May 2008

Commodify me, oh Lord, part 11

Friday, May 16, 2008

The audience commodity is dead. Long live the audience commodity.

The starting point for my MA project has really been about viewing church congregations as advertising audiences (a thoroughly objectified state). From that perspective, one can begin to understand how the media industry is shifting its resources toward reaching such audiences (in the context of the church culture) in an era where their traditional mediums, such as television, are providing an increasingly less reliable audience commodity value.

I recently downloaded and listened to a lecture by Sut Jhally, media communication professor at The University of Massachusetts (located here). In the presentation, Jhally makes emphatic and compelling arguments that the time people spending watching television is a real and quantifiable expenditure of work time. Our attention—our consciousness—is sold by media companies to advertisers. This is largely consistent with what Dallas Smythe observed in the 70s, and has been largely accepted as a practical reality.

It’s totally true, and totally out of date.

Because what Jhally doesn’t address in his 2007 speech is what is happening to the media consciousness industry in the Web 2.0 world. He makes some general comments about the commodification process extending to new media, but doesn’t deal with the way this commodity value (for advertisers) is beginning to be redirected (by audiences) toward participatory media activity. And this is key, because it shifts the whole concept of audience commodity value away from the media industry and advertisers toward the audience.

This idea became clear to me after viewing the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo Conference presentation by Clay Shirky of NYU’s Tisch ITP program. I recommend viewing it for more context on what follows in this post. A full text version is here.

What is happening, according to Shirky, is that this “cognitive surplus” value of television watching is slowly being redirected toward more meaningful activities—participatory Web media being a chief beneficiary.

Fellow NYU colleague, Jay Rosen, offered a few summation points on Shirky’s presentation (the full post can be found here):

“A cognitive surplus means the total amount of unoccupied free time available (think of it as “screen hours”) after the basic needs of society have been met. Television swallowed up most of the surplus American society produced during the period of relative affluence after World War Two.”

“[Shirky] figures it took 100 million hours of people around the world writing, checking, editing, gathering, and talking it over (and fighting!) to make all versions of Wikipedia. ‘And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year.’ Therefore if 99 percent of the TV watching in the US remained as is, and we broke off just one percent for the information commons and other cool stuff we could have 100 Wikipedia-[sized] projects per year.”

“[Shirky] thinks we can reverse the time sink for people once marooned on the receiving end of a one-way system that didn’t care what you thought or brought to it, since it couldn’t afford the costs of interacting with you."

Shirky also drew an intriguing historical analogy: Gin was to the industrial revolution as the sit-com was to the post-WW2 consumer age. (For a full write up on the 1800s Gin Craze, read the wiki here.)

And just as gin producers quickly developed an industry to monetize people’s need to cope with dramatic social changes, the media industry quickly developed a capacity to monetize people’s free time via television technology and advertising.

As Jhally pointed out in his 2007 lecture, initially, radio and television programs were created to provide programming that would entice people to purchase radios and televisions. Once people had made those technology investments, the model shifted from primarily relying on static product revenue to relying on advertising revenue tied to audiences that seemed to have continual growth potential.

Today, of course, it is the overall loss of audience commodity value that is pushing the media industry and advertisers toward new venues like the church. Here the modernistic model of weekly, one-way interaction via professional clergy and a mass audience (pun?) creates the attractive captive audience that television and other ad-driven media once provided.

At the same time, the church in the U.S. seems to be gravitating toward two extremes. One the one hand, economic and consumeristic forces are driving the growth of megachurches (see my post from March referencing Mark Chaves’ article and his take on the economics affecting churches). On the other, there is a decidedly participatory approach emerging in the realm of post-congregational Christians. Here Bill Kinnon and others see an exciting parallel with emerging, missional expressions of the church in Shirky’s presentation.

The media industry, along with church growth marketing agencies that have a vested financial interest in advancing an advertising and marketing evangelism paradigm with churches, are increasingly targeting megachurches, their satellites and like-minded church plants because of the quality of the audience commodity and their economies of scale for reaching them. The reasons are simple. This is where the consumers are more concentrated and homogenous. This is where word-of-mouth and opinion leader marketing potential naturally pre-exists. This is where out most powerful cultural narratives can tied to entertainment media and product brands.

There is a path that leads toward further commercialization of time, and another that leads toward the de-commercialization of time. Each expression of the church—each community of Jesus followers—must make a choice as to which path they will take. It’s my mission to make sure this is a conscious, informed choice.

You know my bias.

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Getting The Weepies on the road

Friday, May 16, 2008

I have a tradition of buying a new record when I go on a road trip. Provided I’m not engrossed in conversation with fellow travelers or competing with the squealing of my brood of children (3 under the age of 10 right now), traveling allows me to really immerse myself in the music—a rare pleasure these days.

Recently I squeezed in enough time to download The Weepies before hitting the road with the fam to endure the straight and flat monotony of Mpls to Omaha via I-35 and I-80 at roughly 70 mph. While not an optimal music experience, I was able to catch some good listening time during the enevitable napping (when little E and middle E nap at the same time, its like the stars align and a new age of world peace has dawned). The Weepies are my new favorite band.

