Tag / classification

by harrietread

Donald Trump Isn’t So Bad

So today, I got into an internet fight on the social media platform Yik Yak.

I love Yik Yak because its like Twitter except way more anonymous, and anonymity allows users to share some of their nuttiest, most controversial or spur-of-the-moment thoughts. I decided to post the other morning about a silly little dream I’d had the night before:

‘i dreamed donald trump coached footy and Richmond beat his team, and then all the other coaches told him to get (*censored*) and everyone laughed at his stupid hair’

I was bored, felt like posting a bit of inane silliness, so I did. The thing about Yik Yak is that it only shows posts within your area, and considering I was in a sheltered, very left-wing part of Hawthorn when I posted it, I figured hey, people might get a laugh out of it.

Then along comes a user that we will call Acorn, in consideration of the icon that they were using at the time.

Acorn criticised my post, saying I was only ‘bagging trump because it’s the “cool thing” to do’ and that I essentially ‘wouldn’t know (*expletive*) about American politics except for that Trump is running.’

I was also encouraged to ‘take a look at his policies, the western world genuinely needs some extreme reforms, whether you are willing to accept it or not.’

So I did.

I went onto donaldjtrump.com and had a look at the things that he is advocating for, and despite what I knew of him previously, I was impressed. The website revealed Trump’s plans for affordable healthcare, tax reform that would help fix the wealth distribution in America and better care for war veterans both physically, socially and economically.

These are just a few things that, frankly, could be good things. If I didn’t know anything about Trump, and I say this lightly, I probably would say that I support him except for that thing about the wall: he wasn’t kidding about that.

So I’d like to thank Acorn personally for encouraging me to go and do my research. I learned a valuable lesson from him: an internet fight that winds up in something that’s akin to two people yelling at eachother with their hands covering their ears is not something productive in this world. I was criticised on social media, and instead of screaming bloody murder at my accuser I decided why not get the front foot on this argument and learned far more than I anticipated.

Tl;Dr

Internet fights are good for you and Donald Trump does say he has some good ideas

by harrietread

My Take on Broadcast and the Post-Broadcast Paradigm

The second half of our lectorial today was about the role and nature of audience in media. Key terms that were discussed were broadcast and post-broadcast.

  • Broadcasting refers to how media is/was distributed to ‘mass audiences,’ mostly via television or radio. Broadcast media included things like the news or generic television shows catering to general demographics i.e. Families
  • Post-Broadcast refers to this idea more specific, niched audiences becoming consumers of media, rather than just simply mass audiences

I was interested in how the change in communication technologies have contributed to the change in how media is received. Distribution of media evolved from from TV broadcasts to online content, changing how audiences could access this content. When this occurred, media creators and practitioners altered their approach to getting audience attention by going online. Now there are platforms like Netflix, Apple TV, Spotify and TIDAL all encouraging the individual nature of consumers.

For instance, in the last decade, the cable network Adult Swim has become increasingly popularised as audiences are able to access their shows (including Rick and Morty, Aqua Hunger Teen Force, Robot Chicken and Family Guy).  The network has further developed itself by producing video games and music. Adult Swim’s penchant for creating mature, adult-oriented content in the form of animations and cartoons has attracted an incredibly tightly niched audience.

Without the formation of online streaming and downloading of media content, the kind of TV, films, music and content being produced would seem more generalised in the hopes of ‘entertaining the masses’ huddled together around the TV in the living room.

by harrietread

My Take on Copyright

Discussing copyright in our lectorial today was like a trip down memory lane back to VCE Studio Art. I’m grateful for having listened in those few Studio Theory classes on copyright, because a lot of what I knew came flooding right back: moral rights and obligations, duration of copyright and fair dealings.

