Media and the Quest for Identity with Andrew McLuhan and Henry Jenkins #2

WEBVTT
00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:21.920
Welcome to the future of you.
00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:26.000
Today we're joined by Henry Jenkins and Andrew McLuhan.
00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:36.399
Henry is an American media scholar and provost professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California, Annenberg School.
00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:51.520
He's authored and co-authored over a dozen books, including By Any Media Necessary, The New Youth Activism, Spread of All Media, Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, and Convergence Culture, where old and new media collide.
00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:58.960
Now, I remember reading Convergence Culture roughly about the same time I joined Twitter, so must have been about 2009.
00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:08.959
I remember thinking how exciting these new frontiers of media seemed, with all these new possibilities and increased participation for all of us.
00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:17.920
And I met Henry recently during a panel I was chairing at Moscow's Nobel Vision Conference, and we were discussing the future of the entertainment industry, actually.
00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:21.280
It's uh its new digital ledger format, he precise.
00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:32.400
And as Henry talked about activist creators, participatory media, and the way in which the quality TV entertainment landscape is now global rather than just America.
00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:40.480
I thought I'd love to hear his take on hot and cold media, as well as many other McLuhan theories and laws of media.
00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:44.319
So, Andrew McLuhan is our other guest.
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:58.159
He is the grandson of Marshall McLuhan, a noted Canadian professor from the University of Toronto, who was truly a pioneer in the field of media and communication studies, or media ecology, as we might call it.
00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:07.439
Andrew's father, Eric McLuhan, was Marshall's eldest son and he worked with Marshall from the mid-1960s until Marshall died in 1980.
00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:22.000
From 1980 until his death in 2018, Eric continued the work he began with his father, completing important works such as Laws of Media, The New Science, Media and Formal Course, and Theories of Communication.
00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:35.840
And it was in 2009, I think, that Andrew began work documenting and inventorying Marshall McLuhan's annotated library, which was his first major McLune project and one he speaks on regularly.
00:02:36.159 --> 00:02:43.520
Since then, he has embarked on delivering a one-of-a-kind forensic course, 33 weeks or 37 weeks maybe.
00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:49.840
We'll find out when we listen to the podcast, delving into Marshall's famous book, Understanding Media.
00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:53.759
Of course, I can vouch for this as one of his students.
00:02:54.080 --> 00:03:03.759
Andrew is also a published poet in his own right, with his new collection, Written Matter, which was published by Seattle's Revellore Press.
00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:08.560
And he is currently the director of the McLuhan Institute.
00:03:08.879 --> 00:03:14.080
It was fascinating to bring these two experts in media together.
00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:29.599
Obviously coming from very different perspectives on media, but obviously as you'll hear, there is some overlap and some real areas of interest where we talk about identity and our changing identity in a digitised world.
00:03:29.919 --> 00:03:51.280
Particularly we talk about the internet and the influence that the internet has had on not only our personal identity, but the forming of communities of interest and how those have morphed into fandom communities and the sort of work and passion and participation that fans now have in the content.
00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:54.479
So we talked across three areas broadly.
00:03:54.719 --> 00:04:02.479
We really started off thinking about identity and the role of digital media and what's changed and whether there are only patterns over time.
00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:18.560
And then we probed whether digital media was a force for decentralisation and considered some of the trends and counter-trends, discussing whether actually there was a kind of recentralisation happening, particularly in the area of commercial media.
00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:22.959
But we ended up on a fascinating conversation about podcasts.
00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:27.040
Andrew and Henry both have their own podcast series.
00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:41.600
And of course we were on a podcast, so it seemed a bit meta and an opportunity not to be missed to talk about the meaning of podcasts, how they might develop, but also how similar or different they were from the media of radio.
00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:49.120
And I think you'll find their final comments, particularly in terms of where podcasts may or may not go next, fascinating.
00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:54.240
So without further ado, let's listen in to Andrew and Henry.
00:04:57.040 --> 00:04:59.199
Welcome Andrew and Henry.
00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:01.360
It's fantastic to have you both here together.
00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:13.519
You are the perfect people, experts, in fact, to talk about what we're going to talk about today, which is media and uh some of its effects on identity, well the interplay between identity and digital media.
00:05:14.079 --> 00:05:28.480
I'd like to open, I guess, by thinking about how you think media and media technologies by extension have really influenced our notions of identity, perhaps over the past and bringing us to up to the present.
00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:32.959
Do you have any sort of general thoughts on the trends in that area?
00:05:33.519 --> 00:05:34.959
Andrew, do you want to start?
00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:36.160
Sure.
00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:37.360
Thank you, Tracy.
00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:39.199
It's it's so lovely to speak with you.
00:05:39.279 --> 00:05:40.319
It's been a little while.
00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:48.800
You know, it's interesting the way you phrase that because our notions of identity, I think, are a little bit different than our identities themselves.
00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:57.360
And I think we we think about identity in a more sophisticated way these days in the last decade, decades, than we ever have.
00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:11.439
And that's probably due to the fact that our identities are are so constantly under assault that it it it seems we're we're constantly looking to understand who we are and realizing that we we don't know who that is.
00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:18.560
And a lot of that has to do with I think the scale, but mainly the speed of change these days.
00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:28.800
You know, it's it's funny, I was speaking with somebody yesterday about identity, and I thought back to when I was a teenager and how wrapped up your identity is in the music that you listen to.
00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:30.560
When I was a teenager anyway.
00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:42.399
You know, yeah at school you divide into factions and the hip-hop kids are over there and the emo kids are over here, and the punk kids are over there, and it and it really is the base of your identity.
00:06:42.639 --> 00:06:46.319
Well, it seems as your tastes change, your identities change too.
00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:54.560
And I I think that's kind of a a microcosm for the larger way that identities shift because of technological change.
00:06:54.800 --> 00:07:07.839
And that's that's something that in the last two years has gone into overdrive, I think, which may be maybe why identity is more and more a topic of conversation and concern.
00:07:08.639 --> 00:07:09.600
Yeah, I think so.
00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:16.319
I wondered if you could expand on something I discovered while I was researching my book, actually, and I do note it in the book.
00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:32.000
I I quote Marshall McLuhan, your grandfather, of course, uh, when he talked about how all forms of violence are a quest for identity, and this this idea that when you live out on the frontier, and I suppose we're talking about the media frontier, uh, you have no identity.
00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:37.279
So you're a nobody, so you you need to get quite tough and you need to somehow assert your identity.
00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:46.720
I mean, I'm going back to some of the video footage that I saw where he talked about this, and I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he was talking about uh extremists.
00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:55.600
Um but I think you know, when you look at some of the social discourse on social media today, some of it you could say is pretty violent actually.
00:07:55.920 --> 00:07:57.759
And is this a quest for identity?
00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:00.240
Do you do you see the parallels there?
