Collected Data
"As we work towards journalism’s and documentary’s next iterations, the one thing that is clear is that they have more in common now than at any other point in their histories."
Documentary’s relative freedom from institutional constraint has enabled its makers to experiment in ways that are difficult for traditional journalists. Moreover, as journalism becomes more of a curator of information and shaper of conversations, documentary’s demonstrated ability to contextualize and explain through well-chosen instances has proven newly relevant. The interactive documentaries produced to date offer a compendium of approaches, interfaces, user experiences, tools and even strategies for working with crowd-sourced and co-created content all of which journalists can assess, draw from and transform.
So I guess I would say that by finding themselves in the same boat, both journalists and documentarians have discovered commonalities of purpose and technique. Interactive documentary is fast developing a repertoire of techniques that work well in today’s ‘digital first’ and increasingly participatory environment and digital journalism still commands considerable reputation and audience reach.
Charting Documentary’s Futures: An Interview with MIT’s William Uricchio (Part One)
Charting Documentary’s Futures: An Interview with MIT’s William Uricchio (Part Two)
Charting Documentary’s Futures: An Interview with MIT’s William Uricchio (Part Three)
Charting Documentary’s Futures: An Interview with MIT’s William Uricchio (Part Four)
Updated 16-02-09. Added link to Part Four.
"The time to start worrying about the consequences of our editorial decisions was before we raised a generation of people who get all of their information from television"
If you got all of your information from TV and movies, you'd have some pretty dumb ideas. You'd be convinced blowing stuff up works, because it always does in our movies. You'd have no empathy for the poor, because there are no poor people in American movies or TV shows - they're rarely even shown on the news, because advertisers consider them a bummer.
Politically, you'd have no ability to grasp nuance or complexity, since there is none in our mainstream political discussion. All problems, even the most complicated, are boiled down to a few minutes of TV content at most. That's how issues like the last financial collapse completely flew by Middle America. The truth, with all the intricacies of all those arcane new mortgage-based financial instruments, was much harder to grasp than a story about lazy minorities buying houses they couldn't afford, which is what Middle America still believes.
It's Too Late to Turn Off Trump
"There are all sorts of obvious, extreme harms that come from being a nation at permanent war."
But perhaps the worst of all harms is how endless war degrades the culture and populace of the country that perpetrates it. You can’t have a government that has spent decades waging various forms of war against predominantly Muslim countries — bombing seven of them in the last six years alone — and then act surprised when a Muslim 14-year-old triggers vindictive fear and persecution because he makes a clock for school. That’s no more surprising than watching carrots sprout after you plant carrot seeds in fertile ground and then carefully water them. It’s natural and inevitable, not surprising or at all difficult to understand.
Arrest of 14-Year-Old Student for Making a Clock: the Fruits of Sustained Fearmongering and Anti-Muslim Animus
Watch: "Everything is a Remix Remastered"
Kirby Ferguson;
In the five years since the series launched, Everything is a Remix has been viewed over two million times and produced a popular TED Talk. Amazingly, Remix continues to change the way people think about creativity, originality, and copyright.
"So every month I’m going to be giving one of my six ebooks away!"
I launched NMK by giving away free ebook versions Angry Young Spaceman. Pre-Kindle and iPhone, people found it baffling. But the gift economy works — it's come back to me in a lot of ways.
No Media Kings Launched 15 Years Ago
"This has been coming for a long time"
This is just the first shot in a new system of distribution that has been building for quite a while; I’m really surprised it has taken traditional media this long to notice that frankly, they’re in long term trouble. There’s no way this trend is turning around, and what happens next is -as far as I can see- that Netflix gets bigger and bigger, and traditional media becomes less and less relevant to millennials.
A Bad Day For Traditional Media
"There's an old adage, and it applies all too often in the growth of giant digital media players: if you're going to steal, steal big."
