grandtheftrights

Source: OzHarvest at Martin Place

Children are so easily forgotten regarding mental health. Let’s make sure they’re not!

Source: Help in NSW

1. People haven’t had to pay for before,
2. Is widely available elsewhere as a free resource online,
3. Should be free by virtue of ‘the free press’ and the public’s right to know.

Distribution, Aggregation and the Social

Aggregation is the new black Distribution. Today, information is everywhere we go, is in everything we do. There’s more information than ever, and as was said in the lecture for this week, this is because everything is/can be a surface for publishing.

The printing press published information over and over again onto un-alterable paper, which was then distributed through the masses. The printing press couldn’t move, but it represented a rise in the importance of information that has continued today.

But with a rise in importance comes a deluge of information never seen before, and today, a struggle to see it meaningfully organised to an individual’s liking and needs. “My Mix”, as it was referred to in the lecture, a form of generated expression in itself shedding light on an individual’s priorities and information. Each individual has their own ‘niche’, their own slice of information when relating to personal technologies, be it social media, apps, or physical forms such as binders, bookshelf arrangements.

Social media needs aggregation. If it didn’t, our Facebook ‘news feeds’ would incorporate a bunch of meaningless, spammy information that we would not ever be able to make sense of. Aggregation is distribution, but a meaningful tyoe that organizes our information how we need it. In Facebook, Statuses, pictures and links that are shown in someone’s feed relate to recent trends, recent likes, and the relationships between someone and their connections. This content isn’t even aggregated directly by us, but by facebook’s algorithms, which are informed by our activities on the site. Each individual’s aggregated content looks different depending on their interests, thus each individual has before them a published set of specifically aggregated information that tells them about what’s happening around them. Other individuals have their own aggregations, their own specific organization of information. It’s like micro-publishing, a result of the decentralisation of publishing seen as a result of the technological revolution that has changed the world over the past decade.

It’s micro-aggregation, making sense of every individual’s information meaningfully for that individual rather than for a blanket audience. The printing press distributed information, the same information, to thousands. Today, each person has their own aggregated information in front of them, and it’s mobile.

Physical aggregation is evident too. Our short ‘field trip’ during the tute led us to see that aggregations can also be used in geography. Maps are aggregations of the most important information needed about an area if a map is the only point of reference. The UNSW campus map uses a grid system to locate each building. The map provides a central point of reference for the coordinates of every building, and each building has it’s coordinates adorned on it. Each building uses a logical number system for finding rooms, e.g 210, the tenth room on the second floor. Each bulding will usually have a map. It’s aggregation within aggregation. The map is trying to make sense of the dispersed locations of buildings on campus, and the room numbering is trying to make each room’s name more meaningful by doing that- adding meaning through the number allocated to it.

Aggregation is everywhere, because information is everywhere. Aggregation of information is the future, the past, and everything in between.

‘It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves—the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public—has stopped being a problem.’

Are digital and networked media dismantling the “publishing industry”? Is it being replaced? If so, what is replacing it? If not, what is the publishing industry becoming, and how is it doing so? Are there new difficulties and complexities or expenses involved?

Dismantle verb To take to pieces.

Publishing has changed. As media students, we hear a lot about how the industry we are studying to become a part of is purportedly in decay; an obsolete, unsustainable relic; largely due to societal changes brought about by new technology. The innovation offered by technologies has vastly altered the publishing industry but has not necessarily changed it’s role- to produce and distribute information among publics. New technology, namely smartphones and tablets, has allowed individuals to publish and share content online, be it through social media, blog sites or video hosting. Coupled with Networked Individualism; the societal shift towards dispersed, interconnected groups; new media has essentially changed the definition of publishing through granting each individual the freedom to publish, view and comment on information and articles.

So the methodology through which information is published has evolved?. ‘Micro-publishing’, it could be called, gives power to individuals to publish, rather than a few centralized organizations. This new, flexible model of publishing is the next logical step in how people will disseminate information- instantaneously and independently. In this sense, in the method of making information public, digital media is dismantling its traditional counterpart, removing inefficient parts of the old publishing model and absorbing other elements.

Essentially, New Media is slowly usurping more traditional publishing techniques in the same vein as the printing press did in the 1600’s (Eisenstein). Digital media is simply the next logical step for publishing; facilitating social discussion, the collective power to publish and the lack of geographical constraints in distribution. Furthermore, the affordance of new media in the creation of discussion in groups is paving the way for a more democratic future, by which communities decide the value of published information, not the producer.

