Artigos de revistas sobre o tema "Sony Digital Products (Wuxi)"

Новые технологии и изменение потребностей клиента приводят к появлению новых продуктов и новых форм взаимодействия с клиентом, а, соответственно, к появлению новых бизнесмоделей. Цифровые бизнес-модели привносят новый взгляд на традиционные процессы. Геймификация, меняющая поведение, помогает формировать новые привычки персонала и покупателей. В работе приводится маркетинговое исследование игровой консоли Sony PlayStation 5. PlayStation 5 - консоль нового поколения, с эксклюзивными играми и геймпадом, который предлагает новый опыт и меняет восприятие привычных геймплейных механик. Рассмотрено сегментирование и позиционирование на рынке игровых консолей. Описано изменение покупательских предпочтении. The new technologies and changing customer needs lead to the emergence of new products and new forms of interaction with the customer, and, accordingly, to the emergence of new business models. Digital business models bring a new perspective on traditional processes. Gamification, which changes behavior, helps to form new habits of staff and customers. The paper presents a marketing study of the Sony PlayStation 5 game console. PlayStation 5 is a new generation console with exclusive games and a gamepad that offers a new experience and changes the perception of familiar gameplay mechanics. Segmentation and positioning in the market of game consoles is considered. The change in customer preferences is described.

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have increased rapidly and successfully established themselves as a tool for the rapid collection of high-resolution images as baseline data in land cover studies and topographic mapping. In photogrammetry using the SfM-MVS method of processing captured images, indirect georeferencing of the digital data through ground control points (GCPs) is usually applied. But selecting, marking, and coordinating GCPs in hardto-reach terrains is time-consuming and sometimes dangerous or impossible. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of high-resolution topographic data (HRTD) products of photogrammetric processing of PPK-directly georeferenced images by SfM-MVS workflow. Direct and indirect methods of georeferencing digital products are compared. The planimetric and vertical root mean square error (RMSE) in the position of the validation points were calculated by the differences between measured coordinates in dense point clouds, orthophoto mosaics, and terrain surfaces (DSM), and precisely measured coordinates of the validation points by GNSSRTK receivers. The analysis is based on a statistical evaluation of experimental data obtained from a TAROT X6-based hexacopter equipped with two different image sensor configurations: 1) Sony RX0 action camera and 2) Sony A6000 mirrorless camera, and 3) DJI Phantom 4 Pro quadcopter with integrated additional L1-GNSS module for direct georeferencing by PPKmethod. HRTD generation was performed with three block control configurations for each UAV: 1) Indirect georeferencing via GCP only, 2) PPK direct georeferencing without GCP, and 3) PPK georeferencing using one GCP. Our research showed that when using L1-GNSS onboard receivers for PPK-georeferencing without any GCPs, the point cloud's planimetric accuracy (RMSExy) was from 0.125 to 0.231 cm, depending on the UAV/camera configuration. However, two flight missions produced significant vertical offsets, most likely due to ionospheric disturbances affecting the resolution of phase cycle ambiguities in the single-frequency receivers used. When adding one control point in the PPK georeferencing method, the planimetric and vertical accuracy of the data is comparable to the indirect GCP referencing method. Furthermore, our results show that camera properties (i.e., focal length, resolution, sensor quality) affect the quality and accuracy of digital products. The HRTDs were also evaluated according to the ASPRS (American Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Society) Standards for Accuracy of Digital Geospatial Data. Analyzing the accuracy of the HRTDs obtained with the experimental UAV/camera configurations for the test area, the present study shows that the PPK-SfM-MVS workflow can provide quality data with a centimeters accuracy of the photogrammetric products.

Prior research on digital ecosystems focuses on the focal firm (e.g., a platform owner) and its ecosystem governance. However, there is a dearth of literature examining the non-focal actor, that is, an ecosystem participant who is at the periphery of a digital ecosystem. This paper proposes a theoretical perspective of the non-focal firm's participation across digital ecosystems for cultivating its innovation habitat through capability search and redeem. Capability search involves the location of external capability deemed valuable for extending the firm's innovation habitat. Capability redeem refers to the firm's use of external capability to develop, distribute, and/or monetize its products and services. We generate and sensitize the proposed perspective in the context of Sony Ericsson's innovation habitat by interpreting the mobile device manufacturer's participation across four digital ecosystems (Visual Basic, Java, Digital Music, and Android). Our findings suggest that the non-focal actor cannot rely on a single ecosystem for addressing all relevant layers of innovation. It benefits from pursuing a pluralistic strategy, operating across digital ecosystems to avoid investing all efforts in the same ecosystem. The model of ecosystem capability search and redeem, which is a result of ideographic research explanation, extends current perspectives on digital ecosystems and contributes to the emerging literature in the digital age.

Color had a correlation with physical appearance, nutritional and chemical content as well as sensory properties which determine the quality of agricultural products and foods. Conventional color measurements were performed destructively using laboratory equipment. Therefore, color measurement methods of agricultural products were needed more quickly, accurately and non-destructively. This study aimed to develop a Computer Vision System (CVS) that can be used as a tool to measure the color of fruits. The designed CVS consists of a 60x60x60 cm black mini photo studio; a pair 15 watt LED lighting, sony α6000 digital camera, a set of laptop and an image processing software applications. Image processing software was programmed using VB.Net 2008 programming language. The developed CVS was calibrated using 24 color charts Macbeth Colorchecker (Gretag-Macbeth, USA). The calibration results of 24 color chart of Macbeth Colorchecker was resulted in a MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) value of component R / Red = 0%; G / Green = 0% and B / Blue = 0,5%; with 99% accuracy rate. In color measurement, the developed CVS had a 95% accuracy rate.

Digital Voice Recorder has many uses, usually used for interviews, recording voices and songs, recording meeting results, and can be used for learning. Currently, various Digital Voice Recorder products have been circulating and have different functions and specifications that are created according to the needs of users. For this reason, users must be observant in choosing a Digital Voice Recorder to support their work. So, we need a system that can provide recommendations and help in making decisions to choose the right Digital Voice Recorder. This study aims to develop a decision support system with Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) using Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) to assist in selecting a Digital Voice Recorder, so that it can assist in selecting the best solution appropriately and according to user needs. The ARAS method is used as a model that can select the best alternative based on the utility level of each alternative to determine the best alternative. Based on the case studies conducted, the utility values of each alternative were obtained, namely: Zoom Handy Recorder with a value of 0.5672, Sony PX470 with a value of 0.6147, Ruizu X52 with a value of 0.4664 and Tascam DR-22ML with a value of 0.9096. So, the best alternative is the Tascam DR-22ML. Based on testing through the black-box testing method, it shows that the system built has been running well

The main focus of the presented study is a multi-variant accuracy assessment of a photogrammetric 2D and 3D data collection, whose accuracy meets the appropriate technical requirements, based on the block of 858 digital images (4.6 cm ground sample distance) acquired by Trimble® UX5 unmanned aircraft system equipped with Sony NEX-5T compact system camera. All 1418 well-defined ground control and check points were a posteriori measured applying Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) using the real-time network method. High accuracy of photogrammetric products was obtained by the computations performed according to the proposed methodology, which assumes multi-variant images processing and extended error analysis. The detection of blurred images was preprocessed applying Laplacian operator and Fourier transform implemented in Python using the Open Source Computer Vision library. The data collection was performed in Pix4Dmapper suite supported by additional software: in the bundle block adjustment (results verified using RealityCapure and PhotoScan applications), on the digital surface model (CloudCompare), and georeferenced orthomosaic in GeoTIFF format (AutoCAD Civil 3D). The study proved the high accuracy and significant statistical reliability of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imaging 2D and 3D surveys. The accuracy fulfills Polish and US technical requirements of planimetric and vertical accuracy (root mean square error less than or equal to 0.10 m and 0.05 m).

Efficient mapping from unmanned aerial platforms cannot rely on aerial triangulation using known ground control points. The cost and time of setting ground control, added to the need for increased overlap between flight lines, severely limits the ability of small VTOL platforms, in particular, to handle mapping-grade missions of all but the very smallest survey areas. Applanix has brought its experience in manned photogrammetry applications to this challenge, setting out the requirements for increasing the efficiency of mapping operations from small UAVs, using survey-grade GNSS-Inertial technology to accomplish direct georeferencing of the platform and/or the imaging payload. The Direct Mapping Solution for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (DMS-UAV) is a complete and ready-to-integrate OEM solution for Direct Georeferencing (DG) on unmanned aerial platforms. Designed as a solution for systems integrators to create mapping payloads for UAVs of all types and sizes, the DMS produces directly georeferenced products for any imaging payload (visual, LiDAR, infrared, multispectral imaging, even video). Additionally, DMS addresses the airframe’s requirements for high-accuracy position and orientation for such tasks as precision RTK landing and Precision Orientation for Air Data Systems (ADS), Guidance and Control. <br><br> This paper presents results using a DMS comprised of an Applanix APX-15 UAV with a Sony a7R camera to produce highly accurate orthorectified imagery without Ground Control Points on a Microdrones md4-1000 platform conducted by Applanix and Avyon. APX-15 UAV is a single-board, small-form-factor GNSS-Inertial system designed for use on small, lightweight platforms. The Sony a7R is a prosumer digital RGB camera sensor, with a 36MP, 4.9-micron CCD producing images at 7360 columns by 4912 rows. It was configured with a 50mm AF-S Nikkor f/1.8 lens and subsequently with a 35mm Zeiss Sonnar T* FE F2.8 lens. Both the camera/lens combinations and the APX-15 were mounted to a Microdrones md4-1000 quad-rotor VTOL UAV. The Sony A7R and each lens combination were focused and calibrated terrestrially using the Applanix camera calibration facility, and then integrated with the APX-15 GNSS-Inertial system using a custom mount specifically designed for UAV applications. The mount is constructed in such a way as to maintain the stability of both the interior orientation and IMU boresight calibration over shock and vibration, thus turning the Sony A7R into a metric imaging solution. <br><br> In July and August 2015, Applanix and Avyon carried out a series of test flights of this system. The goal of these test flights was to assess the performance of DMS APX-15 direct georeferencing system under various scenarios. Furthermore, an examination of how DMS APX-15 can be used to produce accurate map products without the use of ground control points and with reduced sidelap was also carried out. Reducing the side lap for survey missions performed by small UAVs can significantly increase the mapping productivity of these platforms. <br><br> The area mapped during the first flight campaign was a 250m x 300m block and a 775m long railway corridor in a rural setting in Ontario, Canada. The second area mapped was a 450m long corridor over a dam known as Fryer Dam (over Richelieu River in Quebec, Canada). Several ground control points were distributed within both test areas. <br><br> The flight over the block area included 8 North-South lines and 1 cross strip flown at 80m AGL, resulting in a ~1cm GSD. The flight over the railway corridor included 2 North-South lines also flown at 80m AGL. Similarly, the flight over the dam corridor included 2 North-South lines flown at 50m AGL. The focus of this paper was to analyse the results obtained from the two corridors. <br><br> Test results from both areas were processed using Direct Georeferencing techniques, and then compared for accuracy against the known positions of ground control points in each test area. The GNSS-Inertial data collected by the APX-15 was post-processed in Single Base mode, using a base station located in the project area via POSPac UAV. For the block and railway corridor, the basestation’s position was precisely determined by processing a 12-hour session using the CSRS-PPP Post Processing service. Similarly, for the flight over Fryer Dam, the base-station’s position was also precisely determined by processing a 4-hour session using the CSRS-PPP Post Processing service. POSPac UAV’s camera calibration and quality control (CalQC) module was used to refine the camera interior orientation parameters using an Integrated Sensor Orientation (ISO) approach. POSPac UAV was also used to generate the Exterior Orientation parameters for images collected during the test flight. <br><br> The Inpho photogrammetric software package was used to develop the final map products for both corridors under various scenarios. The imagery was first imported into an Inpho project, with updated focal length, principal point offsets and Exterior Orientation parameters. First, a Digital Terrain/Surface Model (DTM/DSM) was extracted from the stereo imagery, following which the raw images were orthorectified to produce an orthomosaic product.

