Journal articles: 'Best apple watch to buy' – Grafiati (2025)

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Abstract Introduction Consumer wearables use accelerometry and heart rate to predict sleep, the same data signals used by research-grade devices to classify sleep/wake patterns. However, metrics predicted by consumer wearables are based on black box algorithms limiting their use in research. The objective of this study was to develop algorithms for predicting sleep in children based on the raw accelerometry and heart rate data from a popular consumer wearable device, therefore bypassing the onboard black box algorithms. Methods 38 children (M=8.5 years, SD=2.4, 42% black, 61% male) underwent overnight laboratory-based polysomnography (PSG) while wearing an Apple Watch Series 7. Heart rate and accelerometry data were collected via the Apple Watch application program interface. Features extracted included (1) age, (2) heart rate, (3) y-axis offset angle, (4) y-axis angle relative to x-axis (y-angle), (5) x-axis fast Fourier transformation (FFT) 4Hz, (6) x-axis FFT 9Hz, (7) vector magnitude (VM) FFT 9Hz, (8) VM FFT 14Hz, (9) mean power dispersion (MPD), (10) bandpass filter followed by Euclidean norm/vector magnitude (BFEN), (11) dominant signal power at 0.6–2.5Hz (PMAXBAND), and (12) activity counts. Four machine learning models: logistic regression (LR), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), random forest (RF), and neural network (NN) predicted sleep or wake. Model performance was evaluated by F1 score, precision, sensitivity, and specificity. Feature importance was evaluated using the RF model. Results LR achieved the best performance according to F1 score (RF: 85.04, LR: 86.50, KNN: 82.52, NN: 85.13). LR also had the highest precision (RF:88.33, LR:88.94, KNN: 86.77, NN:87.95), and nearly the highest sensitivity (RF:84.52, LR:86.11, KNN:84.73, NN:86.55) and specificity (RF:75.72, LR:75.00, KNN:54.01, NN:60.57). BFEN was the most important feature, followed by MPD, age, PMAXBAND, VM FFT 14Hz, x-axis FFT 9Hz, heart rate, y-axis offset angle, y-angle, activity count, VM FFT 9Hz, x-axis FFT 4Hz. Conclusion Raw accelerometry data combined with heart rate data from the Apple Watch Series 7 was able to detect sleep and wake in children. Leveraging the raw accelerometry data is a viable alternative to relying on black-box algorithms for sleep classification in consumer wearable devices. Support (if any)

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What motivates consumers to act differently from each other has been studied and will continue to be studied in order for marketers and consumer attitudes researchers to better understand their needs and, consequently, to satisfy them as best as possible. Figuring out why someone likes a red apple and someone likes a green apple can be a difficult process, but it's still easier than understanding why people choose an imported apple over a domestic apple when no verifiable qualities distinguish them. In attempt to analyze this invisible element and to evidence it, along with other factors such as familiarity with the product, knowledge of the product, physical characteristics, etc. in this study we will prove that there is another evident element and measurable such as the credence attribute for locally produced apples in the Korca area. For the study, 335 random interviews were conducted with apple consumers in the Korca region, providing demographic data, data on consumption, data on knowledge about apples, the attitudes of the interviews about issues related to apples and especially about cultivated apples in Korca. Full analysis was done for descriptive statistical data. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were done to group attitudes into fewer factors. The attitudes of the interviewees were grouped into 3 factors, attitudes about the physical qualities of the apple, subjective knowledge and credence attributes of the locally grown apple. Quantitative analysis was done using statistical models binary logistic equation SPSS 26 programs. From this analysis and examination of the relationships of the factors with each other and with other variables in the study, the raised hypotheses of this study were confirmed, Consumers who buy imported apples have a low rating for the Credence attribute "Apple cultivated in the Korca region" and for Subjective knowledge regarding apples.

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Background: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited blood disorder that impacts the structure of red blood cells. The most common complication of SCD are vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs), commonly called pain crisis. Frequency and intensity of VOCs can differ among individuals. The unpredictable nature of VOCs increases risk of further complications, limits daily activities, affects mental well-being, and decreases health related quality of life. The use of mHealth and wearables for those living with SCD allows the opportunity to better understand pain and general wellbeing through real time data and analysis. Objectives: We aimed to: 1) Establish a comprehensive baseline health profile for individuals with SCD; and 2) determine potential relationships between patient reported symptoms and biometric data. Methods: Following IRB approval, patients entering the SCD clinic or the SCD Day Hospital at Duke University were approached, consented, and provided with the Nanbar Health app. Participants were instructed to make entries at least once daily and wear an Apple Watch throughout the day for 6 months. If a participant did not have Apple devices, an iOS Apple smartphone and/or Apple Watch series SE were provided. Self-reported general symptoms were recorded in the Nanbar Health app on scales from 0 (none) to 10 (most severe). General wellbeing was rated on an emoji scale, converted to 1 (worst/'frowny face') to 5 (best/'smiley face'). The biometric data from wearable collected included heart rate, step count, heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate (RHR), respiratory rate, and O2 saturation. For participants that had their own Apple Watch, 3 months of retroactive data was acquired. Statistical and network analysis was performed to analyze the correlations between symptoms, biometric data, and the general wellbeing of the participant. Results: Over 3 months, 18 participants were enrolled in the study. Median age of participant was 25 (IQR 21-33), 10 females, all Black/African American, and most either HgbSS (72%) or HgbSC (16%). Participants logged symptoms in the app 597 times over 93 days with a median of 0.33 entries/day/patient (IQR 0.22-0.44). The average pain score participants reported was 5.9 (SD 2.4, n=220). The three most reported symptoms, besides pain, were tiredness (22.1%), headache (5.2%), and priapism (5%). The patient-reported general feeling average was 3.3 (n=597, SD 1.6). Heart rate (n=74646), HRV (n=1277), and step count (n=1566) were the most recorded biometrics from the wearables. The average heart rate, HRV, and step count were 105.1 bpm (SD 26.8), 31.9 ms (SD 13.3), and 4100 steps/day (SD 5960), respectively. Significant expected correlations include between pain and priapism (r=0.85, p<0.01), aching and pain (r=0.78, p<0.01), and feeling bad and aching (r= -0.74, p<0.01). We also found feeling well correlated positively to back pain and tired correlated negatively with aching (see Table 1). Using network analysis of biometrics, RHR and HRV had a higher expected influence on patient feeling compared to the other biometrics collected. Conclusion: Baseline biometric characteristics for patients were similar to other diseases with chronic pain and as expected, pain is the most common symptom reported. Our data reflected lower HRV compared to healthy individuals and consistent with other disorders characterized by chronic pain. However, compared to other chronic pain disorders, patients with SCD appeared to have lower HRV values. There was no strong correlation (>0.7) between biometrics obtained by the watch and SCD patient-reported pain scores. Our study found a strong significant correlation between priapism and feeling cold. The strongest correlation was between feeling tired and feeling cold, however, tired/fatigue was also significantly correlated with priapism and feeling cold, although negatively correlated with aching. Limitations to conducting comprehensive analyses and making direct comparisons with other conditions include discrepancies in biometrics due to high variability and participant adherence. These limitations underscore the need to enroll more patients and improve patient adherence to improve the reliability of biometric data in future studies. Future efforts will compare the use of other mHealth devices besides the Apple Watch and expand to patients outside our institution.

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BACKGROUND: Manual interpretation of single-lead ECGs (SL-ECGs) is often required to confirm a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. However accuracy in detecting atrial fibrillation via SL-ECGs may vary according to clinical expertise and choice of smart device. AIMS: To compare the accuracy of cardiologists, internal medicine residents and medical students in detecting atrial fibrillation via SL-ECGs from five different smart devices (Apple Watch, Fitbit Sense, KardiaMobile, Samsung Galaxy Watch, Withings ScanWatch). Participants were also asked to assess the quality and readability of SL-ECGs. METHODS: In this prospective study (BaselWearableStudy, NCT04809922), electronic invitations to participate in an online survey were sent to physicians at major Swiss hospitals and to medical students at Swiss universities. Participants were asked to classify up to 50 SL-ECGs (from ten patients and five devices) into three categories: sinus rhythm, atrial fibrillation or inconclusive. This classification was compared to the diagnosis via a near-simultaneous 12-lead ECG recording interpreted by two independent cardiologists. In addition, participants were asked their preference of each manufacturer’s SL-ECG. RESULTS: Overall, 450 participants interpreted 10,865 SL-ECGs. Sensitivity and specificity for the detection of atrial fibrillation via SL-ECG were 72% and 92% for cardiologists, 68% and 86% for internal medicine residents, 54% and 65% for medical students in year 4–6 and 44% and 58% for medical students in year 1–3; p <0.001. Participants who stated prior experience in interpreting SL-ECGs demonstrated a sensitivity and specificity of 63% and 81% compared to a sensitivity and specificity of 54% and 67% for participants with no prior experience in interpreting SL-ECGs (p <0.001). Of all participants, 107 interpreted all 50 SL-ECGs. Diagnostic accuracy for the first five interpreted SL-ECGs was 60% (IQR 40–80%) and diagnostic accuracy for the last five interpreted SL-ECGs was 80% (IQR 60–90%); p <0.001. No significant difference in the accuracy of atrial fibrillation detection was seen between the five smart devices; p = 0.33. SL-ECGs from the Apple Watch were considered as having the best quality and readability by 203 (45%) and 226 (50%) participants, respectively. CONCLUSION: SL-ECGs can be challenging to interpret. Accuracy in correctly identifying atrial fibrillation depends on clinical expertise, while the choice of smart device seems to have no impact.

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Purpose Machine learning is beginning to transform the way businesses organize their operations and benefit from technology investments. Design/methodology/approach To learn more about how far along organizations are in deploying intelligent automation and in developing plans and strategies for its adoption, the IBM Institute for Business Value, in collaboration with Oxford Economics surveyed and interviewed 550 technology and operations executives. Findings The primary purpose of intelligent automation is to augment employees’ skills, experience and expertise, extending the human mind in ways that allow for higher productivity, creative problem-solving and more engaging jobs for employees. Practical implications Automation is not a plug-and-play solution: companies cannot just buy the technology, flip the switch and watch robots run the business without any human intervention. Originality/value This recent survey of operations executive with specific knowledge of their companies plans provides insights into best practice. Executives believe that layering new technologies on top of old business processes is apt to be less productive ? and less cost-effective ? than rethinking processes to make the most of intelligent automation. Executives must optimize workflows for automation; this means envisioning the end result, enabling it through logical steps and prototyping the process ? then repairing as necessary before scaling.

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Heart rate variability (HRV) has been studied for decades in clinical environments. Currently, the exponential growth of wearable devices in health monitoring is leading to new challenges that need to be solved. These devices have relatively poor signal quality and are affected by numerous motion artifacts, with data loss being the main stumbling block for their use in HRV analysis. In the present paper, it is shown how data loss affects HRV metrics in the time domain and frequency domain and Poincaré plots. A gap-filling method is proposed and compared to other existing approaches to alleviate these effects, both with simulated (16 subjects) and real (20 subjects) missing data. Two different data loss scenarios have been simulated: (i) scattered missing beats, related to a low signal to noise ratio; and (ii) bursts of missing beats, with the most common due to motion artifacts. In addition, a real database of photoplethysmography-derived pulse detection series provided by Apple Watch during a protocol including relax and stress stages is analyzed. The best correction method and maximum acceptable missing beats are given. Results suggest that correction without gap filling is the best option for the standard deviation of the normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN), root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) and Poincaré plot metrics in datasets with bursts of missing beats predominance (p<0.05), whereas they benefit from gap-filling approaches in the case of scattered missing beats (p<0.05). Gap-filling approaches are also the best for frequency-domain metrics (p<0.05). The findings of this work are useful for the design of robust HRV applications depending on missing data tolerance and the desired HRV metrics.

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Purpose This study aims to identify the dominant brand attributes based on the survey conducted among 100 young consumers to know their perceptions toward sustainable brands, using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques, arithmetic hierarchical process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Design/methodology/approach In total, 100 young consumers (18 to 24 age group) were asked to provide the pairwise comparisons for the 10 brands. MCDM methods were applied on triple bottom line dimensions to identify the best alternative. AHP is applied to compute weights for the brands’ attributes necessary for brand’s sustainability, further analyzed by TOPSIS method to rank Forbes’ top 10 brands as per young consumers’ intentions to buy. Findings Apple is the most sustainable brand perceived by young consumers followed by Google and Samsung. Being the top brand in Forbes list Apple also fulfills its responsibility toward the environment and recognizes young consumers’ perception accurately. Google is also contending with the same strategy and succeed in achieving a sustainable brand image. Samsung despite at number seven and second-highest revenues after Apple has managed excellently in building sustainable brand image. Research limitations/implications Findings have shown that the top global brands do not show the same order as they exhibit in their top ranking (Forbes, 2019), and thus, create a research gap to be fulfilled by identifying the causes for the same. The results show that brand consistency and performance can be achieved through implementing sustainable and green practices such as acting social responsibility, high-quality green products, environment protection, etc., and transforming these into capabilities. Practical implications The study is an attempt to further validate Forbes’s top brands based on their perception among young customers. The study may help practitioners and policymakers to understand and get familiar with a new methodology to evaluate brands and also how to develop a positioning strategy for targeting young consumers. The paper will be a useful source of information for marketers to know how young consumers from developing countries perceive top brands on the basis of sustainability. Social implications The social benefits of brand sustainability are related to improvements in the quality of environment, health and well-being. To link these, an enabling environment must be created that optimizes resource use, allocation and distribution. Originality/value The study is a unique attempt to use AHP and TOPSIS to evaluate the best – performing green brand from the perception of young customers in developing counties. Besides, the study provides brands attributes’ framework for sustainability and is significant for developing a model as per the choices of the young consumers.

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Sleep is a fundamental physiological process that is essential for sustaining a healthy body and mind. The gold standard for clinical sleep monitoring is polysomnography(PSG), based on which sleep can be categorized into five stages, including wake/rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep)/Non-REM sleep 1 (N1)/Non-REM sleep 2 (N2)/Non-REM sleep 3 (N3). However, PSG is expensive, burdensome and not suitable for daily use. For long-term sleep monitoring, ubiquitous sensing may be a solution. Most recently, cardiac and movement sensing has become popular in classifying three-stage sleep, since both modalities can be easily acquired from research-grade or consumer-grade devices (e.g., Apple Watch). However, how best to fuse the data for greatest accuracy remains an open question. In this work, we comprehensively studied deep learning (DL)-based advanced fusion techniques consisting of three fusion strategies alongside three fusion methods for three-stage sleep classification based on two publicly available datasets. Experimental results demonstrate important evidences that three-stage sleep can be reliably classified by fusing cardiac/movement sensing modalities, which may potentially become a practical tool to conduct large-scale sleep stage assessment studies or long-term self-tracking on sleep. To accelerate the progression of sleep research in the ubiquitous/wearable computing community, we made this project open source, and the code can be found at: https://github.com/bzhai/Ubi-SleepNet.

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One of the investment is stocks. Stocks have derivative instrument in the form of stock options. Stocks option is a contract between two parties in the form of the right to sell and buy a stocks at a certain price and time. The method used in this study is the fractional Black Scholes and Black Scholes method with time of maturity fractioned by the Hurst parameter. The purpose od this study is to compare the prices of call and put options using the Black Scholes and Fractional Back Scholes. The data using close price of Apple Inc shares within period between October 1st 2020 until September 30th 2021. If the market option price is greater than the theoretical price using the Black Scholes or Fractional Black Scholes model, then the option is recommended to be sold and if the market option price is lower, the option is recommended to be purchased. Based on the smallest MAPE, the best model for call options is Fractional Black Scholes with Hurst Parameter 0,4 with 0,383% which means it is very accurate and the best model for put options is the Fractional Black Scholes Model with Hurst parameter 0,9 with 16,055% whick means accurate.Keywords: Black Scholes Fractional, Hurst Parameter, Stock Option. AbstrakSalah satu instrumen dalam berinvestasi adalah saham. Saham memiliki instrumen derivatif berupa opsi saham. Opsi saham adalah suatu pemberian kontrak antara dua pihak berupa hak untuk menjual dan membeli suatu saham dengan harga dan waktu tertentu. Harga opsi tipe Eropa dapat ditentukan dengan model Black Scholes dan Black Scholes Fraksional dengan waktu jatuh tempo yang difraksional menggunakan parameter Hurst. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk membandingkan harga opsi beli dan opsi jual dengan model Black Scholes dan Black Scholes Fraksional. Data yang digunakan adalah harga penutupan saham Apple Inc periode 1 Oktober 2020 sampai 30 September 2021. Langkah dalam menghitung harga opsi adalah menghitung return saham, uji normalitas, menghitung volatilitas, menentukan parameter, menghitung harga opsi beli dan opsi jual, menghitung nilai MAPE dan melakukan perbandingan kedua model. Jika harga opsi pasar lebih besar daripada harga opsi teoritis menggunakan model Black Scholes atau Black Scholes Fraksional maka opsi direkomedasikan untuk dijual dan jika harga opsi pasar lebih kecil maka opsi direkomendasikan untuk dibeli. Berdasarkan nilai MAPE terkecil model terbaik untuk opsi beli saham adalah Black Scholes Fraksional dengan Parameter Hurst 0,4 dengan MAPE sebesar 0,383% yang berarti sangat akurat dan untuk opsi jual saham adalah Model Black Scholes Fraksional dengan parameter Hurst 0,9 dengan MAPE sebesar 16,055% yang berarti akurat.

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Background Individuals of all ages are becoming more health conscious, and wearable technology devices (eg, Fitbit and Apple Watch) are becoming increasingly popular in encouraging healthy lifestyles. Objective The aim of this paper was to explore how consumers use wearable devices. Methods A retrospective review was done on the top-rated verified purchase reviews of the Fitbit One posted on Amazon.com between January 2014 and August 2018. Relevant themes were identified by qualitatively analyzing open-ended reviews. Results On retrieval, there were 9369 reviews with 7706 positive reviews and 1663 critical reviews. The top 100 positive and top 100 critical comments were subsequently analyzed. Four major themes were identified: sleep hygiene (“charts when you actually fall asleep, when you wake up during the night, when you're restless--and gives you a cumulative time of “actual sleep” as well as weekly averages.”), motivation (“25 lbs lost after 8 months – best motivator ever!”), accountability (“platform to connect with people you know and set little competitions or group…fun accountability if you set a goal with a friend/family.”), and discretion (“able to be clipped to my bra without being seen.”). Alternatively, negative reviewers felt that the wearable device’s various tracking functions, specifically steps and sleep, were inaccurate. Conclusions Wearable technology devices are an affordable, user-friendly application that can support all individuals throughout their everyday lives and potentially be implemented into medical surveillance, noninvasive medical care, and mobile health and wellness monitoring. This study is the first to explore wearable technology device use among consumers, and further studies are needed to examine the limitless possibilities of wearable devices in health care.

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Background Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited disorder of red blood cells affecting millions of people worldwide. SCD is characterized by recurrent episodes of severe pain attacks, also called vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC), and are the most common reason for hospitalization. Approximately 90% of the hospital admissions are for pain treatment and the hospital readmission rate is alarmingly high, as 30-50% are re-admitted within 30 days. We previously were successful in developing machine learning models to predict pain using inpatient vital signs data as well as Apple Watch data in patients with SCD hospitalized for VOC. We now aimed to predict reutilization of care within 30 days in patients with SCD treated for a VOC. Methods Patients with SCD aged 18 years and above, who were admitted for a VOC to the day hospital or Duke University Hospital between April and June 2022, were eligible for this study. Following informed consent, demographics, SCD genotype, details from the hospitalization such as length of stay, pain scores, as well as vital signs measured per standard of care were collected from the electronic medical records including blood pressure, pulse rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation and temperature. Baseline vital signs during regular visits were collected 6 months before and after the hospitalization. We used the values of nearest neighbors to fill in the empty entries. The vital signs over the whole hospital stay were averaged and those numbers were used as the predictor values for the model. The primary outcome was reutilization of care defined as readmission within 30 days to the day hospital and/or hospital. The predictors were used to fit 3 different machine learning classification models for the prediction of reutilization of care: random forest, logistic regression, gradient boosting. By fitting random forest model on the whole dataset, we were able to rank all the features using mean decrease in impurities. To avoid overfitting, we only used the best four predictors which were diastolic blood pressure, pulse rate, respiratory rate and pain score.The performance of the machine learning models was evaluated using the following metrics: accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score and area under the receiver-operating-curve (AUC). Results Eighteen participants with SCD were included in this study. The median age at inclusion was 30 years (IQR 22-34). The majority of the participants had SCD genotype HbSS (68%), and all were Black of African-American. There were 10 participants treated at day hospital (56%), while the other 8 participants were admitted to the hospital with a median length of stay of 7.5 days (IQR 2.5-10). After discharge, 15 participants sought medical care at least once within 30 days (83%); 8 were hospitalized (44%), and 13 were readmitted to the day hospital (72%). This pilot study consisted of 88 vital sign data points across the 18 patients. The metrics of our best-performing machine learning model, the random forest model, were: accuracy 70%, precision 0.94, recall 0.71, F1 score 0.81 and AUC 0.61 (Figure 1 and 2). The difference in precisions and recalls for all the models reflects the class imbalance in the dataset. To test how the model will perform for independent data sets, we used 5-fold cross-validation, and the cross-validation accuracy was 66% with a standard deviation of 7.7%. Conclusion In this pilot study, our machine learning model was able to accurately predict health care reutilization within 30 days following discharge, with real-time vital signs data collected during clinic visits and hospital admissions in participants with SCD. Prediction of reutilization may help healthcare providers identify those at high risk and allow considerations for inpatient and outpatient strategies for patient management. Our next efforts include prediction of re-utilization from data collected from consumer wearables and in a larger number of participants.

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It is essential to acknowledge that, on a general level, there is a close relationship between devaluation, interest rates, and inflation. These three elements are positively correlated and bring uncertainty to day-to-day investment, financing, and working capital management decisions. Evidently, the increase in inflation entails a loss in purchasing power and an environment in which the best strategy for employees is to protect their current jobs and, if possible, pay off debts early and avoid acquiring new loans not intended for leveraging equity. Generally, it is recommended that these new loans be issued at fixed rates since variable rates usually are inflation-dependent. It is advisable, if feasible, to increase income and reduce the so-called "ant expenses." It is crucial to emphasize unnecessary spending. These are times for careful consumption and savings decisions under a dynamic that seeks significant household spending on what could be called "pent-up consumption" in excessive purchases following the economic reopening after the pandemic crisis. Strategies such as the VAT-free day encourage household consumption of often "unnecessary" products. That is why the "what to buy" question is essential during times of rising inflation. We cannot fall into the trap of consumption because we may think that the alleged "discounts" will prevent us from buying the most expensive items; however, this dynamic is the one that increases inflation and, therefore, interest rates. Editorial Note This 72nd issue of Cuadernos de Administración corresponds to the January-April 2022 period. The ten papers published in this 72nd issue come from the journal's new strategy of keeping an open call for papers meeting the highest scientific and language standards. For this issue, authors from several countries and regions of Colombia submitted their manuscripts to our editorial process. The journal thanks our reviewers, who supported us with their experience and knowledge through the evaluation of each paper. The ten articles published show the high quality of several Administration-related aspects. The first one, called "Tacit knowledge about internal marketing in health care institutions," seeks to conduct an analysis that explores internal marketing actions in health care institutions based on the experiences of the external client (patients' relatives). In this work, affinity is identified in dimensions such as treating the employee as a customer and recognizing tasks as products, satisfied employees, service-oriented attitudes, perceived service quality, and satisfied customers under Berry's Model. The paper "Impact of Open Innovation in Peruvian food firms" aims to assess how open innovation entry and absorptive capacity favor the development of technological innovations in Peruvian food firms. A representative sample of 111 Peruvian companies was the primary input to determine the research findings. In the article "Intellectual capital and dynamic capabilities in knowledge management: the role of knowledge intensity," the relationship between Intellectual Capital (IC) and Dynamic Capabilities in Knowledge Management (KMDC) is accounted for, as well as the role of Knowledge Intensity (IK). In this work, contingency tables, corrected standardized residuals test, Mann-Whitney test, and variance-based structural equation modeling are used on a sample of 135 Colombian organizations. The results attest to a positive relationship between KI and KMDC, and significant differences were found between companies with high and low KI, suggesting a KI mediating effect. The paper "Worker experiences of workplace bullying in companies from Antioquia between 2006 and 2019" characterizes workplace bullying experiences and identifies the participants' coping strategies and the consequences of bullying, as well as the HR Office's possible involvement in the experiences of workplace bullying. The results show how the victims of harassment go through most of its phases, the main form of harassment being mobbing, with severe physical and psychological consequences. The paper "Work-family reconciliation, its effect on organizational commitment and job satisfaction" analyzes the work-family reconciliation variable and how it affects commitment to the organization and job satisfaction in city officials. A two-approach study has been carried out: the first is divided by gender (male-female), the second by the length of service (less than ten years and above or equal to 10 years) to analyze whether there are differences between these groups. The results show that work-family reconciliation positively affects job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The work proposed by Monsalve-Castro et al. (2022) called "High-performance practices: do employees and HR managers think alike?" is purposed with establishing whether there is a difference in the use of high-performance practices as conceived by human resources managers in charge of their implementation and how employees perceive these practices. The results show differences in employee perception and management implementation of some practices such as compensation and training. The paper "Sustainability Marketing Strategy of Sustainability Reporting Companies in Mexico" identifies the sustainability marketing (SM) strategies of sustainability reporting companies in Mexico. A sample of 47 companies from various sectors listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) and companies published in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) database were employed. The paper "Contributions to the technological characterization of medical cannabis production" identifies and analyzes the main aspects of the use and development of technologies in the medical cannabis industry, emphasizing the plant's specific horticulture. Technology watch identifies research and technological development trends in improving growing conditions, crop-related products, and genetic improvement. Finally, the last two literature review papers consider relevant issues on corporate sustainability and finance and organizational longevity. The article "Corporate Sustainability and Finance" determines the importance of corporate sustainability, the issues underpinning it, emphasizing its relationship with financial performance. Therein, a documentary review was carried out to elaborate on corporate sustainability, Sustainability Standards, Socially responsible funds, Sustainability Reports, and Corporate sustainability and financial performance. An interesting finding is that empirical research reports a positive relationship between Corporate Sustainability and Financial Performance, thus showing the imperative need for companies to achieve financial sustainability. The article "State of the art of organizational longevity: A Systematic Literature Review" presents a review of the concept of organizational longevity based on a Systematic Literature Review on two databases (WOS and Scopus), with the help of software specialized in bibliometric analysis and scientific mapping (Bibliometrix and VOSviewer). The release of the 72nd issue of Cuadernos de Administración by the Universidad del Valle's Faculty of Administration Sciences consolidates us as a prestigious journal in the scientific dissemination of knowledge across various areas. The journal would like to thank each author of these ten papers and the peer reviewers who supported our editorial process, always bearing in mind that the content of each article is the responsibility of its authors.

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Abstract Introduction With the recent developments in wearable technology, detecting arrhythmias has become much easier. Although smartwatches are commonly used to detect patients with atrial fibrillation, there is no consensus on their efficiency in detecting supraventricular tachycardias (SVT). Methods & Results Electrophysiological procedures were performed on 47 patients that have been previously documented to have SVT by a 12-lead ECG. All patients had sinus rhythm before the procedure. A narrow complex SVT which patients had at least once was induced by electrophysiological methods. Induced SVTs were recorded with a 6th-generation Apple Watch as one rhythm strip. Among the induced tachycardias, 27 typical AVNRT, 11 AVRT and 9 AT/AFLwere diagnosed. These records obtained from the smartwatch were evaluated by 3 cardiology residents and 3 attending cardiologists. Evaluated records were predicted among attending physicians with a minimum sensitivity of 66.0% and maximum sensitivity of 76.6%. Among residents, minimum and maximum sensitivity rates were 68.1% and 74.5%, respectively. The reliability between residents and attendings was assessed separately using Fleiss’s kappa method. The interrater reliability was found to be Kappa=0.465 (p&lt;0.001), 95% CI (0.30-0.63) within the group of residents and Kappa=0.519, (p&lt;0.001), 95% CI (0.35-0.68) within the group of attendings. Overall Kappa value was 0.417 (p&lt;0.001), 95% CI (0.34-0.49), indicating a significantly important moderate level of agreement (p&lt;0.001). Conclusion To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study showing how accurately clinicians can interpret the recording of SVTs with wearable devices such as smart watches, whose definitive diagnosis was made invasively by electrophysiological study. As presented in our study, induced, and subsequently recorded SVTs were predicted with high sensitivity and a moderate reliability rate. Adoption of smartwatches could significantly limit the delays in diagnosis and treatment of patients admitted to the hospitals with complaints of palpitations that cannot be documented.Statistics

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This case study analyses the dilemma and strategic decision choices faced by Titan Watches (TW) regarding its growth aspirations and competitive challenges in the Indian context. The case reflects in detail the global watch industry and the competitive landscape from the company’s standpoint and highlights the journey covering more than three decades of its history. The case analysis is conducted based on secondary data gathered from various sources. The period considered to study the company and its competitive landscape is over three decades, that is, from its inception in 1984 to 2020. The financial data and other related data used in this case study were collected from different databases, that is, Euromonitor passport, Ace Knowledge Portal, CRISIL Research and ProQuest databases. It is found that the company is planning to achieve profitable growth in its revenue but faces tough competition from both analogue watchmakers (e.g. Seiko Holdings Corporation, Citizen Watch Co. Ltd and Swatch Group) and digital watch makers (e.g. Apple Inc., Fossil Group Inc., Samsung Electronics, Garmin Ltd. and Fitbit Inc.). To the best of our knowledge, there is no case study on TW highlighting the dilemma and strategic challenges the chief managing director faced in 2019. These include the challenges of capturing market share, achieving profitable growth and balancing the image of TW between a mass-market brand and a premium brand, etc. Furthermore, it discusses how TW needs to compete with global smartwatch companies like Apple and Samsung.

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Abstract Wearable, multisensor, consumer devices that estimate sleep are now commonplace, but the algorithms used by these devices to score sleep are not open source, and the raw sensor data is rarely accessible for external use. As a result, these devices are limited in their usefulness for clinical and research applications, despite holding much promise. We used a mobile application of our own creation to collect raw acceleration data and heart rate from the Apple Watch worn by participants undergoing polysomnography, as well as during the ambulatory period preceding in lab testing. Using this data, we compared the contributions of multiple features (motion, local standard deviation in heart rate, and “clock proxy”) to performance across several classifiers. Best performance was achieved using neural nets, though the differences across classifiers were generally small. For sleep-wake classification, our method scored 90% of epochs correctly, with 59.6% of true wake epochs (specificity) and 93% of true sleep epochs (sensitivity) scored correctly. Accuracy for differentiating wake, NREM sleep, and REM sleep was approximately 72% when all features were used. We generalized our results by testing the models trained on Apple Watch data using data from the Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), and found that we were able to predict sleep with performance comparable to testing on our own dataset. This study demonstrates, for the first time, the ability to analyze raw acceleration and heart rate data from a ubiquitous wearable device with accepted, disclosed mathematical methods to improve accuracy of sleep and sleep stage prediction.

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Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Manual interpretation of single-lead ECGs (SL-ECG) is often required to confirm a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (AF). However, accuracy to detect AF via SL-ECGs may vary according to clinical expertise and choice of the wearable device. Aims To compare the accuracy to detect AF via single-lead ECG from five different wearable devices (Apple Watch, Fitbit Sense, KardiaMobile, Samsung Galaxy Watch, Withings ScanWatch) between cardiologists, internal medicine (IM) residents, and medical students. Methods In this prospective study, invitations to an online survey were distributed via digital invitations among physicians from major Swiss hospitals and medical students from Swiss universities. Participants needed to classify 50 SL-ECGs (from 10 patients and 5 different devices) into three categories: sinus rhythm, AF, or inconclusive. This classification was compared to the diagnosis from an almost simultaneously recorded 12-lead ECG interpreted by two independent cardiologists. In addition, participants were asked to choose the best/worst quality/readability of each manufacturer’s SL-ECG. (Figure A) Results Overall 450 participants rated 10’865 SL-ECGs. Sensitivity and specificity for the detection of AF via SL-ECG was 75% and 92% for cardiologists, 70% and 86% for IM residents, 55% and 65% for master medical students (year 4-6) and 45% and 58% for bachelor medical students (year 1-3), p&lt;0.001, (Figure A). Participants which stated prior experience in interpreting SL-ECGs demonstrated a sensitivity and specificity of 65% and 81% compared to a sensitivity and specificity of 56% and 67% for participants with no prior experience in interpreting SL-ECGs, p&lt;0.001. Of all participants, 107 rated all 50 ECGs. Diagnostic accuracy of the first five interpreted SL-ECGs was 60% (IQR 40-80%) and diagnostic accuracy of the last five interpreted SL- ECGs was 80% (IQR 60-90%), p&lt;0.001. No significant difference in the accuracy of AF detection was seen between the 5 different wearable devices, p=0.58. 203 participants (45%) and 226 participants (50 %) ranked SL- ECGs from the Apple Watch as the best quality and readability, respectively. Conclusion SL-ECG can be difficult to interpret. Accuracy to correctly identify AF depends on clinical expertise, while the choice of the wearable device seems to have no impact.

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AbstractWearables are being increasingly used to monitor heart rate (HR). However, their usefulness for analyzing continuous HR in research or at clinical level is questionable. The aim of this study is to analyze the level of agreement between different wearables in the measurement of HR based on photoplethysmography, according to different body positions and physical activity levels, and compared to a gold-standard ECG. The proposed method measures agreement among several time scales since different wearables obtain HR at different sampling rates. Eighteen university students (10 men, 8 women; 22 ± 2.45 years old) participated in a laboratory study. Participants simultaneously wore an Apple Watch and a Polar Vantage watch. ECG was measured using a BIOPAC system. HR was recorded continuously and simultaneously by the three devices, for consecutive 5-min periods in 4 different situations: lying supine, sitting, standing and walking at 4 km/h on a treadmill. HR estimations were obtained with the maximum precision offered by the software of each device and compared by averaging in several time scales, since the wearables obtained HR at different sampling rates, although results are more detailed for 5 s and 30 s epochs. Bland–Altman (B-A) plots show that there is no noticeable difference between data from the ECG and any of the smartwatches while participants were lying down. In this position, the bias is low when averaging in both 5 s and 30 s. Differently, B-A plots show that there are differences when the situation involves some level of physical activity, especially for shorter epochs. That is, the discrepancy between devices and the ECG was greater when walking on the treadmill and during short time scales. The device showing the biggest discrepancy was the Polar Watch, and the one with the best results was the Apple Watch. We conclude that photoplethysmography-based wearable devices are suitable for monitoring HR averages at regular intervals, especially at rest, but their feasibility is debatable for a continuous analysis of HR for research or clinical purposes, especially when involving some level of physical activity. An important contribution of this work is a new methodology to synchronize and measure the agreement against a gold standard of two or more devices measuring HR at different and not necessarily even paces.

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Abstract Objective To assess whether an individual’s degree of psychological resilience can be determined from physiological metrics passively collected from a wearable device. Materials and Methods Data were analyzed in this secondary analysis of the Warrior Watch Study dataset, a prospective cohort of healthcare workers enrolled across 7 hospitals in New York City. Subjects wore an Apple Watch for the duration of their participation. Surveys were collected measuring resilience, optimism, and emotional support at baseline. Results We evaluated data from 329 subjects (mean age 37.4 years, 37.1% male). Across all testing sets, gradient-boosting machines (GBM) and extreme gradient-boosting models performed best for high- versus low-resilience prediction, stratified on a median Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-2 score of 6 (interquartile range = 5–7), with an AUC of 0.60. When predicting resilience as a continuous variable, multivariate linear models had a correlation of 0.24 (P = .029) and RMSE of 1.37 in the testing data. A positive psychological construct, comprised of resilience, optimism, and emotional support was also evaluated. The oblique random forest method performed best in estimating high- versus low-composite scores stratified on a median of 32.5, with an AUC of 0.65, a sensitivity of 0.60, and a specificity of 0.70. Discussion In a post hoc analysis, machine learning models applied to physiological metrics collected from wearable devices had some predictive ability in identifying resilience states and a positive psychological construct. Conclusions These findings support the further assessment of psychological characteristics from passively collected wearable data in dedicated studies.

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Background: Apple Watch (AW) for the detection of silent atrial fibrillation (AF) has shown encouraging results due to its photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensors. However, clinical accuracy studies show varying results. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis conducted to ascertain the pooled sensitivity, and specificity in AF detection using the AW. Methods: PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus were queried till May 2023 for studies examining the accuracy of AW in AF detection. The outcomes of interest were the sensitivity and specificity of AW for the detection of AF. Sensitivities and specificities were calculated using true positives, true negatives, false positives, and false negatives wherever applicable. A random-effects meta-analysis was conducted using the generic inverse variance method to pool sensitivities and specificities. Further, sensitivity analysis was performed excluding studies using KardiaBand. Results: A total of 12 studies with a patient population of 421,156 were included with a mean age of 63 years. 6/12 studies used AW series 4 or higher while 3/12 studies evaluated the use of KardiaBand on top of the AW. AF was detected in 3,184 patients from a total of 420,312 patients. Following pooled analysis, an overall point estimate of sensitivity was observed to be [0.87 (0.76, 0.98); Figure 1A]. Ten studies evaluated specificity, with the pooled estimate being [0.91 (0.87, 0.95); Figure 1B]. After excluding studies using KardiaBand, the sensitivity was reported as 0.84 [0.68, 1.00] and specificity was observed to be 0.94 [0.91, 0.98]. Conclusion: AW proved to be effective in detecting AF in our analysis owing to high overall sensitivity and specificity with and without the addition of KardiaBand. However, cardiologists should still exercise caution before undertaking action based on the electrocardiographic diagnosis generated by this wrist-worn monitor.

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BackgroundIn sickle cell disease (SCD), unpredictable episodes of acute severe pain, known as vaso-occlusive crises (VOC), disrupt school, work activities and family life and ultimately lead to multiple hospitalizations. The ability to predict VOCs would allow a timely and adequate intervention. The first step towards this ultimate goal is to use patient-friendly and accessible technology to collect relevant data that helps infer a patient's pain experience during VOC. This study aims to: (1) determine the feasibility of remotely monitoring with a consumer wearable during hospitalization for VOC and up to 30 days after discharge, and (2) evaluate the accuracy of pain prediction using machine learning models based on physiological parameters measured by a consumer wearable.MethodsPatients with SCD (≥18 years) who were admitted for a vaso-occlusive crisis were enrolled at a single academic center. Participants were instructed to report daily pain scores (0–10) in a mobile app (Nanbar) and to continuously wear an Apple Watch up to 30 days after discharge. Data included heart rate (in rest, average and variability) and step count. Demographics, SCD genotype, and details of hospitalization including pain scores reported to nurses, were extracted from electronic medical records. Physiological data from the wearable were associated with pain scores to fit 3 different machine learning classification models. The performance of the machine learning models was evaluated using: accuracy, F1, root-mean-square error and area under the receiver-operating curve.ResultsBetween April and June 2022, 19 patients (74% HbSS genotype) were included in this study and followed for a median time of 28 days [IQR 22–34], yielding a dataset of 2,395 pain data points. Ten participants were enrolled while hospitalized for VOC. The metrics of the best performing model, the random forest model, were micro-averaged accuracy of 92%, micro-averaged F1-score of 0.63, root-mean-square error of 1.1, and area under the receiving operating characteristic curve of 0.9.ConclusionOur random forest model accurately predicts high pain scores during admission for VOC and after discharge. The Apple Watch was a feasible method to collect physiologic data and provided accuracy in prediction of pain scores.

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AbstractFruit size is crucial for growers as it influences consumer willingness to buy and the price of the fruit. Fruit size and growth along the seasons are two parameters that can lead to more precise orchard management favoring production sustainability. In this study, a Python-based computer vision system (CVS) for sizing apples directly on the tree was developed to ease fruit sizing tasks. The system is made of a consumer-grade depth camera and was tested at two distances among 17 timings throughout the season, in a Fuji apple orchard. The CVS exploited a specifically trained YOLOv5 detection algorithm, a circle detection algorithm, and a trigonometric approach based on depth information to size the fruits. Comparisons with standard-trained YOLOv5 models and with spherical objects were carried out. The algorithm showed good fruit detection and circle detection performance, with a sizing rate of 92%. Good correlations (r > 0.8) between estimated and actual fruit size were found. The sizing performance showed an overall mean error (mE) and RMSE of + 5.7 mm (9%) and 10 mm (15%). The best results of mE were always found at 1.0 m, compared to 1.5 m. Key factors for the presented methodology were: the fruit detectors customization; the HoughCircle parameters adaptability to object size, camera distance, and color; and the issue of field natural illumination. The study also highlighted the uncertainty of human operators in the reference data collection (5–6%) and the effect of random subsampling on the statistical analysis of fruit size estimation. Despite the high error values, the CVS shows potential for fruit sizing at the orchard scale. Future research will focus on improving and testing the CVS on a large scale, as well as investigating other image analysis methods and the ability to estimate fruit growth.

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Watch the VIDEO. Recent European studies have shown that there are a growing number open access monograph publishers, many of which can be described as New University Presses (NUPs) or Academic-Led Publishing (ALP) initiatives, in addition to other small open access presses. The majority of these presses publish open access e-books and also print-on-demand copies for sale. Key studies have shown a positive impact on the usage and discovery of open access books. Despite this evidence, NUPs, ALPs and open access presses in general, have difficulty in accessing the library supply chain - the channels that library acquisition departments use to buy print and e-book content via approved library suppliers, such as Dawson, Askews, ProQuest and EBSCO. This was evidenced in a 2017 landscape report from Jisc, Changing publishing ecologies: A landscape study of new university presses and academic-led publishing. As part of the ALP interviews for the study Rupert Gatti of Open Book Publishers noted that it would be helpful to have a service that “looks at how to bring academic content into the catalogues and the digital learning environments of the universities and to allow universities to also relate back to the publisher, so that there is a flow of information going back both ways”.As such, the Jisc report made a number of recommendations, including best practice in metadata and support with distribution/dissemination. In order to take these recommendations further, Jisc held a community workshop in July 2018 to surface issues with key stakeholders for the following problem statement:“OA publishers have difficulty accessing the channels that library acquisition departments use to buy print and e-book content”.The workshop brought together experts from NUPs, ALPs, book suppliers and distributors, metadata suppliers, libraries and other experts in OA publishing to discuss the above statement. The core aim of the workshop was to allow the experts to share their experiences and knowledge in order to get a better understanding of the supply chain and to gain insight into the problem statement. These discussions highlighted four key areas, which the group agreed needed further development. These have been captured as a set of recommendations and suggestions for best practice.This paper will introduce the ideas behind the workshop, before detailing the outcomes of the discussion sessions, which featured four round table sessions led by a NUP, an ALP, a book supplier and a library. Finally the paper will outline the four areas surfaced in the roundtable sessions. These included two practical areas, the library supply chain and metadata and two aspirational areas, cultural change in the acquisition process and new forms of content.

