The parameters of the campaign suggest that it is no longer enough to simply promote one’s music through the channels offered and preferred by big industry players (i.e. Arcade Fire’s aforementioned NBC special that starred celebrities like Bono and James Franco and the SNL performance), nor to only draw upon avenues in line (philosophically and practically) with more independent means for circulating and promoting music. We are in the midst of a messy, conflicted, yet exciting moment when new promotional practices are being tested against big industry methods for producing, circulating, and performing music. And thus we get the conflation of an unknown band, The Reflektors, and the Grammy award-winning Arcade Fire.

Arcade Fire’s Reflektor campaign overwhelms all channels of communication and ensures a presence on multiple platforms through which today’s music fan interacts with music on a daily basis, both in-person or locally and online. But the campaign also emphasizes local sites of production and exhibition in popular music-making. And more importantly, the campaign has been centered on cosmopolitan cities with rich and diverse cultural and musical histories, namely Montreal and New York. The cosmopolitan city is reflected in both the campaign and the band’s current musical sound and style, and it is the new location in a series of Arcade Fire albums that foreground place – a Montreal borough on Funeral, a church-turned-studio on Neon Bible, and, of course, the alienating Houston suburbs on Suburbs.

While other cities have been integrated into the campaign, Montreal and New York have been particularly central, each doubling as a significant site of production for the band.

A poster for Arcade Fire’s “not-so-secret” secret show as The Reflektors at Salsatheque in Montreal.

Montreal, the band’s home, served as the site for the first show by The Reflektors. A review of the “not-so-secret show” at Salsathèque (a salsa club, not so much a rock venue) was described as “the (local) climax of an elaborate viral marketing campaign for their new single ‘Reflektor.’” The show would become the basis of the late-night NBC special, Here Comes the Night Time (the cosmopolitan city doesn’t sleep), as well as for a number of teaser trailers for the album. Reviewer Lorraine Carpenter points to the Haitian influences that have been added to the band’s look and sound. The band and the city of Montreal are both connected to Haiti. Montreal’s Haitian community is the largest in Canada and band member Régine Chassagne, whose parents emigrated from Haiti, has advocated the country’s need for aid following the 2010 earthquake. The sounds of the diasporas are the sounds of the cosmopolitan city.

Next, The Reflektors headed to Brooklyn, New York, to play two back-to-back events that would, amongst other things, carry the campaign into satellite radio through heavy promotion by Sirius XMU. New York is one of the cities where the album was recorded, with production by New York-based James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem (whose synths and drum beats are very much palpable on not just the single “Reflektor” but throughout the whole album). Artists who have been cited in reviews as standout influences on Reflektor (Talking Heads, for one, a comparison made ad nauseum) evoke a New York as heard through the coming together of sounds and styles both distant and local at key moments in the city’s musical history, namely proto-punk in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s (Bowie’s backing vocals on “Reflektor” are key here) and disco (Studio 54) of the late 1970s.

Following the Montreal and Brooklyn shows, The Reflektors continued the series of secret shows in other cities including Los Angeles and Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, with funds donated to Partners in Health and the neighborhood’s cultural center. Only these subsequent shows were not as integral to the campaign itself.

It is important to consider what it means to evoke the cosmopolitan city through sound. Cultural capital is required for navigating and traversing the global and weaving it through the local and this is a privilege attainable through a successful career. Arcade Fire’s cultural accolades and accomplishments (The Suburbs won the Polaris, the Juno, and the Grammy for best album of 2011) are instrumental in this transition from the suburbs to the cultural and musical diversity evoked by the cosmopolitan city. Trips to Haiti, specifically the Carnival in Jacmel, become components of the campaign.

Also connecting the campaign to the cosmopolitan city is a notion of excess, evidenced by the recurring theme of the carnival and Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque. The campaign saturates a wide range of media outlets just as the city’s carnival overwhelms the senses. A multi-platform, intermedia campaign is a modern carnival steeped in excess; chaos and humor unfolding in reviews, reader comments, internet trolls, tweets, and blog posts. In person at the secret shows, concert-goers were required to be costumed and masked.