Efficient mapping from unmanned aerial platforms cannot rely on aerial triangulation using known ground control points. The cost and time of setting ground control, added to the need for increased overlap between flight lines, severely limits the ability of small VTOL platforms, in particular, to handle mapping-grade missions of all but the very smallest survey areas. Applanix has brought its experience in manned photogrammetry applications to this challenge, setting out the requirements for increasing the efficiency of mapping operations from small UAVs, using survey-grade GNSS-Inertial technology to accomplish direct georeferencing of the platform and/or the imaging payload. The Direct Mapping Solution for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (DMS-UAV) is a complete and ready-to-integrate OEM solution for Direct Georeferencing (DG) on unmanned aerial platforms. Designed as a solution for systems integrators to create mapping payloads for UAVs of all types and sizes, the DMS produces directly georeferenced products for any imaging payload (visual, LiDAR, infrared, multispectral imaging, even video). Additionally, DMS addresses the airframe’s requirements for high-accuracy position and orientation for such tasks as precision RTK landing and Precision Orientation for Air Data Systems (ADS), Guidance and Control. <br><br> This paper presents results using a DMS comprised of an Applanix APX-15 UAV with a Sony a7R camera to produce highly accurate orthorectified imagery without Ground Control Points on a Microdrones md4-1000 platform conducted by Applanix and Avyon. APX-15 UAV is a single-board, small-form-factor GNSS-Inertial system designed for use on small, lightweight platforms. The Sony a7R is a prosumer digital RGB camera sensor, with a 36MP, 4.9-micron CCD producing images at 7360 columns by 4912 rows. It was configured with a 50mm AF-S Nikkor f/1.8 lens and subsequently with a 35mm Zeiss Sonnar T* FE F2.8 lens. Both the camera/lens combinations and the APX-15 were mounted to a Microdrones md4-1000 quad-rotor VTOL UAV. The Sony A7R and each lens combination were focused and calibrated terrestrially using the Applanix camera calibration facility, and then integrated with the APX-15 GNSS-Inertial system using a custom mount specifically designed for UAV applications. The mount is constructed in such a way as to maintain the stability of both the interior orientation and IMU boresight calibration over shock and vibration, thus turning the Sony A7R into a metric imaging solution. <br><br> In July and August 2015, Applanix and Avyon carried out a series of test flights of this system. The goal of these test flights was to assess the performance of DMS APX-15 direct georeferencing system under various scenarios. Furthermore, an examination of how DMS APX-15 can be used to produce accurate map products without the use of ground control points and with reduced sidelap was also carried out. Reducing the side lap for survey missions performed by small UAVs can significantly increase the mapping productivity of these platforms. <br><br> The area mapped during the first flight campaign was a 250m x 300m block and a 775m long railway corridor in a rural setting in Ontario, Canada. The second area mapped was a 450m long corridor over a dam known as Fryer Dam (over Richelieu River in Quebec, Canada). Several ground control points were distributed within both test areas. <br><br> The flight over the block area included 8 North-South lines and 1 cross strip flown at 80m AGL, resulting in a ~1cm GSD. The flight over the railway corridor included 2 North-South lines also flown at 80m AGL. Similarly, the flight over the dam corridor included 2 North-South lines flown at 50m AGL. The focus of this paper was to analyse the results obtained from the two corridors. <br><br> Test results from both areas were processed using Direct Georeferencing techniques, and then compared for accuracy against the known positions of ground control points in each test area. The GNSS-Inertial data collected by the APX-15 was post-processed in Single Base mode, using a base station located in the project area via POSPac UAV. For the block and railway corridor, the basestation’s position was precisely determined by processing a 12-hour session using the CSRS-PPP Post Processing service. Similarly, for the flight over Fryer Dam, the base-station’s position was also precisely determined by processing a 4-hour session using the CSRS-PPP Post Processing service. POSPac UAV’s camera calibration and quality control (CalQC) module was used to refine the camera interior orientation parameters using an Integrated Sensor Orientation (ISO) approach. POSPac UAV was also used to generate the Exterior Orientation parameters for images collected during the test flight. <br><br> The Inpho photogrammetric software package was used to develop the final map products for both corridors under various scenarios. The imagery was first imported into an Inpho project, with updated focal length, principal point offsets and Exterior Orientation parameters. First, a Digital Terrain/Surface Model (DTM/DSM) was extracted from the stereo imagery, following which the raw images were orthorectified to produce an orthomosaic product.

Remember cyber? surely one of the most irritating and ubiquitous prefixes of the nineties, cyber quickly became attached to all kinds of products (the Sony Cybershot camera), labor styles (cybercommuting), and communicative practices (cyberspace) that have now become so normalized as already digital that the prefix has dropped out of the language. Photography, work, and social discourse no longer need be flagged as cyber since we can more or less assume that in postindustrial, informationalized societies they usually are. Cyber migrated widely during the nineties, but the legal scholar Jerry Kang's article “Cyber-race,” which appeared in the Harvard Law Review in 2000, was the first to attach this prefix to race. Kang answers the question “can cyberspace change the very way that race structures our daily lives?” with an affirmative: “race and racism are already in cyberspace.” He then proposes three potential “design strategies” for lawmakers to deal with the problem of race and racism in cyberspace: the abolitionist approach, in which users take advantage of the Internet's anonymity as a means of preventing racism by hiding race; the integrationist approach, in which race is made visible in online social discourse; and the most radical one, the transmutation approach. Strategies for transmuting race in cyberspace reprise some of the discourse about identity and performativity that was often associated with Judith Butler—“it seeks racial pseudonymity, or cyber-passing, in order to disrupt the very notion of racial categories. By adopting multiple racialized identities in cyberspace, identities may slowly dissolve the one-to-one relationship between identity and the physical body” (1206).

AbstractThis study focuses on component sharing across product categories, in contrast to earlier studies which examined component sharing within a specific category. Cross-category component sharing creates the potential for diversified product functionality by transferring new knowledge between categories, in addition to streamlining development, as previously noted. We collected evidence for this proposal from the Japanese digital audio-visual products market in the late 2000s. Panasonic not only shared software modules and the design of large scale integration (LSI) among products in the same category, but also shared them among televisions and DVD recorders. Its competitors, Sony and Sharp, used shared software and the design of LSI only within a product category. Panasonic products were functionally more advanced than those of Sony and Sharp. This study revealed two types of functionality diversification – simple functional diversification and linked operations.

The rapid development of digital photogrammetry in recent years has led to the revision of the outdated and introduction of innovative technologies in the creation of basic photogrammetric products, such as aerial photogrammetric triangulation, digital orthophoto, digital topographic maps, and plans, digital elevation models. Digital methods for creating topographic maps and plans today, being the most highly productive and operational methods, primarily ensure the automation of work, the quality, reliability of the products created, and the objectivity of information. The paper discusses the process of creating a topographic plan of 1: 2000 scale using digital photogrammetric methods for the newly built district in Tashkent – “Yangi Khayot” whose area is 7000 hectares. For this purpose, aerial photography was carried out by an UAV Geoscan 201 at a scale of 1: 1000 with a digital camera Sony DSC-RX1 with a forward overlap of aerial photographs of 70% and a lateral overlap of 50%. The height of the photographing flight was 400 meters.

Loot boxes are gambling-like products in video games that players can buy with real-world money to obtain random prizes. Many countries are concerned by their potential harms and are considering regulation. Industry self-regulation of companies’ own behavior is an alternative approach to direct government intervention through legislation. The self-regulatory age rating organizations in North America and Europe began assigning a loot box presence warning label (‘In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)’) since April 2020. This consumer protection measure has also been introduced to many digital storefronts. My recent study found that only 29% of popular games containing loot boxes were correctly labeled on the Google Play Store. The age rating organizations have seemingly suggested that other digital storefronts with significantly less content would, in contrast, perform significantly better. The present study found that the compliance rates were indeed higher on the Microsoft (89.1%), Sony (70.3%), and Nintendo (54.2%) stores. However, none met the target 95% compliance rate. Concerningly, the Epic Games Store's compliance rate was only 7.1%. Some remedial actions have been taken following the present study: while appreciated, they have failed to address all outstanding concerns. Companies and platform providers must better comply with and enforce the rules. Besides poor efficacy on mobile platforms, the industry self-regulatory loot box warning label is also not sufficiently reliable on PC and console platforms.

