Henry Jenkin's "Get a Life"

In the article “Get a Life”, Henry Jenkins makes a reference to textual poaching which he states that Michel de Certeau defines as “an impertinent raid on the literacy preserve takes away only those things that are useful or pleasurable to the reader.” Jenkins goes on to state that “De Certeau’s ‘poaching’ analogy characterizes the relationship between readers and writers as an ongoing struggle for possession of the text and for control over its meanings.” This quote very much reminded me of the novel Misery, by Stephen King. In the novel author Paul Sheldon crashes his car on a snowy road. He is found by Annie Wilkes, his "number one fan" who is obsessed with Paul’s novel heroine Misery Chastaine. Annie is “helping” Paul back to recovery when she discovers that the author has killed off her favorite character. She becomes very upset then forces Paul to write another book bringing Misery Chastaine back to life, while she watches over him.

Misery is an example of textual poaching. Annie Wilkes is such a fan of Paul Sheldon’s novels that she has become obsessed with the characters and almost cannot survive when she finds out her favorite character has been killed off. She then forces Paul to write another book even though he wants to finish the Misery series so he can go on to write different novels. This shows the relationship between Annie as the reader and Paul as the writer and their struggle for possession of the text.

Annie shows the strong differences that can occur between the authors meaning for a text and what meaning the "fanatic" wants to get out of the text. Annie as the "fanatic" wants Paul to continue writing his Misery novels even though his meaning was for Misery Chastaine to die in the last book and for the series to end.

Although, in Misery the misinterpretation of the authors meaning is almost deadly for Paul Sheldon that is rarely the case. In most instances readers can interpret the meaning of the authors text anyway they want making for a more interesting read for the "fanatics".

Flickr Assignment

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23693505@N03/sets/72157603903998965/

In preparing for the Flickr assignment my group was able to work together quickly and efficiently while accomplishing our goal for this project. We met in class and discussed possible stories we could tell with the pictures and mutually decided to tell a story of “Going Green”, urging people not to litter. Because of our proficient group meeting, we were able to start taking our photos for the project right away during the next class. After we finished taking our pictures we uploaded them to Flickr. With this being the first time anyone in my group had used Flickr we found it very easy to understand and maneuver. With only a few questions for our professor we uploaded the pictures and were able to tell our story within minutes of taking the photographs

I feel that Flickr could be a good tool for creating user-generated content and sharing that content with others, but it does not have enough recognition yet to be completely effective. I was not even aware of Flickr until this project and I think many of my peers are equally as unaware. If more people do not learn about Flickr then all of the photos, stories, and information on there will disappear. With Flickr, people have the ability to see first hand points of views from these photos that you may not be able to get elsewhere, making this device very useful and necessary for learning more about world happenings.

I also feel that Flickr has a large possibility of becoming a photojournalism tool in the future. With more people becoming aware and using things like YouTube, Flickr should be soon to catch up. Like the author of the articles commented, “ I don't know what tools could make it this easy for other kinds of journalists to assemble a compelling story in pieces, but clearly Flickr has made something possible for photographers that was not possible before”.

Henry Jenkins "Photoshop for Democracy"

In the article “Photoshop for Democracy”, one of the main points Henry Jenkins discusses is how our political culture is being “Photoshopped”. He believes this is occurring so American citizens will believe what these political activist groups want them to believe. He discusses several instances in American politics when political leader’s ideas or images have been “Photoshopped”, to look a certain way, positive or negative, to citizens.
This is very similar to the idea of political comedy shows like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. These shows are made for pure entertainment, but are portrayed to look like legitimate news shows. The hosts of these shows take bits and pieces from real news sources and “Photoshop” the information to give it to the viewer in a certain light.
One example of this “Photoshopping” would be on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He took clips from each news station, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc, of all the news channels claiming to be the best news source for the ’08 election, but then he shows a clip of Fox News saying they were the best news source ever. This makes Fox News appear as arrogant and almost not as reliable as other news sources. Although some people may agree with this, we are not getting the whole picture of that statement. This could have been a joke for all we know, yet it was “Photoshopped” to look how the writers of the Daily Show wanted us to think about Fox News.
There are many other examples of ideas or images being “Photoshopped” in these entertainment shows, yet people take these entertainment news shows as reliable sources for actual news, making it hard to get all the facts straight in the information world today.

Howard Rheingold’s "Smart Mobs"

The use of technology is so new to our society, in the last 10 to 15 years or so, and yet most people do not even think twice about pulling out their cell phone or looking a phone number up on the internet instead of using a phone book. This is because all of these technologies have been fully integrated into our culture, so much that we even use this technology for social activism and protests.
In Howard Rheingold’s article on smart mobs he discusses how mobs have now become “smart”, meaning that they are using these mobile devices or other technologies to organize groups, meetings and even their protests.
Although, it is not only mobs using these devices for arranging meetings or group activities, parents and police forces are using these devices to help track missing or stranded people. This is able to work because these “mobile devices constantly let cell towers and the mobile switching center, which is connected to multiple towers, know of their location. The mobile switching center uses the location information to ensure that incoming calls and messages are routed to the tower nearest to the user”.
In using this technology the “mobs” are being smarter because they are able to find these stranded or missing people much faster then they would if they were not taking full advantage of all the technology available.