The main focus of our transition from the second unit to the third unit of our class appears to be what constitutes the New Media, how it functions, and how it affects us. In Lev Manovich’s essay “New Media from Borges to HTML,” the author explores the character of New Media and offers a variety of definitions for it based on its function and its history. YouTube is a unique and nuanced platform that functions as emblematic of New Media, with a recursive nature that encourages community-building and interaction with previously created media.

YouTube, as outlined in William Uricchio’s essay “The Future of a Medium Once Known as Television,” appears to fulfill Manovich’s proposition of New Media as “metamedia” in an interesting way (Manovich 20). YouTube is a chimerical beast that interacts with traditional media such as television and film, while remaining distinctively outside of them, primarily by “[seizing] the periphery, providing access to the scene even more consistently than to the films (or television shows) themselves” (Uricchio 30). YouTube is a haven more for videos and content that are about the source (whether filmic, related to television, or games) than the source itself, even if someone were to create an original short film or series of episodes.

In the Manovich essay, he theorizes that “the new avant-garde is no longer concerned with seeing or representing the world in new ways but rather with accessing and using in new ways previously accumulated media” (Manovich 23). This is why one can see a single, original work spawn an extremely high number of “periphery” content, ranging from reaction videos to remixes to video essays to simple text-based comments. YouTube appears to be a haven for the postmodern act of “reworking already existing content, idioms, and style, rather than genially creating new ones” (23).

Uricchio claims that YouTube “misses the capacity for televisual liveness,” meaning (I believe) that since the platform is reliant on the “publishing” of content, which means that once the content is created and put onto the platform, it remains there, forever accessible (Uricchio 32). This function facilitates the recursive creation of content from other content, since these artifacts can be found if one knows how to search for them, thus fulfilling this qualification to be considered New Media according to Manovich (of course, his qualifications are more descriptive than prescriptive).

What makes YouTube a particularly fascinating platform is that this act of recursively creating content from other content opens up a discourse on a subject that had, up until the commercialization of the personal computer, not experienced the same degree of freedom it has today. There has always been a sense of community-building in the manner with which individuals interact with content and create content based off of it (consider, for example, fan letters and theories in reaction to Golden Age science fiction periodicals), which has certain implications for the postmodern movement if it is to be considered as emblematic of it. Perhaps the postmodern act of “using in new ways previously accumulated media” is an act of identification rhetoric: by interacting with old media and others who interact with the same media and perform generative acts of content-creation, communities are built. Just a thought though.

In many ways, film as a medium has changed over time with cultural and technological advancements. Film started as something that could only be seen in a theater, then transitioned to a medium that could be watched at home via VHS and DVD, and is now in its most freely accessible form.

Film has adapted to its current viewers by becoming much shorter and more accessible over time. While long, traditional cinema does still exist, the creation of media sources like YouTube have allowed for the convenient sharing of short, often user-generated film. This is the result of our shorter attention spans, as well as a desire to get the best message in the shortest amount of time. We feel that we are too busy to waste hours on a full length film. This same idea is reflected in Twitter’s 140 character limit. We don’t want to spend time finding the information, we just want to read or watch it quickly, so we can move on.

Film has also adapted to the social trend of sharing personal content online. In a world of Facebook, Instagram, and the countless other social media platforms, we are constantly sharing photos, videos, and other information about our lives that we think others will find interesting. Film is no longer something that only professionals can create and share, but something that is accessible to everyone.

These new changes in the structure of film raise questions about its classification as a medium. Is the new, internet film of the 21^st century the same medium as traditional cinema? Or is it a completely new medium? I think YouTube videos are in the same medium as other film, just a more evolved version of the medium. In The Future of a Medium Once Known as Television, William Uricchio writes “YouTube’s limits as an exemplar of mashup culture and Web 2.0 may be precisely its strengths as a transitional model to next generation television.” The short, easy to watch, and easy to create videos are not a different medium, but the transformation of an old medium. Over time, mediums evolve into similar, yet more effective modes of transportation. For example, painting art on caves transformed into painting on canvas. The idea is the same, but the way artists convey the idea has adapted to a new society with new technology.

As far as categorization of this evolved medium, it’s not very different than the categorization of traditional cinema. Many of the genres of film still remain, but with some new genres, like vlogs. Some of the traditional genres, like instructional videos, have become more efficient as a result of their much shorter lengths.