The move from analog distribution to online digital delivery is common in the contemporary mediascape. Music is in the midst of an ipod driven paradigm shift (Levy), television and movie delivery is being reconfigured (Johnson), and newspaper and magazines are confronting the reality of the world wide web and what it means for business models and ideas of journalism (Beecher). In the midst of this change, the book publishing industry remains defiant. While embracing digital production technologies, the vast majority of book content is still delivered in material form, printed and shipped the old-fashioned way—despite the efforts of many technology companies over the last decade. Even the latest efforts from corporate giants such as Sony and Amazon (who appear to have solved many of the technical hurdles of electronic reading devices) have had little visible impact. The idea of electronic books, or e-books, remains the domain of geeky early adopters (“Have”). The reasons for this are manifold, but, arguably, a broader uptake of e-books has not occurred because cultural change is much more difficult than technological change and book readers have yet to be persuaded to change their cultural habits. Electronic reading devices have been around for as long as there have been computers with screens, but serious attempts to replicate the portability, readability, and convenience of a printed book have only been with us for a decade or so. The late 1990s saw the release of a number of e-book devices. In quick succession, the likes of the Rocket e-Book, the SoftBook and the Franklin eBookman all failed to catch on. Despite this lack of market penetration, software companies began to explore the possibilities—Microsoft’s Reader software competed with a similar product from Adobe, some publishers became content providers, and a niche market of consumers began reading e-books on personal digital assistants (PDAs). That niche was sufficient for e-reading communities and shopfronts to appear, with a reasonable range of titles becoming available for purchase to feed demand that was very much driven by early adopters. But the e-book market was and remains small. For most people, books are still regarded as printed paper objects, purchased from a bookstore, borrowed from a library, or bought online from companies like Amazon.com. More recently, the introduction of e-ink technologies (EPDs) (DeJean), which allow for screens with far more book-like resolution and contrast, has provided the impetus for a new generation of e-book devices. In combination with an expanded range of titles (and deals with major publishing houses to include current best-sellers), there has been renewed interest in the idea of e-books. Those who have used the current generation of e-ink devices are generally positive about the experience. Except for some sluggishness in “turning” pages, the screens appear crisp, clear and are not as tiring to read as older displays. There are a number of devices that have embraced the new screen technologies (mobileread) but most attention has been paid to three devices in particular—mainly because their manufacturers have tried to create an ecosystem that provides content for their reading devices in much the same way that Apple’s itunes store provides content for ipods. The Sony Portable Reader (Sonystyle) was the first electronic ink device to be produced by a mainstream consumers electronics company. Sony ties the Reader to its Connect store, which allows the purchase of book titles via a computer; titles are then downloaded to the Reader in the same way that an mp3 player is loaded with music. Sony’s most prominent competition in the marketplace is Amazon’s Kindle, which does not require users to have a computer. Instead, its key feature is a constant wireless connection to Amazon’s growing library of Kindle titles. This works in conjunction with US cellphone provider Sprint to allow the purchase of books via wireless downloads wherever the Sprint network exists. The system, which Amazon calls “whispernet,” is invisible to readers and the cost is incorporated into the price of books, so Kindle users never see a bill from Sprint (“Frequently”). Both the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle are available only in limited markets; Kindle’s reliance on a cellphone network means that its adoption internationally is dependent on Amazon establishing a relationship with a cellphone provider in each country of release. And because both devices are linked to e-bookstores, territorial rights issues with book publishers (who trade publishing rights for particular global territories in a colonial-era mode of operation that seems to ignore the reality of global information mobility (Thompson 74–77)) contribute to the restricted availability of both the Sony and Amazon products. The other mainstream device is the iRex Iliad, which is not constrained to a particular online bookstore and thus is available internationally. Its bookstore ecosystems are local relationships—with Dymocks in Australia, Borders in the UK, and other booksellers across Europe (iRex). All three devices use EPDs and share similar specifications for the actual reading of e-books. Some might argue that the lack of a search function in the Sony and the ability to write on pages in the Iliad are quite substantive differences, but overall the devices are distinguished by their availability and the accessibility of book titles. Those who have used the devices extensively are generally positive about the experience. Amazon’s Customer Reviews are full of positive comments, and the sense from many commentators is that the systems are a viable replacement for old-fashioned printed books (Marr). Despite the good reviews—which suggest that the technology is actually now good enough to compete with printed books—the e-book devices have failed to catch on. Amazon has been hesitant to state actual sales figures, leaving it to so-called analysts to guess with the most optimistic suggesting that only 30 to 50,000 have sold since launch in late 2007 (Sridharan). By comparison, a mid-list book title (in the US) would expect to sell a similar number of copies. The sales data for the Sony Portable Reader (which has been on the market for nearly two years) and the iRex iliad are also elusive (Slocum), suggesting that they have not meaningfully changed the landscape. Tellingly, despite the new devices, the e-book industry is still tiny. Although it is growing, the latest American data show that the e-book market has wholesale revenues of around $10 million per quarter (or around $40 million per year), which is dwarfed by the $35 billion in revenues regularly earned annually in the US printed book industry ("Book"). It’s clear that despite the technological advances, e-books have yet to cross the chasm from early adopter to mainstream usage (see IPDF). The reason for this is complex; there are issues of marketing and distribution that need to be considered, as well as continuing arguments about screen technologies, appropriate publishing models, and digital rights management. It is beyond the scope of this article to do justice to those issues. Suffice to say, the book industry is affected by the same debates over content that plague other media industries (Vershbow). But, arguably, the key reason for the minimal market impact is straightforward—technological change is relatively easy, but cultural change is much more difficult. The current generation of e-book devices might be technically very close to being a viable replacement for print on paper (and the next generation of devices will no doubt be even better), but there are bigger cultural hurdles to be overcome. For most people, the social practice of reading books (du Gay et al 10) is inextricably tied with printed objects and a print culture that is not yet commonly associated with “technology” (perhaps because books, as machines for reading (Young 160), have become an invisible technology (Norman 246)). E. Annie Proulx’s dismissive suggestion that “nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen. Ever” (1994) is commonly echoed when book buyers consider the digital alternative. Those thoughts only scratch the surface of a deeply embedded cultural practice. The centuries since Gutenberg’s printing press and the vast social and cultural changes that followed positioned print culture as the dominant cultural mode until relatively recently (Eisenstein; Ong). The emerging electronic media forms of the twentieth century displaced that dominance with many arguing that the print age was moved aside by first radio and television and now computers and the Internet (McLuhan; Postman). Indeed, there is a subtext in that line of thought, one that situates electronic media forms (particularly screen-based ones) as the antithesis of print and book culture. Current e-book reading devices attempt to minimise the need for cultural change by trying to replicate a print culture within an e-print culture. For the most part, they are designed to appeal to book readers as a replacement for printed books. But it will take more than a perfect electronic facsimile of print on paper to persuade readers to disengage with a print culture that incorporates bookshops, bookclubs, writing in the margins, touching and smelling the pages and covers, admiring the typesetting, showing off their bookshelves, and visibly identifying with their collections. The frequently made technical arguments (about flashing screens and reading in the bath (Randolph)) do not address the broader apprehension about a cultural experience that many readers do not wish to leave behind. It is in that context that booklovers appear particularly resistant to any shift from print to a screen-based format. One only has to engage in a discussion about e-books (or lurk on an online forum where one is happening) to appreciate how deeply embedded print culture is (Hepworth)—book readers have a historical attachment to the printed object and it is this embedded cultural resistance that is the biggest barrier for e-books to overcome. Although e-book devices in no way resemble television, print culture is still deeply suspicious of any screen-based media and arguments are often made that the book as a physical object is critical because “different types of media function differently, and even if the content is similar the form matters quite a lot” (Weber). Of course, many in the newspaper industry would argue that long-standing cultural habits can change very rapidly and the migration of eyeballs from newsprint to the Internet is a cautionary tale (see Auckland). That specific format shift saw cultural change driven by increased convenience and a perception of decreased cost. For those already connected to the Internet, reading newspapers online represented zero marginal cost, and the range of online offerings dwarfed that of the local newsagency. The advantage of immediacy and multimedia elements, and the possibility of immediate feedback, appeared sufficient to drive many away from print towards online newspapers.For a similar shift in the e-book realm, there must be similar incentives for readers. At the moment, the only advantages on offer are weightlessness (which only appeals to frequent travellers) and convenience via constant access to a heavenly library of titles (Young 150). Amazon’s Kindle bookshop can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere there is a Sprint network coverage (Nelson). However, even this advantage is not so clear-cut—there is a meagre range of available electronic titles compared to printed offerings. For example, Amazon claims 130,000 titles are currently available for Kindle and Sony has 50,000 for its Reader, figures that are dwarfed by Amazon’s own printed book range. Importantly, there is little apparent cost advantage to e-books. The price of electronic reading devices is significant, amounting to a few hundred dollars to which must be added the cost of e-books. The actual cost of those titles is also not as attractive as it might be. In an age where much digital content often appears to be free, consumers demand a significant price advantage for purchasing online. Although some e-book titles are priced more affordably than their printed counterparts, the cost of many seems strangely high given the lack of a physical object to print and ship. For example, Amazon Kindle titles might be cheaper than the print version, but the actual difference (after discounting) is not an order of magnitude, but of degree. For example, Randy Pausch’s bestselling The Last Lecture is available for $12.07 as a paperback or $9.99 as a Kindle edition (“Last”). For casual readers, the numbers make no sense—when the price of the reading device is included, the actual cost is prohibitive for those who only buy a few titles a year. At the moment, e-books only make sense for heavy readers for whom the additional cost of the reading device will be amortised over a large number of books in a reasonably short time. (A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that the break-even point for the Kindle was the purchase of 61 books (Arends).) Unfortunately for the e-book industry, not is only is that particular market relatively small, it is the one least likely to shift from the embedded habits of print culture. Arguably, should e-books eventually offer a significant cost benefit for consumers, uptake would be more dramatic. However, in his study of cellphone cultures, Gerard Goggin argues against purely fiscal motivations, suggesting that cultural change is driven by other factors—in his example, new ways of communicating, connecting, and engaging (205–211). The few market segments where electronic books have succeeded are informative. For example, the market for printed encyclopedias has essentially disappeared. Most have reinvented themselves as CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs and are sold for a fraction of the price. Although cost is undoubtedly a factor in their market success, added features such as multimedia, searchability, and immediacy via associated websites are compelling reasons driving the purchase of electronic encyclopedias over the printed versions. The contrast with the aforementioned e-book devices is apparent with encyclopedias moving away from their historical role in print culture. Electronic encyclopedias don’t try to replicate the older print forms. Rather they represent a dramatic shift of book content into an interactive audio-visual domain. They have experimented with new formats and reconfigured content for the new media forms—the publishers in question simply left print culture behind and embraced a newly emerging computer or multimedia culture. This step into another realm of social practices also happened in the academic realm, which is now deeply embedded in computer-based delivery of research and pedagogy. Not only are scholarly journals moving online (Thompson 320–325), but so too are scholarly books. For example, at the Macquarie University Library, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of electronic books in the collection. The library purchased 895 e-books in 2005 and 68,000 in 2007. During the same period, the number of printed books purchased remained relatively stable with about 16,000 bought annually (Macquarie University Library). The reasons for the dramatic increase in e-book purchases are manifold and not primarily driven by cost considerations. Not only does the library have limited space for physical storage, but Macquarie (like most other Universities) emphasises its