 3, section 1
This blog posting will discuss how (art) museums started digitizing their collections for the purposes of internal collections management and preservation during the last ten to fifteen years, and are now disseminating these digital images to the general public to freely access on their Web sites, and furthermore, they are encouraging audiences to actively engage with the content through dialogue, creation, and even appropriation using Web 2.0 tools. Some of the key issues will be raised, as well as theoretical implications and a few noteworthy examples that present unique opportunities as well as challenges.
Technology today allows museums to explore their goals of “education, study and enjoyment” in previously unimaginable ways, reaching out to a much larger and wider community than their physical museums could ever support. The words, “in the service of society and its development” are critical to the modern museum, which has redefined it mission as a populist one, embracing both the educated and uneducated, locals and foreigners, young and old. The primary goal for museums today is to provide all visitors with the greatest amount of opportunities with which to access their information through as many channels as possible, largely dependent on individual preferences for learning and enjoying. For this reason, the focus has been on quantity; reaching the largest number of visitors, offering the largest number of interpretive and educational tools (analog and digital), and presenting the largest amount of information that targets as many different audiences as possible. Museums realize that the Internet offers the ideal medium with which to do all this, and consequently they have begun transforming their Web sites to become more accessible. But the critical questions one must ask now are access to what kind of information, how is this information being accessed, and what happens after it is accessed? While many museums have been successful at widely disseminating their collections (at least partially digitized and online), they are now shifting their focus to audience participation through the creation and sharing of information. The particular ways in which museums engage audiences on the Web will determine if these new “networks of creativity” (Manuel Castells) reinforce a culture of individualism or communalism, and to what extent they generate creative activity and new knowledge.
THE BBC
On January 28, 2009, the British Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) announced that it had partnered with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to place all 200,000 of the United Kingdom’s (UK) oil paintings in public ownership on the BBC Web site by 2012. A new section will be created on the site entitled Your Paintings, described by BBC News as “a one-stop shop for the public to view and find information on every oil painting in public ownership.” The partnership agreement states that the BBC will build, host, and completely fund the website, and the PCF will build and completely fund the painting database, supplying digital images and data from this database to Your Paintings Web site. Judith Nichol, head of BBC Partnerships, stated that the partnership arose from an approach made to the BBC by the PCF, describing the BBC’s primary aim as:
…to publish a resource with which the BBC can integrate its arts programming and extensive archive of arts material. We also wish to bring a wider range of the public than would normally attend an exhibition to a resource that they own through the medium of online…The opportunity is for the BBC to bring its skills in engaging and entertaining a wide audience to this subject.
With the BBC Web site enjoying a weekly viewership of 40 million people, 87,954 sites linking in, and ranked #44 in all of cyberspace (all statistics from Alexa Internet, retrieved April 15, 2009), it is rather surprising that the BBC is concerned about access. As a national media source and a “public sector broadcaster,” the BBC receives its fair share of criticism from the public, particularly those in the UK (38.7% of its Web site users) that believe the BBC should be presenting more socially relevant and edifying content.
From the perspective of the PCF, director Andrew Ellis states that, “The BBC is national. That was key. It also has the third most popular website in the UK and has great experience in the area of interactive public engagement. It is the perfect partner.” At first glance, however, one would suppose a more suitable partner to be an arts institution, perhaps at a national level like the National Gallery in London that houses one of the greatest collections of Western European paintings in the world (and that also started the National Inventory Research Project). But there are a few problems with this idea, the first being it’s Web site. The National Gallery’s Web site is ranked #94,897 compared to #45 for the BBC, it has 2,351 sites linking in compared to 87,954 for the BBC, and users spend an average of 2.5 minute a day on the site compared to 6.7 minutes a day for the BBC. The BBC Web site clearly provides greater opportunities for access, especially given the fact that 65% of the UK, including Northern Ireland, has Internet access (UK Office for National Statistics, 2008 Omnibus Survey).
A second concern is that because the 200,000 paintings come from public institutions around the UK, to choose one over all others – even a large, established one – would have incited much protest and controversy. The BBC, therefore, was a neutral choice, a perfect partnership for both parties. There is only one hitch; the images will not be public domain, as confirmed by Ms. Nichol. The BBC’s preliminary plans are to make the Web site as interactive as possible, with opportunities to rate paintings, add comments, and link to galleries where the paintings are being exhibited or stored, to other “reputable sources of information,” and to places where prints can be purchased online. But the perfect plan somehow seems slightly less perfect if publicly owned paintings in a publicly accessible medium will not be public domain. Ms. Nichol does clarify that, “the final agreement on what can and cannot be done with the images on the site is yet to be finlaised [sic],” so one can only hope that the communal spirit of access and sharing will be extended to this matter as well.
