Literature and Media

Shirky's chapter on Motives begins with an example of Josh Groban and his fans, who formed several charity organizations and continue to raise a lot of money for different charities in Groban's name each year. This section is followed up with an example of an experiment by Deci, involving a Soma cube to examine the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. 

The juxtaposition of these two examples is intriguing. As per my understanding, intrinsic motives come from people's interests. If they do something purely because they are interested in doing it, or have some sort of love or passion for the activity they are pursuing. On the other hand, someone is extrinsically motivated if there are outside influences motivating them to complete a task. 

In Chapter 2 of Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky begins by talking about the "candlelight girls" who protested the decision to start buying meat from the US again after it had temporarily been halted because of mad cow disease. 

The girls, mostly teenagers, were too young to vote in elections. Still, they took a stand for what they believed in and protested what they thought was wrong. But why did the girls get involved in protesting the decision? How did they even know that much about what was going on? If you think about it, in the US, teenagers are known to be pretty out of the loop when it comes to political maneuvering. 

I really enjoyed/ was disheartened by the analogy Shirky starts his book off with. At first, I wasn't totally sure where he was going, but once it became clear was he comparing the gin craze in London in the 1720's to the TV craze, especially in America, it made perfect sense. The notion that we watch WAY too much TV isn't surprising or new. That's been pointed out to us numerous times through other sources. But Shirky was the first person to tell me I watch too much TV and make me feel bad about it. Granted, while I'm at school, I'm lucky to squeeze out enough spare time to watch the new episode of The Office each, but in the summer and on breaks, my TV intake is ridiculous.

Shirky's Cognitive Surplus characterizes television as a passive, non-engaging activity. On the other hand, he continuously comments that other forms of media (i.e. blogs, lolcats, WOW, etc.) are more engaging. This is clear by the reoccurring comment of "at least people are doing something".

While television was once a simplistic activity, it is no longer mutually exclusive with engaging media. New, popular television shows such as Tosh.0 have created a new type of television experience. First, it relies on the uploading of funny, interesting and/or entertaining videos from users outside the "television industry". Secondly, it encourages viewers to log onto their computers during and after the show to comment, blog, rate, rank and all other types of engaging activities that Skirkey mentions in his first chapter.