Blog 10- Video Vortex

Lev Manovich’s The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life is about how sites sucks as Youtube, Facebook, or Myspace has given amateurs the power to create media and turn the internet into “a communication medium” from its original “publishing medium” form.

Geert Lovink’s ‘The Art of Watching Databases: Introduction to the Video Vortex Reader,” is about how society has turned their attention to internet databases, and the content that it has to offer satiates our hunger to be entertained quickly and easily.

Both authors agree that the social media sights have become more easily accessible to the general public, which explains the plethora of random media that can be found on sites like YouTube or Facebook. They both believe that the people uploading the material are using some sort of strategy or tactic to catch the attention of viewers everywhere. I think that Lovink put more thought into the strategic maneuvers behind viral media while Manovich only discusses the entertainment value of the media. It seems like Manovich believes that the “ADHD” like characteristic of viral media started a social evolution from a content society to one that needs instant gratification. While it seems like Lovink believes that people have changed the way we look at media and that now it is going to be difficult for real artists to differentiate art from random viral media.