Nokia study predicts rise of 'circular entertainment'

A new study from Nokia and The Future Laboratory predicts that by 2012, a quarter of all entertainment will be "circular", that is created, edited, and shared within peer groups rather than being generated by traditional media. The bulk of the study was based on interviews with trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles.

Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia, said: "The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media." The term circular is based on the movement of content: it is created, shared with friends/family, gets edited/remixed and then shared on or returned again.

As Tim Leberecht of CNet says, one has to take these vendor-funded studies with a pinch of salt. He makes an interesting point about the study: that the distinction between traditional and "circular" entertainment is becoming increasingly difficult to define. But still, for what it is worth, the tech early adopters in these countries are living in and establishing a participatory culture.

I wonder, since the data is based on the actions of early-adopters, how much of this applies to South Africa (SA)? If the prediction is five years out, is it any more for SA? And if yes, how many more years? Only two of the 17 countries are traditionally comparable to SA: Brazil and India. Reading about the survey findings there didn't help to answer these questions, but it does make for interesting reading.

Informal (m)learning: youth and camera phones

My world through my camera phone describes a project about a group of teenagers from San Francisco and Pretoria who used camera phones to document aspects of their lives, post the material online and to engage each other around that. Every week I would meet with the group in San Francisco to discuss that week's tasks, which were related to capturing and conveying aspects of their individual culture: their family roots, the food they eat, the music they like, their community, etc. While much more research is needed, the project demonstrated that mobile phones and blogging, supported by in-person group discussions, are useful tools to foster cross-cultural awareness.

The project began to answer questions such as:

• How do youth socially and communicatively interact with their mobile phones?
• How can mobile phones be used to document their lives?
  
• And in a world of global communications, can this mobile device be a conduit for increased cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity?

Image taken with a camera phone by Ben Dunning, 14 (CC)