Critical Review

All in all NCT has made me feel smarter. I feel as though I can compete with the 'creatives' in the know. You know that ones you pass by sipping latte and discussing existentialism in the latest genre nude-Parisian-foreign films. Well maybe not them, but I certainly feel I have credibility when discussing issues such as Cyberspace, MySpace, Convergent Technologies and Virtual reality. Issues such as how broadcast to many has become an interactive convergence of media to the few, is now watercooler chit-chat for me. In fact, in my retail job, I often 'rant' to other sales girls, about how our political economy does not allow for the greatest democracy we could potentially have. " We are in a Marxist, capitalist society where the oligarchy control too much. But that will change with the dissemination of more information via new technologies in the near future", I say. No, not really, but it would be funny.



The fact is I do not know whether I believe the convergence of communication technologies will form a dystopia or a Utopia. Certainly movies like EXistenZ and Alphaville make me think a technocratic society would be a dystopia. Although, like the theory of dialectics, it seems there will be good and bad (thesis and antithesis) no matter what. It will be the society that determines the synthesis, or whether the outcome will be dystopian or Utopian.



Before I did this course I was obdurate that technology should only ever be a supplement. Knowing now what 'technology' is, I think this belief only applies to certain material applications of technology ( e.g. instant messaging) . I believe that technology will be a vital tool in enabling a more democratic society that is well informed. Our views need not be unknowingly moulded by the Capitalists in power, when we can be well informed with the whole truth. Important news will no longer be mediated by professional journalists, it will also be available for the common to analyse and understand.



Ithink this course was good, but also vital. I did not realise how important it is to understand how our communictions are being transmitted and the changing technology which is ultimately changing society. I would recommend NCT to anyone who wants to know where the future is headed.

Week 13

Spelling and grammatical mistakes annoy me. Yes, they are the bain of my eXistenZ. I cannot stand when I go to a shop (e.g. Coles) and a sign reads;

"Brushed potatoe's
only $2.67/kilogram"

"Potatoe's?" does the potato own only? If so (which doesn't make sense) would it not be spelt 'Potato'. Yet, while I am usually a stifler for speling, I can't help but become a terrible speller everytime I use NCT. Whether I be blogging, MSNing, or texting my skill's pervade me. My attention to detail dissappears!

In the final exam today (where there were a few mistakes I noted), my spelling skills and also my reasoning skills abandonded me. I was glad we were only colouring in dots. What I hate about Multiple choice is the two true answers that test my knowledge. I know other courses do it aswell, but It needs to stop. However, I was pleased to find there were jokes interspersed through the exam. Thankyou.

photoshop part 2- sorry for lateness!

All of these pictures were taken with an Fe-170 olympus digital camera.

Here is my friends picture: I changed the hue and saturation of this photo. I think I will call it 'envy'.

This next photo was taken of a dummi. I changed on photoshop to portray the idea of communication. I have tried to simplify concepts. i.e. speach, mouth, eyes, self. I used the dummi because to me it represents how people can be so generic on the web.

News-worthy. What is newsworthy? Here is a tiled version of an african child and an australian child. According to journalism the australian is worth 50 of the africans in terms of news value. Here they are tiles, and they are the same.

Australian. A photo showing, friends, australian background, very australian looking people. I have added text over the top.

Popular: I learnt how to do a screenshot. It is quite literal really.

But the sense of accomplishment it great.

celebrity:This was a photo of me looking disgruntled. I changed it to look more celebrity like ( i.e. fake).

Review of Tutorial Tasks

Hiya,

Computers, oh computers...why do you mock me? I know it is because you are smarter than me.
Alas, you still need me, don't you? You still need me to control you.

Tuturial Exercise Report
Throughout the Semester a number of topics and software programs have been reviewed. Here is my review of them;

Week 2-Establishing a Weblog
This is where it all began. We created our blogs in this class. As a computer avoider, much of the time, I had to put my late adapting ways behind me and join the blogging crowd. It was not as abhorent as I would have thought, quite easy to set up, although I did have trouble with layouting.

