Sinnreich & Latoneo (2014) Tracking Configurable Culture from the Margins to the Mainstream

Main Idea:

799 - This article employs "configurable culture" to describe the range of emerging cultural practices that have blurred the boundaries between traditional production & consumption in the wake of digital technological developments.  In other words, media can serve equally well from its original form to its mediated form & modifiers (such as effects, plug-ins, etc) serve as a form of second order expression. 

800 - As a result, the linear process of culture production faces disruption

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798 - Production & Consumption - emerging digital technology afford users to do both
-it's an "inversion of the power hierarchy represented by traditional culture industries"
-conflict over regulation - copyright, authorship, ownership

799 - the appropriation & reconfiguration comes without consent of culture industry
-copyright law allows the culture industry to retain dominant economic gatekeeper position

digital technologies transforms mass consumers to mass producers & mass distributors
-this threatens to erode the foundation of industrial & commercial exchange that has long dominated

some scholars (Herman 2012, Lessig, & Vaidhyanathan) have argued this freddom of users should be fostered:
Lessig 2004 - "Remix Culture" rise should lead to creative commons licenses that stipulate how content can be used.

Aufderheide & Jaszi 2008 - Fair Use allows users to participate
Jenkins - participatory culture - which is democratizing
Jenkins - convergence culture - which is old and new media combining

Contrarians (traditionalists) - Keen - professional work is debased by amateurism
Industry Enforcers - Karaganis 2011 - employs the language of piracy & theft to discuss digital appropriation by users

799 - This article employs "configurable culture" to describe the range of emerging cultural practices that have blurred the boundaries between traditional production & consumption in the wake of digital technological developments.

In other words, media can serve equally well from its original form to its mediated form & modifiers (such as effects, plug-ins, etc) serve as a form of second order expression.

800 - As a result, the linear process of culture production faces disruption

Differences in Configurable Culture from Previous Terms:
1. These changes in culture production are not inherently democratizing
-many of these are not truly bottom up - but have been deployed strategically by the culture industry to extend hegemonic positions.

2. Although they may now have a voice (such as social media), users may also reproduce traditional biases and power dynamics

3. legal mechanisms (like copyright) create conflict with these new digital practices (cultural regulation and resistance)

800 - 2006 & 2010 surveys were administered to see the extent of freedom vs control in configurable culture by users behavior and opinions

804 - An important distinction was found in the study:
production - adjacent activities = requires people with tools and knowledge to consume and recreate/reappropriate media (therefore not entirely democratic)

consumption - adjacent practices = people in the digital space that consume configurable culture, but lack the ability or desire to participate more.

804 - This very distinction nullifies the overly optimistic assumption of Jenkins and participatory culture

810 - engagement levels with young people 18-25 continue to grow steeply
However from 2006 - 2010, the gap narrowed and older folks were becoming more aware and engaged in configurable culture

Also found that reflexive judgments about configurable culture across all age groups are biased negatively

820 - concluded that full participation in digital culture still requires a degree of social power conferred by wealth. - supports notions of digital divide