Comic strips and the Internet : a perfect match ?

Comic strips are still very popular today. Between the popularity of mangas, the revival of superheroes (their influence has progressed toward T.V., with the T.V. show Heroes for example) and the spread of comic strips on the big screen (Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi was a great success), comic strips have become a worldwide product. Comic strips in the USA became popular thanks to the press. During the beginning of the 20th century, comic strips were published in the last pages of newspapers. It started out with “Hogan's Alley” by Richard Outcault in 1895, “Katzenjammer Kids” by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and “Little Nemo in Slumberland” by Winsor McCay in 1905. There has been a real revival of the comic strip genre in the 1990's and since then, comic strips have been declined on different mediums. Comic strip, much like all form of entertainment, can now be found on the internet : they are called webcomics. They suffer, just like the music and film industry, of illegal downloading. Nevertheless, the format of a comic strip is much different from the one of a cd or a film. It seems as though the pleasure taken from reading a comic strip is partly due to the medium itself, to the holding of a nice object. Do comic strips and the internet make a good match ?

Comic strips can now be found and read on the internet. Of course, there is the alternative of downloading them and reading the strips on a computer. This is put on the internet and can be analyzed as contributing to Pierre Levy's concept, collective intelligence. The concept of collective intelligence signifies that the group has more knowledge than the individual, if the information each individual has is put together. Putting comic strips on the internet and giving it free access is a way of sharing information and contributing to Internet’s "brain". Most of these comics published on a website can be found exclusively on the internet. The first webcomic was Witches and Stitches put on the internet in 1985. Internet gives the possibility to anyone to publish their own comic. The genre has become so popular that there are now many user-generated comics site. They are search engines that permit to find a comic strip, depending on the genre, the country and other categories and read them. There is a real work in making accurate metadata, and therefore contributing to a functioning collective intelligence. For example, there is www.drunkduck.com, "the Webcomics Community". Along with hosting for free webcomic creators, it also has a forum which permits interaction between the different fans. This enlarged community helps prevent what Cory Doctorow calls "metacrap". Indeed, the contribution of many on these comic strips portals ensures a certain quality, where the consumer chooses freely and judges honestly. DrunkDuck, in its description, adds :"We offer many free tools and a strong community to not only help a webcomic creator publish their work online, but also to continually learn and grow as an artist. As the quality of the work improves, so will the quantity of the audience.". The user of the internet can become a productor in two ways : by creating a webcomics or by commenting and participating in the comics fan community online and suggesting new ideas to the artist. Webcomics are a clear manifestation of “produsage”. Axel Burns defined this term as a system where consumers are producers as well. This can be possible only in web 2.0. A top-down system between the editors and the readers does not exist anymore with webcomics : the internet gives more freedom to the author, who does not have to please and make concessions for the comics editors, who does not have to impose himself any limits on the choice of themes, subjects and vocabulary. The author is given total artistic freedom. This is very true to the extent that we can find the inversed scheme : confirmed comic strips artists find refuge on the Internet to deliver to its readers more explicit content. On the French website www.bdcul.com (closed down last year), artists can expose their pornographic comic strips without restriction. The author’s only limit is the goal of getting positive reception from the Internet fan community.

Nevertheless, even if comic strips can pull many advantages out of the internet, the ultimate goal remains : to publish the story in a hard format. The medium of the Internet seems to be more a first step toward popularity and artistic reconnaissance. Indeed, webcomics artists are not financially self-sustainable. Furthermore, the importance of the paper object still exists. The internet has only copied the format of comic strips on a screen : The medium of the internet does not bring in itself any interesting change to the content. Therefore, webcomics contribute to collective intelligence, to freedom of the author and of the consumer (who has free and easy access to cultural contents), but the Internet and comics have not found the keys yet to a perfect wedding.

Mélanie Rauscher

Media Panics and the Internet

Throughout the centuries ever since a new medium would enter the society, the panic about it would follow. This trend dates back to as far as the Ancient Greek times. One of the most famous philosophers of the time Plato commented on the ability to write in this manner: “If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks“. Moreover, the publishing J. W. Goethe’s masterpiece “The Sorrow of Young Werther” resulted in a chain of suicides, as young men in the 18^th century found the course of action of the hero of the book worth following (Werther, the main character, killed himself because he loved a girl who loved someone else). These tragic deaths forced the governments all across Europe to ban the book in the 18^th century. In later publications, Goethe addresses the reader with the words “Be a man, do not follow my example”. Similarly, there were fears surrounding the 19^th century dime novels and dance halls about 100 years ago. There are some more recent examples as well, regarding every single medium one could imagine. Reality TV, explicit music lyrics, movies like Clockwork Orange or Child Play 3, video games – you name it, every one of these had difficulties with entering the scene without causing a heated discussion. These types of societal reactions are called “media panics”. In this post I will try to take a look at media panics that were caused by the internet and its many applications.

