You also say that “Most p2p collectivities are very extensive and this makes it more difficult to control them, so my advice would be to not even try to do this”, and later suggest to support and probably stimulate p2p communities. These statements sound like the essence of your response, but I find them too general and lacking good examples. As for “flash-mobs”, I thing it this example could be used for opposite purposes, for instance when speaking of p2p as a temporarily occurrence. If you look to global “flash mobbers” communities, they are already passing away. And the use of this example as of “big impact” thing needs more argumentation, e.g. that it was one of the impulses for the change in understanding how people may gather in “real” space without direct contact arrangements. 

www.athens2004.com: Olympic Games as Commodity

“The 2004 Olympic Games will be a celebration of sport and culture, placing the human element at the centre of all activities. In the spirit of Olympism, the Games will promote the bond between sport and culture, or what is known as the ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body”

“There’s no place like at home”[1]

“The Cultural Olympiad seeks to spread an important message to the world. A message of peace and social cohesion. A message that links tradition and innovation, and innovation with vision - a modern message that speaks to the information society and the people that live in it.”

Cultural Olympiad[2]

“In recent decades the postmodern Olympics have become a virtual circus of commodity values and fetishes”

(Real, M. M.[3])

“IBM wanted to have Internet rights included as part of new agreement and we didn’t. We see Internet as new medium and we still don’t know how it will be used in the next 4 years”

(1998, IOC)

Olympic Games are definitely the biggest international sporting event carrying multiple cultural messages. In general context of sports' commodification one of the most discussed features of the Olympics is the scope and magnitude of the audience they attract. Olympic Games being sponsored by private organizations, became not only the celebration of humanity, democracy, noble competition, equality and other ideals but also the arena where many sorts of commercial organization strive for  financial reward.

One among the officially expressed objectives of International Olympic Committee (IOC) is “to ensure the independent financial stability of the Olympic Movement, and thereby to assist in the worldwide promotion of Olympism”[4]. Organizers also promise “To enlist the support of Olympic marketing partners in the promotion of the Olympic ideals” [5]. Ironically, another value of organizers is “to successfully balance the Olympic Ideals with the Games' commercial aspect”[6]. E.g., Athens 2004 Olympic Games are promoted as limiting group of sponsors to half that of previous Games”[7].

We also have Olympics as the stage of many technological innovations (e.g. live sports broadcasting presented 1936 in Berlin, satellite technology introduced in 1964 in Tokyo, etc.).  It goes without saying that development of Internet also changes the patterns of communication and organization of IOC and related institutions.

Doing research on official web site of Athens 2004 Olympic Games www.athens2004.com also using information from other sources on Olympic Games; the media of sports culture and sports marketing  I will discuss the following topics:

-          commodification of Olympic Games and sports culture on the whole; how this tendency is seen on-line

-          the use of Internet in expressing both Olympic Values and “Olympic commerce”; the official web-site as a promotional means

Approaches. To discuss the before mentioned issues and their reflections on-line I will:

-         Survey historical and social context of Olympic Games to analyze the conflict between the Olympic movement's high ideals and the commercialism or political acts

-         Use theory of polysemic structures[8] when speaking of the multiple narratives (sport marketers efforts to attract diverse audiences), embedded genres (sport, festival and spectacle) and  layered symbols (the use of symbols and audience interest) of the Olympic Games

-         Discuss Olympic Games as a separate brand and brands related to Olympics

Main literature:

-       Boyle, R. and Haynes, R. (2000) Power Play: Sport, Media & Popular Culture (Pearson Education Ltd.)

-       Chalip, L. H. (2000) Polysemy and Olympic Audiences: Lessons for Sport Marketing See: http://olympicstudies.uab.es/pdf/od010_eng.pdf

-        MediaSport (2000) Ed. Wenner, L. (Routledge)

-        Milton-Smith, J. (2002) Ethics, Olympics and Search of Global Values in: Journal of Business Ethics 35, P. 131 – 142 (Kluwer Academic Publishers)

-        Moragas Spa, M. (2001) Internet and the Olympic Movement See: http://www.blues.uab.es/olympic.studies/pdf/OD012_eng.pdf

-         International Olympic Committee 2004 Marketing File See: www.ioc.org

-         Rowe, D. (1999) Sport, Culture and the Media (Open University Press)

Main web-sites:

www.athens2004.com, www.perseus.tufts.edu/Olympics/, www.cultural-olympiad.gr, www.ioc.com, www.coca-cola.com, www.mcdonalds.com, www.samsung.com, www.fujixerox.com.au etc.

