All Roads Lead to Global Roaming Social Media

All Roads Lead to Global Roaming Social Media

All roads seem to lead to Social Media these days, facebook, twitter, blogs, games.

Does this mean that Digital Online Media is the new empire of signs?

When in global roam do as the global roamers do,

Resistance is futile?

Surrender to the jouissance of fugal digital writing,

The paradoxical solitary pleasures of the social media text
Infinite pleasures of procrastination

In post-post-post a note global modernity

Art Writing Is Not Dead (It's Just Gone Online)

By Ruth Skilbeck

Over the last couple of years there have been reports, in the mainstream and even online media, of the supposed demise of arts journalism. These reports have come not only from publications in Australia (homebase of Arts Features International)– which had until  relatively recently tended to take the back foot in the art world as connoted in the antipodean moniker ‘Down Under.’

Sure, there have been a number of reports from here about this. But notes of change have also rung out from the former heart of the art world: the UK. A long feature article in The Art Newspaper in 2009 spelt out a mixed prognosis, “let’s be clear: arts journalism has never had it easy.” * What the discerning reader may note in reading these pieces is that they have more in common than the doom and gloom, they were all written in 2009. This was the year of calamity in the world of art journalism, when art periodicals  folded all over the place.  But now, it seems the winds of changing are blowing back again, and what is returning is a new rush of interest in art writing and arts journalism.

After years of neglect arts journalism is finally making its way into university courses in Australia, as well as in the US, Canada and the UK along with new forms of cultural journalism. It would be even more surprising if it were not so. The meaning of art journalism is wider than art in and of itself; it correlates to art as culture, and art as the new cultural language and form of visual communication in the global art world. Over the last 10 years social and economic changes in the  region, around Australia, have seen countries that formerly were hidden behind a curtain now openly participating in the art world, for example as seen in the new gallery scenes, Biennales and art fairs in countries such as China, Singapore, the Philippines.

At the same time contemporary art museums and art galleries around the world have, at least in the fortunate peaceful zones, become cross cultural melting pots and meeting points, safe cultural havens where people of the world can communicate through the medium of contemporary art, and come to appreciate and understand each others cultural heritage (and not seek to blow it up it, as has been a sad warring counterbalance to peace communication in this century).

The spread of Biennale and art fairs, and the ever-expanding programs and institutions of contemporary art museums in virtual and life modes, are evidence of the effects of ongoing global social change and mobility.

Other movements are occurring around the world such as the new mothers art movements (M.A.M) a new form of feminism in arts which rather gloriously continues the work of the Women s Art Movement (W.A.M.) of the nineteen seventies.

These are all positive signs of art as the currency of global cultural communication. And all these rapid changes also bring into focus the incredible need for art writing and arts journalism that is investigative and clear. Not only in reporting on and analysing the new trends but in building up the relational aspects of understanding and cultural exchange through dialogue and discussion which are processes, exemplified in artist and arts journalist interviews.

The doom and gloom reports, in recent media, are however counter-balanced by acknowledging that the demise of arts journalism in newspapers is not a sign of the demise of arts journalism.  (If anything it is a sign of the demise of newspapers and their financial inability to support as large a staff in this era of crisis: digitization and cost cutting for traditional media). Moving with the times arts journalism has gone online, as have communities of artists, and audiences of viewers and readers who form the international contemporary art world. Emerging in new forms and modes of online art writing.

As a further sign of the changes of the last few years, that have affected all journalists, and arts journalists in very specific ways, blogging has now been recognised by the UN as a form of journalism.

© Copyright Ruth Skilbeck, 2012

First published in www.ruthskilbeck.com

UK Riots: Moral Extremes Reflected in Social Media Use

By Ruth Skilbeck

'Barbarians' at each end of the social scale were blamed for the riots that swept Britain last week; media commentators and religious leaders linked the predominantly socially disadvantaged young rioters behaviour in looting hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of fashion, sports wear and electronic goods across the land to an ethical disconnection, a breakdown in civic identity, deficiency in education, and lack of moral role models and leadership in contemporary consumer society that has been hi-jacked by market values.

Whereas the uprisings in the Arab world this year have been fuelled by a drive for democracy; the rioters in Britain focused on breaking into shops and looting the kinds of consumer items they wanted for themselves. The riots were triggered by the murder of Mark Duggan, a Tottenham man shot dead by the police. The uprisings that swept the land for the next four night may have seemed disproportionate, and dissociated from that event, yet the responses of some commentators and moral leaders, suggest they may be understood as a spontaneous outburst of unlawful acting out that reflects the climate of greed and moral decay of the wider consumer society, at high levels; as Britain prepares for austerity measures. 