e-learning environment. In that context, a single e-book allows multiple, geographically dispersed, simultaneous access, which better suits the flexibility demanded of the current generation of students. Significantly, these e-books require no electronic reading device beyond a standard computer with an internet connection. Users simply search for their required reading online and read it via their web browser—the library is operating in a pedagogical culture that assumes that staff and students have ready access to the necessary resources and are happy to read large amounts of text on a screen. Again, gestures towards print culture are minimal, and the e-books in question exist in a completely different distributed electronic environment. Another interesting example is that of mobile phone novels, or “keitai” fiction, popular in Japan. These novels typically consist of a few hundred pages, each of which contains about 500 Japanese characters. They are downloaded to (and read on) cellphones for about ten dollars apiece and can sell in the millions of copies (Katayama). There are many reasons why the keitai novel has achieved such popularity compared to the e-book approaches pursued in the West. The relatively low cost of wireless data in Japan, and the ubiquity of the cellphone are probably factors. But the presence of keitai culture—a set of cultural practices surrounding the mobile phone—suggests that the mobile novel springs not from a print culture, but from somewhere else. Indeed, keitai novels are written (often on the phones themselves) in a manner that lends itself to the constraints of highly portable devices with small screens, and provides new modes of engagement and communication. Their editors attribute the success of keitai novels to how well they fit into the lifestyle of their target demographic, and how they act as community nodes around which readers and writers interact (Hani). Although some will instinctively suggest that long-form narratives are doomed with such an approach, it is worthwhile remembering that, a decade ago, few considered reading long articles using a web browser and the appropriate response to computer-based media was to rewrite material to suit the screen (Nielsen). However, without really noticing the change, the Web became mainstream and users began reading everything on their computers, including much longer pieces of text. Apart from the examples cited, the wider book trade has largely approached e-books by trying to replicate print culture, albeit with an electronic reading device. Until there is a significant cost and convenience benefit for readers, this approach is unlikely to be widely successful. As indicated above, those segments of the market where e-books have succeeded are those whose social practices are driven by different cultural motivations. It may well be that the full-frontal approach attempted to date is doomed to failure, and e-books would achieve more widespread adoption if the book trade took a different approach. The Amazon Kindle has not yet persuaded bookloving readers to abandon print for screen in sufficient numbers to mark a seachange. Indeed, it is unlikely that any device positioned specifically as a book replacement will succeed. Instead of seeking to make an e-book culture a replacement for print culture, effectively placing the reading of books in a silo separated from other day-to-day activities, it might be better to situate e-books within a mobility culture, as part of the burgeoning range of social activities revolving around a connected, convergent mobile device. Reading should be understood as an activity that doesn’t begin with a particular device, but is done with whatever device is at hand. In much the same way that other media producers make content available for a number of platforms, book publishers should explore the potential of the new mobile devices. Over 45 million smartphones were sold globally in the first three months of 2008 (“Gartner”)—somewhat more than the estimated shipments of e-book reading devices. As well as allowing a range of communications possibilities, these convergent devices are emerging as key elements in the new digital mediascape—one that allows users access to a broad range of media products via a single pocket-sized device. Each of those smartphones makes a perfectly adequate e-book reading device, and it might be useful to pursue a strategy that embeds book reading as one of the key possibilities of this growing mobility culture. The casual gaming market serves as an interesting example. While hardcore gamers cling to their games PCs and consoles, a burgeoning alternative games market has emerged, with a different demographic purchasing less technically challenging games for more informal gaming encounters. This market has slowly shifted to convergent mobile devices, exemplified by Sega’s success in selling 300,000 copies of Super Monkey Ball within 20 days of its release for Apple’s iphone (“Super”). Casual gamers do not necessarily go on to become hardcore games, but they are gamers nonetheless—and today’s casual games (like the aforementioned Super Monkey Ball) are yesterday’s hardcore games of choice. It might be the same for reading. The availability of e-books on mobile platforms may not result in more people embracing longer-form literature. But it will increase the number of people actually reading, and, just as casual gaming has attracted a female demographic (Wallace 8), the instant availability of appropriate reading material might sway some of those men who appear to be reluctant readers (McEwan). Rather than focus on printed books, and book-like reading devices, the industry should re-position e-books as an easily accessible content choice in a digitally converged media environment. This is more a cultural shift than a technological one—for publishers and readers alike. Situating e-books in such a way may alienate a segment of the bookloving community, but such readers are unlikely to respond to anything other than print on paper. 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IntroductionThe tagline for the 2008 Game On exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne invites visitors to “play your way through the history of videogames.” The Melbourne hosting follows on from exhibitions that have included the Barbican (London), the Royal Museum (Edinburgh) and the Science Museum (London). The Game On exhibition presents an exemplary instance of how digital games and digital games culture are recovered, organised and presented. The Science Museum exhibition offered visitors a walkthrough from the earliest to the latest consoles and games (Pong to Wii Sports) with opportunities for game play framed by curatorial plaques. This article will explore some of the themes and narratives embodied within the exhibition that see digital games technologies enrolled within a media teleology that emphasises technological advancement and upgrade. Narratives of Technological Upgrade The Game On exhibition employed a “social contextualisation” approach, connecting digital gaming developments with historical events and phenomena such as the 1969 moon landing and the Spice Girls. Whilst including thematic strands such as games and violence and games in education, the exhibition’s chronological ordering highlighted technological advancement. In doing so, the exhibition captured a broader tension around celebrating past technological advancement in gaming, whilst at the same time emphasising the quaint shortfalls and looking to future possibilities. That technological advancements stand out, particularly as a means of organising a narrative of digital gaming, resonates with Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Withford and Greig de Peuter’s analysis of digital gaming as a “perpetual innovation economy.” For Kline et al., corporations “devote a growing share of their resources to the continual alteration and upgrading of their products” (66). Technological upgrade and advancement were described by the Game On curator as an engaging aspect of the exhibition: When we had a BBC news presenter come in, she was talking about ‘here we have the PDP 1 and here I have the Nintendo DS’. She was just sort of comparing and contrasting. I know certainly that journalists were very keen on: ‘yeah, but how much processing power does the PDP 1 have?’, ‘what does it compare to today?’ – and it is very hard to compare. How do you compare Space War on the PDP 1 with something that runs on your mobile phone? They are very different systems. (Lee)This account of journalistic interest in technological progression and the curator’s subsequent interpretation raise a significant tension around understanding digital gaming. The concern with situating past gaming technologies and comparing capacities and capabilities, emphasises both the fascination with advancement and technological progress in the field and how the impressiveness of this advancement depends on remembering what has come before. Questions of remembering, recovering and forgetting are clear in the histories that console manufacturers offer when they describe past innovation and pioneering developments. For example, the company history provided by Nintendo on its website is exclusively a history of games technologies with no reference to the proceeding business of playing-card games from the late nineteenth century. Its website-published history only starts with the 1985 release of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), “an instant hit [that] over the course of the next two years, it almost single-handedly revitalized the video game industry” (Nintendo, ‘History’), and thereby overlooks the earlier 1983 less successful Famicom system. Past technologies are selectively remembered and recovered as part of the foundations for future success. This is a tension, that can be unpacked in a number of ways, across current industry transformations and strategies that potentially erase the past whilst simultaneously seeking to recover it as part of an evidence-base for future development. The following discussion develops an analysis of how digital gaming history is recovered and constructed.Industry Wind Change and Granny on the WiiThere is “unease, almost embarrassment”, James Newman suggests, “about the videogames industry within certain quarters of the industry itself” (6). Newman goes on to suggest:Various euphemisms have passed into common parlance, all seemingly motivated by a desire to avoid the use of the word ‘game’ and perhaps even ‘computer’, thereby adding a veneer of respectability, distancing the products and experiences from the childish pursuits of game, play and toys, and downplaying the technology connection with its unwanted resonances of nerds in bedrooms hunched over ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64s and the amateurism of hobbyist production. (6-7) The attempted move away from the resonances of “nerds in bedrooms” has been a strategic decision for Nintendo especially. This is illustrated by the naming of consoles: ‘family’ in Famicom, ‘entertainment’ in NES and, more recently, the renaming of the Wii from ‘Revolution’. The seventh generation Nintendo Wii console, released in November and December 2006, may be been seen as industry leading in efforts to broaden gaming demographics. In describing the console for instance, Satoru Iwata, the President of Nintendo, stated, “we want to appeal to mothers who don't want consoles in their living rooms, and to the elderly and to young women. It’s a challenge, like trying to sell cosmetics to men” (Edge Online). This position illustrates a digital games industry strategy to expand marketing to demographic groups previously marginalised.A few examples from the marketing and advertising campaigns for the Nintendo Wii help to illustrate this strategy. The marketing associated with the Wii can be seen as part of a longer lineage of Nintendo marketing with Kline et al. suggesting, “it was under Nintendo’s hegemony that the video game industry began to see the systematic development of a high-intensity marketing apparatus, involving massive media budgets, ingenious event marketing, ground breaking advertising and spin off merchandising” (118). The “First Experiences” show on the Wii website mocks-up domestic settings as the backdrop to the Wii playing experience to present an ideal, potential Wii-play scenario. These advertisements can be seen to position the player within an imagined home and game-play environment and speak for the Wii. As Keith Grint and Steve Woolgar suggest, “technology does not speak for itself but has to be spoken for” (32). As part of their concern with addressing, “the particular regime of truth which surrounds, upholds, impales and represents technology” (32), Grint and Woolgar “analyse the way certain technologies gain specific attributes” (33). Across advertisements for the Wii there are a range of domestic environments and groups playing. Of these, the power to bring the family together and facilitate ease of game-play for the novice is most noticeable. David Morley’s comment that, “‘hi-tech’ discourse is often carefully framed and domesticated by a rather nostalgic vision of ‘family values’” (438) is borne out here.A television advertisement aired on Nickelodeon illustrates the extent to which the Wii was at the forefront in motioning forward a strategy of industry and gaming inclusiveness around the family: “the 60-second spot shows a dad mistaking the Wii Remote for his television remote control. Dad becomes immersed in the game and soon the whole family joins in” (Nintendo World Report). From confused fathers to family bonding, the Wii is presented as the easy-to-use and accessible device that brings the family together. The father confusing the Wii remote with a television remote control is an important gesture to foreground the accessibility of the Wii remotes compared to previous “joypads”, and emphasize the Wii as an accessible device with no bedroom, technical wizardry required. Within the emerging industry inclusivity agenda, the ‘over technological’ past of digital gaming is something to move away from. The forms of ‘geek’ or ‘hardcore’ that epitomise previous dominant representations of gaming have seemingly stood in the way of the industry reaching its full market potential. This industry wind change is captured in the comments of a number of current industry professionals.For Matthew Jeffrey, head of European Recruitment for Electronic Arts (EA), speaking at the London Games Week Career Fair, the shift in the accessibility and inclusivity of digital gaming is closely bound up with Nintendo’s efforts and these have impacted upon EA’s strategy: There is going to be a huge swathe of new things and the great thing in the industry, as you are all easy to identify, is that Nindento DS and the Wii have revolutionised the way we look at the way things are going on.Jeffrey goes on to add, “hopefully some of you have seen that your eighty year old grandparent is quite happy to play a game”, pointing to the figure of the grandparent as a game-player to emphasise the inclusivity shift within gaming.Similarly, at Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2007, the CEO of Ubisoft Yves Guillemot in his “The New Generation of Gaming: Facing the Challenges of a Changing Market” speech outlined the development of a family friendly portfolio to please a new, non-gamer population that would include the recruitment of subject experts for “non-game” titles. This instance of the accessibility and inclusivity strategy being advocated is notable