Let's Not Kid Ourselves

Apology: this posting will not be very text specific.

HBO Voyeur. Gotta say, I just don’t get it. Don’t know what the content is, don’t know how I’m supposed to access it, don’t know why I should care. Thoughts?

The thing about convergence culture that this week’s readings do not deal with is whether or not it works; to put it another way, does it succeed in its (from the corporate perspective) goal in selling more content, of whatever kind that content happens to be? Henry Jenkins and others write about terms like “franchise” and the phenomenon of corporations pushing products through a virtual mélange of media, but anecdotally, the idea of convergence to sell more product does not necessarily make sense. For example, I tend to visit the websites of films for which I like the trailers. And 99% of the time I am disappointed by the offerings of these website. There is usually no more content about the films except some kind of virtual world in which I can do very little in. Maybe I can buy the soundtrack or read a synopsis or bio of the filmmakers. So what is the point? I wouldn’t get to this site anyway without the trailer, and it doesn’t seem to lead me anywhere new except to the movie theater, which I was gong to go to anyway. I guess I could blog about my excitement, but really I’d rather talk to a friend.

While perhaps the websites for films are not the most creative example of convergence culture, the example seems to point to a seeming necessity for extraneous content across media to surround a product even when this extra content is usually redundant.

So why is convergence so privileged? My question is, must we use it just because it’s there?

southpark studios & convergence?

For my screening assignment, I choose to catch the South Park episode I missed titled "Elementary School Musical". When I went to the website, SouthParkStudios.com I the first thing that caught my eye was a strip of images linked to clips of different episodes this season entitled "What Fans Are Watching". To the right of that are links telling you to "Watch New Episode", "Play South park Games", use 'South Park scene mixer", and an advertisement for '"Need For Speed: Undercover" video game. The episode was surprisingly not interrupted with advertisements telling me to buy this video game that comes out 11.18.08; although it had links around the entire screen.
Taking from what Henry Jenkins talks about in his piece about Convergence Culture, I couldn't help but see the parallels in the narrative of the episode. The episode was a satirical in nature, it parodied the High School Musical movies. Linking the Disney movies to the comedy central cartoon show, the episode displayed "a flow of content across multiple media platforms". I feel like it is convergence because the episode actually makes me want to watch the High School Musical movies now to see what its all about, as the characters did. This factor I believe is essential to convergence being a legitimate phenomenon. The participatory culture allows this type of convergence to exist. Right?

When we got this assignment, I was intent on watching Desperate Housewives. I immediately went to the ABC website, which welcomed me (slash scared me) with this man's voice that preempted his appearance and occurred before the web page even loaded. The voice belonged to some car advertisement that took up the main section of the opening webpage, a distracting motion that added to the overwhelming clutter of the page and redirected my attention from the internet to this TV-like advertisement. The ad provided a live link between the television and the internet, reminding me of my reason to use the internet as a gateway to past television - a means in which I could almost relive the past. This webpage was going to give me the opportunity to experience Desperate Housewives in its state of "liveness" that I missed that previous Sunday night. In a sense, the internet was providing me the comfort and reassurance that technology would compensate for the relentless continuum of time. This notion parallels Doane's idea of television's attempt to make a chaotic world more orderly - Internet basically acts as television's back up by "render[ing] 'natural' the logic and rhythm of the social order" (233) when television fails to do so.

Once I finally got to actually watching the show (after several minutes of necessary online test-taking...i.e."Which Desperate Housewife Are You?"), I was interrupted again by another advertisement. This time, the pop-up screen forced me to watch the advertisement, which consisted of Christina Aguilera's new music video/Target commercial. The advertisement was a continuous stream throughout the entire episode, occurring every 20 minutes or so and picking up where it left off, like some alternate sort of story line occurring simultaneously with the Desperate Housewives story line.

Diverging from the screening, I'd like to note some intriguing aspects of Caldwell's article and question his notion of "utopia." Caldwell associates utopia was a "gloss of endless diveresity promised in the new age of cable" (44), indicating the link between utopia and chaos. This relation contradicts the classic interpretation of utopia as "perfect" and "orderly." Perhaps Caldwell is implying his belief in a utopia as some sort of confined chaos - a perfect society that contains a necessary diversity in a controlled atmosphere that simultaneously propagates the spread of collective knowledge and (in terms of capitalism) produces a profit from doing so.

