Reading Response 1- Lauren Owensby

I think gifs do lack an important affective quality that is active in non-silent films/shows/animations: music. Music adds to the stimuli received and helps clue the audience in to the intended effect of the image. Without music, animated images are locked in a lower plane of depth, which makes pithy commentary and humorous aims all the more common (short duration, shorter amounts of information, smaller size). As Jonah Weiner points out in "Christina Hendricks on an Endless Loop", most GIFs are structured "like jokes, with the barest minimum of setup". Regardless, I still believe a variety of messages can be transmitted through gifs, particularly if large file sizes are used. The compression changes the communication channels frequently used; the technology is what segments the audience.

Different experience, no? (Source)

In response to Sally McKay's "The Affect of Animated GIFs (Tom Moody, Petra Cortright, Lorna Mills)", I think even those who don't self-identify as artists are still artists. They are still creating a product. Whether or not something is high-quality art is defined by art connoisseurs, but popular art is a whole 'nother ballgame, and to me it seems to be the focus of most gifs. In my opinion, gifs are created to be shared. They're not necessarily created to be useful, poignant, witty, or funny (though they often are). Just like chain emails, the goal is more bent on circulation than content (even though the content determines the circulation). One example is the image below, which can be seen on hundreds of blogs across tumblr as originating from a variety of sources:

The wait almost makes it more satisfying. Almost.  (Source)

Is the creator of this image an artist? I consider them to be. The image is so popular that it holds a high collective value from all the people it's reached. Many of those people went on to reblog it, increasing it's exposure and reaffirming the gif's value to the initial audience and the initial audience's audience. Does that cause many low-quality gifs and images to be art? Absolutely. But the same could be found in gallery spaces.