Blog 10: Video Vortex

In Geert Lovink’s “The Art of Watching Databases”, he discusses how society is addicted to watching things from databases, such as YouTube, and therefore our attention span has become that of a child’s, going from one 2 minute video to the next, and having a smaller tolerance to longer-lasting media.

Lev Manovich’s “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life” argues that companies and corporations encourage that we create own art, our own applications, and be “creative”, because in turn social media will give them profits, and there is a turn from professional to non-professional media in our mainstream culture.

Both authors will agree that YouTube is a venue in which we can broadcast ourselves, as well as choose what we wish to see, and we are no longer being sold the same limited media. It no longer needs to be professional in order for us to see it, and we are encouraged to be “creative”. What Lovink argues is that the companies that encourage this and the use of their databases (such as Google, who owns YouTube), in order to create their own revenue and make a profit. Manovich’s argument is that other companies will be the ones that change as we change, and create new technology that goes along with what we want/use at the moment (for example, the Iphone and several other cellular phones now have the capabilities of being on Facebook, YouTube, and other sites that people mostly use).