Author Archives: Herman Muller

Hasan Minhaj, in the “Saudi Arabia” episode of Patriot Act, unravels the reporting on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi into more easily understood layman terms. In a way this allows us to get an insight on the encoding/decoding process, as described by Stuart Hall, as it happens. Minhaj shows this process beyond just its traditional media implications. He also expands on the presence of this process in politicians’ and other powerful people’s remarks. His knowledge on the topic, both from research and a Muslim point of view, allows him to better understand the source information. By extension he comments on why it was being reported in that particular way. For example, in this episode, he shows how the encoding/decoding process can become corrupted, particularly in politicians. He points out that many politicians, like past US presidents, ‘forget’ to address atrocities, like those on Yemen, the Saudi Arabian Royal Family commits. Showing how the wealth that Saudi Arabia holds is enough for many people of power to completely change their own encoding process when addressing the public, and perhaps even change their own decoding at the subconscious level.

He then points out that it was not until the murder of Jamal Khashoggi that this encoding/decoding process, and framing, actually changed. While before, as Minhaj put it, “[Muhammad bin Salman] was greeted like a rockstar,” the media finally caught up enough to alter their framing. They put him at the forefront of accusations, rather than only focusing on the good that he does; such as, in Minhaj’s words, “providing basic human rights” like letting women to drive. Again this showed Minhaj clearly how both media and politicians only change with the influence of money; and how this money is enough to change their own encoding within their frames.

Patriot Act, as a piece of media, is responsible for its encoding. In the show’s case, the encoding has the purpose of creating comedy; for a good reason, as comedy is believed to open people’s mind up for change more so than other forms like debates or serious political shows. While this has the potential to lighten the topic more than is appropriate, the intentions and impact is great enough to make it worth while. Also, his position, being a Muslim, gives him a kind of authority on the topic that I, for example, might not have given much thought before. In his case, being a Muslim not only gives a religious perspective, but rather highlights the cultural context that surrounds the issues he talks about. While other studies could go in more depth, often the general public will decode more from this format, thus making it worth listening to.

In entering the Museum of Anthropology’s Multiversity Gallery, a piece by Heiltsuk artist, ’Nusí, Ian Reid, is displayed prominently as a centerpiece of the hallway. This artwork is called One Mind, One Heart (2012). The focus of the piece is a mask of ’Yágis, an ancestral guardian, holding an oil tanker in his mouth (1). The mask itself is carved out of red cedar, with details added using acrylic paint, horse hair, and metal. ’Yágis reflects the duty the Heiltsuk people feel towards protecting their land and water (1). The piece itself was made as a reaction to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines project. A position made clear by the texts surrounding the mask, as well as two photos of Heiltsuk marching and protesting, united in their opposition towards the project. One of the texts explains the artwork’s name in saying, “As Heiltsuk people, we are of one mind and one heart in opposing [the project] and oil tanker traffic in our territories.”

Within the Multiversity Gallery One Mind, One Heart does stand out a bit, and that may be the intent of the curators. In immediate proximity, specifically right behind the artwork, pieces closer resemble what I would call artifacts rather than art; as at least from a quick glance they all seem to have been made for practical reasons. When I first looked at ’Nusí’s piece I thought it belonged with all these artifacts; until I saw the boat and read the texts I understood the artistic value in it as it brings forward new meanings within the traditional art. Similarly to what Robert Houle refers to as artist-warriors, ’Nusí is taking back his culture’s art to dispute the preconceived ideas people had about what indigenous art really is and means. He breaks the conventional way people view indigenous art as he brings forward a more contemporary meaning. The curation of this piece within the gallery further shows this as this contemporary artwork is amidst the artifacts most people think of when considering indigenous art.

As for myself, being a foreigner to the artist’s culture, I still picked up on the references made towards the disputes over the pipeline, as the issue has often been covered in the news. However the perspective of the indigenous peoples’ was new to me, which the artwork helped to inform me on; additionally the texts, images, and tablet to the side helped a lot to understand the position of the Heiltsuk people. Admittedly, I did not at first have any context for what the mask was depicting and who ’Yágis was, which it assumes you already know. However, although these details are crucial, I still felt as though I had enough information to understand what it was trying to convey.

