This symposium I found was different to all of the rest, the tutors did a lot of talking as well as Adrian. I appreciated how Adrian related everything that we learnt back in with Networked Media, and explained that everything is constantly changing. This is why the course changes and why they don’t know what they will be covering. he said the 8 years ago there was no such thing as a video blog, now all of a sudden look where we are in terms of technology and the Internet. Imagine in another 8 years time. He says that for someone who is a camera operator, all they will be doing is working from a joystick. Maybe there will be cars that need no driver, they are capable of doing it themselves. It would be more beneficial to have had this talk at the beginning as well as the end of the course, because it puts in perspective what we have learnt and why. Why is everything important that we have studied and why the subject keeps changing. Another example was how an app will come out and by the next week there will already be an update. From this point of view I can see how the course has been designed the way it has, however sometimes it was not so clear cut.
Category Archives: Networked Media Symposium
Symposium Week 10
This week I did not attend this weeks symposium, however I read through the blog post that Adrian sent out and made a couple of notes.
Barabasi:
- It started off talking about the power laws and how nature normally hates them., because ordinary systems follow bell curves, however this changes if it has to undergo a phase transition. The theory of phase transitions is that the path from disorder to order is determined by the powerful forces of self-organization and power laws. Power laws are the major factor of self-organization in complex systems.
- The power law makes us abandon the idea of scale, as there is no intrinsic scale in these networks.
- This first part is all about how the power law transitions from disorder to order.
Symposium WK 9
This symposium was all about listening to the tutors and seeing the viewpoints taken from the readings. This was interesting to see what they came up with and what they saw to be the most important points.
Cowbird- Example of Networking.
Cowbird is a public library of human experience where stories are gathered of people’s lives and shared. This website is a simple template for storytelling tools and is designed to encourage depth and creativity. Not only does this relate to Networking but also the idea of inner, social and cultural memory. Inner consists of Individual personal memory. Social is the combination of communication and social interaction, which human memory depends on. Cultural memory stems off the collective memory, where it can either go towards communicative memory or cultural. Cultural memory is historical, representing mythical and cultural time, with cultural identity From just finishing a presentation on cultural memory I can see this to be a great example of how information is stored and a way to accumulate memories. It is a way for people to share, and to post information online. Saying that it is a public library of human experience relates back to human memory. The presentation links cultural memory to networking suggesting that the internet is a way to store memories that can later be revisited.
Networking is linked to cultural memory through the way we communicate and interact within society. The Internet is the underlying factor that allows us to do so. The past and future are connected like a web that record information, allowing people to remember events that have happened or are going to happen. Because we live in a world where networking is imperative, memories will forever be triggered and stored away, but easily accessible. International Journal of Cultural Studies by Leon Tan says that we are the Information Age of Networks.
Symposium 7
Symposium 7 Questions:
As I couldn’t make the symposium I decided to answer these questions in my own way.
- Which is more important in making a great book, form or content? To begin with it is this an online book or a hard copy? Print Literacy or Networked Literacy? Throughout this semester there has been a huge discussion on books. Every week we see the little book and find ourselves listening to why networked literacy is the future, why it is better and how it benefits us. I feel as though depending on if you read a book or if your reading a webpage the form will be different. Networked Literacy has no edges. There is room to move, so I would say the content here is what makes it great, however it still needs direction. I would say that both form and content are important in making a great book, because they go hand in hand.
- Without a conventional narrative structure, how much control does an author lose? What is a conventional narrative structure these days? Again, Networked literacy has no edges, it is interactive through hypertext. It is a new way to communicate. It is clear that the majority of us read information off the internet rather than a book, and when we read off the internet we do not end up where we started. We will click on links and find ourselves deep within the web, finding all of this information that we didn’t know existed. If an author changes with technology, I believe that with a bit of knowledge, you can be just a great of an author without having a contents page that says this will be on page ## and nowhere else. Being an author on the internet opens up endless opportunities where you can communicate and interact globally, and learn new skills along the way.
Symposium WK 6 – The web is huge, the web is everything!
This weeks symposium focused on questions about the relationship between technology, art and culture, and the potential of hypertext, and whether we will ever be satisfied with it.
