Spreadable Media -Blog 6 - Wikinomiks ( A blog that was originally on my TV/Film blog)

Today with the advances in technology, people are able to collaborate in a whole new way and meaning. The new promise of peer production will harness human skill, ingenuity, and intelligence more efficiently and effectively than anything we have witnessed previously. With more and more firms being able to collaborate, it is nothing but good things as everyone can bring a certain quality to the table, for example, the building of a plane or assembling a motorbike.

With a click of a button people have the ability to share knowledge, facts, or just regular comments with everyone who wishes to read it. This is known as the digital Commons. Wikipedia for example allows people from around the world to edit and put up information onto the web, with the aim that this information is true.  As a result is has become the biggest encyclopedia in the world. 

            The evolution of the internet is driving this new age with the increase in computer power, network capability along with the new technology bringing new tools required to get organized, create value and compete. This is the new web: the Web 2.0, the living web. It has many names but either way the new web is about communities, participation and peering. Even a simple act of participating in a new community makes a contribution to the new digital commons linking more than a billion people worldwide.  

            With this change however, companies have had to adjust and realize that the pace and change that companies can no longer depend only on internal capabilities to meet external needs. Nor can they rely on tight relationships with a couple of business partners to help keep up with customers desires for speed, innovation and control. Instead companies must engage and co-create a dynamic fashion with everyone.

            How companies and societies harness knowledge is affecting just about every sector of society and every aspect of management.  This as a result is creating a new type of business thinking. Companies will now innovate, differentiate, and compete by doing certain things right: by having superior human capital: protecting their property and focusing on their customers not only globally but locally as well. This new art of science of wikinomics is based on four powerful new ideas, which are replacing some of the old trends of business.

1.      Being open – “Companies have recently been rethinking openness, and this is beginning to affect a number of important functions, including human resources, innovation, industry standards, and communications”.(p21)  People and institutions that interact with firms are gaining unprecedented access to important information about corporate behavior, operations, and performance. Armed with new tools to find out, inform others and self-organize.  This is allowing customers to see the true quality of products better along with the ability to communicate, whistle blow, googleing, and putting each company under the spot light. Other ways of being open is the ability to allow students from around the world the access and ability to educate themselves at op universities in different countries and access the courses curriculum for free.

2.      Peering – “A new form of horizontal organization is forming, which is challenging the rival hierarchical firms in its capacity to create information-based products and services, and in some cases physical things”. (p23) This new form is known as peering. Peering succeeds because it leverages self-organization. A style of production that works better than the hierarchical management for certain tasks. Its greatest impact today is the production of informational goods, software, entertainment and culture.

3.      Sharing – Today, people are easily able to download and listen, watch, share music and films with a few clicks of a button. Unfortunately if these products were free and easily made then that would be good, but as many things cost a lot of money to make, then how do these companies recoup their investment and gain a profit. Hollywood as a result has managed information and meter information to consumers which also allows the companies to control people behaviors. Many companies are however finding that treating intellectual properties like a mutual fund allows them to manage a balanced portfolio of IP assets, some protected and some shared. “Of course companies need to protect their crown jewels, but companies have to realize that they will not be able to collaborate effectively if they do not share some of their IP” (p27).

4.      Acting Globally - Today with globalization, and the integration of national economies, is allowing new titans to emerge such as China/India, and South Korea.  While developed countries are worrying about growing dependency ratios, most of the population and consumer demand will take place in the developing nations. “Staying globally competitive means monitoring business developments internationally and tapping a much larger global talent pool. Global alliances, human capital marketplaces, and peer production communities will provide access to new communities providing new access to new markets, ideas and technologies” (p29).

These four principles define how twenty first century corporations compete. “This has changed from the once hierarchical, closed, secretive; insular that dominated the previous century”. (p30) The ability to mass communicate has allowed countries to develop stringer bonds and help build a new generation of tools, thinking and technology. Who knows where everything will be in the next twenty years, but I know it will continue to grow allowing more countries to develop as a result and bring nothing but new positive advances to the world.

Spredable media - Chapter 2 ( I originally put this blog in my TV film page by accident)

Spreadable media a is a book written by Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green explaining how values and networks are made in today's networking culture. Chapter one gives an insight into the “web 2.0” and the platforms it is based upon, such as Facebook, twitter and YouTube. These platforms provide spreadable media to the entire world. Chapter 1 goes on to explain how fan bases have caused companies to rethink the way media is being spread through piracy and the values to getting information out to the general public.

 “Antiques Roadshow feeds peoples growing fascination with the process of appraisal, transforming the negotiation between different systems of value into the basis of public spectacle” (p88). The show where people bring on belongings with the idea of seeing how much they are worth, usually adding a story behind how they came to have them. Usually when the value is given to them for the object, only then will they say what they might do with it now.

( This is just a funny clip from a British comedian making fun of the Antiques Roadshow for a beer commercial)

Today everything and anything can be bought on the internet, via such sites as “eBay” and “Amazon”. “These are level playing fields with Friction-less exchanges between sellers and buyers”(p89).  The convenience of sitting in your bedroom buying clothes, food and pretty much anything is making people realize the benefits to such a simple task. This is one major reason why retail shops are being hit hard on the streets, as people would rather buy online then go out in the cold and rain for example and sit in traffic just to walk around a mall and not really see what they want. Everyday 4.8 million items are places on eBay with 40,000 categories to choose from.

