technoculture314-09

On the news tonight an item that caught my attention was the new horror film that is being released in the US, titled “Paranormal Activity”. “Already dubbed "one of the scariest movies of all time", its success is drawing comparisons with The Blair Witch Project” (The Independent, 2009). But the way that this film has been marketed is quite different and uses the Internet to its advantage. “Paramount purchased the film in the New Year, after its unknown director, Oren Peli, showed it at the Slamdance Film Festival. Its strictly limited release has created an aura of exclusivity around the film, which spent the week among the top "trending" topics on the social networking website Twitter” (The Independent, 2009).

Jose van Dijck points out in his article (2009) that audiences are having the opportunity in the new age to participate within the culture. With the accessibility of these technologies and new media at the touch of a fingertip, Paramount has used the Internet to the films advantage in helping to promote and Market this film. The way that they have done this is provided college students in America free tickets to the screening of the film, and then after the screening they allowed the power of the Internet and its users to do the work. The outcome of this was a copious amount of people hyping the film up and creating interest from many other people.

There is also website that was created for the students and other people who would like to see the film, it allowed users to click on a button “demand it”, which then lets you register their country and city, and once a city has reached one million demands then the film will be released nationwide. This is an example of the usage as participatory, and in a way user generated content, in terms of if the film gets shown in your country or not. On the film’s website it has also used tools such as Twitter, Myspace, Facebook and other social networking sites to help promote the film and demand it.