Course literature

with some troubles, but still manage to place the q&a in better '"design"...

Wellman, B.; Boase, J. (2001) A Plague of Viruses: Biological, Computer and Marketing (Current Sociology, draft)

Recent history shows that viruses can be used as a form of social manifesto, when the “viruses” are transferred purposely trying to disseminate a certain idea, when virus itself is a means to reach public attention. Give example for each 3 kind of viruses.

Speaking of biological viruses as social statements, an example could be al-Qaida’s efforts to transfer anthrax after September 11, 2001 by sending letters with virus to US embassies all over the world. The network of terrorists tried to express their disapproval of US politics.

Computer viruses are always kind of social statements which usually mean creators’ efforts to show their level of professionalism in computer programming. Anyway, sometimes these viruses are used as manifestos of other notions. In 2002, the news item that a 17-year-old girl created a worm “Sharpei” targeting Microsoft's .NET Web services platform because she wanted to prove women are capable of creating computer viruses spread all over the world. This is an example of computer virus use to make a statement against sexism.

It seems to me that contrary to the before mentioned types of viruses, grassroots of “buzz

marketing” are namely humorous stories, funny pictures and messages like that which are likely to spread fast, so we could say that there are even more “social” than “marketing” messages spreading in this way. However, as a specific example I would mention “flash mobs” movement.

Flash mobs are sudden gatherings of people at a predetermined location at a predetermined time arranged usually by e-mails; they mostly aim just for fun. Also they are considered kind of a protest against the rules of public gatherings (because police and local authorities, also owners of private places are not informed about the meeting of quite big group of people).

B. Welman and J. Boase write that “children and teenagers are probably the most vulnerable [to viruses’attacks] because of their general reluctance to take protective measures”. Do you agree with the statement? What makes a person resistant to computer and marketing viruses?

I think that this statement is valid speaking mostly of biological and marketing viruses. To prevent the viruses a person needs to have at least certain amount of knowledge in health care or be media/economics-literate so that they would be capable to predict the possible harm of their actions. Scarcely is this possible for children and teenagers. As far as computer viruses are concerned, children and teenagers seem to be quite virus-resistant because they averagely know as much in computing as adults and in my opinion are aware of many updates and use the data really flexibly. Of course, here I mean only the users’ level of knowledge and don’t want to say that 10-year-old child is likely to know as much as computer programmer. However, it is likely that children of 10 are much more active computer users than their parents.

Shirky, C. (2000) What is P2P… And what isn’t See: www.openp2p.com/lpt/a/472

C. Shirky also calls recent internet development “human-centered” and later claims: “as the P2P movement matures, users will not adopt applications that embrace decentralization for decentralization's sake. Instead, they will adopt those applications that use just enough decentralization, in just the right way, to create novel functions or improve existing ones”. In what sense “human-centered” changes can be considered as practical obstacles?

P2P networking model offers more flexibility to users than centralized environment. However,

orientation from machine-centric view of internet towards human-centric model also heads to the need of security. How C. Shirky notices in his later text (1), these trends rise a need of new compromise between security and flexibility. E.g., human factor means that IT sectors of companies are not helping workers do new things, but keep existing things from breaking. To say in other words, digital security is decreased, because centralized control means not only restrictions but also the supervision of trained professionals. Meanwhile worms and viruses creators are aware of virus disseminating possibilities added by P2P networks. Here we can give a reference to B. Wellman’s and J. Boase’s text (2) and mention the glocalization of networks which adds, for instance, to the spread of viruses. On the other hand, the such tendencies as an increase of public computer literacy guarantees that P2P movement and decentralization of internet use also means novel and improved functions of the network.

