Fandom & Harry Potter

Summarizing what Hellekson Karen says: Fandom is one set of fans who share a hobby, person or phenomenon in particular.

The Harry Potter fandom in this case is the most prominent in the last, is a large international and informal community attracted to the series of books written by J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter. The fandom diversifies and expands the use of many media, including websites, fan fiction, podcasts, fan art, songvids, and different musical genre, known as Wizard Rock. However, fans not only interact through Internet forums, also meet fans at conventions, book clubs, sightseeing tours to important places from the books and film production, and the famous parties held at midnight of publication of each book and flim.

The Pottermania is an informal term that was first used around 1999 to describe the madness of the fans who had taken over the series of Harry Potter books. The midnight parties were popularized by fans from the publication of fourth book in the series. Several Anglophone bookstores stayed open all night during the eve of the launch. In 2005, Entertainment Weekly outlined the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as one of the "highlights" in the last 25 years.

The madness about series was the subject of parody on the 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger, The Devil Wears Prada and the 2006 adaptation to the big screen. In the novel, Miranda Priestly is the director of a fashion magazine that is pretty unkind to their employees and particularly their assistants. One of them is Andrea Sachs, which orders him to get two copies of the next installment of the series for her twin daughters as soon as they are released (in the film, before they are published).

Through video games, Potter left the limits of imagination existing, new viewers and gamers were immersed in the fictional world, the sense of realism Increased, however, it is through of the Internet that the narrative grew to the shared experience of multiple contributors. Thus, the story of Harry Potter expanded from the world of imagination to the physical sphere.

Sources:

- Hellekson Karen, ‘Fan Fiction & Fan Communities (abstracts)’, 2006.

- http://knowyourmeme.com/

CIPSA. The new Big Brother?

CISPA is the acronym of Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, is a cyber security Bill currently is discussing in the USA congress. "It is designed to help prevent and defend against cyber attacks on national infrastructure and against other internet attacks on private firms by obtaining and sharing cyber threat information"  This law will allow private sector  search personal user data, and then share the information with the companies and with the US government, without the need for a warrant. If this law was passed by Congress, the private companies would can share their data: emails, text messages... without judicial oversight. This bill continue with the trend of the USA government to control internet because is in the same line that SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).

The main problem of this law is where is the limit between the national security and the personal privacy? and, who do puts this limit?  Our day to day lives is archived and saved in the cloud and this information should be private. This information could be used to prevent terrorist threats or dismantle criminal organizations, but also know the likes and the activities of the normal people. This information is so valuable for the companies and for the government, because they can exercise more control over consumers and voters."This won't simply be a world of a single, governmental Big Brother watching over your shoulder, nor will it be a world of a handful of corporate siblings training their ever-vigilant security cameras and tags on you." (1) Because we are partly to the blame too and we help to this situation.

But for Jamais Cascio we are in a Participatory Panopticon world, where this constant surveillance is done by the citizens themselves, and is done by choice. We upload the pictures in the social network, we write private information in our emails... The  camera phones pose a big help to this Panopticon world and we have the possibility of save all of our memories and past actions. But we don´t forget that all of this information is a part of our privacy and we must decide with who share this information.

SOURCES:

(1) Jamais Cascio, 'The Rise of the Participatory Panopticon', in: Worldchanging: Change Your Thinking, May 4, 2005.

Helen Nissenbaum   "A Contextual Approach to Privacy Online" in: Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Page 1-12

http://www.zdnet.com/what-is-cispa-and-what-does-it-mean-for-you-faq-7000013965/

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2013/04/20/navegante/1366454587.html

Megaupload!

     On June 21, 2005, Kim Dotcom founded Megaupload, the website where you could share documents and records online. Was so popular because you could get all the documents or records that you needed. The problem was that a lot of people used this hosting service to share movies, songs, software... without paying the price of the service. This freedom in the hosting caused that megaupload was the first website classified as digital piracy. This situation led the closing of the hosting website and the arrest of all its leaders. Currently, Kim Dotcom has created a new web called Mega, but Megaupload still is closed  by FBI.

