Blog 7: Forming a broad base for understanding media and communication in a digital age

Marguerite de Bourgoing offers seven 'laws' about transmedia. While I initially thought that breaking down each of these laws would give the major points of the article, I think that we can take a step back. Primarily, the author is only arguing for communication. Certainly, the ideas are far more specific, but to get an overall view, we need to realize that transmedia will always be about communication.

     Our author has three main points: individuality, commonality, and communication. Individuality is who we are to the world. Hip-hop is constantly changing, with different themes and ideas, all vying for attention, each changing the game in their own way. Who we are is important to de Bourgoing, as she sees that without a firm understanding of the internal, external forces could shape us beyond our desire (What makes a river bend, the water or the banks?). Commonality is that which is external to us. De Bourgoing describes how by working in a collaboration or by addressing the interests of a larger group, one can broaden themselves. It is a delicate balance, however, between individuality and commonality. Too much of one and the other is lost, limiting ourselves unnecessarily.

     Finally, and most importantly, communication is the crux upon which all of de Bourgoing's arguments lie. There are mediums, such as language, sound, photography, or video, and orthogonal to these are channels, like radio, television, and the internet. Certain mixtures work well together, so well, that we often conflate the two. With the internet today, speed of communication is near instantaneous and now an artist now must have two-way discussions, not simply produce material and expect success.

     Considering earlier posts and discussions, de Bourgoing comes closest to relating through the idea of two-way communication. That exact phrase is not particularly common; the concept is based in the fact that consumers are now creating. Not just individually, or with the internet and it's plethora of software (although that is also true), but through the act of consumption we are creating. The simplest act, such as watching a YouTube video, is contributing through view counts. We are individually acting, sometimes louder at times, but collectively we are creating.

     Related to the consumer/creator relationship, we have the ideas of crowd-sourcing and wisdom of the crowds threading through the article. In an example of circular logic, a performer is popular because people attend a show or follow them online, but people also make these actions because an artist is popular. Like a reverse whirlpool of sorts, the power an entertainer has grows in all directions.

     Paul Miller, in 'Rhythm Science,' tells (in part) a complex story of how communication is the result of previous interaction and that we are always remaking the old into the new. The idea of copying is one of contention, not only visible to current matters such as copyright and file-sharing, but also to an example Miller cited, where two factions went to war over the copy of a text in 6th-century Ireland. Miller goes on to discuss quite extensively the relationship between the past and present, even going so far as to describe how the future is, to be cliché, now. The second key point to the reading we are no longer singular beings. Using the phrase 'multiplex consciousness' to describe the idea, our personas are, by a matter of necessity, forced to fracture. This can best be seen through how we represent ourselves online and in the real world. It is easy to be rude and cruel online, due the anonymity, most programs and services offer, but such actions are far rarer in the real world.

     This major theme of reworking knowledge in multiple formats ties to previous discussions (in this post and others) only marginally. In my opinion, the idea of remediation had little to do with either the organization of knowledge or the dissemination of the knowledge. Furthermore, this 'multiplex consciousness' is also not directly addressed either. Although there are no direct and easy arrows between these papers and articles, I believe that we are establishing a wide base for the interpretation of both media and communication. As is the case with DTC, creating distinction between the old and new can be difficult, since there are no hard and fast lines of demarcation. The rise of the internet may be one such line, but even then, there was no one switch that ushered in this area of knowledge. To this day, we are still working to understand how instantaneous communication and media creation are affecting both the digital and real world.