Sunday, April 17, 2016

Core Post 4: Why does the quality of HD get more page space that the classist nature of the medium?? - Lotz and Class

While reading Amanda Lotz’s piece for this week, I was struck by the lack of analysis of the particular individuals that made up the percentages she was showing us to prove her point of the dissemination of Television and televisual forms and the power that the Internet held in disseminating new ideas across nationsWithin her argument, while there is a pithy mention of mention in approximately 3 sentences near her conclusion, and only bringing up some of these issues (specifically thinking about class) in the last 1/3 of her writing, where she only briefly makes a slight nod at the subject, I felt that there was a distinct hole in her analysis that would have made for a more engaging theory and one that could have potentially been more engaging with the pitfalls of the medium.  
One of the first times that Lotz mentions the idea of class in regards to the access of this technology comes on page 70, when she begins the paragraph about half way down the page stating: “Enormous distinctions related to different types of work and socio-economic class distinguished who was likely to and able to use and afford these mobile television devices. Technological tethering functioned particularly acutely for the managerial class. Mobile Phones had been disseminated across socio-economic divides by 2005.” (emphasis added). Unfortunately after making this declarative statement, she fails to further interrogate the reasons why this sort of class divide would be problematic, and who exactly falls into the category of “not managerial.” While it is true that the use of the mobile phone has indeed moved its way across the socio-economic divide, it is the lack of acknowledgement of the barriers that still inhibit the access, creation power, and dissemination of these images that makes me pause. Mainly, that it is not merely the owning of the technology that allows for the access of supposedly infinite content of the Internet. While yes, in theory, once one has a device one can access content. But there are modulators to this access, which determine the when, and how people are able to get online. What does it mean for those that only have the public library, a public space, to access this private/public/nebulous technology? What does it mean to have the mobile phone and the power to create content? The modulators are key however, in so far as often, with these technologies if you do not have access to a wifi signal (still something that not everyone has) or have money to pay for a data plan, you cannot be a part of the digital conversation in such an immediate fashion as Lotz outlines in her chapter. There is a privilege divide, often referred to as the Digital Divide by some academics, which stands in the way of, often previously marginalized groups by dominant hegemony, allowing these voices to be heard, be a part of the conversation, and be continuously put down by dominant culture. 
I had a few other issues with the Lotz reading, while I thought some of her analysis and relaying of how the Internet has moved viewers in space in comparison to traditional broadcasting was intriguing, I didn’t find that it held up well over time and that some of her analysis/predictions don’t fit the current moment that we find ourselves in. If she had done more work with the ideas of class there might have been more to talk about when thinking about push/pull media, but I look forward to a lively discussion of the emergence and dissemination of televisiual style content through the medium of the Internet.  

9 comments:

  1. You bring up a good point with Lotz's lack of expansion on the issue of class when it comes to technological accessibility. You also bring up good questions she did not consider when writing and just assumed that the reader would understand from the brief mention of it. It seems that class is a continuous topic that gets overlooked in some parts of research. When it comes to research focused on globalization it should be a key factor as many of the issues and reasons some people can't have access to certain things including technological advances has to do with their class status and lack thereof

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  2. This is a great point, Amalia, and I'm wondering how it can be addressed and explored within the confines of those who study and work through media industries studies like Lotz. If Lotz/Holt/etc are studying the relations of power, they naturally gravitate toward those who gain and have power. But what would it mean to study those without it? Lotz uses certain statistics about those who use media, but there is little character to it. This isn't to say it's wrong per say, but this is what Ellen Seiter challenged in her piece by approaching things from an ethnographic stand point. The goal to study the issues of class in the Post-TV era would have to result from careful analysis of individuals as opposed to broad statistics. Then again, if the TV industry doesn't individualize each person, using statistics as their basis for their decisions, then perhaps to theorize the industry based on their perceptions is the best way, then leaving more room for those to explore and engage with the necessary issues of those who experience through lag and low resolution.

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    1. Peter & Amalia - This question of how to incorporate power relations into Industry Studies piques my interest, because it's a question I'm struggling with right now. You make a good point that Lotz, Holt, etc seem to naturally gravitate towards industries/institutions of power, but I think this is an area where industry studies would benefit from hybrid methodologies. Parks's article (though it has its own flaws) is an example of how to bridge several methodologies. (I counted production/industry studies, gender studies, and smatterings of Marxist studies, though there are definitely more.) While I agree with Amalia that Lotz doesn't go far enough, I definitely still think quantitative analysis is useful in an age of TV viewing where audience algorithms and new technologies are reshaping our media landscape.

