1、Johanna Blakley 谈社会化媒体和性别界线的终结Johanna Blakley: Social media and the end of gender媒体研究者 Johanna Blakley 说，媒体和广告公司仍使用一成不变的旧式人口统计资料来了解观众，但越来越难在网络上追踪他们的信息。随着社会化媒体发展超越传统媒体，女性用户人数超越男性，Blakley 解释媒体的未来景象将发生何种变化。为什么要听她演讲身为诺曼李尔中心（美国南加大专研媒体智库）副主任，Johanna Blakley 花很多时间探索我们的娱乐如何与政治、商业和社会习惯产生相互影响。她对创新知识产权令人惊讶的影响特
2、别感兴趣，并召开会议，讨论关于时尚与技术创意所有权及创意内容所有权缺乏现象等议题。Blakley 曾在各式各样的媒体平台任职，例如：大型网站制作、规划博弈研究、协调电影节事务及从事娱乐和政治方面的消费者研究。她从中汲取了大量经验，亦于南加大授课，并协助发展其公共外交的硕士课程。谈社会化媒体和性别界线的终结我今天要提出一个论点，或许听起来有点疯狂社会化媒体和性别界线的终结，让我来说明其中关联。我今天要讨论的是，我们都知道及喜爱，或由喜爱到痛恨的社会化媒体应用，确实能帮助我们免于陷入一些荒谬的假设，即我们的社会与性别有关。我认为社会化媒体事实上将帮助我们去除某些愚蠢和贬抑的刻板印象，我们在与性别有
3、关的媒体和广告中可以见到。如果你没有注意到，我们的媒体风气通常提供了一面非常扭曲的镜子对于我们的生活和性别，我认为这将会改变。现在大多数媒体公司、电视、广播、出版业、游戏，举凡你想得到的，他们都使用非常僵化的区分方法了解它们的观众。这是旧式的人口统计资料，他们想出这些非常局限性的标签来定义我们。疯狂的是，媒体公司相信，如果你属于特定人口统计类别，那么你在某些方面是可以预测的。你会有特定的品味，喜欢特定事物。这造成的奇怪结果是，我们大多数流行文化，事实上是基于这些我们人口统计资料的假设。年龄统计：18 至 49 岁的人口采样对这个国家所有大众媒体节目来说有巨大的影响力。自 60 年代以来，当时婴
4、儿潮一代的人还年轻，现在他们已超出人口采样年龄，但情况依然如此。权威的评等公司，像尼尔森，甚至不考虑超过 54岁的电视节目观众。在我们的媒体环境中，彷佛他们不存在。如果你像我一样看广告狂人 ，这是美国一个受欢迎的电视节目，米勒博士研究所谓的消费心态。最先是在 60 年代提出，并建立这些复杂的消费者心态评估。但消费心态对媒体业务确实没有巨大影响，它事实上只是基本人口统计数据。我在南加大的诺曼李尔中心，过去七、八年间我们做了很多研究，在人口统计方面，以及它如何影响国内外的媒体和娱乐产业。过去三年中，我们一直专研社会化媒体，看看有什么变化。我们已发现一些很有趣的事：所有参与社会化媒体网络的人属于同一
5、个旧式人口统计类别，媒体公司和广告商用这个资料了解他们，但现在这些类别代表的意义比以前更少，因为使用在线网络工具对我们来说，更容易跳脱一些我们的人口统计框架。我们能相当自由的与人们交流，并在网络上重新定义自我，我们在网络上太容易就可假报年龄。我们还可以基于特定的兴趣与人们交流，不需要媒体公司帮助我们做到这一点。所以，传统的媒体公司当然对这些网络社区非常密切注意，他们知道这是未来的广大观众，他们需要弄明白。但他们做起来困难重重，因为他们仍试图利用人口统计资料了解他们，因为这仍然决定了广告价格。当他们监控你的点选流向时，你知道他们会这么做，他们确实很难搞清楚你的年龄、性别及收入。他们可以根据一些数
6、据做推测，但他们得到更多信息，关于你在网络上做什么、你喜欢什么、对什么感兴趣，对他们来说，比找出你是谁更容易。即使这仍令人毛骨悚然，你的喜好被监控这件事还是有它的好处。突然间，我们的喜好受到尊重，达前所未有的程度，之前它是被假设的。因此，你在网络上看到人们的聚集方式，不是围绕着年龄、性别和收入，而是围绕着他们爱好的事物、喜欢的东西。如果你想想看，共同的兴趣和价值观是比人口统计类别强多了的人类凝聚力，我宁愿知道你是否喜欢吸血鬼猎人巴菲 ，而不是你的年纪，这将告诉我更多关于你的实质情况。对于社会化媒体，我们还发现一些其它现象，确实令人相当吃惊。事实证明，女性是真正推动社会化媒体革命的人。如果看统计
7、资料，这是全球统计资料，在使用社会化网络技术方面，每一个年龄组中，女性确实多于男性。如果你看一下他们花在这些网站上的时间量，他们确实主宰社会化媒体空间。这是一个对旧式媒体有巨大影响的空间，问题是，什么样的影响将出现在我们的文化上？对女性来说将有何意义？如果情况是，社会化媒体主导传统媒体，而女性主导社会化媒体，这是否意味着女性将接管全球媒体？突然之间，我们会看到更多女性人物出现在卡通动画、游戏和电视节目中吗？下一部大预算电影会是文艺爱情片吗？是否有可能，突然间我们的媒体景象将成为一个女权主义的景象？嗯，其实我不认为将会如此。我认为媒体公司将雇用更多的女性，因为他们意识到，这对他们的业务很重要。我
8、认为女性也将继续主宰社会化媒体领域。但我认为，女性事实上将会这还真讽刺，负责驱动，直达通俗类事物的核心，像文艺爱情片以及所有其它类型的体裁。假设特定人口族群喜欢特定事物，西班牙裔喜欢特定事物，年轻人喜欢特定事物，这是将其过于简化了。我们看到的未来娱乐媒体，将是非常信息驱动化的，将会以信息为基础。我们可由网络社区的喜好确知，确实是由女性驱动这个行为。你可能会问，为什么这很重要？知道什么能娱乐人们？我为什么要知道这个？当然，传统媒体公司和广告商需要知道这一点，但我的论点是，如果你想了解地球村，这可能是一个好想法，就是弄清楚他们热衷于什么？什么能娱乐他们？他们空闲时选择做什么？这对了解人们非常重要。
9、我职业生涯的大部分时间都在研究媒体和娱乐，还有其对人们生活的影响。我这么做，不仅是因为它很有趣，事实上，它还真有趣，也是因为我们的研究一再显示，娱乐和游戏对人们的生活有巨大影响。例如，他们的政治信念还有健康。因此，如果你有兴趣了解世界，观察人们如何取悦自己，这是非常好的开始方式。想象一个这样的媒体氛围，不是由片面的刻板印象，像性别和其它人类特性主导，你能想象那是什么景象？我等不及想看看那是什么景象。以下为英文原文About this talkMedia and advertising companies still use the same old demographics to unders
10、tand audiences, but theyre becoming increasingly harder to track online, says media researcher Johanna Blakley. As social media outgrows traditional media, and women users outnumber men, Blakley explains what changes are in store for the future of media.About Johanna BlakleyJohanna Blakley studies t
11、he impact of mass media and entertainment on our world. Full bio and more linksTranscriptIm going to make an argument today that may seem a little bit crazy: social media and the end of gender. Let me connect the dots. Im going to argue today that the social media applications that we all know and l
12、ove, or love to hate, are actually going to help free us from some of the absurd assumptions that we have as a society about gender. I think that social media is actually going to help us dismantle some of the silly and demeaning stereotypes that we see in media and advertising about gender.If you h