It should be noted that many countries have created national archives of their cultural patrimony, but the UK is unique in its partnership with a broadcasting Web site for these ends (although the PCF is not a public initiative, it was charged by the government with photographing and recording all publicly owned paintings). Other examples include Artefacts Canada that includes over 3 million object records and 580,000 images of works housed in Canadian museums, as well as the Virtual Museum of Canada that has an Image Gallery with over 750,000 images. In 1975 the French government created Joconde that includes images of all paintings drawings, and sculptures in French museums. It went online in 1995, in 2004 it was combined with separate databases for archaeology and ethnology objects, and today it contains over 400,000 listings and 220,000 images.
THE ARTS AND MASS MEDIA
It is not uncommon for museums, cultural institutions, and even national archives to seek sponsorship from mass media that offer global distribution channels driving increased traffic to their online collections, exhibitions, and activities. The virtual art museum of Uruguay (Museo Virtual de Artes - MUVA) has been sponsored by the national newspaper El País since it went online in 1997, forming a merger now called Museo Virtual de Artes El País. Mass media partners include not only corporations that can provide critical financial support and sponsorship, most notably media partners, but also social networking sites (SNS) that can tap into previously established relationships and communities to rapidly spread information throughout the Internet by peer-to-peer connections (p2p) with mostly younger users. Many of these SNS are themselves owned by global media corporations that ensure their global reach. Flickr is owned by Yahoo, as is the new social bookmarking site del.iciou.us, YouTube is owned by Google, iTunes is owned by Apple, and MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Mass media Web sites like BBC or Google normally have community discussion forums and blog postings that are very active with rapid responses from people communicating around the world. By utilizing these third-party spaces, museums provide not only greater access to their collections (targeting a younger audience), but more importantly, they encourage participation and dialogue by creating a sense of community and a new, hipper image contrasted to the stereotypical rigid institution of faceless names, static veneration of the past, and scholarly pursuits (Berwick, 2007).
More than just distribution channels and chat forums, these third-party sites also serve museums as digital image repositories. Some of the most well-known are Google Images, a separate search tool for images within Google started in 2001, currently with over 245 million images in its database, and ARTshare, an application within Facebook started by the Brooklyn Museum of Art to share works of art. ARTshare currently has 200 million images with 100,000 images being added daily by the 34 participating museums around the world.
The Commons on Flickr was launched in January 2008 together with the US Library of Congress to “increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and to provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge.” The home page asks users to help describe photographs by adding tags or leaving comments.
It is important to note that the partners and digital image repositories used by museums are not only commercial and/or corporate in nature; there are also successful non-profit models. The most well-known is ARTstor founded in the 1990s by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the purposes of “education and scholarship” (they also created JSTOR, an online repository for scholarly journals). Their digital library currently has almost one million images, with 995 partners in the US and another 161 internationally (partners include museums, colleges/universities, K-12 schools, public libraries, and independent art schools). While ARTstor utilizes SNS like Facebook and YouTube, access to the image databank is limited to affiliation with participating non-profit institutions. Another more recent addition is artCloud, founded by Steven Henry Madoff, a former ARTnews editor and Time Inc. consultant. It functions as more of a social networking site for artists, arts professionals and institutions, allowing users to upload images, share them publicly, and create their own profiles with My artCloud. Currently there are 23 museums participating from around the world.
Another model for museums is to collaborate with other arts institutions to create online image repositories. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have created ImageBase with over 82,000 images, and the Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) was created in 1997 as a partnership between art museums internationally for the educational use of their images (it ended in 2005). The ArtsConnectEd database is a joint project of the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Certainly larger museums with substantial resources host their own archives and databases with search engines on their own Web sites, but collaboration in any manner is always helpful to facilitate access.
These non-profit models are particularly useful with digital, new media, or net art. Three examples are Rhizome that is housed at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY and has an ArtBase with almost 2,500 works, the Whitney ARTPORT has related resources as well as archives and current commissions and exhibitions, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s online gallery e.space started in 2002 as the first museum collection of Web sites displayed on the Internet.
THE GETTY ONLINE SCHOLARLY CATALOGUING INITIATIVE
In 1997, the Getty Foundation launched its Electronic Cataloguing Initiative, awarding $4.9 million in grants to 21 arts organizations in the Los Angeles-area. By the end of the 6-year grant period, the organizations had created more than 250,000 digital images and began providing online access to 185,000 objects. This was a time when museums were just beginning to develop Web sites, states foundation director Deborah Marrow in the report released ten years later that discussed lessons learned (Schneider, 2007).
