4 Questions

In the spirit of Passover seders now etched in the annals of family history, permit me to offer the following 4 questions about what might be called the "old media/new media divide."

I'll begin with the one that seems most loopy:

1. Aside from the technical distinctions, what are the differences between the first generation of short films and videoblogs and, say, the first motion pictures? My first thought is that within the "college prank" genre of videoclips one can find similarities to, say, the Lumiere brothers "L'arroseur arrosé"...

image via

As many of you may know, the story involves an unsuspecting gardener doesn't realize someone is stepping on the water hose, then points the hose at his face and....well you can probably figure out the rest. Now I'm not saying that this is true across all videoblogs, mobisodes, and other forms e- storytelling, but can you catch my drift? Is there something about the relationship between narrative styles and temporal limitations? Those of you with film studies backgrounds can shed some much needed light here.

2. At the time of the emergence of motion picture technology, was there the same kind of old media vs. new media language between motion pictures and, say, photography over which form
of visual expression should be more influential in the way that bloggers and the MSM fight it out in the blogosphere? My immediate answer is probably yes, I just don't know off hand.

3. Am I the only one who finds Amanda Congdon's conjuring up of "journalism wars" in her thou-dost-protest-too-much response to the storm of criticism that after she shilled for Dupont just a little rich? Instead of coming to terms with the fact that these kinds of arrangements are problematic for all journalists, she decided to couch her defense in the "war" rhetoric and present herself in some way as the victim in all of this. That's weird, no?

What's revealed here is that maybe -- just maybe -- some bloggers and vloggers want to be picked up by the dreaded "mainstream media" not to reform it and that the "challenge old paradigms" is conveniently the same rhetoric one hears in business school. Instead, some may desire to turn what is a hobby or a "start-up" into a profession and to gain a wider audience and the authority that comes with it. But to admit that would run afoul of the ethics of the internet, where trashing the MSM is part of a credibility-producing shtick that blogs like to use. They are slow, we are quick. They are corporate, we are idealistic. They have rules, they are rule breakers. They are gatekeepers; we want to be gatekeepers.

4. Might we have to come to terms with the fact that our understanding of Internet use might nationally specific? I think about this in the Canadian case all the time; for one thing Canadians do a lot less e-commerce than Americans do. A friend that will go nameless once had ice cream delivered; while another sent me a Poilane bread as a wedding engagement gift -- from France! Then again, I dare say the Canadian experience with mail-order shopping ended many years ago; yet a recent trip to Katz's deli in New York City found people lining up to send rolls of salami to relatives in Oregon.

This idea of national Internet practices may also be germane considering that the Internet means different things in different places. Just ask the people in Thailand whose access to YouTube is limited; or people like Bruce Stirling, who tried to check his Twitter page in the United Arab Emirates and found this And we know about Google in China to understand how the World Wide Web can be a lot less, well, worldly.

But it's not just in these places where one's internet experience is unique; Try watching "30 Rock" on NBC's website from Canada. Or better yet, try to get the soundtrack information for a show like "Weeds" on Showtime -- and you'll discover that nation-states may be imagined communities, but geography matters in cyberspace -- unless you find ways to work under the table around the rules.

Your thoughts?