Abstract: Wildlife and nature programmes are a popular and profitable genre. To test an impression that these programmes’ references to evolution tend to be teleological, the authors collected a sample of UK radio and television (both terrestrial and cable/satellite) output over a two-month period. Analysis suggests that they fall into seven subgenres but the very high-cost ‘blue chip’ and, conversely, the supposedly cheap and cheerful ‘presenterled’ categories accounted for over half the programmes. Counterintuitively, the most expensive and elaborate programmes seem to be most inclined to treat evolution teleologically. By contrast, the less respected presenter-led subgenre seems to allow more ‘space’ for explanatory complexity. We argue that, as in other subgenres, this is because the assumed audience demand for strong narrative drive can be met by borrowing from other programme genres, action movies and whodunits, for example.

Abstract: "On a list concerned with 'media-culture' one would expect the discussion to focus around the way 'media' function" -- Trevor Batten, in a posting to M/C's Media-Culture mailing-list (9 Sep. 2000) If I may begin by speaking personally for a moment: this is my last issue as M/C's Production Editor, a position I've held for the first three volumes of this journal. It's been a wild, sometimes bumpy ride as we worked to establish a new publication on a still-new medium, but I think the results speak for themselves -- M/C is something my fellow contributors and I can be proud of. Overall, I believe we've stayed true to our central aim since preparations for the journal first began in early 1998, an aim expressed in the editorial of the first issue: to be "a crossover journal between the popular and the academic ... attempting to engage with the 'popular', and integrate the work of 'scholarship' in media and cultural studies into our critical work" (Marshall b. 4). This divide between the popular and the academic -- two terms frequently posited as opposite poles of a binary system -- maps quite directly also onto the other set of terms that are so central to M/C: at least in popular perception, 'media' and 'culture' (or worse, capital-C 'Culture') similarly exclude one another almost entirely. 'The media', especially their electronic mass-audience forms, pander to the lowest common denominator, while 'Culture' takes place elsewhere, in more interactive personal settings. The discipline of media and cultural studies has long fought against this simplicistic view, of course, but such fundamental perceptions are slow to change. No surprise, then, that the slash in 'M/C', and later the dash in 'Media-Culture' (the name of our public discussion list), have come to create some perceptional difficulties for contributors and audience alike. As the same first editorial noted about the name, "without grounding its meaning (the dance of meaning is important to us) the slash '/' is to highlight that this is a crossover journal" (Marshall, b. 4), but the meaning did indeed remain contested: "1998 is a bit early for the virgule to be designated as 'slash' in even a digital journal", said a response by reader Gordon Owen to the first issue, and in any way, did this '/' divide or connect M(edia) and C(ulture)? Slashes (or virgules) are wonderful things. The virgule, as the Oxford Dictionary has it, is a "diagonal mark ... used to separate alternatives (as in and/or)", but does this mean, then, that 'media' and 'culture' are separate, clearly distinguished and distinguishable, or that they are alternatives, different in certain aspects, but similar enough to be able to stand in for one another? This ambiguity does indeed allow us to avoid 'grounding the meaning' of the name; the choice is yours -- 'Media and/or Culture' indeed. Slashes are also dreadful things -- if you happen to work with computers. The slash, forward as much as backward, is a special character, of course; depending on the circumstance it may indicate a division, function as a mathematical operator, lead to another level in a hierarchical structure, or it may modify the behaviour of a computer command. Slashes won't occur in Web and email addresses, therefore, because they could be misunderstood, and so perhaps the name M/C wasn't the smartest choice for a Web-based journal: there can never be a www.m/c.org.au, for example, and just searching for 'M/C' on the Web might lead to some very unforeseen results (a list of all the sites containing either 'M' or 'C', possibly...). There's more than simply a lesson for budding Web publishers in this, though. The ambiguity and confusion (intended or otherwise) surrounding this and other slashes demonstrates the fundamental tendency of the human mind to categorise, to invent hierarchies of information -- but also indicates the continuous conflict of that tendency with another equally fundamental drive: the drive to connect and associate pieces of knowledge to form the bigger picture. The slash is both dividing line and shared border, much in the same way that the squiggly edges of puzzle pieces are both the source of the problem (they show where the original image was cut up) and the key to its solution (they can be used to connect pieces and reconstruct the image). Getting back to the slash in question, then -- that between Media and Culture: capital-C 'Culture' itself similarly is a product of the hierarchy drive, of course, which values some types of Culture over other types of culture, while the associative drive might lead us to discard such hierarchies in favour of a view that regards all expressions of human thought and creativity as 'cultural' and interconnected. For the media (seen by the associative drive as interconnected, economically as well as communicatively), we could also single out a