Invariably, people point out that labels exploited artists for years, and use that as some rationalization for file sharing. But all it really means is that Napster made it easy for the fans to screw the artists too, and a few entrepreneurs got really rich instead of label guys. You can't support Napster by claiming some moral high ground.
5 Reasons The Major Labels Didn't Really Blow It With Napster
""We don’t want this to be 3-D TV all over again"
But there's no guarantee that Hollywood is the solution to the Valley's content problem. Traditional movie and TV types never took the video game world by storm. Maybe they're not the visionaries who will prove the future of VR, either. Plus, with no rules or standards in place, how can companies explain this new field to a layperson who just wants to watch a new kind of movie?
How Hollywood Is Learning To Tell Stories In Virtual Reality
The future of VR is not storytelling.
Read: "Advertising Philosopher: An Interview with Faris Yakob"
Content is the new solution célèbre in advertising, and most of the time we can’t agree as to what it means. Personally, I feel brand content, as we are using the term, is something created by / for a brand that people choose to consume – as opposed to advertising which we essentially pay people to consume, indirectly.
(…) you get linguistic confusion, where you can watch a “television” show online, or what to call shows made by Netflix, which has nothing to do with television, although you can certainly watch it on the screen formerly known as that.
Advertising Philosopher: An Interview with Faris Yakob Part One, Part Two, Part Three
"There’s only one catch: No one’s sure what virtual reality goggles are good for just yet."
“That is definitely the million-dollar question,” said Levi Miller, an engineer at Valve, a game developer and distributor, when I asked him what experiences would work best in virtual reality. Mark Zuckerberg might say it’s more like a $2 billion question.
“The truth is, we still don’t know what the best applications are going to be,” John Carmack, the chief technology officer of Oculus, said during a speech at the conference.
Virtual Reality’s Potential Displayed at Game Developers Conference
Uh huh. Video games and interactive entertainment are a just avenues to refine the technology, but they are not the future of VR. Console ‘hard core’ gaming is a niche. Interactive fiction is a niche. VR is unlikely to replace television or movie theatres.
I can understand that Mr Carmack is probably not in a position to discuss why Facebook bought Oculus, but the very fact that Facebook bought a VR company should tell everyone what they need to know; VR is the ultimate social networking technology.
That’s the ‘killer app’.
"Business interests are aggressively asserting themselves over public service obligations of journalism."
"That is a sentiment grounded in deep irrationality, blind nationalism, and primitive tribalism."
I have no idea whether this 13-year-old boy was “a member of al-Qaeda,” whatever that might mean for a boy that young. But neither does the New York Times, which is why it’s incredibly irresponsible for media outlets reflexively to claim that those killed by U.S. drone strikes are terrorists.
That’s especially true since the NYT itself previously reported that the Obama administration has re-defined “militant” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.” In this case, Mohammed did not even qualify for that Orwellian re-definition, yet still got called a terrorist (by both the Obama administration as well as a “member of AQAP,” both of whom are, for different reasons, motivated to make that claim). Whatever else is true, extreme skepticism is required before claiming that the victims of the latest American drone strike are terrorists, but that skepticism is virtually never included.
THE U.S. MEDIA AND THE 13-YEAR-OLD YEMENI BOY BURNED TO DEATH LAST MONTH BY A U.S. DRONE
“With docusoaps, people feel lied to. Ultimately, the country is vomiting that up in some way.”
"The way I see it, from a formalist perspective, most videogames aren't particularly interesting."
Everywhere *we* look we see pretend worlds and childish make-believe, imaginary dragons, badly written dialogue and unskippable cutscenes in which angry mannequins gesture awkwardly at each other.
More Thoughts on Formalism
The above quote more or less sums up my thoughts on most video games and why I don’t play very many.
I used to work at EA. At the time, the first HD consoles were about 9 months away. It was a very interesting time to be there. I’m a “Formalist” and proudly so. I like to know how and why things work. That’s what I consider Formalism; the study of the basic mechanics of a medium. No one I met at EA was at all interested in exploring game mechanics, they were just interested in rendering.
