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Blueskying a Social Media Platform for the Arts
Hosted by
Facebook and Google Groups
Dal Yong Jin
Enhancing our cultural activities; creating arts and culture Social media has become one of the most significant forces in contemporary arts as well as popular culture in the 21st century. From Western-originated social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to local-based platforms, including Kakao and Naver in Korea, QQ and Baidu in China, and Mixi in Japan, social media has greatly influenced people’s everyday lives. While social media has proved its potential to facilitate democratization evidenced in several socio-political movements, including the Arab Spring of 2010 and Occupy Wall Street in 2011, social media has also played a key role in popular culture and arts. To begin with, social media platforms has reshaped our cultural activities in various ways. Social media has entirely changed our notion of the material possessions of arts and culture. Previously, in order to enjoy paintings and music, both classical and popular music, people must go to art galleries or concert halls. However, in the age of social media, material possessions are not anymore adequate as people enjoy culture through social media. Young people equipped with social media mainly use these platforms to enjoy contemporary arts anytime and anyplace. Second, social media has developed endless interactions between producers and consumers, and some of the users play as producers as well. When traditional media, such as broadcasting and film companies, worked alone, the roles of producers and consumers were clearly separated; however, with the emergence of social media, people as the users continuously demand the producers to shift the directions of culture so that cultural creators reflect what the users want. Of course, some of them, again, produce their own paintings, music, videos, and literature and post them on social media to be creators. Last, but not least, social media platforms work as the sources of transmedia storytelling, referring to the flow of content across multiple media platforms. Previously, cultural creators used literature, for example, as the source of films and television dramas. However, in the 2010s, as indicated in the Asian context, cultural producers utilize anime, manhwa, and webtoon (web comics) for these big screen culture. Since anime and webtoon are the symbols of written communication and visual content, these contemporary arts on social media platforms like Naver and Kakao in Asia play a significant role in reshaping our contemporary culture and arts. Overall, social media has transformed our daily activities. The degree of change is unprecedented. It is important to understand the ways in which social media has influenced our cultural lives. More importantly, it is significant to utilize social media to not only enhance our cultural activities, but also to create arts and culture.
Transcript of Dal Yong Jin's Google Docs conversation
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Judy Malloy: Overviews, Ideas, Histories, and Observations from Policy Makers and Advocates
Juana Guzman
Dal Yong Jin
Richard Lowenberg
Marisa Parham
Ellen Sandor from: Artists/Educators
Adriene Jenik
Tom Klinkowstein
Wendel A. White from Artists/Designers
Deanne Achong
Tommer Peterson from Curators and Critics
George Fifield
Isobel Harbison
SAIC ATS Class in Social Media Narrative SAIC ATS Part-time Faculty: Judy Malloy |
Dal Yong Jin is Distinguished Simon Fraser University Professor. Jin's major research and teaching interests are on digital platforms and digital games, globalization and media, transnational cultural studies, and the political economy of media and culture. Jin has published numerous books and articles, including Korea’s Online Gaming Empire (MIT, 2010), Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture (Routledge, 2015), New Korean Wave: transnational cultural power in the age of social media (University of Illinois Press, 2016), and Globalization and Media in the Digital Platform Age (Routledge, 2019).