Protecting Intellectual Property Online

Ever had a great idea but had no idea how to bring it to life? It can seem like a momentous effort to get funding to even get your idea off the ground. The sheer cost involved in developing an idea has meant that individuals are often forced to sell their idea to a major company to bring them to life. Though the individual does gain some money for their idea, it rarely reflects what the company earns from that idea and they usually lose ownership of the original idea. However, new production channels, made possible through the internet and other new media, are changing this in favour of amateur developers.

With the development of the Internet there has been speculation that individuals and amateurs my have greater control over their ideas and be able to develop and distribute it themselves. Indeed the developers of the Internet, notably Tim Berners-Lee, originally perceived that it should be a democratic medium (Hartley 2002). The greater levels of interactive communication available through Web 2.0, combined with increases in design software, have allowed for the development of websites that act as an online market place and production chain.

Sites such as ponoko.com allow users to design their own products, have them manufactured, and then sell them online. This allows amateur producers to create and distribute their own goods much more cheaply than they had been able to previously.

The new models of manufacture and distribution made accessible to amateurs through the Internet have allowed for a thriving industry based on the ideas of everyday citizens and amateur producers. This is not to say that current big businesses won’t remain dominant. They have bigger budgets, better research, and more resources. Amateur produced goods cannot be expected to compete at the level that big brands dominate.

With the power still remaining in the hands of the big companies, there is a big issue with protecting the ideas of amateur producers online. Amateur producers that develop their goods through the online manufacture and distribution channels need to make sure that their intellectual property.

Big companies  monitor trends in amateur production. This is prevalent in many industries including news media and most forms of consumer goods. Companies mine information from social media in order to identify trends that they can capitalise on. Companies are now also looking at these amateur produced goods and have the ability to copy elements of the design or to patent the design in order to earn maximum profit.

So can people protect their intellectual property online?

There are a number of options. This first step many amateur producers should consider is to seek a patent for any new, novel, or original idea. This gives them legal ownership over their idea. Amateur producers should also consider using the creative commons licensing system. This is a system of online rules and regulations which determine how ideas, products, and information can be used online. This allows individuals to set the level of ownership over their work.

Again NME would like to hear your opinion. Is it necessary for amateurs to take measures to protect their ideas online? If so, what do you believe is the best methods of protection?

References

Hartley, J. 2002. ‘Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. Third Edition’. Routledge. New York, United States of America.

Images From:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/monana7/324669781/in/pool-ccswagcontest06/

Shifting Role of Advertising Agencies as Amateurs Play Bigger Role

Many bloggers have suggested that amateur content, through produsage, is replacing the role of professionals in many industries. While it is the case that the increases in information and communication technologies has allowed for greater participation from citizens in media production; it is important to stress that amateur produced content has not replaced the role of professionals. It does however have an effect on the role of many professionals as can be seen by examining the advertising industry. Produsage is being increasingly used in advertising in both positive and negative brand statements.

The Doritos, ‘You Make It – We Play It’ campaign is a good example of elements of produsage being used to create positive advertising for a brand. The concept of the competition was developed by an advertising agency. Though it encouraged the use of produsage based content it was still governed by an agency. This draws parallels with other forms of advertising, particularly testimonial advertising where agencies have for a long time included ‘real people’ in advertising. The idea of these forms of advertising is to use ‘real’ people in the advertising in order to make the advertising seem more relevant and believable to the public. Of course companies almost always pay the person to promote their product. The Doritos campaign is very similar, offering a prize to the person who can create the best advertisement for Doritos. Obviously with Doritos adjudicating the winner there is incentive to make sure the advertisement is genuinely supporting Doritos in order to win the money; essentially they are paying ‘real’ people to promote their product similar to testimonial advertising. In short, the Doritos campaign has used old advertising techniques in a relatively new way. Hartley (2002) describes this trend of new media technologies and their by products reflecting the traits and characteristics of their old media predecessors as ‘rearviewmirrorism’.