particular capital-M 'Media' subgroup: those institutions which stand at the top of the hierarchies of scale in their fields, as well as at the centre of attacks from cultural hierarchists for their perceived populism and un-Culturedness. Media and Culture, in their capital-letter forms, might therefore indeed be irreconcilably opposed to one another -- here, the slash clearly translates as 'or', then. In lower case, however, there can be hope for a renewal of the link between media and culture. If 'culture' does mean all expressions of human thought and creativity, and 'media' provide the means for the transmission of these expressions, the two are not only not mutually exclusive, but in fact crucially codependent; media and culture go -- must go -- hand in hand. But which one is it for M/C, then? Well, perhaps there is no need to make a definite choice; perhaps part of the 'crossover' nature of the journal is also the ability to return to a true 'and/or' of Media/media and Culture/culture (enough slashes for you yet?). If this sounds like a cop-out, consider that either view -- media and culture, Media or Culture -- must itself use a medium to be expressed in the first place, and the nature of that medium will affect the message. It's no surprise that Media for which the physical scarcity of transmission bandwidth and similar economic factors dictate a highly hierarchised structure of programme content and publishing institutions (say, television or newspapers) are also common vehicles -- as well as, paradoxically, targets -- for protests about the lack of Culture in the Media, while less hierarchical media which allow the unedited expression of thoughts and ideas (say, the telephone or face-to-face chat) are the main vehicles for as well as participants in the continuation of human culture. The Web, then, sits somewhere in the middle between these two extremes: being an electronic, or more to the point, a digital medium, it allows for the easy imposition of hierarchies, as its myriads of search engines and directory services demonstrate -- but these myriads also show that there is no one hierarchy; there are, rather, so many competing ones that individual users' value judgments fail to combine into one overarching Culture. As much as it can be hierarchical, therefore, the Web is also associative, rhizomatic, since these alternative individual Cultures are in constant negotiation and alteration as users accept or reject the hierarchies they come across online, and as they connect and compare the information they receive from various sources. The Web is neither lower-case medium nor upper-case Medium, therefore, or perhaps it is both at the same time: a combined 'middle-case', if there was such a thing. And this is precisely the reason that the Web is so well suited to 'crossover' publications of all kinds, of course: it is in itself inherently a crossover medium. Crossing over between different types of audiences (from 'popular' to 'academic', once again, but also along other socioeconomic factors) in different geographic locations, as well as different types of publishers (from 'amateur' to 'professional') with different publication formats and philosophies, it allows for the expression of exclusive Cultural as well as inclusive cultural views in contexts which draw from the hierarchical Media as well as free-for-all media, to the point where upper and lower cases become irrelevant, and a new conceptualisation of the link between media and culture (in whatever spelling) emerges. At that point (still only a speck on the horizon), perhaps we must also rethink the slash between the two terms, then. Should M/C find a different typographical symbol for its name -- 'M%C', 'M+C', 'M*C'? You might be aware that our public mailing-list is already called 'Media-Culture', of course (though, to be honest, simply because the mailing-list software didn't like slashes), but from Batten's statement at the beginning of this article it is already evident that the dash simply replaces one ambiguity with another; it joins the terms, but at what price? Rather than the and/or of the slash, the dash in 'media-culture' could allow 'media' to be seen simply as a modifier, as in 'the culture of the media', in which case indeed "one would expect the discussion to focus around the way 'media' function" (Batten). That's not our intention, much in the same way that the '/' was more than "just another graphic pirouette, or ... some awkward bow to the Internet aesthetic of cursors and schizophrenia" (Marshall b. 4). Slash or dash, media and/or culture -- with renewed spirits, M/C will continue to trace the divisions and connections between them. References Trevor Batten. "At the Crossroads of Cross Words and Crossed Meanings." Posting to M/C's Media-Culture mailing-list. 9 Sep. 2000. 〈 http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/media-culture/ 〉 . P. David Marshall. "Introduction to M/C." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.1 (1998). 9 Nov. 2000 〈 http://www.api-network.com/mc/9807/intro.php 〉 . Citation reference for this article MLA style: Axel Bruns. "Dash or Slash?: Renewing the Link between Media and Culture." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.6 (2000). [your date of access] 〈 http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/dash.php 〉 . Chicago style: Axel Bruns, "Dash or Slash?: Renewing the Link between Media and Culture," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 6 (2000), 〈 http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/dash.php 〉 ([your date of access]). APA style: Axel Bruns. (2000) Dash or slash?: renewing the link between media and culture. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(6). 〈 http://www.api-network.com/mc/0012/dash.php 〉 ([your date of access]).

