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

See: www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v52/no3/benkler1.pdf

Benkler's main argument is that the traditional structural media regulation is unfavorable to democratic discourse and individual expressive freedom. He fears of the consequences if the same traditional structural media regulation is applied to the Internet: the Internet will loose its aspect of providing a place for unmediated conversation of the many to many and it will become just 'another mass media'. I doubt if this is true and therefore my question is:

How should media regulations be applied to the Internet?

According to Benkler regulations on the Internet should 'be focused on assuring that the digitally networked environment evolves into a stable system for peer users, rather than towards a system in which commercial producers and passive consumers are the primary players.' (Page 579).

I think you cannot apply this idea for the entire Internet. In order to create regulations, the Internet should be divided in accordance with its different aspects. Although you can use Internet for p2p usage, I think this is not what all people want. It could be that people want to use Internet for as a 'Great Shopping Mall in Cyberspace' (page 565), something that Benkler doesn't want. Additionally, people may want to use it to see broadcast they missed on television. Others want to use it to do their banking. Therefore, I think Internet will not become a 'mass media' and it isn't a place where only media regulations will fulfill to create a stable place. Policy on the Internet should focus on the different aspects of Internet and the different type of regulations corresponding with these aspects. Furthermore, I don't know if it is 'a stable place' we are looking for…Maybe, the core aspect of the Internet is that it isn't stable and cannot become stable. It could be this ability that provides a place for expression, creativity and innovation; instead of a stable place, which would support passiveness.

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

In this chapter the author outlines several innovations that Internet has given us so far, such as HTML books, MP3 and new ways of demand and participation evolving from this. He argues that the architecture of Internet made these innovations possible. The changing of this architecture means that the control over the Internet is changing too, which will undermine innovation. My question regarding this topic is:

How is the architecture of Internet changing?

Lessig doesn't explain very well what he means with 'architecture'. He does link it to 'the control over the Internet'. (Page 139/140.) Therefore, I think he means the abilities of Internet that do or don't give opportunities for its control. (Think of decentralization, anonymity, etc.) In my opinion, this architecture was the same at the beginning of Internet as it is now. We are discovering more and more about it and because of this the control over the Internet is changeable. However, this doesn't undermine innovation. Since we are discovering more and more about the opportunities and constrains of Internet and its architecture, innovations will be improved and new innovations will be made. This can be seen for example in the movement from Napster, to Gnutella and Kazaa, in which the last two improved the first. Nowadays, more Kazaa is becoming more controlled, but this didn't stop innovation. It may even support innovation, since people are finding ways to undermine this control, like Orkut.

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

Here, Harries introduces a new term, namely 'viewsing the Internet'. This is a combination of viewing (passive) and using (active) the Internet and related media. In his own words: "This convergence between the television screen, computer screen and the mobile phone screen creates a viewsing opportunity that reaches beyond the expected parameters of traditional entertainment by integrating the entire experience and capitalising on the strengths of each medium." (Page 180.) Related to the concept of viewsing, I wonder:

How will wireless Internet influence the 'viewsing experience'?

Until today, fixed Internet lines restrained the users, viewers and 'viewsers', to stay at one place. Nowadays wireless Internet is becoming more popular and enables people to access Internet anywhere (at least in theory…). I think this will change the devices made for different media. In other words, not only the barriers regarding the entertainment content between traditional media, new media and the physical world will break down, but also the barriers regarding technologies that are used. If these barriers blur, it is interesting to think about what innovations could be created. For example, nowadays there exist a so-called 'mobile silent disco'. People wear headphones that all play the same music. Those people dance to that music, which is weird to the surrounding people since they cannot hear the music; it also creates a band or a sort of community between the dancing people, since they do hear the same music. This can be linked to the wireless Internet, which enables online gamers to leave their computer at home. Will gaming communities appear on the streets in the same way you can see people dance at the mobile silent disco? How will this influence reality and the gaming industry? (Sounds a bit futuristic J , but still interesting to brainstorm about the possibilities…)

Gay, P. du & Pryke, M. (2002) Cultural Economy. pp. 115-131.

