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’.

Hacker Culture: Will Wikileaks and/or the Geeks Inherit the Earth?

This blog post is going to show how Digital technology have impacted upon our concepts of contemporary culture. In September 1938 PM Neville Chamberlain made a speech concerning the Munich Agreement. Less than a year after the agreement Europe was plunged into World War II. Wikileaks Wikilieaks is an online international organisation which publishes information and classified media. Julian Assange was one of the early members of the WikiLeaks staff and is credited as the website's founder.   There were many reports that a government inquiry prompted us to not serve Wikileaks any longer because its not accurate. There was also a large number of attacks but they were successfully defended. It wasnt following the 'Human Rights' as it was putting people in jeapoardy. Documents that were relased in Wikileaks that were published could have been carefully redacted in a way which wasnt putting innocent people in danger. Will the geeks inherit? A 'geek' is quite a stereotypical word. It is known to be a person wearing glasses and who is very smart and is good with technology and gadgets. It can also be referred as, A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept. The InnerGeek Website challenges this dismissive definition and argues that that a geek “is a person who is talented in an area outside the boundaries of social normality.”

Digital Media Systems: Paratexts Franchises, Fandom etc.

This blog post is going to focus on how digital media have impacted upon our concepts of the media text. Media theorists have recognized that our understanding a particular text is based on its relationships to other texts. Genre and Genre conventions These involve a close relationship through concepts of producer, IPR, medium, and audience. Paratexts It involves a close relationship through marketing and other non- narrative material called 'Paratexts'. Paratexts take a text and 'surround it and extend it'. -Ownership and Control: Paratextual Analysis Paratexts surround, shape, support and provide contexts for texts'. They may change the meaning of texts, it enhances meaning and provide sedimated meanings. There are different forms of paratexts, such as Digital Paratext. . The Gameboy 'Pokemon is an example. It has a beginning and an end but it repeats, it doesnt mean the game is necessarily over. - This is a closed product the credits keep rolling. An Open product or paratext It involves story rights, story franchise, merchandising and fandom. Alternate Reality Gaming This is not really a game. ARG players are characterised by a willingness to seek out new challenges across the world wide web and beyond, it is to find anagrams in names, coded IP addresses in numbers, and to theorize about the ARG with a wider community on a forum. Gamification It involves applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging.

Digital Politics

Digital Politics & Power: The Dream of Democracy -Representative Democracy -Voting & party manifestos -Constitutions -Deliberative Democracy The Myths Of Internet We are on the verge of a new political era of computer-mediated democracy. Computer Activism -Activists set up computer system as community resource in Berkley California. The personal computer was developed by hobbyists. The first micro computer, the 'Altair sold in kit form. -Extreme utopiarism -Collective intelligence -Similar to Hobermass public sphere A Declaration Of Independence 'In our world, whatever human mind may create can be re produced and distributed infinitely at no cost' So why were the digital media greeted (initially) with such enthusiasm? Why are the media considered to be so important to democratic politics? The printing press as an agent of a change? Einstein notes in her synopsis to her book that aims to: -Describe 'The relationship between communications shift and other developments conventionally associated with the transition from medieval to early modern times. Print: A knowledge Bomb The connative effect of the changes in society focilated by print was that 'a knowledge bomb' explosion was set-off in Western Europe. Einstein argues that print was an agent of change that had an effect on: -Changes in religion through the reformation, challenges to the authority of the church. Characteristics of Social Institutions -Power (often expressed through concepts of control, ownership and access) -values (concepts of:legality, morality, customs, social norms and knowledge) Inclusion (concepts of: identity, exclusion, membership and representation.

Digital Divide

Not everyone is accessible to digital technologies. -Access/education -Entertainment -Economics -Communication -Privacy -Surveillance -Property/open Digital divide is a social judgement- it isnt fair. The justice of information allows too spread. A term used to describe the discrepency between people who have access and the resources to use new information and communication tools such as the, internet. Its economic inequality between groups. There are major arguments why digital divide is important: -Economic equality -Social mobility -Democracy -Economic growth "Technology is only as powerful as it is accessible. Broader access brings education. Information and a sense of community that can help combat aids, ignorance and neglect. The power of a connected and enlightened world community is just the beginning'. " -Community informatics provides somewhat different approach to addressing the digital divide by focusing an issue, 'use' rather than simply access. -The digital divide should be made smaller, it is like many other economic or social problems which is a global issue. -The gap between countries onb the same continent is also getting wider. -'Globalization' is commonly used as a shorthand way of decribing the spread and connectedness of production, communication, and technologies across the world'.

