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What is Content?

During the semester, we created various types of contnet, but that begs the questions, what is content? 

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Content is a type of media that is easily accessible to a wide range of audiences. It can come in many different forms: video essays, instagram posts, ads on billboards/buses, tweets on X; the possibilities are almost endless for what can count as content, but at the end of the day, it is many to be easily accessed by a substantial amount of people. I’ve come to the understanding that a lot of people use media and content interchangeably, but that is false. Media and media outlets are what release the content. The content is the end product.

Dush says that all content is commodified, conditional, computable and/or networkable. Her specific definition of content is, "the word content highlights important aspects of composing in the digital age that existing and popular language—such as digital writing or multimodal— do not. After defining content through its key characteristics [commodifiable, conditional, computable, networkable],... Content, I argue, is now a necessary metaphor to pair with our dominant field metaphor, writing,”

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Genesis Pearson

One of my classmates, Genesis Pearson, made a great point about the commodification aspect of content. Pearson said that Taylor Swift, an artist I very much enjoy, plays into the commodification of her music by releasing variant upon variant of her albums despite it all being essentially the same thing, just packaged differently. Despite being a fan, I agree. It’s a little ridiculous at times, and plays into overconsumption. It also, in my opinion, diminishes the value of the original concept (the album) because it’s not special if there’s a million of them. It’s not rare or interesting content if it is made overly accessible.

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Laci Phelps-Carlisle

Laci Phelps-Carlisle’s post is very interesting; she related the conditional aspect of content to the election. People are sharing opinions and information about the election cycle, and due to things like the “share” button, they are being pushed out to the masses. However, opinion is sometimes confused with fact, especially when opinions are phrased like it is the law. Phelps-Carlisle brought up that a lot of people are unaware about everything that is happening in politics right now, so sharing is positive because it raises awareness. The issue that is presented with this is when misinformation about what is happening in politics is shared and spreads like the dangerous wildfire that it is.

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Savannah Livengood

Savannah Livengood's post about the computabliity and netowrkablitily of Wikipedia make it an excellent case for Dush's definiton of content. Because of SEO and search engine algorithms, Wikipedia articles about a topic are normally one of the first things to pop up when you are looking for more information about a topic in a search engine. Additionally keywords and finding matches within the articles focus more on the non-human side of content as Livengood pointed out, while the editors and the contributors make up the human side of the content. 

Why Does Content Matter?

Content matters because without it, we wouldn't have anything to do with this digital landscape that we have developed. 

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As Pearson said, Taylor Swift has become a billionarie because of her ability to commodify her content via the re-releases of her music, the additional music videos and behinds the scenes content she pushes onto Youtube, the engagement she gets on her various social media accounts, and the number she pulls from people streaming her music. If Swift did not produce the amount of content that she does, she would not be the popstar powerhouse that she is today, overhyped or not.

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As Phelps-Carlisle pointed out, the condition in which we recieve our political information, especially surrounding election cycles makes or breaks the vote at times. The content that is pushed out during election cycles is overwhelming, but the underreviewed and less researched items that are most easy to repost on Facebook, Instagram, what have you are have informing voters rather than the facts because of the condition the information arrived to them in. What gets to them first the easiest to share and the fastest is what they are most likely to continue to believe. The form the content comes is a huge part in how it affects us. 

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As Livengood mentioned, content that is easier to be put infront of us and networked out is very important. It goes hand in hand with what Phelps-Carlisle said about the election, but a huge part of why Wikipedia has been able to survive this long in the ever-evolving world that is the Internet is because of how easier it is for their information to be computable and networkabled; it's increased it's longevity and provided valuable information to countless users. This is why content and understanding what it is matters. 

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