Jenkins Intro/Chapter 4/Project Progress

 Jenkins Introduction and Chapter 4 

Henry Jenkins is an American Media Scholar and Professor of Communication, Cinematic Arts,and Journalism at USC. He recieved his PHd in Communication Arts at UWM. Jenkins focuses on how individuals in contemporary culture combine numerous different media sources. He suggests that media convergence be understood as a cultural process, rather than technologically. Jenkins research also includes the field of video game studies.
Convergence culture is “where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways”,  as well as the relationship between three concepts-media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence.(2). Overall, Media convergence is a world where all worlds (technological, social, cultural) collide and can be explored by all. It is shaped by peoples differing perspectives and unique experiences to various media, melted together by both grassroots and mainstream media sources. Convergence also alters the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres, and audiences. Jenkins states that it is our participatory nature that keeps media convergence alive. Through the use if colective intelligence we are able to create new ideas out of old and reworked concepts, so the continuation of these concepts can be reworked into even more creative and new ideologies. Jenkins warns of the dangers of media convergence moving to quickly, stating “ old paradigms are breaking down faster than the newones are emerging”. Moving to quickly doesn’t give time for reflection on the current state of media technology and dismantles companies before they get a chance to fully develop.  Jenkins specifically discusses how the delivery system of media is converging and convergence elements are both compatiable and  mismatched socially, culturally, and physically.
Overall, Jenkins’s perspective can be stated in this paragraph, “We are entering an era of prolonged transition and transformation in the way media operates. Convergence describes the process by which we will sort through those options. There will be no magical black box that puts everything in order again. Media producers will only find their way through their current problems by renegotiating their relationship with their consumers. Audiences, empowered
by these new technologies, occupying a space at the intersection between old and new media, are demanding the right to participate within the culture”.
In Chapter 4 Jenkins uses Star Wars as an example of media convergence and advancement. Star Wars is a great example of media convergence and exemplifies the ideology of a participatory culture. Without the Star Wars participatory culture, the legend of Star Wars would not exist. The way Star Wars fans intereact with movie is very diverse. Fans re-create and parody movies on the internet , are inspired to produce new media based on the movie, hold conventions, and have developed a collector’s market that thrives in-store and through the internet. Through the use of the internet visibility of fan culture is more prominent than ever  (131).
Chapter 4 restates that the current moment of media change is reaffirming the right of everyday people to actively contribute to their culture, a culture that encourages broad participation (shaped by socio-cultural protocols), grassroots creativity, and a bartering or gift economy. Everyone's a participant but participants may have different degrees of status and influence.
When it comes to dealing with the intersection between corporate and grassroots modes of convergence,neither produces or consumers will the have answers. 
Jenkins says consumers can achieve balance by accepting and actively promoting some basic distinctions between media. Media producers can gain greater loyalty and more compliance to legitimate concerns if they court the allegiance of fans. Future media will be place more emphasis on the consumer than ever before thus the participatory nature of the consumer is essential for the thiving of media. To me this means we will be in control of the content we are marketed by how we respond to it, this can have both negative and positive consequences.
        Overall, Jenkins looks at DIY craft as an essential aspect of participatory culture, he encourages it yet warns of both the negative and positive aspects it has on culture, society, the consumer and big business. 

Midterm Project Progress

So, I have been making slow but steady progress with my project. The most I have accomplished so far is the gathering of materials. The other day I went to Michaels Craft Store and purchased meltable glycerine as well as shea butter soap. I added a new scent, “Pearberry”, to my collection of scents and picked out sum soft glitter for my soap. I also stopped by American Science and Surplus (cafty odds n ends type store) and picked out some glass bottles and soap molds. I still am working on picking out the exact recipes I want to use, I have few ideas but want to do some more research. 

Wendell/Fasenfast Writings

          Wendell Berry, is a man of many talents. He is a farmer, poet, activist, and critic, known for his many writings on sustainability and resourcefulness in the natural world. In this essay he proposes that agriculture shouldn't be dealt with as an industry. Berry focuses on the fact that we treat agriculture as an “industry” where the materials that are non living versus a true agricultural perspective where we are dealing with living and breathing things . Berry states that farmers who don’t farm on the basis of just making money are more nurturing, and are less likely to rape the land of its resources (industry).  Agricultural farms are workplaces and homes, so things are cared for with greater detail, thus farming for agriculture serves purpose and has a direct connection to the farmer, and  serves as the farmers craft. Berry denies the perspective that the soul purpose of agriculture should be to export and make money, and believes growing for consumption as well as sustainability (food, shelter, fuel etc). Berry believe agricultural farming helps diversify local farming, increase local employment,  and is environmentally friendly (125).
We cannot see the true value of agriculture in a free market because agricultural productivity has no direct or stable relation to value (126), which he blamed on the fact that humans live artificially. The American market is also hard to work in as the costs and loss of agriculture are constantly overlooked and the price to run a farm at the governments rate are pricey. Good American farmers are thrifty and that is how production and money are made. Berry states a common misconception of the agri-business is that there are too many farms, an ideology I am unfamiliar with and can’t really explain.  Farmers are constantly being driven towards industry which results in the loss of handwork. Also there is the belief that that farm work is often mislabeling as hard unrewarding work, which effects the ideology that agriculture has to be co-dependent on industry.
Overall Berry stresses less emphasis on agriculture as a industrial and capitalistic process. He encourages people to  look at the multidimensional resourcefulness of agriculture, “from the topsoil to the dinner table and beyond”, to encourage sustainability and survival.  He wasn’t specific on what political movements have formed his ideologies but did compare farming our current way of farming to how commercial farms were established in communist Soviet Union.


