Symbolic creativity as an act of identity representation on the ...

Christian Fuchs

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Symbolic creativity as an act of identity representation on the Internet By Imre Mátyus

      Introduction

Symbolic creativity as a social practice gain attention in the last two decades of the 20th century. Theorists in the field of cultural studies turned their focus to youth subcultures a as communities centered around creating, sharing and negotiating systems of meanings. Creative processes analyzed and discussed shed light on the key role of symbolic creativity as means and practice in the generation and constant (re)formation of personal and communal identity. Although these account made a notable step towards understanding individual product customization in subcultural contexts they usually failed to step over its political nature. Thus the concept of symbolic creativity was handled as a form of conscious resistance against existing social hierarchies, class or market structures (Hebdige 1995, Willis 1990, Storey 1996). Youth subcultures were considered to gravitate exclusively around consumption (Storey 1996).

The birth and spreading of the Internet seems change these theories. Although it would be a failure to overestimate the effects of the changes brought by the world wide web we can assert that new info-communication technologies provided us a priceless insight into discursive and creative practices worldwide.

The 'second web' or 'web 2.0' (O'reilly 2005) is changing the existing structure of media   institutions and their relation to consumers. Besides it seems to change our approach to media texts and images as well. The advent of the Internet brought new emphasis to theories about the understanding of text and communicative practices and the interpretation of images as socially meaningful phenomena. We came to a point where limits of completeness of media texts 1 can and                                                  1 By the term 'media texts' hereby I refer to narratives, images and multimedia content made available by devices of mass communication.

 

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must be questioned and they must be handled rather as parts and source material for a larger (potentially global) system of communicative practices than closed, finite products.

The central issue of this paper is to provide a fresh look on current 'remix culture' (Manovich 2007) through actual examples taken from the Hungarian blogosphere. More specifically this paper is a case study of the supporter submissions page of a user-generated Apple fansite 2   launched to articulate local needs. With the help of these examples we might get a better understanding of new media and user generated content. Also, the analysis might give a more precise outlook on how globally spread media texts can and does influence the articulation of local and communal identities.   Late modern identity It might sound truism that throughout the past decades identity related questions came to be of major interest in social sciences. The term gain crucial importance in a wide range of approaches from psychology to literary studies, from sociology to politology. Although the exact definition of the term varies amongst different disciplines there are common features in current discourses: identity marks an abstract, dynamically changing, socially determined and influenced parameter of individuals and communities. Its social definiteness stems from the fact that identity can only be developed and experienced in social context. Identity is dialectic and its contingent nature stems from the inner tension to be always on the forefront of clashes between individual and communal intentions.

The reason why identity is given so much attention lately might be a result of post modern fears articulated in the second half of the 20th century. Social problems like alienation, over- individualization, consumerism and emptying traditional cultural forms are recounted by several theorists.

The need of identity equals the need of ontological certainty. As for discourses in social psychology the urge to create and maintain a coherent image or narrative of one's identity is triggered by an inner need to compensate for the continuous changes of the surrounding world.                                                  2 The site analysed here is available at the following URL: http://www.wewantapplehingary.com Accessed: April 12, 2008.

 

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Generating and maintaining a seemingly coherent identity individuals become able to keep a defined and constant contact with their social context (Csepeli 2002, p 520-524).

Late modern individuals have to overcome unsolved problems with their social context. According to Giddens (2006) life in the era of late modernity is problematic for the 'self'. These problems result a personal crisis of the identity in several aspects of social existence. The 'dilemmas of the self' as Giddens call them should be resolved to maintain a coherent narrative of the self-identity and to gain control over life and future.

The dilemmas of the self and the late modern crisis of identity is derived from the erosion of former collective identities (those provided by the nation state or by the church) and the increased role of personal identity (Er ő s 2001). Elements or patterns of identity are not provided by authorative institutions at birth any more. To make up for the loss late modern individuals turn to consumption as a potential source of identity patterns. Thus consumption practices became sources of new elements of identity creation and representation.

Hankiss (2005) claims that social and cultural changes in the last century were dramatic and radical. Communal morale was turned into radical individualism, community-centered behavior was changed to personality oriented one and the aschetic civilization is overdone by hedonism. What can be considered as late modernist consumerism is built on the ground of the cult of freedom, personality and pluralism. Hankiss notes these changes can result serious harm by surrounding people "with empty illusions" (Hankiss 2005, p.296).

The role of media in marketing identity is crucial. While modernity was centered on production of commodities and products "postmodernity is characterized by a proliferation of signs" (Sarup 1996, p 111.). Baudrillard's theory of 'hyperreality' and 'simulcra' corresponds to what Hankiss calls the world of 'empty illusions'. There seems to be an altered or pseudo reality generated and marketed by mass media. From these illusionary or false phenomena images of possible lives are born.