     The intention of the company was that all people would could share the materials to other individuals by putting it on-line. The problem was that the people use the hosting to share a lot of piracy material. The book of Philippe Aigran, ‘Introduction’ and ‘The Internet and Creativity Debates’ support this idea. "The non-market sharing of digital works is valuable and must be recognized as a legitimate activity" (1). This author proposes a new business model where the access to the culture must be free and all the people can share the materials. Philippe Aigran says that is impossible fight against the piracy, so the only solution is found the way to share and maintain the earnings for the culture producers. The problem is that the culture creators have to make money and is not clear the system to compensate to the creators.

     A lot of people think that this sentence against Megaupload is unfair because the company did not know the type of archives that their clients shared. The problem with Megaupload encompasses a larger problem, because both of parts (cultural producers and consumers) have convincing reasons to defend its position. A lot of companies lost many important archives when the FBI closed Megaupload. But is true too, that the culture companies: film producers, music groups, writers... were losing a lot of money with the illegal downloads. The closed of megaupload has not solved the problem with the piracy, so the only solution in create a new business model for the cultural industry.

SOURCES:

(1) Philippe Aigran, ‘Introduction’ and ‘The Internet and Creativity Debates’ Amsterdam University Press 2012, pp.15-25

Pedro Huichalaf Roa. "Minuta explicativa sobre Proyectos de ley SOPA y PIPA de EEUU y sus posibles efectos jurídicos"

"Lo que siempre quiso saber y nunca se atrevió a preguntar sobre el conocimiento abierto en la redConocimiento y cultura en internet. ¿Lo masivo o lo libre? ¿Lo gratuito o lo comunitario? David García Aristegui. Page 1-17

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Food´s pictures - Boredom in Facebook 

- Who has not seen a photo of a plate of food on facebook?

- What have you thought about it?

- He has given you jealous or just have repudiated the person who uploaded it?

"Websurfing" is a phenomenon by which we share our experiences, as well as the experiences of our friends, which can be positive or negative. We need to regard as an ideation of social experience realized that is often enough through subsequent sharing and asynchronous shared experiences.

Wittkower says in "Boredom on facebook", We can share our experience and thus make it an experience of boredom-alongside, Allowing us to find our current boredom not as empty time under the tedious meaningless of which we suffer, but as time wasted along with others: leisure but purposelessly well spent.  "We can see a kind of performative confirmation of These claims in the much-derided practice of photographing pictures of your lunch."

But I would like launch the next question, have real success these photos that are uploaded to facebook, or are of a negative value to get your own person?

Here it goes my opinion

There are many things that bother us on Facebook, such as the advertising that appears repeatedly, or the new songs that have added our friends at Spotify. But every day we are seeing the most annoying element, that is the photos of food. No one can understand the need of people to climb to facebook food photographs.

Restaurants use advertising to make people be hungry. I do not know the motives behind people who post pictures of food of Facebook, but it accomplishes the same goal. There's nothing quite like taking a study break fot go an extra twenty minutes because i saw a picture of pizza on Facebook and then needed a snack.

According Wittkower , if we upload these photos to facebook, we are doing an experience of boredom-alongside. But in my view "Food pictures" do absolutely nothing for anyone, Besides That the person posted it. There's nothing more anyone can do with that picture other than wonder when their next meal will come.

Sources:

- D.E. Wittkower, 'Boredom on Facebook', in: Geert Lovink & Miriam Rasch (eds.) Unlike Us Reader. Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures 2013, pp. 180-188.

- pentsaleku.com

- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/dining/07camera.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

- Marco A. Paz, 2009. Redes Sociales: La Nueva Oportunidad

14th May´s Lecture

Real Maps in the City.

     Google Maps has become in the main reference when the people want found a place, and his famous marks to designate the place where we want to go, an inspiration object for many artists. Everybody know the marks (A and B) that use Google maps when you use its navigator to know the way to one address. Google has used this fact, to put this symbol in some cities, jumping from the virtual world to the real world. With this action Google not only seeks publicity and vision in the city. Google want that the people take pictures with it "statue" and upload to the social networks. Google tries that this mark to be part of the city and that be a meeting point. 