Some forms of citizen advertising are aimed to to attack brands and counter claims made in advertising.  These have been more easily distributed via sites such as youtube.com as well as dedicated anti-brand. These forms of produser driven anti-brand sentiment need to be monitored by companies in order to protect their brand image and reputation.

Sites such as notgoodenough.org are used by disgruntled customers to spread negative word of mouth. Companies need to monitor and respond to negative word of mouth in order to protect brand equity.

The role of advertising agencies is certainly changing with increases in information and communications technologies and with increased access to the Internet. Advertising agencies should adopt a new role of monitoring and directing feedback on new products. This involves a more integrated approach to advertising, public relations, and marketing. Kevin Roberts, as CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide, established this approach within his agency, changing it from an advertising agency to an ideas company (Roberts 2004). The concept of an ideas company implies a more integrated approach that would include the directing, monitoring, and encouraging on-brand produsage based advertising. This involves using public relations techniques to manage prodused content that is off brand or deliberately malicious against a brand. It is likely that this trend will continue and many more agencies will switch to a more integrated approach.

Reference List:

Hartley, J. 2002. ‘Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. Third Edition’. Routledge. New York, United States of America.

Roberts, K. 2004. ‘Lovemarks: the future beyond branding’. Murdoch Books, Australia.

Meritocracy Management: Maintaining Quality on Open Community Websites

The Internet has long been promoted as a medium that provides “access, diversity and democratic communication” (Hartley 2002, 123-125, Berners-Lee 2000). Recent developments in Internet technology have allowed for greater levels of interactivity between the user and the content which they are accessing. Users are now able to contribute to the medium they are using by developing content and . Bruns (2008 [1]) has described users who engage in content production as ‘produsers’.

These produsers have become the driving force behind the many community or collaboratively designed websites, such as Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s content is created and monitored by its users, who all have equal rights to contribute regardless of their academic qualifications. There are, however, inherent problems that will arise if everyone has equal rights and access to publish information on community websites. A successful website needs to provide its users with a useful resource in order to remain viable and profitable. Community websites need to establish a system of governance to ensure that the site is a quality resource.

Without a clearly identified form of management, collaboratively developed websites need a different form of governance.

Many collaboratively developed or social media sites apply Shirky’s (2003, and cited in Bruns 2008 [2]) principle of prioritising participation in a website beyond the need for quality. The reason for this suggestion is that through greater participation in the site more people will view and monitor what is put up on the website. If there are methods of allowing community involvement, even in such simple forms as having the ability to provide ratings and comment functions for content, then these viewers can act as judges of the quality of the content. Eventually what should happen is the development of a of a fairly clear community structure based on meritocracy that will be the base for self governance of the community (Bruns 2008 [2]).

A key issue of Wikipedia is making sure that all people who are contributing to the site are doing so in order to create a valuable resource. Some users of Wikipedia deliberately post wrong information in order to vandalise the website. Sometimes this is done with humorous intentions, other times it has been more malicious. In a professional context it is important to know how to manage online vandalism. This is particularly prominent with sites that advertise products, brands, or people that invoke strong emotions within people; such as with politicians. Many sites are using moderators to check and approve information and deny spam and vandalism. This is an effective measure despite being costly and criticised as being another method of censorship.

Wikipedia also has the issue of trying to remain balanced and neutral in to a wide range of users from diverse cultural and social backgrounds. This creates problems as some users will post information contextualized within their own ideology which appears bias or wrong to people of differing backgrounds. This is an ongoing challenge for Wikipedia as it grows and more users from different countries have access to the Internet. In a professional context, it is important to understand that differences in culture and ideology of readers will impact on how they interpret the messages on your blog.

Reference List:

Berners-Lee, T. 2000. Weaving the Web: The Past, Present, and Future of the World Wide Web by its Inventor. Texere, London.

[1] Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: from Production to Produsage. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. New York; United States of America.

[2] Bruns, A. 2008.Building and Maintaining a Community Space. KCB202 Podcast Week 8. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane; Australia.

(Accessed 04/05/2009 via http://www.slideshare.net/Snurb/building-and-maintaining-a-community-space-kcb202-week-8-podcast-presentation)

Hartley, J. 2002. ‘Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. Third Edition’. Routledge. New York, United States of America.

