Highbrow Magazine - Media https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/media en Game Drain: What Subscription Services Spell for the Industry https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24443-game-drain-what-subscription-services-spell-industry <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 01/26/2024 - 12:07</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1videomodel.jpg?itok=80PxmV58"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1videomodel.jpg?itok=80PxmV58" width="320" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">With Microsoft’s acquisition of <a href="https://www.activisionblizzard.com/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Activision Blizzard</a>, the videogame company behind the massive <a href="https://www.callofduty.com/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Call of Duty</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Overwatch</em></a><em>, </em>and <a href="https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Warcraft</em></a><em> </em>franchises, Xbox (a subsidiary of Microsoft) adds another notch to an already impressive belt of game publishers and developers <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-and-studio-microsoft-now-owns/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">owned by the computing giant</a>.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The list of franchises under Microsoft's grasp is so expansive that the Federal Trade Commission <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/12/ftc-seeks-block-microsoft-corps-acquisition-activision-blizzard-inc" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">tried to stop the transaction</a> - <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/us-ftc-tries-again-stop-microsofts-already-closed-deal-activision-2023-12-06/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">twice</a>. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While Microsoft's questionably monopolistic hold over some of gaming's most beloved franchises is concerning in its own right, more worrisome is how Microsoft's means to capitalize on its acquisitions could fundamentally alter the whole gaming industry.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Microsoft’s major marketing push in gaming has been Xbox Game Pass: a subscription service that gives users access to a rotating library of hundreds of games. For simplicity’s sake, think Netflix for gaming. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">One of the biggest appeals of Game Pass is a monthly price lower than the cost of buying a single one of the games on offer – which is a big deal considering the price of a full release has increased with the introduction of the latest consoles.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This makes a subscription-service solution seem like a more consumer-friendly way to get into a normally expensive hobby. </span></span></p> <p><br /> <img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3videomodel.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Xbox’s biggest draw comes from the inclusion of brand new games -- mainly leveraging its  popular franchises, such as <a href="https://www.halowaypoint.com/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Halo</em></a> and <a href="https://www.gearsofwar.com/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Gears of War</em></a>.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The most recent of these are games by <a href="https://bethesda.net/dashboard" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Bethesda Softworks</a>, the company acquired by Microsoft in 2021, which owns the popular <a href="https://fallout.bethesda.net/en" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Fallout</em></a>, <a href="https://elderscrolls.bethesda.net/en" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>The Elder Scrolls</em></a>, <a href="https://bethesda.net/en/game/doom" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>DOOM</em></a>, and <a href="https://bethesda.net/en/game/dishonored" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Dishonored</em> </a>franchises. Its two most recent games, <a href="https://bethesda.net/en/game/redfall" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Redfall</em></a> and <a href="https://bethesda.net/en/game/starfield" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><em>Starfield</em></a>, were both given launch day access for Game Pass users.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Redfall</em>’s launch was a notable letdown. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spencer_(business_executive)" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1654108618990530561" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">admitted</a> both he and the Xbox community were disappointed with the game’s condition on launch. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The game has a low 56 (out of 100) critic score on <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/game/redfall/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Metacritic</a>, with even worse user reviews. Gamers argued that the game was unfinished, mired by a large number of bugs and gameplay issues, many of which are highlighted in<a href="https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/redfall" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"> this review by CNN</a>. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The problem with a subscription-based model is that it stifles consumer expectations. There is a lesser sense of loss when the price is four times lower than the retail rate. With the hundreds of other games available, there is still plenty of content to help justify the cost.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Despite <em>Redfall</em>’s disappointment and arguably bad content, the pedigree of its developer and the uniqueness of its premise undoubtedly spurred some subscriptions to Game Pass, which ultimately matters more than a purchase, or even the quality of the game itself.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4videomodel.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While Xbox obviously isn’t striving for a “Join Game Pass; we have mediocre games” model, there is less pressure to create an outstanding product since its shortcomings can be compensated by the greater overall value. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In this sense, marketing matters more than content. If you build excitement over a new game, even if the game in question is underwhelming, it still has the rest of the service to fall back on.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This issue can go both ways. <em>Starfield</em> was a massive success. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/10/25/starfield-just-made-microsoft-and-xbox-a-ton-of-money/?sh=584220393fe3" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">According to <em>Forbes</em></a>, <em>Starfield</em> is largely responsible for the Xbox’s most profitable quarter in its history. The game also spurred the most sign-ups for Game Pass in a single day since the service was created. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The game has had a positive critical reception with an 83 critic score and a solid-but-notably lower 7.0 (out of 10) user score on Metacritic. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While the overall response has been positive, the game has been rather contentious, with some critics dragging down the reviews on outlets like Steam, a platform which doesn’t benefit from the lower price available via Game Pass. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">According to <em>Forbes</em>, much of the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/01/03/steam-users-may-be-trolling-starfield-with-most-innovative-gameplay-award/?sh=417ca7da3f76" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">criticism</a> centers around the game’s refusal to stray far from Bethesda tradition.</span></span></p> <p><br /> <img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5videomodel.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While the arguably more forgiving environment of a subscription should ease the risk of experimentation, the fact that people aren’t really forking over that much money will also mean that they are more willing to settle for mediocrity.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The biggest worry with subscription-based gaming lies in the method by which it may further erode our already <a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/21627-digital-rights-management-and-modern-day-pirate" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">tenuous ownership</a> of digital media. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>PC Gamer</em> says industry analysts are <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/netflix-of-games-isnt-likely-says-analyst/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">skeptical</a> of the possibility of subscriptions taking over the gaming market, citing that subscription services only made up 4 percent of game spending in 2021. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>PC Gamer</em> further states that the majority of spending in gaming (79 percent of the market) was on microtransactions, in-game purchases for the products people were already playing.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">However, even if the subscription isn’t the big moneymaker, it does reduce the upfront cost to play games, therefore making their far more profitable microtransactions more accessible.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It is important to note that Xbox’s own self-reported statistics state that Game Pass users spend <a href="https://youtu.be/UqHgSiVWVM8" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">45 percent more on microtransactions</a>. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/6videomodel.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In this instance, it doesn’t matter that the subscription is only a fraction of the market. The subscription becomes the vector through which you push gamers to spend on the microtransactions that really rule the market.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">With Microsoft buying up so many of gaming's most iconic brands, many notorious for microtransactions such as <em>Call of Duty</em>, and <em>Overwatch</em>, it’s easy to see how the subscription model may be a way to encourage in-game spending.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It is still too soon to start lamenting the death of traditional game ownership. However, the fact that nearly 80 percent of game spending isn’t from the outright purchase of games doesn’t bode well for the future of the traditional model. If the subscription model leads to more stagnant and derivative games, perhaps they won’t continue to be worth owning.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Garrett Hartman is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/game-pass" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">game pass</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/xbox" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">xbox</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/microsoft" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Microsoft</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/starfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">starfield</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/call-duty" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">call of duty</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/videogames" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">videogames</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/playing-video-games" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">playing video games</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gaming" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gaming</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/overwatch" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">overwatch</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/redfall" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">redfall</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Garrett Hartman</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 26 Jan 2024 17:07:31 +0000 tara 12976 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24443-game-drain-what-subscription-services-spell-industry#comments What If Journalism Disappeared? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24277-what-if-journalism-disappeared <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 12/28/2023 - 13:46</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1news_depositphotos.jpg?itok=ognbgb2X"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1news_depositphotos.jpg?itok=ognbgb2X" width="480" height="321" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In 1995, early in the development of the global internet, sociologist Michael Schudson imagined how people might process information if journalism were to suddenly disappear. An expert on the history of US news media, Schudson speculated in his book, <em>The Power of News</em>, that peoples’ need to identify the day’s most important and relevant news from the continuous torrent of available information would eventually lead to the<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Power_of_News/jr9V0ku5rzoC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;bsq=journalism-of%20some%20sort-would%20be%20reinvented" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a>reinvention of journalism</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Beyond daily gossip, practical advice, or mere information, Schudson contended, people desire what he called “public knowledge,” or news, the demand for which made it difficult to imagine a world without journalism.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Nearly 30 years later, many Americans live in a version of the world remarkably close to the one Schudson pondered in 1995—because either they lack access to news or they choose to ignore journalism in favor of other, more sensational content.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">By exploring how journalism is increasingly absent from many Americans’ lives, we can identify false paths and promising routes to its reinvention.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/7libraries_0.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>The Rise of News Deserts</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Many communities across the United States now suffer from limited access to credible, comprehensive local news. Northwestern University’s 2022 “State of Local News” report determined that <a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/research/state-of-local-news/report/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">more than half</a> of the counties in the United States—some 1,630—are served by only one newspaper each, while another 200 or more counties, the homes of some 4 million people, have no newspaper at all. Put another way,<a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/research/state-of-local-news/report/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a>70 million Americans—a fifth of the country’s population—live in “news deserts,” communities with limited access to local news, or in counties just one newspaper closure away from becoming so.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Not surprisingly, the study found that news deserts are most common in economically struggling communities, which also frequently lack affordable and reliable high-speed digital service—a form of inequality known as<a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/poor-infrastructure-a-legacy-of-discriminatory-redlining-inhibits-rural-black-americans-internet-access/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a><a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/19-poor-infrastructure-a-legacy-of-discriminatory-redlining-inhibits-rural-black-americans-internet-access/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">digital redlining</a>. Members of such communities are doubly impacted: lacking local news sources, they are also cut off from online access to the country’s surviving regional and national newspapers.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Noting that credible news “feeds grassroots democracy and builds a sense of belonging to a community,” Penny Abernathy, the report’s author, <a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/research/state-of-local-news/report/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">wrote</a> that news deserts contribute to “the malignant spread of misinformation and disinformation, political polarization, eroding trust in media, and a yawning digital and economic divide among citizens.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2news_depositphotos.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Divided Attention and “News Snacking”</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While the rise of news deserts makes credible news a scarce resource for many Americans, others show no more than passing interest in news. A February 2022 Gallup/Knight Foundation poll <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/articles/americans-attention-to-national-news-lowest-in-four-years/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">found</a> that only 33 percent of Americans reported paying “a<a href="https://knightfoundation.org/articles/americans-attention-to-national-news-lowest-in-four-years/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a>great deal” of attention to national news, with even lower figures for local news (21 percent) and international news (12 percent).</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">With the increasing <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/219865/percentage-of-us-adults-who-own-a-smartphone/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">prevalence of smartphone ownership</a> and<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a>reliance on social media, news outlets now face <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">ferocious competition</a> for peoples’ attention. Following news is an incidental activity in the lives of many who engage in “news snacking.” As communications scholar Hektor Haarkötter <a href="https://journalistik.online/en/paper-en/discarded-news/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">described</a> in a 2022 article, “Discarded News,” mobile internet use has altered<a href="https://journalistik.online/en/paper-en/discarded-news/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a>patterns of news consumption: “News is no longer received consciously, but rather consumed incidentally like potato chips.” Instead of intentionally seeking news from sources dedicated to journalism, many people now assume the viral nature of social media will automatically alert them to any truly important events or issues, a belief that is especially prominent among younger media users, Haarkötter noted. A<a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/22/3/105/4161793" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a>2017 study <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/22/3/105/4161793" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">determined</a> that the prevalence of this “news-finds-me” perception is likely “to widen gaps in political knowledge” while promoting “a false sense of being informed.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3news_depositphotos.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Signs of Reinvention?</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">With journalism inaccessible to the growing number of people who live in “news deserts,” or only a matter of passing interest to online “news snackers,” the disappearance of journalism that Schudson pondered hypothetically in 1995 is a reality for many people today. If journalism as we have known it is on the verge of disappearing, are there also—as Schudson predicted—signs of its reinvention? Examining the profession itself, the signs are not all that encouraging.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Consider, for example, the pivot by many independent journalists to Substack, Patreon, and other digital platforms in order to reach their audiences directly. Reader-supported journalism may be a necessary survival reflex, but we are wary of pinning the future of journalism on tech platforms controlled by third parties not necessarily committed to<a href="https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a>principles of ethical journalism, as <a href="https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">advocated</a> by the Society of Professional Journalists.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Media companies—including the tech website <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/20/23564311/cnet-pausing-ai-articles-bot-red-ventures" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">CNET</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/26/media/buzzfeed-ai-content-creation/index.html" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">BuzzFeed</a>—have experimented with using artificial intelligence programs, including the infamous ChatGPT bot, to produce content. Noting that there would be “nothing surprising” about AI technology eventually threatening jobs in journalism, Hamilton Nolan of <em>In These Times</em> <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-journalism-chatgpt-media-ethics" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">suggested</a> that journalists have two key resources in the “looming fight” with AI, unions and “a widely accepted code of ethics that dictates how far standards can be pushed before something no longer counts as journalism.” News outlets, Nolan argued, do not simply publish stories, they can also explain, when necessary, <em>how</em> a story was produced. The credibility of journalists and news outlets hinges on that accountability. Artificial intelligence may be able to produce media “content”—it may even be of use to journalists in news gathering—but it cannot produce journalism.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">We also don’t anticipate a revival of journalism on the basis of the June 2022 memo from CNN’s Chris Licht, shortly after he became the network’s CEO, which directed staff to avoid overuse of its “breaking news” banner. “We are truth-tellers, focused on informing, not alarming our viewers,” Licht<a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/cnn-breaking-news-banner-overused-chris-licht-1235283520/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a><a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/cnn-breaking-news-banner-overused-chris-licht-1235283520/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">wrote</a> in his memo. (In June 2023, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/07/media/chris-licht-cnn/index.html" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">reported</a> that the network’s chairman and CEO was “out after a brief and tumultuous tenure.”) But competitive pressures will continue to drive commercial news outlets to lure their audiences’ inconstant attention with sensational reporting and clickbait headlines.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5libraries_0.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Toward a Public Option</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">More promising bases for the reinvention of journalism will depend not on technological fixes or more profitable business models but on reinvesting in journalism as a public good.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In a 2020 article for <em>Jacobin</em>, media scholar Victor Pickard<a href="https://jacobin.com/2020/01/corporate-media-system-democracy" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a><a href="https://jacobin.com/2020/01/corporate-media-system-democracy" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">argued</a> that commercial media “can’t support the bare minimum levels of news media . . . that democracy requires.” Drawing on the late sociologist Erik Olin Wright’s<a href="https://jacobin.com/2015/12/erik-olin-wright-real-utopias-anticapitalism-democracy/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a><a href="https://jacobin.com/2015/12/erik-olin-wright-real-utopias-anticapitalism-democracy/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">model</a> for constructing alternatives to capitalism, Pickard argued that the creation of a publicly-owned media system is the most direct way “to tame and erode commercial media.”<sup> </sup></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The “public options” championed by Pickard and <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/03/dont-laugh-there-is-a-policy-solution-to-the-problem-of-american-journalism/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">others</a>—which include significant budgets to support nonprofit media institutions and municipal broadband networks—would do much to address the conditions that have exiled far too many Americans to news deserts.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">If the public option advocated by Pickard focuses on the production of better quality news, the reinvention of journalism will also depend on cultivating broader public interest in and support for top-notch journalism. Here, perhaps ironically, some of the human desires that social media have so effectively harnessed might be redirected in support of investigative journalism that exposes abuses of power and addresses social inequalities.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3libraries_0.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Remembering a Golden Era of Muckraking</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Few living Americans recall Ida Mae Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, and other pioneering investigative journalists who worked in the aftermath of the Gilded Age—an era, comparable to ours, when a thin veneer of extravagant economic prosperity for a narrow elite helped camouflage underlying social disintegration. “Muckraker” journalists exposed political and economic corruption in ways that captivated the public’s attention and spurred societal reform.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">For instance, in a series of investigative reports published by <em>McClure’s</em> <em>Magazine</em> between October 1902 and November 1903, Steffens exposed local stories of collusion between corrupt politicians and businessmen in St. Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and New York. Most significantly, though, Steffens’s “Shame of the Cities” series, published as a<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/54710/54710-h/54710-h.htm" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/54710/54710-h/54710-h.htm" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">book</a> in 1904, drew significant public attention to a <em>national</em> pattern of civic decay.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Steffens’s reporting not only made him a household name, it also spurred rival publications to pursue their own muckraking investigations. As his biographer, Peter Hartshorn, wrote in <em>I Have Seen the Future: A Life of Lincoln Steffens</em> (2012), other publishers “quickly grasped<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/I_Have_Seen_the_Future/aNoREAAAQBAJ" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> </a>what the public was demanding: articles that not only entertained and informed but also exposed. Americans were captivated by the muckrakers and their ability to provide names, dollar amounts, and other titillating specifics.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">By alerting the public to systemic abuses of power, investigative journalism galvanized popular support for political reform, and indirectly helped propel a wave of progressive legislation. As Carl Jensen related in <em>Stories That Changed America</em>, the muckrakers’ investigative reporting led to “a nation-wide public revolt against social evils” and “a decade of reforms in antitrust legislation, the electoral process, banking regulations, and a host of other social programs.”<sup> </sup>The golden age of muckraking came to an end when the United States entered World War I, diverting national attention from domestic issues to conflict overseas.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Though largely forgotten, the muckraking journalists from the last century provide another model of how journalism might be renewed, if not reinvented. The muckrakers’ reporting was successful in part because it harnessed a public appetite for shame and scandal to the cause of political engagement. To paraphrase one of Schudson’s points about news as public knowledge, the muckrakers’ reporting served as a crucial resource for “people ready to take political action.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4news_kalhh-pixabay.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Reviving Public Hunger for News About “What’s Really Going On”</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Despite its imperiled status, journalism that serves the public good has not yet disappeared. There is no shortage of <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/independent-news-links/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">exemplary independent reporting</a> on the injustices and inequalities that threaten to disintegrate today’s United States. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">That said, it is not simple to recognize such reporting or to find sources of it, amidst the clattering voices that compete for the public’s attention. Finding authentic news requires not only countering the spread of news deserts, but also cultivating the public’s taste for news that goes deeper than the latest TikTok trend, celebrity gossip, or talking head “hot takes.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">A public option for journalism could help assure more widespread access to vital news and diverse perspectives; and a revival of the muckraking tradition, premised on journalism that informs the public by exposing abuses of authority, could reconnect people who have otherwise lost interest in news that distracts, sensationalizes, or—perhaps worse—polarizes us.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Both the 20th-century muckrakers and today’s advocates of journalism in the public interest provide lessons about how journalism can help recreate a shared sense of community—a value touted in Northwestern’s 2022 “State of Local News” <a href="https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/research/state-of-local-news/report/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">report</a>. The muckrakers appealed to a collective sense of outrage that wealthy tycoons and crooked politicians might deceive and fleece the public. That outrage brought people together to respond in common cause.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">As George Seldes—a torchbearer of the muckraking tradition, who founded<a href="https://archive.org/details/InFactVolume1IssueNumber1" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"> <em>In Fact</em></a>, the nation’s first successful periodical of press criticism, in 1940—often noted, journalism is about telling people “what’s really going on” in society. At its most influential, journalism promotes public awareness that spurs civic engagement, real reform, and even radical change.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Perhaps that is why it is so difficult, especially in these troubled times, to imagine a world without journalism. Our best hopes for the future, including the renewal of community and grassroots democracy, all hinge at least partly on what Schudson called “public knowledge,” which a robust free press protects and promotes.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Excerpted with permission from </em>Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2024<em>, edited by Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff (Fair Oaks, CA and New York: The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press, 2024).</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bios:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Andy Lee Roth is associate director of Project Censored and co-editor of the </em><a href="https://www.project-censored.org/shop/p/state-of-the-free-press-2024" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">State of the Free Press 2024</a>. </strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored and co-editor of </em>the <a href="https://www.project-censored.org/shop/p/state-of-the-free-press-2024" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">State of the Free Press 2024</a>. </strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Photo Credits: <em><a href="https://depositphotos.com/stock-photography.html" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Depositphotos.com</a>; Kalhh (<a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/newspaper-hand-finger-write-news-973048/" style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pixabay</a>, Creative Commons)</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/journalism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">journalism</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/journalists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">journalists</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/newspapers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">newspapers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" 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typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">real news</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/internet-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the internet</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/news-headlines" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">news headlines</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/disappearing-news" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">disappearing news</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 28 Dec 2023 18:46:11 +0000 tara 12893 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24277-what-if-journalism-disappeared#comments The Art and the Artist: The Question of Morality in Media https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24244-art-and-artist-question-morality-media <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 12/14/2023 - 10:46</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1kanyewest_depositphotos.jpg?itok=oJ0xVnk9"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1kanyewest_depositphotos.jpg?itok=oJ0xVnk9" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In late 2022, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1577190/" target="_blank">Ye</a>, formerly Kanye West, was under immense criticism for a <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/unpacking-kanye-wests-antisemitic-remarks" target="_blank">series of anti-Semitic comments</a> and actions, which resulted in a number of dire <a href="https://www.billboard.com/lists/kanye-west-hate-speech-consequences-timeline/" target="_blank">financial consequences for the artist</a>.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Around the same time, a <a href="https://www.themarysue.com/but-he-made-graduation-meme-trends-as-ye-fans-realize-the-limits-of-separating-art-from-the-antisemitic-artist/" target="_blank">meme started circulating around the phrase “But he made Graduation,</a>” making jokes at the expense of Ye fans who were ignoring the artist's problematic statements. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Some arguments state that continuing to consume an artist’s work after the artist is exposed for problematic behavior is immoral in that it is complicit in and further enables the bad behavior. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Others argue that while these beliefs are problematic, it’s possible to “<a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/3/7/separating-art-from-artist-rick-and-morty-thinkpiece/" target="_blank">separate the art and the artist</a>” and ethically consume the work, despite the artist’s problematic nature.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1jkrowling_depositphotos.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">To argue that art is inseparable from its creator would make it impossible to consume art simply from the perspective that not all people are perfectly moral. However, the biggest misstep here is if one assumes that most art can be tied back to one person only.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The creation of most art is not a solitary process. Many Ye songs <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_recorded_by_Kanye_West" target="_blank">credit a number of writers</a>, not to mention recording engineers and others involved in the process.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This becomes an issue in the sense that those who argue for the immorality of consuming art from <em>bad</em> people often cite the financial implications of doing so.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It’s true that artists get royalties for their work, but many others are also getting a paycheck when making a film, for example. So if you were boycotting a film made by the likes of a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005544/" target="_blank">Harvey Weinstein</a>, you are also punishing the film’s writers, directors, gaffers, cinematographers, actors, grips, and countless others.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1harrypotter.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Even with books, which we often think of as a more solitary process, there can be teams of writers, ghostwriters, and editors who alter content. While we like to create “heroes” in mainstream media, we are not consuming the thoughts and creativity of a single person.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Were we to assume a piece of art primarily reflects the beliefs of one sole artist, the reasons for which people become upset with celebrities frequently have little to do with their actual work.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0746830/" target="_blank">J.K Rowling</a>, the author behind the <a href="https://www.wizardingworld.com/discover/books" target="_blank">Harry Potter</a> series has been criticized for her sentiments against trans people. However, the Harry Potter I remember as a child did not contain unhinged transphobic rants. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">On the contrary, I recall Harry Potter’s inclusion of the concept of <a href="https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Pure-blood" target="_blank">Purebloods</a>, and <a href="https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Mudblood" target="_blank">Mudbloods</a> --  an allegory that serves as an interesting and empathetic way to bring up topics of racism and bigotry to young audiences.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1melgibson_depositphotos.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Does this excuse Rowling’s transphobia? Certainly not, but the point is this element of the actual content of the book preaches empathy and understanding of those different from you -- even if that may not be a value its author holds true.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">A more problematic element of the Harry Potter series would be the way in which some critics have asserted that the goblins of the franchise are <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/j-k-rowling-s-harry-potter-goblins-echo-jewish-caricatures-ncna1287043" target="_blank">reminiscent of Jewish stereotypes and caricatures</a>.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Unlike Rowling’s cancellation for transphobia, this is a problematic element that directly informs the content of the work.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This is not to say Rowling is anti-Semitic. In response to these criticisms, <a href="https://twitter.com/antisemitism/status/1478739540307230720" target="_blank">the Campaign Against Antisemitism made a statement on X</a>, formerly Twitter, essentially argued the portrayal of the stereotype was from a socially ingrained trope as opposed to direct intent.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/christfilm.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This reinforces the social influence on art. Implicit biases and prejudices sneak into the way we see the world. Art reflects the time and the place, not just the individual</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Something similar could be said of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000095/" target="_blank">Woody Allen</a> who has made a number of award-winning films with sex as a core theme. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/woody-allen-timeline.html" target="_blank">Allen has had a questionable history in regards to sex</a>. Allen had an affair with – and married – his ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow’s daughter, and had to face alleged sexual abuse allegations from his own daughter. But Allen is no doubt a brilliant filmmaker, who has made Oscar-winning films that are considered classics, such as <em>Annie Hall</em> and <em>Hannah and Her Sisters. </em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">An interesting gray area would be <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000154/" target="_blank">Mel Gibson</a>. The actor, director, and writer has been in trouble many times for <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/news/mel-gibson-controversies-career-1234696080/" target="_blank">expressing racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic ideas in his personal life</a>. There are those who have argued that his anti-Semitic beliefs may be reflected in Gibson’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/" target="_blank">The Passion of the Christ</a>,'' which has been criticized for an anti-Semitic portrayal of the death of Jesus Christ, and depicts Jews as responsible.</span></span><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In a 2004 article prior to the film’s release, the <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/news/passion-relies-theme-anti-semitism" target="_blank">Anti-Defamation League said, “If Mr. Gibson’s <em>Passion</em> reaches theaters as scheduled…in its present form… the ramifications of this film will reach far beyond Hollywood.”</a> </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/anniehall.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">A  number of Gibson’s films deal with patriotic and religious themes such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2119532/" target="_blank"><em>Hacksaw Ridge</em></a>, and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0187393/" target="_blank"><em>The Patriot</em></a>. While these may reflect Gibson’s ideas tangential to anti-Semitism in the way they preach his Christian ideologies, ultimately the ideas are open to criticism in the work themselves. Viewers with context can further interrogate the film against Gibson’s own personal beliefs.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Ultimately, the level at which an artist’s work is considered “corrupt” depends on our own tolerances and sense of morality. However, to discard the work of such artists carte-blanche might not be the best solution.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The way to confront these issues is perhaps not to completely discard, ignore, and shame, but to truly <em>look</em> at the art and media we consume with a cautious and more critical eye. It’s important to examine and address the problems we find, even in the things we love.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Garrett Hartman is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><em><strong>Photo Credits: <a href="https://depositphotos.com/stock-photography.html">Depositphotos.com</a></strong></em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/kanye-west" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">kanye west</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ye" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ye</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mel-gibson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Mel Gibson</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jk-rowling" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">JK Rowling</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/woody-allen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Woody Allen</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/art-and-morality" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">art and morality</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/artists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">artists</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supporting-artists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">supporting artists</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/boycotting-artists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">boycotting artists</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/morality-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">morality in media</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Garrett Hartman</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 14 Dec 2023 15:46:21 +0000 tara 12859 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24244-art-and-artist-question-morality-media#comments The Debate Over Videogames Rages On (and On) https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24111-debate-over-videogames-rages-and <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 10/02/2023 - 17:03</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1videogames_depositphotos.jpg?itok=1eT-vhj2"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1videogames_depositphotos.jpg?itok=1eT-vhj2" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>(<em><span style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Photo credit: <a href="https://depositphotos.com/stock-photography.html">Depositphotos.com</a></span></span></em>)</p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">There is something truly satisfying about finally finishing a videogame after hours of gameplay. Whether your gaming cup of tea is role-playing games or action-adventure, first-person or third-person, multiplayer or single-player, there are inherent benefits … and consequences.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Since the inception of the <a href="https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200810/physicshistory.cfm">first</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200810/physicshistory.cfm">video</a><a href="https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200810/physicshistory.cfm">game</a>, <a href="https://history-computer.com/tennis-for-two-complete-history/">"Tennis</a><u> </u><a href="https://history-computer.com/tennis-for-two-complete-history/">For</a><u> </u><a href="https://history-computer.com/tennis-for-two-complete-history/">Two,"</a><u> </u>created by physicist <a href="https://history-computer.com/william-higinbotham-complete-history/">William </a><a href="https://history-computer.com/william-higinbotham-complete-history/">Higinbotham</a><u> </u>in 1958, there has been constant debate about the positives and negatives of the medium.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">As often reported, one of the top concerns involves violence and aggression. Around <a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-violent-video-games.pdf">85%</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-violent-video-games.pdf">of</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-violent-video-games.pdf">video</a><a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-violent-video-games.pdf">games</a><u> </u>on the market, back in 2020, had some form of violence – however, “violence” is a subjective term. What violence means to one person could mean something else to another.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The debate over violence in videogames can be <a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/pro-and-con-violent-video-games#:~:text=The%20debate%20over%20violent%20video,of%20the%20game%20Death%20Race">traced</a><u> </u>back to 1976 with the release of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395989/">"Death </a><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395989/">Race,"</a><u> </u>which angered many because of the game’s goal of players chasing down and running over gremlins that looked like humanoid stick figures.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It specifically concerned the <a href="https://www.nsc.org/">National</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.nsc.org/">Safety</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.nsc.org/">Council</a>. The council’s research department manager and behavioral psychologist, Gerald Driessen, in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/28/archives/death-race-game-gains-favor-but-not-with-the-safety-council.html">1976</a><u> </u><em><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/28/archives/death-race-game-gains-favor-but-not-with-the-safety-council.html">New</a></em><em><u> </u><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/28/archives/death-race-game-gains-favor-but-not-with-the-safety-council.html">York</a></em><em><u> </u><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/28/archives/death-race-game-gains-favor-but-not-with-the-safety-council.html">Times</a></em><em><u> </u></em><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/28/archives/death-race-game-gains-favor-but-not-with-the-safety-council.html">article</a><u> </u>said, “In this game [“Death Race”] a player takes the first step to creating violence. The player is no longer just a spectator. He's an actor in the process.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3videogamesap.jpg" style="height:375px; width:500px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This idea of interactivity is considered dangerous. Some say violent videogames are more <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/04/video-games">harmful</a><u> </u>than violent TV shows or films because of the needed interaction and because they are “very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">However, certain games, like the 2017 <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7048026/">"Get</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7048026/">Even,"</a><u> </u>include violence, but do all they can to dissuade players from engaging in it.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Certain games are entirely created as a medium to kill a bunch of characters, but there are also others that have interesting characters and complex storylines, such as the <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/group/11336/life-is-strange-series/">"Life</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.mobygames.com/group/11336/life-is-strange-series/">is </a><a href="https://www.mobygames.com/group/11336/life-is-strange-series/">Strange"</a><u> </u>series -- an RPG series that follows characters with unique abilities, where violence only acts as a catalyst, like in a Disney movie where a parental figure dies.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The concern surrounding violence became worse in 1993 after <a href="https://mortalkombat.fandom.com/wiki/Mortal_Kombat_series">"Mortal</a><u> </u><a href="https://mortalkombat.fandom.com/wiki/Mortal_Kombat_series">Kombat,"</a><u> </u>a fighting game, was released.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Due to the graphic deadly shots, a joint congressional hearing took place to discuss <a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">“the</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">growing </a><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">concern</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">that</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">the</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">game</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">industry</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">was</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">irresponsibly</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">marketing</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">violent</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">video</a><a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech-0729/">games<u> </u>to<u> </u>minors.”</a></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In response to the demand for an effective ratings system, multiple popular game creators, such as <a href="https://www.sega.com/">Sega</a><u> </u>and <a href="https://www.nintendo.com/">Nintendo</a>, among others, formed what would become the <a href="https://www.theesa.com/">Entertainment</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.theesa.com/">Software </a><a href="https://www.theesa.com/">Association</a><u> </u>that crafted the <a href="https://www.esrb.org/">Entertainment</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.esrb.org/">Software</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.esrb.org/">Ratings</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.esrb.org/">Board</a>, which is still in place today.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Videogames are <a href="https://www.esrb.org/faqs/#are-all-games-required-to-have-a-rating">not</a><u> </u>legally required to have an ESRB rating, but most console manufacturers and physical and online retailers require it for the games they offer. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4videogamesap.jpg" style="height:550px; width:367px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Videogames are also believed to cause various health issues, both physical and mental.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Hyperarousal — caused by a fight-and-flight response triggered by intense stimulation in videogames’ hyperrealistic scenario — is one <a href="https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/are-video-games-and-screens-another-addiction">health</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/are-video-games-and-screens-another-addiction">concern</a>. As are vision problems, seizures, <a href="https://www.txortho.com/tips-to-prevent-gamers-thumb/#:~:text=What%20is%20Gamer%27s%20Thumb%3F,the%20wrist%20to%20the%20hand">"Gamer's</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.txortho.com/tips-to-prevent-gamers-thumb/#:~:text=What%20is%20Gamer%27s%20Thumb%3F,the%20wrist%20to%20the%20hand">Thumb"</a><u> </u>and carpal tunnel syndrome, <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-health-effects-of-too-much-gaming-2020122221645#:~:text=Vision%20problems%20are%20common%20complaints,to%20warnings%20on%20the%20packaging.&amp;text=Gaming%20has%20also%20been%20associated%20with%20psychological%20problems">among</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-health-effects-of-too-much-gaming-2020122221645#:~:text=Vision%20problems%20are%20common%20complaints,to%20warnings%20on%20the%20packaging.&amp;text=Gaming%20has%20also%20been%20associated%20with%20psychological%20problems">others</a>.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, have also been linked to excessive videogaming. Gaming disorder was added to the <a href="https://www.who.int/">World</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.who.int/">Health</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.who.int/">Organization's</a><u> </u>2018 <a href="https://icd.who.int/en">International</a><u> </u><a href="https://icd.who.int/en">Classification</a><u> </u><a href="https://icd.who.int/en">of</a><u> Diseases.</u></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The addictive disorder is generally characterized by gamers prioritizing gaming over other interests and daily activities and continuing to game despite negative consequences.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This type of addiction, even gone undiagnosed, has sparked the need for support groups such as <a href="https://www.gamingaddictsanonymous.org/">Computer</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.gamingaddictsanonymous.org/">Gaming</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.gamingaddictsanonymous.org/">Addicts</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.gamingaddictsanonymous.org/">Anonymous</a>.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Finishing a quest or a game as a whole can be a “high” and can make it harder to stop, but the catharsis involved in this can act as a stress relief.