(1)Shirky, C. (2001) Enter the Decentralized Zone  See: http://www.shirky.com/writings/decentralized_zone.html

(2) Wellman, B.; Boase, J. (2001) A Plague of Viruses: Biological, Computer and Marketing (Current Sociology, draft)

Here I haven’t got a traditional question with a question mark. I simply looked that the issue date of

 as a rewarding improvement of inner organizational communication) (1). 

One of the present minefields of companies is the legal issues connected with P2P networks’ use. 

In spite of own information safety problems when there’s a need of taking extreme care during the 

installation of P2P file sharing applications, so that private files couldn’t be viewed and downloaded 

by other P2P users. Anyway, companies’ experience P2P networks’ use by their employees as a 

law minefield in the sense that employees download files at work, using applications like Gnutella 

and Kazaa and aren’t aware of the possibility that the copyrights associations could sue their 

employers (e.g. in Kazaa’s End User Licence Agreement it is written to use the software only for 

personal non commercial purposes but many people download it to company’s computers). In this 

situation networks managers and other people responsible for the legal issues and the use of 

technologies have to think of measures and restrictions so that not to appear in a position of a law-

breaker, they have to set certain policies within organizations outlining the potential "legalities", 

especially on information that is not relevant to the organization. “A blend of policy and technology 

can be an effective management strategy” comments one marketing director the article; without it 

companies’ at presence of P2P computing possibilities can’t prevent own networks from becoming 

a legal minefield.

 (1) used article: Jahnke, A. Are Your Networks a Legal Minefield? See: http://comment.cio.com/soundoff/031804.html

According to the researches I found, Dutch mobile phone market is the stage where several strong businesses, such as KPN, “Vodafone”, “T-Mobile”, “Orange”, and “Telfort” compete and the new companies scarcely can have visible impact on market, in 2002 and 2003 the same brands remain leaders of the market. At the end of 2003 year as much as 13 million customers were active and the number of pre-pay customers was picking up again. So, the main aim of the company would be to attract consumers from already existing mobile connection providers by offering them enterntaining service and putting emphasis on picking up fields (as sms) and developing fields (as improving quality of ring-tones).

As to start a new company (let’s name it “Line”) which will perform only on internet, I have to invest on both mobile phone and internet users’ markets and try to find out what would be the target group of the company. I presume that those would be young people who are not conservative regarding mobile service suppliers and trust the internet as the means of providing with commodities. Probably it would be worth to target some research points particularly on immigrants of the Netherlands and their patterns of mobile phones use, especially considering the fact that there are going to be more new comers after the EU enlargement.

The next step would be hiring highly computer-literate and innovative staff, starting with web-designers, programmers and leading to managers, PR specialists and CEOs. This would ensure the flexibility of the “Line” and help to create company’s culture. As for capital, I imagine that “Line” headquarters could be placed in some sky-scraper in Rotterdam but all other staff could work at home (internet is the space of business anyway) or some of them in one of smaller town of Holland, maybe where some high-school of technical profile is built so that it could save money on building rent and but better put more efforts on hiring properly educated promising staff and buying the best equipment.  However, to make a small but effectively working company would be the main aim. 

Having the target group as well as human and technical resources to reach it, active campaign should be started, its slogan might be “LINE on-line”, or “Escape on LINE” and it would be marketed as the mobile-service provider which offers “timeless, placeless connection for those who shape their joy of life despite reality’s restrictions”. The trade-mark should be minimalist, maybe just white line in let’s say blue background. What is most important, company’s web-site should offer several versions for users: so that not to threaten the customers who have slow internet connection it should offer less sophisticated web-site but for those who access the best connection it should offer wide range of interactive innovations, also in forms of entertainment: 3d games,  music, chat-room, music studio where one can create own phone-music etc. E.g., for background music I would offer some not irritating music as in www.raku-gaki.com site. It would match company’s culture and really keeps one in the site for some more minutes than necessary.  What is also important, “Line” web-sites should be accessible in several languages. This would be an evident advance comparing to such sites as Telfort.nl, Vodafone.nl. orange.nl etc. what would help to attract new comers to Netherlands, local inhabitants of diverse nationalities and foreigners (maybe pre-pay service with the free sim-cards which you can order on internet and purchase in VVV offices…) 

I would try to promote the “Line” brand in universities’ web-sites because they are the spaces where many target consumers and future decision-makers surf. The banners should be also put in free e-mail service sites (viral marketing), but in the company’s site itself space for web-logs (which entries could be written and send from mobile phone), free e-mail, cheaper sms on-line would be provided.

