Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture

Notes

307 Notes to How to Read This Book 1. We feel it is important to note that, despite this overall trend, there are a range of media studies scholars and projects that are taking a more collaborative approach to find productive ways to converse with industry voices. We hope Spreadable Media contributes to that trend. 2. For the purposes of this book, we distinguish between social network sites such as Facebook and the larger concept of social networks, which refer to the interconnections between social agents; social network sites may serve as tools for sustaining and expanding social networks, but few people participate in social networks consisting only of people they can meet on Facebook. Notes to the Introduction 1. Some groups had commercial motives that in some way contributed to the video’s creation and circulation—FremantleMedia (the production company), ITV (the television network), YouTube (an important distribution channel)—but their motives had very little to do with why any individual user chose to circulate it. 2. Something like viral media was described by science fiction writers years before the idea appeared in business literature. Cordwainer Smith, as early as 1964, writes, “A bad idea can spread like a mutated germ. If it is at all interesting, it can leap from one mind to another halfway across the universe before it has a stop put to it. Look at the ruinous fads and foolish fashions which have nuisanced mankind even in the ages of the highest orderliness” ([1964] 1975, 193). This passage demonstrates some of the defining traits of viral media theory: ideas are transmitted, often without critical assessment, across a broad array of minds, and this uncoordinated flow of information is associated with “bad ideas” or “ruinous fads and foolish fashions.” Notes to Chapter 1 1. It is worth noting how commonplace these comments seem. Legal action by recording labels, movie studios, or their lobbying groups are regularly met with claims that large copyright holders are “out of touch” with audience behavior and the norms of the culture at large. 2. Henry Jenkins (1992) brought the concept of “moral economy” to fan studies, exploring how fan fiction writers legitimate their appropriation of media texts and set “limits ” on acceptable uses for borrowed materials. Through discussion, fan communities often develop a firm consensus about the moral economy, which provides a strong motivation for them to speak out against media producers that they feel are damaging a media property or “exploiting” fans. The popularity of illegal downloads among music audiences, for instance, reflects an oft-spoken belief that record labels “rip off” NOTES NOTES Notes 308 audiences and artists alike through inflated prices and poor contractual terms. Similarly , recent controversies about fan or user relations and user rights have emerged around key Web 2.0 sites—from LiveJournal to Twitter. These controversies spread rapidly, thanks to the often well-articulated ideas possessed by many communities about what constitutes appropriate use. 3. This intersection of value and meaning has a deep history in consumer culture theory. In the essay “Meaning Manufacture and Movement in the World of Goods,” in Culture and Consumption (1998), Grant McCracken brings together anthropological and marketing literature to offer an account of the way “meaning transfer” shapes the exchange of objects. McCracken starts from the premise that the circulation of goods is accompanied by the circulation of meaning: “Meaning is constantly flowing to and from its several locations in the social world, aided by the collective and individual efforts of designers, producers, advertisers, and consumers” (71). Both designers and advertisers draw on meanings already in the culture around them as they seek to construct offerings that will be valued by their potential customers. In a later revision of this argument that evokes the work of Russell Belk (1984), McCracken writes, “Consumers turn to their goods not only as bundles of utility with which to serve functions and satisfy needs but also as bundles of meaning with which to fashion who they are and the world in which they live” (2005, 112). Notes to Chapter 3 1. However, cross-platform viewers might particularly matter to an advertiser that has bought a product placement in the media text itself. For instance, Hyundai’s deal to have its Tucson car driven by characters in The Walking Dead means that the results of that advertising deal will remain embedded in the show throughout all its forms of distribution. Thus, Hyundai has reason to be interested in the show’s viewership across...