Media Convergence in the Virtual Event

Over the weekend I attended the “Machinima Expo”, a virtual event in the online world of Second Life. The Expo was essentially a virtual film festival with several theaters screening films throughout the day, panel discussions with voice-chatting avatars, a “live” musical performance, award ceremony, and various exhibits. When I actually begin to think about the festivities, I realized the amazing degree of media convergence present in this online space that I had totally taken for granted. The Machinima Expo was promoted on a website (http://www.machinima-expo.com/) , which contained a special link called an surl. Clicking on this link launches Second Life and teleports you to the location of the event. Here, the convergence of internet technologies with the medium of computer/video games is apparent. Second Life itself also integrates a huge amount of other media into its world: there is live voice communication (which used to belong exclusively to the telephone), text messaging, “live” musical performances, and video streaming. All are technologies that have converged on the computer via the internet, but have also found their way into online gaming. It is also interesting that the film screenings in Second Life sought to emulate the experience of real world film spectatorship. These screenings took place in virtual cinemas, complete with posters advertising the event and seats in which the avatars could sit to watch the film.




The convergence of these media technologies in Second Life were made possible by Linden Labs, the company that created the virtual world. Thus, there was definitely a commercial impetus for this phenomenon. In fact, it is part of the business model----Second Life promotes itself as a creative space that facilitates a wide variety of social and multimedia experiences. Nonetheless, unlike most online games, Second Life is a world that is constructed almost entirely by the free labor of its players. Thus, the theaters and exhibits of the Machinima Expo were built by Expo organizers after renting virtual land from its current owner. This labor functioned primarily for the users, but also benefited Linden Labs because people wanted to enter Second Life in order to attend the virtual event. This is a great example of the symbiosis between the users who supply the free labor and the corporation that makes the technologies available---both parties benefit from the arrangement. However, this model of free labor in Second Life is complicated by the existence of Second Life’s rich market for virtual goods and land which users can buy and sell for actual cash.


Virtual Concert In Second Life:

Convergence

What struck me the most about my "screening" assignment this weekend was the convergence of different media that was so clear in the fan cultures surrounding TV shows. It started when I noticed on the Six Feet Under website that there was an entire section on "Claire's Art." For those of you who don't know, Claire is a character on the show who goes to art school, and episodes often show the artwork she is working on/has created. On the website there are pictures of some of her art, accompanied by comments by the producer as well as the artists that actually created the art. This ties the form of visual art with the televisual show. In addition to this, the page also provides links to interactive games, providing yet another medium. Under the title "community" the show is also connected to online newsletters and blogs. Of course, the very fact that I was finding this on a website is yet another example of a combination of media.

For those of you that are familiar with the show Weeds, you know that the theme song of the show is played by a different musician or group for each episode. Each of these versions is available on the Weeds website, thus linking music to the televisual. A similar thing is done on HBOVoyeur; there is an emphasis on the background music, which you can even select in the lower left corner of the screen. The mixing of these different media is beneficial to both sides, as musicians gain fans of the show and the show gains fans of the music. One Tree Hill offers yet another example of this more indirectly, by using the name of a song as the title of each epsiode.

I found Jenkin's article on Convergence Culture extremely interesting and would love to discuss further in section the implications of it. I think the concept of interaction between viewer and producer is extremely important to the changing culture of media and is changing our perception and expectations of media. I feel like this relates back to Keenan's ideas on which way the window is pointing; the relationship between the different directions of light is becoming more complex.

For the my "screening" this week I watched the show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" on the popular television website hulu.com. Interestingly enough my experience could hardly be considered exemplary of convergence culture. One would think that such a popular website would utilize media convergence to the fullest extent to reap the maximum benefits from its capacity to do so, but I found that this was not the case at all. Unlike the website for "The Hills" that was utilized in lecture earlier this week, media convergence played an extremely small part in the advertising on the site. In fact, any advertising at all (as well as any convergent devices) was minimal. More than anything the site seemed to operate like television with less commercials. The ads had nothing to do with the program. I believe the ad shown during the show was for a car. There was no option to buy Charlie's sweatshirt or Dennis' preferred hair gel or whatever other ridiculous products are hawked in conjunction with other television shows on the web. I didn't have to watch any promos for upcoming episodes of the show, nor could I even find a link to the shows official website! Three thirty second ads and a small banner ad were the entire extent of the advertising I encountered.  Other aspects of convergence culture within the site were limited. There was a tab for discussion about the episode/show and for reviews of the episode. That covers just about all of the truly "convergent" aspects of the site.