As for late modernity we might note that consumer practices are far from being overtly dominated and manipulated by Baudrillard's hyperreality. Neither was it true for youth subcultures of the second half of the 20th century and nor does it stand for contemporary

 

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societies. As it has been pointed out by several social theorists (Hebdige 1995, Storey 1996, Willis 1990) there has been revolts against guiding principles, dominant ideologies and practices from mods to punks or from hippies to grunge fans.

We are witnessing the re-empowerment of communal identities these days as well which is partly due to the use of Internet 3 . Accounts on freshly found collective identities, increased sense of conscious consumption and family ties becoming stronger are increasing in number 4 .

The emergence of Internet and especially Web 2.0 applications opened new way to use new electronic media not only as a source of elements of identity but also as means and space for generating and represent new forms of personal and collective identities.

  Effects of new media In 2006 Internet users were 'Person of the Year' in Time Magazine. The cover of the December 25th issue depicted an Apple iMac with an open YouTube video interface in it. According to the original design idea the screening area of the YouTube box was replaced by a reflective piece of paper that mirrored the reader as he/she was appearing in a live video broadcast. Time editor Lev Grossman claims that looking at the year 2006 we could wholeheartedly agree on the fact the it was "a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before" (Grossman 2006). It was unquestionably the recognition and appreciation of the new digital culture formerly referred to as 'cyberculture', 'online culture' or 'net culture'.

Now two years later Time Magazine published its list about the world's 100 most influential people. Amongst the names like Vladimir Putin, the Dalai Lama, Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer, or Herbie Hancock we find a Cuban blogger, Yoani Sánchez 5 . This 32 years old woman writes a weblog on her everyday life in Havanna and the number of visitors of her website exceeds 4 million monthly. The appearance of Sánchez on the list is even more surprising when we take into account that her blogging career started about a year ago in April 2007.                                                  3 Of course I am far from arguing here that Internet should be considered as a 'spotless success story' of the century 4 See for example: Ananda Mitra (2001): "Marginal voices in Cyberspace." In: New Media & Society Vol. 3. No. 1. London: Sage Publications, p 29-48. 5 The weblog of Yoani Sánchez ( Generación Y ) is available at http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/ Accessed: May 5, 2008.

 

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Choosing Yoani Sánchez into the line of the most influential people is a symbolic act. On one hand it illustrates the US curiosity about what is happening in Cuba. On the other hand, Sánchez is freedom of speech incarnated. In an interview she gave to French news radio France Info she told that she does not have Internet at home so she has to plan the process of posting every day. According to her account there are only two Internet cafés in Havanna opened for Cuban citizens with slow machines, low bandwidth and long waiting lines so she prefers sneaking into hotels to write.

As it is claimed by other Cuban bloggers Internet does make a change in Cuba - both as a source of information and a field to express their needs to freedom of speech. Yoani Sánchez is an archetypical figure of contemporary intellectual struggle for the freedom of speech. But what is more important for us in this paper is that her appearance in public discussions is due to her online representation. As Oscar Hijuelos (2008) puts it "come of age before the Internet, it's most likely that we would have never heard of her".

Since its very creation Internet has been heralded as a harbinger of a new era in freedom of speech. Not only does it enhance the political potential of the users by making more information available to their decisions (Turkle 1995) but it provides new means for representing self or community (Mitra 2001, Brunstig and Postmes 2002).

The Internet - opposed to other electronic medium - integrates interpersonal and mass communication making both functions available through the same set of devices. Thus we witness an ongoing erosion in the limitations of interpersonal and mass communication contents.

The parallel existence of interpersonal and mass communication channels based on the common ground of ICT. It was the act of digitalization that created a common ground for transferring any type of recordable information through computer networks. Besides enabling the parallel presence and availability of personal communication applications and media services digitalization created the technological ground for media convergence.

Media convergence seems to exceed the boundaries of technology as different genres of media texts are merged. This merging process can be observed in 'traditional' media as well - terms like

 

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'infotainment' or 'politainment' refer to these kind of blurring boundaries between objective (factual) media content and subjective (entertaining) intentions and representation.

At this point the 'revolutionary' nature of the Internet can be questioned - although not because of its novelty but because of the term 'revolution' used as a metaphor. Revolutions - by definition -    mark quick and radical changes in society which are aimed to override former conditions. Revolutions eliminate, replace or change social and cultural constructions.

The Internet - thus far - has neither eliminated, nor has replaced its predecessors. What Internet does is integration of former media contents into one common technological framework. It refers to and re-utilizes traditional (or classic) media texts like modular newspaper structures, TV shows or radio broadcasts. It provides a technological environment for their extended representation and the same time it makes them available to recycling.

