In her article, “Falling apart: Electronics Salvaging and the Global Media Economy,” Lisa Parks emphasises the continuities between old and new media. One of the ways in which this continuity can be articulated is by demonstrating how the same issues that are present in old media persist even after the introduction of new media. For example, some political economists show the continuities between old and new media capitalism, whereby new media has merely created new possibilities to commodify audiences, content and labour. Old media technologies, such as the television, did not allow the audiences to respond.
It seems as though Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter pose a different argument; instead of emphasising the continuity between old and new media, they also illustrate a discontinuity. While they argue that virtual games serve capitalism, in their discussion of “Games of Multitude” they demonstrate that by pirating, protesting and planning games, people may very well disrupt capitalism through the use of communication and information technologies.
During my presentation, I used the FARC example to demonstrate how the same technologies that are used to expand and intensify capitalism can also be reappropriated by people to challenge the status quo. However, there are numerous ways that people utilize social media in an attempt to resist consumerism or even their government. I think a classic example of this would be the case of Napster. The founder of Napster, Sean Parker, single-handedly changed the music industry. File-sharing was no longer for the technologically-savvy, instead, millions of people were now able to downloading music for free. Although Napster and subsequent sites were shutdown, according to this article, the media industries have never recovered.
I think Napster is a great example of the ways in which people can challenge the Empire. While I am aware that many artists lose money from illegal file sharing, often the media conglomerates that own the record companies make an obscene profit while giving little back to the artist. By challenging this system, people were able to stand up and say they were frustrated with the extremely high prices for legally acquiring music. It will be interesting to watch the debates on pirating continue to unfold in the next few years. But it seems that as one major site is shut down, many more appear to take the place of the former site.
ReplyDeleteAlso interesting is the fact that iTunes pretty much carries out the same function as Napster did, except they actually charge for the downloads. I know you can receive the album cover art, but in essence it runs off of the same module. Both platforms don't actually reproduce a musical artifact, but more so an MP3: a code of numbers that are transferable across space and time. Funny how one man's loss is Apple's corporate gain.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Amanda and Sohpie's comments about Napster and Empire. On a very simple note, I just wanted to mention how Napster was able to show the "reachability" of the Internet as a medium. Napster was essentially file sharing and in order to share files, many, many, users are required. So in a way, Napster's website could be a "space of belonging" on the Internet - I know it is a stretch, but essentially it brings together people from a diverse backgrounds and locations to assist each other in circulating songs from a variety of genres...
ReplyDeleteBut as a means of resistance, Napster paved the way for hackers to continually reinvent the wheel. When Napster gets shut down, KaZaa gained prominence, when that was shut down Lime Wire gained prominence, now (within the last 6 months) with the termination of Free Limewire... Frostwire has gained prominence.
ReplyDeleteSo even if Napster was shut down, just like the Ipod turns into the Ipod nano into the Ipod touch etc....we can CONTINUALLY reinvent that which is outdated or restricted.
Thank you for your comments. You brought up some really interesting points regarding napster and illegal downloading of music. I think the big hype surrounding the illegal downloading of music really points to materialism in America. Capitalism is based on a system of private property as a way to limit what other can do if the information (or in this case the song) doesn’t belong to them. However, I think it’s also important to note that downloading music for free has even helped artists to a certain extent; for example, small bands are able to gain some recognition through music file-sharing.
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