00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:02.000
For sure.
00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:10.879
It's it's interesting why our quest for identity should be so so violent, or violence seems to accompany it.
00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:15.120
But it does seem to be one of the burning questions for humanity.
00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:22.560
And and it does seem to be a human question of who am I and what is you know, what is the point of life.
00:08:22.639 --> 00:08:25.279
So, what is my identity in relation to to life?
00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:26.560
Why am I here?
00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:32.559
Why that should be so important as to cause such violent reactions?
00:08:32.720 --> 00:08:41.759
I don't know if anybody knows the answer, but it is an observation that Marshall made that it seems to be the two things go hand in hand.
00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:44.480
Henry, what do you think about that?
00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:50.399
I know you've done a lot of work around identity and and fandom and sort of group identity.
00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:53.200
Do you do you have any any comments on this?
00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:02.240
Well, I think first of all, I'd go back to your original formulation where you seem to flitter between effects and influences.
00:09:02.799 --> 00:09:06.799
And I am definitely an influence guy and not an effects guy.
00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:07.279
Right?
00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:10.320
And I think there are important distinctions between the two.
00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:17.600
Because I do believe media influences us, but we also influence media in profound ways.
00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:26.080
And I think what we're seeing is a negotiation over the meaning of identity that comes out of a number of factors.
00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:43.039
So, first I would say is what I call the global scramble, which is partially a product of immigration, migration, refugees, but also a product of our ability to access via streaming media a range of media from around the world.
00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:55.919
I first started thinking about this around Hong Kong and action cinema and anime fandom, where people who I call pop cosmopolitans were seeking out difference from somewhere else on the planet.
00:09:56.080 --> 00:10:06.720
That is, if traditional cosmopolitanism was about finding kinship elsewhere to escape the parochialism of your own culture, this new generation are seeking it through pop culture.
00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:12.000
And Netflix is facilitating that, but accelerating it at the same time.
00:10:12.240 --> 00:10:22.000
So the Squid Game success last year is a big example where 60 countries around the world as Korean drama was the top hit.
00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:32.639
I was just before the show watching part of an episode of All of Us Are Dead, which is the new Korean drama about high school students besieged by zombies.
00:10:32.799 --> 00:10:34.559
And again, it's a global success.
00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:36.000
So that's one.
00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:42.080
Two is the reckoning with race, which has been particularly intense in the US, but elsewhere, right?
00:10:42.320 --> 00:10:45.759
And that is partially a product of a couple of media.
00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:58.000
One would be the cell phone with the ability to do counter-surveillance or street level surveillance where police violence and racialized police violence has been more and more captured.
00:10:58.159 --> 00:11:08.559
And yet the shock that would even when it's captured on film, no one does anything about it, has intensified the rage there and led to some sense of systemic racism.
00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:11.120
The other would be Twitter, right?
00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:20.559
Where a hashtag like Black Lives Matter assembles stories that at one time would have been locally discrete incidents and helps people see the pattern between them.
00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:26.480
And so in those ways, I think media has accelerated what are already social tensions.
00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:33.679
The third would be the question around gender and gender fluidity, which I think is a really important one.
00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:48.639
The fact that this platform we're using to record this requires us to specify our pronouns, suggest how it is responding to and yet teaching us new protocols for dealing with gender in our everyday lives.
00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:56.559
And I so again, media is an influence on and influence by these social trends that we're look talking about.
00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:01.519
Now, the violence of identity, that's a really tough one, right?
00:12:01.600 --> 00:12:05.840
I mean, we we could go back through history and look at initiation rights, right?
00:12:05.919 --> 00:12:25.360
And where people either commit self-violence or violence toward others, you know, as in you know, sort of absorbing torture or participating in war raids or hunting, were always ways of initiating yourself into an adult identity in our society.
00:12:25.679 --> 00:12:37.600
I would argue video games to date perform some of those functions, right, where people are playing games with the same themes that might have preoccupied adolescents thousands of years ago.
00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:39.279
Kill or be killed.
00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:45.039
But in a symbolic reign where real violence has been reigned in and controlled.
00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:59.919
Or we could again talk about Twitter and the aggression of language on Twitter and the dividing up into tribalism, and that tribalism is something that Marshall McLuhan predicted a long time ago.
00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:13.039
That you know, we had the global village on the one hand and new new tribalism on the other as somewhat conflicting visions of the future of ubiquitous communication technologies.
00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:26.159
And I think what we're seeing right now is the tribalism side really asserting itself, and we could see my pop cosmopolitanism as the voice of the global village asserting itself.
00:13:26.559 --> 00:13:32.080
Yeah, I think that's a fantastic segue actually into that whole idea of tribalism or re-tribalism.
00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:40.080
I wonder if, Andrew, you want to expand on this, because I know it's um it is an area that you're expert in in terms of interpreting what Marshall meant by that.
00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:50.080
Well, there's there's another facet to identity here, which is that there are at least two kinds of identity, and that's private identity, individual identity, and group identity.
00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:53.360
And another part of this conversation is also belonging.
00:13:53.440 --> 00:14:03.120
And Henry was getting at this that with the internet and technology, smartphones, it's never been easier to find your people, you know.
00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:18.879
Because culture is global now, uh, it doesn't really matter if you live here in a small town between farms or if you live in a city, it's just as easy uh to find a group and to discover things which you might decide to incorporate into your identity.
00:14:19.120 --> 00:14:28.559
U another thing which is interesting to consider uh in terms of violence and identity and the quest for identity is, and I hadn't thought of it before, but the vision quest.
00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:49.840
And whether it be sending somebody off to fast for a couple days and have a vision to discover things about themselves or their their place, or whether it's via drugs like ayahuasca, you know, through a shaman or whatever, it's also a form of trauma in this attempt to seek an identity, which is very interesting to consider.
00:14:50.960 --> 00:15:04.960
It's almost like you're coming up against challenges, and it's the challenge or how you meet them that formulates your identity, or maybe not formulates it, but concretizes it somehow because you know, decision making is value clarification, isn't it?
00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:14.480
So when you decide what tribe you're in or how you respond to something, I guess that's in a sense telling you what your values are and therefore where you belong or who you are, presumably.
00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:28.480
So I read a very interesting piece recently by a media scholar who was looking at medieval art and specifically the how vision was represented and the vision quest in particular.
00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:34.960
And it inevitably involved frames, screens, or mirrors reflecting back into the self.
00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:46.879
But the imagery is striking that she looks at in this piece that suggests that they needed to imagine a medium to think about the vision quest from very early ages.
00:15:47.039 --> 00:16:00.320
And in some ways, they looked toward television or the internet as metaphors for thinking about what their spiritual experience would be, and that this predates the invention of the actual technologies.
00:16:00.639 --> 00:16:04.559
Even the language around identity seems to be somewhat violent.