Rodin’s Orpheus sculpture on the Reflektor album cover.

To further drive the point home is the myth of Orpheus that recurs throughout the campaign. Auguste Rodin’s sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice is the album’s cover, there is a song titled “It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus),” and the album leak was paired with Black Orpheus, Marcel Camus’ 1959 film that takes place during Brazil’s Carnaval. Many reviews of the album have pointed to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as it pertains to the theme of reflection, but what is also of significance is that Orpheus is killed by the mythic agents of the carnivalesque, torn apart by Dionysus’ maenads. And here we can locate an important message that the band communicates through the campaign: to be wary of the ways in which the self is cut and chopped into fragments online and in contemporary culture. Our reflections, of our reflections, of our reflections.

Hall H is a cavernous, airplane hanger-like room at the east end of the convention center.  Seating up to 6500 attendees, the room hosts panels dedicated to promoting Hollywood films, particularly blockbuster tentpoles and franchises.  This year, the list of star-studded sneak previews included Ender’s Game, The Amazing Spiderman 2, Godzilla, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Thor and Captain America sequels, and surprise announcements from Warner Brothers and Marvel and about the immanent team up of Superman and Batman and the title (and villain) of the next Avengers film.

The process of gaining access to the massive hall is daunting.  Every year, an increasing number of attendees line up overnight.  I spent Friday and Saturday in the hall and arrived between 4:30 and 5am on both days.  I waited in line over five hours before the room was loaded (a process taking roughly an hour), and once admitted, I managed to find a seat towards the back of the room.

The line itself demonstrates the significant power and draw of industry promotion at Comic-Con as the spectacle (and labor) of attendees waiting in line produces an increased sense of value around studios’ promotional content.  Contextualized as exclusive to Comic-Con, these advertising paratexts are distinguished from the more mundane, mediated promotion we encounter in our daily lives.  The line helps to construct this distinction by providing visible evidence of attendees’ belief that this content is worth waiting for (on both days I sat in Hall H, attendees participating in Q&A sessions professed to the panelists that the wait had been well worth it).  In order to participate in these kinds of exclusive opportunities, attendees must consent not only to the significant wait, but also to the maintenance of order and regulations–first, in the line, then, within the Hall.  The process of queuing, then, transforms attendees into docile bodies, who wait patiently and compliantly for the panels in the hall.

Two co-existing rules inform Comic-Con’s Hall H (and overall) experience, both of which are printed directly on the Comic-Con badge . First, attendees must consent to being photographed or recorded at any time and to give “Comic-Con, its agents, licensees, or assignees” the right to use their likeness for “promotional purposes.”  Second, attendees must agree not to photograph or record any prohibited material and must obtain Comic-Con’s consent for the commercial use of “permitted” photographs and recordings.  I learned about both of these rules firsthand when I recorded the introduction to the Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures panel on Saturday.

The first half of this video demonstrates the interesting phrasing of piracy warnings in Hall H.  Fans can record and disseminate everything but the studio’s footage.  This rule works to preserve the proprietary property of the studios, while suggesting that attendees should see their experiences as similarly proprietary, an exclusive reward for their own effort and commitment after a long night in line.  Optimally, attendees will “promote” their experiences in the same way that the industry promotes their products, by carefully controlling the dissemination of information.  The studios, in retaining control of their footage, also get to decide where and how it will be unveiled online, which sometimes happens simultaneously or shortly after it is screened in Hall H. Effectively, the exclusive atmosphere of Hall H, both in terms of the restrictions around filming and sharing of content, and the excitement associated with being among the first to see and the first to know, makes Comic-Con attendees into an unpaid promotional army, enthusiastically reproducing their exclusive experiences for a larger collection of consumers online and on social networks.

