Page 337 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

1 | Onl ne Publ sh ng

manage their own Web sites, blogs, and other multimedia projects. Coupled
with collaborative open-source code sharing initiatives and emerging DIY cul-
tural attitudes, these technologies are imagined as encouraging experimentation
with new forms of online publishing while also lowering the entry bar for tech-
nologically disinclined users by providing quick, easy, and affordable (in many
instances, free) access to avenues of creative production for anybody with Inter-
net access.
Digital editing software like Adobe Premiere, FinalCut Pro, or Windows
Movie Maker make it easy to create original films without film processing
costs or (much) technical know how. These same software programs also allow
users to play with and rearrange existing media materials into parodies, the-
matic compilations, and mash-ups that combine distinct media sources—such
as clips from the ABC series Desperate Housewives and Madonna’s “Material
Girl”—in order to generate something new, occasionally critical, but always
meaning-altering. Video hosting sites like YouTube, Veoh, or Vimeo make such
creations available to large numbers of online users, who are free to comment
and must—consciously or not—incorporate these new possibilities into their
lexicon of available meanings and understandings for existing media texts and
how they are expected to engage with them.
Additionally, digital technologies and software open up new opportunities
for online publishing that are at once multimediated and nonlinear. Online
writing initiatives can easily combine text, video, audio, and animation fields in
nonderivative ways that allow new types of stories to be told where each mode
of writing adds something new to the overall meaning or means of engaging
with the piece. Hyperlinks and trackbacks permit pieces to be written (and read)
in nonlinear ways, much like a puzzle that has more than one way of being cor-
rectly assembled, offering multiple directions and interconnections, each pro-
ducing new overall meanings that emerge based on the ways the different parts
have been assembled.
The popularization of online blogs has redrawn the lines between public and
private forms of writing, providing open forums for writers to share personal
experiences and opinions, anecdotes and impressions, with the possibility of
receiving feedback from readers they have never met about their innermost
thoughts and feelings. These same spaces can also serve as sites of critical dis-
course and deliberation outside of officially sanctioned channels, offering
original and filtered entertainment reviews and political commentary. In some
instances, amateur critics like Harry Knowles at AintItCoolNews.com have
gained semiprofessional recognition because of the popularity of their Web
sites. Web sites like TelevisionWithoutPity.com have marketed themselves as
offering snarky fan-written reviews of popular television series even though the
majority of writers for the site are paid freelance journalists.
Online publishing endeavors also allow historically marginalized communi-
ties a public voice and community-building network that bypasses traditional
publication and publicity channels that have previously either ignored or mis-
represented them, or spoken on their behalf. While Web sites dedicated to creat-
ing works of fiction and reporting news that address gay, lesbian, bisexual, and