Week 3- Culture on the Internet
Yes, there is a massive computer communicating lot of people out there. From all different walks of life, willing to disclose different amounts of information and yet they have the internet in common. It is quite easy to find a 'friend' on the internet, it seems though that the term 'friend' is used loosely. This friend (hello NCT buddies!) appears to be in many cases a link.

Week 4- Library research
I have used the library databases before, so this task was relatively easy. The difficult aspect was knowing what topic to choose. We have come a long way sonce the days of actually going to the library and borrowing books.

Week 5- Adobe Intro
In this tutorial we were asked to find pictures ( I used some on my own) and manipulate them on photoshop. many in the class were adept to photoshop, me however, well I was lost (along with the mature age students). I found the most important tool was to select the area you wanted to change and then 'trail and error' my way around. Once I got into it, I found it quite fun. I can see how many non-creative people can now fool everyone with this technology, creativity is a click away.


Week 6- Photoshop part 2
This is still underway. I find it to be time consuming as I lack sufficient skills.

Week 7- Catch up
yep, still catching up.

Week 8- Internet Field trip
I saw a program on SBS about 'second life'. it was very intriguing. I remember the girl that was being interviewed saying "Sometimes my husband is so consumed in the game (second life) that i have to log on and tell him via the game that dinner is ready. He was so busy having dinner on the game he forgot about real life".
What?
I do not know what to think of that, so I went on a field trip to second life.com. This was probably the most interesting task for me. Other things I know about and can click my way through, but the whole 3d interacting really shocks me. I tried to explain to my father what second life is, needless to say I simply could not.

Week 10- Micro Word
This task started off as being relatively easy. The advanced exersize was quite hard. I still do not know exactly what it accomplished, but i was surprised to learn Microsoft word had so many applications.

Week 11- Microsoft Excel
This was challenging for me. Clicking and typing and clicking and doing maths. I still could not work out how to copy and paste formulas or do the advanced excersize. I was very usefull to know how to create charts though. Now I can be someone that substantiates my opinions with proffessional looking graphs.

All in all, I found the tutorials to be very relevent to Uni today. They helped me in understanding basic things I have not adapted to yet and extend on things I have. While I might sound like 'Miss Negative' , I will continue to explore new technologies because of the exposure from these tutes.

Internet Field trip

For this tutorial task we are required to check out a 3D chatroom site, and discuss the qualatative differences between the socialising that happens in these spaces and in normal IM sites.

The site I browsed was - www.secondlife.com

Let me just start by with the first word that came to my mind when I logged onto secondlife...fantasy.

"From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business. " - the creators.

Second life seems identical to the whole concept of SIMS, yet it is simultaniously interactive. With the current technology, it is the closest thing you can have to real people scenarios. Not quite cartoon and not quite real, just add your imagination and it could almost be real.

Note users that this is on the internet.

This seems to be the appeal, i.e, you can create your dream world and live through it with all the senses involved. Basically the user is submersed into second Life. This seems to be the difference between technologies such as IM and 3d chatting, submersion into another world. Whether it is a perfect world, ideal or grossly vulgar, users can create and live-out their fantasy.

It is the visual, movement, colour, activity and purpose that seems to differentiate second life from 2d IM. I.e. you can actually see what you are saying in action, project you opinions for others to see, and create a world where you can live a life ( buy, sell, build, love etc).

However, the problem with submersion (while it can be fun I admit), is that you can sink. Being addicted, substituting for real life are not problems normal IM has as much.

New Communication Technology Essay!

picture courtesy of- http://www.myspace.com/zapophenia

Emma Plant-s2586016

words- 1230 (not including direct references)

New Communication Technologies Essay

In 2006 Google signed a $900 Million deal to allow a Google search facility on MySpace! What is the go with that?

