Reflective Blog

Reflection In this course I learnt a lot of facts about the Digital culture and the digital side of things in the Media. It taught me new skills on how to blog- as we had to write a blog of each lecture that we did and talk about the topics involved. I also loved learning about the different topics in Digital Culture such as; learning about the Digital Mind and Games. Those two I have found most interesting as some things I didnt know about and found out useful websites that I can use for future reference. I learnt how games can have a huge impact on our minds and technology as a whole can affect us and how we behave socially. I also learnt new words such as, Folkosonomy, which is something I havent heard before and it was unkown till now for me. As a whole Digital Culture has a wide range of interesting topics that will teach you a lot. It is difficult in some aspects to understand everything but I realised that in order to understand and remember the topics and the words, there are useful websites that you can look and research on.

Digital Body

We are witnessing an ever -closer relationship between humans and digital technologies in the materially wealthier parts of the world. We are witnessing are also witnessing a desire amongst user for immediacy with computer devices. One of the ways this immediacy is achieved is through an easy to use interface between the human and the computer. User Interface is a means by which people interact with a particular machine, device or computer programme.User Interface is layout of an application's graphic or textual controls in conjunction with the way the application responds to user activity. Early Interfaces • Sketchpad • Mouse • Xerox Alto • Microsoft Windows • Ipad, iphone

Identity and Representation In Social media and games

Identity and Representation in Social Media and Games “The question of ‘identity’ is being vigorously debated in social theory. In essence, the argument is that the old identities which stabilized the social world for so long are in decline, giving rise to new identities and fragmenting the modern individual as a unified subject. This so-called ‘crisis of identity’ is seen as part of a wider process of change which is dislocating the central structures and processes of modern societies and undermining the frameworks which gave individuals stable anchorage in the social world” (Stuart Hall, 1995: 596) Identity in the social media (Online) • Do we have separate identities online then in reality? • What role do we play online? • Do we have different identities on online websites? Identity and Web 2.0 Online identities can be typified into a sort of ‘species’ taxonomy. It’d be summarized as 1. The real person 2. A real person assuming a famous character and playing as him/her 3. A real person creating and playing a plausible fictitious character 4. A computer generated and self-sufficient character” This link tells you more about, identity online and about the social media. It will talk about, identity performances that occur through relationality among online friends through list maintenance and communication (wall posts, tagging, commentary). http://con.sagepub.com/content/18/2/177.abstract

History of early Media

The History and Mythologies of Early Digital Media This blog will show how key cultural assumptions about the Internet have helped us to misunderstand the internet. It is also going to look on how key cultural groups who were influential in the wider cultural construction of the internet were instrumental in creating a series of ‘myths’ about this fascinating technology. It will also give examples of early digital media and what the history of the technologies are. There is a number of significant cultural sectors who were influential in the development of computing also influenced the cultural perception of the early Internet. • The US Military Planners • University-based Hacker Culture • The Counter Culture • US Corporate Culture Early Computers • The challenge of code breaking • US Census • Colossus Hacker values • “Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!” • ‘All information should be free’ • “Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position” Richard Wise Wise criticised the claim that the widespread adoption of the technology was “an irreversible advance for democracy, community and a decentralised society”

Misunderstanding of the internet

Misunderstanding the Internet Pt 2 – The Mythologizing of Web 2.0 This blog will talk about how these key ‘mythologies’ about the Internet continue to inform our understanding of the Internet. • Cyberspace is a place apart, and so not subject to rules that apply to the 'real' world. • The technology of the Internet makes it free from control by governments and other non-cyberspace institution so that the internet is borderless and free of constraining factors. • The widespread adoption of the Internet will result in the de-massification' of the media. These are key examples of the myths of the internet. The development of the internet is unique and exceptional in human history and not subject to social forces that characterised the adoption of other important technologies. Subsequently other cultural forces have influenced the Internet: • Traditional and Internet Corporate Culture; • Authoritarian and Liberal Govt Policy; • The Widespread Cultural Embrace of Internet Myths

Digital Voices- Computer mediated communication

This blog will focus on the cultural impact of computer-mediated communication. The cultural adoption of the Internet and then the World Wide Web in the late 80s and early 90s were treated as historic events that would impact on many aspects of human communication. Computer-mediated communication is defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats e.g., instant messaging, email, chat rooms), it has also been applied to other forms of text-based interaction such as text messaging. It has become a part of our everyday lives. Research has suggested that CMC is not neutral: it can cause many changes in the way people communicate with one another, and it can influence communication patterns and social networks (e.g., Fulk & Collins-Jarvis, 2001). In other words, CMC leads to social effects. Rice & Gattiker (2001) state that CMC differs from face-to-face communication. CMC limits the level of synchronicity of interaction, which may cause a reduction of interactivity. http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Communication%20and%20Information%20Technology/Computer-Mediated%20Communication%20%28CMC%29.doc/

Digital rights management

Digital rights management is a class of controversial technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders, and individuals with the intent to control the use of digital content and devices after sale; there are, however, many competing definitions. When the internet was new, different and less commercial, it seemed avant-garde. Computer games sometimes use DRM technologies to limit the number of systems the game can be installed on by requiring authentication with an online server. Most games with this restriction allow three or five installs, although some allow an installation to be 'recovered' when the game is uninstalled. www.wikipedia.co.uk/digitalrightsmanagement What is Intellectual property? Intellectual Property is created when an idea takes some tangible form. IP can mean a brand, invention, design or other kind of creation and it can be legally owned. Copyright Copyright as a right that exists only by government decree,created for the public good, and which must be regulated by the government to ensure that the public purpose is fulfilled.

Towards Ubiquity

Towards Ubiquity? In the richer parts of the world, peoples lives surrounded by a range of digital technologies. There is technology in our homes, In urban spaces (CCTV), in Financial Transactions – Chip & Pin, in our hands (Our mobiles) and even in our heads. This has given rise to renewed concerns about issues such as Surveillance, Privacy, and a condition that has been described as Ubiquitous Computing or everywhere! What does Ubiquity mean? Ubiquity is “used to describe the diffusion of computing technologies throughout our environment through increasing miniaturization and the development of ‘smart’ (i.e. predictive) computing applications. Which means, it gives us an idea that computers for example will soon be an embedded function of our physical environments. Ubiquity of Technology • GPS and Sat Nav – cars and phones • Reward cards and bar codes • Oyster Card- links information to your account online • Wireless internet and 3G data networks There is technology used everywhere by humans and is expanding a vast amount. It is taking over and has become a huge part of society.

Post Digital

What is Post Digital? Post digital is a term which has recently come into use in the discourse of digital artistic practice. This term points significantly to our changed and changing relationships with digital technologies that is rapidly changing and forming. It reflects to an attitude that is more concerned with being human, than with being digital. Which means that it is more or less taking over our human minds. Its the new beginning some can say or its the end. Post Digital is the new era of where new technologies are being formed and created. Post-digital to mean the condition of being fully reconciled to the disruption brought about by digital technology, and in particular the Web. It is much the same, in that sense, as ‘Postmodernism’, which really means the condition of having overcome the ‘shock of the new’, the culture of high modernism, and having absorbed its lessons. Being post-digital, we are, to repeat my previous post, through the future-shock and over the nostalgia (largely – we can still be nostalgic, in increasingly kitsch ways, for modernism and for ‘digital’). Being ‘post’ anything usually leads to a period of self-reflexivity and a prevailing irony about ‘progress’ that undercuts conscious artistic ambition.http://www.howtothinkaboutthefuture.com/?p=81

Contemporary Culture

Contemporary culture refers to the period of time that is current. Contemporary culture to an individual may refer to anything that has happened during their time. It includes the social, political and the economical climate. What people are engaging in today and the values they have today all relate to the contemporary culture. This doesn’t have to reflect on the technology or the social media in society or anything involved with post digital. It can refer to anything that is current and is happening now. Post digital and technology are two examples of what is current and what can refer to contemporary culture. Post digital is an example as it is what the social is engaging in today and what is new and what is being invented daily.

Nicholas Negroponte Ideas

Nicholas Negroponte is a Greek American architect best known as the founder of Messachetts institute of technologies media lab. I created an essay describing what his ideas of post digital culture are and how it helps us to understand contemporary culture. His ideas have a huge impact on post digital as he argues if post digital will come to an end or if its just the beginning. Negroponte believed, and was convinced that Post digital will come to an end. This is because technology has been injected into people’s minds and took over human society. Negroponte, nevertheless understood that whilst digital technology was busy disrupting every facet of human life, it would soon become so banal as to disappear. Nicholas stated, ‘Computers as we know them today will a) be boring, and b) disappear into things that are first and foremost something else’.