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Wearable Technology is such advice which can be worn by people and they can help to measure certain important parameters of human body such as heart beat, rhythm, quality of sleep per day and also they can identify some disease like heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Smart shirts are used for the purpose of monitoring the health and wellbeing of patients and feedback the obtained information to hub station at real-time. These are quite sensitive to pick up and record electro-signals like heart beats and movements of muscles and finally sent to healthcare providers which can monitor the vitals of the users remotely for necessary actions to be taken by the appropriate body. It can create through devices better understanding of daily activities. Piezo resistive and ferroelectric sensors have been studied for various types of wearable and flexible electronics sensors. With controlled setting wearable technologies are very useful tools for assessment of individuals. Digital inter activity can interact by smart glasses delivery system as close as the wearer’s nose. The peculiarity of the technology is that the system based on hard-free gadgets with practical uses, powered by microprocessors for enhancing the ability to send and receive data through internet. Smart phone is best known wearable has emerged and continue to emerge today as proposed by APPLE watch. For humanity wearable devices with electronics present a unique interface of technology.

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Introduction: While mHealth platforms can enable rapid participant recruitment, the first 5 ResearchKit apps retained less than 10% of daily participants after the first 90 days, whereas well-optimized consumer mobile apps like Instagram and Twitter retain 31% and 48%, respectively. We proposed to apply design principles from the world of consumer internet to achieve high engagement and retention in a mHealth study. Methods: We enrolled 14,011 users of Cardiogram for Apple Watch app into the Health eHeart Study, an IRB-approved study at UCSF. We applied 3 key design principles to drive engagement and retention. First, give valuable insights back to user—e.g., notify users of abnormal heart rate spikes, and show when exercise caused a lower resting heart rate trend—using Gottman’s ratio: for every negative insight, give 5 positive ones. Second, minimize latency so users’ data updates many times per day. Third, use simple user interfaces that easily visualize trends and provide insights in small digestible formats. Results: Mean age was 42.3 ± 12.1, 31% were women. Seven days after app install, 64% of participants were active; 63% were active after 30 days, and 54% after 90 days. Retention was consistent across age groups—day 90 retention was 52% for 20-40 y.o., 55% for 40-60, and 49% for above 60. Refreshing data as frequently as possible had the highest impact on user engagement—in A/B testing, where heart rate visualizations were updated less frequently, we saw 20.9% drop in daily active users (51951 to 41094) within 7 days. The ratio of daily to monthly active users, a key measure of engagement, is 69.8% in our study, while average mHealth app is 8%. Conclusions: By applying design techniques from consumer mobile apps, we achieved day 90 retention 5x higher than the best ResearchKit app, showing that mHealth studies can retain large cohorts of participants and collect unique ambulatory health data with high engagement, improving the impact of mobile health interventions.

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Abstract Background Standardized validation indices (i.e., accuracy, bias, and precision) provide a comprehensive comparison of step counting wearable technologies. Purpose To expand a previously published child/youth catalog of validity indices to include adults (21–40, 41–60 and 61–85 years of age) assessed across a range of treadmill speeds (slow [0.8–3.2 km/h], normal [4.0–6.4 km/h], fast [7.2–8.0 km/h]) and device wear locations (ankle, thigh, waist, and wrist). Methods Two hundred fifty-eight adults (52.5 ± 18.7 years, 49.6% female) participated in this laboratory-based study and performed a series of 5-min treadmill bouts while wearing multiple devices; 21 devices in total were evaluated over the course of this multi-year cross-sectional study (2015–2019). The criterion measure was directly observed steps. Computed validity indices included accuracy (mean absolute percentage error, MAPE), bias (mean percentage error, MPE), and precision (correlation coefficient, r; standard deviation, SD; coefficient of variation, CoV). Results Over the range of normal speeds, 15 devices (Actical, waist-worn ActiGraph GT9X, activPAL, Apple Watch Series 1, Fitbit Ionic, Fitbit One, Fitbit Zip, Garmin vivoactive 3, Garmin vivofit 3, waist-worn GENEActiv, NL-1000, PiezoRx, Samsung Gear Fit2, Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro, and StepWatch) performed at < 5% MAPE. The wrist-worn ActiGraph GT9X displayed the worst accuracy across normal speeds (MAPE = 52%). On average, accuracy was compromised across slow walking speeds for all wearable technologies (MAPE = 40%) while all performed best across normal speeds (MAPE = 7%). When analyzing the data by wear locations, the ankle and thigh demonstrated the best accuracy (both MAPE = 1%), followed by the waist (3%) and the wrist (15%) across normal speeds. There were significant effects of speed, wear location, and age group on accuracy and bias (both p < 0.001) and precision (p ≤ 0.045). Conclusions Standardized validation indices cataloged by speed, wear location, and age group across the adult lifespan facilitate selecting, evaluating, or comparing performance of step counting wearable technologies. Speed, wear location, and age displayed a significant effect on accuracy, bias, and precision. Overall, reduced performance was associated with very slow walking speeds (0.8 to 3.2 km/h). Ankle- and thigh-located devices logged the highest accuracy, while those located at the wrist reported the worst accuracy. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02650258. Registered 24 December 2015.

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IMDb adalah sumber informasi paling populer untuk informasi film, TV, dan selebritas, Tonton trailer, dapatkan jadwal tayang, dan beli tiket untuk film mendatang serta melihat ulasan guna dalam mengambil keputusan yang akan diambil. Dengan menggunakan Aplikasi IMDb informasi akan lebih cepat lagi karena kini informasi ada digenggaman tangan yang telah terinstal pada handphone yang digunakan dengan jumlah lebih dari 100 juta unduhan untuk platform tersebut pada play store. Pada ulasan pengujian kali ini Pengujian akan menggabungkan Algoritma Naive Bayes dengan Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) untuk meningkatkan nilai akurasi dan ROC Curve yang didapatkan. Data ulasan analisis sentimen yang digunakan 1000 ulasan dalam bahasa indonesia yang masing-masing terdiri dari 500 ulasan negatif dengan sifat yang tidak mendukung serta 500 ulasan positif dengan sifat yang mendukung, dengan sumber data ulasan diambil dari Google Play di Aplikasi IMDb. Hasil yang didapat dari kedua model ini yakni Algoritma Naive Bayes dengan Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) mendapatkan hasil accuracy pengujian terbaik yakni nilai accuracy: 80.00% eksperimen dilakukan dengan menggunakan Aplikasi RapidMiner Studio. IMDb is the most popular source of information for movie, TV and celebrity information, Watch trailers, get showtimes and buy tickets for upcoming movies and view reviews to make informed decisions. By using the IMDb application, information will be even faster because now the information is in the palm of the hand that has been installed on the cellphone used with more than 100 million downloads for that platform on the play store. In this review, the test will combine the Naive Bayes Algorithm with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to increase the accuracy and ROC Curve values obtained. Sentiment analysis review data used 1000 reviews in Indonesian, each of which consisted of 500 negative reviews with unsupportive characteristics and 500 positive reviews with supportive characteristics, with the source of review data taken from Google Play in the IMDb Application. The results obtained from these two models, namely the Naive Bayes Algorithm with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) get the best test accuracy results, namely the accuracy value: 80.00% experiments were carried out using the RapidMiner Studio Application.

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Saturday, 24 July 1971, Tower Mill Hotel The man jiggles the brick, gauges its weight. His stout hand, a flash of his watch dial, the sleeve rolled back, muscles on the upper arm bundled tight. His face half-erased by the dark. There’s something going on beneath the surface that Murray can’t grasp. He thinks of the three witches in Polanski’s Macbeth, huddled together on the beach, digging a circle in the sand with bare hands, unwrapping their filthy bundle. A ritual. The brick’s in the air and it’s funny but Murray expected it to spin but it doesn’t, it holds its position, arcs forward, as though someone’s taken the sky and pulled it sideways to give the impression of movement, like those chase scenes in the Punch and Judy shows you don’t see anymore. The brick hits the cement and fractures. Red dust on cops’ shined shoes. Murray feels the same sense of shock he’d felt, sitting in the sagging canvas seat at one of his film nights, recognising the witches’ bundle, a severed human arm, hacked off just before the elbow; both times looking so intently, he had no distance or defence when the realisation came. ‘What is it?’ says Lan. Murray points to the man who threw the brick but she is looking the other way, at a cop in a white riot helmet, head like a globe, swollen up as though bitten. Lan stands on Murray’s feet to see. The pig yells through a megaphone: ‘You’re occupying too much of the road. It’s illegal. Step back. Step back.’ Lan’s back is pressed against Murray’s stomach; her bum fits snugly to his groin. He resists the urge to plant his cold hands on her warm stomach, to watch her squirm. She turns her head so her mouth is next to his ear, says, ‘Don’t move.’ She sounds winded, her voice without force. He’s pinned to the ground by her feet. Again, ‘Step back. Step back.’ Next to him, Roger begins a chant. ‘Springboks,’ he yells, the rest of the crowd picking up the chant, ‘out now!’ ‘Springboks!’ ‘Out now!’ Murray looks up, sees a hand pressed against the glass in one of the hotel’s windows, quickly withdrawn. The hand belongs to a white man, for sure. It must be one of the footballers, although the gesture is out of keeping with his image of them. Too timid. He feels tired all of a sudden. But Jacobus Johannes Fouché’s voice is in his head, these men—the Springboks—represent the South African way of life, and the thought of the bastard Bjelke inviting them here. He, Roger and Lan were there the day before when the footballers pulled up outside the Tower Mill Hotel in a black and white bus. ‘Can you believe the cheek of those bastards?’ said Roger when they saw them bounding off the bus, legs the span of Murray’s two hands. A group of five Nazis had been lined up in front of the glass doors reflecting the city, all in uniform: five sets of white shirts and thin black ties, five sets of khaki pants and storm-trooper boots, each with a red sash printed with a black and white swastika tied around their left arms, just above the elbow. The Springboks strode inside, ignoring the Nazi’s salute. The protestors were shouting. An apple splattered wetly on the sidewalk. Friday, 7 April 1972, St Lucia Lan left in broad daylight. Murray didn’t know why this upset him, except that he had a vague sense that she should’ve gone in the night time, under the cover of dark. The guilty should sneak away, with bowed heads and faces averted, not boldly, as though going for an afternoon walk. Lan had pulled down half his jumpers getting the suitcase from the top of the cupboard. She left his clothes scattered across the bedroom, victims of an explosion, an excess of emotion. In the two days after Lan left, Murray scours the house looking for some clue to where she was, maybe a note to him, blown off the table in the wind, or put down and forgotten in the rush. Perhaps there was a letter from her parents, bankrupt, demanding she return to Vietnam. Or a relative had died. A cousin in the Viet Cong napalmed. He finds a packet of her tampons in the bathroom cupboard, tries to flush them down the toilet, but they keep floating back up. They bloat; the knotted strings make them look like some strange water-dwelling creature, paddling in the bowl. He pees in the shower for a while, but in the end he scoops the tampons back out again with the holder for the toilet brush. The house doesn’t yield anything, so he takes to the garden, circles the place, investigates its underbelly. The previous tenant had laid squares of green carpet underneath, off-cuts that met in jagged lines, patches of dirt visible. Murray had set up two sofas, mouldy with age, on the carpeted part, would invite his friends to sit with him there, booze, discuss the state of the world and the problem with America. Roger rings in the afternoon, says, ‘What gives? We were supposed to have lunch.’ Murray says, ‘Lan’s left me.’ He knows he will cry soon. ‘Oh Christ. I’m so sorry,’ says Roger. Murray inhales, snuffs up snot. Roger coughs into the receiver. ‘It was just out of the blue,’ says Murray. ‘Where’s she gone?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘She didn’t say anything?’ ‘No,’ says Murray. ‘She could be anywhere. Maybe you should call the police, put in a missing report,’ says Roger. ‘I’m not too friendly with the cops,’ says Murray, and coughs. ‘You sound a bit crook. I’ll come over,’ says Roger. ‘That’d be good,’ says Murray. Roger turns up at the house an hour later, wearing wide pants and a tight collared shirt with thick white and red stripes. He’s growing a moustache, only cuts his hair when he visits his parents. Murray says, ‘I’ll make us a cuppa.’ Roger nods, sits down at the vinyl table with his hands resting on his knees. He says, ‘Are you coming to 291 on Sunday?’ 291 St Paul’s Terrace is the Brisbane Communist Party’s headquarters. Murray says, ‘What’s on?’ ‘Billy needs someone to look after the bookshop.’ Murray gives Roger a mug of tea, sits down with his own mug between his elbows, and cradles his head in his hands so his hair falls over his wrists. After a minute, Roger says, ‘Does her family know?’ Murray makes a strange noise through his hands. ‘I don’t even know how to contact them,’ he says. ‘She wrote them letters—couldn’t afford to phone—but she’s taken everything with her. The address book. Everything.’ Murray knows nothing of the specifics of Lan’s life before she met him. She was the first Asian he’d ever spoken to. She wore wrap-around skirts that changed colour in the sun; grew her hair below the waist; sat in the front row in class and never spoke. He liked the shape of her calf as it emerged from her skirt. He saw her on the great lawn filming her reflection in a window with a Sony Portapak and knew that he wanted her more than anything. Murray seduced her by saying almost nothing and touching her as often as he could. He was worried about offending her. What reading he had done made him aware of his own ignorance, and his friend in Psych told him that when you touch a girl enough — especially around the aureole — a hormone is released that bonds them to you, makes them sad when you leave them or they leave you. In conversation, Murray would put his hand on Lan’s elbow, once on the top of her head. Lan was ready to be seduced. Murray invited her to a winter party in his backyard. They kissed next to the fire and he didn’t notice until the next morning that the rubber on the bottom of his shoe melted in the flames. She moved into his house quickly, her clothes bundled in three plastic bags. He wanted her to stay in bed with him all day, imagined he was John Lennon and she Yoko Ono. Their mattress became a soup of discarded clothes, bread crumbs, wine stains, come stains, ash and flakes of pot. He resented her when she told him that she was bored, and left him, sheets pulled aside to reveal his erection, to go to class. Lan tutored high-schoolers for a while, but they complained to their mothers that they couldn’t understand her accent. She told him her parents wanted her to come home. The next night he tidied the house, and cooked her dinner. Over the green peas and potato—Lan grated ginger over hers, mixed it with chili and soy sauce, which she travelled all the way to Chinatown on a bus to buy—Murray proposed. They were married in the botanic gardens, surrounded by Murray’s friends. The night before his father called him up and said, ‘It’s not too late to get out of it. You won’t be betraying the cause.’ Murray said, ‘You have no idea what this means to me,’ and hung up on him. Sunday, 9 April 1972, 291 St Paul’s Terrace Murray perches on the backless stool behind the counter in The People’s Bookshop. He has the sense he is on the brink of something. His body is ready for movement. When a man walks into the shop, Murray panics because Billy hadn’t shown him how to use the cash register. He says, ‘Can I help?’ anyway. ‘No,’ says the man. The man walks the length of the shelves too fast to read the titles. He stops at a display of Australiana on a tiered shelf, slides his hand down the covers on display. He pauses at Crocodile Hunt. The cover shows a drawing of a bulky crocodile, scaled body bent in an S, its jaws under the man’s thumb. He picks it up, examines it. Murray thinks it odd that he doesn’t flip it over to read the blurb. He walks around the whole room once, scanning the shelves, reaches Murray at the counter and puts the book down between them. Murray picks it up, turns it over, looking for a price. It’s stuck on the back in faded ink. He opens his mouth to tell the man how much, and finds him staring intently at the ceiling. Murray looks up too. A hairline crack runs along the surface and there are bulges in the plaster where the wooden framework’s swollen. It’s lower than Murray remembers. He thinks that if he stood on his toes he could reach it with the tips of his fingers. Murray looks down again to find the man staring at him. Caught out, Murray mutters the price, says, ‘You don’t have it in exact change, do you?’ The man nods, fumbles around in his pocket for a bit and brings out a note, which he lays at an angle along the bench top. He counts the coins in the palm of his hand. He makes a fist around the coins, brings his hand over the note and lets go. The coins fall, clinking, over the bench. One spins wildly, rolls past Murray’s arm and across the bench. Murray lets it fall. He recognises the man now; it is the act of release that triggers the memory, the fingers spread wide, the wrist bent, the black watch band. This is the man who threw the brick in the Springbok protest. Dead set. He looks up again, expecting to see the same sense of recognition in the man, but he is walking out of the shop. Murray follows him outside, leaving the door open and the money still on the counter. The man is walking right along St Paul’s Terrace. He tucks the book under his arm to cross Barry Parade, as though he might need both hands free to wave off the oncoming traffic. Murray stands on the other side of the road, unsure of what to do. When Murray came outside, he’d planned to hail the man, tell him he recognised him from the strike and was a fellow comrade. They give discounts to Communist Party members. Outside the shop, it strikes him that perhaps the man is not one of them at all. Just because he was at the march doesn’t make him a communist. Despite the unpopularity of the cause —‘It’s just fucking football,’ one of Murray’s friends had said. ‘What’s it got to do with anything?’— there had been many types there, a mixture of labour party members; unionists; people in the Radical Club and the Eureka Youth League; those not particularly attached to anyone. He remembers again the brick shattered on the ground. It hadn’t hit anyone, but was an incitement to violence. This man is dangerous. Murray is filled again with nervous energy, which leaves him both dull-witted and super-charged, as though he is a wind-up toy twisted tight and then released, unable to do anything but move in the direction he’s facing. He crosses the road about five metres behind the man, sticks to the outer edge of the pavement, head down. If he moves his eyes upwards, while still keeping his neck lowered, he can see the shoes of the man, his white socks flashing with each step. The man turns the corner into Brunswick Street. He stops at a car parked in front of the old Masonic Temple. Murray walks past fast, unsure of what to do next. The Temple’s entry is set back in the building, four steps leading up to a red door. Murray ducks inside the alcove, looks up to see the man sitting in the driver’s seat pulling out the pages of Crocodile Hunt and feeding them through the half wound-down window where they land, fanned out, on the road. When he’s finished dismembering the book, the man spreads the page-less cover across the back of the car. The crocodile, snout on the side, one eye turned outwards, stares out into the street. The man flicks the ignition and drives, the pages flying out and onto the road in his wake. Murray sits down on the steps of the guild and smokes. He isn’t exactly sure what just happened. The man must have bought the book just because he liked the picture on the front of the cover. But it’s odd though that he had bothered to spend so much just for one picture. Murray remembers how he had paced the shop and studiously examined the ceiling. He’d given the impression of someone picking out furniture for the room, working out the dimensions so some chair or table would fit. A cough. Murray looks up. The man’s standing above him, his forearm resting on the wall, elbow bent. His other arm hangs at his side, hand bunched up around a bundle of keys. ‘I wouldn’t of bothered following me, if I was you,’ the man says. ‘The police are on my side. Special branch are on my side.’ He pushes himself off the wall, stands up straight, and says, ‘Heil Hitler.’ Tuesday April 19, 1972, 291 St Paul’s Terrace Murray brings his curled fist down on the door. It opens with the force of his knock and he feels like an idiot for even bothering. The hallway’s dark. Murray runs into a filing cabinet, swears, and stands in the centre of the corridor, with his hand still on the cabinet, calling, ‘Roger! Roger!’ Murray told Roger he’d come here when he called him. Murray was walking back from uni, and on the other side of the road to his house, ready to cross, he saw there was someone standing underneath the house, looking out into the street. Murray didn’t stop. He didn’t need to. He knew it was the man from the bookshop, the Nazi. Murray kept walking until he reached the end of the street, turned the corner and then ran. Back on campus, he shut himself in a phone box and dialed Roger’s number. ‘I can’t get to my house,’ Murray said when Roger picked up. ‘Lock yourself out, did you?’ said Roger. ‘You know that Nazi? He’s back again.’ ‘I don’t get it,’ said Roger. ‘It doesn’t matter. I need to stay with you,’ said Murray. ‘You can’t. I’m going to a party meeting.’ ‘I’ll meet you there.’ ‘Ok. If you want.’ Roger hung up. Now, Roger stands framed in the doorway of the meeting room. ‘Hey Murray, shut up. I can hear you. Get in here.’ Roger switches on the hallway light and Murray walks into the meeting room. There are about seven people, sitting on hard metal chairs around a long table. Murray sits next to Roger, nods to Patsy, who has nice breasts but is married. Vince says, ‘Hi, Murray, we’re talking about the moratorium on Friday.’ ‘You should bring your pretty little Vietnamese girl,’ says Billy. ‘She’s not around anymore,’ says Roger. ‘That’s a shame,’ says Patsy. ‘Yeah,’ says Murray. ‘Helen Dashwood told me her school has banned them from wearing moratorium badges,’ says Billy. ‘Far out,’ says Patsy. ‘We should get her to speak at the rally,’ says Stella, taking notes, and then, looking up, says, ‘Can anyone smell burning?’ Murray sniffs, says ‘I’ll go look.’ They all follow him down the hall. Patsy says, behind him, ‘Is it coming from the kitchen?’ Roger says, ‘No,’ and then the windows around them shatter. Next to Murray, a filing cabinet buckles and twists like wet cardboard in the rain. A door is blown off its hinges. Murray feels a moment of great confusion, a sense that things are sliding away from him spectacularly. He’s felt this once before. He wanted Lan to sit down with him, but she said she didn’t want to be touched. He’d pulled her to him, playfully, a joke, but he was too hard and she went limp in his hands. Like she’d been expecting it. Her head hit the table in front of him with a sharp, quick crack. He didn’t understand what happened; he had never experienced violence this close. He imagined her brain as a line drawing with the different sections coloured in, like his Psych friend had once showed him, except squashed in at the bottom. She had recovered, of course, opened her eyes a second later to him gasping. He remembered saying, ‘I just want to hold you. Why do you always do this to me?’ and even to him it hadn’t made sense because he was the one doing it to her. Afterwards, Murray had felt hungry, but couldn’t think of anything that he’d wanted to eat. He sliced an apple in half, traced the star of seeds with his finger, then decided he didn’t want it. He left it, already turning brown, on the kitchen bench. Author’s Note No one was killed in the April 19 explosion, nor did the roof fall in. The bookstore, kitchen and press on the first floor of 291 took the force of the blast (Evans and Ferrier). The same night, a man called The Courier Mail (1) saying he was a member of a right wing group and had just bombed the Brisbane Communist Party Headquarters. He threatened to bomb more on Friday if members attended the anti-Vietnam war moratorium that day. He ended his conversation with ‘Heil Hitler.’ Gary Mangan, a known Nazi party member, later confessed to the bombing. He was taken to court, but the Judge ruled that the body of evidence was inadmissible, citing a legal technicality. Mangan was not charged.Ian Curr, in his article, Radical Books in Brisbane, publishes an image of the Communist party quarters in Brisbane. The image, entitled ‘After the Bomb, April 19 1972,’ shows detectives interviewing those who were in the building at the time. One man, with his back to the camera, is unidentified. I imagined this unknown man, in thongs with the long hair, to be Murray. It is in these gaps in historical knowledge that the writer of fiction is free to imagine. References “Bomb in the Valley, Then City Shots.” The Courier Mail 20 Apr. 1972: 1. Curr, Ian. Radical Books in Brisbane. 2008. 24 Jun. 2011 < http://workersbushtelegraph.com.au/2008/07/18/radical-books-in-brisbane/ >. Evans, Raymond, and Carole Ferrier. Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History. Brisbane: Vulgar Press, 2004.

Abstract:

In the contemporary era, media spectacle organizes and mobilizes economic life, political conflict, social interactions, culture, and everyday life. My recently published book Media Spectacle explores a profusion of developments in hi-tech culture, media-driven society, and spectacle politics. Spectacle culture involves everything from film and broadcasting to Internet cyberculture and encompasses phenomena ranging from elections to terrorism and to the media dramas of the moment. For ‘Logo’, I am accordingly sketching out briefly a terrain I probe in detail in the book from which these examples are taken.1 During the past decades, every form of culture and significant forms of social life have become permeated by the logic of the spectacle. Movies are bigger and more spectacular than ever, with high-tech special effects expanding the range of cinematic spectacle. Television channels proliferate endlessly with all-day movies, news, sports, specialty niches, re-runs of the history of television, and whatever else can gain an audience. The rock spectacle reverberates through radio, television, CDs, computers networks, and extravagant concerts. The Internet encircles the world in the spectacle of an interactive and multimedia cyberculture. Media culture excels in creating megaspectacles of sports championships, political conflicts, entertainment, "breaking news" and media events, such as the O.J. Simpson trial, the Death of Princess Diana, or the sex or murder scandal of the moment. Megaspectacle comes as well to dominate party politics, as the political battles of the day, such as the Clinton sex scandals and impeachment, the 36 Day Battle for the White House after Election 2000, and the September 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent Terror War. These dramatic media passion plays define the politics of the time, and attract mass audiences to their programming, hour after hour, day after day. The concept of "spectacle" derives from French Situationist theorist Guy Debord's 1972 book Society of the Spectacle. "Spectacle," in Debord's terms, "unifies and explains a great diversity of apparent phenomena" (Debord 1970: #10). In one sense, it refers to a media and consumer society, organized around the consumption of images, commodities, and spectacles. Spectacles are those phenomena of media culture which embody contemporary society's basic values, and dreams and nightmares, putting on display dominant hopes and fears. They serve to enculturate individuals into its way of life, and dramatize its conflicts and modes of conflict resolution. They include sports events, political campaigns and elections, and media extravaganzas like sensational murder trials, or the Bill Clinton sex scandals and impeachment spectacle (1998-1999). As we enter a new millennium, the media are becoming ever more technologically dazzling and are playing an increasingly central role in everyday life. Under the influence of a postmodern image culture, seductive spectacles fascinate the denizens of the media and consumer society and involve them in the semiotics of a new world of entertainment, information, a semiotics of a new world of entertainment, information, and drama, which deeply influence thought and action. For Debord: "When the real world changes into simple images, simple images become real beings and effective motivations of a hypnotic behavior. The spectacle as a tendency to make one see the world by means of various specialized mediations (it can no longer be grasped directly), naturally finds vision to be the privileged human sense which the sense of touch was for other epochs; the most abstract, the most mystifiable sense corresponds to the generalized abstraction of present day society" (#18). Today, however, I would maintain it is the multimedia spectacle of sight, sound, touch, and, coming to you soon, smell that constitutes the multidimensional sense experience of the new interactive spectacle. For Debord, the spectacle is a tool of pacification and depoliticization; it is a "permanent opium war" (#44) which stupefies social subjects and distracts them from the most urgent task of real life -- recovering the full range of their human powers through creative praxis. The concept of the spectacle is integrally connected to the concept of separation and passivity, for in passively consuming spectacles, one is separated from actively producing one's life. Capitalist society separates workers from the products of their labor, art from life, and consumption from human needs and self-directing activity, as individuals passively observe the spectacles of social life from within the privacy of their homes (#25 and #26). The situationist project by contrast involved an overcoming of all forms of separation, in which individuals would directly produce their own life and modes of self-activity and collective practice. Since Debord's theorization of the society of the spectacle in the 1960s and 1970s, spectacle culture has expanded in every area of life. In the culture of the spectacle, commercial enterprises have to be entertaining to prosper and as Michael J. Wolf (1999) argues, in an "entertainment economy," business and fun fuse, so that the E-factor is becoming major aspect of business.2 Via the "entertainmentization" of the economy, television, film, theme parks, video games, casinos, and so forth become major sectors of the national economy. In the U.S., the entertainment industry is now a $480 billion industry, and consumers spend more on having fun than on clothes or health care (Wolf 1999: 4).3 In a competitive business world, the "fun factor" can give one business the edge over another. Hence, corporations seek to be more entertaining in their commercials, their business environment, their commercial spaces, and their web sites. Budweiser ads, for instance, feature talking frogs who tell us nothing about the beer, but who catch the viewers' attention, while Taco Bell deploys a talking dog, and Pepsi uses Star Wars characters. Buying, shopping, and dining out are coded as an "experience," as businesses adopt a theme-park style. Places like the Hard Rock Cafe and the House of Blues are not renowned for their food, after all; people go there for the ambience, to buy clothing, and to view music and media memorabilia. It is no longer good enough just to have a web site, it has to be an interactive spectacle, featuring not only products to buy, but music and videos to download, games to play, prizes to win, travel information, and "links to other cool sites." To succeed in the ultracompetitive global marketplace, corporations need to circulate their image and brand name so business and advertising combine in the promotion of corporations as media spectacles. Endless promotion circulates the McDonald’s Golden Arches, Nike’s Swoosh, or the logos of Apple, Intel, or Microsoft. In the brand wars between commodities, corporations need to make their logos or “trademarks” a familiar signpost in contemporary culture. Corporations place their logos on their products, in ads, in the spaces of everyday life, and in the midst of media spectacles like important sports events, TV shows, movie product placement, and wherever they can catch consumer eyeballs, to impress their brand name on a potential buyer. Consequently, advertising, marketing, public relations and promotion are an essential part of commodity spectacle in the global marketplace. Celebrity too is manufactured and managed in the world of media spectacle. Celebrities are the icons of media culture, the gods and goddesses of everyday life. To become a celebrity requires recognition as a star player in the field of media spectacle, be it sports, entertainment, or politics. Celebrities have their handlers and image managers to make sure that their celebrities continue to be seen and positively perceived by publics. Just as with corporate brand names, celebrities become brands to sell their Madonna, Michael Jordan, Tom Cruise, or Jennifer Lopez product and image. In a media culture, however, celebrities are always prey to scandal and thus must have at their disposal an entire public relations apparatus to manage their spectacle fortunes, to make sure their clients not only maintain high visibility but keep projecting a positive image. Of course, within limits, “bad” and transgressions can also sell and so media spectacle contains celebrity dramas that attract public attention and can even define an entire period, as when the O.J. Simpson murder trials and Bill Clinton sex scandals dominated the media in the mid and late 1990s. Entertainment has always been a prime field of the spectacle, but in today's infotainment society, entertainment and spectacle have entered into the domains of the economy, politics, society, and everyday life in important new ways. Building on the tradition of spectacle, contemporary forms of entertainment from television to the stage are incorporating spectacle culture into their enterprises, transforming film, television, music, drama, and other domains of culture, as well as producing spectacular new forms of culture such as cyberspace, multimedia, and virtual reality. For Neil Gabler, in an era of media spectacle, life itself is becoming like a movie and we create our own lives as a genre like film, or television, in which we become "at once performance artists in and audiences for a grand, ongoing show" (1998: 4). On Gabler’s view, we star in our own "lifies," making our lives into entertainment acted out for audiences of our peers, following the scripts of media culture, adopting its role models and fashion types, its style and look. Seeing our lives in cinematic terms, entertainment becomes for Gabler "arguably the most pervasive, powerful and ineluctable force of our time--a force so overwhelming that it has metastasized into life" to such an extent that it is impossible to distinguish between the two (1998: 9). As Gabler sees it, Ralph Lauren is our fashion expert; Martha Stewart designs our sets; Jane Fonda models our shaping of our bodies; and Oprah Winfrey advises us on our personal problems.4 Media spectacle is indeed a culture of celebrity who provide dominant role models and icons of fashion, look, and personality. In the world of spectacle, celebrity encompasses every major social domain from entertainment to politics to sports to business. An ever-expanding public relations industry hypes certain figures, elevating them to celebrity status, and protects their positive image in the never-ending image wars and dangers that a celebrity will fall prey to the machinations of negative-image and thus lose celebrity status, and/or become figures of scandal and approbation, as will some of the players and institutions that I examine in Media Spectacle (Kellner 2003). Sports has long been a domain of the spectacle with events like the Olympics, World Series, Super Bowl, World Soccer Cup, and NBA championships attracting massive audiences, while generating sky-high advertising rates. These cultural rituals celebrate society's deepest values (i.e. competition, winning, success, and money), and corporations are willing to pay top dollar to get their products associated with such events. Indeed, it appears that the logic of the commodity spectacle is inexorably permeating professional sports which can no longer be played without the accompaniment of cheerleaders, giant mascots who clown with players and spectators, and raffles, promotions, and contests that feature the products of various sponsors. Sports stadiums themselves contain electronic reproduction of the action, as well as giant advertisements for various products that rotate for maximum saturation -- previewing environmental advertising in which entire urban sites are becoming scenes to boost consumption spectacles. Arenas, like the United Center in Chicago, America West Arena in Phoenix, on Enron Field in Houston are named after corporate sponsors. Of course, after major corporate scandals or collapse, like the Enron spectacle, the ballparks must be renamed! The Texas Ranger Ballpark in Arlington, Texas supplements its sports arena with a shopping mall, office buildings, and a restaurant in which for a hefty price one can watch the athletic events while eating and drinking.5 The architecture of the Texas Rangers stadium is an example of the implosion of sports and entertainment and postmodern spectacle. A man-made lake surrounds the stadium, the corridor inside is modeled after Chartes Cathedral, and the structure is made of local stone that provides the look of the Texas Capitol in Austin. Inside there are Texas longhorn cattle carvings, panels of Texas and baseball history, and other iconic signifiers of sports and Texas. The merging of sports, entertainment, and local spectacle is now typical in sports palaces. Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay, Florida, for instance, "has a three-level mall that includes places where 'fans can get a trim at the barber shop, do their banking and then grab a cold one at the Budweiser brew pub, whose copper kettles rise three stories. There is even a climbing wall for kids and showroom space for car dealerships'" (Ritzer 1998: 229). Film has long been a fertile field of the spectacle, with "Hollywood" connoting a world of glamour, publicity, fashion, and excess. Hollywood film has exhibited grand movie palaces, spectacular openings with searchlights and camera-popping paparazzi, glamorous Oscars, and stylish hi-tech film. While epic spectacle became a dominant genre of Hollywood film from early versions of The Ten Commandments through Cleopatra and 2001 in the 1960s, contemporary film has incorporated the mechanics of spectacle into its form, style, and special effects. Films are hyped into spectacle through advertising and trailers which are ever louder, more glitzy, and razzle-dazzle. Some of the most popular films of the late 1990s were spectacle films, including Titanic, Star Wars -- Phantom Menace, Three Kings, and Austin Powers, a spoof of spectacle, which became one of the most successful films of summer 1999. During Fall 1999, there was a cycle of spectacles, including Topsy Turvy, Titus, Cradle Will Rock, Sleepy Hollow, The Insider, and Magnolia, with the latter featuring the biblical spectacle of the raining of frogs in the San Fernando Valley, in an allegory of the decadence of the entertainment industry and deserved punishment for its excesses. The 2000 Academy Awards were dominated by the spectacle Gladiator, a mediocre film that captured best picture award and best acting award for Russell Crowe, thus demonstrating the extent to which the logic of the spectacle now dominates Hollywood film. Some of the most critically acclaimed and popular films of 2001 are also hi-tech spectacle, such as Moulin Rouge, a film spectacle that itself is a delirious ode to spectacle, from cabaret and the brothel to can-can dancing, opera, musical comedy, dance, theater, popular music, and film. A postmodern pastiche of popular music styles and hits, the film used songs and music ranging from Madonna and the Beatles to Dolly Parton and Kiss. Other 2001 film spectacles include Pearl Harbor, which re-enacts the Japanese attack on the U.S. that propelled the country to enter World War II, and that provided a ready metaphor for the September 11 terror attacks. Major 2001 film spectacles range from David Lynch’s postmodern surrealism in Mulholland Drive to Steven Spielberg’s blending of his typically sentimental spectacle of the family with the formalist rigor of Stanley Kubrick in A.I. And the popular 2001 military film Black-Hawk Down provided a spectacle of American military heroism which some critics believed sugar-coated the actual problems with the U.S. military intervention in Somalia, causing worries that a future U.S. adventure by the Bush administration and Pentagon would meet similar problems. There were reports, however, that in Somalian cinemas there were loud cheers as the Somalians in the film shot down the U.S. helicopter, and pursued and killed American soldiers, attesting to growing anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world against Bush administration policies. Television has been from its introduction in the 1940s a promoter of consumption spectacle, selling cars, fashion, home appliances, and other commodities along with consumer life-styles and values. It is also the home of sports spectacle like the Super Bowl or World Series, political spectacles like elections (or more recently, scandals), entertainment spectacle like the Oscars or Grammies, and its own spectacles like breaking news or special events. Following the logic of spectacle entertainment, contemporary television exhibits more hi-tech glitter, faster and glitzier editing, computer simulations, and with cable and satellite television, a fantastic array of every conceivable type of show and genre. TV is today a medium of spectacular programs like The X-Files or Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and spectacles of everyday life such as MTV's The Real World and Road Rules, or the globally popular Survivor and Big Brother series. Real life events, however, took over TV spectacle in 2000-2001 in, first, an intense battle for the White House in a dead-heat election, that arguably constitutes one of the greatest political crimes and scandals in U.S. history (see Kellner 2001). After months of the Bush administration pushing the most hardright political agenda in memory and then deadlocking as the Democrats took control of the Senate in a dramatic party re-affiliation of Vermont’s Jim Jeffords, the world was treated to the most horrifying spectacle of the new millennium, the September 11 terror attacks and unfolding Terror War that has so far engulfed Afghanistan and Iraq. These events promise an unending series of deadly spectacle for the foreseeable future.6 Hence, we are emerging into a new culture of media spectacle that constitutes a novel configuration of economy, society, politics, and everyday life. It involves new cultural forms, social relations, and modes of experience. It is producing an ever-proliferating and expanding spectacle culture with its proliferating media forms, cultural spaces, and myriad forms of spectacle. It is evident in the U.S. as the new millennium unfolds and may well constitute emergent new forms of global culture. Critical social theory thus faces important challenges in theoretically mapping and analyzing these emergent forms of culture and society and the ways that they may contain novel forms of domination and oppression, as well as potential for democratization and social justice. Works Cited Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black and Red, 1967. Gabler, Neil. Life the Movie. How Entertainment Conquered Reality. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. Kellner, Douglas. Grand Theft 2000. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. Kellner, Douglas. From 9/11 to Terror War: Dangers of the Bush Legacy. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003. Kellner, Douglas. Media Spectacle. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization Thesis: Explorations and Extensions. Thousand Oaks, Cal. and London: Sage, 1998. Wolf, Michael J. Entertainment Economy: How Mega-Media Forces are Transforming Our Lives. New York: Times Books, 1999. Notes 1 See Douglas Kellner, Media Spectacle. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. 2 Wolf's book is a detailed and useful celebration of the "entertainment economy," although he is a shill for the firms and tycoons that he works for and celebrates them in his book. Moreover, while entertainment is certainly an important component of the infotainment economy, it is an exaggeration to say that it drives it and is actually propelling it, as Wolf repeatedly claims. Wolf also downplays the negative aspects of the entertainment economy, such as growing consumer debt and the ups and downs of the infotainment stock market and vicissitudes of the global economy. 3 Another source notes that "the average American household spent $1,813 in 1997 on entertainment -- books, TV, movies, theater, toys -- almost as much as the $1,841 spent on health care per family, according to a survey by the US Labor Department." Moreover, "the price we pay to amuse ourselves has, in some cases, risen at a rate triple that of inflation over the past five years" (USA Today, April 2, 1999: E1). The NPD Group provided a survey that indicated that the amount of time spent on entertainment outside of the home –- such as going to the movies or a sport event – was up 8% from the early to the late 1990s and the amount of time in home entertainment, such as watching television or surfing the Internet, went up 2%. Reports indicate that in a typical American household, people with broadband Internet connections spend 22% more time on all-electronic media and entertainment than the average household without broadband. See “Study: Broadband in homes changes media habits” (PCWORLD.COM, October 11, 2000). 4 Gabler’s book is a synthesis of Daniel Boorstin, Dwight Macdonald, Neil Poster, Marshall McLuhan, and other trendy theorists of media culture, but without the brilliance of a Baudrillard, the incisive criticism of an Adorno, or the understanding of the deeper utopian attraction of media culture of a Bloch or Jameson. Likewise, Gabler does not, a la cultural studies, engage the politics of representation, or its economics and political economy. He thus ignores mergers in the culture industries, new technologies, the restructuring of capitalism, globalization, and shifts in the economy that are driving the impetus toward entertainment. Gabler does get discuss how new technologies are creating new spheres of entertainment and forms of experience and in general describes rather than theorizes the trends he is engaging. 5 The project was designed and sold to the public in part through the efforts of the son of a former President, George W. Bush. Young Bush was bailed out of heavy losses in the Texas oil industry in the 1980s by his father's friends and used his capital gains, gleaned from what some say as illicit insider trading, to purchase part-ownership of a baseball team to keep the wayward son out of trouble and to give him something to do. The soon-to-be Texas governor, and future President of the United States, sold the new stadium to local taxpayers, getting them to agree to a higher sales tax to build the stadium which would then become the property of Bush and his partners. This deal allowed Bush to generate a healthy profit when he sold his interest in the Texas Rangers franchise and to buy his Texas ranch, paid for by Texas tax-payers (for sources on the scandalous life of George W. Bush and his surprising success in politics, see Kellner 2001 and the further discussion of Bush Jr. in Chapter 6). 6 See Douglas Kellner, From 9/11 to Terror War: Dangers of the Bush Legacy. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Kellner, Douglas. "Engaging Media Spectacle " M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/09-mediaspectacle.php>. APA Style Kellner, D. (2003, Jun 19). Engaging Media Spectacle . M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/09-mediaspectacle.php>

Abstract:

In many ways, computers are becoming invisible and will continue to do so. When we reach into our pockets and pull out our cell phones to find a place to eat or message a friend on Facebook, we are no longer consciously aware that we are interacting with a user experience that has been consciously designed for our computer or device screen—but we are.— Andy Pratt and Jason Nunes, Interactive Design In theory, cell phones and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) are just a means for us to interact with people, businesses, and data sources. They have interfaces and, in a larger sense, are interfaces between their users and the networked world. Every day, people spend more time using them to perform more different tasks and find them more indispensable (Smith). As the epigraph above suggests, however, their omnipresence makes them practically invisible and has all but erased any feelings of awe or mystery that their power once generated. There is both a historical and functional dimension to this situation. In the historical advance of technology, it is part of what Kevin Kelly calls the “technium,” the ever-more complex interactions between advancing technology, our cognitive processes, and the cultural forces in which they are enmeshed; ICTs are measurably getting more powerful as time goes on and are, in this sense, worthy of our admiration (Kelly 11-17). In the functional dimension, on the other hand, many scholars and designers have observed how hard it is to hold on to this feeling of enchantment in our digital devices (Nye 185-226; McCarthy and Wright 192-97). As one study of human-computer interfaces observes “when people let the enchanting object [ICTs] do the emotional work of experience for them . . . what could be enchanting interactivity becomes a paradoxically detached interpassivity” (McCarthy et al. 377). ICTs can be ever more powerful, then, but this power will not necessarily be appreciated by their users. This paper analyzes recent narrative representations of ICT use in spy thrillers, with a particular focus on the canon of James Bond films (a sub-genre with a long-standing and overt fascination with advanced technology, especially ICTs), in order to explore how the banality of ICT technology has become the inescapable accompaniment of its power (Willis; Britton 99-123; 195-219). Among many possible recent examples: recall how Bond uses his ordinary cell phone camera to reveal the membership of the sinister Quantum group at an opera performance in Quantum of Solace; how world-wide video surveillance is depicted as inescapable (and amoral) in The Bourne Legacy; and how the anonymous protagonist of Roman Polanski’s Ghost Writer discovers the vital piece of top secret information that explains the entire film—by searching for it on his laptop via Google. In each of these cases, ICTs are represented as both incredibly powerful and tediously quotidian. More precisely, in each case human users are represented as interfaces between ICTs and their stored knowledge, rather than the reverse. Beginning with an account of how the naturalization of ICTs has changed the perceived relations between technology and its users, this essay argues that the promotional rhetoric of human empowerment and augmentation surrounding ICTs is opposed by a persistent cinematic theme of human subordination to technological needs. The question it seeks to open is why—why do the mainstream cinematic narratives of our culture depict the ICTs that enhance our capacities to know and communicate as something that diminishes rather than augments us? One answer (which can only be provisionally sketched here) is the loss of pleasure. It does not matter whether or not technology augments our capacities if it cannot sustain the fantasy of pleasure and/or enhancement at the same time. Without this fantasy, ICTs are represented as usurping position as the knowing subject and users, in turn, become the media connecting them– even when that user is James Bond. The Rhetoric of Augmentation Until the past five years or so, the technologization of the human mind was almost always represented in popular culture as a threat to humanity—whether it be Ira Levin’s robotic Stepford Wives as the debased expression of male wish-fulfillment (Levin), or Jonathan Demme’s brainwashed assassins with computer chip implants in his remake of The Manchurian Candidate. When Captain Picard, the leader and moral centre of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, is taken over by the Borg (an alien machine race that seeks to absorb other species into its technologized collective mind) in an episode from 1990, it is described as “assimilation” rather than an augmentation. The Borg version of Picard says to his former comrades that “we only wish to raise quality of life, for all species,” and it is a chilling, completely unemotional threat to the survival of our species (“Best of Both Worlds”). By 2012, on the other hand, the very same imagery is being used to sell smart phones by celebrating the technological enhancements that allegedly make us better human beings. In Verizon’s Droid DNA phone promotions, the product is depicted as an artificial heart for its user, one that enhances memory, “neural speed,” and “predictive intelligence” (thanks to Google Now). The tagline for the Verizon ad claims that “It’s not an upgrade to your phone; it’s an upgrade to yourself”, echoing Borg-Picard’s threat but this time as an aspirational promise (“Verizon Commercial”). The same technologization of the mind that was anathema just a few years ago, is now presented as both a desirable consumer goal and a professional necessity—the final close-up of the Verizon artificial heart shows that this 21st century cyborg has to be at his job in 26 minutes; the omnipresence of work in a networked world is here literally taken to heart. There is, notably, no promise of pleasure or liberation anywhere in this advertisement. We are meant to desire this product very much, but solely because it allows us to do more and better work. Not coincidentally, the period that witnessed this inversion in popular culture also saw an exponential increase in the quantity and variety of digitally networked devices in our lives (“Mobile Cellular”) and the emergence of serious cultural, scientific, and philosophical movements exploring the idea of “enhanced” human beings, whether through digital tool use, biomedical prostheses, drugs, or genetic modifications (Buchanan; Savulescu and Bostrom; “Humanity +”). As the material boundaries of the “human” have become more permeable and malleable, and as the technologies that make this possible become everyday objects, our resistance to this possibility has receded. The discourse of the transhuman and extropian is now firmly established as a philosophical possibility (Lilley). Personal augmentation with the promise of pleasure is still, of course, very much present in the presentation of ICTs. Launching the iPad 2 in 2011, the late Steve Jobs described his new product as a “magical and revolutionary device” with an “incredible magical user interface on a much larger canvas with more resources” and gushing that “it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing” (“Apple Special Event”). This is the rhetoric of augmentation through technology and, as in the Verizon ad, it is very careful to position the consumer/user at the centre of the experience. The technology is described as wonderful not just in itself, but also precisely because it gives users “a larger canvas” with which to create. Likewise, the lifelogging movement (which encourages people to use small cameras to record every event of daily life) is at great pains to stress that “you, not your desktop’s hard drive, are the hub of your digital belongings” (Bell and Gemmell 10). But do users experience life with these devices as augmented? Is either the Verizon work cyborg or the iPad user’s singing heart representative of how these devices make us feel? It depends upon the context in which the question is asked. Extensive survey data on cell phone use shows that we are more attached than ever to our phones, that they allow us to be “productive” in otherwise dead times (such as while waiting in queues), and that only a minority of users worry about the negative effects of being “permanently connected” (Smith 9-10). Representations of technological augmentation in 21st century popular cinema, however, offer a very different perspective. Even in James Bond films, which (since Goldfinger in 1964) have been enraptured with technological devices as augmentations for its protagonists and as lures for audiences, digital devices have (in the three most recent films) lost their magic and become banal in the same way as they have in the lives of audience members (Nitins 2010; Nitins 2011; “List of James Bond Gadgets”). Rather than focusing on technological empowerment, the post 2006 Bond films emphasize (1) that ICTs “know” things and that human agents are just the media that connect them together; and (2) that the reciprocal nature of networked ICTs means that we are always visible when we use them; like Verizon phone users, our on-screen heroes have to learn that the same technology that empowers them simultaneously empowers others to know and/or control them. Using examples from the James Bond franchise, the remainder of this paper discusses the simultaneous disenchantment and power of ICT technology in the films as a representative sample of the cultural status of ICTs as a whole. “We don’t go in for that sort of thing any more...” From Goldfinger until the end of Pierce Brosnan’s tenure in 2002, technological devices were an important part of the audience’s pleasure in a Bond film (Willis; Nitins 2011). James Bond’s jetpack in Thunderball, to give one of many examples, is a quasi-magical aid for the hero with literary precursors going back to Aeneas’s golden bough; it is utterly enchanting and, equally importantly, fun. In the most recent Bond film, Skyfall, however, Q, the character who has historically made Bond’s technology, reappears after a two-film hiatus, but in the guise of a computer nerd who openly disdains the pleasures and possibilities of technological augmentation. When Bond complains about receiving only a gun and a radio from him, Q replies: “What did you expect? An exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that sort of thing any more.” Technology is henceforth to be banal and invisible albeit (as the film’s computer hacker villain Silva demonstrates) still incredibly powerful. The film’s pleasures must come from elsewhere. The post-credit sequence in Casino Royale, which involves the pursuit and eventual death of a terrorist bomb-maker, perfectly embodies the diminished importance of human agents as bearers of knowledge. It is bracketed at the beginning by the bomber looking at a text message while under surveillance by Bond and a colleague and at the end by Bond looking at the same message after having killed him. Significantly, the camera angle and setup of both shots make it impossible to distinguish between Bond’s hand and the bomber’s as they see the same piece of information on the same phone. The ideological, legal, racial, and other differences between the two men are erased in pursuit of the data (the name “Ellipsis” and a phone number) that they both covet. As digitally-transmitted data, it is there for anyone, completely unaffected by the moral or legal value attached to its users. Cell phones in these films are, in many ways, better sources of information than their owners—after killing a phone’s owner, his or her network traces can show exactly where s/he has been and to whom s/he has been talking, and this is how Bond proceeds. The bomber’s phone contacts lead Bond to the Bahamas, to the next villain in the chain, whom Bond kills and from whom he obtains another cell phone, which allows the next narrative location to be established (Miami Airport) and the next villain to be located (by calling his cell phone in a crowded room and seeing who answers) (Demetrios). There are no conventional interrogations needed here, because it is the digital devices that are the locus of knowledge rather than people. Even Bond’s lover Vesper Lynd sends her most important message to him (the name and cell phone number of the film’s arch villain) in a posthumous text, rather than in an actual conversation. Cell phones do not enable communication between people; people connect the important information that cell phones hold together. The second manifestation of the disenchantment of ICT technology is the disempowering omnipresence of surveillance. Bond and his colleague are noticed by the bomber when the colleague touches his supposedly invisible communication earpiece. With the audience’s point of view conflated with that of the secret agent, the technology of concealment becomes precisely what reveals the secret agent’s identity in the midst of a chaotic scene in which staying anonymous should be the easiest thing in the world; other villains identify Bond by the same means in a hotel hallway later in the film. While chasing the bomber, Bond is recorded by a surveillance camera in the act of killing him on the grounds of a foreign embassy. The secret agent is, as a result, made into an object of knowledge for the international media, prompting M (Bond’s boss) to exclaim that their political masters “don’t care what we do, they care what we get photographed doing.” Bond is henceforth part of the mediascape, so well known as a spy that he refuses to use the alias that MI6 provides for his climactic encounter with the main villain LeChiffre on the grounds that any well-connected master criminal will know who he is anyway. This can, of course, go both ways: Bond uses the omnipresence of surveillance to find another of his targets by using the security cameras of a casino. This one image contains many layers of reference—Bond the character has found his man; he has also found an iconic image from his own cultural past (the Aston Martin DB V car that is the only clearly delineated object in the frame) that he cannot understand as such because Casino Royale is a “reboot” and he has only just become 007. But the audience knows what it means and can insert this incarnation of James Bond in its historical sequence and enjoy the allusion to a past of which Bond is oblivious. The point is that surveillance is omnipresent, anonymity is impossible, and we are always being watched and interpreted by someone. This is true in the film’s narrative and also in the cultural/historical contexts in which the Bond films operate. It may be better to be the watcher rather than the watched, but we are always already both. By the end of the film, Bond is literally being framed by technological devices and becomes the organic connection between different pieces of technology. The literal centrality of the human agent in these images is not, in this disenchanted landscape, an indication of his importance. The cell phones to which Bond listens in these images connect him (and us) to the past, the back story or context provided by his masters that permits the audience to understand the complex plot that is unfolding before them. The devices at which he looks represent the future, the next situation or person that he must contain. He does not fully understand what is happening, but he is not there to understand – he is there to join the information held in the various devices together, which (in this film) usually means to kill someone. The third image in this sequence is from the final scene of the film, and the assault rifle marks this end—the chain of cell phone messages (direct and indirect) that has driven Casino Royale from its outset has been stopped. The narrative stops with it. Bond’s centrality amid these ICTS and their messages is simultaneously what allows him to complete his mission and what subjects him to their needs. This kind of technological power can be so banal precisely because it has been stripped of pleasure and of any kind of mystique. The conclusion of Skyfall reinforces this by inverting all of the norms that Bond films have created about their climaxes: instead of the technologically-empowered villain’s lair being destroyed, it is Bond’s childhood home that is blown up. Rather than beating the computer hacker at his own game, Bond kills him with a knife in a medieval Scottish church. It could hardly be less hi-tech if it tried, which is precisely the point. What the Bond franchise and the other films mentioned above have shown us, is that we do not rely on ICTs for enchantment any more because they are so powerfully connected to the everyday reality of work and to the loss of privacy that our digital devices exact as the price of their use. The advertising materials that sell them to us have to rely on the rhetoric of augmentation, but these films are signs that we do not experience them as empowering devices any more. The deeper irony is that (for once) the ICT consumer products being advertised to us today really do what their promotional materials claim: they are faster, more powerful, and more widely applicable in our lives than ever before. Without the user fantasy of augmentation, however, this truth has very little power to move us. We depict ourselves as the medium, and it is our digital devices that bear the message.References“Apple Special Event. March 2, 2011.” Apple Events. 21 Sep. 2013 ‹http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1103pijanbdvaaj/event/index.html›. Bell, Gordon, and Jim Gemmell. Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything. New York: Dutton, 2009.“The Best of Both Worlds: Part Two.” Star Trek: The Next Generation. Dir. Cliff Bole. Paramount, 2013. The Bourne Legacy. Dir. Tony Gilroy. Universal Pictures, 2012. Britton, Wesley. Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. Buchanan, Allen. Beyond Humanity: The Ethics of Biomedical Enhancement. Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Casino Royale. Dir. Martin Campbell. Columbia Pictures, 2006. “Data’s Day.” Star Trek: The Next Generation. Dir. Robert Wiemer. Burbank, CA: Paramount, 2013. The Ghost Writer. Dir. Roman Polanski. R.P. Productions/France 2 Cinéma, 2010. “Humanity +”. 25 Aug. 2013 ‹http://humanityplus.org›. Kelly, Kevin. What Technology Wants. New York: Viking, 2010. Levin, Ira. The Stepford Wives. Introd. Peter Straub. New York: William Morrow, 2002. Lilley, Stephen. Transhumanism and Society: The Social Debate over Human Enhancement. New York: Springer, 2013. “List of James Bond Gadgets.” Wikipedia. 11 Nov. 2013 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_gadgets›. The Manchurian Candidate. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Paramount, 2004. McCarthy, John, and Peter Wright. Technology as Experience. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004. McCarthy, John, et al. “The Experience of Enchantment in Human–Computer Interaction.” Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 10 (2006): 369-78. “Mobile Cellular Subscriptions (per 100 People).” The World Bank. 25 March 2013 ‹http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2›. Nitins, Tanya L. “A Boy and His Toys: Technology and Gadgetry in the James Bond Films.” James Bond in World and Popular Culture: The Films Are Not Enough. Eds. Rob Weiner, B. Lynn Whitfield, and Jack Becker. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 445-58. ———. Selling James Bond: Product Placement in the James Bond Films. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. Nye, David E. Technology Matters—Questions to Live With. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. Pratt, Andy, and Jason Nunes Interactive Design: An Introduction to the Theory and Application of User-Centered Design. Beverly, MA: Rockport, 2012. Quantum of Solace. Dir: Marc Foster, Eon Productions, 2008. DVD. Savulescu, Julian, and Nick Bostrom, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Skyfall. Dir. Sam Mendes. Eon Productions, 2012. Smith, Aaron. The Best and Worst of Mobile Connectivity. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew Research Center. 25 Aug. 2013 ‹http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Best-Worst-Mobile.aspx›. Thunderball. Dir. Terence Young. Eon Productions, 1965. “Verizon Commercial – Droid DNA ‘Hyper Intelligence’.” 11 April 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYIAaBOb5Bo›. Willis, Martin. “Hard-Wear: The Millenium, Technology, and Brosnan’s Bond.” The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. Ed. Christoph Linder. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001. 151-65.

Abstract:

Things would never be the same again. As sales went through the roof, with some breathless estimates in the region of a 200% increase overnight, marketers practically wet their pants at the phenomenal success of the chocolate bar seen by millions in ET: the Extraterrestrial. That was back in 1982. Though not the first instance of product placement ‘at the movies’, the strategic placement of Reese’s Pieces in ET is often hailed as the triumphant marketing moment heralding the onset of the era of embedded advertising in popular media. Today, much media consumption is characterised by aggressive branding strategies. We’ve all seen ostentatious product wrangling – the unnatural handling of items (especially chocolate bars and bottled drinks) to best display their logo (regardless of considerations of verisimilitude, or even common sense), and ungainly product mentions in dialogue (who can forget the early Jude Law shocker Shopping?) that have passed into the realm of satire. In television and feature filmmaking, props bearing corporate trademarks not only supplement, but often sustain production budgets. Some programs appear to be entirely contrived around such sponsors. Australian commercial television makes no secret of the increasingly non-existent line between ‘entertainment’ and ‘advertising’, though it still purports to describe ‘lifestyle’ shows as ‘reality’ television. With the introduction of technologies like TiVO which enable consumers to skip over ads, the move is from ‘interruptive’ style advertising between programs or segments, to products insinuated in the décor – and increasingly scripts – of programs themselves, with correspondent online shopping opportunities for digital consumers. An entire industry of middle-people – sometimes euphemistically self-described as ‘prop houses’ – has sprung up to service the lucrative product placement industry, orchestrating the insertion of branded products into television and films. The industry has grown to such an extent that it holds an annual backpatting event, the Product Placement Awards, “to commemorate and celebrate product placement” in movies, television shows, music etc. But ‘advertising by stealth’ is not necessarily passively accepted by media consumers – nor media makers. The shoe-horning of brands and their logos into the products of popular culture not only defines the culture industry today, but also characterises much of the resistance to it. ‘Logo-backlash’ is seen as an inevitable response to the incursion of brands into public life, an explicit rejection of the practice of securing consumer mindshare, and subvertisements and billboard liberation activities have been mainstays of culture jamming for decades now. However, criticism of product placement remains highly problematic: when the Center for the Study of Commercialism argued that movies have become “dangerously” saturated with products and suggested that full disclosure in the form of a list, in a film’s credits, of paid product appearances, many noted the counterproductivity of such an approach, arguing that it would only result in further registration – and hence promotion – of the brand. Not everyone subscribes to advertising’s ‘any news is good news’ thesis, however. Peter Conheim and Steve Seidler decided to respond to the behemoth of product placement with a ‘catalogue of sins’. Their new documentary Value Added Cinema meticulously chronicles the appearance of placed products in Hollywood cinema. Here they discuss the film, which is continuing to receive rave reviews in the US and Europe. Danni Zuvela: Can you tell me a little about yourselves? Peter: I’m a musician and filmmaker living in the San Francisco Bay Area who wears too many hats. I play in three performing and recording groups (Mono Pause, Wet Gate, Negativland) and somehow found the time to sit in front of a Mac for six weeks to edit and mix VALUE-ADDED CINEMA. Because Steve is a persuasive salesperson. Steve: I’ve been a curator for the past decade and a half, showing experimental works week after week, month after month, year after year, at the Pacific Film Archive. It was about time to make a tape of my own and Peter was crazy enough to indulge me. DZ: Why product placement? Why do you think it’s important? Where did this documentary come from? S: Steven Spielberg released Minority Report last year and it just raised my hackles. The film actually encourages the world it seems to critique by stressing the inter-relationship of his alleged art with consumerism in the present day and then extending that into a vision of the future within the film itself. In other words, he has already realized the by-product of an alarming dystopia of surveillance, monolithic policing, and capital. That by-product is his film. The rumor mill says that he was reimbursed to the tune of $25 million for the placements. So not only can he not see a constructive path out of dystopia, a path leading toward a more liberating future, he makes millions from his exhausted imagination. What could be more cynical? But Spielberg isn’t alone within the accelerating subsumption of mainstream cinema into the spectacle of pure consumption. He’s just more visible than most. But to consider product placements more directly for a moment: during the past few years, mainstream cinema has been little more than an empty exercise in consumerist viewership. The market-driven incentives that shape films, determining story-lines, exaggerating cultural norms, striving toward particular demographics, whatever, have nothing to do with art or social change and everything to do with profit, pandering, and promulgation. Movies are product placements, the product is a world view of limitless consumption. Value-Added Cinema is about the product-that-announces-itself, the one we recognize as a crystallization of the more encompassing worldview, the sole commodity, spot-lit, adored, assimilated. So why Value-Added Cinema? You’ve got to start somewhere. DZ: Can you tell me a bit about the production process – how did you go about getting the examples you use in the film? Were there any copyright hassles? P: Steve did nearly all of the legwork in that he spent weeks and weeks researching the subject, both on-line and in speaking to people about their recollections of product placement sequences in films they’d seen. He then suffered through close to a hundred films on VHS and DVD, using the fast-forward and cue controls as often as possible, to locate said sequences. We then sat down and started cutting, based at first on groupings Steve had made (a bunch of fast food references, etc.). Using these as a springboard, we quickly realized the narrative potential inherent in all these “narrative film” clips , and before long we were linking sequences and making them refer to one another, sort of allowing a “plot” to evolve. And copyright hassles? Not yet! I say... bring ‘em on! I would be more than happy to fight for the existence of this project, and one of the groups I am in, Negativland, has a rather colourful history of “fair use” battles in the music arena (the most nefarious case, where the band was sued by U2 and their big-label music lawyers over a parody we made happened before I came on board, but there’s been some skirmishes since). We have folks who would be happy to help defend this sort of work in a court of law should the occasion arise. DZ: Can you talk to me about the cultural shift that’s occurred, where the old ‘Acme’ propmaster has been replaced by ‘product peddler’? What is this symptomatic of, and what’s its significance now? S: In the past, privacy existed because there were areas of experience and information that were considered off limits to exploitation. A kind of tacit social contract assumed certain boundaries were in place to keep corporate (and State) meddling at bay and to allow an uncontaminated space for disengaging from culture. Nowadays the violation of boundaries is so egregious it’s hard to be sure that those boundaries in fact exist. Part of that violation has been the encroachment, at every conceivable level, of daily experience by all manner of corporate messages—urinal strainers with logos, coffee jackets with adverts, decals on supermarket floors, temporary tattoos on random pedestrians. Engagement with corporate predation is now foisted on us 24 hours a day. It’s the GPS generation. The corporations want to know where we “are” at all times. Again: in the past there was a certain level of decorum about the sales pitch. That decorum has vanished and in its place is the inter-penetration of all our waking moments by the foghorn of capital. If that foghorn gets loud enough, we’ll never get any sleep. DZ: How do you think product placement affects the integrity of the film? P: Well, that’s definitely a question of the moment, as far as audience reactions to our screenings have been thus far. It really depends on the work itself, doesn’t it? I think we would be highly judgmental, and perhaps quite out of line, if we dismissed out of hand the idea of using actual products in films as some sort of rule. The value of using an actual product to the narrative of a film can’t be discounted automatically because we all know that there are stories to be told in actual, marketed products. Characterizations can develop. If a flustered James Cagney had held up a bottle of Fred’s Cola instead of Pepsi in the climactic shot of One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder’s 1963 Coke-executive comedy), it wouldn’t have resonated very well. And it’s an incredibly memorable moment (and, some might say, a little dig at both cola companies). But when you get into something like i am sam, where Sean Penn’s character not only works inside a Starbucks, and is shown on the job, in uniform and reading their various actual coffee product names aloud, over and over again, but also rides a bus with a huge Nike ad on the side (and the camera tracks along on the ad instead of the bus itself), plus the fact that he got onto that bus underneath an enormous Apple billboard (not shown in our work, actually), or that his lawyer has a can of Tab sitting on an entirely austere, empty table in front of a blank wall and the camera tracks downward for no other discernable purpose than to highlight the Tab can… you can see where I’m going with this. The battle lines are drawn in my mind. PROVE to me the value of any of those product plugs on Penn’s character, or Michelle Pfeiffer’s (his lawyer). DZ: What do you make of the arguments for product placement as necessary to, even enhancing, the verisimilitude of films? Is there a case to be made for brands appearing in a production design because they’re what a character would choose? S: It’s who makes the argument for product placements that’s troublesome. Art that I value is a sort of problem solving machine. It assumes that the culture we currently find ourselves strapped with is flawed and should be altered. Within that context, the “verisimilitude” you speak of would be erected only as a means for critique--not to endorse, venerate, or fortify the status quo. Most Hollywood features are little more than moving catalogs. P: And in the case of Jurassic Park that couldn’t be more explicit – the “fake” products shown in the amusement park gift shop in the film are the actual tie-in products available in stores and in Burger King at that time! Another film I could mention for a totally different reason is The Dark Backward (1991). Apparently due to a particular obsession of the director, the film is riddled with placements, but of totally fake and hilarious products (i.e. Blump’s Squeezable Bacon). Everyone who has seen the film remembers the absurdist products… couldn’t Josie and the Pussycats have followed this format, instead of loading the film with “funny” references to literally every megacorporation imaginable, and have been memorable for it? DZ: What do you think of the retroactive insertion of products into syndicated reruns of programs and films (using digital editing techniques)? Is this a troubling precedent? P: Again, to me the line is totally crossed. There’s no longer any justification to be made because the time and space of the original television show is lost at that point, so any possibility of “commentary” on the times, or development of the character, goes right out the window. Of course I find it a troubling precedent. It’s perhaps somewhat less troubling, but still distressing, to know that billboards on the walls of sports stadiums are being digitally altered, live, during broadcast, so that the products can be subtly switched around. And perhaps most disturbingly, at least here in the states, certain networks and programs have begun cross-dissolving to advertisements from program content, and vice-versa. In other words, since the advertisers are aware that the long-established “blackout” which precedes the start of advertising breaks on TV causes people to tune out, or turn the volume off, or have their newfangled sensing devices “zap” the commercial… so they’re literally integrating the start of the ad with the final frames of the program instead of going black, literally becoming part of the program. And we have heard about more reliance of products WITHIN the programs, but this just takes us right back to TV’s past, where game show contestants sat behind enormous “Pepsodent” adverts pasted right there on the set. History will eat itself… DZ: Could you imagine a way advertisers could work product placement into films where modern products just don’t fit, like set in the past or in alternate universes (Star Wars, LOTR etc)? P: Can’t you? In fact, it’s already happening. Someone told us about the use of products in a recent set-in-the-past epic… but the name of the film is escaping me. S: And if you can’t find a way to insert a product placement in a film than maybe the film won’t get made. The problem is completely solved with films like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—most of the characters are available in the store as action figures making them de facto placements. In Small Soldiers just about every toy-sized character was, in fact, nicely packaged by Hasbro. DZ: What is the role of the logo in product placement? S: There are the stars, and there are the many supporting roles—the logo is just one of them. We’re hoping to see this category at the next Oscars. P: And categories like “Best Song” are essentially product placement categories already… DZ: I’ve heard about the future of product placement being branding in computer games, interactive shop-at-home television – what other visions of the (branded) future can you imagine? P: The future is now. If you can’t watch a documentary on so-called public television in this country without having text boxes pop up on screen to suggest “related” web sites which “might be of interest” to the viewer, you’re already well on the way to being part of a branded environment. Computer games already have ads built-in, and shop-at-home already seems plenty interactive (and isn’t internet shopping, also?). I think if the various mega-corporations can not only convince people to wear clothing emblazoned with their logo and product name, but so successfully convince us to pay for the privilege of advertising them, then we are already living in a totally branded future. Where else can it go? It may seem a trite statement but, to my mind, wearing an entire Nike outfit is the ultimate. At least the British ad company called Cunning Stunts actually PAYS their human billboards… but those folks have to agree to have the company logo temporarily tattooed onto their foreheads for three hours as they mingle in public. I’m not joking about this. DZ: Is there any response to product placement? How can audiences manage their interactions with these texts? S: Films have been boycotted for culturally heinous content, such as racist and homophobic characters. Why not boycott films because of their commodity content? Or better yet boycott the product for colluding with the filmmakers to invade your peace of mind? What I hope Value-Added Cinema does is sensitize us to the insinuation of the products, so that we critically detect them, rather than passively allow them to pass before us. When that happens, when we’re just insensate recipients of those advertising ploys, we’re lost. DZ: Do you have anything to add to contemporary debates on culture jamming, especially the charge that culture jamming’s political power is limited by its use of logos and signs? Anne Moore has written that detourning ads ends up just re-iterating the logo - “because corporate lifeblood is profit, and profit comes from name recognition”, culture jammers are “trafficking in the same currency as the corporations” – what do you think of this? P: It’s an interesting assertion. But the best culture jams I’ve seen make total mincemeat of the product being parodied; just as you can’t simply discount the use of actual products in films in the context of a narrative, you can’t NOT try to reclaim the use of a brand-name. Maybe it’s a dangerous comparison because “reclaiming” use of the word Coke is not like reclaiming the use of the word “queer”, but there’s something to it, I think. Also, I wear t-shirts with the names of bands I like sometimes (almost always my friends’ bands, but I suppose that’s beside the point). Am I buying into the advertising concept? Yes, to a certain extent, I am. I guess to me it’s about just what you choose to advertise. Or what you choose to parody. DZ: Do you have any other points you’d like to make about product placement, advertising by stealth, branding, mindshare or logos? P: I think what Steve said, that above all we hope with our video to help make people aware of how much they are advertised to, beyond accepting it as a mere annoyance, sums it up. So far, we’ve had some comments at screenings which indicate a willingness of people to want to combat this in their lives, to want to “do something” about the onslaught of product placement surrounding them, in films and elsewhere. Works Cited ET: The Extraterrestrial. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Prod. Kathleen Kennedy & Steven Spielberg, M. Universal Pictures 1982. Shopping. Dir. Paul Anderson. Prod. Jeremy Bolt , M. Concorde Pictures,1993. http://www.cspinet.org/ http://www.productplacementawards.com/ Links http://www.cspinet.org/ http://www.productplacementawards.com/ Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Zuvela, Danni. "An Interview with the Makers of Value-Added Cinema" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/03-valueadded.php>. APA Style Zuvela, D. (2003, Jun 19). An Interview with the Makers of Value-Added Cinema. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/03-valueadded.php>

Abstract:

Introduction Since at least the work of van Gennep in the early 1900s, anthropologists have recognised that borders and thresholds are crucial in understanding human behavior and culture. But particularly in the past few decades, the study of borders has moved from the margins of social inquiry to the centre. At the same time, fashion (Entwistle), including clothing and skin (Bille), have emerged as crucial to understanding the human condition. In this article, we draw on and expand this literature on borders and fashion to demonstrate that the way Indonesians fashion and display their body reflects larger changes in attitudes about morality and gender. And in this, borders and thresholds are crucial. In order to make this argument, we consider three case studies from Indonesia. First, we discuss the requirement that policewomen submit to a virginity test, which takes the form of a hymen inspection. Then, we look at the successful campaign by policewomen to be able to wear the Islamic veil. Finally, we consider reports of Makassar policewomen who attempt to turn young people into exemplary citizens and traffic 'ambassadors' by using downtown crosswalks as a catwalk. In each of these three cases, fashioned borders and thresholds play prominent roles in determining the expression of morality, particularly in relation to gender roles. Fashion, Thresholds, and Borders There was once a time when social scientists tended to view clothes and other forms of adornment as "frivolous" or trivial (Entwistle 14; 18). Over the past few decades, however, fashion has emerged as a serious study within the social sciences. Writers have, for example, demonstrated how fashion is closely tied up with identity and capitalism (King and Winarnita). And although fashion used to be envisaged as emerging from London, New York, Paris, Milan, and other Western locations, scholars are increasingly recognising the importance of Asia in fashion studies. Whether the haute couture and cosplay in Tokyo or 'traditional' weaving of materials in Indonesia, studying fashion and clothes provides crucial insight into the cultures and societies of Asia (King and Winarnita). To contribute to this burgeoning area of research in Asian fashion, we draw on the anthropological classics, in particular, the concept of threshold. Every time we walk through a doorway, gate, or cross a line, we cross a threshold. But what classic anthropology shows us is that crossing certain thresholds changes our social status. This changing particularly occurs in the context of ritual. For example, walking onto a stage, a person becomes a performer or actor. Traditionally a groom carries his bride through the door, symbolising the transition to husband and wife (Douglas 115). In this article, we apply this idea that crossing thresholds is associated with transitioning social statuses (Douglas; Turner; van Gennep). To do this, we first establish a connection between national and personal borders. We argue that skin and clothes have a cultural function in addition to their practical functions. Typically, skin is imagined as a kind of social border and clothes provide a buffer zone. But to make this case, we first need to elaborate how we understand national borders. In the traditional kingdoms of Southeast Asia, borders were largely imperceptible or non-existent. Power was thought to radiate out from the ruler, through the capital, and into the surrounding areas. As it emanated from this 'exemplary centre', power was thought to weaken (Geertz 222-229). Rather than an area of land, a kingdom was thought to be a group of people (Tambiah 516). In this context, borders were irrelevant. But as in other parts of the world, in the era of nations, the situation has entirely changed in modern Indonesia. In a simple sense, our current global legal system is created out of international borders. These borders are, first and foremost, imagined lines that separate the area belonging to one nation-state from another. Borders are for the most part simply drawn on maps, explained by reference to latitude, longitude, and other features of the landscape. But, obviously, borders exist outside the imagination and on maps. They have significance in international law, in separating one jurisdiction from another. Usually, national borders can only be legally crossed with appropriate documentation and legal status. In extreme cases, crossing another nation's border can be a cause for war; but the difficulty in determining borders in practice means both sides may debate over whether a border was actually crossed. Where this possibility exists, sometimes the imagined lines are marked on the actual earth by fences, walls, etc. To protect borders, buffer zones are sometimes created. The most famous buffer zone is the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ, which runs along North Korea's border with South Korea. As no peace treaty has been signed between these two nations, they are technically still at war. Hostility is intense, but armed conflict has, for the most part, ceased. The buffer helps both sides maintain this cessation by enabling them to distinguish between an unintentional infringement and a genuine invasion. All this practical significance of borders and buffer zones is obvious. But borders become even more fascinating when we look beyond their 'practical' significance. Borders have ritual as well as practical importance. Like the flag, the nation's borders have meaning. They also have moral implications. Borders have become an issue of almost fanatical or zealous significance. The 2015 footage of a female Hungarian reporter physically attacking asylum seekers who crossed the border into her nation indicates that she was not just upset with their legal status; presumably she does not physically attack people breaking other laws (BBC News). Similarly the border vigilantes, volunteers who 'protect' the southern borders of the USA against what they see as drug cartels, apparently take no action against white-collar criminals in the cities of the USA. For the Hungarian reporter and the border vigilantes, the border is a threshold to be protected at all costs and those who cross it without proper documentation and process are more than just law breakers; they are moral transgressors, possibly even equivalent to filth. So much for border crossing. What about the borders themselves? As mentioned, fences, walls, and other markers are built to make the imagined line tangible. But some borders go well beyond that. Borders are also adorned or fashioned. For instance, the border between North and South Korea serves as a site where national sovereignty and legitimacy are emphasised, defended, and contested. It is at this buffer zone that these two nations look at each other and showcase to the other what is ideally contained within their own respective national borders. But it is not just national states which have buffer zones and borders with deep significance in the modern period; our own clothes and skin possess a similar moral significance. Why are clothes so important? Of course, like national borders, clothes have practical and functional use. Clothes keep us warm, dry, and protected from the sun and other elements. In addition to this practical use, clothes are heavily imbued with significance. Clothes are a way to fashion the body. They define our various identities including gender, class, etc. Clothes also signify morality and modesty (Leach 152). But where does this morality regarding clothing come from? Clothing is a site where state, religious, and familial control is played out. Just like the DMZ, our bodies are aestheticised with adornments, accoutrements, and decorations, and they are imbued with strong symbolic significance in attempts to reveal what constitutes the enclosed. Just like the DMZ, our clothing or lack thereof is considered constitutive of the nation. Because clothes play a role akin to geo-political borders, clothes are our DMZ; they mark us as good citizens. Whether we wear gang colours or a cross on our necklace, they can show us as belonging to something powerful, protective, and worth belonging to. They also show others that they do not belong. In relation to this, perhaps it is necessary to mention one cultural aspect of clothing. This is the importance, in the modern Indonesian nation, of appearing rapih. Rapih typically means clean, tidy, and well-groomed. The ripped and dirty jeans, old T-shirts, unshaven, unkempt hair, which has, at times, been mainstream fashion in other parts of the world, is typically viewed negatively in Indonesia, where wearing 'appropriate' clothing has been tied up with the nationalist project. For instance, as a primary school student in Indonesia, Winarnita was taught Pendidikan Moral Pancasila (Pancasila Moral Education). Named after the Pancasila, the guiding principles of the Indonesian nation, this class is also known as "PMP". It provided instruction in how to be a good national citizen. Crucially, this included deportment. The importance of being well dressed and rapih was stressed. In sum, like national borders, clothes are much more than their practical significance and practical use. This analysis can be extended by looking at skin. The practical significance of skin cannot be overstated; it is crucial to survival. But that does not preclude the possibility that humans—being the prolifically creative and meaning-making animals that we are—can make skin meaningful. Everyday racism, for instance, is primarily enabled by people making skin colour meaningful. And although skin is not optional, we fashion it into borders that define who we are, such as through tattoos, by piercing, accessorising, and through various forms of body modification (from body building to genital modification). Thresholds are also important in understanding skin. In a modern Indonesian context, when a penis crosses a woman's hymen her ritual status changes; she is no longer a virgin maiden (gadis) or virgin (perawan). If we apply the analogy of borders to the hymen, we could think of it as a checkpoint or border crossing. At a national border crossing, only people with correct credentials (for instance, passport holders with visas) can legally cross and only at certain times (not on public holidays or only from 9-5). At a hymen, only people with the correct status, namely one's husband, can morally cross. The checkpoint is a crucial reminder of the nation state and citizen scheme. The hymen is a crucial reminder of heteronormative standards. Crucial to understanding Indonesian notions of skin is the idea of aurat (Bennett 2007; Parker 2008). This term refers to parts of the body that should be covered. Or it could be said that aurat refers to 'intimate parts' of the body, if we understand that different parts of the body are considered intimate in Indonesian cultures. Indonesians tend to describe the aurat as those body parts that arouse feelings of sexual attraction or embarrassment in others. The concept tends to have Arabic and Islamic associations in Indonesia. Accordingly, for many Muslims, it means that women, once they appear sexually mature, should cover their hair, neck, and cleavage, and other areas that might arouse sexual attraction. These need to be covered when they leave their house, when they are viewed by people outside of the immediate nuclear family (muhrim). For men, it means they should be covered from their stomach to their knees. However, different Islamic scholars and preachers give different interpretations about what the aurat includes, with some opining that the entire female body with the exception of hands and face needs to be covered. That said, the general disposition or habitus of using clothes to cover is also found among non-Muslims in Indonesia. Accordingly, Catholics, Protestants, and Hindus also tend to cover their legs and cleavage, and so on, more than would commonly be found in Western countries. Having outlined the literature and cultural context, we now turn to our case studies. The Veil and Indonesian Policewomen Our first case study focusses on Indonesian police. Aside from a practical significance in law enforcement, police also have symbolic importance. There is an ideal that police should set and enforce standards for exemplary behaviour. Despite this, the Indonesia police have an image problem, being seen as highly corrupt (Davies, Stone, & Buttle). This is where policewomen fit in. The female constabulary are thought to be capable of morally improving the police force and the nation. Additionally, Indonesian policewomen are believed to be needed in situations of family violence, for instance, and to bring a sensitive and humane approach. The moral significance of Indonesia's policewomen shows clearly through issues of their clothing, in particular, the veil. In 2005, it became illegal for Indonesian policewomen to wear the veil on duty. Various reasons were given for this ban. These included that police should present a secular image, showcasing a modern and progressive nation. But this was one border contest where policewomen were able to successfully fight back; in 2013, they won the right to wear the veil on duty. The arguments espoused by both sides during this debate were reflective of geo-political border disputes, and protagonists deployed words such as "sovereignty", "human rights", and "religious autonomy". But in the end it was the policewomen's narrative that best convinced the government that they had a right to wear the veil on duty. Possibly this is because by 2013 many politicians and policymakers wanted to present Indonesia as a pious nation and having policewomen able to express their religion – and the veil being imbued with sentiments of honesty and dedication – fitted in with this larger national image. In contrast, policewomen have been unsuccessful in efforts to ban so called virginity testing (discussed below). Indonesian Policewomen Need to Be Attractive But veils are not the only bodily border that can be packed around language used to describe a DMZ. Policewomen's physical appearance, and specifically facial appearance and make-up, are discussed in similar terms. As such another border that policewomen must present in a particular (i.e. beautiful) way is their appearance. As part of the selection process, women police candidates must be judged by a mostly male panel as being pretty. They have to be a certain height and weight, and bust measurements are taken. The image of the policewoman is tall, slim, and beautiful, with a veil or with regulation cut and coiffed hair. Recognising the 'importance' of beauty for policewomen, they are given a monthly allowance precisely to buy make-up. Such is the status of policewomen that entry is highly competitive. And those who make the cut accrue many benefits. One of these benefits can be celebrity status, and it is not unusual for some policewomen to have over 100,000 Instagram followers. This celebrity status has led one police official to publicly state that women should not join the police force thinking it is a shortcut to celebrity status (Davies). So just like a nation trying to present its best self, Indonesia is imagined in the image of its policewomen. Policewomen feel pride in being selected for this position even when feeling vexed about these barriers to getting selected (Davies). Another barrier to selection is discussed in the next case study. Virginity Testing of Policewomen Our second case study relates to the necessity that female police recruits be virgins. Since 1965, policewomen recruits have been required to undergo internal examinations to ensure that their hymen is supposedly intact. Glossed as 'virginity' tests this procedure involves a two-finger examination by a health professional. Protests against the practice have been voiced by Human Rights Watch and others (Human Rights Watch). Pledges have also been made that the practice will be removed. But to date the procedure is still performed, although there are currently moves to have it banned within the armed forces. Hymens are more of a skin border than a clothing border such as that formed by uniforms or veils, but they operate in similar ways. The ‘feelable’ hymen marks an unmarried woman as moral. New women police recruits must be unmarried and therefore virgins. Actually, the hymen is not a taut skin border, but rather a loose connection of overlapping tissue and in this sense a hymen is not something one can lose. But the hymen is used as a proxy to determine a woman’s value. Hymen border control gives one a moral edge. A hymen supposedly measures a woman’s ability to protect herself, like any fortified geo-political border. Protecting one’s own borders gives the suggestion that one is able to protect others. A policewoman who can protect her bodily borders can protect those of others. Outsiders may wonder what being attractive, modest, but not too modest has to do with police work. And some (but by no means all) Indonesian policewomen wondered the same thing too. Indeed, some policewomen Davies interviewed in the 2010s were against this practice, but many staunchly supported it. They had successfully passed this rite of passage and therefore felt a common bond with other new recruits who had also gone through this procedure. Typically rites of passage, and especially the accompanying humiliation and abuse, engender a strong sense of solidarity among those who have passed through them. The virginity test seems to have operated in a similar way. Policewomen and the 'Citayam' Street Fashion Our third case study is an analysis of a short and otherwise unremarkable TV news report about policewomen parading across a crosswalk in a remote regional city. To understand why, we need to turn to "Citayam Fashion Week", a youth social movement which has developed around a road crossing in downtown Jakarta. Social movements like this are difficult to pin down, but it seems that a central aspect has been young fashionistas using a zebra crossing on a busy Jakarta street as an impromptu catwalk to strut across, be seen, and photographed. These youths are referred to in one article as "Jakarta's budget fashionistas" (Saraswati). The movement is understood in social media and traditional media sources as expressing 'street fashion'. Social media has been central to this movement. The youths have posted photos and videos of themselves crossing the road on social media. Some of these young fashionistas posted interviews with each other on TikTok. Some of the interviews went viral in June 2022 (Saraswati). So where does the name "Citayam Fashion Week" come from? Citayam is an outer area of Jakarta, which is a long way from from the wealthy central district where the young fashionistas congregate. But "Citayam" does not mean that the youths are all thought to come from that area. Instead the idea is that they could be from any poorer outer areas around the capital and have bussed or trained into town. The crosswalk they strut across is near the transport hub next to a central train station. The English-language "Fashion Week" is a tongue-in-cheek label mocking the haute couture fashion weeks around the world – events which, due to a wealth and class gap, are closed off to these teens. Strutting on the crosswalk is not limited to a single 'week' but it is an ongoing activity. The movement has spread to other parts of Indonesia, with youth parading across cross walks in other urban centres. Citayam Fashion Week became one of the major Indonesian public issues of 2022. Reaction was mixed. Some pointed to the unique street style and attitude, act, and language of the young fashionistas, some of whom became minor celebrities. The "Citayam Fashion Week" idea was also picked up by mainstream media, attracting celebrities, models, content creators, politicians and other people in the public eye. Some government voices also welcomed the social movement as promoting tourism and the creative industry. Others voiced disapproval at the youth. Their clothes were disparaged as 'tacky', reflecting deep divides in class and income in modern Jakarta. Some officials noted that they are a nuisance because they create traffic jams and loitering. Criticism also had a moral angle, in particular with commentators focused on male teens wearing feminine attire (Saraswati). Social scientists such as Oki Rahadianto (Souisa & Salim) and Saraswati see this as an expression of youth agency. These authors particularly highlight the class origins of the Citayam fashionistas being mostly from poorer outer suburbs. Their fashion displays are seen to be a way of reclaiming space for the youth in the urban landscape. Furthermore, the youths are expressing their own and unique version of youth culture. We can use the idea of threshold to provide unique insight into this phenomenon in the simple sense that the crosswalk connects one side of the road to the other. But the youth use it for something far more significant than this simple practical purpose. What is perceived to be happening is that some of the youth, who after all are in the process of transitioning from childhood to adulthood, use the crosswalk to publicly express their transition to non-normative gender and sexual identities; indeed, some of them have also transitioned to become mini celebrities in the process. Images of 'Citayam' portray young males adorned in makeup and clothes that are not identifiably masculine. They appear to be crossing gender boundaries. Other images show the distinct street fashion of these youth of exposed skin through crop tops (short tops) that show the belly, clothes with cut-out sections on various parts of the body, and ripped jeans. In a way, these youth are transgressing the taboo against exposing too much skin in public. One video is particularly interesting in light of the approach we are taking in this article as it comes from Makassar, the capital of one of Indonesia's outlying regions. "The Citayam Fashion Week phenomenon spreads to Makassar; young people become traffic (lalu lintas) ambassadors" (Kompas TV) is a news report about policewomen getting involved with young people using a crosswalk to parade their fashion. At first glance the Citayam Fashion Week portrayed in Makassar, a small city in an outlying province, is tiny compared to the scale of the movement in Jakarta. The news report shows half a dozen young males in feminine clothing and makeup. Aside from several cars in the background, there is no observable traffic that the process seems to interrupt. The news report portrays several Indonesian policewomen, all veiled, assisting and accompanying the young fashionistas. The reporter explains that the policewomen go 'hand in hand' (menggandeng) with the fashionistas. The police attempt to harness the creative energy of the youth and turn them into traffic ambassadors (duta lalu lintas). Perhaps it is going too far to state, but the term for traffic here, lalu lintas ("lalu" means to pass by or pass through, and "lintas" means "to cross"), implies that the police are assisting them in crossing thresholds. In any case, from the perspective we have adopted in this chapter, Citayam Fashion Week can be analysed in terms of thresholds as a literal road crossing turned into a place where youth can cross over gender norms and class barriers. The policewomen, with their soft, feminine abilities, attempt to transform them into exemplary citizens. Discussion: Morality, Skin, and Borders In this article, we have actually passed over two apparent contradictions in Indonesian society. In the early 2000s, Indonesian policewomen recruits were required to prove their modesty by passing a virginity test in which their hymen was inspected. Yet, at the same time they needed to be attractive. And, moreover, they were not allowed to wear the Muslim veil. They had to be modest and protect themselves from male lust but also good-looking and visible to others. The other contradiction relates to a single crosswalk or zebra crossing in downtown Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city, in 2022. Instead of using this zebra crossing simply as a place to cross the road, some youths turned it to their own ends as an impromptu 'catwalk' and posted images of their fashion on Instagram. A kind of social movement has emerged whereby Indonesian youth are fashioning their identity that contravenes gender expectations. In an inconsequential news report on the Citayam Fashion Week in Makassar, policewomen were portrayed as co-opting and redirecting the movement into an instructional opportunity in orderly road crossing. The youths could thereby transformed into good citizens. Although the two phenomena – attractive modest police virgins and a crosswalk that became a catwalk – might seem distinct, underlying the paradoxes are similar issues which can be teased out by analysing them in terms of morality, gender, and clothing in relation to borders, buffer zones, and thresholds. Veils, hymens, clothes, make-up are all politically positioned as borders worth fighting for, as necessary borders. While some border disputes can be won (such as policewomen winning the right to veil on duty, or disrupting traffic by parading one's gender-bending fashion), others are either not challenged or unsuccessfully challenged (such as ending virginity tests). These borders of moral encounter enable and provoke various responses: the ban on veiling for Indonesian policewomen was something to challenge as it undermined women’s moral position and stopped their expression of piety – things their nation wanted them to be able to do. But fighting to stop virginity testing was not permissible because even suggesting a contestation implies immorality. Only the immoral could want to get rid of virginity tests. The Citayam Fashion Week presented potentially immoral youths who corrupt national values, but with the help of policewomen, literally and figuratively holding their hand, they could be transformed into worthwhile citizens. National values were at stake in clothing and skin. Conclusion Borders and buffer zone are crucial to a nation's image of itself; whether in the geographical shape of one's country, or in clothes and skin. Douglas suggests that the human experience of boundaries can symbolise society. If she is correct, Indonesian nationalist ideas about clothing, skin, and even hymens shape how Indonesians understand their own nation. Through the three case studies we argued firstly for the importance of analysing the fashioning of the body not only as a form of border maintenance, but as truly at the centre of understanding national morality in Indonesia. Secondly, the national border may also be a way to remake the individual. People see themselves in the 'shape' of their country. As Bille stated "like skin, borders are a protective integument as well as a surface of inscription. Like the body, the nation is skin deep" (71). Thresholds are just as they imply. Passing through a threshold, we cross over one side of the border. We can potentially occupy an in-between status in, for instance, demilitarised zones. Or we can continue on to the other side. To go over a threshold such as becoming a policewoman, a teenager, a fashionista, and a mini celebrity, a good citizen can be constituted through re-fashioning the body. Fashioning one's body can be done through adorning skin with makeup or clothes, covering or revealing the skin, including particular parts of the body deemed sacred, such as the aurat, or by maintaining a special type of skin such as the hymen. The skin that is re-fashioned thus becomes a site of border contention that we argue define not only personal but national identity. Acknowledgment This article was first presented by Sharyn Graham Davies as a plenary address on 24 November 2021 as part of the Women in Asia conference. References BBC News. "Hungarian Camerawoman Who Kicked Refugees Charged." 8 Sep. 2016. 3 Oct 2022 <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37304489>. Bennett, Linda Rae. "Zina and the Enigma of Sex Education for Indonesian Muslim Youth." Sex Education 7.4 (2007): 371- 386. Bille, Franck. "Skinworlds: Borders, Haptics, Topologies." Environment and Planning D: Society & Space 36.1 (2017): 60-77. Davies, Sharyn Graham. "Skins of Morality: Bio-borders, Ephemeral Citizenship and Policing Women in Indonesia." Asian Studies Review 42.1 (2018): 69-88. Davies, Sharyn Graham, Louise M. Stone, and John Buttle. "Covering Cops: Critical Reporting of Indonesian Police Corruption." Pacific Journalism Review 22 (2016): 185-201. Douglas, Mary. "External Boundaries." In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Taboo and Pollution. London: Routlege, 2002. 115-129. Entwistle, Joanne. "Preface to the Second Edition." In The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Social Theory. New York: Polity Press, 2015. 2-26. Geertz, Clifford. "Ideology as a Cultural System." In The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. 193-233. Human Rights Watch. "Indonesia: No End to Abusive ‘Virginity Tests’; Military, Police Claim Discriminatory Practice Is for ‘Morality Reasons." 22 Nov. 2017. 3 Oct. 2022 <https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/22/indonesia-no-end-abusive-virginity-tests>. King, Emerald L., and Monika Winarnita. "Fashion: Editorial." M/C Journal 25.4 (2022). Kompas TV. "Fenomena 'Citayam Fashion Week' Menular ke Makassar, Muda-mudi Ini Dijadikan Duta Lalu Lintas.” 29 July 2022 <https://www.kompas.tv/article/314063/fenomena-citayam-fashion-week-menular-ke-makassar-muda-mudi-ini-dijadikan-duta-lalu-lintas>. Leach, E.R. "Magical Hair." The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 88.2 (1958): 147-164. Parker, Lyn. "To Cover the Aurat: Veiling, Sexual Morality and Agency among the Muslim Minangkabau, Indonesia." Intersections 16 (2008). <http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue16/parker.htm>. Saraswati, Asri. Citayam Fashion Week: The Class Divide and the City. 2 Aug. 2022. 3 Oct. 2002 <https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/citayam-fashion-week-class-divide-and-the-city/>. Souisa, Hellena, and Natasya Salim. "At Citayam Fashion Week, Jakarta's Budget Fashionistas Get Their Turn on the Catwalk." ABC News 7 Aug. 2022. 3 Oct 2022. <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-07/citayam-fashion-week-indonesia-underprivileged/101291202>. Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja. "The Galactic Polity: The Structure of Traditional Kingdoms in Southeast Asia." The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 293 (1977): 69-97. Turner, Victore W. "Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage." In William Armand Lessa and Evon Zartman Vogt (eds.), Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach. London: Harper Collins, 1979 [1964]. 234-243. Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge 2004.