But before doing so we have to define what a media panic is. Oddly enough, however different the mediums might look from one another, the panics about them are quite similar. As Danish professor of the field Kirsten Drotner once put it, media panics always happen in the same manner, they have the same cycle. Firstly, the discussion starts, then some sort of governmental or industry self regulation is introduced and finally the panic disappears. This pattern can be applied for all the above mentioned panics. Another similarity is that these fears are always caused by the introduction of a new, unseen media that more often than not are created for the entertainment purposes. Finally, media panics are always about the young users.

Media panics arise from reports about the shocking cases of a possible abuse of new mediums. To make this clearer, let’s take an example of Columbine school shooting. 15 people were killed and 24 were severely injured when two students arrived to the school armed to the teeth. Until this day the general opinions make out that the killers were influenced by a first person shooter video game Doom. Many other factors – such as drugs used by the perpetrators or their acquisition of guns – are left aside. This tragedy was a big hit to the FPS developers’ industry and not to pharmacy or gun industries.

So by now the reader probably understands what is meant by the term “media panic”. Let’s take a look at the internet. Created in the second half of the 20^th century it started to become massively used in 1993 with the introduction of the World Wide Web and the internet browsers. The internet firstly was looked at as a perfect field for communication. It was a place for virtual communities to be established, people could experiment with their identity and the possible reach of it was not seen ever before. However, it was not too long until the first panic took place.

“Researchers find sad lonely world in cyberspace” – shouted a press release from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The quote was immediately caught by the New York Times, CNN, BBC and other press corporations. In the year of 2009 it was used in 1633 academic papers! “The Internet has the potential to make us socially isolated, lonely and depressed”. Well, of course it has! A cat has a potential to kill its owner in his sleep but is it likely that it will do it? It was also found that the internet usage may result in decrease in family and social contacts and that the teenagers are the most vulnerable societal group. It is vital to know that in 2002 the participants of the survey of 1998 (on which the results were based) were revisited and had to answer the same questions. It was found that the aforementioned effects of internet usage are not likely to happen. This second research that denied the results of the first one did not get a press release. Ever.

Current academic consensus on the internet usage stresses out that online communities build on offline communities; online contacts are related to offline contacts; and that family and friend networks are maintained. The internet is seen as reinforcement to strong and weak ties rather than a thing that can make us alienated and lonely. Its importance for dispersed groups (such as migrants or homosexuals) is invaluable.

Rarely a talk about internet and its’ many evil sides can happen without mentioning online predators. In the USA an extremely popular show called “To catch a predator” has been broadcasted on the national television. You can watch an excerpt from it here to see what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZhsfT9wGp0 . Even though this show seems to be doing a good job of hunting down possible peadophiles and other types of bastards, it usually draws away from facts. It is a proved fact that most of the cases when teenagers meet adults that they met online, they know what they are doing, they know that they were talking to someone who is a lot older. The problem about chatrooms and online predatoring is a bit different thatn adults hiding behind the curtain and pretending to be of the same age as their victims. The real problem is that the teenagers are curious about meeting these people. And again, it‘s not the internet that is to blame for that, is it? According to, for example, UK law (where this problem has been in the spotlight for a long time) cases like that look more like statutory rape ("consensual sexual relations that occur when one participant is below the age required to legally consent to the behavior”) than predatoring.

And finally, we move to our beloved Facebook and friends. In April 2009 several publications were printed in the British newspapers (Daily Mail, The Guardian, and Sunday Telegraph), causing a media panic about social networking sites. “Social network use may alter the brain structure” – said Susan Greenfield: a member of parliament, a professor and a baroness. Moreover, Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster said that “Social network sites produce transient relations that can cause trauma and even suicide when they collapse”. I would suggest to focus on the words “may” and “can” in both quotes. It basically is the same argument once again: social networking may make you feel lonely and depressed (like the internet itself in 1998) and can alter your brain structure (like the video game that has been blamed for the Columbine tragedy). Even though this panic is still happening and the cycle is not yet finished, one can try to foresee its finish. There will probably be some industry self regulation (it is already happening with, for example, checking of photos that are uploaded on Facebook. I simply am expecting the wider range of these actions). There will probably be some tragic event that SNSs will be blamed for (actually, one already took place in Lithuania this winter, when a psychologically unstable teenager killed a girl. You can guess where they met each other). And in the end this panic will die out. It always does! Who knows, maybe we’ll hear people talking about the harmful effects of Nintendo WII (“it teaches our kids the robotics of unwanted actions like shooting a gun”), maybe the new iPad will be torn apart. I will conclude by simply putting it this way: the developer of The Next Big Thing, brace yourself and be ready to be under attack. Because you will be.

Did your social life improved or deteriorated with the internet?

The Internet is the last technological breakthroughs in interpersonal communication, following the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. Social life has been affected by the innovative features provided by the internet which are, among others, the possibility to do everything at distance, to play games in virtual worlds, to communicate with the anonymity afforded to users, and the possibility to join meeting groups in which people have similar interests and values.