The Getty’s Electronic Cataloguing Initiative was designed to help Los Angeles museums and visual arts organizations make information on their collections available online….Today, a Web-savvy public expects immediate user-friendly access to visual arts collections. Although many museums have at least a part of their collections available online, organizations still struggle with how to fund, develop, and justify these programs. What, after all, is the relationship between collections access and a museum’s core responsibilities? Can online access have a meaningful impact on an institution’s broader mission and programs? How will online access affect an organization’s budget and operations?
The report also lists six reasons for a museum to pursue online cataloguing of its collection: increase access, expand audiences, support teaching and learning, improve documentation, preserve collections, and streamline workflow.
The Getty Foundation’s current initiative – the Online Scholarly Cataloguing Initiative (OSCI) – began a few years ago. In 2008, the foundation decided to invite eight art museums from around the world to participate, based largely on their substantial resources and experience with new media. All proposals have now been approved by the foundation, and the museums will begin their initial research phase of one to two years. Joan Weinstein, Associate Director of the foundation and project manager, talks about the project goals and vision:
In transforming the catalogue to an online environment, they won’t be just scholarly. The premise is that you can include all kinds of information online that you can’t in a print volume, information for everyone from the general public to students to scholars. You don’t have to wait until everything’s complete to put it online. You can have multiple voices in single entries: For more recent work, you can have both artists and curators speaking. Same thing for older collections. You can have conservators speaking and you can put the conservation documentation online. You could even super-impose an x-ray onto the image of a work of art itself (Green, 2009).
The foundation envisions creating greater access to scholarly catalogue content to scholars, the general public, and students. An online catalogue could provide a wider array of information that is constantly updated with changes in conservation, scholarship, exhibition history or ownership, linking to related sources around the world and facilitating greater collaboration between scholars and museum professionals for purposes of curating, research, and conservation. It could also remedy the problem of out-of-print catalogues and might even reduce expenses by museums offering print-on-demand services. For a good example of an online catalogue, the Sir John Sloane’s Museum in London currently has three on its Web site “to make the collections available as freely and widely as possible.”
Erin Coburn, head of Collection Information and Access for the J. Paul Getty Museum, already has experience creating online catalogues for the museum starting in 2005. She is excited about the possibility of reaching a wider audience on the Web, stating in a recent interview that,
One of the things that I’m really interested in is, when you put it out there on the Web you have no idea who your audience is anymore. We get probably as high as 40-50% of our traffic into our collection right now directly from Google. And so I’m really fascinated by this notion that by liberating such wonderful, incredible scholarship that is academic and scholarly, by liberating it from the print form, I think we’re going to be pleasantly surprised by how many people that are not academics are interested in this material.
Ms. Coburn confirms that their entire painting collection falls into the public domain, and so consequently the online images are public domain images. It will be interesting to see how each participating museum facilitates access to the general public, how they address issues of fair use, and how much they embrace the ideas of user-generated content and shared knowledge within the context of a scholarly publication. As Ms. Coburn describes the museum perspective, “I think that part of our mission is a responsibility to educate our public and create access to what’s in our collection, but also to provide them with the most accurate and up-to-date information.” Many of the issues in the future will be around data reliability and trustworthiness. As greater and greater amount of information can be accessed on the Internet (including content generated by both amateurs and professionals), procedural transparency, clear metadata, and accurate cataloging become critical matters for museums to address and even to coordinate throughout the global museum network. It is an exciting proposition for museums to build such networks, but the general public as well as fellow scholars and institutions must all be incorporated. The Getty Foundation foresees this democratization of access and knowledge creation as the future that museums will need to contend with. Hopefully this planning phase will help these pilot museums prepare for the challenges and help other museums through their experience.
COMMUNITIES AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
These latest trends in seeking greater dissemination and sharing of information could lead to museum audiences working together to form new on-line (and even off-line) communities and social networks for the greater good. But they could also lead to audiences becoming increasingly fragmented and individualized as they appropriate content to suit their personal interests through solitary activities in front of one’s computer, and as museums continue to target specific groups on their Web sites. Academics have blamed the mass media and corporate marketing for exacerbating this latter socio-cultural condition, pointing to practices such as data mining, narrowcasting, direct mailing, and receiver-sensitive websites that can be described as the one-step flow of communication (Bennett and Manheim, 2006).
Digital technology has also received its fair share of blame for facilitating these transformative practices, including the hypertext, tagging, email, and text messaging/SMS that are based upon individual profiles. Technology becomes appropriated by its users, resulting in the notion of “MY hypertext” (Castells) or in “baroquization, creolization, and cannibalism” (Bar, 2008), often producing innovative and creative solutions, but at the same time reinforcing the performance of personalization. Castells has stated that “the dominant culture of the Internet is a culture of networked individualism, a self-selected network.” Museums encourage users to appropriate their online images by offering the ability to create My Collection (Smithsonian American Art Museum), My Art Gallery (Seattle Art Museum), My Scrapbooks (Institute of Chicago), Art Collector (Walker Art Center/ Minneapolis Institute of Arts), and Bookmarks (The J. Paul Getty Museum).