I’ve found this to be true in the film and television industry as well. No one is very interested in trying to understand the mechanics of how the mediums function. Which is a shame, because I’ve seen a lot of great ideas wasted.
The comments to the blog post are interesting too.
Sam Stephens;
The problem I have with a term like formalism is the implication that those who have an interest in "mechanics and systems" (i.e. gameplay) believe these elements are the most important element of an artistic medium and that they are denying the importance or value of other elements of that medium.
I’d say this is not a problem with the term “Formalism” but with the writer of the comment. The term Formalism does not implicate anything other than what the term means. The definition IS open to debate, but regardless, just because it is not inclusive does not make it a ‘problem’; that’s what makes it useful.
There are people who believe the mechanics of a medium are more important than the content. There are people who believe the content is more important than the medium. Giving these positions names makes debate easier and more productive. (Even if that debate is over the meaning of the terms.)
Stephens comments further;
It's difficult to argue BioShock and Grand Theft Auto don't present themes, messages, aesthetics and world views. It's just that the art of these products is irrelevant to the gameplay.
This is false. The themes, messages etc of both of the example games are deeply tied to the game play and design choices made by their creators.
James Margaris comments;
That's the elephant in the room in most of critical discourse: it's for other critics and a specific, narrow type of developer interested in philosophical and semantic arguments, not for game developers as a whole. People arguing about what formalism is or is not, what sorts of games formalists are interested in, whether people are too or not enough interested in ludo-whatever or who would win in a fight, ludozealots or narratologists - almost totally irrelevant to the actual act of creating video games.
This is essentially a version of “Those who can Do. Those who can’t Teach” A lot of people in creative industries think this way.
It’s bull shit.
It is a very narrow minded and arrogant view point. Critical thinking, theory creation and discussion can add a great deal to creation. It’s a great tool to use. Critical thinking and theory is creative. It can be used as inspiration just like any other cultural artifact.
He does go onto add something I agree with;
Which matters "most" is irrelevant - they all matter. Good video games, and even good board games, have good rules and good presentation / theming that supports the rules and adds to the experience.
And then, the foot attempts to go in the mouth again, but misses and create comedy gold;
There aren't that many specialized words in film criticism - most of them are invented by practitioners, not critics, and describe something specific that comes up in day-to-day work, like a "two shot" or an "insert." But you can read film criticism without coming across a single invented-by-critics word.
He obviously isn’t up to date on film criticism.
Even though I think he’s wrong, Luis Guimaraes makes a very well stated comment.
Games are not Form, games are Function, so "games formalism" would actually mean the opposite of what it's used to say (again, just "scientism" by other name), as "formalist" implies a focus on "form" over function.
Games are Form AND they are Function. They are both. “Formalist” does not ‘imply’ a focus on form over function. It is the study of how form allows or creates function.
Lastly, Joe McGinn’s comment is spot on;
even narrative has formal aspects, related to game systems, especially if one is innovating in the area as in 80 Days or The Walking Dead.And it's like anything. If you break the "rules" without understanding them, results will be more random. So I teach my students formal game design elements, in part so that they can break the mold on purpose rather than by accident!
Intention is everything. If you do not understand your tools, you will never master your trade. It’s as simple as that.
"The perversity of ad-blocking is that everyone ends up being affected by the bad practices of a minority"
In the digital advertising sector, the places to find some relief remain branded content or native ads. Depending on how deals are structured, prices are still high and such ad forms can evade blocking. Still, to durably avoid user rejection, publishers should be selective and demanding on the quality of branded content they’ll carry.
2015 Digital Media: A Call For a Big Business Model Cleanup
I hate branded content.