for it being part of a keynote speech at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, an event associated with the Edinburgh festival that is both an important industry gathering and receives mainstream press coverage. The approaches taken by the other leading console manufacturers Sony and Microsoft, illustrate that whilst this is by no means a total shift, there is nevertheless an industry-wide engagement. The ‘World of Playstation: family and friends’ for example suggests that, “with PlayStation, games have never been more family-friendly” and that “you can even team up as a family to challenge your overseas relatives to a round of online quizzing over the PLAYSTATION Network” (Playstation).What follows from these accounts and transformations is a consideration of where the “geeky” past resides in the future of gaming as inclusive and accessible. Where do these developments leave digital gaming’s “subcultural past” (“subcultural” as it now becomes even within the games industry), as the industry forges on into mainstream culture? Past digital games technologies are clearly important in indicating technological progression and advancement, but what of the bedroom culture of gaming? How does “geek game culture” fit within a maturing future for the industry?Bedroom Programmers and Subcultural Memories There is a tension between business strategy directed towards making gaming accessible and thereby fostering new markets, and the games those in industry would design for people like themselves. This is not to deny the willingness or commitment of games developers to work on a variety of games, but instead to highlight transformation and tension. In their research into games development, Dovey and Kennedy suggest that, the “generation, now nearing middle-age and finding themselves in the driving seat of cultures of new media, have to reconcile a subcultural history and a dominant present” (145). Pierre Bourdieu’s account of symbolic capital is influential in tracing this shift, and Dovey and Kennedy note Bourdieu’s comment around, “the subjective image of the occupational project and the objective function of the occupation” (145). This shift is highly significant for ways of understanding maturation and inclusivity strategies within digital gaming.Bourdieu’s account of the “conservative functions attached” to an occupation for Dovey and Kennedy: Precisely describes the tensions between designers’ sense of themselves as ‘outsiders’ and rebels (‘the subjective image of the occupational project’) on the one hand and their position within a very tight production machine (‘the objective function of the occupation’) on the other. (145) I would suggest the “production machine”, that is to say the broader corporate management structures by which games development companies are increasingly operated, has a growing role in understandings of the industry. This approach was implicit in Iwata’s comments on selling cosmetics to men and broadening demographics, and Jeffrey’s comments pointing to how EA’s outlook would be influenced by the accessibility and inclusivity strategy championed by Nintendo. It may be suggested that as the occupational project of gaming is negotiated and shifts towards an emphasis on accessibility and inclusivity, the subjective image must be similarly reoriented. That previous industry models are being replaced, is highlighted in this excerpt from a Managing Director of a ‘leisure software’ company in the Staying ahead report on the creative industries by the Work Foundation:The first game that came from us was literally two schoolchildren making a game in their bedroom … the game hadn’t been funded, but made for fun … As those days are gone, the biggest challenges nowadays for game developers are finding funding that doesn’t impinge on creativity, and holding onto IP [intellectual property], which is so important if you want a business that is going to have any value. (27)This account suggests a hugely important transition from bedroom production, the days that ‘are gone’, towards Intellectual Property-aware production. The creative industries context for these comments should not be overlooked and is insightful for further recognising the shifts and negotiations taking place in digital gaming, notably, around the maturation of the games industry. The creative industries context is made explicit in creative industries reports such as Staying ahead and in the comments of Shaun Woodward (former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) in a keynote speech at the 2006 British Video Games Academy Awards, in which he referred to the games industry as “one of our most important creative industries”. The forms of collaboration between, for instance, The Independent Games Developers Association (TIGA) and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (see Gamasutra), further indicate the creative industries context to the maturation of the UK games industry.The creative industries context also presents the anchor through which tensions between a subcultural history and professional future and the complex forms of recovery can be more fully engaged with. The Game On curator’s indication that making comparisons between different games technologies systems was a delicate balance insightfully provides cautions to any attempt to mark out a strict departure from the ‘subcultural’ to the ‘professional’. Clearly put, the accessibility and inclusivity strategy that shifts away from geek culture and technical wizardry remains in conversation with geek elements as the foundation for the future. As technologies are recovered within a lineage of technological development and upgrade, the geek bedroom culture of gaming is almost mythologized to offer the industry history creative credentials and future potential. Recovering and Combining: Technologies and Memories for a Professional Future Emphasised thus far has been a shift from the days gone by of bedroom programming towards an inclusive and accessible professional and mature future. This is a teleological shift in the sense that the latest technological developments can be located within a past replete with innovation and pioneering spirit. In relation to the Wii for example, a Nintendo employee states:Nintendo is a company where you are praised for doing something different from everyone else. In this company, when an individual wants to do something different, everyone else lends their support to help them overcome any hurdles. I think this is how we made the challenge of Wii a possibility. (Nintendo)Nintendo’s history, alluded to here and implicit throughout the interviews with Nintendo staff from which this comment is taken, and previous and existing ‘culture’ of experimentation is offered here as the catalyst and enabler of the Wii. A further example may be offered in relation to Nintendo’s competitor Sony.A hugely significant transformation in digital gaming, further to the accessibility and inclusivity agenda, is the ability of players to develop their own games using games engines. For Phil Harrison (Sony), gaming technology is creating a, “‘virtual community’ of collaborative digital production, marking a return to the ‘golden age of video game development, which was at home, on your own with a couple of friends, designing a game yourself’” (Kline et al., 204). Bedroom gaming that in the earlier comments was regarded as days gone by for professionals, takes on a new significance as a form of user-engagement. The previous model of bedroom production, now outmoded compared to industry production, is relocated as available for users and recovered as the ‘golden age of gaming’. It is recovered as a model for users to aspire to. The significance of this for business strategy is made clear by Kline et al. who suggest that, “thousands of bright bulbs have essentially become Sony’s junior development community” (204). An obsolete model of past production is recovered and deployed within a future vision of the games industry that sees users participating and extending forms of games engagement and consumption. Similarly, the potential of ‘bedroom’ production and its recovery in relation to growth areas such as games for mobile phones, is carefully framed by Intellectual Property Rights (Edwards and Coulton). In this respect, forms of bedroom production are carefully situated in terms of industry strategies.The “Scarce Talent Seminars” as part of the London Games Week 2008 “Skills Week” further illustrate this continual recovery of ‘past’, or more accurately alternative, forms of production in line with narratives of professionalisation and industry innovation. The seminars were stated as offering advice on bridging the gap between the “bedroom programmer” and the “professional developer”. The discourse of ‘talent’ framed this seminar, and the bedroom programmer is held up as being (not having) raw talent with creative energies and love and commitment for gaming that can be shaped for the future of the industry. This discourse of bedroom programmers as talent emphasises the industry as an enabler of individual talent through access to professional development and technological resources. This then sits alongside the recovery of historical narratives in which bedroom gaming culture is celebrated for its pioneering spirit, but is ultimately recovered in terms of current achievements and future possibilities. “Skills Week” and guidance for those wanting to work in the industry connects with the recovery of past technologies and ways of making games visible amongst the potential industry workers of the future – students. The professional future of the industry is intertwined with graduates with professional qualifications. Those qualifications need not be, and sometimes preferably should not be, in ‘gaming’ courses. What is important is the love of games and this may be seen through the appreciation of gaming’s history. During research conducted with games design students in higher education courses in the UK, many students professed a love of games dating back to the Spectrum console in the 1980s. There was legitimacy and evidence of professing long-seated interests in consoles. At the same time as acknowledging the significant, embryonic power these consoles had in stimulating their interests, many students engaged in learning games design skills with the latest software packages. Similarly, they engaged in bedroom design activities themselves, as in the days gone by, but mainly as training and to develop skills useful to securing employment within a professional development studio. Broadly, students could be said to be recovering both technologies and ways of working that are then enrolled within their development as professional workers of the future. The professional future of the gaming industry is presented as part of a teleological trajectory that mirrors the technological progression of the industry’s upgrade culture. The days of bedroom programming are cast as periods of incubation and experimentation, and part of the journey that has brought gaming to where it is now. Bedroom programming is incorporated into the evidence-base of creative industries policy reports. Other accounts of bedroom programming, independent production and attempts to explore alternative publishing avenues do not feature as readily.In the 2000 Scratchware Manifesto for example, the authors declare, “the machinery of gaming has run amok”, and say, “Basta! Enough!” (Scratchware). The Scratchware Manifesto puts forward Scratchware as a response: “a computer game, created by a microteam, with pro-quality art, game design, programming and sound to be sold at paperback prices” (Scratchware). The manifesto goes on to say, “we need Scratchware because there is more than one way to develop good computer games” (Scratchware, 2000). Using a term readily associated with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the Scratchware Manifesto called for a revolution in gaming and stated, “we will strive for […] originality over the tried and tested” (Scratchware). These are the experiences and accounts of the games industry that seem to fall well outside of the technological and upgrade focused agenda of professional games development.The recovery and framing of past technologies and industry practices, in ways supportive to current models of technological upgrade and advancement, legitimises these models and marginalizes others. A eulogized and potentially mythical past is recovered to point to cultures of innovation and creative vibrancy and to emphasize current and future technological prowess. We must therefore be cautious of the instrumental dangers of recovery in which ‘bright bulbs’ are enrolled and alternative forms of production marginalised.As digital gaming establishes a secure footing with increased markets, the growing pains of the industry can be celebrated and recovered as part of the ongoing narratives of the industry. Recovery is vital to make sense of both the past and future. Within digital gaming, the PDP-1 and the bedroom geek both exist in the past, present and future as part of an industry strategy and trajectory that seeks to move away from them but also relies on them. They are the legitimacy, the evidence and the potential for affirming industry models. The extent to which other narratives can be told and technologies and memories recovered as alternative forms of evidence and potential is a question I, and hopefully others, will leave open.ReferencesDovey, John, and Helen W. Kennedy. Game Cultures. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2006.Edge-Online. "Iwata: Wii Is 'Like Selling Make-Up to Men.'" Edge-Online 19 Sep. 2006. 29 Sep. 2006 ‹http://www.edge-online.com/news/iwata-wii-like-selling-make-up-men›.Edwards, Reuben, and Paul Coulton. "Providing the Skills Required for Innovative Mobile Game Development Using Industry/Academic Partnerships." Italics e journal 5.3 (2006). ‹http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/italics/vol5iss3/edwardscoulton.pdf›.Gamasutra. "TIGA Pushing for Continued UK Industry Government Support." Gamasutra Industry News 3 July 2007. 8 July 2007 ‹http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14504›Grint, Keith, and Steve Woolgar. The Machine at Work. London: Blackwell, 1997.Jeffrey, Matthew. Transcribed Speech. 24 October 2007.Kline, Stephen, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig De Peuter. Digital Play. London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003.Lee, Gaetan. Personal Interview. 27 July 2007.Morley, David. "What’s ‘Home’ Got to Do with It? Contradictory Dynamics in the Domestication of Technology and the Dislocation of Domesticity." European Journal of Cultural Studies 6.4 (2003): 435-458.Newman, James. Videogames. London: Routledge, 2004.Nintendo. "Company History." Nintendo. 2007. 3 Nov. 2008 ‹http://www.nintendo.com/corp/history.jsp›.Nintendo. "Wii Remote." Nintendo. 2006. 29 Sep. 2008 ‹http://wiiportal.nintendo-europe.com/97.html›.Nintendo World Report. "Nintendo’s Marketing Blitz: Wii Play for All!" Nintendo World Report 13 Nov. 2006. 29 Sep. 2008 ‹http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=12383›.Playstation. "World of Playstation: Family and Friends." Sony Playstation. 3 Nov. 2008 ‹http://uk.playstation.com/home/news/articles/detail/item103208/World-of-PlayStation:-Family-&-Friends/›.Scratchware. "The Scratchware Manifesto." 2000. 14 June 2006 ‹http://www.the-underdogs.info/scratch.php›.Work Foundation. Staying Ahead: The Economic Performance of the UK’s Creative Industries. London: Department of Culture, Media and Sport, 2007.