This essay will be discussing the new MySpace boom and more specifically its users, also known as the MySpace generation. Is MySpace affecting today’s youth more negatively or positively? It seems that online interaction is no longer a supplementary form of communication, but the dominant communication for this MySpace generation. Is this a bad thing?

Basically MySpace (ironically spelt with no spaces) is an online communication technology that allows people to interact. It was founded in July 2003. It is Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) (Boyd, 2004, p.1). Catherine Dwyer of pace university says ‘MySpace is a social networking site that encourages social interaction by emphasizing connections through shared interests or causes’ (Dwyer, 2007, p.1). MySpace differs from other online interaction sites as its focus is on popular culture and music (Dwyer, 2007, p.1). Other similar sites are, facebook, flixter etc. However, MySpace has the highest retention rate of 67%, and the largest global network of users (www.cqresearcher.com).

See for yourself - http://www.myspace.com/
What is MySpace- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace

The new generation using MySpace has been described as ‘Generation @” (Boyd, 2006, p.8). This age group encompasses 12- 17 year-olds of the Y-generation.
However, while this cohort is the majority users, anyone can join MySpace. Once an individual has joined they create an online profile, listing things like; interests and hobbies, age, religion, sex etc. MySpace is popular as a consequence of its innovativeness, but also because it is in vogue (Dwyer, 2007, p.3)

Online interaction differs from face-to-face communication in a variety of ways. One of the defining characteristics of online social networking (MySpace) is impersonality. The people users interact with are not treated as other human beings, but are said to be more like characters (Dwyer, 2007, p.4) In a qualitative study about MySpace, one user said ‘the relationships formed on MySpace are usually superficial’ ( Dwyer, 2007, p.6). However, is the definition of friendship that imperative in determining the effect of MySpace? After all friendships are understood within a contextual frame and MySpace is a global network.

Users can maintain relationships with people they do not or cannot see on a daily basis (Dwyer, 2007, p6).According to some psychologists MySpace is said to be a useful outlet for self- expression and creativity that is easy to access (D. Brandt, 2007, p28). The MySpace generation is often critiqued as being ‘false communicators’ and ‘superficial’, but they are not given credit for the fact that they are aware of its conventions and downfalls (Morrissey, 2007, p.28). MySpace users have even said that interacting on MySpace is in someway like practice for the real world (Morrissey, 2007, p.28).

The way in which MySpacers represent themselves is known as impression management (Dwyer, 2007, p.2). This impression management is one of the key issues of MySpace. In the physical world, i.e. face-to-face communication, the body operates as a rich site for information (Boyd, 2004, p.2). Dress, ethnicity, physiological state, voice etc, are physical cues that help determine appropriate, and more importantly honest face-to-face behaviour (Boyd, 2004, p.2).This means the users have great freedom to create their identity. Social networking sites like MySpace do not have physical walls for context; consequently the users decide to create this context for themselves (Boyd, 2006, p.6). A good thing about creating their online ‘impression’ is that they are not limited by society’s social norms (Bradley, p.13); this means users are not restricted because of looks, race or age. The MySpace generation has been called ‘more ethnically diverse, optimistic and digitally intone than previous generations’ (Geraci, 2006, p.8).

As a consequence of having freedom to create identity, privacy is a continuous issue for the MySpace generation. On MySpace you can become anonymous, i.e. you can browse other people’s web sites and they will not know who you are (Dwyer, 2007, p.8). However privacy settings can be set so that only approved people can look at another’s site. While there have been relatively few privacy breaches, problems have still arisen. Examples publicised in the media of late have been; stalking, false identities and paedophilia .However ‘MySpace’ should not be totally blamed for privacy breaches, as it is the individual user that decides what information they are willing to disclose (Dwyer, 2007, p.5).