Though it is difficult to see in the darkened room, the second half of this video captures the moment when two large curtains drop to reveal 180 degrees of screens, a Hall H technological spectacular first introduced by Warner Brothers in 2012.  The video ends when a member of security approaches behind my seat and tells me not to record anything on the screens.  This is, of course, absurd, as the content on the screen in that moment is a widely disseminated and familiar corporate logo.  Whether this warning reflects an accurate enforcement of the regulations or an overzealous member of security, it demonstrates just how little control one has as a member of the Hall H audience.  Either comply, or be ejected.

Later, during a panel for 20th Century Fox, the moderator excitedly informed the audience that we were all going to be photographed by a company called Crowdzilla, and that the photograph would be so detailed that we would be able to locate and tag ourselves on the X-Men Facebook page.  Alongside the troubling and invasive implications of the Crowdzilla technology, this stunt invites the audience’s implicit consent to be photographed for promotional purposes (the first rule listed on the Comic-Con badge).  Framed as a fun, novel, and innocuous addition to the Hall H experience, this stunt further exploits the spectacle of the Comic-Con crowd as a vehicle for marketing purposes.  This example demonstrates a dual function of Comic-Con: on the surface, the event operates as a location for studios to market to a core audience of fans, but in the process, these same fans become part of a larger marketing paratext.

In addition to demonstrating how studios interpellate Comic-Con attendees as unpaid promotional laborers, the lines, the piracy warning, my experience with security, and the Crowdzilla stunt also suggest a deeper, ideological power imbalance in the relationship between media industries and attendees at Comic-Con.  If a corporation’s logo operates as a of signifier of its identity (however problematic that identity may be), in Hall H, these kinds of identities are protected and privileged, while individual attendees must hand those same rights over to studios and Comic-Con organizers.  The pleasures of consuming paratexts at Comic-Con are the pretense through which studios assemble a crowd that functions more usefully as a group of indistinct “fans” than as discreet individuals.  In this way, my experiences in Hall H suggest a troubling hierarchy underpinning Hollywood’s presence at Comic-Con, a hierarchy that, as the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign suggests, extends to the relationship between media industries and fans more generally.  Instead of simply playing the role of media consumers, this audience is incorporated into a hierarchy of industry production and promotion, geared towards meeting the studio’s marketing goals.  The configuration of Hall H, with studio representatives elevated and isolated on a stage before a crowd of 6500 attendees, manifests these hierarchies in real space, rendering them highly material, and by extension, visible for five days a year.

For many academics, Comic-Con provides a significant opportunity to study media audiences, as its diverse programming attracts an array of fandoms and subcultures.  But it is the massive marketing presence of the media industries (usually coded in trade and popular discourses as “Hollywood”) that makes Comic-Con a unique space in which to examine a kind of corporeal convergence culture.  In this space, many of the more troubling implications of participatory culture, fan labor, media conglomeration, and horizontal and vertical integration collide in a messy, crowded, overgrown spectacle deeply rooted in the liveness and materiality of the event itself.  Despite what seems to be an ongoing ambivalence about the viability of Comic-Con’s attendees as a demographic, Hollywood’s marketing presence defines the event for many (whether they actively seek out this promotion, or bemoan the unavoidable impact of the accompanying crowds and spectacle).

When I arrived yesterday, Comic-Con’s preview night was already underway. As I approached downtown San Diego, I saw the iconic street banners which, this year, advertised Marvel’s upcoming Captain America and Thor sequels, and, closer to the convention center, HBO’s True Blood.  In the Gaslamp Quarter, restaurants and stores were occupied by Disney, SyFy, and NBC, elaborate off-site experiences promoting Godzilla and Ender’s Game were already underway, a massive advertisement for the new SyFy show, Helix, covered the side of the Marriott Hotel, and within several minutes a masked man handed me an invitation to attend a “fan screening” of Escape Plan hosted by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Well before I even set foot in the convention center, it was clear that even the space around it had been thoroughly colonized by industry promotion.

