Assignment One – Annotated Bibliography
Name: Charlie Marcolin, s3668496
I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities-student/student-support/equitable-learning-services
Blog reflections
Annotated Bibliography
Selected text 1 – Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning (word count 477)
Miles, A 2006, ‘Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning’, Australian Screen, vol. 41, pp.66-69
In this article, Miles discusses the usefulness of blogging for both students and teachers in media education. He explores in detail the learning possibilities associated with the use of blogs and contrasts these with other traditional forms of print literacy, such as journals and notebooks. By referring to blogging as ‘post-print literacy,’ Miles opens up a discussion on how to both successfully blog and how to introduce blogging into a classroom setting. In essence, the article argues that blogs are exemplars of an ‘interlinked, networked, lucid and distinctly contemporary writing practices and communicative space,’ which can create ‘effective learning environments.’
The article provides a useful foundation to discuss the course prompt as it looks at the ways which blog posts authored, published and distributed in the network. Much like Instagram, all blog entries are referred to as a ‘post,’ have a date and time stamp and usually attribute ownership. Miles states that blogs can help students to recognise that their work is able to make a contribution to a larger community, as they move their writing from being semi-private to public. Whilst Instagram does allow people to make their accounts “private,” it is the same notion that what is being put online is accessible to a large audience, therefore fostering a very rich communicative environment. Just as students posting on their blogs must post with the assumption that what they have written will have readers, those who post on Instagram must post with the assumption that their images and videos will have viewers. Miles expresses that this publicness means that ‘care needs to be exercised’ when posting blogs, however, this statement also resonates strongly for Instagram users. This publicness also ties into the notion of online identity, which directly correlates with the ways in which Instagram posts are authored and published. The idea that what an individual posts online, be that a blog post or Instagram picture, helps to shape the nature of their digital persona forces careful consideration and will often result in multiple attempts at editing and re-editing before the post is published. As Miles highlights the issues of copyright, intellectual property and internet ethics which are associated with blogs, it is easy to draw parallels with Instagram and how posts can be redistributed with no regard for any of these three things.
Whilst Miles’ article is not intended to correlate to the course prompt of Instagram, in many ways it is easy to see the correlations between blogging and the popular social media app. However, one potential limitation to this article’s relevance to my studies is that this article is primarily focused on the text-based elements of blogs, which Instagram lacks. Although Miles does consider that blogs usually consist of short entries, Instagram captions have a word limit, allowing only a small description of the image or video to be given.
Selected text 2 – Affordance, Convention and Design (Part 2) (word count 480)
Norman, D 1999, Affordance, Convention and Design (Part 2), Nielsen Norman Group, viewed 30 March 2019, <https://jnd.org/affordance_conventions_and_design_part_2/>.
In this webpage essay, Norman responds to his 1988 book The Psychology of Everyday Things (POET) which explored the concepts of constraints, conceptual models and affordances and how they contributed to our understanding of operating novel devices. Due to the mixed reception which these ideas received, the aim of Norman’s essay is to respond to the confusion surrounding affordances, or what he now refers to as ‘perceived affordances.’ With an almost colloquial feel to his tone, Norman clarifies the points he originally made in 1988 and successfully explains the difference between what will now be known as real and perceived affordances.
This article provides a useful basis for the discussion of the affordances of Instagram as it challenges previously prescribed notions about the affordances of screen-based devices, such as the smartphones which would be used to access Instagram. Norman explains that whilst touch sensitive screens support the affordance of touching, any other graphical image which may be displayed on the screen is not an affordance but merely visual feedback that advertises the affordance. For example, knowing to click on the heart icon on Instagram to “like” a photo, is actually a cultural constraint, not an affordance. Therefore, more relevant to the course prompt is Norman’s explanation of constraints and conventions. With a direct focus on Instagram, it is clear that logical constraints will determine how the user interacts with the app. Logically, the user knows that in order to see all of the posts from that specific day, they must scroll down to see the rest of the page. However, more notably for Instagram is the use of cultural constraints and conventions. Norman explains that symbols and constraints are not affordances, but rather an example of the use of a shared and visual conceptual model, appropriate feedback, and shared cultural conventions. Therefore, the knowledge that the “heart” on Instagram correlates to “liking” an image and that the “magnify glass” signifies the “search” function is a learned, cultural convention. Norman also explains the idea that whilst there is a range of other symbols that could easily replace the heart or magnify glass, these options are an intelligent fit to human cognition; one that has been learnt and adopted over time.
The finding that Instagram has no physical affordances, but rather the smart-phone which you use Instagram on does, is useful to my studies as it helps to steer my discussion of the course prompt into the right direction. However, a potential limitation of Norman’s essay in relevance to my studies is it’s age, as it was written in 2008. Eleven years later, the digital landscape is quite different and Instagram actually did not even launch until 2010. Trying to apply Norman’s concepts to the app can, therefore, be a bit difficult as his discussion was more interested in the screen design of web pages, rather than smart-phone applications.
Selected text 3 – Understanding New Media (word count 508)
Siapera, E 2013, Understanding New Media, SAGE Publications, London, UK.
In her 2013 book, Understanding New Media, Siapera explores the study of ‘New Media’ and critically apprehends the relationship between technology, new media and society. Using the positions of four important theorists of technology and media, McLuhan, Kittler, Stiegler and Castells, Siapera highlights the different approaches used to study this concept and explains how understanding media, therefore, means understanding humanity. The text also specifically investigates the term ‘new media’ in comparison to other terms such as ‘online media’ and ‘digital media.’ While digital media means all of the information or data in the media is encoded in numbers, and online media prioritises the element of connectivity, the somewhat problematic term ‘new media’ allows us to include the attributes of digital and online media as well as others, without limiting or prioritising a single one. Siapera stresses that it is important to note that the reference to ‘new’ does not disregard the ways in which more mature media forms have evolved in recent years, but rather that it denotes a dynamism and penchant for constant change, signifying the openness and struggle between different ideas, users, logics and so on.
In relation to the course prompt and the ways in which photos and videos posted on Instagram are authored, published and distributed in the network, Siapera’s text provides great insight into the evolution of the media and therefore the wider network. As Siapera describes new media as a tool that not only enables but conditions and circumscribes communication, it is clear to see the correlation to Instagram and its affordances. By addressing the fundamentals of the relationship between technology and society, or better humanity, Siapera is encouraging the reader to recognise how the rise of technology, in our particular case Instagram, and the position which it currently holds in our society is affecting our humanity. Whilst she does not make comment on whether it is for better or worse, the four scholarly opinions which she provides give a much greater insight into the issue. McLuhan’s stance that the media can extend our senses but also limit them is very interesting when it comes to the course prompt; the idea that social media, and in particular Instagram, extends the human voice and our ability to share our life experiences, but that it also ‘amputates’ face-face interaction. He suggests that the current human condition is seen as the ‘effect’ of media and technology. Another fascinating and relevant argument is that of Castells, who argues almost the opposite of McLuhan. Castells seeks to empirically apprehend the changes in contemporary societies precipitated by the new media and technologies. He suggests that new technologies are associated with a new form of social organisation which revolves around the idea of the network, which directly links to our course prompt. Castells’ theory that societies can be understood as ‘network societies,’ based no longer on the individual, or on the traditional community, is very relevant to my studies as it assists me in understanding the greater ramifications of the ‘network’ and what this means for Instagram users.
Total word count: 1464 words