In this week’s lecture we dug a lot deeper into framing and how the way we perceive reality can be influenced by many different notions. Schema determines perception as it is based around the concept of your past experiences and memories. Richard Heuer describes Schema as ‘Any pattern of relationships among data stored in memory’. Schema plays a huge role for propaganda and advertising in that if you can control a person’s schema you can control what they think is important and what they can expect in understanding reality. Schema can be changed by altering the association chain that forms it. This involves creating frames and building new frames. By using elements from schema already existing in the audience’s mind (selection) and arrange them in a new way (salience). Through salience companies trying to maximise the frame you have created are stored as schema. It is said that those who can dictate what is in the frame have ultimate power.

Here is my 30 second video on who I am!! Throughout the course of making the video I tried to incorporate as many parts of my life that make me a person and that I am really passionate about. The waterfall shots I used were taken on a bush walk which I thought would be perfect for the film as bushwalking and exploring is one of my biggest passions. I also included a couple of videos of me skateboarding because skating is another thing I am extremely passionate in and has shaped me to be the person I am today. The shot of my dog chasing the ball symbolises my early life and memories of growing up and playing ball with my dog when I was younger. The final shot that was taken on top of Mount Keira I used to symbolise me looking down at all the things that make me as a person and just how far I have come.

Michael Trkulja is an Australian resident who got shot in the back in 2004 during a shooting at a restaurant in Melbourne. The shooting incident led to a range of different articles being produced with references to crime and investigations.

Mr Trkulja alleged that during 2012 – 2014 google images associated him with “Melbourne criminal underworld photos” and images of him mixed in with other different criminals. Trkulja then wrote a letter to google, demanding the removal of certain images that associated him with searches related to Melbourne criminals. Further, auto-complete predictions on Google for “michael trk” displayed phrases such as “michael trkulja criminal”, “michael trkulja melbourne crime”, etc. Trkulja believed that the images and auto predictions of his name were defamatory in their natural and ordinary meaning and will lead to assumptions that he is a serious criminal in Melbourne.

When Mr Trkulja took the case to the supreme court of Victoria google responded with three main bases;

1. Google was not a publisher of the relevant material;
2. The search results in question were not defamatory of Mr Trkulja;
3. Google was entitled to immunity from suit as a matter of public interest, on grounds as a provider of internet search services.

The key takeouts for publishers for this case is that search results, for example images that place a person in an incorrect context can result in defamatory imputations.

The public sphere theory was formatted by german philosopher Jurgen Habermas 1962. When Habermas first created the public sphere theory in 1962 he imagined to play out how a coffee shop would have in the 18th century. The basic premise being that it was a social space in which different opinions could be said by everyone in the room and that everyone was free and could be free to talk about relevant issues. Initially though in the 18th century there was a big exclusion of people that were poor and uneducated as it only made sense if you had the money to absorb or contribute to the public sphere in a meaningful way.

The definition of a theory states that it is a system of ideas with amendments being made to it throughout time. This is evident with the public sphere theory as it has become held online in a virtual world rather than in a physical situation. “the concept of the public sphere is constantly developing”.  The number one reason for this is social media and the internet. Social media increases opportunity for political communication and enables democratic capacity for political discussion within the virtual public sphere. There are infinite public spheres online for example group chats, discussion forums and so on. A big part of my public sphere and where I engage in political discussion is on reddit. 

Reddit is a great app that unites people across the globe to talk about common interests and post content and share to an audience who can relate to them and understand their feelings. It  operates through subreddits which are groups that anyone can join and discuss and post content related to this topic of the subreddit. A lot of different subreddits are based for posted news related materials and there are entire subreddits based around political discussion. However in recent times a lot of subreddits have become more mediated in that there are more strict guidelines and criteria that users have to obey and keep in mind when producing content on subreddits. A lot of subreddits have implemented Auto moderator bots that are designed to filter content that doesn’t comply with the rules of the subreddit. This is a great example of how social media has affected the public spheres and users ability to express and open opinion without having to worry about censorship. 

Almost anyone can access reddit if they have internet and a device of some sort and an internet connection. Although it may seem at first like reddit is a completely inclusive app that allows anyone to post content within the subreddits this is not necessarily the case. A lot of subreddits have been set so that users require a certain amount of Karma points (Points you can gain from posting and commenting) to post something in the subreddit. This is mainly to stop spam but it takes away the freedom of a public sphere as anyone can participate in the discussion. 

Further readings and references

Opentextbc.ca. 2020. Habermas’ Public Sphere. [online] Available at: <https://opentextbc.ca/mediastudies101/chapter/habermas-public-sphere/> [Accessed 17 April 2020].

Sparknotes.com. 2020. Sparknotes: Structural Transformation Of The Public Sphere: General Summary. [online] Available at: <https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/public/summary/> [Accessed 17 April 2020].

2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.quora.com/What-is-Reddit-karma-and-how-do-people-benefit-from-having-more-of-it> [Accessed 19 April 2020].

Digitaltrends.com. 2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/what-is-reddit/> [Accessed 22 April 2020].