As Alisa Perren has pointed out, Comic-Con is so incredibly multi-faceted that one can hardly imagine a universal fan experience.  However, when it comes to Hollywood promotion at Comic-Con, a kind of controlled and universal experience is exactly the goal.  Even though Comic-Con caters to an array of fans and fandoms, this promotional presence works to reshape the event, visually and discursively, as an industry space.  But what are the implications of the media industries occupying what is coded as a space for fans as opposed to an industry trade show?  How do the particular promotional strategies employed at Comic-Con seek to mine, shape, and control fan culture, just as the industry reshapes the city of San Diego in its own image?  Finally, what can Comic-Con tell us about how media consumers, more broadly, are invited to engage with the media industries, their texts, and their paratexts?  My next post, after Comic-Con, will provide an overview of the event (as I experienced it) in an attempt to explore these questions.

After four years of “Story Matters Here,” AMC unveiled a new campaign during the season finale of The Walking Dead: “Something More.” The move includes an updated logo, including altered typeface for the AMC portion of the icon, and a new color scheme. Linda Schupack, executive vice president of marketing, told Ad Week that the new tagline “speaks to the idea that we’re going to go a little deeper, and we’re going to take a twist where you don’t necessarily expect it.” Schupack also noted that the “More” will serve as a placeholder so the channel can use specific words to describe various shows (i.e. “Something Engaging”) “because the thing about this brand is, we are eclectic, we are not just one thing.”

You could argue that the shift from “Story Matters Here” to “Something More” works as a preemptive move to guide viewers past the halcyon days of Mad Men (which it just began its penultimate season) and Breaking Bad (ending this summer) and into a world where AMC airs more reality shows than scripted originals and where zombies and talk shows about zombies pay the bills. This perhaps signals AMC knows that in order to compete in today’s cable environment, it needs to appeal to more—and different kinds—of viewers.

However, what the changes really reflect is that AMC still lacks direction. “Something More” feels like the weak first draft of HBO’s nearly two-decade old “It’s Not TV. It’s HBO,” which is fitting because AMC once fashioned itself as the new HBO, but confusing now that the channel has moved away from that goal with an injection of reality and syndicated episodes of CSI: Miami. It is telling that AMC’s modifications are less HBO and more like TNT’s various “Drama Is…” campaigns. AMC wants to hold on to the prestige of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and the Sunday drama series as long as it can, but it also wants to appeal to different audience segments during the week. With different portions of AMC’s schedule and development at war with one another, the channel really has no idea what it is, or where it is going. As a result, its new and generic brand is an attempt to cover up, rather than embrace, its eclectic—read: disconnected—programming.

Although AMC’s brand shift signifies its problems and lack of imagination, FX’s brand (and channel) extension suggests a high level of measured confidence. FX and its spinoff channel FXX will be branded generationally: FX’s current and older-skewing dramas staying on the home channel , while the younger-skewing comedies like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The League will help jumpstart FXX. At the recent upfront, president John Landgraf announced that FX will target adults 18-49, FXX 18-34, and movie-heavy channel FXM 25-54 with the hope that as viewers age, they will move right along the FX family of channels .

This kind of audience segmenting is not new in the post-network era. Big media companies regularly use individual networks and channels to hit different viewer segments. Disney expertly guides female viewers from childhood (Disney Channel) through their teen years (ABC Family), and then finally into adulthood (ABC). Still, FX’s decision to attempt something similar while moving some of its more established series around is fascinating, if risky. Despite the fundamental changes ripping through the industry, there is still a sense that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. FX, one of the most successful and respected channels around, certainly isn’t broken. And there is a chance that this blows up in Landgraf’s face—that the exported comedy’s ratings fall and that the increase in the number of programs in production takes a toll on FX’s creative juices and/or bottom line.