Many museums are now using these tools that more deeply engage audiences with the thousands of images they are posting online from their collections. Once audiences have created their own collections, they can share them with friends (often sent as postcards), “publish” them online for the public to view, comment on and rate, learn more detailed information about them, tag them as a collective activity, and in general, make these images personally relevant to their individual interests and proclivities.
The Steve Project for social tagging is important to mention here as an on-line collections-based activity, dependent on user participation to categorize images. Many people also consider the SNS Flickr and Del.icio.us to be examples of such folksonomy tagging. Funded heavily by the US Institute of Museums and Library Sciences since it started in 2005, Steve is “a collaboration of museum professionals and others who believe that social tagging may provide profound new ways to describe and access cultural heritage collections and encourage visitor engagement with collection objects.” Users can share their favorite images and tags with others, invite friends to participate, display their tagged works on their Facebook profile pages and see the most popular tagged artworks. Their website asks the question, Why tag art? And their answer is,
See art you haven’t seen before. Look in a new way. Describe works of art in your own words. Exchange your ideas with the community of art lovers. Lead others to artworks they wouldn’t normally see. Create a personal relationship to works. Let museums know what you see. The more you tag, the richer the experience for all.
In a 2009 report on the results of the Steve Project, Jennifer Trant states that,
Tagging is shown to provide a significantly different vocabulary than museum documentation: 86% of tags were not found in museum documentation. Tagging by the public is shown to address works of art from a perspective different than that of museum documentation. User tags provide additional points of view to those in existing museums records. Within the context of art museums, user contributed tags could help reflect the breadth of approaches to works of art, and improve searching by offering access to alternative points of view.
For a good example of tagging in museums, see The Indianapolis Museum of Art. A list of papers and presentations about the Steve project since 2005 can be accessed at: http://steve.museum/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=5&Itemid=14.
Along with these trends, museum practices could continue to become even more populist and open, embracing non-expert participation and the concept of collective intelligence, or rather more controlling and hierarchical in response to the unpredictability of increased public information on their Web sites. So far, museums retain a large amount of control over user-generated content that is publicly displayed, whether on their Web sites for kids and teens, on their SNS accounts, their discussion forums, or even how their on-line content can be publicly used. Trust and credibility are essential for motivating individuals to engage in collaborative activities on-line, such as tagging and sharing personal collections, and museums must determine the delicate balance between community and authority. [We are not including a discussion of remix, although it is an important and controversial creative activity by professional and amateur artists utilizing on-line images to create their own images, and one which is driving many museums to revisit their policies on rights and reproductions. For information on the value of remix and Creative Commons, read Larry Lessig’s newest book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.]
CONCLUSION
Jeremy Rifkin (The Age of Access, 2000) states that direction, control, and goals are vital to navigate this online age of access, and museums are no exception. As we recall the ICOM’s definition of museums that operate “in the service of society and its development,” it becomes clear that museums must prepare their visitors to develop Jenkins’ “cultural competencies and social skills” for the 21st century age of access and excess of information. Museums have a special responsibility to help youth manage the extraordinary amounts of information they continue to place on the Web, with more information being added constantly from the collective intelligence and participation they seek from their expanding global audience. We know what kind of information is being accessed on-line and we know how it is being accessed technically, but what is done with it after depends on how it is being accessed in terms of intuitive capabilities. Harvard professor Howard Gardner’s Good Work projects focus on ethics and judgment, the latter of which he states is the most relevant skill needed to navigate new digital media and evaluate the reliability or credibility of information sources. Rifkin also states that the development of social trust and social exchange are necessary for communities to engage in commerce and trade. Castells best explains this civic responsibility of museums in The Internet Galaxy (2001),
…the study of sociability in/on/with the Internet has to be situated within the context of the transformation of patterns of sociability in our society. This is not to neglect the importance of the technological medium, but to insert its specific effects into the overall evolution of patterns of social interaction: space, organizations, and communication technologies (125).
The Internet’s capacity to store an extraordinary amount of data and images, combined with the rapid dissemination and transfer of information on a global scale, can often cause what is commonly called “information overload;” too much information all the time and a growing reluctance to turn off devices because one fears missing out on something.