13、adnt noticed, our media climate generally provides a very distorted mirror of our lives and of our gender. And I think thats going to change. Now most media companies - television, radio, publishing, games, you name it - they use very rigid segmentation methods in order to understand their audiences
14、. Its old-school demographics. They come up with these very restrictive labels to define us. Now the crazy thing is that media companies believe that if you fall within a certain demographic category then you are predictable in certain ways. You have certain taste, that you like certain things. And
15、so the bizarre result of this is that most of our popular culture is actually based on these presumptions about our demographics.Age demographics: The 18 to 49 demo, has had a huge impact on all mass media programming in this country since the 1960s, when the baby boomers were still young. Now theyv
16、e aged out of that demographic, but its still the case that powerful ratings companies like Nielson dont even take into account viewers of television shows over age 54. In our media environment, its as if they dont even exist. Now if you watch “Mad Men“ like I do - its a popular TV show in the State
17、s - Dr. Faye Miller does something called psychographics, which first came about in the 1960s, where you create these complex psychological profiles of consumers. But psychographics really havent had a huge impact on the media business. Its really just been basic demographics.So Im at the Norman Lea
18、r Center at USC. And weve done a lot of research over the last seven, eight years on demographics and how they affect media and entertainment in this country and abroad. And in the last three years weve been looking specifically at social media to see what has changed. And weve discovered some very
19、interesting things. All the people who participate in social media networks belong to the same old demographic categories that media companies and advertisers have used in order to understand them. But those categories mean even less now than they did before. Because with online networking tools, it
20、s much easier for us to escape some of our demographic boxes. Were able to connect with people quite freely and to redefine ourselves online. And we can lie about our age online too pretty easily. We can also connect with people based on our very specific interests. We dont need a media company to h
21、elp do this for us.So the traditional media companies, of course, are paying very close attention to these online communities. They know this is the mass audience of the future. They need to figure it out. But theyre having a hard time doing it because theyre still trying to use demographics in orde
22、r to understand them, because thats how ad rates are still determined. When theyre monitoring your clickstream - and you know they are - they have a really hard time figuring out your age, your gender and your income. They can make some educated guesses. But they get a lot more information about wha
23、t you do online, what you like, what interests you. Thats easier for them to find out than who you are. And even though thats still creepy, there is an upside to having your taste monitored. Suddenly our taste is being respected in a way that it hasnt been before. It had been presumed before.So when