But what Landgraf and FX understand—and why I believe this plan is going to succeed—is that brands just aren’t empty slogans and redesigned logos. At their best, brands reflect and guide particular development strategies that shape audience expectations. They take on a life of their own. Over the last decade, FX grew its brand because it developed good programs people like; its slogan or its logo didn’t matter. In fact, the channel simultaneously established mature dramas and sophomoric comedies, reaching a level of eclectic that AMC so desperately aims for. Thus, whereas AMC’s new slogan reflects its consistent lack of direction, FX’s brand extension embodies its continuous push forward.

1. With indie movie theaters fighting for their lives against the big chains, and indie distributors continuing to struggle for profits, some argue the future of independent films lies in video-on-demand, a route which Lars Von Trier’s new film Melancholia is trying out (just don’t ask Von Trier to comment on it). Netflix may or may not be the future for indies (at least one indie filmmaker likely feels definitely not). Maybe the future lies in serving booze, like at the Alamo Drafthouse, which is looking into new LA and NY outlets. They can save time by not looking into Utah, where a theater got fined for serving alcohol during a film deemed sexually explicit (The Hangover Part II. For real.).

2. Hollywood films are increasingly getting the video-on-demand and online release treatment, with Paramount making the latest Transformers movie available to rent on its own website and UltraViolet finally launching next week with Horrible Bosses. But while those films have had standard theatrical windows, Universal is poking the theater owner hornet’s nest by planning to release Tower Heist on VOD only three weeks after its theatrical debut. The Cinemark chain says it will refuse to screen the film in protest, but Will Richmond says the VOD charge for the film – $59.99! – is likely to make it a flop anyway.

3. None of these Hollywood stories are related, but they all interest me so they all get included: Lions Gate STILL can’t shake Carl Icahn, the MPAA reversed a content rating ruling on an upcoming drama, most of the Hurt Locker file-sharing defendants are off the hook, religion-focused films are on the rise, the foreign language Oscar race already has its usual share of controversy, a woman is suing Drive’s distributor for false advertising and racism (no, really), and the Academy might finally build a film museum in LA (no, really).

4. iTunes is spreading even further across Europe, and Apple is also working on global cloud-music rights. Rhapsody has acquired Napster in a bid to better compete with Spotify, and in Sweden, music piracy has dropped since Spotify arrived, illustrating that people are willing to pay if the service is worth it (and overall sales in the US happen to be up this year), while one new label is going to give out its music for free.

5. Nielsen scoured social media to come up with a list of the top 20 video games on holiday wish lists. Music video games are no longer high on such lists, though Rock Band is still picking up likes. Not picking up likes is Bill Bennett, who says gaming is destroying our country’s manhood.

6. Magazines are having to adapt to the mobile age. Spin, for one, is reducing its print run and expanding its online presence. Others are trying to get on board with the Kindle Fire. But one expert argues magazines might ultimately see their lifeblood – advertising – threatened by Facebook. Apparently Vogue is doing something right, because it’s been named Ad Age’s Magazine of the Year. (Apparently magazines don’t do much from October through December.)

7. Twitter is either doing well: over a thousand more advertisers on board than last year and ad revenue predicted to grow by 210%. Or it’s falling apart: internally it’s a mess and morale is low. A lengthy NY Mag profile of the company fittingly notes that anxiety and optimism are found in equal measure at the company. Maybe Twitter can measure it own mood as well as it can the world’s.

8. Tumblr is the latest social media success story, now with more page views than Wikipedia and valued at $800 million. It’s no Facebook, which is now as big as the internet itself was in 2004 (but not as big in Brazil as it is in Singapore and elsewhere globally), but it’s making more noise than Google+, which claims that it’s a good thing there doesn’t appear to be a lot of action going on there.

