Introduktion til medier og kommunikation

1. Introduktion til medier og kommunikation • 15. november • Konvergens og computerspil

2. Convergence • ”Media convergence is more than simply a technological shift. Convergence alters the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres, and audiences. Convergence alters the logic by which media industries operate and by which media consumers process news and entertainment. Keep this in mind: convergence refers to a process, not an endpoint” (15-16)

3. Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h57XyqVYU_0

5. Convergence impacts consumption and production • ”In turn, media convergence impacts the way we consume media. A teenager doing homework may juggle four or five windows, scan the Web, listen to and download MP3 files, chat with friends, word-process a paper, and respond to e-mail, shifting rapidly between tasks. And fans of a popular television series may sample dialogue, summarize episodes, debate subtexts, create original fan fiction, record their own soundtracks, make their own movies – and distribute all of this worldwide via the internet” (16)

6. Top-down og bottom-up • Digitale medier gør, at produktion og distribution bliver billigere og nemmere og i princippet kan brugeren have større indflydelse end før (arkivere, annotere, cirkulere, distribuere, appropriere, remixe) • På samme tid oplever vi koncentrationstendenser, hvor ganske få dominerer den globale underholdningsindustri • Konvergens er både top-down corporate-driven proces og bottom-up consumer driven proces

7. Noisy consumers • ”Convergence requires media companies to rethink old assumptions about what it means to consume media, assumptions that shape both programming and marketing decisions. • If old consumers were assumed to be passive, the new consumers are active. If old consumers were predictable and stayed where you told them to stay, then new consumers are migratory, showing a declining loyalty to networks or media. If old consumers were isolated individuals, the new consumers are more socially connected. • If the work of media consumers was once silent and invisble, the new consumers are now noisy and public” (19)

8. Fan kultur: Internettet har givet disse kulturer ny synlighed – distribution for amatørproduktioner • Digitale fan film er hvad punk var for musikken – græsrødder, eksperimenter, nye teknikker og nye relationer til publikum • Industriens reaktioner: Prohibitionists vs collaborationists • Amatør produktioner plejer at være af dårlig kvalitet, men man har brug for at rum, hvor det er ok at lave dårlige værker, til at modtage kritik og blive bedre

9. Internettet som sted for eksperimenter og innovation – amatørerne driver innovation, udvikler ny praksis, genrer, der ofte får kult status • De kommercielt succesfulde bliver absorberet ind i massemedierne • …og også omvendt – mainstream media kan give inspiration til amatørerne og flytte populærkulturen i nye retninger • Det store spørgsmål er om det kan betale sig på længere sigt at give ophavsretten ”fri” • ”Once you put creative tools in the hands of everyday people, there’s no telling what they are going to make with them – and that’s a large part of the fun” (166)

10. Otte slags konvergens • Teknologisk konvergens • Indholdsmæssig konvergens • Netværkskonvergens • Platformskonvergens • Branchemæssig konvergens • Social konvergens • Æstetisk konvergens • Kulturel konvergens Bruhn Jensen, K. (2003). Dansk mediehistorie (Vol. 4). Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. P. 19f.

11. Teknologisk konvergens • Tjenester (telefoni, broadcasting, online) • Tv-sendenet (jordbaseret, satellit, kabel) • Terminaler/platforme (telefoner, computer)

12. Indholdsmæssig konvergens • Multimedier, “atomer til bits” (Negroponte) • Tekst • Lyd • Billeder • Video Negroponte, Nicholas. (1995). Being digital. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

13. Distributionsmæssig konvergens • Et netværk – alle tjenester • Hybridnet • Satellitforbindelse • Mobilt internet • DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) • DVB-T (Terrestrial) • DVB-C (Cable)

14. Terminalmæssig konvergens • Samme terminal kan klare forskellige medier • Tv-apparat: fjernsyn, tekst-tv, radio, videospil • Forskellige terminaler kan modtage samme medie • Radio via antenne (analog/digital), kabel, internet

15. Branchemæssig konvergens • Forlag • Filmselskaber • Musikproducenter • Softwarehuse • Telefonselskaber • TV-stationer • Who Owns What

16. Forbrugsmæssig (eller social) konvergens • Flermedial mediebrug, multitasking (sker i mediebrugerens hovede, ikke specifikt digital) • Spil + tv + Facebook + sms + musik

17. Æstetisk konvergens • Remediering (WWW remedierer pressemeddelelsen, brochuren, avisen, bogen, magasinet, radioen, filmen, osv) • Lån af visuel æstetik, f.eks. Flash-lignende animationer som pauseskærm på tv

18. Kulturel eller global konvergens • Lokale kulturer flyder sammen over grænser • Asiatisk films indflydelse på Hollywood • Fusionskøkken • Samtidig bliver det muligt at skabe kulturelle fællesskaber omkring langt mindre fænomener • Nichemusik • Seksuelle kulturer

19. Pixelvision • Sadie Benning: It Wasn’t Love

20. Spil

21. Leg og spil • Leg er biologi (nature) • Alle pattedyr og nogle få andre dyrearter leger • Spil er kultur (nurture) • Første spil, vi kender, var Senet (ca. 4000 fKr.)