A question that could be asked is; ‘has this number significantly changed for the MySpace generation as apposed to older generations?’ According to a youth internet safety survey carried out in 2001, 1 in 5 American teenage girls have been sexually solicited online (Cassel, 2006, p.2). In 2006 approximately 50, 000 online predators were online at any given time (Cassel, 2006, p.3).However, many say that privacy issues for women have been consistent throughout history, irrelevant of what technology was available (Cassel, 2006, p.4). As mentioned earlier, due credit is not always given to this MySpace generation. While they are often portrayed as innocent, weak and incompetent, they are technologically savvy, educated and self-sufficient (often this MySpace generation are the ones mediating safety on the internet) (Cassel, 2006, p.4). While parents of the MySpacers become distressed from media hype, MySpacers are better informed and aware of issues than their parents are (www.cqresearcher.com).


It appears that there are many downfalls of MySpace. One dominant downfall is privacy. 20% of users do not feel safe (Rosen, 2006, p.2.). MySpace users have reduced social cues and thus a filtered out perspective (Dwyer, 2007, p.1). MySpace generation is often characterised as ‘bratty’, i.e. they feel as if they are entitled to opportunity (Boyd, 2005, p.2). There is much evidence that MySpace fosters social isolisation (Rosen, 2006, N/A). MySpace also encourages secretive behaviour and immorality (Rosen, 2006, N/A). In a little world of their own, MySpacers are subject to pornographic material, sexual pressure and vulgarity (Boyd, 2006, p.11). However, in saying this, morality is said to be a developmental process that occurs mainly in childhood. By the time adolescents are using MySpace, they are at the stage where they are making independent judgements about morals they have been taught. Adolescents will do this no matter what their socialising network (online, at play, in home etc) (Bradley, N/A, p.4).While older generations might believe users will have insufficient social skills when they come into the ‘real word’ (work force, adult- life), once this MySpace generation ages, their behaviour will be the new social norm (Boyd, 2005, p.2).

Marketing Insight reveals that the current My space age group influenced 500 billion dollars of their parents purchases (Geraci, 2006, p.3).Apparently MySpace bombards teenagers with too many unsatisfactorily censored advertisements (Dwyer, 2006, p.4), consequently promoting materialism, sexuality, and globalisation etc. Recently however, ethical advertisements for ‘youth suicide help’ and ‘depression’ have also been put into place (www.abc.net.au/news). “It is not like my space is a no rules, lost-boys-like world, It has its own system of etiquette and rules” (Bradley, 2006, p.11). It seems MySpace has the same downfalls as most new technologies (Older generation lacks understanding, privacy issues and alike).


Back to the original question; ‘I MySpace affecting today’s youth more negatively or positively? Negative Impacts have already been discussed, so what are the positives? MySpace can help in the development of personal development and social skills (Dwyer, 2007, p.3). These skills include; finding friends (note the term friends is used loosely), encouraging creativity (through its multimedia format), and develop computer and technology skills. MySpace is said to be fostering a smarter generation that frowns upon violence, harassment and inhumane activities (Geraci, 2006, p.9).Research indicates that suicide and violence rates have plummeted in comparison to other generations (Geraci, 2006, p.9).

Another positive is that MySpace opens up great choices and opportunities. There is a world of doors for them to open up as soon as they log on (Danah, 2006, p.4). The fostering of creativity on MySpace acts like a therapeutic outlet to express self (Brandt, 2007, p28). It feels good for the user to know they have an audience and people are listening (even if they are not). The development of technological skills is obvious. Many older people study courses to gain skills MySpacers already have and learnt for free. These technology skills will enable them to understand many future practicalities of workplace and where it is heading (Geraci, 2006, p.10). For older generations MySpace enables the understanding of adolescents, and benefits such as discovering new Music and talent (Geraci, 2006, p.11). Music labels often use MySpace to scout out new talent (Dwyer, 2007, p.3). There really are many benefits of MySpace. Taking into account the negative and positive, it appears there may be more positives. In understanding that most new technology fads have the same negative reactions as MySpace does, it could be concluded that MySpace is having a relatively positive effect on today’s youth.