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Web sites are extremely popular with museums today because they can present much more information to the public than ever possible with a simple printed brochure or wall text (even printed catalogues have space limitations, and are not freely accessible like the Internet). Museum Web sites have incorporated search engines for their on-line collections databases, where by typing in a few words, users can access thousands of images and descriptive information (metadata), categorized in a number of ways as we have seen such as tagging. New Web 2.0 technologies give audiences more authority and control by empowering them with calls for participation and tools to catalogue works of art based on personal preferences.
The more museums engage with the larger global public (both experts and non-experts) through the Internet, the more they become aware of their public nature. Yet despite this public nature being based on legal or financial stipulations, museums still remain elite institutions that value their priceless objects, their highly educated staff, and their scholarly research and curatorial programming; they value control and authority (not necessarily a bad thing). How well audiences are able to navigate the diverse array of interpretive tools within the physical museum, and how well they are able to access museum content on-line will determine not only the extent to which one participates, shares and creates, but fundamentally it will determine the quality of the museum experience (virtual or physical). Museums strive to be popular and reliable sources of education, study, and enjoyment for their communities, and as such, they must not only provide public access (virtual and physical), but they must also consider the implications of this potential excess of information, choices, and opportunities as facilitated by new digital technologies within our knowledge cultures, and the role that they all play in this ongoing societal transformation.
It may seem an overworked matter, but the relation of the physical object to the virtual image remains critical for many reasons, touching on issues of preservation, stewardship, image quality, revenue, and legal policies. As long-time repositories of objects, museums have shifted to being repositories of knowledge in this information age today (Marty, Rayward & Twidale, 2003; Hooper-Greenhill, 1992). Objects are static, but information is constantly changing, a reflection of not just the past but of the dynamic present and future. Our next posting will discuss further examples of on-line museum experiences, and how they also raise many of these poignant issues and more.
REFERENCES
Baca, M. (Ed.). (2002). Introduction to art image access: Issues, tools, standards, strategies[Electronic version]. Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Trust. http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards/intro_aia/
Berwick, C. (2007, October). Nonsmoking capricorn museum seeks networking, dating, serious relationships, friends. ARTnews, 194-197.
Castells, M. (2001). The Internet galaxy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Castells, M. (n.d.). Creatividad, arte y comunicación en la cultura de la virtualidad real [Creativity, art and communication in the culture of the real virtuality]. Unpublished personal notes for a conference.
Chun, S., Cherry, R., Hiwiller, D., Trant, J., & Wyman, B. (2006). Steve museum: An ongoing experiment in social tagging, folksonomy, and museums. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (Eds.). Museums and the Web 2006: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/wyman/wyman.html
Dunn, H. (2000, September). Collection level description – the museum perspective. D-Lib Magazine, 6. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september00/dunn/09dunn.html
Filippini-Fantoni, S., Antenna Audio Ltd., & Bowen, J. (2007). Bookmarking in museums: Extending the museum experience beyond the visit? In J. Trant and D. Bearman (Eds.). Museums and the Web 2006: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/filippini-fantoni/filippini-fantoni.html
Galloway, P. (2004). Preservation of digital objects. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 38, 549-590.
Green, T. (2009, February 4). The collection catalogue is dead, long live the catalogue. Message posted to http://www.artsjournal.com/man/2009/02/the_collex_catalogue_is_dead_l.html
Guy, M., & Tonkin, E. (2006, January). Folksonomies: Tidying up Tags? D-Lib Magazine, 12. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january06/guy/01guy.html#1
Hamma, K. (2005, November). Public domain art in an age of easier mechanical reproducibility. D-Lib Magazine, 11. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november05/hamma/11hamma.html
Hammond, T., Hannay, T. Lund, B., & Scott, J. (2005, April). Social bookmarking tools: A general review. D-Lib Magazine, 11. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture. New York: New York University Press.
Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Puroshotma, R., Robison, A., & Weigel, M. (2007). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Chicago: The MacArthur Foundation.
Kellogg Smith, M. (2006). Viewer tagging in art museums: Comparisons to concepts and vocabularies of art museum visitors. In J. Furner & J. T. Tennis (Eds.), Advances in classification research, 17. Austin, TX: Proceedings of the 17th ASIS&T SIG/CR Classification research workshop.
Lessig, L. (2008). Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. New York: The Penguin Group.
LiCalzi O’Connell, P. (2007, March 28). One picture, 1000 tags [Electronic version]. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/arts/artsspecial/28social.html
Mannoni, B. (1996). Bringing museums online. Communications of the ACM, 39, 100-106.
Marty, P., Rayward, W.B., & Twidale M.B. (2003). Museum informatics. In B. Cronin (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 37 (pp. 259-294). Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc..
