In this essay Philip Nel argues that when analyzing the Harry Potter series one must separate the literary text from the “marketing juggernaut” that surrounds it.  The first third of the essay, then, is an account of why one need not conflate the Harry Potter books and J.K. Rowling with the marketing campaign surrounding it, and the final two-thirds of the essay focus on the literary merits of these texts.  So, in Nel’s attempt to separate the Potter books from the extraordinary marketing campaign surrounding it, he employs two basic arguments.  Firstly, Nel claims that the books have generated so much marketing attention simply because of the way American copyright and trademark law works.  Secondly, Nel asserts that Rowling is not really a part of the capitalist marketing regime surrounding her books because she donates a lot of money to charity.  (Seriously, that is his argument.)  Then the essay shifts to the literary merits of the Potter books, which are, bafflingly, almost as naïve and uninteresting as the arguments already mentioned.  He begins this roughly twenty-page defense of the literary merits of Rowling’s books with a paragraph briefly describing the criticism that has been raised against the aesthetic merits of the works (this is by far the most interesting paragraph in the entire essay).  Nel then says that these critics have simply not read “slowly” enough, and proceeds to tell us what we will find were we to read more slowly.  I will not go through all the reasons he cites for why the Potter books have literary merit, but I will mention a few.  One is that Rowling claims to have read Jane Austen’s Emma “at least 20 times,” and as a result shares Austin’s satiric charm and “narrative misdirection.”  Also, Nel claims that Rowling’s series are “anti-rascist novels,” and he defends this claim by comparing them to boarding school novels written in that late eighteenth-century through the mid nineteenth-century.  He points out that these novels were blatantly racist, whereas the Potter books once criticized the notion of “pure-bloods,” thus making them anti-racist novels.  (Again, these are really the arguments Nel employs.)  Another reason the Rowling books possess literary merit is the names that are used.  As Nel points out, Rowling “uses names to connote character traits, as do Austen, Dickens, and Tolkein.”  She then points to a few significant names as evidence of this, and concludes that this is further proof of the literary merit of these works.  Nel provides a few more arguments in defense of the literary merit of the Potter series that I will not go into here (one is based on the fact that Rowling uses a lot of prime numbers, which are “mystical”), but I think the overall thrust of the essay has been captured.  In order to do justice to the Potter books it is imperative that we separate them completely from the marketing surrounding them.

    This essay hinges upon Roland Barthes’s distinction between work and text, proposed in his essay “From Work to Text,” in which he distinguishes a work as a “fragment of substance” (i.e. a tangible item, like a book, DVD, etc.) from a text which is “experienced only in an act of production” (i.e. the content of a book, DVD, etc.).  This is an oversimplified description of exactly what Barthes means by these two terms, but it does represent the ways in which Cubbison employs these two terms.  These terms are important for Cubbison because she wants to understand how a work (in the case of this essay a DVD or VHS) can alter the text (the program contained on the work).  Further, she wants to examine how fans, particularly anime fans, are able to influence the work, and thus in turn influence the text.  Finally, she wants to relate all of this to a notion of an “authentic text,” a notion that she feels is bound up with fans, the form of a work, and ultimately the text.  This essay, then, looks closely at how hard-core anime fans, known as otaku, are able to dictate the form that a work takes through debates on “authentic” modes of viewing anime, and how this fan intervention ultimately effects the text.  All of this technical cant may seem a bit austere initially, but this is really a very simple, coherent essay.  Put most simply, Cubbison thinks that anime fans exert influence on how their anime commodities are produced, and this in turn influences the content of these commodities.