Abstract: Every now and then we read an article that encapsulates a particular aspect of some cultural phenomenon, and becomes definitive—an article that is referred to often by many in subsequent years. This is not that article, but it comes close. It certainly has the content, and its method of delivery is neither pretentious nor patronising. This article about evoking (terror) fear in film scores—a "how" and "why" pocket manual—is revealing, educational and thorough. It is obvious the author has had first-hand experience in evoking terror through the use of sound in film and the examples given are uncomplicated and credible. The author's grasp of the fundamental premise that "sounds are more frightening than visual images" underscores the entire approach to creating terror in film music. The explanations of this psychological phenomenon, in terms such as "we feel sound in our bones, making it difficult to distance ourselves from them", are perceptive and enlightening. The author begins by looking at the psychological, emotional and physiological nature of fear and our reactions to sound and visual stimuli—in particular the brain mechanisms involved with fear responses. Here, the choice of the word "confusion", used to describe the effect of the lack of literal connection between visual and auditory sources, is perhaps not the most appropriate—"bewilderment" might make more sense in this context. The author then points out that fear is usually associated with unfamiliar circumstances and therefore it is difficult to express fear using conventional music structures. Apart from the traditional use of leitmotiv, where a repeated musical theme becomes associated with a terrifying character, the most effective way to induce fear is by use of sound itself—by variation of what the author calls secondary or non-culturally derived characteristics such as pace, loudness, timbre and pitch height. Our evolutionary fear of certain sounds, such as low-pitched sounds indicating aggression or high-pitched screeches indicating alarm-calls, has been with us for thousands of years. Today, while we are essentially free of the naturally occurring circumstances that would invoke fear such as the likelihood of attack from wild animals or exposure to the elements, we actively seek a group experience of fear to cement our group solidarity and social cohesion. The fundamental premise behind fear—unfamiliarity—is demonstrated by reference to a wide diversity of circumstances. But a problem arises with today's proliferation of film and television entertainment, a problem that is not addressed completely here. The task of writing successful film music becomes increasingly difficult as fear-inducing sounds become more familiar and what were once effective musical devices lose their punch. This highlights a continuing problem for the film music composer working to induce fear as distinct from merely providing appropriate music—how to avoid familiarity. At least knowing what is already familiar and having a broad understanding of musical techniques gives a strong foundation towards developing an individual and effective style. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Freeman, Peter. "Familiarity breeds Contentment: A Review of "Evoking Terror in Film Scores"" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.1 (2002). [your date of access] 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/evokingreview.php 〉 . Chicago Style Freeman, Peter, "Familiarity breeds Contentment: A Review of "Evoking Terror in Film Scores"" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 1 (2002), 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/evokingreview.php 〉 ([your date of access]). APA Style Freeman, Peter. (2002) Familiarity breeds Contentment: A Review of "Evoking Terror in Film Scores". M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(1). 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0203/evokingreview.php 〉 ([your date of access]).

Abstract: This article examines the concept of self from the perspective of the self as manifest and reflected in consumption decisions. Within the consumer behaviour literature there is general acceptance for a high degree of autonomy in individuals' self-related consumption decisions. The assumption is that we can choose the type of person we want to be, and purchase, within income limits, the appropriate "props" to assist in achieving our goal. I argue that this view is simplistic and fails to appreciate the extent to which culture influences individuals' perceptions of the desirability of different "ways to be" and the objects that are considered appropriate to communicate specific personal attributes. The self-concept and consumption According to psychologists, individuals understand their self-concepts on the basis of observations of their own behaviours, as well as the reactions of others to these behaviours. If the self is viewed in terms of what actions are performed by the individual, consumption behaviours in modern consumer economies should be instrumental in the development and expression of the self-concept (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton). In the discipline of consumer behaviour, people are thought to derive their sense of self at least partially from the goods and services they consume. Through the consumption of the symbols contained in products, consumers attempt to enhance their self-concepts by using products to communicate particular personal characteristics to themselves and others. Consumption is thus argued to operate as an effective means of communicating identity and positioning oneself relative to others. Not just single products but constellations of products are required to effectively communicate this information to others (Solomon and Englis). Anthropologists recognise that every culture-member is both a source and a subject of judgements made according to object ownership. They also note the fracturing of social systems that have traditionally been considered suppliers of self-definition. These systems include family, religious, and community relationships, and their loss of influence allows greater individual control over self-concept formation and communication. As societies come to operate on a larger scale, the growing anonymity and diversification of duties result in identities being increasingly inferred from the ownership of symbolic possessions, rather than reliance on personal familiarity. In such an environment, stereotyping according to consumption is the norm. Stereotyping can be seen as a mechanism by which we can select between symbolic options to construct desirable versions of our selves. Advertising exists to inform us of the range of products and associated "selves" available, and thus provides a valuable service in our ongoing efforts to develop appropriate or desirable selves. In this sense the use of objects in the construction and maintenance of the self-concept is seen as a conscious, controllable process in which consumers engage to maximise their satisfaction (Ger). Consumers shop for a self-identity just as they would shop for a consumer good, and there is an assumed intentionality in their actions that stems from a conscious thought process. Another way of interpreting the relationship between the self and consumption is that communication of the self via consumption is not an optional activity, but one that is necessary for social survival. And not just one self, but multiple selves must be constructed and maintained for each of the different roles we play in life (Firat 1995). Some have suggested that an outcome of this need to exhibit multiple selves may be individuals who are alienated from themselves due to the discomfort of being unable to identify their own core selves (Havel; Ogilvy). Awareness of the stereotyping activities of others forces consumers into defensive modes of consumption that are designed to protect them from unwanted judgements. Self-representation via consumption thus requires planning and organisation, as opposed to being an optional pastime in which consumers can participate if they so desire. According to some analysts, this concern with presenting a desired image via consumption is actively encouraged as it is a source of ongoing consumption (Droge, Calantone, Agrawal, and Mackoy; Kilbourne, McDonagh, and Prothero). The close relationship between the self and consumption is seen as a necessary by-product of the need for high levels of consumption in capitalist markets (Murphy and Miller; Miller). Compelled into consumption designed to manage their images to others, consumers are not free to consume any products in any combinations, as such behaviour is unlikely to achieve the image outcomes they have been conditioned to desire. In order to communicate the appropriate self in a given situation, consumers must acquire specific products and consume them in specific ways. The power of choice of the individual in this scenario is more perceived than real, and this may leave consumers more susceptible to advertising and other forms of marketing communications than is currently acknowledged. The media can widely disseminate versions of social reality that consumers absorb as part of their understanding of their world (Davis 1997). For example, appropriate consumption patterns for individuals from different age, gender, and social class categories are specifically communicated in advertising messages (Holbrook and Hirschman). The role of culture The self as reflected in individuals' consumption decisions is culturally influenced in that different cultures and subcultures incorporate different objects into their sense of self (Belk). The relationship between the self and culture is reflected in the term "cultural anchoring", a term that describes the process by which certain products become part of an individual's self-concept (LaTour and Roberts). The self develops to operate within a culture, and in doing so reinforces that culture (Cushman). Consumers are conditioned to develop self-concepts that are appropriate to their age, gender, and social groupings (Levy). They feel compelled to fulfil the requirements of these classifications, usually accepting the role assigned to them by their culture (Firat 1991). Roles are culturally connected to a range of consumer goods that are considered crucial to the "correct" performance of the role, and culture is the force that specifically provides the associations between objects and social roles (Solomon). As described by Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton: "Thus, by a process whose beautiful inevitability recalls that of a cell duplicating and differentiating itself into a complex organism, the self through its own seemingly autonomous choices replicates the order of its culture and so becomes a part of that order and a means for its further replication." (105) The inherent nature of this drive to conform to societal expectations remains unapparent to consumers, allowing them the perception of free choice rather than coercion. In fact, the perception of free choice is of critical importance to the continuation of the prevailing system. But how is it that individuals do not appreciate the extent to which their efforts at self-development through consumption are culturally driven? Consumer researchers argue that people wish to feel unique in consumption, thus supposedly selecting objects that are somehow special or unique. Paradoxically, the objects selected are often mass-produced products and are thus common to many other consumers. The argument is that these products in their sameness can perform the valued function of communicating social integration, while permitting some degree of individuality in their combination. Fiske, Hodge, and Turner give the case of the ubiquitous T-shirt, explaining how this product simultaneously provides a mechanism for communicating group membership and individual difference. The generic form of the T-shirt symbolises conformity, while the vast range of T-shirt designs allows personal differentiation. To some, consumers' beliefs in their individuality are legitimate as small differences in product combinations are considered to be adequate to claim uniqueness. Another interpretation, however, is that such beliefs are a form of self-delusion, as small differences only camouflage the over-riding similarity between the consumption patterns of individuals. To conclude, consumption is used extensively in self-concept construction and maintenance in modern consumer economies. What is not always recognised is that the nature of the self-concept that is desired and the parameters for product usage to achieve the desired self-concept are highly specified by the cultural environment. The implication of this is that individuals are highly dependent on consumption for communication of their selves, to the point that the concept of the autonomous consumer who is free to choose between a multitude of product options can be viewed as a modern myth. References Belk, R. W. "Extended Self and Extending Paradigmatic Perspective" Journal of Consumer Research 16 (1989): 129-132. Csikszentmihalyi, M. and E. Rochberg-Halton. The Meaning of Things, Domestic Symbols and the Self. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Cushman, P. "Why the Self Is Empty" American Psychologist 45.5 (1990): 599-611. Davis, M. Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1997. Droge, C., R. Calantone, M. Agrawal, and R. Mackoy. "The Strong Consumption Culture and its Critiques: A Framework for Analysis" Journal of Macromarketing 13.2 (1993): 32-45. Firat, A. F. "The Consumer in Postmodernity" Advances in Consumer Research 18 (1991): 70-75. ---. "Consumer Culture or Culture Consumed?" In Marketing in a Multicultural World J. A. Costa and G. J. Bamossy eds. California: Sage Publications (1995): 105-125. Fiske, J., B. Hodge, G. Turner. Myths of Oz. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1987. Ger, G. "Human Development and Humane Consumption: Well-Being Beyond the "Good Life"" Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 16.1 (1997): 110-125. Havel, V. "The Need for Tanscendence in the Post-Modern World" Journal for Quality and Participation 18.5 (1995): 26-29. Holbrook, M. B. and E. C. Hirschman. "The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun" Journal of Consumer Research 9 (1982): 132-140. Kilbourne, W., P. McDonagh, and A. Prothero. "Sustainable Consumption and the Quality of Life: A Macromarketing Challenge to the Dominant Social Paradigm" Journal of Macromarketing 17.1 (1997): 4-24. LaTour, M. S. and S. D. Roberts. "Cultural Anchoring and Product Diffusion" The Journal of Consumer Marketing 9.4 (1992): 29-34. Levy, S. J. Meanings in Advertising Stimuli. Advertising and Consumer Psychology. J. Olson and K. Sentis eds. New York: Praeger. 3, 1986. Miller, D. Consumption and its Consequences. Consumption and Everyday Life. H. Mackay ed. London: Sage Publications, 1997. Murphy, P. L. and C. T. Miller. "Postdecisional Dissonance and the Commodified Self-Concept: A Cross-Cultural Examination" Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23.1 (1997): 50-62. Ogilvy, J. "This Postmodern Business" Marketing and Research Today (February 1990). Solomon, M., R. and B. G. Englis. "Observations: The Big Picture: Product Complementarity and Integrated Communications" Journal of Advertising Research 34.1 (1994): 57-63. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Pettigrew, Simone. "Consumption and the Self-Concept" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.5 (2002). [your date of access] 〈  http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Pettigrew.html  & gt. Chicago Style Pettigrew, Simone, "Consumption and the Self-Concept" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 5 (2002), 〈  http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Pettigrew.html  & gt ([your date of access]). APA Style Pettigrew, Simone. (2002) Consumption and the Self-Concept. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(5). 〈  http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Pettigrew.html  & gt ([your date of access]).

Abstract: Invested capital demands growth. Growth is possible through the expansion of markets or through finding new products to sell, that is, by creating new markets. Thus, we have seen, over the last one hundred years, the commodification of more and more aspects of human life. However, what superficially looks like an ever increasing array of different products turns out to be, in essence, the commodification of just one human need, that is, the need for identity. Awareness of mind engenders the 'I/me' split. The 'I' is a knower, the 'me' is the known. The stuff that the 'me' is made of is discursive in nature. Stories are therefore the industrial engines of the identity economy and they are deployed all around us in print, in media, at work. As well they are encoded into material artifacts or into the social practices which are enacted via our access to identity services (be it travel, media, or latte). Most of us now work in the identity economy and indeed work out our identity in the process of helping others commodify theirs. Consider the following advertisement for Compaq computers. "A whole new Compaq what's in it for me and me and me and me and me and me... a lot. We're here to help you get the most out of computing, whether you use one PC or run a vast global enterprise network". Current deflation aside, the Internet may turn out to be the ultimate domain for commodification of human identity. Not only is any desire available to be vicariously satisfied at any time of the day (thus extending the market in time) but the domain of desire is global in its reach, thus rendering possible the vicarious experience of omniscience also. As the recent add for the Iridium network proclaimed, "Welcome to your new office, it measures 510,228,030 square kilometers" omniscience in a packet. The contributors to this issue of M/C dissect the work of identity in various ways. Common identities, shared by people within the same subcultures or national societies as such, are strengthened and maintained to a significant degree through shared, collective memories, as Patricia Leavy notes in her article which opens this issue and such "mass remembering" is "unconscious work necessary for the maintenance of social memory", she writes. Such collective memories are perpetuated largely through the media, and expanding on this thought Lelia Green explores the argument that consumption is indeed important work in a capitalist society. In our feature article for this issue, "The Work of Consumption Why Aren't We Paid?", she describes identity construction as "a major consumer project using raw materials provided by the mass media", but one which remains considered a voluntary activity. Marxian approaches to 'work' practically appear by themselves in dealing with such ideas. Warwick Mules aims to "open out Marx a little" by investigating the changed nature of the worker in early twenty-first century capitalism. The increasing interest in shares and stocks is only one sign of the fact that the surplus value produced during work is now often incorporated into the labour force itself; workers invest in their own lives and in the process become 'dividualised', motivated by a desire to become their future selves. Work time and free time blur in this pursuit. Frederick Wasser's article examines this point further by problematising the division between work and free leisure, especially in the light of convergent new media technologies which are used for both in equal measure. In the process, does the quality of our leisure time suffer as the opportunity, perhaps the reminder, to do some more work remains ever-present? And, in this dividualised, self-motivated workforce, what about those who value leisure over work? Andrew Butler uses the films of Kevin Smith to examine the effects of being a 'slacker' on one's own masculine identity. Characters in Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy appear to find it hard to escape from capitalist ideology, from the societal imperative to work: "the man without work is cast adrift, still in search of an identity". This is hardly a surprise, given the history of work ethics described in Sharon Beder's contribution to this issue beyond the protestant emphasis on work as a religious calling there rose a secular work ethic encouraging "ambition, hard work, self-reliance, and self-discipline" in the nineteenth century which Beder traces through a study of selected self-help texts and children's books of the time. And such work ethics continue to exist today, albeit in modified forms which link to the latest theories in business communication and cognitive psychology. Beyond the hokey new-age exercises which have been thrust upon workforces in the last decades, staff motivation does constitute a crucial factor in commercial success and effectiveness, and so, as Caroline Hatcher writes in her article, "emotion, and passion, as heightened emotion, have come to play a newly understood role in our work lives". Passions of a different kind, however, are evident in Jennifer Ellis-Newman's study which closes this issue. Investigating gender disparities in Australian universities, she found "subtle processes that continue to operate in some higher education institutions to prevent women from reaching their full potential" as academics, because of their perceived identity as women first, and academics second. This article shows that older problems do not vanish magically as we turn our attention towards new ones. How can these women help others their students establish and commodify their identity if their own identity as workers is thus continually undermined? In addition to this problem, the articles in this issue of M/C also question the nature of worker identity itself, and indeed the very nature of work and leisure at the beginning of this new century. Is there any bit of identity not engaged via the consumption of work and the work of consumption? As Gary Cross has extensively documented, the march of the work-and-spend ethic has been victorious over other community-oriented uses of leisure time for the last two centuries. Any account of commodification via the new media that ignores this tendency should take into account Cross's arguments that clearly document that "the task of creating conditions for personal and social expressions relatively unmediated by goods is hard work even if all insist that it should also be play" (112). References Cross, Gary. Time and Money: The Making of the Consumer Culture. New York: Routledge, 1993. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Bruns, Axel and Hearn, Greg. "Editorial" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4.5 (2001). [your date of access] 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/editorial1.xml 〉 . Chicago Style Bruns, Axel and Hearn, Greg, "Editorial" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4, no. 5 (2001), 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/editorial1.xml 〉 ([your date of access]). APA Style Bruns, Axel and Hearn, Greg. (2001) Editorial. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4(5). 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/editorial1.xml 〉 ([your date of access]).

Abstract: Since the re-branding of Free Software into Open Source in 1998, ‘open’ has become the buzzword for all things progressive on and off the Internet. In every domain, we find initiatives with an ‘open’ in their name: Open Law, Open Hardware, Open Culture, Open Publishing, Open Access or Open Archives are just some of the many concepts which are being retooled to serve the more or less defined public good in the Information Society. Yet despite this new-found openness to the ‘open’ there is very little critical discussion on the expansion of openness as a concept to many different contexts, ranging from the board rooms of global corporations such as IBM to the temporary media centers of the anti-globalization activists. On the level of political theory, the most important formulation of openness remains that of Karl Popper, published over half a century ago, in 1946. Popper had a very clear idea what makes a society ‘open’ – an institutional mechanism to detect, discuss, and rectify its own inevitable errors. The billionaire financier George Soros popularized Popper’s notion of the ‘open society’ in the late 20th century. A more common source of conceptual heft for validating open is the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who juxtaposed the concept of a rhizomatic openness to the closure of branching and hierarchical structures. They were careful, however, to remind their readers that this was not a simple aesthetic or ethical choice. Yet, today the meaning of open’ is usually taken to be self-explanatory. In the same seemingly obvious way, ‘open’ always assumed to be a positive modifier, used indiscriminately and uncritically. With this issue of Media/Culture, we want to challenge the assumptions underlying the contemporary use of ‘open’ in technical, social and political discourse. Many of the seven essays in this issue take the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement as their point of reference but address questions of far more general nature. What is the impulse behind this sudden explosion of ‘openness’? What makes a community ‘open’? Is open really always better or does openness imply its own set of dangers and its own particular forms of exploitation? What are the aesthetics of openness? Together with the authors of the essays, we hope that this issue open m/c will start a more critical discussion of the concept of ‘openness’, so that we can assess its real potential without being sucked into yet another cycle of hype and disappointment. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Stalder, Felix & Wark, McKenzie. "Editorial: Open" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/01_Editorial.php 〉 . APA Style Stalder, F. & Wark, M. (2004, Jul1). Editorial: Open. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 7, 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/01_Editorial.php 〉

