The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies in the mid-2000s exercised a profound effect on the creation, distribution, and reception of creative media. Web sites like PayPal, innovations like Bit Coin, and advances in sharing networks (or P2Ps) influenced a paradigm shift in the transactive relationship between artists and consumers, replacing a market economy with a burgeoning “gift economy,” as explored by many scholars, foremost among them Lewis Hyde.
Among the many examples of web-enabled gift-economies, instances include the highly-publicized efforts by the comedian Louis C.K. and the band Radiohead, both of whom bypassed traditional concert vendors and record labels to sell, respectively, concert tickets and albums directly from their web sites. In both cases, the artists exceeded expected revenues, despite predictable torrenting and downloading by P2P networks—in fact, in both cases, industry analysts report that stealing of intellectual property operated well below anticipated predictions, with speculation being that the artists’ willingness to share their work as a “gift” diminished fans’ motivation to steal.
What I’d like to accomplish in this panel presentation, therefore, is to bring together these two separate phenomena and trace their symbiotic relationship. The first phenomenon, as adduced above, involves how nascent Internet technologies enable the possibility for sharing art work while bypassing older cultural institutions such as the New York publishing industry, Hollywood production companies, record labels, and ticket vendor services. The second phenomenon develops from these material and economic conditions, through the “gift economy,” to a distinctly contemporary American aesthetic—“The New Sincerity.” This movement emphasizes sharing, the move from art as commerce to gift, and equality between artist and consumer as imperative in escaping from the overly-commercialized, postmodern world. My motive, in the end, is to imagine the future development of The New Sincerity as a function of Internet technologies.
About the presenterJames McAdams
James McAdams is currently a professor and Ph.D. candidate in English at Lehigh University, where he also edits the university’s creative writing journal, Amaranth.
Before receiving his B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh and his M.A. in English from Villanova University, he worked for many years in the mental health industry in the Philadelphia suburbs.
He is currently at work on a dissertation exploring the connections between the contemporary American novel, Internet technologies, and the discipline of psychiatry.