Remediation Project - Reflective Essay

My essay outline is basically to discuss the process and aim of my remediation, how changing the text from a TV series to a series of newspaper articles altered the roles of the different media 'actors' that I had identified in assignment one and how the finished product impacted upon the meaning of the text and its reception.

I write about some of the differences between the two mediums of television and newspaper and make reference to McLuhan's concept of "hot" and "cool" media and the challenge of adapting a product made for a medium that is highly collaborative, multi-layered and visceral and successfully remediating it into a medium that is quite singular, independent and focused on information needs rather than entertainment needs.

Remediation Project

Marshall McLuhan - Understanding Media

Published in 1964, McLuhan's well-known study of media theory provides some useful information for my remediation project. Specifically, McLuhan's concept of hot and cool media.

Television is a "cool" medium, requiring greater user participation. The viewer must actively involve all their senses for viewing television is a highly sensory experience. Print media, including newspapers, are what McLuhan referred to as a "hot" medium. Newspapers may offer the user large amounts of information, but at a low sensory level with less user participation required.

One of the major challenges in my remediation was to try and foster a high level of sustained involvement in a medium that is primarily passive. How to adapt a television series into a series of newspaper articles and still maintain user interest? I tried to achieve this by adapting the major storylines from the series that would have an element of sensation and would grab the attention of the reader. I would try to capture with words what the television series would capture with graphic images, dialogue and music.

Engaging Media - Week Seven

Reading for this week...
Alternate reality gaming and the convergence culture: The case of Alias
Henrik Ornebring



Alternate reality gaming (ARGs) - "a form of internet-based mystery game in which participants are immersed in a fictional world and engage in collective problem-solving". There is a group mentaility to this type of gaming with the puzzle being impossible to solve through solo effort.

ARGs are becoming quite common and started with The Beast released in 2001 to coincide with the release of the film A.I. In this article Ornebring focuses on the game associated with the TV series Alias, of which there have been three.

ARGs are an excellent example of cross-media promotion or media convergence - the game feeds off the TV show/film which then also may feed off the success of the game.

Jenkins highlights The Matrix as signalling a shift to more active participation. Old Hollywood relied on redundancy and did not challenge the viewer. New Hollywood requires a greater attention span from the viewer and even the need for the viewer to do research.

Ornebring argues that convergence culture doesn't necessarily dissolve boundaries between media but "creates new opportunities to market a specific text or set of texts...through other texts".

ARGs blur the boundaries between the roles of producer and consumer, creating the prosumer and a more participatory culture.

Ornebring is however, critical of the little attention given to ARGs as marketing tools and examples of viral marketing or buzz marketing. Those critical of ARGs may see them not as new opportunities for interactivity but just as marketing tools to build a brand.

Fan-cultural production - fan fiction, fan videos etc, otherwise seen as kind of "cultural labour". It is highly active and highly engaged consumer culture.

Alias ARGs are examples of both corporate convergence and grassroots convergence as the first two games were prodcued by the corporate media and the other example was produced by fans.

There are differences between the industry-prodcued and fan-produced Alias ARGs, for example the former gave no additional backstory whereas the latter focused strongly on backstory. However, Ornebring believes that "despite their differences, commercial and non-commercial ARGs based on existing media properties still follow a similar logic of fan consumption". They perform the same cultural function - "extending the narrative of an existing media property in ways that conform to corporate goals of marketing and brand-building
as well as fan audiences’ goals of pleasurable consumption."

Engaging Media - Week Six

Readings for this week...
Recovering Fair Use - Steve Collins
Boulevard of Broken Songs - Em McEvan

Well I’ve been discovering the world of mash-ups since reading the Boulevard of Broken Songs and can see how people get sucked into spending large amounts of time cruising YouTube.

I would agree with the comment that “mash-up artists take a common popular culture and appropriate it for their own desires and creative impulses” and this really appeals to me. I would also highlight how mash-ups are quite often used for satirical purposes or as a social commentary tool. My brother-in-law drew my attention to the enormous number of mash-ups on YouTube based around the 2004 German film Downfall, a film about Adolf Hitler’s last days. There are a number of mash-ups that take this film as their basis and apply modern-day political events and characters including British PM Gordon Brown, US President Barack Obama and the European Elections. I particularly like one that takes a terrific scene from Downfall and re-writes the subtitles to portray Gordon Brown’s reaction to a disastrous election result in Glasgow - my brother-in-law is from Glasgow so he was very keen to show me this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4n--IXg6HY - Not for kids. Very bad language in this one.

I just really like the creative practice of combining different elements to produce something unexpected or something with a deeper commentary. I guess mash-ups are a perfect example of Web 2.0 technologies at work and the essential Web 2.0 philosophy of enhanced creativity and collaboration and the development of web-based communities and social networking tools.

I quite liked this blog that I found when I was doing a little more reading on the subject -
The Synthetic Librarian -http://syntheticlibrarian.com/2009/07/30/mashup-sharing-little-mashups-have-big-value-when-you-share-them-like-social-media

Obviously the subject ties in well with our other reading for the week Recovering Fair Use. Mash-ups are clearly a great example of prosumerism at work. Copyright and the concept of fair use have always been difficult areas but the rise of Web 2.0 and associated technologies are obviously taking the issue to a completely new level. The laws involving this sort of user-generated content must be complex and undoubtedly need to evolve to keep pace with the popularity of the technology. There has to be some protection but I tend to agree with the idea that Collins puts forward “that an overly strict copyright regime unbalanced by an equally prevalent fair use doctrine is dangerous to creativity, innovation, culture and democracy”.