Abstract: The Virtual and the Physical The structure of virtual space is a product of the Internet’s geography and technology. Debates around the nature of the virtual — culture, society, economy — often leave out this connection to “fibre”, to where and how we are physically linked to each other. Rather than signaling the “end of geography” (Mitchell 1999), the Internet reinforces its importance with “real world” physical and logical constraints shaping the geography of cyberspace. To contest the nature of the virtual world requires understanding and contesting the nature of the Internet’s architecture in the physical world. The Internet is built on a physical entity – the telecommunications networks that connect computers around the world. In order to participate on the Internet, one needs to connect to these networks. In an information society access to bandwidth determines the haves from the have-nots (Mitchell 1999), and bandwidth depends upon your location and economics. Increasingly, the new generation Internet distributes bandwidth unevenly amongst regions, cities, organizations, and individuals. The speed, type, size and quality of these networks determine the level and nature of participation available to communities. Yet these types of choices, the physical and technical aspects of the network, are the ones least understood, contested and linked to “real world” realities. The Technical is the Political Recently, the US government proposed a Total Information Awareness surveillance system for all digital communications nationally. While technically unworkable on multiple fronts, many believed that the architecture of the Internet simply prevented such data collection, because no physical access points exist through which all data flows. In reality, North America does have central access points – six to be exact – through which all data moves because it is physically impossible to create redundant systems. This simple factor of geography potentially shapes policies on speech, privacy, terrorism, and government-business relations to name just a few. These are not new issues or challenges, but merely new technologies. The geography of infrastructure – from electricity, train and telephone networks to the architectures of freeways, cities and buildings – has always been as much social and political as technical. The technology and the social norms embedded in the network geography (Eischen, 2002) are central to the nature of cyberspace. We may wish for a utopian vision, but the hidden social assumptions in mundane ‘engineering’ questions like the location of fibre or bandwidth quality will shape virtual world. The Changing Landscape of the Internet The original Internet infrastructure is being redesigned and rebuilt. The massive fibre-optic networks of the Internet backbones have been upgraded, and broadband access technologies – cable modem, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and now wireless Wi-Fi – are being installed closer to homes and businesses. New network technologies and protocols enable the network to serve up data even faster than before. However, the next generation Internet architecture is quite different from the popular utopian vision described above. The Internet is being restructured as an entertainment and commerce medium, driven by the convergence of telecommunications technologies and commercialization. It is moving towards a broadcast model where individual consumers have access to less upstream bandwidth than downstream, with the symmetry of vendor and customer redesigned and built to favor content depending on who provides, requests and receives content. This Internet infrastructure has both physical and logical components – the telecommunications networks that comprise the physical infrastructure and the protocols that comprise the logical infrastructure of the software that runs the Internet. We are in the process of partitioning this infrastructure, both physical and logical, into information conduits of different speeds and sizes. Access to these conduits depends on who and where you are. These emerging Internet infrastructure technologies – Broadband Access Networks, Caching and Content Delivery Networks, Quality of Service and Policy Protocols – are shaped by geographical, economic and social factors in their development, deployment and use. The Geography of Broadband These new broadband networks are being deployed initially in more privileged, densely populated communities in primary cities and their wealthy suburbs (Graham, 2000). Even though many have touted the potential of Wi-Fi networks to bring broadband to underserved areas, initial mappings of wireless deployment show correlation between income and location of hotspots (NYCWireless, 2003). Equally important, the most commonly deployed broadband technologies, cable modem and ADSL, follow a broadcast model by offering more downstream bandwidth than upstream bandwidth. Some cable companies limit upstream bandwidth even further to 256 Kbps in order to discourage subscribers from setting up home servers. The asymmetry of bandwidth leads to asymmetry of information flows where corporations produce information and users content. Internet Infrastructure: Toll Roads and the Priority of Packets The Internet originally was designed around ‘best effort’ service: data flows through the networks as packets, and all packets are treated equally. The TCP/IP protocols that comprise the Internet’s logical infrastructure (Lessig, 101) govern how data is transferred across the physical networks. In the Internet’s original design, each packet is routed to the best path known, with the transport quality level dependent on network conditions. However, network congestion and differing content locations lead to inconsistent levels of quality. In order to overcome Internet “bottlenecks”, technologies such as content caching and Quality of Service (QoS) protocols have been developed that allow large corporate customers to bypass the public infrastructure, partitioning the Internet into publicly and privately accessible data conduits or throughways. Since access is based on payment, these private throughways can be thought of as the new toll roads of the Internet. Companies such as Akamai are deploying private ‘content delivery’ networks. These networks replicate and store content in geographically dispersed servers close to the end users, reducing the distance content data needs to traverse. Large content providers pay these companies to store and serve their content on these networks. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer similar services for internal or hosted content. The Internet’s physical infrastructure consists of a system of interconnected networks. The major ISPs’ networks interconnect at Network Access Point (NAPs) the major intersections of the Internet backbone. Congestion at these public intersection points has resulted in InterNAP building and deploying private network access points (P-NAPs). Akamai content delivery network (Akamai, 2000) and InterNAP’s P-NAPs (InterNAP, 2000) deployment maps reveal a deployment of private infrastructure to a select group of highly-connected U.S. cities (Moss & Townsend, 2000), furthering the advantage these ‘global cities’ (Graham, 1999) have over other cities and regions. QoS protocols allow ISPs to define differing levels of service by providing preferential treatment to some amount of the network traffic. Smart routers, or policy routers, enable network providers to define policies for data packet treatment. The routers can discriminate between and prioritize the handling of packets based on destination, source, the ISP, data content type, etc. Such protocols and policies represent a departure from the original peer-to-peer architecture of data equality with ‘best-effort’. The ability to discriminate and prioritize data traffic is being built into the system, with economic and even political factors able to shape the way packets and content flow through the network. For example, during the war on Iraq, Akamai Technologies canceled its service contract with the Arabic news service Al Jazeera (CNET, 2003). Technology, Choices and Values To address the social choices underpinning seemingly benign technical choices of the next generation Internet, we need to understand the economic, geographic and social factors guiding choices about its design and deployment. Just as the current architecture of the Internet reflects the values of its original creators, this next generation Internet will reflect our choices and our values. The reality is that decisions with very long-term impacts will be made with or without debate. If any utopian vision of the Internet is to survive, it is crucial to embed the new architectures with specific values by asking difficult questions with no pre-defined or easy answers. These are questions that require social debate and consensus. Is the Internet fundamentally a public or private space? Who will have access? What information and whose information will be accessible? Which values and whose values should form the basis of the new infrastructure? Should the construction be subject to market forces alone or should ideas of social equity and fairness be embedded in the technology? Technologists, policy makers (at both national and local levels), researchers and the general public all have a part in determining the answers to these questions. Policymakers need to link future competition and innovation with equitable access for all citizens. Urban planners and local governments need to link infrastructure, economic sustainability and equity through public and public-private investments – especially in traditionally marginalized areas. Researchers need to continue mapping the complex interactions of investment in and deployment of infrastructure across the disciplines of economics, technology and urban planning. Technologists need to consider the societal implications and inform the policy debates of the technologies they build. Communities need to link technical issues with local ramifications, contesting and advocating with policymakers and corporations. The ultimate geography of cyberspace will reflect the geography of fibre. Understanding and contesting the present and future reality requires linking mundane technical questions with the questions of values in exactly these wider social and political debates. Works Cited Akamai. See 〈 http://www.akamai.com/service/network.php 〉 Eischen, Kyle. ‘The Social Impact of Informational Production: Software Development as an Informational Practice’. Center for Global, International and Regional Studies Working Paper #2002-1. 2002. UC Santa Cruz. 〈 http://cgirs.ucsc.edu/publications/workingpapers/ 〉 Graham, Stephen. “Global Grids of Glass: On Global Cities, Telecommunications and Planetary Urban Networks.” Urban Studies. 1999. 36 (5-6). Graham, Stephen. “Constructing Premium Network Spaces: Reflections on Infrastructure Networks and Contemporary Urban Development.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 2000. 24(1) March. InterNAP. See 〈 http://www.internap.com/html/news_05022000.htm 〉 Junnarkar, Sandeep. “Akamai ends Al-Jazeera server support”, CNET News.com, April 4, 2003. See 〈 http://news.com.com/1200-1035-995546.php 〉 Lessig, Lawrence. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Mitchell, William. City of Bits. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Mosss, Mitchell L. and Anthony M. Townsend. “The Internet Backbone and the American Metropolis.” The Information Society Journal. 16(1): 35-47. Online at: 〈 http://www.informationcity.org/research/internet-backbone-am... ...erican-metropolis/index.htm 〉 Public Internet Project. “802.11b Survey of NYC.” 〈 http://www.publicinternetproject.org/ 〉 Links http://cgirs.ucsc.edu/publications/workingpapers/ http://news.com.com/1200-1035-995546.html http://www.akamai.com/service/network.html http://www.informationcity.org/research/internet-backbone-american-metropolis/index.htm http://www.internap.com/html/news_05022000.htm http://www.publicinternetproject.org/ Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Eischen, Emy Tseng & Kyle. "The Geography of Cyberspace" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/03-geography.php 〉 . APA Style Eischen, E. T. & . K. (2003, Aug 26). The Geography of Cyberspace. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6, 〈 http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/03-geography.php 〉