So why bother to create such a site? Or, rather, why would one create such a site and not utilize further convergent technologies? The site provides a place to watch television with less ads than actual television and more control over what one is watching and when, but nothing more. It occurred to me that the site seemed to actually become an advertisement for the act of watching television itself. Most of the "advertising" on the site was for other shows also featured on the site. Below the video player there were links to other TV shows featured on the site and clips from other shows as well as other episodes of "Always Sunny." The site becomes something of an advertisement for itself more than anything else. This poses an interesting challenge to the supposed trend of convergence. One of the most popular television websites on the internet hardly utilizes any convergent mechanisms at all. How can we view this site in terms of convergence?

Enjoy the best video quality online: watch full episodes with our new player.

For my online television experience, I decided to catch up on a show I had watched quite religiously at home but neglected since my move to Providence and the chaos of the corresponding transition. As the streaming video page header helpfully informed me, "episodes are available 8 days after broadcast"; however, my intent to start at the beginning of the season was dashed when I realized that, quite reasonably, these streaming episodes are only up for a limited amount of time. Television networks may be buying in to the free on-demand content aesthetic of the new digital economy, but they will only go so far when their profits depend mostly upon TV advertising. Any forays into the digital field will only be sustained so long as they do not pose a threat to the central business of TV, which is of course television. Needless to say, I was quite put off not to be able to pick up right where last season's dramatic finale had ended (another tried-and-true television technique to keep viewers engaged during and beyond the months-long summer break between new material). Not having much choice within at least the legal realm, I submitted to my disappointment and sat down with the oldest of the new episodes still available.

I was immediately met with a dull, black screen, and then prompted to install a special Fox video player, which I was assured offered "the best video quality online". After this process was complete, I again got ready for the familiar opening teaser of an episode of "House". Not yet. The now ubiquitous commercial into to online television reared its ugly head, advertising a new show on the same Fox network. I would not realize how annoying this ADD burst of lie-detector intrigue could be until I had seen it five or six times, once (at least) at each of the predetermined commercial breaks programmed in to the Fox player. Also to my intense displeasure, the initial thirty-second clip was replaced in subsequent viewings by a version seemingly identical but somehow twice as long.

Finally, the actual episode began. I had been watching it quite happily for a good ten minutes or so when the program, as television often does, faded out - only this time it didn't fade back in again. I waited for a little while to no avail, then gave in to the natural tendency of an Internet native: I clicked around hoping that something would happen. It seems I had been caught unawares by a prescheduled Internet equivalent of the "commercial break", a luxury available to networks when the use of their own, special video player is mandated. In retrospect, this made sense, as the progress bar was broken in multiple places by a short vertical line - billed, no doubt, as an easily identifiable stopping/starting point but functioning more as an excuse for more advertising. Unfortunately in my confusion I managed to stumble upon every commercial break except the one I was looking for, meaning I watched an identical ad for that inane Fox program five times consecutively. (In an unlikely dose of kindness from the network, I later found that the commercial breaks I had already cleared were not triggered a second time as I went through after this. Small comfort.)

The viewing from here was largely uneventful, with the exception of a few more frustrating commercial interludes I had missed in my mad rush to save the streaming video. The web site surrounding it, though, was an ideal exemplification of the new media reality. A list of episodes with thumbnail image was displayed prominently below the viewing area, a come-hither intended to appeal to lapsed viewers like me or more generally anyone susceptible to the flow encouraged by television in any context. All of these were marked with a five-star rating scale determined by the online audience; surprisingly, despite a large discrepancy in the number of votes included between the various episode averages, the groupthink averaged out at 4 stars every time. Not bad, "House". Beneath these episodes were conveniently placed "online extras", likely exclusive, in which the actors discussed the episodes above. One of these, I might point out, in its title alone gave up the secret of a SHOCKING TWIST that I had not yet seen! Oops. Below was a series of "user reviews" which seemed to be focused quite negatively on the video player itself, with a few passionate defenders standing up to the mob of detractors. Yet despite this disproportionality, the average star rating here was a perfect 5. Finally, below this was a convenient series of links to MORE Fox streaming programs, with a list of thumbnailed "Most Popular Episodes".

