Fan Culture and Social Networking

Media Convergence creates and enables Fan culture. Social Networking sites provide an outlet for fans to connect and interact, easily and conveniently, at high volumes. These fan cultures consist of people who are passionately committed to something and through various media forms are socially networked together. Internet fan sites, Youtube, and Twitter are a few of the ways these fans display their devotion and love for what they are a fan of. For instance, Twilight which first started out as a novel series, is now a motion picture, soundtrack and a phenomenon. Fans of Twilight produce and purchase T-shirts, books, posters, fan websites and blogs, as well as Youtube videos and photo montages. It is a whole new culture created by fans for fans; a culture consisting of mostly females, surrounding the love story between Bella and Edward, their love for Edward and Vampires.

With the rise of the internet, open forums, blogs and networking sites such as Twitter, fans of a certain show are able to unite and interact. Also, since pretty much everyone has to be a fan of at least one thing, the internet and these sites allow for more citizens to participate in social media. These fans can discuss anything from the shows spoilers, to recaps, to sharing videos and creating photo montages of their favourite characters. The show I personally am a fan of right now is How I Met Your Mother, so that is what I’ll be using as my second example to show how the convergence of these media forms (fan sites, TV show websites, blogs and Twitter etc.) provide an outlet for the fans to create their own culture surrounding the show.

Twitter is used interestingly through an account called the ‘’Brocode” (if you watch the show regularly you know the importance of the brocade and what I’m talking about, if not the Brocode is a code of conduct created by the character Barney, a womanizer, outlining the conduct every best friend should live by). The twitter account of the Brocode, found here: http://twitter.com/brocode, posts daily codes that bros should follow. For instance, ``a Bro never reveals the score of a sporting event to another Bro unless that Bro has thrice confirmed he wants to hear it``. This is not a real code of conduct, only one that was made up on the show from the character Barney; that now has its own twitter account which people follow. It is interesting to see how these fictional characters and ideas are incorporated into the ‘real’ world and society. Also, just by googling the show one can find many fan sites with open forums where people discuss their favorite characters, create photo backgrounds and videos of their favorite characters or scenes, and compare spoilers and episode recaps. Here`s an example of an interactive networking site for fans by fans: http://www.howimetyourmother.us/how-i-met-your-mother/forum/

So, good? Beneficial? Useful? Positive? Absolutely! Fan cultures, though it creates revenue for the big corporations who create these fan products (dolls, posters, t-shirts etc.), it allows for citizens to be apart of and share with others a common interest. Networking sites help connect these fans further, and allows them to participate in the fan culture without having to go out and purchase the Twilight poster or Calenders. Social Networking sites and social media provides fans with the opportunity to voice and create their own opinions and own fan products (such as youtube photo montages); without having to support and create revenue for the big corporations.

Will the real Twitter Ellen please stand up?

With networking sites and the internet, not only is privacy a main issue but also fraud. It is hard to know what is real, fake or made up information and people on the internet. There are sites that try to minimize this such as Wikipedia, who has editors and employers constantly deleting misleading or false information from the site to make it more of a credible source. The networking site Twitter has had a major growth of popularity the past few months, with citizens and celebrities joining. It is a useful tool for celebrities to get messages to their fans all at once through their status updates, as well as to address recent rumors, and as a promotional tool in boosting their latest tour or TV show. It is also a good way for friends and family to keep up with one another, know what each other is doing, or even to keep up with their favorite show, celebrity gossip and popular culture blogs. But with these advantages also come disadvantages.

How do you know with the internet and networking sites like twitter, if you are talking to the real celebrity or if it is just a fake. With friends it is easy because you wouldn’t think anyone to impersonate or pretend to be your friend; and even if this did happen you can just use any other form of technology to call them up and ask. There is an obsession with twitter and celebrities right now. But with celebrities, because of their popularity, there will always be the question of what if? Is it really them or just a pretender? Now you can have all these ‘fake people’ pretending to be the celebrity or affiliated with them. For instance, to get around this and to prove the legitimacy, shows like Ellen are twittering while live on the air. The other day on her episode, she got her manager to type a twitter message about her being on O Magazine. Often Ellen does this to not only promote her twitter page, but also to allow people to know they are follow the real Ellen. It makes people feel a stronger connection to celebrities like Ellen, allowing them to interact on a personal level. So I used this personally, to find out if I had the real Ellen I was following on twitter or if it was just a fake one. By knowing that this message was typed, I could find to decipher the real from the fake.

The Real: http://twitter.com/TheEllenShow

Fake?: http://twitter.com/EllenLDegeneres

Fake?: http://twitter.com/EllenDeG

Also Ellen Degeneres has created a competition for herself that benefits and provides more exposure for twitter. She is trying to get a million followers on twitter, and more then MC Hammer. Even on her website there are viewers and fans that are commenting saying that they are joining twitter simply for this reason. http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2009/03/get_personal_twitter_messages.php

So is this more a positive networking tool for celebrities to get their messages out to their fans, or is it just another way to start a bunch of rumours by fakes?