9. Google is huge. Amazon is huge. Delicious is redesigned. Chrome is catching up. Open Range is dying. Diggnation is dead.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors (@N4TVM) posts from the past two weeks: Canadian Cancellation, BBC Cuts, Behind TOLN, Fox News Reflection, Hulu’s Problem, Future of TV Report, MTV Remade, Spectrum Fight, The ESPN Dilemma, Cable A La Carte, More Screens Are Better, GLAAD Report,  FX Ad Drama, News Study.

1. Theater owners have responded angrily to the studios’ premium VOD plans, with AMC Theaters issuing vague threats and some predicting theaters would curtail in-theater advertising for films with VOD deals, which one investment bank says gives theaters a leverage edge (a intriguing issue to debate), plus theaters now have James Cameron on their side. Meanwhile, theaters are turning to other forms of entertainment to fill seats, plus some better food, but they’re also saying goodbye to projectionists.

2. Dish Network bought Blockbuster, for some good reason, I’m sure. Redbox says research shows that discs will still be the dominant home media format at least until 2015 (seems possible that legal issues with streaming will still be mired in legal arguments then too), and Best Buy says the DVD rental delay has helped sales. MG Siegler argues that Blockbuster’s problem wasn’t the decline of physical media but resting on its laurels as Netflix invaded, a lesson even the biggest of companies today need to heed. Comcast must have read that, getting up on its haunches amid claims that Netflix dominates digital movie distribution, while some indie studios are getting wary of Netflix’s treatment of their films.

3. AOL has once again been unceremoniously awful to writers, this time in gutting Cinematical, thus bringing about the end of an era. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences says it’s starting a new era with a revamped executive structure, with former Film Independent head Dawn Hudson installed as CEO. And conservatives are yet again trying to forge their own era within Hollywood, but Hollywood’s just worried about targeting the mere 11% of us who attend movies frequently.

4. We were told Guitar Hero was dead; apparently it’s not, it’s only mostly dead. GameStop is trying to keep from dying by forging new digital distribution options, while EA Sports is enabling cloud-stored profiles for all of its games. Also new in gaming is an MTV videogame division for tie-ins with Spike and Comedy Central shows (Colbert-Stewart Mortal Kombat!) and an entry point into the Grammy Awards for videogame music, though Alejandro Quan-Madrid questions the implications of this change (and other Grammys changes are being decried). Finally, the FBI has its eyes on gaming fraud, shutting down three major poker websites with indictments and raiding a college student apartment over virtual currency fraud that might even tie in with terrorism.

5. Music labels and services continue to argue: Amazon insists its cloud service will pay off for labels (and Amazom is totally reputable these days); Spotify has put limits on its free music, which it will similarly have to do once it comes to the US any day now; and Google’s just about ready to give up altogether. Maybe Perry Farrell can save us all. Meanwhile, music sales haven’t been quite as terrible lately, and the bids for Warner Music suggest optimism, but stats showing that kids don’t like to pay for their music are surely cause for concern. Bonus link: a Nielsen study on global music consumption.

6. Internet advertising had a record year last year, and search marketing is expected to grow this year. Bing is claiming an increasing share of the search market (apparently taking away from Yahoo and not Google), while check-in services may decline in 2011. And Congress has plans to meddle with the internet, including on net neutrality, internet sales taxes, and privacy. Looking back, Reuters takes an in-depth look at where News Corp went wrong with MySpace.

7. YouTube draws in more viewers than Netflix, but Netflix keeps them there for longer, and Mark Cuban insists that Netflix is hurting YouTube. Google is thus reorganizing YouTube into more a of TV viewing experience, fostering live streaming partnerships, adding a stage for live performances, and supporting new-generation studios. YouTube is also getting all schoolteachery with copyright violators.

8. Fortune digs deeply into troubles at Twitter, and others agree the service is headed for trouble, but Twitter’s co-founder responds that this is just the press finally getting around to a predictable backlash, and changes are being made, plus Twitter is still growing. A serious competitor may be on the horizon, though.