22. Schools in Game Studies • The simulation community • Game theory • Video game studies community • Narratologists [Janet Murray] • Ludologists [Jesper Juul] • Situationist group • [Henry Jenkins]

23. Four major types of analysis

24. Spil som kultur • Popular culture • Low-brow • Dangerous! Violence, overweight, a-sociality • Guilty of massacres • Let´s censor!

26. Rules vs. fiction • The basic argument here is that video games consist of two levels that are both distinct and intertwine in many complex ways: • The levels of the rules of the game; the game-as-system. • The level of the world created by the game; the game-as-fictional-world (Juul 2005: 5).

27. “To speak of rules and to speak of meaning is to speak of the same thing; and if we look at all the intellectual undertakings of mankind, as far as they have been recorded all over the world, the common denominator is always to introduce some kind of order” (Lévi-Strauss 1995: 4). Lévi-Strauss, Claude. (1995). Myth and Meaning. Cracking the Code of Culture. New York: Schocken Books.

28. Caillois classifies games “into four rubrics, depending upon whether, in the games under consideration, the role of competition, chance, simulation, or vertigo is dominant:” • Agôn (competition): football, billiards, chess. “The point of the game is for each player to have his superiority in a given area recognized” (15). • Alea (chance): roulette or a lottery. “All games that are based on a decision independent of the player, an outcome over which he has no control, and in which winning is the result of fate rather than triumphing over an adversary” (p. 17). • Mimicry (simulation): pirate, Nero, or Hamlet. “All play presupposes the temporary acceptance […] of a closed, conventional, and, in certain respects, imaginary universe” (p. 19). “With one exception, mimicry exhibits all the characteristics of play: liberty, convention, suspension of reality, and delimitation of space and time. However, the continuus submission to imperative and precise rules cannot be observed” (p. 22). • Ilinx (vertigo): “when one produces in oneself, by a rapid whirling or falling movement, a state of dizziness and disorder” (p. 12). “They derive the same kind of pleasure from the intoxication stimulated by high speed on skis, motorcycles, or in driving sports cars. In order to give this kind of sensation the intensity and brutality capable of shocking adults, powerful machines have had to be invented.” (pp. 25-26).

29. “I created my first video game at the age of 10, a racing game built on an early computer terminal: I drew a race track made of Xs on the screen and moved the cursor around the track as quickly as possible (timing it using a digital watch), carefully making sure that my car (the cursor) did not collide with the barriers (the Xs)” (Juul 2003: 1) Juul, Jesper. (2003). Half-Real: Computer Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. (Ph.D. dissertation), IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen.

30. “What had I created? No doubt it was a game, since it had rules and goals. It was also a video game, since it took place on a screen. But it […] was not a computer game: though the terminal was not much of a computer on its own, being simply designed to connect to a large mainframe computer, it did have some processing power, and I had therefore designed a game on a computer. But it was not a computer game in the usual sense since it was me, and not the computer, that was taking care of the rules” (Juul 2003: 1).

31. Rules and fiction Juul, Jesper. (2007). A Certain Level of Abstraction. Paper presented at the DiGRA 2007, Tokyo. http://www.jesperjuul.net/text/acertainlevel

32. Representation ”for” and ”of” reality • A blueprint of a house in one mode is a representation ”for” reality: under its guidance and control a reality, a house, is produced that expresses the relations contained in reduced and simplified form in the blueprint. • There is a second use of a blueprint, however. If someone asks for a description of a particular house, one can simply point to a blueprint and say, ”That’s the house.” Here the blueprint stands as a representation or symbol of reality (Carey p. 29) Carey, James W. (1989). A Cultural Approach to Communication. In Communication as Culture. Essays on Media and Society (pp. 13-36). London: Unwin Hyman.

33. Blueprint for drawing a man • Leonardo da Vinci, ca 1487 (efter Vitruvius’ De Architectura, 3. bog)

34. Blueprint “for” a car

35. Virtual design • Citröen Eole blev i 1986 vist frem på biludstillingen i Genève • Den var den første fuldstændig computerdesignede bil og havde en luftmodstands-koefficient på 0,17 • Den kom aldrig længere end til prototypen, men vigtige detaljer blev inkluderet i XM-modellen

36. Citröen Eole og XM

37. Computer Aided Design/ Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM)

39. Optagelser af lyd til computerspillet Gran Turismo

40. “My car” (blueprint as a symbol of reality)Still fra computerspillet Gran Turismo 4 (2005)