00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:21.600
Like we speak of how your identity is forged, you know, and and forging something, uh forging a piece of iron or steel is a violent process, but then there's also forging as in a forgery, which is an interesting way to think about it too.
00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:25.919
Forgeries in media, deep fakes.
00:16:26.480 --> 00:16:28.000
That's quite a thing right now.
00:16:28.399 --> 00:16:28.960
Quite.
00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:33.840
And which is more powerful, and what even is your true identity?
00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:37.440
Because I don't think that we have a single identity.
00:16:37.679 --> 00:16:45.440
If you just take the simple example of all the different logins and passwords we have, these are all identities, right?
00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:46.799
And we speak of them that way.
00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:48.480
Identity theft, right?
00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:58.159
The split identity, the multiple identity, the schizophrenia, even, multiple personality disorder, I think, has become the norm.
00:16:58.879 --> 00:17:06.559
So what does this mean when we don't have a single identity anymore, but we have a collection of identities?
00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:18.960
And who I am on Twitter is a little bit different than who I am on Facebook, than who I am on Instagram, than who I am here, than who I am when I go home and when my kids get off the bus.
00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:23.759
You know, this is a very, very new thing, I think.
00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:34.400
It's not necessarily new that we have different facets of identity, but I think the variety of identities we carry is remarkable.
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:51.440
And this isn't even to bring up, you know, manufactured identities that people hide behind internet trolls, and you know, nobody ever thinks they're a troll, but uh or on dating sites when you put maybe your best foot forward, but it's not necessarily really your foot.
00:17:51.680 --> 00:17:53.279
There are a lot of questions here.
00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:58.240
And what's the effect of this over time on your on your sense of self?
00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:03.920
I think it's it leads to more violence, perhaps, internal if not external.
00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:14.480
Henry, do you think this idea of um sort of multiple identities or at least having more fluid identities helps or has helped the growth of fandom?
00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:23.279
Is there a connection between those two that can be articulated, or that they've just grown up, um, you know, and they happen to sort of coexist?
00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:28.400
Well, I think fandom has always enjoyed identity play.
00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:33.839
I mean, I I that's a strong statement because we don't know how far back to trace fandom.
00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:39.279
But let's suppose the 1890s is as good a point to start as any otherwise.
00:18:39.839 --> 00:19:01.200
Reading Susan Orlan's The Library Book has a very brief reference that I really want to dig into of when the LA Public Library opened, they had a week-long festival of Charles Dickens, in which the public was invited to show up dressed like their favorite Dickens character and participate in panels discussing Dickens' work and so forth.
00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:07.039
And from the eyes of someone who is a fan, who studies fandom, that sounds like a fan convention.
00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:15.039
It sounds like the cosplay that takes place at San Diego Comic-Con only applied to a different set of texts.
00:19:15.279 --> 00:19:30.240
When you discover the Baker Street irregulars that were organized in the UK around Sherlock Holmes in that same time period, they're already playing with this notion of a multiple and fake identity.
00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:38.960
That there's a lot of identity play around PIN names in the early zines of the first part of the 20th century.
00:19:39.200 --> 00:20:07.519
And by the 1940s and 50s, there's some well-known incidents where a science fiction writer passes as male but is actually female, James Tiptree Jr., and where a fan constructs themselves as a black fan to see how the fan community, which at the time was overwhelmingly white, might treat a black fan, but in a culture that was based on the postal service and print, was able to get away with it.
00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:27.119
So, no shocker then that the internet fan community still engages in these kinds of identity play, or that fans being some of the earliest adapters of new media technology systematically might have imprinted some of that identity play onto the internet.
00:20:27.519 --> 00:20:40.799
Just to give you an example of how deep that imprint is and how invisible it is, if you go back to the late night mid-19th century, people were creating zines using toy printing presses where they handset letters.
00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:46.640
And because it was so hard to set, they went, they reverted to a lot of standardized abbreviations.
00:20:46.960 --> 00:21:07.359
And one of those is LOL or Laugh Out Loud, which we now think of as emblematic of internet culture, but actually is part of a 19th-century print culture that was carried into the internet by fans and their influence on the early history of the web and the net.
00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:20.720
Do you think some of the media that we're now using or enjoying is having a decentralizing effect where communities can get together more easily and are less homogenous?
00:21:20.960 --> 00:21:31.920
And that's uh enabling more and more sort of groups and fandom and I don't know, sort of senses of belonging in lots of different identities across lots of different groups.
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:39.359
I'm wondering about the breakdown of mass media at its very sort of generic level, perhaps the post-TV era.
00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:46.720
Is it is it a more decentralized world of numerous communities because of the media?
00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:48.880
I don't know if you've got comments on that.
00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:53.039
I think that's certainly the case, and it's it's been the case for a while.
00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:59.759
One of the uh the early striking examples of that for me anyway, is in hip hop culture.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:16.559
Specifically in graffiti, and how how graffiti spread from the US, from New York and Pittsburgh and across the US, and then globally through actually through magazines and through internet, thanks to the digital camera.
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:23.839
It allowed these forms to spread, and within a very short period of time, graffiti was around the world.
00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:30.000
So I think this tendency to decentralize has just grown stronger over time.
00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:35.599
And it's I think it's a net benefit to, you know, pun intended, I guess.
00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:43.279
Yeah, what I was going to say is that um very peculiar to and caused by or in effect of the internet.
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:49.440
I mean, I I don't like to see that as a media, because that's almost the technology that sits behind several media.
00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:55.039
But what what is the decentralization caused by exactly, do we think?
00:22:56.400 --> 00:23:01.039
Well, if I could take a little step back and build on what Eric just said.
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:05.759
One of my grad students documented the spread of dance videos in Bogota.
00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:10.880
And this was a city really riven by gangs and gang turf.
00:23:11.200 --> 00:23:18.240
And yet dance videos and dance moves were traveling across it thanks to the mix of video cameras and YouTube.
00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:19.119
Right?
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:30.880
So that's a spectacular example of recentralizing or reconfiguring social life that has already been fragmented by the use of the same technology.
00:23:31.119 --> 00:23:47.519
Now, fans are a good case study for thinking about this phenomenon because they were networked, going back to the toy printing press moment that I was talking about in the mid-19th century, where they were circulating zines through the mail on a national network.
00:23:47.599 --> 00:23:57.920
That fandom was asserting itself as world science fiction convention when it really was a gathering of folks from Brooklyn and Cleveland, right?
00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:08.880
But there was a sense, there's always been a sense that fan interests are narrow or specific enough that it's hard to find people in your immediate location to engage with them.
00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:13.359
But that so there's a search for technologies which enable that.
00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:21.920
And so it might have been the toy printing press at one point, it was ham radio at another point, then it became uh the internet, right?
00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:34.319
I think in between we might talk about local access television and the spreads of videotapes and so forth, all these mechanisms that fans have used to connect to each other across distance.