Introduction Wooden toys have been a staple in many family homes. Even LEGO's iconic plastic building blocks had humble beginnings as wooden toys (Lauwaert). Arguably, the materiality of wooden toys evokes normative feelings of nostalgia for a simpler past, where the uncomplicated nature of the wooden product provided the space for all sorts of imaginative play. It is through this lens that we find the adaptation of wooden toys into playsets that emulate particular vocations, like a doctor's kit and a carpenter's toolbox, an interesting entry point to consider the boundary of what is an acceptable toy within the contemporary wooden toy genre. And it is the blurry nature of this boundary, as exemplified by public outcry regarding a wooden vlogger set that had a ringlight, which is the subject of this article. In Australia in May 2022, global supermarket chain Aldi released a set of wooden toys for children aged 3+ based on various technologies used in contemporary jobs in the creative industries (Wannis). These ‘futuristic’ role-play toy sets (Kanna)—which sat alongside more ‘traditional’ vocation sets about transport, cooking, and manufacturing—included a wooden laptop set, a DJ set, and a vlogger set. The vlogger set came with a rope-like ringlight on a tripod, a wooden point-and-shoot camera, mobile phone device, and remote microphone with a receiver (see fig. 1 & 2). The wooden vlogger set replicates the real-life experience of using a ringlight, a round, donut-like light that often attaches to a recording device or a tripod to create an even lighting effect. The ringlight has become a symbol of content creation on social media and the Influencer industry—a cultural practice and line of work that often evokes negative connotations (Abidin, "Aren’t These"). And we see these negative connotations evidenced through an instance of public criticism on social media about the wooden vlogger set, which stands as a proxy for more significant concerns about children and digital media. Fig. 1 & 2: Outer box of wooden vlogger set, sold at Aldi in May 2022. (Photo by authors.) First shared as a story on Instagram by a private account, a follower and journalist then re-shared an image of the box for the wooden vlogger set to Twitter with the caption ‘it’s a no for me’. Many public comments under this tweet agreed with the original poster’s sentiment, calling the toy ‘exploitative’ and ‘dire’, exclaiming ‘wtf [what the fuck]’ and ‘absolutely not’. Other comments mocked the toy by joking ‘like and subscribe’ and rebranded it as ‘my little influencer’; a take on the popular 1980s toy series My Little Pony. This public opposition to the wooden vlogger set stands out as an interesting case study to interrogate how the convergence of wooden toys with contemporary technologies (re)surfaces moral panic regarding children and digital media. The wooden vlogger set, and specifically the symbolism of the toy ringlight, forms the basis of a case study into how digital technologies provoke moral panic about children’s (future) media practices. We highlight in this article that while moral panic about young people and their relationship with new media is a longstanding practice, the development of new media technologies—including the ringlight which is used to aid digital media production—evokes what Marwick calls technopanic, that is, exaggerated fears about young people's online practices which result in the denial or removal of access to said technologies. While we take the stance that content creation on social media is a valid and valuable practice, in this article we highlight how toys like the wooden vlogger set continue to be met with trepidation from some adults due to their connections with taking selfies and the Influencer industry on social media—as evidenced by the social media comments mentioned above. Furthermore, we argue in this article that these technopanics, evidenced by the public outcry on social media to the wooden vlogger set, obscure the opportunity that toys that replicate digital media technologies can afford, such as developing media literacy through playful, offline, and analogue ways. In the first section of the article, we argue that the toy ringlight acts as a proxy for media practices that endorses young children spending time online in ways that some consider problematic. We argue that these fears are an illustration of technopanic. In the second section of the article, we argue how the toy ringlight offers children a way to connect with imagined futures (and the present) by mimicking the everyday media practices they see elsewhere—through their families, media consumption, and popular culture. Studies have shown how children’s play can sometimes be based on popular culture, including television programs (Marsh and Bishop). We argue that as children today watch content creators on YouTube Kids and their parents use technology, they are learning about everyday media practices. The wooden vlogger set offers a way for children to explore those practices. We conclude the article by advocating that opposition to the wooden vlogger set is misdirected energy, as the critical skills of media literacy can be nurtured precisely through play with toys like the ringlight and wooden vlogger set. Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children! The public outcry over this wooden vlogger set is another example of moral panic regarding children and their participation with the media. Moral panic is defined as an overreaction to a perceived social problem; they are often temporal, in the sense of being short-lived, and the media are known as a driving factor that reproduces and compounds the supposed concerns (Critcher; Hall). Historical illustrations of moral panics are known to involve youths and youth culture with the example of ‘mod and rockers’ in the 1960s (Cohen), ‘youth gangs’ in the 1980s (Zatz), and more recently, the ‘Tide-Pod Challenge’ that conjured panic about youths eating dishwashing pods for clout on social media (Sleight-Price et al.). By framing public opposition to the wooden vlogger set as an example of moral panic, we aim to draw attention to the media ecology which this toy signifies, and critically unpack the ways in which it plays into longstanding concerns about children and new media. To critically examine the moral panic about the vlogger set, we first draw attention to the vocation imitated through the wooden toy: a vlogger. The term ‘vlogger’ stands for ‘video-blogger’, a dominant form of user-created content shared on social media platforms like YouTube, that centres on recording the ‘ordinary’ aspects of one's life (Burgess and Green). It is important to underscore that engaging in practices of vlogging does not inherently mean that this is one's vocation, as a person can vlog as a hobby or creative outlet. But the more contemporary term associated with being a vlogger, that is, an ‘Influencer’, muddles the conception of what it means to vlog due to the increasing platformisation of cultural production (Duffy et al.). An Influencer is an ordinary Internet user who has accumulated “a relatively large following on blogs and social media through the textual and visual narration of their personal lives and lifestyles” who then “monetise their following by integrating advertorials into their blog or social media posts” (Abidin, "Aren’t These" 3). Advertorials—a term that combines ‘advertising’ and ‘editorial’—are the “highly personalised, opinion-laden promotions of products/services that Influencers personally experience and endorse for a fee” (Abidin, "Micro­microcelebrity" par. 3). The increasing commercialisation of content creation on digital media platforms has been met with criticism regarding the erosion of authenticity (Arriagada and Bishop). This is because Influencers are seen to adapt their media practices, and arguably part of themselves, to fit the logics of the platform, such as producing particular types of content to increase views, like taking ‘selfies’. One of the key signifiers of vlogging or being an Influencer on social media is ‘the selfie’, a self-made image of oneself, for which the ringlight plays a central role. Ringlights are used “to take brighter, clearer, high-resolution photographs” or videos, wherein the “even” lighting avoids casting “unsightly shadows” on faces and bodies (Abidin, "Aren’t These" 12). It is this utility of the ringlight that evokes conceptions that dismiss posting selfies as “frivolous and self-absorbed” (Tiidenberg and Gómez Cruz 78). Selfies have been argued as promoting “negative feminine stereotypes” such as “feminine vanity and triviality” as they are seen to be performative of particular conceptions around beauty (Burns 1716-1718). As such, Abidin argues in “‘Aren’t These Just Young, Rich Women Doing Vain Things Online?’: Influencer Selfies as Subversive Frivolity”, drawing on the work of Dobson and Coffey, that selfies anchor moral panics over the safety and wellbeing, particularly of women, online. Again, while we take the stance that no value judgement ought to be cast towards the use of ringlights in touching up appearances, as lighting is often used as a tool in both everyday and commercial media production, we argue that the toy ringlight brings forth these anxieties around vanity for some adults. The toy ringlight manifests these grievances about Influencers and, specifically, child influencers. Controversy about child influencers or ‘kidfluencers’ continues to fuel debate about the presence and exploitation of children in online media entertainment. A media practice known as “sharenting”, where parents share footage of their children as they grow up online (Blum-Rose), means that children can amass large followings on social media and become “micro-microcelebrities” (Abidin, "Micromicrocelebrity"). Notably, one of the public comments in opposition to the wooden vlogger set situated their grievance in the fact that the toy is designed for children aged 3+; as though the toy advocates for the notion of kidinfluencers—a prospect framed in the comment as inherently problematic. While the existence of kidfluencers is complex in nature—as both rewarding and challenging outcomes surmount from the practice—concerns about children’s privacy and online exploitation experiences dominate the issue. The problematic nature of child influencers is exemplified through notorious cases such as YouTube channel DaddyOFive, where the children’s reactions to ‘pranks’ were exploited for views (Leaver and Abidin). And issues regarding children promoting products or services online are raised through examples such as child unboxing videos on YouTube (Craig and Cunningham). Concerns regarding child influencers understandably call for greater consideration of how children participate with online media practices. It is essential to critically examine exploitative commercialisation practices and champion children’s right to privacy (Livingstone et al.; Verdoodt et al.). At the same time, it is important to remember that not all media produced by children, or by parents with children, are inherently harmful. The notion that children have this innate innocence that needs protection from the media is an established trope known to spur moral panic. Panic around mass media and their ‘bad’ influence on youth and youth culture, including children, is not a new phenomenon (Springhall). For example, media theorist Neil Postman famously argued in the 1980s that the “new media environment, with television at its centre, is leading to the rapid disappearance of childhood” (286). It is an argument that suggests that children’s increasingly mediated lives through communication technologies ‘force’ them to live in an ‘adult’s world’; thus eroding their childhood. We argue that the toy ringlight in the wooden vlogger set stimulates this same type of thinking, as though playing with the toy will ‘force’ children into the ‘adult world’ of social media production—which is not exclusively true. Through this lens, we also extend our argument that the opposition to the toy is not only a moral panic but, specifically, a technopanic. Panics occur when adults begin to be excluded from the ways young people engage with the media (Leick). The toy ringlight—as a proxy to ‘unsavoury’ new media practices—thus taps into a generational concern. A concept that helps explain this phenomenon is what Marwick calls a technopanic. Technopanics relies on the idea that harm will come to children through the use of new media technologies, and thus a justification is made to restrict access. In this way, the potential benefits of engaging with new media technologies, like the toy ringlight, are ignored in favour of focussing on the negative and exaggerated harms the media cause (Buckingham). This opposition fails to recognise that as technologies and media practices emerge, there are new risks but also new opportunities for children (Livingstone). Developing Media Literacy through the Toy Ringlight Ringlights are now prolific, not only among Influencers or those involved in social media production. Interest in ringlights has grown considerably since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with searches for the term rising dramatically in March 2020 (Google Trend for ‘Ring Light’). Although the toy ringlight in the wooden vlogger set is not digital, in that there are no electronic components