Networks used to be built, owned, and controlled by media conglomerates and were synonymous with single brands: ABC, NBC, CBS, then later, PBS, MTV, HBO and Showtime. These networks produced shows and viewers consumed them. It was really as simple as that. Some, like Nickelodeon and MTV, became branded as networks appealing to a particular demographic. In the 80s and early 90s, for example, Nickelodeon was the primary single destination for kids, as MTV was for teenagers.
All this has changed with the rise of networked culture. In the world of networked culture networks aren’t built and owned by mega corporations but are developed by tech savvy young people like those who started MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, networks that aren’t commercial but social. And the network doesn’t just consist of one of these sites but is made up of all of them. We put together our own networks on sites like Facebook and through the browser bookmarks we collect. When I look at the tabs running along the top of my browser I see “My Sites” which contains all of the sites I’ve created and those I subscribe to (from Blogspot to Netflix to Flickr and YouTube). I see a “News” tab, a “Shop” tab, an “Entertainment” tab, a “Travel” tab, a “Politics” tab, a “Blogs” tab, and so on. These tabs, collectively, constitute my network. It’s a network I’ve constructed and control. It connects me to other users who share my interests and keeps me up-to-date and entertained in the ways I want.
This transformation from a world of corporate networks to user networks is characteristic of the world of convergence Henry Jenkins writes about in Convergence Culture. The nature of the changes he’s writing about are dramatized in an article in today’s business section of New York Times about how, in a multi-device, multi-platform, multi-channel world of online convergence 16-year olds have stopped flocking to the MTV network and have started building and programming their own networks. As a result, the article reports, MTV “has suffered a decline in ratings and cultural cachet.” MTV was a brand with an edge until “competition for its core demographic started coming from all fronts, from video games and social-networking Web sites to amateur clips on YouTube.” Now “consumers come up with their own reality narratives” and have, in effect, taken over the means of production. And the old networks are struggling to respond along the lines outlined by Jenkins. The article quotes Christina Norman, MTV’s president, as saying that “It’s true that our viewers are telling us that they want an experience beyond linear television . . . MTV has a history surrounding the consumer with both long-form and interstitial content, and I think we can deliver on a two-way relationship with our audience.”
How far behind the times can you get? As Jenkins makes clear, shows like “Survivor” and “American Idol” have been delivering on this two-way relationship for a long time, and one wonders why it took MTV so long to figure out it had to catch up. Interactive programming is clearly the wave of the future for television, but is it a future already killed off by online networks? Check out the article.
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Correct me if I'm wrong... but isn't MTV the father of the reality show? Before "Survivor" or "American Idol" existed MTV had shows like "The Real World" and "Road Rules" both TV shows about 20 something year olds who are forced to live together and go through extreme emotional situations and physical challenges. And I would be interested to see what MTV's demographic group is like compared to Survivor's 30+ year old contestants. My guess is that things like "spoilers" wouldn't be of such great interest to 16 year olds who's biggest concern is what Britney and Paris are wearing. Again, who is this networked public culture? Jenkins suggests that the culture consists of college educated, white men. Is MTV going to start catering to this group in order to bring in fans? I don't think that MTV's problem is so much lack of interactive television as it is their programming in general. "My Sweet Sixteen" for example is a reality show about no-name rich snobby kids who throw big birthday bashes to stick it to their less fortunate friends. I think that we give too much weight to this networked public culture in this instance. I would have trouble believing that the average high-school kid cares about interacting with their favorite television show. They want to zone out when they watch TV...like we all did. But what kid can relate to overweight over the hill former B-list celebrities who want to loose weight "Celebrity Fit Club" or worse, "Tiara Girls" which is a reality show about girls who are obsessed with entering beauty pageants. Their programming is stale... pure and simple.
Maybe, as Julia mentioned last week, the way forward for some television networks is backward - The Tube, a new network on digital television, seems to be doing quite well with a format that shows music videos and only music videos, with 6 minutes of advertising an hour. No interaction, no reality shows, no faux-emo indie geek hosting the day's top ten.
On the other hand, a network like fuse seems to be attempting an opposite move with its show "Pants Off Dance Off" (if you haven't seen it, you probably don't want to) - a show where "regular" people perform a non-nude striptease while a music video plays in the background. It's a contest, so viewers can text in their vote for the winner, and are told at the end of the show that they can go to the fuse website to see the fully nude version (don't worry, it's pixelated).
I don't know that either of these methods is the best way to ensure viewers, but I think it's interesting to note the range available for music television programming (if that's what MTV is interested in at all anymore).
Yeah, call me a granny, but it sure would be nice to see some more music videos on M(stands for music!)TV and less My Sweet Sixteen. Sigh. Perhaps this is part of MTV's bind: what are they selling me? Music? Reality TV? Game Shows? I don't even really know anymore.
Of course, me being a granny may be the other part of the problem. I may have a rather nostalgic (c. 1995) dream of what MTV should be and what kind of culture it participates in/fosters. But there's now a generation of MTVers who don't have those purist music video expectations anymore.
Erin poses the right question- who is the audience? Me? SuzieQ16yrold? Networked public culture is comprised of smaller networked public cultures, meaning that myself, a retiree in Florida, and the junior high student in Ohio may be watching AskANinja (my dad loves it) or working on a spoiler. We, the consuming public, are no longer easily cut up into simply described bits. All the more reason why we reach out to a media less capable of defining us, and therefore less capable of addressing us, and prod it into doing our bidding. If we can.
What I find interesting is the number of different music television stations. For example my parents have digital cable with something like 300+ stations. They can view MTVX the only metal and rock MTV, VhI Classic with only music from the 60s and 70s, and a plethora of other MTV/VhI channels that cater to a specific segment of the market. It seems like the variety of music is so great that we cannot contain it all on one channel. Although as per Julia's post, it's not like MTV even plays music anymore.
I was intrigued at the, well, convergence of Cindy's understandable confusion about just what's being commodified in the world of transmedia story-telling, and Julia's question about MTV: "what are they selling me? Music? Reality TV? Game Shows? I don't even really know anymore." How intangible has the commodity in contemporary culture (networked and otherwise) become, and does this intangibility suggest a loss of control by marketers or a new level of marketing saavy? Erin's of course right that MTV's "Real World" started the reality TV thing, but haven't they lost control of the franchise, and just at the point where it's become interactive? Apropos of the points Allison makes, perhaps we're in an age characterized as much by fragmentation as convergence, where new platforms, franchises, and forms of story telling emerge at the same time that old ones persist and try to reconsolidate their power.
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