Tuesday, February 26, 2008

No Station for Old Viewers

I'm not sure if I'm completely grasping McPherson's argument. I'm unclear if she is saying that the Internet is as restrictive as broadcast television. On page 202 she expounds on a quote from Bob Stam, stating, "If television, in the words of Bob Stam, obliges the telespectator 'to follow a predetermined sequence' exhibiting 'a certain syntagmatic orthodoxy,' the Web appears to break down the preordained sequencing of TV, allowing the user to fashion her own syntagmas, moving from link to link with a certain illusion of volition." It sounds as if she believes the 'freedom' that the user has on the Internet is stifled, and almost disappointing, and comparable to the 'freedom' a television viewer has. I think she fails to give credit to the amount of user generated content on the web - this whole idea of "Web 2.0", which provides the user with far more freedom than broadcast television ever could. Any teenager with a camera and some good (or bad) ideas can develop a fan base online. The medium of the Internet is far more 'free' than television because of the seemingly limitless number of channels (websites) from which one can broadcast.

She also hangs on the example of larger websites, such as MSNBC and AOL.com. On page 206 she states, "For instance, both MSNBC and AOL work as portal sites which make it hard to leave their confines, functioning as the kind of locked-in channel television executives have long dreamed about." She makes it sound like there is something about these websites that actually makes it more difficult to leave - to browse away from - which seems a little ridiculous. The attractiveness of the interface or content (I guess the interface is content) is what maintains users connectivity to their website. The quality of content is also what keeps viewers tuned in to certain stations at certain times. However, when a television viewer has 100 channels and nothing on, he will remain bored of that medium. When an Internet user feels as though he has exhausted all digital resources (which is sort of impossible...), he can always create and contribute. The 'liveness' of sites like MSNBC is also under scrutiny. While she may have a point in the case of MSNBC, I don't think she's rightfully attributing it to the Internet as a medium. It should be blamed on MSNBC's size as a media corporation. I think this "illusion" of "liveness" isn't an illusion in some cases. Aggregates of content (like digg, google/yahoo news and others) can link to breaking news stories released on many different sites, which are often local news sources who have the small size and agility to release stories more "live" than ever before.

The stigma of Internet "users" and television "viewers" is also an important one. McPherson may argue that the "users" of the Internet are, in fact, more passively "viewing" the content of the Internet with the illusion of activity. However, I believe that these "users" are far more active than their couch potato counterpart - far more active than McPherson seems to give credit.

No comments: