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Bolton Street Cemetery

Story Map

Digital Story Telling Reflection Essay

I have chosen Bolton Street Cemetery and its Memorial Trail as the focus for my digital story map. I chose the Cemetery because I found its unique use of space most conducive to telling a story and because I found its story under-represented online. Bolton Street Cemetery is the most interesting part of Wellington I have been too, its blend of historic Wellington culture and the symbols of the future of the city crammed into one small area are fascinating. Bolton Street Cemetery is not only a space where you can go and remember influential Wellingtonians but also soak up some of the most beautiful views and scenery the city has to offer.

 While creating a digital map of Bolton Street Cemetery I wanted to depict it in a way that had not been done before, so that even in a virtual space you felt like you were being taken on a tour of the trail, having the points of interest pointed out to you along the way, essentially bridging the gap between its virtual and material representations. (Farman pg105) Previously the space had been represented virtually by mediums like informational pamphlets including maps of the trail and online databases of those who were buried there. I wanted to combine these two things and construct an interactive map of the space that had information about specific areas of interest, shifting the voice of who represented the Cemetery's virtual identity from the tour guide to the tourist.

Utilizing KnightLab's Story Map tool I tried to tell a story about the relationship between the ever growing and changing city that surrounds a static, unchanging heritage site and how the two spaces interact and affect the perception of each other. Leaning heavily on Ian Hutchby's idea that technologies are themselves texts (pg 6), that is, something that needs to be read or interpreted, the consumer of the story map is put in a position where they need to utilize the functionality of the story map technology to get the most out of it, just as I had to when writing my story within it.  When writing my story within the story map format I wanted to focus the reader on the relationship between the people who were buried at Bolton Street and their family and the people who were living and working just outside the borders of the Cemetery. This relationship between the dead and living who share the same space I found, was under-represented in the digital environment and I hoped that my contribution to this story would make readers consider something that they perhaps hadn't considered before.

My hopes for the readers of my story map is that they are able to consider how the pioneers of Wellington would feel about the way their city has been changed by those who came after them. Does Wellington in 2017 match up with their vision of the city they founded? Would the people buried at Bolton Street Cemetery understand their bodies had to be moved to make way for a motorway? I also wanted the readers of my digital story map to come away with new insight not just about Wellington but about the evolution of any area and to think about the way that the past informs the present, and to think about how our present-day wellington will inform the city's future inhabitants and their decisions, will we be happy with the direction the city heads in? will area's we deem essential parts of the city remain that way?

Works Cited:

Farman, Jason. "Stories, spaces, and bodies: The production of embodied space through mobile media storytelling." Communication Research and Practice, Vol. 1, Iss. 2,2015 pp. 101-116 tandfonline, DOI: 10.1080/22041451.2015.1047941. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/22041451.2015.1047941

Hutchby, Ian. "Technologies, Texts and Affordances." Sociology, vol. 35, no. 2, 2001, pp. 441–456. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42856294.

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Slacktivism

Kony 2012 was my, like many others my age, introduction to online activism. The goal of Kony 2012 was to raise awareness about Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA was a Cult and militia group operating in Uganda that would kidnap children and force them into military service.  Kony 2012 was set up as a charity that would generate awareness for their cause via a viral video that was hosted on major video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo and spread across other social media sites.  The campaigns ability to affect real-world change was hindered by the fact that much of the information in their campaign video was largely untrue (by 2012 Kony was known to have left Uganda) and later when it came out that the organizers of the campaign where keeping most of the proceeds for themselves and not using them for the purpose those who donated money expected. While the corruption of charity organizers is not something exclusive to the online space, the lack of desire for results by those who donated outlines a theme within online activism, (”slacktivism in this case) outlined in Henrik Serup Christensen article where those participating in the activism are happy just to wear a badge to let others know they are “taking a stand” but not invested enough to get their hands dirty and take real action.  This lack of desire to research a cause further before getting involved is why there were so many people walking around with Kony 2012 shirts on, yet no one knows where he is or what happened to him.

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Making Graveyards Interactive

Mount Street Cemetery located on the border of the university’s Kelburn campus, is a location steeped in culture and history, dating back to 1841 when it was consecrated by Bishop Pompallier. This rudimentary history of the cemetery’s beginnings can be found on its official website. This site is the best instance of an informational source for the burial ground, most of the other sites acting simply as a place where one can donate money to sustain the heritage value of the site.  While the current author(s) of the space seem to be members of the tourism and heritage community of Wellington, the vast historical and cultural markers of the space afford great opportunity for new authors to utilize the space in unique ways that will both preserve the locations cultural condition, as well as help, pass it on to future generations. Treating the Cemetery like a library of sorts a technology user could utilize the locations collection of life stories and temporal markers to construct interactive experiences for future guests to the cemetery, similar to what is discussed in Jason Farman’s article, where he experienced a digital storytelling project in the form of a historical narrative set in West Virginia. Patrons of Mount Street Cemetery could contribute to a similar system where the physical burial markers were made interactive by an online database of the area’s headstones, that when accessed provided the user more information about the people buried there.

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YouTube’s Impact on Traditional Media Industry

YouTube is the world's second most visited website, raking in 5.38 daily page views per person internationally. (Alex Grey Sec. 3 Par. 1) with google taking the number one spot this means YouTube is the world's most actively used social media platform. While not traditionally part of the mainstream social media conversation many of YouTube's features afford its users the opportunity to like, share and comment on other user's posts, hallmarks of contemporary social media culture. With the physical media industry on the decline and more and more people opting out of having a paid television subscription in their home, YouTube is quickly becoming the most popular platform for visual media. The rise of YouTube's popularity has helped normalize the culture of media content "when you want it, where you want it" as opposed to traditional media's scheduled programming, in select locations. This shift has led me to ask the question how has YouTube's features afforded it to normalize this shift in the way media is consumed and if it will continue to disrupt the mainstream media industry.

 One of YouTube's most unique features is its subscription model. Once you have a YouTube/Google account you are able to "subscribe" to a content creator's channel, which notifies you on your own page whenever they upload a new video. This allows its users to have a collection of personalized, relevant content all in one place, at all times. This feature is central to YouTube's success, affording content creators the opportunity to build an audience from all over the world, who are able to watch all their content on their own time. Another central feature to YouTube's Growing dominance is the ability to easily share a video to other major social media platforms. This allows the content to find another avenue of exposure, being able to be shared and viewed across all social media platforms, not just its own.  This affords the content creators of YouTube the ability to inhabit all major social media sites while only needing to actively post on one. The third major feature of YouTube that sets it apart from other online video sharing sites is its comment section, which affords the YouTube viewers a place to interact with each other and helps to build communities around their favourite creators and genres. The semi-anonymity of the profiles on YouTube allows the comment section on the platform to be more free flowing and consequence-free compared to the often revealing profiles of other popular social media sites like twitter or Facebook. (Daniel Halpern 1160) this anonymity affords both the creators and viewers a more candid space to have discussions and exchange criticism.(Villi and Matikainen pg. 113) While it sometimes encourages negative, bully-like discourse between users, the anonymity of the YouTube comment section provides a space for discussion between fans and feedback for the creators,  that is judgment-free. This robust feedback section allows YouTube content creators to zero in on what their audience does and does not want from them, so they can better tailor their content to appeal to the maximum amount of prospective viewers.

Being owned by Google, YouTube features their Ad-sense system that monetizes a creator's videos and provides them with a source of income for the work they put into producing content for the platform. This has given birth to an entirely new branch of the entertainment industry where seemingly anyone is able to turn themselves into a micro-celebrity and build a following in a very grass-roots kind of way. The self-made image that YouTube places on their content creators allow them to appeal to their audience via relatability, this affordance coupled with the subscription system creates a sense of kinship between the creators and their viewers where the audience checks their subscription box on a regular basis to see if they get to have a new "interaction" with one of the people they follow.

The affordances detailed above allow the creation and strengthening of several social norms distinct to the platform.  These norms are most easily observable on YouTube pages but as the popularity of YouTube culture spreads, these norms are overflowing into other media-centered spaces. If you were to go to the comment section of any YouTube video that has even a slight relation to music you will find a host of users promoting their own music or content discussing music. This is an example of the self-promotion norm being established across all social media platforms that host micro-celebrities, but nowhere is it more prominent than on YouTube in addition to users linking to their own page of "related content" you will often find several other users commenting on the promotion, interestingly rarely criticizing the shameless promotion. This is a perfect example of the normalization of behaviour that is looked down upon in the world of traditional media. YouTube is an excellent space for normalizing new social behaviours because of the amount of youth who interact within it, 36% of YouTube's viewership is between the ages of 18-34 (Donchev table 1). This means that many of the users are still developing the social norms with which they will continue to use in many areas of their life (Chau Pg. 65) and are not able to see that the norms they are engaging in are out of the ordinary. It also means that the YouTube culture as a whole is being normalized to them, and at a young age will form the foundation for what they consider normalized behaviour in other areas regarding media as they continue through adulthood.

The normalization of affordances provided by YouTube on a younger generation means that as this generation grows up and takes over as the dominant cultural force (some could argue that youth culture is the driving cultural force) they will be the ones in charge of which media products succeed and fail. This is especially true if context collapse continues to take place, and the visible demographics of audiences continue to blur. While analytics are able to distinguish who is engaging with what, YouTube and the internet as a whole are platforms available to anyone, to view anything.  YouTube as a platform and the content creators within it are operating without restrictions on who can view their content and at what age. Something that is nearly impossible to legislate since the internet is international. This is something traditional media platforms that operate under the designation of government institutions like motion picture content rating systems are unable to do. If the traditional media outlets like television, full-length theatrical films, and major label distributed music are going continue to cater to the contemporary population they are going to have to adapt to and undertake some, if not all of these social norms if they hope to attract the attention of youth moving into the future.

YouTube's feature's present its users with many affordances that traditional entertainment media does not, especially because of the social aspect of the platform. These social avenues generate norms that strengthen the feeling of community these users regularly engage in. This blending of entertainment and social interaction is something that most traditional media outlets have yet to crack and is what poses the greatest threat to their dominance over entertainment culture and more broadly, cultural as a whole. Television channels and most shows on them are limited by the geographic region that the channel is present in. the same version of YouTube is accessible almost everywhere a broadband internet connection is present. The film and music industry have had to accept YouTube's prominence in a space they once completely dominated, and have partnered with the platform to offer their content on it. In an effort to lessen the piracy they were battling with, partly because YouTube was contributing to this piracy, through legal loopholes that protected them from prosecution.

The built-in "on demand" nature of YouTube is the key reason why older media platforms are finding it hard to compete with today, but the norms YouTube and its community of users are developing pose a more serious, and more difficult problem to navigate.

 YouTube is a social media platform that perfectly encapsulates the term "produser". It is a space where for some the social interaction around a piece of content is just as impactful as the piece of content itself. Having almost no barrier of entry, aside from subjecting users to advertising (something traditional media outlets are guilty of inflicting upon their audience), YouTube is more accessible to a wider range of people, and equally or more engaging than its mainstream entertainment media competitors. The norms and affordances of the platform make it unique in the realm of media and entertainment because it is both a platform and a community.  With so many young people actively engaging with the platform, the more traditional outlets in the industry will have to co-opt some of its unique affordances if they plan to engage current and future generations. While the social norms present on YouTube are present on many other social media platforms, it isn't a question of if mainstream society will embrace them, but when.

              Bibliography

Grey, Alex “These are the world's most popular websites” World Economic Forum, 10 Apr 2017, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/most-popular-websites-google-youtube-baidu/

Halpern, Daniel “Social media as a catalyst for online deliberation? Exploring the affordances of Facebook and YouTube for political expression” Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 29, Issue 3, May 2013, Pages 1159-1168, Science Direct, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.10.008

Donchev, Danny “YouTube Statistics – 2017 Facts and Numbers” Fortune lords, July 29, 2017 https://fortunelords.com/youtube-statistics/

Chau, Clement “YouTube as a participatory culture” New Directions for Youth Development Volume 2010, Issue 128 Winter 2010 Pages 65–74, Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company. DOI: 10.1002/yd.376

Villi, M., & Matikainen, J. (2016). Participation in social media: Studying explicit and implicit forms of participation in communicative social networks. Media and Communication, 4(4) doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/mac.v4i4.578

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Internet Privacy: No Such Thing

Teuila Blakely has a forward-thinking perspective on privacy in the social media age. When institutional platforms like twitter and snapchat afford mass sharing of private content and normalize this behavior it's hard to make a case for persecuting those who take part in such behaviors.  While there will always be an ethical conversation to be had the fact remains that if humans have the tools to do something, they will do it, and when made as easy as a single mouse click, why wouldn't they? The specific instance in question is a video of Teuila "sharing a sex act with Warriors rugby league player Konrad Hurrell" that was passed around a circle of snapchat users that eventually found its way to twitter. I agree with her statement when asked about the video that "You do have to go ‘if it did come out, could I live with that?' and I did" in an age where you can safely assume that everyone around has an HD video recording device on them at all times, that you are being recorded at all times, and that these recording could be "published" online without you knowing it. I think that trust in who you keep around you and trust in yourself to conduct yourself in a manner that you would not be ashamed of is essential to maintaining "privacy" in the social media age. As Megan Whelan's article indicates, no matter how private you think your online presence is if someone looks hard enough they'll be able to find everything you've ever put online and lots of things you thought you never did.

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Anthony Fantano; creator of the TheNeedleDrop.com is an online music reviewer, micro celebrity and the self-proclaimed "Internet’s Busiest Music Nerd" who is based on YouTube as well as his aforementioned website. Fantano has seen a meteoric rise in popularity this year, recently surpassing 1 million subscribers on YouTube.