Harriet Fasenfast was Born and raised in the Bronx, but now resides in Oregon. she is a firm believer in the economic resourcefulness of using the qualities of the garden within the home. She teaches classes on food preservation and organic home economics at place called Preserve and and is a published author inspired by the works of Berry Wendell. Her book, householders guide to the universe, is a cookbook based on resource and sustainability. This book was formed when her small business was forced to make changes due to the globalization of the American work market. As a result she was forced to be a multi-faceted preserver and found a new home in the natural world more than the industrial. Fasenfast is a firm believer that the earth calls the shots, thus if the earth is sick we will all suffer in one way or another. She believes we are all being fooled by an market based economy. From her works and beliefs she redefines the term “householding”, stating, “Householding is in form and function the foundation for a home-based economy because it is in our homes, gardens, and Communities that the work needs to be done” .  Overall, Fasenfast promotes a move away from a consumer culture and toward a culture of producers.  It is a reclaiming of skills that were once common among people who lived in simpler times.
I feel that both Wendell and Fasenfast are really inspiring and offer a new ideology that everyone should take into consideration. Both uphold my ideas on resource and sustainability and offer more inspiration for the foundation of my project. I look forward to reading more from both since I’m feeling the need to move away from the ideology of large scale consumerism and globalization. 

In class writing reflection for 2/28

I see my craft as a form of Craftivism with nostalgic undertones. Since I'v decided to make home made beauty products, I see that as an opposition to large corporate consumerism, especially since it emmanates the ideals of sustainability and resourcefulness. I see my craft as re-romanticizing the good ole days where women's beauty products and remedies originated from nature, the garden, or the kitchen. For example: Bathing in buttermilk was supposed to keep skin fair. I also see this form of craft as idealizing the present day green and eco-friendly movements.

LOLCAT

Greer/Black/Burisch

Greer

Betsy Greer is  fellow crafter and activist. She has a masters in Sociology. Her master's dissertation was on knitting, DIY culture and community development. She writes about craftivism,* craft, creativity, the positive side of activism, the squirmy chaos of identity, the psychological ick of war, among other things. Sometimes, however, she writes about all those things at once.(craftivism.com)

Greer discusses how she wanted to create her own mark in the crafting world, specifically through knitting. Knitting started out as as simple to do project for her but spawned into activism, when she delved into the meditative state of knitting. Specifically during the times after September 11th and the Iraqi/Afghan Wars she and many others found themselves filled with anger and frustration which fueled her need to be more creative. She found the need to protest, but not in the conventional way.  Her goal became to meld craft and activism together, but with positive conotations. During this period Greer creates a term called craftivism, which is a visual form of activism, through the use of a craft, that isn’t sign holding and marching. Greer learns to realize her definition of craftivism once shared with everyone is intangible and varies depending on the user. Overall craftivism is a reminder she can always make a change in the world, even if its small. Some of the assumptions Greer makes about her readers are that they will use the term craftivism incorrectly. I feel she at times undermines her own work “referring to it as a small way” of making change. It is ironic that knitting and activism would cross paths yet the visual and physical impact it has had on the world seems more massive than even what she predicted. 

Black and Burisch 

Anthea Black and Nicole Burisch who are Canadian artists and fellow craftivists. Both are active within the coomunity and put a strong emphasis on crafting and protest with unity. Black however, is more involved with the LGBTQ arts community versus Burisch who is more involved with the cultrual and academic aspects of the crafting community. Overall this essay was a more elaborate explanation of how crafting and culture work within the community, versus the personal experience, Greer gave us. 

The LOLCAT experience with Photoshop. 

Since I’m still playing catch up with all the work, I have yet to make an LoLCat. However I have and did dabble in photoshop on February 28th. Editing and creating through photoshop is a relatively new experience, as is creating my own personal beauty products outside of soap. The motions of the hands brings on a feeling of frustration yet positive production of completeing and working on a new task. I will be producing and lolcat today. 

Cox/Minahan

STELLA MINAHAN 

- a Senior Research Fellow at Deakin University.

Her research focus is organization change and consumer behaviour. 

She is published in Organization, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Culture

and Organization, Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society and co-authored a

research book Why Women Shop.

JULIE WOLFRAM COX 

- holds the Chair in Management at Deakin University.

- Her research interests include critical and aesthetic perspectives on organization

theory and change. 