Shirky, C. (2003). ‘Social Software and the Politics of Groups’.

(Accessed 04/05/2009 via http://shirky.com/writings/group_politics.html)

Images From:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/2137729430/sizes/l/

Gatekeeping on the internet: Walled Garden

A walled garden is a “metaphorical term used to describe strategies employed by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to encourage online users to stay within the confines of their affiliated sites” (Hartley 2002, 235). There are a number of different strategies for influencing internet behaviour that are considered as walled garden strategies.

Firewalls are a form of walled garden established by a network administrator to block certain content deemed unsuitable for the people that are accessing the network or for the place it is being accessed from (Hartley 2002, 235). Firewalls are not as much of an issue in relation to network neutrality as other walled garden strategies as they are most often voluntarily established and only regulate behaviour to comply with legal requirements.

Walled gardens are most often employed as a business strategy to keep customers within a network of affiliated sites in order to gain profit for the service provider. Many companies have implemented this strategy including AOL who’s “walled garden strategy successfully directs their customers to remain within the AOL confines for 85% of their internet usage” (Hartley 2002, 125). This topic is prevalent at the moment as the uptake of mobile phones which can access the internet is increasing and service providers try and encourage users to stay within their own network of services.

Aufderheide (2002) lists a number of strategies employed in the creation of a walled garden including:
• monitoring the controls of information by privileging one provider over another:
• controlling the first screen, or home page, a user encounters;
• controlling the frame around the image;
• monitoring and controlling the speed, amount and kind of data a user sends;
• providing content that discourages users from travelling outside them or even from knowing about other options.

Walled gardens affect network neutrality as they are a method of gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is a term that was initially used to refer to role of traditional news media in controlling the flow of information to the public. (Berkowitz 1997). Traditional news media was able to do this as there were not many other sources of information accessible to the public. The Internet changed this by making large amounts of information accessible to the public, limiting the ability of traditional media sources to control the flow of information. With the internet becoming a dominant source of information in the public sphere, some academics have suggested that the role of the media companies in modern society is that of a gatewatcher who monitors this information and highlights sections that may be relevant to their audience (Bruns 2003). This has led to recent attempts of implementing strategies that allow a company to take on a gatekeeping to be viewed with the more negative connotations of agenda control and censorship.

Walled gardens are contsructed by companies and ISPs to keep users within the confines of their services.

Salzer (1999, cited in Hartley 2002) suggests further anti-competitive methods of gatekeeping in the form of ‘service bundling’. These include:
• ISPs restricting customers from running their own Internet service;
• Limiting the amount of video streaming the customer may use;
• Determining which backbone is in use if they are under contract to a certain carrier (which may slow down user connection speed);
• Filtering data;
• Preventing customers from developing home networks between computer units.

The Internet has a history of being a democratic medium as it was developed through the collaborative, and in some case voluntary, efforts of a number of people. These people are credited with constructing a culture based on “access, diversity and democratic communication” (Hartley 2002, 123-125). The attempts to privatise and monopolise sections of the internet can be seen as a threat on this collaborative and democratic culture. There have been previous attempts to monopolise sections of internet use, notably Microsoft’s inclusion of their own web browser in distributions of their Windows 98 software which was found to contravene the US’s Sherman Antitrust Act as it attempted to monopolise the web browser market (Hartley 2002). This more recent trend of aggressively adversarial, commercial strategies indicates a movement away from the cooperative, open standards ethos that was integral to the development of the internet (Goggin 2000, cited in Hartley 2002).

The issue created by walled gardens and other methods of gatekeeping, is that ISPs can potentially restrict the information that a user can access. This means that they have a high potential to influence, and in extreme cases control, the agenda of the public sphere within these societies.

REFERENCE LIST

Aufderheide, P. 2002. ‘Competition and Commons; The Public Interest, in and after the AOLTW Merger’, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.

Berkowitz, D. 1997. ‘The Social Meanings of News: A Text Reader’. Sage. Thousand Oaks, California.