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    2. Hi Peter, thanks for your reply. I think that the Industry itself has moved past thinking about people in quite as large brush strokes with the creation and dissemination of a further evolution of the ideas of niche-tube that emerged out of the rise of the Cable, and more specifically into the readings that we did today. If you look at Parks, there is a quote I believe on 134, where she talks about the fact that the PC could be considered it's own little Nielsen box. In saying this, if we're getting down to these nitty gritty facts, even as they create them into smaller statistics, why wouldn't scholars have the obligation to be more specific in their language? It's not that Lotz doesn't get to the very individual level, that's not what I have an issue with. What I have an issue with is the fact that she brushes off the fact that class, while she seemingly almost begrudgingly acknowledges that it is a factor, doesn't speak to it nearly at all in her report. If we can't give a proper insight to the numbers, what it means that particular modes are catering to specific audiences, where do we expect the scholarship to go?

      I've read Lotz a couple of other times and I've found the same issues across her work with an almost always blind eye towards any sort of exploration of the non-white, non-middle/upper class, non-"normative", non-masculine viewers. I wasn't surprised to see that she ignored an exploration of these in this piece, but definitely believe that Dr. Seiter was right to challenge the Academy to take a closer eye at things from an ethnographic stand point.

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  3. Great point about class division with regard to access, Amalia. Taking this limit further, there are many other real barriers to accessing the supposedly global content on the Internet--one other important one being geopolitics. Even those able to afford the appropriate technology in China, Cuba, Syria--or even North Korea--hardly have comparable access to content available to the priveledged citizens of less restrictive governments. The various lists of countries criticized by net freedom activists are longer than many may expect, and include some of the most supposedly free and democratic nations on Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country

    Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this restrictive access to content is the fact that it keeps getting worse instead of better each year, even as the class divide (theoretically) shrinks in places.

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    1. Danielle, this is a great and important addition to Amalia's insightful post! I think that so often in American-centric discussions of the internet as some kind of global space we actively choose to ignore the very real fact that while the experience of the average American web-surfer is dominated more by market interests than governmental interference (although the increasing prevalence, for example, of Facebook-related arrests (here's a slideshow: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/arrested-over-facebook-po_n_683160.html) shows us that governmental eyes are definitely on our internet as well), state interests can actively interfere with access to Web content for many users around the world. I think that another complicating factor in this whole equation is that even for those people who have the privilege to have Internet access, there are a number of other (class-based) ways that that access might still be limited: for example, the mere fact of having 'leisure time' to browse the Web as a form of entertainment rather than purely out of need, as well as the specific kinds of education required to know what is or is not an online hoax, the extent to which information shared is private (think of the trope of the elderly Facebook user who unwittingly makes all of their posts public) or what is or is not an advertisement. We tend to ignore the ways that the Web engenders its own kinds of elitism and hierarchizes its users.

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    2. Thank you Danielle and Emma for your replies! I'm really glad that you guys brought in a more global context, which I did not address in my post. I think that Emma brings up a good point with the ways in which access is limited towards the ability of both time and education to utilize new technologies. I would love to discuss more the ways in which the Web is creating this kind of Ouroboros scenario where we are doomed to an evolution where even we are going to become outdated ourselves.

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  4. I'm not sure if Lotz has an obligation to explore class more than she already has in her essay. On page 55, the stats regarding the different technologies she will explore are given. Data requires inferences, and I think given the low percentages of on DVRs, HDTVs, and Broadband internet connections does indeed imply a financial barrier (or maybe even infrastructural one in remote regions). She also notes that "Early adopters of HD televisions have also been disproportionately affluent" (76). I think the piece functions well as snapshot of technological changes in a moment in history. To explore the interplay between class and technology would require an enormous amount of space, and certainly would deviate from her focus on the technology itself.

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    1. I can see where you might have that idea. However, nothing exists in a vacuum. Merely listing off figures without contextualization doesn't assist in any sort of dissemination of knowledge or understanding of the particular functions that the evolution of Television created and worked through. Merely stating that "the early adopters of HD televisions have also been disproportionately affluent" without contextualizing and explaining what that actually means leaves a one dimensional depiction of what the history actually represents.

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