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:38.319
But this is a case I don't think the internet creates that desire.
00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:44.559
I think the internet facilitates that desire because it has affordances which allow it to happen.
00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:53.920
And as it starts happening, it gains momentum, more and more people participate in it, the speed and scale of interaction intensifies.
00:24:54.079 --> 00:25:12.559
So when Star Trek The Next Generation was on, we used to trade responses to the individual episodes via, we'd send the things into one central location, it'd be edited into resine, it'd be printed and sent out, and two months later we'd find out what other people thought about the episode we watched.
00:25:13.200 --> 00:25:22.160
Now, obviously, now at the first commercial break, we can start to respond, if not earlier, on Twitter or some other social media platform.
00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:26.960
And all that apparatus has been shrunk by the emergence of the internet.
00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:31.680
And so, therefore, when it became something becomes easier to do, more people do it.
00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:35.839
But I'm not of the opinion that the internet created it from scratch.
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:41.599
It created it in response to social desires that were already deeply seated in the population.
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:43.279
Understood.
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:44.880
Andrew, do you agree?
00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:52.720
Yeah, you know, Marshall used this phrase the global village, which he kind of appropriated from Wyndham Lewis.
00:25:52.960 --> 00:26:01.359
But I think we've gone beyond, or at least in conjunction with a global village, I like to think of it kind of like a global metropolis.
00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:09.519
And case in point, you know, you and I speaking, Tracy, we connected partly because I was teaching this class on understanding media.
00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:14.240
And I like to think of the internet kind of like New York City.
00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:29.359
Because where I live here in the country in southern Ontario, if I were to advertise a course where each week over a year and a half, we'll spend three hours talking about understanding media, I don't think I'd have a single person.
00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:37.359
The thing about uh a city like New York City is uh because of the critical mass of people, it makes things possible.
00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:43.279
Like you can have a store devoted to renting horror VHS tapes.
00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:56.400
And the people who run it can make a living because of out of the eight or whatever million in New York City, there are enough there into that niche uh VHS horror scene to sustain something like that.
00:26:56.720 --> 00:27:12.960
Well, because of Twitter, I was able to find an audience for my really niche discussion group on understanding media, and where I thought I'd maybe have five people interested, I ended up with 30 or 40.
00:27:13.279 --> 00:27:20.000
So affordances kind of allow things to grow, I think, exponentially.
00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:26.799
And it's it's really interesting to think of this notion of fandom as well, which isn't something I'd thought about before.
00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:29.519
But I'm gonna have have to look into it, uh Henry.
00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:39.599
It's an interesting point that Henry just made about the speed of response, like the critique, the response on any content, or almost in the blink of an eye, really.
00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:41.440
And I think about your course that you did.
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:43.119
What was it, 33 weeks?
00:27:43.519 --> 00:27:45.119
I mean, you was it 33?
00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:45.440
It was.
00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:47.200
It was a 37.
00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:48.400
37.
00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:50.400
Oh, it only felt like 33.
00:27:52.160 --> 00:28:01.200
Um that that idea that it gave uh it gave it room to breathe, it had enough room for people to participate.
00:28:01.519 --> 00:28:03.839
I think 37 times three hours.
00:28:04.319 --> 00:28:16.880
It was a long time ideas were settling, uh, the response was generating, we were listening to what other people were expressing, perhaps changing our minds, uh considering our own responses as a as an individual and as a group then.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:22.079
And all of these were very interesting dynamics, I thought, around it, and you probably probably agree, I think.
00:28:22.480 --> 00:28:26.720
But Henry's quite exactly, you know, you're waiting for like the Twitter response to sarcastic.
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:36.799
You know, when Sex of the City's new season came out and just like that, I mean, literally ready to go after the first episode is the writer's room on the podcast.
00:28:36.880 --> 00:28:43.599
So they're ready to sort of tell you what they really meant, just in case you were you weren't happy with what they've done with the characters.
00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:45.440
And so that was an interesting dimension.
00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:51.039
But on top of that, they were also trying to anticipate what the fans would think and say about it, I think.
00:28:51.119 --> 00:28:53.279
And all of that was kind of happening in real time.
00:28:53.440 --> 00:28:55.279
It's kind of fascinating now.
00:28:55.759 --> 00:29:04.079
To build on your sex in the city example, what I was going to say is I think hate watching is a phenomenon of the internet, right?
00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:11.200
This is a case where people might have sat and said snarky things in their living room to each other and had a small social gathering.
00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:24.720
The pleasure of watching certain shows and certain shows thrive right now, not because people like them, but because they like to make snarky comments collectively toward them that's facilitated by something like Twitter.
00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:32.559
And so it that is a good example of how accelerating time amplifies a phenomenon and makes it more visible.
00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:40.000
Now, when I think about the big city phenomenon that Andrew was just talking about, I think about Yo-Yogi Park in Tokyo.
00:29:40.160 --> 00:30:00.559
And I went there the first time to see cosplay, uh, anime cosplay, because they would, if you went to the Akiharbara district, the fan district in Tokyo, and I love that there is a fan district in Tokyo, they're flyers that tell you what show people are going to be cosplaying that weekend, so you know what costume to go to.
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:17.599
But just beyond them is a group of so-called Yonkees who dance to rockabilly songs that have exaggerated Elvis haircuts, and beyond that is a drum circle, and beyond that or boy band interpreters, and beyond that, kites or chess.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:32.400
So every inch of the park is mapped out around niche interest, and the people with that interest know where to gather on a weekend afternoon to find others who share that interest and to participate on them.
00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:40.240
So this is a park, not a village, but if we amplify that out to the planet, that is exactly what the internet is.
00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:45.440
But just as if I went to Yo-Yogi, I could spend an hour drumming and then wander over and fly a kite.
00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:48.720
I'm not locked into a single identity.
00:30:48.880 --> 00:31:00.559
And so that is the way in which I think the internet has amplified identity play, where we recognize suddenly that we don't belong to simply one group, we belong to many groups.
00:31:00.720 --> 00:31:13.359
And by performing that movement from one discussion list to the other early on, we started to become conscious of the number of groups we belong to, the number of identities we played in the course of our lives.
00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:19.200
And suddenly identity becomes something we're thinking about in deeper and deeper ways.
00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:20.960
Yeah, that's really interesting.
00:31:21.119 --> 00:31:27.680
I mean, that's the simultaneous recentralization or centralization anyway, uh, a meeting point.
00:31:27.839 --> 00:31:30.960
Because I think I think getting together is still very important.
00:31:31.119 --> 00:31:38.480
And perhaps it's it's become even more meaningful in the last two years when getting together has become more difficult.
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:42.400
Hate watching is not a term I had heard before.
00:31:42.559 --> 00:31:45.119
That that to me, I can't imagine.
