5 Hybrid Assignment 04

Angeline Henriquez

Digital Media and Society

Drawing a Line – Ch. 6

In chapter 6 “Drawing the Line” Taylor encourages us to look into the “hidden abode”, the systems and means by which we have what seems to be free access to the web. She makes special emphasis on debunking ideas that promote the internet as a democratic and egalitarian platform that empowers users. Instead she, states that “it is clear that this revolution is not from the bottom-up variety” (p189) and as opposed to empowering consumers, the internet is really an advertiser-driven environment with marketers very much in control of what circulates in the digital space. At the core of what circulates in this attention economy is the selling of detailed knowledge about specific users and their behaviors such as “zip code, income, age, race, gender, educational attainment, religious leaning, health and marital status, and preferred entertainment options” (p190). In this was they are able to filter which ads are seen by which users; we become packaged into categories. Taylor calls this occurrence reputation silos, the effect of this she states, is that reinforces preexisting inequalities. It is a “prejudicial system that shapes what information we are exposed to and what products we are offered” (p190).

Another way in which marketers influence the digital cultural environment is through the advertising of their products in editorial-style pieces and journalistic articles, which Taylor calls native advertising. She states that taking advantage of the many unemployed journalists, “companies are busy building online news rooms of their own”. As a result of occurrences such as reputation silos and native advertising, marketers have a hold on the cultural content that circulates the web, proving that the internet is not as egalitarian and unrestricted as new-media thinkers consider it to be. What is unrestricted however, is the reach markets have into our online behaviors and information, and as long as that reach is not regulated, the digital cultural environment will be an uneven playing field in which only a pre-approved set of ideas will be promoted in benefit of the ones who have more resources.

In Chapter 6’s “Drawing the Line” Taylor argues, “[w]hile many hoped the Internet would help create a more varied cultural landscape, advertising dollars continue to distort the market by creating perverse incentives, encouraging the production of irresistibly clickable content.” Taylor describes this cultural landscape as an “attention economy.”

A part of the “attention economy” that has been created is “e-waste.” Having the newest gadget has become a symbol of socioeconomic wealth for some and it has created a lot of gadgets that have become outdated. The disturbing part of e-waste is that there are people all over the world who do not have access to ANY gadget at all while we here in America clamor two times a year for whatever new Apple product is going to be released. We have become such a consumerism culture that we don’t see the bigger picture. How do we dispose of all this waste? Where does it go? And how is it effecting our world and environment. As Taylor said, “What, one wonders, is the real price of a ‘free’ cell phone or a cheap reading device, tablet or computer – objects so easy to come by that we mistake them for worthless?”

Another of the terms in this chapter that she describes is “tastemakers.” Webster’s Dictionary describes a tastemakers as “a person whose judgments about what is good, fashionable, etc., are accepted and followed by many other people.” This judgement as Taylor describes only depends on if the actual tastemaker is successful in some way. Today, success is measured in a lot of different ways. a tastemaker may be someone on twitter or Instagram that has 100s of thousands or millions of followers. Education, artistic greatness or talent level still plays a part, but now one can be a tastemaker by not doing anything at all. This “attention economy” seems to cater to create a certain type of celebrity that 20-25 years ago would not exist.

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” – Jeff Hammerbacker

The production of irresistible click content has created a cultural landscape in which every day we are baited in an “attention economy.” In this attention economy, value is based solely on our internet use: the more the better, the shorter our attention spans the better, the more advertising funded websites we visit the better. Sadly, our internet use – all of our internet use – circulates this economy.

Most of the most frequented websites have adopted “native advertising” practices in which articles are covertly written with the intent to inform the reader of a brand sponsored product rather than unskewed information. These bankroll sponsored posts are intentionally written in the voice of the website’s usual non-sponsored content so that the reader is lured into the advertisement, unaware of the intent. Not only are these articles written in the voice of the website in which they are embedded, they are composed by the website’s staff members, sold as perk package service to would-be advertisers.