Film will continue to evolve as a medium in the future. This could eventually mean the end of all professionally filmed and directed cinema, as the medium becomes entirely user-generated over the internet. If the medium did not adapt to new viewers in new cultures, it would become obsolete. With new technology, humans will find new ways to share film in a way that makes the most sense based on the societal and cultural values at the time.

I believe, sincerely, that we are witnessing the end of television as it has been known. In its place, a new kind of ‘TV’ is arriving; one that is infinitely more interactive and allows for a much higher degree of participation from the audience. YouTube and Netflix in particular are really challenging the perception of what television even means nowadays. If it doesn’t adapt, it will be left behind entirely.

Television, by its very nature, is not an interactive experience. While it is still a cooler medium than film, audience participation when it comes to watching TV is still not that high. Most people that watch TV tune in and out, and a lot of people turn the TV on just for noise. In a time where Web 2.0 and even 3 is upon us, the television industry is seemingly left behind, trapped by limitations that it has imposed on itself.

Television today basically follows the same format that it did when it was first invented. This means that TV is old. Really old. It adheres to the concept of ‘Flow’ as Uricchio describes it, “a temporally sequenced stream of program units constantly issues forth from the programmer, and audiences may dip in and out as they choose.” In plain English, this just means that the TV plays shows in a certain order, and audiences can choose to pay attention or not.

TV is also trapped in a box, sometimes literally. Where YouTube can be enjoyed by millions of users anywhere, on basically any internet enabled device, TV is still limited by its physical unit for many people who can’t afford to pay for mobile services. Even the ones that do are met with a limited selection of what they are able to watch from mobile devices.

YouTube on the other hand, as William Uricchio argues, “is a creature of the moment…” that embraces a “mashup culture.” (Uricchio) It is the embodiment of Web 2.0, an interactive experience in which users can participate and take an active role in the conversation, rather than just looking at static web pages. YouTube allows its users to upload their own content and comment and interact with other users about other people’s content. It is not beholden to the same, somewhat antiquated notion of ‘flow’ and instead, allows its users to pick what they watch and when they watch it.

In addition, YouTube is able to be accessed on a mobile platform by a larger number of people because it doesn’t require any special subscription or added fees. Interestingly though, YouTube is now bringing the fight with TV back to the TV. In 2009, which is ages ago, YouTube announced YouTube for Television, which allowed for YouTube to be accessed on much larger television screens, which is one advantage that it had maintained over YouTube. No more though, as smart TVs begin flooding the market and Internet abilities growing.

If TV is to stay relevant and even alive, it must adapt and become a less structured, more participatory medium. If it doesn’t, things like YouTube and Netflix will fill in the gap and relegate television to nothing more than a history lesson.

I would interpret the findings to support the fact that Internet video streaming as a media is growing exponentially. It is so easy to find yourself watching multiple videos and it becomes easier with various tools like auto play, which automatically creates a queue for videos and continuously plays them. The relationship between videos watched to people watching the videos shows a huge gap. Fewer people are watching a huge number of videos. However, I believe this speaks volumes about the accessibility and various options the new medium has to offer. So often viewers find themselves watching many videos in one sitting. Rarely, does a viewer go on YouTube to only watch one video. The reason users can be sucked into watching multiple videos is due to auto play and the suggested video bar to the right of videos. Auto play automatically creates and continuously plays a video queue. This makes it easy to rack up data that you are watching multiple videos even though you may not do it on purpose. Secondly, on the right side of any YouTube video there is a list of suggested videos that are generated based on the viewer’s search. Most likely, a viewer will see something similar to what they searched for and watch it after the first video is over. These are both reasons why it is so easy to continue watching these videos thus increasing the gap between viewers and videos.

Contrary to Uriccio’s belief that there is a mismatch between viewer activity on old forms of medium like television and new ones like YouTube, there is actual more viewer activity in new forms of medium. It is more suited to each individual viewer because of its increased accessibility. There is a search engine with almost unlimited results of various videos to stream. Videos vary by length, genre and more. This new form of media requires more viewer activity than traditional forms of media like TV. Television is less viewer-involved because to a certain extent it is black and white. For the most part, television is longer in length; therefore it is not as easy to watch as YouTube. There are also limits to the variety of television shows. However, YouTube is very broad.

Starting with the first regularly scheduled broadcasts in 1928, television service evolved rapidly from limited regular scheduling in sports, music, and news, to a now extremely broad range of service, encompassing just about any genre you can think of, as long as you are willing to buy channels outside of basic programming. The biggest limiter however has always been formatting. Even with modern day digitization and widespread online distribution bringing television away from the TV, the actual make-up of television is the biggest self-imposed factor that still exists today.