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Games can also provide an escape to another reality where you can go on otherworldly adventures and build a completely new self, which can be a haven for those who struggle with real-world constraints or fears.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5videogamesap.jpg" style="height:550px; width:366px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The act of finishing a quest and/or the videogame can help gamers with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">task</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">completion</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">and </a><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">communication</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">skills,</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">as</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">well</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">as</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">resourcefulness</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">and</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131519301691#bib9">adaptability</a><u> </u>because of the wide variety of scenarios a videogame presents.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Games such as the <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/resident-evil-games-in-order/">"Resident</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/resident-evil-games-in-order/">Evil"</a><u> </u>series, which require the completion of puzzles to progress the storyline, can strengthen problem-solving capabilities. Other games have quick actions or intense parkour actions, such as the 2008 <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1578126/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_8_nm_0_q_Mirror%27s%2520Ed">"Mirror's</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1578126/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_8_nm_0_q_Mirror%27s%2520Ed">Edge,"</a><u> </u>requiring the gamer to concentrate on the task at hand.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">RPGs, such as<a href="https://www.thedarkpictures.com/"> </a><a href="https://www.thedarkpictures.com/">"The</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.thedarkpictures.com/">Dark</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.thedarkpictures.com/">Pictures</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.thedarkpictures.com/">Anthology,"</a><u> </u>require gamers to reflect on scenarios to make the best decision, and so on. Various games can help increase mental capabilities that can then be applied to the real world.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Sometimes the games themselves aren’t what spark positive effects, but the <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-health-effects-of-too-much-gaming-2020122221645#:~:text=Vision%20problems%20are%20common%20complaints,to%20warnings%20on%20the%20packaging.&amp;text=Gaming%20has%20also%20been%20associated%20with%20psychological%20problems">community</a><u> </u>within and outside them. Games such as the 2009 <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2071507/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_4_tt_8_nm_0_q_League%2520of%2520Legends">"League</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2071507/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_4_tt_8_nm_0_q_League%2520of%2520Legends">of</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2071507/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_4_tt_8_nm_0_q_League%2520of%2520Legends">Legends"</a><u> </u>and the 2017 <a href="https://www.f2pg.com/deceit/">"Deceit"</a><u> </u>are multiplayer and require coordination and/or communication amongst players to succeed.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Virtual communities can also form around players’ shared enjoyment of certain games or game franchises – despite some discussions turning ugly, thanks to trolls.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Videogames are also used outside of personal entertainment. They’ve been <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-health-effects-of-too-much-gaming-2020122221645#:~:text=Vision%20problems%20are%20common%20complaints,to%20warnings%20on%20the%20packaging.&amp;text=Gaming%20has%20also%20been%20associated%20with%20psychological%20problems">used</a><u> </u>in medical practices to improve balance in those with degenerative diseases, helping children with ADHD, and training surgeons on how to complete complicated surgeries.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2videogames_depositphotos.jpg" style="height:450px; width:675px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p>(<span style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Photo credit: <a href="https://depositphotos.com/stock-photography.html">Depositphotos.com</a></em></span></span>)</p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Games such as <a href="https://mario.nintendo.com/history/">"Super</a><u> </u><a href="https://mario.nintendo.com/history/">Mario"</a><u> </u>have been shown to help <a href="https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/video-games-show-potential-improving-key-aspects-memory-older-adults">improve</a><u> </u>memory and cognitive functioning amongst the elderly.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><a href="https://www.biworldwide.com/gamification/what-is-gamification/">Gamification</a>, in the form of videogames, is also taking the education world by storm. Games such as the 2004 multiplication game <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/timez-attack">"Timez-Attack,"</a><u> </u>my personal favorite as a kid, as well as <a href="https://education.minecraft.net/en-us">MinecraftEdu</a><u> </u>and <a href="https://www.brainpop.com/games/">BrainPOP</a><u> </u><a href="https://www.brainpop.com/games/">games</a><u>, </u>are trying to make learning fun.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Yes, the debate rages on. The pros and cons to videogaming are interconnected and varied, and it’s up to you whether or not you decide to play.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Ariana Powell is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/videogames" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">videogames</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/playing-videogames" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">playing videogames</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/resident-evil" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Resident Evil</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mortal-kombat" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mortal kombat</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/life-strange" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">life is strange</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/violent-videogames" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">violent videogames</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/games-industry" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">games industry</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/esrb-rating" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">esrb rating</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/super-mario" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">super mario</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mario-brothers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mario brothers</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ariana Powell</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 02 Oct 2023 21:03:14 +0000 tara 12645 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/24111-debate-over-videogames-rages-and#comments A Look at Hyperviolence in Media https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/23997-look-hyperviolence-media <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 05/25/2023 - 14:46</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1violence.jpg?itok=9-_G9TQj"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1violence.jpg?itok=9-_G9TQj" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Opinion:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“Rip and Tear until it is done” is the opening line of 2016’s reboot of classic ‘90s first-person-shooter “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1799527/" target="_blank">DOOM</a>”. The line is followed by a first-person cutscene of the player character, the Doomslayer, grabbing the head of a demonified scientist and slamming it into the sarcophagus the slayer was sealed in, the head instantly exploding like an overripe tomato. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“DOOM” 2016 is a great example of what could be regrded as an increasing trend in hyperviolence used in media. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The use of violence in media has differing rhetorical purposes based on the context; however, generally speaking, gore and violence are rarely used to evoke positive emotions. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In horror and war films — two of the gorier genres — violence has the rhetorical purpose of fear and anxiety, or depicting the base brutality human nature can reach. There are some exceptions, such as comedic horror films, but even these films often don’t depict murder and death scenes themselves as comical. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“DOOM,” however, contrasts in this way as one of the primary mechanics of the game called the “glory kill,” where players are rewarded for closing the distance with their opponents and performing brutal melee kills.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2violence.jpg" style="height:435px; width:652px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">These animations are cathartic and visceral and vary from ripping demons' jaws off, to ripping off arms and beating their former owners with them. In “DOOM,” the mutilation of living things is supposed to be fun and satisfying, and it is. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This is what defines the increasing trend of hyperviolent media -- these depictions of violence are supposed to be enjoyed. They are designed to evoke so-called “positive” emotions.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Videogames are not the only medium that have taken this tact. Films have been doing this to an increasing degree as well. A director most notorious for his use of gore is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000233/" target="_blank">Quentin Tarintino</a>, whose films serve as a perfect example of this use of violence. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While Tarantino’s films take their stories seriously, they have an amount of wit and levity. Their spectacles of violence are, depending on the film, almost comical, and frequently play into power fantasy, a common aspect of violent videogames. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">One might even suggest many of Tarantino’s later films are historical revenge power fantasies, where audiences revel in seeing the brutalization of some of the world’s greatest monsters, like the Nazis in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/" target="_blank">Inglourious Basterds</a>,” American slaveholders in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1853728/" target="_blank">Django Unchained</a>” and the Manson Murderers in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7131622/" target="_blank">Once Upon a Time in Hollywood</a>.”</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3viiolence.jpg" style="height:318px; width:640px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Summing these up as simply power fantasy films is reductive, since the characters, plot and dialogue are executed so well. The component of historical “revenge” is an interesting theme in these films, even if not necessarily intended by Tarantino.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">I would argue that the conclusion of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is the best example of this revenge element, as the film's conclusion shows the brutal killing of the perpetrators of the Manson murders. Here the murderers are shown as aloof and almost comically stupid as they are murdered by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/" target="_blank">Brad Pitt’s</a> character Cliff Booth, as he is tripping on LSD. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">With the whole film largely being a love letter to the golden age of Hollywood, the violent conclusion seems like it is setting something right in its depiction of the past.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But how do you keep depictions of violence comical and fun? </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The common tool used is archetypes. Antagonists and humanoid things are a lot easier to watch die if they are made more generic, and less human. Some of the most common enemy archetypes have thus been demons, Nazis, and zombies.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4violence.jpg" style="height:440px; width:660px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">These generic antagonists are especially common in games as they have easily one of the highest body counts of all media. I’d be damned to try and count how many generic soldiers I shoot in any single “<a href="https://www.callofduty.com/uk/en" target="_blank">Call of Duty</a>” campaign.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Countless videogames, films, and television series utilize this shorthand. Think of almost any piece of media set in World War II; the countless zombie films, games, and TV shows. Demons are admittedly less utilized outside of games; however, trade them in for generic “aliens” in Hollywood and you have a pretty close match.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">We are then allowed to be happy to kill these “enemies,” and see them die in horrific ways because they are morally bankrupt. Demons are a manifestation of evil; the simple nature of their existence is amoral.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Zombies may have once been human but no longer are, they are merely corpses barely puppeteered around by whatever inexplicable virus can control the function of rotting muscles.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Nazis are the most identifiable because they ostensibly are human, but their ties to the brutal horrors of World War II make them almost symbolically equivalent to a demon, as they are morally corrupt and despicable. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5violence.jpg" style="height:650px; width:438px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Their lack of humanity is what helps create a disconnect that makes their violent, gory deaths not only seem like a good thing but pleasurable to watch. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This is something a number of videogames have examined. “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3110552/" target="_blank">Hotline Miami</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2233084/" target="_blank">Spec Ops: The Line</a>” are violent games that include a commentary on media violence in their story.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Both games play off the idea that the player commits atrocities based on “filling in the blanks” of what they need to do to progress through the game. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“Spec Ops: The Line,” for example, has a scene in which players are forced to use white phosphorus on enemies to progress. Enemies you later discover were holding civilians captive who were all killed in the attack. You are shown a gruesome image of a mother holding a child, their skin melted off by the chemical.</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Both games have intentionally unsatisfying conclusions that ask the player whether or not they were really the “good guy” or if they just assumed so because of the context they were presented.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/6violence.jpg" style="height:650px; width:446px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“Hotline Miami” directly interrogates the player in brief interludes between levels. The game stops just short of breaking the fourth wall, having characters ask your mute player character; “Do you like hurting other people?”</span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Media violence has been a topic of widespread debate for a long time especially in the context of games, with the original “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286598/" target="_blank">DOOM</a>” back in 1993, to the “<a href="https://www.rockstargames.com/games/gta" target="_blank">Grand Theft Auto</a>” and “Call of Duty” franchises. </span></span></p> <p><br />  </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Whether criticizing or embracing violence, this type of media asks a lot of philosophical questions about morality and violence. Is it wrong to find joy in seeing human heads explode, even if they’re zombies?</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Garrett Hartman is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hotline-miami" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hotline miami</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/call-duty" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">call of duty</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/doom" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">doom</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/videogames" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">videogames</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/violent-videogames" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">violent videogames</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/violent-films" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">violent films</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/quentin-tarantino" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">quentin tarantino</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/once-upon-time-hollywood" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">once upon a time in hollywood</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/inglorius-basterds" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">inglorius basterds</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gory-films" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gory films</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gory-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gory media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/violence-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">violence in media</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Garrett Hartman</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 25 May 2023 18:46:06 +0000 tara 11899 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/23997-look-hyperviolence-media#comments Meet the Staff at Highbrow Magazine: Contributing Writer Barbara Noe Kennedy https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/21703-meet-staff-highbrow-magazine-contributing-writer-barbara-noe-kennedy <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 10/05/2022 - 11:32</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/barbaraphoto.jpg?itok=pDRTiE3Y"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/barbaraphoto.jpg?itok=pDRTiE3Y" width="360" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>What inspired you to become a writer?