    This is a somewhat informative essay, particularly if one is interested in the production and distribution of anime films, but the argument it makes is an exceptionally simple one (although it dons the clothes of profundity).  Cubbison’s essay basically wants to say that form effects content, and that now consumers are allowed to dictate (to a certain, very limited extent) form.  She also adds that the form consumers desire is based on an idea of authenticity, but this aspect of the essay is only explored through the relation of a few contrasting anecdotes and resulting in the conclusion: nobody is really certain what an authentic text is but there are lots of opinions about what it may be.  To get back to form, content, and consumers, though, one must admit that her argument is not a very novel or complex one.  Form and content have always been interrelated, and have always been seen to mutually affect one another.  Cubbison’s argument that anime fans have some control over the form (or work) of the anime VHS or DVDs they buy is interesting, but as she herself admits, the debate over what form the work takes is moot at this point since DVDs are now able to provide dubbed and subtitled, original and edited versions of any given work (whereas before VHS had to make formal judgments that often upset fans).  DVDs have rendered the debate amongst fans about the most authentic form an anime work can take irrelevant because they can now offer every potential “authentic text.”  Anyway, this essay is an interesting look at the way that anime fans have been involved with the distribution of anime films historically, and how these debates have been waged over “authentic” anime texts, but as you will find if you read this essay the tensions and squabbles surrounding the distribution of anime films has been squelched by the capacity of DVDs to provide all possible “authentic texts.”  So, for a historical glimpse of the debates about form amongst anime fans definitely read this article, but beyond this the essay is little more than a rehashing of a now dead debate.

    As the title suggests (“Technology is Culture: Two Paradigms”), this essay explores the influence of technology upon culture.  Specifically, Zimmermann examines the ways in which Western digital technologies powerfully influence and shape the cultural production of non-Western, particularly Chinese, consumers.  The essay offers an anecdotal account of how many contemporary Chinese citizens are “forgetting how to write” by hand, and explains that this is due primarily to their dependence upon computers.  Since written Chinese consists of thousands of characters, and since computers are encoded in written English, not Chinese, Chinese computer users are forced to write within the technological confines of an English based operating system that is based on far fewer characters (26 alphabetic letters).  Zimmermann briefly explains the complex methods that allow the Chinese language to be composed on what he calls an “English-speaking” technology, particularly on how these methods are phonetically based, not character based.  Also, he demonstrates how these methods, which are ultimately determined by technological constrictions, are slowly eroding Chinese citizens’ knowledge of written characters.  He then discusses the “two paradigms” he sees emerging as a result of the influence of technology on culture, which he identifies as “the accumulation process” and “the struggle against difference.”  By the former Zimmermann means the process by which contemporary technologies are created, and how this process depends on the collaboration of large groups of specialized individuals.  No one person, Zimmermann contends, can understand all the components and operating system of a computer, and thus when anyone uses a computer they are forced to rely on the work and decisions of myriad individuals.  These technological decisions made by sundry individuals will have a great impact on the type of product you use and the different applications that that product will have.  In other words, any time you use a technology as complex as, say, a computer, you will be relying on the labor and decisions of more people than you alone could ever hope to replicate or fully understand.  That means that the labor and decisions of others will largely determine the way in which you are able to use a specific technology.  This leads to Zimmermann’s second paradigm, “the struggle against difference.”  According to Zimmermann, since we rely on the accumulated efforts of many individuals whenever we use a complex technology, we are therefore only allowed to use that complex technology according to the ways in which the designer intended for it to be used.  We can see this very clearly in the example provided above, where Chinese-speaking computer users are forced to adapt to an English-speaking technology, and the debilitating effects that this can have (i.e. loss of the ability to write by hand in one’s own language).  Zimmermann thinks this is particularly alarming when it comes to digital arts technology, such as music mixing software, because the artist then becomes dependent on a creative technology that is defined and determined by people other than themselves (and oftentimes, in the case of non-Western technology users, people from a radically different cultural background).

