Media Authorship

325 Pages·2012·3.028 MB·English

by  Cynthia Chris, David A. Gerstner

Media Authorship
Contemporary media authorship is frequently collaborative, participatory,
non-site specifi c, and diffi cult to assign individually. In this volume, media and
fi lm scholars explore the theoretical debates around authorship, intention,
and identity within the rapidly transforming and globalized culture industry
of new media. Defi ning media broadly, across a range of creative artifacts
and production cultures—from visual arts to video games, from textiles to
television—contributors consider authoring practices of artists, designers,
do-it-yourselfers, media professionals, scholars, and others. Specifi cally, they ask:
• What constitutes “media” and “authorship” in a technologically converged,
globally conglomerated, multiplatform environment for the production
and distribution of content?
• What can we learn from cinematic and literary models of authorship—and
critiques of those models—with regard to authorship not only in television
and recorded music, but also interactive media such as video games and
the Internet?
• How do we conceive of authorship through practices in which users
generate content collaboratively or via appropriation?
• What institutional prerogatives and legal debates around intellectual
property rights, fair use, and copyright bear on concepts of authorship in
“new media”?
By addressing these issues, Media Authorship demonstrates that the concept
of authorship as formulated in literary and fi lm studies is reinvigorated,
contested, remade—even, r eauthored —by new practices in the digital media
environment.
Cynthia Chris is Associate Professor of Media Culture at the College of
Staten Island, City University of New York. She is the author of W atching
Wildlife and co-editor, with Sarah Banet-Weiser and Anthony Freitas, of C able
Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting.
David A. Gerstner is Professor of Cinema Studies at the City University of
New York’s Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island. He is the author
of Queer Pollen: White Seduction, Black Male Homosexuality, and the Cinematic and Manly
Arts: Masculinity and Nation in Early American Cinema. He is also editor of The Routledge
International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture, and co-editor with Janet Staiger of
Authorship and Film.
Previously published in the AFI Film Readers series
Edited by Edward Branigan and Charles Wolfe
Psychoanalysis and Cinema New Media
E. Ann Kaplan Anna Everett and
John T. Caldwell
Fabrications: Costume and the
Female Body East European Cinemas
Jane Gaines and Anikó Imre
Charlotte Herzog
Landscape and Film
Sound Theory/Sound Practice Martin Lefebvre
Rick Altman
European Film Theory
Film Theory Goes to the Movies Trifonova Temenuga
Jim Collins, Ava Preacher
Film Theory and Contemporary
Collins, and Hilary Radner
Hollywood Movies
Theorizing Documentary Warren Buckland
Michael Renov
World Cinemas, Transnational
Black American Cinema Perspectives
Manthia Diawara Nataša Dˇurovicˇová and
Kathleen Newman
Disney Discourse
Eric Smoodin Documentary Testimonies
Bhaskar Sarkar and Janet Walker
Classical Hollywood Comedy
Henry Jenkins and Kristine Slapstick Comedy
Brunovska Karnick Rob King and Tom Paulus
The Persistence of History The Epic Film in World Culture
Vivian Sobchack Robert Burgoyne
The Revolution Wasn’t Televised Arnheim for Film and Media Studies
Lynn Spigel and Michael Curtin Scott Higgins
Black Women Film and Video Artists Color and the Moving Image
Jacqueline Bobo Simon Brown, Sarah Street,
and Liz Watkins
Home, Exile, Homeland
Hamid Nafi cy Ecocinema Theory and Practice
Stephen Rust, Salma Monani,
Violence and American Cinema
and Sean Cubitt
J. David Slocum
Media Authorship
Masculinity
Cynthia Chris and
Peter Lehman
David A. Gerstner
Westerns
Janet Walker
Authorship and Film
David A. Gerstner and
Janet Staiger
Media Authorship
EDITED BY
CYNTHIA CHRIS AND
DAVID A. GERSTNER
First published 2013
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2013 Taylor and Francis
The right of the editor to be identifi ed as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Media authorship / edited by Cynthia Chris and David A. Gerstner. – 1st [edition].
pages cm – (AFI fi lm readers)
1. Arts–Authorship. 2. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) I. Chris, Cynthia, 1961- editor
of compilation. II. Gerstner, David A., 1963- editor of compilation.
NX195.M43 2012
302.23–dc23 2012023370
ISBN: 978-0-415-69942-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-69943-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-13601-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Spectrum MT
by Cenveo Publisher Services
For Peter Wollen