Bruns, A. 2003. ‘Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy’, Volume 2003, Number 107, May 2003 , pp. 31-44(14)

Hartley, J. 2002. ‘Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. Third Edition’. Routledge. New York, United States of America.

Images From:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anvilon/244006998/sizes/o/

Privacy on Online Social Networking Sites

The rapid uptake of social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook has been well documented. The rise of these sites is seen as a prominent part of the uptake of Web 2.0. These sites create a number of issues related to network neutrality especially in regards to privacy. This post examines the level of privacy for users of online social networks and questions whether the media hype surrounding these websites is justified.

The concept of the moral panic was first employed by Cohen and Young (1980) in studies of deviancy in the media. They argued that the media played an ideological role in contributing to and amplifying the active construction of certain kinds of meaning (Hartley 2002, 147). What this means is that the media plays a large role in constructing and amplifying particular views. In media and communications studies, moral panics are often observed as media hype surrounding the dangers of a new technology. This has been observed throughout recent history, where the existing media has often suggested that new media is bad for society. This is  issue being experienced now where existing media has in part created and amplified the concern that social networking sites are unsafe.

A moral panic exists around privacy on online social websites.

The cause of these concerns is usually related to the level of personl information that some users post on social media sites. As people become more familiar with social networking sites, the information they put online is increasingly of a more personal nature. Hinduja and Patchin (2008) conducted a content analysis on the types of information that adolescents place on their Myspace.com profiles. They found that “8.8% revealed their full name, 57% included a picture, 27.8% listed their school, and 0.3% provided their telephone number” (Hinduja and Patchin 2008). These stats are not as alarming as the moral panic promoted by the media suggests.

This suggests that the hype around the privacy issues of online social networks is little more than a moral panic. There is of course the potential for the information to be exploited by these sites. To achieve network neutrality it is important that users of these websites consider the potentially harmful consequences of putting personal information online. However, as people are socialized to accept the nature of this global public space then people will naturally become savvier with what information to provide to what sites. It is also important that these sites play an active role in informing users of their content license so people understand the exact boundaries of their privacy.

REFERENCE LIST:

Cohen, S, J, Young. 1980. ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers’. Oxford, Blackwell.

Hartley, J. 2002. ‘Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. Third Edition’. Routledge. New York, United States of America.

Hinduja, S, Patchin, J. 2008. “Personal information of adolescents on the Internet: A quantitative content analysis of MySpace”. Journal of Adolescence: Volume 31. 125-146.

Images From:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/publik15/3323715966/sizes/o/

The Digital Divide

Access refers to a number of things including having access to technology and access to information. Rifkin (2000) suggests ‘Access has become the ticket to advancement and personal fulfillment…Access is, after all about distinctions between divisions, about who is to be included and who is to be excluded’. This post examines the existence of a global ‘digital divide’ which exists because a lack of access of technology in some countries, and which in turn creates the issue of a lack of information.

The digital divide, as defined by Hartley (2002), is the ‘stratification of people according to their access to interactive computer-based technologies- on one side, groups and individuals possessing the ability to participate within the network society, and on the other, those who are absent or excluded from it’. The concept of ‘access’ has become paramount in understanding the development of society and indeed even national economies in the New Economy.

There have been numerous suggestions that the economies of developed countries are moving into a new economic era where, unlike the previous manufacturing and goods based economy, the economy will be driven by information, services and other intangible ideas (Hartley 2002). Rifkin (2000) suggests that this new economy will be an ‘age of access’, in which citizens and corporations participate in a global network which allows them access to the intangible information and services that is said to be driving the new economy.

The Internet has allowed for a global network of debate. This has implications for the public sphere. Habermas’ (1996) conceptualised the public sphere as an arena for debate where ideas and information are shared. Therefore the internet, by providing information and facilitating the social aspects of the debate provides the platform for a global arena of debate; or a global public sphere.

The global public sphere is the arena in which global issues are debated and discussed. People and societies who are excluded from this information face serious challenges for their social and economic future which will have serious consequences for their way of life. If a society lacks access to an affordable distribution media outlet, such as the Internet, then ability for alternative views to be published and promoted is limited. Such societies may find their media limited to government owned media, limiting the likelihood of a democratic public sphere.