We really only scratched the surface in VCE, and my first impression of the lectorial was a fleeting sense of panic: I immediately thought of any original artistic content, whether it was a drawing when I was 12, a photo series or a film that I’d posted online, and its vulnerability in cyberspace. Even further, what about things I had uploaded with copyrighted content? On YouTube, for instance, I tried to upload videos with a song from the 2007 film Hairspray, and about a week later the sound was muted because I wasn’t allowed to use the song. That, I think, was a fairly decisive but relatively appropriate manner in which to deal with the issue of copyrighted music being unlawfully used; I went on with my business, and forgot about the whole thing until now. In other areas of the internet, lack of understanding and the living, breathing environment of cyberspace makes enforcement of copyright laws nigh impossible except for in rare circumstances. But that is a post for another day.

Until this class, I always thought of copyright laws as being arbitrary. I still believe that to some degree, but now I feel I can respect those laws a little more since I have a better understanding of what is and isn’t allowed. For instance:

  • Ideas are not copyrighted, but content is

An idea can be recycled in anyway shape or form. If someone comes up with an idea for a film, and someone else wants to use that idea in their own ways. They may write different scripts or draw up different storyboards; as long as the actual material content of the films contains certain dissimilarities, everything is cool. It’s only if one of these products either takes content from the original, or replicates it until it is substantially similar, does this become an infringement of copyright. The only instance in which substantial similarities stop being grounds for infringement are when the product is made on the grounds of parody, satire, criticism and review or for educational purposes i.e. for an assignment.

  • Duration of Copyright

This got me a little confused. I remembered from VCE and had my thoughts confirmed that generally, copyright lasts for the remainder of the creator’s life plus 70 years afterward. However, the whole shimozzle regarding how to deal with works created before copyright was created in 1968 got me puzzled. The system of how copyrighted works are classified before 1st May 1969, to me, seems complicated and unusual. Then again, I was only able to see the slide for a brief moment before we moved on.

Copyright was a friendly little blast from the past in today’s lectorial, and I felt pleasantly as though I was eased into it having done Studio Art last year.

by harrietread

Cartoons are Just for Kids

That title probably “triggered” a few people out there so let me defuse the situation first and foremost: You just got clickbaited, without the clicking and redirecting to another page, unless you actually clicked on my blog, in which case: good for you!

Now. Are cartoons JUST for kids? How about we discuss what makes up a “cartoon.” From Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
Cartoon: (noun) A film or television show made by photographing a series of drawings : an animated film or television show

What part of this definition restricts cartoons to children? From this definition, anything made up of a series of drawings could be a cartoon; it could be gory, horrifying, lewd, surreal, anything. So why do we assume that anything that is ‘cartoon’ is something appropriate for children?

Let me elaborate: one of my all time favourite films is Hayao Miyazaki’s anime classic, Princess Mononoke (1997) which I first watched when I was about 9 or 10 years old. At the time, I believed the old “cartoons are for kids” thing, and imagine my astonishment when I saw limbs being lopped off and heads being slashed off at that tender age? It wasn’t until my parents actually checked closely did they realise that this cartoon was rated M15+ – i.e. Big no-no for 10 year old me (sidenote, I knew the whole time what its official rating was. I think the opening scenes with the big wormy boar gave it away; but it was a fantastic film, so sue me right?) Anyway, they decided the damage was done and let me watch it anyway.

Basically, what I am trying to get at here is that parents need to be more aware of a) how to check for and understand media classifications and b) they need to work out what they’re okay with their kids watching and consuming. I’ll also point out that I think I’m fairly liberal with what I believe younger people should and shouldn’t be allowed to consume, within reason. It’s so simple for us to assume at a glance that a cartoon is kid friendly, but the fact is there are so many animated films and television shows out there that parents would never let within 50 feet of their children if they knew what they were getting into; and they’re a click away from us all.

Parents need to be told that classifications aren’t put on movies, cartoons or video games just for decoration; the graphic designers probably hate having to ruin their gorgeous cover art with a little 18+ sticker. I’ve heard too often of kids going into stores like JB Hifi or EB Games etc. with their parents and getting copies of stuff like Princess Mononoke, Deadpool, Dead Space 3 or other media texts with ratings of R18+ simply because we are made to believe too easily that video games, superhero films and animated series are ‘just for kids.’ No, they aren’t all for kids. Check your ratings; it’s not the media company’s fault that parent’s don’t take classification ratings seriously.