In this chapter the author want to 'highlight the broader dynamics which shape the formation of aesthetic economies'. (Page 115.) He wants to do this by 'highlighting how cultural processes shape (what are assumed to be) economic practices, beliefs and criteria, and how this informs the contexts within creativity can be realized, judged and valued (and also the conditions within which any transformative politics might become possible). (Page 116.) In order to do this, he focuses on the music industry: who is selecting the talent available and what role does organisation culture play in the music that we hear? His argument is that these people and organisations cannot solely regulate 'the industry'; many other factors are involved. My question regards one of these factors, which isn't named in the chapter, namely the 'consumers' of music:

How can consumers regulate the music industry, especially with the help of Internet?

I think that Internet made it possible for consumers of music to regulate the industry more than before. However, I don't think that the record companies make full use of this. Internet makes it possible for companies to know more about the consumer demand and thus improve the variety of music they offer. More important is another aspect the Internet provides, namely the ability to sample the music. A good example is the site www.boomselection.com. Here, there are several 'artists' who take existing music and make bootlegs of them. So, they not only become consumers of music, but also users and producers. The creation of bootlegs became so popular that media as MTV and several radio stations broadcast them. Furthermore, the music industry complains that Internet has a negative influence on the economy of the music industry. The community of boomselection not only exists on the Internet, but also expanded to reallife and gives parties in which the bootlegs are heard. Maybe, the music industry could use such shifts from Internet to reallife (instead of the other way around) for their commerce.

Küng-Shankleman, L. (2000) What is organization Culture? In: Küng-Shankleman, L. (2000) Inside the BBC and CNN: Managing Media Organizations (London: Routledge).

This chapter of the book deals with the concept 'organization culture'. The author states that this 'remains a frustratingly abstract concept' (page 6). However, he tries to describe organization culture by explaining various aspects and levels that are characteristic to it. Although the concept of organization culture became clearer to me while reading this chapter, it still remains abstract because I don't know how organizations actually make use of their organization culture. Therefore, my question is:

What is the goal of organization culture? How do companies use their organization culture?

As an answer this chapter provides the 'culture's link to strategy'. This means that there is a relationship between culture and performance, which displays itself in the company's strategy. 'An important set of these (unconscious) assumptions relates to the organization's strategic processes and priorities, and functions as a quintessential and often unacknowledged driver of strategic decisions and activities.' (Page 17).

I wonder if these assumptions are really unconscious and if the strategic decisions and activities are actually unacknowledged. For example the game company Atari had a very informal culture among the employers and employees, but this was not done unconscious. Instead, I believe this informality was caused on purpose to create a win-win situation: every game developer wanted to work at Atari because of the informal work environment and Atari got good games because of these developers. Furthermore, I think companies not only use their organization culture to build a relationship with their employees, but also in building this relationship with their customers. This is the case at the company 'Virgin'. They have the aim not just to compete with other companies, but to 'nag' them. Therefore, they put on there bills the amount that the consumer has to be at Virgin, but also how much they would have paid at other companies and how much this amount differs.

In other words, I think some organizations are well aware that they can use their culture to build a relationship with both its employees and its customers. Furthermore, if companies become more open to organization culture than it can be used more often for branding and 'relationship building'.

De Mooij, M. (1998) Dimensions of Culture. In: De Mooij, M. (1998) Global Marketing and Advertising (London: Sage).

In this chapter documentation is given on the cultural differences and similarities of countries to 'help' global marketing and advertising. This raises the following question to me:

How will global marketing and advertising operate in the future, especially regarding the Internet?

The chapter defines the differences and similarities of cultures through various dimensions, where a large part is focussed on the five dimensions of culture developed by Hofstede. How simple this may sound, these dimensions show that the three big economic regions of the world, the United States, Europe and Asia, differ in culture and cultural understanding. This might be problematic if these regions are working together on a global level, since a lot of misunderstanding might occur. For example, the Japanese call their colleagues at home or invite them over to their house. An article (unfortunately, I don't remember the title or author) tells about an American women who worked together with a Japanese company, where she had an important function. Once she returned to America, she sued her Japanese coworker for sexual harassment, since in her opinion he tried to kiss her several times, called her at home, etc. However, the Japanese coworker (and all of his colleagues) didn't understand why he was sued, because he didn't have sexual intentions. Although this applies to cooperation between companies of different cultures, one can understand that problems between consumers and companies of different cultures can occur. Regarding marketing and advertising via Internet, nowadays, most companies that have a global target use English as communication language. The concept of their sites remains quite the same for all visitors/consumers/participants/etc. However, a tendency to personalization of websites and offering products applying to one's interest can be seen. I wonder if in the future this might continue also in relation to culture. For example, one has to login first, by telling your nationality/country and/or interests. Thereafter, one gets access to a site, which is adapted to your 'description'. Consequently, if an American person visits a Dutch site of KPN the texts and advertisements will be different than when a Spanish person visits the site of KPN. However, this may solve problems and also raise problems. Who is going to decide what content fits which visitor? How do moral topics, such as gender and racism relate to this? Consequently, I turn back to my question: how will global marketing and advertising operate in the future, especially regarding the Internet?