Social life has taken a different shape above all with the revolution of the internet communication through mails, meeting sites and social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn.

Social networking on the Internet combines various ways for users to interact, such as text chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, and discussion groups. It is a revolution for the communication and the way to share information with each other. Hundreds of millions of people are using social networking every day, and it now seems that social networking is a part of everyday life for a lot of people, making it a very success.

One of the internet's main objectives is to establish a way to communicate between individuals more or less connected. However the evolution of the Internet has a great impact on the social relations which have changed positively and negatively due to the Web.

“There is a tendency by critics to blame technology first when social change occurs", Keith Hampton, a professor at the Annenberg School, said in a statement for a study released by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication.

What does the internet communication provoke?

OR

?

On the one hand, the main critic to the internet communication is that it has a tendency to lead to social isolation, simply because the more time you people spend on the internet the less they spend it in the « real life ».

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSkk-t03BOw&NR=1

Although the participation to forums or to emails exchange assumes a social interaction, the big users have the tendency to spend less time with their family or friends. It has been also studied that they spend less time to work, to think, or to make domestic work. They give less importance to the resting time and are more likely to sacrifice their sleeping time.

Indeed, the internet is an attraction to be lazy and to not leave your home to do all the things of daily life. You can shop, date, talk, play, and even have cybersex while staying comfortably at home.

Another negative feature of the internet communication is the anonymity and the impersonal elements which might encourage users with personal taboo or lack of self confidence to live a secret life on the internet and to steep themselves in a virtual world. You can be anyone you wish to be on the internet, even if you are unattractive, shy, unpopular, or have trouble carrying on a conversation with people face to face in real life.

It happens also to some people to be addicted to the internet and this can deeply affect their social life. Internet addiction can lead to withdrawal, feeling angry, tense, or depressed when the Internet is not available, excessive Internet use, resulting in a loss of time, mood swings, including arguments, lying, isolation, fatigue, and poor achievement of goals. The comfort provided by the Internet finally kills their spirit of initiative and their desire to move.

These people, spending the majority of their time in front of a computer, are known as « No-life » or « geek ». There is a rise observed of these “No-life” who become dependent on the internet use until a point where they forget the main rules of hygiene such as eating and washing themselves.

In some most extreme case, online games such as Second Life, World of Warcraft or Habbo who have developed considerably, aim to create a "virtual life" aimed at users who want to adopt a new life characterized by "dream". But these games are not only extremely additives, but also very influential on the behavior of players. Indeed, users often tend to shut themselves in a virtual world and away from the real world, up to risk losing any physical contact with people around them. These Internet users have the characteristic to not realize this and think that they create new social links on the Web. Despite this reality, the Internet may cause a total disconnection between a user and the real world and can thus undermine the creation of social ties.

On the other hand, the use of the internet in social interaction might simply be seen as a provider of better efficiency and opportunities to communicate with each other.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTfOfIj6uhM&feature=related

Social networks on the internet are very successful because they facilitate a lot of interpersonal interactions not possible in the physical world. People enjoy human interaction and thus enjoy internet tools that facilitate them through discussion, interaction, and sharing of common interests. The use of the internet enables us to be and interact virtually somewhere we are not physically.

Social networks enable people to keep contact and share a piece of their mutual life even if they don’t see each other. It also helps people to have a wider and diverse social circle.

"It turns out that those who use the Internet and mobile phones have notable social advantages," Hampton said. "People use the technology to stay in touch and share information in ways that keep them socially active and connected to their communities."

The internet is also a way to equalize people socially. Indeed people with a smaller social network or a greater social anxiety might be helped by the use of the internet. In this case, the internet is most useful in the initial contact which might not happened in real life because of lack of self confidence or social anxiety. They can meet and get to know other people better through the net, and when they feel more comfortable and intimate with the person and the relationship they created “virtually”, they can meet in the real life and then bring this relationship into a traditional face-to-face relation. The internet is not a threat for the social contact in the real life as long as the people use it as a tool to improve them.

"People's social worlds are enhanced by new communication technologies. It is a mistake to believe that Internet use and mobile phones plunge people into a spiral of isolation", Keith Hampton says, a professor at the Annenberg school.

As a conclusion, we can say that the impact of the internet on social life is not clear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw-saZ95OgY&feature=related

Internet is initially supposed to help us improve our relationships in real life and not deteriorated them. Unfortunately the use of the internet may reach some extreme case where the user become dependent or addicted to the net but it is then the user’s responsibility only. The threat of social isolation due to the internet is dependent on the character of the person.

Because nothing can replace the contacts in the real life and people need interaction with each other, they must be able to get away from their computer to have a healthy, happy, and productive life. So, as long as we don’t forget that, the internet should help us to improve our relationships.

Sources

http://www.medrounds.org/ophthalmology-pearls/2010/02/whats-buzz-about-social-networks.html

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3847041/Does-the-Internet-Really-Wreck-Your-Social-Life.htm

http://faculty.washington.edu/thurlow/com482/tyler(2002).pdf