Reference List

(Bradley,)
Karen Bradley () ‘Internet Lives: Social context and moral domain in adolescent development’, Head-Royce School, Oakland, California, pp-1-18.

(D. Brandt, 2007, p28)
D. Brandt (2007), ‘Consumer attention to advertising’, Marketing Week, London, pg.28.

(Cassel, 2006, p2)
Justine Cassel (2006), ‘High tech or High Risk: Moral Panics about girls online’, MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning, North-western University, USA.

(http://www.cqresearcher.com/)
(2007)’Cyber Socialising-is the internet potentially dangerous’, the congressional Quarterly, USA, vol.16, pg. 625-648.

(Danah, 2004)
Danah Boyd, Michael Chang (2004) ‘Representations of Digital Identity’, Information and management systems: University of California’, Berkley.

Danah Boyd (2006) ‘Friends, Friendsters, and MySpace top: 8’, First Monday 11:12, December.
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_boyd/index.html.

Danah Boyd (2005)’ None of this is real’, The best Software Writing I, Eds.Joel Spolsky.

Danah, Boyd (2206) ‘Why youth (heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life’, MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning, Identity Volume (ed. David Buckingham).

(Dwyer, 2007)
Catherine Dwyer (2007) ‘Digital relationships in the ‘MySpace’ generation: Results from a qualitative study’, Hawaiian International Conference in System Sciences, Hawaii p.1-9.

(Geraci, 2006)
John Geraci (2006) ‘Meet the net Generation’, NGen Big Idea, July, p.1.

(Morrissey, 2007)
Brian Morrissey (2007) ‘Playschool, P&G Tapping Targeted ‘Mini-MySpacers’, Brand week, Apr 9, ABI/INFORM Global, p.13.

(Rosen, 2006)
Larry D Rosen (2006) ‘adolescent in MySpace: Identity formation, Friendship and Sexual predators’, California State University, June.

Ideas for Essay???

Alas, another course at Uni requires my expert opinion. New Communication Technologies is badgering me with 'blackboard' signposts, lecture mentions and emails. So alright, you will be honoured with my expertise. I will discuss MySpace and an issue within it. I have not yet identified the specific issue I will discuss, but here are some sources of information that have given me direction.


Title: Reaching and Teaching the Digital Natives Author(s): Jim Gaston Journal: Library Hi Tech News ISSN: 0741-9058 Year: 2006 Volume: 23 Issue: 3 Page: 12 - 13 DOI: 10.1108/07419050610668124 Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited Abstract: Purpose – The higher education community is facing a new generation of students –
the “Digital Natives”.
They are the first generation born into a world of pervasive digital technology. They think and learn differently than the “Digital Immigrants” who are teaching them and educators today should be aware of these differences and how this knowledge can be utilized to create a more effective learning environment

http://www.wired.com/culture/education/news/2007/04/myspaceforschool
Don't Tell Your Parents: Schools Embrace MySpace
Robert Andrews 04.19.07 2:00 AM
Some schools ban social networks for wasting classroom time or to protect students from weirdos. But, as part of a wider trend toward less top-down teaching, other institutions are putting tools like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook on the curriculum -- and teachers are saying: "Thanks for the add."

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060306&s=hajdu030606
DAVID HAJDU ON MUSICInstant Gratification 1 2 Post date 02.28.06 Issue date 03.06.06
"Anderson had the wisdom to enlist some acquaintances, gorgeous female club kids, to be among the first MySpace users to post their photographs, imparting upon the site a patina of phototropic cool. He created what is essentially the biggest nightclub in the world (or more accurately, the incorporeal world), open all day and night. It is open to virtually anyone and to anyone virtual. The only velvet ropes, thin and malleable, are MySpace's token restrictions: the site is prohibited to those under fourteen, though MySpace requires no proof of age. (It has a bouncer at the door but does not card.) MySpace also forbids the use of "personally identifiable information," though it permits messages that might contain hints of a member's identity, such as the person's name, hometown, and birthday. "