"Their core consumer TV and voice [home phone] businesses are in decline – and probably terminal decline"
Cogeco lost 8,465 TV customers but added 18,535 Internet subscribers, while Shaw shed 15,591 cable and satellite television customers and gained 14,048 broadband customers in the three-month period ended Nov. 30.This is a trend that has become common for cable operators as viewers increasingly turn to online streaming video options such as Netflix Inc. to supplement and, in some cases, replace traditional cable packages.
Shaw, Cogeco gain Internet customers, but see decline in TV subscribers
"Partnerships, mergers and acquisitions characterize the audiovisual industry’s global growth."
The paradox in this “unlimited marketplace” is that media technologies, services and content are growing much faster than consumption. Users, who fear being overwhelmed, now restrict their access points and their message could be summarized by: “I don’t want to randomly go looking for content. If it’s important or popular enough, it will get to me.” Search may not be totally dead, but social is the new way to discovery.
Keytrends Report 2015 - The Big Blur Challenge (PDF)
“I think the fact that The New York Times makes more money off consumers than advertisers” – a recent phenomenon – “is definitional, and it points the way forward.”
“We’re making a club, that’s what we’re making. This mass niche called people who read. It’s a weird, kooky activity. We could have annual conventions, like the Shriners, with go-karts and clowns,” he says.
David Carr: All the views he's fit to print
"Take a stand, loudly and proudly. Be activists. Unless you prefer a world of choke points and control by others, this is part of your job."
Powerful governments and corporations are leading the attack against these core values, usually in the guise of protecting us or giving us more convenience. But these powerful entities are also creating a host of choke points. And the result is a locking down of computing and communications: a system of control by others over what we say and do online — a betrayal of the Internet’s decentralized promise.
When Journalists Must Not Be Objective
"Those who shape our interpretation of events also shape our responses."
“The thing about advertising is that the end user isn’t part of that contract; the contract is between the publisher and the advertiser."
however publishers do it, there’s a ticking time bomb beneath it all. At some point, all the 15-year-olds blocking adverts now are going to grow up, Blanchfield points out. “Where’s that going to leave us in five years time?”
Blocking web ads is 'as bad as Napster', says data firm
"In the digital age, we are nearing the point where an idea banished by Twitter, Facebook and Google all but vanishes from public discourse entirely"
"It's about building an audience that is loyal," she said. "And if you want to be loyal to them, you can't just sell them everything. They're not stupid."
"The potential for a YouTube creator to become a global star has increased, and that opens up all sorts of new doors," said Jamie Byrne, YouTube's director of content commercialization. But "the core of their popularity, and the core of their fan base, is really driven by their activities on YouTube."
YouTube's biggest stars are cashing in offline
Read: "The Great Swindle" by Roger Scruton
The fake intellectual invites you to conspire in his own self-deception, to join in creating a fantasy world. He is the teacher of genius, you the brilliant pupil. Faking is a social activity in which people act together to draw a veil over unwanted realities and encourage each other in the exercise of their illusory powers. The arrival of fake thought and fake scholarship in our universities should not therefore be attributed to any explicit desire to deceive. It has come about through the complicit opening of territory to the propagation of nonsense.
The Great Swindle by Roger Scruton from Aeon Magazine.
I went to art school. I don’t agree with everything in this essay but the section quoted above made me smile.
"Canada’s so-called “legacy media” players are voyaging into the digital space a bit late."
While analysts dismiss these “TV everywhere” offerings as defensive moves geared at protecting the media cos’ ecosystem of cable subscriptions, the companies say they are laying the groundwork to provide more of what audiences are looking for –namely, episodes of a show’s current season stacked in a library for binge-watching and past seasons available at a price...
The battle’s on, everywhere
"Branded entertainment is not an ad. Period. It’s a long-term investment in your audience"
In my opinion, branded content’s main goal is selling, while branded entertainment is inspired by a brand’s philosophy and culture, but created to be authentic, true content a network would commission.
Branded entertainment is not an ad
I hate arguing over semantics.