During the major broadcasts network’s rule over television, the blocked schedule of thirty or sixty minute programs with breaks for advertising was very helpful in bringing consistency and predictability that allowed viewers to watch the programs they wanted to watch at specific times. This structured presentation of the shows locked the industry into a format. Large amounts of infrastructure was dedicated to this format and this stagnated further development of television formatting for the future. While television has branched out into other mediums in the current day, a significant amount of programming, especially the higher production value programming still follows the same time and structure constraints that were imposed during the network television broadcasting era.

When Youtube came around in 2005, it became a major content aggregator, and because of the ease of access from the everyday person a new type of content became prevalent. In the early days of Youtube we saw creators of short sketch comedy such as Smosh and Nigahiga dominate the view counts, with various viral videos sparking briefly into fame before being quickly forgotten. With this popularity Youtube began to find its audience as it grew into the powerhouse hosting service we know today.

Ignoring the fact that you can choose to watch whatever you want on Youtube, as opposed to the more programmed nature of television, Youtube also has capitalized off an interactivity that comes with commenting, and communicating in various ways directly with the creator of content. Youtube has allowed videos under ten minutes since its founding, and over time added more and more capability to its video hosting as it realized what viewers wanted. Taking a look at the most subscribed channels on Youtube as of early march, the top channels consist almost exclusively of music, video games, or comedy, whether it be sketch comedy, talk shows, or something like the Fine Brother’s “React” series.

Seeing this it is easy to see the market that Youtube has accessed which television has not been able to due to limitations. While MTV was very popular at a time, advancement of technology has made music more readily available and viewers can afford to be more picky, so music programming has lost a significant audience. Lack of interactivity and extremely varied timings and personalities within the video games market has also kept television from encroaching in that field. Finally, we see the last time constraint in the comedy department as Youtube has capitalized on videos that are too short for regular programming, or even that contain clips from television itself, highlighting the most entertaining parts, such as TheEllenShow’s broadcast.

Television is not only limited to the basic broadcasting channels, and in fact is easily accessible in many places online, so it fully has the capability to breach into the realm of many Youtube shows that exist today in order to satisfy consumers looking for quicker and more focused content. As far as I can see there will always be a significant place for standard television programming with the viewing public, but as consumers needs change I believe the lines will become blurred between Youtube style content hosting and whatever television evolves into, at least if it wants to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving technology driven society.

Can “gender in the gaze” be equated to objectification?

The image of women in media has largely been produced into a what most men would find desirable: skinny, yet with curves all over. Therefore, what has been created for men is a desire for something almost impossible and unattainable, and for women a pressure to become what is desired. Through the specific presentation and placement of women in media as filtered through the gendered or male gaze, women have become a thing and object rather than a person. And now, what has resulted is a battle for freedom from objectification within a woman’s self.

However, this battle has been happening for centuries. As explained by Sturken and Cartwright, there has been a tradition of the nude in painting to present the nude women to male viewers (124). Throughout history, we see paintings and artworks with the code “of imaging the female nude,” and has long been established as a norm in society. The reading explains how the viewer sees the work and the women may either interact with the  viewer or have a passive look. To explain, the instance where the viewer is met with the eyes of the woman depicted gives a sense of scopohilia- the pleasure in looking and exhibitionism. This sense of scopophilia translates the look of the woman towards the viewer as one of sexual desire and pleasure at being looked at- as if the woman is saying, “keep looking at me.” This brings all the attention to the woman and distracts from the rest of the image.

Here, the women look directly at the viewer in a seducing manner to bring the attention directly to them. And forget about the beer, these women HAVE become the beer, and the male gaze makes these women objects of desire which further plays into the idea of scopophilia.

The second manner women become objects through the male gaze is by means of their depiction as passive objects. As seen in many forms of media, women are often times depicted as candid or passive objects by having them look off away from the direct gaze of the viewer. Through this presentation of women, the male gaze takes on a new aspect: Voyeurism. As explained by the reading, voyeurism is the pleasure one takes in looking while not being seen looking. Therefore, when the women depicted do not look at the viewer, the viewer’s gaze is made more powerful as it brings an almost sadistic aspect to the gaze (124).