Abstract:

There are three stages in internet dating: first, the emailing back and forth; second, the phone conversation; and third, the meeting for 'coffee'. But before we discuss the three stages, here are some hints about the preliminary work you have to do. At the outset, you have to trawl through the thousands of people who have placed their profiles on the site. This is aided by limiting your search to a certain age spread, and your city or region. Then you can narrow it down further by checking educational background, whether they have kids, whether they write in New Age jargon, etc You have to try to assess, from their self-descriptions, which ones are likely to be compatible. You also scrutinise their photos, of course, as they will yours — but don't trust these images entirely — more on that later. Self-description. Almost without exception, women and men who describe their main interests as 'romantic walks on the beach and candle-lit dinners' have no real interests and as much personality as a lettuce. Those who say what matters to them is "good food and wine with a classy guy/lady" have a personality, but it's a repugnant one. Here is a useful binary opposition that could provide a useful key to gauging compatibility: people vary in terms of their degree of interiority and exteriority. People with interiority have the ability to think a little abstractly, can discuss emotions, probably read books as well as watch films. They analyse life rather than just describing it. People mainly given to exteriority find their pleasure in doing things — like boating or nightclubs or golf. They see themselves in the world in a different way. Of course, we are all a mixture of the two — and perhaps the best bet is someone who isn't at one extreme end of the spectrum or the other. Useful tip 1. The 'spiritual woman': for reasons unclear, and despite the fact that Australia is one of the most pagan nations on Earth, a disproportionate number of women, rather than men, claim to be religious. Perhaps because in general, women are still more inclined to interiority than men. But most religious women don't expect a partner to be. Instead, the people to be very careful about are the New Agers — they are a large and growing sub-group and apparently spend much of their time devouring books on spirituality, personal growth and self-love. If you have any sort of intellect, or are just a middling humanist who occasionally ponders "Is this all there is? " these people will drive you nuts with their vague platitudes about knowing their inner child. On the other hand, if they seem terrific in all other respects, you can probably gain their respect by saying in a reflective manner, "Is this all there is?" If you can arrange to be gazing at the star-stained night sky while saying this, all the better. This may seem calculating, but we are all putting on a performance when courting. A lot of single people have self-esteem and loneliness issues, and a personal God, the universe, and astrology make them feel less lonely. Useful tip 2: say that although you don't subscribe to mainstream religion, you feel close to some kind of spirituality when gardening — and add how you love to plant herbs. Some okay herbs to mention are: Rosemary, Thyme, Sage. Chuck a couple of these weed-like green things in your garden just in case. Useful tip 3: no matter what else you do, at all costs avoid anyone who smacks of fundamentalism. This cohort takes the Bible literally, think dinosaurs roamed the planet only a few years before Shakespeare, want gay people to admit they are an abomination - and above all, fundos cannot be reasoned with — not in your lifetime. They are deeply insecure and frightened people — which is sad, so be sympathetic to their plight - but don't get drawn into the vortex. Besides, talking about the approach of Armageddon every date gets a bit tedious. Education: It is usually best to pick someone who has an approximately similar level of education to yourself. Having a tertiary education often gives a person a different way of seeing themselves, and of perceiving others. On the other hand, it is possible to do a five year degree in a narrow professional area and know nothing at all useful about human beings and how they operate. (Ref: engineers, dentists, gynaecologists). There are high school graduates who are better-read and more intelligent than most products of a university. So it is up to the individual case. It is a plus to be interested in your partner's work, but not essential. It can be a minus to be in the same field. Ask yourself this: if you were living with this person and you asked them at night how their day had been, would the answer send you to sleep in less than a minute? A lovely man or woman who is an accountant will likely wax lyrical about having just discovered a $245 error in a billing data base. Their face will be flushed with pride. Can your respond appropriately? How often? Or the love of your life may work in an oncology ward, and regale you with the daily triumph of removing sputum from the chests of the moribund. Are you strong enough for that? And worst of all, you may go out with a writer or poet, who regularly drones on about how their rival always gets friendly reviews from his/her newspaper mates, even though they write books full of derivative, precious crap. Sense of humour (SOH): Most men and women will claim in their profile to have a sense of humour — to love to laugh — and, surprisingly often, to have a 'wicked sense of humour'. This is a difficult personal quality to get a bearing on. You may yourself be the kind of person who tricks themselves into thinking their date has a great sense of humour simply because they laughed at your jokes. That is not having a SOH. Having a SOH is possessing the ability to make others laugh — it is active as well as passive. Do they make you laugh? Are their emails touched with wit and whimsy — or just shades of cute? Is one of their close friends, the one who actually possesses a SOH, helping write their emails? It has been known to happen. You will gain a better sense of the SOH situation during the phone call, and definitely during the coffee. Interests: Most internet websites give people the chance to describe themselves by jotting down their favourite music, books, movies, sport. Often this is pretty much all you will know about what interests them, and it is an imperfect instrument. Many internet dating women say they like all music except heavy metal. Why there is this pervasive, gut-wrenching female fear of the E, A and B chords played loudly is a mystery. Anyway, some of those bands even throw in a G or C#m. But who cares. If you are a bloke, hide your Acca Dacca CDs and buy some world music CDs. New Agers of either sex will have collections full of warbling pan pipes, waterfalls and bird calls. If they are a great person in other respects, then you'll just have to get used to the flock of magpies and whip birds in the dining or bedroom. Photographs: Now, the photo on the profile is only a vague guide. It is useful for confirming the person belongs to homo sapiens, but not a lot else. Some people get a professional pic taken, but most include happy snaps, and that is a blow struck for candidness. The more the photo looks like a "glamour" shot, the softer the focus, the less reliable it is. You can get some idea of whether someone is attractive, handsome, cute or weird from the photo. But — and this is really important — they will always look different in the flesh. They will have grown a beard, cut or streaked their hair, and you will for the first time notice they have a nose the size of the AMP building. Fortunately for men, though women are not oblivious to the looks factor, they tend to be more tolerant and less shallow about it. There is a recent trend for women and men with children to put he most attractive and least manic one in the profile photo with them. This signifies: a) love me, love my kid, because I'm proud of James/Jessica/Jade; b) family values; c) at least my kid only has one head. Stage One. The first stage is in some ways the most enjoyable. It is low risk, low stress, you have the pleasurable experience of a comfortable adventure. There is anticipation, getting to know someone, being complimented on your fascinating emails and witty humour (if it's going well), and all the while wearing an old t-shirt and dirty, checked shorts or fluffy slippers. There is the extreme luxury of re-inventing yourself, of telling your favourite story (your own life-story) again and again to a new audience, the little joys of self-disclosures, the discoveries of like-interests, the occasion when they add at the bottom of their letter "looking forward to hearing from you soon". The writing stage is where you try to establish whether you have intellectual, emotional and cultural compatibility — and whether the person is sincere and relatively well-balanced (I stress 'relatively' — no one is perfect). The discovery process is one of exchanging increasingly personal information — work history, enthusiasms and dislikes, family background. She will want to know whether you are 'over' your last girlfriend/partner/wife. Not surprisingly. A lot of internet men are still bitter about their ex — either that, or they rave on about the saintliness of their ex. If encouraged, women will also tell you about the bastard who refused to pay maintenance. There are clearly a lot of those bastards out there. Both of these practices are unwise on the first coffee if you don't want to scare your potential partner off. In reality, you probably are still seething with hurt and injustice as a result of your last dumping, and maybe even the one before that. You may lie in bed at night thinking nostalgically of your ex's face — but this is a dark secret which you must never reveal. People will ask you to be open, but they don't want that open. Involve your friends: without exception, your close friends will enjoy being part of the process when you are deciding which men or women to contact on the internet. You first make a long short list by browsing through the hundreds of profiles. Print off those profiles, then get your friends to sort through them with you. If you have experience in being on selection panels for jobs, this will help. It is a quite complex matter of weighing up a whole range of variables. For example, candidate A will be gorgeous and sexy, have compatible interests, bearable taste in music, be the right age, but have two small children and live on the other side of town. Candidate B will be less attractive, but still look pretty good, have no children, and a very interesting job. Candidate C will be attractive, have two teenage children with whom he/she shares custody, a worthy but dull job, but seems to have an especially self-aware and witty personality. It's tough work rating these profiles, and the best you can do is whittle them down to a top three, and write to all of them. In the emailing stage, you will get more data to either enhance or diminish their desirability. And remember, no one is perfect: if you find someone with a beautiful brain and body who loves Celine Dion — just put up with it. As Buddhists point out, suffering cannot be avoided if you are to live a full life. But let your friends help you with that selection process — they will remind you of important issues that somehow escape your attention; such as: you really don't like other people's children in reality, just in theory. The last time you went out with someone who was newly broken up or divorced he/she hadn't got over his/her girlfriend/husband. Anyone who describes themselves as a 'passionate playmate' is probably unbalanced and tries to find male/female acceptance through over-sexualising or infantalising themselves. It means nothing that someone describes their children as "beautiful" — all mothers/fathers think that, even of the most ghastly, moronic offspring. You really don't like nightclubs any more and you are an awkward dancer. The last time you fell in love with, and tried to rescue, someone with serious emotional 'issues', it led to unimaginable misery, and you swore in future to leave such rescues to the professionals. And so on. Listen to your friends — they know you. And your bad choices impinge on their lives too. Writing is a powerful means of constructing a 'self' to project to others. There is a Thomas Hardy story about a young man who meets a beautiful girl at a fair — but he must return to London. They agree to write to each other. Only the beautiful girl is illiterate, so she asks her employer, an older woman, to ghost-write her love letters to the young man, and the employer kindly agrees. The young man falls in love with the soul and mind of the sensitive and intelligent writer of the letters and assumes the beautiful young girl has authored them. The employer also falls in love with him through his letters. Only on the day he marries the girl does he discover that he has married the wrong woman. This tale tells us about the richness of the written word, but it omits an important point — you can be intrigued and drawn to someone through his or her e-mails, but find on meeting him or her that there is no chemistry at all. Works Cited This creative non-fiction article was based on primary research. The largest Australian internet dating service is RSVP (www.rsvp.com.au). I mainly used that for my research and ensuing coffees/participant observation. There are other sites I checked out, including: www.datenet.com.au www.AussieMatchMaker.com.au www.findsomeone.com.au www.VitalPartners.com.au www.personals.yahoo.com.au There are also internet dating site guides such as: www.shoptheweb.com.au/dating.shtml www.theinternetdatingguide.com www.moonlitwalks.com www.singlesites.com/Australian_Dating.htm Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Neilsen, Philip. "An extract from 'The Internet of Love'" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.6 (2002). Dn Month Year < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/internet.php>. APA Style Neilsen, P., (2002, Nov 20). An extract from "The Internet of Love". M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 5,(6). Retrieved Month Dn, Year, from http://www.media-culture.org.au/0211/internet.html

Abstract:

“Di? Di? Come on, Di. I know you’re in there.” It would have been better if she had just said nothing, just lay there. The voice would have gone away eventually. She did attempt a small silence, leaning back on her pillow and listened to the rattling of the door handle, then a sigh, and an ongoing tapping. “Di?” Finally, she couldn’t help herself. “Fuck off, Nic.” “Come on, Di. What’s up?” “Why don’t you go and find someone else to rip off?” “What do you mean?” “You know what I mean.” “What’s wrong? Come on, let me in, Di. Please?” The door to Diana’s King Street bed-sit was pink, the paint chipped. She threw a cushion at it, producing a dull thumping sound followed by a soft whistle as the polyester cover slid down toward the floor. “So, where’d you take it all to, Nic?” Diana raised her voice to the ceiling. “What was it worth to you?” There was no answer. She could feel bitterness rising in her throat. “What am I supposed to do now? You want me to go down to the fucking pawn shop and buy back my own stuff just so you can come and rip me off again?” Silence. A shifting of weight. The sliding of cloth against the door. Then, again: tap, tap. “Di?” A low, childish whisper. “Don’t shut me out, Di, please, I need you.” Something compelled Diana Kooper. She rose up from her spot on the futon and moved toward the closed door. The movement seemed to stretch out momentarily, as if offering the chance to change her mind, to sit down again, to forget. But she did none of these things, instead opening the door with a swish and a body fell immediately into the room. Diana was ready for it. Her hands landed quickly on the soft hollow of Nicole’s armpits, pulling the other girl further inside then pinning her by the shoulders to the filthy carpet. She climbed on top of the body and knocked the head against the floor, hard. Soon she was aware only of sounds: fabric tearing; the soft whoosh of her friend’s breath beneath shawls of hair. Diana discovered a vital physical strength fed by rage and despair: a blinding extravagance of will. But Nicole fought back, so that Diana too was flung against the furniture legs, against the floor, against the corner of the low bed. Blood swam from their noses and skin burnt at hips, knees, elbows. They knocked into an open cupboard door, sending empty containers and food packaging like celebratory confetti across the stained carpet. They were using fists, boots, wrangles, pinches. They were tripping each other up, wedging grit and splinters and skin beneath short fingernails. Wrestling gave way briefly to a round of boxing. Diana could picture the kids practising in the warehouse near their old place in Glebe. Maybe Nicole could see them too. For a moment the girls were fenced in by thick red ropes. They had bright silk shorts on. Diana could feel her right fist clenched at her side, burning to lodge a lethal knock. She was raking up stray instructions from the schoolyard: Go for the soft temple / Avoid the jaw / Form the fist right / Dance! Dance on your feet. Diana’s bare fist made sharp contact with an eye, flinging the other girl back. Nicole stumbled and held one hand across her damaged eyelid, trying to refocus. Diana smirked, too pleased with herself. She had only glanced away momentarily when she felt something land with the force against her own gut. Suddenly the wind was gone from her. Breathing is life. Life is breathing. She folded forward and fell. The world blackened. When she came to there was a smell of hot metal. The electric kettle had boiled dry. There was a pillow beneath her head, and the familiar shape of Nicole Carr sprawled out on the bed beside her. “Oh, God,” she said. All that effort, for nothing. The body beside her moaned in response. Diana got up and turned off the kettle. Diana had coined the term Big Change Trouble when she was small. It was something she reckoned she could sense early, before others got a whiff of it. It was the kind of trouble she had watched her mother trying to dodge at the last minute, the way drivers who speed are forced to dodge sudden obstacles on the road, without much success. When she was a kid, Big Change Trouble meant the convergence of all number of small trouble things - things to do with her mother’s drinking, things to do with money, or things to do with school. It started with little ruptures right across all the stuff she’d gotten used to. Sometimes it was like she was outside of herself, looking down, watching it all going on, and always this sense that nobody else could make out it quite like she could. Just before she did the bolt from Sydney, Diana could sense that eerie childhood feeling, so rotten, so familiar. It rose up the day after she and Nicole had beat the shit out of each other. She went to work, as usual, in the bar in Redfern in the late afternoon, her limbs tired and sore. Dick Richards, the guy who always gave her good, reliable tips, stood at the bar rubbing his hand across his left nipple and saying “Caaaw,” widening his eyes and blinking. She got an odd feeling, watching the way his t-shirt creased beneath his hand as he rubbed. Maybe he was actually having a heart attack, right there at the bar. She felt removed from him, on edge, and said nothing that might have helped. She was more concerned that there was something wrong with one of her work shoes. The rubber sole was coming off at the front, and it was flip-flapping around, getting stuck on the edges of the bar mats. Twice she nearly tripped carrying two full schooners of Resch’s. Later one of the other regulars, Marty Miller, told her about how he had to walk home all the way from St Peters the previous afternoon, because he had these three boils on his arse and they had burst, and even though one of his mates went by and offered him a lift, he didn’t want to get in. He didn’t want to make a mess on his mates’ seat. It was so bad, he wouldn’t even have gotten into a taxi. It was about eight kilometres he had to walk. He was the nicest guy, Marty, but he didn’t generally talk too much, it was unlike him to even be standing at the bar. Usually he drank over by the window, looking out at the street. Diana was left wondering about him, long after he’d gone home. Marty Miller and the boils on his arse, the blood and puss leaking down his legs as he walked. Why did he have to tell her about it? That night, Jeff Fenech was due to defend his WBC Featherweight Title. Skychannel was broadcasting it live. Gradually, the place filled up and soon there wasn’t a punter in the whole pub who wasn’t barracking for Fenech. It was dead busy. Diana’s boss, Micheal, was completely stoned. He kept smiling and pointing at the bruises on her face and shaking his head, but he was smiling from the wrong side of the bar. There should have been two of them serving. It was annoying. Beryl and Matt’s two kids came in again, they must be six and eight years old, and Diana had to keep her eyes on them as they pushed their way through the crowd to find Mum and Dad at their usual spot in front of the card machines. Probably just asking for money for a feed, poor buggers, but they weren’t supposed to come into the pub, especially at night, especially in a big crowd like this. She lost track of them, couldn’t tell if they’d already gone or not. Big Change Trouble gives a certain flavour to everything. It might as well have been in the beer itself, the yeasty scent of it filling the room every time a drinker exhaled. Jeff Fenech went to twelve rounds with the tiny little Mexican, Mario Martinez. It was a long, monotonous fight with barely any drama in it. Jeff wasn’t at his best. “His hands are fucked,” people were saying. “His fucking hands are ratshit.” There’d been too many fractures, too many punches over too many years. It was difficult to watch. Everybody sensed the champion’s reign close to being over. Jeff won the fight, but it wasn’t with anything you could call style. The pub emptied out quickly after that. It was like someone had just taken a giant scoop out of the place, and everybody was gone, even Dick Richards. She put up the stools, wiped down the bar, emptied the flat amber fluid out of the trays. When she got outside, she watched two taxis go past with their “Engaged” signs up, even though there was no one but the drivers in them. Several mounted police turned out of Raglan Street and she could hear the sound of their horse’s hooves against the blacktop, the clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop ricocheting up and down the length of near empty Botany Road. Her little Suzuki coughed to a start and she drove home the back way through this odd disquiet. When she got to the laneway behind her King Street bed-sit, she was met by the picture of Nicole Carr walking into the stream of her headlights. Nicole held up a limp hand, shielding her face from the light. “What?” “You gotta help me, Di. I want to get clean.” She seemed thinner than ever, her hair all flat. “I want to give it a go, I mean it, really,” she said through the open driver’s window. “I got to stay away from Harry.” She followed Diana up the stairs. “You’ve got to help me keep away from him, Di. We’re bad for each other.” Nicole was going to move out of Harry’s place in Bondi and find a place of her own. She was going to work two jobs and save to go to a private college, do a course in natural medicine. Diana could tell she’d had a hit not long before she arrived. Her friend sat at the table, flicking her hair back out of her eyes and doodling on an old telephone bill. They went to sleep a little after one, but Diana slept lightly. At seven, Nicole was up and getting restless, wandering in small loops around the tiny space. Diana tried to sleep on, raising an eyelid occasionally to see Nicole hunched over, biting her nails, staring out into space. They ate blueberry yoghurt for breakfast, sharing the same spoon, eating straight out of the tub. Diana was supposed to be at the TAFE that morning, to see about a supplementary exam. And she was due to start at her shift at The Royal at two. But she was afraid to leave. If she left, Nicole might go out. If Nicole went out, that would be the end of it. “You must hate me,” Nicole said, sulkily. “Yes and no.” The bed-sit had very little in it. The old blue fridge rumbled and buzzed. Nicole had already stolen the stereo, the television, the microwave, even the little dual ring gas cooktop. There were two folding chairs beside a fold-out table. There was the futon. Diana shared the bathroom down the hall with Bernie and Wanda, the drag queens in the next room. The tiny bed-sit’s best feature was a set of French doors, opening onto a railing and overlooking the busy road below. The breeze, or sometimes just the hot air created by the ceaseless traffic, made the red curtains above the doorway dance and sway. The girls sat watching this dance for most of the morning. Funny the way the fabric lifted, ballooned then fell. Lifted, ballooned, then fell. There was something in it. And yet, also, there was nothing. Soon Nicole Carr’s stomach would knot into a long, sharp cramp. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style BLoon, Julienne van. "An Excerpt from the Novella Moving" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 6.1 (2003). Dn Month Year < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0302/02-feature.php>. APA Style Loon, J. v., (2003, Feb 26). An Excerpt from the Novella Moving. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,(1). Retrieved Month Dn, Year, from http://www.media-culture.org.au/0302/02-feature.html

Abstract:

Obsolescence in Conversation Knick-knacks of uncertain use,[Omitted for space]Somber pictures and distant blues,Faded pastels, hard cameos,Phials still smelling of perfume,Jewelry, rags, rattles, puppets,What a great clutter in this chest!All for sale. Accept my offer,Reader. Perhaps these old thingsWill move you to tears or laughter.You’ll have to pay, and as for me,I shall buy some nice fresh roses. (Cros and Corbière) Orlando, in his book Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination, interprets the listing of the objects in this sonnet as intensifying “the primary defunctionalization of the things” (18). Until line 5, the old objects in the chest seemed to bring good reminiscence. In line 6, on the contrary, these objects suddenly turn into “great clutter”, which needs to be sold in order to be replaced with “some nice fresh roses”. This is a representative example of how obsolescence is construed in our everyday lives. Obsolete objects bring memories, warmth, and nostalgia, yet we often view them as the defunctionalized, impractical, uncertain, or worthless that will eventually have to be replaced with the new. When it comes to technological objects, functionality, efficiency, and usefulness are the central reasons for their existence. Accordingly, becoming obsolete poses a great challenge towards the reason for their existence, raising our perception about obsolete technology as a waste. Strasser (Strasser) wrote in the 1920s — “economic growth was fueled by what had once been understood as waste.” This notion carries over to today’s computing environment in which the high rate of machine turnover translates into tremendous profitability for the computing industries. Hence planned obsolescence, planning and engineering the obsolescence, became a long-established principle in American consumer economics (Sterne). The ways in which computing devices are designed today are good resulting representations of planned obsolescence. A study in 2007 showed that American consumers use their phones for only 17.5 months before replacing them (U.S. Wireless Mobile Phone Evaluation Study), and worldwide sales of mobile phones are expected to exceed one billion by 2009 (Gartner). Huang and Truong called the trend of usage lifetime being much shorter than their functional lifetime the disposable technology paradigm. As environmental sustainability became an important issue in our daily lives, the awareness of planned obsolescence and the disposable technology paradigm alarmed researchers to actively engage in the questions of supporting sustainability in computing devices. Because of the notion that obsolescence equals waste, the conversations in designing for sustainability have been based on the view that obsolescence is something that is problematic and need to be prevented. For example, sustainable interaction design (Blevis) suggested ways in which design can prolong the life cycle of the product in order to delay or prevent the product from becoming obsolete. So far we have discussed how the notion of obsolescence is perceived in our everyday lives, what it means to the computing industry, and how it is utilized for economic profit or, in contrary, attempted to be prevented for environmental sustainability. Rather than viewing obsolescence as having negative power, however, we challenge the notion that obsolescence is worthless and furthermore discuss the social and individual values that were surfaced through a case study of a user community that maintained an obsolete machine for over nine years after the product’s discontinuation. HP200LX User Community HP200LX (LX) is a PDA introduced by HP in 1994. It is MS-DOS compatible and comes with 2 or 4 MB of memory including the RAM. Housed in a clamshell-style case, it comes with 640x200 monochrome display, QWERTY keyboard, serial port, and PCMCIA slot. A user claimed that an AA battery would run his LX for up to two weeks. The user community for the LX communicated and shared information through an email list. The email list started in late 1996 and thrived until September 2008. By January of 2008, there were approximately 90,000 accumulated messages that were archived online since 1996. We sampled roughly 35,000 messages from the beginning of the archive, around discontinuation (November, 1999), and later in the archive, and analyzed using standard qualitative analysis through coding and probed for emerging patterns. The LX was discontinued in 1999, officially making the LX to be obsolete. To the LX users, however, the LX was more effective than any other PDAs at the time. Because the LX was running DOS, it allowed the users to flexibly develop and share custom applications that fit their everyday practices. Besides, the LX users considered the LX useful due to it being lightweight and having long lasting battery life. In the attempt to push back against the obsolescence of the machine, during the first few years after discontinuation, the LX user community was actively building resources that would help prolong the life of the rapidly aging LX. This included solutions in dealing with fixing and upgrading hardware and software, adding new features, and maintaining compatibility with the surrounding computing environment. For example, the members shared their know-hows on fixing broken hinges or finding the right memory card that communicated the best with the LX. As well, a user developed a do-it-yourself kit that allowed end users to install backlight to the LX, which was not an existing feature in the original LX. Actively Participating in Building Up the Resources Around the time the LX was discontinued, the LX community was pushing back against the notion of obsolescence that was given to the LX. The LX was still useful to them and they could not find the alternatives that would replace the kinds of functionalities and features that the LX provided. Accordingly, it was up to the members themselves to maintain the LX, which required active participation from the members. The core members of the list shared the knowledge they had accumulated while using the LX. If a member asked a question to the email list, a variety of solutions was followed. This way, over many years, the community had collectively built up resources that were necessary in order for the LX users to maintain the LX on their own. In 2001, a member volunteered to aggregate members’ contact information and their core knowledge skills in maintaining the LX. He wanted to use the database for the newcomers and for those who will continue to use the LX long after the list died when the resources would no longer be available: “…we could create a database which all people who are so kind to support the HPLX community even after they leave the list (if ever) can add their contact information and a short HPLX-related skills profile, so that, when you have a s[p]ecific problem with (for example) an Internet connection with cel[l] phone you simply do a search for "cell phone" and it appears, besides others, the entryname: [David Wong]email: [dw]@epost.deURL: www.[david-wong].deskills: cell phones, LaTeX, Synchronization, serial port,.....”(User EI, Sep. 2001) The responses were favorable, showing that the members valued participation as an important part of sustaining the community and the obsolete machine. A few months later, in February 2002, a member suggested the list to introduce themselves to the list in 80 minutes. The thread continued for about a month from users around the world: [Stanley Bower], New ZealandOwner of one well travelled single speed unit featuring a Hinge Crack and a rubber band modified latch. (User TG, Jan. 2002) [Dan], I hail from Los Angeles, CA, originally from Roseburg, Oregon. USA All the Way! I posted several months ago a suggestion that we set up an HPLX conference to get everyone on the list in a convenient location. Anyone else interested? [John Bulard] (User KC, Feb. 2002) 105 members have responded to the thread. Then user EI suggested to merge the contact information gathered from this email thread to the knowledge database. Currently, the database is offline due to privacy concerns, but this event showed how much the list was conscientious about using the collective knowledge for those who need help in maintaining the obsolete machine that essentially have little resources to depend on. The fact that the LX was obsolete pushed users to actively engage in collectively building resources for maintaining the LX. Unveiling Invisible Collective Creativity Because of the members’ active participation, it also unveiled the creativity of the members in getting around the problems that were created due to the obsolescence. For example, reading a PDF file on the LX was a big issue since existing DOS based PDF readers required higher system requirements than the LX. Accordingly, the members had to come up with their own ways of reading PDF files, and these were shared on the email list starting 1998 through 2005. In February 1999, user UP suggested printing PDF files from a fax driver and reading the output from the fax viewer. However, this fax viewer solution did not seem to get much attention. Instead, user EO followed up saying that some PDF files could be read directly without the viewer while others do not. Because this solution had uncertainties, his second suggestion was to convert PDF files into images from other computers and import them into the LX. From this point on, the members discussed a variety of ways in which PDF files could be read. The members found downloadable programs that could convert PDF files to .TXT or ASCII files as well as email addresses to which the members could send PDF files and receive text files back. In March 2001, a member introduced using Google to open PDF file as a text file and downloading the HTML file to the LX. Later, instead of the PDF to TXT or HTML solution, user CN shared his know-how of viewing PDF files through image capture: you can open it in Acrobat on your desktop, capture a screenshot to your clipboard (I think on a Windows box you press PrtScrn), then trim it neatly in a graphics program before saving the image to .pcx or some other format. Then you can view it in LXPic on your palmtop. It's easier than it sounds. (User CN, Jul. 2001) In April 2005, a member distributed an application that converted PDF files directly into the image files. Another member then complained about the size of the resulting image file, which he then solved through manually getting rid of the white bordering around the text. The LX users were constantly adapting their own ways of solving problems. Aside from viewing PDF files problem, there were many other challenges such as breaking hardware and outdating software that the users had to deal with. However, this very process of overcoming the LX becoming obsolete and losing compatibility with the advancing computing environment has unveiled the collective creativity of the LX users that would otherwise have been hidden. Becoming Well-Informed Even with active knowledge sharing and creative work-arounds, maintaining the LX was still challenging. Accordingly, the members had to constantly look out for alternatives that could replace the LX: I just picked up one of these beasties [Zaurus] at HSN.COM for $180-ish shipped. I was wondering if I could get some feedback from anyone who has used it and can compare/contrast with an LX. There are obvious differences in battery life, color, etc but I was wondering about built-in applications. So far this thing seems like a good alternative for those who want a "modern" color PDA but find PocketWindows too bloated and PalmOS too primitive. The coolest part is that you can use the SD slot form flash mem and the CF slot for ethernet or other periph. (User F, Mar. 2003) During the course of researching the alternatives and sharing experiences on the list, the members became well-informed about the alternative products and their pros and cons of the detailed aspects. Examples included how keyboard touch feels, what available customized as well as built-in applications are, how easy it is to back up, how long the battery life is, or what daily usage practices are. Because the LX was an intricate part of the members’ lives, daily resources and practices were built around the LX, making it one of the impeding factors for the LX users to move on to an alternative device. Thus, it was important to know the degree to which the alternative device can continue to support the workflow that was established around the LX. This forced the members to actively engage in conversations to be well informed about alternative devices beyond features and machine performances. As a result, the members became well aware of the choices they have as consumers and perceived themselves to be able to make well-informed decisions than other general consumer groups. Co-Construction of Group Identity Because the members became well-informed consumers and the LX was not something that anybody could use (it required minimum programming knowledge), the members begun to distance themselves apart from the general group of users. HP200LX becoming abandoned in place of a new mobile platform WinCE, which was supposedly user-friendlier than DOS, pushed the members even further away from “the normal users”, which opened up another space for the LX users to co-construct their group identity. Here is an exemplary conversation thread in which user BN responds to user TE: › HP are NOT making a big mistake by discontinuing the 200LX any more › than your girlfiend was whe[n] she dumped you for the nerd with pots › of money.Yeah, yeah, we react like the dumped boyfriend. But hey, rejection is tough. :)› It's their choice and their problem. _We_ don't have a problem.A little yes… (User BN, July 1999) Notice here how user BN and TE refer to the list members as “we” who react to the discontinuation like the dumped boyfriend, and HP as “they” who abandoned the LX over the new mobile platform. Similarly, in the following, by grouping the users “these days” that buy “crappy computer hardware and software”, user TE contrasts the LX users from the general group of users and characterizes the LX users as those who make informed decisions: They [the companies] don't care if the machines are a pain in the butt and the users are frustrated. These days, users are willing to accept crappy computer hardware and software... (User TE, 1999) However, another user argued that the general group of users, in fact, prefers WinCE or computing devices that they consider “crappy”, placing themselves further away from the general users: No, no, no. They [users] love that [WinCE]. There's nothing better than a big installed base who thin[k]s that a bug fix is properly referred to as an "upgrade." (User MD, 1999) Watkins, in his book Throwaways (Watkins), argued that distancing between the new and the old gave a means of maintaining dominance through distinction from others. For example, rather than being viewed as true progression, to Watkins, avant-gardism was merely another means of social distinction, a way to stay one step ahead. In the case of the LX community, the use of old, instead of the new, has been placed as their ways of staying techno-culturally one step ahead. This process of social distinction played an important part in the formation of the group identity, which in turn tightened the community and brought them closer together. Obsolescence Uncovers Values in Technology Use When we picture obsolete computers, they are dusted, big, heavy, slow, and clunky – they are perceived to have little ability to perform as newer computers do. However, obsolescence is such a situated notion that it may be construed arbitrarily depending on how, to whom, and when an object becomes obsolete. Although planned obsolescence may reclassify a machine as obsolete, its actual disuse may come later. Even if the disuse occurs, again, throwing away may happen later. The LX community showed a representative example of the constant re-interpretation of the obsolescence through the tight tension between reclassification of the LX as obsolete by the corporate and perceived obsolescence by the end-users. For the LX users, the LX was not obsolete – it was still the most functional device they could find at the time. The LX users were then committed to maintain the LX over eight years after discontinuation, challenging the notion of obsolete computers as worthless. The LX users maintained the obsolete machine not solely because of the nostalgic purposes but arguably because of the quality and functionality the machine possessed. In fact, the LX community was merely a representative of many user communities of discontinued computing artifacts (Muniz Jr. and Schau, Frauenfelder) that could attest to the arbitrary notion of obsolescence. The constant tension between the forced obsolescence and the refusal towards obsolescence, in return, allowed the LX community to discover values that may not otherwise have been revealed. In the process of pushing back the notion that the LX is obsolete, the community was able to bring to the surface the active participation of the community, the hidden forms of collective creativity, constant efforts in becoming well informed, and the formation of group identity. References Blevis, E. "Sustainable Interaction Design: Invention & Disposal, Renewal & Reuse." ACM CHI New York, 2007. Cros, Charles, and Tristan Corbière. Œuvres Complètes [de] Charles Cros [et] Tristan Corbière. Bibliothèque de La Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1970. Frauenfelder, M. "Never Say Die." Wired March 2000. Gartner. "Gartner Says Mobile Phone Sales Will Exceed One Billion in 2009." 2005. 15 July 2009 ‹http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_132473_11.html›. Huang, E.M., and K.N. Truong. "Sustainably Ours - Situated Sustainability for Mobile Phones." Interactions-New York 15.2 (2008): 16-19. Muniz Jr., A.M., and H.J. Schau. "Religiosity in the Abandoned Apple Newton Brand Community." Journal of Consumer Research 31.4 (2005): 737-47. Orlando, Francesco. Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination : Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. Sterne, Jonathan. "Out with the Trash: On the Future of New Media." Residual Media. Ed. Charles R. Acland. Illustrated ed. Minneapolis: University of Minessota Press, 2007. 16-31. Strasser, Susan. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999. U.S. Wireless Mobile Phone Evaluation Study. J.D. Power and Associates, 2007. Watkins, E. Throwaways: Work Culture and Consumer Education. Stanford University Press, 1993.