The material here exhausted, I followed a link to the "official site". A "House-isms" bar greeted me at the top left, with an EKG-inspired countdown to the next new episode (4 days, 22 hours, 55 minutes, 55 seconds at this writing. Mark your calendars.) below. The same links to recent episodes and websclusives were prominently displayed at the center, with a backdrop image of the man himself looking appropriately sardonic. Below thse videos were a pair of essential reminders: a timeslot change to Mondays starting in January (New Year, New Night) and an "extended" upcoming episode (Set your DVRs and VCRs accordingly -- the Nov 25th episode runs until 9:08pm!) Interestingly, these reminders were links back to the page on which they appeared. Next, we are reminded that "Election Time Isn't Over Yet", tapping into our Obamenthusiasm with an entreaty to vote for Hugh Laurie for Best Actor in the People's Choice Awards. Finally, we are implored to join the "Community" with links to the official House Facebook, the House wiki, and the four most popular topics in the House subset of the Fox forums. In a similar vein, a link at the top of the page marked "Bookmark and share this page" expanded to reveal a helpful array of possible tasks, including but not restricted to: bookmarking, Facebook/Myspace posting, digg, MSN Live chatting, and, my personal favorite, MORE.

Just another night in the world of Internet television.

Beyond televisual flow

     This week's lectures brought up the emergence of new technologies and their relation to convergence culture.  Television no longer, simply television, but rather extends online through games, forums, blogs, chats, shopping, and so on, as was brought up in lecture.  How does this effect the notion of "flow" as Raymond Williams describes it, which is so central to television?  Television when analyzed within its programming still very much relies on flow, though even here it begins to diverge as the audience is prompted to access MySpace pages or other external sources.  Thus, a new flow seems to emerge.  Is this flow fundamentally the same or different from the televisual flow described by Williams?  It would seem that now, the flow that once characterized television, is a cross-medium, all-encompassing flow.  

     Williams says that the phenomenon of "planned flow" is the defining characteristic of broadcasting (86).  The planned flow is the "sequence transformed by the inclusion of another kind of sequence," which he says follows from the innovation of commercial advertising and trailers of upcoming programs (90).  Williams' argument must now be re-evaluated as the television audience is increasingly prompted to continue the flow created by television, outside of television.  This goes then to Jenkins' discussion of convergence as both a top-down and bottom-up process (18).  From the top, the consumer is prompted to act in certain ways and indeed is provided with a certain limited set of options.  Conversely, the consumer has the choice of what prompts to act on and indeed, it is in the nature and to the advantage of firms respond accordingly.  Though, the consumer would seem less empowered in light of Terranova's article, "Free Labor."  

However, to return to Williams', he states that while "the items [on t.v.] may be various the television experience has in some important ways unified them" (95).  Reconsidered, the cross-medium flow now unifies even more disparate items while also unifying otherwise disparate technologies.  Furthermore, the flow, which Williams says "is always accessible, in several alternative sequences, at the flick of a switch" (94) is now accessible at the flick of switch or click of a button be it on one's computer, cellphone, or other PDF.  It seems we are truly in a web of our own making, forever entangled in an extension of the televisual to the all-encompassing technological flow.  The only escape would be to take oneself off the map entirely, with the consequence of losing touch with an imagined community that seems increasingly to define "reality."  

Take a Cruise (?) on our Animal (loving?) Planet

Logging onto the Animal Planet website to watch WHALE WARS ( a wholly SWEET show about sea pirates who chase off whaling ships) I was greeted, like Alex, by a frenzied onslaught of images, links, mini films, advertisements: serious media convergence. 