and it does not connect to any networks, there are opportunities for the toy to help children develop digital media literacy understandings from an early age through playful exploration. Above, we have discussed how adults perceive the toy ringlight and how it mirrors the everyday and commercial media practices of adults, which can be confronting for some. Here, we examine how children could explore the toy ringlight through play. Children learn about technology through everyday familial practices (Plowman and Stevenson). Those children without access to a ringlight in their everyday life will likely treat the toy differently from what the toy creators anticipated. However, children who share technology practices with their families (e.g. seeing parents use a ringlight for Zoom meetings) or learn these through popular culture (e.g. seeing ringlights used by their favourite content creators on YouTube Kids) will have a different set of practices more closely aligned to the intended use of a toy ringlight to play and experiment with. Ringlights are part of the fabric of everyday life for many people and their use is not inherently positive or negative. Instead, they contribute to our increasingly complex media practices. Toys and everyday tools provided across different aspects of children’s lives offer ways to engage with and transfer knowledge of cultural and everyday experiences (Sheina et al.). The ringlight as an object can provide opportunities for children to play with the material practices of media production in ways that reflect the cultural experiences and practices they are part of. Bird contends that technologies, including non-working technologies such as old keyboards and phones, provide children with opportunities to engage with concepts related to the digital, as they bring to life experiences they have observed through imaginative play. We argue that the toy ringlight is situated within the concept of converged play, where the boundary between digital and non-digital play has blurred significantly (Marsh; Wood et al.). The material and the digital can be attended to when we consider how young children engage in play (Marsh et al.). Through play with material objects, like the wooden vlogger set and the toy ringlight, children engage with their worlds and learn the processes, practices, and concepts of media production. Pretend play can support children’s exploration of digital ideas (Vogt and Hollenstein) as they learn to communicate and tell stories. In a media production sense, Buckingham says that children and young people can deepen their understanding of the media by imitating media forms and styles. Playing with technology can serve similar purposes to playing with traditional toys (Robb and Lauricella). Similarly, we argue that children playing with toys that replicate social media production, such as the wooden vlogger set, are also developing early understandings of media literacy. As young children tell stories, play, and communicate with friends through new digital technologies, they develop an understanding of the media. Media literacy, the ability to critically engage with the media in our everyday lives (Australia Media Literacy Alliance), develops over time (Potter). The toy ringlight does not have to be positioned as problematic as per the technopanic we described earlier. Instead, it offers opportunities for children to explore and reflect on the key concepts of media literacy: technologies, institutions, representations, languages, audiences, and relationships. There are two scenarios where the concept of technologies could be central to children's play using the wooden vlogger set and toy ringlight. Firstly, the toy has multiple components that work together. Children can explore how the camera, light and lapel microphone connect to the device. They can consider if they need all these components and play the different roles required to operate the technology. Secondly, by incorporating the toy into their play, children can develop understandings of the role of digital technology in their lives and how it impacts or shapes media practices. Technologies allow or prevent certain choices from being made (Lüders; Williamson). The wooden vlogger set operates similarly, although children can use the toy outside of these constraints, resulting in forms of disruption. The practices of engaging with media technologies can be bound socially and culturally (du Gay et al.), and through materials (Burnett and Merchant); as children, the wooden vlogger set, and their context come into relation with each other. While the technology is visible to children and adults in this case, working in conjunction with the notion of using technology is the idea of how we use technology to distribute or share our media productions. This refers to the concept of institutions, which offers a lens for how to examine the business of the media and who benefits from media production and distribution—including media platforms—politically, socially, and economically (Alvarado). The inclusion of the small device that looks like a mobile phone in the wooden vlogger set hints at the toy privileging sharing and distribution practices. The various app icons painted on the wooden toy phone provide an opportunity for children to play with the idea of sharing their productions with others. Some children might play with ideas of uploading their productions to YouTube or other social media platforms if that is something they have been exposed to, integrating the digital and non-digital. Media productions do not exist in a technological vacuum. We use media technologies to communicate meaning and tell stories—we (re)present people, places, events, and ideas for a range of purposes (Masterman) through the construction of codes and conventions (Buckingham). Through incorporating the wooden vlogger set into their play, children can experiment with different media forms and representations, where they might, for instance, depict characters (e.g. heroes or villains), locations (e.g. school, the supermarket or space), events (e.g. going to the hairdresser or making food), and simple ideas (e.g. it is cold in winter). While some children may create imaginative worlds where the toy ringlight is part of a wider dramatic story, as per the examples just provided, there are also opportunities for children to act out and produce different forms of media, for example a television show. Children often draw on popular culture understandings to practise and re-enact scenarios (Gillen et al.; Merchant). In doing this, children play with the part of a narrative and consider how media texts are constructed, an important aspect of media languages. As they play with media production ideas, children can decide who might view their content and how they can ensure their audience understands their message—essentially playing with how to encode and decode texts (Morley). As they engage in dramatic play, children might also show different understandings of popular culture texts they enjoy, offering insights into how children understand media productions aimed at their age group, including those produced by child influencers. The wooden vlogger set, most importantly, is a material through which children can consider the relationships between media producers and their audiences (Dezuanni). This brings us to the crux of where we believe the outrage about the wooden vlogger set and toy ringlight lies. The toy ringlight normalises ideas around children developing relationships through and with the media—perhaps as an Influencer or perhaps as a casual vlogger. But the toys of today may not even prepare children for the cultural practices of tomorrow. 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Introduction The recent AOL/Time-Warner merger invites us to re-think the relationships amongst content producers, distributors, and audiences. Worth an estimated $300 billion (US), the largest Internet transaction of all time, the deal is 45 times larger than the AOL/Netscape merger of November 1998 (Ledbetter). Additionally, the Time Warner/EMI merger, which followed hard on the heels of the AOL/Time-Warner deal and is itself worth $28 billion (US), created the largest content rights organisation in the music industry. The joining of the Internet giant (AOL) with what was already the world's largest media corporation (Time-Warner-EMI) has inspired some exuberant reactions. An Infoworld column proclaimed: The AOL/Time-Warner merger signals the demise of traditional media companies and the ascendancy of 'new economy' media companies that will force any industry hesitant to adopt a complete electronic-commerce strategy to rethink and put itself on Internet time. (Saap & Schwarrtz) This comment identifies the distribution channel as the dominant component of the "new economy" media. But this might not really be much of an innovation. Indeed, the assumption of all industry observers is that Time-Warner will provide broadband distribution (through its extensive cable holdings) as well as proprietary content for AOL. It is also expected that Time-Warner will adopt AOL's strategy of seeking sponsorship for development projects as well as for content. However, both of these phenomena -- merger and sponsorship -- are at least as old as radio. It seems that the Internet is merely repeating an old industrial strategy. Nonetheless, one important difference distinguishes the Internet from earlier media: its characterisation of the audience. Internet companies such as AOL and Microsoft tend towards a simple and simplistic media- centred view of the audience as market. I will show, however, that as the Internet assumes more of the traditional mass media functions, it will be forced to adopt a more sophisticated notion of the mass audience. Indeed, the Internet is currently the site in which audience definitions borrowed from broadcasting are encountering and merging with definitions borrowed from marketing. The Internet apparently lends itself to both models. As a result, definitions of what the Internet does or is, and of how we should understand the audience, are suitably confused and opaque. And the behaviour of big Internet players, such as AOL and MSN, perfectly reflects this confusion as they seem to careen between a view of the Internet as the new television and a contrasting view of the Internet as the new shopping mall. Meanwhile, Internet users move in ways that most observers fail to capture. For example, Baran and Davis characterise mass communication as a process involving (1) an organized sender, (2) engaged in the distribution of messages, (3) directed toward a large audience. They argue that broadcasting fits this model whereas a LISTSERV does not because, even though the LISTSERV may have very many subscribers, its content is filtered through a single person or Webmaster. But why is the Webmaster suddenly more determining than a network programmer or magazine editor? The distinction seems to grow out of the Internet's technological characteristics: it is an interactive pipeline, therefore its use necessarily excludes the possibility of "broadcasting" which in turn causes us to reject "traditional" notions of the audience. However, if a media organisation were to establish an AOL discussion group in order to promote Warner TV shows, for example, would not the resulting communication suddenly fall under the definition as set out by Baran and Davis? It was precisely the confusion around such definitions that caused the CRTC (Canada's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator) to hold hearings in 1999 to determine what kind of medium the Internet is. Unlike traditional broadcasting, Internet communication does indeed include the possibility of interactivity and niche communities. In this sense, it is closer to narrowcasting than to broadcasting even while maintaining the possibility of broadcasting. Hence, the nature of the audience using the Internet quickly becomes muddy. While such muddiness might have led us to sharpen our definitions of the audience, it seems instead to have led many to focus on the medium itself. For example, Morris & Ogan define the Internet as a mass medium because it addresses a mass audience mediated through technology (Morris & Ogan 39). They divide producers and audiences on the Internet into four groups: One-to-one asynchronous communication (e-mail); Many-to-many asynchronous communication (Usenet and News Groups); One-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many synchronous communication (topic groups, construction of an object, role-playing games, IRC chats, chat rooms); Asynchronous communication (searches, many-to-one, one-to-one, one to- many, source-receiver relations (Morris & Ogan 42-3) Thus, some Internet communication qualifies as mass communication while some does not. However, the focus remains firmly anchored on either the sender or the medium because the receiver --the audience -- is apparently too slippery to define. When definitions do address the content distributed over the Net, they make a distinction between passive reception and interactive participation. As the World Wide Web makes pre-packaged content the norm, the Internet increasingly resembles a traditional mass medium. Timothy Roscoe argues that the main focus of the World Wide Web is not the production of content (and, hence, the