    Gasser and Ernst’s essay is organized into three parts: the first focuses on digital technologies and the internet, the following is a basic description of contemporary copyright laws, and the final section focuses on the need for reformed copyright laws more amenable to the digital age.  More specifically, the first section focuses on what the authors refer to as “participatory culture,” and how such a thing is facilitated by digital technologies and the internet.  It examines this concept of participatory culture from both a theoretical and practical point of view.  The following section discusses copyright law in its present form, focusing on key aspects of it like the right to make derivative works, fair use, and unilaterally inhibiting technologies such as DRM.  Finally, the essay concludes with reform suggestions for how to enhance creativity by enabling greater participation.  It discusses both why a participatory culture is desirable, and possible strategies for copyright reform that would facilitate participatory culture.
    This essay is a very concise, accessible introduction to copyright law and the concept of participatory culture.  One major flaw that I found with the essay, however, was its demand that new copyright law take “information quality” into account.  Who, for example, will become judge of the quality of information, and upon what standards will they make their judgments?  This would obviously be a contentious issue, and one that the essay only barely addresses.  Also, this essay adopts a fairly utopian conception of digital technologies and the internet, a view that seems to be shared by many contemporary cultural critics.  The authors see digitization and the internet as great tools of democracy that will allow for a “participatory culture” unlike any previously known.  While these are nice, comfortable theoretical positions to take, that does not necessarily make things so.  As regards my own project, I am more interested in how these utopian visions of the “democratization” effect of digital technologies and the internet are coerced and manipulated by larger corporate or commercial interests.  For example, this essay discusses how new copyright law needs to provide for “informational autonomy,” but I am interested in how this so called autonomy is ideologically coded and oftentimes highly coercive.  In addition, this article relishes in the means of production being made available to all through digitization and the internet, but I want to know how this changes and is exploited by companies like Dorito’s that broadcast user generated content.  Will these democratized means of production simply be co-opted by corporate interests, or is there something truly liberating and democratic about these tools?  Anyway, overall this is a great essay to read as an introduction to participatory culture and copyright law.

    This article discusses how Super Bowl advertisers did a poor job managing the post-game viewing of their ads.  Apparently people are using an “array of video sites and blogs” to view the Super Bowl ads after the fact, and relatively few are actually viewing them on the sites provided by the advertisers themselves.  This is due to entertainment sites and bloggers using these ads to “capitalize on ad revenue generated from the traffic,” and essentially being more successful at making the ads accessible.  A major flaw of the Super Bowl advertisers, as the article points out, is that they did not provide search advertising for terms like “Super Bowl ads.”  The article mentions that this is not necessarily a bad thing, since the advertisers are still reaching millions of people, but that in the future they need to work with aggregator sites in order to “build relationships and promote their content” in more effective ways.  Finally, the article mentions that one advantage the aggregator sites had was that they allowed for feedback, a feature that the article suggests that marketers employ on their own sites in the future.
    This piece seemed to lament the fact that the Super Bowl advertisers were not able to monopolize traffic to the ads post-game.  It sympathizes with the disappointment these giant companies must be feeling over only getting several hundred thousand hits (instead, presumably, of the several million which they no doubt deserved).  Then the article goes on to give the companies tips for how to increase traffic next year, and strategies they should employ if they want fully capitalize on the online branding opportunity.  This article testifies to the corporate interests of many media outlets, and can only be of interest if read for what the article is doing, not saying.
    For my project, though, this piece is very relevant.  It shows the way that commercial interests are sometimes subverted, and how in order to “set things right” (i.e. stop subversion of corporate interests) plans are being made to integrate the very thing that was the cause of subversion.  Thus we see how the article calls for the companies to “work with” (i.e. subsume) those aggregator sites that so wickedly usurped their web traffic.  This, then, is another example of how commercial interests appropriate more independent forms of media distribution.      