What responsibility do developed nations have for ensuring developing nations have digital access?

Ideally these countries need access to the Internet to rive their own ideological agenda into the global public sphere. However as many of these countries are struggling to feed their population and provide adequate base level services this has not been a priority. This raises the issue of the obligation of developed countries to identify and raise concerns on the behalf of developing nations and not to exploit their absence in the global arena of debate.

NME would like to hear your thoughts. Do developed nations have an obligation to ensure the agenda of all countries enter the global arena for debate? Do you think this is being achieved now?

REFERENCE LIST

Habermas. 1996. ‘Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy’. MIT Press. Massachusetts.

Hartley, J. 2002. ‘Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. Third Edition’. Routledge. New York, United States of America.

Rifkin, J. 2000. “The Age of Access”. Tarcher Publishing. USA.

Images From:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/2441266284/sizes/l/

Citizen Journalism and a Democratic Public Sphere

Hargreaves (1999, 4) argues that ‘in a democracy, everyone is a journalist. This is because, in a democracy, everyone has the right to communicate a fact or point of view, however trivial, however hideous.’. Citizen Journalism is a growing trend that demonstrates these principles, where citizens, regardless of their journalism credentials, have the opportunity to produce and publish news media from their particular point of view. This post examines the role of the citizen journalist and discuss the implications of the increasing influence of citizen journalism, especially that which is produced and distributed on the Internet, on the public sphere.

The Internet has given more people the ability to perform the role of a citizen journalist by acting as a method of distribution for citizen journalism. Prior the development of the Internet, to publish and distribute news media was a costly process and was inaccessible to the majority of the population (Flew 2008).

Citizen Journalism has had an effect on the flow of information into the public sphere. Habermas (1996, 360) identifies the public sphere as an arena of debate ‘where ideas and information are shared’. In applying Habermas’ conceptualization of the public sphere, the role of journalism is to provide information that can be used to form rational and informed opinions to be debated within the public sphere. Carey (1992) argued that the commercial imperatives of the news media and the need for ‘instant news’ have substantially reduced the viability of claims by traditional media that they are contributing to a democratic public sphere.

Critics of citizen journalism argue that it is more likely to be bias in nature that traditional media sources due to the fact that people contributing to it are not trained journalists (Hopkins 2007). The argument is that many citizen journalists will write in a fashion that is inherently biased as they are not trained to write in an objective manner. Some also argue that professional journalists have a greater understanding of what should be news and that citizen journalism often focuses on more trivial issues (Scanlon 2007).

However, supporters of citizen journalism argue that it assists in creating a more democratic news media in its ability to provide a means to scrutinize and contradict news produced by current media. Traditional media sources held a position of gatekeeper of the information flow to the public. By providing numerous avenues to assess and criticize news information and even produce new news information of their own, citizen journalism can reduce the negative consequences associated with a media gatekeeping monopoly. As McNair (2006, 73) argues ‘it is better from the democratic perspective to have an excess of critical media scrutiny… than a deficit’. Citizen journalism gives members of the public a greater opportunity to influence what information flows into the public sphere, thus producing a more democratic public sphere.

Citizens Journalists have a greater ability to influence the information in public sphere

Many news media companies are now looking at methods to incorporate aspects of citizen journalism into their news. Companies will search through stories written by citizen journalists in order to find popular topics (Scanlon 2007). Professional news media is also including an increased level of user generated content, usually video footage or photos from mobile phones.

Reference List:

Carey, J. 1992. ‘The Intellectuals and the Masses. Faber & Faber’. London.

Flew (2008) New Media: An Introduction. 3rd Edition. Oxford University Press. Victoria, Australia.

Habermas. 1996. ‘Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy’. MIT Press. Massachusetts.

Hargreaves, I. 1999. ‘The Ethical Boundaries of Reporting’, in M. Usngersma, ‘Reporters and the Reported’. Centre for Journalism Stufies, Cardiff, pp. 1-15.

