Proposal: Participatory Democracy
geplaatst op: 25-10-09 | tags: duncombe, fandom, jenkins, participatory democracy, Transmedia Storytelling
This is a paper proposal, suggestions will be really appreciated!
Introduction
According to Henry Jenkins we’re moving to a participatory culture, and there is an intersection between popular culture and politics (Jenkins 2009a). Despite of the widely spread criticism, both politics and the entertainment industry try to use this participatory culture. We’ve seen the first results in the presidential Obama campaign (and later on in the fight around health care). Jenkins and Duncombe think because of the engaging factor it is even a solution to Putnam’s Bowling Alone. Like Putnam acknowledged in his newer work Better Together, social media seems to engage.
Arguably the internet feed this cultural change towards a participatory culture. The internet is the first many-to-many medium (Shirky 2009). And “digital media have blurred relations between the once clearly demarcated realms of producers and consumers”(Uricchio, 2009: 143).
The role of social media, arguably, starts with the French politician Ségolène Royal (Zielman and Rottger 2009; De Kosnik 2008). Nevertheless the most effective political campaign was that of the president of the USA, Barack Obama. Therefore I will use the Obama campaign as a case study.
In this paper I will explore the role of popular culture in politics through the concept of transmedia storytelling. Stephen Duncombe asks the question: how can and how is pop culture used politically? In this paper I will narrow the question down to how can and how is pop culture used in the Obama campaign through social media?
This paper will explore theories about political engagement through popular culture along with Duncombe’s theory (2007, 2009).
The paper will explore transmedia storytelling as concept (the term is coined by Jenkins in 2003). Although there are many similar concepts (like Leadbeater’s (2007) or Bruns’ (2008)), I think transmedia storytelling is the best concept to analyze the success of the social media strategy of Obama, because it is the most complete theory and includes the role of popular culture (and fandom) best. In the first chapter I will use the Transmedia Storytelling Syllabus of Jenkins USC-course to analyse what Transmedia storytelling is, and how it’s done in practice. Geoffrey Long further analysed the success factors in case studies of transmedia storytelling (2007).
Van Dijck and Nieborg (2009) pointed out it’s not sure if Jenkins is defending a business model or a cultural model. The answer seems to be he’s defending both. Although the case studies used by Long and Jenkins are mainly commercial ones, Jenkins talks about politics as well. Because politics and popular culture blend, I think it’s useful the take a look at commercial methods as well and analyse how the ten key factors set by Long (2007) apply on the Obama.
I will use the analysis of Castells, De Kosnik, Jenkins, Munster, Roberts and many others of the Obama campaign to put the role of pop culture in it’s context. Where exactly did pop culture play a role? What are new habits, and how do people behave? What are the netiquettes?
Transmedia storytelling seems to be able to be the perfect blend of popular culture and politics. The Obama campaign is the perfect example of the political potential of a successful transmedia strategy (Jenkins 2009c). Obama may be even the first presidential transmedia story/brand himself (Jenkins 2009b).
Index (concept)
Opening (500 words)
Shirky, Jenkins, Bruns, Leadbeater, Uricchio, Carr
What is Transmedia Storytelling? (1000 words)
Jenkins, Long, Benkler
Transmedia storytelling in the Obama campaign (1500)
Jenkins, Duncombe, Carr, De Kosnik, Castells, Blakley, Munster, Roberts
Participatory culture and digital rhetoric (1500)
Jenkins, Duncombe (and therefore Gramsci, Hall and Lippman), Putnam, Losh, Castells, Manovich
Conclusion (500 words)
Bibliography (concept)
Baringhorst, Sigrid et. al. Political Campaigning on the Web. (2009) Transcript
Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth of Networks. (2005) Yale Press
Blakley, Johanna. MIT World. Politics and popular culture. (2009) < http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/655 >
Bruns, Axel. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage (2008)
Castells, Manuel. Communication Power. (2009) Oxford: Oxford University Press
De Kosnik, Abigail. Participatory democracy and Hillary Clinton’s marginalized fandom. (2008) < http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/47/59 >
Duncombe, Stephen. Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy. (2007) New Press
—- MIT World. Politics and popular culture. (2009) < http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/655 >
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence culture, where old and new media collide. (2008) New York: New York University Press
—- MIT World. Politics and popular culture. (2009a) < http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/655 >
—- Transmedia Storytelling and Entertainment — A Syllabus. August 11, 2009 (2009b)< http://henryjenkins.org/2009/08/transmedia_storytelling_and_en.html >
Leadbeater, Charles. We-Think. (2007)
Long, Geoffrey. Transmedia Storyteling. (2007) < http://cms.mit.edu/research/theses/GeoffreyLong2007.pdf>
Losh, Elizabeth. Virtualpolitik: An Electronic History of Government Media-Making in a Time of War, Scandal, Disaster, Miscommunication, and Mistakes (2009) The MIT Press
Munster, Anna and Andrew Murphie. Web 2.0: Before, during and after the event. (2009) < http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue14/ >
Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone (2000)
—- Better Together: Restoring the American Community (2004)
Roberts, Ben. Beyond the ‘Networked Public Sphere’: Politics, Participation and Technics in Web 2.0. (2009) < http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue14/issue14_roberts.html >
Shirky, Clay. TED Talk 2009: “How Social Media Can Make History” (2009) < http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html >
Uricchio, William. Moving beyond the artefact, Lessons from participatory culture. (2009) Digital Material. Utrecht: Amsterdam University Press
Van Dijck, José and David Nieborg. Wikinomics and its discontents: a critical analysis of Web 2.0 business manifestos. (2009) < http://www.gamespace.nl/content/Wikinomics_and_its_discontents_2009.pdf >
I would be very interested in reading your paper when you are finished. We use the Obama campaign to illustrate the power of participatory culture and what happens when people become engaged with compelling narrative AND are asked to c0-create.
One of the lingering questions we ponder is: Why are government organizations/non-profits, a year after the successful execution of the single greatest social media campaign to date, still unable to dramatically transition their traditional marketing efforts and embrace proven, Transmedia elements?
If social media/distribution is (1) available to everyone, (2) economically feasible, and, if we are advancing technologies at a faster rate than at any other time in history, it would stand to reason that political organizations/non-profits would do well to harness the extraordinary power of participatory campaigns; particularly as these organizations need funding and membership at a very crucial time in our economic history.
That’s the one million dollar question. I think they’re afraid a social campaign will backfire if it’s not done perfect.., so I presume the innovation will come Most politicians seem to be less technical than Obama. Personally I think another important question how will a campaign work with less scale, for instance in Holland or for local governments? But you’re right, without a descent social campaign you’re at least much behind.. I’m really looking forward to all campaigns coming!
Dear
I found your article very useful.
Totally agree with ideas and hope we can talk about transmedia theories.
I m a phd student approaching transmedia concepts applied in a phenomeno in film industry and working out how to use the studies in real community. let me know what u think about it.
please, drop me an email so we can get in touch
[]s