9. We’re not done with the Winklevii yet, as the twins lost an appeal ruling but vow to keep fighting. That other guy is still going after Zuckerberg for Facebook ownership too. Facebook is ignoring all of this, too busy with counting its increasing ad revenue and forging ahead with apparent plans to conquer China, but Kai Lukoff says Facebook needs to heed lessons from MySpace’s China failure.

10. Some good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: AMC & OLTL Cancelled, Women Changing Habits, Univision Plans, Fox Threats, Genachowski Speeches, Oprah Finale Rates, Development Buzz, Cord Shaving, Comedy Central Profile, Cable Mistake, iPad Court Battle, TV Show Complaints, Beck Exiting, Mad Men on Netflix, Couric Leaving.

Following on from two previous posts of mine about selling Lost in Malawi, I wanted to share the cover copy on a pirated DVD of Deadwood Season 2 that I found there. A couple of comments on marketing, piracy, and globalization follow afterward:

Dawn dawn of the desert, this barbarian and the settlement of the fugitives in the spring of 1877 a lot of changes. Many of the new immigrants arriving and gradually improve the management of refugee camps so that the original vitality of the town. With the At the same time, the atmosphere gradually diffuse crime, money and driven by the desire of the people here, and all of this is that the wonders of Deadwood …

Description story of the history of the United States of gold surges, a snatch and the greed of the story to focus on border towns in the United States and that its illegal border in the relentless forces of competition. This is illegal colonial towns, an violence and not uncivilized outpost, the colorful personality to attract people to order — from being deprived of legal protection and entrepreneurs to former soldiers and Qiaozhazhe, Chinese laborers, male prostitution. these people on the bizarre story, as this evil town.

Quite the joyride through language, no? And yet, if one can get beyond laughing at the grammar and feeling superior, I’d pose that this is no less functional than anything you’d read on the back of an official DVD. It’s the words that matter, but only the words – at the end of this, we know Deadwood is about the United States, illegality, civilization/barbarity, borders, beginnings/newness/dawn, an evil vital town, color and personality, gold, greed, cultural clashes, and so forth. Proper grammar might actually get in the way, from this standpoint, backing away from punching the key words and retreating instead to a boring narrative that wouldn’t necessarily capture the exuberance that the above copy does. It’s beat poetry, not much different from the “marvel,” “wonder,” “violent masterpiece” that we might see quoted all over another poster. Maybe sentences get in the way of selling?

More importantly, though, and changing gears, I want to note that this, as with many/most of the pirated DVDs here, originated in China, which might explain the otherwise somewhat odd privileging of “Qiaozhazhe, Chinese laborers.” And thus we’re actually seeing how Chinese pirates are attempting to sell the show, not how Malawians think other Malawians will be drawn in. This is an important twist, since it shows the role that Chinese pirates are playing as taste-makers and cultural intermediaries. I continually wanted to know how stuff gets into Malawi and what is chosen. Why, for instance, could I buy 24, Prison Break, Primeval (go Brit shows!), Lost, Desperate Housewives, or at one storefront Monk (?!), but not much else? Why Deadwood Season 2, but never Seasons 1 or 3? Usually the answer to this question in global media studies has been because Hollywood forced it into the market. But here it’s because Chinese pirates sold it to Chinese dealers in South African who sold it to one of a very few guys from Blantyre, Malawi, who make frequent trips to Johannesburg, then disseminate the DVDs across the rest of Malawi. Hollywood’s official presence in Malawi is next to nil, and though its unofficial presence is significant, it’s via China and South Africa.