Parry, R., Ortiz-Williams, M., & Sawyer, A. (2007, March). How shall we label our exhibit today? Applying the principles of on-line publishing to an on-site exhibition. In J. Trant & D. Bearman (Eds.), Museums and the Web 2003: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/parry/parry.html
Rainie, L. (2007). 28% of online Americans have used the Internet to tag content. Forget Dewey and his decimals, Internet users are revolutionizing the way we classify information – and make sense of it [Electronic version]. Washington, DC: The Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2007/PIP_Tagging.pdf.pdf
Rifkin, J. (2000). The age of access. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc.
Schneider, A. (2007). L. A. art online: Learning from the Getty’s electronic cataloguing initiative [Electronic version]. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Trust. http://www.getty.edu/grants/pdfs/LA_Art_Online_Report.pdf.
Trant, J. (2009). Tagging, folksonomy and art museums: Results of steve.museum’s research. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. http://verne.steve.museum/SteveResearchReport2008.pdf
Trant, J., Bearman, D., & Chun, S. (2007) The eye of the beholder: steve.museum and social tagging of museum collections. In J. Trant & D. Bearman (Eds.), International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. http://www.archimuse.com/ichim07/papers/trant/trant.html
Trant, J., & Wyman, B. (2006). Investigating social tagging and folksonomy in art museums with steve.museum. Paper presented at the World Wide Web Conference, Edinburgh, UK. http://www.archimuse.com/research/www2006-tagging-steve.pdf
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Conference of the International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums - http://cidoc.icom.org/
Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI) - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cimi.org (archived pages from its original Web site)
Getty’s Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online (AAT) - http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_researach/vocabularies/aat/
Museum Computer Network (MCN) - http://www.mcn.edu/
Museum Documentation Association (MDA), Cambridge, England
Museum Domain Management Association (MuseDoma) - http://musedoma.museum
Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL) - http://www.oit.umd.edu/as/MESL/ (1995-1997 archives)
NMC Pachyderm Conference, Dallas, TX - http://pachyderm.nmc.org/ (Susan Chun, Opening Plenary Speech, 2007 - http://www.nmc.org/podcast/tagging-art)
WebWise Conference on Stewardship in the Digital Age (Institute of Museum and Library Services). The 2009 conference can be reviewed at: http://webwise2009.fcla.edu/index.html
Learning from the Edges, Part 1: The Importance of Play
In the previous posts, we reviewed innovative uses of digital media within community libraries and museums that are designed specifically to provide visitors and patrons access to digital archives, virtual tours, and vast collections of cultural heritage materials. We also reviewed efforts to use digital media to involve visitors and patrons in the creation of new knowledge through the development of tagging activities, collaborative curating, and games for learning. The following posts consider another set of activities going on at the edges of these institutions that suggest other efforts to transform informal learning experiences for library and museum participants. As John Seely Brown (Hagel and Brown, 2005) famously asserts: “to transform the core, start at the edge.” We’re interested in these edge projects because they offer another set of ideas about how community libraries and museums could function as part of 21st century distributed learning networks. These efforts foster learning by providing opportunities for physical engagement with a range of objects and environments (from the material to the virtual). In this post, we discuss the examples of (1) toy lending libraries and (2) the user-friendly authoring/designing environment called Scratch. These efforts emphasize the importance of play and creative expression in learning and cognitive development.
TOY LENDING LIBRARIES
Unlike in Canada and parts of Europe, toy lending libraries in the United States did not really take off until the 1960s and 1970s. Wales, for example, has a national play policy that is integrated into the mission of the nation’s toy lending libraries (Powell & Seaton, 2007). Although toy lending libraries have existed in the U.S. since 1935, the notion of a such a library is unfamiliar to many people. The U.S. toy lending libraries take a variety of forms: they can be based within a community library, be attached to a main library as a supplemental set of offerings, get organized as a cooperative neighborhood venture, or circulate as a mobile lending collection (Moore, 1995). Though these libraries have diverse structures and lending philosophies, they share an emphasis on the value of play and the importance of providing support to a wide range of children. Most cater to young children, usually newborn through kindergarten, though some have toys and other learning objects available for kids as old as 10.
One of the guiding principles of toy lending libraries is the importance of play for developing a range of skills in children. According to the USA Toy Library Association, through offering “high-grade” toys to all, toy lending libraries foster children’s development and thus serve an important educational purpose. In many toy lending libraries, toys including stuffed animals, musical instruments, puzzles, and crafts are available to be borrowed or used within the library space. Some of these libraries also offer books. Through interacting with a particular toy in the library space, children also learn values of sharing, community, and honesty. Many toy lending libraries also provide forums for parents, teachers, and others to discuss the educational value of play in general and certain types of toys in particular. In addition to providing opportunities for fun and educational play, toy lending libraries can be an important source of support for both parents and children. For parents, toy libraries can provide information about child development; they can also help parents to be more informed consumers. Some toy libraries also serve as informal childcare sites. The Cuyahoga County Public Library system in Ohio has a dedicated Toy Lending Library website that offers an online guide to assist parents in choosing the right toy for their child.
