Fail as Network Logic

I think you offer a necessary corrective to all the overly celebratory rhetoric surrounding the implementation of "new" media technologies into the classroom. I'm wondering how useful a historical study on how "old" media such as television (PBS specials, news reports) and film (documentary, video art) have worked or "failed" within higher education in the past, as it seems this would inform/qualify the flawed notion that ever newer technologies will ultimately lead to progress.

I also think it is interesting how the word "fail" is activated within online discourse to signify "not-working", "boring", or a general condemnation. The opposite of this would be a "lol" I'm guessing. This leads me to wonder how much of the discourse on forums, blogs and comment pages reflects the "on/off" digital logic of the network, as well as how Galloway's analysis of the vertical DNS centers of control intersect with the horizontal IP system. It seems that the structure of both YouTube and MMORPG's operates under a similar logic-where "democratic" horizontality is ostensibly promised by the medium, only to be consitently undermined by the almost pathological need to hierarchize everything on the internet. Interestingly, the vertical structures of ranking and popularity are built into the architecture of YouTube, while in the case of World of Warcraft, these were originally aspects of play that were introduced by players in order to establish who was the "best" at the game, without taking into account different modes of play and other qualitative differences in the bodies of those operating the interface. It seems that there is something specific to the network that leads to instituting a sort of "numerical regime" (mathesis?). There is an interesting article by Manuel Castells that summarizes his conclusions about the network society that we read for Anne's class that may be useful (I can't seem to find it offhand, but Genevieve was the TA ;)

Having attempted to do "research" on YouTube, I can understand the frustration that Juhasz must have felt having to delve into this netherworld in an attempt to salvage some kind of academic value from the platform. Just as the site is ultimately very useful for us in media studies, if only as an archive of "free" content that we can access readily in class to illustrate points, I can't imagine the (antiquated? Has it ever been updated) interface ever being conducive to sustained critical engagement and compelling social critique. Granted, there have been viral YouTube phenomenon that have had far-reaching effects outside of the so-called "YouTube community", I still feel that the platform is ultimately useful as one tool that must be activated in conjunction with other traditional learning environments in order to have a compelling pedagogical impact.

P.S. I also completely aggree with Juhasz that "democratic" and "popular" must not be conflated, as the recent failure of the California State Government has illustrated several times in the two years that I have been here. When the "logic of crowds" takes over, who will protect the marginalized, strange, un-popular? Or must we take a page out of the far right's book and build heavily-armed compounds in Montana?

The Perfect Disguise/Jolly Green Giant

The discussion about the potential risks of academic engagement with/on YouTube got me thinking about hoaxes, viral marketing and astroturfing. Maybe the most radical threat that YouTube poses isn't the way it degrades certain forms of discourse, but rather how it enmeshes all communications -- genuine or not -- within a populist Everyman vernacular, the perfect disguise for the praxis of sales...(YouTube: Juhasz Final Video)

It's fun and more than a little depressing to imagine a future wherein astroturfing (as a sub-sub-discipline of marketing, branding, propoganda, sales--) has become so sophisticated that it is indistinguishable from the ordinary madness of the ambient "grassroots" media wash. It's even more depressing to think about how we're probably living in that future already. I'm thinking here of heartfelt (but ultimately fake and paid-for) rallying cries around particular causes, products, services or brands; bloody political and ethnic murders perpetrated by gangs of the misguided and disinformed; the gutting of government, the destruction of the environment, and the final collapse of the Authentic (though of course that probably happened a long time ago).

There have been plenty of villains throughout human history, but none have had quite as attractive a logo as YouTube. And by "villain," I mean the standard definition of the word, not the meta-/infra- genre usage that one might suspect I would be using in a forum such as this. No, I am deadly-red-orange serious.

YouTube is to sales what a fresh plate of peas is to the Jolly Green Giant.

So, Jack goes up the Beanstalk and the Green Giant is there, and the Green Giant says, "Jack, it's always been this way, the stakes are just different now. You want power, you need the crowd -- or, at least, a crowd. Someone to take out your laundry. Someone to pass on your story and amp it up. You got goals? Better get a team. Got a team? Get a support network. Expand your team. Expand your goals. Repeat. That's the core procedure of power."

Man has never invented a better tool for this procedure. How long it will last as a brand name is anybody's guess. But the affordances it posesses, both in terms of those accessible to the Public and those of which Power can avail itself, are here to stay.

On the other hand, these two videos really made my day today...