Digital vs Traditional Publishing

Traditional publishing relies on information being packaged and produced statically for an audience and disseminated among it. It’s a top down approach; information is aggregated by the publisher who curates what is published. Print media is a prime example of this, the production of an unchanging publication, mass-produced and distributed, with the choice of information involved decided by the magazine/newspaper itself (Fidler, 1996). Furthermore, it’s a geographically bound process, relying on centralized publishing centres to churn out thousands of newspapers daily.

In traditional media, the publisher shoulders the costs of publishing, gaining revenue on whatever they sell the product for in the market. Therefore, revenue is raised through whichever means individuals are attaining the information from, for example, newspapers in the print media industry. Therefore, when people stop buying newspapers, the publisher loses revenue. Old media is ‘reliant on the medium’ for profit, not the actual information being disseminated (NPR, Good Riddance to Mainstream Media)

Digital media represents the next step in publishing. It breaks the geographical boundaries associated with traditional publishing methods, disseminating not just information, but the power for the public to publish and disseminate their own content and access other’s (Carton, Cully & Ogley-Oliver, 2010). Furthermore, as noted by Vickers, the onus is on the receiver to own a device that they can use to access information digitally, removing the cost risk for publishers in publishing and distributing media (2014). In a society where connection with other individuals takes place freely and often, access to information is abundant also, and the individual’s ability to publish has become a cornerstone of social life through social media. Essentially, the difficulty associated with old publishing- the risk; costs and distribution- are nonexistent in new media (Shirky). It is this aspect of the new media revolution that is dismantling old media: by making publishing ubiquitous, technology is forcing the closure of outdated techniques.

By giving individuals the power to publish whatever they choose, the wealth of content available online exploded. It contributed to the rise of Web 2.0, that has occurred simultaneously with the shift towards Networked Individualism (Rainie and Wellman, 2012), resulting in an online audience obsessed with involvement and discussion. Sites like Twitter & Reddit offer the opportunity to add to a debate in real-time and to share content with others. These sites rely on a community in order to post content, discuss it and share it, and both involve microcosms of social activity pertaining to a huge amount of topics. Through the aggregation of particular related content into topics, known as ‘subreddits’ and ‘hashtags’ respectively, users can personalize their experience with new media depending on what they find important, an aspect that older publishing techniques are incapable of due to their staticity. Furthermore, newspapers, CD’s and TV shows (pre-2000s) do not offer individuals the chance to become involved in a particular topic in real-time. People had to find others who shared an interest in a particular part of media, whereas in the online space, people need to find the right forum, or attach it to the correct ‘hashtag’.

However, casting aside the so-called “Publishing Industry” as dead would be unwise; it is instead far from this at this moment in time. The industry may be broken, but is slowly incorporating aspects of new media into its repertoire, flirting with new models to both save their positions in the industry and enhance the wealth of information in the world. It should be rephrased that the “Traditional Publishing Industry”- the creation and dissemination of static information at a purportedly passive audience- is being pummeled into the ground by new technologies that are simply better for individuals hungry for information. This isn’t speculation, it is a fact backed by numerous academics (McChesney and Nicholls, Alterman) and media publications themselves (WSJ, The Economist) , demonstrated below.

The Music Industry. (The Graph below shows yearly music sales in the USA for the past 40 years. We can see that music sales peaked in the late 1990s, just before the onset of Napster and the industry upheaval that it would spark, shown in the steep decline of sales in the 2000s)

http://www.simplyzesty.com/getmedia/97caf116-a043-46c0-8fab-722b86561a59/music-industry.jpeg.aspx

The widely noted decline of the music industry over the past 20 years is due to the inability for old publishing entities to change their models in the face of huge societal change. The world has been changed around the industry, though the industry itself has remained rooted in the past, unwilling to alter its revenue-bringing tactics of old- publish, then sell. From 1950 to the 1990’s, this was the only avenue through which music could be distributed, as consumers were forced to buy music from labels who would end up exploiting their position as gatekeepers to the industry (Price, 2011). As mentioned earlier with the print media example, the money on which the industry thrives flows through whichever medium people are buying their music on; be it LP’s, CD’s or MP3’s. Therefore, if people aren’t buying music, the industry is in trouble.

A core attraction in the rise of new digital media is the freedom from centralized, walled-garden publishing it offers. Publishing something should not be restricted to one or two channels, but disseminated among many. The music industry was hugely strong in the early 90’s, with major labels racking in millions from physical CD sales, and much like the print media industry (Shirky, 2009), they planned for the inevitable digital revolution. However, they failed to acknowledge what represented to them the biggest possible threat- that the ability to share content wouldn’t shrink, but instead it would grow.