00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:51.839
I can't imagine uh having nothing better to do than to like rage tweet, watch something.
00:31:51.920 --> 00:32:11.759
Just, you know, it reminds me of this phenomenon of the reaction video, you know, which people aren't really interested so much in the primary content as the reaction to it, which then becomes the primary content, which is uh kind of strange and bizarre to me, but but normal in another sense.
00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:22.000
But it's um, you know, we've we've mentioned pace, and uh pacing was one of the things I put a lot of thought into in my course.
00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:33.920
And this was a course called Understanding Media Intensive, and it was 36 or 37 classes, three hours each, covering 33 chapters of this book, Understanding Media.
00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:38.720
And I wanted it to be a week apart to give room to breathe.
00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:42.079
Because, you know, that that pace is very important.
00:32:42.160 --> 00:32:48.799
And actually, funnily enough, the same conversation I was having yesterday with a friend about identity, we also talked about pacing.
00:32:49.119 --> 00:33:00.400
And I explained it like this you know, I used to live in Pickton, the town nearby, and the post office to go get my mail is about, you know, a five-minute walk, right?
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:18.160
But I would often drive, especially on nice days, because the thing about living in a small town, a global village, is that you know everybody, and this five-minute walk turns into a half hour because I see Paul and I see Pat and I see Jane.
00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:27.119
And you have to stop and say hi and be polite and pleasant, and you want to catch up or say something, but I just want to get the mail sometimes, you know.
00:33:27.359 --> 00:33:29.519
So I'll drive to get the mail.
00:33:29.839 --> 00:33:32.240
But when I do that, I miss things.
00:33:32.559 --> 00:33:36.319
And what I miss is I miss the certain qualities.
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:39.279
It's like driving somewhere versus walking somewhere.
00:33:39.519 --> 00:33:42.160
If you just want to get somewhere, drive.
00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:50.319
But if you want a quality of experience, and I think life is about quality of experience, then you have to walk sometimes.
00:33:50.400 --> 00:34:08.800
And that was kind of the idea behind doing UMI in the way that we did it, was to allow us to have some breathing room to take this material on and kind of embody it and sit with it and and let it develop over an incredibly long period of time.
00:34:09.039 --> 00:34:19.519
I'm I'm so grateful to all the students like you, Tracy, who um who were part of it that allowed me to actually lead it because it was um it was one of the richest experiences of my life.
00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:21.280
No, it was amazing.
00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:28.079
Um I'm so glad that I discovered it, you know, by happenstance, really, in a in a funny sort of way.
00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:32.559
But um, I mean it was terrific and it was a one-off, it was something unique, I think.
00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:35.599
So I I was very lucky to be involved with it.
00:34:35.679 --> 00:34:41.360
Uh I want to turn to a very specific question actually, because uh I want to ask you both about podcasts.
00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:44.559
Uh I know Andrew's done a lot of podcast interviews.
00:34:44.719 --> 00:34:47.679
Uh Andre's got his own podcast which he can tell us about.
00:34:47.760 --> 00:34:53.760
But we're on a podcast now, uh, and I wanted to ask you what do you think this whole phenomenon is about?
00:34:54.079 --> 00:35:08.480
And it's funny that we just were talking about tribalization or re-tribalization because and uh Andrew will correct me probably if I get this wrong, but I think the chapter in understanding media on radio is called the tribal drum.
00:35:10.079 --> 00:35:14.719
And one of the things I was thinking about is our podcast radio.
00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:19.280
I think something different to radio, are they a sort of pattern of radio?
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:20.559
What is going on?
00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:33.920
And it kind of speaks to both uh the media and the specific media of radio that Marta was talking about, as well as what Henry is talking about with fandom and participation, I think.
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:45.280
And I wonder if we can just spend um the last sort of 10 minutes or so just interrogating what these podcasts are about, the character and the usefulness and uh where we think they might go next.
00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:51.440
I I wonder if I can start with you first, Henry, because I know you have an interest in the in the podcast media, don't you?
00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:52.079
Yes.
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:56.559
Well, first of all, I do have my own podcast, which is called How Do You Like It So Far?
00:35:56.800 --> 00:35:59.199
And it's about pop culture in a changing world.
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:11.760
So we talk every week about the kinds of questions we're talking about here with a range of really interesting guests who have different stories to tell about their relation to popular culture.
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:18.400
I'm also now teaching a course at USC as part of a new podcasting major that we've launched.
00:36:18.559 --> 00:36:36.480
And the course I'm teaching is on the history of podcasting, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but actually I be able to incorporate the history of radio into the history of podcasting by looking at formats and genres and where they come from and work backwards backwards from there.
00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:42.159
So, but I think that helps me to think a lot about the relation of podcast to radio.
00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:51.280
Podcasting as a technology emerged as an attempt to move around radio to open up radio formats to people who would be shut out otherwise.
00:36:51.440 --> 00:36:53.199
It was an amateur medium.
00:36:53.360 --> 00:37:00.800
It was a medium for those who were disconnected, disaffected, marginalized, silenced, whatever we want to say.
00:37:01.519 --> 00:37:05.360
And its history has been largely shaped by that.
00:37:05.599 --> 00:37:14.559
It's also shaped by the fact that it was an NPR in the US and CBC in Canada and BBC in the UK that were the first to use it.
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:25.760
It started, the earliest broadcasters to move into podcasting were almost all public radio people, public service radio people, not commercial radio people.
00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:36.480
And the result is that its logics, its programming are much more about smart conversation than they are about playing music with commentary, for example.
00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:42.800
So this is a case where institutional histories start to shape how things play out.
00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:46.159
The other thing I think about is the earbud.
00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:55.519
And this is where I slide more into the McLuhan side of the spectrum here, because I think the ear, with the case of the earbud, the medium is the message.
00:37:55.679 --> 00:38:05.760
The intimacy we have of a voice directly in our ear, almost directly in our brain, changes our relationship to radio.
00:38:06.079 --> 00:38:20.159
So the radio world talks about driveway moments where you've pulled into your driveway and you've stopped your car, but you're not getting out yet because you want to hear the last bit of something that's so compelling that you don't leave your car.
00:38:20.559 --> 00:38:23.280
And that's the high point in radio.
00:38:23.519 --> 00:38:29.360
In podcasting, it's where you start to just become entranced by the voice in your ear.
00:38:29.599 --> 00:38:40.559
And the first time I did a program recently with a bunch of my favorite podcasters, all in one place, and I said it was so reassuring to discover these were real people and not voices in my head.
00:38:40.880 --> 00:38:51.199
Because since I listened to it going to sleep at night, it's like I dreamed the podcast that I'm consuming, and that intimacy becomes part of the experience of the podcast.
00:38:51.360 --> 00:39:04.320
And so I think that's something I think about a lot is intimacy in podcasting, as opposed to publicness and liveness in radio as being kind of crucial divides between the two formats.
