Media Cultures NEWM 1001 - Week 3 by Tracey Meziane Benson

1. Media Cultures 1 The Internet as social space 4 August 2009 Tracey Meziane Benson

12. What role does culture play in decoding meaning? Slide credit: Tracey Meziane Spivak achieved a certain degree of misplaced notoriety for her 1985 article "Can the Subaltern Speak?: Speculations on Widow Sacrifice" ( Wedge 7/8 [Winter/Spring 1985]: 120-130). In it, she describes the circumstances surrounding the suicide of a young Bengali woman that indicates a failed attempt at self-representation. Because her attempt at "speaking" outside normal patriarchal channels was not understood or supported, Spivak concluded that "the subaltern cannot speak." Her extremely nuanced argument, admittedly confounded by her sometimes opaque style, led some incautious readers to accuse her of phallocentric complicity, of not recognizing or even not letting the subaltern speak. Some critics, missing the point, buttressed their arguments with anecdotal evidence of messages cried out by burning widows. Her point was not that the subaltern does not cry out in various ways, but that speaking is "a transaction between speaker and listener" (Landry and MacLean interview). Subaltern talk, in other words, does not achieve the dialogic level of utterance.

15. Other issues Slide credit: Tracey Meziane What means something to you might mean something else to me – this is not double speak or unspeak but issues of perception Intertextuality should be considered from an ethical position – just because you want to incorporate a reference to something in a creative work doesn’t mean you should. Also – the role of usability and accessibility is crucial to understanding and interpreting online material

17. Let’s start at the top… Slide credit: Tracey Meziane About Copyright: “ The purpose of copyright law is to provide a limited monopoly on a creative work so that the artist can benefit and has an incentive to produce more. Unlike physical property -- a house, a diamond ring, a car -- a work of intellectual property can not be tied up forever. Ideas ultimately belong to society at large; they build on existing culture and form the foundation for new ideas and new creative work.” http://in3.org/articles/personalethics.htm

18. Copyright and fair use… Slide credit: Tracey Meziane About Copyright: “ Copying is not illegal. Magazines, for example, are protected by copyright. Photocopying a magazine article to give to a friend or a student has long been accepted as "fair use," personal, educational, non-commercial. Printing a million copies of the same article -- whether you charge for it or just give it away because it has your company's picture is in it -- is obviously wrong and violates the author's and publisher's copyrights. Very understandable.” http://in3.org/articles/personalethics.htm

19. Artist’s rights - VISCOPY http://www.viscopy.com/ Slide credit: Tracey Meziane Copyright collecting agencies and societies such as VISCOPY (Visual Arts Copyright Collecting Agency) provide the most efficient and effective way for visual artists and rights owners to administer their copyrights on a national and international basis. Through reciprocal agreements, these agencies and societies agree to administer each other's repertoire in their respective territories for specific or non-specific rights. The agencies are traditionally non-profit, non-government, and directed by their members. VISCOPY is the only dedicated visual artists’ copyright agency in the Australia Pacific region representing over 5,000 regional artists, and over 200,000 artists internationally for the Australasian territory.

20. How this was challenged Slide credit: Tracey Meziane Napster Napster was a file sharing service that paved the way for decentralized P2P file-sharing programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, iMesh, Morpheus (computer program), and BearShare, which are now used for many of the same reasons and can download music, pictures, and other files. The popularity and repercussions of the first Napster have made it a legendary icon in the computer and entertainment fields http://in3.org/articles/personalethics.htm http://www.slais.ubc.ca/courses/libr500/05-06-wt1/www/R_Martin/Nap_Arch.htm

22. What about creative commons? Slide credit: Tracey Meziane http://www.aec.at/bilderclient/PR_2004_creativecommons_008_p.jpg

23. How do CC licenses work? Slide credit: Tracey Meziane Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which “all rights reserved” (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue45/hoorn/ http://wiki.creativecommons.org/History

24. How do CC licenses work cont… Slide credit: Tracey Meziane Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved.” http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue45/hoorn/ http://wiki.creativecommons.org/History

25. What are the implications of ethics in photojournalism? http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/pjethics.html Although the role of a photojournalist is somewhat different to a cultural producer in the field of new media, there are some relevant linkages in terms of the ethical approaches that should be taken. Like what??? For example: early photographic history is filled with artists-turned-photographers who set up situations with models and backdrops and made elaborate compositions from several negatives. Ahh – image manipulation! Slide credit: Tracey Meziane

26. What are the implications of ethics in photojournalism? http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/pjethics.html In Approaches to Ethics , Jones et al. (1969) recommended that a person with an ethical dilemma first "ascertain the facts, sort and weigh the conflicting principles, apply partially indeterminate principles to the particular circumstances, and then, come to a decision" As John Hulteng (1984) wrote in his book on media ethics, The Messenger's Motives , "One of the least enviable situations in the debate over what is ethical and what is not in the handling of news photographs is that of the photographer" (p. 154). A writer can observe a news scene quietly and anonymously and report the facts back in the newsroom. A photographer is uniquely tied to a machine-the camera. There is little opportunity for concealment, nor are hidden techniques desirable. Slide credit: Tracey Meziane

27. What are the implications of ethics in photojournalism? http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/pjethics.html The price of being responsible for the documentation of life in all its gloriously happy and tragically sad moments is that if some people do not like what they see, they will question a photojournalist's moral character. That reaction, however, is a necessary barometer of a photojournalist's ethics. It is a photographer's moral responsibility that the decision to take pictures is based on sound personal ethics that can be justified to all who disagree. Study hypothetical situations, know the values, principles, and loyalties that are a part of journalistic principles, and be familiar with the six major philosophies. With such a strong foundation, you will be better able to act decisively during a controversial situation. Slide credit: Tracey Meziane

28. Looking ahead to Week 4 Ethics, representation and identity Sumanyu Satpathy in Ethics of RepreseNtATION: Media and the Indian Queer states that: “ When the “Other” is sought to be represented by the dominant self, power politics or ideology immediately comes into play. Since the mass media is of the dominant for the dominant and by the dominant, any insensitive media representation of a member of the minority group or the group itself runs the risk of using a stereotype, which is more often than not a mis-representation.” Lyotard and Foucault are referenced a lot in this discussion http://bangkok2005.anu.edu.au/papers/Satpathy.pdf Slide credit: Tracey Meziane