 Also I would support such projects created by new media scietists’ as Text FM (project which may enable people to broadcast sms texts over the public radio waves, more here) and provide consumers with much information on new trends of mobile phone market like SMAF (more here), which would make the “Line” outstanding in terms of innovations.

The main thing is to make company flexible and using as much as possible internet and mobile connection affordances. Because by making consuming as much pleasurable and satisfying as technologies allow I would attract more consumers which might be bored with strong competition among Dutch mobile-service providers in this monopolistic competition market.

Benkler, Y. (2000) From Consumers to Users: Shifting the Deeper Structures of Regulation toward Sustainable Commons and User Access See: www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v52/no3/benkler1.pdf

Y. Benkler in 2000 claimed that decisions made regarding the digital environment (DE) regulation will determine whether the DE will replicate mass media model or indeed change the structure of information environment. In 2004, what new media trends do you notice?

In terms of technological affordances, DE offers more opportunities to cope with information and present it but this environment faces many the same real constraints and thresholds  as “traditional” media, that’s why the DE seems to replicate mass media model in large measure. I will use the “Webby Awards” (www.webbyawards.com) web site as an example. First of all even the idea of “choosing the best” is taken from the real to the cyberspace which is supposed to be the world without the centre,(the world without bests?”. The company announcing these prizes simply works with investment online. In the categories such as “best practices” goes to google.com, commerce – to apple.com, education – to bbc.com, film – to sony etc. Personal award got the author of www.raku-gaki.com who also works for companies as web designer. Personally I read about this competition in one Lithuanian news portal, which content is actually based on the announcements of two Lithuanian news agencies which cover foreign affairs mostly on the basis of several global news agencies. Here the main constraint - of time – adds and most consumers/users/viewers simply live in the world of the same big names and even having the theoretical access to diverse discourse stay in it because it’s simply more comfortable to surf in BBC site than try to find some insights of original-thinking people in amateur-looking weblogs. These tendencies are not totalizing but I think tendency is the right word here to use.    

Y. Benkler discusses the digital environment regulation issue as a part of American media market. Bearing in mind the differences of American and European attitudes towards cultural market, what particular European media characteristic could be used as a means to help digital environment not to replicate the commercialized mass media model?

As public television and radio, also state-supported cultural press adds to the opinion pluralism in “traditional media”, some kind of similarly financed web sites can be a useful and cheap means to ensure diversity and quality of information in national media content. Here we could also use the example from “Webby Awards” presuming that their results are objective. BBC site won for a category of education because it creatively uses internet technology affordances and provides with professional information. Maybe production of such sites costs relatively cheap if we compare it to TV series but it needs much intellectual input which costs more than it can reward. I agree with L. Lessing here who says that world with internet is different from the world without it but it’s not as different as the platform promised (Lessing, 2001, 141),  but maybe with the help of it before used means to ensure media diversity (such as public broadcasting) could be used more successfully.

Lessing, L. (2001) Innovation from the Internet In: Lessig, L. (2001) The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons in the Connected World (New York: Random House)

Lessing, L. (2001) Innovation from the Internet In: Lessig, L. (2001) The Future of Ideas: the Fate of the Commons in the Connected World (New York: Random House)

In the article L. Lessing names internet architecture systems which lead to a failure: state led and controlled by the successful. What is common among these systems?

According to the author, state led architecture of technological environment is too centralized, and the successful led environment is blind to new forms of creativity. I think these two systems result in similar damage in to the technological innovations. Both systems are not flexible and in both systems there’s no room for independent scientist and their innovations unless they become a part of the establishment.  L. Lessing uses Soviet Union as an example of state controlled technological environment, where all the engineers had no other option than to serve for the state policy. Today’s gaming industry we could name as an example of the successful control market: many independent game creators can’t reach vast audiences with their outstanding innovations and better become a part thriving entertainment industry companies. To make a long story short, political and commercial pressure limits non mainstream ideas in quite similar ways.   