 While he has had a steady stream of new subscribers since he initially began uploading reviews to YouTube in 2009, Fantano saw a massive influx in new viewers once he strengthened his social media presence across all major platforms. With Fantano's increased presence on twitter and Instagram specifically the audience members on those platforms began to engage in "Fan Labour" using his persona and image to create a meme community around his videos and reviews, as well as commenting on his increasing influence as a tastemaker on the internet's music community. 

Since I became aware of Fantano in early 2011 I have noticed him build relevancy among the YouTube and music blogger communities by carefully developing his online persona to fall in line with the contemporary self-branding trends, while still remaining on brand, that is; "true to his authentic-self". In addition to increasing his overall social media presence, Fantano also began a secondary YouTube channel where he comments in a half vlog /half journalistic format on, stories and issues in the media that relate to the music he discusses or the contemporary music business landscape. In doing this he is exercising and displaying all the traits of an accomplished micro celebrity (self-monitoring, remaining up to date on his respective field, producing an endless stream of content etc,). All of which is exemplified in his title as “The Internet’s Busiest Music Nerd”.

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Social media found my secret obsession with Dragon Ball-Z

Target marketing occurs on many social media platforms but the instances on Instagram are the most blatant and hard hitting for me. Recently on Instagram, there have been “sponsored posts” dispersed throughout the main feed that are essentially advertisements for various products, events, and services that Instagram’s algorithms (or the more precisely the people that write these algorithms) deem relevant to any given user. I had noticed a spike in Dragon Ball-Z related sponsored posts on my Instagram feed recently and began to wonder why and how Instagram knew I was interested in Dragon Ball-Z seeing as I do not follow any accounts dedicated to the legendary Anime Franchise.

 Later I made the connection that my friend had sent me a link to a site that he had just bought a few Dragon Ball shirts from, shirts that we had both seen in a video of a man (wearing said shirt) on a subway solving a Rubik’s cube with one hand. The most interesting thing to note about this instance of target marketing is that none of the aforementioned Dragon Ball-Z related Activity had taken place on Instagram. This made me wonder again, “how does Instagram know I like Dragon Ball-Z?”.

 The only connection I could find is that for some time I was enthralled with a mobile game called Dragon Ball-Z Dokkan Battle. Having found this game on the app store I came to the conclusion that Instagram is able to access the metadata from other applications on my phone and apply that to their sponsored content on their own platform; not a far cry from systems like Google ad-sense.

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Can We Listen to Something Else Besides Future?

The Meme Pictured above is a photo of the rapper Kodak Black looking at the back seat passenger of his vehicle with disapproval , accompanied by a photo of a woman being thrown out of a vehicle and the caption “Can we listen to something else besides future”. The implication of these three pieces of content being packaged together is that because of the relevance and universal acclaim of Hip Hop artist Future’s album DS2 at the time of this memes circulation, asking for the music to be changed to anything but music by Future while in the vehicle of someone who has shared said meme, would result in being thrown from their vehicle.

Without the above explanation, the appreciation of this meme involves prior knowledge of Future’s popularity (and inarguable greatness; DS2 is a masterpiece) along with having experienced driving with a passenger and having them request you to change music that you have chosen to play in your own vehicle(resulting in obvious frustration). Although not essential to the understanding of this meme I think being tuned into the hip hop subculture would greatly increase ones enjoyment of this meme because of how many elements of hip hop culture are involved in it. As an example when I first became aware of this meme I laughed considerably and showed it to my girlfriend who with a sigh told me that she “always gets that face from me when she asks me to change the music”.

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Awkward forefathers

Part of the attraction of online communities is the lack of certain barriers of entry. When faced with the more often than not daunting challenge of entering a new social situation, people often find themselves discouraged by the smallest of things. Not for lack of feeling many individuals find it difficult expressing themselves accurately when face to face with one another. This conundrum is not unique to the internet age, it had been diagnosed and to some degree remedied as long ago as 1848.(Tom Standage pg.1) when finding a distinctly human application for the telegraph; romances started brewing, romances that superseded the constraints of space and time. Much like email, text or Direct messaging today, the telegraph broke down the barrier of having to look someone in their eye as you professed your love to them, or even have them present at all. A revelation during the mid-1800’s this has become common place in contemporary society. While purpose built sites exist for finding and developing an on-line romance, what is more akin to the age of telegraph love is a place like Azeroth; that is the world players explore in the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Both the telegraph and WoW’s gameworld were by no means purposely built for finding love, but I find it extremely endearing that both are examples of the cliché that you will find love in the most unlikely of places.

Bibliography

Tom Standage “Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers”

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