    This essay examines how digital technologies, paired with the internet, will cause “significant restructuring of the motion picture industry.”  Initially it examines certain digital technologies – such as video-on-demand, broadband, digital file compression, streaming media, etc. – and then speculates on the capabilities these technologies will have in the near future.  Then it turns to the “motion picture value chain,” and examines each aspect of the chain (e.g. production, duplication, distribution, etc.).  Following this look at the motion picture value chain the essay turns to the potential impact of digitization.  The major effects this essay imagines digitization will have are cost reduction (e.g. cheaper to shoot a film in digital than film, etc.), disintermediation (e.g. video-on-demand eliminates the need for video rental stores, etc.), and a shift in bargaining power (e.g. since the means of production are lowered content producers no longer have to remain subservient to Hollywood or studio demands, etc.).  Finally, the article examines the implications of digitization for “Stakeholders.”  It looks at how digitization will impact movie studios (e.g. shift to blockbuster-only model, etc.), distributors (e.g. digital distribution requires no physical transfer of objects, etc.), movie theatres (e.g. emphasis on the “experience” of the movie, not the movie, etc.), and video rental stores (e.g. what will they provide?, etc.).  The essay concludes with business models designed to take into account the impact of digitization on film.
    This is an amazingly concise, prescient, and illuminating essay.  It details in a very systematic manner the impact that digitization is likely to have (and, considering this was written in 2004, there predictions all seem to be coming true), and the implications of this impact.  One thing it neglects to address, however, is the distribution of DVDs to buy and own.  Will this form of distribution fall by the wayside as well, or will things like director commentaries and other bonus features make it a desired commodity?  Also, what if you can stream the bonus features – will people still want to own something tangible?  Overall, though, this essay is extremely helpful for anyone interested in studying the impact of digitization on the movie studio system both from a consumer and content producer point of view.   
    As far as my own project is concerned this essay is a useful account of the relationship between commercial studios and individual consumers.  Also, its discussion of the impact of digitization on content producers, and the shift of power likely to ensue there, is extremely relevant to my own interest in user generated content.  Further, this essay describes the “bargaining power” content producers are likely to gain as access to the means of production increases, and while this is most likely the case, for my purposes it is also necessary to examine how commercial studios will work to limit the bargaining power of producers or co-opt the work of content creators for their own commercial ends (e.g. Dorito’s Super Bowl ads, etc.).               

    This article came out in Wired magazine (perhaps simply in the online version, I am not entirely certain) shortly after Google bought YouTube.  Naturally this was big news for a magazine such as Wired, as well as for millions of users of the YouTube site.  The article discusses a small array of differing perspectives on Google’s acquisition, from mildly skeptical YouTube devotees to supremely confident YouTube and Google marketers.  Some think that the shift in ownership may strip YouTube users of the “freedom” they once enjoyed on the site, while others feel that Google is a “cool” company that will undoubtedly support the “freedom” some are already lamenting.  The article also discusses the fact that YouTube has already made deals with companies such as CBS, Universal Music, BMG Music, NBC, and Warner Music, which allows these companies to actively distribute marketing videos on YouTube.  The article perceives this as a positive thing, because it “lets amateurs stand on equal footing with the professionals.”  Finally, the article concludes with the concern that Google will allow advertising to take over the YouTube site.  It mentions the fact that the YouTube homepage is already selling “top front page real estate” to advertisers, and the question then becomes: how much advertising will “YouTubers” tolerate?  This question is not answered in the article.
    This article is an interesting, albeit dated, piece.  It brings up some relevant concerns about what happens when community based sites like YouTube are bought up by giant corporations, and does a mediocre job of reporting the ambivalence surrounding this issue.  On the other hand, this article lacks a good deal of information that seems critical for understanding exactly what it means that Google has purchased YouTube.  For example, it mentions that YouTube is already selling homepage space to advertisers, and this will only increase under Google’s control, but it does not explain what space it is talking about.  Are these advertising videos parading as user generated content, or simply banner ads asking you to join Match.com or other such ubiquitous internet advertisements?  This would be good information to know since advertising is such a protean, mutable form.  Also, the article mentions that YouTube has already made deals with several other large companies (e.g. CBS, NBC, etc.), but does not explain what these deals entail.  Do these companies post fake user generated videos that are truly advertisements, or do they simply get to advertise on YouTube in some other manner?  So, while this article does touch upon some interesting issues surrounding both the dot.com universe and marketing, it also fails to provide sufficient information to make it a truly useful document.
