í Assignments

group: Yesenia Williams, Marisa Chung, Farrah Duplessis

In Chapter 4, Taylor defines “second level digital divide” as socially stratified variations in online skills and behaviors. She brings up the notion that there is inequality amongst people in their online usage, specifically high or low income; contrary to the belief that once all people are logged in there is digital equality. There are differences in people’s online skills such as frequency, patterns, or ability to research many topics. In analyzing the internet users, the most significant difference are in access, who has it versus who doesn’t, and how it is being used and their ability to find information. Second level digital divide is a socioeconomic creation that separates society and initiates inequality based on race, gender, and social class. An example would be a person who can only afford a cell phone versus a home, or school computer to conduct their searches and research. One will have a significant better chance and opportunity to conduct those searches versus the other. These disparities can play a role in any future ability to get a job, start a business, or excel in school.

This chapter was so interesting. To discuss digital media from the perspective of inequality brought to the forefront issues not typically talked about. The ability to measure the discrimination and biases that occur online can be difficult. The people utilizing the web come from all walks of life with numerous motivations. Taylor finds that with the second level digital divide, amongst other ways that discrimination occurs on the web whether it’s race, gender etc. this is only one topic among many that needs attention. With choosing to tackle them, gives hope for a better Internet culture. It needs to start with the reality that inequality exists in a place where we least expect it.

Marisa Chung
Hybrid Assignment 04
September 29, 2015

Chapter 6 touches up on many of the different topics that we have been discussing about thus far in class, as well as in our hybrid assignments. Some of the topics include privacy, advisement, what is considered “free”, unfairness, and etc. In this new digital economy, Taylor describes many of the dilemmas that are circulating us as the target audience.

           One of the problems mentioned in chapter 6 by Taylor states that individuals are being sorted into “reputation solos” which is a system that seems like a trap. Taylor mentions that once we are part of this system, it can be difficult to get out of. In addition, she also includes that in this system we are being labeled as either targets or waste. When it comes to digital media, reputation solos is a system where it depends heavily on what we are being exposed as individuals. Our information, which can be private or not, has become the target to determine the “labeling”. And with the results they make predictions on what kind of person we are as an individual. Whether it is by advertisement, collecting our date, or simply by tracking our interest, our information is being sold as the “product”

            Another term Taylor mentions in chapter 6 that has been an upcoming problem in our new digital era is called “e-waste”, which she states that it can grow three times faster than the piles of regular garbage accumulating all around us. E-waste is described as discarded electrical devices, such as computer, cell phones, etc. which is NOT recyclable. This has already become a major problem in our new digital economy, and it seems as though it will only get worse by time.

Because of the power of advertising dollars, particularly those spent on targeted advertising, the Internet’s cultural landscape is not as diverse as many hoped it to be. The types of content we see on the Internet are based on our online activities, basically on our every click. Advertisers buy our information from the websites and search engines we visit, the social media network we participate in, the products we buy and/or review, the movies and videos we watch, the music we listen to, and the books, articles, stories, and news that we read and share. Advertisers invest their money on websites that are visited by a large number of audience, making sure that their messages will be read, watched, and/or heard, and eventually resulting to the audience buying their products or services. This is why it is very important for websites to produce content that are most likely to catch the audiences’ attention and clicks.

One type of online advertising is called “native advertising” in which advertisements are designed and created in a similar format, style, and tone as that of the articles on the website they are being featured on. Even the titles of the ads do not seem like they are advertisements. They actually blend in with the articles on the website, making it more likely for the users to click on them.

As we click on the content, our personal data/information is collected, shared, and sold. Additionally, we are labeled and profiled based on the information they have gathered, as well as their analysis of our online activities and interactions such as our likes on social media sites, our comments on articles or forums, the keywords we search, just to name a few. And it does not stop there. We are not only labeled and profiled, but we are also, as Taylor stated, “being sorted into ‘reputation silos’ that can be surprisingly difficult to get out of” (p. 190). This does not just affect the content and the advertisements that we see (and how they differ from our friends and other audience based on the profiles they generated for us) but in other aspects of our lives such as economically/financially (e.g. for loans or mortgage application) as well.

In chapter 6, Taylor argues that while many people hoped that the internet would bring a more varied landscape, advertising dollars have distorted the market by creating perverse incentives and encouraging the production of irresistibly clickable content. Taylor uses a term called “native advertising” to explain this phenomenon, which is basically just a fancy way of saying that one’s online behavior is monitored and therefore the products that you are exposed too are simply a result of your likes or dislikes being interpreted through the sites you frequently visit, and the items you show interest in online. The text states “product placement is on the upsurge, growing at a rate of 30 percent per year despite the recession, and branded content is all the rage. Conventional disclosure laws do not apply online or are simply impossible to enforce. This kind of stealth marketing has a corrosive effect on public discourse, institutional integrity goes out the window when editorial content adapts to advertiser demands.” In other words, the pair of shoes you were searching before didn’t just happen to pop up at the bottom of your screen because it’s the universe’s way of saying you should buy it, it popped up because we are targeted victims of advertisers.

As a result of this cultural shift, even authors have been encouraged to cultivate identities as “tastemakers” in order to capitalize on the shift to electronic reading. They are encouraged to team up with certain brands in order to market themselves to readers. Now, not only does the reader learn of a new book by his/her favorite author, but the reader is inclined to purchase that new jacket or bbq sauce that the author is promoting as well. As Taylor states ” It’s advertising system is explicitly designed to figure out which messages are most likely to grab our attention and then to place those messages in our field of view.” This is the essence of native advertising and the strategy behind “tastemakers.”

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.

When Taylor says “access to content” she is referring to the large companies (capitalists) who are providing a service (ISPs) to allow the public to use the internet/digital media. Giving access to digital media allows these companies to provide their database of users to other large companies. The “distribution networks” are the companies that control how content is spread. Both work together to basically make money off the users. Facebook and Google do not sell any type of service (digitally), but advertisers see how many users they each have and therefore can use that to generate funds by selling ad space or user database. So let’s say Verizon Fios provides me with internet; they allow me to have access to content. Once I am online I go to a distribution network, say Facebook. Facebook then can trade that information in back to Verizon or whoever else is the highest bidder to try to attract me into purchasing another one of their products. The whole system was created for the benefit of capitalists.

“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.