Reading Response #8

Reading Response #8: Spreadable Media Ch. 6, 7, Conclusion 

1.     Participatory cultural practices transform transnational media flow through what users watch on social media. The author uses the example of Sarah Boyles and her fame from Britain X Factor. Even though the performance was for a specific audience and the creators tried to control how far this would go for a certain amount of time, her performance eventually reached out to the world, such as the United States. Aside from culture, we get to see unknown people doing unknown talents or people that we least expect who do extraordinary things. We get out from what we are custom to and learn from other people’s worlds through the media. This is like what we mentioned in class where Snap Chat’s uniqueness from other social media is users get to see people from different places in the world and experience, in a short amount of time, what are the likings from foreigners or international people. This is important because we are already interconnected so might as well take advantage of how easily we are all affected. We can get to see how impactful the change over time the participatory cultural practices can be through transnational media. In reality, this is not new. People have migrated from one place to another and assimilated between their former culture and the new culture they live at. But with transnational media, people are influenced and are exposed by new things quicker than before. An example to help with the impact of transnational media is many professional Puerto Ricans are leaving the island to the United States. They bring their expertise and creative minds with them. There is a participatory culture practice lost.

2.     The potential limits, misunderstandings, and frictions are certain information that flow in the media may be more of a “inside joke” where the native people will get, but everyone else in the world may not get it or misinterpret it. For instance (hypothetically), the dance “Watch Me Whip, Watch Me Nay-Nay” went viral on social media in the United States, but if watched in another country, the dance could have a negative connotation or the dance was thought of something else. Other times there are misunderstandings within one country where people may overlook an information or character from a certain medium. For example, when the show The Bible premiered many people thought that satan was a representation of Obama, but in reality the creators did not have that intention when creating the role of satan. There was no political connotation or message involving the President of the United States rather was just showing a religious story to the general public.  There can be friction in terms of cultural stereotypes against a certain group such as the Arabs and Iranians relations. No matter how much people can try there are certain things that are out of control and it is a limitation.