Abstract:

Introduction: From Trifle to Tiramisu Tiramisu is an Italian dessert cake, usually comprising sponge finger biscuits soaked in coffee and liquor, layered with a mixture of egg yolk, mascarpone and cream, and topped with sifted cocoa. Once a gourmet dish, tiramisu, which means “pick me up” in Italian (Volpi), is today very popular in Australia where it is available for purchase not only in restaurants and cafés, but also from fast food chains and supermarkets. Recipes abound in cookery books and magazines and online. It is certainly more widely available and written about in Australia than the once ubiquitous English trifle which, comprising variations on the theme of sherry soaked sponge cake, custard and cream, it closely resembles. It could be asserted that its strong coffee taste has enabled the tiramisu to triumph over the trifle in contemporary Australia, yet coffee is also a recurrent ingredient in cakes and icings in nineteenth and early twentieth century Australian cookbooks. Acknowledging that coffee consumption in Australia doubled during the years of the Second World War and maintained high rates of growth afterwards (Khamis; Adams), this article draws on examples of culinary writing during this period of increasing popularity to investigate the use of coffee in cookery as well as a beverage in these mid-twentieth century decades. In doing so, it engages with a lively scholarly discussion on what has driven this change—whether the American glamour and sophistication associated with coffee, post-war immigration from the Mediterranean and other parts of Europe, or the influence of the media and developments in technology (see, for discussion, Adams; Collins et al.; Khamis; Symons). Coffee in Australian Mid-century Epicurean Writing In Australian epicurean writing in the 1950s and 1960s, freshly brewed coffee is clearly identified as the beverage of choice for those with gourmet tastes. In 1952, The West Australian reported that Johnnie Walker, then president of the Sydney Gourmet Society had “sweated over an ordinary kitchen stove to give 12 Melbourne women a perfect meal” (“A Gourmet” 8). Walker prepared a menu comprising: savoury biscuits; pumpkin soup made with a beef, ham, and veal stock; duck braised with “26 ounces of dry red wine, a bottle and a half of curacao and orange juice;” Spanish fried rice; a “French lettuce salad with the Italian influence of garlic;” and, strawberries with strawberry brandy and whipped cream. He served sherry with the biscuits, red wine with the duck, champagne with the sweet, and coffee to finish. It is, however, the adjectives that matter here—that the sherry and wine were dry, not sweet, and the coffee was percolated and black, not instant and milky. Other examples of epicurean writing suggested that fresh coffee should also be unadulterated. In 1951, American food writer William Wallace Irwin who travelled to, and published in, Australia as “The Garrulous Gourmet,” wrote scathingly of the practice of adding chicory to coffee in France and elsewhere (104). This castigation of the French for their coffee was unusual, with most articles at this time praising Gallic gastronomy. Indicative of this is Nancy Cashmore’s travel article for Adelaide’s Advertiser in 1954. Titled “In Dordogne and Burgundy the Gourmet Will Find … A Gastronomic Paradise,” Cashmore details the purchasing, preparation, presentation, and, of course, consumption of excellent food and wine. Good coffee is an integral part of every meal and every day: “from these parts come exquisite pate de fois, truffles, delicious little cakes, conserved meats, wild mushrooms, walnuts and plums. … The day begins with new bread and coffee … nothing is imported, nothing is stale” (6). Memorable luncheons of “hors-d’oeuvre … a meat course, followed by a salad, cheese and possibly a sweet” (6) always ended with black coffee and sometimes a sugar lump soaked in liqueur. In Australian Wines and Food (AW&F), a quarterly epicurean magazine that was published from 1956 to 1960, coffee was regularly featured as a gourmet kitchen staple alongside wine and cheese. Articles on the history, growing, marketing, blending, roasting, purchase, and brewing of coffee during these years were accompanied with full-page advertisements for Bushell’s vacuum packed pure “roaster fresh” coffee, Robert Timms’s “Royal Special” blend for “coffee connoisseurs,” and the Masterfoods range of “superior” imported and locally produced foodstuffs, which included vacuum packed coffee alongside such items as paprika, bay leaves and canned asparagus. AW&F believed Australia’s growing coffee consumption the result of increased participation in quality dining experiences whether in restaurants, the “scores of colourful coffee shops opening their doors to a new generation” (“Coffee” 39) or at home. With regard to domestic coffee drinking, AW&F reported a revived interest in “the long neglected art of brewing good coffee in the home” (“Coffee” 39). Instructions given range from boiling in a pot to percolating and “expresso” (Bancroft 10; “Coffee” 37-9). Coffee was also mentioned in every issue as the only fitting ending to a fine meal, when port, other fortified wines or liqueurs usually accompanied a small demi-tasse of (strong) black coffee. Coffee was also identified as one of the locally produced speciality foods that were flown into the USA for a consulate dinner: “more than a ton of carefully selected foodstuffs was flown to New York by Qantas in three separate airlifts … beef fillet steaks, kangaroo tails, Sydney rock oysters, King prawns, crayfish tails, tropical fruits and passion fruit, New Guinea coffee, chocolates, muscatels and almonds” (“Australian” 16). It is noteworthy that tea is not profiled in the entire run of the magazine. A decade later, in the second half of the 1960s, the new Australian gourmet magazine Epicurean included a number of similar articles on coffee. In 1966 and 1969, celebrity chef and regular Epicurean columnist Graham Kerr also included an illustrated guide to making coffee in two of the books produced alongside his television series, The Graham Kerr Cookbook (125) and The Graham Kerr Cookbook by the Galloping Gourmet (266-67). These included advice to buy freshly roasted beans at least once a week and to invest in an electric coffee grinder. Kerr uses a glass percolator in each and makes an iced (milk) coffee based on double strength cooled brewed coffee. Entertaining with Margaret Fulton (1971) is the first Margaret Fulton cookery book to include detailed information on making coffee from ground beans at home. In this volume, which was clearly aimed at the gourmet-inclined end of the domestic market, Fulton, then cookery editor for popular magazine Woman’s Day, provides a morning coffee menu and proclaims that “Good hot coffee will never taste so good as it does at this time of the day” (90). With the stress on the “good,” Fulton, like Kerr, advises that beans be purchased and ground as they are needed or that only a small amounts of freshly ground coffee be obtained at one time. For Fulton, quality is clearly linked to price—“buy the best you can afford” (90)—but while advising that “Mocha coffee, which comes from Aden and Mocha, is generally considered the best” (90), she also concedes that consumers will “find by experience” (90) which blends they prefer. She includes detailed information on storage and preparation, noting that there are also “dozens of pieces of coffee making equipment to choose from” (90). Fulton includes instructions on how to make coffee for guests at a wedding breakfast or other large event, gently heating home sewn muslin bags filled with finely ground coffee in urns of barely boiling water (64). Alongside these instructions, Fulton also provides recipes for a sophisticated selection of coffee-flavoured desserts such as an iced coffee soufflé and coffee biscuits and meringues that would be perfect accompaniments to her brewed coffees. Cooking with Coffee A prominent and popular advocate of Continental and Asian cookery in Melbourne in the 1950s, Maria Kozslik Donovan wrote and illustrated five cookery books and had a successful international career as a food writer in the 1960s and 1970s. Maria Kozslik was Hungarian by birth and education and was also educated in the USA before marrying Patrick Donovan, an Australian, and migrating to Sydney with him in 1950. After a brief stay there and in Adelaide, they relocated to Melbourne in 1953 where she ran a cookery school and wrote for prominent daily newspaper The Age, penning hundreds of her weekly “Epicure’s Corner: Continental Recipes with Maria Kozslik” column from 1954 to 1961. Her groundbreaking Continental Cookery in Australia (1955) collects some 140 recipes, many of which would appear in her column—predominantly featuring French, Italian, Viennese, and Hungarian dishes, as well as some from the Middle East and the Balkans—each with an informative paragraph or two regarding European cooking and dining practices that set the recipes in context. Continental Cookery in Australia includes one recipe for Mocha Torte (162), which she translates as Coffee Cream Cake and identifies as “the favourite of the gay and party-loving Viennese … [in] the many cafés and sweet shops of Salzburg and Vienna” (162). In this recipe, a plain sponge is cut into four thin layers and filled and covered with a rich mocha cream custard made from egg yolks, sugar and a good measure of coffee, which, when cooled, is beaten into creamed butter. In her recipe for Mocha Cream, Donovan identifies the type of coffee to be used and its strength, specifying that “strong Mocha” be used, and pleading, “please, no essence!” She also suggests that the cake’s top can be decorated with shavings of the then quite exotic “coffee bean chocolate,” which she notes can be found at “most continental confectioners” (162), but which would have been difficult to obtain outside the main urban centres. Coffee also appears in her Café Frappe, where cooled strong black coffee is poured into iced-filled glasses, and dressed with a touch of sugar and whipped cream (165). For this recipe the only other direction that Donovan gives regarding coffee is to “prepare and cool” strong black coffee (165) but it is obvious—from her eschewing of other convenience foods throughout the volume—that she means freshly brewed ground coffee. In contrast, less adventurous cookery books paint a different picture of coffee use in the home at this time. Thus, the more concise Selected Continental Recipes for the Australian Home (1955) by the Australian-born Zelmear M. Deutsch—who, stating that upon marrying a Viennese husband, she became aware of “the fascinating ways of Continental Cuisine” (back cover)—includes three recipes that include coffee. Deutsch’s Mocha Creams (chocolate truffles with a hint of coffee) (76-77), almond meringues filled with coffee whipped cream (89-90), and Mocha Cream Filling comprising butter beaten with chocolate, vanilla, sugar, and coffee (95), all use “powdered” instant coffee, which is, moreover, used extremely sparingly. Her Almond Coffee Torte, for example, requires only half a teaspoon of powdered coffee to a quarter of a pint (300 mls) of cream, which is also sweetened with vanilla sugar (89-90). In contrast to the examples from Fulton and Donovan above (but in common with many cookbooks before and after) Deutsch uses the term “mocha” to describe a mix of coffee and chocolate, rather than to refer to a fine-quality coffee. The term itself is also used to describe a soft, rich brown color and, therefore, at times, the resulting hue of these dishes. The word itself is of late eighteenth century origin, and comes from the eponymous name of a Red Sea port from where coffee was shipped. While Selected Continental Recipes appears to be Deutsch’s first and only book, Anne Mason was a prolific food, wine and travel writer. Before migrating to England in 1958, she was well known in Australia as the presenter of a live weekly television program, Anne Mason’s Home-Tested Recipes, which aired from 1957. She also wrote a number of popular cookery books and had a long-standing weekly column in The Age. Her ‘Home-Tested Recipes’ feature published recipes contributed by readers, which she selected and tested. A number of these were collected in her Treasury of Australian Cookery, published in London in 1962, and included those influenced by “the country cooking of England […] Continental influence […] and oriental ideas” (11). Mason includes numerous recipes featuring coffee, but (as in Deutsch above) almost all are described as mocha-flavoured and listed as such in the detailed index. In Mason’s book, this mocha taste is, in fact, featured more frequently in sweet dishes than any of the other popular flavours (vanilla, honey, lemon, apple, banana, coconut, or passionfruit) except for chocolate. These mocha recipes include cakes: Chocolate-Mocha Refrigerator cake—plain sponge layered with a coffee-chocolate mousse (134), Mocha Gateau Ring—plain sponge and choux pastry puffs filled with cream or ice cream and thickly iced with mocha icing (136) and Mocha Nut Cake—a coffee and cocoa butter cake filled and iced with mocha icing and almonds (166). There are also recipes for Mocha Meringues—small coffee/cocoa-flavoured meringue rosettes joined together in pairs with whipped cream (168), a dessert Mocha Omelette featuring the addition of instant coffee and sugar to the eggs and which is filled with grated chocolate (181) and Mocha-Crunch Ice Cream—a coffee essence-scented ice cream with chocolate biscuit crumbs (144) that was also featured in an ice cream bombe layered with chocolate-rum and vanilla ice creams (152). Mason’s coffee recipes are also given prominence in the accompanying illustrations. Although the book contains only nine pages in full colour, the Mocha Gateau Ring is featured on both the cover and opposite the title page of the book and the Mocha Nut Cake is given an entire coloured page. The coffee component of Mason’s recipes is almost always sourced from either instant coffee (granules or powdered) or liquid coffee essence, however, while the cake for the Mocha Nut Cake uses instant coffee, its mocha icing and filling calls for “3 dessertspoons [of] hot black coffee” (167). The recipe does not, however, describe if this is made from instant, essence, or ground beans. The two other mocha icings both use instant coffee mixed with cocoa, icing sugar and hot water, while one also includes margarine for softness. The recipe for Mocha Cup (202) in the chapter for Children’s Party Fare (198-203), listed alongside clown-shaped biscuits and directions to decorate cakes with sweets, plastic spaceships and dolls, surprisingly comprises a sophisticated mix of grated dark chocolate melted in a pint of “hot black coffee” lightened with milk, sugar and vanilla essence, and topped with cream. There are no instructions for brewing or otherwise making fresh coffee in the volume. The Australian culinary masterwork of the 1960s, The Margaret Fulton Cookbook, which was published in 1968 and sold out its first (record) print run of 100,000 copies in record time, is still in print, with a revised 2004 edition bringing the number of copies sold to over 1.5 million (Brien). The first edition’s cake section of the book includes a Coffee Sponge sandwich using coffee essence in both the cake and its creamy filling and topping (166) and Iced Coffee Cakes that also use coffee essence in the cupcakes and instant coffee powder in the glacé icing (166). A Hazelnut Swiss Roll is filled with a coffee butter cream called Coffee Creme au Beurre, with instant coffee flavouring an egg custard which is beaten into creamed butter (167)—similar to Koszlik’s Mocha Cream but a little lighter, using milk instead of cream and fewer eggs. Fulton also includes an Austrian Chocolate Cake in her Continental Cakes section that uses “black coffee” in a mocha ganache that is used as a frosting (175), and her sweet hot coffee soufflé calls for “1/2 cup strong coffee” (36). Fulton also features a recipe for Irish Coffee—sweetened hot black coffee with (Irish) whiskey added, and cream floated on top (205). Nowhere is fresh or brewed coffee specified, and on the page dedicated to weights, measures, and oven temperatures, instant coffee powder appears on the list of commonly used ingredients alongside flour, sugar, icing sugar, golden syrup, and butter (242). American Influence While the influence of American habits such as supermarket shopping and fast food on Australian foodways is reported in many venues, recognition of its influence on Australian coffee culture is more muted (see, for exceptions, Khamis; Adams). Yet American modes of making and utilising coffee also influenced the Australian use of coffee, whether drunk as beverage or employed as a flavouring agent. In 1956, the Australian Women’s Weekly published a full colour Wade’s Cornflour advertorial of biscuit recipes under the banner, “Dione Lucas’s Manhattan Mochas: The New Coffee Cookie All America Loves, and Now It’s Here” (56). The use of the American “cookie” instead of the Australian “biscuit” is telling here, the popularity of all things American sure to ensure, the advert suggested, that the Mochas (coffee biscuits topped with chocolate icing) would be so popular as to be “More than a recipe—a craze” (56). This American influence can also been seen in cakes and other baked goods made specifically to serve with coffee, but not necessarily containing it. The recipe for Zulu Boys published in The Argus in 1945, a small chocolate and cinnamon cake with peanuts and cornflakes added, is a good example. Reported to “keep moist for some time,” these were “not too sweet, and are especially useful to serve with a glass of wine or a cup of black coffee” (Vesta Junior 9), the recipe a precursor to many in the 1950s and 1960s. Margaret Fulton includes a Spicy Coffee Cake in The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. This is similar to her Cinnamon Tea Cake in being an easy to mix cake topped with cinnamon sugar, but is more robust in flavour and texture with the addition of whole bran cereal, raisins and spices (163). Her “Morning Coffee” section in Entertaining with Margaret Fulton similarly includes a selection of quite strongly flavoured and substantially textured cakes and biscuits (90-92), while her recipes for Afternoon Tea are lighter and more delicate in taste and appearance (85-89). Concluding Remarks: Integration and Evolution, Not Revolution Trusted Tasmanian writer on all matters domestic, Marjorie Bligh, published six books on cookery, craft, home economics, and gardening, and produced four editions of her much-loved household manual under all three of her married names: Blackwell, Cooper and Bligh (Wood). The second edition of At Home with Marjorie Bligh: A Household Manual (published c.1965-71) provides more evidence of how, rather than jettisoning one form in favour of another, Australian housewives were adept at integrating both ground and other more instant forms of coffee into their culinary repertoires. She thus includes instructions on both how to efficiently clean a coffee percolator (percolating with a detergent and borax solution) (312) as well as how to make coffee essence at home by simmering one cup of ground coffee with three cups of water and one cup of sugar for one hour, straining and bottling (281). She also includes recipes for cakes, icings, and drinks that use both brewed and instant coffee as well as coffee essence. In Entertaining with Margaret Fulton, Fulton similarly allows consumer choice, urging that “If you like your coffee with a strong flavour, choose one to which a little chicory has been added” (90). Bligh’s volume similarly reveals how the path from trifle to tiramisu was meandering and one which added recipes to Australian foodways, rather than deleted them. Her recipe for Coffee Trifle has strong similarities to tiramisu, with sponge cake soaked in strong milk coffee and sherry layered with a rich custard made from butter, sugar, egg yolks, and black coffee, and then decorated with whipped cream, glace cherries, and walnuts (169). This recipe precedes published references to tiramisu as, although the origins of tiramisu are debated (Black), references to the dessert only began to appear in the 1980s, and there is no mention of the dish in such authoritative sources as Elizabeth David’s 1954 Italian Food, which features a number of traditional Italian coffee-based desserts including granita, ice cream and those made with cream cheese and rice. By the 1990s, however, respected Australian chef and food researcher, the late Mietta O’Donnell, wrote that if pizza was “the most travelled of Italian dishes, then tiramisu is the country’s most famous dessert” and, today, Australian home cooks are using the dish as a basis for a series of variations that even include replacing the coffee with fruit juices and other flavouring agents. Long-lived Australian coffee recipes are similarly being re-made in line with current taste and habits, with celebrated chef Neil Perry’s recent Simple Coffee and Cream Sponge Cake comprising a classic cream-filled vanilla sponge topped with an icing made with “strong espresso”. To “glam up” the cake, Perry suggests sprinkling the top with chocolate-covered roasted coffee beans—cycling back to Maria Koszlik’s “coffee bean chocolate” (162) and showing just how resilient good taste can be. Acknowledgements The research for this article was completed while I was the recipient of a Research Fellowship in the Special Collections at the William Angliss Institute (WAI) of TAFE in Melbourne, where I utilised their culinary collections. Thank you to the staff of the WAI Special Collections for their generous assistance, as well as to the Faculty of Arts, Business, Informatics and Education at Central Queensland University for supporting this research. Thank you to Jill Adams for her assistance with this article and for sharing her “Manhattan Mocha” file with me, and also to the peer reviewers for their generous and helpful feedback. All errors are, of course, my own.References “A Gourmet Makes a Perfect Meal.” The West Australian 4 Jul. 1952: 8.Adams, Jill. “Australia’s American Coffee Culture.” Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (2012): forthcoming. “Australian Wines Served at New York Dinner.” Australian Wines and Food 1.5 (1958): 16. Bancroft, P. A. “Let’s Make Some Coffee.” Australian Wines & Food Quarterly 4.1 (1960): 10. Black, Jane. “The Trail of Tiramisu.” Washington Post 11 Jul. 2007. 15 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071000327.html›. Bligh, Marjorie. At Home with Marjorie Bligh: A Household Manual. Devonport: M. Bligh, c.1965-71. 2nd ed. Brien, Donna Lee. “Australian Celebrity Chefs 1950-1980: A Preliminary Study.” Australian Folklore 21 (2006): 201-18. Cashmore, Nancy. “In Dordogne and Burgundy the Gourmet Will Find … A Gastronomic Paradise.” The Advertiser 23 Jan. (1954): 6. “Coffee Beginnings.” Australian Wines & Food Quarterly 1.4 (1957/1958): 37-39. Collins, Jock, Katherine Gibson, Caroline Alcorso, Stephen Castles, and David Tait. A Shop Full of Dreams: Ethnic Small Business in Australia. Sydney: Pluto Press, 1995. David, Elizabeth. Italian Food. New York: Penguin Books, 1999. 1st pub. UK: Macdonald, 1954, and New York: Knoft, 1954. Donovan, Maria Kozslik. Continental Cookery in Australia. Melbourne: William Heinemann, 1955. Reprint ed. 1956. -----.“Epicure’s Corner: Continental Recipes with Maria Kozslik.” The Age 4 Jun. (1954): 7. Fulton, Margaret. The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. Dee Why West: Paul Hamlyn, 1968. -----. Entertaining with Margaret Fulton. Dee Why West: Paul Hamlyn, 1971. Irwin, William Wallace. The Garrulous Gourmet. Sydney: The Shepherd P, 1951. Khamis, Susie. “It Only Takes a Jiffy to Make: Nestlé, Australia and the Convenience of Instant Coffee.” Food, Culture & Society 12.2 (2009): 217-33. Kerr, Graham. The Graham Kerr Cookbook. Wellington, Auckland, and Sydney: AH & AW Reed, 1966. -----. The Graham Kerr Cookbook by The Galloping Gourmet. New York: Doubleday, 1969. Mason, Anne. A Treasury of Australian Cookery. London: Andre Deutsch, 1962. Mason, Peter. “Anne Mason.” The Guardian 20 Octo.2006. 15 Feb. 2012 Masterfoods. “Masterfoods” [advertising insert]. Australian Wines and Food 2.10 (1959): btwn. 8 & 9.“Masters of Food.” Australian Wines & Food Quarterly 2.11 (1959/1960): 23. O’Donnell, Mietta. “Tiramisu.” Mietta’s Italian Family Recipe, 14 Aug. 2004. 15 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.miettas.com/food_wine_recipes/recipes/italianrecipes/dessert/tiramisu.html›. Perry, Neil. “Simple Coffee and Cream Sponge Cake.” The Age 12 Mar. 2012. 15 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/cuisine/baking/recipe/simple-coffee-and-cream-sponge-cake-20120312-1utlm.html›. Symons, Michael. One Continuous Picnic: A History of Eating in Australia. Adelaide: Duck Press, 2007. 1st. Pub. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 1982. ‘Vesta Junior’. “The Beautiful Fuss of Old Time Baking Days.” The Argus 20 Mar. 1945: 9. Volpi, Anna Maria. “All About Tiramisu.” Anna Maria’s Open Kitchen 20 Aug. 2004. 15 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.annamariavolpi.com/tiramisu.html›. Wade’s Cornflour. “Dione Lucas’ Manhattan Mochas: The New Coffee Cookie All America Loves, and Now It’s Here.” The Australian Women’s Weekly 1 Aug. (1956): 56. Wood, Danielle. Housewife Superstar: The Very Best of Marjorie Bligh. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2011.

Abstract:

Landing in the Midwest after a lifetime in Los Angeles, I was shocked to learn how “famous” that great city really is. It used to seem perfectly reasonable that the freeways on CHiPs looked just like the ones I rode to school. When I was five, I remember being secretly bummed that my mom never took us to the disco-classical mural from Xanadu, which I was convinced had to be hidden somewhere in Venice Beach. In high school, it never seemed strange that the Peach Pit on Beverly Hills 90210 was the same as the Rose City Diner. From the L.A. River to the Griffith Park Observatory, from the Hollywood Sign to Venice Beach, the places I had been in, through, and around were inscribed with meanings in ways that I could never fully grasp. Even marginalized localities like Inglewood, Compton, and East L.A., which especially during the 1980s and early 1990s were being ravaged by urban warfare, got to be the stars of movies, songs, and many music videos. And on April 29, 1992, the corner of Florence and Normandie “blew up” into a full blown riot, sparked by the acquittal of the four white officers who beat black motorist, Rodney King. I could watch the city burn on T.V. or from the hill behind my house. All my life, I lived with a foot in each L.A., the one that’s outside my living room and the one that’s inside my living room, oblivious to the fact that I lived in a famous city. It was only after I moved away from L.A. that I realized my homesickness could often be softened by a click of the remote. I could look for a familiar stretch of road, a bit of the skyline, or a clean but otherwise familiar segment of sidewalk, and it didn’t even matter who, what, where, or why was taking place in the story on screen. It was as though fragments of my life had been archived for me in media space. Some memories were real and some just recollections of other representations – like seeing the observatory in Bowfinger and wondering if I was remembering Rebel Without a Cause or a second grade field trip. But when I arrived here, the question that greeted me most often at parties was, “Why are you in Bowling Green!?!” And the second was, “Did you meet any famous people?” And so I tell them about how I went to driver’s education class with Mayim Byalik, the star of Blossom. Or that I met Annette Funicello one New Year’s Eve at my Uncle Phil’s house. Aside from the occasional queer chuckle about my brush with Blossom, this record is unimpressive. People are hoping for something a little bit more like, “I spent the night in jail with Poison,” “I was an extra on Baywatch,” or “I was at the Viper Room the night River Phoenix passed away.” In spite of my lackluster record of interactions with the rich and the famous, I would still get introduced as being “from California.” I had become the recipient of a second-rate, secondhand fame, noted for being from a place where, if I were more ambitious, I could have really rubbed shoulders with famous people. To young people, many of whom were itching to travel to a place like LA or New York, I was a special kind of failure. But if you aren’t famous, if you are a loser like me, life in L.A. isn’t about the a-list at all. It is about living in a city that captures the imagination, even as you walk down the street. So earning notoriety in a city that speaks in spectacle is an exercise in creativity. It seems like everybody, even the most down-to-earth people, are invested in developing a character, an image, a persona that can bubble up and be noticed in spite of the overwhelming glow of Hollywood. Even at my suburban high school, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, I knew upper-middleclass boys who got nose jobs and manicures. I knew girls who would go trolling for rich men to buy them pretty things that their parents couldn’t afford. There were kids whose parents helped them cheat their way into college. There were wannabe junkies who drove their moms’ minivans into the ghetto to score. I saw people panic, pout, and scream over cars and allowances and shoes. I know that consumer culture is growing stronger just about everywhere, but back home it happened a lot sooner and a lot stronger. Because of our proximity to Hollywood, the crest of the cultural tidal wave looks much higher and its force is much stronger. And I guess I was just too fat to be in California, so I left. However, every once in a while, somebody does manage to make a scene in L.A. A little loser, or whatever you want to call one of the peasants who tend to the vast fiefdoms of L.A.’s elites, rises from banality to achieve celebrity, even if it is a minor celebrity, in the City of Angels. One such figure is the notorious Daniel Ramos, who in 1991 became a central figure in the city’s struggle over its own image. Daniel Ramos was not a star, a politician, or a leader of industry – but before he even appeared in the news, he had trafficked illegally in making a name for himself. A teenager from the projects, Ramos was more widely known as “Chaka,” a graffiti writer credited with over 10,000 tags from San Diego to San Francisco. I had seen Chaka’s tags just about everywhere, and had determined that he might be superhuman. His name, taken after a hairy little missing link from the popular fantasy show, The Land of the Lost, made me smirk as it conjured up images of a sub-humanoid with broken dialect creeping out from the darkness with cans of paint, marking the walls with his sign, calling out to the rest of us half-humans stranded in the land of the lost. Meanwhile, L.A.’s rich and famous whizzed by, casting resentful glances at Chaka’s do-it-yourself media blitz. I knew that Chaka was “bad,” but my imagination loved him. And when he allegedly left his mark in the courthouse elevator on the day of his release from a five-month stretch in prison (Costello), I couldn’t help but feel glad to know that Chaka was still alive, that legends don’t die (his name even made it, through the hand of Dave Grohl, into Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit Video” in 1991). For me, and I imagine for many others, it was the beginning of a political awakening. I wondered what was so bad about graffiti, even though I had been taught all my life that it was wrong. More than ten years later, as I sit by the railroad tracks in my small, Midwestern town, eagerly waiting for messages from California painted on the sides of boxcars, I find myself asking a related question – what is good about advertising? I’m not the first to make the welcomed association between graffiti and advertising. In an interview with the vastly capable scholar, Joe Austin, New York graffiti legend IZ THE WIZ explained it thusly: OK, now you’re on a poorer economic level and what do you have? Years ago, and even today, a boxer makes a name for himself in the boxing ring. So when this art form starts developing, why would it be any different? It’s all in the name. When you’re poor, that’s all you got. (40) Austin elaborates on this insight, explaining: The proliferation of posters, advertisements, and signs bearing the images and names of products and proprietors in twentieth-century cities is one obvious place to begin. These are the directly visible extensions of individual/corporate identities into the new shared urban public spaces of the streets, a quantitatively and qualitatively new site in human history where hundreds of thousands of often spectacularly displayed names abound, each catching the eyes of potential consumers and imprinting itself on their memories. (39) So, on one level, the story of Chaka is the story of a poor man who went toe to toe with big media, in a town run by big media, and held his own. It is the story of someone who has managed to say in no insignificant way, “I am here.” Or has Ramos himself yelled as he was being shackled by police, “I am the famous ‘Chaka’” (Walker A4). In spite of everything else, Ramos had a name that was widely recognized, respected by some, reviled by others. Nancy Macdonald, in her important study the culture of writing, shifts the focus away from the more solidly class-based argument employed by Austin in his study of the origins of New York graffiti art to one which lends itself more readily to understanding the culture of writing in the 1990s, after hip hop had become more accessible to middleclass enthusiasts. Macdonald explains, “Writers use the respect and recognition of their peers to validate their masculine identities” (124). While I am reluctant to downplay the class struggle that certainly seems to have implicitly informed Chaka’s quest for recognition, his outlaw appeal lends itself such an interpretation. In a city like Los Angeles, where middle class agency and upward mobility for the service class are not simply functions of wealth, but also of scrupulously maintained images, feelings of powerlessness associated with the lack of a compelling image are to be expected. It is the engine that drives the exuberant extravagance of consumer culture, lifestyle choices, and ultimately biopolitics. In a society where culture and capital are the dual poles which determine one’s social standing, the pursuit of notoriety is not simply a measure of masculinity – hijacking images is a way to assert one’s agency in spite of the diminished value of unskilled labor and the collective fear of underclass masculinities. In her book Wallbangin’: Graffiti and Gangs in L.A., Susan A. Philips provides discussion of Chaka’s contribution to L.A. graffiti. Notably, Chaka was seen by those in the graffiti community as an everyman, who was responsible for two significant cultural achievements: he “open[ed] up the style of the New York-based tags and creat[ed] the phenomenon of the individual tagger” (Phillips 320). He also, as Phillips notes, “wrote tags that you could read…in blockish gang-type lettering” (320). Unlike his New York graffiti-writing peers, which are best known for their beautiful “wildstyle,” Chaka did not typically traffic in multicolor murals and displays of painterly virtuosity. His chief accomplishment was his cunning pervasiveness and daring criminality. As such, his body of work should be seen as incompatible with High Art attempts to bring collectible graffiti into gallery spaces through the 1980s and ‘90s. Chaka’s medium, in a sense, has less to do with paint, than it has to do with the city and its rules. For the majority of the public, Chaka was seen as an individual face for the graffiti pandemic that was strategically linked in the public mind with specter of gang violence. However, to those familiar with the writing scene in L.A., Chaka is more than a lone individual: THE OG’Z OF THE LEGION OF DOOM WERE THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING THE EARLY LOS ANGELES GRAFFITI SCENE TO IT’S KNEES! AND GAVE US MOST OF THE LEGENDS WE KNOW TODAY! I REMEMBER I TIME WHEN EVERY LOS ANGELES INTERSTATE HEAVEN ROCKED BY EITHER LEST-CAB-STANS-SUB OR THE CHAKA!!! (god i miss those days!) remember the CAB undercover story on the news where he did those loks on dope throwies on the 110 pasadena? I think it was chuck henry channel 7 ??? does anyone still have that on vhs? i had it on vhs along with the CHAKA PUBLIC SERVICE ANOUNCEMENT (that was great!). (Poncho1DEcrew) Instead of being an individual tagger, Chaka is recognized as a member of a crew (LOD), who managed to get up in legendary ways. In reclaiming freeway overpasses (the “Heavens”), walls, trains, road signs, and just about everything else for his crew, vicariously for the many other people who respect his name, and also for himself, Chaka is more than simply selfish, as is often suggested by his detractors. In the heavens is the right place to begin. High up in the sky, over the freeways, for all to see, the writing in the heavens is visible, mysterious, and ultimately risky. The problem of climbing along the girders underneath the bridges, escaping detection, but leaving something bold points to what distinguishes writing from an ad-campaign. Sure, some of what the tagger does is about simply being a recognized image all over the place. But the other part is about finding the place, working within environmental constraints, battling against time, stretching one’s limits, and doing it with style. While the image may be everywhere, the act of writing itself is a singularity, shrouded by secrecy, and defined by the moment of its doing. The aftereffect is a puzzle. And in the case of Chaka, the question is, “How the hell did this guy get up over 10,000 times?” While I can’t see how he did it and I don’t know where, exactly, he got all that paint, I do know one thing: Chaka went everywhere. He mapped the city out as a series of landmarks, he put his name to the space, and he claimed Los Angeles for people other than the ones who claim to own the rights to beam their generalized and monolithic messages into our living rooms. Instead of archiving the city in the banalities of mass media, he has created an archive of an alternative L.A., filled with singularities, and famous in the way that only one’s hometown can be. Instead of being a celebrity, renowned by virtue of a moderately unique character, his ability to generate money, and an elite image, Chaka represents an alternative fame. As a modern day “everyman” and folk hero, he brings a message that the city belongs to all people. Far from the naïve and mean-spirited equations between graffiti writing and canine scent-marking as a primitive drive to mark territorial boundaries with undesirable substances (writers:paint::dogs:piss), Chaka’s all-city message is not so much a practice of creating exclusionary spaces as it is an assertion of one’s identity in a particular space. A postmodern pilgrim, Chaka has marked his progress through the city leaving a perceptible record of his everyday experience, and opening up that possibility for others. This is not to say that it is necessary for all people to paint in order to break loose from the semiotic order of the city, it is only to say that is hopeful to realize that this order is not fixed and that is not even necessarily our own. Reflecting back on my own experience as one who has grown up very much in love in the produced spaces of the scripted and archived fame of Los Angeles, the realization that such an overwhelming place is open even to my own inscriptions is an important one. This realization, which has been many years in the making, was set into place by the curious fame of Chaka. For a writer and scholar disturbed by the “death of the author,” it comes as a relief to see writing resurrected in the anti-authoritarian practice of a teenage boy from the projects. References Austin, Joe. Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. Costello, D. “Writing Was on the Wall.” Courier-Mail 9 May 1991. Macdonald, Nancy. The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001. Phillips, Susan A. Wallbangin’: Graffiti and Gangs in L.A. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. Poncho1DEcrew. 50mm Los Angeles Forum. 18 June 2004. 11 July 2004 http://www.50mmlosangeles.com/>. Walker, Jill. “Letter from the Streets; Handwriting on the Wall: 10,000 Chakas.” Washington Post 4 May 1991: A4. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Heckman, Davin. "Being in the Shadow of Hollywood: Celebrity, Banality, and the Infamous Chaka." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/12-heckman.php>. APA Style Heckman, D. (Nov. 2004) "Being in the Shadow of Hollywood: Celebrity, Banality, and the Infamous Chaka," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/12-heckman.php>.

Abstract:

Have you noticed the proliferation of access statistics icons on your favourite bands' Websites? How do you feel about being told you're visitor number 10870 to the Star Wars hate page? Have you wondered why you don't gain weight from all the cookies you seem to be getting from your Internet music retailer? Did you sign a complete stranger's online guestbook? Are you annoyed with the dozens of pop-up windows that keep asking you to 'RATE THIS SITE!!!'? Don't worry: it's not you, it's them. You're witnessing the symptoms of existential angst. In most media, to be seen, read, or heard is everything. To have an audience, preferably a large and loyal one, is crucial: in the mass media's views, audience size and share determines popularity, and popularity attracts private and/or public funding. 'Popular', for these media, doesn't mean much active intervention from the people (in contrast to the way the word is often used in cultural studies): 'popularity' means a solid base of dedicated and continuous users, preferably larger than that of their competitors. Commercial Websites must similarly justify their setup and running costs by the amount of visitors they attract, but not-for-profit and private Webmasters, too, usually need that knowledge to justify and reward the effort that has gone into the site. A Website without visitors might just as well not exist at all. The problem is that on the Web this form of popularity is almost impossible to determine with any accuracy -- despite the multitude of measuring methods you're likely to be subjected to within just an hour of heavy Web browsing. That's not to say that some major sites on the Web aren't quite obviously major sites: the Amazons, CDnows and Yahoo!s of the Web are clearly visited by thousands, even millions of users each day. But for the majority of medium and minor content providers, the situation is far from clear, especially if the attention is focussed on the relative audience shares between a number of comparable services. These providers have a hard time determining whether they're amongst the leading sites in their field, and whether they're known to and enjoyed by a sufficient share of their target audience. Such difficulties largely are a continuation of similar problems in other media, and so it's worth taking a brief tour through the depths of audience measurement elsewhere. Audience research has become an important industry, but what's often overlooked in the endless battle for better ratings is that those ratings are often quite misleading -- the more so the less material a medium appears. While for culture that is linked to material artefacts (books, CDs, videos, newspapers) some relatively credible circulation, sales and unsold returns figures can usually be obtained (although magazines often multiply these figures by a set number to generate more impressive 'readership' figures), there is no direct-feedback way of gauging how many listeners tune in to a particular radio programme, or watch a certain television show. The amount of 'hits' (to borrow a Web term) to a programme cannot be monitored by a station itself; instead, it relies on peoplemeters placed in a selection of supposedly representative households to log such accesses. Additionally, there is the general question of what consumers do with any product, and whether every access to it can honestly be counted towards its popularity: I may buy the weekend newspaper only for the personal ads, disregarding its editorial content; you may channel-surf across the available TV programmes without really watching any of them attentively -- and alternatively, I may make copies of a CD I've bought for any number of friends; and you may tape a radio programme to listen to (repeatedly, even) at a later time. This real-life context of accesses will usually either escape or confuse peoplemeter devices: they may keep a record of what channels the family TV was tuned in to at any particular time -- but what they cannot record was if a viewer has fallen asleep, turned the sound off while talking on the phone, or gone to the kitchen to fix dinner; or indeed if the VCR is at the same time recording another show. Additionally, it is also highly doubtful that households with peoplemeters accurately represent the viewing habits of the wider population: the anecdote that current affairs shows regularly rate extraordinarily well if they include a story about families with peoplemeters is only an obvious example here. The more diverse the range of situational settings for the consumption of a particular medium, the less likely is it that any sample group of consumers can accurately represent the audience as a whole -- and the more we study consumption contexts, the more individualised they appear, as Ang has pointed out for television: "emphasis on the situational embeddedness of audience practices and experiences inevitably undercuts the search for generalisations" which audience research with its scientific approach engages in (164). Above a certain level of situational diversity such generalisations can only find a lowest common denominator which is trivial and largely useless: a certain size of audience may have been tuned in at one time or another, but for how long or with what degree of satisfaction remains unclear. Recent developments in the mass media have only increased the diversity of access situations, however. First, there is the ongoing expansion in available media channels. Where in Australia there used to be only a handful of television networks, for example, the introduction of pay-TV has added dozens more channels, few of which are available to all viewers; and where there used to be only a few daily newspapers, the rise of carrier media such as the World Wide Web now means that readers can make the New York Times or the Süddeutsche Zeitung rather than the Sydney Morning Herald or, heaven forbid, the Courier-Mail their preferred morning paper, if they so desire. Such developments further underline the point that for example "the boundaries of 'television audience', even in the most simple, one dimensional terms, are impossible to define. Those boundaries are blurred rather than sharply demarcated, precarious rather than absolute" (Ang 154). This raises the general problem of defining the exact boundaries of a media market, and the channels through which this market is accessed by producers and consumers. A cultural product's 'popularity', if expressed in the number of accesses to the product, can only possibly be measured with any degree of accuracy at the bottlenecks through which products must pass into and out of the market: for material goods, this is the distribution process, where the number of products (newspapers, books, CDs, etc.) shipped can be listed against the number of unsold products returned, and circulation figures can be calculated. (Whatever the means of measurement at these bottlenecks, it is clear that the measurement itself must be automatic, and cannot rely on the users themselves: survey-based audience research results are questionable ab initio, since they are drawn only from that part of the audience that is willing to participate, and thus rule out those users which may variously be less active or less interested, or conversely more suspicious or more active -- and thus too busy to fill in a survey.) For less 'material' cultural products, the bottlenecks reside in the equipment needed to send and receive them: radio and TV sets, for example -- but as we have seen, this bottleneck can be bypassed with the help of sound and video recorders, and new media forms such as the Internet, which provide additional access channels to the older media; it is also a bottleneck that is less accessible to researchers than that on the distributors' side. How many peoplemeters are there next to PCs with TV tuner cards? How should accesses to online editions be figured into the circulation numbers of newspapers? Ironically, unlike electronic broadcast media the Internet does appear to offer a way to directly measure audience access to content, of course: as a 'pull' medium which requires the user to request content individually rather than the provider to send programming indiscriminately, such individual accesses (predominantly to Web pages) can be monitored. But for the same reason that peoplemeter statistics are fundamentally inaccurate, so are Web counter data: accesses ('hits') don't equal readers, since Web browsers may jump elsewhere without having read a whole page, and since proxy servers may access a page once, but redistribute that page to any number of clients. Again, the situational context of access cannot be monitored with such relatively simplistic measures -- and it can be argued that the range of diversity for Web access situations is even greater than it is for other electronic mass media; while TV access (with any degree of attention), for example, remains largely in recreational settings, engaged Web access spreads from these to offices, laboratories, libraries, and cafés. Ironically, unlike electronic broadcast media the Internet does appear to offer a way to directly measure audience access to content, of course: as a 'pull' medium which requires the user to request content individually rather than the provider to send programming indiscriminately, such individual accesses (predominantly to Web pages) can be monitored. But for the same reason that peoplemeter statistics are fundamentally inaccurate, so are Web counter data: accesses ('hits') don't equal readers, since Web browsers may jump elsewhere without having read a whole page, and since proxy servers may access a page once, but redistribute that page to any number of clients. Again, the situational context of access cannot be monitored with such relatively simplistic measures -- and it can be argued that the range of diversity for Web access situations is even greater than it is for other electronic mass media; while TV access (with any degree of attention), for example, remains largely in recreational settings, engaged Web access spreads from these to offices, laboratories, libraries, and cafés. Ironically, unlike electronic broadcast media the Internet does appear to offer a way to directly measure audience access to content, of course: as a 'pull' medium which requires the user to request content individually rather than the provider to send programming indiscriminately, such individual accesses (predominantly to Web pages) can be monitored. But for the same reason that peoplemeter statistics are fundamentally inaccurate, so are Web counter data: accesses ('hits') don't equal readers, since Web browsers may jump elsewhere without having read a whole page, and since proxy servers may access a page once, but redistribute that page to any number of clients. Again, the situational context of access cannot be monitored with such relatively simplistic measures -- and it can be argued that the range of diversity for Web access situations is even greater than it is for other electronic mass media; while TV access (with any degree of attention), for example, remains largely in recreational settings, engaged Web access spreads from these to offices, laboratories, libraries, and cafés. Cultural producers can still take some information from their access statistics, of course -- no matter how inaccurate the figures, a thousand hits per day are still better than ten, and while page reloads and browsing durations may indicate technical problems or extraneous distractions just as much as attentive engagement, such data too may be useful to some extent. Web publishers may even try to compare their figures with those of other Websites which they regard as competitors in the field. It has become impossible, though, to claim market and audience shares with any degree of accuracy: when the total size of the audience cannot be determined, no percentages can be calculated; ratings-based systems will fail. This is a major shift especially for the entertainment industry, where ratings battles have become notorious; it is a shift directly related to the unregulated, unlimited nature of the online market, where no limits on the number of competitors exist or can be enforced (a situation markedly different from that in the practically closed TV and radio markets in many countries), and it is a shift which may lead to some deal of paranoia on the part of the established media outlets: on the Web, there is always a danger that upstart competitors could snatch a share of the market (a development, moreover, which wouldn't show early on in any ratings figures). While popularity ratings weren't an exact science at the best of times, then, they are becoming hopelessly inaccurate as media and audiences change -- not just in the case of the Web, but (as we gradually move towards a much-anticipated media convergence) in the case of many others as well. Few media forms will remain unaffected by these developments: as 'pop' music fragments into multitudes of sub-genres, for example, each with their own radio stations (terrestrial as well as online), publications, record labels, CD shops, or even online distribution schemes, does it still make sense to speak of 'popular' music? As we gain access to a global media market with Thai newspapers, Brazilian radio stations, and German TV programmes only a click of the mouse away, is there still a point to local or national ratings figures? Such questions haven't necessarily stopped ratings users from relying on them in the past, of course -- Ang's critique of TV audience ratings was published in 1991, but the ratings appear no less important to TV stations now than they did then. Ang expected this: "television institutions ... are likely to continue the quest for encompassing, objectified constructions of 'television audience' -- as the continued search for the perfect audience measurement technology suggests" (155). For newer media like the Web, though, this troubled experience with audience measurement in television and elsewhere, and the many impracticalities of accurately measuring Web audiences, may serve to tame the desire for similarly "conveniently objectified information" (Ang 152) on audience participational patterns -- information which fails to take note of the context of such participation -- before that desire develops into a TV-style obsession with one's own popularity as expressed through ratings and audience sizes. Indeed, once the novelty of Website access statistics has worn off, perhaps this is where we return to a different conception of 'popularity'. As the mass media splinter into collections of specialty channels, as the audience differentiates into individuals belonging to and moving through any number of interest groups in the course of a single day, with each group gradually gaining access to their own channels, and as many-to-many media give certain people (though not everybody) the ability to communicate without the need to subject themselves to mediation by any existing media institution, perhaps the translation of 'popular' as 'from the people' is once again on the ascendancy. And at the very least, as the ratings' accuracy continues to deteriorate, so will their relevance and importance, and cultural producers may feel less strongly the need to appeal to the lowest common taste denominator. That can't be a bad thing. References Ang, Ien. Desperately Seeking the Audience. London: Routledge, 1991. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Axel Bruns. "What's Pop, and What's Not? Measuring Popularity in the Many-to-Many Age." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.4 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/what.php>. Chicago style: Axel Bruns, "What's Pop, and What's Not? Measuring Popularity in the Many-to-Many Age," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 4 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/what.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Axel Bruns. (1999) What's pop, and what's not? Measuring popularity in the many-to-many age. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/what.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