Works Cited:

(1) Bonar, Thane. “One Mind, One Heart Exhibit at MOA.” Aboriginal Portal, UBC, 2 Jan. 2013, aboriginal.ubc.ca/2013/01/02/one-mind-one-heart-exhibit-at-moa/. Accessed 20 January 2019.

When considering social media and its impact, one fundamental question must be considered, does social media enable sociopolitical change? People like Castells, in his article “The Egyptian Revolution”, would argue yes. Since he focuses on a real life example, the Egyptian Revolution, it is hard to disagree with him. He makes it clear, in regards to the origins of the movement, “that the original spaces of resistance were formed on the Internet” (Castells 57). I myself agreed with most of his points, and the general conclusion it led towards.

When I was assigned the position of opposition, specifically co-leading the rebuttal, towards the resolution “Be it resolved that social media enables sociopolitical change” I had to reconsider the whole article contrary to my original standpoint. This time my reading was sceptical of everything that was said. My scepticism questioned if the singular example of the Egyptian Revolution was enough evidence to back this resolution, as revolutions happened before the internet. Our approach to the article changed completely, it became a ‘playbook’ for all the arguments we knew our opponents would use. Taking everything in the article with a grain of salt, we compiled a list of smaller counterarguments, from a number of outside sources, that I could make in the rebuttal if they mentioned any of the article’s main arguments that we were expecting. We also made sure to note any contradictory statements Castells made that went against the resolution, such as his mention of the revolution continuing without the presence of the Internet (64).

Despite my approach of skepticism, my own opinion on the resolution hardly changed. It was clear that there is grounds to skepticism when regarding social media’s impact on larger movements such as the Egyptian Revolution, but this is just one example. However, in listening to the arguments made by the groups debating the Dean article, specifically the for side, it was clear that all social impacts have grounds for skepticism regarding the role social media plays in them. They specifically showed this with the forgotten intent of the Ice Bucket Challenge, and making reference to the Egyptian Revolution never having led to a total positive change. Through their debate, it was clear that the question should be to what degree does social media play a role in sociopolitics, and furthermore if the impact has a net positive or negative outcome.

While Dean focused on a variety of examples when considering social media’s impact, allowing for more open discussion, Castells focused narrowly on the Egyptian Revolution which directed arguments away from sociopolitical change in general and towards revolutions. However they both provide important insights, showing that both perspective should be considered before making up one’s own position.

The internet has long been a dark and mysterious entity, hosting a platform for anonymous interaction often accompanied by very little repercussions. One site made possible by this unique platform is 4chan, a purely anonymous imageboard in which posts are sorted in chronological order. This foundation of anonymity, when mixed with its light treatment of moderation, only further drives the controversy often invoked by this infamous site. Controversy such as that which broke out August of 2014, the beginning of Gamergate. 4chan played an instrumental role in this controversial pseudo-movement that snowballed from a blog post written by the ex-boyfriend of the game developer Zoë Quinn (1). This pseudo-movement fabricated an issue of unethical relations between game developers, like Zoë, and game journalists. However, it was later found out that Gamergate was almost entirely orchestrated by 4chan users who went as far as to use “sockpuppet accounts” on social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit to artificially push Gamergate into the mainstream media’s attention (1).

This situation of Gamergate created a social dynamic which has never existed before 4chan’s internet influence. Although sensationalized media has been around much longer, the degree at which such a small number of internet users were able to turn a small hoax into a global controversy was never seen before. If anything, this signified the evolution of a preexisting social dynamic seen on social media, the ‘internet troll’, someone who uses provocation to incite emotional reactions while maintaining anonymity (2). While previously ‘internet trolls’ tended to work alone, or at least with little organization, what Gamergate showed was the extreme power ‘internet trolls’ were capable of, given the chance to use platforms such as 4chan to organize themselves while maintaining anonymity.