00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:06.079
That's brilliant, I thought.
00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:08.400
Yeah, those are some very interesting notions.
00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:14.000
It's interesting to think, and here I am with earbuds in my ear, although I I don't prefer it that way.
00:39:14.159 --> 00:39:16.480
I prefer to listen to speakers if I can.
00:39:16.719 --> 00:39:29.119
But it's interesting to think about, you know, the voice being directly into your brain, almost like an auditory hallucination or a mystical experience, even, because that's what it kind of closely resembles.
00:39:29.280 --> 00:39:31.519
You know, I actually have a podcast as well.
00:39:31.599 --> 00:39:35.280
It's called The Massage from the McLuhan Institute.
00:39:36.079 --> 00:39:39.840
And I've done one season of interviews so far.
00:39:39.920 --> 00:39:41.760
I think there were about a dozen of them.
00:39:41.920 --> 00:39:47.599
But it's also a place to leave McLuhan audio for people to listen to.
00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:55.199
I'm not entirely sure what a podcast really uh actually is because sometimes it's video and sometimes it's audio.
00:39:55.519 --> 00:40:00.159
And I believe most a lot of people simply call it the pod these days.
00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:01.760
Uh, there's no cast.
00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:10.239
Although the cast part is interesting as well when you're thinking about a voice beam to your ear or something mystical or a spell being cast.
00:40:10.559 --> 00:40:14.079
But it's uh it is a very interesting subject.
00:40:14.239 --> 00:40:20.000
The relation, the history coming from public radio is also very interesting to me.
00:40:20.239 --> 00:40:30.239
You know, when Marshall first said the medium is the message, it was in 1958 at a radio broadcaster's conference in British Columbia in Canada.
00:40:30.639 --> 00:40:35.360
And it's 1958, they were really upset about television coming along.
00:40:35.519 --> 00:40:44.880
And Marshall said the medium is the message to try and tell them that television wasn't going to end radio, but it was going to change radio's place.
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:55.920
And it's it's kind of interesting to think about the podcast in relation to radio and perhaps uh Netflix and streaming services in relation to television.
00:40:56.159 --> 00:41:05.280
Because here you both have flexible formats in the face of more rigid formats, you know, where television or radio programming is a set thing.
00:41:05.519 --> 00:41:10.079
You know that the news is going to be at noon, followed by a program from one to two.
00:41:10.320 --> 00:41:15.840
Whereas Netflix is whenever you want to listen to half an hour or 12 hours or watch.
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:21.760
And same with podcasts, you know, you can listen to it when you want for how how long you want.
00:41:22.159 --> 00:41:27.679
Another thing that's interesting about it that disconnects it a bit from radio is the mobile aspect.
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:30.320
And this does make a difference for myself.
00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:40.639
And I recognize that I'm maybe not like a lot of other people, but when I'm out out in nature outside doing things, I don't like to have earbuds in listening to things.
00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:46.559
I like to be more attuned to my environment and hear the sounds going on around me.
00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:51.280
Because when you've got the earbuds in, they are they are at the exclusion of everything else.
00:41:51.519 --> 00:41:57.599
And to me, again, kind of related to split identities, this creates split experiences.
00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:01.440
And for myself, I I don't do too well with that.
00:42:01.599 --> 00:42:06.159
I'm kind of a one thing at a time kind of person, maybe a bit of a throwback.
00:42:06.239 --> 00:42:07.199
Maybe I read too much.
00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:07.599
I don't know.
00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:14.559
It's kind of interesting, I think, the way that the podcast landscape has developed its own sorts of rituals now.
00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:18.159
I mean, you talk about it, but obviously that that's that's one of them.
00:42:18.400 --> 00:42:25.280
But you know, whether as you say, you know, I look forward to particular podcasts coming out on a certain time at a certain uh night.
00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:30.800
And if they don't happen, I'm disappointed because I'm I'm sort of waiting for my fix for that.
00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:39.920
And in that sense, it's like an extension to a friendship group because I want to know what other people think about the week's events or you know, within that group, uh, those sorts of things.
00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:52.079
And then you've got the other side of podcasting, which is almost like uh the uh adoration, the worship of certain celebrities who have got their podcast episodes, and obviously I'm thinking of like someone like Joe Rogan.
00:42:52.239 --> 00:43:02.800
And you've got these, it just feels to me like it is probably the most diversified sort of media landscape at the moment, even though the format isn't particularly that different.
00:43:02.880 --> 00:43:04.480
There's something very, very different.
00:43:04.559 --> 00:43:08.239
It's not, it doesn't feel as homogenous to me as a lot of other media.
00:43:08.639 --> 00:43:23.760
Yeah, I think that has to do with the fact that it was set up to be the amateur reaction to radio, that we lose track of that as more and more commercial podcast networks emerge and it becomes centralized again around those factors.
00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:28.719
And the most heavily listened to podcasts inevitably come from those networks.
00:43:28.880 --> 00:43:34.079
But the fact that no matter how small the niche is, I can find a podcast for it.
00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:39.280
And it doesn't necessarily require professionalization to participate.
00:43:39.440 --> 00:43:51.920
And even if the networks took over the most mainstream pieces of the podcast landscape, there is no way they could ever drive out the amateur voices other than making them harder to find.
00:43:52.159 --> 00:43:52.480
Right?
00:43:52.559 --> 00:43:54.480
Because they will always be there.
00:43:54.719 --> 00:44:04.480
And so, you know, I think what thrives in the podcast world are those things, uh That were part of the people's radio movements of the 60s and 70s.
00:44:04.800 --> 00:44:17.760
I got my start with Radio Free Georgia, and they used to have programming for gay people, they had programming for prisoners, they had feminist programming, they had youth-driven programming.
00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:25.119
These represent large categories, or I can at least populate those categories with pop with mainstream podcasts.
00:44:25.199 --> 00:44:39.280
Oh, and of course, people of color or BIPOC people would also be on those podcasts, on the radio of a Radio Free Georgia, because they were meant to be the alternative to dominant or mainstream radio.
00:44:39.519 --> 00:44:45.440
And podcasting looks very much like the program lineup for Radio Free Georgia today.
00:44:45.840 --> 00:44:48.000
And I think it will for some time to come.
00:44:48.159 --> 00:45:11.360
But we are seeing, to my eyes, a threatening consolidation around mainstream commercial entities that threaten to close out things like this podcast or our in any of our three podcasts, all of which are coming from academic places and which historically have not gotten a lot of airtime, you know, on broadcast medium.
00:45:11.760 --> 00:45:13.519
Sorry, Henry, what's the driver for that?
00:45:13.679 --> 00:45:15.440
What's the motivation for that?
00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:17.119
The recentralization?