Nixon, S. (2003) Advertising and Commercial culture In: Nixon, S. (2003) Advertising cultures (London: Sage).

In this chapter several literature is discussed, which all share the same topic: advertising and commercial culture in relation to society and its history. The core focus is on the industrial society and the reflexivity offered by the modernisation. All arguments seem to rely on the changing of society and companies; changes within the society itself, such as the need for reflexivity, but also changes of the creative industry, such as offering more information based services instead of industrial products. In relation to the previous session, I wonder how 'space' is related to these changes, thus my question is:

How is the concept of 'space' related to the changes in history that caused a different consumption behavior?

In my opinion, on result of the industrialisation was the expansion of space. People could use cars and trains, which means that they could travel further away then before and explore different spaces, cultures and behavior. This probably also changed the consumption behavior of the industrial society. It is interesting to explore this topic, since in a way the Internet offers us the same: the exploration of a new space, which offers us new ways of thinking or behavior. By looking at the history of space in relation to consumer behavior, one might predict certain changes for the future.

In this chapter of his book, Hutchby explains various point of views to regard technologies in order to draw attention to communicative affordances. First, he explains the theory of technological determinism. Implicitly, he argues that this theory overestimates the causal effects of technologies on social change. As responses to technological determinism Hutchby addresses two approaches that concentrate on the social shaping of technology: the first focuses on the interaction between social and technical elements, the other proposes socio-technical networks. Furthermore, he explains the theory of seeing technologies as texts. However, whereas technological determinism overestimates the effects of technologies themselves, the responses to this theory undermines these effects according to Hutchby. He proposes that the concept of affordances could solve this problem, since when also taking the affordances of technologies in account the right balance between the effect of technologies on society and visa versa is found. Regarding this argument, my question is:

Hutchby claims that technology as a text focuses too much on the question of representations of technology and 'forget' to look at the usage of technologies by people in ordinary life. If one should include the affordances of technologies in the theory of technologies as a text, this problem would disappear. Thereafter, Hutchby says the same for the other theories; they also rely too much on representations of technologies. This makes me wonder what Hutchby means with representations of technologies. If this means that the theories do not focus on the actual usage of technologies, then I agree with his argument in regard to the theory of technology as a text. However, I lose track when he uses the same statement for the two other socio-technical theories. In my opinion these theories do focus on the actual usage of technologies. Yet, the comment of Hutchby that they do not take certain technological characteristics for granted and that they negotiate every factor related to the dynamics of society and technology could be true. In other words, Hutchby's arguments are plausible, but he stays a bit vague on the actual appliance of his arguments to the different theories. Therefore, I do not know if I should value his arguments as 'great' or as 'interesting, but not maintainable' and I do not know what to do with his arguments in practice. A more specific explanation with the help of case studies could be helpful to understand Hutchby more, but I think these case studies are provides in the following chapters of his book.

As the authors tell in the summary, this chapter examines the spatiality and spatial forms of cyberspace itself. The authors come to three arguments: "Cyberspace possesses a spatiality that needs to be examined; the socio-spatial relations of cyberspace are produced; and that cyberspace is an embodied space." (blz 64). To me, this raises the question:

This chapter provides some answers to this question. For example, it draws parallels between the spatiality in reallife and in cyberspace. I think these parallels are logical, since people have to have a reference when using cyberspace. Cyberspace is immaterial, so people have to have a picture in mind to hold on to when using cyberspace, since they cannot use something which is a black hole (even the metaphors resemble a certain picture J ). Consequently, the spatiality of cyberspace has parallels with the known spatiality of reallife. An additional answer to my question is that the spatiality of cyberspace influences its social elements in terms of identity and power relations. Analysis of the spatiality of cyberspace tries to describe the construction of identity and power relations in cyberspace. Furthermore, it is used to establish certain rules surrounding these topics. Although there are similarities between reallife and cyberspace on these topics, it also shows that cyberspace has some specific characteristics that differ from reallife. These specific characteristics cause a debate regarding identity, power relations and rules in cyberspace, which seems to be ongoing. Therefore, I think it is time to move on. The point of view of cyberspace as spatiality has given many insights in its existence as a whole and the problems evolving from this existence in relation to reallife. However, maybe it is time to take another point of view to actually solve these problems. (Ironically, I do not have a clue which point of view this actually might be…)

Vogel, H. (2001) Economic Perspectives. In: Vogel, H. (2001) Entertainment Industry Economics - A guide for Financial Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 5th ed.)

The initial topic of this article is leisure time, in which Vogel defines leisure as "a form of activity engaged in by people in their free time or, preferably, as time free from any sense of obligation or compulsion." (Page 4). This leisure time can be used for entertainment. Vogel describes several economic factors that influence the leisure time spent on entertainment, in order to "see how entertainment is defined an how its fits into a larger economic picture." (Page 3). This raises the following, very logical J , questions to me:

Vogel proves with statistics how much time is spent on entertainment and how this relates to for instance the expansion of leisure time or people's income. However, regarding entertainment on the Internet, the concepts of leisure time and 'other' time blur in my opinion. I think a lot of people often use entertainment on the Internet only for several minutes. For instance, (as told from experience J ) while working you want to send a professional e-mail. You see in your inbox an e-mail from a friend, which refers to the creation of a birthday calendar. So, instead of sending the professional e-mail you visit the site to specify your birthday, by which your friend can create her calendar. Afterwards, you are checking out some e-mail cards, because they happen to be on the same Internet site, but you don't like them and return to your inbox to send the professional e-mail. Is this working time or leisure time? The same can be argued for wireless Internet or text messaging via mobile phones. Since people often use this for less than a minute, it is difficult to actually count how often and how long time is spent on entertainment. If a businessman is waiting in a queue in a bank for business and decides to send his girlfriend a text message, is that business time or leisure time? In other words, I think entertainment via Internet and mobile phones is changing the ways in which entertainment is used and this had influence on the economy surrounding entertainment.

Castronova, E. (2003) On Virtual Economies. See www.gamestudies.org/0302/castronova

Castronova researches the economic life in cyberspace, compared to the real-world economies and governments. He uses the economies of multiplayer online games to do this. Regarding this topic, my question is:

Although Castronova's description of the aspects of virtual economies can provide an answer, I think this is not all of the economy involved in cyberspace. What about e-commerce? Buying products via Internet, charging people to access a site? Is that real-world economy or virtual economy? I think Castronova would call these examples real-world economy. However, I wonder the people who are less used to play games or use new media, also agree on this. If different definitions of virtual economy are used than this could influence the economy as a whole, as well as the government rules that come with this.

I didn't completely understand this chapter, but I think it tried to provide some examples of how one can understand the economics involved with cultural, creative, products. To me it does not become clear what is meant with 'culturalization'. Therefore my question is:

As I said above, I believe it refers to cultural products and the economy surrounding this. If this is true, I wonder why the author didn't make a division between several cultural products, since the understanding of cultural products and thus the understanding of its economy differ for each type of product.

This chapter focuses on the concepts 'market' en 'product'. Considering Internet, I think especially the first is concept is interesting. As a result, the following question:

I think before the rise of Internet a market was more related to a specific product than nowadays. The Internet market is broader. For instance, a television commercial wants young women to buy Coca Cola, so they adjust there commercial to it. The same is done on the Interenet; however it is much easier to exploit this and also make people buy tickets for a concert of a popular group, by making a link to the website of this specific group. In other words, the relation between a product and a market is less strict on the Internet than within other media used for marketing. Therefore, companies of different types of products compete with each other on the Internet, which makes the market structure on Internet more complex than in 'real-life'.