24、 you look online at the way people aggregate, they dont aggregate around age, gender and income. They aggregate around the things they love, the things that they like. And if you think about it, shared interests and values are a far more powerful aggregator of human beings than demographic categorie
25、s. Id much rather know whether you like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer“ rather than how old you are. That would tell me something more substantial about you.Now theres something else that weve discovered about social media thats actually quite surprising. It turns out that women are really driving the so
26、cial media revolution. If you look at the statistics - these are worldwide statistics - in every single age category, women actually outnumber men in their use of social networking technologies. And then if you look at the amount of time that they spend on these sites, they truly dominate the social
27、 media space, which is a space thats having a huge impact on old media. The question is, what sort of impact is this going to have on our culture, and whats it going to mean for women? If the case is that social media is dominating old media and women are dominating social media, then does that mean
28、 that women are going to take over global media? Are we suddenly going to see a lot more female characters in cartoons and in games and on TV shows? Will the next big-budget blockbuster movies actually be chick flicks? Could this be possible, that suddenly our media landscape will become a feminist
29、landscape?Well, I actually dont think thats going to be the case. I think that media companies are going to hire a lot more women, because they realize this is important for their business. And I think that women are also going to continue to dominate the social media sphere. But I think women are a
30、ctually going to be - ironically enough - responsible for driving a stake through the heart of cheesy genre categories like the chick flick and all these other genre categories that presume that certain demographic groups like certain things, that Hispanics like certain things, that young people lik
31、e certain things. This is far too simplistic. The future entertainment media that were going to see is going to be very data-driven, and its going to be based on the information that we ascertain from taste communities online, where women are really driving the action.So you may be asking, well why
32、is it important that I know what entertains people? Why should I know this? Of course, old media companies and advertisers need to know this. But my argument is that, if you want to understand the global village, its probably a good idea that you figure out what theyre passionate about, what amuses
33、them, what they choose to do in their free time. This is a very important thing to know about people. Ive spent most of my professional life researching media and entertainment and its impact on peoples lives. And I do it, not just because its fun - though actually, it is really fun - but also becau
34、se our research has shown over and over again that entertainment and play have a huge impact on peoples lives - for instance, on their political beliefs and on their health. And so, if you have any interest in understanding the world, looking at how people amuse themselves is a really good way to start.So imagine a media atmosphere that isnt dominated by lame stereotypes about gender and other demographic characteristics. Can you even imagine what that looks like? I cant wait to find out what it looks like.Thank you so much.