contents
list of fi gures ix
acknowledgments xi
introduction 1
cynthia chris and david a. gerstner
part one: signature 19
1. creativity, copyright, and authorship 21
patricia aufderheide
2. copyright shakedown: the rise and fall of
righthaven 37
pam spaulding and michelangelo signorile
3. appropriation art, subjectivism, crisis:
the battle for fair uses 56
nate harrison
4. authorship versus ownership: the case of
socialist china 72
laikwan pang
5. authoring cloth: the copyright protection of
fabric designs in ghana and the united states 87
boatema boateng
6. sufi homoerotic authorship and its
heterosexualization in pakistan 105
usman shaukat
part two: event 121
7. authoring user-generated content 123
mark andrejevic
8. invention, authorship, and massively
collaborative media 137
judd ethan ruggill and ken s. mcallister
9. abductive authorship of the new media artifact 151
gregory turner-rahman
10. creative authorship: self-actualizing individuals
and the self-brand 163
sarah banet-weiser and inna arzumanova
s
nt
e
nt 11. authoring the occupation: the mic check, the human
o
c microphone, and the loudness of listening 180
edward d. miller
part three: context 195
12. the myth of democratizing media: software-specifi c
production cultures 197
elizabeth losh
13. global fl ows of women’s cinema: nadine labaki
and female authorship 212
patricia white
14. anxieties of authorship in the colonial archive 229
jane anderson
15. perceptions of place: the nowhere and the somewhere
of al jazeera 247
matthew tinkcom
16. amateur auteurs? the cultivation of online video
partners and creators 261
susan murray
17. publish. perish? the academic author and
open access publishing 273
polly thistlethwaite
viii
list of contributors 285
bibliography 291
about the american fi lm institute 304
index 306
fi gures
2.1 Tracing Righthaven’s copyright trolling 47
3.1 Patrick Cariou, untitled photograph from Y ES RASTA (2000) 63
3.2 Richard Prince, I t’s All Over (2008) 64
6.1 Still taken from video titled Supreme Ishq (Director:
Shoaib Mansoor, 2002), inspired by Bulleh Shah’s poem
“The Shepherd” 115
6.2 Supreme Ishq. Shepherd’s female beloved 115
6.3 Supreme Ishq . The Shepherd becomes a Sufi and
dances in the clouds 115
6.4 Poem By Bulleh Shah, “My friends of girlhood
and of play, Come over to my garden” 116
6.5 Poem by Shah Hussein, “I yearn to go to Ranjha’s
abode, Let someone come with me” 116
9.1 New media artist Robert Overweg captures the surreal
beauty of video game glitches as seen in his work Facade (2010) 157
11.1 Marchers leave Union Square in New York City
during OWS’s 2012 May Day protests, Andrea Geyer 187
12.1 Milk (2009), Mel Horan 202
12.2 Clockworks (2002), Mel Horan 209
13.1 A multivalent sign graces the central Beirut hair salon
location of Nadine Labaki’s global chick fl ick C aramel (2007) 219
13.2 Lebanese actor-director Nadine Labaki as Amale in her
feminist anti-war musical-comedy blockbuster,
Where Do We Go Now? ( Maintenant on va ou? , 2011) 222
13.3 Sensuous drapery and the fi gure of the woman gazing
out the window on this poster featuring Nadine Labaki
in the lead role of her debut feature Caramel (Sukkar banat,
2007) condense orientalist and women’s picture tropes 223
15.1 A Different Arab Spring: screen capture, Doha,
Qatar, May 2010 249
16.1 The video introduction to the YouTube Creator
Institute 266
16.2 The YouTube Creator Institute promises celebrity
through “content revolution” 269