</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">I always wanted to be a writer, ever since I wrote my first six-page book, <em>The Deer,</em> in third grade—which I illustrated with a ballpoint pen and stapled together. Though I didn’t have the confidence to become a writer until I moved to Thailand in 1989 and, after a series of events, I ended up writing for the English-language newspaper and for several niche magazines.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2barbara.jpg" style="height:601px; width:620px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Who are a few of your favorite authors/photographers/artists/journalists? </strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Authors:</strong> Annie LaMott, Barbara Kingsolver, Annie Dillard, Bruce Chatwin. <strong>Artists: </strong>Cézanne, Bonnard, Dufy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">  </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>What’s the worst job/assignment you’ve ever had?</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">An administrative assistant for an insurance company, in which my main job was inputting numbers. Luckily, it was part-time, and the rest of the time I was an intern at a regional magazine.</span></span></p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3barbara.jpg" style="height:655px; width:423px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Which is your favorite city in the U.S.?</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">San Francisco.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>What’s your all-time favorite film?</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It’s a toss-up between <em>A Room with A View</em> and <em>Chariots of Fire.</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4barbara.jpg" style="height:496px; width:661px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Which newspapers/magazines/websites do you read regularly?</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Washington Post</em>, <em>National Geographic</em><em>,</em> NPR, CNN.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">                                            </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Would you rather become the next editor-in-chief of the </strong><em><strong>New Yorker</strong></em><strong> or replace Trevor Noah as host of the “Daily Show”?</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">I don’t think my DNA has me heading anything as large as the <em>New Yorker</em> or the <em>Daily Show. </em>I am a worker bee, doing my research, seeking out my story lines, and hoping to make a little bit of difference in the process.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5barbara.jpg" style="height:386px; width:652px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>What are your favorite “highbrow” pastimes?</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Running, traveling, Pilates, working on my own personal writing, and heading a foundation committed to the education of Zambian kids to help them achieve their dreams.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Read some of Barbara’s articles below:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10270-culinary-effervescence-san-juans-calle-lo-za" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">“The Culinary Effervescence of San Juan’s Calle Loiza”</a></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9932-safari-reveries" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">“Safari Reveries”</a>                                                </strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><a href="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/12411-bold-no-holds-barred-look-sophia-loren-s-family-entanglements" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">“A Bold, No-Holds-Barred Look at Sophia Loren’s Family Entanglements”</a> </strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Sources:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Barbara Noe Kennedy</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Sailko (</em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pierre_bonnard,_il_dessert,_1921.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Wikimedia</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)                                </em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Linnaea Mallette (</em><a href="https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=281389&amp;picture=san-francisco-travel-poster" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Publicdomainpictures.net</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--James Cridland (</em><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/4115439479" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Flickr,</em></a><em> Creative Commons)             </em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Mohammed Hassan (<a href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1446199" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pxhere</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Min An (<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-using-typewriter-1448709/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pexels</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/barbara-noe-kennedy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">barbara noe kennedy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">writers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/travel-writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">travel writers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/highbrow-magazine" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Highbrow Magazine</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/national-geographic" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">National Geographic</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/washington-post" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Washington Post</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/los-angeles-times" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Los Angeles Times</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">authors</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/zambia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">zambia</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/world-travelers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">world travelers</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">The Editors</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 05 Oct 2022 15:32:01 +0000 tara 11369 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/21703-meet-staff-highbrow-magazine-contributing-writer-barbara-noe-kennedy#comments Examining Digital Media Habits in 2022 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19920-examining-digital-media-habits <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 05/10/2022 - 12:00</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1mobilephone_daria_shevtsova-pexels.jpg?itok=NxBb77ai"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1mobilephone_daria_shevtsova-pexels.jpg?itok=NxBb77ai" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Consumers have more options for digital media entertainment than ever before, but what kind of content are they looking for, how are they finding it, and how are they interacting with it? Each year, Deloitte – a global professional services organization – surveys consumers to answer these questions.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In its latest report, titled “2022 Digital Media Trends, 16th edition: Toward the metaverse,” Deloitte surveyed consumers globally and found there is a growing preference for more personalized, interactive, and social experiences, especially among younger generations. Below are findings that underscore this trend.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Consumers are tired of chasing content</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Despite the sizable content budgets of streaming video on demand (SVOD) services, consumers are growing more frustrated with SVOD content discovery and subscription fees. SVOD services often require consumers to juggle multiple subscriptions at increasing costs. But on social media platforms, content discovers the user, offering free passive and interactive experiences with near-infinite streams of personalized content that are continuously refined.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1watchingtv_cottonbro-pexels.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>SVOD services struggle to attract and retain subscribers</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">SVOD providers face greater pressure to attract and retain subscribers who have become savvier about chasing content and managing their subscription costs. The average churn rate (the rate at which consumers have canceled, or both added and canceled, a service during the past six months) in the United States remains consistent at 37% across all paid SVOD services. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, and Japan, the average overall churn rate is closer to 30%. In an effort to compete, consumers may find media companies diversifying their approach, offering ad-supported tiers and bundles, or pairing premium content with more immersive experiences.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Growing popularity of user-generated content</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Short-form and user-generated social video feeds are incredibly engaging. Nearly half (46%) of U.S. consumers say they watch more user-generated content online than they did six months ago. Fifty percent (50%) also say they always end up spending more time watching user-generated content online than they had initially planned. This figure jumps to 70% among the youngest generation, Gen Z. About four in 10 (41%) U.S. consumers surveyed spend more time watching user-generated video content online than TV shows and movies on video streaming services, a sentiment that increases to about 60% among the younger generations (Millennials and Gen Zs).</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Social media usage continues to rise across generations</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In the U.S., 81% of social media users use social media services daily, and 59% use these services several times a day. Across all five countries surveyed, Gen Zs, Millennials, and Gen Xers are consistently more likely to say they use these services. Also, 70% of U.S. respondents say they follow an influencer online, and more than half of U.S. Gen Zs and Millennials surveyed say online personalities influence their buying decisions.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Social media platforms are also affecting consumer spending habits. About 53% of U.S. respondents and around 40% in the U.K., Germany, and Japan say they see ads on social media for products or services they were searching for, a figure that jumps to 72% in Brazil.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4videogames_jeshoots-pexels.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Younger consumers prioritize interactive experiences</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Younger generations that have grown up with smartphones, social media, and video games prefer entertainment experiences that are more social and interactive. User-generated social media streams and social video games may meet their needs better than streaming video.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">According to the report, Gen Z respondents prefer playing video games as their favorite entertainment activity in all five countries. In the U.S., Gen Z and Millennial gamers play the most, logging an average of 11 and 13 hours per week, respectively.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Looking to the future</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">As streaming video audiences juggle more subscriptions and higher costs to chase entertainment, social media is free and available anywhere, anytime.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Deloitte’s report suggests that to prepare for the next generation of digital entertainment, streaming video companies should think about how people socialize around entertainment. Will younger generations and the generations to follow them dismiss entertainment that isn’t social or interactive in some way? Or will the passive and somewhat isolated experience of streaming video always offer a meaningful form of entertainment? Only time will tell.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>To learn more about the 2022 Digital Media Trends, 16th edition: Toward the metaverse survey, visit </em></strong><a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/digital-media-trends-consumption-habits-survey.html?id=us:2el:3pr:4diUS175215:5awa::MMDDYY:&amp;pkid=1008679" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><strong><em>Digital Media Trends</em></strong></a><strong><em> for the full report.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>This article is provided by </strong><a href="https://www.brandpointcontent.com/article/39630/5-digital-media-and-entertainment-habits-in-2022" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><strong>Brandpoint</strong></a><strong>. It’s published here with permission.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Sources:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Daria Shevtsova (<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/bokeh-photography-of-person-holding-turned-on-iphone-1440727/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pexels</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Cottonbro (<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/couple-love-sitting-evening-4009409/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pexels</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Jeshoots.com (<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-people-holding-black-gaming-consoles-442576/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pexels</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/digital-trends" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">digital trends</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/streaming-video" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">streaming video</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/video-games" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">video games</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/social-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">social media</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/movies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Movies</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tv-shows" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">tv shows</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/iphones" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">iphones</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/millennials" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">millennials</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gen-z" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gen z</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/connecting-online" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">connecting online</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/digital-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">digital media</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">BPT</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 10 May 2022 16:00:32 +0000 tara 11083 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19920-examining-digital-media-habits#comments How South Korea, Japan, and Other Countries Came to Dominate the Pop Culture Landscape https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19773-how-south-korea-japan-and-other-countries-came-dominate-pop-culture-landscape <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 04/22/2022 - 10:27</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1foreignmedia.jpg?itok=rFdpKh1i"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1foreignmedia.jpg?itok=rFdpKh1i" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Hollywood is the center of the entertainment universe. The majority of the world’s most popular television, film, and music is created in one city in California, but the content produced is enjoyed worldwide. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Americans are spoiled when it comes to media – the majority of the media content that is out there is made first and foremost for English-speaking/ American audiences. Media created in foreign countries doesn’t often push its way onto the global stage of pop culture on the same scale as Western productions.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">However, the past several years have shown some interesting foreign media gaining viral and international recognition, trumping even the blockbuster films annually broadcast around the world.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2foreignmedia_pixabay.jpg" style="height:607px; width:417px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The most notable example of this is Netflix’s original series <em>Squid Game</em>. For the unacquainted, <em>Squid Game</em> is a South Korean thriller series released as a Netflix exclusive show in September 2021. The show was an instant hit, with <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netflix-biggest-shows-and-movies-ranked-according-to-netflix/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Netflix statistics indicating within the first 28 days of its release that Netflix users had collectively watched the show for 1.65 billion hours, making it the channel’s most watched show</a>. The show was all over the internet, sparking memes and discussion over its dark themes.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It’s hard to recall such a cultural phenomenon. With media becoming more and more diverse and plentiful, and split up between so many different platforms, it’s easy to miss out on some of the most popular shows. I’m too young to remember the day when there wasn’t an almost infinite span of film and TV at my fingertips, but if office satires are anything to go by, there was once a day when network TV ruled, and people would talk about popular television shows by the watercooler. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But I digress, the point is it is impressive that any TV show achieves that level of cultural relevance now,  and it’s made all the more interesting by the fact that one of the most notable shows to achieve this reign is foreign. However, <em>Squid Game</em> isn’t the only popular foreign show on Netflix; <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netflix-biggest-shows-and-movies-ranked-according-to-netflix/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">in fact, number three on the same list was the Spanish crime drama <em>Money Heist</em>”</a>. A number of the noteworthy shows listed in Netflix’s statistics are foreign, <em>Lupin</em> (French), <em>Who Killed Sarah</em> (Mexican), and <em>Queen of Flow</em> (Colombian). </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3foreignmedia.jpg" style="height:600px; width:405px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It’s not as if foreign TV shows have suddenly sprung up in the U.S. Japanese anime has a long history of viewership in the U.S. However, anime is also growing in leaps and bounds. Netflix has started purchasing anime to be released as <em>Netflix Originals</em> with the anime adaptation of <em>Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s 6th</em> part <em>Stone Ocean</em>, <em>Komi Can’t Communicate</em> and countless other anime that are being released in Japan and the U.S simultaneously. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Japanese media often has staggered releases, with Western localizations of anime, manga, and games sometimes coming years after their initial Japanese debut. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBsd7d215fs" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Netflix’s 2020 year in review video </a>stated there was 100% growth in anime viewership on the platform.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">There is an increasing Western market for foreign media, and Asian media in particular is doing exceptionally well. <a href="https://www.comicsbeat.com/report-graphic-novel-sales-were-up-65-in-2021/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Manga (Japanese graphic novels) not only outsold but dominated the comic and graphic novel market in 2021, holding over three-quarters of the market share -- with traditional superhero graphic novels and comics taking under 6.5%. </a></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While the Avengers may have defeated Thanos, it seems their next fight is to maintain relevance against <em>Demon Slayer’s</em> Tanjiro, and <em>Jujutsu Kaisen’s</em> Yuji.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4foreignmedia_koreadotnet.jpg" style="height:327px; width:603px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">South Korea is also making strides into the American media landscape. Aside from the Korean dramas that have been making their way onto Netflix, Korean Pop music has also been gaining popularity among American audiences.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">BTS is the 7-man Korean group with the most international name recognition. The closest Western equivalent to BTS and K-Pop groups would be the boy bands of the 1990s. Like the Backstreet Boys and N-Sync, groups like BTS have high-production-value shows, with lots of complicated choreography, and are built around the personalities of the performers who are all primarily singers and dancers. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrolli/2018/08/17/bts-sell-out-first-u-s-stadium-show-in-minutes/?sh=4c379756413c" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Back in 2018</a><u>,</u> BTS became the first Korean group to have an album top the Billboard 200, and a song from the same year, “Fake Love,” debuted at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. For something more recent, a set of<a href="https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/bts-sells-out-4-las-vegas-shows-before-public-sale/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"> four concerts set in Las Vegas in April </a>sold out before tickets were open to purchase for the general public. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5foreignmedia.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The tickets for all 65,000 seats of Allegiant Stadium were bought up by members of the BTS Global Official Fanclub ARMY. <a href="https://www.usbtsarmy.com/tutorials/bts-global-official-fanclub" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">Members of this group pay a yearly fee</a> for opportunities to get early access to content, purchase exclusive merchandise, and can apply to attend exclusive BTS events, just to name a few of the perks listed on their website.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While K-Pop and anime are all the rage, it is important to include the critical success of foreign films of late. In 2020 the Korean film <em>Parasite</em> became the first foreign-language film to win the Best Picture award at the Oscars. This year, the Japanese film <em>Drive My Car</em> has been nominated for the prestigious award.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The growth of foreign media’s popularity poses many interesting questions as to the future shape of media in the U.S. and worldwide. While platforms like Netflix seem content to purchase and serve as a distributor for foreign content, how will American media producers, especially in fields in which they are lagging behind foreigners, try to appeal to domestic audiences? How will questions of media representation be perceived with art created in different nations and different local contexts? How will Western fandoms of foreign works play into accusations of cultural appropriation, insensitivity, and other controversial topics regarding race and culture exceptionally relevant in Western nations? </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Perhaps the dispersion of culture this way will contribute to the erosion of national borders in our increasingly connected world, helping to, as the internet started, form a true global community. Exactly how the media landscape of tomorrow will unfold before us remains to be seen. In the meantime, the increasing access to and popularity of new storytelling – both foreign and domestic --  is an exciting prospect for media consumers.  </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Garrett Hartman is a contributing writer at </em>Highbrow Magazine<em>. He is a California State University, Chico, student double-majoring in media arts design technology and Journalism/PR. A lover of pop culture, Garret enjoys a wide array of film, television, video games, and literature. However, as a drummer in a rock band and an alt-rock enthusiast, music holds a special place in his heart.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Sources:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--<a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/character-anime-manga-cartoon-5615466/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Pixabay</a> (Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Korea.net (<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Korea_KPOP_World_Festival_13.jpg" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Korean Culture and Information Service</a>, Wikimedia, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/squid-game" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">squid game</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/foreign-films" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">foreign films</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/drive-my-car" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">drive my car</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/anime" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">anime</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/manga" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">manga</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/money-heist" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">money heist</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tv-shows" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">tv shows</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/films" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">films</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/pop-culture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">pop culture</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/korean-films" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">korean films</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/japanese-films" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">japanese films</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/streaming-movies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">streaming movies</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Garrett Hartman</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 22 Apr 2022 14:27:11 +0000 tara 11058 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19773-how-south-korea-japan-and-other-countries-came-dominate-pop-culture-landscape#comments Why Queer Audiences Co-Opt Media https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19271-why-queer-audiences-co-opt-media <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 01/31/2022 - 11:30</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1coopting.jpg?itok=0WLyf7PV"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1coopting.jpg?itok=0WLyf7PV" width="480" height="351" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Opinion:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Given the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2000838/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">scarce</a> portrayals of LGBTQIA+ characters in media, it may be shocking to learn that, in fact, there is no shortage of queer experiences found in film, literature, and oral histories. In yearning to see their stories reflected in the media, queer audiences have been clamoring for representation and, when there isn’t any, they become adept at co-opting narratives that were never meant for them in the first place. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Plagued with portrayals of <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/gay-panic-stereotype-lgbt-glaad-study-2015-movies-get-hard/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">harmful</a> stereotypes and tropes that paint queer people as deviants, queer audiences have had to stretch their imaginations to see themselves depicted in media channels that have historically been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191218-the-decade-that-saw-queerness-go-mainstream" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">hostile</a> towards and that continue to be obstinate about depicting a more accurate, modern queer world. As a result, in order to find at least a glimpse of our experiences they’ve had to lay claim to the narratives and stories that do exist, even when queer people are purposefully left out of them. This reclamation of narratives may even be survival instinct, given the toxic and dangerous ways in which movies, books, and stories have long depicted queer people. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In film, for example, queer coding has been used pretty much since the <a href="https://stacker.com/stories/4331/history-lgbtq-representation-film" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">emergence</a> of film itself. Queer coding is the indirect way to “identify” a character as queer, which is to say without explicitly referring to them as such. Queer coding itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it can be purposefully used as a sort of a wink to a receptive queer audience in an environment that would normally not allow explicit displays of queerness – like Doris Day dressed in buckskins and singing about her secret love in <em>Calamity Jane</em>. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2coopting.jpg" style="height:600px; width:407px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But even since the times of classical Hollywood, gay coding has also been used to inform the audience that a character was probably an untrustworthy sort. The <em>Maltese Falcon</em> is an early example of the long tradition of coding villains as queers. Joel Cairo, the villain of the famous film, is <a href="https://www.out.com/armond-white/2016/7/15/decoding-gay-subtext-hollywood-classic-maltese-falcon" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">characterized</a> by his effeminate nature, his flower-scented business card, and the suggestive way he fondles the cane handle of his umbrella. During the <a href="https://productioncode.dhwritings.com/multipleframes_productioncode.php" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Hays Code</a> era, the film wouldn’t have been allowed to depict any explicit homosexuality anyway, as it would have fallen under the category of “sex perversion” at the time, which was strictly prohibited; so instead it only subtly implies Cairo’s queerness. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Meanwhile, when characters were depicted as explicitly queer, they were often up to no good, as in the case in 1980’s <em>Cruising</em> (gay serial killer into leather and chains), the much-lauded films <em>Silence of the Lambs</em> (transgender serial killer who skinned his victims) and Oliver Stone’s <em>JFK</em> (real-life homosexuals Clay Shaw and David Ferrie depicted with <a href="https://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100party.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">very</a> <a href="https://www.artforum.com/print/199204/the-story-that-won-t-go-away-33588" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">wide</a> dramatic license over their queerness, including a completely salacious orgy scene because these questionable men also had to be… depraved, oversexed homosexuals?). In <em>Basic Instinct</em>, the infamous Catherine Tramell is depicted as bisexual—if not pansexual—merely as a plot point. The lesbians of the film are dispensed with quickly, and Catherine ends up being a villainous murderess. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In <em>The Thin Red Line</em> book, Corporal Geoffrey Fife is depicted as having a sexual, albeit not romantic, relationship with Private Edward Bead, though no such homosexual depiction is made in the movie version. There’s also the toned-down lesbianism of Celie in the film version of <em>The Color Purple,</em> even though in the book, Celie has a sexual awakening because of her intimate relationship with Shug.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3coopting.jpg" style="height:499px; width:325px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But even if in the original <em>Silence of the Lambs</em> book, Thomas Harris at least tried to say that the murderous Buffalo Bill was not a true transgender in the real clinical sense, literature is generally not really better off. <em>Carmilla</em>, a book that predates Dracula, is about a predatory lesbian <a href="https://bookriot.com/lesbian-representation-in-carmilla/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">vampire</a> that prays on innocent women. Pussy Galore of Bond fame was written as a lesbian in Ian Fleming’s original book who gets “cured” of her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/04/ian-fleming-bond-cured-pussy-galore-psycho-pathological-malady-lesbian" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">lesbianism</a> by the suave spy himself. Perhaps we should be grateful that Pussy Galore was straightwashed in the film, then? Recently, the queen of witches and wizards herself, J.K. Rowling, published a new <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/15/entertainment/jk-rowling-troubled-blood-book-trans-gbr-scli-intl/index.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">book</a> with a villain who dresses as and pretends to be a woman in order to prey on women.  </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with flawed queer characters, or even evil ones, as long as that villainy and deviance is not tied to their queerness or that queerness is not used as a defining characteristic of evil people. For example, I personally love the fact that Sean Bateman from the <em>The Rules of Attraction</em> is a psychotic bisexual (in the book at least; the film predictably made him heterosexual). </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Dorian Gray is a deliciously selfish and vindictive cautionary tale. In P.J. Vernon’s recently released <em>Bath Haus</em>, the protagonist Oliver gets caught up in a dangerous net of lies of his own making because he wanted to get hot and heavy with a man who was not his husband. And pretty much every queer character in an Adam Silvera book gets messy at some point. But these characters are not flawed because they are queer, they are flawed because they are human. Well, except maybe Sean from <em>The Rules of Attraction</em> who is deranged because he’s Patrick Bateman’s, the literal original psycho, brother.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">All this is to say that, given the troubled history of the depiction of LGBTQIA+ characters in literature and film, it’s no wonder that we’re still looking through cracks and angles hoping to find a vestige of a queer experience that is not rife with the negative connotations that have traditionally plagued queer characters, in the rare occasions that queer characters are depicted at all or not straightwashed. And so queer audiences have had resort to this co-opting of media, this assimilation of narratives to fit within queer stories and experiences that have shifted and refocused the way some films and literature are consumed. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4coopting.jpg" style="height:390px; width:602px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">There is a differentiation here—and similarities, to some extent—between “queer theory” and queer “co-opting” of media. Queer theory began to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/17/books/queer-theory-is-entering-the-literary-mainstream.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">appear</a> in the early 1990s. Generally attributed to have been developed by Eve Sedgwick and scholar Judith Butler, queer theory emerged as a prism through which scholars can examine literary texts. As a fully developed field of study, queer theory is a complex and ever-evolving network of philosophies and concepts infused with changing understandings of gender and even the meaning of “queer,” from Butler’s own ideas on the performativity of gender from their seminal “Gender Trouble” to more modern repudiations of labels and sexual preferences boxes. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">We touch on queer theory because, in a sense, this “prism” through which media is observed and studied as it relates to a queer experience has been around for a very long time—certainly since at least the emergence of mass media, though there are instances of literature and oral histories being viewed as “queer stories” that go back centuries. But more so that seeing through the cracks of half-opened doors where there may have already been crumbs of queer representation, queer audiences are also pros at co-opting stories devoid of clear queer narratives and reshaping them into one that mirrors their experience.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In that sense, this isn’t that same kind of prism through which to study works of art and media because this co-opting is a <em>claim</em> upon these stories. In other words, just as there could be a feminist reading of <em>The Usual Suspects</em>, for example, queer theory would say that there could, too, be a queer reading of that film; but no one is claiming <em>The Usual Suspects</em> as a forgotten queer film gem (yet, anyway). </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">On the other hand, the ancient Greek poem “The Iliad,” for instance, has basically become queer <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/at-the-heart-of-homers-iliad-is-lgbt-love-story-you-probably-missed-41498" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">canon</a>. Scholars have been <a href="http://ancientheroes.net/blog/achilles-patroclus-lovers" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">debating</a> forever whether the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus was romantic in nature. But just ask any homosexual who has seen half a dozen movies or read a few romance books, and there would be no hesitation in proclaiming Achilles and Patroclus a gay power couple. The tale of the fall of Troy is an interesting example because should it be written today, now that we’ve been trained by decades of movie and literature tropes, it would be next to impossible to deny what was going on between Achilles and Patroclus. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5coopting.jpg" style="height:442px; width:297px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This is because we as consumers have been <a href="https://screenrant.com/most-common-romance-movie-tropes/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">coached</a> by the media to understand and pick up on narrative points and tropes to tell us that a relationship between two characters may be romantic in nature or may turn romantic; think: the long stares and turning away just<em> </em>as he raises his gaze to meet theirs and missing it, the tumbling down a hill and <a href="https://twitter.com/fernmaximoff/status/1375351311265189891" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">falling</a> on top of each other, the lifetime friends who follow each other wherever the world may take them (even to war like, ahem, Achilles and Patroclus). Because of this, we could not ignore these narrative points and tropes when they are also present in an “Iliad” written in modern times. Decades of movies and books haven’t taught us that you bring down entire cities because you’re sad about your childhood pal dying in some war; but that you rain destruction upon those who bring harm to the one you love like epics such as <em>Gladiator</em>, <em>Braveheart</em>, and <em>John Wick</em> taught us. So, a modern “Iliad” would better give us gay soldiers or it would just be another queer-bating mess, and thus “The Iliad”<em> </em>has <a href="https://s-usih.org/2017/11/the-bodies-of-men-who-have-perished-reading-the-iliad-in-the-1980s/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">rightfully</a> been <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/at-the-heart-of-homers-iliad-is-lgbt-love-story-you-probably-missed-41498" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">claimed</a> as a queer tragedy of doomed love. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The story of Mulan, as the folklore goes and of course even before Disney’s animated film secured her place as a queer icon (more on that later), was already questioning ideas about womanhood, loyalty, and the performativity of gender around the tail end of classical antiquity. Even if the legend was perhaps meant to illustrate the value of courage, loyalty, and love of family, Mulan was already reexamining what it means to “behave like a man,” even if subversively so, way before Captain Shang told us to be as swift as a coursing river and have the force of a great typhoon. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Closer to our century, we have Frankenstein. The doctor goes in search of the <em>perfect</em> body parts to make a man. Frankenstein’s Monster comes to life and is then ostracized by the locals, who come for him with literal torches while the Monster pleads for his life, explaining in vain that he poses no harm, mostly just wants to be left alone, and that he didn’t ask to be made and be born a monster. The Monster even gets to give a <a href="http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shelley_mary_001.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">monologue</a> about his sorrows and he eventually, very dramatically, leaps into the darkness of the ocean and is borne away by the waves. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/6coopting.jpg" style="height:600px; width:405px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Even with the daddy issues aside and Frankenstein’s obsession with manly parts, we can see how there can be a queer reading of the Monster’s ostracization at the hands of the villagers for no other reason than he is alive. His mere existence, regardless of his harmless disposition, is an affront to nature that must be eradicated, never mind that the Monster didn’t even want to be here in the first place. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While there is no evidence that Mary Shelly wrote the seminal sci-fi/horror novel as a parable for the queer experience, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. In fact, <em>The Bride of Frankenstein</em>, the sequel to the original film, is <a href="http://sequart.org/magazine/56511/a-homosexual-reading-of-james-whale-bride-of-frankenstein/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">widely</a> <a href="https://www.gaylydreadful.com/blog/we-dont-belong-dead-a-definitive-reclamation-of-james-whales-bride-of-frankenstein" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">regarded</a> as a queer <a href="https://the-take.com/read/why-is-abride-of-frankensteina-often-analyzed-as-a-gay-parable" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">allegory</a>. Commonly lauded as the masterpiece of director James Whale, who was queer himself, the film even features two men essentially playing father figures to the creature they create. The gay crumbs were already there from the start; we just had to follow them. Literature after all, like all art and media, is meant to be consumed and is thereby shaped by the audience’s reading of it. Who’s to say, even, that immigrants in the U.S. couldn’t apply their own experiences to Shelly’s story and see it as a tale of survival in the face of adversity, ostracization and all? </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">And we had to mention Frankenstein because there are so many examples that offer such clear parallels between “monstrosity” and the queer experience that this reclamation of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-do-gay-men-love-monsters_b_4181062" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">horror</a> for the queer community should not shock anyone. Just as literature is replete with villains who are evil for evil’s sake, it is also full of monsters who are villainized for factors outside of their control. So queer people identifying with monsters is nothing new. Queerness has long been depicted as a facet of monsters and evildoing, so it was perhaps the logical conclusion that queer people would come to identify with the villains after being villainized for so long. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This has led to an empowering claim by queer people over all things monsters. In 2017, the now-beloved Babadook became the unofficial queer <a href="https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/6/9/15757964/gay-babadook-lgbtq" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">icon</a> of the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-babadook-gay-icon-lgbt-history-20170609-story.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pride</a> month of June when it was discovered that Netflix had accidentally <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/06/the-babadook-is-a-gay-icon-now-but-why.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">labeled</a> the film <em>The Babadook</em> as a queer movie<em>. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge </em>has become so <a href="https://decider.com/2015/11/01/nightmare-on-elm-street-gay/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">canonically</a> queer and dubbed the <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/louispeitzman/the-nightmare-behind-the-gayest-horror-film-ever-made" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">gayest</a> horror film, that I have been to gay bars playing the film on the TVs behind the counter as normally as if they were playing <em>Ru Paul’s Drag Race</em> reruns. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/7coopting.jpg" style="height:303px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Meanwhile, queer people’s fascination with <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jpbrammer/how-did-a-bunch-of-mythical-monsters-become-queer-icons" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">cryptids</a> is a more modern but easily observed phenomenon, though perhaps also not that entirely shocking. The myth of cryptids like the Flatwood Monster and the Mothman usually emerge from tales of sightings around rural areas and small towns. In places where queer people were oftentimes thought of as the bogeyman, it’s maybe not surprising that they ended up identifying with the local monster of lore. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Then, of course, there is the “beloved” <a href="https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/06/22/58413455/the-gay-power-of-disney-villains" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">tradition</a> of Disney imbuing its villains with myriad queer characteristics. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Disney is an easy target in many ways because of the sheer amount of media it produces. It has long been accused of brainwashing the youth with some hidden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2021/05/06/disney-woke-snow-white-fox/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">liberal</a> <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/happy-feet-two-politics-childrens-movie-267827/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">agenda</a> or another. Disney has also been widely <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/news/a21506/disney-gay-lgbt-characters-history/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">criticized</a> for its portrayals of villains, from the well-known fact that Ursula was inspired by the real-life drag icon Divine, to the way its male villains love to saunter and speak in lisped witticisms the way homosexuals have been stereotyped as doing. But beyond these harmful stereotypes, what’s not to like about Disney villains? They have the flair, the dramatics, the smoky eyes, the best songs. Maleficent rained down curses because she wasn’t invited to a brunch -- if that’s not a queer narrative, I don’t know what is. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">With some Disney villains, we see more multifaceted characters that live in more gray areas of villainy. Sure, Ursula took Ariel’s voice, but she gave her legs and what do we even know about what King Triton may have done to cross her in the first place? Maybe it wasn’t very nice that Maleficent cursed Aurora, but why wasn’t she invited to the royal christening when all the other fairies were? She even gave the royals a chance to apologize for their disrespect and they blew it, so what is a powerful spurned fairy to do? And there’s also just the irresistible camp of Disney villains. Somewhat similar to the way queer men gravitate towards pop divas because of their larger-than-life theatricality, the camp and grandeur with which these posh Disney villains get up to in their evildoing is wildly appealing.  </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/8coopting.jpg" style="height:339px; width:602px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In addition to identifying with the villains, there’s been a reclamation of Disney heroes, too. This is not to be confused with Disney’s meager attempts at queer representation (see <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/03/29/are-beauty-and-the-beast-power-rangers-queerbaiting-lgbt-fans/99744846/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">LeFou</a>), and its never-ending queer-bating (too many examples to list, but see <em>The </em><a href="https://www.comicsbeat.com/mcu-bucky-queer-coding-falcon-and-winter-soldier/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Falcon</em></a><em> and the </em><a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a35946311/falcon-winter-soldier-queer-bisexual-lgbtq-bucky/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Winter</em></a><em> </em><a href="https://mashable.com/article/falcon-winter-soldier-marvel-bucky-bisexual" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Solider</em></a><em> </em>and entire animated film <a href="https://theconversation.com/luca-disney-and-queerbaiting-in-animation-164349" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Luca</em></a> for recent examples). As far back as the height of the Disney renaissance era, queer audiences were co-opting heroes and heroines for themselves. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Mulan has long <a href="https://www.vox.com/21417591/disney-mulan-gay-hero" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">been</a> <a href="https://www.shondaland.com/live/a21073307/disney-mulan-queerness/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">considered</a> a queer narrative. More so than the gender-bending antics—a trope that even Shakespeare was using back in his day—the possibility of bisexuality if Captain Shang fell in love with Mulan while she was still disguised as a man, and literal men in drag helping to save all of China, the heroine herself mirrors the experience of queer people. Mulan is trying to find her role as a woman but does not want to be constrained by tradition-dictated woman-specific roles. She even sings to herself in the song “Reflection” about wanting her appearance to manifest what Mulan actually feels like inside, verses that many transgender persons can identify with. Also, it’s entirely possible that Disney knew exactly what it was doing here, because you don’t just get Harvey Fierstein to voice a character who ends up dressing in drag and then claim there’s nothing suspiciously gay going on. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Even vintage Disney films have been given a queer makeover. Peter Pan which, arguably, depicts gender roles as a being split squarely down the middle, may have some queer <a href="http://wannalearntheory.blogspot.com/2015/12/queer-reading-of-peter-pan.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">undertones</a> especially when these gender roles are studied through a loupe. In fact, every single theatrical production of Peter Pan casts a woman to play Peter – an act that goes beyond a casting tradition and perhaps instils the story of the boy who never wants to grow up with more social commentary than it had originally intended. Pinocchio wants to become a “real boy,” and <a href="http://bilerico.lgbtqnation.com/2010/09/transgender_pinocchio.php" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">debate</a> has been around for a long time if the tale mirrors facets of the trans experience. <a href="https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/film/2015/03/13/queer-appeal-cinderella" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Cinderella</a> is a quintessential story of “it gets better,” a rallying motto of the queer community. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">More recently, there was the widely supported co-opting of Elsa as a lesbian icon, for example. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/idina-menzel-frozen-petition-give-elsa-girlfriend_n_5742fe05e4b00e09e89f751f" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Petitions</a> to give Elsa a girlfriend in the second <em>Frozen</em> movie gained a lot of traction. Even detractors, who <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/14/10000-sign-petition-stop-elsa-getting-girlfriend-disney-frozen-sequel-7388245/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">predictably</a> started an opposing campaign to <em>not </em>give Elsa a girlfriend, asserted that the first <em>Frozen</em> movie has been co-opted by liberals for its pro-gay themes. Alas, she didn’t get a girlfriend in the sequel film but, she also didn’t get a boyfriend. So we’ll take what we can and co-opt as necessary.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> Similarly, <em>Luca</em> is such a simple and beautiful story about a young boy curious about what lies beyond the surface of the oceans, who is afraid of not belonging, who discovers others who are just like him, and who finds acceptance from others for being who he really is (part monster, in case that was in doubt). The film is about a fish out of water, literally, finding his path. <em>Luca</em> offers such a hopeful depiction of a queer coming-of-age experience, that <em>The New York Times</em> even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/movies/luca-review.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">dubbed</a> the film <em>Calamari by Your Name</em> in reference to the gay romance story <em>Call Me by Your Name.</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The film’s director, Enrico Casarosa, was stalwart in <a href="https://www.out.com/film/2021/6/22/luca-director-says-film-about-pre-romance-time-boys-lives" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">explaining</a> that <em>Luca </em>is, in fact, <em>not</em> a queer story because it is only about friendship. In the depiction of the two boys at the center of the film, he clarified, he purposefully made them young enough so that they did not have to worry about girlfriends or boyfriends just yet, and friendship can remain the central theme of the movie. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This is probably one of the biggest reasons why queer audiences like to co-opt stories like these, even when they are explicitly told that there is no queerness anywhere to be seen. Casarosa’s explanation may well be what the filmmakers intended, yet this rationalization makes the incorrect assertion that in order for a story to be queer, it must involve romance, or sex, of contain characters of a certain age. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But there is more to queer people than just their identities, and this erroneous belief that queer stories must somehow and for some reason be “age appropriate” is an excuse that has been overused to exclude queer narratives from media of all kinds. And it’s exactly why we sometimes don’t have to look that hard to find a narrative that reflects our sensibilities. There is something revolutionary in claiming these stories as queer, as part of the queer collective. It’s as if there’s a kind of universality among the infinite experiences that queer people journey through.   </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>This is an opinion piece by Angelo Franco. Franco is</em> a <em>chief features writer at </em>Highbrow Magazine.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/co-opting-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">co-opting media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/queer-audiences" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">queer audiences</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/disney-movies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">disney movies</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/maleficent" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">maleficent</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/disney" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Disney</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/luca" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">luca</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/frozen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">frozen</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/maltese-falcon" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the maltese falcon</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/calamity-jane" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">calamity jane</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/rules-attraction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the rules of attraction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/cruising" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">cruising</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Angelo Franco</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 31 Jan 2022 16:30:05 +0000 tara 10894 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19271-why-queer-audiences-co-opt-media#comments How the Media Is Under Attack Throughout the World https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19246-how-media-under-attack-throughout-world <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 01/25/2022 - 16:35</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1media_cottonbro-pexels.jpg?itok=h7fO8Sut"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1media_cottonbro-pexels.jpg?itok=h7fO8Sut" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The impacts of the internet and the increasing influence of social media on journalism cannot be overstated. “Google may not be a country, but it is a superpower,” Timothy Garton Ash has <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300161168/free-speech" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">noted</a>. Though Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other Big Tech corporations lack the formal legal authority of sovereign states, “their capacity to enable or limit freedom of information and expression is greater than that of most states.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The new media giants—including Alphabet (which owns Google and YouTube), Facebook (which also owns Instagram), Twitter, Apple, and Microsoft—function as the arbiters of public issues and legitimate discourse, despite assertions by their leaders that they are tech platforms, not publishers or media companies. Despite denying their roles, these tech giants are “the new gatekeepers,” and <a href="https://themarkaz.org/the-new-gatekeepers-andy-lee-roth/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">their proprietary algorithms</a> “determine which news stories circulate widely, raising serious concerns about transparency and accountability in determinations of newsworthiness.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">A January 2021 court ruling raises pointed questions about the limits on our cherished constitutional protection of free expression set by privately-owned, for-profit media platforms. That month, a federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit by LGBT YouTube content creators, which claimed that YouTube had violated their First Amendment rights by censoring their content and demonetizing their channels. US District Court Magistrate Virginia DeMarchi <a href="https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/364602/judge-sides-with-youtube-in-discrimination-battle.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">ruled</a> that, as “private entities,” Google and YouTube were not bound by the First Amendment. But in this digitally connected era, the distinction between government entities and private ones may not be so clear, raising the possibility of government censorship by proxy. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Today’s Big Tech gatekeepers trace their technological roots back to the Cold War of the 1950s and, specifically, the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Charged with developing technology to promote national security, DARPA played a crucial role in the development of computer networking that made the internet and related innovations, from the Global Positioning System (GPS) to drones, a reality. Many of the US-based global tech companies have benefited from federal funding for research and development and tax breaks, not to mention lucrative government contracts on <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/yasha-levine/surveillance-valley/9781610398039/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">projects involving national security and surveillance</a>. The result is a new twist on President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning, 60 years ago, about the <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/C17_09_Buttar_IkesDystopianDream-copy.pdf" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">threats to democracy</a> posed by the “military–industrial complex” and burgeoning government surveillance. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">These tech companies’ unparalleled control over communication makes them a valuable proxy for government agencies struggling with political and legal obstacles to censorship. In this digital era, the biggest private tech companies can engage in what we term “censorship by proxy,” restricting freedom of expression in ways that the government cannot, in the interest of both parties.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1projectcensored.jpg" style="height:600px; width:402px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Physical Threats</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">If media deregulation and censorship by proxy constitute subsurface, tectonic shifts in the U.S. media landscape, then attacks on reporters and other direct assaults on the integrity of journalism stand as more obviously concerning developments. In late 2018, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) listed the United States <a href="https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/worldwilde_round-up.pdf" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">among the world’s most dangerous nations for journalists</a>—the first time the United States ranked in the top 5. By 2021, the United States <a href="https://rsf.org/en/2021-world-press-freedom-index-journalism-vaccine-against-disinformation-blocked-more-130-countries" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">ranked only 44th</a> out of 180 countries in RSF’s annual World Press Freedom Index.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Especially since the onset of protests against structural racism that arose following the police murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, U.S. journalists have faced a sharp increase in attacks. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, the past year brought with it “unprecedented violence” against journalists, who across the United States were assaulted, arrested, or had their equipment damaged “in numbers never before documented.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Between May 26, 2020 and May 25, 2021, the <a href="https://pressfreedomtracker.us/1-year-blm/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">U.S. Press Freedom Tracker</a> documented 415 assaults on journalists, 153 arrests, and 105 cases of damage inflicted upon their equipment. During that period, as they covered the Black Lives Matter movement, journalists and other media workers “faced near-unrelenting assaults”—more than 85 percent of which were perpetrated by law enforcement. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5media_cottonbro-pexels.jpg" style="height:600px; width:400px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Chilling Threats</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Alongside physical assaults, U.S. journalists have also been subjected to chilling threats by government agencies. In Spring 2021, for example, journalists covering protests in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon, were <a href="https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/law-enforcement-agencies-photograph-journalists-and-their-ids-as-they-cover-protests/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">detained by law enforcement officials</a> who photographed reporters and their IDs or press credentials. Minnesota law enforcement officials suggested that the photos were necessary to “expedite the identification process,” but press freedom outlets <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/tech-press-freedom-april-25-2021/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">registered concern</a> that agencies, including the Minneapolis Police Department, have used facial recognition services, such as Clearview AI, to monitor and target individuals, including protestors. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In May 2021 the <em>Washington Post </em>reported that, under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice had “secretly obtained” the phone records for three of the <em>Post</em>’s national security reporters, each of whom had reported on Russia’s attempted meddling in the 2016 election. <em>The Post</em>’s report <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-justice-dept-seized-post-reporters-phone-records/2021/05/07/933cdfc6-af5b-11eb-b476-c3b287e52a01_story.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">noted</a> that it is “rare for the Justice Department to use subpoenas to get records of reporters in leak investigations,” and that press organizations and First Amendment advocates “decried the government practice of seizing journalists’ records in an effort to identify the sources of leaks, saying it unjustly chills critical newsgathering.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The Biden administration initially supported the DOJ’s maneuvers, but a month later reversed its position after additional information came to light about similar invasive actions directed at a reporter from CNN as well as four reporters at the <em>New York Times</em>. The DOJ had even <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-justice-dept-got-gag-order-ny-times-execs-fight-over-email-logs-nyt-2021-06-05/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">placed a gag order</a> on <em>Times </em>executives, preventing them from revealing the secret legal maneuvers to the public or anyone in the newsroom. White House press secretary Jen Psaki <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/05/statement-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-on-the-department-of-justice-leak-investigation-policy/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">announced</a> that “the issuing of subpoenas for the records of reporters in leak investigations is not consistent with the president’s policy direction to the department.” The DOJ subsequently <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/05/1003616525/doj-says-it-will-no-longer-seize-reporters-records-in-investigating-leaks" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">said</a> it would no longer legally compel journalists to reveal source information in leak investigations. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Freedom of the Press Foundation Executive Director Trevor Timm <a href="https://freedom.press/news/in-a-sea-change-for-press-freedom-biden-justice-department-vows-not-to-spy-on-reporters-doing-their-job/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">called</a> this policy shift “a potential sea change for press freedom rights in the United States,” but added that the Justice Department “must now write this categorical bar of journalist surveillance into its official ‘media guidelines,’ and Congress should also immediately enshrine the rules into law to ensure no administration can abuse its power again.” By taking these steps, the Biden administration could “stem the tide of more than 10 years of erosion of press freedom,” Timm concluded. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Time will tell whether the Biden administration fulfills these hopes, or whether it follows in the footsteps of the Obama and Trump administrations by continuing to prosecute government officials and other whistleblowers who disclose secrets to journalists. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">We present <a href="https://www.project-censored.org/shop/p/state-of-the-free-press-2022-the-news-that-didnt-make-the-newsand-why-pre-order" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>State of the Free Press 2022</em></a>, the Project’s latest yearbook,<em> </em>in the context of ongoing developments in the COVID-19 pandemic and the nation’s long-overdue reckoning with systemic racial inequality, as well as against the backdrop of media deregulation, censorship by proxy, and chilling threats, including physical violence, against journalists themselves. We hope that at least some of the weight of these concerns may be offset by the diversity of considered perspectives, fearless truth-telling, and bold civic solutions included in this volume. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/6media_dod-wikimedia.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bios:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Andy Lee Roth</em></strong><em> is associate director of Project Censored and coordinator of the Project's </em><a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/category/validated-independent-news/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Validated Independent News</em></a><em> program. His work has appeared in YES! Magazine, In These Times, and scholarly journals including The International Journal of Press/Politics; Social Studies of Science; and Media, Culture &amp; Society. He earned a PhD in Sociology at the University of California-Los Angeles and a BA in Sociology and Anthropology at Haverford College. Roth has taught courses in Sociology at Citrus College, Pomona College, Sonoma State University, the College of Marin, and Bard College, and he serves on the board of the Media Freedom Foundation.</em></span></span></p> <p><br /> <span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em><strong>Mickey Huff</strong> is director of Project Censored; president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation; and the executive producer and host of The Project Censored Show, a weekly public affairs program on Pacifica Radio. He is co-author with Nolan Higdon of United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It) and Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy.  In 2019, he won the Beverly Kees Educator Award as part of the James Madison Freedom of Information awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter. Huff is professor of social science, history, and journalism and is chair of the journalism department at Diablo Valley College in the San Francisco Bay Area. </em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Excerpted with permission from </em></strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Project-Censoreds-State-Free-Press/dp/1644211173" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><strong><em>Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2022</em></strong></a><strong><em> (Seven Stories Press).</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Sources:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Seven Stories Press</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Cottonbro (<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/landscape-man-people-woman-7618396/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pexels</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Cottonbro (<a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-reading-newspaper-on-table-4057766/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pexels</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--D.o.D. (</em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Members_of_the_press_raise_their_hands_to_ask_questions_as_Secretary_of_Defense_Leon_E._Panetta_and_General_Martin_Dempsey.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Wikimedia</em></a><em>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/press-freedom" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">press freedom</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/media-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the media</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/reporters-without-borders" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">reporters without borders</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/world-press-freedom" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">world press freedom</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/project-censored" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">project censored</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/state-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">state of the media</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/foreign-press" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">foreign press</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/journalists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">journalists</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/threats-free-speech" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">threats to free speech</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 25 Jan 2022 21:35:01 +0000 tara 10879 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19246-how-media-under-attack-throughout-world#comments