Today in the studio I learnt that cataloging can be one of the techniques used when creating a list. I had assumed that but I wasn’t sure, I’m glad that Adrian cleared that up. Even a grocery list can be a form of cataloging. It’s so simple to to understand but I didn’t really know that before this class today.
‘Freedom and control’ (pp. 37) can be a couple of reasons why we use social media. If we can, we would all like to be in control and be free to do whatever we like all day and everyday throughout our lifetime. This may not be the case due to work and family life commitments, and for some, other limitations may be not having the monetary capacity to fund such extravagant indulges.
Instead, we live our life – and sometimes through the lives of others – online. Our online life connects us to other people who are not with us at this current moment as we are huddled under a mountain of blankets in our cold, dark rooms, as well as people from diverse backgrounds and from a mixture of cultures that have may have unusual morals and values than you. Their perspective on life may alter the way we think about the world, certain types of people and situations such as the Arab Spring and the war on terrorism.
We call have a voice online, the freedom of speech, we can say all the nonsense that we can’t say to people in our daily lives or in public as people may get heat up by our slurs and take offence of our public nuisance (pp. 31), and next thing you know, you’re in court for saying the very thing you could of said online and no one would have give a damn as you would just be perceived as a “troll”. Funny that.
I am very surprised at the level of tracking used against all of social media users. Did we agree to the ‘‘terms and conditions’’ when we logged in on Facebook to be tracked? I fathom, that is the contract when you log in, that is, you allow Facebook to track what you like, the time of day/night you view your Facebook account. And what you do on that service provider, whether that be stalking your old mates from high school or checking out that hot chick that you grew fond after seeing her at a mutual friend’s birthday party or maybe you’re more interested in that new band’s song that you kept hearing on Fox FM or maybe you are just innocently connecting with other people by chatting them up. Who knows what you do, but you, or is it?
So, the question I pose is that, do we allow such third parties know who we are? You know, whether we are either male or female or in-between, where we’re from, the sort of music we like, or the friends we are friends with. Are we so blind to the fact of what the implication of those two mere words, “I agree”, actually means when we click on the button to allow third parties to receive information about us and/or receive information from them? Are our little minds capable of understanding the influences of such clever marketing techniques? These third parties or even a service provider such as Facebook collect our data so much so that the cooperation can use our data against us by exploiting our online personalities and what we ‘like’, or maybe Facebook will suggest to you to add these “people you may know” since you share a mutual friend with that particular person (pp. 32-33).
We may think that we have the freedom and control over our social media use (pp. 31), but do we actually do? Are we aiming to find fulfilment and satisfaction through our online life by using digital tools such as Facebook and Instagram, is it to equip us from the disappointment in our lives that we are unable to achieve our own desire? For example, whereas others may travel to Alaska and witness the Northern Lights, we live our dreams by viewing their selfies with a pillowy string of green and blue splash across the night sky in the background. That, we only know ourselves, and soon, the media service you use, will too.
Whatever your reason may be for going online, keep one eye open and pray that the next Kim Kardashian news isn’t in your news feed on Facebook.
Reference:
Hinton S & Hjorth L 2013, ‘What is Web 2.0?’, Understanding Contemporary Culture Series: Understanding Social Media, London, 31 July 2014, SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 14-38.
It’s Week 2 already!! Fast ain’t it? One week it’s orientation week, then, the week after. Actual work to be done.
Weeeeeeeeek 2 of the Integrated Media 2 lecture was a ‘flip lecture’, so what that means, and I may be paraphrasing here, is that you can stay home and ‘listen’ to the lecture. That is, this week, the flip lecture was a TV show program called Four Corners that’s on the TV station ABC, the title of the episode is Generation Like.
The blurb for the episode of Four Corners: ‘How advertisers and big commercial brands are exploiting teenagers using social media – and making big dollars in the process’, (ABC 2014).
Click on the following link to view the episode: http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/four-corners/NC1404H025S00#playing
Generation Like explores social media use amongst Generations X and Y and their obsession with attaining ‘likes’ from their friends/fans/audience.
Questions meet Answers: answers meet questions…
How does this documentary alter your understanding of the way you use social media?
It is rather unnerving to know that my information is being gathered by third parties as I use social media, whether it be, YouTube, Instagram or Facebook. As I ‘share’ or ‘like’ or ‘comment’ on any content on social media, to know that my data is being collected by social media network analyst is not a very great feeling. To know that my information, my data, my PERSONAL information and PERSONAL data is being used against me, to know that I’m being targeted by these that social media outlets just amazes me (and not in a good way).
Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are all free services to use by the general public, I understand that in order to earn a reputable capital for the usage of these media outlets, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube uses a wide range of advertising techniques, the sneakier it is, the better, they would say.
