AUDIENCE THEORY #5 ‘End of audience’ theory Clay Shirky RESOURCES REQUIRED FOR THIS LESSON: None

KEY CONCEPT: change in consumption = the act of using a resource, goods or services ‘for the first time in the history of television, some cohorts of young people are watching TV less than their elders[…] young populations with access to fast, interactive media are shifting their behaviour away from media that presupposes pure consumption’ – Clay Shirky Quotations are taken from Shirky, C., Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Penguin, 2011)

TASK: change in consumption In what ways is the relationship between media and individuals changing? Use the online edition of The Mirror or The Times as a case study. What experiences are unique to the online version of the product? What audience pleasures are offered online that aren’t offered in print? Why might newspapers be doing this?

KEY TERM: technological convergence = technology advancing, merging and integrating

Considering Shirky’s message, what is the future? ‘when we use a network, the most important asset we get is access to one another. We want to be connected to one another, a desire that the social surrogate of television deflects, but one that our use of social media actually engages’ – Clay Shirky Considering Shirky’s message, what is the future? Of TV? Radio? Newspapers? Magazines? Video Games? Quotations are taken from Shirky, C., Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Penguin, 2011)

CASE STUDY: lolcats lolcat = cute picture + cute caption = viewer laughs out loud Named after its inaugural image, icanhas.cheezburger.com was instrumental in bringing memes into mainstream usage. ‘Formed quickly and with a minimum of craft, the average lolcat image has the social value of a whoopee cushion and the cultural lifespan of a mayfly. Yet anyone seeing a lolcat gets a second, related message: You can play this game too.’ – Clay Shirky Quotations are taken from Shirky, C., Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Penguin, 2011)

Shirky on ‘You can play this game too’: ‘what if, all this time, providing professional content isn’t the only job we’ve been hiring media to do? What if we’ve also been hiring it to make us feel connected, engaged, or just less lonely? What if we’ve always wanted to produce as well as consume, but no one offered us that opportunity? The Pleasure in You can play this game too isn’t just in the making, it’s also in the sharing.’ – Clay Shirky Quotations are taken from Shirky, C., Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Penguin, 2011) How does this quotation link to your findings regarding the online editions of The Mirror and The Times?

KEY TERM: prosumer prosumer = a producer-consumer = technological proliferation and convergence has enabled consumers to be content producers too Can you think of any examples of prosumers? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUDcZsNEA1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz7ZDk_szEY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2BYmmTI04I It Also consider: unboxing videos, reviews, parody videos, wikis, forums, etc.

TASK: the latest apps… Who here is up to date on the latest trending apps? Which new apps are supporting audiences who create and share content with one another? Educate us! ‘if you buy the means of consumption, you automatically own the means of production[…] participation is inherent in the phone, and it’s the same for the computer. When you buy a machine that lets you consume digital content, you also buy a machine to produce it’ – Clay Shirky Quotations are taken from Shirky, C., Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Penguin, 2011)

TASK: Interactive gameplay Assassins Creed III: Liberation was released on the Playstation Vita in 2012. Undertake research in order to answer the following questions: What is the PS Vita, what features does it have, and as a platform how does it link to Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory? What gameplay features of ‘Assassins Creed III: Liberation’ sustain active audiences? How have audiences engaged with the game through other online and social media channels?

‘our ability to balance consumption with production and sharing, our ability to connect with one another, is transforming the sense of media from a particular sector of the economy to a cheap and globally available tool for organised sharing’ – Clay Shirky Quotations are taken from Shirky, C., Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (Penguin, 2011)

INDEPENDENT TASK Watch Clay Shirky’s hour-long presentation on ‘the end of the audience’ at TechConnect:12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ChDh-_y8Q

PLENARY: “basically, yeah…” Sum up Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory on one side of a post-it note. Complete this sentence starter: “basically, yeah, Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory is…”