fulfilment of the Internet's democratic potential) but rather the presentation of already produced material: "the dominant activity in relation to the Web is not producing your own content but surfing for content" (Rosco 680). He concludes that if the emphasis is on viewing material, the Internet will become a medium similar to television. Within media studies, several models of the audience compete for dominance in the "new media" economy. Denis McQuail recalls how historically, the electronic media furthered the view of the audience as a "public". The audience was an aggregate of common interests. With broadcasting, the electronic audience was delocalised and socially decomposed (McQuail, Mass 212). According to McQuail, it was not a great step to move from understanding the audience as a dispersed "public" to thinking about the audience as itself a market, both for products and as a commodity to be sold to advertisers. McQuail defines this conception of the audience as an "aggregate of potential customers with a known social- economic profile at which a medium or message is directed" (McQuail, Mass 221). Oddly though, in light of the emancipatory claims made for the Internet, this is precisely the dominant view of the audience in the "new media economy". Media Audience as Market How does the marketing model characterise the relationship between audience and producer? According to McQuail, the marketing model links sender and receiver in a cash transaction between producer and consumer rather than in a communicative relationship between equal interlocutors. Such a model ignores the relationships amongst consumers. Indeed, neither the effectiveness of the communication nor the quality of the communicative experience matters. This model, explicitly calculating and implicitly manipulative, is characteristically a "view from the media" (McQuail, Audience 9). Some scholars, when discussing new media, no longer even refer to audiences. They speak of users or consumers (Pavick & Dennis). The logic of the marketing model lies in the changing revenue base for media industries. Advertising-supported media revenues have been dropping since the early 1990s while user-supported media such as cable, satellite, online services, and pay-per-view, have been steadily growing (Pavlik & Dennis 19). In the Internet-based media landscape, the audience is a revenue stream and a source of consumer information. As Bill Gates says, it is all about "eyeballs". In keeping with this view, AOL hopes to attract consumers with its "one-stop shopping and billing". And Internet providers such as MSN do not even consider their subscribers as "audiences". Instead, they work from a consumer model derived from the computer software industry: individuals make purchases without the seller providing content or thematising the likely use of the software. The analogy extends well beyond the transactional moment. The common practice of prototyping products and beta-testing software requires the participation of potential customers in the product development cycle not as a potential audience sharing meanings but as recalcitrant individuals able to uncover bugs. Hence, media companies like MTV now use the Internet as a source of sophisticated demographic research. Recently, MTV Asia established a Website as a marketing tool to collect preferences and audience profiles (Slater 50). The MTV audience is now part of the product development cycle. Another method for getting information involves the "cookie" file that automatically provides a Website with information about the user who logs on to a site (Pavick & Dennis). Simultaneously, though, both Microsoft and AOL have consciously shifted from user-subscription revenues to advertising in an effort to make online services more like television (Gomery; Darlin). For example, AOL has long tried to produce content through its own studios to generate sufficiently heavy traffic on its Internet service in order to garner profitable advertising fees (Young). However, AOL and Microsoft have had little success in providing content (Krantz; Manes). In fact, faced with the AOL/Time-Warner merger, Microsoft declared that it was in the software rather than the content business (Trott). In short, they are caught between a broadcasting model and a consumer model and their behaviour is characteristically erratic. Similarly, media companies such as Time-Warner have failed to establish their own portals. Indeed, Time-Warner even abandoned attempts to create large Websites to compete with other Internet services when it shut down its Pathfinder site (Egan). Instead it refocussed its Websites so as to blur the line between pitching products and covering them (Reid; Lyons). Since one strategy for gaining large audiences is the creation of portals - - large Websites that keep surfers within the confines of a single company's site by providing content -- this is the logic behind the AOL/Time-Warner merger though both companies have clearly been unsuccessful at precisely such attempts. AOL seems to hope that Time- Warner will act as its content specialist, providing the type of compelling material that will make users want to use AOL, whereas Time- Warner seems to hope that AOL will become its privileged pipeline to the hearts and minds of untold millions. Neither has a coherent view of the audience, how it behaves, or should behave. Consequently, their efforts have a distinctly "unmanaged" and slighly inexplicable air to them, as though everyone were simultaneously hopeful and clueless. While one might argue that the stage is set to capitalise on the audience as commodity, there are indications that the success of such an approach is far from guaranteed. First, the AOL/Time-Warner/EMI transaction, merely by existing, has sparked conflicts over proprietary rights. For example, the Recording Industry Association of America, representing Sony, Universal, BMG, Warner and EMI, recently launched a $6.8 billion lawsuit against MP3.com -- an AOL subsidiary -- for alleged copyright violations. Specifically, MP3.com is being sued for selling digitized music over the Internet without paying royalties to the record companies (Anderson). A similar lawsuit has recently been launched over the issue of re- broadcasting television programs over the Internet. The major US networks have joined together against Canadian Internet company iCravetv for the unlawful distribution of content. Both the iCravetv and the MP3.com cases show how dominant media players can marshal their forces to protect proprietary rights in both content and distribution. Since software and media industries have failed to recreate the Internet in the image of traditional broadcasting, the merger of the dominant players in each industry makes sense. However, their simultaneous failure to secure proprietary rights reflects both the competitive nature of the "new media economy" and the weakness of the marketing view of the audience. Media Audience as Public It is often said that communication produces social cohesion. From such cohesion communities emerge on which political or social orders can be constructed. The power of social cohesion and attachment to group symbols can even create a sense of belonging to a "people" or nation (Deutsch). Sociologist Daniel Bell described how the mass media helped create an American culture simply by addressing a large enough audience. He suggested that on the evening of 7 March 1955, when one out of every two Americans could see Mary Martin as Peter Pan on television, a kind of social revolution occurred and a new American public was born. "It was the first time in history that a single individual was seen and heard at the same time by such a broad public" (Bell, quoted in Mattelart 72). One could easily substitute the 1953 World Series or the birth of little Ricky on I Love Lucy. The desire to document such a process recurs with the Internet. Internet communities are based on the assumption that a common experience "creates" group cohesion (Rheingold; Jones). However, as a mass medium, the Internet has yet to find its originary moment, that event to which all could credibly point as the birth of something genuine and meaningful. A recent contender was the appearance of Paul McCartney at the refurbished Cavern Club in Liverpool. On Tuesday, 14 December 1999, McCartney played to a packed club of 300 fans, while another 150,000 watched on an outdoor screen nearby. MSN arranged to broadcast the concert live over the Internet. It advertised an anticipated global audience of 500 million. Unfortunately, there was such heavy Internet traffic that the system was unable to accommodate more than 3 million people. Servers in the United Kingdom were so congested that many could only watch the choppy video stream via an American link. The concert raises a number of questions about "virtual" events. We can draw several conclusions about measuring Internet audiences. While 3 million is a sizeable audience for a 20 minute transmission, by advertising a potential audience of 500 million, MSN showed remarkably poor judgment of its inherent appeal. The Internet is the first medium that allows access to unprocessed material or information about events to be delivered to an audience with neither the time constraints of broadcast media nor the space limitations of the traditional press. This is often cited as one of the characteristics that sets the Internet apart from other media. This feeds the idea of the Internet audience as a participatory, democratic public. For example, it is often claimed that the Internet can foster democratic participation by providing voters with uninterpreted information about candidates and issues (Selnow). However, as James Curran argues, the very process of distributing uninterrupted, unfiltered information, at least in the case of traditional mass media, represents an abdication of a central democratic function -- that of watchdog to power (Curran). In the end, publics are created and maintained through active and continuous participation on the part of communicators and audiences. The Internet holds together potentially conflicting communicative relationships within the same technological medium (Merrill & Ogan). Viewing the audience as co-participant in a communicative relationship makes more sense than simply focussing on the Internet audience as either an aggregate of consumers or a passively constructed symbolic public. Audience as Relationship Many scholars have shifted attention from the producer to the audience as an active participant in the communication process (Ang; McQuail, Audience). Virginia Nightingale goes further to describe the audience as part of a communicative relationship. Nightingale identifies four factors in the relationship between audiences and producers that emphasize their co-dependency. The audience and producer are engaged in a symbiotic relationship in which consumption and use are necessary but not sufficient explanations of audience relations. The notion of the audience invokes, at least potentially, a greater range of activities than simply use or consumption. Further, the audience actively, if not always consciously, enters relationships with content producers and the institutions that govern the creation, distribution and exhibition of content (Nightingale 149-50). Others have demonstrated how this relationship between audiences and producers is no longer the one-sided affair characterised by the marketing model or the model of the audience as public. A global culture is emerging based on critical viewing skills. Kavoori calls this a reflexive mode born of an increasing familiarity with the narrative conventions of news and an awareness of the institutional imperatives of media industries (Kavoori). Given the sophistication of the emergent global audience, a theory that reduces new media audiences to a set of consumer preferences or behaviours will inevitably prove inadequate, just as it has for understanding audience behavior in old media. Similarly, by ignoring those elements of audience behavior that will be easily transported to the Web, we run the risk of idealising the Internet as a medium that will create an illusory, pre-technological public. Conclusion There is an understandable confusion between the two models of the audience that appear in the examples above. The "new economy" will have to come to terms with sophisticated audiences. Contrary to IBM's claim that they want to "get to know all about you", Internet users do not seem particularly interested in becoming a perpetual source of market information. The fragmented, autonomous audience resists attempts to lock it into proprietary relationships. Internet hypesters talk about creating publics and argue that the Internet recreates the intimacy of community as a corrective to the atomisation and alienation characteristic of mass society. This faith in the power of a medium to create social cohesion recalls the view of the television audience as a public constructed by the common experience of watching an important event. However, MSN's McCartney concert indicates that creating a public from spectacle it is not a simple process. In fact, what the Internet media conglomerates seem to want more than anything is to create consumer bases. Audiences exist for pleasure and by the desire to be entertained. 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