Now in its thirtieth season, in 2018, The Simpsons is a popular culture phenomenon. The series is known as much for its social commentary as its humour and celebrity appearances. Nonetheless, The Simpsons’ ratings have declined steadily since the early 2000s, and fans have grown more vocal in their calls for the program’s end. This article provides a case study of episode “That 90s Show” (S19, E11) as a flashpoint that exemplifies fan desires for the series’ conclusion. This episode is one of the most contentious in the program’s history, with online outrage at the retconning of canon and both fans and anti-fans (Gray) of The Simpsons demanding its cancellation or “fan euthanasia”. The retconning of the canon in this episode makes evident the perceived decline in the quality of the series, and the regard for fan desires. “That 90s Show” is ultimately a failed attempt to demonstrate the continued relevance of the series to audiences, and popular culture at large, via its appeal to 1990s nostalgia.“That 90s Show”“That 90s Show” begins with Bart and Lisa’s discovery of Marge’s Springfield University diploma. This small incident indicates an impending timeline shift and “retcon”; canonically Marge never attended college, having fallen pregnant with Bart shortly after completing high school. The episode then offers an extended flashback to Marge and Homer’s life in the 1990s. The couple are living together in the Springfield Place apartment complex, with Homer working a variety of menial jobs to support Marge while she attends college. Homer and Marge subsequently break up, and Marge begins to date Professor Stephan August. In his despair, Homer can no longer perform R & B ballads with his ensemble. The band changes genres, and their new incarnation, Sadgasm, are soon credited with initiating the grunge movement. Sadgasm gain worldwide fame for their songs “Margerine” (a version of “Glycerine” by Bush), and “Politically Incorrect/Shave Me” (set to the melody of “Rape Me” by Nirvana) – which is later parodied in the episode by guest star Weird Al Yankovic as “BrainFreeze”. Homer develops an addiction to oversized, sweetened Starbucks coffee, and later, insulin, becoming a recluse despite the legion of fans camped out on his front lawn.Marge and Professor August soon part company due to his rejection of heteronormative marriage rituals. Upon her return to campus, Marge observes an MTV report on Sadgasm’s split, and Homer’s addiction, and rushes to Homer’s bedside to help him through recovery. Marge and Homer resume their relationship, and the grunge movement ends because Homer claims he “was too happy to ever grunge again.”While the episode rates a reasonable 6.1 on IMDB, fan criticism has largely focused on the premise of the episode, and what has been perceived to be the needless retconning of The Simpsons canon. Critic Robert Canning notes: “…what ‘That 90s Show’ did was neither cool nor interesting. Instead, it insulted lifelong Simpsons fans everywhere. With this episode, the writers chose to change the history of the Simpson family.” Canning observes that the episode could have worked if the flashback had been to the 1980s which supports canonicity, rather than a complete “retcon”. The term “retcon” (retroactive continuity) originates from narrative devices used in North American superhero comics, and is now broadly applied to fictional narrative universes. Andrew Friedenthal (10-11) describes retconning as “… a revision of the fictional universe in order to make the universe fresh and exciting for contemporary readers, but it also involves the influence of the past, as it directly inscribes itself upon that past.” While Amy Davis, Jemma Gilboy and James Zborowski (175-188) have highlighted floating timelines as a feature of long running animation series’ where characters remain the same age, The Simpsons does not fully adhere to this trope: “… one of the ‘rules’ of the ‘comic-book time’ or ‘floating timeline’ trope is that ‘you never refer to specific dates’… a restriction The Simpsons occasionally eschews” (Davis, Gilboy, and Zborowski 177).For many fans, “That 90s Show” becomes abstruse by erasing Marge and Homer’s well-established back story from “The Way We Was” (S2, E12). In the established narrative, Marge and Homer had met, fell in love and graduated High School in 1974; shortly after Marge fell pregnant with Bart, resulting in the couple’s shotgun wedding. “That 90s Show” disregards the pre-existing timeline, extending their courtship past high school and adding the couple’s breakup, and Homer’s improbable invention of grunge. Fan responses to “That 90s Show” highlight this episode of The Simpsons as a flashpoint for the sharp decline of quality in the series (despite having long since “jumped the shark”); but also, a decline in regard for the desires of fans. Thus, “That 90s Show” fails not only in rewriting its canon, and inserting the narrative into the 1990s; it also fails to satiate its loyal audience by insisting upon its centrality to 1990s pop culture.While fans have been vocal in online forums about the shift in the canon, they have also reflected upon the tone-deaf portrayal of the 1990s itself. During the course of the episode many 90s trends are introduced, the most contentious of which is Homer’s invention of grunge with his band Sadgasm. While playing a gig at Springfield University a young man in the audience makes a frantic phone call, shouting over the music: “Kurt, it’s Marvin. Your cousin, Marvin Cobain. You know that new sound you’re looking for…?,” thrusting the receiver towards the stage. The link to Nirvana firmly established, the remainder of the episode connects Homer’s depression and musical expression more and more blatantly to Kurt Cobain’s biography, culminating in Homer’s seclusion and near-overdose on insulin. Fans have openly debated the appropriateness of this narrative, and whether it is disrespectful to Cobain’s legacy (see Amato). Henry Jenkins (41) has described this type of debate as a kind of “moral economy” where fans “cast themselves not as poachers but as loyalists, rescuing essential elements of the primary text ‘misused’ by those who maintain copyright control over the program materials.” In this example, many original fans of The Simpsons felt the desire to rescue both Cobain’s and The Simpsons’ legacy from a poorly thought-out retcon seen to damage the legacy of both.While other trends associated with the 90s (Seinfeld; Beanie babies; Weird Al Yankovic; Starbucks; MTV VJs) all feature, it is Homer’s supposed invention of grunge which most overtly attempts to rewrite the 90s and reaffirm The Simpsons’ centrality to 90s pop culture. As the rest of this article will discuss, by rewriting the canon, and the 1990s, “That 90s Show” has two unrealised goals— firstly, to captivate an audience who have grown up with The Simpsons, via an appeal to nostalgia; and secondly, inserting themselves into the 1990s as an effort to prove the series’ relevance to a new generation of audience members who were born during that decade, and who have a nostalgic craving for the media texts of their childhood (Atkinson). Thus, this episode is indicative of fan movement towards an anti-fan position, by demanding the series’ end, or “fan euthanasia” (Williams 106; Booth 75-86) and exposing the “… dynamic spectrum of emotional reactions that fandom can generate” (Booth 76-77).“Worst. Episode. Ever”: Why “That 90s Show” FailedThe failure of “That 90s Show” can be framed in terms of audience reception— namely the response of original audience members objecting to the retconning of The Simpsons’ canon. Rather than appealing to a sense of nostalgia among the audience, “That 90s Show” seems only to suggest that the best episodes of The Simpsons aired before the end of the 1990s. Online forums devoted to The Simpsons concur that the series was at its peak between Seasons 1-10 (1989-1999), and that subsequent seasons have failed to match that standard. British podcaster Sol Harris spent four months in 2017 watching, rating, and charting The Simpsons’ declining quality (Kostarelis), with the conclusion that series’ downfall began from Season 11 onwards (despite a brief spike following The Simpsons Movie (2007)). Any series that aired on television post-1999 has been described as “Zombie Simpsons” by fans on the Dead Homer Society forum: “a hopelessly mediocre imitation that bears only a superficial resemblance to the original. It is the unwanted sequel, the stale spinoff, the creative dry hole that is kept pumping in the endless search for more money. It is Zombie Simpsons” (Sweatpants). It is essential to acknowledge the role of economics in the continuation of The Simpsons, particularly in terms of the series’ affiliation with the Fox Network. The Simpsons was the first series screened on Fox to reach the Top 30 programs in the US, and despite its overall decline, it is still one of the highest rating programs for the 18-49 demographic, enabling Fox to charge advertisers accordingly for a so-called “safe” slot (Berg). During its run, it has been estimated variously that Fox has been building towards a separate Simpsons cable channel, thus the consistent demand for new content; and, that the series has earned in excess of $4.6 billion for Fox in merchandising alone (Berg). Laura Bradley outlines how the legacy of The Simpsons beyond Season 30 has been complicated by the ongoing negotiations for Disney to buy 20th Century Fox – under these arrangements, The Simpsons would likely be screened on ABC or Hulu, should Disney continue producing the series (Bradley). Bradley emphasises the desire for fan euthanasia of the Zombie Simpsons, positing that “the series itself could end at Season 30, which is what most fans of the show’s long-gone original iteration would probably prefer.”While more generous fans expand the ‘Golden Age’ of The Simpsons to Season 12 (Power), the Dead Homer Society argues that their Zombie Simpsons theory is proven by the rise of “Jerkass Homer”, where Homer’s character changed from delightful doofus to cruel and destructive idiot (Sweatpants; Holland). The rise of Jerkass Homer coincides with the moment where Chris Plante claims The Simpsons “jumped the shark”. The term “jumping the shark” refers to the peak of a series before its inevitable, and often sharp, decline (Plante). In The Simpsons, this moment has been variously debated as occurring during S8, E23 “Homer’s Enemy” (Plante), or more popularly, S9, E2 “The Principle and the Pauper” (Chappell; Cinematic) – which like “That 90s Show”, received a vitriolic response for its attempt to retcon the series’ narrative history. “The Principal and the Pauper” focuses on Principal Skinner, and the revelation that he had assumed the identity of his (presumed dead during the Vietnam War) Army Sergeant, Seymour Skinner. The man we have known as Skinner is revealed to be “no-good-nik” Armin Tanzarian. This episode is loathed not only by audiences, but in hindsight, The Simpsons’ creative team. Voice actor Harry Shearer was scathing in his assessment:You’re taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we’ve done before with other characters. It’s so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it’s disrespectful to the audience. (Wilonsky)The retcon present in both “That 90s Show” and “The Principal and the Pauper” proves that long-term fans of The Simpsons have been forgotten in Groening’s quest to reach the pinnacle of television longevity. On this basis, it is unsurprising that fans have been demanding the end of the series since the turn of the millennium.As a result, fans such as the Dead Homer Society maintain a nostalgic longing for the Golden Age of The Simpsons, while actively campaigning for the program’s cancellation, a practice typically associated with anti-fans. Jonathan Gray coined the term “anti fan” to describe “… the active and vocal dislike or hate of a program, genre, or personality (841). For Gray, the study of anti-fans emphasises that the hatred of a text can “… produce just as much activity, identification, meaning, and ‘effects’ or serve just as powerfully to unite and sustain a community or subculture” (841). Gray also stresses the discourse of morality used by anti-fans to validate their reading position, particularly against texts that are broadly popular. This argument is developed further by Jenkins and Paul Booth.“Just Pick a Dead End, and Chill Out till You Die”: Fan EuthanasiaWhile some fans of The Simpsons have moved towards anti-fan practices (active hatred of the series, and/or a refusal to watch the show), many more occupy a “middle-ground”, pleading for a form of “fan euthanasia”; where fans call for their once loved object (and by extension, themselves) to “be put out of its misery” (Booth 76). The shifting relationship of fans of The Simpsons represents an “affective continuum”, where “… fan dissatisfaction arises not because they hate a show, but because they feel betrayed by a show they once loved. Their love of a text has waned, and now they find themselves wishing for a quick end to, a revaluation of, something that no longer lives up to the high standard they once valued” (Booth 78). While calls to end The Simpsons have existing since the end of the Golden Age, other fans (Ramaswamy) have suggested it is more difficult to pinpoint when The Simpsons lost its way. Despite airing well after the Golden Age, “That 90s Show” represents a flashpoint for fans who read the retcon as “… an insult to life-long Simpsons fans everywhere… it’s an episode that rewrites history… for the worse” (Canning). In attempting to appeal to the 90s nostalgia of original fans, ‘That 90s Show’ had the opposite effect; it instead reaffirms the sharp decline of the series since its Golden Age, which ended in the 1990s.Shifting the floating timeline of The Simpsons into the 1990s and overturning the canon to appeal to a new generation is dubious for several reasons. While it is likely that original viewers of The Simpsons (their parents) may have exposed their children to the series, the program’s relevance to Millennials is questionable. In 2015, Todd Schneider data mapped audience ratings for Seasons 1-27, concluding that there has been an 80% decline in viewership between Season 2 (which averaged at over 20 million American viewers per episode) to Season 27 (which averaged at less than 5 million viewers per episode). With the growth of SVOD services during The Simpsons’ run, and the sheer duration of the series, it is perhaps obvious to point out the reduced cultural impact of the program, particularly for younger generations. Secondly, “That 90s Show’s” appeal to nostalgia raises the question of whom nostalgia for the 1990s is aimed at. Atkinson argues that children born in the 1990s feel nostalgia for the era becausewe're emotionally invested in the entertainment from that decade because back then, with limited access to every album/TV show/film ever, the ones you did own meant absolutely everything. These were the last pop-culture remnants from that age when the internet existed without being all-consuming. … no wonder we still 'ship them so hard.Following this argument, if you watched The Simpsons as a child during the 1990s, the nostalgia you feel would be, like your parents, for the Golden Age of The Simpsons, rather than the pale imitation featured in “That 90s Show”. As Alexander Fury writes of the 90s: “perhaps the most important message … in the 90s was the idea of authenticity;” thus, if the children of the 90s are watching The Simpsons, they would look to Seasons 1-10 – when The Simpsons was an authentic representation of ‘90s popular culture.Holland has observed that The Simpsons endures “in part due to the way it adapts and responds to events around it”, citing the recent release of clips responding to current events – including Homer attempting to vote; and Trump’s tenure in the White House (Brockington). Yet the failure of “That 90s Show” marks not only The Simpsons increasingly futile efforts to appeal to a “liberal audience” by responding to contemporary political discourse. The failure to adapt is most notable in Hari Kondabolu’s documentary The Problem With Apu which targeted racist stereotypes, and The Simpsons’ poorly considered response episode (S29, E 15) “No Good Read Goes Unpunished”, the latter of which featured an image of Apu signed with Bart’s catchphrase, “Don’t have a cow, man” (Harmon). Groening has remained staunch, insisting that “it’s a time in our culture where people love to pretend they’re offended”, and that the show “speaks for itself” (Keveney). Groening’s statement was followed by the absence of Apu from the current season (Snierson), and rumours that he would be removed from future storylines (Culbertson).“They’ll Never Stop The Simpsons”The case study of The Simpsons episode “That 90s Show” demonstrates the “affective continuum” occupied at various moments in a fan’s relationship with a text (Booth). To the displeasure of fans, their once loved object has frequently retconned canon to capitalise on popular culture trends such as nostalgia for the 1990s. This episode demonstrates the failure of this strategy, as it both alienated the original fan base, and represented what many fans have perceived to be a sharp decline in The Simpsons’ quality. Arguably the relevance of The Simpsons might also remain in the 1990s. Certainly, the recent questioning of issues regarding representations of race, negative press coverage, and the producers’ feeble response, increases the weight of fan calls to end The Simpsons after Season 30. As they sang in S13, E17, perhaps “[We’ll] Never Stop The Simpsons”, but equally, we may have reached the tipping point where audiences have stopped paying attention.ReferencesAmato, Mike. “411: ‘That 90s Show.” Me Blog Write Good. 12 Dec. 2012. 2 Oct. 2018 <https://meblogwritegood.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/411-that-90s-show/>.Atkinson, S. “Why 90s Kids Can’t Get over the 90s and Are Still So Nostalgic for the Decade.” Bustle. 14 Apr. 2018. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://www.bustle.com/p/why-90s-kids-cant-get-over-the-90s-are-still-so-nostalgic-for-the-decade-56354>.Berg, Madeline. “The Simpsons Signs Renewal Deal for the Record Books.” Forbes. 4 Nov. 2016. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2016/11/04/the-simpsons-signs-renewal-deal-for-the-record-books/#264a50b61b21>.Booth, Paul. “Fan Euthanasia: A Thin Line between Love and Hate.” Everybody Hurts: Transitions, Endings, and Resurrections in Fan Cultures. Ed. Rebecca Williams. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018. 75-86.Bradley, Laura. “What Disney and Comcast’s Battle over Fox Means for Film and TV Fans.” Vanity Fair. 14 June 2018. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/06/comcast-fox-bid-disney-merger-tv-film-future-explainer>.Brockington, Ariana. “Donald Trump Reconsiders His Life in Simpsons Video ‘A Tale of Two Trumps.” Variety. 23 Mar. 2018. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://variety.com/2018/politics/news/the-simpsons-donald-trump-a-tale-of-two-trumps-1202735526/>.Canning, Robert. “The Simpsons: ‘That 90s Show’ Review.” 28 Jan. 2008. 2 Oct. 2018 <https://au.ign.com/articles/2008/01/28/the-simpsons-that-90s-show-review>.Chappell, Les. “The Simpsons (Classic): ‘The Principal and the Pauper’.” AV Club. 28 June 2015. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://tv.avclub.com/the-simpsons-classic-the-principal-and-the-pauper-1798184317>.Cinematic. “The Principal and the Pauper: The Fall of The Simpsons.” 15 Aug. 2012. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://cinematicfilmblog.com/2012/08/15/the-principal-and-the-pauper-the-fall-of-the-simpsons/>.Culbertson, Alix. “The Simpsons Producer Responds to Apu Controversy.” Sky News. 30 Oct. 2018. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://news.sky.com/story/the-simpsons-indian-character-apu-axed-after-racial-controversy-11537982>.Davis, Amy M., Jemma Gilboy, and James Zborowski. “How Time Works in The Simpsons.” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10.3 (2015): 175-188.Friedenthal, Andrew. Retcon Game: Retroactive Continuity and the Hyperlinking of America. USA: University Press of Mississippi, 2017.Fury, Alexander. “The Return of the ‘90s.” New York Times. 13 July 2016. 28 Sep. 2018. <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/t-magazine/fashion/90s-fashion-revival.html>.Gray, Jonathan. “Antifandom and the Moral Text: Television without Pity and Textual Dislike.” American Behavioral Scientist 48.7 (2005): 840-858.Harmon, Steph. “‘Don’t Have a Cow’: The Simpsons Response to Apu Racism Row Criticised as ‘Toothless’.” The Guardian. 10 Apr. 2018. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/apr/10/dont-have-a-cow-the-simpsons-response-to-apu-racism-row-criticised-as-toothless>.Holland, Travis. “Why The Simpsons Lost Its Way.” The Conversation. 3 Nov. 2016. 28 Sep. 2018. <https://theconversation.com/why-the-simpsons-has-lost-its-way-67845>.IMDB. “The Simpsons – That 90s Show.” 2 Oct. 2018 <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1166961/>.Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: NYU P, 2006.Keveney, Bill. “The Simpsons Exclusive: Matt Groening (Mostly) Remembers the Show’s Record 636 Episodes.” USA Today. 27 Apr. 2018. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2018/04/27/thesimpsons-matt-groening-new-record-fox-animated-series/524581002/>.Kostarelis, Stefan. “This Genius Chart That Tracks the Decline in The Simpsons Is Too Real”. Techly. 21 July 2017. 2 Oct. 2018 <https://www.techly.com.au/2017/07/21/british-man-binges-all-simpsons-episodes-in-a-month-charts-decline-in-shows-quality/>.Plante, Chris. “The Simpsons Jumped the Shark in One of Its Best Episodes”. The Verge. 22 Aug. 2014. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/22/6056915/frank-grimes-the-simpsons-jump-the-shark>.Power, Kevin. “I Watched All 629 Episodes of The Simpsons in a Month. Here’s What I Learned.” Antihuman. 9 Feb. 2018. 1 Oct. 2018 <https://antihumansite.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/i-watched-all-629-episodes-of-the-simpsons-in-a-month-heres-what-i-learned/>.Rabin, Nathan, and Steven Hyden. “Crosstalk: Is It Time for The Simpsons to Call It a Day?” AV Club. 26 July 2007. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://tv.avclub.com/crosstalk-is-it-time-for-the-simpsons-to-call-it-a-day-1798211912>.Ramaswarmy, Chitra. “When Good TV Goes Bad: How The Simpsons Ended Up Gorging on Itself.” The Guardian. 24 Apr. 2017. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/apr/24/jump-the-shark-when-good-tv-goes-bad-the-simpsons>.Schneider, Todd. “The Simpsons by the Data.” Todd W. Schneider’s Home Page. 2015. 28 Sep. 2018 <http://toddwschneider.com/posts/the-simpsons-by-the-data/>.Snierson, Dan. “Simpsons Showrunner on Homer’s ‘Cheating’ on Marge, RuPaul’s Guest Spot, Apu Controversy”. Entertainment Weekly. 28 Sep. 2018. 26 Nov. 2018 <https://ew.com/tv/2018/09/28/simpsons-showrunner-season-30-preview/>.Sweatpants, Charlie. “Zombie Simpsons: How the Best Show Ever Became the Broadcasting Undead.” Dead Homer Society. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/>.Williams, Rebecca. Post-Object Fandom: Television, Identity, and Self-Narrative. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.

Abstract:

Introduction In October 2008, the UK’s National Videogame Archive became a reality and after years of negotiation, preparation and planning, this partnership between Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Contemporary Play research group and The National Media Museum, accepted its first public donations to the collection. These first donations came from Sony’s Computer Entertainment Europe’s London Studios who presented the original, pre-production PlayStation 2 EyeToy camera (complete with its hand-written #1 sticker) and Harmonix who crossed the Atlantic to deliver prototypes of the Rock Band drum kit and guitar controllers along with a slew of games. Since then, we have been inundated with donations, enquiries and volunteers offering their services and it is clear that we have exciting and challenging times ahead of us at the NVA as we seek to continue our collecting programme and preserve, conserve, display and interpret these vital parts of popular culture. This essay, however, is not so much a document of these possible futures for our research or the challenges we face in moving forward as it is a discussion of some of the issues that make game preservation a vital and timely undertaking. In briefly telling the story of the genesis of the NVA, I hope to draw attention to some of the peculiarities (in both senses) of the situation in which videogames currently exist. While considerable attention has been paid to the preservation and curation of new media arts (e.g. Cook et al.), comparatively little work has been undertaken in relation to games. Surprisingly, the games industry has been similarly neglectful of the histories of gameplay and gamemaking. Throughout our research, it has became abundantly clear that even those individuals and companies most intimately associated with the development of this form, do not hold their corporate and personal histories in the high esteem we expected (see also Lowood et al.). And so, despite the well-worn bluster of an industry that proclaims itself as culturally significant as Hollywood, it is surprisingly difficult to find a definitive copy of the boxart of the final release of a Triple-A title let alone any of the pre-production materials. Through our journeys in the past couple of years, we have encountered shoeboxes under CEOs’ desks and proud parents’ collections of tapes and press cuttings. These are the closest things to a formalised archive that we currently have for many of the biggest British game development and publishing companies. Not only is this problematic in and of itself as we run the risk of losing titles and documents forever as well as the stories locked up in the memories of key individuals who grow ever older, but also it is symptomatic of an industry that, despite its public proclamations, neither places a high value on its products as popular culture nor truly recognises their impact on that culture. While a few valorised, still-ongoing, franchises like the Super Mario and Legend of Zelda series are repackaged and (digitally) re-released so as to provide continuity with current releases, a huge number of games simply disappear from view once their short period of retail limelight passes. Indeed, my argument in this essay rests to some extent on the admittedly polemical, and maybe even antagonistic, assertion that the past business and marketing practices of the videogames industry are partly to blame for the comparatively underdeveloped state of game preservation and the seemingly low cultural value placed on old games within the mainstream marketplace. Small wonder, then, that archives and formalised collections are not widespread. However antagonistic this point may seem, this essay does not set out merely to criticise the games industry. Indeed, it is important to recognise that the success and viability of projects such as the NVA is derived partly from close collaboration with industry partners. As such, it is my hope that in addition to contributing to the conversation about the importance and need for formalised strategies of game preservation, this essay goes some way to demonstrating the necessity of universities, museums, developers, publishers, advertisers and retailers tackling these issues in partnership. The Best Game Is the Next Game As will be clear from these opening paragraphs, this essay is primarily concerned with ‘old’ games. Perhaps surprisingly, however, we shall see that ‘old’ games are frequently not that old at all as even the shiniest, and newest of interactive experiences soon slip from view under the pressure of a relentless industrial and institutional push towards the forthcoming release and the ‘next generation’. More surprising still is that ‘old’ games are often difficult to come by as they occupy, at best, a marginalised position in the contemporary marketplace, assuming they are even visible at all. This is an odd situation. Videogames are, as any introductory primer on game studies will surely reveal, big business (see Kerr, for instance, as well as trade bodies such as ELSPA and The ESA for up-to-date sales figures). Given the videogame industry seems dedicated to growing its business and broadening its audiences (see Radd on Sony’s ‘Game 3.0’ strategy, for instance), it seems strange, from a commercial perspective if no other, that publishers’ and developers’ back catalogues are not being mercilessly plundered to wring the last pennies of profit from their IPs. Despite being cherished by players and fans, some of whom are actively engaged in their own private collecting and curation regimes (sometimes to apparently obsessive excess as Jones, among others, has noted), videogames have, nonetheless, been undervalued as part of our national popular cultural heritage by institutions of memory such as museums and archives which, I would suggest, have largely ignored and sometimes misunderstood or misrepresented them. Most of all, however, I wish to draw attention to the harm caused by the videogames industry itself. Consumers’ attentions are focused on ‘products’, on audiovisual (but mainly visual) technicalities and high-definition video specs rather than on the experiences of play and performance, or on games as artworks or artefact. Most damagingly, however, by constructing and contributing to an advertising, marketing and popular critical discourse that trades almost exclusively in the language of instant obsolescence, videogames have been robbed of their historical value and old platforms and titles are reduced to redundant, legacy systems and easily-marginalised ‘retro’ curiosities. The vision of inevitable technological progress that the videogames industry trades in reminds us of Paul Duguid’s concept of ‘supersession’ (see also Giddings and Kennedy, on the ‘technological imaginary’). Duguid identifies supersession as one of the key tropes in discussions of new media. The reductive idea that each new form subsumes and replaces its predecessor means that videogames are, to some extent, bound up in the same set of tensions that undermine the longevity of all new media. Chun rightly notes that, in contrast with more open terms like multimedia, ‘new media’ has always been somewhat problematic. Unaccommodating, ‘it portrayed other media as old or dead; it converged rather than multiplied; it did not efface itself in favor of a happy if redundant plurality’ (1). The very newness of new media and of videogames as the apotheosis of the interactivity and multimodality they promise (Newman, "In Search"), their gleam and shine, is quickly tarnished as they are replaced by ever-newer, ever more exciting, capable and ‘revolutionary’ technologies whose promise and moment in the limelight is, in turn, equally fleeting. As Franzen has noted, obsolescence and the trail of abandoned, superseded systems is a natural, even planned-for, product of an infatuation with the newness of new media. For Kline et al., the obsession with obsolescence leads to the characterisation of the videogames industry as a ‘perpetual innovation economy’ whose institutions ‘devote a growing share of their resources to the continual alteration and upgrading of their products. However, it is my contention here that the supersessionary tendency exerts a more serious impact on videogames than some other media partly because the apparently natural logic of obsolescence and technological progress goes largely unchecked and partly because there remain few institutions dedicated to considering and acting upon game preservation. The simple fact, as Lowood et al. have noted, is that material damage is being done as a result of this manufactured sense of continual progress and immediate, irrefutable obsolescence. By focusing on the upcoming new release and the preview of what is yet to come; by exciting gamers about what is in development and demonstrating the manifest ways in which the sheen of the new inevitably tarnishes the old. That which is replaced is fit only for the bargain bin or the budget-priced collection download, and as such, it is my position that we are systematically undermining and perhaps even eradicating the possibility of a thorough and well-documented history for videogames. This is a situation that we at the National Videogame Archive, along with colleagues in the emerging field of game preservation (e.g. the International Game Developers Association Game Preservation Special Interest Group, and the Keeping Emulation Environments Portable project) are, naturally, keen to address. Chief amongst our concerns is better understanding how it has come to be that, in 2009, game studies scholars and colleagues from across the memory and heritage sectors are still only at the beginning of the process of considering game preservation. The IGDA Game Preservation SIG was founded only five years ago and its ‘White Paper’ (Lowood et al.) is just published. Surprisingly, despite the importance of videogames within popular culture and the emergence and consolidation of the industry as a potent creative force, there remains comparatively little academic commentary or investigation into the specific situation and life-cycles of games or the demands that they place upon archivists and scholars of digital histories and cultural heritage. As I hope to demonstrate in this essay, one of the key tasks of the project of game preservation is to draw attention to the consequences of the concentration, even fetishisation, of the next generation, the new and the forthcoming. The focus on what I have termed ‘the lure of the imminent’ (e.g. Newman, Playing), the fixation on not only the present but also the as-yet-unreleased next generation, has contributed to the normalisation of the discourses of technological advancement and the inevitability and finality of obsolescence. The conflation of gameplay pleasure and cultural import with technological – and indeed, usually visual – sophistication gives rise to a context of endless newness, within which there appears to be little space for the ‘outdated’, the ‘superseded’ or the ‘old’. In a commercial and cultural space in which so little value is placed upon anything but the next game, we risk losing touch with the continuities of development and the practices of play while simultaneously robbing players and scholars of the critical tools and resources necessary for contextualised appreciation and analysis of game form and aesthetics, for instance (see Monnens, "Why", for more on the value of preserving ‘old’ games for analysis and scholarship). Moreover, we risk losing specific games, platforms, artefacts and products as they disappear into the bargain bucket or crumble to dust as media decay, deterioration and ‘bit rot’ (Monnens, "Losing") set in. Space does not here permit a discussion of the scope and extent of the preservation work required (for instance, the NVA sets its sights on preserving, documenting, interpreting and exhibiting ‘videogame culture’ in its broadest sense and recognises the importance of videogames as more than just code and as enmeshed within complex networks of productive, consumptive and performative practices). Neither is it my intention to discuss here the specific challenges and numerous issues associated with archival and exhibition tools such as emulation which seek to rebirth code on up-to-date, manageable, well-supported hardware platforms but which are frequently insensitive to the specificities and nuances of the played experience (see Newman, "On Emulation", for some further notes on videogame emulation, archiving and exhibition and Takeshita’s comments in Nutt on the technologies and aesthetics of glitches, for instance). Each of these issues is vitally important and will, doubtless become a part of the forthcoming research agenda for game preservation scholars. My focus here, however, is rather more straightforward and foundational and though it is deliberately controversial, it is my hope that its casts some light over some ingrained assumptions about videogames and the magnitude and urgency of the game preservation project. Videogames Are Disappearing? At a time when retailers’ shelves struggle under the weight of newly-released titles and digital distribution systems such as Steam, the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Marketplace, WiiWare, DSiWare et al bring new ways to purchase and consume playable content, it might seem strange to suggest that videogames are disappearing. In addition to what we have perhaps come to think of as the ‘usual suspects’ in the hardware and software publishing marketplace, over the past year or so Apple have, unexpectedly and perhaps even surprising themselves, carved out a new gaming platform with the iPhone/iPod Touch and have dramatically simplified the notoriously difficult process of distributing mobile content with the iTunes App Store. In the face of this apparent glut of games and the emergence and (re)discovery of new markets with the iPhone, Wii and Nintendo DS, videogames seem an ever more a vital and visible part of popular culture. Yet, for all their commercial success and seemingly penetration the simple fact is that they are disappearing. And at an alarming rate. Addressing the IGDA community of game developers and producers, Henry Lowood makes the point with admirable clarity (see also Ruggill and McAllister): If we fail to address the problems of game preservation, the games you are making will disappear, perhaps within a few decades. You will lose access to your own intellectual property, you will be unable to show new developers the games you designed or that inspired you, and you may even find it necessary to re-invent a bunch of wheels. (Lowood et al. 1) For me, this point hit home most persuasively a few years ago when, along with Iain Simons, I was invited by the British Film Institute to contribute a book to their ‘Screen Guides’ series. 100 Videogames (Newman and Simons) was an intriguing prospect that provided us with the challenge and opportunity to explore some of the key moments in videogaming’s forty year history. However, although the research and writing processes proved to be an immensely pleasurable and rewarding experience that we hope culminated in an accessible, informative volume offering insight into some well-known (and some less-well known) games, the project was ultimately tinged with a more than a little disappointment and frustration. Assuming our book had successfully piqued the interest of our readers into rediscovering games previously played or perhaps investigating games for the first time, what could they then do? Where could they go to find these games in order to experience their delights (or their flaws and problems) at first hand? Had our volume been concerned with television or film, as most of the Screen Guides are, then online and offline retailers, libraries, and even archives for less widely-available materials, would have been obvious ports of call. For the student of videogames, however, the choices are not so much limited as practically non-existant. It is only comparatively recently that videogame retailers have shifted away from an almost exclusive focus on new releases and the zeitgeist platforms towards a recognition of old games and systems through the creation of the ‘pre-owned’ marketplace. The ‘pre-owned’ transaction is one in which old titles may be traded in for cash or against the purchase of new releases of hardware or software. Surely, then, this represents the commercial viability of classic games and is a recognition on the part of retail that the new release is not the only game in town. Yet, if we consider more carefully the ‘pre-owned’ model, we find a few telling points. First, there is cold economic sense to the pre-owned business model. In their financial statements for FY08, ‘GAME revealed that the service isn’t just a key part of its offer to consumers, but its also represents an ‘attractive’ gross margin 39 per cent.’ (French). Second, and most important, the premise of the pre-owned business as it is communicated to consumers still offers nothing but primacy to the new release. That one would trade-in one’s old games in order to consume these putatively better new ones speaks eloquently in the language of obsolesce and what Dovey and Kennedy have called the ‘technological imaginary’. The wire mesh buckets of old, pre-owned games are not displayed or coded as treasure troves for the discerning or completist collector but rather are nothing more than bargain bins. These are not classic games. These are cheap games. Cheap because they are old. Cheap because they have had their day. This is a curious situation that affects videogames most unfairly. Of course, my caricature of the videogame retailer is still incomplete as a good deal of the instantly visible shopfloor space is dedicated neither to pre-owned nor new releases but rather to displays of empty boxes often sporting unfinalised, sometimes mocked-up, boxart flaunting titles available for pre-order. Titles you cannot even buy yet. In the videogames marketplace, even the present is not exciting enough. The best game is always the next game. Importantly, retail is not alone in manufacturing this sense of dissatisfaction with the past and even the present. The specialist videogames press plays at least as important a role in reinforcing and normalising the supersessionary discourse of instant obsolescence by fixing readers’ attentions and expectations on the just-visible horizon. Examining the pages of specialist gaming publications reveals them to be something akin to Futurist paeans dedicating anything from 70 to 90% of their non-advertising pages to previews, interviews with developers about still-in-development titles (see Newman, Playing, for more on the specialist gaming press’ love affair with the next generation and the NDA scoop). Though a small number of publications specifically address retro titles (e.g. Imagine Publishing’s Retro Gamer), most titles are essentially vehicles to promote current and future product lines with many magazines essentially operating as delivery devices for cover-mounted CDs/DVDs offering teaser videos or playable demos of forthcoming titles to further whet the appetite. Manufacturing a sense of excitement might seem wholly natural and perhaps even desirable in helping to maintain a keen interest in gaming culture but the effect of the imbalance of popular coverage has a potentially deleterious effect on the status of superseded titles. Xbox World 360’s magnificently-titled ‘Anticip–O–Meter’ ™ does more than simply build anticipation. Like regular features that run under headings such as ‘The Next Best Game in The World Ever is…’, it seeks to author not so much excitement about the imminent release but a dissatisfaction with the present with which unfavourable comparisons are inevitably drawn. The current or previous crop of (once new, let us not forget) titles are not simply superseded but rather are reinvented as yardsticks to judge the prowess of the even newer and unarguably ‘better’. As Ashton has noted, the continual promotion of the impressiveness of the next generation requires a delicate balancing act and a selective, institutionalised system of recall and forgetting that recovers the past as a suite of (often technical) benchmarks (twice as many polygons, higher resolution etc.) In the absence of formalised and systematic collecting, these obsoleted titles run the risk of being forgotten forever once they no longer serve the purpose of demonstrating the comparative advancement of the successors. The Future of Videogaming’s Past Even if we accept the myriad claims of game studies scholars that videogames are worthy of serious interrogation in and of themselves and as part of a multifaceted, transmedial supersystem, we might be tempted to think that the lack of formalised collections, archival resources and readily available ‘old/classic’ titles at retail is of no great significance. After all, as Jones has observed, the videogame player is almost primed to undertake this kind of activity as gaming can, at least partly, be understood as the act and art of collecting. Games such as Animal Crossing make this tendency most manifest by challenging their players to collect objects and artefacts – from natural history through to works of visual art – so as to fill the initially-empty in-game Museum’s cases. While almost all videogames from The Sims to Katamari Damacy can be considered to engage their players in collecting and collection management work to some extent, Animal Crossing is perhaps the most pertinent example of the indivisibility of the gamer/archivist. Moreover, the permeability of the boundary between the fan’s collection of toys, dolls, posters and the other treasured objects of merchandising and the manipulation of inventories, acquisitions and equipment lists that we see in the menus and gameplay imperatives of videogames ensures an extensiveness and scope of fan collecting and archival work. Similarly, the sociality of fan collecting and the value placed on private hoarding, public sharing and the processes of research ‘…bridges to new levels of the game’ (Jones 48). Perhaps we should be as unsurprised that their focus on collecting makes videogames similar to eBay as we are to the realisation that eBay with its competitiveness, its winning and losing states, and its inexorable countdown timer, is nothing if not a game? We should be mindful, however, of overstating the positive effects of fandom on the fate of old games. Alongside eBay’s veneration of the original object, p2p and bittorrent sites reduce the videogame to its barest. Quite apart from the (il)legality of emulation and videogame ripping and sharing (see Conley et al.), the existence of ‘ROMs’ and the technicalities of their distribution reveals much about the peculiar tension between the interest in old games and their putative cultural and economic value. (St)ripped down to the barest of code, ROMs deny the gamer the paratextuality of the instruction manual or boxart. In fact, divorced from its context and robbed of its materiality, ROMs perhaps serve to make the original game even more distant. More tellingly, ROMs are typically distributed by the thousand in zipped files. And so, in just a few minutes, entire console back-catalogues – every game released in every territory – are available for browsing and playing on a PC or Mac. The completism of the collections allows detailed scrutiny of differences in Japanese versus European releases, for instance, and can be seen as a vital investigative resource. However, that these ROMs are packaged into collections of many thousands speaks implicitly of these games’ perceived value. In a similar vein, the budget-priced retro re-release collection helps to diminish the value of each constituent game and serves to simultaneously manufacture and highlight the manifestly unfair comparison between these intriguingly retro curios and the legitimately full-priced games of now and next. Customer comments at Amazon.co.uk demonstrate the way in which historical and technological comparisons are now solidly embedded within the popular discourse (see also Newman 2009b). Leaving feedback on Sega’s PS3/Xbox 360 Sega MegaDrive Ultimate Collection customers berate the publisher for the apparently meagre selection of titles on offer. Interestingly, this charge seems based less around the quality, variety or range of the collection but rather centres on jarring technological schisms and a clear sense of these titles being of necessarily and inevitably diminished monetary value. Comments range from outraged consternation, ‘Wtf, only 40 games?’, ‘I wont be getting this as one disc could hold the entire arsenal of consoles and games from commodore to sega saturn(Maybe even Dreamcast’ through to more detailed analyses that draw attention to the number of bits and bytes but that notably neglect any consideration of gameplay, experientiality, cultural significance or, heaven forbid, fun. “Ultimate” Collection? 32Mb of games on a Blu-ray disc?…here are 40 Megadrive games at a total of 31 Megabytes of data. This was taking the Michael on a DVD release for the PS2 (or even on a UMD for the PSP), but for a format that can store 50 Gigabytes of data, it’s an insult. Sega’s entire back catalogue of Megadrive games only comes to around 800 Megabytes - they could fit that several times over on a DVD. The ultimate consequence of these different but complementary attitudes to games that fix attentions on the future and package up decontextualised ROMs by the thousand or even collections of 40 titles on a single disc (selling for less than half the price of one of the original cartridges) is a disregard – perhaps even a disrespect – for ‘old’ games. Indeed, it is this tendency, this dominant discourse of inevitable, natural and unimpeachable obsolescence and supersession, that provided one of the prime motivators for establishing the NVA. As Lowood et al. note in the title of the IGDA Game Preservation SIG’s White Paper, we need to act to preserve and conserve videogames ‘before it’s too late’.ReferencesAshton, D. ‘Digital Gaming Upgrade and Recovery: Enrolling Memories and Technologies as a Strategy for the Future.’ M/C Journal 11.6 (2008). 13 Jun 2009 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/86›.Buffa, C. ‘How to Fix Videogame Journalism.’ GameDaily 20 July 2006. 13 Jun 2009 ‹http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/how-to-fix-videogame-journalism/69202/?biz=1›. ———. ‘Opinion: How to Become a Better Videogame Journalist.’ GameDaily 28 July 2006. 13 Jun 2009 ‹http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/opinion-how-to-become-a-better-videogame-journalist/69236/?biz=1. ———. ‘Opinion: The Videogame Review – Problems and Solutions.’ GameDaily 2 Aug. 2006. 13 Jun 2009 ‹http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/opinion-the-videogame-review-problems-and-solutions/69257/?biz=1›. ———. ‘Opinion: Why Videogame Journalism Sucks.’ GameDaily 14 July 2006. 13 Jun 2009 ‹http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/opinion-why-videogame-journalism-sucks/69180/?biz=1›. Cook, Sarah, Beryl Graham, and Sarah Martin eds. Curating New Media, Gateshead: BALTIC, 2002. Duguid, Paul. ‘Material Matters: The Past and Futurology of the Book.’ In Gary Nunberg, ed. The Future of the Book. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. 63–101. French, Michael. 'GAME Reveals Pre-Owned Trading Is 18% of Business.’ MCV 22 Apr. 2009. 13 Jun 2009 ‹http://www.mcvuk.com/news/34019/GAME-reveals-pre-owned-trading-is-18-per-cent-of-business›. Giddings, Seth, and Helen Kennedy. ‘Digital Games as New Media.’ In J. Rutter and J. Bryce, eds. Understanding Digital Games. London: Sage. 129–147. Gillen, Kieron. ‘The New Games Journalism.’ Kieron Gillen’s Workblog 2004. 13 June 2009 ‹http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=3›. Jones, S. The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Strategies, New York: Routledge, 2008. Kerr, A. The Business and Culture of Digital Games. London: Sage, 2006. Lister, Martin, John Dovey, Seth Giddings, Ian Grant and Kevin Kelly. New Media: A Critical Introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Lowood, Henry, Andrew Armstrong, Devin Monnens, Zach Vowell, Judd Ruggill, Ken McAllister, and Rachel Donahue. Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper. IGDA, 2009. 13 June 2009 ‹http://www.igda.org/wiki/images/8/83/IGDA_Game_Preservation_SIG_-_Before_It%27s_Too_Late_-_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper.pdf›. Monnens, Devin. ‘Why Are Games Worth Preserving?’ In Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper. IGDA, 2009. 13 June 2009 ‹http://www.igda.org/wiki/images/8/83/IGDA_Game_Preservation_SIG_-_Before_It%27s_Too_Late_-_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper.pdf›. ———. ‘Losing Digital Game History: Bit by Bit.’ In Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper. IGDA, 2009. 13 June 2009 ‹http://www.igda.org/wiki/images/8/83/IGDA_Game_Preservation_SIG_-_Before_It%27s_Too_Late_-_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper.pdf›. Newman, J. ‘In Search of the Videogame Player: The Lives of Mario.’ New Media and Society 4.3 (2002): 407-425.———. ‘On Emulation.’ The National Videogame Archive Research Diary, 2009. 13 June 2009 ‹http://www.nationalvideogamearchive.org/index.php/2009/04/on-emulation/›. ———. ‘Our Cultural Heritage – Available by the Bucketload.’ The National Videogame Archive Research Diary, 2009. 10 Apr. 2009 ‹http://www.nationalvideogamearchive.org/index.php/2009/04/our-cultural-heritage-available-by-the-bucketload/›. ———. Playing with Videogames, London: Routledge, 2008. ———, and I. Simons. 100 Videogames. London: BFI Publishing, 2007. Nutt, C. ‘He Is 8-Bit: Capcom's Hironobu Takeshita Speaks.’ Gamasutra 2008. 13 June 2009 ‹http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3752/›. Radd, D. ‘Gaming 3.0. Sony’s Phil Harrison Explains the PS3 Virtual Community, Home.’ Business Week 9 Mar. 2007. 13 June 2009 ‹http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2007/id20070309_764852.htm?chan=innovation_game+room_top+stories›. Ruggill, Judd, and Ken McAllister. ‘What If We Do Nothing?’ Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper. IGDA, 2009. 13 June 2009. ‹http://www.igda.org/wiki/images/8/83/IGDA_Game_Preservation_SIG_-_Before_It%27s_Too_Late_-_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper.pdf›. 16-19.

