Spreadable Media. Henry Jenkins

Insofar as spreadability becomes an attribute of the contemporary media landscape, it has the potential to dramatically reshape how central cultural and political institutions operate.

      If we all accept that the media industries and marketing worlds are moving toward a model of circulation based on the logic of spreadability, and if we also accept that concepts such as the meme and the virus often distort the human agency involved in spreading media content, how might we better understand the ways in which material travels within a networked culture? This core question will structure the rest of this book.

      First, we consider the economic and social logics shaping this spreadable media landscape. Chapter 1 critiques the rhetoric and mindset of Web 2.0, examining what gets lost in contemporary business practices which seek to harness participatory culture for businesses’ own economic gain and exploring some of the gaps emerging between the social logic that often shapes noncommercial production and the commodity logic that informs much of commercial culture. Chapter 2 digs further into the processes used to evaluate and appraise media content from yesteryear, examining the residual meanings and potential new value for content and brands as they move between commercial and noncommercial exchange.

      Second, we consider ways the media industries have begun to reconceptualize their audiences as active participants whose labor helps determine the value of branded entertainment. Chapter 3 focuses on how the television industry is rethinking audience measurement as it seeks new business models built on audience engagement. In particular, we explore how transmedia entertainment has emerged as an alternative strategy for courting and mobilizing audiences behind media franchises. Chapter 4 directs attention toward the nature of participation, suggesting a need to move from the broadcast era’s focus on individual audience members to an emphasis on socially active and networked audiences. Along the way, we consider which forms of participation are and are not valued within current business models. We make the case for a greater focus on processes of deliberation rather than aggregation and on the value of “listening” to what audience members say rather than simply “hearing” that a brand or media property has been mentioned. And we examine the gaps in access and participation that persist in our culture.

      Third, in chapter 5, we explore why some types of media content spread more widely and more quickly than others. In focusing specifically on marketing (in the first part of the chapter) and on activist and civic media (in the second), we seek to link the spread of material with the social needs of online communities. We draw on John Fiske’s (1989b) notion of “producerly” media texts to explore how networked communities transform mass-produced media into “resources” which fuel their ongoing conversations with each other.

      Finally, our book explores how spreadable practices may support a more diverse array of media options than the old broadcast paradigm—focusing on independent and Christian media in chapter 6 and transnational media flows in chapter 7. In chapter 6, we examine how independent media makers from film, publishing, music, comics, and games are building new kinds of relations with their audiences. While these practices may not match the economic advantages enjoyed by mass-media producers, they have allowed independent artists to expand access to and increase the visibility of their productions. Chapter 7 argues that a combination of pirates, immigrants, and pop cosmopolitans have helped circulate more media content beyond geographic borders than ever before. Much like the creations of independent media makers, these cultural goods often still operate from a position of marginality, unable to compete directly with dominant media industries. Yet there are signs that their cultural and economic impact is increasing, thanks to their ability to travel through grassroots media channels.

      1

      WHERE WEB 2.0 WENT WRONG

      In December 2009, Capitol Records filed a suit against online video-sharing site Vimeo, claiming the site “induces and encourages its users” to engage in copyright infringement (Lawler 2009). Capitol argued that Vimeo failed to take sufficient action to monitor infringing material that was uploaded to its servers. They also claimed that Vimeo staff actively participated in the production and promotion of videos infringing Capitol’s copyrights. In particular, the complaint targeted the site’s regular promotion of the “lip dub”—a form of high-concept music video featuring intricate lip-syncing and choreography. Lip dubs are regularly highlighted on the site’s front page, and Vimeo staff has produced its own (some of which have drawn substantial attention online).

      As word of the suit spread, people responded with a mixture of cynicism about Capitol’s motives, defenses of the recording industry’s need to protect its business models, and a litany of frustrated barbs about the lack of innovation from major industry players. At TechDirt—a site covering online technology, policy, and legal issues—readers suggested that Capitol’s actions occurred at a time when parent company EMI was suffering from massive losses. (See comments at Masnick 2009.) Rolling Stone’s Daniel Kreps (2009) noted that the action against Vimeo came soon after EMI had signed licensing deals with start-up Vevo—a site developed by YouTube and supported by a number of major U.S. labels as a central, officially sanctioned depository for music videos online. At both collaborative news site Digg and online journal Ars Technica, some commenters pondered why Capitol’s suit was necessary, given that there was no proof lip dubs result in any harm. Many people contended that such videos constituted free advertising and publicity for recording artists (see comments at LeechesofKarma 2009 and N. Anderson 2009), an argument regularly mobilized by those who disagree with “antipiracy” lawsuits.¹

      Conflicts between media rights holders and the platforms, such as Vimeo, which host that material have become increasingly common, particularly as the ideas behind Web 2.0 have led to a proliferation of start-ups looking to monetize and commodify user-generated content. These dramatic technological and economic shifts have disrupted normative practices but not yet produced a model satisfying any party. Throughout this chapter, we will map the varying conceptions about fair economic and social relations held by media companies and their audiences. As we do so, we will examine how value, worth, and trust are negotiated and legitimized in this shifting social-economic-technological context through a few crucial concepts—the idea of a “moral economy” derived from the work of historian E. P. Thompson and the relations between commodity and gift economies as envisioned most notably by philosopher Lewis Hyde. Both of these models suggest ways that economic relations are shaped, at least in part, by social and moral understandings between the participating parties, aspects which often get dropped out of popular representations of debates about who “owns” media content and who should be “paid” for creative “labor.”

      What Is Web 2.0?

      The idea of Web 2.0 was introduced at a 2004 conference of the O’Reilly Media Group. In Tim O’Reilly’s formulation, Web 2.0 companies rely on the Internet as the platform for promoting, distributing, and refining their products: treating software as a service designed to run across multiple devices, relying on data as the “killer app,” and harnessing the “collective intelligence” of a network of users (O’Reilly 2005). Since Web 2.0’s introduction, it has become the cultural logic for e-business—a set of corporate practices that seek to capture and exploit participatory culture.

      More than “pasting a new user interface onto an old application” (Musser et al. 2006, 3), Web 2.0 represents a reorganization of the relations between producers and their audiences in a maturing Internet market, as well as a set of approaches adopted by companies seeking to harness mass creativity, collectivism, and peer production (Van Dijck and Nieborg 2009). The emerging business superstars in this category have promised users greater influence over