Furthering this circulation of the attention economy with major negative consequences to the individual user, is the unauthorized sorting of personal usage profiles into “reputation silos.” This categorical method, solely based on your choices in internet usage, determines what content is presented to you and steers you along a path based on the likelihood of future interests or invoking those would-be interests by presenting them to you. The results are so refined that each user generates different results. What is so disturbing about this prediction based profiling is that companies that do not have permission or even legal right to know personal information about you, like banks knowing your race, gender, or religious affiliation, are using third parties to assess your social media and the makeup of your reputation silo. It is not that this online practice is legal, more so than it is not illegal since online regulations are so inadequate. Regardless, companies are making assessments of you, without your permission, based on your internet usage and gently and subvertly guiding you to more of the irresistible click content that further perpetuates the attention economy.

https://youtu.be/zdA__2tKoIU

Astra Taylor’s chapter, “Drawing a Line”, tackles the topic on the lines that are crossed in digital advertising. The information that is gathered on users through their daily online behaviors is carefully monitored for the sole purpose of advertising opportunities. The very idea that the Internet has a large influence on our psyche is relevant to how many ads are shown and produced for viewing. Without realizing it, the user is absorbing these moments, advertisements, visuals, words, and newscasts all with the intention of shaping you. The driving forces are the advertisers. Taylor shows this by describing how “companies compile highly detailed dossiers, which they use to tailor the content we see” (Taylor Pg. 190). The motivation to formulate profiles based on people’s experiences, age, marital status, and religion are all things Taylor states are turning users into “reputation silos”. With privacy laws continuously being challenged and boundaries tested, the future of digital monitoring can reach discriminatory grounds, especially as Taylor brings up, an example if used to determine credit worthiness.

Taylor discusses the serious and quite disturbing reality of “e-waste”, the discarded electronics that are taken for the purpose of recycling, or disposal. She believes that the improper discarding and unrealistic statistics that surround this in our digital age is a crippling situation for the economy and damaging to those who are exposed to the chemicals associated with the processing. The concept of sustainability is foreign, or ignored. Every time someone buys a new electronic product, we are left to do something with the old piece. Most people don’t recycle them and instead hold on to them, however this unnerving desire to go out and buy the ‘newest thing” is as Taylor describes, an intentional obscurity that is put into place to force people to buy more, more quickly. The life span of a product is short and even if it isn’t, the new version of the same product allures people to spend. She sees this cycle as dangerous and careless for the environment with people not realizing the true cost.

The cultural landscape Taylor describes, is one chocked full of unseen dangers to the online populace.  The idea of an “attention economy”, according to her definition, is one based on the commodification of people.  By the employ of “reputation silos”, the use of our personal and professional online habits being monitored and used, by which people are categorized, classified  and then, subsequently judged in way people and companies do not have legal rights to do in the real world, are then used and applied in ways unintended and that may lead to new and various forms of discrimination (ethnic, socio-economic, gender). This unfair, unwanted, unwelcomed and highly invasive for of information gathering process exposes people to a form of online voyeurism that leaves no amount of your privacy intact or unexposed.  Then, after being so thoroughly violated and stripped bare, we are then sold on to the next buyer, to be forcibly marketed to.  The gathered information is used to determine, or rather to shape, what our wants, needs and likes are or should be.  Thus, dangling the newer, improved (in ways that really don’t matter much other than it’s new) versions of all of our already in-hand devices/goods/products, that just don’t quite measure up anymore, and adding to our ever increasing pile of “e-waste”.  This is made possible by those unknown digital companies that monitor and collect all this information, that it then sells to marketers, who use this information – in conjunction with “native advertising” cleverly disguised as editorial content on popular websites, designed to continue to sell us while pretending to be objective or give the real scope on any products/goods/services being offered.  The staffer driven marketing ploys is yet another way, the attention landscape Taylor refers to is being shaped – and, all of it used against the commodified public that 2.0 users are becoming.

