Hollywoodisation

Globalisation is evident in many aspects, especially in film and television. American films made in Hollywood and films produced in Asia are crossing paths. Hollywood has been operating since around 1910 ( Klein, C 2004 pg. 361) but since the 1980’s it has been globalizing and striking a relationship with Asian markets (Klein, C 2004 pg. 361). ‘Hollywoodisation’ is the concept that Asian film industries are adopting many aspects from American film culture and integrating them into their own. It could be argued that a reason this is occurring is the pure domination of Hollywood films across the globe.

 There are different forms of non-western entertainment sources that have been Hollywoodised, the hit song ‘Gangnam Style’ by Korean artist Psy was a worldwide hit. Anime is a form of Japanese cartoon and is an example of how Asian entertainment can be Hollywoodised, the television show ‘Pokemon’ was huge around 10 years ago in Australia and the subsequent Gameboy games were also incredibly popular.

American film companies such as Miramax, highlight how Hollywoodisation works, they modify the movies by “dubbing them, editing them, altering dialogue, changing titles and creating new soundtracks” (Klein, C 2004, pg. 371-372). This shows how American companies feel the need to alter films to adapt to differing audiences.

Reference:
Klein, Christina 2004, ‘Martial arts and globalisation of US and Asian film industries’, Comparative America Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 360-384.

Specular Economy

The ‘specular economy’, is something that can define how people are becoming more conscious of how they appear and how they present themselves as well as how others perceive them (Marshall 2010 pg. 498). This phenomenon is now evident through social networking sites and across other various forms of interactive media via the Internet. 

Facebook is a great example of how the ‘specular economy’ works due to the fact that people upload photos of themselves onto Facebook for everyone to see. A social networking site such as Facebook “means that we are inhabiting spaces where we are not only on display but we think about our mediated construction of ourselves sometimes continuously” (Marshall 2010 pg. 499). For the most part, they will be good photo’s, much time and care would have gone into selecting the photo’s that represent you in the best manner. 

The idea of the ‘specular economy’ can also be used against someone. Uploading photos of people who don’t look good such as wearing hideous clothing or pulling a face can impact that individuals ‘specular economy’ as they will be worried as to how others perceive them. 

           source: http://www.thisblogrules.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/The-Car-Picture-Meme.png

My Facebook account has some shocking photo’s of me, but I keep them there, partly due to the fact that I may be judged for removing them knowing that they are bad photo’s. People have an identity on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the things you say and the photo’s you upload say something about you, and the ‘specular economy’ suggests that people are conscious of this and therefore select what material is uploaded as they worry about what others may perceive of them.

Reference:

Marshall, D 2010, The Specular Economy, Symposium: Celebrity Around The World.

Participatory media cultures

Computer games are a huge part of entertainment in today’s society, there are millions of people across the world who play online games, they have a virtual world to run around in and control their own avatar. There are also games such as Grand Theft Auto, a game in which players are able to explore massive gameplay maps and complete missions or just roam around.

 Games are apart of digital media and there are some aspects that must be considered when discussing computer games as a digital media. These include, multimediality, virtuality, interactivity and connectivity (Raessen 2005 pg. 374). A game such as Grand Theft Auto emerges itself into all of these categories. 

These categories can also be applied to non gaming forms of digital media such as Facebook. For some, Facebook can be a virtual world, the amount of time some people spend on it is worrying, the fact that they can communicate via the internet with their friends therefore means they forgo actually seeing them. Facebook allows you to interact with many people, some you don’t ever see anymore, or even those people who you have actually never met. It is easy to gain an insight into someone’s life just by looking at their Facebook profile. ‘Liking’ a photo or a status of some kid you used to go to school with is the norm, apparently its also a way of letting someone know you think they’re attractive. Hearing my sister shriek with excitement when a boy ‘likes’ her photo is an example of this, but thanks to the interactive world of Facebook I can then see who this boy is. 

                                   source: http://isatv.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Facebook-Stalker3.jpeg

Reference: 

Raessens, J 2005, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture’, Handbook of computer game studies 2005, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp. 373-388