The first one I did not attend this semester. So I have taken some points off Adrian’s Blog and linked to it.

‘We are stuck in a hit driven mindset – we think that if something isn’t a hit, it won’t make money and so won’t return the cost of its production’. ‘…“misses” usually make money, too. And because there are so many more of them, that money can add up quickly to a huge new market.’

This is business. Obviously small cost items don’t bring in a great return but they do if you have volume. It reminds me of ‘loss leaders’. Cheaper items on sale out the front of a shop wont make the company much money but they attract people and lure them in for the stuff that costs the big bucks.

Reflecting upon yesterday’s symposium I found some good points came out of it, in particular the discussions around this week’s reading. Expanding on the idea of the hub, Adrian explained that particular blog posts become hubs but you never know which ones will become the hubs. This is something that is not pre-determined, they simply emerge. So what makes people decide that they want to link to a particular blog? What makes that one popular? Is it trust, authority, enjoyment, relevance, the fact they disagree with what has been discussed? Maybe it’s some or a bit of all of these things. Then we could look at websites, this may be graded differently by people depending on the nature of particular websites. As Adrian mentioned educational websites will most likely be held in higher regard than others. 

Today’s lecture began like most others do which is finishing off from last week, Adrian touched on the fact that the term Digital Media is actually an oxymoron, given that all media is now digital.

In a nutshell…

• The notion of networking goes way back and the internet is one idea of networking
• The original intent of a technology is not always how it is used
• Technologies are not neutral although they may be geared towards a certain use over others they can still be used for other purposes- we should look at the relationship of a technology with other things and not just what we think it’s originally intended for. (This is in line with Raymond William’s idea that a technology isn’t a technology unless it’s being used, so it doesn’t matter if you’re using it for it’s intended purpose, if it’s being used it’s a technology)
• Print literacy asks certain things of us- we will analyse things and situations in a certain way. Preliteracy thinks differently.
• Nothing is isolated in society so why do we ask to ‘look at things individually’? In this week’s reading, Watts explains we can learn to understand individual behaviour but when it’s a collection it’s when it can be unpredictable. So we do or don’t isolate things in terms of research and theory?

Hmmm yes definitely needing some motivation to get back into it after the break. So in yesterday’s lecture I was 100% physically present (yep all body parts were there) but maybe only 50% mentally present. I’m finding many points discussed in lectures are quite repetitive from previous weeks so for my personal interest I’d like a little more traction.

Adrian talked about how language cannot guarantee the intent of the message and how words only mean something by virtue of what it isn’t. He also discussed the ‘unconscious mind’ and how there is an element of us that has no control over what we do. Now I’m no Freud expert but I would have thought we may not have control over our desires but we have control over what we do? Psychoanalysis goes way too deep for me and there are conflicting views on this but I do find it very interesting.There is this idea called the Freudian Slip, where our unconscious interferes with our actions. I have no idea how this relates to Network Media but there you go.

I went to review my notes from the symposium last Tuesday and realised I had three points and these three points were basically notes I had written down from a reading that were just worded differently. So one point I have is…

“Having a porous platform to connect media to other media”.

Porous is about having an easy flow or passage in and out. So being able to apply this to information is exactly how the web works today. For me this was about understanding the history of connecting media. Great example here that explains the difference between the internet and the WWW.

When the web started it was Web 1.0, this was read only. There was little interaction from the reader. When Web 2.0 was introduced (popularized in 2004) it allowed for collaboration and sharing of information between users. This is where social media comes in.

I found this great slide share that gives a basic outline of the progression of the web. A couple of points it makes about Web 1.0 are:

• Read only web
• Limited user interaction

Web 2.0 was when the user was able to participate through blogging, podcasting and tagging to name a few. This created a more porous platform for sharing and connecting through the web.

I’m feeling it’s a little blurry when it comes to determining when I can consider myself network literate. Is it a matter of opinion? If I can navigate my way around the web, click on links, type in URLs, embed files in my blog, type a little bit of HTML and work out the validity of stuff I read on the internet is this not being network literate? Or do I need to take it that next step further? Understanding the behind the scenes features of the web such as the nature of databases and coding, does that make me network literate?  Where is the scale that tells me how I’m doing?

I am aware that changing a tyre on a car does not make me a mechanic (for the record I can’t change a tyre but this was the example used in class). So who says you have qualified for the title of mechanic? Is it when you do an apprenticeship and someone gives you a certificate? Or when you have been taught by your dad how to fix cars since you were a kid- this person may even have more knowledge than the person who received the certificate?  So is it then about having a piece of paper, level of knowledge, ongoing practice or something else I’m missing? You don’t need a certificate to be print literate or network literate. My Grandma is without a doubt network illiterate; she’s barely mobile phone literate. So if I know more about the internet than my Grandma but less than someone who creates the webpages and sets up databases then am I network literate or not?

In the symposium this week there was a discussion based around the limitations of print literacy vs network literacy. Neither of these literacies pre-exist us- people must keep doing it in order for it to exist. One question was ‘will the printed book ever become non-existent?’ The answer to that is as long as people are reading them they will exist. It reminds me of a reading in another subject about Raymond Williams. In order for a technology (or technical invention) to be a technology it must be used, and to use something we must have the knowledge to do so. Where there is no knowledge and no use it will no longer become needed.

One point that stood out to me in this week’s symposium in relation to defamation is when posting content on the internet (specifically your blog) was that your intention is NOT a defence. If someone thinks what you have posted is offensive it is. I can definitely see the point here and my immediate thought was that can we bring this rule into our relationships- especially with family? I know in most cases the offender doesn’t realise what they have said and simply responds to the offendee (cannot guarantee this is an actual word) “well you just took it the wrong way”… and so it goes round and round in circles.  Ultimately if you are the creator of a site or owner of a blog YOU are responsible for its content- even if other people have posted comments that are inappropriate, it will always come back to you.

Thinking back to last week and the very thought provoking lecture from Adrian. I’ll admit I never thought we would be discussing where books came from in network media but I can see how this example of print literacy leads into understanding network literacy. Reading a book, we expect a beginning middle and an end, it should also include page numbers right? Has it occurred to anyone that the internet doesn’t have a beginning, middle or an end, or page numbers? Well it hadn’t to me until last week. Aristotle was even mentioned in the lecture…deep. Adrian suggested our life isn’t a story, it doesn’t have a beginning middle or an end but made up of a series of events. However if those events are retold you then have a story. Although the whole idea of the beginning middle and end came from Aristotle do you think that being a realist he would have thought that this theory doesn’t apply to our lives?

Knowing HOW = TACIT knowledge

Something that cannot be easily taught visually, verbally or by writing it down. To be able to obtain tacit knowledge is something that takes time.

10 examples of tacit knowledge here.