Howard, S., 2020. Settlement And Removal: Poor Relief And Exclusion In 18Th-Century London. [online] Early Modern Notes. Available at: <https://earlymodernnotes.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/settlement-and-removal-poor-relief-and-exclusion-in-18th-century-london/> [Accessed 22 April 2020].

chat, S., 2020. Social Media Group Chat – Silicon UK. [online] Silicon UK. Available at: <https://www.silicon.co.uk/workspace/breaches-and-social-networking-worry-admins-28459/attachment/social-media-group-chat> [Accessed 22 April 2020].

As a member of generation Z  I tend to get my news feed about the current world scattered from different sources ranging from articles such as the daily telegraph to YouTube videos by the nine news. In terms of YouTube content is controlled and moderated by YouTube team members who filter the content and distribute it accordingly. A lot of YouTubes control over the media comes from the distribution of their content. On all of the nine news videos the comments are  turned off and the like dislike ratio is disabled which prevents any discussion about the video on YouTube. YouTube controls and filters the distribution of the content and in some instances monetises content they find will benefit them the most. If YouTube has the power to not recommend a video to specific audiences if they believe the video contains political opinions different from their own. As well as not recommending videos YouTube can also recommend videos to more users to gain more attention on specific videos. A great example of YouTube abusing their power can be seen through them capitalising people’s deaths and recommending past videos of their life and career just after they die. 

Robert Murdoch is a massive figure when it comes to controlling media as he owns 4 main different news outlets in Australia. He has been known to manipulate the truth of matters in his articles to best suit his political views. During the devastating bushfires in Australia Murdoch owned news sources blamed arsonists for the terrible fires and they could have been controlled by people not being stupid. This was indeed proven to be false with only 1% of the fires were proven to be caused by arsonists. 

News sources have grown a reputation that they are unreliable over a long period of time which is largely due to the common notion of free speech in Australia and peoples ideologies interfering with facts and studies. This occurrence is extremely common with new sources such as fox news, who have ideological opinions to try and cater to larger audiences and capitalise on revenue. A great example is the coronavirus scandal, at first the news and media made the crisis into a bigger story than it was exaggerating the truth of the situation to gain more attention through audiences as they knew it was the hot topic and everyone was wanting to know information about the new disease.

Further readings

Dr Caroline Fisher, D., 2020. Australians Are Fact-Checking To Combat Fake News. [online] The Canberra Times. Available at: <https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6213952/australians-are-fact-checking-to-combat-fake-news/> [Accessed 12 April 2020].

Insider, B., 2020. Generation Z: Latest Gen Z News, Research, Facts & Strategies | Business Insider. [online] Businessinsider.com. Available at: <https://www.businessinsider.com/generation-z?r=AU&IR=T> [Accessed 22 April 2020].

Vice. 2020. It’s Clear Who’s To Blame For Australia’s Fires, And It’s Not Arsonists. [online] Available at: <https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/akwgp8/why-big-oil-should-pay-for-australian-fires> [Accessed 22 April 2020].

The photo above is an advertisement created by the Greys group in support of Mums demand action which is a group of over ten thousand individuals to transform the current gun policy in America (https://momsdemandaction.org/) on social media. The group produced this advertisement as a way of provoking the media and American citizens and getting attention to the issues that surround the gun laws in place in America. The advertisement cleverly conveys to the audience that it’s completely unacceptable that ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is banned in America due to the appearance of wine on the front page of the book. The representation of the ad lies within the techniques and denotations within the ad to put forward their message in the best way possible. The weapon that the girl is holding is a AR-15 semi-automatic rifle which is one of the most common weapons of choice when it comes to school shootings which indicates that they are referring to school shooters in this ad. In this instant referring to the semiotics theory the weapon acts as a signer of the message the sign is trying to get across. The icon of the gun signifies the metaphor of the one gun being responsible for all the school shootings in America. The girls sitting on the ground acts as a symbol representing that they feel helpless and worried about the situation. The girls sitting down also gives more of an effect of just how enormous the gun is in proportion to the girl which makes the gun seem incredibly powerful and destructive compared to the girl sitting on the ground looking helpless and lost.

Another feature that adds to meaning and representation of the purpose of the ad is writing ‘Guess which one’ which appears red to emphasise the dreadful reality in the answer. This combined with the haziness of the background gives the picture an emotion and mood of darkness and dread. The contrast between the two girls is another technique which adds representation to the ad. The girl on the left hand side holding the book is wearing a pink sweater which symbolises hope for future change. This is compared to the girl on the right side who is wearing more of a grey dark green jumper which blends in with the background to represent all the darkness of school shootings and other gun related tragedies. 

The advertisement could also be interpreted as the gun being the object that is illegal. If a person hasn’t read about issues to do with the gun policy in America, most would assume that the gun would be the banned substance. A lot of people don’t look carefully at the image at hand if they are either in a rush or don’t read it properly and miss the point of the image being that the ‘the red riding hood’ book is banned in America and not the gun.