This work is in the Dutch city of Breda, was created by the German artist Aram Bartholl you are trying to connect the real world and the virtual work. This work of art is the perfect example to explain the passage of internet culture to real life. The cities are changing and the internet culture is also, a resource for this change.

This actions in the street began with the urban screens in the 70´s with the famous Spectacular Board in New York’s Times Square. It´s a new urban stile produced by the layering of physical space and media and internet space. The cities acquire many details imported of the virtual world, and now, symbols that was only in the virtual world appear in the real life. We have seen a lot of examples in this class and everyday appear new instances. What will be the following? Like and dislike buttons to evaluate our food at restaurants?

The cities incorporate the fact of globalization and digitalization as part of the representation of the urban spectrum. This situation is a new field to be explored by architects and planners and is the start to know a new cities. The world is changing with the new technologies. Also the cities. 


Sources:

 'Reading the City in a Global Age', in: Scott McQuire, Meredith Martin & Sabine Niederer (eds.) Urban Screens Reader. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures 2009, pp. 29-44.

Arjen Mulder, 'TransUrbanism', in: Joke Brouwer, Arjen Mulder & Laura Martz (eds.) TransUrbanism. Rotterdam: V2_Publishing / NAi Publishers 2002, pp.5-13.

Reinventing Public Art, Thousands of LEDs at a Time - Arts & Lifestyle - The Atlantic Cities

http://blog.pucp.edu.pe/item/3243/manual-para-el-desarrollo-de-ciudades-digitales-en-america-latina

Youtube and his Viral Videos (Keenan Cahill vs. Tay Zondey)

In the next post, let's move our attention to the viral videos published on the video social network called "Youtube". It is as simple as uploading your funny video or sometimes not even that to youtube and people like and share the video. Simple word of mouth can get videos millions of views and therefore make money. The combination of these two concepts – YouTube and the viral video – has created numerous cases of people who have become famous, for example Justin Bieber and Keenan Cahill.

According to the Burgess and Green’s recent content survey of YouTube, many viral videos are performance-based and music-related, rather than narrative or information-based. Jean Burgess says: "It is arguably the combination of oddness and earnest amateurism that made ‘Chocolate Rain’ such a massive YouTube hit", this song of Zonday which had success incredible it can be compared with Keenah Cahill. 

Ah, you do not know who Keenan Cahill is?

This guy in the picture is Keenan Cahill. Cahill has achieved International success at the young age of 17, initially with the just the help of his iMac that he received for his 13th birthday. He has achieved an audience of over 425 million people, and the many gains that entails.

At 2 years old he underwent a bone marrow transplant to slow the progression of his disease. The first operation was followed by two more operations – the last one which nearly cost him his life.

Currently, your health depends on an expensive schedule: go to school in the mornings and in the afternoon record yourself singing and dancing. The first time he did this he had an excellent response in the network.

The first success of this young man was thanks to this song by Katy Perry, and is the one that has gotten the most views:

Now Keenan has used this fame to launch his own record together with sister-duo Electrovamp UK. This is his new song called "Hands Up":

Like Keenan or Zondey, we can all upload our videos to this powerful social platform called YouTube. This process of sharing and creating music videos is called Vidding, which is what led Keenan to fame and helped him get contracts with famous producers such as Paramount Pictures for the promotion of any of his movies.

You never know what is a good idea that can throw you to fame – if you have an idea just do it!

Sources:

- Sivera Bello, Silvia (2008) Marketing Viral. Editorial UOC

- Jean Burgess, "All your chocalate rain are belong to us?" Viral Video, Youtube and the Dynamics of Participatory culture", In: Geert Lovink & Sabine Niederer (eds.) Video Vortex Reader. Responses to YouTube. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures 2008, pp. 101-109.

- http://www.azteca.com/notas/vengalaalegria/47712/keenan-cahill:-internet-le-ha-salvado-la-vida

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpxVIwCbBK0

23th April´s Lecture

Start!!

This blog have been created for the course of Digital and Art Culture in the Radboud University.

We are two spanish erasmus students and in this blog we will post our mini-essays.

Kind Regards!