What connections can you make with the role of a Social Media Producer?
Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for example is a fantastic starting point to become a social media producer, as if you post something online, the content you post automatically makes you a social media producer. Funny that eh? In becoming a social media producer, you are capable of “brainwashing” and influencing eager, young minds, to the best of your benefit. The obsession with obtaining ‘likes’ with these social media producers can be what I call an epidemic. How so? It is because we are all guilty of posting or say, share a piece of content that we see fitting to our personality, our career, etc. etc. It is because we want to be heard. It’s natural to feel this way. As humans, we crave the attention of others and in this context, in a way, a social media producer can decipher what they seem fit in a world that seems to be missing something, if that even makes sense. In todays’ social media landscape, being a social media producer means that you capable of making millions of dollars from doing what you love, from doing what you enjoy. For example, Lauren Curtis and Michelle Pham have made a name for themselves on YouTube by posting videos of make-up tutorials and making who knows how much $$$$$ from it.
The association with a ‘star’ on social media and a brand in this context means recognition and recognition means money. It’s cheap marketing, or so it is said (by who I don’t particularly know). Even though when the ‘star’s’ audience acknowledges that they are being marketed towards, what makes them continue to watch, ‘follow’, ‘subscribe’, ‘like’ or ‘comment’, ‘heart’ or ‘share’ that content? Social media producers are very open to the possibilities to the global market in which their Facebook or Instagram post or videos may give them and those social media producers very much so crave exposure to a large audience in the online space.
What ideas does this documentary raise in regards to the event your group is planning and the task of achieving participatory engagement?
Exploit the audience aka passerby’s time as much as possible I suppose. Time. Time. Time. We are all often lacking in it. Social media producers tend to make sure that the content that they make is worth viewing, and in viewing the content, the audience may be asked to become an active viewer and ‘like’, ‘share’, or ‘comment’ their media product. My group and I are aiming to obtain as much participatory engagement from the general public as much as possible. The odds may be against us, but we can hope. Right?
https://vimeo.com/89180444
Camera used for shooting images:
List of materials used as source of light:
List of materials used as gels and diffusers:
List of materials used to bounce off light:
List of materials used to make this video possible:
https://vimeo.com/89177339
Remember…
‘It’s not about what you’ve got, it’s about what you make of what you’ve got’. – Step Up 2
https://vimeo.com/89164950
A little something something about how I created the set of ‘Hunted’, the stop-motion.
Yes, the lighting set up is indeed quite weird. Using household objects as my gels is rather strange…
But it works so ha!
https://vimeo.com/89078231
A couple of years ago, I used to have an obsession with Lego. I’m not ashamed of playing with Lego as an adult, why should I be? I had heaps of those Ninjago Lego, I gave them away when I realised that my shelve could not fit anymore Lego let alone my MicroMachine cars.
Unlike my previous video titled “Hunter”, this new “Hunted” video is a stop-motion. There’s a total of 14 images that make up the short video, there is no audio. I haven’t made a stop-motion short film for some time now, since Year 10, gosh I sound so old. Back in the day, I used to play around with play dough and plasticine – aahhhhhh the good old days – creating weird looking figurines for my final assessment. I truly believe that my Year 10 stop-motion animation was one of my best work I’ve done thus far but then again, I had nothing to compare it to until now.
Upon watching Hunted, you may conclude that there are visible errors in the production aspect of video. I had cropped each picture individually to rid the image of the shadows of my hands and camera phone – I use my iPhone 5 to capture these images – cropping the images meant that the ratio of each photo is just ridiculously a pain to look at in the video.
Using ‘found’ materials around the environment that I was in – that is, my study room – I used my lot of blank artist trading cards, blu tack, sticky tape, a pair of scissors, one of my Lego figurines in my attempt to create a scene. I used a table lamp to light up my scene, I also used a translucent A5 box file with a zip case and a blue translucent file case as my gels for my lamp light, yes, that’s correct, I’m a student on a mere budget, keeping production cost down since ’09! It worked, well… Sort of. My make shift gels worked like a charm.
There are a few photos that do not match the ambience of the other pictures. Not having a tripod was one of the disadvantages I had. I used the software program Final Cut Pro X to edit my short clip, adjusting each image to last 0.12 seconds in duration, I did not edit the pictures other than cropping it.
Overall, I am relatively happy with the product that I managed to create within an afternoon. Of course, there needs to be improvements in the future if I aim to make another stop-motion later in the semester, I think next time I will use my DSLR and a tripod to shoot my images. I truly did enjoyed making the clip.
(This video is about light).
Spot the shadow of the patterned door.
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https://vimeo.com/89070068
https://vimeo.com/89070067