00:45:17.599 --> 00:45:31.039
Well, I think what happened is podcasts plotted along for about a decade, where some of the biggest successes were high school students talking about Harry Potter novels in their basement and reaching a million viewers apiece.
00:45:31.280 --> 00:45:35.920
And then we got the serial and the invasion of NPR into that.
00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:43.840
And serial demonstrated that it was possible to have a podcast that everyone in the country was talking about.
00:45:44.079 --> 00:45:46.000
And that's what we're seeking now.
00:45:46.079 --> 00:45:54.880
And we're seeing and the celebrity side that you're talking about, the Joe Rogans, who I think is consistently in the top five podcasts in the US.
00:45:55.039 --> 00:45:58.880
I don't know about Canada or the UK, but in the US, he's one of the top five.
00:45:59.039 --> 00:46:09.039
If you look at that top five, you have to go a long way down to find the kind of podcast I was just describing that represent alternative to a celebrity-driven culture.
00:46:09.199 --> 00:46:21.599
Obviously, celebrities who are known across a range of media draw more people in than academics or activists or others who are building their reputation through the podcast medium.
00:46:21.920 --> 00:46:40.320
But I think the survival and persistence of those alternative uses suggest to me that we really hunger for programming that's a little more culturally specific, tailored to our identity and interest, than the mainstream radio world has offered us in the past.
00:46:40.400 --> 00:46:42.639
And so I don't see that going away either.
00:46:43.599 --> 00:46:46.800
Andrew, any thoughts on where podcasts are heading?
00:46:47.760 --> 00:47:04.800
Oh well, I mean, I think the the trend will hold true that you know things start out in a niche, they get picked up and popularized, then they get commercialized, then they get boring, so people find a new way to do it that's that's more interesting, and the cycle resets.
00:47:05.039 --> 00:47:08.320
We could be there already with podcasting, I'm not sure.
00:47:08.559 --> 00:47:27.519
But one interesting facet that that occurred to me, which you mentioned about to do with timing, is I noticed uh a little while ago that instead of simply having a series up and and ready to go, Netflix and other streaming services now do premieres, debuts.
00:47:27.760 --> 00:47:36.000
And that switches the dynamic from you know personal consumption to again a group activity, a sense a sense of belonging.
00:47:36.159 --> 00:47:45.199
So that, you know, I know that me and my friends are all going to be gathered around whatever device consuming this content uh at this time.
00:47:45.599 --> 00:47:51.039
And that's that's a whole other dynamic and layer of richness to an experience.
00:47:51.280 --> 00:47:56.079
And it's a it's something that concerns our identity and our sense of belonging as well.
00:47:56.320 --> 00:48:10.400
So I think that's going to become more and more a factor in in all of these kinds of activities as well, just because the richness, the depth of experience is, I think, something we all crave.
00:48:11.440 --> 00:48:18.239
So just as we wind this up now, this this bit before we we close on um final thoughts on identity, I just want to ask you.
00:48:18.559 --> 00:48:26.559
We've talked a lot about sort of innovations and change in some of these media, and it's obviously its effects on identity, but more broadly than that.
00:48:26.960 --> 00:48:34.960
What do you think we're leaving behind as the media landscape changes, as we've seen some of the dynamics that you have both articulated?
00:48:35.280 --> 00:48:40.480
Are there certain things of value that we are leaving behind that uh potentially forever?
00:48:40.639 --> 00:48:42.480
Uh Henry, what what do you think?
00:48:42.960 --> 00:48:53.599
Well, I don't know that we're leaving it behind fully or permanently, but the sense of liveness is one of the things that radio, say, has going for it.
00:48:53.760 --> 00:49:16.079
So I was playing in class this week, uh Edward Armuro broadcasting from the rooftops of London during the Blitz, and then the Hindenburg fire explosion, and then I was trying to ask my students what are the moments that they experienced simultaneously with an entire nation that had a dramatic effect for them.
00:49:16.480 --> 00:49:22.159
And I started out with the Challenger explosion and quickly realized, no, they are too young for that.
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:28.639
So I tried 9-11, and really this group was too young to remember the Chin Towers hitting.
00:49:28.719 --> 00:49:33.519
They knew the aftereffects of it, but that was not simultaneously, that was diffused.
00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:52.239
So the closest we could get was following the election results between Trump and Biden, which isn't a tragedy, not from my point of view anyway, but it was uh, or the maybe the insurrection for Americans was that moment of simultaneous experience of national news.
00:49:52.480 --> 00:50:01.679
But I think in the world of podcast, which is not about liveness, but is always recorded before it's dispersed, it's hard to get there.
00:50:01.840 --> 00:50:08.800
Occasionally webcasting for a small niche for protest gets you that, but not the national scale of it.
00:50:08.960 --> 00:50:19.840
So I think there's something about experiencing something together that in a post-three network era and a post-broadcast era, we are we're losing.
00:50:20.079 --> 00:50:27.920
That comes closer to what I think Marshall McLuhan meant by the global village than the internet version, which you know.
00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:33.760
I think he was when he was talking about electronic media, he was talking about television and radio for the most part, right?
00:50:34.159 --> 00:50:39.920
Unless he knew something most of the rest of us didn't at the time he made some of those statements.
00:50:40.559 --> 00:50:41.920
Yeah, that's interesting.
00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:45.440
Your question as to what's what's lost and what's gained.
00:50:45.840 --> 00:50:48.880
The forging of a new identity is always an exchange.
00:50:48.960 --> 00:50:56.400
You know, you always leave something behind to build something new, or you create something out of the ashes of your old identity.
00:50:56.639 --> 00:50:58.400
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
00:50:58.639 --> 00:51:01.679
I mean, uh maybe a bit of both.
00:51:01.920 --> 00:51:03.679
I I think we have a lot of choice.
00:51:03.840 --> 00:51:12.719
You know, uh some people refuse to move on and get stuck in whatever identity or period they find more comfortable.
00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:25.519
For myself, I know I have a hard time letting go of some things, but it's a matter of trade-off, and you're always going to have to, I think, sacrifice something to gain something else.
00:51:25.840 --> 00:51:31.280
I I'm hearing sirens in a background and and living where I do in the country.
00:51:31.599 --> 00:51:33.760
Oh, that's downtown LA, yes.
00:51:34.239 --> 00:51:35.360
That's amazing.
00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:38.000
That's an immersive media experience.
00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:41.360
Yes, and that's from the 11th floor, by the way.
00:51:41.679 --> 00:51:42.239
Wow.
00:51:42.480 --> 00:51:56.719
You know, and this is the identity that that um I've come to assume and take for granted is is this guy living in the country when I used to be a kid living in the city and taking the subway and going to punk rock shows and whatever.
00:51:57.039 --> 00:51:59.280
And sure that's that's still a part of me.
00:51:59.360 --> 00:52:01.760
And it's it's made who I am today, you know.