Harries, D. (2002) Watching the Internet In: Harries, D. (2002) The New Media Book (London: BFI)

D. Harries uses the term “viewsing” to name the activity of internet user. How the “viewsing” and word’s definition supports the argumentation that new media can’t go too far from “traditional” media model (this issue was discussed in before questioned Y. Benkler’s text)?

The need of such term as “viewsing” shows that internet changes media audience’s experience in getting information but also proves that this media is experienced as the means compound from other medias “connectedness”of internet is integrated with “liveliness”of television, “realness”of cinema (Harries, 2002, 181), I would also add that information sometimes is also linearly as in printed texts etc. That means it’s not enough to have a term defining internet consumer as a user, so internet is really much integrated with other media. If it’s that much integrated with other forms of presenting information it also integrates with the characteristics of these media. So when we speak of internet we mostly mean multimedia environment where consumers are “viewsers” but not internet and its users.  

Negus, K. (2002) Identities and Industries: the Cultural Formation of Aesthetic Economies In:  Gay, P. du; Pryke, M. (2002) Cultural Economy (London: Sage Publications)

K. Negus says that “culture produces industry … in relation to broader cultural formations and practices that may be outside the direct control or understanding of the producing institutions” (Negus, 2002, 119) and uses examples of British and American music industry to prove her statements about the social variables connection to particular industry. Using the same logic of argumentation what racist tendencies of music market one can prove?

I haven’s made any research on MTV content regarding races neither looked for one, but as a viewer  I have an impression that most contemporary dance music performers and especially back-vocals and dancers are Afro-Americans, or dark-skinned people to say it simpler. Though I also have impression that “music stars” mostly presented in gossip press, TV or other media and the ones who earn most are the white – skinned. This creates an image of dark-skinned people as entertainers demonstrating their fit bodies, representing wild sexuality and surrounding outstanding pop-stars as the grey mass but the whites are those who dominate the profitable part of music industry. I tend to think that audience accepts this situation because it responds to the mainstream hidden thinking patterns of Western society: the whites are ones who own money and other races are the ones who can entertain, which is not the most respected activity in society. Using K. Negus’ words, the audience recognizes cultural production which responds to the patterns of power and prejudice.

De Mooj, M. (1998) Dimensions of Culture In: De Mooj, M. (1998) Global Marketing and Advertising (London: SAGE)

All of the cultures’ comparison models surveyed in the article are often criticized.   For instance, Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences which is probably the most known model of those mentioned in the article is blamed with data restriction to the workplace, leaving other sections of national populations as the unemployed, full-time students, the self-employed, the retired, home-workers, and others – ignored, also covering just middle-class virtues (McSweeney, 2002.). In the de Mooj’s text, can we find the counterargument to this critique?

The author says that Hofstede’s five dimensions model and the results of the survey are validated by many other studies from various disciplines (72). Even more, the author claims that the data was approved by applying work-related values’survey  to consumption-related values and motives (73).

In my opinion, McSweeney is right in that sense that all the nation’s values are not well represented in the data, because those surveyed people were IBM workers what in well-developed countries might mean middle-class representatives and in some, e.g., Eastern Europe, IBM staff is treated as higher class and really don’t represent the values of all the country. So, we could say that de Mooj’s arguments are not strong enough in terms of the width of society-layers represented. Though, speaking of the consumption patterns of any cultures or nations, one should notice that consumption-related values do not necessary mean the values of all the layers of society. The lower classes usually try to copy the life style of upper classes (this trend is even called the central mechanism of the growth of the consuming society (Nixon, 2003)) and this way audience’s consumption needs and wishes actually depend on the behaviour of “opinion leaders” and other outstanding society members. To this extent, de Mooj’s argumentation that Hofstede’s model is reliable and usable in the classification of cultural differences has basis.

