A post on Henry Jenkins’ blog this morning pushed me toward thinking about media management in yet one more way (find the full post here). I’ve been concentrating on the relationship between two aspects of “management” as I move forward with establishing the media management area of concentration in the AAD program. On the one hand there is the technical and practical sense of the term, by which I refer to the administrative wrangling of media—the tech know-how, use skills, or savvy that we have about various media with which we are quite familiar. On the other hand, I’ve thought about “management” in relation to meaning and interpretation. That is, I’ve tried to focus on the ways in which people draw meaning from and invest identity in various mediated forms of culture. Running through both of these conceptualizations of “management,” I’ve emphasized a pluralistic sense of “media”: the term refers to technology as much as commuicative strategies, old or legacy forms as much as new and emergent forms.
The post on Jenkins’ blog—introduced by Jenkins himself, but largely penned by Anna Van Someren as an initial report on a new research project—focuses on what I’m thinking of as another facet of media management: the ways in which participation in media intersects with civic engagement. Van Someren briefly outlines two unrelated “flashmob” efforts: one ‘rewards’ business owners who attempt to incorporate ecologically-sound practices into their buisnesses (Carrotmob), the other sought to save the television show Chuck by having people buy Subway sandwiches (for more details on either of these, read the full post on Jenkins’ blog…). Van Someren says this about the two efforts:
These two projects have entirely different goals, and some might say Save Chuck is a far cry from civic engagement, but it’s interesting to note that the skills and strategies being used are so similar. We began to wonder if participants in campaigns like Save Chuck might stand to gain some of the skills and knowledge needed to become active citizens. With so many young people so engaged with popular culture, this potential is critical to understand. In Convergence Culture, Henry describes how popular culture can function as a civic playground, where lower stakes allow for a greater diversity of opinions than tolerated in political arenas. “One way that popular culture can enable a more engaged citizenry is by allowing people to play with power on a microlevel …popular culture may be preparing the way for a more meaningful public culture.”
As I read through the post a bit more, the idea crystallized that the socially-concerned components of media participation culminating in what Jenkins, Van Someran, and others look at as forms of civic engagement or citizenry might constitute another facet of media management. I’ll certainly be thinking more about this (especially as course prep kicks into high gear…) and am looking forward to sorting through these ideas with students in the winter term. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to read the post by Jenkins/Van Someran, take a look at the examples they reference, and push ahead with thinking about the multiple roles media have in our lives.