References

Encyclopedia Britannica. 2020. Semiotics | Definition, Theory, Examples, & Facts. [online] Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/science/semiotics> [Accessed 19 April 2020].

Moms Demand Action. 2020. Moms Demand Action. [online] Available at: <https://momsdemandaction.org/> [Accessed 19 April 2020].

Nytimes.com. 2020. Once Banned, Now Loved And Loathed: How The AR-15 Became ‘America’S Rifle’. [online] Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/us/politics/ar-15-americas-rifle.html> [Accessed 19 April 2020].

News, A., 2020. Moms’ Gun Control Ad Cites Dangers Of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. [online] ABC News. Available at: <https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/04/moms-gun-control-ad-cites-dangers-of-little-red-riding-hood> [Accessed 22 April 2020].

My experience of being part of an audience happened about 2 months ago when my local skatepark held a skate demo which featured the Volcom skate team which included some of the best professional skateboarders in the world. I went to the event and there were around 50 other people. I was engaged the entire time watching the skateboarding and it made me feel inspired and amazed at the skill level of the skaters. Prior to the Volcom skate team appearing in their van there were lots of kids skating around the skatepark doing their own things. As soon as the team arrived without everyone being told everybody cleared the park and waited for the pros to come out. It was evident that everyone knew that they needed their space in the skatepark to do their tricks without having to worry about other people. 

Throughout the demo there were a few disruptions caused by small kids throwing toys and other objects onto the skatepark which caused a couple of the professionals to bail out of their tricks to avoid the object which slightly ruined the experience of watching them skate. 

The way the skate demo was produced with the main ambition to attract as many people as possible to make it a bigger and successful event. The largest target audience group was young kids aged around 7 – 12 and their parents. This was identified by the Volcom skate team in which they selected the best group of skaters from their team to appeal to the younger kids and their parents. The skaters that are more skilled in performing big airs and high risks stunts give off more of a wow factor and are seemingly more impressive and appealing more to the younger generation who assume that high risk means higher skill. Having followed skateboarding for a long time myself I watch and critique skaters in a much different way than what would have originally been intended by the Volcom skate team. When watching skateboarding I look more for the technique and the style of the way tricks are performed over how risky the trick is. This is a great example of the idea from the ministry of education in NZ that, ‘Audiences have a complex relationship with the product they consume’, and also that ‘Media producers intend audiences to read their product in a certain way, but in actual fact everyone enjoys a product differently due to the individual’s background and lifestyle’.

In this weeks lecture we looked closely at how exactly the distributed media network functions and how it differs from a centralised network. Distribution networks work extremely well in that they can both scale up and easily maintain low coordination costs are there is no pronounced hub. A hierarchical and vertically integrated network with a central hub will experience high coordination costs as it scales up. The more nodes joined will overthrow the central node if not. There is also a lot of pressure on the one central node to deliver content.

In this day people don’t want to respond to inert content they want to engage and challenge the content, which doesn’t sit well for monological media as their main process in gaining information includes framing an event in their own hands. Framing is extremely important in the process of telling a story as it gives the perception, point of view and propaganda to the audience. Compared with dialogical media you have the audience participating in all stages of framing and telling the story. This might be through filming the story via phone or taking notes themselves.

Memes are the building blocks of distributed media. Memes act as perception modulators. Influence the way people see reality. In distributed media a propaganda exchange looks like meme warfare. A lot of memes and meme warfare originate from 4chan. The reason for this is 4chan is a site with no filter and users don’t identify themselves so there is no negative output of posting. This creates an extremely fast feedback loop, if an idea fail and gets rejected there is immediate feedback.

Peters, M., 2020. 5 Ways Framing Can Influence Your Story. [online] Meetcortex.com. Available at: <https://www.meetcortex.com/blog/5-ways-framing-can-influence-your-story> [Accessed 20 April 2020].

tutor2u. 2020. Centralised Versus Decentralised Structures | Business | Tutor2u. [online] Available at: <https://www.tutor2u.net/business/reference/centralised-versus-decentralised-structures> [Accessed 20 April 2020].

In this week’s lecture we explored in more detail the internet paradigm and collective intelligence. Specifically the key differences and assets of both dialogical media and monological media. Ever since the development of dialogical media the internet has been a very different place. You now have content that is not packaged for consumers that is a continuing collaboration project. As long as an emergent media paradigm exists there is no form of content that is finished. There is always a way to remix, reproduce, repurpose and reshare the content. The introduction of dialogical media has also allowed for content aggregation and curation to be a conversation with many different produsers ranging from professional to amateur. There is no strict role in the production of media. 

A great example of collective intelligence is 4chan which is an anonymous imageboard website that hosts discussions and solves puzzles. There are a lot of examples of where they have solved big problems and have been great to help the community. Ted showed us an example of 4chan finding a training camp during the syrian war only using footage from the camp. This is an excellent example of collective intelligence as it is coordinated in the real time with a many to many interaction. Anyone could have also participated in the discussion as it was universally distributed. 

Here are some more examples of 4chans work.