Naturalising the Webcast

Abstract

Rather than developing in isolation, media technologies emerge from a context of social practice. Each new medium has to be naturalised before users will accept it. Webcasting is the digital streaming of video data. As an embryonic media technology it remains technically inferior to other video platforms and actually represents on unintended use of the web. Paul McCartney's December 1999 show at the Cavern in Liverpool, UK, took webcasting beyond specialist users. The show was staged for mass exposure and timed for net transmission. On and off-line publicity naturalised it by making tenuous comparisons to original Beatles gigs and commenting on the size of the subsequent internet 'audience'. 'Little Big Gig', as McCartney's show became known, encouraged the further disappearance of 'live' events into the realm of mediation. In short, the penetration of webcasting and the digital commodification of pop was encouraged by offering established content.