Other toy libraries are designed especially to offer a safe and nurturing space for disabled children to learn and play. The most well-known example of this type of toy library is the Lekotek movement, originally begun in Sweden. Roughly translated as “play library,” (Moore, 1995), Lekotek is a network of toy libraries (mostly concentrated in the Midwest and eastern U.S.), computer centers, and support services for families with children with special needs. The Lekotek mission is to use “interactive play experiences, and the learning that results, to promote the inclusion of children with special needs into family and community life”
While many toy libraries focus on promoting the value of play and provide support for parents and guardians, others have as part of their mission a desire to reduce waste and consumption. When a toy can be checked out of a library rather than purchased, there are clear ecological benefits in that the same toy can be used by numerous children. This allows families to save money and children learn the value of saving and sharing. The Mission Statement of the Heights Parent Center in Cleveland Ohio clearly articulates this philosophy:
TLL helps families resist the urge to buy, buy, buy every toy on the market.
Use TLL to try different toys out before running out and buying them.
Rotate the toys in your home affordably.
Teach your children the value of borrowing rather than buying.
Another example of toy libraries emphasizing conservation is found in Fiona’s Toy Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan (Brandt, 2008). This library shares some of the philosophy of the Heights Parent Center above (reducing waste, helping people save money) but is totally free, has no lending time limits, and does not charge for toys that are returned broken.
SCRATCH: Design for Learning, Design for Tinkering
Toy lending libraries typically emphasize the importance of material objects (toys) in developing important learning objectives: sharing, exploration, creativity. One of the most innovative efforts to integrate the digital with the physical is the virtual authoring environment called Scratch. Created by Mitch Resnick and the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, Scratch is a ”graphical programming language designed to support the development of technological fluency” in young people. Although anyone can use Scratch, the target audience is 8- to 16-year-olds. Scratch is currently used in libraries, schools, museums, community centers, as well as homes. Key attributes of Scratch include promoting technological fluency, creativity, and “tinkerability” as well as building online communities of creative participation.
Scratch Home Page
Technological Fluency
The phrase “technological fluency” can have a range of meanings, but Resnick and his colleagues at MIT’s Media Lab compare it to language fluency. (See the handout titled: “Technological Fluency: The Clubhouse Learning Approach” produced by Resnick and others at the MIT Media Lab (no date). Memorizing phrases and grammatical structures does not necessarily make one fluent in a language; rather, it is the ability to use the language creatively in complex situations. In the same way, technological fluency comes not from merely knowing how to use a technological tool, but instead through having the ability to creatively make things with it. With a tool such as a computer, technological fluency includes using and learning new ways to use the computer, creating based on one’s own ideas, and “understanding concepts related to technological activities.
Scratch encourages technological fluency in a number of ways. First, it teaches programming language through using graphics that look like building blocks. The user snaps the blocks together (like Legos) in order to combine animation, photos, music, sound, etc. to create interactive projects (Resnick, 2007; Peppler & Kafai, n.d.). The blocks can only fit together in a certain way, which eliminates the frustration caused by inadvertent syntax errors. This type of intuitive programming language also allows users to “‘play with [their] code’ testing out new ideas incrementally and iteratively” (Resnick, 2007). Through interacting with Scratch, users learn computational concepts, mathematical ideas, and design processes. The Scratch website also facilitates technological fluency through providing numerous resources, including cards that show users how to do everything from make their animated objects “move to a beat,” to “change color,” to “keep score.”
Creativity and Tinkerability
Scratch was created in line with what Resnick (2007) calls a “‘kindergarten approach to learning or the “creative thinking spiral.” This approach begins with imagining, and then progresses through creating, playing, sharing, reflecting, and then back to imagining. While these steps do not necessarily proceed in a linear fashion, the key point is that all of these elements are involved in the type of learning that is necessary for the digital age or what Resnick calls the “Creative Society.” Scratch promotes creativity by offering opportunities for users to learn the steps of dynamic and interactive design. One of the key goals, according to Resnick, is that Scratch encourages “tinkerability”: the environment/application makes it easy to put together fragments of computer programs, try them out, and take them apart again. The emphasis on tinkerability is hinted at in the Scratch name, which was appropriated from the technique of hip-hop deejays, who use vinyl albums and a turntable to create an array of sounds. Like deejays, users can make a wide range of creations, including animations, games, birthday cards, and reports.