Today more than ever, businesses are seeing the benefits of the internet as more companies doing business online. Businesses have to take notice more of customer’s opinions as the internet can make or break many companies’ reputations. This causes consumers to in a way become the producers. Today people will often look at reviews of a particular product before they buy it. There are many sites online that enable to general public to post their opinions about anything and this is becoming more beneficial to the customers more than ever before.

YouTube today have become one of the biggest sources of finding out information. YouTube is the one site that anyone in the world can become overnight famous off a simple uploaded video of them doing something (entrepreneurial vloggers). People are able to discuss any topics imaginable and gain thousands of followers as a result. In the introduction of this book, it explains how any video can become a massive hit simple by being put on YouTube. “goods can be shared  under a variety of  context simultaneously, and access to the item can be sold or offered as a gift without the content ever leaving ones possession”(p91) This was seen by Susan Boyle, who became a star in a matter of days after her performance on” Britain’s Got Talent”. It is now at almost 150 million views, which is a lot more the producers of B.G.T ever though and I am sure they would have done something about it had they known it would be a world hit.

"Reappraising the Residual" is the name of the chapter and the authors use residual in two senses, cultural and economic. Cultural values are developed when people come together for new discoveries of past materials such as retro thing such as games etc. Economic value is the extra monetary value of forgotten commodities such as Scooby-Doo or World Wrestling Entertainment. It has become possible for these to develop in the environment we live in today, where individuals and communities can easily spread media along with their appraisal. The book informs that Companies who are looking to spread their products should look into audiences cultural and social motivations for spreading media.

Blogging has over the past few years become an everyday thing in which more people are becoming aware of. The ability for anyone to post their opinions comments reviews and send it off into the world for the endless amount of people to read. This is seen through the internet’s ability to allow anyone to claim their fame and fortune. Sometime people forget how easily media can spread and how hard it is to be removed. So be careful what you post, lol.

 This chapter gives an insight into how the internet is being used to sell products more freely taking over the retail shops and allowing people to stay at home. One can simple review a product without buying and see reviews from other people. Business have to be aware of the benefits to doing business over the internet but also not forget that like a double edge sward, it can come back around and bite you with customers writing bad tarnishing reviews about the company. I am still trying to become a superstar on YouTube with my videos, but I am not getting too carried away, but I like the fact that so much can be done from a site such as YouTube.

Spreadable Media -Chapter 5- RUMORS( how damaging can they be)

Rumors
Taken from "Spreadable Media", by Jenkins,Ford and Green

For my Blog due, I wanted to talk about my power point on chapter 5, which I did a poor job on so I apologies to Dr. Wilson and hope this makes up for it.

In today’s society, Rumors can be seen as a double edges sword. They have the ability to spread good things about you, but also work in a negative way against you or your company. Rumors are more of a negative thing as it seems people act on rumors rather than gathering the facts. 
Patricia Ann Turner who worked with African American populations and many of her work which centered on the commercial side of products.

Companies such as “Church’s Chicken”, “Marlboro cigarettes” and clothing firm “Troop Sports” were on the receiving end of negative rumors claiming them to be owned by the KKK, a racist group in America. Such rumors inflicted serious damages on these brands. As a result Church’s was forced to sell and Troop went bankrupt.

Why did these rumors start though? Some of the accused organizations were privately owned and others were public, both of which had no racist policies what so ever. Turner claims the “accused companies were “white owned firms with advertising directed solely at black consumer in black neighborhoods” (p216). The rumors became shared feelings of frustration amongst some African Americans who were angry at the shortage of black owner businesses in their own communities. By circulating a story, community members were demonstrating their own active participating in the community by “distinguishing between friend and foe” (p217), establishing the boundaries of their community and the concerns about racism.

Historically, black Americans generated their own institutions, from the barbershop to the African American press and the black church, which enabled the formulation and exchange of the communities own perspective. Scholars have linked these institutions to the older traditions of “hush Harbors,” where slaves gathered outside for vital communication, stressing their capacity to sustain conversations within their own race.

These communities have since had more risks brought to them especially with the availability of technology. An example to book gives is the circulation of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose sermons to his trinity United Church of Christ Congregation to whom Barack Obama was a president, played a significant role in the 2008 presidential campaign. “ Wright’s sermons were for and presented to a predominantly but no longer exclusive black congregation as part of a tradition of fiery black critique of white institutions and practices” (P217). With the availability of modern media though it wasn’t long before Wright’s videos and comments were appearing on the internet on such sites as YouTube. From there it wasn’t long before it was picked up by broadcast networks such as Fox news, the Washington Post and the New York Times, who brought his comments more so to the public.  The book as a result claims, “What Wright’s comments might have meant in a black – only or black- dominated space is very different from what they meant when spread through these other contexts” (P218).

(A website link to an article about Church's Chicken)

 http://newsone.com/2018343/black-urban-legends-churchs-fried-chicken/

I am sure everyone can remember walking into a shop and seeing a magazine claiming that Barack Obama was a Muslim and not really born in America. These rumors have continued for many years even after his second session as president of America. For Christians, this wasn’t a good thing to hear especially those who had been so used to George W Bush’s conservative Christian values. One rumor that had gone viral was the national day or Prayer that Obama had apparently tried to cancel while he participated in an Islamic ceremony in The White House. In actual fact, Obama had welcomed and encourage d that day or prayer but opted to do it in private.

(This is a clip made to examine if Obama is a Muslim)

However you take rumors, they do have an effect culturally as well as politically when shaping how communities collectively perceive information, especially in regards to racism or religion. Often it is the material which isn’t the highest quality or have the most truth behind it that will often get picked up and strike fear into society.  Reading this chapter was very insightful and just proved how a few simple words can affect so many thing and people around the world.