Hartley, J. 2002. ‘Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. Third Edition’. Routledge. New York, United States of America.

Hopkins, M. 2007. ‘Citizen Journalism: Dangerous and Irresponsible’.

(Accessed 29/04/2009 via http://mashable.com/2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/)

McNair, B. 2006. ‘Cultural Chaos: Journalism, News and Power in a Globalised World. Routledge. New York

Scanlon, C. 2007. ‘DIY Journalism is not a real alternative’. The Age Online, 7/05/2007. (Accessed 29/04/2009 via http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/diy-journalism-is-not-a-real-alternative/2007/05/06/1178390134752.html)

Images From

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ikkoskinen/309990286/

Produsage in an Advertising Context

The Internet is considered to be an inherently democratic medium as is allows anyone with access to it the ability to participate in the creation online content, regardless of their social or educational standing. Previous to the Internet, most media allowed only for the broadcast of information. Communication between the media producers and consumers were limited by time and accessibility. Internet and Web 2.0 technologies facilitate instantaneous multi-directional communication and have reduced these limitations allowing for users of the internet to participate in consuming and producing content. Bruns (2008) coined the term ‘produser’ to refer to these people.

Produsage is occurring more frequently in a number of industries. Many have discussed the prevalence of produsage in the area of journalism, creating a new level of production known as citizen journalism. There has also been a trend towards user-generated content in the advertising industry.

There are a large number of people who create their own advertisements and upload them online. The people that make these advertisements come from diverse backgrounds ranging from advertising hobbyists, people protesting against capitalism, and sometimes to people who work (or have worked) in advertising companies. Many of these advertisements are anti-brand statements and aim to disprove or to attack aspects of a brand. Citizen made advertising is popular for the same reasons as citizen journalism; the advertising often comes across as being more relevant and realistic due to its (arguably) less commercial nature.  Advertisers are now looking to how these citizen-advertisers can be used to further their brand’s communications.

Recently, Doritos ran a competition to engage citizen-advertisers to develop their own advertisements for the Doritos products. The concept was to set a prize for the best citizen made advertisement for Doritos. The prize for the winning advertisement, as voted by Doritos, was to have the advertisement aired on prime time television and a large sum of money. The American campaign alone received “Two million hits on the challenge microsite, three-quarters of a million unique users, 2 million video views and around a billion page impressions” (Leggatt 2007). Doritos has subsequently expanded the campaign, hosting separate online competitions in other countries, including Australia. The Doritos campaign is an example of how elements of produsage can be successfully integrated into a professional advertising campaign by providing sufficient incentives to produsers.

Chevrolet’s attempt to draw on user-generated advertising in their campaign for the new Tahoe Sports Utility Vehicle was not as successful. The idea was to get visitors to the website to make their own advertisements using supplied footage of the Tahoe in action. As the vehicle was new to market, most people had never used or even seen it and, as a result, had not developed a strong emotional attachment to the car that may have incentivized making the advertisement. As a result, the Chevrolet Tahoe website became inundated with anti-ads, which displayed the vehicle being used to plunder the environment.

Chevrolet failed to successfully communicate with their target market and motivate them to drive a successful campaign via incentives. The website could have given current Chevrolet users the chance to create an ad that would show why they love their Chevrolet vehicles for a prize of one of the new Tahoe cars for the best video. Targeting the campaign to just those people who already own Chevrolet vehicles would create a stronger, more realistic brand endorsement for the company and also reduce the anti-brand advertisements.

Reference List:

Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: from Production to Produsage. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. New York; United States of America.

Hartley, J. 2002. ‘Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts. Third Edition’. Routledge. New York, United States of America.

Leggatt, H. 2007. ‘Doritos ad campaign draws millions’. BizReport.

(Accessed 20/04/2009 via http://www.bizreport.com/2007/03/doritos_ad_campaign_draws_millions.html)

Images From:

doritos.com.au

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41433660@N00/324825212/sizes/o/

April 29, 2009 Posted by n6373445 | Advertising, New Media | Advertising, citizen advertising,