1. Can technology progress independently of art and culture?
-There was a debate over this question as the tutor’s shared their different views and opinions. Some said that technology is not separated from culture. That technology comes from artistic and cultural desires. As a species we have always used technology. Everything is technology, culture and art. Art is a technology practice. Art is a technology oasis. There is no art and culture without technology. There is NO separation. However on the other hand, technology has a logic of its own. It can progress independently from art and culture. Like everything there is always two sides to the story.
2.What is the untapped potential of hypertext? Will we ever be satisfied with it?
-Most of this question was targeted at Ted Nelson and his views on Hypertext. To answer this question the tutor’s suggested that the web is huge and the web is everything. Everything is as close as everything else. Media online does not have edges, and if it does not have edges how does it have an ending. This leads onto the notion of hypertext and how it works not only in the past and present, but also the future. From the term technological determinism, does technology shape us or do we shape technology, it shows both sides of the argument to whether or not we will ever be satisfied with hypertext. Will society continue to change because technology does, or is it trying to keep up with the ever-changing dependencies from society?
If you don’t know how to ask good questions, you won’t know how to get good answers!
For this weeks symposium my Tutorial class came up with the questions.
1. How is hypertext relevant to us as network practitioners?
It is how we connect. It is how we live, it is all around us, we are bathing in it.
2. What current predictions about Network Literacy should we be aware of?
I found this questions did not get answered to understand the views of the tutor’s perspective, and see what they thought about where this industry will be in the future. We have been reading these articles that were predicting 30 years into the future, but why now is it that we can’t answer this? Everything changes, people change, society will change, and so will technology and the way it works and how we communicate. Having this as our future field of expertise we need to know the changing society and the demands that arise, we need to know where the future is heading, and we have to stay on top of the latest trends for what is yet to come. I believe that Network Literacy will change, because everything does, however I don’t know in what way. This is why this question was brought forward to see expert opinions on the matter.
3. What are the consequences of being network illiterate?
Network literacy is the world today, it is how we communicate, interact and stay updated globally. In this day and age you need to have a thorough understanding of how network literacy works, and why it is used. I feel that everyone using these blogs now are network literate as we understand what to do, how is works and why it is used. Sure, some might not know how to make a blog from scratch, however we are using it. We are using technology everyday and teaching ourselves the new improvements in this area, just by being on it. It is the future and if we don’t keep up to date, you will be left behind.
I quite enjoyed reading Carli’s blog and her opinion of this weeks symposium, so go check it out!
Print Literacy or Networked Literacy?.. It is all Literacy!
This weeks symposium was focusing on the questions presented to the Tutor’s and Lecturer.
One question that I found quite helpful (and that answered one question I had) was ‘How do you trust the validity of something someone says?’ … You need to ask yourself, what platform is it on. Look at a site that is known for trusted journalism, meaning Facebook and this blog don’t count as a viable source. The information or author has to have credentials, and must be an expert in the field, or quoting from an expert in the field.
The Tutor’s were discussing this in quite some detail, and I managed to pick up on the point that if you see information that only one person is posting, it is most likely not true. However if you see everyone including journalist sites, the information is probably correct. It is common sense to see what is false and true, by how many people are reporting on the issue already, and how many people are saying the same thing, using the exact same facts.
Towards the end of the symposium Adrian connected print literacy and network literacy. There is no longer a market for print literacy. There is only a very small percentage of authors who demonstrate print literacy. Everything is done via a network. Everything is done via a computer. Sure, a book comes out of the process being a hard copy, however this is the only stage it will be in print literacy.
A line that I thought was beneficial.. “We all use media.. However nobody knows how to engineer it”.
Symposium.. WEEK 2!
Personally, this Symposium was difficult to understand, however the points that I did manage to get, I found useful for Networked Media.
On the internet there is no first or last page. What does this mean for storytelling/narrative?
There are always stories online, however they normally do not have a traditional structure. Am I writing this blog post with a start, middle and end? No, I’m not. The internet and books differentiate as one is an object, something you can touch. You can feel and smell the pages. While the other is in cyber space, just text on a screen. However this text must be substantial, as most people these days seem to read and write online, leading back to this course, and to society in general, which is that everything is online.
A question that I came across, is what does this mean for the language online to not have a Beginning, Middle, and End?