When writing about 'secondary orality' Walther J. Ong points out that (classic)electronic communication re-utilizes the involvement of oral interactions but the it leans on literacy in organizing texts (Ong 1982). So secondary orality that is linked to the emergence of electric media makes use of both oral and literary traditions and does not override them. Secondary orality in this aspect marks a complex form of different communication processes. The same way Internet could be considered as a re-appropriation of former modes of communication. Moreover, CMC (computer-mediated communication) seems to re-emphasize the role of oral (and vocal) communication devices besides merging textual and multimedial representations.

Changes that are made available by the Internet cannot be reduced to merely structural or technological changes in communication and representation. As McQuail (2000) notes the emergence of online publishing simultaneously induces alteration in the institutional framework and in the content of mass communication. Besides changes in the area of publishing or editing the practice of journalism itself is affected by the emergence of the World Wide Web. Mark Deuze (2001) points out that the three major characteristics of networked computer environment (hypertextuality, multimediality and interactivity) resulted changes both in means of sharing and organizing information, building on new sources and brought new ethical questions into the limelight.

 

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One of the key issues emphasized by Deuze is the 'civic' or 'open source journalism' (Deuze 2001). The emergence of such phenomenon marks a change in the relationship between members of the society (consumers) and the mass media institutions (producer). Boundaries between traditional roles of producer and consumer seem to erode or blur on the Internet (Deuze 2001, McQuail 2000). The proliferation of blog sites and the increased interactivity between media personnel and consumers freed the latter group from its formerly passive status.

On one hand such alterations in the mass media mark changes in tools to participate in the global information transfers. On the other hand the success and fame of blogging and civic journalism point out that there has been a change in our relationship to media texts. It seems like the communicative strategies, styles or modes of the mass media became a familiar environment for the audience to express its own concerns about real life events. Almost unconsciously the 'language of the media' became something like a second mother tongue for almost every media consumer. The way media texts are interpreted and re-appropriated by members of the audience marks a global change in 'media literacy'. This change can be traced globally through the phenomenon labeled as Web 2.0 by Tim O'Reilly.

  A glimpse of Web 2.0 In the early 1990s Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the World Wide Web suggested that Internet should be a social medium in a way that it should not be reduced to fill the role of an extended digital bulleting board for traditional media. What Berners-Lee envisioned from the start was a 'read/write web' (Gillmor 2004) - a world wide digital discursive space for all users.

Up until about 2001 the Internet seemed to be essentially a read-only web with a limited number of contributors. Presence on the Web was bound to expertise in creating websites, hosting capabilities and usually former experience in self-representation. The Internet was one more few- to-many communication devices - an extended canvas for professional media institutions, an altered version of traditionally centralized mass communication.

Although the real turning point in the history of new media can be found somewhere around the millennium writing for the Web was not a new phenomenon. There were BBS (bulleting board

 

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system) applications, mailing lists and newsgroups to be found on former computer networks (like UseNet or BitNet). However it was the proliferation of weblogs (and the 'hype' around them) that triggered a massive shift in the use of new media.

The idea behind the term 'Web 2.0' can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, it is a marketing 'buzzword' for contemporary web applications and services. These are made available by the spreading of broad band Internet access. Technically there is only a couple of things seems to be new in Web 2.0 - most of the seemingly innovative features were there since years. Secondly, Web 2.0 stands for "free flow of data from site to site, from user to user" (Peterson quoted by Zimmer 2008). This approach involves weblogs, social network applications, multimedia sharing sites and P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing as means of communicative space for user-generated content.

Web 2.0 is altogether a shift in the perspective from considering Internet a publication tool for professional media workers and profit oriented organizations to deal with it as a platform for new publicity[Members of the IT business used to note that one of the most important feature of Web 2.0 is that Internet became a platform both for development. There is a refocalisation in IT industry which moves the attention of the producers from stand-alone softwares to development of online applications.].

The archetypal contributor of the Web 2.0 is what Alvin Toffler (1984) labeled as 'prosumer' - a user who generates, organizes, edits and publishes media content. Toffler predicted that changes in the electronic media would lead to a state where the role of producer and consumer would begin to blur and merge. As it was suggested earlier the change in the mass media is due to increasing number of this media content generated by users. The read/write web - as envisioned by Berners-Lee - seems to be present, however the 'quality' and 'originality' (or authenticity) of such user-generated information can still hardly be compared to professional media coverage.

Web 2.0 applications provide users a wide variety to represent themselves on the Internet. Weblogs and social network applications are not only used to enhance personal communication but also serve as spaces to create and represent one's identity through creative processes. These creative processes are often carried out through manipulation, 're-appropriation', 're-utilization' or 'recycling' of existing media texts or works of art.

