Harries, Dan (2002) Watching the Internet In: Harries, Dan (2002) The New Media Book, BFI, London

My question: Harries describes a new way of participating within the Internet at the entertainment level, a hybrid mode of viewing and using, called „viewsing“. But how clear is the definition Harries offers and what are the natural limitations of this new participation form?

Answer:  The definition Harries offers at the beginning is still a little blurred: “I call this third emerging mode of spectatorship ‘viewsing’ – the experience of media in a manner that  effectively integrates the activities of both viewing and using, such as participating in a real time online poll that directly affects a live video feed” (p.172). “Viewser” in the sense of Harries are so modern  new “connected consumers” (p.172) enjoining a new made area for multitasking entertainment facilities. The further distinctions between using and viewing are perfectly clear: using as form of interactivity which creates as the examples of the online quiz-shows a constant experience of a limited range of interaction without an immersion in special programme and viewing as the pure act of consuming livestreams or other audio-visual material which is brought to the Internet. Bringing this separated forms together seems to my mind the creative but also critical point of his definition. Harries does not mean the mixture of playing an online movie and scrolling through a text at the same time (p.175). His description of a “viewsing” highlights the aspect of the mutual influence of this different qualities by mentioning Manovich’s concept of ‘cognitive multitasking’. These new interactivity is not also a new approach of joining the Internet but also a whole new experience, as it Harries figures out: “In other words, viewsing becomes the true manifestation of multimedia spectatorship and offers media an interesting and engaging interactive experience” (p.180) And this is in my opinion the problematic point in his theory. This new viewsing experience is described as a new method, a new phenomenon, a whole new experience which might be the future of Internet activities. To my mind this new approach is only a special case of the using/interactivity-side and not a new form itself, because the realm of possibilities are so limited. The examples Harries uses (de Bus, Big Brother and The Runner) are three examples of one special television genre, which deals with gaming and live surveillance. This new form of live-“docutainment” (does this word also exist in English) is limited to a small category of tv-formats, and only for this limited area the model of Harries seems to fit. This is in my opinion not enough to speak about viewsing compared to the models of using and viewing as an independent new approach.   

Benkler, Yochai (2000): From Consumers to Users: Shifting the Deeper Structures of Regulation toward Sustainable Commons and User Access

(www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v52/no3/benkler1.pdf)

My question: What seems to be the general underlying problem in the relation of structural media regulation and the new digitally network environment?

Answer: The general underlying problem of this case is independent of the levels of  informational structure. Benkler speaks about the three layers of informational environment (the physical, logical and content layer), but the general problematic aspect lays deeper in this context. This main problem is the distribution of power within this great complex, what is simultaneous the same problem of the first amendment, which palys an important role in the argumentation of Benkler. So he says: “These cases [United States vs. Associated Press etc, J.H.T.]  represent a central problem of the first amendment law. […] the problem arises from the technological and economic fact that different people and organizations  in society have very different power to affect the flow of information in society” (p.565). These powerful ruling institutions are either enterprises like AOLTimeWarner or also courts and the government itself. So politicians and judges who create laws to ensure a decentralization and a “free” Internet are reaching the total opposite by using their power to change the possibilities theses free cyberspace originally offers. This case might happen as Benkler remarks on page 566: “The problem is that government might use its power to suppress speech it disagrees with under the guise of regulation to enhance freedom of speech, and that government would get too comfortable with the idea of regulating communications markets and regulate well beyond what is necessary to assure robust, open discourse” (p.566). And this different possibilities of power (through laws and acts) offers the whole development of reproductioning the producer-consumer relationship within the three different layers which  caused all the problems Benkler describes. But as I said before, these are only the results, the main problem lays much deeper.

Lessig. L. (2001): Innovation from the Internet In: Lessig, L. (2001): The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the House of Commons in a Connected World. Random House, New York       

My question: What makes the Internet and it’s structure so special in comparison to other media?

Answer: The Internet offers a whole new bunch of possible opportunities in the way it could be used or as Hutchby would have said with its communicative affordances. As Lawrence Lessig stresses it a few times the Internet is understandable as a medium whose architecture was not given by itself. The “architecture”, described as the modes it was and is used may change, it offers unlimited space and simultaneously creates barriers as shown in the cases of Napster. But this architecture is man-made, according to Lessig, “But cyberspace at its birth did have a certain character” (p.121). A character that disabled any mean of controlling the communicating ends in a principle of “end-to-end” (p.121).

This end-to-end principle which offers any member within this media realm to participate shows the general basic idea which came up by the invention of every new medium. At the beginning in the case of every medium it was thought about using it as a way of a global communication and participation channel (for example in the case of the telephone, telegraph, television etc.). Also the radio was at the beginning seen as possible medium of both transmitter AND receiver. This idea was e.g. brought into discussion by Bertolt Brecht in his famous article about the new qualities of the radio.