Was I supposed to read the text? Was I supposed to listen the 'crashing of waves' that suddenly played over my itunes? (which was playing 'love in this club' by usher---psych. just kidding.) Was I supposed to link to some an advertisement for clorox-- side note: isn't it a bit ironic that a bleach company is advertising on a green-centric, save the planet-style website? doesn't bleach kill the environment?

Anyway, after clicking the 'find out more' link (yes, i'm a sucker i know for even doing that) I discovered that I could (a) read about the greatness of the show (as reviewed by animal planet reporters, hmmm..) (b) tell a friend to watch the show (email them via yahoo) (c) watch a preview for the show (only after downloading  media player x, y, or z) but not actually WATCH the whales. oh, and on the side of the screen I could click to learn how I could cruise to the Caribbean for under $300!  -- because people who like watching whale-hunters get attacked obviously like the ocean and marine life and thus obviously like the Caribbean and thus clearly want to cruise there in a giant white prison ...(maybe even actually hitting and killing a few whales on the way and definitely dumping oil into the sea.)

As you can tell, I was underwhelmed by the site's blatant material focus and even more unimpressed by the fact that I couldn't watch WHALE WARS. 

My quest continued though and I clicked on one of the dozen or so pull-down menu options at the top titled "videos" --> "watch entire episodes". At this point I was met by offers to watch shows on TLC, The Discovery Channel , or Animal Planet ---and told that I HAD to download "The Player".

I hate TV. and I hate it when it mixes with the web. so to add mandatory downloads and ads was not good .

I ended up watching a take2 version of Grizzly Man called "Living with the Wolfman".

Guess how it ended?

okay, so not as violently as Grizzly Man--but even my viewing experience online was marred by a mandatory show (however brief) of ads before I could watch it. And then some more at the end (and more links to click on for what to watch next.).

Did I do it? Ha. take a guess.

What did I think of HBO Voyeur?

Well, it did remind me of Rear Window (a trick I think was intentional on the part of the designers--> a way to say "oh, look how much we know about film. If you know as much as we do you will get this allusion and then we can smile about it together") and although the ads seemed more 'toned down', they really were just as present as ever. 

OUR analysis

So Monday night I watched South Park.  I’m sure you all had similar encounters with convergence, so I won’t really delve too much into that.  I found the most interesting part the ability for the viewers to blog and leave comments (even suggestions and comments).  The comments were surprisingly constructive (“GOD DAMMIT STOP DOING FREAKIN MOVIE PARODIES!” –SLBPanda). 

 

The forum is an obvious example of Anderson’s notion of an imagined community (as is the site as a whole).  Everyone’s voice is heard.  Discover tidbits that went unnoticed as other fans dig into the subtleties of the episode.  Share those that you found that maybe others missed.  The forum guarantees that everyone is on the same page.  Yes, the episode of Obama’s election was a parody of the Ocean’s series.  Did everyone catch that?  Well, in case you didn’t, you now know.  On one hand this weakens intra- and interefferentiality (may have made up that word) as it is no longer a personal boon to discover these “treasures.”  Certainly personal pleasure still exists, but when it is plastered on the forum walls then it seems to lessen the excitement either because you were TOLD about it, or because so many people now know. 

 

This opens up another exciting level, though, which relates to Levy’s idea of collective intelligence.  Because all opinions are input into the forum, the entire episode can be picked apart.  Together we can understand as much as possible about this episode.  The set of fans that partakes in this (mass) ceremony now becomes expert in the eyes of those who may just be casual or passive viewers.  We crave to suck up all this in order to get the most out of our viewing experience, even if it doesn’t fully tie together until post-episode…

 

I guess I will give a nod now to the HBO voyeur website.  Whereas the Comedy Central website was very unsubtle (play games!  Read reviews!  BUY STUFF!), HBO’s site was subtle.  To me it seemed that its hook was not in games or forums (the fake forum was allegedly “frozen”) but in the investment into something just odd.  One may just sit there and ask, “What is this?”  After one gets sucked in, the creators may just be hoping for one to click on the little HBO link at the bottom of the screen.  It seems to be effective because it tries to avoid the splattering effect of other websites of convergence…because it’s so different.  Ultimately the viewers will acknowledge that HBO has provided this interesting experience, and that will hopefully, for the company, be enough to attract the voyeur to other experiences (shows) that it has to offer.