 

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  Consumption as an act of identity production Before we turn our attention to the act of remixing and other symbolic practices we have to make a short detour to briefly discuss the role of symbolic meaning and value of products. These embodied values are used in late modern identity projects as resources.

The interpretation of consumption as a linear process has been questioned by theorists in cultural studies. Consumption itself does not necessarily means the final phase of the process. It might serve as a starting point for a new process by transforming the original end product into resource. This kind of transformation can be observed in several subcultures or community cultures.

Consumers are not completely defnceless against the logic of capitalist market. Moreover consumtion itself is an active process by its very nature. As it is claimed by Willis (1990) the selection of commodities to purchase itself needs involvement and acts of deliberation. These acts contain both financial and symbolic elements.

In late modern societies the aesthetisation of products made commodities actually 'mean' something. Their value does not equal the cost of raw material and the expense of work force invested in its production and marketing. Commodities seem to convey some 'extra', symbolic value.

According to Appadurai commodities "represent very complex social forms and distributions of knowledge" (Appadurai 2006, 41). These sets of knowledge are both about the production process of the given commodities and about the way the products meant to be used (and mean something beyond their practical use).

Furthermore, symbolic meanings and values attached to different products can and do change. Meaning vary in time and space. Commodities have their own history of meanings - their own 'biographies' or 'life stories' 6 .

                                                 6 See Igor Kopytoff (2006): "The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process". In: Arjun Appadurai (ed): The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective . Camridge: Cambridge U.Press, pp.64-91.

 

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The social embeddedness and the symbolic values embodied in commodities can be transformed into actual elements of personal and/or communal identities by purchasing different products. Product marketing in contemporary capitalist market is based on this variable social and cultural interpretation of things. The distance between individual needs and desires (that are not necessarily of material nature) and their fulfillment is overcome in and through economic exhange.

The late modern identity project (the quest for creating and maintaining a more or less coherent narrative of personal and/or collective identity) is largely based on consuming different kinds of commodities. By possession of goods individuals and communities try to create and externalize an image of themselves. They identify themselves with the products consumed and the values that are embodied by the products.

Furthermore, the act of identity shaping involves the active participation in manipulating or reshaping the original symbolic meaning of stock products. These manipulations and re- appropriations can be understood as acts of remixing.

One of the most apparent examples of creative manipulation and re-appropriation of stock products can be observed in fan cultures. Fandom is often conceived as a pathologic state of being under the influence of mass media images and narratives (Storey 1996, 124). However fans can be characterized by an activity Michel de Certeau (1984) calls 'secondary production'. This activity is maks the using of products through re-appropriation, manipulation and alteration. Secondary production attaches new interpretations to existing products that appear in the discursive field of fan cultures.

Jenkins (1992) notes that fan communities deal with media texts in the scope of their interest in active ways. They read (and re-read) relevant texts for better understanding their structure and be able to discuss it with other fans. Consumption of text in fan cultures is rather collective than solitary act.

Furthermore, fan cultures are also about cultural production. Jenkins note ten ways in which fans recreate or rewrite their key texts. These processes result 'fan art' or 'fan fiction' which leads us to the discussion of remix as an act of symbolic creativity.

 

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Remix culture and symbolic creativity

'Remix' came to be a loosely defined term in social sciences although it has quite distinct features in music. According too Eduardo Navas a music remix can generally described as a reinterpretation of a pre-existing song without changing the dominant nature and the 'atmosphere' or 'aura' of the original work. Navas defines three categories of remixes namely: extended remixes (aimed at making songs more danceable), selective remixes ("the DJ takes and adds parts to the original composition, while leaving its spectacular aura intact") and reflective remixes (Navas 2006).

The latter type of remixes (reflective remix) is radically different from the other two types in the relation between original and derivative work. While both extended and selective remixes leave the primacy and dominancy of the original work unchanged and result a version, reflective types produce detached, autonomous works by extending the boundaries of aesthetic manipulation. This category of remixes is probably the most widespread practice in the field of cultural remixes.

According to Manovich (2007b) the term remix developed into a sort of 'umbrella term' for a number of symbolic practices. Although he marks music industry and software development as the "the two key reservoirs of new metaphors for the rest of culture today" he notes that the expansion of the term into other areas was inevitable (Manovich 2007b). Remix as a cultural practice claimed to be a general practice in cultural history. The re-appropriation of elements, forms, styles or narratives of other cultures has always been a common element in cultural progression 7 .

Remixing products are also relevant for youth subcultures. Different subcultures of community cultures used alteration of stock products to represent their needs and identities. Whether it was clothing (Hebdige 1995), popular literature (Jenkins 1992), or any other use of commodities

                                                 7 Manovich highlights the example of Roman culture remixed Greek one to be remixed again by renessaince later on (Mamonvich 2007a, 80).

 

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