Digital Literature & Arts

Many artists have thought about developing new forms of expressions and aesthetics. Stellarc reverses the computer device body.-Who controls the body?. Digital arts gradually got wider with a large amount of artists. It has become so mainstream, digital culture has become mainstream so fast. Aesthetics Interests: -programming -Interactivity (an interesting form of intertextuality) You can oriduce texts which are much more flexible. Many writers have thought about developing new forms of new media writing. Meta data is data that describes other data. Typical meta data includes such things as; page title, keywords and a description. Tags are a way of organising blog posts. Delicious.com is used for tagging. Is all tagging creating a Folksonomy?Folksonomy is how we arrange the information on facebook, google, youtube, etc. PROSUMERS A model of production in which the user of the product or service gets more involved in the process. Producers had all the power. Prosuming could be making more phone apps. Prosuming is orginally from the video industries referring to technologies armed between the consumer domestic market and the professional production market. Threadless.com - is T Shirt modelling. (they get their designs for free the company) E.G. The national lottery gets more money then the actual prize winner! Internet requires massive amounts of labour to sustain it. (Terranova, 2002:90). Crowd sourcing should allow users too gain something from the experience- even if its not monetary gain. AOL sold themselves to co-operation-remote staff community leaders. Networks contain vast amount of imformation. HYPERTEXT Texts composed of block of text and the elctronic links. It permits users/readers to choose their own paths through a set of possibilities. "nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen"-1994. EXAMPLES OF LITERACY HYPERTEXT: -Stuart Moulthrorp:Victory Garden -Shirly Jackson -Geoff Ryman: 253 The internet allows us to look at text in different ways. Authors of websites can experiment with different ways of conveying information. CYBERTEXT- is a cybernetic system that generates a different sequence of signs everytime the work is experiment. - It is a calculating device. Inanimate Alice is an interactive digital novel relating the experiences of Alice and her imaginary digital friend 'Brad'. The viewers experiences a combination of text, sound,imagery and interacts with a story at key points. Inaminate lacks of quality or ability of motion.

Digital Rights/Open Access

What is Open Access and how it beenfits us? Open Access is the immediate online, free availability of researh outputs without the severe restrictions on use commonly imposed by publisher. Open Access is so much in the interest of research funders and employers that an increasing the number of them around the world are introducing open access policies that require their funded researchers to provide open access to their work. It increases the impact of the research inwhich they invest public money on the economic impact. Open Access benefits researchers, institutions, nations and society as a WHOLE. Copyright is intellectual property (Its a huma creation). Intellectual Property when an idea takes some tangible form. IP can mean a brand, invention, design, or other kind of creation. Copyright is a system to advance public interests- they are there to encourage people too share.Its a night that exists only by government decree. Copyright is a now a eries impediment to technological and social progress. To make money you have too serve the customers, not sue or control them. What other alternatives to use other than Copyright? -Recorder/DVD DVDs were deliberatly crippled at birth-they were banned because they were a bad form of technology (No red button for example). COPYRIGHT IS BREACHED AS PIRACY!. Claims of privacy are rhetorical nonsense.

Digital Voices & Media Comunication

Cyberspace can be known as the new bomb, when old technology was new (Electric light, the telegraoh, the radio, the phonograph). Some saw the new communications media as a threat. No invention of modern tunes has extene its influence so rapidly. Media technology can travel through time and space, even writing is said to be technology- technology transmission. ORAL AND LITERATE Technology will change our culture loads because there are various different technologies which have been created and all are increasing and used worldwide every so often. The Commercialization of the internet - Co operate websites - Pop up adverts - Spam - Media content paywalls - E- commerce & E- talking - Web 2.0 buy outs

The Impact of cyberstalking

The course of conduct by which one person repeatedly inflicts on another unwanted intrusion to such an extent that the reapent fears of her safety. Cyberstalking is any type of electronic equipment that anyone can use to stalk, such as the; internet, mobile phone, etc. Cyberstalking is most common with teenagers as they are seen the most vulnerable- teenage girls with photos and they contruct websites to target the victim. If people dont want to be cyberstalked then avoid communications with strangers online or dont use social sites such as facebook! The age group most represented in the current 'cyberstalked group' are old people particular men. There are many diffrent ways of getting stalked. THE GREATEST MYTH OF ALL Cyberstalking doesnt really do any damage? PTSD is a specific condition in which trauma survivors are unable to get the trauma out of their minds. TYPES OF TRAUMAS: -Sexual Assault -RTA Survivors -Bomb survivors -Air Crash Survivors 22-40% -Stalking victims -Aid Workers MORE COMMON MYTHS: -We Cant catch cybestalkers -If you control a cyberstalker they will stop -If people ignore the staljers they will get bored and stop

Myths Of The Internet

It is said that technology such as the internet is making us more social everywhere and globally. The technology of the internet brings about prosperity and well being based solely on konowledge based. The technology of the internet makes it able to be free from governments and other non cyber space institutions. This is because the internet has increased rapidly over time used by many users. The development of the internet is unique and exceptional in human history and is not subject to social forces that charachterized the adoption of other important technologies. The History of Xerox Parc -PARC is well financed -They were shocked by IBM -5,000 copies were sold but IBM turned them down that is the reason why they were shocked by them. -Then that was the end of Xerox The whole point of xerox was to make copies of copies. Arther the little-marketing firm, did not see the effect of making copies, resulting in there company to fill in. Afterwards Xerox prospered.