In Taylor’s Chapter 5, the term “free” is introduced.  “Free” in this context, is defined as a way to subvert the capitalist corporate structure, or that the item (intellectual property) in question, has been “de-commodified”.  The prevailing belief of those who believe in the free culture concept, is an effective way to subvert corporate culture & defy market values.  This means having full access to materials (music, films,remixing & recontextualizing pop culture, or any other type of intellectual property), whether it is protected by copywrite laws or not, should/can be easily & freely shared by the denizens of the online world, without any type of compensation to/for the originators of the content.

On one hand, the proponents contend that the free sharing/consumption of these products is an inherent right of the people. However, big business is using these same peer-to-peer sharing sites & all other type of social media venues to their own benefit too.  The major media companies, like google & youtube, etc. – sell the personal information gathered to various sources, so that they can target & effectively market products.  So, when we talk about something being free, what it is really meaning is that, the end user/consumer feels no need, responsibility or desire to pay for the content; even though, the content is greatly desired. However, this does not address the loss of royalties or income producing activities to the owner of such artistic expression.  The public, by in large, is not supporting the artists who are producing the art the public is consuming en masse.  This lack of support is, in turn, making it harder & less desirable to continue to create & produce the art/content.

In Chapter 6, Astra Taylor takes a close look at advertising in the digital age. One of the most disturbing new developments in the digital age is the ability for advertisers to zero in on the people they are trying to reach because of the vast information they have on that person. Before the Internet, companies placed their ads in a particular magazine or TV show according to the supposed demographics of the reader or viewer, hoping that they would reach the consumers they wanted to target. In the digital age, advertisers are able to gather such specific information about us from our online behaviors that they can directly target us individually. By gathering such detailed information, they are sorting us into “reputation silos,” a term used by Taylor (190) to describe the online label that we acquire and that can be difficult to shed. Taylor warns of “a new form of discrimination, one led by companies you cant see, using data you didn’t give them permission to access, dictating what you are exposed to and on what terms.” (191) It is very disconcerting to imagine someone watching your every move and deciding what you will or will not be exposed to based on what they see. But advertisers today do exactly that and we accept their right to do so every time we are online. We have become so used to the onslaught of online advertising that we may not even be able to distinguish ads from editorial content. The term “native advertising” describes a form of paid media that follows the design and function of the content in which it is situated, essentially blurring the line between ad and editorial. Taylor says Buzzfeed leads the pack with this type of advertorial, where “Staffers (creative strategists) concoct posts designed to maximize audience engagement while incorporating messages from brands”(194). Even print publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post and Forbes participate in native advertising on their online sites. The Times rolled out its first “paid post,” as they call them, in January of 2014, albeit with a prominent disclaimer. But most sites use more ambiguous language such as “branded” or “sponsored” content (Sebastian, M., Ad Age, 1-8-14) which is much more likely to catch readers off guard. Exactly what the marketers are hoping for.

Due by midnight Tuesday, September 29th. You must complete both posts to receive credit

Post 1. Choose and define one of the terms below. [Tag this post as “Taylor definitions Ch4” or “Taylor definitions Ch5”]. Please make an effort to choose a term that has not yet been defined. (250-300 words)

Chapter 4: “hyper democracy” (105), “second level digital divide” (109), “the structureless group” (118), “preferential attachment” or “‘Matthew’ effect” (121), “the myth of independent creators” (123), Pariser’s “filter bubble” (131), Lomax’s “multi-channeled electronic communication” (135), Zuckerman’s “imaginary cosmopolitanism” (136).

Chapter 5: “free” (143), “cultural ownership” (traditional / nontraditional) (145), “limited monopoly privilege” (148), “copyright event” (150), “access to content” and “distribution networks” (154), “pirate politics” (160), “copyleft” (168).

Post 2. Taylor (205) argues, “[w]hile many hoped the Internet would help create a more varied cultural landscape, advertising dollars continue to distort the market by creating perverse incentives, encouraging the production of irresistibly clickable content.” Taylor describes this cultural landscape as an “attention economy.” Defining at least two of the following terms in your response, describe what is circulating in this economy: “e-waste” (183), “reputation silos” (190), “native advertising” (194), “tastemakers” (203). [Tag this post as “Hybrid Assignment 04”]. (300-350 words)