    This article relates to my own project in its focus on corporate conglomeration and marketing.  Similar to how Google subsumes a digital community like YouTube, companies like Dorito’s are appropriating the work of independent, non-professional individuals.  While this article expresses some fear about the implications of a company like Google buying YouTube, my project will express a good deal more skepticism about what happens when companies like Dorito’s start soliciting user generated content.              

    This essay critically examines cinema in light of both contemporary technologies and ideologies surrounding the medium.  One of the dominant themes throughout this piece is the role of the “auteur/author,” and how the “question of the author” originated (eg. Cahiers, etc.), how it was radically cast into doubt (e.g. post-structuralism, Barthes, Foucault, etc.), and how it manifests itself today in both tacit (e.g. “software authorship,” etc.) and more explicit (commodified auteurs like Spielberg, Lucas, etc.) ways.  It does this through a close examination of concepts surrounding auteurism as well as reactions against it, and identifies technological innovations that have either reinforced or destabilized the significance of the author.  Notaro also discusses the politics of “collective authorship,” which is a concept that deserves significant attention due to the ever increasing technological means of collaborative artistic production.  The essay examines many burgeoning companies, websites, film festivals, and aesthetic movements that claim to facilitate “collective authorship,” and very successfully unravels the ideological underpinnings of many of these institutions.  Finally, the essay concludes with a brief discussion of “Hollywood 2.0” (a term coined by Wired magazine) and “Future Cinema,” and speculates on what the future of cinema may look like, and more importantly what people are claiming the future of cinema will look like.  Notaro very aptly concludes by pointing out the prevalence of a “techno-utopian mood” that often makes grandiose claims about the democratizing effects of new technologies and the internet, but which in reality simply mask in highly effective ways systems of authority.  As Notaro herself puts it, there has been a “disappearance of acknowledged authority.”  In other words, the “techno-utopian mood” employs a rhetoric of democracy and freedom which in fact works to inhibit both democracy and freedom through its concealment of authority.  Notaro then offers a new conceptual model for interacting with cinema - that of “performance and performers” - as a means for critically reevaluating the role of cinema or authorship and our relationship to these things.
    This is an exceptionally useful and interesting article for anyone interested in the contemporary debate over the politics of both authorship and digital technologies.  It engages with the concept of auteurism since the term’s inception with Truffaut all the way through to contemporary commentary on “collective authorship” as espoused by groups like the Open Source Movement.  Notaro is able to intelligently examine the range of discourses surrounding authorship, cinema, and digital technologies in order to establish relevant concepts of her own through which we gain powerful critical tools for discussing and analyzing these complex issues on our own.  Anyone that has ever felt repulsed by the “techno-utopian mood” of so many contemporary cultural critics (anyone who has read, for example, Henry Jenkins’s wildly popular book Convergence Culture will have experienced something close to repulsion) will find an ally in Notaro, and for others merely interested in the contemporary debate surrounding media, technology, and authorship, this essay is exceptionally well written and insightful.  For all these reasons I think this essay will be particularly helpful for my own project and its analysis of authorship, technology, and marketing.  