Week 4 Activity - Example of a highly interactive media text

My example came to mind when I was hanging out with my kids today. They really enjoy watching a number of shows on the ABC and are often looking for other ways to interact with the shows and characters. With this in mind, some time back I visited the ABC Kids website, in particular the sub-site called The Playground. I think it’s a great example of taking one form of media, kids TV programs in this case, and developing so much more from it in a creative and educational online format that is highly interactive. Although I know there is obviously a promotional aspect to its creation.

I think it is particularly clever as it is quite sophisticated in style but also manages to cater very well to a young audience. Kids are encouraged to engage with their favourite programs and characters online by listening to audio books, playing board games, solving puzzles, downloading colouring-in sheets etc. I also really like the Playground Radio application that allows them to listen to their favourite kiddie tunes.

Older kids can move on to The Rollercoaster sub-site that includes similar interactive tools but also exposes them to some more sophisticated concepts such as blogging and creating podcasts.

For adults the website is a great interactive tool with program schedules and information and printable art & craft sheets to recreate the projects seen on the TV programs.

ABC Kids The Playground - http://www.abc.net.au/children/

ABC The Rollercoaster - http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/

Australian Children’s Transmedia Storytelling - case study of the ABC Kids website - http://childrenstransmedia.wikia.com/wiki/Case_study:_ABC_Kids_TV_online

Engaging Media - Week Four

The first reading for this week...

The Blockbuster and the Hollywood Economy by Marco Cucco

So what is a blockbuster?

• High production costs


• Good returns (well if all goes according to plan...don't mention Waterworld)


• Use of advanced technology - helps to differentiate the product from TV productions


• Big dollars spent on promotion


• Intended to be a transnational product that can work on a global scale


• "born from US popular culture and their target is the mass public, with few artistic-expressive expectations" (p. 218, 2009)


• Exists for commercial purposes rather than artistic ones


• Needs a simple & immediately recognisable identity - not intended to be a product the consumer will think too deeply about


• Designed around public taste and market research


• Ability to feed off itself in the form of spin-off merchandise


• Relies upon "saturation booking" of cinema screens, particularly during opening weekend at box office - slightly devious intention here of reaching as many viewers as possible before word-of-mouth spreads


• Least appealing type of film to critics


• Rely on star power to get bums on seats

First real modern blockbuster considered to be Jaws in 1975. An increasing number of blockbusters are produced each year, although production can be significantly impacted by events such as the Writer's Guild of America strike and the Global Financial Crisis. It is worth noting though that many of the highest grossing films of all time were released many decades ago (box office takings adjusted for inflation) including...

Assignment One - Identifying Media Actors

A number of key players contribute to a television series including producers, broadcasters, writers, directors and actors. Additionally, more subtle elements are involved including music, costume, editing, set design and the physical locations used. Finally, external components keep a series alive, including the promotional apparatus, audience, critics and additional spin-off media and merchandise. As an episodic television drama, Dexter relies upon all these components.

Dexter was adapted from a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay revolving around the character of Dexter Morgan. By day Dexter is a forensic investigator with the Miami Metropolitan Police Department and by night, a “likeable vigilante serial killer” (Friend, 2006). A critical driving force for the character development of the series is the notion of good versus evil both in terms of Dexter versus the criminals and good Dexter versus evil Dexter.

Executive producers Sara Colleton, John Goldwyn and Clyde Phillips took the concepts and characters from the novels with a view of remediating them for the small screen (Dexter Wiki, 2009). It is their role to take ultimate responsibility for shaping the overall product and they are involved to some degree with all aspects of the series.

The producers approached American cable television network Showtime Entertainment, a subsidiary of the CBS Corporation, to broadcast and distribute the series. The pilot episode was screened in October 2006 (Showtime Entertainment, 2009). The network’s reputation and global presence has resulted in the distribution of Dexter to many international markets. Unusually, CBS has also adapted the series for a primetime audience, screening a highly-edited version on their free-to-air network in America.

The series relies upon a group of writers to produce each screenplay. Their task is difficult; to produce an entertaining story that balances quite macabre material and to take the character of a serial killer and humanise what has previously “been marginalised and made two-dimensional” (Showtime Entertainment, 2009).

A small group is responsible for the direction of each screenplay. The director exercises a large degree of creative control over the production, liaising with actors, camera and lighting crews amongst others to create an end product.
A principal cast of actors and numerous guest actors are responsible for breathing life into each episode of Dexter, appearing in both ongoing roles and single episodes. Interestingly only the lead actor, Michael C. Hall, was well-known before Dexter. It was not a series sold on the strength of celebrity.

Geography is imperative to the feel of this series. Dexter takes place in the city of Miami with well-known landmarks such as Little Havana serving as settings. As a consequence, there is a strong representation of Cuban-American culture. Several key characters are of Cuban descent and Spanish is widely spoken throughout the series. Much is also made of Miami’s weather and comparisons are drawn between Dexter’s internal struggles and the searing heat and violent tropical storms of the Florida coast.

Dexter relies upon an audience to remain viable and has benefited enormously from widespread publicity, critical acclaim and an active fan base. The latter has resulted in further remediation, developing the series into an online presence through wikis and fan forums that build a cultural life for the series. These factors have contributed significantly to an ongoing audience interest in the product and ultimately a very successful television series.




Dexter Wiki. (2009)
Retrieved August 11, 2009 from http://dexterwiki.sho.com/

Friend, T. (2006) Killer serial: the creepy appeal of Dexter in The New Yorker.
Retrieved August 13, 2009 from
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/20/061120crte_television

Showtime Entertainment. (2009) Showtime official website.
Retrieved August 11, 2009 from http://www.sho.com/site/index.html