Commercial ratings, platform-agnostic TV and streaming video stats, and measuring the entire consumer experience around screens, all remain elusive.
It’s status quo right now. Everyone says we need cross-platform measurement, and there are ad hoc solutions in place, but no one has a solution for the root of the problem, which is that different companies maintain different data sets.
The analytics dilemma
Two of Canada's biggest telecommunications companies, Bell and Rogers, are clashing over the future of local television and who should pay for it.
Some concerns within the industry were that the pick-and-pay concept could dramatically increase the price of paying for a single channel, basically pushing consumers into buying specialty channel packages they didn't want in the first place.
Pick-and-Pay cable would mean changes to local TV funding, say Bell, Rogers
Cineworks New Site
Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society (est. 1980) is an artist-run production and exhibition centre that supports independent filmmakers and media artists. Through initiatives that foster dialogue and experimentation with cinematic practices, we engage our membership and the broader community through the transformative power of the moving image and the changing role of film in its contemporary context.
Cineworks, Vancouver’s film co-operative has relaunch their web site.
Back in the day, I worked as their Digital Media Co-Ordinator. Since then, I’ve sat on the Board of Directors twice. I’m still involved as a member of their Equipment Advisory Committee.
If you are based in the Lower Mainland of BC, become a member. They are good people.
"People often forget there is the word ‘pay’ in the pick and pay option.”
“We’re trying to get ahead of the curve. We’ve got three big proceedings this fall and they’re all about setting the stage for the future of Canada’s telecommunications system,” said Jean-Pierre Blais, chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission... “We’re trying to get Canadians, regulated industries, producers, those that watch TV together in a room and say ‘OK how can we prepare in a sustainable way for the next five to 15 years?’”
CRTC races to stay ahead of telecom system in flux
"But while CBS and ABC investors may be throwing around high fives at the sop from the Supremes, the average consumer just took a bath."
.In crippling Aereo, you see, the six judges made a choice to entrench the current, badly broken model of TV. That model has let the TV business largely defy the logic of digital distribution, and instead impose a form of cartel pricing on consumers — requiring people to buy a slew of channels they don’t want in order to watch the handful of ones they do
Why the Supreme Court just set TV innovation back a decade
“We used to lead with television and radio. Web came and then mobility came. We are reversing, we are inverting the priorities that we have”
“We’re going to lead now with mobility, we’re going to lead with whatever widget you use” says CBC president and CEO Hubert T. Lacroix. “You’re going to see an investment in mobility that’s going to rise as the investment in perhaps television ... is reduced.”
CBC to cut back supper-hour news, in-house productions
A smart move.
"Insofar as there are differences, those differences concern not the nature of the service that Aereo provides so much as the technological manner in which it provides the service"
"Revenue from online video services is set to overtake box office revenue in 2018"
Do you prefer a night in with Netflix over paying $8 for popcorn at the theater? You’re not alone: Box office revenue has been flat over the past few years while online video revenue has grown dramatically, and this is starting to change how Hollywood makes its money. - Janko Roettgers for Gigaom
Netflix & Co. will soon make more money than movie theaters
Artists who don’t sign with YouTube’s new subscription service to be blocked
90 percent of the music industry have agreed to the contract terms that include provisions for the subscription service. But YouTube will apparently not let the 10 percent that have resisted carry on as ad-supported-only videos, and Kyncl told FT that the blocking will begin in a matter of days.
Don’t Be Evil.
"Unable to respond on the business side, the old guard turns to political power to develop a legal (but short-lasting) containment strategy."
Historical players had experienced nothing but a cosy competitive gentlemen-like environment, with a well-defined map of players. This left incumbents without the genes, the culture required to fight digital barbarians. Whether they are media dealing with Google, publishers negotiating with Amazon, hotels fighting Booking.com or AirBnB, or taxi confronting Uber, legacy players look like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. - Frederic Filloux
Legacy Media: The Missing Gene
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