    This essay, by folklorist Judi Hetrick, discusses the need for a more established system for gathering and archiving “home videos.”  Before we proceed, though, it is important to note that this term, “home videos,” is discussed at great length in this essay, and it is Hetrick’s feeling that instead of referring to amateur films as “home videos” we should instead refer to them as “community vernacular video.”  Trained as a folklorist, Hetrick feels that “community vernacular video” more accurately identifies what amateur videos truly are because it aptly suggests the local and often overlooked nature of these films.  With that said, this essay is a basic guide for video archivists in how to seek out “community vernacular videos,” and offers a defense of why this is an important task.  Hetrick believes that “community vernacular video” represent what she calls the “95 percent” – those who comprise the majority of the population – that are often not included in historical accounts.  From a folklorist’s perspective, it is essential that we begin to archive “community vernacular videos” in order to preserve local, regional, and often overlooked cultures so that we can get a more complete conception of a certain historical moment.  In order to accomplish this, Hetrick offers a number of suggestions on where to find “community vernacular videos,” how to label such material, and ways of analyzing this material.  This essay, then, is an attempt to define the need and methods for collecting “community vernacular videos.”
    Hetrick’s essay makes a perfectly valid argument for the historical significance of archiving “community vernacular videos.”  It is useful, then, for anyone interested in archival projects, developing local amateur film communities, and as a brief introduction to the interests and methodology of folklorists.  At the same time, however, this article is absolutely not useful for anyone interested in digital film and the rise of internet sites like YouTube.  This is odd considering the article was written in the spring of 2006, a period in which the distribution and collection of amateur film was reaching all-time highs.  Hetrick’s article focuses largely on the need to collect and preserve film that often goes overlooked, yet fails to discuss the technologies developing all around her that allow for the collection and preservation on scales unthinkable until very recently.  This seems like a major flaw in her essay, one that renders it almost hopelessly out of date.  While there certainly is a need to collect and archive videos that were not traditionally considered important, the fact that Hetrick does not discuss this in relation to digital technologies that would make this process far more prevalent and accessible seems unforgivable.  Still, read this essay if you are desperate to learn the basics of how folklorists approach an issue such as amateur video.
    While this essay is not closely aligned with what my project will focus on, it does provide an interesting set of criteria for discovering and judging “amateur” video.  I think this will be helpful in my own analysis of user generated videos.       

    This article is about how CBS is now attempting to incorporate user generated content as a means to attract fans to its website.  For the upcoming NCAA Basketball Tournament, also known as March Madness, CBS is inviting fans to produce videos that support their favorite team and/or denigrate other “rival” teams.  The article then goes on to list other companies that are incorporating this type of user generated content, citing the Dorito’s Super-Bowl commercials that were created by consumers and the Unilever ad that ran during the Academy Awards and was also created by consumers.  Also, the article mentions Anheuser-Busch and their efforts to create a promotional program that will allow consumers to create their own commercials which can then be posted on their website.  Finally, the article concludes with a description of CBS-created “sample commercials” that are supposed to serve as a model to March Madness fans who want to create their own videos.  CBS is hoping to attract and instruct consumers through these sample ads, and the article concludes by mentioning how this will attract more online advertisers for this year’s basketball tournament.
    While this appears to be a fairly innocuous article about the future of user generated content and the marketing that companies are putting into attracting consumers to create their own video content, there are many insidious implications in this piece.  For one, the article mentions how YouTube will soon be providing “branded channels,” which are essentially user generated video channels that are intended to attract consumers by allowing them to create advertisements for a certain company.  Companies see this interactive opportunity as a great way to raise “brand loyalty.”  Also, the article mentions the six “sample commercials” that CBS created, which are intended to “be as close to authentic” as possible.  Authenticity, then, simply becomes something that can be created and produced by companies like CBS.  Finally, the article mentions how CBS will be screening every video submitted “for language and appropriateness of content.”  The article assures the reader, though, that CBS will “preserve their [the videos] reality and spontaneity.”  There are many troubling things about this form of tacit (sort of) censorship, one being that CBS is now the arbiter of what is and is not “appropriate.”  Also, the notion that “reality and spontaneity” need to be screened for is blatantly contradictory, but ultimately very telling about this so-called democratizing force known as user generated content.  Read this article with skepticism and ire (i.e. critically), though, and it can be very illuminating.  For this reason I think it can be useful for my project that deals with exactly what this article addresses (although approaches it from a much different perspective).