Clay Shirky’s “Village Phone” details a 2006 story in which the case of a forgotten phone garners wide attention. It began when a woman named Ivanna left her phone in the back of a cab in NYC. Ivanna involves her friend Evan in the retrieval of the phone, as the phone possesses a range of important information related to Ivanna’s upcoming wedding. The situation becomes complicated when Sasha, the phone’s new owner, refuses to give the phone back to Ivanna. This prompted Evan to create a webpage on his personal website that was dedicated to updating his audience on the situation at hand. Attention to this event had started to mount, even gaining the attention of an NYPD officer who provided Evan with advice on filing a claim. As the number of eyes on this incident continued to grow, pressure was being felt across multiple involved parties. People were in discussion groups making comments about Sasha’s boyfriend, and Sasha’s brother Luis implied action against Evan. Not only was there pressure being placed on Sasha’s family from the invested digital onlookers, but pressure was also being placed on the NYPD. The NYPD had initially dismissed the case as one of missing property, not stolen property, effectively binding their hands. However, as this case continued to grow, calls for the NYPD to take tougher action on helping Ivanna recover her phone became louder. The dispute over the misplaced phone would reach its decisive conclusion on June 15th, when members of the NYPD arrested Sasha and recovered Ivanna’s phone. Simply happy to have the phone back, Evan and Ivanna declined to press charges.
The article uses this story as a means of explaining how the abundance of media formats and means of delivering information can impact instances such as this one. For one, as an event branches out and touches wider audiences, the intent of a party involved can get lost in the chatter and weaponized for malicious use. As explained in the article, some people used the attitude exhibited from Sasha to make hateful claims towards Puerto Ricans as a group. There were also objectifying conversations centered around Sasha’s appearance, as a discussion group related to the incident was dedicated to discussing whether or not Sasha was attractive enough to sleep with. While Evan’s intent was merely to retrieve the phone for Ivanna, groups of people took his intentions and used them as a vehicle to perpetuate hate and objectification. The article also discusses how the abundance of media platforms has changed the very nature in which communication is achieved. When following how Evan gets his story to spread, you can see a sort of economy of communication take place. Evan presumably spends a decent quantity of resources establishing and upholding his personal website as well as the other discussion groups dedicated to the retrieval of Ivanna’s phone. Yet, at the same time, so much of the observable spread of information can be interpreted as natural and occurring across sources that Evan lacks direct connection with. This trade of value is shown as Evan must work to initiate and maintain the conversation while the spread of information gets covered by a variety of other parties. As the article also makes a point of showing, all the crossover of sources that takes place is made so much easier in the internet age. Distinct programs, organizations, communities, etc. can share platforms that allow for effortless communication across cliques in a way that previously did not exist.
A similarity between the discussions with Jenkins and the convergence essay is that both stress the importance of remediation. In the transmedia video, Jenkins touches up on how digital platforms and avoidance of copyright regulation have created a landscape where people can develop online self-expression through their own utilization and repurposing of media that already exists. In the convergence essay, it mentions that the continued development of media could be traced through continuing links of remediation. Jenkins and the convergence essay both also portray different observations as to how power structures play out in this digital climate. Jenkins describes a mindset that places power to the userbases, drawing a comparison to Orwell’s 1984 in which instead of Big Brother watching the people, the people watch Big Brother. The convergence essay, however, seems to place emphasis on corporate power, outlining how multiple corporations can get consumed and fall under one umbrella and how one corporation or piece of intellectual property can take on so many different forms. Both Jenkins videos brush up on the campaign of Barack Obama and how symbolic it was of the impact that internet participation can have in furthering a politician’s name. Jenkins implies in the transmedia video that imagery, promotion, and speeches around Obama could facilitate the creation of digital relationships and communities that might not even be centered around Obama’s politics, but that would still advance his image while connecting people in other ways.
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