- is an associate editor for Qualitative Research in Organizations

and Management 

- a member of the editorial boards for Organizational Studies, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Group and Organization Management

and for Tamara.

Overall the Journal for Material Culture looks to explore the link between craft and society, weighing addictional factors such as time and generation comparison, social indenties and influence in correlation to product and culture.

Researchers and this journal would be interested in DIY culture and specifically knititng for many reasons. StichnBitch Groups groups are formed by and for women who get together to knit as a highly social form of creative leisure production. Overall, Knitting iis a handicraft and social sport and is constantly evolving into a bigger movement through the use of technology. It also explores the realms of business and charity, and can further be broken down by cultural relativity.

I would defeinetly syay my approah to my handicraft can be seen as nostalgic with a focus on conservation. My craft, hand maiking soap and beauty products, does bring you back to simpler times when consumerism was less prominent. Before the age of Wal Mart ,Target, and Sephora, many women followed DIY beauty remedies, alot of which have originated from the kitchen and/or natural surroundings. My craft romantisizes this concept, and also plays a role in in opposing over consumption and corporate consumerism.

The Crafters Manifesto is a piece that welcomes everyone to participate. It perpetuates unity through four key ideals.  First being craft is personal. Owning something uniquely handmade is a treasure, not only do you help your neighbor but your buying a piece of art, something special that took time, love and, dedication. Craft is also powerful because your taking home a piece of the authors/artists personality. The craft you purchase invites you to get to know the artist on a physical level, as you will probably be able to interact with the artists during the show/flea market etc. Craft is political because it opposes corporate consumerism, and promotes culture and independent business. Most importantly everyone can parcipate, whether your rich or poor, amateur or professional, working together, or by yourself. Crafting invites everyone to participate in various forms of culture.

Buszek and Stevens

Buszek and Stevens

In the following article Buszek explores the world of handicraft in conjunction with the worlds of contemporary art and technology. Buszek further details how artists who experiement with fiber, glass, and wood, are caught in between the paradox of the traditional handicraft and contemporary art world. Buszek goes off writings by Risatti, stating artists in this dilemma should refer back to the roots that originally seperated the “fine arts” from the “applied arts” yet that artists should not be bound by these differences in producing their art. Buszek continues to detail from era to era how the lines have been blurred for the traditional artist and the crafter. Buszek states that early postmodern artists placed great faith in the value of folk and popular arts that had traditionally been viewed as the realm of women's, queer, and non-Western cultures as a means of communicating beyond an elite community and letting the "real" world back into the art world . For artists working today media, naturally, are generally chosen with regard to “sociohistorical” undertones of a medium, rather than regard for unique material properties.

Buszek elaborates that emerging artists in today's art world enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom in exploring craft media, yet educational institutions and museums fail to recognize these art forms.  Overall, the essays demonstrate that many artists drawing on craft culture do so in ways that defy the boudaries of craft and art but do so in “Ironic and ambivalent ways” different from (or even poking gentle fun at) the romantic or moralizing sensibility with which their predecessors often approached these media. 

Stevens

This essay considers the impact of the Internet on craft practice. In this essay  craft work is defined as requiring tacit knowledge-often called "personal know-how"' an is motivated by an ethic of working with one's hands yet  explains how capitalism contradicts this ideal.  

“The ideology of craft work and capitalism seeks efficiency in all matters, while craft, though it possesses many positive attributes, will always be a highly inefficient way of getting the job done”.

Key Points of the Essay

• societal standards dictate what forms of intelligence that are valued over one another.
• Corporations like Wal-Mart and William Sonoma have made it harder for blue collar and modern crafters compete. When companies like these make cheap imitations it poses an idea on society that kinda downgrades the organic and fruitful concept of what owning a handicraft is.  Objects of traditional craft connect people metaphorically and metaphysically to the tangible. People who produce these crafts offer a “ holistic bonding that occurs organically among groups of people through association, connection, or alliance and is  marked by shared beliefs as well as collective kinship”.
•  valuing craft and choosing to be a maker of craft in contemporary society is a decision  about identity and lifestyle as much as it is about values.
•  Each closely connected, craftbased community of practice has an internal system for indoctrinating and validating its members.
• Community is strengthened through crafting because it requires people to socialize while performing their craft.
• Ecommerce is now being used to strengthen the voice of the handicrafter to the world which results in a new community of bonding amongst crafters.
• Discusses Ideal Types...an ideal type cannot be rightfully formed since art is percieved from generation to generation under different circumstances.
• DIY ethos seeks to confront mass market consumers and the perceived homogenization of culture as a result of the aggressive expansion of multinational corporations.
• DIY craft does not often seek validation within the traditional methodologies of the museum, the media, or the market; it is rather motivated by a desire for creative and economic freedom from the same. (54)
• DIY craft seeks to redefine the antiquated nomenclatures of artist, maker, craftsperson, designer, and small-business owner. Although the DIY movement has a certain reverence for what American craft represented, it is unquestionably an independent and burgeoning cultural and economic force, as evidenced by its own magazines, websites, fairs, books, television programs, and documentary video projects. (55)