Having in mind the eternal economical conflict between society ends and needs we can conclude that the validity of the model is somewhere in between: national consumption values may depend on upper-classes living patterns, but the consumption it-self correlates with the whole society’s economical development.

McSweeney, B. (2002) Hofstede's Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences: A triumph of faith - A failure of analysis in: http://geert-hofstede.international-business-center.com/mcsweeney.shtml

Küng - Shankleman, L. (2000) What is organization Culture? In: Küng - Shankleman, L. (2000) Inside the BBC and CNN: Managing Media Organizations (London: Routledge)

In his text, L. Küng – Shankleman speaks of the relation between culture and environment. What ambiguity (dualism) of this connection is mentioned in the text and how would you schematically mark this relationship ?

In chapter “Culture’s link to strategy” L. Küng – Shankleman quotes Schein who claims that learning that arises from the organization’s  response to environmental changes lead to the organization’s culture, mission and strategy (16), what could mean that environment is what shapes the culture of the organization and the inner culture of an organizations depends on external impact. Later, in the beginning of the chapter “Culture, success and environmental mytopia” L. Küng – Shankleman speaks that culture governs how organizations perceives its environment (17) and claims that the great company’s success may cause the decoupling of the organization from its surroundings, and later make the organization inflexible. So, here’s some kind of dualism between the way the impact of surroundings may be treated: it’s said to be of big importance to the culture of the organization, however organization’s inner environment is said to shape the way an reaction to external environment. As the author says, we should speak of a virtuous circle, so the realtionship between culture and environment schematically could be marked with two rows showing to opposite directions.  

McRobbie, A. From Holloway to Hollywood: Happiness at Work in the New Cultural Economy? In: Gay, P. du; Pryke, M. (2002) Cultural Economy (London: SAGE)    

One of the society trends which A. McRobbie introduces as quite a negative outcome of talent-led economy is the decrease of social security and increased means of ensuring personal security. According to the author, de-socialization of society also increases inequality among its members. What other trends of society can be arguments that in spite of before mentioned negative impact of the growing self-employment industries these changes in labour market are inevitable?   

In my opinion, the increasing life expectance and the decrease in birth rates are one of the reasons why Western societies go through the changes in labour market and really need those changes to go on. As far as the inequality within society and the increasing power of the “white” is concerned, the notions of equal opportunities and possibilities are really challenged by the new workplace politics which remain white-male-polarized as they used to be for ages.

Despite everything, if the aging Westerners think of their finance abilities to consume as much as they do when they are young and if they don’t want to be a bargain to the future generations, when population might be strongly decreased, they really have to be personally responsible for their future because nobody is sure of the future social security in the world of changing political and social boundaries (EU Enlargement can be an example). In my opinion, the present talent-led economy situation is the result of all consumer-society before experienced moves. I like the way rationality of the changes is questioned in the McRobbie’s article, but the mentioned "hollywoodisation" of industries can't be discussed as just the New Labour, these changes strongly depend on political/demographical context.   

In before analyzed text "What is Organizational Culture" L.Küng - Shankleman notices that in managerial discourse culture remains frustratingly abstract concept (Küng - Shankleman, 2000, 8).  S. Nixon in his text criticizes several accounts on contemporary economical and cultural change. As far as we can judge from the article, do these surveyed studies make the concept of culture-economy relation more concrete?

The most often used remark that Sean Nixon's remark to the analyzed cultral studies on consumtion is that they lack empirical evidence. It seems to me, that ispite of their insightulness Lash's and Urry's, Featherstone's  and other's notions are really much of subjective basis and too dependent on generalizations.  The author quotes Thomas Osborne who suggests that such ideas as "reflective modernisation" etc. are not amenable to sustained empirical evidencing. These ideas arise the question: can these quite abstract notions be effectively applied for market? I would tend to answer negatively and use the words of Bolman and Deal, quoted in the same L. Küng - Shankleman's text: people face the inconsistence evidence and are trying the theories to fit the current situation of the world.

Küng - Shankleman, L. (2000) What is organization Culture? In: Küng - Shankleman, L. (2000) Inside the BBC and CNN: Managing Media Organizations (London: Routledge)