The Telegraph pointed out that the riots occurred in England shortly after a series of exposures of corruption, greed and ‘looting’ by the upper classes - through tax evasion, the excessive imbalances of wealth in the GFC and the immoral conduct of the News of the World hacking scandal which saw politicians glossing over the unlawful behavior of media magnates, in a blog article, by Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph’s chief political commentator: 'The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom' (11/8/11). Amongst several  examples he gave of of high level corruption and greed he included the recent attendance of Prime Minister David Cameron at the News International summer party, “even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations” related to the phone hacking scandal. 

Oborne condemned the award to former News of the World editor Andy Coulson of a position in Downing Street “although he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship.” 

Oborne pointed out that in order to ever face the problems that have emerged this week in the riots across the land, the problems must be located far more widely than in inner city housing estates. 

He wrote: “The culture of greed and impunity... stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the political and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.” 

Meanwhile, the Guardian UK Riots blog, and the Telegraph (12/8/11) reported that in an emergency sitting of the House of Lords, the Archbishop of Canterbury said the riots reflected a “breakdown not of society as such but a sense of civic identity, shared identity, shared responsibility.” He advocated education as part of the solution to revive a sense of moral agency and identity. He said. "Can we once again build a society which takes seriously the task of educating citizens, not consumers, not cogs in an economic system, but citizens.”

The same blog article in the Telegraph quoted the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev. Richard Chartres saying  a lack of “good role models”  for many children in disadvantaged areas was a contributing factor in the looting and disorder of the past week.

Social media was blamed in parliament for aiding the uprisings as rioters contacted each other through BlackBerry Messenger a closed network system where one message can be send out to multiple receivers. There were calls for more regulation. Blackberry agreed to work with the authorities in their investigations.  However social media in the form of twitter was also the means by which people came together in communities in local clean-ups after the riots; showing once again that what is important is not the technological tools of communication but how they are used by people.


© Ruth Skilbeck, 2011

UK Riots: Moral Extremes Reflected in Social Media Use

By Ruth Skilbeck

'Barbarians' at each end of the social scale were blamed for the riots that swept Britain last week; media commentators and religious leaders linked the predominantly socially disadvantaged young rioters behaviour in looting hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of fashion, sports wear and electronic goods across the land to an ethical disconnection, a breakdown in civic identity, deficiency in education, and lack of moral role models and leadership in contemporary consumer society that has been hi-jacked by market values.

Whereas the uprisings in the Arab world this year have been fuelled by a drive for democracy; the rioters in Britain focused on breaking into shops and looting the kinds of consumer items they wanted for themselves. The riots were triggered by the murder of Mark Duggan, a Tottenham man shot dead by the police. The uprisings that swept the land for the next four night may have seemed disproportionate, and dissociated from that event, yet the responses of some commentators and moral leaders, suggest they may be understood as a spontaneous outburst of unlawful acting out that reflects the climate of greed and moral decay of the wider consumer society, at high levels; as Britain prepares for austerity measures. 

The Telegraph pointed out that the riots occurred in England shortly after a series of exposures of corruption, greed and ‘looting’ by the upper classes - through tax evasion, the excessive imbalances of wealth in the GFC and the immoral conduct of the News of the World hacking scandal which saw politicians glossing over the unlawful behavior of media magnates, in a blog article, by Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph’s chief political commentator: 'The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom' (11/8/11). Amongst several  examples he gave of of high level corruption and greed he included the recent attendance of Prime Minister David Cameron at the News International summer party, “even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations” related to the phone hacking scandal. 

Oborne condemned the award to former News of the World editor Andy Coulson of a position in Downing Street “although he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship.” 

Oborne pointed out that in order to ever face the problems that have emerged this week in the riots across the land, the problems must be located far more widely than in inner city housing estates. 

He wrote: “The culture of greed and impunity... stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the political and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.” 

Meanwhile, the Guardian UK Riots blog, and the Telegraph (12/8/11) reported that in an emergency sitting of the House of Lords, the Archbishop of Canterbury said the riots reflected a “breakdown not of society as such but a sense of civic identity, shared identity, shared responsibility.” He advocated education as part of the solution to revive a sense of moral agency and identity. He said. "Can we once again build a society which takes seriously the task of educating citizens, not consumers, not cogs in an economic system, but citizens.”

The same blog article in the Telegraph quoted the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev. Richard Chartres saying  a lack of “good role models”  for many children in disadvantaged areas was a contributing factor in the looting and disorder of the past week.

Social media was blamed in parliament for aiding the uprisings as rioters contacted each other through BlackBerry Messenger a closed network system where one message can be send out to multiple receivers. There were calls for more regulation. Blackberry agreed to work with the authorities in their investigations.  However social media in the form of twitter was also the means by which people came together in communities in local clean-ups after the riots; showing once again that what is important is not the technological tools of communication but how they are used by people.


© Ruth Skilbeck, 2011