Abstract:

By the time you read this, it will be wrong. Things seemed to be moving so fast in these first days after airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania earth. Each certainty is as carelessly dropped as it was once carelessly assumed. The sounds of lower Manhattan that used to serve as white noise for residents—sirens, screeches, screams—are no longer signs without a referent. Instead, they make folks stare and stop, hurry and hustle, wondering whether the noises we know so well are in fact, this time, coefficients of a new reality. At the time of writing, the events themselves are also signs without referents—there has been no direct claim of responsibility, and little proof offered by accusers since the 11th. But it has been assumed that there is a link to US foreign policy, its military and economic presence in the Arab world, and opposition to it that seeks revenge. In the intervening weeks the US media and the war planners have supplied their own narrow frameworks, making New York’s “ground zero” into the starting point for a new escalation of global violence. We want to write here about the combination of sources and sensations that came that day, and the jumble of knowledges and emotions that filled our minds. Working late the night before, Toby was awoken in the morning by one of the planes right overhead. That happens sometimes. I have long expected a crash when I’ve heard the roar of jet engines so close—but I didn’t this time. Often when that sound hits me, I get up and go for a run down by the water, just near Wall Street. Something kept me back that day. Instead, I headed for my laptop. Because I cannot rely on local media to tell me very much about the role of the US in world affairs, I was reading the British newspaper The Guardian on-line when it flashed a two-line report about the planes. I looked up at the calendar above my desk to see whether it was April 1st. Truly. Then I got off-line and turned on the TV to watch CNN. That second, the phone rang. My quasi-ex-girlfriend I’m still in love with called from the mid-West. She was due to leave that day for the Bay Area. Was I alright? We spoke for a bit. She said my cell phone was out, and indeed it was for the remainder of the day. As I hung up from her, my friend Ana rang, tearful and concerned. Her husband, Patrick, had left an hour before for work in New Jersey, and it seemed like a dangerous separation. All separations were potentially fatal that day. You wanted to know where everyone was, every minute. She told me she had been trying to contact Palestinian friends who worked and attended school near the event—their ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds made for real poignancy, as we both thought of the prejudice they would (probably) face, regardless of the eventual who/what/when/where/how of these events. We agreed to meet at Bruno’s, a bakery on La Guardia Place. For some reason I really took my time, though, before getting to Ana. I shampooed and shaved under the shower. This was a horror, and I needed to look my best, even as men and women were losing and risking their lives. I can only interpret what I did as an attempt to impose normalcy and control on the situation, on my environment. When I finally made it down there, she’d located our friends. They were safe. We stood in the street and watched the Towers. Horrified by the sight of human beings tumbling to their deaths, we turned to buy a tea/coffee—again some ludicrous normalization—but were drawn back by chilling screams from the street. Racing outside, we saw the second Tower collapse, and clutched at each other. People were streaming towards us from further downtown. We decided to be with our Palestinian friends in their apartment. When we arrived, we learnt that Mark had been four minutes away from the WTC when the first plane hit. I tried to call my daughter in London and my father in Canberra, but to no avail. I rang the mid-West, and asked my maybe-former novia to call England and Australia to report in on me. Our friend Jenine got through to relatives on the West Bank. Israeli tanks had commenced a bombardment there, right after the planes had struck New York. Family members spoke to her from under the kitchen table, where they were taking refuge from the shelling of their house. Then we gave ourselves over to television, like so many others around the world, even though these events were happening only a mile away. We wanted to hear official word, but there was just a huge absence—Bush was busy learning to read in Florida, then leading from the front in Louisiana and Nebraska. As the day wore on, we split up and regrouped, meeting folks. One guy was in the subway when smoke filled the car. Noone could breathe properly, people were screaming, and his only thought was for his dog DeNiro back in Brooklyn. From the panic of the train, he managed to call his mom on a cell to ask her to feed “DeNiro” that night, because it looked like he wouldn’t get home. A pregnant woman feared for her unborn as she fled the blasts, pushing the stroller with her baby in it as she did so. Away from these heart-rending tales from strangers, there was the fear: good grief, what horrible price would the US Government extract for this, and who would be the overt and covert agents and targets of that suffering? What blood-lust would this generate? What would be the pattern of retaliation and counter-retaliation? What would become of civil rights and cultural inclusiveness? So a jumble of emotions came forward, I assume in all of us. Anger was not there for me, just intense sorrow, shock, and fear, and the desire for intimacy. Network television appeared to offer me that, but in an ultimately unsatisfactory way. For I think I saw the end-result of reality TV that day. I have since decided to call this ‘emotionalization’—network TV’s tendency to substitute analysis of US politics and economics with a stress on feelings. Of course, powerful emotions have been engaged by this horror, and there is value in addressing that fact and letting out the pain. I certainly needed to do so. But on that day and subsequent ones, I looked to the networks, traditional sources of current-affairs knowledge, for just that—informed, multi-perspectival journalism that would allow me to make sense of my feelings, and come to a just and reasoned decision about how the US should respond. I waited in vain. No such commentary came forward. Just a lot of asinine inquiries from reporters that were identical to those they pose to basketballers after a game: Question—‘How do you feel now?’ Answer—‘God was with me today.’ For the networks were insistent on asking everyone in sight how they felt about the end of las torres gemelas. In this case, we heard the feelings of survivors, firefighters, viewers, media mavens, Republican and Democrat hacks, and vacuous Beltway state-of-the-nation pundits. But learning of the military-political economy, global inequality, and ideologies and organizations that made for our grief and loss—for that, there was no space. TV had forgotten how to do it. My principal feeling soon became one of frustration. So I headed back to where I began the day—The Guardian web site, where I was given insightful analysis of the messy factors of history, religion, economics, and politics that had created this situation. As I dealt with the tragedy of folks whose lives had been so cruelly lost, I pondered what it would take for this to stop. Or whether this was just the beginning. I knew one thing—the answers wouldn’t come from mainstream US television, no matter how full of feelings it was. And that made Toby anxious. And afraid. He still is. And so the dreams come. In one, I am suddenly furloughed from my job with an orchestra, as audience numbers tumble. I make my evening-wear way to my locker along with the other players, emptying it of bubble gum and instrument. The next night, I see a gigantic, fifty-feet high wave heading for the city beach where I’ve come to swim. Somehow I am sheltered behind a huge wall, as all the people around me die. Dripping, I turn to find myself in a media-stereotype “crack house” of the early ’90s—desperate-looking black men, endless doorways, sudden police arrival, and my earnest search for a passport that will explain away my presence. I awake in horror, to the realization that the passport was already open and stamped—racialization at work for Toby, every day and in every way, as a white man in New York City. Ana’s husband, Patrick, was at work ten miles from Manhattan when “it” happened. In the hallway, I overheard some talk about two planes crashing, but went to teach anyway in my usual morning stupor. This was just the usual chatter of disaster junkies. I didn’t hear the words, “World Trade Center” until ten thirty, at the end of the class at the college I teach at in New Jersey, across the Hudson river. A friend and colleague walked in and told me the news of the attack, to which I replied “You must be fucking joking.” He was a little offended. Students were milling haphazardly on the campus in the late summer weather, some looking panicked like me. My first thought was of some general failure of the air-traffic control system. There must be planes falling out of the sky all over the country. Then the height of the towers: how far towards our apartment in Greenwich Village would the towers fall? Neither of us worked in the financial district a mile downtown, but was Ana safe? Where on the college campus could I see what was happening? I recognized the same physical sensation I had felt the morning after Hurricane Andrew in Miami seeing at a distance the wreckage of our shattered apartment across a suburban golf course strewn with debris and flattened power lines. Now I was trapped in the suburbs again at an unbridgeable distance from my wife and friends who were witnessing the attacks first hand. Were they safe? What on earth was going on? This feeling of being cut off, my path to the familiar places of home blocked, remained for weeks my dominant experience of the disaster. In my office, phone calls to the city didn’t work. There were six voice-mail messages from my teenaged brother Alex in small-town England giving a running commentary on the attack and its aftermath that he was witnessing live on television while I dutifully taught my writing class. “Hello, Patrick, where are you? Oh my god, another plane just hit the towers. Where are you?” The web was choked: no access to newspapers online. Email worked, but no one was wasting time writing. My office window looked out over a soccer field to the still woodlands of western New Jersey: behind me to the east the disaster must be unfolding. Finally I found a website with a live stream from ABC television, which I watched flickering and stilted on the tiny screen. It had all already happened: both towers already collapsed, the Pentagon attacked, another plane shot down over Pennsylvania, unconfirmed reports said, there were other hijacked aircraft still out there unaccounted for. Manhattan was sealed off. George Washington Bridge, Lincoln and Holland tunnels, all the bridges and tunnels from New Jersey I used to mock shut down. Police actions sealed off the highways into “the city.” The city I liked to think of as the capital of the world was cut off completely from the outside, suddenly vulnerable and under siege. There was no way to get home. The phone rang abruptly and Alex, three thousand miles away, told me he had spoken to Ana earlier and she was safe. After a dozen tries, I managed to get through and spoke to her, learning that she and Toby had seen people jumping and then the second tower fall. Other friends had been even closer. Everyone was safe, we thought. I sat for another couple of hours in my office uselessly. The news was incoherent, stories contradictory, loops of the planes hitting the towers only just ready for recycling. The attacks were already being transformed into “the World Trade Center Disaster,” not yet the ahistorical singularity of the emergency “nine one one.” Stranded, I had to spend the night in New Jersey at my boss’s house, reminded again of the boundless generosity of Americans to relative strangers. In an effort to protect his young son from the as yet unfiltered images saturating cable and Internet, my friend’s TV set was turned off and we did our best to reassure. We listened surreptitiously to news bulletins on AM radio, hoping that the roads would open. Walking the dog with my friend’s wife and son we crossed a park on the ridge on which Upper Montclair sits. Ten miles away a huge column of smoke was rising from lower Manhattan, where the stunning absence of the towers was clearly visible. The summer evening was unnervingly still. We kicked a soccer ball around on the front lawn and a woman walked distracted by, shocked and pale up the tree-lined suburban street, suffering her own wordless trauma. I remembered that though most of my students were ordinary working people, Montclair is a well-off dormitory for the financial sector and high rises of Wall Street and Midtown. For the time being, this was a white-collar disaster. I slept a short night in my friend’s house, waking to hope I had dreamed it all, and took the commuter train in with shell-shocked bankers and corporate types. All men, all looking nervously across the river toward glimpses of the Manhattan skyline as the train neared Hoboken. “I can’t believe they’re making us go in,” one guy had repeated on the station platform. He had watched the attacks from his office in Midtown, “The whole thing.” Inside the train we all sat in silence. Up from the PATH train station on 9th street I came onto a carless 6th Avenue. At 14th street barricades now sealed off downtown from the rest of the world. I walked down the middle of the avenue to a newspaper stand; the Indian proprietor shrugged “No deliveries below 14th.” I had not realized that the closer to the disaster you came, the less information would be available. Except, I assumed, for the evidence of my senses. But at 8 am the Village was eerily still, few people about, nothing in the sky, including the twin towers. I walked to Houston Street, which was full of trucks and police vehicles. Tractor trailers sat carrying concrete barriers. Below Houston, each street into Soho was barricaded and manned by huddles of cops. I had walked effortlessly up into the “lockdown,” but this was the “frozen zone.” There was no going further south towards the towers. I walked the few blocks home, found my wife sleeping, and climbed into bed, still in my clothes from the day before. “Your heart is racing,” she said. I realized that I hadn’t known if I would get back, and now I never wanted to leave again; it was still only eight thirty am. Lying there, I felt the terrible wonder of a distant bystander for the first-hand witness. Ana’s face couldn’t tell me what she had seen. I felt I needed to know more, to see and understand. Even though I knew the effort was useless: I could never bridge that gap that had trapped me ten miles away, my back turned to the unfolding disaster. The television was useless: we don’t have cable, and the mast on top of the North Tower, which Ana had watched fall, had relayed all the network channels. I knew I had to go down and see the wreckage. Later I would realize how lucky I had been not to suffer from “disaster envy.” Unbelievably, in retrospect, I commuted into work the second day after the attack, dogged by the same unnerving sensation that I would not get back—to the wounded, humbled former center of the world. My students were uneasy, all talked out. I was a novelty, a New Yorker living in the Village a mile from the towers, but I was forty-eight hours late. Out of place in both places. I felt torn up, but not angry. Back in the city at night, people were eating and drinking with a vengeance, the air filled with acrid sicklysweet smoke from the burning wreckage. Eyes stang and nose ran with a bitter acrid taste. Who knows what we’re breathing in, we joked nervously. A friend’s wife had fallen out with him for refusing to wear a protective mask in the house. He shrugged a wordlessly reassuring smile. What could any of us do? I walked with Ana down to the top of West Broadway from where the towers had commanded the skyline over SoHo; downtown dense smoke blocked the view to the disaster. A crowd of onlookers pushed up against the barricades all day, some weeping, others gawping. A tall guy was filming the grieving faces with a video camera, which was somehow the worst thing of all, the first sign of the disaster tourism that was already mushrooming downtown. Across the street an Asian artist sat painting the street scene in streaky black and white; he had scrubbed out two white columns where the towers would have been. “That’s the first thing I’ve seen that’s made me feel any better,” Ana said. We thanked him, but he shrugged blankly, still in shock I supposed. On the Friday, the clampdown. I watched the Mayor and Police Chief hold a press conference in which they angrily told the stream of volunteers to “ground zero” that they weren’t needed. “We can handle this ourselves. We thank you. But we don’t need your help,” Commissioner Kerik said. After the free-for-all of the first couple of days, with its amazing spontaneities and common gestures of goodwill, the clampdown was going into effect. I decided to go down to Canal Street and see if it was true that no one was welcome anymore. So many paths through the city were blocked now. “Lock down, frozen zone, war zone, the site, combat zone, ground zero, state troopers, secured perimeter, national guard, humvees, family center”: a disturbing new vocabulary that seemed to stamp the logic of Giuliani’s sanitized and over-policed Manhattan onto the wounded hulk of the city. The Mayor had been magnificent in the heat of the crisis; Churchillian, many were saying—and indeed, Giuliani quickly appeared on the cover of Cigar Afficionado, complete with wing collar and the misquotation from Kipling, “Captain Courageous.” Churchill had not believed in peacetime politics either, and he never got over losing his empire. Now the regime of command and control over New York’s citizens and its economy was being stabilized and reimposed. The sealed-off, disfigured, and newly militarized spaces of the New York through which I have always loved to wander at all hours seemed to have been put beyond reach for the duration. And, in the new post-“9/11” post-history, the duration could last forever. The violence of the attacks seemed to have elicited a heavy-handed official reaction that sought to contain and constrict the best qualities of New York. I felt more anger at the clampdown than I did at the demolition of the towers. I knew this was unreasonable, but I feared the reaction, the spread of the racial harassment and racial profiling that I had already heard of from my students in New Jersey. This militarizing of the urban landscape seemed to negate the sprawling, freewheeling, boundless largesse and tolerance on which New York had complacently claimed a monopoly. For many the towers stood for that as well, not just as the monumental outposts of global finance that had been attacked. Could the American flag mean something different? For a few days, perhaps—on the helmets of firemen and construction workers. But not for long. On the Saturday, I found an unmanned barricade way east along Canal Street and rode my bike past throngs of Chinatown residents, by the Federal jail block where prisoners from the first World Trade Center bombing were still being held. I headed south and west towards Tribeca; below the barricades in the frozen zone, you could roam freely, the cops and soldiers assuming you belonged there. I felt uneasy, doubting my own motives for being there, feeling the blood drain from my head in the same numbing shock I’d felt every time I headed downtown towards the site. I looped towards Greenwich Avenue, passing an abandoned bank full of emergency supplies and boxes of protective masks. Crushed cars still smeared with pulverized concrete and encrusted with paperwork strewn by the blast sat on the street near the disabled telephone exchange. On one side of the avenue stood a horde of onlookers, on the other television crews, all looking two blocks south towards a colossal pile of twisted and smoking steel, seven stories high. We were told to stay off the street by long-suffering national guardsmen and women with southern accents, kids. Nothing happening, just the aftermath. The TV crews were interviewing worn-out, dust-covered volunteers and firemen who sat quietly leaning against the railings of a park filled with scraps of paper. Out on the West Side highway, a high-tech truck was offering free cellular phone calls. The six lanes by the river were full of construction machinery and military vehicles. Ambulances rolled slowly uptown, bodies inside? I locked my bike redundantly to a lamppost and crossed under the hostile gaze of plainclothes police to another media encampment. On the path by the river, two camera crews were complaining bitterly in the heat. “After five days of this I’ve had enough.” They weren’t talking about the trauma, bodies, or the wreckage, but censorship. “Any blue light special gets to roll right down there, but they see your press pass and it’s get outta here. I’ve had enough.” I fronted out the surly cops and ducked under the tape onto the path, walking onto a Pier on which we’d spent many lazy afternoons watching the river at sunset. Dust everywhere, police boats docked and waiting, a crane ominously dredging mud into a barge. I walked back past the camera operators onto the highway and walked up to an interview in process. Perfectly composed, a fire chief and his crew from some small town in upstate New York were politely declining to give details about what they’d seen at “ground zero.” The men’s faces were dust streaked, their eyes slightly dazed with the shock of a horror previously unimaginable to most Americans. They were here to help the best they could, now they’d done as much as anyone could. “It’s time for us to go home.” The chief was eloquent, almost rehearsed in his precision. It was like a Magnum press photo. But he was refusing to cooperate with the media’s obsessive emotionalism. I walked down the highway, joining construction workers, volunteers, police, and firemen in their hundreds at Chambers Street. No one paid me any attention; it was absurd. I joined several other watchers on the stairs by Stuyvesant High School, which was now the headquarters for the recovery crews. Just two or three blocks away, the huge jagged teeth of the towers’ beautiful tracery lurched out onto the highway above huge mounds of debris. The TV images of the shattered scene made sense as I placed them into what was left of a familiar Sunday afternoon geography of bike rides and walks by the river, picnics in the park lying on the grass and gazing up at the infinite solidity of the towers. Demolished. It was breathtaking. If “they” could do that, they could do anything. Across the street at tables military policeman were checking credentials of the milling volunteers and issuing the pink and orange tags that gave access to ground zero. Without warning, there was a sudden stampede running full pelt up from the disaster site, men and women in fatigues, burly construction workers, firemen in bunker gear. I ran a few yards then stopped. Other people milled around idly, ignoring the panic, smoking and talking in low voices. It was a mainly white, blue-collar scene. All these men wearing flags and carrying crowbars and flashlights. In their company, the intolerance and rage I associated with flags and construction sites was nowhere to be seen. They were dealing with a torn and twisted otherness that dwarfed machismo or bigotry. I talked to a moustachioed, pony-tailed construction worker who’d hitched a ride from the mid-west to “come and help out.” He was staying at the Y, he said, it was kind of rough. “Have you been down there?” he asked, pointing towards the wreckage. “You’re British, you weren’t in World War Two were you?” I replied in the negative. “It’s worse ’n that. I went down last night and you can’t imagine it. You don’t want to see it if you don’t have to.” Did I know any welcoming ladies? he asked. The Y was kind of tough. When I saw TV images of President Bush speaking to the recovery crews and steelworkers at “ground zero” a couple of days later, shouting through a bullhorn to chants of “USA, USA” I knew nothing had changed. New York’s suffering was subject to a second hijacking by the brokers of national unity. New York had never been America, and now its terrible human loss and its great humanity were redesignated in the name of the nation, of the coming war. The signs without a referent were being forcibly appropriated, locked into an impoverished patriotic framework, interpreted for “us” by a compliant media and an opportunistic regime eager to reign in civil liberties, to unloose its war machine and tighten its grip on the Muslim world. That day, drawn to the river again, I had watched F18 fighter jets flying patterns over Manhattan as Bush’s helicopters came in across the river. Otherwise empty of air traffic, “our” skies were being torn up by the military jets: it was somehow the worst sight yet, worse than the wreckage or the bands of disaster tourists on Canal Street, a sign of further violence yet to come. There was a carrier out there beyond New York harbor, there to protect us: the bruising, blustering city once open to all comers. That felt worst of all. In the intervening weeks, we have seen other, more unstable ways of interpreting the signs of September 11 and its aftermath. Many have circulated on the Internet, past the blockages and blockades placed on urban spaces and intellectual life. Karl-Heinz Stockhausen’s work was banished (at least temporarily) from the canon of avant-garde electronic music when he described the attack on las torres gemelas as akin to a work of art. If Jacques Derrida had described it as an act of deconstruction (turning technological modernity literally in on itself), or Jean Baudrillard had announced that the event was so thick with mediation it had not truly taken place, something similar would have happened to them (and still may). This is because, as Don DeLillo so eloquently put it in implicit reaction to the plaintive cry “Why do they hate us?”: “it is the power of American culture to penetrate every wall, home, life and mind”—whether via military action or cultural iconography. All these positions are correct, however grisly and annoying they may be. What GK Chesterton called the “flints and tiles” of nineteenth-century European urban existence were rent asunder like so many victims of high-altitude US bombing raids. As a First-World disaster, it became knowable as the first-ever US “ground zero” such precisely through the high premium immediately set on the lives of Manhattan residents and the rarefied discussion of how to commemorate the high-altitude towers. When, a few weeks later, an American Airlines plane crashed on take-off from Queens, that borough was left open to all comers. Manhattan was locked down, flown over by “friendly” bombers. In stark contrast to the open if desperate faces on the street of 11 September, people went about their business with heads bowed even lower than is customary. Contradictory deconstructions and valuations of Manhattan lives mean that September 11 will live in infamy and hyper-knowability. The vengeful United States government and population continue on their way. Local residents must ponder insurance claims, real-estate values, children’s terrors, and their own roles in something beyond their ken. New York had been forced beyond being the center of the financial world. It had become a military target, a place that was receiving as well as dispatching the slings and arrows of global fortune. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby. "A Day That Will Live In … ?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.1 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php>. Chicago Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby, "A Day That Will Live In … ?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 1 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Deer, Patrick and Miller, Toby. (2002) A Day That Will Live In … ?. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(1). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/adaythat.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

Introduction The social roles of alcohol consumption are rich and varied, with different types of alcoholic beverages reflecting important symbolic and cultural meanings. Sparkling wine is especially notable for its association with secular and sacred celebrations. Indeed, sparkling wine is rarely drunk as a matter of routine; bottles of such wine signal special occasions, heightened by the formality and excitement associated with opening the bottle and controlling (or not!) the resultant fizz (Faith). Originating in England and France in the late 1600s, sparkling wine marked a dramatic shift in winemaking techniques, with winemakers deliberately adding “fizz” or bubbles to their product (Faith). The resulting effervescent wines were first enjoyed by the social elite of European society, signifying privilege, wealth, luxury and nobility; however, new techniques for producing, selling and distributing the wines created a mass consumer culture (Guy). Production of Australian sparkling wines began in the late nineteenth century and consumption remains popular. As a “new world” country – that is, one not located in the wine producing areas of Europe – Australian sparkling wines cannot directly draw on the same marketing traditions as those of the “old world”. One enterprising company, Treasury Wine Estates, markets a range of wines, including a sparkling variety, called 19 Crimes, that draws, not on European traditions tied to luxury, wealth and prestige, but Australia’s colonial history. Using Augmented Reality and interactive story-telling, 19 Crimes wine labels feature convicts who had committed one or more of 19 crimes punishable by transportation to Australia from Britain. The marketing of sparkling wine using convict images and convict stories of transportation have not diminished the celebratory role of consuming “bubbly”. Rather, in exploring the marketing techniques employed by the company, particularly when linked to the traditional drink of celebration, we argue that 19 Crimes, while fun and informative, nevertheless romanticises convict experiences and Australia’s convict past. Convict Heritage and Re-Appropriating the Convict Image Australia’s cultural heritage is undeniably linked to its convict past. Convicts were transported to Australia from England and Ireland over an 80-year period between 1788-1868. While the convict system in Australia was not predominantly characterised by incarceration and institutionalisation (Jones 18) the work they performed was often forced and physically taxing, and food and clothing shortages were common. Transportation meant exile, and “it was a fierce punishment that ejected men, women and children from their homelands into distant and unknown territories” (Bogle 23). Convict experiences of transportation often varied and were dependent not just on the offender themselves (for example their original crime, how willing they were to work and their behaviour), but also upon the location they were sent to. “Normal” punishment could include solitary confinement, physical reprimands (flogging) or hard labour in chain gangs. From the time that transportation ceased in the mid 1800s, efforts were made to distance Australia’s future from the “convict stain” of its past (Jones). Many convict establishments were dismantled or repurposed with the intent of forgetting the past, although some became sites of tourist visitation from the time of closure. Importantly, however, the wider political and social reluctance to engage in discourse regarding Australia’s “unsavoury historical incident” of its convict past continued up until the 1970s (Jones 26). During the 1970s Australia’s convict heritage began to be discussed more openly, and indeed, more favourably (Welch 597). Many today now view Australia’s convicts as “reluctant pioneers” (Barnard 7), and as such they are celebrated within our history. In short, the convict heritage is now something to be celebrated rather than shunned. This celebration has been capitalised upon by tourist industries and more recently by wine label 19 Crimes. “19 Crimes: Cheers to the Infamous” The Treasury Wine Estates brand launched 19 Crimes in 2011 to a target population of young men aged between 18 and 34 (Lyons). Two limited edition vintages sold out in 2011 with “virtually no promotion” (19 Crimes, “Canadians”). In 2017, 19 Crimes became the first wine to use an Augmented Reality (AR) app (the app was later renamed Living Wines Labels in 2018) that allowed customers to hover their [smart] phone in front of a bottle of the wine and [watch] mugshots of infamous 18th century British criminals come to life as 3D characters who recount their side of the story. Having committed at least one of the 19 crimes punishable by exile to Australia, these convicts now humor and delight wine drinkers across the globe. (Lirie) Given the target audience of the 19 Crimes wine was already 18-34 year old males, AR made sense as a marketing technique. Advertisers are well aware the millennial generation is “digitally empowered” and the AR experience was created to not only allow “consumers to engage with 19 Crimes wines but also explore some of the stories of Australia’s convict past … [as] told by the convicts-turned-colonists themselves!” (Lilley cited in Szentpeteri 1-2). The strategy encourages people to collect convicts by purchasing other 19 Crimes alcohol to experience a wider range of stories. The AR has been highly praised: they [the labels] animate, explaining just what went down and giving a richer experience to your beverage; engaging both the mind and the taste buds simultaneously … . ‘A fantastic app that brings a little piece of history to life’, writes one user on the Apple app store. ‘I jumped out of my skin when the mugshot spoke to me’. (Stone) From here, the success of 19 Crimes has been widespread. For example, in November 2020, media reports indicated that 19 Crimes red wine was the most popular supermarket wine in the UK (Lyons; Pearson-Jones). During the UK COVID lockdown in 2020, 19 Crimes sales increased by 148 per cent in volume (Pearson-Jones). This success is in no small part to its innovative marketing techniques, which of course includes the AR technology heralded as a way to enhance the customer experience (Lirie). The 19 Crimes wine label explicitly celebrates infamous convicts turned settlers. The website “19 Crimes: Cheers to the Infamous” incorporates ideas of celebration, champagne and bubbles by encouraging people to toast their mates: the convicts on our wines are not fiction. They were of flesh and blood, criminals and scholars. Their punishment of transportation should have shattered their spirits. Instead, it forged a bond stronger than steel. Raise a glass to our convict past and the principles these brave men and women lived by. (19 Crimes, “Cheers”) While using alcohol, and in particular sparkling wine, to participate in a toasting ritual is the “norm” for many social situations, what is distinctive about the 19 Crimes label is that they have chosen to merchandise and market known offenders for individuals to encounter and collect as part of their drinking entertainment. This is an innovative and highly popular concept. According to one marketing company: “19 Crimes Wines celebrate the rebellious spirit of the more than 160,000 exiled men and women, the rule breakers and law defying citizens that forged a new culture and national spirit in Australia” (Social Playground). The implication is that by drinking this brand of [sparkling] wine, consumers are also partaking in celebrating those convicts who “forged” Australian culture and national spirit. In many ways, this is not a “bad thing”. 19 Crimes are promoting Australian cultural history in unique ways and on a very public and international scale. The wine also recognises the hard work and success stories of the many convicts that did indeed build Australia. Further, 19 Crimes are not intentionally minimising the experiences of convicts. They implicitly acknowledge the distress felt by convicts noting that it “should have shattered their spirits”. However, at times, the narratives and marketing tools romanticise the convict experience and culturally reinterpret a difficult experience into one of novelty. They also tap into Australia’s embracement of larrikinism. In many ways, 19 Crimes are encouraging consumers to participate in larrikin behaviour, which Bellanta identifies as being irreverent, mocking authority, showing a disrespect for social subtleties and engaging in boisterous drunkenness with mates. Celebrating convict history with a glass of bubbly certainly mocks authority, as does participating in cultural practices that subvert original intentions. Several companies in the US and Europe are now reportedly offering the service of selling wine bottle labels with customisable mugshots. Journalist Legaspi suggests that the perfect gift for anyone who wants a sparkling wine or cider to toast with during the Yuletide season would be having a customisable mugshot as a wine bottle label. The label comes with the person’s mugshot along with a “goofy ‘crime’ that fits the person-appealing” (Sotelo cited in Legaspi). In 2019, Social Playground partnered with MAAKE and Dan Murphy's stores around Australia to offer customers their own personalised sticker mugshots that could be added to the wine bottles. The campaign was intended to drive awareness of 19 Crimes, and mugshot photo areas were set up in each store. Customers could then pose for a photo against the “mug shot style backdrop. Each photo was treated with custom filters to match the wine labels actual packaging” and then printed on a sticker (Social Playground). The result was a fun photo moment, delivered as a personalised experience. Shoppers were encouraged to purchase the product to personalise their bottle, with hundreds of consumers taking up the offer. With instant SMS delivery, consumers also received a branded print that could be shared so [sic] social media, driving increased brand awareness for 19 Crimes. (Social Playground) While these customised labels were not interactive, they lent a unique and memorable spin to the wine. In many circumstances, adding personalised photographs to wine bottles provides a perfect and unique gift; yet, could be interpreted as making light of the conditions experienced by convicts. However, within our current culture, which celebrates our convict heritage and embraces crime consumerism, the reframing of a mugshot from a tool used by the State to control into a novelty gift or memento becomes culturally acceptable and desirable. Indeed, taking a larrikin stance, the reframing of the mugshot is to be encouraged. It should be noted that while some prisons were photographing criminals as early as the 1840s, it was not common practice before the 1870s in England. The Habitual Criminals Act of 1869 has been attributed with accelerating the use of criminal photographs, and in 1871 the Crimes Prevention Act mandated the photographing of criminals (Clark). Further, in Australia, convicts only began to be photographed in the early 1870s (Barnard) and only in Western Australia and Port Arthur (Convict Records, “Resources”), restricting the availability of images which 19 Crimes can utilise. The marketing techniques behind 19 Crimes and the Augmented app offered by Living Wines Labels ensure that a very particular picture of the convicts is conveyed to its customers. As seen above, convicts are labelled in jovial terms such as “rule breakers”, having a “rebellious spirit” or “law defying citizens”, again linking to notions of larrikinism and its celebration. 19 Crimes have been careful to select convicts that have a story linked to “rule breaking, culture creating and overcoming adversity” (19 Crimes, “Snoop”) as well as convicts who have become settlers, or in other words, the “success stories”. This is an ingenious marketing strategy. Through selecting success stories, 19 Crimes are able to create an environment where consumers can enjoy their bubbly while learning about a dark period of Australia’s heritage. Yet, there is a distancing within the narratives that these convicts are actually “criminals”, or where their criminal behaviour is acknowledged, it is presented in a way that celebrates it. Words such as criminals, thieves, assault, manslaughter and repeat offenders are foregone to ensure that consumers are never really reminded that they may be celebrating “bad” people. The crimes that make up 19 Crimes include: Grand Larceny, theft above the value of one shilling. Petty Larceny, theft under one shilling. Buying or receiving stolen goods, jewels, and plate... Stealing lead, iron, or copper, or buying or receiving. Impersonating an Egyptian. Stealing from furnished lodgings. Setting fire to underwood. Stealing letters, advancing the postage, and secreting the money. Assault with an intent to rob. Stealing fish from a pond or river. Stealing roots, trees, or plants, or destroying them. Bigamy. Assaulting, cutting, or burning clothes. Counterfeiting the copper coin... Clandestine marriage. Stealing a shroud out of a grave. Watermen carrying too many passengers on the Thames, if any drowned. Incorrigible rogues who broke out of Prison and persons reprieved from capital punishment. Embeuling Naval Stores, in certain cases. (19 Crimes, “Crimes”) This list has been carefully chosen to fit the narrative that convicts were transported in the main for what now appear to be minimal offences, rather than for serious crimes which would otherwise have been punished by death, allowing the consumer to enjoy their bubbly without engaging too closely with the convict story they are experiencing. The AR experience offered by these labels provides consumers with a glimpse of the convicts’ stories. Generally, viewers are told what crime the convict committed, a little of the hardships they encountered and the success of their outcome. Take for example the transcript of the Blanc de Blancs label: as a soldier I fought for country. As a rebel I fought for cause. As a man I fought for freedom. My name is James Wilson and I fight to the end. I am not ashamed to speak the truth. I was tried for treason. Banished to Australia. Yet I challenged my fate and brought six of my brothers to freedom. Think that we have been nearly nine years in this living tomb since our first arrest and that it is impossible for mind or body to withstand the continual strain that is upon them. One or the other must give way. While the contrived voice of James Wilson speaks about continual strain on the body and mind, and having to live in a “living tomb” [Australia] the actual difficulties experienced by convicts is not really engaged with. Upon further investigation, it is also evident that James Wilson was not an ordinary convict, nor was he strictly tried for treason. Information on Wilson is limited, however from what is known it is clear that he enlisted in the British Army at age 17 to avoid arrest when he assaulted a policeman (Snoots). In 1864 he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and became a Fenian; which led him to desert the British Army in 1865. The following year he was arrested for desertion and was convicted by the Dublin General Court Martial for the crime of being an “Irish rebel” (Convict Records, “Wilson”), desertion and mutinous conduct (photo from the Wild Geese Memorial cited in The Silver Voice). Prior to transportation, Wilson was photographed at Dublin Mountjoy Prison in 1866 (Manuscripts and Archives Division), and this is the photo that appears on the Blanc de Blancs label. He arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia on 9 January 1868. On 3 June 1869 Wilson “was sentenced to fourteen days solitary, confinement including ten days on bread and water” (photo from the Wild Geese Memorial cited in The Silver Voice) for an unknown offence or breach of conduct. A few years into his sentence he sent a letter to a fellow Fenian New York journalist John Devoy. Wilson wrote that his was a voice from the tomb. For is not this a living tomb? In the tomb it is only a man’s body is good for the worms but in this living tomb the canker worm of care enters the very soul. Think that we have been nearly nine years in this living tomb since our first arrest and that it is impossible for mind or body to withstand the continual strain that is upon them. One or the other must give way. (Wilson, 1874, cited in FitzSimons; emphasis added) Note the last two lines of the extract of the letter have been used verbatim by 19 Crimes to create their interactive label. This letter sparked a rescue mission which saw James Wilson and five of his fellow prisoners being rescued and taken to America where Wilson lived out his life (Reid). This escape has been nicknamed “The Great Escape” and a memorial was been built in 2005 in Rockingham where the escape took place. While 19 Crimes have re-created many elements of Wilson’s story in the interactive label, they have romanticised some aspects while generalising the conditions endured by convicts. For example, citing treason as Wilson’s crime rather than desertion is perhaps meant to elicit more sympathy for his situation. Further, the selection of a Fenian convict (who were often viewed as political prisoners that were distinct from the “criminal convicts”; Amos) allows 19 Crimes to build upon narratives of rule breaking by focussing on a convict who was sent to Australia for fighting for what he believed in. In this way, Wilson may not be seen as a “real” criminal, but rather someone to be celebrated and admired. Conclusion As a “new world” producer of sparkling wine, it was important for 19 Crimes to differentiate itself from the traditionally more sophisticated market of sparkling-wine consumers. At a lower price range, 19 Crimes caters to a different, predominantly younger, less wealthy clientele, who nevertheless consume alcoholic drinks symbolic to the occasion. The introduction of an effervescent wine to their already extensive collection encourages consumers to buy their product to use in celebratory contexts where the consumption of bubbly defines the occasion. The marketing of Blanc de Blancs directly draws upon ideas of celebration whilst promoting an image and story of a convict whose situation is admired – not the usual narrative that one associates with celebration and bubbly. Blanc de Blancs, and other 19 Crimes wines, celebrate “the rules they [convicts] broke and the culture they built” (19 Crimes, “Crimes”). This is something that the company actively promotes through its website and elsewhere. Using AR, 19 Crimes are providing drinkers with selective vantage points that often sensationalise the reality of transportation and disengage the consumer from that reality (Wise and McLean 569). Yet, 19 Crimes are at least engaging with the convict narrative and stimulating interest in the convict past. Consumers are being informed, convicts are being named and their stories celebrated instead of shunned. Consumers are comfortable drinking bubbly from a bottle that features a convict because the crimes committed by the convict (and/or to the convict by the criminal justice system) occurred so long ago that they have now been romanticised as part of Australia’s colourful history. The mugshot has been re-appropriated within our culture to become a novelty or fun interactive experience in many social settings. For example, many dark tourist sites allow visitors to take home souvenir mugshots from decommissioned police and prison sites to act as a memento of their visit. The promotional campaign for people to have their own mugshot taken and added to a wine bottle, while now a cultural norm, may diminish the real intent behind a mugshot for some people. For example, while drinking your bubbly or posing for a fake mugshot, it may be hard to remember that at the time their photographs were taken, convicts and transportees were “ordered to sit for the camera” (Barnard 7), so as to facilitate State survelliance and control over these individuals (Wise and McLean 562). Sparkling wine, and the bubbles that it contains, are intended to increase fun and enjoyment. Yet, in the case of 19 Crimes, the application of a real-life convict to a sparkling wine label adds an element of levity, but so too novelty and romanticism to what are ultimately narratives of crime and criminal activity; thus potentially “making light” of the convict experience. 19 Crimes offers consumers a remarkable way to interact with our convict heritage. The labels and AR experience promote an excitement and interest in convict heritage with potential to spark discussion around transportation. The careful selection of convicts and recognition of the hardships surrounding transportation have enabled 19 Crimes to successfully re-appropriate the convict image for celebratory occasions. References 19 Crimes. “Cheers to the Infamous.” 19 Crimes, 2020. 14 Dec. 2020 <https://www.19crimes.com>. ———. “The 19 Crimes.” 19 Crimes, 2020. 14 Dec. 2020 <https://www.19crimes.com/en-au/the-19-crimes>. ———. “19 Crimes Announces Multi-Year Partnership with Entertainment Icon Snoop Dogg.” PR Newswire 16 Apr. 2020. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/19-crimes-announces-multi-year-partnership-with-entertainment-icon-snoop-dogg-301041585.html>. ———. “19 Crimes Canadians Not Likely to Commit, But Clamouring For.” PR Newswire 10 Oct. 2013. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/19-crimes-canadians-not-likely-to-commit-but-clamouring-for-513086721.html>. Amos, Keith William. The Fenians and Australia c 1865-1880. Doctoral thesis, UNE, 1987. <https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/12781>. Barnard, Edwin. Exiled: The Port Arthur Convict Photographs. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2010. Bellanta, Melissa. Larrikins: A History. University of Queensland Press. Bogle, Michael. Convicts: Transportation and Australia. Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 2008. Clark, Julia. ‘Through a Glass, Darkly’: The Camera, the Convict and the Criminal Life. PhD Dissertation, University of Tasmania, 2015. Convict Records. “James Wilson.” Convict Records 2020. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/wilson/james/72523>. ———. “Convict Resources.” Convict Records 2021. 23 Feb. 2021 <https://convictrecords.com.au/resources>. Faith, Nicholas. The Story of Champagne. Oxford: Infinite Ideas, 2016. FitzSimons, Peter. “The Catalpa: How the Plan to Break Free Irish Prisoners in Fremantle Was Hatched, and Funded.” Sydney Morning Herald 21 Apr. 2019. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-catalpa-how-the-plan-to-break-free-irish-prisoners-in-fremantle-was-hatched-and-funded-20190416-p51eq2.html>. Guy, Kolleen. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National identity. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins UP, 2007. Jones, Jennifer Kathleen. Historical Archaeology of Tourism at Port Arthur, Tasmania, 1885-1960. PhD Dissertation, Simon Fraser University, 2016. Legaspi, John. “Need a Wicked Gift Idea? Try This Wine Brand’s Customizable Bottle Label with Your Own Mugshot.” Manila Bulletin 18 Nov. 2020. 14 Dec. 2020 <https://mb.com.ph/2020/11/18/need-a-wicked-gift-idea-try-this-wine-brands-customizable-bottle-label-with-your-own-mugshot/>. Lirie. “Augmented Reality Example: Marketing Wine with 19 Crimes.” Boot Camp Digital 13 Mar. 2018. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://bootcampdigital.com/blog/augmented-reality-example-marketing-wine-19-crimes/>. Lyons, Matthew. “19 Crimes Named UK’s Favourite Supermarket Wine.” Harpers 23 Nov. 2020. 14 Dec. 2020 <https://harpers.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/28104/19_Crimes_named_UK_s_favourite_supermarket_wine.html>. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. "John O'Reilly, 10th Hussars; Thomas Delany; James Wilson, See James Thomas, Page 16; Martin Hogan, See O'Brien, Same Page (16)." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1866. <https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-9768-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99>. Pearson-Jones, Bridie. “Cheers to That! £9 Bottle of Australian Red Inspired by 19 Crimes That Deported Convicts in 18th Century Tops List as UK’s Favourite Supermarket Wine.” Daily Mail 22 Nov. 2020. 14 Dec. 2020 <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-8933567/19-Crimes-Red-UKs-favourite-supermarket-wine.html>. Reid, Richard. “Object Biography: ‘A Noble Whale Ship and Commander’ – The Catalpa Rescue, April 1876.” National Museum of Australia n.d. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://www.nma.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/2553/NMA_Catalpa.pdf>. Snoots, Jen. “James Wilson.” Find A Grave 2007. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19912884/james-wilson>. Social Playground. “Printing Wine Labels with 19 Crimes.” Social Playground 2019. 14 Dec. 2020 <https://www.socialplayground.com.au/case-studies/maake-19-crimes>. Stone, Zara. “19 Crimes Wine Is an Amazing Example of Adult Targeted Augmented Reality.” Forbes 12 Dec. 2017. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/zarastone/2017/12/12/19-crimes-wine-is-an-amazing-example-of-adult-targeted-augmented-reality/?sh=492a551d47de>. Szentpeteri, Chloe. “Sales and Marketing: Label Design and Printing: Augmented Reality Bringing Bottles to Life: How Treasury Wine Estates Forged a New Era of Wine Label Design.” Australian and New Zealand Grapegrower and Winemaker 654 (2018): 84-85. The Silver Voice. “The Greatest Propaganda Coup in Fenian History.” A Silver Voice From Ireland 2017. 15 Dec. 2020 <https://thesilvervoice.wordpress.com/tag/james-wilson/>. Welch, Michael. “Penal Tourism and the ‘Dream of Order’: Exhibiting Early Penology in Argentina and Australia.” Punishment & Society 14.5 (2012): 584-615. Wise, Jenny, and Lesley McLean. “Pack of Thieves: The Visual Representation of Prisoners and Convicts in Dark Tourist Sites.” The Palgrave Handbook of Incarceration in Popular Culture. Eds. Marcus K. Harmes, Meredith A. Harmes, and Barbara Harmes. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. 555-73.

