[Air-l] Internet and fun/joy/pleasure

[Heidelberg, Chris]

Hi Terri:

I am doing my dissertation on edutainment and convergence and how
entertainment techniques can be utilized in higher education. My focus is
different because I am looking at entertainment professionals as my
subjects, not professors primarily. What is interesting is that you will
find that the sex industry which is a $10 billion dollar industry according
to AVN has driven much of the new digital technology in mainstream films,
gaming, telephony, wireless and streaming technology. When George Lucas
formally adopted digital filmmaking it became the new standard for
production for many new filmmakers and old alike. He is making sizable
contributions to education, and so is Bill Gates through his foundation with
his wife. However, let's be clear, the real pioneers from both a business
model and a creative standpoint are the porn producers who began with the
976 lines, cable television channels, pay per view movies in 80's, the 900
lines, websites, dvds, cds, data mining and ezines. In this decade,
streaming, podcasting, mobicasting, videogames and swarmcasting and wireless
on demand products are being marketed heavily in the porn industry and now
bleeding into the mainstream. Isn't interesting to note that no one hears
about the porn industry suing its customers like the RIAA for downloading
their products. Yet one can go to any city worldwide and purchase pirated
mainstream and porn movies on the streets. The question is why does
mainstream media sue its customers for engaging in questionable ethical
conduct while the porn industry, which many consider questionable, does not
sue its customers. Porn revenues have been growing well, while mainstream
movie and music revenues are suffering from pirating. Your research will
eventually show you that the porn industry has been increasingly evolving
its business model on how to work with and exploit the new digital
technologies to make more money rather than spending too much time in the
courtroom on copyright infringement lawsuits. The porn industry is more
interested in the First Amendment and protecting it through court cases.
Many could argue that mainstream media has forfeited civil liberties by not
taking harder stances against government action over the past 20 years to
protect civil liberties.

Have fun, I hope we can help one another through the journey. I am
interested in globalism effect on technology because it would appear that
the Asian nations and the Europeans are moving with more diligence on
wireless and new technologies than Americans.

Chris A. Heidelberg
PhD Student Higher Education Administration
Morgan State University

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-aoir.org-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-aoir.org-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Terri He
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2005 3:29 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: [Air-l] Internet and fun/joy/pleasure

Hi all

I am a Mphil/PhD student doing research on the intersection of sexuality and
technology. And just recently I got *very* intrigued by the kind of
fun/joy/pleasure that we derive from internet use- be it random chatting,
blogging, online games etc etc. I realise that this is a very broad thing to
discuss, and so as a start, I have in mind a more communal kind of 'fun'
that we're having together as a group: e.g., online interactions in mailing
lists, message boards, or even flame wars.

I plan to pose this question to find out both more about existing
literatures related to this specific discussion (which obviously is beyond
my knowledge) and people's points of view on issues as such.

So far the ideas people and I myself have come up with are quite related to
psychoanalytic approach in which joy (jouissance) and pleasure are two
notions already prominent in that particular field. But what about fun? I
think we need an anatomy of fun. And at the same time I reckon that it is a
very American English word though it does travel to a host of other
places/cultures all the time.

Thanks in advance for any input/feedback on this.
Terri

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