Resnick and his Lifelong Kindergarten research team have deep expertise in the creation and design of mix-reality learning objects. The Lifelong Kindergarten researchers, along with the LEGO company created LEGO MINDSTORMS: “the first programmable brings and robotic kits.” More recently Lifelong Kindergarten research has inspired the development of a new invention kit called The PicoCricket Kit that integrates art and technology to spark creative thinking. The basic component of PicoCrickets (called a “PicoBoard") works with the Scratch programming language such that users can connect material (real-world) sensors to on-line (digital) Scratch projects.
PicoCricket Kit Components
Collaborative Community
One of the most appealing aspects of Scratch is the user community that has developed around the authoring environment. The creation of community was an explicit objective for the development of Scratch. As the original designer of Scratch, Resnick believed that technological fluency is based in learning from, and sharing with others. This is in contrast to many other Web 2.0 sites, which support uploading on the part of producers and commenting on the part of viewers, but not necessarily meaningful interaction between the two. The Scratch website is designed to facilitate connection among users, such as through commenting on projects, joining forums, and participating in galleries (formed around common topics). Another noteworthy aspect of the community is how it emphasizes the positive, again to encourage learning, sharing, and community. For example, users can “love” projects but they cannot give them only one or two stars, as is the case with other websites such as YouTube. Again, this design feature is intentional in order to promote a supportive community (Resnick, personal communication). As of July 10, 2009, “There are 473,487 projects with a total of 11,948,669 scripts and 3,702,846 sprites created by 72,121 contributors of our 320,690 registered members. Another key to the opportunities for creative thinking and designing that are built into Scratch is that projects are remixable. This means that any member of the Scratch community can download the source code of a project to create a new project. Creative appropriation is in fact encouraged. As of August 2007, 15% of the approximately 24,000 shared projects were remixes (Monroy-Hernandez and Resnick, 2008). When a new remix project is posted, a link to the original project appears in order to credit the creator. This practice has led to discussions regarding originality, creativity, and copyright.
Learning From Remix Culture
Scratch was developed in accordance with a long tradition at the Media Lab of a philosophy which focuses on the value of teaching students to design learning environments rather than simply use them. This philosophy of teaching young people to make music (or visual art, etc) rather than simply consume it informs many after-school and community-based informal education programs that make use of digital audio software to encourage young people to recognize their creative potential. See for example:
- Digital Youth Network provides students tools and faciliates their ability to become creators who can and innovators.
http://iremix.org/ - Berklee City Music Program is a national network of institutions offering the Berklee PULSE music method to under-served teens.
http://berkleecitymusicnetwork.org/ - Youth Radio was founded in 1990 to train young people from under-resouced public schools, community-based organizations, group homes and juvenile detention centers in broadcast journalism, media production and cutting-edge technology.
http://www.youthradio.org/about/youth-programs - The Hiphop Archive Project is dedicated to increasing youth representation and participation in artistic creation and collaborations.
http://www.hiphoparchive.org/university - Rock the Classroom restores music education in under served public elementary schools by using music and songwriting to complement literacy curricula.
http://www.rocktheclassroom.org/whatwedo.html - A Place Called Home provides cultural arts program to at-risk youth in the form of music, dance, and fine arts.
http://www.apch.org/creativeexpression.php
Brandt, D. (2008, October). Toy lending service may keep Ann Arbor area kids stimulated. Ann Arbor News [Online]. Retrieved March 14, 2009, from
http://www.mlive.com/annarbornews/news/index.ssf/2008/10/toy_lending_service_may_keep_a.html
Hagel, J. and J. S. Brown. 2005. The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Specialization. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Monroy-Hernandez, A. and Resnick, M. (2008, March + April). Empowering kids to create and share programmable media. Interactions. Retrieved August 30, 2008, from http://mags.acm.org/interactions/20080304/?pg=52
Moore, J. E. (1995). A history of toy lending libraries in the United States since 1935. Unpublished master’s thesis. Retrieved March 12, 2009, from http://eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/14/4f/ef.pdf
Peppler, K. A. and Kafai, Y. B. (n.d.). Creative coding: Programming for personal expression. Retrieved September 1, 2008, from http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/archives/CreativeCoding-PepperKafai.pdf
Powell, R., and Seaton, N. (2007). “A treasure chest of service”: The role of toy libraries within play policy in Wales. Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from http://eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/3e/ab/4b.pdf
Resnick, M. (2007). All I really need to know (about creative thinking) I learned (by studying how children learn) in kindergarten. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Creativity and Cognition, Washington, D.C. Retrieved July 20, 2008, from http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Emres/papers/kindergarten-learning-approach.pdf
Resnick, M. (2007-08). Sewing the seeds for a more creative society. Learning & Leading with Technology.
Scratch Research Wiki: http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Research
Authors Bio:
This posting was authored by Cara Wallis, Maura Klosterman, and Anne Balsamo.
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