As far as any of the dealers could tell me, the Chinese pirates know nothing about Malawi, and they seem to know only marginally more about South Africa (DVDs with movies about Apartheid abound, albeit with odd titles like “The Roots of Slavery” or “Wild Africa”). The dealers also told me they have little if no role in deciding what gets pirated; indeed, most only knew what their store and their competitors’ sold. So the Chinese pirates aren’t truly responding to demand; rather, they’re offering a standardized product that sells around the world (note the “Qiaozhazhe” clearly intended for a Chinese audience). This produces a significantly more complex model of global media flow (and moreso of cultural imperialism) at play, especially when one realizes that a lot of Malawians see their TV in “video shows” (who buy from the DVD dealers) or privately off DVD players; hence, the pirates’ version is culturally dominant.

My mind’s still spinning about what this means, and I present this as a field note, not as a completed thought; I hope that others might have some thoughts about what all this means and whether it might shift some of our thinking about global media flows and the cultural intermediaries that make them work.

2. Social media now occupies the top spot on the list of ways our time is wasted spent online, with Facebook overwhelmingly dominating the category and upstarts like Tumblr on the rise. This is affecting how we consume news, as well as how movie companies market films to us. But though it’s hard for my addicted self to imagine, 21% of Americans say they don’t use the internet at all.

3. The book is dead, the book is dead, long live the book, or at least the bookfuturist. If books die, where we will ever find the room to bury the 129,864,880 we have now?

4. The big internet news of this fortnight has been net neutrality & the Verizon-Google proposal; if you missed any of it, I suggest Wired’s links to ten media takes. Otherwise, there’s been good news for Internet Explorer, Skype, and Auto-Tune the News; bad news for Google Wave, AOL, and Digg; and unsettling news for Amazon Prime members and internet users who don’t realize how much their personal data can be tracked online. Finally, the news handed to Forbes bloggers is either good or bad depending on how they feel about basically being paid per hit.

5. Hollywood needn’t rush home to show its mid-summer report card to its parents, and even 3D earnings are starting to slow, while resistance to 3D within the industry is growing. Matt Zoller Seitz wants 3D filmmakers to push toward a more radical future. In light of the WSJ’s piece on the ever-rising clout of international distribution, one wonders how the overseas reception of 3D will factor in.

6. There were some good profiles this fortnight on the challenges and successes of indie cinema, from a look at the long journey of Colin Fitz to a five-part chronicle of the making of the Emmy-nominated documentary The Way We Get By to tips from the writer of The Disappearance of Alice Creed on how to write for a low budget. Meanwhile, Michael Moore is fighting for the future of single-screen theaters.

7. Blockbuster is partnering with Comcast to make its DVD-by-mail service more competitive with Netflix, and the company has also added video games to its delivery offerings. But Netflix is pushing its services more toward streaming than mailing, landing a significant deal with Epix that was an expensive but, says David Poland, necessary gamble. The rental delays that Netflix and Redbox agreed to earlier this summer are apparently paying off for DVD sales, but libraries might beat everybody out in the end.

8. American Idol has jumped to Universal for promotion and distribution of its music, which could be a big blow to previous partner Sony, and Universal has also made nice with MTV over digital advertising rates for streaming videos for Video Music Award voting, though all other streaming rights are still in dispute. Kazaa has made a lackluster return, and the summer tour scene has also been a dud, while HD radio is on the rise and public radio is standing strong.

9. The video games industry is in a state of disruption right now, such that it’s hard to pinpoint what the term “video game” covers anymore. But a group of gaming panelists still tried to predict the future of video games, and that future could include playing games with only our eyes. Looking back on the past, ESPN’s Outside the Lines offers an in-depth look at the development of the colossal “Madden NFL” game, the Entertainment Software Association has released a report detailing the economics of the video game industry from 2005-2009, and Nintendo says it’s sold 30 million Wiis since the unit’s 2006 launch.

10. My favorite News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Sportscenter Changes, Content Industry Doomed…Again, Satellite Up, Cable Down, Aca-Fan Dialogue, Tabloid News Middle Man, Cable & Network Ages, Miles & Reality TV, Questioning Ryan Murphy, Modern TV Online, CBS-Comcast Retrans Deal