I found this video while browsing through YouTube which immediately caught my attention. What first caught me by surprise was the fact that the video is footage of someone playing a popular video game and had already generated over six million hits. The Guitar Hero games have become phenomenal successes as the incorporate life-like musical experiences while combining the difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible gameplay similar to the likes of Dance Dance Revolution. Children, teens, and adults around the world spend hours upon hours of time trying to hone and master their "Guitar Hero" skills. This video satirizes the video game world and how important video games have seemingly become in regular society. Rather than choosing to spend our time learning to read music and learning to play real instruments, it is now possible for us to feel as though we are musicians through becoming them in video games. Musicianship has become much more accessible than it has ever been in the past. The video at hand exemplifies Benkler's network society as part of his new media theory and the fact that the low cost of communication amongst internet users allows those users to accomplish the participation they have always desired. We can now do things on our own completely outside the market and get our intended message across the web for FREE! Benkler also mentions a similarity to the grassroots activities that a network society has to various grassroots movements which happened in the sixties and seventies as society becomes more and more independent in the creation of new media and far less dependent on television and the classical Hollywood mainstream. The video I have chosen typifies the various theories of new media and the simplicity of creation outside of the market.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Assignment 1
I found this video while browsing through YouTube which immediately caught my attention. What first caught me by surprise was the fact that the video is footage of someone playing a popular video game and had already generated over six million hits. The Guitar Hero games have become phenomenal successes as the incorporate life-like musical experiences while combining the difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible gameplay similar to the likes of Dance Dance Revolution. Children, teens, and adults around the world spend hours upon hours of time trying to hone and master their "Guitar Hero" skills. This video satirizes the video game world and how important video games have seemingly become in regular society. Rather than choosing to spend our time learning to read music and learning to play real instruments, it is now possible for us to feel as though we are musicians through becoming them in video games. Musicianship has become much more accessible than it has ever been in the past. The video at hand exemplifies Benkler's network society as part of his new media theory and the fact that the low cost of communication amongst internet users allows those users to accomplish the participation they have always desired. We can now do things on our own completely outside the market and get our intended message across the web for FREE! Benkler also mentions a similarity to the grassroots activities that a network society has to various grassroots movements which happened in the sixties and seventies as society becomes more and more independent in the creation of new media and far less dependent on television and the classical Hollywood mainstream. The video I have chosen typifies the various theories of new media and the simplicity of creation outside of the market.
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What's more intersting is how Guitar Hero has become such an icon for movies and other games. There is a huge following. Movies now use Guitar Hero as a frame of reference and other companies are trying to follow in it's footsteps by creating similar games that aren't as good.
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