After 4chan established this pseudo-movement, they were able to continue their harassment now further protected by a falsified notion of social justice. Under this flag of social justice they gained supporters from vast isolated like-minded groups that had formed over the years on different social media platforms (3). A level of recruitment on this scale was made possible only through social media, as social media tends to create a mob mentality rather than a collaborative community of different ideas. Fueled by this mob mentality, 4chan users, along with their pseudo-movement’s supporters, went as far as to hack Zoë’s computer and leak nude images of herself to her father (3). They also similarly targeted her sympathisers including Anita Sarkeesian (1) and Phil Fish; Phil later left the gaming industry as a result (4).

In the end, what 4chan set out to do was accomplished. They hoped to cause chaos for chaos’ sake, rather than any genuine social agenda. 4chan, organized by their anomalous social media platform, were able to abuse the naive mob mentality of social media communities.  Therefore, we can conclude that the ‘newness’ of this abusive dynamic lead directly to 4chan’s success as no one knew how to deal with the situation.

Works Cited:

(1) Johnston, Casey. “Chat Logs Show How 4chan Users Created #GamerGate Controversy.” Ars Technica, Condé Nast, 9 Sept. 2014, arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/new-chat-logs-show-how-4chan-users-pushed-gamergate-into-the-national-spotlight/. Accessed 6 November 2018.

(2) Moreau, Elise. “Here’s What You Need to Know About Internet Trolling.” Lifewire, Dotdash, 5 Oct. 2018, www.lifewire.com/what-is-internet-trolling-3485891. Accessed 6 November 2018.

(3) McKeon, Lauren. “How Gamergate Pioneered the Backlash Against Diversity.” The Walrus, The Walrus Foundation, 11 Sept. 2017, thewalrus.ca/how-gamergate-pioneered-the-backlash-against-diversity-in-technology/. Accessed 6 November 2018.

(4) Johnston, Casey. “The Death of the ‘Gamers’ and the Women Who ‘Killed’ Them.” Ars Technica, Condé Nast, 29 Aug. 2014, arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/the-death-of-the-gamers-and-the-women-who-killed-them/. Accessed 6 November 2018.

Felix Kjellberg, a 28 year old YouTuber known online as PewDiePie, has long been an outlier in the world of media. Since 2013, Felix has been the platform’s most subscribed content creator. Along the way, he never stayed with the same format. He started by uploading his first person shooter gameplay. However, he later evolved into the comedy genre when he started uploading gameplay of horror games. Recently, for the most part, Felix has shifted away from gaming. Now more focused on comedy commentary, he has since entered arguably his most successful stage. While most content creators tend to cater towards their demographics, following a very strict professional protocol, Felix has abandoned this protocol for the most part. This fresh indifferent attitude towards his popularity has lead to his continued growth.

This “protocol” can be seen as Malcolm Gladwell’s notion of stickiness as mentioned by Henry Jenkins. Stickiness is the focus on creating content that is proven to attract the current viewership, with the hopes that deep audience engagement will lead to eventual spread. With Felix shifting away from this model he can be seen as trending towards another concept brought up by Jenkins, spreadability. Spreadability, although not an opposite to stickiness, is a model which attempts to capitalize where the stickiness model lacks. Spreadable media concerns itself with creating content that is easily shareable by the audience, in both the technical and cultural sense.

Felix seems to break every rule when it comes to sticky media. He often shifts his content after building an audience accustom to a very specific subject matter. This content change allows him to be more spreadable in terms of exposure to different online cultures. Anytime that Felix follows the stickiness model it tends to be done in a parody-like way. One proven way that someone can boost their revenue on YouTube is by extending their videos past 10 minutes long. This method of gaining ad revenue closely follows the stickiness model.  Through making a video longer it, by nature, relies on deeper engagement, not shareability. Felix has also adopted making videos past 10 minutes long. However, through the self-aware ironic tone he does this with, him appeasing to the stickiness model becomes the underlying joke.

Despite fighting against the stickiness model which is becoming so prevalent in the YouTube industry, Felix himself still relies on it. What makes Felix so popular is his near cult following. Having such a following heavily relies on deepening audience engagement. He does this through creating inside jokes and by encouraging his fans to post submissions he will respond to. It is through this blend of spreadable content with an underlying stickiness model that makes Felix the online enigma that he is.