“M dot Strange Finds a Way at Sundance” tells the story of a new breed of filmmaker, one who is more interested in promoting his films through personal connection with his audience than distributing them for profit. But the article is just as much about a new type of audience, one that values interaction with the director perhaps more than the actual content of the film. While "We Are the Strange" has inspired cultlike devotion among fans, one of whom responded to a blog posting by director M dot Strange with a film of his own, the film received a poor reception among Sundance attendees. This is less a story of a new kind of director moving in on the territory of the filmmaking elite than it is a story about the emergence of a whole new audience for film, one that favors the intimacy of the personal computer screen over the anonymity of the movie house.

The creators of Second Life, used as a distribution tool for another film mentioned in the article, are fond of discussing the potential of their virtual world to level the playing field for talented programmers, such that a programmer in Romania who makes valuable goods in-world has the potential to tap into the pockets of First World customers. YouTube and Second Life provide venues for directors to take charge of the marketing and distribution of their films, eliminating the promotional expense that has often served as a barrier to entry for low-budget and independent films. While this article tells the story of a young American director of limited means, artists in developing countries could employ a similar strategy, given sufficient bandwidth. I believe we have yet to see complete transnationalization of the YouTube effect. Most content will continue to come from developed countries because of the expense of video equipment and Internet access. Nevertheless, if people in developing countries such as Iraq or Haiti are able to share their on the ground experiences of the impact of American and Western foreign policy directly with citizens of these developed countries, their governments may find it more difficult to use media as a foreign policy tool. Perhaps this will lead to a more personalized dissemination of foreign policy-related news that will resonate with those who crave the (false) intimacy of YouTube, people similar to the devotees of M dot Strange. Maybe in the near future, soldiers and civilians on the front lines of conflict won't need Deborah Scranton's encouragement to make and distribute confessional films. Maybe the actors themselves will find it natural to be their own embedded journalists, and maybe their viewing public will grow as a politial constituency.

I’m a senior IR concentrator in the PCI track, and I’ve been interested in intersections between the study of global politics with media theory ever since “Introduction to Modern Media and Culture” opened my eyes to new theoretical perspectives my sophomore year. I’ve been involved with Brown Student Radio as a features producer for two fictional/documentary collage shows, “Novelty Radio Scrapbook” and “Radio Happening,” and produced short pieces for BSR’s award-winning local news show, “Off The Beat.” Over the course of my junior year, I had the chance to study abroad in two countries, China and France, and to see how those two countries, despite sharing strong tendencies to protect their domestic film and other media industries, situate media very differently within political discourse. I hope to bring these various perspectives to bear on the issues we’ve already raised in class.