The first part of the essay has lots of statistics about media use, can you add any personal experiences to support or contradict these facts? - I think it is difficult to obtain complete meaning from many of the statistics Manovich uses. For instance I have a myspace account but I haven't accessed it in over a year, however I would probably still be included in statistics as a user. Also although i do agree web 2.0 opens up opportunities to communicate in a new and different, not necessarily everyone will exploit this and this is a more difficult data to record. For example, I have a facebook account but i do not feel i use it in such a unique way. I feel i use it to communicate with friends in pretty much the same way i always have. i.e. I might share an event between friends using the network whereas before i might have handed them a flyer i hand picked up but it is pretty much the same sort of action. Web 2.0 is often a facilitator for human behaviour rather than changing it. I also feel the following statistic is not very helpful, "in the middle of 2000s every track out of a million of so available through iTunes sold at least once a quarter. In other words, every track no matter how obscure found at least one listener. This translates into new economics of media: as researchers who have studied the long tail phenomena demonstrated". I think iTunes is far from comprehensive* so you are limiting yourself if you just purchase music from there. Also I feel it is easier to discover music randomly through analogue media, i.e. you might buy a record in a car boot sale because you like the sleeve art (or anything indeed, i think accident plays a bigger role in analogue media. since the user has less choice, for example I often end up listening to radio 4 shows and enjoying them because they happen to come on whereas i wouldn't choice them as a podcast. I think what really comes across from this data is it is HOW digital media is used that is important. Manovich questions "If one person gets all her news via blogs, does this automatically mean that her understanding of the world and important issues is different from a person who only reads mainstream newspapers?", but I think this is a difficult question to answer because as individuals we self-select according to what we want to hear anyway. For instance I read the Guardian because I like to reinforce my lefty-liberal views. The source is only part of the issue of communication.
* As an aside i decided to test iTunes to see if it is any good since I have always been snobby about it. I searched for three favourite songs of mine and. actually did a lot better then i expected. It had House Party, Fred Wesley. It also had Girls on Pills, The Droyds but unfortunately only part of a dj mix (i.e. edited) rather than the single version. It didn't have the K C White version of Anywhere But Nowhere but it did have one by Simplicity People. I compared with spotify (had nothing), last fm (had anywhere but nowhere! mentioned house party, but not available to play and again only edited versions of girls on pills) and youtube (only house party). These songs, i would say are a bit obscure but well known amongst people who are into music.
Manovich suggests the merging and even reversing of De Certeau’s categories of ‘strategy’ and ‘tactic’, do you agree with this point? Is there a democratising of media or is it still in the hands of ‘big business’? Does the mappability of web 2.0 structures mean that De Certeau’s categories are now irrelevant however you answer the question above? - I agree with this to a certain extent but whereas Manovich seems to see this as a positive to me it is more troubling. Design that incorporates customisation is strategic as it is designing to accommodate tactics and thus attempts to bring them under control. Manovich seems to suggest that tactics have taken over strategies but to me it seems the other war round. De Certeau suggests subversion must be 'unmappable'. Tactics relayed through facebook etc. are mappable and this is indeed how such companies make money, but having access to our personal data. I think it is an interesting thought that user-created content has just become a way of getting people to buy consumer electronics. One could even agree that under Web 2.0 'subversion' has become impossible. This worries me as 'tactics' seems an essential and instinctive way we guarantee freedom and personal liberty. As an artist this idea about the world seems particularly important as a good definition of an artist seems to be one who communicates through tactics, i.e. creates personal responses about the world that reveals or questions something about it.
What do you make of Manovich’s statement, ‘ it is only a matter of time before constant broadcasting of one’s live becomes as common as email’? - I don't think email is a very helpful comparison. Email serves a particular and obvious purpose. Indeed a significant proportion of email correspondence is probably what previously would have been communicated in a different way, be it telephone or internal mail in a company or on a poster. The purpose of constant capture and broadcast is harder to define, other than being a sort of self-generated 1984 where we put ourselves under constant surveillance so that capitalist powers that be can observe and exploit. There is obviously a potential for expression through such media, however I feel that the constant and instant nature detracts from this. I think some kind of editing and reflection is important in order to express oneself well, otherwise anything interesting can become smothered in a hail of unnecessary communication. Manovich does ask the interesting question though of whether Web 2.0 renders redundant the romantic/modernist model of creativity of “making it new.” Are the masses assimilating what was previously confined to artists and professionals, who in a sense have always worked in a multimedia (i.e. tactical/creative) way? Manovich talks a lot about the influence of 'prosumers' but these are the people who will go on to become the establishment and are hence not a completely new and creative voice. In conclusion, after reading this essay, I felt more aware of the potentials of communication through the internet, its abilities to redefine boundaries of space and time but in contrast to Manovich I feel the internet is a facilitator rather than an instigator of change.
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