Abstract:

Introduction Food has always been an essential component of daily life. Today, thinking about food is a much more complicated pursuit than planning the next meal, with food studies scholars devoting their efforts to researching “anything pertaining to food and eating, from how food is grown to when and how it is eaten, to who eats it and with whom, and the nutritional quality” (Duran and MacDonald 234). This is in addition to the work undertaken by an increasingly wide variety of popular culture researchers who explore all aspects of food (Risson and Brien 3): including food advertising, food packaging, food on television, and food in popular fiction. In creating stories, from those works that quickly disappear from bookstore shelves to those that become entrenched in the literary canon, writers use food to communicate the everyday and to explore a vast range of ideas from cultural background to social standing, and also use food to provide perspectives “into the cultural and historical uniqueness of a given social group” (Piatti-Farnell 80). For example in Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens, the central character challenges the class system when: “Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery. He rose from the table, and advancing basin and spoon in hand, to the master, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity–‘Please, sir, I want some more’” (11). Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) makes a similar point, a little more dramatically, when she declares: “As God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again” (419). Food can also take us into the depths of another culture: places that many of us will only ever read about. Food is also used to provide insight into a character’s state of mind. In Nora Ephron’s Heartburn (1983) an item as simple as boiled bread tells a reader so much more about Rachel Samstat than her preferred bakery items: “So we got married and I got pregnant and I gave up my New York apartment and moved to Washington. Talk about mistakes [...] there I was, trying to hold up my end in a city where you can’t even buy a decent bagel” (34). There are three ways in which writers can deal with food within their work. Firstly, food can be totally ignored. This approach is sometimes taken despite food being such a standard feature of storytelling that its absence, be it a lonely meal at home, elegant canapés at an impressively catered cocktail party, or a cheap sandwich collected from a local café, is an obvious omission. Food can also add realism to a story, with many authors putting as much effort into conjuring the smell, taste, and texture of food as they do into providing a backstory and a purpose for their characters. In recent years, a third way has emerged with some writers placing such importance upon food in fiction that the line that divides the cookbook and the novel has become distorted. This article looks at cookbooks and cookery in popular fiction with a particular focus on crime novels. Recipes: Ingredients and Preparation Food in fiction has been employed, with great success, to help characters cope with grief; giving them the reassurance that only comes through the familiarity of the kitchen and the concentration required to fulfil routine tasks: to chop and dice, to mix, to sift and roll, to bake, broil, grill, steam, and fry. Such grief can come from the breakdown of a relationship as seen in Nora Ephron’s Heartburn (1983). An autobiography under the guise of fiction, this novel is the first-person story of a cookbook author, a description that irritates the narrator as she feels her works “aren’t merely cookbooks” (95). She is, however, grateful she was not described as “a distraught, rejected, pregnant cookbook author whose husband was in love with a giantess” (95). As the collapse of the marriage is described, her favourite recipes are shared: Bacon Hash; Four Minute Eggs; Toasted Almonds; Lima Beans with Pears; Linguine Alla Cecca; Pot Roast; three types of Potatoes; Sorrel Soup; desserts including Bread Pudding, Cheesecake, Key Lime Pie and Peach Pie; and a Vinaigrette, all in an effort to reassert her personal skills and thus personal value. Grief can also result from loss of hope and the realisation that a life long dreamed of will never be realised. Like Water for Chocolate (1989), by Laura Esquivel, is the magical realist tale of Tita De La Garza who, as the youngest daughter, is forbidden to marry as she must take care of her mother, a woman who: “Unquestionably, when it came to dividing, dismantling, dismembering, desolating, detaching, dispossessing, destroying or dominating […] was a pro” (87). Tita’s life lurches from one painful, unjust episode to the next; the only emotional stability she has comes from the kitchen, and from her cooking of a series of dishes: Christmas Rolls; Chabela Wedding Cake; Quail in Rose Petal Sauce; Turkey Mole; Northern-style Chorizo; Oxtail Soup; Champandongo; Chocolate and Three Kings’s Day Bread; Cream Fritters; and Beans with Chilli Tezcucana-style. This is a series of culinary-based activities that attempts to superimpose normalcy on a life that is far from the everyday. Grief is most commonly associated with death. Undertaking the selection, preparation and presentation of meals in novels dealing with bereavement is both a functional and symbolic act: life must go on for those left behind but it must go on in a very different way. Thus, novels that use food to deal with loss are particularly important because they can “make non-cooks believe they can cook, and for frequent cooks, affirm what they already know: that cooking heals” (Baltazar online). In Angelina’s Bachelors (2011) by Brian O’Reilly, Angelina D’Angelo believes “cooking was not just about food. It was about character” (2). By the end of the first chapter the young woman’s husband is dead and she is in the kitchen looking for solace, and survival, in cookery. In The Kitchen Daughter (2011) by Jael McHenry, Ginny Selvaggio is struggling to cope with the death of her parents and the friends and relations who crowd her home after the funeral. Like Angelina, Ginny retreats to the kitchen. There are, of course, exceptions. In Ntozake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982), cooking celebrates, comforts, and seduces (Calta). This story of three sisters from South Carolina is told through diary entries, narrative, letters, poetry, songs, and spells. Recipes are also found throughout the text: Turkey; Marmalade; Rice; Spinach; Crabmeat; Fish; Sweetbread; Duck; Lamb; and, Asparagus. Anthony Capella’s The Food of Love (2004), a modern retelling of the classic tale of Cyrano de Bergerac, is about the beautiful Laura, a waiter masquerading as a top chef Tommaso, and the talented Bruno who, “thick-set, heavy, and slightly awkward” (21), covers for Tommaso’s incompetency in the kitchen as he, too, falls for Laura. The novel contains recipes and contains considerable information about food: Take fusilli […] People say this pasta was designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself. The spiral fins carry the biggest amount of sauce relative to the surface area, you see? But it only works with a thick, heavy sauce that can cling to the grooves. Conchiglie, on the other hand, is like a shell, so it holds a thin, liquid sauce inside it perfectly (17). Recipes: Dishing Up Death Crime fiction is a genre with a long history of focusing on food; from the theft of food in the novels of the nineteenth century to the utilisation of many different types of food such as chocolate, marmalade, and sweet omelettes to administer poison (Berkeley, Christie, Sayers), the latter vehicle for arsenic receiving much attention in Harriet Vane’s trial in Dorothy L. Sayers’s Strong Poison (1930). The Judge, in summing up the case, states to the members of the jury: “Four eggs were brought to the table in their shells, and Mr Urquhart broke them one by one into a bowl, adding sugar from a sifter [...he then] cooked the omelette in a chafing dish, filled it with hot jam” (14). Prior to what Timothy Taylor has described as the “pre-foodie era” the crime fiction genre was “littered with corpses whose last breaths smelled oddly sweet, or bitter, or of almonds” (online). Of course not all murders are committed in such a subtle fashion. In Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter (1953), Mary Maloney murders her policeman husband, clubbing him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb. The meat is roasting nicely when her husband’s colleagues arrive to investigate his death, the lamb is offered and consumed: the murder weapon now beyond the recovery of investigators. Recent years have also seen more and more crime fiction writers present a central protagonist working within the food industry, drawing connections between the skills required for food preparation and those needed to catch a murderer. Working with cooks or crooks, or both, requires planning and people skills in addition to creative thinking, dedication, reliability, stamina, and a willingness to take risks. Kent Carroll insists that “food and mysteries just go together” (Carroll in Calta), with crime fiction website Stop, You’re Killing Me! listing, at the time of writing, over 85 culinary-based crime fiction series, there is certainly sufficient evidence to support his claim. Of the numerous works available that focus on food there are many series that go beyond featuring food and beverages, to present recipes as well as the solving of crimes. These include: the Candy Holliday Murder Mysteries by B. B. Haywood; the Coffeehouse Mysteries by Cleo Coyle; the Hannah Swensen Mysteries by Joanne Fluke; the Hemlock Falls Mysteries by Claudia Bishop; the Memphis BBQ Mysteries by Riley Adams; the Piece of Cake Mysteries by Jacklyn Brady; the Tea Shop Mysteries by Laura Childs; and, the White House Chef Mysteries by Julie Hyzy. The vast majority of offerings within this female dominated sub-genre that has been labelled “Crime and Dine” (Collins online) are American, both in origin and setting. A significant contribution to this increasingly popular formula is, however, from an Australian author Kerry Greenwood. Food features within her famed Phryne Fisher Series with recipes included in A Question of Death (2007). Recipes also form part of Greenwood’s food-themed collection of short crime stories Recipes for Crime (1995), written with Jenny Pausacker. These nine stories, each one imitating the style of one of crime fiction’s greatest contributors (from Agatha Christie to Raymond Chandler), allow readers to simultaneously access mysteries and recipes. 2004 saw the first publication of Earthly Delights and the introduction of her character, Corinna Chapman. This series follows the adventures of a woman who gave up a career as an accountant to open her own bakery in Melbourne. Corinna also investigates the occasional murder. Recipes can be found at the end of each of these books with the Corinna Chapman Recipe Book (nd), filled with instructions for baking bread, muffins and tea cakes in addition to recipes for main courses such as risotto, goulash, and “Chicken with Pineapple 1971 Style”, available from the publisher’s website. Recipes: Integration and Segregation In Heartburn (1983), Rachel acknowledges that presenting a work of fiction and a collection of recipes within a single volume can present challenges, observing: “I see that I haven’t managed to work in any recipes for a while. It’s hard to work in recipes when you’re moving the plot forward” (99). How Rachel tells her story is, however, a reflection of how she undertakes her work, with her own cookbooks being, she admits, more narration than instruction: “The cookbooks I write do well. They’re very personal and chatty–they’re cookbooks in an almost incidental way. I write chapters about friends or relatives or trips or experiences, and work in the recipes peripherally” (17). Some authors integrate detailed recipes into their narratives through description and dialogue. An excellent example of this approach can be found in the Coffeehouse Mystery Series by Cleo Coyle, in the novel On What Grounds (2003). When the central protagonist is being questioned by police, Clare Cosi’s answers are interrupted by a flashback scene and instructions on how to make Greek coffee: Three ounces of water and one very heaped teaspoon of dark roast coffee per serving. (I used half Italian roast, and half Maracaibo––a lovely Venezuelan coffee, named after the country’s major port; rich in flavour, with delicate wine overtones.) / Water and finely ground beans both go into the ibrik together. The water is then brought to a boil over medium heat (37). This provides insight into Clare’s character; that, when under pressure, she focuses her mind on what she firmly believes to be true – not the information that she is doubtful of or a situation that she is struggling to understand. Yet breaking up the action within a novel in this way–particularly within crime fiction, a genre that is predominantly dependant upon generating tension and building the pacing of the plotting to the climax–is an unusual but ultimately successful style of writing. Inquiry and instruction are comfortable bedfellows; as the central protagonists within these works discover whodunit, the readers discover who committed murder as well as a little bit more about one of the world’s most popular beverages, thus highlighting how cookbooks and novels both serve to entertain and to educate. Many authors will save their recipes, serving them up at the end of a story. This can be seen in Julie Hyzy’s White House Chef Mystery novels, the cover of each volume in the series boasts that it “includes Recipes for a Complete Presidential Menu!” These menus, with detailed ingredients lists, instructions for cooking and options for serving, are segregated from the stories and appear at the end of each work. Yet other writers will deploy a hybrid approach such as the one seen in Like Water for Chocolate (1989), where the ingredients are listed at the commencement of each chapter and the preparation for the recipes form part of the narrative. This method of integration is also deployed in The Kitchen Daughter (2011), which sees most of the chapters introduced with a recipe card, those chapters then going on to deal with action in the kitchen. Using recipes as chapter breaks is a structure that has, very recently, been adopted by Australian celebrity chef, food writer, and, now fiction author, Ed Halmagyi, in his new work, which is both cookbook and novel, The Food Clock: A Year of Cooking Seasonally (2012). As people exchange recipes in reality, so too do fictional characters. The Recipe Club (2009), by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel, is the story of two friends, Lilly Stone and Valerie Rudman, which is structured as an epistolary novel. As they exchange feelings, ideas and news in their correspondence, they also exchange recipes: over eighty of them throughout the novel in e-mails and letters. In The Food of Love (2004), written messages between two of the main characters are also used to share recipes. In addition, readers are able to post their own recipes, inspired by this book and other works by Anthony Capella, on the author’s website. From Page to Plate Some readers are contributing to the burgeoning food tourism market by seeking out the meals from the pages of their favourite novels in bars, cafés, and restaurants around the world, expanding the idea of “map as menu” (Spang 79). In Shannon McKenna Schmidt’s and Joni Rendon’s guide to literary tourism, Novel Destinations (2009), there is an entire section, “Eat Your Words: Literary Places to Sip and Sup”, dedicated to beverages and food. The listings include details for John’s Grill, in San Francisco, which still has on the menu Sam Spade’s Lamb Chops, served with baked potato and sliced tomatoes: a meal enjoyed by author Dashiell Hammett and subsequently consumed by his well-known protagonist in The Maltese Falcon (193), and the Café de la Paix, in Paris, frequented by Ian Fleming’s James Bond because “the food was good enough and it amused him to watch the people” (197). Those wanting to follow in the footsteps of writers can go to Harry’s Bar, in Venice, where the likes of Marcel Proust, Sinclair Lewis, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, and Truman Capote have all enjoyed a drink (195) or The Eagle and Child, in Oxford, which hosted the regular meetings of the Inklings––a group which included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien––in the wood-panelled Rabbit Room (203). A number of eateries have developed their own literary themes such as the Peacocks Tearooms, in Cambridgeshire, which blends their own teas. Readers who are also tea drinkers can indulge in the Sherlock Holmes (Earl Grey with Lapsang Souchong) and the Doctor Watson (Keemun and Darjeeling with Lapsang Souchong). Alternatively, readers may prefer to side with the criminal mind and indulge in the Moriarty (Black Chai with Star Anise, Pepper, Cinnamon, and Fennel) (Peacocks). The Moat Bar and Café, in Melbourne, situated in the basement of the State Library of Victoria, caters “to the whimsy and fantasy of the fiction housed above” and even runs a book exchange program (The Moat). For those readers who are unable, or unwilling, to travel the globe in search of such savoury and sweet treats there is a wide variety of locally-based literary lunches and other meals, that bring together popular authors and wonderful food, routinely organised by book sellers, literature societies, and publishing houses. There are also many cookbooks now easily obtainable that make it possible to re-create fictional food at home. One of the many examples available is The Book Lover’s Cookbook (2003) by Shaunda Kennedy Wenger and Janet Kay Jensen, a work containing over three hundred pages of: Breakfasts; Main & Side Dishes; Soups; Salads; Appetizers, Breads & Other Finger Foods; Desserts; and Cookies & Other Sweets based on the pages of children’s books, literary classics, popular fiction, plays, poetry, and proverbs. If crime fiction is your preferred genre then you can turn to Jean Evans’s The Crime Lover’s Cookbook (2007), which features short stories in between the pages of recipes. There is also Estérelle Payany’s Recipe for Murder (2010) a beautifully illustrated volume that presents detailed instructions for Pigs in a Blanket based on the Big Bad Wolf’s appearance in The Three Little Pigs (44–7), and Roast Beef with Truffled Mashed Potatoes, which acknowledges Patrick Bateman’s fondness for fine dining in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (124–7). Conclusion Cookbooks and many popular fiction novels are reflections of each other in terms of creativity, function, and structure. In some instances the two forms are so closely entwined that a single volume will concurrently share a narrative while providing information about, and instruction, on cookery. Indeed, cooking in books is becoming so popular that the line that traditionally separated cookbooks from other types of books, such as romance or crime novels, is becoming increasingly distorted. The separation between food and fiction is further blurred by food tourism and how people strive to experience some of the foods found within fictional works at bars, cafés, and restaurants around the world or, create such experiences in their own homes using fiction-themed recipe books. Food has always been acknowledged as essential for life; books have long been acknowledged as food for thought and food for the soul. Thus food in both the real world and in the imagined world serves to nourish and sustain us in these ways. References Adams, Riley. Delicious and Suspicious. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Finger Lickin’ Dead. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Hickory Smoked Homicide. New York: Berkley, 2011. Baltazar, Lori. “A Novel About Food, Recipes Included [Book review].” Dessert Comes First. 28 Feb. 2012. 20 Aug. 2012 ‹http://dessertcomesfirst.com/archives/8644›. Berkeley, Anthony. The Poisoned Chocolates Case. London: Collins, 1929. Bishop, Claudia. Toast Mortem. New York: Berkley, 2010. –– Dread on Arrival. New York: Berkley, 2012. Brady, Jacklyn. A Sheetcake Named Desire. New York: Berkley, 2011. –– Cake on a Hot Tin Roof. New York: Berkley, 2012. Calta, Marialisa. “The Art of the Novel as Cookbook.” The New York Times. 17 Feb. 1993. 23 Jul. 2012 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/style/the-art-of-the-novel-as-cookbook.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm›. Capella, Anthony. The Food of Love. London: Time Warner, 2004/2005. Carroll, Kent in Calta, Marialisa. “The Art of the Novel as Cookbook.” The New York Times. 17 Feb. 1993. 23 Jul. 2012 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/style/the-art-of-the-novel-as-cookbook.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm›. Childs, Laura. Death by Darjeeling. New York: Berkley, 2001. –– Shades of Earl Grey. New York: Berkley, 2003. –– Blood Orange Brewing. New York: Berkley, 2006/2007. –– The Teaberry Strangler. New York: Berkley, 2010/2011. Collins, Glenn. “Your Favourite Fictional Crime Moments Involving Food.” The New York Times Diner’s Journal: Notes on Eating, Drinking and Cooking. 16 Jul. 2012. 17 Jul. 2012 ‹http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/your-favorite-fictional-crime-moments-involving-food›. Coyle, Cleo. On What Grounds. New York: Berkley, 2003. –– Murder Most Frothy. New York: Berkley, 2006. –– Holiday Grind. New York: Berkley, 2009/2010. –– Roast Mortem. New York: Berkley, 2010/2011. Christie, Agatha. A Pocket Full of Rye. 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Abstract:

“As the old technologies become automatic and invisible, we find ourselves more concerned with fighting or embracing what’s new”—Dennis Baron, From Pencils to Pixels: The Stage of Literacy Technologies What constitutes a computer, as we have come to expect it? Are they necessarily monolithic “beige boxes”, connected to computer monitors, sitting on computer desks, located in computer rooms or computer labs? In order for a device to be considered a true computer, does it need to have a keyboard and mouse? If this were 1991 or earlier, our collective perception of what computers are and are not would largely be framed by this “beige box” model: computers are stationary, slab-like, and heavy, and their natural habitats must be in rooms specifically designated for that purpose. In 1992, when Apple introduced the first PowerBook, our perception began to change. Certainly there had been other portable computers prior to that, such as the Osborne 1, but these were more luggable than portable, weighing just slightly less than a typical sewing machine. The PowerBook and subsequent waves of laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and so-called smart phones from numerous other companies have steadily forced us to rethink and redefine what a computer is and is not, how we interact with them, and the manner in which these tools might be used in the classroom. However, this reconceptualization of computers is far from over, and is in fact steadily evolving as new devices are introduced, adopted, and subsequently adapted for uses beyond of their original purpose. Pat Crowe’s Book Reader project, for example, has morphed Nintendo’s GameBoy and GameBoy Advance into a viable electronic book platform, complete with images, sound, and multi-language support. (Crowe, 2003) His goal was to take this existing technology previously framed only within the context of proprietary adolescent entertainment, and repurpose it for open, flexible uses typically associated with learning and literacy. Similar efforts are underway to repurpose Microsoft’s Xbox, perhaps the ultimate symbol of “closed” technology given Microsoft’s propensity for proprietary code, in order to make it a viable platform for Open Source Software (OSS). However, these efforts are not forgone conclusions, and are in fact typical of the ongoing battle over who controls the technology we own in our homes, and how open source solutions are often at odds with a largely proprietary world. In late 2001, Microsoft launched the Xbox with a multimillion dollar publicity drive featuring events, commercials, live models, and statements claiming this new console gaming platform would “change video games the way MTV changed music”. (Chan, 2001) The Xbox launched with the following technical specifications: 733mhz Pentium III 64mb RAM, 8 or 10gb internal hard disk drive CD/DVD ROM drive (speed unknown) Nvidia graphics processor, with HDTV support 4 USB 1.1 ports (adapter required), AC3 audio 10/100 ethernet port, Optional 56k modem (TechTV, 2001) While current computers dwarf these specifications in virtually all areas now, for 2001 these were roughly on par with many desktop systems. The retail price at the time was $299, but steadily dropped to nearly half that with additional price cuts anticipated. Based on these features, the preponderance of “off the shelf” parts and components used, and the relatively reasonable price, numerous programmers quickly became interested in seeing it if was possible to run Linux and additional OSS on the Xbox. In each case, the goal has been similar: exceed the original purpose of the Xbox, to determine if and how well it might be used for basic computing tasks. If these attempts prove to be successful, the Xbox could allow institutions to dramatically increase the student-to-computer ratio in select environments, or allow individuals who could not otherwise afford a computer to instead buy and Xbox, download and install Linux, and use this new device to write, create, and innovate . This drive to literally and metaphorically “open” the Xbox comes from many directions. Such efforts include Andrew Huang’s self-published “Hacking the Xbox” book in which, under the auspices of reverse engineering, Huang analyzes the architecture of the Xbox, detailing step-by-step instructions for flashing the ROM, upgrading the hard drive and/or RAM, and generally prepping the device for use as an information appliance. Additional initiatives include Lindows CEO Michael Robertson’s $200,000 prize to encourage Linux development on the Xbox, and the Xbox Linux Project at SourceForge. What is Linux? Linux is an alternative operating system initially developed in 1991 by Linus Benedict Torvalds. Linux was based off a derivative of the MINIX operating system, which in turn was a derivative of UNIX. (Hasan 2003) Linux is currently available for Intel-based systems that would normally run versions of Windows, PowerPC-based systems that would normally run Apple’s Mac OS, and a host of other handheld, cell phone, or so-called “embedded” systems. Linux distributions are based almost exclusively on open source software, graphic user interfaces, and middleware components. While there are commercial Linux distributions available, these mainly just package the freely available operating system with bundled technical support, manuals, some exclusive or proprietary commercial applications, and related services. Anyone can still download and install numerous Linux distributions at no cost, provided they do not need technical support beyond the community / enthusiast level. Typical Linux distributions come with open source web browsers, word processors and related productivity applications (such as those found in OpenOffice.org), and related tools for accessing email, organizing schedules and contacts, etc. Certain Linux distributions are more or less designed for network administrators, system engineers, and similar “power users” somewhat distanced from that of our students. However, several distributions including Lycoris, Mandrake, LindowsOS, and other are specifically tailored as regular, desktop operating systems, with regular, everyday computer users in mind. As Linux has no draconian “product activation key” method of authentication, or digital rights management-laden features associated with installation and implementation on typical desktop and laptop systems, Linux is becoming an ideal choice both individually and institutionally. It still faces an uphill battle in terms of achieving widespread acceptance as a desktop operating system. As Finnie points out in Desktop Linux Edges Into The Mainstream: “to attract users, you need ease of installation, ease of device configuration, and intuitive, full-featured desktop user controls. It’s all coming, but slowly. With each new version, desktop Linux comes closer to entering the mainstream. It’s anyone’s guess as to when critical mass will be reached, but you can feel the inevitability: There’s pent-up demand for something different.” (Finnie 2003) Linux is already spreading rapidly in numerous capacities, in numerous countries. Linux has “taken hold wherever computer users desire freedom, and wherever there is demand for inexpensive software.” Reports from technology research company IDG indicate that roughly a third of computers in Central and South America run Linux. Several countries, including Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, have all but mandated that state-owned institutions adopt open source software whenever possible to “give their people the tools and education to compete with the rest of the world.” (Hills 2001) The Goal Less than a year after Microsoft introduced the The Xbox, the Xbox Linux project formed. The Xbox Linux Project has a goal of developing and distributing Linux for the Xbox gaming console, “so that it can be used for many tasks that Microsoft don’t want you to be able to do. ...as a desktop computer, for email and browsing the web from your TV, as a (web) server” (Xbox Linux Project 2002). Since the Linux operating system is open source, meaning it can freely be tinkered with and distributed, those who opt to download and install Linux on their Xbox can do so with relatively little overhead in terms of cost or time. Additionally, Linux itself looks very “windows-like”, making for fairly low learning curve. To help increase overall awareness of this project and assist in diffusing it, the Xbox Linux Project offers step-by-step installation instructions, with the end result being a system capable of using common peripherals such as a keyboard and mouse, scanner, printer, a “webcam and a DVD burner, connected to a VGA monitor; 100% compatible with a standard Linux PC, all PC (USB) hardware and PC software that works with Linux.” (Xbox Linux Project 2002) Such a system could have tremendous potential for technology literacy. Pairing an Xbox with Linux and OpenOffice.org, for example, would provide our students essentially the same capability any of them would expect from a regular desktop computer. They could send and receive email, communicate using instant messaging IRC, or newsgroup clients, and browse Internet sites just as they normally would. In fact, the overall browsing experience for Linux users is substantially better than that for most Windows users. Internet Explorer, the default browser on all systems running Windows-base operating systems, lacks basic features standard in virtually all competing browsers. Native blocking of “pop-up” advertisements is still not yet possible in Internet Explorer without the aid of a third-party utility. Tabbed browsing, which involves the ability to easily open and sort through multiple Web pages in the same window, often with a single mouse click, is also missing from Internet Explorer. The same can be said for a robust download manager, “find as you type”, and a variety of additional features. Mozilla, Netscape, Firefox, Konqueror, and essentially all other OSS browsers for Linux have these features. Of course, most of these browsers are also available for Windows, but Internet Explorer is still considered the standard browser for the platform. If the Xbox Linux Project becomes widely diffused, our students could edit and save Microsoft Word files in OpenOffice.org’s Writer program, and do the same with PowerPoint and Excel files in similar OpenOffice.org components. They could access instructor comments originally created in Microsoft Word documents, and in turn could add their own comments and send the documents back to their instructors. They could even perform many functions not yet capable in Microsoft Office, including saving files in PDF or Flash format without needing Adobe’s Acrobat product or Macromedia’s Flash Studio MX. Additionally, by way of this project, the Xbox can also serve as “a Linux server for HTTP/FTP/SMB/NFS, serving data such as MP3/MPEG4/DivX, or a router, or both; without a monitor or keyboard or mouse connected.” (Xbox Linux Project 2003) In a very real sense, our students could use these inexpensive systems previously framed only within the context of entertainment, for educational purposes typically associated with computer-mediated learning. Problems: Control and Access The existing rhetoric of technological control surrounding current and emerging technologies appears to be stifling many of these efforts before they can even be brought to the public. This rhetoric of control is largely typified by overly-restrictive digital rights management (DRM) schemes antithetical to education, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Combined,both are currently being used as technical and legal clubs against these efforts. Microsoft, for example, has taken a dim view of any efforts to adapt the Xbox to Linux. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who has repeatedly referred to Linux as a cancer and has equated OSS as being un-American, stated, “Given the way the economic model works - and that is a subsidy followed, essentially, by fees for every piece of software sold - our license framework has to do that.” (Becker 2003) Since the Xbox is based on a subsidy model, meaning that Microsoft actually sells the hardware at a loss and instead generates revenue off software sales, Ballmer launched a series of concerted legal attacks against the Xbox Linux Project and similar efforts. In 2002, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft simultaneously sued Lik Sang, Inc., a Hong Kong-based company that produces programmable cartridges and “mod chips” for the PlayStation II, Xbox, and Game Cube. Nintendo states that its company alone loses over $650 million each year due to piracy of their console gaming titles, which typically originate in China, Paraguay, and Mexico. (GameIndustry.biz) Currently, many attempts to “mod” the Xbox required the use of such chips. As Lik Sang is one of the only suppliers, initial efforts to adapt the Xbox to Linux slowed considerably. Despite that fact that such chips can still be ordered and shipped here by less conventional means, it does not change that fact that the chips themselves would be illegal in the U.S. due to the anticircumvention clause in the DMCA itself, which is designed specifically to protect any DRM-wrapped content, regardless of context. The Xbox Linux Project then attempted to get Microsoft to officially sanction their efforts. They were not only rebuffed, but Microsoft then opted to hire programmers specifically to create technological countermeasures for the Xbox, to defeat additional attempts at installing OSS on it. Undeterred, the Xbox Linux Project eventually arrived at a method of installing and booting Linux without the use of mod chips, and have taken a more defiant tone now with Microsoft regarding their circumvention efforts. (Lettice 2002) They state that “Microsoft does not want you to use the Xbox as a Linux computer, therefore it has some anti-Linux-protection built in, but it can be circumvented easily, so that an Xbox can be used as what it is: an IBM PC.” (Xbox Linux Project 2003) Problems: Learning Curves and Usability In spite of the difficulties imposed by the combined technological and legal attacks on this project, it has succeeded at infiltrating this closed system with OSS. It has done so beyond the mere prototype level, too, as evidenced by the Xbox Linux Project now having both complete, step-by-step instructions available for users to modify their own Xbox systems, and an alternate plan catering to those who have the interest in modifying their systems, but not the time or technical inclinations. Specifically, this option involves users mailing their Xbox systems to community volunteers within the Xbox Linux Project, and basically having these volunteers perform the necessary software preparation or actually do the full Linux installation for them, free of charge (presumably not including shipping). This particular aspect of the project, dubbed “Users Help Users”, appears to be fairly new. Yet, it already lists over sixty volunteers capable and willing to perform this service, since “Many users don’t have the possibility, expertise or hardware” to perform these modifications. Amazingly enough, in some cases these volunteers are barely out of junior high school. One such volunteer stipulates that those seeking his assistance keep in mind that he is “just 14” and that when performing these modifications he “...will not always be finished by the next day”. (Steil 2003) In addition to this interesting if somewhat unusual level of community-driven support, there are currently several Linux-based options available for the Xbox. The two that are perhaps the most developed are GentooX, which is based of the popular Gentoo Linux distribution, and Ed’s Debian, based off the Debian GNU / Linux distribution. Both Gentoo and Debian are “seasoned” distributions that have been available for some time now, though Daniel Robbins, Chief Architect of Gentoo, refers to the product as actually being a “metadistribution” of Linux, due to its high degree of adaptability and configurability. (Gentoo 2004) Specifically, the Robbins asserts that Gentoo is capable of being “customized for just about any application or need. ...an ideal secure server, development workstation, professional desktop, gaming system, embedded solution or something else—whatever you need it to be.” (Robbins 2004) He further states that the whole point of Gentoo is to provide a better, more usable Linux experience than that found in many other distributions. Robbins states that: “The goal of Gentoo is to design tools and systems that allow a user to do their work pleasantly and efficiently as possible, as they see fit. Our tools should be a joy to use, and should help the user to appreciate the richness of the Linux and free software community, and the flexibility of free software. ...Put another way, the Gentoo philosophy is to create better tools. When a tool is doing its job perfectly, you might not even be very aware of its presence, because it does not interfere and make its presence known, nor does it force you to interact with it when you don’t want it to. The tool serves the user rather than the user serving the tool.” (Robbins 2004) There is also a so-called “live CD” Linux distribution suitable for the Xbox, called dyne:bolic, and an in-progress release of Slackware Linux, as well. According to the Xbox Linux Project, the only difference between the standard releases of these distributions and their Xbox counterparts is that “...the install process – and naturally the bootloader, the kernel and the kernel modules – are all customized for the Xbox.” (Xbox Linux Project, 2003) Of course, even if Gentoo is as user-friendly as Robbins purports, even if the Linux kernel itself has become significantly more robust and efficient, and even if Microsoft again drops the retail price of the Xbox, is this really a feasible solution in the classroom? Does the Xbox Linux Project have an army of 14 year olds willing to modify dozens, perhaps hundreds of these systems for use in secondary schools and higher education? Of course not. If such an institutional rollout were to be undertaken, it would require significant support from not only faculty, but Department Chairs, Deans, IT staff, and quite possible Chief Information Officers. Disk images would need to be customized for each institution to reflect their respective needs, ranging from setting specific home pages on web browsers, to bookmarks, to custom back-up and / or disk re-imaging scripts, to network authentication. This would be no small task. Yet, the steps mentioned above are essentially no different than what would be required of any IT staff when creating a new disk image for a computer lab, be it one for a Windows-based system or a Mac OS X-based one. The primary difference would be Linux itself—nothing more, nothing less. The institutional difficulties in undertaking such an effort would likely be encountered prior to even purchasing a single Xbox, in that they would involve the same difficulties associated with any new hardware or software initiative: staffing, budget, and support. If the institutional in question is either unwilling or unable to address these three factors, it would not matter if the Xbox itself was as free as Linux. An Open Future, or a Closed one? It is unclear how far the Xbox Linux Project will be allowed to go in their efforts to invade an essentially a proprietary system with OSS. Unlike Sony, which has made deliberate steps to commercialize similar efforts for their PlayStation 2 console, Microsoft appears resolute in fighting OSS on the Xbox by any means necessary. They will continue to crack down on any companies selling so-called mod chips, and will continue to employ technological protections to keep the Xbox “closed”. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, in all likelihood Microsoft continue to equate any OSS efforts directed at the Xbox with piracy-related motivations. Additionally, Microsoft’s successor to the Xbox would likely include additional anticircumvention technologies incorporated into it that could set the Xbox Linux Project back by months, years, or could stop it cold. Of course, it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty how this “Xbox 2” (perhaps a more appropriate name might be “Nextbox”) will impact this project. Regardless of how this device evolves, there can be little doubt of the value of Linux, OpenOffice.org, and other OSS to teaching and learning with technology. This value exists not only in terms of price, but in increased freedom from policies and technologies of control. New Linux distributions from Gentoo, Mandrake, Lycoris, Lindows, and other companies are just now starting to focus their efforts on Linux as user-friendly, easy to use desktop operating systems, rather than just server or “techno-geek” environments suitable for advanced programmers and computer operators. While metaphorically opening the Xbox may not be for everyone, and may not be a suitable computing solution for all, I believe we as educators must promote and encourage such efforts whenever possible. I suggest this because I believe we need to exercise our professional influence and ultimately shape the future of technology literacy, either individually as faculty and collectively as departments, colleges, or institutions. Moran and Fitzsimmons-Hunter argue this very point in Writing Teachers, Schools, Access, and Change. One of their fundamental provisions they use to define “access” asserts that there must be a willingness for teachers and students to “fight for the technologies that they need to pursue their goals for their own teaching and learning.” (Taylor / Ward 160) Regardless of whether or not this debate is grounded in the “beige boxes” of the past, or the Xboxes of the present, much is at stake. Private corporations should not be in a position to control the manner in which we use legally-purchased technologies, regardless of whether or not these technologies are then repurposed for literacy uses. I believe the exigency associated with this control, and the ongoing evolution of what is and is not a computer, dictates that we assert ourselves more actively into this discussion. We must take steps to provide our students with the best possible computer-mediated learning experience, however seemingly unorthodox the technological means might be, so that they may think critically, communicate effectively, and participate actively in society and in their future careers. About the Author Paul Cesarini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Communication & Technology Education, Bowling Green State University, Ohio Email: pcesari@bgnet.bgsu.edu Works Cited http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/debian.php>.Baron, Denis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies.” Passions Pedagogies and 21st Century Technologies. Hawisher, Gail E., and Cynthia L. Selfe, Eds. Utah: Utah State University Press, 1999. 15 – 33. Becker, David. “Ballmer: Mod Chips Threaten Xbox”. News.com. 21 Oct 2002. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-962797.php>. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-978957.html?tag=nl>. http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/08/13/020813hnchina.xml>. http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/1062/>. http://www.bookreader.co.uk>.Finni, Scott. “Desktop Linux Edges Into The Mainstream”. TechWeb. 8 Apr 2003. http://www.techweb.com/tech/software/20030408_software. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/29439.html http://gentoox.shallax.com/. http://ragib.hypermart.net/linux/. http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2362/LWD010424latinlinux/pfindex.html. http://www.xbox-linux.sourceforge.net. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/27487.html. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/26078.html. http://www.us.playstation.com/peripherals.aspx?id=SCPH-97047. http://www.techtv.com/extendedplay/reviews/story/0,24330,3356862,00.html. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61984,00.html. http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2869075,00.html. http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/usershelpusers.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/fun.games/12/16/gamers.liksang/. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Cesarini, Paul. "“Opening” the Xbox" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/08_Cesarini.php>. APA Style Cesarini, P. (2004, Jul1). “Opening” the Xbox. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 7, <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/08_Cesarini.php>