The gendered or male gaze has long been used in the presentation and depiction of women in media. Through the gaze, women have battled with this objectification that has developed from what has historically been accepted as the norm as seen in various works of art. Although this idea is nothing new, it has been amplified into something greater with the passing of time. Today, we see women and their bodies being used more and more as objects of pleasure and desire, but this has served to distort reality and what is actuality. And I talk about this in terms of the female body because of its historical prevalence in culture, but this idea does not solely stay within the realm of women objectification. The male body has also suffered objectification as a form of sexual desire and unattainable reality. However, this is not a matter of who gets it worse, but rather, why is this gaze and presentation of bodies still used in the first place?

Discussion Question Response to Screens: Television’s Dispersed ‘Broadcast’

1. Could one argue that with the emergence of digitalized media, the face of television, as we know it, is subject to change into an entity (thing with distinct creation) entirely different than what people are familiar with? In what possible ways could this potential change impact society?

Image Credit: fastcodesign

I believe we live in a culture where everything seems to be going faster and faster, and the evolution of television is no exception. With the emergence of digitalized media, television consumption has become, not only faster, but also more individualized and customized. This is the opposite of where television first began. The way television is evolving reminds me of how handwritten letters have grown into email and text messages – another example of the technology boom and its impact. While the format is the same (one person sends a message, the recipient replies), the ways we receive those messages are completely different today. The perception and opinion of handwritten letters have changed – the act now holds a more sentimental value rather than for just purely communication. I think the same is happening to television; a family sitting together to watch one television screen with very limited channel options has now gained an affectionate, almost nostalgic, feel. In “Screens: Television’s Dispersed Broadcast,’” Marshall explains how television utilized a paternalistic form of delivery in that “content was pushed at the viewer, and the viewer accepted the pleasures of the flow.” The pleasures of the flow became summarized as “watching television” where mentioning the specific program was not necessary. I see this same feeling similar with Netflix today; “watching Netflix” has a similar meaning of enjoying the experience without having to specify whatever program explicitly.

While we still feel that pleasure of flow and television is still just a moving image, the way we receive that image has rapidly changed. As television grows in choices, so does the individualization and customization. With cable or satellite, many channels are included with the package that people may or may not watch (either way, you’re paying for them). Looking at DVDs from today, they almost seem like they were more of a trend – they almost feel obsolete now, in my opinion, yet changed television in large ways. It’s important to note that DVDs brought a new layer to television consumption – portability.

With home DVD players, subsequent production moved to making the players portable – now with laptops, iPads, tablets, and even cell phones, television can reside on a smaller screen. A combination of portability and streaming (and a good Wi-Fi connection) gives the audience complete control over choosing what to watch whenever and wherever.

Another detail to note is that DVD changed a key characteristic of television. Television has a distinct episodic format that has the audience waiting for the next development of the plotline during the episode itself and between each episode. Of course, those breaks during the television episodes show allowed for dispersed advertising. Now with streaming and pre-recording, there’s no longer fixed eyes on the television screen to see those advertisements. Instead, those eyes fast forward through the commercials or skip them altogether (although, the streaming site Hulu does include interspersed advertising). The ability of streaming and downloading multiple episodes of a television series has not only broken away from dispersed advertising, but has define a culture of “binge-watching” where the audience watches the television episodes for long amounts of time with no break in-between each episode.

Overall, television is the same moving image, but with an increasingly individualized and customized way of getting that image. The ability to stream television contributes to the fast-pace of society and makes television much more portable and accessible for the individual consumption. As of right now, I don’t believe digitalized media and streaming has progressed television into a completely different entity, but once live events (such as news or sporting events) can be streamed seamlessly and directly, I think that’s when the way of traditional television may end and a new era could be ushered in.

After reading William Uriccio’s “The Future of a Medium Once Known as Television,” consider the following questions:

1. How has Web 2.0 expanded since the publication of this article in 2009? What are some new characteristics? Based on these developments, what advancements do you predict Web 3.0 will entail?
2. How would you interpret the findings from comScore VideoMetrix on page 27? Do you agree with Uriccio’s or Neilson’s interpretations? How do these numbers reflect a changing medium?
3. Explain why Uriccio refers to television as heterochronic and YouTube as heterotophic. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? What would television look like if it were heterotophic or YouTube if it were heterochronic? Is heterochronia in television still relevant?
4. How has the television industry limited itself? How is YouTube capitalizing off of television’s self-imposed limitations? How can television change to keep up with consumers’ changing needs?
5. How has the film medium adapted to current consumers? In what ways should the film medium be categorized? (technological geneology, rituals such as film festivals, exposures, something else?)