00:52:01.840 --> 00:52:04.880
Uh I'm built on the the ashes of those identity.
00:52:05.519 --> 00:52:19.519
But uh yeah, I think the trick is to hold on to what's important and not lose sight of those things in our eagerness to move ahead in some name of progress.
00:52:21.440 --> 00:52:32.239
So just to draw to a close then, I'm going to ask you a question that I ask all the guests at at the end of these podcast episodes, which is what action for identity should we take?
00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:35.119
And and I'm thinking now in a media environment.
00:52:35.440 --> 00:52:47.199
And really what I mean by that is what kinds of media or ways in which we use media would uh strengthen our uh ability to either find or discover or explore our own identities.
00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:50.079
I'll leave you for a second to think about that one.
00:52:50.320 --> 00:52:56.320
I just remind our listeners that I'll be speaking at the next TBD conference on March the 31st.
00:52:57.039 --> 00:52:58.880
Technology behaviour and data.
00:53:00.239 --> 00:53:10.480
It's hopeful and expectation of the future for big tech to activists, scientists, to camp poets, TBD conferences fast and it goes for the throat.
00:53:11.039 --> 00:53:15.599
So join me at 30 other speakers there with 25% of your ticket today.
00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:22.000
All we need to do is visit a feature of you at the checkout over at thetbdconference.com.
00:53:22.159 --> 00:53:27.280
So visit thetbdconference.com and pick up your discounted ticket today.
00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:30.000
Okay, I'm going to return to Andrew and Henry.
00:53:30.159 --> 00:53:35.679
Andrew first, any thoughts on that question about action for identity in the media landscape?
00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:45.679
Well, I mean, the thing to keep in mind is that our identities are always going to be developing under assault, changing, morphing.
00:53:45.920 --> 00:53:47.760
That's just a fact of life today.
00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:52.480
The best thing I think you can do is uh try and be conscious about it.
00:53:52.639 --> 00:53:54.079
Know that that's happening.
00:53:54.320 --> 00:54:00.960
Ask yourself what your identity is, what it means to you, and more specifically, what's important to you.
00:54:01.199 --> 00:54:05.440
Write it down if you have to, you know, uh and hold on to it.
00:54:05.760 --> 00:54:16.400
I think there's uh a lot we can preserve if we want to, but it's so easy to lose sight of these things because again, things happen so fast and we move on.
00:54:16.480 --> 00:54:21.119
And you know, as they say, you can never step in the same stream twice.
00:54:21.440 --> 00:54:27.840
But I think we can we can hold on to things in good ways, you know, not in necessarily bad ways.
00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:33.920
So ask yourself who you are, who you want to be, and just hold on to that.
00:54:34.400 --> 00:54:36.239
Good advice, Henry?
00:54:36.800 --> 00:54:41.280
Well, I'm white, I'm cis, I'm male, I'm American.
00:54:41.440 --> 00:54:49.360
I belong to identities that are dominant in my culture, and I have a pretty clear sense of what those identities are.
00:54:49.519 --> 00:54:54.639
What I worry about is the history of my identities imposing themselves on other people.
00:54:54.880 --> 00:55:08.719
So I'm at a point in my life, I'm 63, that I'm interested in hearing other people talk about their identities so that I understand the identity distinctions my students are making for themselves more deeply.
00:55:08.960 --> 00:55:28.880
And the place I go to do that is podcasting, because I can find podcasts which are conversations among black people or among Asian people or among Muslim people or whatnot, and hear a conversation that I would not be able to directly encounter in everyday life and really actively listen.
00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:34.400
And yes, I probably start out with a certain degree of ignorance or confusion.
00:55:34.559 --> 00:55:41.440
I'm exposed to things that I would never have even thought to ask about, but I gradually develop a deeper understanding.
00:55:41.599 --> 00:55:45.599
I never assume I fully get it, but I do get closer.
00:55:45.920 --> 00:56:00.800
And that saves a lot of wear and tear on my students who, as people minority citizens, often grapple with the labor involved in explaining their identity over and over and over again every day to someone else.
00:56:01.119 --> 00:56:10.239
I'm listening to someone who's chosen to explain their identity, either within their own community or beyond in a porous medium like podcasting.
00:56:10.320 --> 00:56:12.559
It's always to some degree beyond.
00:56:12.719 --> 00:56:17.840
And that helps me to understand identity in the modern world at a much deeper level.
00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:29.599
So just listening to well-chosen podcasts and use those to spark real conversations with real people in your life is the path I would recommend.
00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:30.880
That's amazing.
00:56:30.960 --> 00:56:33.519
That's just fantastic advice from both of you.
00:56:33.760 --> 00:56:42.079
I think I'm right in saying that Marshall once said a dog, having a dog, helps you define or understand your own identity.
00:56:42.159 --> 00:56:43.280
Is that not right?
00:56:43.679 --> 00:56:46.880
Andrew, because the dog knows who you are.
00:56:47.199 --> 00:56:51.199
Maybe even if you don't, the dog recognizes you and knows who you are.
00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:56.480
Well, at the beginning of the pandemic, my son moved in with us with a dog.
00:56:56.639 --> 00:57:02.000
And so I was out walking the dog in the streets in my neighborhood that I've lived in for 15 years.
00:57:02.159 --> 00:57:10.880
And I met so many people walking the dog that I did develop a sense of my community walking the dog, if not my identity.
00:57:12.159 --> 00:57:18.719
The thing about the dog is uh the dog doesn't rely on its eyes, it relies on its nose.
00:57:18.960 --> 00:57:28.320
And this is another part of your identity is that your scent is is a part of your identity that doesn't come through the screen here.
00:57:28.480 --> 00:57:30.639
But this is how the dog knows who you are.
00:57:30.800 --> 00:57:41.519
And this is something very integral to who you are, which may not be how you identify or how you wish to identify, but it is basic to yourself.
00:57:41.760 --> 00:57:52.400
And that's your physical body, which is something that's easy to lose sight of when we spend all our time interacting through screens, as if we were visiting each other in jail.
00:57:52.719 --> 00:58:08.559
But uh, you know, what one last thing to keep in mind about identity is that it's largely created, and you have the option or ability to take a hand in that creation, and that is worth considering.
00:58:09.119 --> 00:58:10.320
Wise words.
00:58:10.559 --> 00:58:12.079
Thank you so much to both of you.
00:58:12.159 --> 00:58:19.840
It's been a real privilege to speak to both of you together and to hear both perspectives on a whole range of issues.
00:58:19.920 --> 00:58:21.440
I can't wait to listen to it back, actually.
00:58:21.519 --> 00:58:22.559
There's so much in there.
00:58:22.719 --> 00:58:23.840
Thank you to both of you.
00:58:24.159 --> 00:58:24.480
Thank you.
00:58:24.639 --> 00:58:25.119
Thank you.