Thanks to Sian for her helpful post on Hand’s arguments about the double-edged nature of technology: both democratizing/empowering, and on the other, the de-democratizing/disempowering.

Press: do not swallow

It made me think about the G20 demonstrations in London earlier this year and the death of Ian Tomlinson due to an assault by a police officer. The initial mainstream media reporting that followed Ian Tomlinson’s death uncritically adopted the line fed them by the Metropolitan Police, including the lie that demonstrators has prevented ambulances from attending to him swiftly.

It took media outlets like The Guardian who picked up on user-generated content – especially that captured on video -  to call into question official accounts. Without this crowd-sourced digital content captured using inexpensive hand-held devices it’s unlikely the Met’s cover-up of an assault would have ever been brought to public attention.

I guess I’m more a cautious techno-utopian; I believe, to use a distinction Michel de Certeau makes, that for every technology-enhanced  ’strategy’ for surveillance and control, there are innumerable technology-enhanced ‘tactics’ that will seek to undermine or outwit it (e.g. Twitter in Iran was a fantastic game of techno cat and mouse).

For my third post I shall be Pauline Kael and I/she will be reviewing Internet is for Porn.

The internet=porn riff has been done to death (a bit of a cliché masquerading as aperçu) I’m afraid.

Searching for ‘The internet is for porn’ on YouTube, I found lots of versions,  including ones that used the Avenue Q song on a scene lifted from a Harry Potter film, another from a Disney cartoon, one from Spongebob Squarepants and another from Ben 10. I’m tempted to do one myself – shall I use the Tweenies or Thomas the Tank Engine?

Technically/culturally though, it’s more interesting. It’s an example of machinema, an instance of the technologies of multi-user virtual worlds like World of Warcraft, Halo and Second Life enabling users to create multiple, personalisable characters and settings that can be manipulated to create short animations.

I’m not that familiar with machinema but see it to be a growing part of fan culture as it displays itself on media sharing sites like YouTube. Here’s another example of machinema using The Sims to create a video to an Amy Winehouse song:

Machinema is a manifestation of a culture of DIY, remix and of consumption as production, using tools and materials at hand to craft something new.

Why do it? In part, it’s about creating something your friends – and others will find funny and/or cool – and the social capital that will accrue as a result. I made this; I am therefore this kind of person. Love me, admire me, find me cool and funny. But some of it is about the complex nature of fandom – creating something that expresses your love of a particular artist.

Machinema as homage as well as pastiche.

Is the Internet is for Porn utopian or dystopian? Hmmm … depends how you cut it but my guess is that many commentators on this type of DIY cultural production – e.g.Henry Jenkins – would see it as a Good Thing, a Brave New World of user-generated content/produsage etc..

We could also read it literally: the internet really is for porn which is sort of true. I’ve no stats to hand about the size of the ‘adult’ entertainment industry’s turnover but I seem to remember it’s bigger than Hollywood and the web’s a key platform. A dystopian world of commodified cybersex.