So take this as an endorsement. Check them out on the Web and MySpace. Far from inducing the tears their name suggests, The Weepies helped me regain some serenity amid one of our more chaotic family trips.
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Get your sell detector

Friday, May 16, 2008

More and more I’m recognizing the presence of stealth advertising. It may be product placement in a movie, or a supposed news interview with a celebrity that has a new movie or book coming out. I’ll be watching something or reading something, connect the dots to a stealth sales pitch, and almost uncontrollably blurt out: “I’ve just been advertised to.” It’s as if I’ve developed a form of advertising radar.

It can be annoying—more so for the people in my life. But I think it’s a good thing. The truth is, more and more of our public discourse is being orchestrated to accommodate ubiquitous commercial messages. My hope is that I can infect more people with the same sensibility.

After all, as G.I. Joe once aptly said, “knowing is half the battle.” (Of course, the other half of the battle includes the violence and the killing, which is totally not my point here.)
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WWDC 2008: A shiny new thing

Friday, May 16, 2008

I really have one prediction for this year’s WWDC Stevenote, and I may be very wrong. But I think I’m just may be right—even when Intel and others are trying to poo-poo any rumors to this effect.

On June 9 Steve Jobs will have “one more thing” to talk about after he opines on the 3G iPhone, OS X Leopard and new MacBook designs. That thing will be a multi-touch OS X slate computer with an intel processor and a host of WiFi and cell-based internet capabilities (like video chat and a touch browser). It will not be a phone. It will not be a PDA. It will not be a laptop. It will not be an iPod. It will do everything these devices do—but in a new way. All by touching, tapping, pinching and gesturing.

While Microsoft thinks itself innovative by showing off a concept “table” the size of a 80s-era Galaga machine, Apple will have all that and a bag of chips in your mobile hands by the end of this year. Of course, if you do eat chips you may want to wash your hands before getting your MacTouch all greasy.

If you think the MacBook Air was thin, what ‘til you see this. The multi-touch revolution is on!
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Commodify me, oh Lord, part 10

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Can I get a witness?

As has been said here before (by whom, I have no idea): What you win them with, you win them to. In one way my entire project is about this. Yet, it is always good to get confirmation from someone who knows. That's exactly what I believe the excerpt below accomplishes. Shane Hipps recently responded to a question on his Third Way Faith blog that I have to share. Hipps is a former advertising executive who left the ad game to attend seminary and become a Mennonite pastor. His recent book (in my library links) shines the exposing light of 60s and 70s communication sage, Marshall McLuhan on the relationship between spirituality and electronic culture in the digital age.

Hipps responds to a question about whether he can apply skills or approaches from his advertising career to his job as a pastor. His response:

"...the primary task of my previous life was to try and highjack your imagination, brand your brain with a Porsche logo, and then feed you opinions you thought were your own. I can't think of a method more opposed to the process of deepening and evolving the spiritual life. So I'm very aware of intentionally not translating or using these methods.

In my experience, the best thing I can do to lead people spiritually is to show them love. At the heart of love is making space, honoring the free will of the other. This requires that I intentionally divest myself of their outcomes, decisions, and conclusions. Sounds counter-intuitive, but then again, most things in the life of faith are. When someone senses that I need them to grow to validate myself, it usually hinders their growth. When they sense that I love them and have no need for them to take my advice, they're more free to do so if they choose. This I've found to be the most fertile soil for spiritual evolution. And it is diametrically opposed to the tasks of advertising and marketing, which are driven entirely by outcomes."

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Serenity now!

Sunday, May 04, 2008

I rented the movie, Serenity a few months ago, which is the feature film installment of the cancelled yet renowned TV show, Firefly. While I didn’t expect all that much going into it cold, I was starved for some sci-fi. As it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised. Serenity was different—way different. And different is good.

This led me to borrow the complete series from a friend at my office. In the interim between finishing* Doctor Who season 3 and getting my hands on BSG season 3 after a long wait and vigilant spoiler avoidance, Firefly (2002) has been exactly what I needed. To get the lowdown on the series, read the wiki. It’s a Joss Whedon series, so that should tell you a little but about why it’s different.

*We have a cable-free house and traditionally wait for our favorite shows on DVD via Netflix. The upside is watching the shows on our schedule while avoiding cable fees. The down side is waiting out a full season and avoiding spoilers.

You'll find the back story on this series from the wiki entry and how 20th century fox cancelled it before the end of the first season. It continues to amaze me how the really interesting and promising shows can get killed off by short-sighted TV execs who can’t see the potential of anything beyond weekly ratings. Firefly has sold a boatload of DVDs and spawned a pretty good motion picture. Not bad for a cancelled show. As I have worked my way through the episodes, I am simultaneously enjoying this great show/cast, and saddened that the story won’t go on.

Aside from BSG and Doctor Who imports, is there anything else on SciFi worth watching? Last time I checked, there isn’t.

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Donna Martin graduates!

Sunday, May 04, 2008

And so will I. I’ve been staring down the barrel of a deadline this past month, which I hope explains why I haven’t posted. Every shred of writing time has been devoted to full drafts of my thesis chapters 1, 2 & 3.

With that overblown deadline behind me, I’m pleased to announce I have been “approved to walk,” which is the graduate school lingo for being allowed to participate in commencement and receive my M.A. in Communication (actually, I receive an empty decorative folder—the diploma is issued once I complete and defend my thesis).

Saturday, May 24, I get hooded like a proper master. And at some point after that, my family gets a full-time dad back.
So grab picket sign and march, people! Donna Martin graduates!

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