After reading what a few cinephiles (such as James Quandt) had to say about online video, I started thinking about how one might integrate a few of the concepts of cinephilia into new technologies. This is when I started reading about the Slow Movement.

I came across Carl Honoré’s In Praise of Slow and Benedikt Köhler, Sabria David & Jörg Blumtritt’s Slow Media Manifesto (see below). Honoré says that ‘everything about urban life – the cacophony, the cars, the crowds, the consumerism – invites us to rush rather than relax, reflect or reach out to people’. The main idea that all these theorists have in common is that everything in life should have an emphasis on quality over quantity.

So that’s it in a very small nutshell. I’ll elaborate more on these ideas in the future, rather than squeeze it all in this post. For now, I’m finishing off my preliminary research proposal, but very soon, I’ll be looking at how the theories of Slow Media are being put into practice.

If you’ve come across any creative works (especially online video!) that you think encompasses these ideas (either in the way they’ve been produced or in the themes or narrative), please post a comment here or email me. Slow Media is about communication and the exploration of ideas, so I’d love for you to explore with me!

At the beginning of the year, Sabria David, Jörg Blumtritt & Benedikt Köhler wrote The Slow Media Manifesto. Among other things, they call for content providers to aim for perfect, discursive, dialogic, auratic and social media. Read on and check out their website:

http://www.slow-media.net/manifesto

The first decade of the 21st century, the so-called ‘naughties’, has brought profound changes to the technological foundations of the media landscape. The key buzzwords are networks, the Internet and social media. In the second decade, people will not search for new technologies allowing for even easier, faster and low-priced content production. Rather, appropriate reactions to this media revolution are to be developed and integrated politically, culturally and socially. The concept “Slow”, as in “Slow Food” and not as in “Slow Down”, is a key for this. Like “Slow Food”, Slow Media are not about fast consumption but about choosing the ingredients mindfully and preparing them in a concentrated manner. Slow Media are welcoming and hospitable. They like to share.

1. Slow Media are a contribution to sustainability. Sustainability relates to the raw materials, processes and working conditions, which are the basis for media production. Exploitation and low-wage sectors as well as the unconditional commercialization of user data will not result in sustainable media. At the same time, the term refers to the sustainable consumption of Slow Media.

2. Slow media promote Monotasking. Slow Media cannot be consumed casually, but provoke the full concentration of their users. As with the production of a good meal, which demands the full attention of all senses by the cook and his guests, Slow Media can only be consumed with pleasure in focused alertness.

3. Slow Media aim at perfection. Slow Media do not necessarily represent new developments on the market. More important is the continuous improvement of reliable user interfaces that are robust, accessible and perfectly tailored to the media usage habits of the people.

4. Slow Media make quality palpable. Slow Media measure themselves in production, appearance and content against high standards of quality and stand out from their fast-paced and short-lived counterparts – by some premium interface or by an aesthetically inspiring design.

5. Slow Media advance Prosumers, i.e. people who actively define what and how they want to consume and produce. In Slow Media, the active Prosumer, inspired by his media usage to develop new ideas and take action, replaces the passive consumer. This may be shown by marginals in a book or animated discussion about a record with friends. Slow Media inspire, continuously affect the users’ thoughts and actions and are still perceptible years later.

6. Slow Media are discursive and dialogic. They long for a counterpart with whom they may come in contact. The choice of the target media is secondary. In Slow Media, listening is as important as speaking. Hence ‘Slow’ means to be mindful and approachable and to be able to regard and to question one’s own position from a different angle.

7. Slow Media are Social Media. Vibrant communities or tribes constitute around Slow Media. This, for instance, may be a living author exchanging thoughts with his readers or a community interpreting a late musician’s work. Thus Slow Media propagate diversity and respect cultural and distinctive local features.

8. Slow Media respect their users. Slow Media approach their users in a self-conscious and amicable way and have a good idea about the complexity or irony their users can handle. Slow Media neither look down on their users nor approach them in a submissive way.

9. Slow Media are distributed via recommendations not advertising: the success of Slow Media is not based on an overwhelming advertising pressure on all channels but on recommendation from friends, colleagues or family. A book given as a present five times to best friends is a good example.

10. Slow Media are timeless: Slow Media are long-lived and appear fresh even after years or decades. They do not lose their quality over time but at best get some patina that can even enhance their value.

11. Slow Media are auratic: Slow Media emanate a special aura. They generate a feeling that the particular medium belongs to just that moment of the user’s life. Despite the fact that they are produced industrially or are partially based on industrial means of production, they are suggestive of being unique and point beyond themselves.

12. Slow Media are progressive not reactionary: Slow Media rely on their technological achievements and the network society’s way of life. It is because of the acceleration of multiple areas of life, that islands of deliberate slowness are made possible and essential for survival. Slow Media are not a contradiction to the speed and simultaneousness of Twitter, Blogs or Social Networks but are an attitude and a way of making use of them.

13. Slow Media focus on quality both in production and in reception of media content: Craftsmanship in cultural studies such as source criticism, classification and evaluation of sources of information are gaining importance with the increasing availability of information.

14. Slow Media ask for confidence and take their time to be credible. Behind Slow Media are real people. And you can feel that.

Stockdorf and Bonn, Jan 2, 2010

Benedikt Köhler
Sabria David
Jörg Blumtritt

Confer also:

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elissa-altman/move-over-slow-food-intro_b_367517.html
• http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/17/pm-slow-media/
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/announcing-my-first-pick-_b_310544.html
• http://blog.oup.com/2008/11/slow_blog/
• http://www.shep.ca/?p=132

http://blog.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/?p=5122 (in German)

This is the blog for the world’s first PhD in Slow Media.

Expect to see the latest research in the area posted here, as well as a range of case studies of people putting the theories behind Slow Media into practice.

Patrick Kelly

Melbourne, Australia