Unsurprisingly, when original music- both industry and home produced- began to be published on decentralized, widely-available websites such as Napster, there was huge outrage within the industry (Grant, 2000). These ‘criminals’ were able to download an audio file directly from a non-industry affiliated website, onto their home computer and listen to it, sans payment. Uproar ensued, and the industry itself lobbied governments to litigate a way out of the issue, resulting in high profile court cases in which a record label would sue an individual for theft of their property. The new media available to individuals was undermining their business methods, and effectively made ‘ownership’ of content invalid. Not only did these court cases fail to stop the onslaught of downloads, but as Easley noted it painted a ‘desperate image of a dying industry’- one which would do anything it could to get people buying it’s music again (2005).

Essentially, the Internet was being used as a tool for publishing to a wide, cross-bordered audience, distributing music with far more than reach than the industry, and at less cost. As one infinitely connected network, comprised of countless sub-networks, information could be republished and shared like wildfire. Online networks of music enthusiasts were feverishly sharing music (often ripped from CD’s), republishing copyrighted audio in an early example of file-sharing.

Essentially, as Shirky notes, publishing has been made easy in this new media age due to the affordance of sharing online. This is not only apparent with industry produced music, but also new music, as today new artists are increasingly turning to online communities to gain exposure, such as Soundcloud and Datpiff, which cater to the Electronic & Hip-Hop communities respectively. Therefore, the new media age not only allows people to share existing music, but post and distribute their own, effectively cutting out the need for an industry altogether. Contrast this with 50 years ago, in which record labels represented success for aspiring artists and had complete control over the publication and distribution of music. A slow decline in the industry began in the mid-90’s, a trend showing the damaging effects of new media on old. The economies on which major labels depended – restrictive, physical sales- were being destroyed.

Transition to New Publishing

Publishing, in a produce and distribute sense, is dead. As described before, new media usurps the old in many ways as a more efficient, democratic and accessible entity altogether. But in a world where individuals essentially publish information daily, be it on social media, blogs, music or video sites, Publishing is more significant than ever before. Essentially, collective power formed through networks in new media is taking power from the industries that used to publish information at populations. Through everybody having the ability to publish, citizens can decide what should get attention, rather than have information fed to them by publishing powerhouses. This is seen in the significance of trending topics on Twitter, which relies on real-time interest in a particular ‘hashtag’ for it to gain exposure.

There are complexities involved with the new system of media however, notably due to the fact that there are no barriers to entry when publishing online, meaning that anybody is able to publish. Smashwords.com offers people a quick way to legally publish a written work for free online, with rights of use going to the writer. At first glance, it’s an interesting proposition, but on the site itself, many of the works are littered with spelling errors, factual mistakes and aren’t well written. The same concerns can be voiced about the inaccuracies of citizen journalism, where people will often rush to commentate on social media an unfolding nearby event, but usually making up facts and speculating. Still, in terms of a fact checking tool, the Internet is arguably the best there is, and it’s not fair to say that old media wasn’t without it’s inaccuracies also.

In many ways, the onset of ubiquitous Internet and new media can be compared to the effects of the Gutenberg Press in 1540. The ability for information to be published and distributed among many changed the way data would be viewed from then on- previously, access to scholarly, political and religious articles was reserved for a special few. As Eisenstein wrote, the printing press ‘made more scrambled information available’ in the 16^th century, allowing for the combination of ‘diverse systems of ideas and special disciplines’ in a manner not seen before. The development meant that individuals could form their own opinions on articles, to learn from them first-hand and discuss with others on what a particular piece of information pertained to.

Essentially, the printing press liberated information from the academic hallways of libraries and palaces and made it available to all in a similar manner to what the Internet has done for people. Whereas the printing press represented the most basic form of publishing, producing and distributing- the Internet adds an entire new facet in its allowance for individuals to interact with and change data, as well as publish their own. New media is about removing the barriers to entry in the publishing industry, ensuring that each person has the ability to distribute a piece of work cheaply as their own. Furthermore, new media provides a much more attractive proposition in the archival of old information than physical storage, an aspect that has been picked up by numerous important ‘old publishing industry’ figures already, but is usually built into new media entities.

Publishing has changed, the old industry dismantled and reconstructed by new media that brings it into the 21^st century. Yes, there are naysayers within various publishing industries, think music, print and film, who cling desperately to the old values of a top-down approach. In actuality, such a model will never be sustainable again, as people have become accustomed to the onslaught of free content online which has altered the way they consume such content. The centralized nature of publishing has been removed, and in its place is an online community brought together by the mutual ability for individuals to publish themselves. New publishing is, by default of its bottom-up nature, helping to reinvent industries, bringing them into a new media age.

Here’s a blog, I’ll keep it to thoughts on the changing media landscape mostly. But we may deviate into other important areas such as social movements, current affairs, and the fast-paced innovation in the world of Milkshakes.