Growing Technology, Lowering Privacy

Keeping with the theme of a spying government – here is another technology that has been developed and used by the CIA and Government to spy on people. It is a technology with incredible zooming capabilities, and by taking many simple pictures at different zoom rates, one can see oh so much more then the simple subject of the image. A quick Wiki search offers the best description for the technology and website that is a portal for citizen media and privacy issues:

Gigapan is a collaborative project of Google, Carnegie Mellon University and NASA AmesIntelligent Systems Division's Robotics Group. It is a robotic platform that attaches to a digital camera and some computer software. The robotic platform allows a user to take a photograph, then it will re-aim the camera with great precision, to take another photograph. After taking many photos, the software stitches all the pictures into a gigapixel image.

The website Gigapan is also a form or type of citizen media, similar to a blog. It is an open forum were people who use this technology can put their images together and post them; also allowing others to view the image and make comments and suggestions on them. It is open to the public and authors of the images have no control of the comments that the public says. For instance, the speech given by Obama at the inauguration, was captured by an individual who took approximately 120 shots of the speech, and put together the below photo image. Everything from the snipers, to people in the back far buildings can be seen in this shot. The people in the very background are unaware that they are being captured, very detailed, in the picture; they are a part of the scene without even being there (a major privacy issue).

The technology itself offers the availability to everyone, people in power like governments, CIA and FBI, as well as regular citizens. Anyone who has the means to purchase this camera is able to use it, and with tools like the internet, more specifically SPECGIN, allow people to share and communicated their pictures with the world. The internet is a portal, a gateway to sharing and participating in ones ideas and work. Here is the link I found to the Obama image, to see the detail and zoom capabilities - click on the small pictured 'snapshots'.There are many on this so take a look around! They are really incredible!

http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=17217

Skype: Public or Private?

Since a lot of the discussion and examples of privacy matters have been surrounded with Facebook, I thought after reading the Hackbloc, to change it up and talk about Skype. After visiting the Hackbloc site, and found the interesting post of how the NSA - National Security Agency are trying to get firms to hack in to eavesdrop on Skype, I did a little bit of further research on it. In case you’re unaware of the post on Hackbloc:

An industry source disclosed that America's supersecret National Security Agency (NSA) is offering "billions" to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic. The spybiz exec, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed that Skype continues to be a major problem for government listening agencies, spooks and police...Rumour suggests that America's NSA may be able to break Skype encryption - assuming they have access to a given call or message - but nobody else... The NSA may be able to do that: but it seems that if so, this uses up too much of the agency's resources at present."They are saying to the industry, you get us into Skype and we will make you a very rich company," said the industry source.

http://hackbloc.org/node/1930

I think this is only another example of how the NSA and the government are taking further steps in trying to take over and control the internet, censorship. Pretty much all other forms of media are censored by the government and companies, placing ratings on TV programs and movies, and allowing only certain music and content on radios; up until recently the internet has been a form of media that has been left rarely untouched. Sites like the Hackbloc are trying to inform, educated and change the political control of the government over this content; and promotes freedom rights and free speech.

I find it funny that the government and companies use the media to create and develop these negative connotations against Hacking - as terrorists and people who are trying to disrupt social order. But if one were to believe these negative connotations, then they also must think this way against the government; since, with Skype, this is exactly the goal of the government. They are trying to find a firm capable of ‘hacking’ into Skype, so that they can spy, control and be informed of people’s personal conversations. I believe this to be an invasion of privacy, these are personal conversations that people are having with one another, and so should not be shared or ‘spied on’. It is just like the distinction between Facebook wall posts and personal inbox messages. If people want their information shared they would post it in open forums such as blogs and Facebook wall posts; and privates messages to emails, Facebook inboxes and Skype. If hacking is so criminal, terrorist like and bad – why is the government trying so hard to participate in it!

In our class discussion today, following Kaley's seminar, the debate of who has the right to say what is wrong in regards to ethical and racial comments on webblogs. Racism comments are obviously hurtful and wrong, both morally and ethically, as well as homosexual comments; but who is to say what is an isn't acceptable for the web. Are indirect or subtle comments appropriate? Or what about funny jokes? Personally I believe blogs should be appropriate and welcoming to everyone. There is no need to attack or put anyone down when blogging, since it is open to all citizens in the public sphere.

Then comes up the big question of free speech, and to what extent should blogs be regulated? Is regulating blogs impeding on the right of freedom of speech?

There are regulations put in for such websites on the internet, such as the well know network of Facebook. On a Dr. Phil episode I watched the other day, there was a debate on the show because a female user of facebook posted a picture of her breast feeding her baby in public. Someone reported it to facebook, and the picture was removed. She went on the show to fight this debate, saying it was unfair and that breast feeding is a natural bonding moment with the baby and mother. This is a perfect example of a controversial photo being removed from the internet, and who is to say what is right and wrong for everyone to see. Then should every picture on facebook of a nipple showing be removed or every remotely controversial photo on the internet be flagged and taken down. I know this is a lot to take in one post, but I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this matter. Censorship and the internet, how far is to far?