This blog post is my final project for my Social Media class at the George Washington University. I have created a short video of me ranting (what more could you want, right?) of me discussing the battle between phone cameras and regular digital cameras. The write-up below discusses how I relate my video topic back to important theories I learned in class this semester.
Social Media Final Project from Merideth Tumasz on Vimeo.
In Jurgen Habermas’s, “The Structural Transformation of the
Public Sphere,” written in 1964, he developed the concept of a public sphere.
It is a realm of social life where something like public opinion can be formed.
It allows access to all, regardless of status, inclusive, and does not restrict
people’s freedom to express their abilities. When he wrote this, the internet
was not in existence, so while the concept of the public sphere existed, an
actual portrayal could not have been explained until the success of the
internet, as Benkler describes.
In Yochai Benkler’s, “The Wealth of Networks," he discusses
the new, networked public sphere that is present in today’s society. When
Benkler wrote this in 2006, it was before the explosion of smart phones, where the
public sphere became even more connected. In the old public sphere, so
pre-internet, the flow of information would go from one to many. Now, with
today’s technology, this information goes from many to many. As a result,
today’s public is living in a world of information overload. With so much
content being spread so rapidly, the idea of internet “babel” is prominent and
it can be hard for a user to sift through all this information. Because the
cost now to participate in the public sphere is very small, anyone feels like
they have the right, and capabilities, to add information into this massive
public sphere.
If everyone is sharing content, why would anyone pay for any
of it? Benkler also brings up the point of if money still matters. With peer
production, why would we pay for something a friend makes, when the idea of a
gift economy is becoming bigger and bigger? In a gift economy, everything is
socially motivated; no one is concerned about the money, it’s all about the
reputation. If someone’s picture gets a lot of “likes” on Facebook, it makes
them look very prestigious and helps improve their reputation. So if a friend’s
photo taken with an iPhone receives several likes, why would someone with an
expensive DSLR camera waste the money on the camera if it won’t even receive
the same appreciation? If no one is paying for pictures anymore, what’s the point
in paying a lot of money for a digital camera when a person’s smartphone is so
readily available? This is a growing struggle, not just for me, but for professional photographers and photojournalists as well.
This public sphere, as discussed by Habermas and Benkler, is
key for the idea of spreadability. Spreadability, a term coined by Jenkins
about the ease of sharing content throughout the digital world, is what makes
users think it’s okay that pictures no longer cost money. By allowing media,
especially pictures, to be able to spread so quickly, this is just one reason
why the gift economy is becoming so successful today. Sharing my pictures, or
even this video, enhances my street cred (excuse my slang). The more people
that look at them, the more "likes" on a picture I get, the wider my audience becomes; it helps my virtual reputation. When things are easily spreadable, such as my
digital photos, it makes it easy for people to want to spread the word and
continue the flow of ideas, as Jenkins discusses.
So how does all this tie into my video rant? Without today’s
digital tools, like a phone camera, none of this information connectedness
would be possible. Because almost everyone (I'm referring to in the United States)
has a phone with a camera, the playing field is equalized on who can and cannot
be considered a photographer. This networked public sphere allows for the sharing
of massive amounts of content, into what seems like an information-overloaded
society (just see how many pictures are on Facebook). One can even call it an "image-overloaded society," but because it costs
nearly nothing to take a picture, it’s really not all that bad. If we were
still having to pay each time to get our pictures developed from a film roll,
people wouldn't be sharing their pictures as much as they are today. With the ease
of spreadability digital photos have today, it’s not a surprise we rely on the
gift economy to justify why we take and share the pictures we do. So even
though I ranted for four minutes about how camera phones do not deserve the
same recognition as DSLR camera do, a picture is spreadable, no matter what it
was taken with.
References:
1000memories.com
- http://blog.1000memories.com/94-number-of-photos-ever-taken-digital-and-analog-in-shoebox
Phones Taking Over Industry: http://www.simplyzesty.com/mobile/are-phones-about-to-wipe-out-the-digital-camera-industry/
Photo Quantity Statistics: http://hyperallergic.com/48765/how-many-photos-do-americans-take-a-year/
